This week: A legion of words at his command, but not a damn clue what to say.

48 States: Chapters 36 & 37

THIRTY SIX

AN HOUR LATER, after the arena had been emptied of people, the Secret Service loaded Elizabeth into a waiting car. The moment her door shut, an agent whispered something into his wrist monitor, patted the roof of the SUV, and it sped away. Cooper and Richard followed in a second vehicle, leaving River and Finn standing at the curb like tourists lined up at an amusement park, waiting patiently to board the next roller coaster car.

The ride back to the train was noticeably quiet, Finn showing little interest in conversation.

“Your mom made a great speech,” River said, trying to break the silence.

“It was good,” he offered, but said little else.

“I spoke to some of the agents. They said there were no problems tonight,” River said, in another attempt to engage Finn.

“We got lucky,” he said, leaning back and closing his eyes.

Even in the dim light, River could make out his shrinking countenance and rigid jaw line. She listened to his long, deep breaths, and for a moment was back in Syria with her unit after they’d returned to base from a major incident. Managed emotional retreat was to be expected, she thought to herself, after the stressful night they’d just faced. River worried there was more behind Finn’s silence than exhaustion. Perhaps she’d been too candid with Cooper in front of him. She’d all but said his mother was a dead woman, and in the process, might have scared him away. In retrospect, cleaning her gun had probably been a mistake. Not many normal, well-adjusted men would be interested in a lover who polished her firearm and compared notes with an ex-marine about Muslim martyr poetry and murderous conspiracies. She was also not the type to tremble in Finn’s arms and ask him what he thought they should do next. She’d been on her own too long to do that. Maybe one day, but in that moment, she was the one with the better grasp of the situation, not him.

River had intended to bite her tongue when they got back to their rooms. Feeling Finn’s discomfort coming off his body in waves, she had no appetite to add more insult to injury. Somehow, though, her empathy curdled into anger. As soon as they cleared the doors, the words came tumbling out of her mouth.

“What is your deal?” she asked. “You haven’t said a word since we left the stadium. Is this your way of brushing me off now that you’ve got what you wanted?”

Finn might as well have been sitting in Montana, his body felt so disconnected from time and space. He couldn’t stop thinking about his mom on the stage and the thousands of people, all of them potential killers in the audience. He realized his mother was surrounded by danger all the time, and not the random garden-variety hazards that normally befell parents, like car crashes and food poisoning. It was funny, but he’d never worried about her safety in all the years she was a congresswoman. Even when she was Secretary of State and flying from one war zone to another, the risk seemed minimal. He supposed it was because she wasn’t being hunted like a wild animal the way she was now.

“What?” he asked, only half aware of the conversation.

“Great,” she said. “Now you’re not even listening to me.”

“River,” Finn said. “Please don’t do this. I’ve had a hard night.”

“I don’t blame you,” River said. “Now that you’ve got your mom and dad back, you can go off and find some debutant to marry and keep the family bloodlines intact.”

“How can you even think something like that?” Finn asked. “I’ve never asked you to be anyone but who you are. The fact that I’m being quiet has nothing to do with wanting to end things.”

“Then why the silent treatment?” River asked.

Finn froze. He wasn’t going to be able to tell her. “It’s complicated,” he said. “I just need some time.”

They say opposites attract, but River didn’t think that old chestnut bore out any real results. She and Finn were from two different worlds, one of privilege and one of deprivation and hard truths. They’d had a great adventure and a few glorious nights together, but that was all about to come to a screeching halt. Truth be told, she’d expected it to be a doomed romance from the start, which meant that parting after this mess was resolved would be an easy task. She would go home and pick up the pieces of her life. Ava would have her mother back, and River would get a second chance at living, whatever the hell that meant. She was a horrible liar, especially to herself, but she didn’t want to think about how her inclination for unvarnished honesty had turned Finn against her. He was punishing the messenger, and it hurt like hell.

“No problem,” River said. “Take all the time you need.”

Finn watched River storm out of the room. Working in the wilderness, he’d often been able to avoid difficult situations. Distance and desolation kept him from having to face facts. Tonight, though, the truth was inescapable. Finn had come to understand the gravity of it all: the potential for war, death, and destruction. Everything he loved in the world was nearby on the train, and he had not the slightest clue how to protect any of it. He wasn’t used to being a helpless bystander. There wasn’t a situation in the wild he didn’t feel ready to conquer, but this was not a class five rapid or a treacherous trail in the wilderness. He knew he couldn’t solve this problem through grit and determination. A madman was trying to kill his mother and irreparably harm the country. Finn was no soldier. He was no killer. He had nothing to offer in this time of crisis except an ability to tie a very good knot or start a fire on a rocky precipice.

And then there was River: brave, smart, and thoroughly equipped for whatever might happen next. It was humbling to watch her with Cooper and see how well she could read the situation. It seemed utterly improbable that she could love a man like him, someone with so little to offer in a moment of crisis. He imagined that after tonight, she would remember him with pity. Remember his fear and ignorance, his inability to see the bigger picture like she and Cooper did. He was ashamed. After a lifetime of avoidance, reality had snuck up on him in a big way. So, he remained mute, a legion of words at his command, but not a damn clue what to say.

Later, as he lay next to River in bed, their bodies rigid with anxiety and anger, he shut his eyes against the night, worried that somehow he had lost his way just as his father had found his way back.

---

THIRTY SEVEN

THE FIRST THOUGHT that popped into Elizabeth’s head as she woke the next morning, one eye open to the sun’s rays, was I’m still alive. The second thought arrived as a question: but for how long? Whatever the answer, she realized, it was a topic best contemplated out of bed. She dressed quietly, leaving Richard sound asleep, and figured the others were also still slumbering, the strain of the last forty-eight hours finally catching up.

Walking three train cars down from her sleeping quarters, she shuffled into the dining compartment, hoping for a cup of black coffee and something warm, preferably a chocolate croissant from the White House pastry chef, but found no refreshments or serving staff when she arrived. Oddly, the train had not yet pulled out for their return to Washington. They must have been taking on supplies, and that was why the staff was absent.

She sat down, content to pass the time gazing out at the snow-dusted Front Range framed by the windows. Years before, she and Richard had visited Boulder with Finn to attend a family friend’s graduation from the University of Colorado. They’d walked Pearl Street, the town’s charming historic district, and had eaten dinner at one of the better restaurants. Finn had briefly teased that he was forgoing Yale to become a Buff. There were certainly worse things, Richard had joked in mock horror, and then they’d strolled through a few of the used bookstores nearby.

Elizabeth exhaled as she remembered, suddenly wistful for that happy-go-lucky family. She hoped those people would return one day, that they would once again be able to wander and allow desire to be their guide. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live life without the worries of the world on your shoulders, to enjoy the simple pleasure of good food or an evening stroll? The idea was so engrossing that Elizabeth did not hear Red speaking to her until he was looming over her on the couch.

“Are you listening to me?” he asked.

She was listening from that moment forward. Red had not come alone. Standing awkwardly next to him was a sullen-looking young man of eighteen or so, his face riddled with acne. A thin sheen of perspiration glistened off his skin. Scrawny and malnourished, he reeked of abject poverty and misery. He wore a military uniform, but its insignia was not from any branch of the military she was familiar with. Every hair on her body stood on end, and yet her mother’s heart immediately went out to him, thinking how difficult it must be, his face so horribly disfigured. There had probably been no prom or dates in high school. Under other circumstances, she might have even wondered how he replaced those experiences. What amusements he’d found to fill his evenings when others had been out at the movies, attending parties, or fastening corsages to eager, adolescent wrists. But the answer seemed obvious, given the explosive vest he wore, transformed into a human bomb brought to kill her and everyone in close proximity.

“This is Joshua,” Red said. “He’s just one of the many who answered my call for patriots. I told you the country wouldn’t stand for your idleness.”

Elizabeth took a few precious seconds to get steady, trying to tamp down the knot of fear in her belly. Better to be angry than hysterical. “How typical,” she said. “You’ve recruited a young boy to do your dirty work. You’re no different than the people you purport to want to stop.”

“Those people are savages,” Red said. “Joshua is a God-fearing Christian. He comes to me willingly to ensure our country’s liberty. When he detonates his explosives, however, everyone will think that there has been another terrorist attack. The poem I left for the FBI will help confirm their suspicions. I will then be justified in insisting on more Territories, and my army will ensure the last remnants of your weak government don’t stand in the way.”

“I see,” Elizabeth said, thinking of ways to draw out the conversation, on the off-chance her security detail might discover her predicament. “Is the uniform your handiwork?”

Red smiled. He’d created a special feature for the right sleeve: a blue and white variation of the Rebellious Stripes of 1767, a nice tribute to the Sons of Liberty. He was engaged in the same kind of conflict: to remain a free and independent nation.

“Do you like it?” he asked. “There are legions of my soldiers standing by wearing them. One word from me, their leader, and it will begin.”

Red paused as if an important memory had interrupted his thoughts, a faraway look in his eyes. For a moment, he seemed to be overcome with emotion, perhaps regret or sorrow, and then, like a shadow, it passed.

“It didn’t have to be this way, Elizabeth,” he said. “All you had to do was agree to my terms. After everything I did to help you, I expected your loyalty.”

Elizabeth rose from the couch. “You’re asking for a kind of loyalty that requires betraying everyone else in return,” she said. “You’re asking for loyalty that is blind to the rule of law. I’m the President of the United States. I owe my loyalty to this country, to its constitution. You…you pretend to fight for liberty, but what you’re doing is seditious. You’re a tyrant masquerading as a patriot. This has nothing to do with making our country better.”

“You seem a little emotional, Elizabeth. Are you on your period?” Red asked. “It doesn’t matter, forget I asked. The fact is that I am better equipped to do this job than you are. As a man of business and industry, I have the skills and experience that you lack. The people want a President who is capable of bold moves and can anticipate problems and act. After the first battles are over and we have obtained the surrender of your forces, people will see. It’s going to be beautiful. The citizens of this nation will see me as an angel of mercy who has come to protect them from a savage government that cared nothing for their way of life. And you, you will be a memory in a textbook. The sad, lonely woman who was a disaster as President, and died at the hands of a terrorist you failed to stop.”

Since the moment of her swearing in on the tarmac, Elizabeth understood that she might die. That was the trajectory of elected officials in a post-Caliphate world, and she had tacitly agreed to the terms, mostly because there had been no alternative, but also because she believed in her country. She believed in the idea that one person could make a difference, and more importantly, that if you knew that you could do something, then you had to try even in the face of great risk. That all had been theory, though. Now the moment of truth had arrived. Somehow, despite all that had happened, she was going to be killed by a zealot and his disciple, just like her colleagues before her. Gun in hand, bomb on board, what did it matter if they spoke Arabic or English? The absurdity of the situation filled her with rage: that she was about to be murdered by a vain maniac with no capacity to understand what he was about to unleash.

She thought of the southern states when they seceded on the eve of Lincoln’s Inauguration. Did they really understand the kind of death they were dooming their men and boys to? Six hundred and twenty thousand American souls, when all was said and done, most of the Southerners’ hours and days spent walking the land, hungry and shoeless, miles from all that they knew and loved. She understood Red hadn’t thought for one moment about the citizens of Pennsylvania, or the soldiers who would be forced to defend the state and the country. He had no care for the families torn apart, the lives irreparably damaged by his hubris. She also knew that having a discussion with Red, an impulsive man with no moral compass, was fruitless. Standing there, shaking with fury, she remembered Red’s accomplice and wondered whether he, a child not yet worn down by cynicism, could be reasoned with.

“Joshua,” Elizabeth said. “Listen to me. You don’t have to do this. I have a son. He’s a few years older than you, but I think you two probably have a great deal in common.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Red said. “You and her son are as much alike as a porcupine and a snail.”

“That’s not true,” Elizabeth said, catching the boy’s eye. “Growing up, my son Finn was painfully shy. He had trouble making friends. He liked being alone, usually outside in the woods where he could disappear. I used to worry about him. I bet your mom worries, too.”

Joshua Brown, the younger of two sons, hailed from central Kentucky. His mother, a home health aide, had been raising the boys alone since their father died. A coal miner like his father before him, Michael Brown passed away after a very slow and painful bout with lung cancer. Before his dad got sick and died, they lived like most of the families Josh knew. There might not have been a lot of extras, but there was enough for new jeans and sneakers, pizza and movies on the weekends, and even a trip to the lake now and then.

Afterwards, they lived with a kind of scarcity he’d never known before. His mother worked around the clock to keep a roof over their heads, and as a result, they didn’t see much of one another. That they all loved each other was a given, but since his father’s passing, life seemed to have them trapped at near-drowning. Joshua decided, for that reason, to keep his grief and anger to himself. His problems were no worse than his brother’s or his mother’s. He had no right to ask for anything more than they did, no matter how much he missed his father, no matter how much his heart was broken.

He let all of his words slip away, thinking that if you couldn’t say what you really felt, it was better to say nothing. He became the weird kid, the quiet one everybody avoided. Once his face began to break out, there was no end to his misery; someone bigger and stronger was always lurking in the halls, ready and willing to torment him. He began to fade, first from school and then from his old life altogether. He turned his attention and time to being online, looking for a way to belong to something. Eventually, he found what he was searching for in the chat rooms and forums for other boys and men like him. All the truths he’d been searching for were there. Overlooked for so long, it was a revelation to find an audience that seemed to know him and understand all of the indignities he’d suffered. They welcomed Joshua with open arms, never questioning his grievances.

When the call came for volunteers to fight in the rebellion, he’d been only too happy to join. There was no life to leave behind, only a bright future as a member of an elite few. Back at the base, when he tried on his uniform, he felt special, a part of a momentous time in history. But now, standing inside the train car, his body wet with perspiration, the weight of the explosives pulling on him, he felt frightened. Why had he been chosen for this assignment instead of fighting at the front, which is what he signed up for? He suddenly felt small, once again the victim of a universe hell-bent on his destruction through a series of heartbreaks and humiliations, each one more painful than the previous one.

The President of the United States didn’t seem anything like the person he’d been told about. Endless blog posts and broadcasts made her seem like a hapless idiot, but she didn’t behave like one. And when she spoke directly to him, it was as if a horrible spell had been broken. He knew she was telling him the truth. Joshua issued a slight nod at her question, his eyes revealing the depths of his amazement that a total stranger, the President, no less, could read him so clearly. Then he looked at Red, his face contorted and crimson with anger, and shut down again, staring straight ahead at the wall.

“It’s not too late,” Elizabeth pleaded, hoping to capture Joshua’s attention again. “You can change your mind. I promise no harm will come to you.”

Red slapped Elizabeth across the face with enough force to split her lip. “Shut up,” he said, pulling a gun from a holster on his hip and pointing it at her head. “I’ve had enough of you. You know you would never have made the cut in a normal election. Voters don’t like wimps. They want strong leaders who are not afraid to make tough decisions, like me.”

Joshua took a step away from Red, repulsed at the sight of the blood dripping from the President’s face.

“Oh, no,” Red said, grabbing the boy by the arm. “You are my chosen one, the golden boy who will start the revolution. You were sent to me. This is your destiny.”

“You are out of your mind,” Elizabeth said, using her sleeve to wipe her mouth, the pain from his blow ringing in her ears. “The people of this country have already sacrificed so much. This boy left his family to be here with you. What have you done? You won a contract to evict people from their homes to drill oil. That was something you were already good at.”

“I gave you the idea to start the Territories,” Red said. “Without me, you’d be nothing. I made your presidency. I made you a success.”

Elizabeth ran her tongue over her lip where a welt had started to form. Red’s bravado and lack of self-awareness had always been revolting, but now, as the minutes of her life ticked away, indignation surged through her. The idea that she might die in his company was too much to bear.

“My God, you are truly a soulless bastard,” she said. “What do you know about leadership or sacrifice? All you can think of is yourself. I’ll tell you what I know: this country has no patience for a crybaby. And make no mistake, that is what you are: an insecure man, a child desperate for attention by any means necessary. But you can’t actually lead a country with your imbecilic ideas. You can’t turn people against each other and achieve greatness.”

“Couldn’t agree more, Madam President!” Cooper said.

He’d been lurking outside, waiting for the right time to enter. He didn’t want to spook Red into shooting Elizabeth.

“I’ve just come from conducting a perimeter check,” Cooper said. “Red’s mercenaries immobilized the overnight security team and some of the train’s staff.”

“Tranquilized, if you must know,” Red replied. “I didn’t want the murder of so many Secret Service and FBI agents on my hands. Shoot to kill would be the standing order every time we have a skirmish if I did that.”

Cooper cocked his head to one side. “Skirmish? You’re here to kill the President and overthrow the government,” he said, raising his gun until it was level with Red’s. “I think you should expect ‘shoot to kill’ to be the order of the day where you’re concerned in perpetuity. You and this terrorist you’ve groomed should expect no mercy.”

“What gives you the right to judge us?” Red asked. “You’re a coward who abandoned his post. You should do us all a favor and turn your gun on yourself. Spare me the trouble of putting you down. As you’ve mentioned, I’ve got Russian mercenaries waiting outside. Do you really think you can get a shot off before I kill the President? Because you’ve only got seconds before one of my men takes you out. You picked the wrong side, Cooper. You’re going to end up a big fat loser in all of this.”

“I don’t think so,” Cooper said, steel in his voice. “As of five minutes ago, your men were relieved of their posts. We did not use tranquilizers, the price you pay for treason. We’re in the process of conducting visual searches car-to-car for any stragglers, but your little coup party has been rounded up.”

Cooper turned to face Joshua, whose eyes were as wide as saucers. “The President is right, son,” he said. “You don’t have to go through with this. Red is about to be arrested.”

Undaunted, Red reached out with his free hand and grabbed hold of Joshua. “No, no, no,” he said. “We’re not quitters. We’re going to finish what we started.”

Joshua was terribly confused, but also suddenly very clear about what needed to be done. He thought about his father and what a good man he’d been. How he would have wanted Joshua to do the right thing, even if he started out with bad intentions. He thought about his mother and how she would weep when she heard the story of what happened, wondering why her son would want to kill the President of the United States. In that moment, with Red’s fingers crushing his arm, he understood how he could end his suffering and make things right.

Cooper attributed his longevity to a healthy sixth sense for impending danger. It took him only seconds to see the boy had changed his mind about his designated target—Red’s sparkling personality once again winning the day. Cooper’s task at the moment was to save the President by putting some distance between her and the ensuing explosion. The young boy, mercifully, seemed to read his mind. With all his might, Joshua pulled free of Red, pivoted, and turned back towards the oil tycoon, putting both arms out in front of him. With a great push, he sent the two of them tumbling backwards across the train compartment. Red’s face was a mask of shock and indignation, his gun sent flying by the force of the unexpected shove. Cooper grabbed the President and pulled her towards one of the car’s exits. The force of the blast knocked them off their feet before they could escape, flaming debris dancing around their heads as they hit the floor.

Thanks for reading 48 States! Please follow me on social media and check out The Council Trilogy, my latest urban fantasy series.