This week: There are no rules.
48 STATES.' Chapters 28 & 29
TWENTY EIGHT
“YOU DRIVE A RANGE ROVER?” River asked, letting the question hang in the air. Although she sensed Finn’s father was against it, she’d been debating whether to tell Finn she’d seen Richard at the gas station that day. The old River would have just let the truth out, both barrels blazing, but that was before. She felt the need to be more careful with Finn’s feelings, especially since she knew how upsetting it was that Richard had cut off contact with his family. Who was she to spill their secrets? On the other hand, Finn had a right to know the truth.
“A little conspicuous, don’t you think?” she continued.
“I suppose in some circles,” Richard replied, catching River’s gaze in his rearview mirror. “But as you know, gas is plentiful, and I need room to haul things.”
“Like what?” River asked. “What have you been doing?”
Richard caught the meaning in River’s gaze. Seeing as he was overdue for a recounting of his whereabouts, there was no harm in being honest. “I’ve been visiting the refugee cities,” Richard said. “Delivering supplies to some of the families there.”
“Why?” Finn asked.
“I wanted to see for myself,” Richard said. “I wanted to bear witness to what had happened.”
“What are they like?” Finn asked.
“Miserable and sad,” River said. “I thought the Territories were the worst place on earth until I visited.”
“What are the Territories like?” Richard asked.
“We’re talking about you,” River said.
“Come on,” Richard said. “Few people have ever stepped inside; you were there for almost two years.”
“Desolate,” River said. “The land is bare; all the plants are gone. It’s dirty and dangerous, and most of the workers are crazy. It’s like landing on the dark side of the moon only here on earth…like a hell-broth, boil and bubble. I went because I had no choice.”
“She quotes Shakespeare,” Richard said.
“And now…you!” River said. “Let’s hear about your time on the road.”
Although he felt put on the spot, he was impressed. The woman in the back seat had moxie. She was someone who was worthy of his son.
Would he ever be worthy of his family again? The question hung at the back of his mind as he drove towards what he knew was his moment of reckoning.
“At the risk of sounding melodramatic, it’s a national tragedy,” he said. “Finn, I know your mother must be heartsick. The folks there are trapped. They want to get out but don’t know how. There wasn’t much I could do but try to help make life bearable for the people I encountered. I’ve been delivering supplies, mostly food and medicine, sometimes alone, and sometimes with volunteers.”
“Volunteers?” River asked. “Are you a member of some kind of group?”
“It’s not as organized as you make it sound. It’s just a group of like-minded people who care about those affected,” Richard said. He toyed with the idea of telling Finn that he suspected Elizabeth had known about his movements from almost the very beginning but decided against it. It was a secret between him and Elizabeth; it was a part of their marriage and not to be shared with the rest of the world. It was a selfish position in some ways. Selfish because he knew that if others were aware of the circumstances, they would chide Elizabeth for being so accommodating. It also limited his exposure, narrowing the audience he was required to be accountable to. The fewer people who knew, the smaller the circle, the more likely he might be forgiven.
“Sounds like a resistance group,” River said, interrupting Richard’s thoughts.
“I disagree. There is a big difference between rejecting an idea and rejecting your government,” Richard said. “Besides, all we did was comfort very impoverished individuals.”
“Can we call a truce?” Finn asked. “We have at least seven hours together in this car.”
“We’re not fighting,” River said. “I’m just asking questions.”
“She’s questioning my integrity,” Richard said. “Understandable, given how we met, but I assure you I love this country as much as you do.”
“If you wanted to make a difference, why didn’t you return to teaching?” River asked. “Colleges and universities eventually re-opened after the attacks.”
Richard thought briefly of the note he’d sent to the president of Yale, requesting a leave of absence. In it, he’d relayed his deep love of teaching: his appreciation for the complexity of breaking down information so it could be taught to others, his thrill at searching out new texts and conducting research to make the best possible experience for his students. Learning was supposed to be a wondrous thing; he’d written, difficult perhaps, worthy of sacrifice and concentration, but still joyous. How, then, could he participate in something so life-affirming when he’d made such a mess of his life? When the country he loved was so deeply wounded? He couldn’t. That was the short answer, so he’d asked for a leave of absence.
“It hardly seemed right to go back to the life I’d known, a life as comfortable as the shoes I’m wearing, after what happened,” Richard said.
“Now is your chance to turn things around, professor,” River said. “After this, you could go back to Yale and teach.”
“Maybe, River,” Richard said, smiling at her in the rear-view mirror. “We’re all entitled to a second chance, right?”
Finn watched the growing thaw between River and his father with relief. He couldn’t explain what was happening to him. For a man that had been happy to hang in a hammock in the wilderness with nothing but bears for company, he now suddenly wanted his parents to like his girlfriend. And he wanted his girlfriend’s mother and child to like him. Life felt urgent all of a sudden like it had a purpose, and that was for them to be together. It was ridiculous to make plans for the future; they could all be dead in a few days. The worst that could happen, other than ceasing to exist, would be that nothing would come of his daydreams. But it was also possible that things would go the other way, and they would live. For Finn, the idea of being alone no longer held any allure.
“When we get to Denver, I think you should contact your mom,” Finn said to River. “How many days has it been since you spoke to Ava?”
“I think we may want to wait until we know what’s happening,” she said. “I don’t want to put them in harm’s way by talking to me.”
“Once we get to Denver, we’ll be fine,” Finn said. “The FBI will sort this out.”
“Let’s hope so, but don’t underestimate Universal Industries or its CEO,” Richard said. “That man has visions of grandeur that rival the kings of the ages.”
“Do you know him?” River asked. “Redmond Pierce? His picture is posted all over the buildings in the Territory.”
“I’m not surprised,” Richard said. “He wants everyone who works for him to know he’s responsible for their existence. I met him in the days after the attacks when he, along with other business and political leaders, was summoned to a series of meetings with my wife. The country was reeling from what had happened, and Elizabeth was searching for the best ideas to move forward. Mr. Pierce was not a wallflower and expressed his opinions freely.”
“The Territories were his idea then?” River asked.
“I wasn’t privy to the conversations,” Richard said. “The security clearance required to be in the room didn’t exist prior to that day. There was a closing of the ranks in government. People were terrified.”
“I don’t envy the President,” River said. “I served two tours of duty and saw firsthand what the Republic was prepared to do to our soldiers and to their own people. I couldn’t wait to come home. There were soldiers who wanted to stay behind after the attack at the mall, but they were recalled, forced to abandon their posts. It was very confusing.”
“War is like that, regardless of the era,” Richard said. “My father was an officer in the Vietnam War, which seems like something fought during the Stone Ages, and yet it wreaked its own havoc on a generation of people.”
“Women weren’t allowed in combat then, right?” River asked.
“Correct,” Richard said. “Those years were the beginning of many changes for women that eventually allowed them to have greater equality, including holding a combat position in the military, if you consider being able to die in battle a right.”
“I think being able to serve your country to the best of your ability, regardless of your gender, is a good idea,” River said. “I knew a number of women who saw combat, and they were good at their jobs. Better on some days than the men.”
“I believe it,” Finn said. “Watching you take care of yourself out there in the Territory, I believe it.”
“I did what I had to do, Finn,” River said. “And so did you. Given the circumstances, we’re all capable of rising to a challenge.”
Richard caught River’s eye again. “But that isn’t want you wanted to excel at, is it?”
“What do you mean?” River asked.
“I mean, what did you want to do before everything was interrupted?” Richard said.
River hesitated but decided she’d had enough of censuring her emotions. “I wanted to study abroad and use my language skills,” she said. “I was interested in diplomacy, maybe working as a translator. I’m a small-town girl from Idaho. I wanted to see the world.”
“And now?” Richard asked, keeping his eyes on the road.
“You sound like my mother,” River said. “She wants me to go back to school.”
“Once this business with Universal is cleared up, you are free to do what you wish,” Richard said. “Yale has all kinds of programs for veterans, and it won’t be long before Ava can attend kindergarten.”
“He’s right,” Finn said. “You could pick up where you left off.”
The picture of endless possibilities they were painting made River horribly nervous. Finn and his father were confirming what she knew in her bones but didn’t want to admit: there were no more excuses left, no further obstacles to her getting her life back on track. The thought left a ball of dread in her belly because it would all be on her now. No more bad breaks to lament.
“Change is daunting,” Richard said. “But here we are heading to Denver together. Maybe, just maybe, we’re all going to have a shot at a new beginning.”
TWENTY NINE
COOPER WATCHED the directional signs for the William P. Hobby Airport in Houston whir past, his driver hitting speeds not even contemplated in the Texas vehicle code. No matter. One of the many benefits of living and driving in a company town was that the highway patrol ignored you. It would be his last perk, though. Cooper was on his way out.
After the shootout at the train depot, Red did not return to the company’s headquarters. His absence was an open secret, something everyone noticed but did not discuss. Like Noah and his Ark, Red had already deployed staff he deemed worthy of his new world order. Anyone left behind would likely not be invited to the revolution.
For his part, Cooper returned to work as if nothing had happened. Keeping up appearances was certainly a necessity, but behaving as if everything was normal after Red’s mercenaries murdered a member of the government was tough, even for a seasoned soldier.
Cooper felt partially responsible for the death of the FBI director. He’d underestimated Red’s frame of mind. Underestimated his willingness to ignore all of the established norms and agreed-upon rules of engagement. It was all disruption with Red, his hubris driving the train. If he was going to be successful, Cooper was going to have to relearn the rules, specifically that there were no rules.
It was every man for himself, sink or swim by your own blood and tears; that was Red’s version of America. His former boss was too blinded by his voracious ambitions to see the ruin that lay ahead, to see that he was the proverbial Kurtz, already down the river too far to come back, the rat, tat, tat of the machine gun the background music of his life ahead.
Cooper also regretted that he’d been unable to communicate with River before she’d destroyed the drone. He could still see the look on her face as her boot came down upon its camera. He’d seen it in the eyes of hundreds of soldiers in the field: determination. The act of having a purpose, in this case, to survive. If it had been him, he would have blown the thing sky-high, too. There was no way for her to know his intentions, and he’d been too slow on the draw to use the speakers to communicate. Although he was aware River was an accomplished marksman, it did not prepare him for the experience of watching himself get shot virtually between the eyes. It was quite a series of blows coming days apart. Things had spun out of control quickly, and the ties to the world he knew were coming undone. Cooper wasn’t used to feeling such upheaval and uncertainty after a life of preparation and order, and he knew there was more to come.
As the outline of the airport came into view, Cooper consoled himself with the thought that whatever violence and betrayal were about to happen, the fault for all of it lay with Red. The question he couldn’t answer was why. Why risk it all now? It was a full-time job just to pull the oil they had out of the ground day after day inside the Territories. Cooper was astonished at the mathematical and chemical symphony required to dive into the geological burial grounds, locate the fossil fuels trapped between the earth’s layers, and extract them from their deep, dark pools. But Red knew. He was the master at understanding how to get the earth to give up its quarry.
But what did Red know about running a government? Education, national parks, veterans…the country was a vast hive of needs and wants. Cooper could count on both hands the number of business leaders over the years who’d boasted that they could run the country better if only given a chance as if someone who made computers or sold real estate could magically straighten out the messy business of tending to four hundred million people. But Red wasn’t interested in better government; he had something more elemental in mind. Red wanted to build an empire, a kingdom of crude to rule the world and, in the process, bind everyone to his will.
It wasn’t a worthy enough goal for Cooper to stick his neck out. He knew what it was like to fight for liberty and freedom, whatever those concepts meant to people nowadays. So, he’d switched sides, abandoned his post. Given the circumstances, he would have done it regardless, but having the President ask for his help soothed his sense of honor. He only hoped that the Russian mercenaries Red had hired to help fight in his revolution wouldn’t try to kill Red in a double cross before the fighting actually started. Cooper wanted the task for himself.
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