In the office they found Bus and Kip Greene standing in front of the map. Bus wore the same OD green jacket as Lee and Harper—actually a Gore-Tex parka—and a pair of jeans with the beginnings of holes in the knees, twice patched and twice ripped. Stress had drawn some of his size from him, but he was still an imposing figure, especially next to Kip Greene, who stood all of 5' 8", with wiry arms and a thin neck.
“Captain… Harper…” Bus greeted them as they walked in.
Lee clasped hands with him. “Good to see you, Bus.”
“How was Lillington?” Bus ventured cautiously.
Lee dropped his pack to the floor. “Nothing worse than usual.”
“Glad everyone came out all right.” Bus nodded.
Lee turned his attention to the man from Broadway. “Kip… how are ya?”
“Decent. You?” Kip nodded, his hands planted deep in the pockets of his tattered old Dickies coveralls.
“Good. But we could still use some help.” Lee looked pointedly at him.
Kip smiled grimly. “Funny enough, that’s what I came to talk about.”
“Oh?” Lee perked up a bit. He took a seat at the edge of the desk. “I sense there’s a caveat.”
Kip nodded.
Bus folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve been trying to explain to Kip that we need to use Broadway as a launch point for Sanford—”
“My people aren’t interested in being a base for you guys,” Kip said steadily.
“It’s not just about us, you know.” Lee pointed to the map. “You guys have been catching all the shit leaking out of Sanford since this started. You’re doing an admirable job, but if you let us go in and clean house, you’ll be able to focus more on your farming and less on watching your back.”
Kip shook his head. “Not an option at this point.”
Lee let his hands drop to his lap. “Okay. Why don’t you explain what you want with us, then?”
Kip looked up at Lee from underneath his eyebrows. “We’ve been taking a lot of heat from Sanford. More and more lately, in fact. I’m not sure why, but they’re coming out of that place in droves. I don’t know, maybe they’re running out of food in there. They all look pretty lean.” He adjusted the brim of his cap. “Anyway, we’ve been getting them as they try to go down 421, but…”
Lee waited.
Kip seemed a little abashed. “But we’re running out of ammunition.”
Lee folded his hands. “Ah.”
“That’s why I’m here. To set up a trade.”
“And what are we trading?”
“Food for ammunition. We’ve got corn, wheat, peanuts, and tobacco. We’ll trade any of them, in any combination, as long as the deal is fair.”
Silence blanketed the room.
Lee was the first one to speak. “Kip, you mind if I talk with Bus and Harper for a moment?”
Kip shook his head. He stepped out and closed the door behind him as the three men from Camp Ryder gathered in close so they could speak in hushed tones.
Lee spoke first. “I think this is a good opportunity to build up some goodwill by making a generous trade with them. Keep in mind, they’ll probably need rifles as well, since most of what we can give them is 5.56mm and I doubt they have many rifles that are chambered for that.”
“We could play hardball,” Bus suggested. “If they need the ammo badly enough we might be able to break him down and let us use Broadway to get into Sanford.”
Harper made an ugly face. “I don’t know if playing hardball is a good idea. That might just piss them off, and then Broadway is out as a source of food and as a base.”
Bus rubbed his eyebrows. “I just want to avoid a repeat of Smithfield. I sure as hell don’t want you guys camping in the woods outside of Sanford while you clear it. We need them.”
Lee spread his palms. “Ammunition is a finite resource. We can have the best of both worlds. Let’s make a small but generous deal with him now so he’s forced to come back soon. Then we can play hardball. If we have some goodwill built up with him and his group, we’re less likely to scare him off when we do. Plus we’ll get a little fresh food out of it.”
“We need the wheat,” Harper nodded. “Cornmeal would be good too.”
“Any value to tobacco?” Bus questioned.
Harper and Lee both shrugged.
“As a trade item, yes,” Lee said. “But I wouldn’t worry about it for now.”
Harper grinned. “Don’t tell LaRouche.”
Lee stretched his arms. “So what’s the offer?”
“You’re in charge of guns and ammo,” Bus pointed out. “You tell us what we can afford.”
Lee considered it for a short moment. “How about we trade five rifles and six hundred rounds total. That’ll be six mags per rifle. Depending on their level of contact, that could last them one or two weeks.”
“That’s a good time frame for us,” Harper noted.
“Alright. Everyone agree?”
“Agreed.”
“Yup.”
Lee headed for the door.
He was about to reach for the handle when he heard shouting and the sound of footsteps pounding rapidly up the metal staircase. Someone cried out in alarm. The steps thundered as they drew closer. He didn’t recall grabbing it, but Lee’s rifle was suddenly in his hands and addressed toward the door.
The door burst open and a madman with sunken eyes and sallow skin tumbled in. The strange creature’s eyes landed on Lee and the captain’s finger went to the trigger. The thing reached forward and sunk down to its knees and seemed about to scramble at Lee on all fours.
Lee was about to pull the trigger when it spoke.
“You’re Captain Harden!” the man said and clasped a hand over his face. “I found you… I finally found you!”
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER 1: Camp Ryder
CHAPTER 2: Investigation
CHAPTER 3: Blood Ties
CHAPTER 4: Committee
CHAPTER 5: Preparations
CHAPTER 6: Twelve Gallons
CHAPTER 7: Limited Provisions
CHAPTER 8: Roadblocks
CHAPTER 9: The Hard Road
CHAPTER 10: Beans and Bullets
CHAPTER 11: Best-laid Plans
CHAPTER 12: Smithfield
CHAPTER 13: House to House
CHAPTER 14: Doc
CHAPTER 15: The Hospital
CHAPTER 16: Milo
CHAPTER 17: Breaking Points
CHAPTER 18: Fire
CHAPTER 19: Unwanted Attention
CHAPTER 20: Overrun
CHAPTER 21: The Only Easy Day…
CHAPTER 22: … Was Yesterday
CHAPTER 23: Fight
CHAPTER 24: The River
CHAPTER 25: The Return
CHAPTER 26: The Road Ahead
CHAPTER 27: A Dead Man’s Wish
Extras Meet the author
Also by D.J. Molles
A Preview of The Remaining: Refugees
Orbit Newsletter
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by D.J. Molles
Excerpt from The Remaining: Refugees copyright © 2012 by D.J. Molles
Cover design by Lauren Panepinto, cover photo by Arcangel Images. Cover copyright © 2014 by Orbit Books.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: January 2014
ISBN 978-0-316-40418-1
E3