Tears of Abraham

CHAPTER ELEVEN HEROES

COLORADO

Henry sat up with a jolt. Two ideas formed almost simultaneously. He tore off the oxygen mask.

“Sarn’t Major,” he said.

Martinez screwed up his eyebrows, his own face obscured behind a mask misted with condensation. “What?”

“The reporter.” It still hurt to talk. “SAT feed.”

“Ugh,” Martinez grunted, his face clouding.

“If—”

“Shit.”

Henry and Martinez stood at the same time. Carlos remained with his back against the fire truck’s front tire. “Now what?” said Carlos.

“We can use the satellite feed to upload this data,” Martinez said. “Maybe. If they’ve got a truck with a dish. I should’ve thought of that before. Stay here and rest; Henry and I will go find her.”

Henry and Martinez walked through the crowd of people who had gathered to watch the fire. Some of them were sitting in the cold and staring into space, others talking in small groups. There were cries and groans from tents that had materialized from somewhere. It was as if the town converged upon the school by some unspoken collective agreement.

Henry felt tears sting his eyes, not from the smoke now, but from the scenes of heartbreak and tragedy everywhere he looked.

A young couple clung to one another, sitting on the frozen ground, a small, unmoving bundle in their arms. They rocked back and forth, swaying to an unspeakable melody of pain and loss.

An old man, stooped and bent with years and anguish, murmured over a white-haired woman and he touched her face with trembling, bony hands.

A boy of nine or ten walked in circles, hands stuffed tight into his coat pockets, making drowning sounds and chanting “muh, muhm mamma.”

Henry wanted to fall to his knees and weep.

“There,” said Martinez, pointing. A white van with Action News 4 painted on the side was parked near the edge of the throng of survivors. Martinez rapped on the door. A kid with curly hair and thick glasses poked his head out from the back of the van.

“Get lost,” he said. He looked like he wasn’t old enough to drive. Maybe a college intern. He tried to close the door. Martinez stopped him.

“Do you have a satellite feed?”

“Who the—”

“Wait,” said a woman from somewhere behind the kid. “Travis, grab your camera. These are the heroes.”

The interior of the van was crammed with electronics. Glowing screens displayed various scenes of carnage and destruction.

“You’re famous,” the woman said, beaming. “Four million hits in the last thirty minutes.”

“So you have a feed,” Martinez said.

“Obviously.”

Travis was pulling out a handheld camera. Henry took it from him.

Martinez reached into a pocket in his jacket, a small black stick drive in his hand. “I want you to upload this. Right now.”

“Give Travis his camera back, and we’ll talk about it.”

On one of the screens over her shoulder, Henry was carrying a child to a fireman. The camera zoomed in for a close-up shot of his sooty face. At the bottom of the screen, a headline scrolled in bold print highlighted in red, reading Unknown heroes rescue school children in war-torn Colorado.

“I don’t have time to be nice,” Martinez growled. He held out the tiny flash drive. “Upload this.”

“For an interview? An exclusive?”

“Sure, lady.”

She turned her head and said over her shoulder, “Travis, do it.”

Travis took the drive and plugged it into a port, sitting in the cramped van. “It’s encrypted,” he said.

“Just do it,” Martinez said.

“But it’s gibberish. It won’t make sense. It’s just unreadable code at this point. I’d have to—”

“There’s no time,” Martinez said. “Put it out there raw.”

“All right. Where do I send it?”

“Everywhere. Send it to everyone,” Martinez said.

The kid was typing feverishly. “There’s a ton of files,” he said, peering at the glowing screen. “It’s gonna take a few minutes.”

“Huh,” Travis said then, cocking his head. “The upload just stopped.”

“Give me the drive,” Martinez said.

“Hold on. It might be—”

Martinez climbed into the van and removed the drive from the computer. “You need to vanish,” he said. “On foot, and right now.”

“Wait!” the reporter said. “What about the interview?”

“Leave the van and go!” Henry said. “You’re in danger.”

Martinez had already walked away, and Henry turned to follow him back to the fire truck where they’d left Carlos. Martinez removed his jacket mid-stride and tossed it on the ground. Henry followed suit. They made it about a hundred yards.

Henry heard the hiss of the rocket a fraction of a second before the blast knocked him forward. He pushed himself back to his feet and saw an inferno where the news van had been. People were screaming again, running to nowhere in particular. Henry hoped the reporter and Travis had listened.

Carlos was on his feet next to the truck, a duffel full of gear over each shoulder. He handed Henry his own bag. They grabbed helmets from the fire truck and put them on.

“Evasive action,” Martinez said. Let’s split up. The church with the big steeple on the south side of town. Let’s meet there in fifteen minutes. Go!”

Henry walked at a brisk pace, not quite, but almost a jog. He moved at an oblique angle to his destination, cutting through backyards and staying beneath the cover of trees as much as he could. Many houses bore wounds. Some burned, others had holes torn through them. It looked like a war zone, which, of course, it was. He cut through an empty house, grabbed an olive green parka from the coat closet, and put that on, along with a knitted cap. He walked out onto the sidewalk, slowed his gait, and limped just for effect.

He reasoned that somehow, the upload had been intercepted and stopped. Whoever had done that had ordered the air strike, and there were probing eyes in the sky scouring the town. Maybe drones, maybe satellites, or both. As he neared the church, he was aware of the thrum of the shattered town, straining to filter out the many sounds. There was the sound of sirens and car alarms and a wailing that seemed to emanate from the trees, which he was not certain was real. He strained to listen for aircraft, knowing that if a drone had him, he would be dead before he could react.

One of the things he had been trained to do was to think like the enemy. I don’t know who my enemy is, but I’m learning. If I were trying to silence an enemy in an American town, I wouldn’t rely on drones and air power. I’d want people on the ground. If I were evil, I’d wipe the whole town off the map. I’d want to see the bodies.

He forced himself to walk slowly, crossing the street to the church. The traffic light was dead and hanging in the middle of the road at just above head height. This part of the quaint town had seen heavy fighting. There were military vehicles smashed and smoking in the middle of the road, and uniformed bodies lying in motionless clumps. Blood stained the snow.

The thump of rotors, multiple birds inbound, which was a sound Henry had once loved, now chilled him more than the icy wind.

“Wilkins!” From off to his right. “Over here.”

Henry turned on the sidewalk, catching movement from the corner of his eye. Martinez waved from inside a blown-out storefront. Henry jogged in that direction while the sound of approaching helicopters grew louder.

It was a hardware store, the kind of mom and pop place Henry remembered from his childhood but rarely saw anymore. Martinez and Carlos were inside, along with other soldiers.

“What took you so long?” Martinez said. “Nice hat.”

“I’m right on time,” Henry said, pointing at his watch. “Who are these guys?”

“These guys,” said a square-jawed man in fatigues and a helmet, “have just had the shit kicked out of them. And now we’re about to save your ass. Or maybe we’re all just gonna die.” He sounded like he’d walked out of a New York mafia movie. Deese guys.

“This is Captain Canella,” Sergeant Major Martinez said.

“Colorado National Guard,” Captain Canella interjected. “Of the United States of America.”

“Sir,” Henry said, saluting.

“Are you fucking kiddin’ me?” Captain Canella snorted. “Kit up. It’s about to get interesting again.”

“Yes, sir.”

Henry tore into his ruck. He pulled on his vest, strapped his sidearm to his thigh, and assembled his submachine gun. The helicopters closed in, and the pitch of the rumble changed as they swept past.

“Two birds. Chinooks, five hundred feet,” said a middle-aged soldier, peering out the shattered window of the store.

The rumble shifted again, growing louder.

“Uh-oh. One is coming back. They’re about to drop troops on our heads.”

Henry noticed Carlos had picked up a SAW equipped with an ACOG scope, an extra belt of ammunition draped around his shoulders. There were maybe twenty other soldiers, some standing, some sitting or kneeling in the store. Many were bleeding. Toward the shadowy rear of the store, Henry could see some who were horizontal.

“We’ve got men across the street in some of the stores, and a fifty in the church,” Captain Canella said. “I hope it’s worth it. ’Cause they’re all gonna die.”

“I gave him the thirty-second version,” Martinez said, edging his head from the door. “Captain Canella figures we should exfil now while he and his men engage.” Henry knew that tone.

“They’re inserting,” said the weekend warrior with an M4 carbine slung over his chest and a desperate look on his face. The rotor wash from the Chinook sent snow and dust swirling down the street and through the quaint hardware store. Henry’s heart rate accelerated and his chest was tight and his throat was raw. Soldiers rattled out the back door.

“We’re going to do this,” Martinez said. “I told the captain he could respectfully go fuck himself.”

“Yeah, and I told him that was—”

A bomb hit the church, and whatever it was Captain Canella was about to say ended in flying glass and smoke and a shrinking of the lungs and balls and ringing of the ears.

“Taking contact!” someone shouted.

“Engage!” Urgent and close and sounding far away. Maybe it was Canella, or perhaps it was Martinez that gave the order.

Henry left the safety of the store. Carlos hunkered down behind the passenger side of a snow-encrusted car parked on the side of the road, and as Henry took up a position by the driver’s rear tire of the old Subaru, he saw the futility in the fight. The Chinook opened up, strafing the church and then the rooftops with heavy-caliber rounds.

The enemy soldiers fast-roped from the helicopter. Henry fired at them as they landed, placing his crosshairs at chest height. He used his elbows to form a bipod and fired short bursts. He focused on a group of three ropes, and cut down every man who landed. He went through two magazines in less than a minute, rolling slightly as he thumbed the release.

“Reloading!” he yelled.

From across the street, muzzle flashes sparked from doorways and windows.

The Chinook walked tracers up the street and through the vehicle Henry and Carlos were taking cover behind, and rounds slammed through the metal and whined from the road. Henry smelled gasoline.

“Los! Move! Gas!”

“Moving! Give me covering fire.”

Henry continued to fire, now at flashes and movement, aware of the fuel spilling onto the road, the sparks all around him as rounds hit the pavement, the Subaru, and the buildings. The second helicopter, the one that had gone further north over town, came closer, and the door gunner let loose.

The attacking ground troops were nowhere to be seen. They had not marched up the road like untrained militia men who had seen too many movies. They’d taken cover, and were undoubtedly advancing, while the two helicopters pounded away.

The building across the street exploded, sending debris hurtling through the air and small pellets of angry glass into Henry’s face. Hot ash and flaming pieces of building came drifting down.

Henry ran, slipping on the snow and ice. He could feel the rounds seeking his flesh as they cracked and slapped and zipped around him.

The Subaru he’d been taking cover behind exploded, and the blast threw him face forward. He lost his weapon and smashed his chin and felt his teeth clang together. Half blind, and with his brain in a vise, he clawed for his weapon, the snow and ice digging beneath his fingernails while he groped on knees and elbows.

Hungry hands found the stock, pulled it close. The machine guns continued to rain down. They fired and fired from above and everything was broken and ripped apart. The belly of one of the birds was less than a hundred meters overhead.

Henry rolled onto his back and fired, and there was a screaming in him as he expended one magazine and then switched to another. His was the rage of a bullied child at the moment he doesn’t care if he gets his ass kicked and has to hit back because that’s all there is left and even if he gets pulverized, then he did that one thing, he punched that son of a bitch square on the nose and made him bleed. Henry screamed out loud then, a death song which mingled with the chatter of the SAW and the sirens and alarms and thudding Chinooks, a primal howl amid the smell of propellant and taste of death on his lips, which was his and theirs and he took pleasure in it. No hope, only retribution and recoil and death.

Expended cartridges pinged to the ground with a music all their own. Cursing, Henry half crawled, half ran back into the shelter of the store, slipping and swearing, angry and afraid.

Rounds ripped through the ceiling and walls. Cans of paint spewed red and white and blue on the floor, explosions of color through air thick with smoke. There were many screams and some of them belonged to Henry.

He switched magazines, his head just below where the window had been. Carlos was next to the doorway, switching out barrels for the SAW.

Henry popped up long enough to see hostiles running into the ruins across the street. He sat up again and squeezed off a burst. The tile floor inside was littered with cartridges and pieces of drywall.

“Pull back to the rear door!” Martinez shouted from behind Henry.

Carlos abandoned the SAW and was firing his assault rifle instead through the door, lying prone and exposed. Henry popped up again, acquired a target. Squeezed. Ducked back down. Enemy troops were consolidating just across the street for an assault. Probably more on each side. The Chinooks kept hammering.

“Frag out!” Henry said, lobbing a grenade across the street.

“Smoke out!” Carlos said. “Move it, Wilkins!”

Henry tried to come to a crouch, but he slipped. Blood covered the floor, and his hand was warm and slick with it. Captain Canella lay on his back, some of his face gone and his shoulder separated from the rest of his body. Rounds from the Chinook had rained down from directly overhead, tearing him apart. Henry crawled toward the rear of the store, climbing over bodies while the store came apart around him. Toward the far left corner, something exploded, perhaps a propane tank or a fire extinguisher or paint thinner. The fire spread with amazing speed, devouring the rear wall and spilling out onto the floor. There was no way he could make it to the rear exit.

He crawled back to the door glad of the unpolluted air, trying to make himself small, and readying himself for a last charge into the light.

KEY WEST, FLORIDA

In Key West, Suzanne heard a different rumor every day. One day, the war was over and the United States was a single nation again. Later that afternoon, or the next day, people would be shouting that Miami had been hit with a nuclear weapon and troops were on the way to reclaim the Keys, to force them to join with the rest of Florida at gunpoint. Suzanne and Bart spoke to a boater who swore he’d seen a Russian armada thirty miles offshore.

Radio operators communicated with people from around the nation and the world, a new kind of coconut telegraph, and a fragmented picture of the state of the nation emerged. The country was broken and fighting continued. The president was still alive, and appealing to the international community for help.

Russia had thousands of troops massed on its borders, along with divisions of armor and attack helicopters. Western Europe was panicked, China wrung its hands. The United States was alone.

The bases were not letting anyone on post without proof they were active duty. The troops stationed around town vanished. A fire broke out in Old Town and consumed hotels and bars and tourist shops. No one knew how it started, but almost a hundred people died.

One of Suzanne’s neighbors, an attorney named David Greenburg with a thriving practice in Miami, arrived by boat and banged on the door late in the afternoon.

Bart let him inside, and David collapsed on the couch, shaking, dehydrated, and hungry.

“Miami’s gone insane,” he said. His eyes were bloodshot and twitching. “They’re animals.”

“Have some fish, David,” Suzanne said. “Calm down. You’re safe.”

“I didn’t think I’d make it,” he whispered. “They broke into my house. They took Jill and made her open the safe. She said no and they shot her. Just like that they shot my wife.”

“I’m sorry,” Suzanne said.

“Who? Who did that?” Bart asked.

“I don’t know. People. Guys with guns and crowbars. I didn’t know them.”

“How did you get here?”

“They let me go after I gave them my car, my money, my wife’s—” he choked. “Her engagement ring. Her jewelry. They laughed about it. They were in my house for less than half an hour and they took everything. They shot her in the back of the head like it was a joke. I walked to the marina in Coconut Grove where I keep the boat. Some of the other boats were smashed, some sunk. For no reason. I don’t understand. Anything. I don’t understand all of it.” He was shaking.

“Is your husband here?” David asked, looking up with a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

“No. They say he’s been killed,” Suzanne replied. It was the second time she’d had to say that. She’d told Bart, although not her daughter. She could say it without breaking into small pieces because she was certain it was not true.

“Suzanne, I’m sorry for your loss,” David said. “It is too much to bear.”

“Thank you, David. I’ll believe it when I see his dog tags. That man is too damn stubborn to die.”

She knew the Greenburgs better than she knew most of her neighbors. David and Jill came down south at least once every month, more in the wintertime. They’d shared dinners and bottles of wine together, and David and Henry actually got along pretty well. She knew David was a veteran, and that undoubtedly helped to overcome Henry’s innate resentment of wealthy people.

Bart came back into the room with some bottled water and grouper fresh from the grill. David ate with his hands and chugged the water.

“Have you heard any news?” Bart asked.

“Probably nothing you haven’t heard. We’ve been without power since this thing started. You know about DC and San Fran, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s true, I guess. Honestly, I was hoping you’d know what was going on, ’cause I sure don’t.”

“We’re all in the dark,” Suzanne said.

“Looks like at least you’ve got a generator,” David said. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to let me—”

“The answer is yes,” Suzanne said.

Bart cut his eyes at her, but she ignored him. David was out of shape and over the hill, and he would be drinking their water and eating their food. Still, he was smart, and he was a good man. In her mind, that was enough. If they could stick together, they could make one another stronger. The more people to stand watch, the better.

Bart had set up rain traps all over the property, and he was almost finished constructing an elaborate desalinization system, which would allow them to use seawater by evaporating the salt. That would help, though it would not be enough. Water would be a problem in the coming months, the dry season.

Already, a black market had sprung up in town, and Suzanne knew people were hoarding water.

David Greenburg wept into his hands. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m sorry. I have nothing. No money, no guns. I can’t really do much.” He laughed, a bitter sound. “If you want me to sue someone or write a contract for you, you’ll have free legal services for life.”

“My friend,” Suzanne said with a smile, “you have a deal.”

That night the whole group dined together and Suzanne felt hope as she ate and drank with her friends. Even Mary seemed to be in better spirits, and Suzanne saw her old friend had lost a considerable amount of weight in only a few weeks, seemed less lethargic and more engaged. Bobby was clear eyed and his hands no longer shook, and he’d shed at least ten years, still wiry and ornery as ever, and proud of himself for the mangrove snapper and grunt he’d caught and put on the table. Ginnie was a flurry of activity, cooking and cleaning and seldom standing still. She, more than any of the others, seemed wounded down deep, and Suzanne understood. Taylor flitted from person to person and lit up the room by being herself.

Bart laughed and joked and he was relaxed for the first time in a long time. He flirted with his wife more than he did with Ginnie or Suzanne, which was a marked change. Suzanne had felt uncomfortable more than once with the way Bart employed lascivious innuendo followed by innocent looks. Sometimes the phrase was directed at Ginnie, and sometimes it came at Suzanne. Ginnie did not seem to mind, though she might have been oblivious; Suzanne did not like it. It felt like a betrayal.

“You put the rod into the hole,” he’d said the previous day while explaining how to use the rod holders on the stern of his boat to Ginnie. “Just be careful with the rod. It’s fragile, especially the tip.”

“Ugh,” Suzanne had said from the bow.

“Hey, she’s probably never held a rod this big before. This ain’t one of those flimsy ones. This is the real deal.”

Suzanne, who had been pulling in the anchor, gave Bart a scathing stare. He grinned back at her with that guiltless expression. The what did I do? Look. And yet beneath it, Suzanne saw the thing, the underlying defiant truth which was as much an accusation as an admission.

They were friends, and that’s all they would ever be. But that’s not quite all they’d ever been.

So now, on this night, she was glad to feel an easing of tension, happy to see Bart flirting with his own wife.

Suzanne was on watch in the dark hours of the night, alone with a shotgun while most of the house slept. Bart and Mary were not sleeping, though, and Mary’s cries were piercing and urgent one room away, defiant perhaps.

Suzanne had many regrets. Bart topped the list. She’d been young and reckless and bulletproof. That was the story she told herself. There had been rum runners involved.

“Ya know,” Bart said years ago. Mary and Henry were crashed out in the hotel room, in the suite Henry had sprung for in Islamorada. Suzanne hadn’t had enough reggae music or rum or stupidity to fill her soul, so she’d decided to keep on partying. “After you two, you know, call it quits, the two of us have to hook up. At least once. ’Cause it would be epic.”

“Oh really? Is that what you think?”

“Yeah. Except I don’t think. I know for a fact. And so do you.”

“I thought he was your best friend?”

“Of course he is. He’d do the same to me, though. I’m saying, after.”

“After what?”

“After he breaks your heart. Or you break his. That part’s an even bet. Somebody’s gonna get their heart broke, though. You ain’t his first rodeo, let’s put it like that.”

“So you’re saying, what?” Maybe she’d slurred her words. She didn’t remember it that way, but she probably had. She was cool and unfettered. “It’s not his first rodeo but it’s mine?”

“I know it’s not your first go-round, Suzy-Q. You’re more woman than that country boy can handle.”

The band played “Is This Love” by Bob Marley and the Wailers and she was tan and twenty and the air throbbed with reggae and freedom and youth. When he asked her to dance, she’d said yes. When he’d suggested they go in the water after that, when the band was done and the night was still and the stars were out, she’d agreed.

It was spring break. I was stupid that time in Holiday Isle and maybe Henry would have forgiven me and maybe he would have forgiven Bart but then things changed and the truth would have been undermined by the lies we had to tell ourselves. Next thing I knew, I was head over heels and Henry was falling for me and it was real and if I’d said anything, he would have lost his best friend and I’d have lost him. And that’s the truth. I loved Henry, and I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t want to wound him and I loved him and I still do and he’s not really dead.

Mary howled from one room away, unabashed and echoing from the tiled floors in the dark house in Key West, an accusatory orgasm. Your man is dead and mine is right here, bitch! Mary quit moaning then, and there were a few punctuating gunshots in the distance, and Suzanne forced herself to smile.

“I’d give that a 9.5,” Suzanne said. Loud enough to be heard, but in a way that might have been to herself, even though everyone knew otherwise.

“That was a ten,” old Bobby crowed from the couch. “And everybody shut the hell up so I can get some sleep.”

Mary giggled. A college girl hanging out in the Keys. “You wish you knew what ten was!”

“Now we can all get some rest,” Suzanne said, feeling the edge in her voice which was tension and guilt mixed with resentment, and not liking herself much for sounding that way.

Suzanne patrolled her house for the next two hours, padding from room to room in bare feet and aware of the senses of the night, lost in part in her own mind, yet connected by history and sensation and love to those around her. The shotgun was cool and heavy and reassuring in her hands. The tile floors beneath her toes were cool, too, hard and quiet and with cracks in them, an uneven surface because Suzanne had insisted upon that particular porous flooring. Henry hadn’t cared one way or the other. Without ceiling fans or air conditioning, the air was close and tinged with death and smoke and garbage and corruption that overwhelmed the salty breezes. Gunshots spattered the night and Bobby snored on the couch like a hibernating bear with nightmares.

The sensations were off. The wrongness was pervasive and almost a thing in and of itself, a separate sense the body and soul seem to recognize without being able to explain to the mind. There was the lack of boat traffic along the canal, a song Suzanne had come to regard as comforting as the rain in the way people who live next to trains, airports, or sirens do. Without the background noise, there was an inescapable thrum no amount of laughter could deny.

She wanted to go to sleep and wake up and have things be normal again, face a world she could understand, and even better, wake up when she was younger and hadn’t made the mistakes she had.

Suzanne yearned to breathe a morning with promise and light and hope without the scent of disdain and destruction on her lungs and the feeling of an anvil crushing her chest. She wanted to make things right, and knowing she could not, wished to go back in time and undo everything gone wrong. The night was dark and oily and shimmering with the lingering wrath of bad decisions; the promise of a rising sun was broken. It would not cleanse her or banish the past. She mourned at that dying of the light, the spark in her that was extinguished before but which was apparent because of the void. She raged against it, helpless and hating her helplessness.

She saw herself from a sober distance and she flinched at what she beheld. She’d imagined herself to be the hero of her own life, strong and virtuous. Selfless. She recognized now the arrogance in that delusion. The characters in her novels, the real heroines, would despise her if they knew her. And even her writing, something which she had clung to and wrapped her soul around until it had become an essential part of her, accused her. While she’d built her life and dreams around words and books, she’d been losing the things which were deeply important, and in the end, her literary career was a fraud, a success engineered by her father and whoever he did favors for.

When Beowulf growled, a deep, vibrating rumble Suzanne could feel in her toes even though the sound was subtle and not loud, and the dog would never bark unless he was confronted with another dog, there was menace and danger in it and Suzanne was almost glad.

“Stay,” she whispered to the dog. She went to go wake the others.