Zero day code, p.34
Zero Day Code, page 34
part #1 of End of Days Series
“That’s two guns you have trained on me, shopkeeper. But I can put three times that number on you.”
The gasp when his men raised their weapons to point them at O’Shannassy was loud. So loud that nobody heard the two police cars pull up a hundred yards down the road.
But Jonas saw them. He’d been looking for a way out.
“Sheriff’s here,” he said and his voice, pitched into the pool of quiet after that collective inhalation of breath, carried all the way over the park. A thousand heads turned, all the gunmen included, and you could feel the tension suddenly come off a peak.
Jonas saw his chance.
He saw two roads leading away from this point in time, heading off in two very different directions. He stepped into his future.
“I can help here,” he said, pushing his way out of the crowd and placing himself between the two men.
They both looked at him as if he was nuts. And there was a fair chance they judged him right.
But Jonas saw his chance.
“The hell is going on here?" Sheriff Muller scowled as he marched into the confrontation between the militia captain and his old sparring partner. He sounded tired and angry, but mostly tired, and the day hadn’t even really begun. The crowd moved almost gently, like the lapping waves of a low tide. Both Wolfenden and O’Shannassy tried to speak at once, along with a dozen or so onlookers including Dale Juntii and a couple of the militia men.
"Whoa there, everyone just climb down off of the ramparts,” Muller cautioned. His eyes caught Jonas who smiled helpfully, as though he couldn’t wait to let ol’ Sherriff Dave in on some fantastic joke.
"Mr Murdoch. You want to tell me what's going on here? As an impartial observer. Although to be honest I'm pretty sure I can already guess."
Neither Wolfenden nor O'Shannassy were pleased to cede the making of their case to a third-party, but with two more deputies arriving and tenuous control of the situation seeming to pass into the steady hands of Sheriff Dave Muller, each man kept his own counsel. The crowd had started to murmur again, the buzz building quickly, and Jonas stepped forward, turning to Muller and shielding his eyes against the morning sun.
"Sheriff," he said in his most soothing courtroom voice. “I promise you there is less to this than meets the eye.” Muller snorted quietly at the attempted humour. He would appreciate the need of it in a tense situation. Jonas inclined his head towards Wolfenden and his men.
“These men,” he said, “have had a long hot walk to get up here. I understand you assured them they'd be welcome in town and that nobody would interfere with their freedom of movement, including the freedom to move on."
Muller nodded cautiously. Wolfenden seemed as though he was chewing over an objection but decided against it. Jonas had pulled on his old courtroom persona like a favourite tee-shirt, long lost, now rediscovered. He’d forgotten how much he enjoyed being on his feet in front of an audience and just rolling with the bullshit. He had loved this part of being an attorney. The hire wire act. The rapt attention. Podcasting from his loungeroom really wasn’t the same, although it had kept in him the habit of talking without stopping for hours on end.
"Mr O'Shannassy here,” he went on, “has quite reasonably had to secure his business against panic and disorder and not just because of our current difficult circumstances. He, like the rest of us, is now under instruction from the government, from Homeland Security, about the need for temporary rationing of our resources, again because of a short-term crisis which is the fault of nobody here. Not Mr O'Shannassy. Not Mr Wolfenden. And certainly nobody resident in Silverton. A fair summation?" Jonas asked, drawing both men into his performance.
Neither of the principals had been insulted, nor had Jonas spoken to confer any advantage over one or the other. Both could agree, if reluctantly, that he had just given a fair summary. Nearly a hundred people, those who had crowded in close to the exchange, murmured and nodded and generally gave their assent too.
It had been a long time since Jonas Murdoch had stood before the bench and addressed a judge or a jury. And if hard truth be known, he hadn’t been particularly good at it. Probably because he had such shitty fucking clients. And he worked for a third-rate firm. But damn if he wasn’t nailing this submission. Projecting his voice across the open-air forum, he had everyone waiting on him to continue.
"Now I'm sure Mr Wolfenden and his men would like nothing more than to conclude their business as quickly as possible,” he said, raising his voice like a trained stump speaker and turning to address the crowd, not just Sheriff Muller and the two blockheads. “They look well prepared to handle whatever is going on,” Jonas continued, “and all they would require from Mr O'Shannassy, or any retailer who might supply them, are a few basic consumables. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr Wolfenden. But I don't imagine you will get anywhere near spending the hundred-dollar limit imposed this morning."
Jonas held up his cell phone to remind everybody of the text message they had all received. Everybody but him, of course. Because his phone was powered down so that it couldn't be tracked. The small theatrical gesture, the deployment of a carefully chosen prop, worked well here, as it so often did in court. He saw plenty of people nodding and quietly muttering to each other in agreement. He moved on while he had their indulgence. Muller was staring at him as though wondering what he’d set loose on his town. This was not the taciturn outsider who’d ridden into town and let his fists do the talking just yesterday. Nor was he the crude, sly bigot who’d so quickly got Brad Rausch on his side.
Muller didn't know it, but he’d invited the Centurion into his town.
"Mr O'Shannassy on the other hand is simply concerned to do the best thing by his hometown,” Jonas continued. “Perhaps this rationing order might be lifted by tomorrow. Perhaps it could be more severe by this time next week…"
A murmur ran through the audience at that. Good, he wanted them a little off balance, a little nervous. That way they were more likely to take direction from someone who sounded like he knew what he was doing.
“With this in mind, Mr O'Shannassy was simply establishing the legal and practical effect of his control over a very important resource. It's a hot morning. We’re all a bit freaked out. But I think if everybody can just take a breather and agree that we are all in this together, because we are, the rest of this day can run a heck of a lot smoother than the start of it has."
Jonas looked to each antagonist in turn, inviting them to agree with his oh-so-reasonable characterisation of their position. Wolfenden conceded first, gently patting the air with one hand to tell his men to put their weapons away. O'Shannassy nodded and growled, “Fair enough then, I suppose. But he’s right about the rationing. Could be this goes on longer than anyone in the government has planned for, or is letting on."
"Could be," Jonas agreed. "But sufficient unto the day are the hassles thereof. Let's deal with them first."
"Yeah, let's do that," said Sherriff Dave, stepping into the breach between Wolfenden and O’Shannassy, asserting his ownership of the situation again. "It looks like we got about three or four thousand people humping it up the mountain. We can't have them camping here. That’ll be a public health issue within a couple of hours. Be best for everyone if they just picked up whatever supplies they needed, within reason," he added quickly when he saw O'Shannassy about to flare up, "and carried on to the camping grounds at Ross Lake. Plenty of space for everyone out there, and all the amenities for even more if needed. Toilets, hot showers, camping sites.”
"Agreed," O'Shannassy said loudly. "But we need to settle on what constitutes reasonable, Sherriff. Four thousand people spending a ration allotment of $100 each will clean us out. It’ll leave nothing for those of who actually live here.”
Jonas almost smirked at the way that O'Shannassy quickly settled on the sheriff’s higher estimate of the number of refugees. He wondered how many votes this guy had lost by in their election showdown. Jonas had no intention of losing his leading role in this drama, however, so he spoke up again.
"Sheriff," he said, "I don't know what kind of information you're getting out of the state capital, or DC for that matter. But it strikes me that at the very least you need to know what's happening down the hill and you have a pretty good resource right here in Mr Wolfenden."
The militia captain looked surprised at that, if not entirely unhappy. O'Shannassy's face darkened. Before he could speak up, however, Jonas was already pushing more of his pieces out across the board.
"Mr Wolfenden," he said, "if I’m right to assume you have pretty basic needs for resupply, can I suggest that Sheriff Muller escorts you into and through Mr O'Shannassy's store while Darren…" He nodded at O'Shannassy to acknowledge the liberty he took using his first name, "… Liaises with the other deputies and town leadership to work out how to handle the surge coming through in the next couple of hours. Because it will need to be handled. Meanwhile you can brief the sheriff on what's been happening in Seattle and elsewhere. Your information is more current than mine. I left before you did, and without due preparations… I was hoping to take my vacation," he smiled innocently and even a little gormlessly. He knew a guy like Wolfenden would enjoy any comparison with his apocalyptic ineptitude.
Nobody could think of any objections. Wolfenden got to play out his doomsday prepper fantasy. O'Shannassy got to revel in his role as a chieftain of the town. And Muller got a debriefing and a de-escalation of a potentially violent confrontation. Everyone was a winner.
Especially Jonas.
The first pulse of the main body of walkers had entered the eastern end of Silverton while Jonas was speaking. The town common was now badly overcrowded. People spilled onto the roadway on both sides of the park and the crowd noise was building up again. Muller detailed two of his deputies to begin organising the crowd. He suggested moving anybody who needed to rest to the shaded fields behind the town hall where the county fair was held each year. Dr Cornwell already had half a dozen cases of heat stress to attend, and she lobbied the town selectmen who were now milling around to open up the administrative building as a triage and treatment point. It was comparatively large and, more importantly, it was air-conditioned. Muller also volunteered to open up one of his two jail cells. Unfortunately, the other was still occupied by Morena, Al Barrett's attacker.
Jonas tagged everybody that Sherriff Muller and Darren O’Shannassy consulted in the next few minutes. They would all be members of the town’s official and unofficial power structure. He noted the due deference Muller paid to Howard Wetsman, the county comptroller, and the distance he maintained from Selectwoman Natalie Bochenski, who was obviously allied with O’Shannassy’s faction. Doc Cornwell appeared to be held in good opinion by all and acted as something of a messenger between the rival groups. It wasn’t a million miles removed from the shifting protean hierarchies of the Florida Bar. Or the jail house gangs he’d repped as a shitbird lawyer for Hondo Alvarez. It was a delicate balancing act, not losing contact with the action at the centre of things, but not asserting himself so aggressively that Muller told him to fuck off.
It paid a generous dividend when the lawman asked Wolfenden to speak with him privately inside the Red Apple, and O’Shannassy insisted on being there while they spoke, causing the militia captain to demand in turn that Jonas act as mediator again.
“No offence, shopkeeper” Wolfenden deadpanned.
“None taken, but I’m gonna watch you every second you’re in my place of business.”
Muller rolled his eyes but agreed, just to keep the peace.
“Let’s make it quick, gentlemen,” the sheriff said. “I want to start moving these people through to Ross Lake as soon as possible.”
O’Shannassy unlocked the bolt securing the sliding doors at the front of his market and led the other three inside. It was a relief to get out of the sun and into the chilled air. They walked through the fresh produce stands, laden with summer fruits and green vegetables, past the deli and butcher’s counters, and through a narrow gap between the frozen goods and liquor cabinets to a large storage and cold room. O’Shannassy had an office back there and gestured for the others to precede him into the room.
“Nice shop,” Wolfenden said, in a cool, level tone as they took up whatever perch they could find around the office. O’Shannassy laid his shotgun on the desk on top a blizzard of paper and in front of an open HP laptop. In something akin to a peace-making gesture, Wolfenden put his AR-15 down alongside it. He rolled his shoulders, as if glad to be free of the burden.
“Right, Mister Wolfenden,” Muller said. “Be quick. What the hell is happening down the mountain? Why’d you decide to hike all the way up here? And how’d those other folks all get the same idea?”
The militiaman shrugged.
“They’re smart, I guess. Although not smart enough to have done their prep. I was listening to them all the way up. They each got their own reasons, but bottom line is they know a city is a hellish place to be in a war, so they got out. That’s why my team left.”
Muller frowned. O’Shannassy scoffed openly.
“Your team? You think the Chinese are gonna invade? That’s the dumbest fucking thing I heard of since Medicare for all.”
Jonas flicked his eyes from one man to the other. If O’Shannassy meant to upset Wolfenden he failed. The man just smiled.
“The Chinese are busy with their conquests,” he said. “They’re not gonna waste blood and treasure coming here. But they could toss off a few nukes, just to keep us from getting up in their grill.”
“Bullshit,” O’Shannassy shot back. “If they did that, we got thousands more to send right back.”
“That’s my thinking too,” Wolfenden said, surprising everyone. “They can’t win that exchange. They’re making sure they don’t have to fight a war with us. That’s why Seattle is so fucked up. Not just the roads. Nothing is working. You don’t believe me, check your stock control systems. Try ordering from your suppliers. It’s all over the news. There are no food suppliers anymore.”
Muller looked at O’Shannassy, who frowned.
“Gimme a second,” he said, opening the laptop. He worked the keyboard in silence, save for the clicking of the keys. A minute later, his face looking increasingly dark, he said, “I can’t bring up the inventory pages. It should be a live link, but it’s like they’re not even there.”
“And this was enough for you to walk out of the city?” Muller asked Wolfenden.
“Enough for me and plenty of others, Sheriff. A big city can’t feed itself for much more than a week. You remember New Orleans, right? That hurricane? That’s gonna be happening everywhere in a couple of days. Government’s pulling back ground forces from all over and I guarantee you martial law is next. Me and my guys? We are ready for this. We are good to fucking go. So, we’re gone.”
Because none of you have girlfriends, Jonas thought. But he said nothing.
O’Shannassy was looking at his recent antagonist with a new respect.
“What do you need?” he asked, unbidden.
“Some freeze-dried coffee, long life milk if you got it. And chocolate,” he said almost apologetically. “Daryl, one of our guys, had all of that and he got caught out of town. We couldn’t wait on him. Shit had already gone sideways. We didn’t plan to walk out of the city. We had off road capability, but it was literally impossible to get out of our goddamn neighbourhoods in any kind of vehicle.”
“Except a bike,” Jonas put in.
“Not with the loads we’re hauling, son,” Wolfenden retorted. “Traffic management didn’t just collapse. It was weaponised.”
“I can confirm that, Dave” Jonas said. “Saw some big pile ups. Like the lights had been hacked to send the traffic streams crashing into each other. Thought the cops might have cleared it by now.”
“Nope,” Wolfenden said, almost cheerily. “It’s worse.”
“Goddamn,” Dave Muller said quietly. “This is gonna be an epic fustercluck before it gets sorted.”
“If it gets sorted,” Wolfenden said.
“What do you mean?” Muller asked.
O’Shannassy was hanging on the reply too.
Jonas leaned quietly against the wall, taking it all in.
“An attack like this will not go unanswered,” Wolfenden said. “Not even by the useless bastards in this Administration. They’ll hit back. It’ll escalate. And other actors will get pulled in too. Russia’s already moving on Europe, cos she’s such an easy bitch. When the rag heads see things falling apart, they’ll put the dagger in too. Syrians have got some good hackers, and they’re not as constrained as, say, Moscow. Cos who you gonna bomb if some rando Arab decides to turn off all the safeties in a nuclear power plant? Like the one near Richland?”
Like O’Shannassy, Jonas was starting to warm to this guy, too.
Only Sheriff Dave looked like he wanted to be sick.
“I’ll take what you’ll sell me,” Wolfenden said to Darren O’Shannassy. “And we’ll move on. This little town is way too close to the city for my liking. A word of advice for you, Sheriff. You should either evacuate your people to a stronghold, or you should prepare to be overrun by maybe half a million starving scavengers in a week or so.”
Nobody spoke for a moment. Jonas broke the silence, deliberately.
“There’s a lot more than half a million people in Seattle,” he said.
“Yeah,” Wolfenden smiled. “But by the time they break out and fall on this place, they’ll already be killing each other. They get hungry enough, they’ll start eating each other too.”
Muller looked horrified.
O’Shannassy wasn’t far behind him.
Jonas kept his expression neutral.
This was going so much better than he expected.
33
Cowboy the Fuck Up
They reached Germantown within fifteen minutes of the time James had predicted. But that was the last of his predictions which played out. He had two clients here. A retired director of the Atomic Energy Commission. And the CEO of a small technology company, an engineer who had arrived in Maryland from the former East Germany less than a week after the Wall came down. Neither of them were home.
