Fear (A Gone Novel)

Outside

SERGEANT DARIUS ASHTON saw the signs that in his absence his quarters had been entered. Nothing most people would notice, but he was by long habit a very organized man. He had a small room in the NCO barracks, no bigger than a walk-in closet, really. The bunk was narrow and the army-issue blanket was so tight you could bounce a quarter off it. The pillow squared just so. And now there was just the slightest indentation where someone had sat on the edge of the bed and then tried to smooth it.

"Pff, that will not cut it," he said dismissively. "Not in this man's army."

He moved next to his footlocker. Yep. They'd been careful, but it had been searched.

The question was, where had they put the bug? They'd surely tap his cell phone—that was a given—and they'd use the phone's GPS to keep track of his location. But had they placed a bug in here as well?

He turned off the tracking feature for his phone. They'd still be able to see what towers his signal reached, but that was a far less accurate way to track him. The GPS would narrow his location to a few feet. Tracking the tower signals would only put them within a mile of his location.

With that done, he turned to searching for a bug. It didn't take long to find it. It was a small room without a lot of options. The bug was in the base of the lamp. Someone had drilled a very tiny hole in the base to allow better reception by a mike no thicker than a piece of angel hair pasta.

Well. Okay, then.

So, he would have to be very careful.

He'd already decided to tell Connie. He was under orders. He had signed the secrecy document. But Sergeant Darius Ashton had been in the army long enough to know that the bigger the secret, the more likely it was to be FUBAR.

And this—setting off a nuclear weapon underneath a bunch of kids who were fighting for their lives—that was FUBAR. Not to mention wrong.

If word got out, the American people wouldn't let it happen. He was an American soldier. He obeyed the chain of command from his lieutenant to his captain to the colonel to the general and on up to the president of the United States. But no American soldier was required—or could ever be legally required—to kill American citizens on American soil. No way. No. That was not what he promised to do when he raised his hand and was sworn in as a soldier.

I, Darius Lee Ashton, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the president of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Thing one: defend the Constitution. He was no constitutional law scholar, but he was pretty sure it did not call for nuking a bunch of kids in California.

And the obeying orders part? It said according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Which quite definitely did not say that an American soldier should get into the business of killing American kids. No.

At the same time, Darius was not interested in spending the rest of his life in a windowless cell at Fort Leavenworth. That would be the hard part: to do the right thing and manage not to get caught doing it.

He lay back on his bunk and gave it some thought. Time was short. He was morally certain of that. There was way too much activity out there. Those boys were in a hurry.

If he left his cell phone here and went out they'd know he was up to something. They would have to see his cell phone move. Texts, email, all of that would be intercepted. This would have to be old-school. Face-to-face. And if it all went to hell later, he'd have to have left no evidence whatsoever.

He tried to recall everything he knew about Connie Temple. What would she be doing right now? Where would she be? What was today? Thursday? No. It was Friday.

Too early for Connie to be cooking ribs. But not too early for her to be shopping for the Friday-night cookout.

It was a long shot.

But if Connie Temple was cooking ribs then there were only two places she could buy them. Fortunately the Vons grocery and the Fat N' Greezy rib stand were in the same strip center.

Darius stuck his phone in his pocket. He stopped by a buddy's room on the way out, said he was going to drive down to Vons for some munchies and beer. His buddy told him to pick up some Cheetos. The spicy ones.

It was a twenty-minute drive to Vons. And since it was a straight shot down the highway he was pretty sure he wasn't being followed. They had no reason to suspect him, anyway, and they had lots of other people to watch.

He passed Connie's trailer on the way. Her silver Kia was not in its usual spot.

Unfortunately it was also not in the Vons parking lot.

Darius killed some time filling his tank at the Chevron. He had a good view of the parking lot.

He drove through McDonald's for a coffee.

After that all he could do was wait. An hour he could explain. Two hours? That would be pushing it. Then he spotted the solution: the movie theaters. Three movies showing, all of them crap, but he'd seen one of them. Perfect. He went to the theater and bought a ticket using a credit card. He went inside and bought fifteen dollars' worth worth of popcorn and candy.

As soon as the previews started he ditched the junk food and let himself out through one of the side exits. He was careful to keep his ticket stub.

Outside he almost instantly spotted the silver Kia.

There would be security cameras inside Vons, which was where Connie went. So he moved his own car until it was parked beside Connie's. And waited.

She came out with a cart half-full of plastic bags. She didn't notice him sitting there until she was behind the wheel of her car. Then he rolled down the window.

She did the same.

He looked at her. "I'm putting my life in your hands, Con," he said.

"What are you talking about?"

"Life in prison if I get caught and convicted."

Her brow furrowed. It made her look older. Which was fine with him; he liked a woman who looked like a woman.

"What is it, Darius?"

"They're going to nuke the dome."