“You’re delusional. She’s not a Sinclair. She never will be.”
“As for the rest of the town—” The General gestured was as though washing his hands of them. “Let me tell you what will happen since you won’t be present to see it. As we speak, my soldiers are preparing for battle. At dawn, they’ll descend upon Fall Creek and shred your flimsy barricades. They will mow down your civilians with targeted artillery. Mortar shells will blast them to pieces. There will be little left to identify the bodies afterward.”
Liam strained against his restraints to no avail. Dread sprouted in the pit of his stomach and formed teeth and claws.
A trim, muscled man strode into the room. His hard gaze zeroed in on Liam. “Why the hell is he still alive?”
“To suffer is good for the soul, Gibbs,” the General said.
“This dirtbag killed Matherson, Thomas, and Garcia!” Gibbs spat.
Hostility vibrated off the General’s men in waves. Hate flashed in their eyes. Liam had eliminated several of their own. They weren’t going to forget it.
They wanted to see him suffer.
If the General didn’t kill him, they certainly would. Slowly and painfully.
“And he will pay for it,” the General said. “But first, he will pay for my daughter.”
“Your daughter was a murderous tyrant,” Liam said. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
The General smiled, his eyes cold and ruthless. A predator’s eyes. “Within the next six hours, everyone you love will die. They will be afraid. They will suffer. And they will call out your name, and you will not be there to save them.”
He leaned forward, that rictus of a smile fixed upon his face. “You cannot save them.”
59
Liam
Day One Hundred and Fifteen
Liam trembled with black rage. He loathed this man with every fiber of his being. With great effort, he resisted the urge to launch himself at the General and smash the man’s face in with his head.
The General nodded at Gibbs. The operator stepped forward, quicker than he looked, and threw a savage haymaker punch to Liam’s nose.
Liam fell back, toppling sideways. Pain exploded from his nose and radiated through his cheekbones, his sinuses, and into his skull. He nearly blacked out from the pain.
He struggled to put it in a box, to focus on his mission.
As long as he wasn’t dead, there was still a chance.
“You’ll never get away with this.”
“I already have.”
“You can’t murder an entire town. Not even now. Word will get out. It always gets out. You think most of those five hundred National Guardsmen are sociopaths like you? They’re not. There will be consequences. You will be brought to justice.”
The General gave a hard bark of laughter. “You have no idea what’s happening in the outside world, do you? You know why no one’s coming? Why you haven’t seen any military other than a few scraggly National Guard?”
Liam said nothing. Hot blood leaked from his throbbing nose. It ran down his chin and dripped to his bare chest. A few droplets struck the concrete floor.
The General smiled, like he was enjoying this. “We’re at war. World War III. It’s been going on for months, and no one has any idea.”
A shuffling sound behind him. Low murmuring and wary looks exchanged among the General’s men. Apparently, he hadn’t made his bodyguards privy to the intel.
“China and Russia conspired against us. We didn’t know that at first, of course. They made it look like Iran attacked us. They weren’t supposed to have nukes. They did. The U.S. Army nuked them in retaliation. What do you think the Middle East looks like? They’re one of the few regions worse off than we are, I’ll tell you that.
“Russia and the remains of the U.S. military are engaged in a vicious proxy war over the ashes of the Middle East. The U.N. is impotent. Everyone is terrified either Russia or the U.S. will use nukes again.”
Liam rocked back, reeling. “Why would our own government keep that secret from us?”
“Why, indeed. The President declared martial law and seized federal control of all networks, cell towers, radio—everything. The feds realized that without nationwide communication, social media, or even functioning news outlets, they could keep things under wraps.
“The federal government has never held much faith in its people. The less real information you know, the easier it is to control you. If you tell three hundred and fifty million people their way of life is over, what will they do? How will they respond? Panic. Rioting and looting. Mass casualties. The response will be worse than the event itself.
“You have to string them along, give them hope; only parcel out information in small, palatable pieces. It keeps the populace obedient and subdued while the government deals with the enemies at the gate.
“The world is intricately interconnected,” the General continued. “The U.S. received the brunt of the blast, but the aftershocks wreaked a different devastation. When the EMP took out our grid, our economy collapsed instantaneously. The stock market was obliterated. World markets were crippled with no way to recover.
“It has destabilized the global economy. The UK is in crisis. Even with their electric grid still intact, most developed countries are in a tailspin. Riots and looting. Massive food shortages. Money markets imploding. Inflation rising by twenty percent a month. Banks freezing accounts.”
Liam thought of the repercussions of a crippled America rippling ever outward. The aftershocks unsettling the foundation of the civilized world, causing even more damage.
It was an overwhelming and utterly depressing thought.
“When the lights come back on in America, the entire planet will have realigned itself. What superpower will emerge to dominate the world? China and Russia are both vying for that position. The U.S. is determined to keep that from happening.