Why are some people so fucking crazy?
—Hugh Johnson, Brigade Notes
A hard slap to the face brought Hugh into consciousness. Pain exploded in his right shoulder. He opened his eyes and tried to focus.
Huh? What the hell?
He shook his head and then winced as invisible needles poked his eyes from inside his head.
“There you are. Wake up, dickhead,” said a rough voice.
Focus, damn it. Hugh zeroed in on the voice and then the face surrounding it. Deep blue eyes, brown hair liberally streaked with gray, trimmed beard. Dark eyebrows. Gray sweater. Northern USA type of accent. “Who the fuck are you?”
The guy smiled. “You aren’t dead.”
Hugh tried to move and then realized he was tied to a chair—nowhere near the control room of the nuclear power plant. How had they moved him? He looked around. He sat in a chair in what looked like a metal storage facility. Yusef sat in another chair over in the corner, typing into a tablet. Against the opposite wall, a stunning redhead with green eyes watched Hugh impassively, her perfectly manicured hands at her hips.
“Where am I?” Hugh asked. His head pounded with strong hammer strokes.
“To answer your questions, I’m Orion, and this is a temporary stop,” the guy said, pulling up another metal chair so they were almost knee to knee. “Or your grave, I guess.”
Well, fuck. Hugh looked at his right shoulder, not surprised to see blood all over his shirt. He’d gotten hit again? “You shot me, asshole,” he said mildly to Yusef.
The guy didn’t even look up from his tablet.
“He doesn’t talk much,” Orion said.
Hugh squinted a little, feeling lightheaded. “But you do. What the hell was your name?” His brain was fuzzy.
“Orion,” the guy said.
Hugh snorted. “That’s freakin odd. Very.”
“I earned it the hard way,” Orion said, his voice a low rumble. The more he talked, the more he sounded like a native Kentuckian.
Huh. This guy was nowhere near Hugh’s radar and had never been. “You attacked the plant?”
“Yep.” Orion smiled, flashing perfectly tended white teeth.
“I’ve never heard of you.”
Orion nodded. “I’ve stayed away from notoriety. Just prepping for the opportunity.”
Prepping? Had he just said “prepping?” Hugh frowned. “Like those guys who store food and ammunition in the woods, pretending to be soldiers?”
“We’re not pretending. Just waiting for an opportunity created by God,” Orion said.
Wait a minute. Hugh slowly shook his pounding head. “You’re an apocalyptic prepper. Seriously? One just waiting for a chance to harm people.”
Orion leaned back. “No. Of course not.”
What the hell was happening? “Did I hit my head?”
“Yes. After you got shot. It was hell getting you out of the plant before your friends caught up with us,” Orion said. “They really should vacate the premises now.”
Shit. Ellie. Hugh struggled against the restraints, biting back pain as his shoulder protested. Vehemently. “Okay. Let me get this straight. You’re a terrorist because you’ve been given the opportunity?” Why was the world so cloudy? How hard had he hit his head, anyway?
Orion rubbed broad hands down his dark jeans. “No. I’ve been prepping and getting ready for the apocalypse for some time. After studying the issue, I’ve determined that the only way my people will survive is if we cut down on competition for meager resources.”
Nausea rolled in Hugh’s gut. “So you’re killing a hundred thousand people and making this area unlivable? That makes sense to you?” He glanced at the woman.
She looked to Orion. “He knows what he’s doing. Orion will save us all.”
Jesus. “You’re stuck in a cult, sweetheart,” Hugh muttered, shaking his head. “This is ridiculous.” He leaned to the side to see Yusef, the guy who had once really been on Hugh’s radar. “How’d you get back into the country, anyway?”
“He had help,” Orion said. “The man knows his way around computers, so I recruited him. But he doesn’t really believe in our calling. Our paths just converged.” Casually, almost slowly, Orion pulled a gun from his boot and pressed it to his knee. “I told him he could kill you when we were done chatting.”
“I do love a good chat,” Hugh said calmly, trying not to puke. This man was freaky nuts. “Had some training, have you?”
“Most of us at the Haven have.”
Hugh blinked. “The Haven. I’ve heard of you.” When he’d been undercover. Gregor had mentioned the group. So they really did exist. As a prepping cult preparing for the apocalypse. Life just kept getting weirder.
Orion’s eyebrow rose. “That’s interesting. I thought we’d been silent.”
Hugh swallowed, his throat feeling parched. “Nobody is that silent.” Yet he’d never heard of this guy.
“I brought you here for some answers. So you’ve heard of the Haven but not of me.” Orion frowned and leaned forward, pressing a thumb into Hugh’s wound. “What have you learned?”
Hugh groaned as pain flew down his arm. His heart stuttered. “You’re from Kentucky, aren’t you?”
The man’s eyes hardened. “No. Boston.”
Lie. That was definitely a lie.
Hugh shook his head, trying not to pass out. Blackness crawled in from the distance, and his vision wavered. “Get your fucking thumb out of my flesh.”
Orion sat back and wiped his thumb off on Hugh’s jeans. “That was kind of grotesque. Just answer my questions so I don’t have to do it again.”
“Fuck you.”
The woman giggled. Not laughed. Not chuckled. Giggled. “He’s tough.”
Orion cut her a smile. “He’s about to lose consciousness again. Not so tough.” He leaned in. “How did you know about this particular threat? What clue did we leave?”
Admitting it was just statistics, and luck wasn’t going to get Hugh anywhere. He glanced at Yusef and then back. “Maybe your allies don’t really believe in your cause. You know?”
Orion stiffened. “What are you saying?”
“You tell him, Yusef,” Hugh called out. “Let’s just say that you’re not his only ally. In fact, you’re not even in his top ten.” Shit. This was a total bluff. What the hell did Hugh know?
Orion looked over his shoulder as Yusef glanced up from his tablet. “Yusef?”
The younger man met Orion’s gaze evenly. “He is manipulating you. I have not told anybody about you or the Haven.”
Orion looked back at Hugh.
Hugh shrugged. “I heard about the Haven from a gun runner who’s good buddies with Yusef. When there’s information that needs to be traded, this guy doesn’t have your back, Orion.” He could sense distrust. What he hoped was distrust. It might just be his desperation to live that was messing with him. “Why don’t you just shoot him?”
Orion studied Hugh, not looking too bothered by the idea. “How did you know about the plant here being a target? I didn’t tell anybody until we arrived.”
So much for sowing the seeds of distrust. Hugh rolled his eyes. “Where else would you hit?”
“Arizona,” Orion said instantly.
Hugh coughed. Was that blood in his mouth? Was he bleeding internally? No. A shoulder wound wouldn’t do that. “Yeah, I thought about Arizona, too. Better casualty rate in Pennsylvania. Easier to get to from the east coast, too.”
Orion nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
So the bastard’s headquarters was on the east coast somewhere. Or could it be back in Kentucky? There was game to eat and water to drink. Hills to hide in. Orion wouldn’t be near a major city. Not as a prepper. “You know, I’ve studied threats for years. Real ones,” Hugh murmured, his head almost lolling on his shoulders.
“Yeah?” Orion asked.
“Yeah. And not once did I think I’d have problems with homegrown prepper terrorists.” Weren’t most preppers off living in mountains and squirreling away food and medical supplies, just wanting to be left alone? “Not once.”
The woman against the wall looked at her watch. “Orion? We should probably get going. The HMX is supposed to detonate soon.”
HMX? “Where the hell did you get that shit?” Hugh tried to narrow his focus. Man, his head fucking hurt. Worse than his shoulder, actually. HMX was a plastic explosive more powerful than C-4. Damn it. He blinked and tried to send the pain somewhere else. He had to figure out how much time Ellie had. “How much HMX?”
“Enough to spread radiation far and wide,” Yusef said, still typing. He chuckled quietly.
Hugh kept his focus on Orion. One lunatic at a time. “How many explosives were set? Or do you even know?”
“He’s trying to manipulate you,” the woman said, looking kind of like a sleek cat.
“I know, Wanda,” Orion said. “It’s okay. Hugh Johnson of the DNDO probably has some training in interrogation. Not what you have, of course.”
Ah shit. They’d taken his wallet. “What do you have, Wanda?” Hugh asked. The more he found out about this nutty trio, the better. Assuming he survived this.
“Plenty,” she murmured, her voice educated and cultured. While she wore a dark sweater and jeans, her boots looked shiny and expensive. What Hugh knew about fashion could fit in an egg cup, but the woman looked like money. Odd for a prepper. “I also know that we really must get going. My understanding of the radiation radius is that we’re running out of time.” She moved to the closed roll-down door and waited.
Orion patted Hugh on the leg. “I’m sorry we can’t talk longer. I have many questions for you.”
“We can bring him with us,” Wanda said.
“No,” Yusef said, finally setting down his tablet. “I get a personal kill today. You gave me your word.”
Orion stood. “That I did. We’ll meet you at the border.” He chucked Hugh almost good-naturedly on the chin and kept on walking, easily lifting the door. Only another closed door across the hallway was visible. “Good-bye, Hugh.” He took Wanda’s arm and escorted her out of sight.
Hugh set his feet inside the legs of the chair. They’d tied his wrists to the metal but not his ankles. “Why you want me dead, Yusef?” Hugh asked, gingerly trying to see if his injured shoulder still worked at all.
Yusef stood and took off his glasses, placing them on his chair along with his tablet. “Your military causes more deaths abroad than you can know. We’re tired of it.”
“How about you and I start a dialogue right now about that?” Hugh asked, wincing as his shoulder pulled. He needed to focus through the pain and forget fear. There was only now.
“There’s not time. Your people are blowing up a nuclear power plant.” Yusef drew a knife from his back pocket. Double edged and military issued, the blade gleamed in the dim light. “Just think of the damage.”
“I am,” Hugh said softly. “You can’t really align with that moron Orion.”
“No. He’s just a means to an end. And he’s not that stupid.” Yusef took another step closer. “You should see the way his people follow him. Blindly and with total conviction.”
Hugh braced his knees. “How about you and I get out of here and go stop the bomb? Save a hundred thousand people?” And Ellie. God, he had to save Ellie. His gut churned and sweat burned into his eyes.
“No.” Yusef drew ever nearer. “Have you ever sliced another man’s jugular?”
“No,” Hugh said, tilting his head to the side. “Have you?”
Yusef just shrugged. Then he struck.
Hugh waited one second and then leaped up, turning and smashing the chair into the oncoming man. Yusef went down. Hugh leaped around and dropped, his knees slamming on either side of Yusef’s neck.
A fast twist and a balance on the chair, and Yusef’s neck snapped.
Hugh panted and staggered to his feet, letting the body drop. For years, he’d trained in hand-to-hand, just in case. “I didn’t want to kill you.” He spoke the absolute truth.
Quiet came from outside.
He looked around for anything to get the damn chair off his back. Time was running short.
He had to get to Ellie.