Final Winter

Adrianna sat down, her legs quivering now like she had just run a marathon, and the screaming inside her mind started, victory, victory, holy victory. She was startled when a man at her right — Gideon, a Tiger Team leader stationed in Los Angeles — leaned over and said, ‘That was something funny you said just then, Adrianna.’

‘What was that?’ she replied, barely focusing on what he was saying.

‘The Director asked about an anthrax attack, and you said, “when we’re attacked”. You’re that certain — that it’s going to be when, not if?’

Adrianna turned and gave Gideon her best smile. ‘Absolutely. It’s going to be when. Not if.’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Several hours after the meeting of the Tiger Team leaders, the members of Tiger Team Seven followed their own leader’s instructions and took the day off. Each one of the members did something that day that partially revealed who they were and where they came from, though each would seriously challenge anyone who tried to analyze their activities. It was just a day off, a jewel to be cherished, that was all, and trying to read anything into it was so much bullshit.

Which was true for all the Tiger Team members, save one.

~ * ~

In the small garage in Monty Zane’s rental home outside Greenbelt — he had never owned property in his entire life, though that was going to change once he became a civilian -Monty lovingly polished the bright red gas tank of his Harley Davidson Road King motorcycle. Every piece of chrome and exposed metalwork was bright and reflective, and even the fat tires of his hog had been polished with Armor All. He wiped his fingers on the rag and stepped back, admiring the look of the beast, bad-ass and powerful, all that energy just tied up and bundled in that lovely Twin Cam 88 engine of pure Pennsylvania energy.

The door of the house opened and Charlene stepped out, frowning, her blonde hair freshly washed, just barely touching her shoulders, a towel wrapped around her lovely midriff. ‘Are you going to ride that damn thing or just drool over it?’

Monty laughed, wiped his hands again. ‘You know, babe, sometimes drooling comes from riding things… as you know.’

Charlene smiled and then stuck out her tongue at him. ‘You should be so lucky — which you will be, if you get your muscular ass back here before two o’clock, ‘fore the kids get home. Deal?’

‘Deal, love.’

‘Good,’ she said, walking back into the kitchen, flipping up the towel to show off her shapely butt. ‘Now have a good ride and don’t get killed.’

Monty kept on smiling as he toggled the garage door opener. When the way was clear he straddled the bike and switched on the ignition, gave the start-up lever a good pop. The Harley roared into life with a satisfying thump-burble-burble and in a few seconds he was down the driveway and out on the road. He checked his Timex. A good four hours of quality driving time ahead of him, no highways, no urban centers, just get out into those blue country lanes that still crisscrossed this marvelous land of his, and he remembered those sweet last words of Charlene. Don’t get killed. Maybe a joke but there was a bit of seriousness back there, remembering what happened to him back on September 10th, that awful year. Monty liked keeping secrets from the civilians he worked for — made his image that much meaner and more mysterious — and he knew that everybody gossiped about the burn marks on his face. There were questions about where he had gotten burned — Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan -and everyone assumed that he had been torched in the line of duty, on some heroic mission, and they all assumed wrong. He had been burned on his day off, and in Mary-goddamn-land, when some kid with a week-old driver’s license had blown through a stop sign and punched through the side of another car in front of Monty. He had dumped the cycle, sliding into the car just as the gasoline cooked off and toasted part of his face. And the day and weeks after, when the hammer came down in Afghanistan, he had been stuck in a burn unit, cursing his luck, as his comrades went out and did a job that they had trained their entire lives for.

Not a heroic story at all, damn it.

The motorcycle now seemed like an extension of him as he drove east, not caring what particular road he took or where he was going. The trip was the destination, that was all, just the feeling of the wind in his face, the scent of things growing, the sights of the farmland out there, still being tilled, year after year.

Monty grinned, thinking of what it must have been like out here a couple of centuries ago. Some of those farm buildings had been out there then, fresh new, home to farmers and grazers, and Monty had no doubt that some of his ancestors had been out there as well, working for the Man, dying and living and praying out there in bondage, and here he was, a descendant of theirs, not only prospering in this country but actually sworn to defend it, and man, that was a good feeling.

He kept on riding.