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She thought about it for miles of that walk.
“Because no one else will,” she said, then paused and amended that statement. “Because no one else will bother.”
He nodded. “Give me more.”
“Because . . . if we walk away, if we let what they’re doing to people in there stand, then we are allowing it. We’re . . . what’s the word? Complicit.”
Church took her hand and raised it to his lips and kissed it. There was nothing remotely romantic or sexual about it. He held it for a moment and then let it go. He said no more to her about it. Now, maybe there would be no time to ever finish that discussion.
All there was left, was the war.
— 49 —
THE WAR
Big Elroy had ridden with the Rovers for years before the dead rose, but not his whole life. Before he was a biker he’d been a soldier. A sergeant in the army who’d served with distinction in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then was brought up on charges of rape. The victim, a thirteen-year-old girl, ignored threats against her own life and those of her family to testify. The army believed her and Big Elroy was stripped of rank, given a dishonorable discharge, and barely avoided jail time. If the girl had been white, he knew he’d have served time.
He wasn’t out of work long before receiving a job offer from Blue Diamond, a security firm that provided, among other things, military contractors. No one called them mercenaries anymore.
Big Elroy spent eight wonderful years on gigs in the Middle East, Africa, and Central America. He did not much care who cut the checks to Blue Diamond. What mattered was that he was having fun and getting paid well. Blue Diamond respected his skill set and his understanding of tactics and strategy. By his eighth year, Big Elroy was running his own team and designing complex mission plans.
Then he got shot. For a soldier it would have been called a million-dollar wound; the kind of injury that insures you’ll never have to see the hell of combat again. For a contractor like him, it was like being pissed on. He had a limp he’d never shake and some nerve damage in his left hand. He lost more than seventy percent of the sight in his right eye. They gave him a severance package and a swift kick in the ass. Within six months he was riding with the Rovers.
Now he was the Rovers. He’d been on the rise within the club before things went to shit, and when the dead rose and the top tier management of the Rovers club began eating each other, Big Elroy stepped in to fill a critical vacancy.
Now he had two hundred and twenty soldiers in this region and another two hundred out in scavenging teams throughout Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. By tomorrow, he’d even have his own kingdom.
Happy fucking Valley.
Maybe he’d call it Rovertown. Maybe he’d call it Elroytown.
Either way, it was his. All he had to do was take it.
He stood like a general from some old Napoleonic war painting, sitting astride a horse on a hill that commanded a wide view of the valley. There were fires burning out front. There were fake-out teams and snipers on the east and in back.
And the main force of his army was ready to rock and roll.
Waiting for his word. He wished he had one of those cavalry sabers so he could hold it high and slash it down to signal the charge. Fuck, he should have thought of that. Ah well, a fire axe would work. He raised his. The lines of Rovers on the far side of the ridge tensed. The east was as pure and untouched as that girl in Iraq had been. Ready for the big meat.
He raised his axe and then paused with it over his head. There was something weird down there on the field. Two of the Rovers in white hazmat suits were walking along the base of the wall, doing something he couldn’t quite see. The distance was too great.
“Jesus Christ,” he roared, and turned to one of his lieutenants, “what the fuck are those two jerkoffs doing down there? They’re going to be seen.”
“I . . . ” began the lieutenant. “It, um, looks like they’re checking on the ladders.”
It did look like that. The pair of Rovers were moving from one concealed ladder to the next and bending over them for a moment each.
“Get them the hell out of there, for Christ’s sake. They’re going to screw up the charge.”
“Wait,” said the lieutenant, “they’re moving off. Maybe they were just checking to make sure the stuff was good.”
“Why in the hell would they do something like that?”
“I . . . ”
“Never mind. Find out who they are,” said Big Elroy with a snarl. “I’m going to hang them by their balls.”
“Yeah, you got it,” said the lieutenant. “It looks clear.”
