Surviving the Evacuation 07.2 Divided by Frank Tayell

Author:Frank Tayell [Tayell, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Butch
Published: 2016-06-23T03:00:00+00:00

He’d read somewhere that a beard grew at some fraction of an inch per day. He rubbed his chin’s bristly growth, trying to remember what that number was, but his mind began to drift. Where had he read that? It was a magazine. Was it in a waiting room? A dentist’s, perhaps. Or a barber’s? He always enjoyed haircuts. Not the actual cutting of his hair, but there was something tranquil about sitting in a chair, unable to do anything except think for twenty minutes.

Now he had nothing to do but think, and he’d been in the cell for longer than twenty minutes. Twenty days? No. It couldn’t have been that long. Perhaps five days. Probably less than seven. There were now twenty empty bottles of water, but he was sure that they were bringing them at uneven intervals. They’d delivered the unheated ration packs five times since Addison had questioned him. That was where he’d gotten the idea that it had been five days.

“Addison,” he hissed.

With hindsight, it seemed almost obvious. Almost. The chief of staff could relay orders on behalf of the president. Legitimacy would be provided by whatever documents Addison persuaded the drugged Max to sign. There was nowhere to which Addison didn’t have access. However, had the outbreak not occurred, his association with Max would have tainted any chance Addison had of seizing power. There had to be someone else involved, someone far higher up the chain of succession than an emergency cabinet appointment. Similarly, if Farley had decided to confess all to Max, then he would have warned the president about Addison. Unless Farley didn’t know. Addison had to be a recent recruit to the conspiracy, and one that Farley wasn’t aware of. Again, that confirmed there was someone else, someone high up. Or more than one.

What Powell had said came back to him. His talk of parts and plays had been more than a verbose brag. It contained the key. The pieces fell into place, and he understood the events as they’d happened, and what they meant, and how they no longer mattered. The cabal had splintered. Addison was a recent recruit to the cabal, but was using the chaotic nightmare to seize power for himself. Hadn’t Max said the speaker of the house had gone missing? Farley had been murdered. Addison and Powell had killed the other members of the cabal. The tenuous legality of an emergency cabinet appointment wouldn’t stand up under any normal circumstances, but under these, with a fragmented nation, they might. There had to be more to it, something else he was missing, but it didn’t matter. The crucial piece of information was that Addison was doing what Tom had wanted. He was destroying the cabal.

A smile spread across his face. Addison was here. He wasn’t in a bunker directing the military that he’d deployed out of harm’s way. Addison was grasping at straws, seeking an end to the undead, and had wasted his few resources in pursuing Ayers and Tom.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.