Ripe by James Hider

Author:James Hider [Hider, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-18T00:00:00+00:00

PART IV

Contact made, Elspeth and Joe started walking. They had no idea where they were headed. A path led past the wall inscribed with the names of 55,000 Americans eaten up by the Vietnam war, past the bench where Ed was sitting, studiously ignoring them: he would follow on after them, to see if he could spot anyone tailing them.

They hardly spoke until they were passing the blank stone facades of government institutions shuttered for the night.

“Are you alright?” Joe asked. “Trenton said you’d been attacked.”

“I’m okay,” she said. “I’ll tell you all about it when we get somewhere safe. Do you have a place to stay?”

“No, not yet,” Joe said. “Trenton said he’d message me when his people had found us a place. In the meantime, let’s just walk, if you’re not too tired.” As he spoke, he was texting Trenton: Contact made. What now?

“To be honest, I’m absolutely beat,” Elspeth said. “Perhaps we could find a place to sit down and have a coffee.”

They took side streets to avoid the White House, where facial recognition cameras might have captured their images. The coffee shops downtown were largely shut by this time in the evening, but they came across a rather low-rent pub that seemed the sort of place that Joe’s fellow journalists might gather after filing their copy for the day. The only coffee the place served was Irish, so they ordered two large ones and sat down, letting the caffeine and the Bailey’s soothe their snagged nerves.

“Thank you for coming to meet me, Joe,” said Elspeth. She found the presence of the young journalist oddly reassuring after the chaos and violence of the past twenty-four hours. “Today has been the longest day of my life.”

She talked him through the unnerving events since she had landed, from the zombies on Lafayette Square to the man whom only she could apparently see. Every time the door of the coffee shop opened, she’d stop talking and lean over to Joe.

“That guy who just walked in. Can you see him?”

“Yes, I can see him.”

“I sound delusional, don’t I?”

Joe shook his head, smiled. “No, you just sound like someone who has undergone something way outside the realm of normal experience. Trust me, I’ve been there myself the past few days.”

Elspeth gave him a direct look. “I read about the shooting, Joe. That must have been deeply traumatizing for you.”

Her tone reminded Joe that he was sitting with a professional shrink. Suddenly, he felt a desperate urge to tell her everything, but the waiter came up and Elspeth ordered another large Irish coffee. Joe was just about to talk again when his phone pinged. He read the message and cursed.

“Shit,” he said. “Looks like we’ve got someone following us.”

“What do we do?”

Joe paused. “You know what? I really have no idea.”

He picked up his phone and called Ed to get a better description. Elspeth watched as her companion’s face screwed up.

“Black NRA baseball cap... worn leather vest and ginger beard,” he repeated. “Doesn’t really sound like the cops.

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