A New Day in America (15 page)

Nos struggles to reach for his Sig, but the right side of the body won’t move. He hurt it holding onto the spiraling Little Bird, and now shrapnel has torn up his whole right side.

Tommy seems to be doing better. He still can’t see shit, but he’s managed to free his bindings. He’s hurt bad, too, and minus a trigger finger on his right hand.
Tooth Fairy got Tommy good
.

“Tommy,” Nos calls, but his voice is hoarse.

Tommy is busy looting a corpse for his gun. The four bodies around him don’t move. His right hand must be hurting real bad where they cut off his index finger. He holds it back against his wrist and grips a gun with his good hand from the corpse’s belt.

A hand suddenly grabs his wrist.

“No!” says the corpse. Another corpse lacking the decency to die.

Tommy rips away from his grip and shoots the corpse point blank, a gory spray out the back of his head.

“Tommy,” repeats Nos feebly. He feels the wetness where his blood soaks the grass.

Another body moves. He sits up, and the Tooth Fairy’s face comes into view.
The fucking Tooth Fairy. If I could bag him, almost worth it
.

Nos wraps his fingers around his Sig. Firing it seems too far to climb.

“
Motherfucking double cross
,” musters the Tooth Fairy in delirium. His false teeth are gone, and as he flaps his lips his mutterings are nearly inaudible. “
Cocksuckin’
motherfucking
Kane
. Double cross.
Kane
. Shoulda known.
Motherfuck
me.”

As the Tooth Fairy comes to, he sees Tommy, wheezing in blindness.

“
Tommy Greene
,” chuckles the Tooth Fairy. “I knew I’d get to kill you.”

Nos steadies his pistol down the hill at the bastard. His whole right side is numb.

“Bet you wish you had your trigger finger right about now?” the toothless warlord says to Tommy.

“Forgot to mention,” Tommy manages as he squints. “I’m a lefty,” he says, and shoots the Tooth Fairy in the head.

Tommy can’t see, and Nos can’t believe his eyes. The new helos and tankers are mowing down the militia from the rear. They shred every last Humvee and bomb whole gangs into oblivion. They rope down from the helos and move on into the base and kill the warlord’s men, crushing them between the remaining base troops until they begin to break and run.

Nos watches from his perch on the hill. He hasn’t moved. Tommy has borrowed a pair of pants from a strongman who won’t be needing them. He huddles under the hill, clinging to his gun.
Terrible spot to post. Giving up the high ground like that
. Tommy had never been much of a soldier.

Nos is shocked by the arrival of the reinforcements. They look like U.S. Military, but they all wear red bandanas tied around their arms. Could Westbrook have called them in? Could they have heard his SOS? How could they mobilize so strong, so quickly? Whoever they are, they’re about their business. They gun down the retreating militias. They execute kneeling prisoners.

Tommy is huddled up and shaking. He still can’t tell the battle has turned. Gunshots sound the same no matter who hits who.

“
Tommy Greene!”
Nos bellows.

Finally, Tommy’s head turns. He blinks and scans. He can’t see, but he recognizes his brother’s voice.

“Nos?” he says softly.

“Yeah, Tommy.”

The blood from Nos’ wounds is turning the dirt into mud. Nos starts to sink.

Tommy moves closer, squinting like he’s got lemon in his eyes.

“Damn, Tommy. You need some glasses.”

Under other circumstances, Tommy and Nos would have had beds in medical to recover from their injuries, but there are far too many mortally wounded to make room. Nos was bandaged up and sent on his way. He was glad to get out of there, truth be told. The infirmary stank of sweat and sterilizer and rang with moans as bleary-eyed medics agonized from bed to bed. Tommy’s room is quiet, except for his snoring.

Nos has a bad concussion. The pain crushes against his eyes. When he tries to think he feels too drunk for the task, though he hasn’t had a sip. The shrapnel wounds were superficial. They bled a lot, and his arm is patched up.

Tommy fares worse. His face is puffy and disconfigured from the beatings he took in captivity. His right index finger is a gnarled stub, seared over at the first knuckle. Tommy lies in his bed like the dead.

Nos sits bedside as Tommy comes to.

“Were you just watching me sleep?” asks Tommy.

“Wasn’t easy. You’re a sore sight for eyes.”

“Wouldn’t know,” says Tommy, squinting up at his brother. “I see you look the same, with your big gorilla head.”

“Still mad I was born with a chin and you weren’t?”

“Is that what you call that ridiculous thing under your mouth? Thought it was Stonehenge.”

They hold out as long as they can before they start laughing. The chuckle hurts Tommy first. He groans.

Nos stands up and looks over the stacked spines of paperbacks on Tommy’s nightstand. “Quite a mess you got yourself into,” he says. “Worth it?”

Tommy shrugs. “Worth a whore, no less, no more. A good blow, and a good whore, but the blowback was not what I bargained for.”

“You and your terrible poetry.”

Tommy holds up his stunted finger. “My yanks will never be the same.”

“But you’re a lefty.”

“Exactly. Off hand is the best hand.”

“I see you’ve got your priorities straight.”

“Folks may be dying of starvation, but you’d be surprised how many men find the resources to pay hookers. Vital for the local economy.”

“Just doing your duty?”

“Duty. Exactly. Besides, what do I owe the military at this point? Westbrook closed the gates to all non-military personnel. He cut off the locals.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” asks Nos.

“The U.S. military serves civilian leadership. You stop serving civilians, you break the chain of command. If my superior breaks the chain of command, why shouldn’t I?”

Nos smiles. “You’ve got an interesting way of looking at things. I’m sure you voiced your complaint to the general?” he asks with a drip of sarcasm.

“Why, on the rare instance when the good general joined me for a sip of the good stuff, I told him he
absolutely
made the right call. I’ve always been a lucid drunk.”

“And a world class bullshit artist.”

“Good to have someone around who knows me. My roommate got nabbed with me and didn’t make it back.” Tommy gazes off for a moment.

“Whether it’s talent or luck, you survived.”

“We both did. I should have figured. You survived Afghanistan, of course you’d survive America. I’m glad you’re alive,” Tommy says. The words linger in the air for a moment.

“Likewise,” Nos says through a heavy sigh.

“Glad you’re fucking alive,” Tommy says again, like he realizes how much he means it. He sits up on his bed with a moan. He stops trying to squint, bracing himself. “Is anyone else?”

“Naomi,” says Nos.

“The little one. That’s good,” says Tommy, waiting.

Nos bites his lip.
Better get it out. The anxiety before is always worse than the pain after
.

“Your parents didn’t make it.”

Tommy nods.

“The disease took them,” says Nos, deciding that Tommy doesn’t need to know the gruesome truth of their father’s suicide. “Yvette, Jay, and Mikey all died the day New York blew.”

Tommy lets out a
sniff
as tears well in his eyes and tumble down his busted cheeks.

Nos can’t resist a guilty pang of relief.
Naomi is alive. Thank God, Naomi is alive
.

As Leila and Naomi file in, the room feels very small. Leila shakes Tommy’s hand, and he tries extra hard to get a good look at her.

“I have to get some glasses,” he says as he shakes her hand. “Naomi, I haven’t seen you since you were a baby. How are you, sweetheart?”

Naomi shrugs. “So-so.”

“That makes sense,” Tommy considers. “I appreciate your honesty. Some people think you should always say ‘I’m good’ when they ask ‘how’re you doing?’”

“Then why do they ask?” chirps Naomi.

“Because people secretly love being lied to,” Tommy responds.

Leila chuckles. “I see you’re a natural with children.”

“I admit I don’t have much experience. My brother is more the father type.”

I had a wife and two boys who might disagree
.

“I had just the right amount of family,” Tommy remarks wistfully. “Never thought to add to it.”

“Always a risky proposition,” offers Leila.

“Yeah,” Tommy says with as bright a smile as his swollen mouth will allow. He swings his feet off his bed and to the floor. “Let’s go,” he says.

“You need to lie down,” says Leila. “I saw a picture of you earlier. You don’t look a bit like yourself.”

“Did I look good?”

Leila grins, hard to read.
Charming her already. He works quick
.

“Just so you know,” says Tommy, “I can’t see your expression. So I’m going to assume you’re smiling at me.”

“Where are you going?”

“Lost and found. I need some glasses. There are some things I’d like to have a better look at.”

The blind man leads the way around the base. Nos is sure they are getting lost, but Tommy won’t admit it. “So what if I can’t see?” he quips. “That’s only one aspect of navigation.”

The base is banging with the noise of repair. Men are hard at work digging through rubble, reinforcing the walls and patrolling the outside. Gurneys carry bodies to the infirmary or load them onto trucks piled with the dead. Four flatbed trucks are filled to the gills, with the raiders and military separated. Gunfire erupts as they find a raider hidden in some random corner. Folks who see Tommy call out to him, ‘
Luck Lefty’
and ‘
Tommy Nine.’
Tommy nods and smiles, most of the time not seeing just who they are.

“Tommy Nine?” he asks.

“Word of your doings got around base. How you told the warlord you’re a lefty, then shot him in the face. Not for nothing, putting a hole through that scumbag’s head is just about the best thing you’ve ever done.”

“Low bar. You’ve been spreading the word?”

“Actually, no.”

“So how does anyone know about the ‘lefty’ line?”

Nos has been wondering the same thing. “Good question. Far as I know, you, me, and the Tooth Fairy were the only ones there.”

“Doubt he’s bragging about it.”

Even the guys brand new to the base know about Tommy Nine. Men with the yellow bandanas tied around their arms are everywhere. Nos recognizes the symbol as the flaming chalice that he saw on the missionaries back in Philly.
First they saved Leila, and now they’ve saved all of us. That’s two I owe them
. The soldiers with the chalice seem to fill half of the base, considering how many they lost in the attack. They eye Naomi closely where her rash peeks up out of her shirt.

“They find his body?” asks Tommy.

“Tooth Fairy?”

“His name was Ishmael,” Tommy grunts. “I’d like to see that fucker’s head on a bayonet.”

“Can’t say as I blame you.”

“You know what happened?” Tommy lowers his voice. “How the hell we survived?”

“These boys showed up in the nick of time,” says Nos.

“Who? U.S. military?”

“Something like that.”

“Navy? Marines?”

“None of the above. They call themselves the ‘Revelation Party.’”

“Weird. From where?”

“It’s not clear. They say they’d been tracking the Tooth Fairy and his militia for weeks.”

“
Ishmael
,” Tommy corrects.

“Ishmael. They saw what was going down and mobilized from Fort Campbell out of Kentucky.”

“Lucky.”

“Lucky as hell,” says Nos.

“
Lucky Lefty!
” a voice calls as they cross the courtyard. A big man in a clean uniform smiles wide at Tommy. He wears mirrored Ray-Bans in the shape of goggles that reflect the sun like a dark rainbow. His muscles are unnaturally huge, and he chews hard on whatever’s in his mouth like an old hayseed. He beams with the confidence of a lit bulb.
Special Ops
.
No one else can get away with such blatant arrogance
.

“Laws,” says Tommy, taking the big man’s hand in his.

“Never thought you had it in you,” he says as they hug.

“This is my brother, Nos. Nos, Johnny Lawlor.”

“Pleased to meet you,” says Nos, extending his hand.

“We’ve met,” Lawlor replies as they shake. He takes off his sunglasses, and Nos recognizes him right away.

“So we have,” says Nos. “At about four hundred yards.” The same blue eyes he saw peering through a sniper sight behind the brush on the battlefield.

“And a hair trigger from blowing each other’s heads off.”

“Glad you didn’t shoot,” says Nos.

“As am I. Didn’t know if you’d take me for a friendly.”

“You were hard to spot.”

“For everybody else.”

“Lucky, I guess.”

“Right. Lucky.” Lawlor’s eyes fall on Leila and then Naomi. “You know I heard of you?” he tells Nos. “From Afghanistan, all those years ago.”

Afghanistan
. The name still gets under Nos’ skin. His dubious claim to fame. “You were there?”

“Was in New York, actually. Me and a couple of my Delta buddies checked in on your family, lit a few candles, said a few prayers.”

Nos isn’t surprised. Delta Force: a brotherhood forged in blood and all that. When Nos went missing in action in the Afghan Kush, fifty-plus Delta and Navy boys held a vigil for weeks at his home. Likewise for everyone of his team in Nebraska, Oklahoma, and North Carolina. They would come by every day, bring food, barbeque, and wait for news. He’d seen the pictures.

“Appreciate it,” says Nos. “This is Leila, and my daughter, Naomi.”

Lawlor takes Naomi’s hand and crouches to her eye level, looking hard at her. Nos worries that he sees her rash. The pinkish bumps have drawn unwelcome attention, as far as he’s concerned. The way people react to sickness is so visceral, it’s hard to tell if they are sympathetic or disgusted or scared.
Frightened people can’t be trusted
. He can feel the eyes on the base look and then pretend like they look away. Lawlor, however, makes it perfectly clear that he’s looking.