THAT NIGHT. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 12:20 AM EST. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2025.
Mama had taught
Jeffrey Grayson to “get good stuff that’ll last.” He’d had his
first pair of good Italian shoes at the age of twelve. His first
car had been a mechanic-approved used BMW. Mama’s first personal
assistant had still been with her on the day she retired, they had
had two cooks—mother and daughter—in all their time in the big old
stone house, and the gardener’s grandfather had worked at that
house. You knew you could count on quality shoes, cars, and
people.
Unfortunately, what
he was doing right now required low-quality disposable people, and
they were behaving just like it. A squad of first rate MPs at the
facility, and maybe a half dozen Rangers with him, and Grayson
would have no worries.
These dopey misfits
were obviously enjoying the feeling of being Big Tough Bad Guys.
Parker, the closest thing Grayson had to a reliable subordinate,
had to remind Ethan twice to keep his finger out of the trigger
guard; probably it scared the shit out of the prisoners to hear
that.
At the secure
facility, it was worse. They didn’t even know how to straighten up
and behave right—instead of saluting, standing at attention, and
carrying out the orders quickly and crisply, they sort of waved
their hands at their heads, looked around the room, and hunched and
slumped as they put the prisoners into the rooms. They drawled like
clerks at a 7-Eleven.
As soon as the
prisoners were shoved into their cells and locked in, Grayson
pulled off his ski mask and said, “There is one more empty cell and
we’re going to have one more prisoner. You all on guard, stay on
guard. Arresting party, go get the last one and bring him in—as
gently as possible, give him the chance to come with you
voluntarily, and you are by no means to use violence; if he just
walks past you, let him.”
God I hope they remember what they are really supposed to
do. But at least they took off quickly, ski masks pulled
down, running in the right direction, and beyond that he’d just
have to hope.
“For the record,” he
said, loudly, so that the men in the cells could hear him, “it was
necessary to arrest this party because the Reconstruction Research
Center at Pueblo has been penetrated by Daybreaker and other
subversive elements, and we became aware that this purported
scouting expedition was actually an attempted prison break by
Lyndon Phat . . .”
The speech went on,
sounding more and more lengthy, flat, and phony to Grayson himself.
He wanted to just cut it entirely and tell everyone he’d be back
later, but he had to drive on through the excruciating, repetitive
speech, because he had to be seen here, after giving orders for
which he would have independent and even hostile witnesses. There
must be no question of either what his orders had been, or that he
had been here, when—
Distant gunfire. It
began as a few shots, then erupted into what sounded like a brief
firefight that trailed off in ones and twos within a
minute.
“What is that?” Grayson demanded. Not staying for an answer,
he ran into the night as the last shots punctuated his
exit.