Death Springs Eternal: The Rift Book III Read Online Free PDF Page B

come on , I always ride in the hummer with you, dude!”
    “Are you questioning me?” asked Bathgate, his hand drifting unconsciously to his sidearm. “I sure as hell hope not.”
    “Uh,” said the lieutenant, mustache twitching and eyes wide. “No, sir. Not at all.”
    With that, a plume of black smoke puffed from the plow’s stack as Pitts hit the gas, heading for the incredibly long line of vehicles that sat idling on the main drag. Bathgate felt the hard plastic of his pistol’s handle and shivered. He hadn’t realized he’d put his hand on it, and it surprised him that he’d been so hostile toward his oldest friend. I have to teach him a lesson , he thought. Order trumps friendship, after all, and Greg’s been slipping. I need to reign him back in before I have to do something drastic.
    A few minutes later, his Hummer pulled up curbside. Much to Bathgate’s surprise, Private O’Leary, his usual driver, was nowhere to be found. It was Sergeant Jackson behind the wheel instead. The ambitious young soldier smiled wide.
    “To what do I owe the honor, Sergeant?” asked Bathgate as he opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. “What happened to O’Leary?”
    “The Private had a change of heart, sir,” Jackson replied, his voice oozing with cynicism. “He’s riding in the med-cart, instead. His jaw’s hurting something fierce, I guess.”
    The general tilted his head. “How badly did you injure him?”
    “Not a lot. Enough to teach him a lesson. He’ll be fine in a week or so.”
    “And this attack was unprovoked, I assume?”
    Jackson grew pale at the coldness of Bathgate’s accusation, but it took only a second for his color to return. “Not at all, sir,” he replied confidently. “I told him I was driving the presidential vehicle, and he said no, I wasn’t. That’s disobeying an order from a superior, right? So I taught him a lesson. But he’s still alive. I’ve seen you be harsher than that, sir.”
    Bathgate gazed at the fanatical grin on Jackson ’s face and grinned himself. Sergeant Jackson was an unruly sort, though his lithe frame and longish blond hair suggested otherwise. He was quick to anger and even quicker to react when the call to violence came. He was a brutal soldier, but undyingly loyal to Bathgate’s cause, and he possessed an ambition the general admired. The kid had risen through the ranks quite fast since he and the lieutenant had found him in Macon , leading a faction of the People’s Militia against the undead hordes. The general thought it would be prudent to send a search party of men north with Jackson once they reached their destination, just as he’d sent one south under the leadership of Captain Hawthorn.   It was a plan that made sense.   Jackson had helped compose the SNF charter, adding his own personal touch to the byline of the new ruling class. He could lead people, and was more than twice the soldier Pitts was, though Pitts still maintained authority over him because of their past together.
    That could all change , he thought , if the lieutenant doesn’t get his head out of his ass.
    Bathgate slapped the dashboard. “Very well then, soldier,” he said. “Let’s get this caravan moving.”
    Sergeant Jackson steered the Hummer out of the hotel parking lot and drove alongside the motorcade of idling vehicles that stretched as far back as the eye could see. The general took in the varying array of buses, vans, trucks, and armored personnel carriers as they passed by, watching the heat sway across their steel forms. In the center of the line were twenty oil rigs containing the fuel that powered their five-hundred-plus vehicles. They were a point of pride to the general, a symbol of his undying attention to what was important. Anything of use that was found along their travels would be taken, by force if necessary, and Bathgate assumed that seeing as the refineries no longer pumped black gold from the Earth after the end of civilization,