Night and Day (Book 2): Bleeding Sky by Ken White Read Free Book Online

Center, I found out that
he had been with the Security Force for a year and a half, that he’d been in
the 82 nd Airborne before the war and that he either didn’t know
or wasn’t saying why Bain wanted to see me.
    My
dealings with Phillip Bain during the investigation into Joshua’s death had
been cordial and he’d actually saved my life by snatching me from the
custody of corrupt Vee cops. Of course, it wasn’t done for my benefit. He
wanted the people who murdered his bloodson found and brought to justice.
But not the kind of justice I’d served up as a police officer. Vampire
justice. His justice. He wanted them dead. Which was fine with me. They’d
killed my partner and friend. I wanted them dead too.
    I’d
met with Bain twice, once when he hired me, once when the investigation was
done. Both times had been at his personal residence, which was more an
estate than a house. I’d never been to the Area Operations Center, the
headquarters for area government in Area Three.
    Since
the war ended, the United States has had a kind of dual government system in
place. There’s the regular U.S. government, on a federal level in Washington
and a state level in the various states.
    The
President and Vice-President are human. There are humans and Vees in the
cabinet. The Speaker of the House is a Vee, the Senate Majority Leader a
human. About twenty percent of the senators and congressmen are Vees, the
rest human. Business is conducted as it always was, and there’s still the
usual partisan bickering and gridlock.
    On
the state level, it’s about the same. Some governors are human. Others,
including Janine Baxter, the governor of this state, were Vee. The state
legislatures were a mixture of human and Vee, maybe fifty-fifty
here.
    And
then there’s the Area Government. The country is divided into seven areas,
each covering from four to more than a dozen states. Each area has an Area
Governor and a Deputy Area Governor. Above them all, Christopher Austin, the
Governor General of the United States.
    Even
with my experience working for Bain, I wasn’t clear where the
responsibilities overlapped or split. Everyone knew that area policy took
precedence over city and state policy, but the Area Governor’s Office rarely
got involved in city and state matters. And I was completely in the dark
about the national level. Maybe the President and Congress had to confirm
every decision with the Governor General. Or maybe he left them alone unless
the decision impacted his interests.
    However
it broke down, Phillip Bain was a powerful man. Not someone you could blow
off or easily deny.
    The
drive to the Area Operations Center, though long, was easy enough. Traffic
on the interstate was pretty light. Mostly semi-trucks moving freight. With
gasoline expensive and still rationed for the average person, there wasn’t a
lot of private vehicle traffic on the road.
    Once
we were off the main highway, it was twisting mountain roads for half an
hour or so. We passed Humvees and military trucks, as well as the occasional
black SUV, heading in the opposite direction.
    Then
we came over a hill and I got my first look at the Area Operations
facility.
    My
first thought was that it looked a lot like the entrance to the old NORAD
headquarters at Cheyenne Mountain, something I’d seen in movies. The
operations center was built into the side of a mountain, with a concrete
entrance that fronted a tunnel into the interior of the mountain.
    The
open area in front of the entrance was fenced with three rows of ten-foot
high chainlink fence topped with razor wire. To get to the wide parking lot
in front of the tunnel, we had to stop at three checkpoints, one for each
fence.
    At
each checkpoint, a guard looked over Sgt. Newell’s ID and my own, and
searched the car thoroughly. Two others stood off to the side, their
automatic rifles trained on us.
    When
we cleared the third checkpoint, I thought