The Debt Collectors War

Chapter 89

Ellie looked at Terry for a moment. “So assuming I believe that, do you know when things will happen?”

Terry hesitated. He didn’t answer. It almost seemed to Ellie as though he might be having second thoughts.

“Co-operating, remember?” Ellie said. She put her tablet away and took out her sidearm. She didn’t point it at him, but it was a threat.

Terry looked at the gun, then said, “I was told he needed to be in Los Angeles by Friday next week. And to pass that up the line with him.”

“The line?”

“The railroad’s line. To pass it to my contact.”

“You only have one?” Ellie said, surprised.

“Well… two. One east and one west.”

Ellie thought about that. “Oh. Because the railroad is like links in a chain and you only know one contact person each way. And you only pass messages to that one person, which they then pass it on to someone else. So you each only know two other people? Basically?”

Terry nodded.

“Of course,” Ellie said. “Because operational security. Again.”

Terry didn’t answer.

Ellie thought. That structure made sense, for the railroad. Having their internal connections and command structure as a series of single links, one cell to the next, not as an overall web or top-down hierarchy, that gave them a great deal more flexibility and security. It made sense, and it might actually be useful intel for Ellie to have discovered, too. She wasn’t sure if this detail was already known. It hadn’t been mentioned in her briefing files, anyway, so even if it was already suspected, it was probably useful information to have confirmed.

She thought about networks and information and links of individual contacts. It was a good, sensible system for the debt resisters to use, and fairly secure. Unfortunately, it also made her job more complicated, since she couldn’t just hit Terry until he told her the name of the overall commander, if there even was one.

Which was entirely the point.

“You really don’t know anything?” Ellie said.

Terry shook his head.

“But you’re the leader….” Ellie said, and then stopped, realizing. Actually, Terry wasn’t. Terry was just a subordinate or friend of the old leader, who was now dead, and that man might well have known more. Terry, though, he was no-one important, no-one who would be trusted with valuable intel. And as well, this group was a first-contact point, and so had to be dispensable. They couldn’t be told anything that needed to be kept secure.

Ellie was annoyed with herself. She should have realized all this sooner.

She tried to make the best of it.

“You sent the kid straight to Los Angeles?” she said, hopefully. “To a contact there? Someone whose name you do know?”

Terry nodded.

“You didn’t pass him through a whole lot of other groups like this one?”

“No. He went on a bus to California.”

“With the name of a contact?”

Terry looked cautious, but nodded.

Ellie thought. She looked at Terry for a moment, and decided he was telling the truth. She felt like he was, anyway, and when she glanced back at Sameh, who was still holding a tablet with a lie-detector app, Sameh nodded.

“Okay,” Ellie said. “I believe you. Thank you.”

Terry seemed relieved.

“So tell me everything you know about the contact person in Los Angeles. Or people. Locations and names and recognition signals and all the rest.”

Terry hesitated again. He glanced around at the rest of the group.

“Now,” Ellie said, and raised her gun.

Terry swallowed, but didn’t answer. He was probably about to start being difficult, Ellie thought. She looked up at the drone, deliberately. Then she looked at the bunker building full of the militia’s families.

Terry understood. He looked resigned, then said, “There’s a bar. You go in and ask for someone by name. The name is a code.”

Ellie nodded. Just a name. That made sense too. It was effective, but simple, so simple no-one would mess it up, even scared and hurt and panicking.

“That’s all?” she said. “There’s no double-checks, no secret signals along with it, like wearing a red shirt or having a hat or something?”

Terry shook his head.

“If I go there,” Ellie said. “And it turns out you lied to me, someone will come here for you. You understand that?”

“I understand.”