The People's Alpha ✔

34: Drive

The office also had a commanding view of the front of the premises. I crept forward to a position beside the window and snuck a look out. There were two armoured vehicles outside the front gates of the Interpack depot. As I had expected. I doubled back and opened the staff fridge. There wasn't much left. I ate what I could, not tasting the food.

I needed one more thing. Careful to make as little noise as possible, I went back down to the workshop. Engine blocks lay in various states of disassembly. Parts were sorted neatly on shelves. A round white object caught my eye. A roll of white electrical tape. Perfect.

Holding my quarry in my hands, I popped open the bonnet of the Moon Goddess and set to work. Five minutes later, I was finished.

***

I turned onto yet another side road, little used and covered with leaves and forest detritus. The sun was almost entirely blocked out by the trees above.

Branches were starting to droop precariously low above the road, the sunlight taking on a yellow glow as it filtered in through their embrace.

I had driven along a heavily rutted track along the wasteland, then taken the backroads once I reached the cover of forest. I had assumed that they were concentrating on fencing in the East Side, and also not exactly expecting people to be travelling to Thunder Falls at this time, and I was right. But it was still wise to take precautions. I needed to get to Brian in one piece.

As it turned out, I did not run into a single patrol, but the drive took twice as long as usual. The roads were barely passable in some places, but the Moon Goddess took it all in her stride. I arrived at the same lookout where we had stopped on the way to Congress. The Thunder Falls pack grounds were in a valley, and there were few vantage points from which to see them. This, from the western side, was one of the few places distant enough that I could observe without any risk of being spotted by their security patrols.

I pulled out the binoculars and adjusted the view. The Thunder Falls pack settlement came into focus. There were some large clearings at the periphery that hadn't been there when I last saw them. They looked like they'd been constructed recently. Some of the roads looked freshly paved as well.

"Enjoying the view?"

I gave a start. Adlai's voice. Soft, not at all alpha-like.

"I thought you'd be here," he expounded. "I had a hunch. A correct one, it turns out."

I turned around to see Adlai's Mercedes 600 Grosser blocking the road behind the Moon Goddess. He was standing next to it, one hand on the roof.

"I've been expecting you, Jim. Come on. Hop in." He gestured towards the Mercedes. I swore the moustache was slightly longer, but he looked like exactly like I remembered. Modest. 

Unassuming.

"What about my car? Do I-"

"Don't worry, Jim. It's taken care of." One of his underlings alighted from the front passenger seat of the Mercedes. Adlai spoke to him briefly, pointing towards my car several times as he did so.

"Be careful with the brakes," I said, as the aide strode past me towards my car. I could not tell if he heard me. 

***

Adlai was drinking from a brandy snifter on the center console. Behind us, the aide was trailing us in the Moon Goddess.

Opposite us, an entire three-piece jazz band had somehow been shoehorned onto the rear-facing jump seats of the Mercedes. The trio, dressed in starched white shirts, bowties, pinstriped pants and patent-leather shoes, looked utterly surreal, crammed inside the dark interior of the limousine, playing a jazz standard I couldn't identify. I looked at them. None of them seemed very happy to be here.

Outside the window, the forest flashed past us silently at fifty miles an hour, with only the faint rumble of gravel serving to remind us of our speed. The wooded backdrop only made the whole thing even more surreal.

"Do you like it?" Adlai put down his glass. "I saw them performing at a function. Their Alpha seemed almost ashamed of them, can you believe it? By the end of the day, they were officially members of my pack, and they've been performing for me ever since. As I might have told you before, Jim, I can't abide recorded music. Believe me, I've spent thousands of dollars on the best stereo systems in the world. And nothing comes close to this."

Who really was this Adlai guy? Was he a madman?

"Where is Brian?" I asked.

"I assure you he is hale and hearty, Jim. A little knocked up, but in good spirits."

"What are you trying to do?" I looked him in the eyes. "Why?"

"We'll talk more once we get to the house." Adlai turned his attention to the scenery. "It's quite an interesting car you have, Jim."

"It's the official Alpha car. We bought it new and we've had it for nearly 50 years now. It's older than I am."

"Old Citroëns are very rare in this part of the world." Adlai continued. "It's a different story over the border, of course."

"I think one of the southern peninsula packs had an SM in their fleet. Do you know much about them, Adlai?"

"Oh, not at all. I've always erred on the Teutonic side when it came to all matters automotive," Adlai replied. "I always thought French cars looked rather odd in all those car magazines. But I must say it looks quite sublime in the flesh."

I breathed an internal sigh of relief. My plan might just work.

I looked around the plush rear compartment of the Mercedes, all burl walnut and black leather. "This car belonged to Sefton, didn't it?"

Adlai nodded, replacing the snifter on a little table between us. "Quite a walking contradiction, he was. Preaching an ascetic lifestyle and the emptiness of materialism, but also quite a connoisseur of a finer things in life."