Sinclair Feldman's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Sinclair found Zelda at first light behind the equipment shop, sorting bandage rolls on a crate. He set the ledger down where she could see it and said what he had walked there to say. "The clinic ruins need a fence and a watch. Not tomorrow. Today." She did not look up. He went on. "We have two water lines into that vault and a hatch nobody's standing over. If a second party knows what's under our feet, they'll come for it before we open it ourselves." Zelda finished the roll in her hand. "You want my floor to fund a guard post." She said it flat, not as a question. "I want Red Hills to fund it," Sinclair said. "Caps and bodies. You give me the ground and the say-so." She wiped her hands on the rag at her hip. "Show me by sundown. If it stands, it stays." He found Donovan crouched by the back fence with a meter pressed to the dirt near the concrete pillar. "Oh man, you picked the spot already," Donovan said when Sinclair told him. "Good. Because there's a dead zone right here where the signal drops, and if I put a relay on a tower I can run a live feed back to a shack. Two-man patrol, fixed circuit, hot mic." He sketched it on the back of a work order in three quick lines. "Hell if I know who's listening, but they won't hear us if we shield the cable." Marcus came harder. He stood in the office doorway with his arms crossed and said the yard already had a watch. Sinclair laid the route on the desk between them. "Your watch covers the gate. This covers the hatch. Donovan walks it with one of yours. You pick the man. You hold the second key to the shack." Marcus chewed the inside of his cheek. "Caps?" "Red Hills," Sinclair said. "All of it." Marcus uncrossed his arms. They built it in a day. Donovan and one of Marcus's men dragged sheet metal and sandbags onto a frame behind the back fence and bolted the door shut by afternoon. The tower went up at the far corner of the back lot, four salvaged beams and a platform with a searchlight wired to the generator. Out past the perimeter the patrol cleared brush and found a skeleton in a hooded jacket and a digital camo pack, bones flat in the dirt, leaves around it. Brotherhood scout, by the patch. Long dead. Donovan logged the spot and kept walking. At sundown the light came on. Zelda stood at the base of the tower with the rag still in her hand and watched the beam sweep the hatch ground. "It stands," she said. Sinclair nodded. Then Donovan's headset clicked. "Movement on the second water line," he said. "Not ours." Sinclair turned toward the fence.