The Lone Man On The Ridge - Episode 19: Behind The Wire

0:00 This is the Lone Man on the Ridge Episode nineteen Behind the Wire. Jack didn't see any of what happened next. He was already gone, down into the gray. The gun out of his hand, the names delivered. So this part of the story is not his, at least not yet. This part belongs to the people at the gate. They move the way people move when they've been drilled.

0:27 That was the first thing that would have told Jack everything he needed to know about this place, if he'd been awake to see it. There was no milling around, no standing and staring at a shot up truck and the blood on the two bodies in the ditch. Stephen barked three or four short words, and the whole yard turned into a machine.

0:48 Two of them had Rachel out of the cab and on to the litter before the dust settled, moving her towards the terminal building at a fast controlled walk. Not a panic run, a fast walk. The kind that keeps a bleeding patient as level as you can. A woman who was already alongside the litter with her hands pressed into Rachel's side.

1:09 She never took them off, not once. Her name was Dana. Before all of this she had been a trauma nurse at a hospital in Fairfax. Fifteen years of night shifts in an emergency room, which meant she'd seen more gunshot wounds than most combat medics. When the world came apart, that made her just about the most valuable person within two hundred miles.

1:33 Stephen's group had not recruited her for her prepping. They recruited her for her hands. Two more men peeled off towards the ditch, rifles up to deal with the wrecked pursuit truck and whatever was left of the men in it. A third swung the gate shut and dropped the bar. Somebody killed the engine on Jack's truck before it cooked itself any further.

1:56 Somebody had scooped up Lily, screaming, reaching back towards the building where they had taken her mother. Ellen, one of the older women, a retired nurse married to one of Stephen's men, folded the child against her chest and turned her away from all of it, murmuring the old, wordless things that women have murmured to frightened children since the beginning of time.

2:16 Ellen would have gone to help Dana with the surgery. She had the training, but someone had to hold the little girl, and holding the little girl was its own kind of medicine. And mister Rogers would not leave Jack. Two of them tried to move the dog so they could get to Jack, and Mr. Rogers set his feet, dropped his head, and made a sound that stopped both men cold.

2:39 Stephen waved them off. Leave the dog, he's earned it. Work around him. So they worked around him. They got Jack onto the second litter with the dog pressed against his side the entire time, and mister Rogers walked alongside them. They'd taken Rachel to what the compound used as its medical ward. An old airport office off the main terminal, a room with four walls and a door that closed, converted into the week since into something between a clinic and a recovery room, private and quiet.

3:10 The kind of place you can actually treat someone and let them heal. That's where Dana went to work. And here's the thing about that room. The thing that mattered more than anything else that day was that the room simply existed. Somebody early on, when it still might have seemed like an overreaction, had said we need a place to treat people, and we need someone who knows how.

3:33 And then they built it, scavenged it, traded for it, dragged it in piece by piece. Sutures, clamps, IV fluid, antibiotics, a folding surgical table under good work lights that run off a solar bank, not a hospital, but a hundred times more than the side of a road. The round had gone in low on Rachel's right side, and it had done real damage.

3:58 The kind that kills people who don't get help fast enough. Dana would say later that another twenty minutes on the road and it would have been something nobody would have survived. But the round had not hit the worst of what it could have hit. It was survivable, barely, and only with skilled hands and some luck, but survivable.

4:19 Dana had the skilled hands. Jack somehow had brought the luck. It was a long few hours. Nobody in that room would tell you it was clean or easy or certain. But when it was over, Rachel was alive, stitched, packed, hooked up to a bag of fluids, gray as ash, and unconscious, and a long, hard road to recovery.

4:43 But she was alive. Her heart was beating on its own, her lungs were pulling in air. She was going to make it. Jack came back the way he'd gone under, grays at the edges first, then light, then the slow assembly of a world. A ceiling, not the metal ribs of a hangar, a real ceiling, an office ceiling, water stained tile and a fluorescent fixture that had gone dark a long time ago.

5:09 He was on a couch, a good one too, soft and deep, the kind that had once sat in some airport executive's waiting room. Somebody had given up their comfortable spot for him. There was an IV line taped to the back of his hand and a heavy, wrong feeling in his left shoulder, wrapped tight. His mouth was as dry as the ridge in August.

5:31 And then there was a weight against his hip that he knew before he even opened his eyes all the way. Mr. Rogers lifted his head, thumped his tail twice against the couch, and put his chin back down against Jack. Jack got a hand onto the dog's head. That was the first thing he did in this new place. Before he spoke, before he took stock, before he did any of the things twenty six years had trained him to do on waking somewhere he did not recognize.

5:59 He put his hand on his dog. Okay, he said, or tried to. It came out as gravel. Okay, good boy. Then the training kicked in, as he started cataloging. Wounded, left shoulder, and by the tightness and the ache it had been worked on. Clean, closed, and IV, meaning fluids, means he lost a lot of blood and someone decided that he needed those fluids.

6:24 Lying down, indoors, disarmed, his boots were off. Somebody had taken his boots off, which meant someone had decided he was going to be there for a while, and that he wasn't a threat. Both of those things landed on Jack strangely. Because here was the part that he was not ready for. He was helpless. He was laid down on a couch in a strange place, wounded, unarmed, boots off, entirely at the mercy of people he had never met in person.

6:53 For a man who'd spent every day since the ridge making sure he was never in this exact position, it was almost harder to take than a wound. And the first coherent thought that pushed through all of this was not about him. It was about Rachel. He tried to sit up, his shoulder said no, loudly, and a hand came down on his good side, gentle and firm.

7:16 Easy, said a voice. Easy, you don't get to undo my stitches twelve hours after I put them in. The woman standing over him was tired in a way that goes all the way to the bone. Dana. He didn't know her name yet, but he knew the look. He'd worn that look himself on the job after long shifts. Rachel, Jack said, it was the only word that mattered to him.

7:39 Dana didn't make Jack wait. Whatever else she could say about the people here, they didn't make a wounded man lie there and dangle over the thing he was the most afraid of. She's alive, Dana said. She watched it land on him, watched something in his chest let go all at once, and she gave him a second before she finished, because she was honest and she was not going to sell him a fairy tale.

8:03 She's alive, and she's going to stay that way. But I'm not going to lie to you, Jack, it was close. The kind of close where twenty more minutes and we'd be having a different conversation. She's got a long recovery ahead, several weeks, and she's not going to be up and about anytime soon. She's going to need a lot of care getting there.

8:24 And you should know something. Some of our folks rolled up their sleeves for you two. Blood. A lot of people here come from the military, and they know their blood types like they know their names. We had donors lined up even before I finished scrubbing in. Dina then paused. Rachel needed most of it.

8:42 More than I like taking from anybody. But without them, I'd have nothing to put back in her. Jack didn't say anything. He couldn't. Strangers had opened up their own veins for a woman they'd never met. Jack shut his eyes just for a second and let it move through him. She's alive. The whole thing, the ridge, the road, Dylan, Alex, the checkpoints, the four hundred and fifty miles, the last six done bleeding, all had come down to a single question he'd carried through the gate without knowing the answer.

9:16 Did he get her here in time? And the answer was yes. Barely. By a margin measured in minutes he'd stolen on the road. But yes. What about the little girl, Jack said? What about Lily? She's fine, Dana said. And for the first time something like warmth came across her face. Not a scratch. She frets for her mama, and she lights up every time that dog of yours is anywhere close.

9:42 Ellen's taking care of her. One of our folks, she's married to one of Stephen's men, and she's a retired nurse herself. She hasn't put that child down since you came through the gate. That little girl is about as safe and about as spoiled as any kid in this part of the world right now. Jack nodded. It was almost too much.

10:00 He looked away, up at the stained ceiling tiles, he worked his jaw a couple times until he trusted his voice again. Thank you, he finally said. Thank you for her, thank you for all of it. Don't thank me yet, Dana said, but she said it kindly. You've got a lot of healing to do on your own. That graze was not as shallow as you were pretending it to be.

10:23 You needed cleaning up and a few stitches, and you lost enough blood that I had to put a line in you. But you got lucky. Another inch, and we'd have a different talk. As it is, you'll be sore, you'll be stiff, you'll be on your feet in a day or two, if you don't do anything stupid. Dana fixed a look on Jack that said she'd met stubborn men before.

10:45 Which, with your type, is not a guarantee, she said. She started to say something else, then stopped, and shook her head with a ghost of a smile. There's somebody here who wants to meet you, but not today. We'll do it tomorrow. Stephen, Jack said. It wasn't a question. The man he'd been talking to across the static on the radio.

11:04 Yes, it's Stephen. He's been here twice already while you're out. Wanted to be here when you came around. She pressed her hand flat against Jack's good shoulder, easing him back onto the couch with a quiet, immovable authority of a woman who moved grown men for a living. But you lost a lot of blood, and the two of you talking is going to be a real conversation, not a how do you do?

11:27 That keeps till you slept if we put more fluids back in you. Stephen agreed with me for what it's worth. He said a man who drove the way you drove had earned a night's rest before anybody started asking him questions. Jack didn't have the strength to argue, and some part of him knew that she was right.

11:43 He let her ease him down to the couch. She was halfway to the door when she stopped and nodded at the floor beside the couch. Your boots are right there, your Glocks in one, your wallets in the other. Stephen brought them in himself. She then paused. I hope you don't mind. I took out your Visa and ordered fifteen pizzas.

12:01 Everybody says thanks. Jack stared at her. For a second, his foggy brain actually tried to work out how. The corner of Dana's mouth gave her away. I went through your wallet looking for a blood donor card, a red cross card, anything with your blood type. Saves me guessing when a man's bleeding on my table.

12:23 She then shrugged. Other than that, nobody's touched your things. Jack looked down, they were there, side by side within arm's reach. It was a small thing. It told him more about this place than anything else had so far. It was the next day before Jack met Stephen. He'd slept most of the first night through.

12:43 The real bottomless sleep of a body that had finally been allowed to stop. He surfaced a few times, checked that the dog was still there, checked the light under the door, and then went back down. Dana looked in on him twice. By the following afternoon he was awake and clear headed and running out of patience with lying still.

13:02 That's when he heard the boots on the concrete before he saw the man. Stephen came around the end of the couch and stood there. Grey, weathered, calm, a little stooped in the shoulders in a way that said he carried a lot and had for a long time. And Jack finally put a face to a voice. For a moment neither of them said anything.

13:25 That's the strange thing about happens when you finally meet somebody in the flesh, someone you've only known as a voice in the dark. Your brain has built a face for them, and it's never quite the real one, and you have to let the real one override it. Stephen was older than Jack had pictured, more worn, and his eyes were kinder than a man running an armed compound at the end of the world.

13:49 Jack? Stephen said. Stephen, Jack said. And that was most of it, honestly. Two men who had only traded a handful of conversations across the radio, finally in the same room. Everything else was just detail. Stephen pulled up a stool and sat. Because standing over a man laid on a couch is a thing you do to a stranger, not a friend.

14:11 Jack found his voice. How long? How long since it went down? I've lost track. Stephen understood the question. The EMP, the lights, the day everything stopped. A little over six weeks now, Stephen said. Give or take a couple days. Hard to keep a clean calendar when the whole world quits at once, but that's our best count.

14:33 Six weeks and a few days since the pulse. He shook his head slowly. Feels like six years some days. Other days feels like six minutes. Six weeks. Jack turned it over. Six weeks since the ridge went quiet and the radio went dead. Six weeks and four hundred and fifty miles later, he ends up flat on a couch in an airport office.

14:56 It didn't sound like much said out loud, but it had been the longest six weeks of his life. You scared about ten years off of all of us, Jack. We heard the truck. We heard the shooting when you got close, then here comes a truck up the approach road on a flat tire near enough on fire, with a man half dead at the wheel, and another truck full of guns right behind you.

15:17 That's a hell of an introduction. I didn't have a lot of options, Jack said. No, Stephen agreed. I don't imagine you did. And then because he had to say it, Stephen said it. The men chasing you, the ones in the ditch. Two of them didn't survive the crash, one did. We've got him. He's from the group down at the big airport, the one I warned you about.

15:40 And there it was, the cost of arrival. Jack had gotten his people to safety, and in doing it, he tangled with the very people Stephen spent weeks carefully not tangling with. Let me guess, Jack said. That's a problem for you. Me shooting up a checkpoint that belongs to them. Stephen tilted his head considering.

16:01 Maybe. Maybe not. Let me tell you how it's been up in here so you understand the board you just landed on. Stephen laid it out plain because Jack was the kind of man who wanted it plain. Two airports are in play, us here the little one, and then them down at Dulles. Both groups know the other exists.

16:22 We have for weeks, but here's the thing. Neither of us know how big the other one really is, how many guns, how well dug in, and not knowing makes everyone be careful. So we've had ourselves kind of a quiet understanding. Nobody moves on anybody. We stay on our field, they stay on theirs. Everybody scavenges the ground in between as they need, and we all pretend that we're not watching each other through binoculars.

16:51 It's not peace, it's just two dogs too smart to fight because they don't know which one would win. And I brought a gunfight into the middle of it, Jack said. You had a woman dying and a road full of people trying to kill you, Stephen said. You did what you had to do, and I would have done the same. Stephen then rubbed his jaw.

17:10 Now, did it stir the pot some? Yes. They lost people at the checkpoint, and they know a truck came through their shooting. But it doesn't blow the whole thing up. As long as they still don't know our numbers, the same math that kept them on their side of the fence for the last six weeks still holds. And they're not going to come charging over here just because of one bad morning at their toll gate.

17:34 Not while they're still fed and they're still guessing. It's when the scavenging runs dry or when somebody gets a good count of what we've got, that's when we have to be careful. That's the day I've been getting ready for since the beginning. You didn't cause it, you just gave them one more thing to think about.

17:52 Jack worked it for a moment, then asked a question that matters. So what did you do with him, the one that lived? That, Stephen said, is the question, isn't it? He laced his fingers together. I can't keep him. A prisoner is a mouth to feed and a man to guard, and worse than that, he's a reason for them to come looking.

18:12 They've got a man unaccounted for. Sooner or later they're gonna wonder where he went, and the wondering is dangerous. And you can't put him in the ground, Jack said. It wasn't a question. He was reading Stephen now, the same way he'd read him on the radio. No, Stephen said it flat and final. We don't do that.

18:30 Not to a man who's beat and bound and no threat anymore. That's the line, and the day we cross it is the day we turn into the thing we're out here trying to survive. So no, we don't do that. Then you let him go? Then I let him go, Stephen agreed, but not empty handed. I sent him back with a message. Jack waited.

18:52 Here's what he's going to carry home with him to the big airport. He's going to tell them that a single truck ran their gate, killed some of their men, and on the way through, and vanished behind a fence that he could not breach. He's going to tell them that the fence was manned, fast and ready, and that the gate opened and shut like somebody was waiting on him.

19:14 And he's going to tell them he never got a count because he won't. We'll see to that. He gets fed, he gets his scrapes looked at, and then he walks out blindfolded. So all he can report is that we are organized, we are armed, and we were not surprised. Jack saw it then, the whole shape of it. You're not threatening them, he said.

19:34 You're making them more afraid of not knowing. Fear of the unknown has kept both gates shut for six weeks, Stephen said. A dead man tells them nothing. A live man who's got his teeth kicked in and never saw how deep we can go, that man keeps them guessing. And as long as they're guessing, they're careful.

19:53 The day they stop guessing is the day somebody starts shooting, and I'd rather hand them a story that makes them all sit back than a body that makes them want to even the score. It was, as Jack thought, exactly the right call. Cold where it needed to be cold, decent where it could afford to be decent, and smart all the way through.

20:14 The man wasn't just surviving out there. He was playing a longer game than anybody down at the big field had figured on. When? Jack asked. A few days. Once he's steady enough to walk and we've decided exactly how we want him to leave. Stephen's mouth tilted. Everything he carries home, we're choosing on purpose.

20:34 That's the whole point. He's not a prisoner, Jack, he's a message we get to write. Stephen then leaned back. And in exchange we got you. A man who drove four hundred and fifty miles through hell, shot his way through a checkpoint with his off hand, and still had the presence of mind to give us the names before they passed out.

20:54 Most of the people here, Jack, they're military. Folks I served with and their families. Good people, studying under pressure, but a lot of them came in because they knew me, not because they went out and did what you just did. A man who can do what you did on the road, that's not a liability. That's someone I want inside the wire.

21:16 I would say that trade worked out fine for us. Jack did not have an answer for that. Get some rest, Stephen said standing. There'll be time to talk about what comes next. There's always time for that. He looked down at Mr. Rogers, still pressed to Jack's side, and the corner of his mouth turned up. Anybody get this dog something to eat?

21:38 He's family now. This has been the Lone Man on the Ridge, Episode 19 Behind the Wire.