Page 43 of Pierre
“Who are you and what do you want with us?” asked Vera.
“We want the good sister and the children you’ve taken,” said Pierre. “We know you’re selling them for war. Selling them to a madman to build soldiers.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mabel.
“Shut up, Mabel.”
“Put a sock in it, Rosalynn! Look around you. You’re so stupid sometimes. We are on a Navy ship with a bunch of G.I. Joes staring at us. Do you honestly believe they don’t know?”
“Where are the other kids?” asked Pierre.
“They’re on a ship getting ready to be taken to an island where they’ll train.”
“What island?” asked Frank.
“I’m not sure. I’ve never been to the island myself, but I understand that it’s not that far from here. The boys are taken there, put through physical tests, trained, taught to use rifles, and when they’re ready, they will be put to work.”
“Ready? They’re fucking children. Children!” yelled Ham, slamming his fist on the table.
“In case you missed it,” sneered Rosalynn, “children are dying on those streets out there. It doesn’t matter. Adult, elderly, child, infant. They are doomed unless someone helps them.”
“And you’re helping them by teaching them to kill for someone else?” asked Pierre.
The three women looked at one another, then back at Pierre.
“For someone else?” asked Mabel. “No. Not for someone else. They come back here, where they will fight for us to have control of the island.”
“Wait. What the fuck did you say?” asked Frank.
“The four of us, me, Rosalynn, Vera, and Josie, we came here twenty years ago to teach. We thought we could make a difference, and I suppose in some ways we were. But it wasn’t enough. So, we developed a plan that we would take the boys most at risk, train them in the ways of war, and when we had enough warriors, we would bring them back and wage war on this island, taking it for our own.”
“Your own? And what in the hell did you think the current government or military would do about that? As teachers, do you have any idea, any comprehension of what happens to people who start government coups? You won’t live past the first wave of attacks.”
“Of course we will,” scoffed Vera. “We have already. The riots happening now are caused by our warriors, our soldiers. They’re very good.” The three old women nodded at one another, smiling as if they’d just received the blue ribbon for the winning apple pie at the state fair.
“What time were you to meet her at the ship?” asked Pierre.
“Noon.”
“Text her,” he said, sliding the phone across the table. “Text her and let her know you hit a snag, but you’ll be there soon.”
Standing at her shoulder, Cruz ensured that her message said exactly what they wanted, and then they had the read on Josephina/Josie’s phone.
“Western docks. The ship is the Evangeline, a Canadian freighter,”said Hiro.“She appears to be on deck. I’m sending drones now to get a better look.”
“How old is Josie?” asked Pierre.
“Same as us. Mid-seventies,” said Mabel. “I don’t know why you’re upset by this. The kids are treated better by us than their parents, and when we’re done, they’ll have a better country than they did before.”
“Do you understand how warped that is?” asked Tucker. “This is their home, their people, their families. If they want to fuck it up, blow it up, and sink it, it’s their right to do so. Not yours. You can’t save them.”
“We all used to say that, then Josie convinced us otherwise. There are pockets of safety on this island, thanks to what we’ve done. We started recruiting teenagers, and that worked for a while. Then the drug lords came in, offering more than we could. It seemed more glamorous to work for them than all of us.
“So, we went with recruiting younger children, molding them early, and it worked much better. Some of them had parents, good home lives, but they knew they had to do something to change the future of the country. We offered them a way to do that.”
“And did you tell them that you were going to take control once you had all the kinks worked out?” growled Frank.
“No. We convinced them that women are the smarter sex to run a nation. We would reduce crime, increase earning potential and industry, and ensure that everyone had what they needed.”
