Free Swords of Exodus [Dead Six 02] by Larry Correia, Mike Kupari Page B

sort. “We will need to secure secondary transportation from there.”
    “I’ve boosted a few cars in my day, won’t be a problem.”
    “I imagine.”
    “Have you thought about our getaway? How you’re going to get Valentine out of the country? These Majestic assholes may be illegitimate, but they have full access to all of the investigatory powers of one really big-ass government machine. If Valentine’s important enough to get locked in a secret prison, they’re going to be pissed off when they find out he’s gone.”
    She shook her head. “This has all been rather . . . hasty . I’m still not sure how we’re going to get Valentine out without them killing him.”
    “Don’t worry. I’ll come up with something. I always do.”

Chapter 3: The Princess of Montana

    LORENZO
    Bozeman, Montana
    February 10th

    “You’re serious. This is your plan?” Ling was incredulous.
    I held up the spaghetti-strapped tank top and the denim miniskirt. “Come on. You need to look the part.”
    Ling glanced around the Walmart, embarrassed. She caught the skimpy top when I tossed it to her. “This is . . .” she looked at the tag, “a size too small.”
    “Changing room is right over there.” I nodded my head.
    “But . . .”
    “Look. I know you don’t trust me but you need to work with me here. We’re going to an oil roughneck town in the middle-of-nowhere Montana, not the French Riviera. So unless you want to put Antoine in drag, this is the best I can come up with.”
    Antoine grunted.
    Ling gave me a dirty look and went into the changing room.
    “I hope your boss can lighten up for this,” I told Antoine, “or at least fake it. She’s a little intense.”
    Antoine folded his massive arms and glared at me. Over the last few days I had discovered that he was very protective of Ling. She was clearly his superior, but he seemed almost like a father figure. Shen, on the other hand, was a cipher. He hardly ever spoke. He stood a short way away from us, and seemed to be uncomfortable shopping at Walmart at two o’ clock in the morning. Every freak, junkie, and crazy in Bozeman was wandering around the huge store, making a nuisance of themselves as the hapless employees tried to buff the floors and restock the shelves.
    “You are from here?” Antoine asked me out of the blue.
    “Not here, specifically. Born and raised in the US. Only been back briefly a handful of times over the last few years . . . And every time it seems a little bit worse, a little rougher.”
    “Indeed.” Antoine looked around the gigantic store filled with more food and goods in one night than whatever West African village he hailed from had probably seen in its history. He chuckled, surely thinking whatever you say, fat American. First world problems. “Times are hard.”
    I may have detached myself from the world, didn’t mean I didn’t pay attention to current events, especially those that could present job opportunities. I was retired, not dead. “The economy is shit, but this country has bigger problems.”
    “I do not understand.” Antoine looked to his partner. Shen as usual had nothing to say. “Compared to most of the world, this place is a paradise.”
    “Listen . . .” It was hard to explain. “I’ve lived in every shit hole on Earth, and they’re all the same. It pisses me off to see the same thing creeping in here. There are always assholes who want to hurt the regular people, and then along come the control freaks who want to capitalize on fear of the scary assholes to control the regular people. The scary assholes just don’t care, so repeat, repeat, repeat. Government’s like a ratchet, and it just keeps on cranking down. This isn’t the country I grew up in anymore. People got too scared of the assholes so now the ratchet’s getting real tight. People think they’re trading chaos for order, but they’re just trading normal human evil for the really dangerous organized kind of evil, the kind that simply