Flight (13 page)

Normally at the top of the
mountain, above the tree line, it would be cool, but they would be
exposed to the intense ultraviolet of the sun and would sunburn
easily. But now, with the dense cloud cover, the day was colder
than expected and they were not concerned about sunburn. They found
a relatively comfortable spot and Wolfgang lay down. He fell asleep
immediately.

He awoke briefly, hearing the
murmur of voices and smelling cooking food. He went back to
sleep.

He awoke again. Leah lay curled
next to him. They shared a blanket. His body was stiff and sore and
his head pounded. The sky was dim. He couldn’t tell if it was
sunset or sunrise.

He sat up and it was a mistake. He
felt the blood rushing to his head threatening to blow out every
artery on its way there. He hung his head between his knees and it
helped a little.

He felt a hand rub his
back.

“Are you okay?”

Wolfgang realized Leah was now
using the familiar form of you in German. The one he had used
accidentally with her. He wasn’t sure when she had started, or if
he had continued using it with her as they hiked up the
mountain.

No matter. He would go with her to
her parent’s house in their tiny Swiss Alpine village and see what
happened next. It was okay that they were close friends. Wolfgang
needed a friend. He also needed time to rest and recover from the
shrapnel wound.

“No,” he answered
truthfully.

“What can I do?”

“We’d prefer it if you two spoke
English,” an American voice growled. It was Wlazlo.

“I’d prefer if you don’t kill
children,” Leah replied in English.

“I did what I had to,” Wlazlo shot
back.

“Morning? Or night?” Wolfgang
asked, interrupting the argument intentionally.

“It’s morning, Wolfie. You been
asleep like twenty hours. Are you going to be able to move
today?”

“Follow?”

“Come again?” Wlazlo
asked.

“Follow? Did they follow?”
Wolfgang wished his English was better. He needed to
practice.

“No one followed us,” Wlazlo
answered. “That’s what me and the young lady here have been arguing
about all day.”

“I can walk. I need food. And,” he
couldn’t remember the word, so he used one that was close to a
German word, “a toilet. Before I can walk.”

Wlazlo barked a laugh. “No toilets
up here, Wolfie. We’ve just been going behind that rock over
there.” He pointed it out. “Just don’t step in anything that’s
already there.” He laughed at his own joke.

Leah dug protein bars and water
out of his backpack for him. Most of the pack was filled with
ammunition, he saw. After taking a few bites, he was overwhelmed
with nausea. He wanted to throw up. He went behind the rock
thinking he might, but he kept the food down.

They changed the bandage on his
head. Wolfgang was surprised at how much blood soaked the old
bandage. He probably needed stitches. He didn’t know the words, so
he mimed sewing.

“Stitches?” Wlazlo
guessed.

“Yes.”

“You probably did need stitches.
You are going to have one beaut of a scar.” He swore. “A real
decoration of battle, and all you was doing was riding in the back
of a truck.”

“It will be a lovely scar,” Leah
said. “It will make you look more handsome.”

Wlazlo shook his head and walked
away, towards where the other officer sat.

“Thank you,” Wolfgang said in
German.

“We must speak English now,” Leah
replied, but she had a shy smile on her face.

“Okay,” he said and chuckled a
little. ‘Okay’ was as German a word as it was English.

She chuckled with him and Wolfgang
found himself enjoying the moment.

And immediately felt guilty
because of it.

His wife hadn’t even been dead a
week and here he was, flirting with a girl at least ten years
younger than him. What was his wife thinking, looking down at him
from heaven? His face flushed from embarrassment.

“I am ready,” he said.

Leah finished taping his new
bandage in place and said, “I, too.”

She stepped back to admire her
work, then smiled at Wolfgang again. He stood and used the motion
to look away from her. She reached out to help him and he accepted
her help. He would need her help to get down off this mountain. He
was sure they would make it down, he just didn’t know what would
happen next or how he would feel about it.

The American soldiers were also
ready to leave and the four set off.

20

Eva despaired as Juan took the
jeep under an overpass, then turned left, heading west on the Oran
K. Gragson freeway.

“What are you doing?” she yelled
from the back.

“Getting us out of here,
ma’am.”

“We can’t go that way.”

“We can’t go back.”

Eva reviewed her options. If she
remembered the map correctly, they could leave Las Vegas in the
direction they were headed, but they’d have to go around a mountain
range and maybe even through Death Valley to get to Palmdale. She
didn’t know how long Mark would survive, but it wouldn’t be that
long.

They had to get back onto
I-15.

“We have to go back,” she yelled
forward. “On I-15.”

“No, ma’am,” he shouted
back.

“Juan, I’ll blow your head
off.”

He slowed the jeep to a stop and
put his hands in the air. He turned to face Eva.

“Why did you get off the freeway,
ma’am?”

“Concrete barriers blocked the
road.”

“Yes, ma’am. How are we going to
go back that way?”

“Those were the southbound lanes.
We go south on the northbound lanes.”

“Aren’t those going to be blocked
also, ma’am?”

“Maybe,” Eva offered.

“I’m afraid, ma’am. I’ve been
afraid since the first day those aliens started dropping big rocks
on us.”

“I’m afraid, too,
Juan.”

“How could you be afraid, ma’am?
You’re a highly evolved robot that’s been transported from the
future to the here and now. I just don’t know if you’re here to
destroy the world or to save it.”

Eva laughed. It felt good. It
relieved the tension.

Then it was time to put her game
face back on.

“Turn it around slow, Juan. We’ll
go the wrong way on the transfer ramp to the northbound lanes.
That’ll put the freeway between us and the bad guys.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He did so, and she got ready in
the back, making sure the grenade launcher had it’s complement of
three high explosive grenades and she had a fresh cartridge in her
rifle. As they approached the transfer ramp she took a quick peek
at Mark’s ashen face. No change.

The ramp took them high in the
air, and she looked down at the scene of the firefight. Smoke still
billowed in the air from the bus shelter and it looked like two or
three people were running around the area. She and Juan had gotten
out just in time.

“Are you sure you’re on the right
ramp?” she called out.

“I think so, ma’am. The signs
aren’t designed for people going the wrong way.”

The ramp they were on towered over
the others and Eva felt exposed. Of course, she also had the high
ground, which was supposed to be a military advantage, although she
didn’t see how it would help her there. Speed was the advantage she
needed.

She looked at the signs behind
them and guessed they were probably on the correct ramp to get to
the northbound lanes. She yelled at Juan to drive
faster.

The ramp merged onto the
northbound lanes and Eva saw the concrete barricade on the other
side. Their side looked clear. She also saw men on the roof of a
police building on the opposite side, near the the barricade. She
mentally urged Juan to drive faster, and she kept her head low in
the back, but didn’t say anything for fear of distracting him. He
was afraid enough as it was.

Some of the men may have pointed
at them, but they were long out of range before anyone could
react.

A minute and a half later and they
passed an on-ramp. There was no sign of pursuit.

Another minute. A sign on the
opposite side of the freeway for Sahara Avenue.

Eva didn’t want to relax. Couldn’t
relax as long as they were still in the city. If the place had
become completely lawless, she needed to stay alert.

Another minute. She couldn’t see
the speedometer, but if Juan were driving ninety, each minute meant
a mile and a half away from their ambushers. And less time for
someone else to react to their presence.

Until they got to the
Strip.

They passed an off-ramp and went
under a highway. Eva turned around in the back of the jeep,
watching every spot where someone could shoot at them, her MP23
ready.

“Keep moving,” she yelled to front
of the jeep.

“Pedal to the metal, ma’am,” Juan
yelled back. Eva noticed he had a hispanic accent at times, but at
others he didn’t. She guessed it came from living in two cultures,
but asking him about it would have to wait until they got out of
town.

She had never thought a freeway
could feel so dangerous.

Eva saw the first tower on the
Strip and felt vulnerable until a sound barrier appeared on their
left. It was essentially a ten foot high brick wall.

“Hug that wall,” she yelled and
Juan dutifully steered into its protection. Eva hoped it would last
a long time. It didn’t.

Another overpass with on-ramps and
off-ramps. With no cars on them, and traveling the wrong way down
the freeway, it was hard for Eva to keep track of which lane would
lead where. As long as they kept going at break neck speed down the
road, it wouldn’t matter, she decided.

Then came another sound barrier,
and Juan moved into its protection without any prompting from
Eva.

“I’ve heard stories about the
Strip, ma’am,” Juan yelled back over his shoulder. “Please be
ready.”

Eva didn’t reply.

As long as she couldn’t see over
the barrier, no one could see them.

But this barrier ended too soon
also, and she could see high rises ahead and to their
left.

“Just keep driving as fast as you
can,” she yelled over the wind noise. She was being beaten up in
the back by the ninety mile an hour wind. “A moving target is a
tough target to hit.”

Juan raised his hand in
acknowledgement, keeping his eyes focused on the empty road
ahead.

Eva had been to Vegas, years
earlier. It was always crowded, especially around the Strip.
Everybody from all over the world wanted to come here to see what
it was all about. She, too, had been caught up in the wonder of it,
but hadn’t liked losing three hundred dollars gambling on her first
night. She thought she’d be better at it and was disappointed in
herself. She let her friends do all the gambling the rest of the
trip.

Was she gambling now? Should she
have let Juan take them the long way around?

That would have been gambling with
Mark’s life, although he was probably going to die anyway. But he
had rescued her from the safe house, and she owed him. Besides, the
first set of ambushers would be alert and upset, so it made no
sense to head back that direction. She pitied anyone else who might
come down that same freeway today.

They went under another highway
overpass and two men with binoculars stood on it.

Spotters.

“Keep moving,” she yelled and
turned around to watch behind them. The spotters had run to the
side of the overpass they had just crossed under and one of them
looked like he was on a radio.

Eva had time for one more thought
before the ambush hit.

It was the end of the world.
Didn’t people have anything better to do than prey on
others?

The attack came from the Bellagio
parking garage. At first it was small arms fire falling short, but
then someone with a high caliber sniper rifle took the headrest off
the passenger seat. If Eva had been in that seat...

Juan slowed down.

Eva swore at him.

But then she saw the method to his
madness. He pulled up under another overpass, just off the freeway
and behind a concrete buttress. He dove out of the jeep and onto
the ground.

Eva followed him, her MP23 in her
arms and carrying a bag of ammo and grenades.

She moved next to him, lying in
the shelter of the concrete.

“Don’t give up on me now,
Juan.”

“No, ma’am. This seemed like the
best thing to do.”

“For now,” Eva agreed. “But it
won’t take long for them to get to this overpass and drop grenades
down on us. We can’t stay here forever.”