Survivors (44 page)

He was interrupted by a gunshot.

Brewster turned back and saw Trev lying still in the street, the back of his head gone and the pistol still in his mouth.

“Yeah,” Brewster said, suddenly more tired than he’d been in a long, long while. “That’s about right.” He stared at Trev’s body for a moment, then ambled forward. Bending down, he picked the ASP out of the dead man’s pocket and looked at it. He collapsed his own baton and walked over to where he’d dropped the pistol and picked it up, too.

“Of course. I’m the fuckup, right Trev? And you’re the avenging hand of God. But you’re the one lying dead in the street. How is that fair?”

He looked up into the sky.

“How is that fucking fair?”

Sawyer was dragging himself away from the chortling, dying ex-agent. He had to move himself with only one hand, as the other hand was occupied, applying direct pressure to his middle. He’d been wearing his body armor, but by luck or on purpose, Mason had shot him in the pelvis, on the right side.

At first he’d tried to stand and get away, but he couldn’t take the weight anymore.

Trailing blood behind him, he cursed a blue streak as he dragged himself toward the stairs.

“Radio!” he yelled. “Goddamn
radio
!”

A pair of soldiers came down the stairs at his cry. “What was that, sir? It sounded like you said—”

“Radio, motherfucker!” Sawyer screamed, and upon seeing him, they ran forward.

One of the men took his walkie-talkie off his belt and Sawyer lunged up and snatched it out of his hand. “Finnegan! Finn, this is Sawyer. Argh, Finn!”

“Go ahead, lead.”

“Send a medic down. Radio the team at Offutt, tell them to get ready to come in hot.”

“Sir, the targets haven’t yet—”

“I don’t give a
fuck,
Finn! No more cat and fucking mouse games. Safeties off. Tell your men. Turn it up, Finn. And where’s my goddamn medic?”

“Yes, sir. Over and out.”

Sawyer threw down the radio and turned back to the room he’d crawled out of. “You hear that, Mason? Your friends are dead, they just don’t know it yet. You, too. We’re out of here, and then we’re going to pull this place down around your ears!”

As he yelled, one of the soldiers walked over to the room, weapon at the ready.

“I said, do you hear me, Mason?”

The soldier looked back.

“I think he’s dead, sir.”

Sawyer spit. “Wonderful. Where’s the goddamn
medic
?”

Patton leaned over to Jenkins as the pair of soldiers they were supposed to stay with jogged off at a radio summons from Sawyer.

“Now would be a good time to hoof it,” he said.

Jenkins’s head came up and haunted eyes found Patton’s. “What about Lutz?”

Patton winked. “If Lutz is too busy taking a shit to save his own skin, then I say we leave him to it. Come on.”

The men stood and opened the metal-covered double doors at the entrance of the Fac. Patton stuck his head out and looked around. “It looks clear,” he said. “We’ll snag one of their jeeps, see how many miles we can put between us and this place before the fireworks really get started. If we’re lucky, whatever goes down here will draw every deadass in town and we can scrounge up a safe place to spend the night.”

Jenkins, smiling for the first time in what felt like days, followed Patton’s lead through the yard in front of the Fac. “Goddamn, it feels good just to be out of there. It feels like I can breathe, you know what I mean?”

“Oh, I know,” Patton said.

Across the yard, Stone stepped out of the radio shack for a breath of fresh air and saw the ex-raiders leaving the Fac. He didn’t recognize them, and even though he wasn’t clear on what everyone’s name was, he knew their faces . . . these men did not belong. So how did they get in? He crouched low and stuck his head back into the shack.

“Hal,” he said. “Two unknowns exiting the Fac. Might be more inside. Better radio the search teams and let them know.”

Hal Dorne dropped the resistor he was chewing on and swiveled to grab for a handheld. “What are you going to do?”

Stone’s face set itself. “I’m going to introduce myself.”

Patton and Jenkins were two feet from the gate to the Fac yard when the yelling started behind them. Lutz came out of the front doors at a quick jog.

“Just where in the fuck do you two think you’re going?”

“Oh, fuck, oh, Jesus,” Jenkins said, eyes widening.

“We’re out of here, Herman,” Patton said. “You think you know what’s coming, but I think you’re wrong. You’re also an asshole, and we are not sticking around.”

“I say you’re getting your asses back in there, and—”

A man materialized up out of the dirt, holding an M-16 on them. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said. “So, seeing as we’re strangers, how about we get off on the right foot and you put your guns down?”

Jenkins began to sob. “I knew it. I
knew
it. Ain’t nothin’ ever good of following Herman goddamn Lutz.” He dropped his gun and put his hands on top of his head.

Patton eyed the man with the M-16. After a moment, he put his hands out, but he didn’t drop his gun.

“Listen,” he said. “We don’t have anything to do with what’s going on here, okay? We were coerced—”

“And armed,” the man said. His eyes twitched narrow for a second. “Where’s the girl that was on the door?”

A sob hitched in Jenkins’s throat and Patton wilted just a little, and that was all the answer Stone needed. He raised his rifle and put a three-round burst into Patton’s chest. As he turned to Jenkins, that man collapsed, screaming how it wasn’t his fault. Lutz just stood there, dumbfounded.

Stone jammed the barrel against the man’s head, and Jenkins found himself retching at the scent of cordite.

“You two come with me,” Stone said, “and you might get to keep your skins.”

“. . . and Stone went off to investigate, over,” Hal said.

“This is bad,” Denton said. “That means they’re inside the Fac.”

He’d called a halt after Brewster came back without Trev and they took cover in the shadow of an empty shop. The radio call came shortly after.

“Well, that’s perfect,” Brewster said. “The sun is going down, we got drawn out like perfect suckers, and now we’re locked out of our own fucking stronghold.” He put his hands over his eyes. “I just want this day to end. Please, God,” he said, and looked up into the darkening sky, “give me somebody to shoot.”

A moment passed. Two.

“Fine,” Brewster said. “I just thought I’d ask.”

The sound of running footsteps came to them. Denton looked out and saw two men in urban camouflage carrying a body board between them, and they were hotfooting it toward the Fac.

“I believe in the power of prayer,” he said.

“Fuck, yeah,” Brewster said, and he took off running after the men.

They were double-timing it, but Brewster caught up quickly and snapped out his ASP. With a deft movement, he swung it out and took the rear man’s left knee out. He fell and clutched his leg, dropping his end of the body board and forcing the man in front to stumble and fall, as well.

Not waiting for either of them to get their bearings, Brewster shot the front man from a foot away with the shotgun, then turned back and cracked the rear man across the face with the butt of it.

He fell back, the fight gone out of him with his front teeth. Brewster dipped and grabbed the camouflaged man and dragged him into the shadows where the rest of his group waited.

While everyone watched, Brewster collapsed his baton and forced it sideways across the man’s upper lip. He pressed down hard and the man jerked, screaming. A quick glance at his uniform shirt gave Brewster his name.

“All right, Kent. This is how we’re going to play the game. I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to give me answers. Otherwise . . .” He chopped the side of the baton, which was still against Kent’s upper lip, and the man let out another strangled yell.

Mbutu stepped forward. “Ewan, we cannot—”

“You shut the fuck up and keep back,” Brewster snapped. His eyes were red-rimmed and crazy. “Those first shots we heard? Who do you think that was for, man? The only one left topside was Juni!”

“Holy shit,” Jack whispered, and Mitsui sagged against the wall.

“That’s right,” Brewster said. “So no more Fun-and-Games Brewster.”

Turning back to the man on the ground, he smiled. His face felt to him like a rictus, a death mask that might never come off.

“What the fuck is going on?”

Stone’s three-round burst came to them from up the street.