Written in Fire

CHAPTER 17

The ground was cold and hard as cast iron taken from the freezer. Luke Hammond felt the chill leaching into his chest, the stones digging into his legs, the dull ache in his muscles. Then he packed the discomfort away. A trick he’d learned at nineteen, as a long-range recon scout in Laos. Catalog the conditions, but don’t feel them. Focus on the mission.

The night vision function of the binoculars had been destroyed along with all the other electronics when they’d been hit with the electromagnetic pulse. But the clear Wyoming sky glowed with starlight, and he could see the outpost easily. A cluster of trailers and prefab units surrounding an inflatable structure a hundred yards across and bumpy with rooms and hallways. The hum of generators rose and fell with the wind. A handful of cars and four large buses formed a makeshift parking lot. The outpost had no sign, no fence, no permanent structures of any kind. The whole facility looked like it had been thrown together a week ago—which it had.

There was only one guard, stamping his feet as he lit a cigarette. No serious soldier would have made that mistake on watch, but no one here expected an attack. That was part of the point, and why Luke and his team had traveled almost fifty miles perpendicular to the path of the New Sons to reach this place. In this otherwise unoccupied wasteland, “security” was mostly to protect from coyotes.

He lowered the binoculars and glanced sideways. Eleven men, all prone, all silent, looked back. They were dressed as he was, in layers of black clothing and woven hats. The most visible parts of them were their eyes and their weapons.

Miller had argued for more men, but Luke wanted to keep the squad small. Epstein might be out of bombs, but there were no doubt eyes in the sky tracking every motion of the army. “We’ll look like deserters. You know there will be plenty of them. It’s one thing to chant slogans and another to suffer drone fire. Epstein can’t track every group.”

“No,” General Miller had said. “But this is critical to our success. Will a dozen men be able to control the situation?”

“Yes,” Luke had replied. “Our targets are used to following orders.”

His team wasn’t the kind of elite unit he was used to, but people who drove across the country to join a militia tended to be of a breed, and he’d selected men with significant combat experience. The nature of it varied dramatically: Gorecki was an ex-marine who worked as a bodyguard for hip-hop superstars, Decker was the master-at-arms for a San Diego motorcycle club, Reynolds had commanded a police rapid response team in Tennessee.

“I’ll take the guard outside,” Luke whispered. “There are probably a couple more awake in the dorms. Reynolds, that’s your team. Do it quietly. Gorecki, take your three and secure the perimeter. Staff will be in the trailers; Decker and I will go door to door. Understood?”

His unit leaders gave him the thumbs-up. Luke started to rise, then paused. “Remember to check your targets. Nobody hurts a kid.” He waited to see nods from all eleven men, took one last look through the binos—the guard was still leaning against the hood of a car, his back to them—and handed them to Gorecki.

Luke stayed low, duckwalking toward the parking lot. It felt good to be moving after half an hour on cold ground. The on-mission clarity bloomed, that heightened awareness and sharpened focus. How many times had he done something like this? Dozens? Scores? He’d lost count of the nations he’d fought in. There had been times in his life when he felt that he was only alive when he was operating.

At least, he’d felt that way until he had sons.

The noise of the generators would cover any sound he might make, but he stepped lightly anyway. When he reached the nearest bus, he dropped to his belly, peered under the vehicle. All he could see of the guard were the back of his legs. Luke considered circling, decided to take the less expected route, and army-crawled beneath the bus. More of the guard was revealed with each careful movement. Judging by the number of butts at his feet, he’d been here awhile. The graveyard shift was boring, and it was easy for the mind to wander.

Luke rose, a ghost in shadows. He left his sidearm in its holster and slid a length of cord from his pocket, wrapping it around each gloved palm four times. One step, two, three, and then he was behind the man, close enough to smell the acrid tobacco reek and hear the raspy sound of his breath. Luke waited for him to take a last drag on the cigarette and exhale. Then he crossed his arms to make a loop, snapped it over the guard’s head and jerked back and out with both arms at the same moment he kicked out his knee.

In less than a second, the man’s entire body weight and all of Luke’s strength came to bear on the slender cord against his throat, shutting his windpipe and the carotid artery. His hands flew to his neck, scratching futilely as his legs kicked spasms in the dirt. His strength was gone in three seconds; after eight, he stopped moving entirely. Luke counted another twenty, unwound the cord, and confirmed the job with his knife.

Then he rose and waved his team forward.

They came quickly, automatic weapons ready. Led by Reynolds, six of them moved to the inflatable dome. Gorecki’s team spread out to surround the compound. Decker was of the amphetamine-thin variety of biker, a tattooed scarecrow with long hair bound back by his hat. His eyes didn’t widen as he took in the dead guard and the blood steaming against the cold ground.

Luke pointed to the nearest trailer. He’d hoped the door might not be locked—they were miles from the nearest town—but a gentle twist gave nothing. The fourth key on the guard’s ring did the trick. Luke opened the door and slid inside, Decker behind.

Night glow through the windows revealed a tiny living area. The kitchen was to the left, and on the wall to the right an open door led to what had to be the bedroom. Luke slid to it, footfalls silent on the carpet, then peered in. Pitch-black. He took the flashlight from his pocket, covered it with his palm, and let the blood-warm light trickle in. A desk, the door to a bathroom, a twin mattress with one figure in it. Six steps brought him alongside the bed.

In one move, Luke straddled the sleeper, covering his mouth with his right hand and using the left to aim the flashlight in his eyes. The man woke with a jerk and a gasp against Luke’s palm.

“Don’t fight.”

The man froze, his face pale and eyes wide, pupils constricting visibly in the sudden light.

“I’m going to take my hand off your mouth. Try to scream, you die. Understand?”

A trembling nod.

“What’s your role?”

“Wh . . . what?” Voice cracking.

“Your job. What is it?”

“I’m a counselor.”

“What’s your name?”

“Gary.”

“How many children are here, Gary?”

“Umm.” It was the first time the man had consciously hesitated.

Decker pulled a long bowie knife from a leg sheath, twisted the blade to catch the light, then slid it across the man’s throat, painting a thin line of blood. The counselor jumped, started to yelp, but Luke had his hand down before he could make a sound.

“We got one warning before Epstein tried to kill us. You get the same. Hold back again, or try to lie, and we’ll gut you.” Luke took his hand away. “Now—”

“Six hundred and four!”

For a moment, Luke almost ordered Decker to kill him, but the fear in the counselor’s eyes was pure and uncalculated. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“I swear—”

“Lower your voice.”

“I swear, it’s true, I swear.”

“This is where Epstein brought the kids who escaped from Davis Academy two weeks ago. There were only about three hundred students in the whole school.”

“We p-p-paired them. With other children.”

“Why?”

“The academies—these kids were taken from their parents, brainwashed. Taught to hate each other. For years. They need care, help. That’s why we’re all the way out here, the middle of nowhere. Please, don’t cut me again.”

“What other children?”

“Huh?”

“You said you paired them with other children.”

“Oh. Holdfast kids. V-v-volunteers.”

Luke weighed that. It made sense; it wasn’t that different from the kind of counseling veterans with PTSD had access to. It’s a gift. It’ll make Miller’s plan twice as effective. “You an abnorm?”

“Yes. I’m a tier-four reader, with a master’s from—”

“I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to read me and think very carefully before you answer.” He leaned forward. “How badly do you want to live?”

The man stared at him. For a long moment, Luke could see him wrestling to hold on to notions of honor and duty. But abstract concepts were slippery, especially in the middle of the night with a bowie knife resting on your throat.

“What do you want me to do?”

“How many therapists are on staff?”

“Uhhh . . . about ten professionals, plus administrators.”

“If you could pick two others to survive the night, who would they be—and where do they sleep?”

Twenty minutes later, Luke and Decker had recruited a couple more therapists.

It would have been quicker, but two of them didn’t want to live as badly as Gary.

Considering how packed it was, the big dome of the gymnasium was eerily calm. The children sat on the floor, some in pairs, most alone. The ones from Davis Academy had simply lined up and held out their arms to be zip-tied, one at a time. Gary and the other two counselors had been useful; when the children saw adult faces they recognized, they’d just mutely done what they were told.

The only ones who had argued or offered resistance were the Holdfast kids. But the sight of commandos with automatic rifles had kept them in line.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Gary said, his voice trembling. “These men have promised that no one will be hurt.” He stood in the center of the gym, spinning slowly as he talked, trying not to look directly at the armed men surrounding them.

Luke walked the perimeter, taking a headcount and wondering what the academies must be like to have so cowed these kids. He remembered assemblies from his grade school days as noisy affairs, no matter how loudly the staff yelled. And those had been regular kids; these were gifted, mostly tier ones. It wasn’t just that they could do things straights couldn’t, it was that they would have known that. He’d expected them to be cocky, sure that their abilities allowed them special privilege. And even though they were young, there were more than six hundred of them against a dozen soldiers.

Of course, they didn’t know that he had no intention of hurting a child. Whatever the academies were like, the people who ran them must not have operated under the same principle. Ugly, but useful. As he’d told General Miller, they were accustomed to taking orders.

500, 502, 504.

Decker and two of the others came in from the outside in a wash of loud, cold wind. The biker nodded to Luke. Good. It was done, then. The rest of the staff had been neutralized, leaving just Gary and his fellow therapists.

The facility belonged to the New Sons of Liberty.

A wave of exhaustion rolled across Luke. No doubt the rest of the team was in the same boat; it was nearing dawn after a long day. They’d left in the middle of the night following the drone attack, and marched hard to get here, covering almost fifty miles in twenty-four hours, breaking only briefly for meals, lying in thorny scrub as they waited for traffic to clear on the roads they’d crossed, nervously eyeing gliders soaring high above them. Add to it the adrenaline of action, even action without resistance, and what he wanted more than anything was to snatch a couple of hours of rack time.

You’ve still got a long day ahead.

580, 582, 584.

They’d managed the raid because no one in the Holdfast had expected it. General Miller had estimated as many as two thousand people would desert after the drone strikes, and while many would go back the way they’d come, groups would scatter in all directions, too many to track and intercept, especially with the New Sons pushing on toward Tesla.

At least his team wouldn’t be walking back. The buses he’d seen in the parking lot, no doubt the same ones that had brought the children here, would return them to the militia quickly enough.

“I know you’re scared,” Gary said. “We all are. But it’s going to be okay. Everyone stay with your buddy and do what you’re told, and we’ll all get through this.”

598, 600, 602 . . . 603.

Luke frowned. On the first headcount, he’d assumed that someone had swapped places, or that his own tired mind had made a mistake. But either Gary had lied to him, or else a kid was hiding somewhere.

On one hand, it didn’t matter. A single child wouldn’t make a difference. But if the kid was bright enough to try to reach a phone, they’d lose their advantage. The only way they were going to be able to return to the militia was if the powers that be in New Canaan didn’t realize what had happened.

As Gary droned on, Luke moved to Reynolds, the former tactical cop. He’d done well, his team taking down the guards inside the facility without alerting anyone. “We’re missing one.”

Reynolds cursed. “Want me to search?”

“No. Stay here, and stay sharp.” Luke cut around the perimeter, trying to ignore the stares of frightened children. The dome was modular, with the gymnasium being the largest section, and inflated halls led to group dorms and classrooms. The good news was that there couldn’t be too many places to hide. Doubtless he’d find the missing one under a bed.

At the door, a thought struck him, and he turned around and did another quick headcount. 2, 4, 6, 8 . . . 9. Ten counting himself.

Something in him went icy, and he unsnapped the strap on his sidearm.

The hallway beyond the gym was quiet, just the moaning of the wind against the fabric, and, faint, the sound of a voice and something that might have been a whimper. Luke started out as swiftly as silence would allow, then decided screw silence, and ran.

He found them in one of the classrooms, the sound of pleading coming through a zippered canvas door. The girl was blonde and crying, stretched face-first over a desk. She flopped and yanked, but she was probably sixteen, and thin. Gorecki was behind her tugging at her jeans, while one of the others, a guy out of Michigan named Healy, held both her arms in beefy hands.

When Luke ripped the door open, Healy straightened, an oh shit look on his face. Gorecki turned awkwardly, his pants around his ankles to expose his weapon.

For a moment they all stared, Luke and his teammates and the girl too, her head turned sideways and tears streaking her face.

Gorecki said, “She’s just a twist, man.”

Luke thought of his boys, his fine sons, burning alive. Josh burning in the sky, Zack burning in his tank. Soldiers, both of them. Both murdered by abnorms, by the work of a tier-one computer programmer. A tier one like this girl.

He drew his sidearm, braced it in both hands, and shot Gorecki twice through center mass and once in the head, swiveled, and did the same to Healy.

Then he holstered the weapon and went to look for a blanket for her.