Thep Center had erupted in confusion. A half dozen agents were on the phone, each in a different shouting match, each trying to find out what all the shooting was about. Isaac was the center of the storm, directing his wrath at Agent Lundquist.
"Who the hell did you put in charge out there? Lieutenant Calley?"
Lundquist was at a loss. "It's not us who did the shooting." "Who is it then? Yakima Sheriff's office? Everybody and their brother has a SWAT team these days."
"No one from the sheriff's office has been deployed. I'm telling you straight, Isaac. No paramilitary law enforcement unit is even in place yet. Not even our own SWAT."
Realization slowly washed over him. Isaac walked to the map and uttered softly, "They're firing upon themselves."
"What?" said Lundquist. "Why the hell would they do that?"
"Why did they start the fires at Waco? To trigger an apocalypse."
Lundquist stood silent, stunned.
"Deploy the SWAT," said Isaac. "It's time to save these people from themselves." He looked down, concerned. "Or at least save Andie."
A pulsating alarm pierced the night, echoing like an air-raid siren across the compound. Andie was lying in a depression in the earth that barely provided cover. It would soon be a shallow grave if she didn't move to a safer place. Bullets were missing her by inches, kicking up dirt all around her. Then there was a break, as if they were reloading or regrouping. On impulse, she made her move. She rolled to the front of the barracks and shoved the door open. Gunfire shattered the door above her, but she rolled inside and pushed it closed. She huddled on the floor, then looked up and gasped.
Three bodies were suspended above her, hanging by the neck at the end of a rope. One man, two women. They twitched every few seconds as bullets whistled through the shattered windows and riddled the corpses. They turned slowly on the rope, and finally Andie saw a face. One of them was Felicia.
The apocalypse had begun.
Andie was frozen, unable to look and at the same time unable to tear her eyes away. Suddenly, she smelled smoke again. It wasn't coming from the barn. It was from the back of the barracks. The unit was on fire.
The door burst open. She jumped to defend herself, but a man grabbed her. He was armed and wearing a flak jacket. He was dressed in fatigues and had his face covered with greasepaint. Instinctively, she hit him twice, landing a solid blow to his jaw.
"Willow, stop!"
She recognized him. It was Tom. And he still thought she was on his side.
"Let's go. Everybody inside."
She wasn't sure what was going on, then it clicked. She recognized the fully automatic AK-47 rifle and the full metal jacket ammunition he was carrying. You son of a bitch. You were firing on your own people.
"Come on, damn it! Inside the house!" He grabbed her and nearly dragged her out the door.
Chapter Sixty-five.
The driveway was empty when Gus arrived home. Carla's car was gone. On the phone from Meredith's, he had tried to convey the requisite urgency without scaring her to death with news of a killer on the loose. It wasn't as if the killer were outside the Wheatleys' front door. Carla had plenty of time to get Morgan to safety before the attacker could get to his car and drive all the way from Meredith's house.
Unless he had a partner.
Gus's heart was suddenly racing. In all the confusion--fighting off the attacker, Dex getting shot--the possibility of two killers striking in tandem had eluded him. He hurried inside and called out from the foyer.
"Morgan, Carla?"
No reply. The house had a deserted feel to him. He closed the door and switched on the lights. Morgan's room was the first stop. Empty. He grabbed the cordless phone and dialed the police station, just to make sure. He continued to the master bedroom as the call went through.
"Hello, my name's Gus Wheatley. I'm checking to see if my six-year-old daughter and my sister are there. This may sound strange, but I told them to go there because something happened and they were afraid to stay here at the house alone."
"I'll check, sir. What are the names?"
"Wheatley is the last name. Morgan and Carla."
Gus heard a click, then elevator music. He was on hold. The line crackled as he entered the master closet, but the cordless reception soon cleared. With the phone tucked under his chin he pulled Beth's big box of old photographs down from the shelf, sat cross-legged on the floor, and dug in.
It was the same box he had gone through the other night while reminiscing about Beth and the way things used to be. Some he had lingered over. Others he had breezed through. At first he had focused only on pictures of Beth and him or Beth and Morgan. By the end of the night, however, he had gone through nearly every photograph. Some had been taken before he and Beth had even started dating. That night had been his rediscovery of Beth, a chance to meet friends of hers he had never met before.