Jenny and Hannah were waving to her from the top of the stairs. Sara half-pulled, half-dragged Grace to the lobby. Beyond the doors, a fierce battle raged. Children were screaming, mothers were huddled with their children, no one knew where to go. A few were running blindly out the door, into the heart of it. The virals were behind them and coming up the stairs.
A huge crash: the front of the building detonated inward. Bricks, shards of glass, splintered plywood went flying. Suddenly an army five-ton was standing in the lobby. Hollis was at the wheel.
“Everybody, get in!”
Amy covered Alicia’s body with her own. Her army was dying; she felt them leaving her, souls draining into the ether. You did not fail me, she thought. It was I who erred. Go peacefully—at last you are free.
Fanning’s virals broke through. Amy buried her face against Alicia’s neck, holding her close. It would happen quickly, faster than light. She thought of Peter, then of nothing at all.
It felt as if they were inside a flock of birds; as if the air around them had turned into a million flapping wings.
From the roof of the orphanage, Caleb watched the city die.
He had heard the catwalk collapse, a terrific crash. The scene before him possessed an odd quality of disconnection. It was as if he were observing events that did not wholly pertain to him, unfolding at a great remove. Though when the shooting started, he knew, he would feel differently. Twenty-five men: how long could they last?
The gunshots faded, the flash of fired rounds, the pitiable, anguished screams. The city was sliding into silence, a place of ghosts. A moment of stunning quiet; then a new sound accumulated. Caleb pressed his eyes to the binoculars. An army five-ton, draped in canvas, was roaring toward them from the square, flanked by a pair of Humvees. The men on the turrets were firing wildly, others shooting through the windows of the cab. Simultaneously Caleb became aware of a second, more compact movement to his right. He swung his lenses around. Impenetrable darkness; then two figures appeared. A third man was being carried.
Apgar.
His father.
They would intersect with the truck near the front of the building. Caleb’s feet barely touched the ladder as he descended. One of the Humvees veered away from the other vehicles; virals were clinging to it. It crashed onto its side and began to roll, like an animal trying to shake off a swarm of hornets. The five-ton was moving too quickly; it was going to crash into the building. At the last second, the driver cut the wheel to the left and screeched to a stop.
Hollis leapt from the cab, Sara from the bed. Everyone was grabbing children and hauling them through the door. Caleb vaulted over the sandbags and raced toward his father and the general.
“Take him,” his father said.
Caleb threaded an arm around the injured man’s back. The situation took shape in Caleb’s mind: the orphanage would be their final stand. In the dining room, Sister Peg waited by the open hatch. The woman was holding a rifle. The sight was so odd that Caleb’s mind simply rejected it. “Hurry!” Sister Peg yelled. His father and Apgar were ordering men to take positions at the windows. Hands reached up through the opening in the floor to help the children, who funneled into the hatch with a slowness painfully out of sync with everything else that was occurring. People were pushing and shoving, women screaming, babies crying. Caleb smelled gasoline. An empty fuel can lay on its side on the floor, a second by the pantry door. Their presence made no sense—it was in the same category of unaccountable details as Sister Peg’s rifle. Men were hurling dining chairs through the windows. Others were upending tables to act as barricades. All the things of the world were colliding. Caleb took a position at the closest window, pointed his rifle into the darkness, and began to fire.
For Peter Jaxon, last president of the Texas Republic, the final seconds of the night were nothing he had anticipated. Once the catwalk had begun its collapse, and the nature of the situation had become clear to him, he wholly intended to die. This was the only honorable outcome he could foresee. Amy was gone, his friends were gone, the city was gone, and he had only himself to blame. Surviving Kerrville’s destruction would be an unthinkable disgrace.
The last of the civilians had descended through the hatch, but would the door hold? Judging from the events of the last ten minutes, Peter could only conclude that, like everything else, it was bound to fail. Fanning, however he’d done it, knew everything.
Still, one had to try. Symbolism counted for something, as Apgar had said. The virals were amassing outside; they would storm the building as a horde. Still firing from the window, Peter ordered the men to fall back to the shelter; they had nothing left to defend except themselves. Many were out of ammo, anyway. A final shot from Peter’s rifle and the charger locked back. He cast the gun aside and drew his pistol.
“Mr. President, time to go.”
Apgar was standing behind him.
“I thought you were calling me Peter now.”
“I mean it. You need to get down that hole right now.”