She is thunderstruck. The look in her eyes, like I asked her to chop off her head. I’ve broached a touchy subject.
“Look, Nugget’ll do it.” I press the tracker into his empty hand. “Right here, Private,” I say, pulling back my lip and pointing to a spot between my cheek and gums. Then I turn back to Megan. “See?” But Megan has faded back into the shadows. Damn it. I give Nugget another tracker. “Make sure she does it, okay? She listens to you.”
“Oh, no, Zombie,” Nugget says very seriously. “Megan doesn’t listen to anybody.”
He shoves Bear into the space and calls softly to her, “Megan! Take Bear. He’ll keep you safe, like gravity.” After that piece of logic only a child could understand, he hitches up his pants, balls his fists, thrusts out his little chin, and says, “They’re coming, aren’t they?”
We both hear it then, like the answer to his question: the sound of a chopper’s engines, doubling in volume with each of our rapid breaths. Toward the entrance the brilliant white of its searchlight slices through the dark.
“Go, Nugget. Get up there with Megan.”
“But I’m fighting with you, Zombie.”
He sure is. And at the worst possible time. Over his shoulder, I can see lamplight flickering in the weapons chamber. Double damn it.
“Here’s what you can do—kill that light down there. Then meet me back here. If we’re lucky, they won’t even land.”
“Lucky?” I get the feeling he wants them to land.
“Don’t forget, Nugget, we’re all on the same side.”
He frowns. “How can we be on the same side if they want to kill us, Zombie?”
“Because they don’t know we’re on the same side. Go. Shut off that damn light—go!”
He scampers up the path. The chopper’s light fades, but not so much its engines. Must be executing a sweep. We should be far enough underground to foil the IR, but there’s no guarantees.
The lamp goes out and the caves plunge into darkness. I can’t see an inch in front of my nose. After a few seconds, someone small bumps into me. I’m fairly confident it’s him. Only fairly, though, because I whisper, “Nugget?”
“It’s okay, Zombie,” he informs me, all business. “I grabbed a gun.”
73
THERE’S SOMETHING I’m forgetting. What is it?
“Here, Zombie, you forgot these.” He pushes a gas mask into my chest. God bless Nugget. And God bless Silencers like Grace and Father Death, who knew how to stockpile for the end of the world.
Nugget’s practiced; he’s already got his strapped on. “You’ve got Megan’s?” Dumb. Of course he’d grab one for her. “Okay, pal, up you go.”
“Zombie, listen . . .”
“That’s a direct order, Private.”
“No, Zombie! Listen.”
I listen. Nothing except my own breath hissing and huffing in the mask.
“They left,” Nugget says.
“Shhh.”
Tink-tink-tink. The sound of metal striking stone.
Damn you, Ringer, being right all the time is incredibly annoying.
They’ve tossed in the gas.
74
Assuming you don’t draw them off, how will they come? I asked Ringer while we were barricading the back entrance.
You never paid attention in class.
Do we always have to make it about me? Trying to tease a smile from her has segued from a hobby to a borderline obsession.
Gas first.
You think? I’d go with a few sticks of C-4 to seal off the exits, then finish us off with a couple of bunker-busters.
That’s probably second.
Behind us, toward the main entrance, the tear gas detonates with four loud pops. I grab Nugget around the waist and heave him into the cleft with Megan. “Get that mask on her now!” I shout, then I’m hobbling up the path, thinking, Thank God he remembered! That kid deserves a promotion.
One thing’s for certain, Ringer said. They won’t be settling in for a siege. If they attempt a dynamic CQC, they’ll probably hit the main entrance, which will give you a slight advantage: It’s narrow like a cow chute—they’ll funnel right to you.
I’m running blind. Well, calling it running would be generous. I’ve got massive amounts of painkiller in me at least, so the leg’s not giving me much trouble. Adrenaline helps, too. Check the bolt catch on the rifle. Check the straps on the mask. In absolute dark. In absolute uncertainty.
If they bust through the back entrance in a kind of pincer maneuver, we’re screwed. If they hit with overwhelming force up front, we’re screwed. If I freeze up or screw up at the critical moment, we’re screwed.
Freeze up like in Dayton. Screw up like in Urbana. I keep circling back to the same spot, and that spot is where I lost my baby sister, where I should have fought but ran instead. The chain that broke from her neck, lost now, still binds me. Oompa. Dumbo. Poundcake. Even Teacup, her, too: She’d still be alive if I’d done my job.
Now the chain dropping like a noose around Nugget and Megan, and now the noose tightens, the circle comes round.