Ogden hung his head. Whiskey Company had found a way. So close to success. Fifteen more minutes, that’s all they needed. As long as Murray didn’t know what building they were in, he’d have to bomb half the city. Or drop the nuke, and Gutierrez didn’t have the grapes for that.
But the attackers probably had Dawsey—he would sniff out the gate, and that would be that.
Ogden had to protect Chelsea.
“Tell all units to fall back to Bravo positions,” Ogden said. “That includes Mazagatti and my personal squad.”
Ogden closed his eyes and reached out. He had to prepare Chelsea.
Maraget and Otto sat motionless beneath a loose chunk of plaster and lath. They were in what had once been a small closet, or a smaller bathroom, she wasn’t sure—some of the holes in the floor might have been for plumbing.
She hoped their black suits would let them fade into the shadows. Clarence was down to one bullet. If the three soldiers found them here, it was all over.
When they’d entered this room, they’d been careful to avoid the crack vials that littered the floor. Even with the gunfire echoing through the city, any noise might give them away. Ogden’s men had been searching for ten minutes, rummaging through the ground floor while Margaret silently prayed they would leave. They hadn’t. Now they were going through the second floor. Every few seconds the men shot something. Probably firing into shadows, just to make sure.
Soon they would fire into this shadow.
“They’re coming,” Clarence whispered. “Our only chance is for me to shoot the first guy in and take his weapon.”
“No,” Margaret hissed. “They’re moving as a team.”
“We have to try something. When I move, you stay here. Maybe if they get me, they’ll think we split up. After they leave, you sneak out as best you can.”
Margaret couldn’t speak. If they got him, meaning if they killed him, he hoped it would give her a chance to live.
Clarence Otto was willing to die for her.
She heard a crunching pop of glass, a foot stepping on a crack vial. She grabbed Clarence’s hand and squeezed it tight. Then she remembered he needed the hand to shoot, and she let go.
Moments later, feet softly crunched the broken glass as a second man entered the room. Even through the suit, she felt Clarence’s body stiffen.
“Hey, Sergeant Major, hold up,” one of the men said. A pause, then: “That douchebag Kinney says the general ordered us back to Bravo position.”
“Now?”
“Yeah, of course now.”
“What about Montoya?”
“Forget her, man. We gotta get ready for the counterattack. If the general beats us there…”
“Fine. Let’s go, men. Haul balls.”
Creaking boards. One last faint crunch of glass. Footsteps descending the stairs. Margaret and Clarence waited, but heard nothing. Her body sagged as if her soul had slid free and taken her skeleton with it.
Her body relaxed, but Clarence’s did not.
“I want you to stay here,” he said. “I’m going to follow them and see if I can spot this Bravo location.”
“Clarence, no. You’ve only got one bullet. We need to get out of here.”
“I’m not discussing this with you. I have to see what it is.”
“Fine,” Margaret said. “Then I’m going with you.”
“Margaret, goddamit, knock it off. There is some serious shit going down. It’s not just Ogden’s men. It’s total chaos out there. You could get hit by friendly fire. Stay here, and as soon as I make contact with someone, I’ll have Murray send people right to you.”
“I’m not leaving your side,” she said. “I don’t want to get shot at anymore, believe me, but if you go, I’m following you. So it’s your call. If you want me out of harm’s way, that’s exactly where you need to be.”
He glared at her. He looked even angrier than when she’d broken his tooth.
She glared right back.
He shook his head and sighed. “You stay behind me and be ready to run, got it?”
Damn it. She assumed he would stay with her. Well, she’d opened her mouth, and no matter what, she wasn’t letting him go alone.
“I got it,” she said. “After you.”
He walked out of the room, quickly but carefully, letting his pistol lead the way. Margaret stood and followed.
Dew popped up over the trunk of a Ford, fired off a burst, then ducked back down. Bullets peppered the car, hitting metal, glass and rubber. Whiskey Company had cut through most resistance up until now, but Ogden’s men seemed to have concentrated in this area. The fighting grew nastier by the second, racking up casualties—about fifteen so far. With the uncontested and constant air support, that left plenty of fighting strength to push forward. When Ogden’s men did fire, Apache chain-guns quickly ripped into their positions.
“Come on, Perry,” Dew said. “They’re digging in here. We’ve got to be close. Which goddamn direction do we go?”
Perry lay curled up half under the Ford, slush-wet pavement coating him in black winter road grime.
“I’m trying,” he said. “They’re jamming me. It’s getting bad. I think it’s Chelsea, Dew; I think that little bitch is doing it.”
Another burst of plings and cracks as bullets ripped into the Ford.
Dew heard the buzzing roar of a chain gun, then the firecracker-on-steroids blast of thirty-millimeter rounds tearing through brick and wood and glass.
Then nothing, a pause in the action. Dew pulled Perry back up to a sitting position and leaned him against the ruined Ford.
“Look at me, Perry,” Dew said. “We’ve got nine minutes. Come on, kid, focus.”
Perry nodded and closed his eyes. “It’s blurry, Dew. It’s two signals, and… and one of them is moving.”
“Key on the signal that is not moving,” Dew said. “They can’t move the gate.”
Perry nodded. He breathed in deeply through his nose and let it out slowly from his mouth. Eyes still closed, he raised a hand and pointed over the hood of the battered Ford.
He was pointing down Atwater Street, toward downtown. A snowy field stretched along the left side of the road, and past that, the Detroit River. On the right side of the street, he saw a dilapidated three-story brick building surrounded by empty lots. Faded blue paint up on top had a barely legible sign painted on it: GLOBE TRADING COMPANY.
“That way?” Dew said. “Where, behind that building?”
“No, in it. I think.”
“You think or you know?”
“I think,” Perry said. “I told you, the signal is fading really fast.”
Dew scratched at his face, then looked around. Even in the middle of the firefight, he could see civilians scrambling for cover, cowering in doorways, frightened eyes peeking out from windows.
Apache HEAT rounds would destroy the building, but that didn’t guarantee destruction of the gate. Was there a basement? Had Ogden built protective berms or other support structures to harden the target?
Dew could have one of the F-15s drop a two-thousand-pound bomb, but again he wouldn’t know for sure if that took out the gate. Not to mention inevitable civilian casualties. Those bombs could kill people as far as a hundred yards from impact. Dew’s conservative guess was that a bomb would kill at least fifty people: men, women and children.
He checked his watch—1:08 P.M. Five minutes to go.
Dew pulled out his satphone. “Murray! Come in!”