Perry nodded and tried to control his breathing. Dew was going to stick close to him? Screw that. More like the other way around. This was Dew’s world, and Perry wasn’t going to leave his side.
Dew nudged him. “Take a look out front. We’re coming in for a landing. Right up your alley.”
Perry looked, then shook his head.
Dew started laughing.
Clarence turned, aimed and fired, squeezing off four rounds as Margaret sprinted toward the long, two-story, tan brick building. She glanced at the street signs—Franklin and St. Aubin. Cinder-block walls filled the building’s windows. The place looked like a miniature fortress.
She ran for the door. Clarence passed her; he was so much faster. He reached it, stood at an angle, shot the deadbolt lock and then kicked the door open. They were only a block from the loading dock in which they’d first hidden. Ogden’s men had followed them in. Clarence hadn’t found any hiding places he thought were defensible, so they’d run again, bullets hitting all around them. If this building didn’t give them some protection, it was over.
She ran inside. He shut the door just as more bullets reached out to them, tearing into the door’s heavy wood, ricocheting off bricks on the outside wall. One step slower and they would both have been cut down.
Margaret was so scared she wanted to pee, but she kept moving, one thought in her head keeping her feet keep pumping—this wasn’t as scary as a one-cheeked Betty Jewell.
Clarence turned and ran farther into the abandoned building. Rusted metal machinery dotted the cracked floors amid stagnant puddles of standing water. Margaret saw trash and discarded crack vials everywhere, as well as a rusted shopping cart and half a blue toilet seat. It was a big building, a lot of halls and rooms. If they could find the right spot, it might take their pursuers a long time to track them down.
Clarence saw some stairs and dashed toward them. Margaret followed him up, both of them looking for a place to hide.
The Osprey slowed quickly as they came in for a landing. Perry heard a plinking sound, bullets hitting the craft’s armored sides. His body screwed tight with raw anxiety as he waited for a Stinger to hit.
But none did.
Nails spoke loud and calm, his words picked up by the little microphone curling around from the side of his helmet.
“We’re taking fire, possibly from a ten-or fifteen-story building south-southeast of the landing area,” Nails said. “I need air cover right now!”
Nails turned to face his men. Apparently he didn’t trust the microphone to pick up everything, because he started screaming at the top of his lungs. “All right! We’re coming in under fire. The Osprey will land with its nose facing the fire to give you a little cover as you go down the ramp. Hit the ground, go left. There are some bleachers there. Get under them. Find cover, return fire. Once our air support kills the snipers, we will move out. We have twenty-five minutes to destroy the target. We’re maybe a mile away, but we’re not sure where we’re going. I’m guessing we’ll be under fire as we run. We must press forward, no matter what, understand?”
“Yes sir!” the men barked in unison.
Dew leaned in to talk in Perry’s ear. “All these guys are expendable. You are not. They will draw fire and give you enough cover to move out. Hopefully, they’ll pin down the shooters.”
“Hopefully?”
Dew smiled and slapped Perry on the shoulder. “Like I said, kid, it’s all just odds. I put us at about eighty percent to make it.”
“Which means there’s a twenty percent chance we won’t make it.”
Dew winked and pointed a finger at Perry’s face. He flicked his thumb down twice—bang-bang. The face under his helmet showed electricity, excitement. As if someone had just sliced twenty years off his soul.
He likes this shit, Perry thought. He likes it, and this is the man I’m counting on to keep me alive?
Perry felt something. The sensation of the hosts flickered. Faded just a little. Another sensation flared up, very weak, but unmistakable.
The grayness.
“Dew,” Perry said. “I think they’re trying to jam me again.”
Before Dew could respond, the Osprey landed hard, throwing men against their seat restraints.
“Get up and move!” Nails screamed. The rear ramp dropped open, and men rushed out. Perry started down the ramp, looking out at what had to be the most surreal thing he’d seen yet.
The open, green expanse of a high-school football field.
“You should feel right at home, Dawsey!” Dew shouted.
Perry hit the green artificial turf and cut left along with the other men. They’d landed almost on the fifty-yard line. He ran across a black circle decorated with the yellow letters MLK, and then he was on the green again.
Somewhere in the back of his head, the ghosts of his past cheered for Scary Perry Dawsey one more time. He was even wearing a helmet.
In front of him, a man’s head snapped to the left. The man stumbled and started to fall. Perry reached out and grabbed his jacket, then flipped the limp body up onto his right shoulder. He never even broke stride.
From far off to his left, a deep stuttering sound, then an explosion. He only semi-heard these things—all he could think of was reaching the empty aluminum stands that stretched out in front of him. Suddenly he was on the red track, heading for the corner of the stands, then curving around them—their bulk shielded him from more bullets. Men surrounded Perry, helping him lower the wounded man. As soon as Perry set him down, it was clear the man wasn’t wounded.
He was dead.
A bullet had hit him on the right cheekbone and gone out the other side, the exit wound much larger than where the bullet had entered.
“Nice try, Perry,” Dew said. “An A-10 went after the snipers on that building. We’re probably okay for now, but we have to move.” Dew checked his watch. “According to you, we’ve got twenty-three minutes—so which way do we go?”
Perry looked away from the dead man. Forty-odd soldiers stared at him. Some were breathing hard. All were waiting.
“Perry,” Dew said. “Now or never.”
Perry closed his eyes and just felt. Without looking, he raised his right hand and pointed. When he opened his eyes, he saw that he was pointing toward the smoking Renaissance Center.
Nails drew in a big breath. “Let’s moooove! Time to get some payback, men. Fall out by squads, and let’s make time!”
The men turned and started to move out by squads.
Perry took one more look at the dead man, then stood and began jogging after the men of Whiskey Company.
Corporal Kinney Johnson was no Corporal Cope. That was for sure.
“Talk to me,” Ogden said. “This isn’t the Pythagorean fucking theorem here—just give me a fucking head count.”
Kinney was on one knee, handset held to his ear, trying to contact the remaining soldiers. He scribbled away on a note pad as he talked.
“Johnson!”
He looked up, his face showing anguish, panic and fear all at the same time.
“My guess, sir, twenty men. That’s the best I can do.”
Twenty. That was not good.
“Sir,” Johnson said, “I’m also getting reports from the inner perimeter. Large force of maybe fifty men moving southwest down Lafayette, toward our position. Regular army. Snipers are slowing them, but we can’t stop them.”