But though he didn’t feel guilt, exactly, Turk felt unsettled. He was uneasy—uneasy with the way the world was, unsettled by reality. In a perfect world, no one would kill, no one would threaten to exterminate a race. It was disappointing to be reminded that the world was far less than perfect.
“Farmers,” muttered Grease. “Right side.”
Turk leaned back against the seat, watching from the lower corner of the window as they passed. Two men were doing something to a tractor; they didn’t look up as the trucks passed.
A few miles later they turned westward, following a road that was little more than a trail down the side of a ridge. Probably flooded with water during the rainy season, he thought, when the rare but heavy rain washed through the area, the road now dry and wide. Its surface consisted almost entirely of small stones and pebbles, but the dirt below was soft.
Before long they started bogging down. The Israeli tried to compensate by building his momentum, but the car refused to cooperate, sliding to one side and then the other as he struggled to keep it under control. Then they spun around in a 360, jerking to a stop when the front wheels slid into a deep layer of soft sand.
The Israeli began cursing in Russian. Turk, a little dizzy, got out and fell to the ground, tripping in the loose dirt. Grease pulled him up.
The pickup stopped a short distance away, the troop truck stopping right behind it.
“We’re going to have to push it out,” said Grease as Granderson and Gorud ran up. “Going to have to push it this way.”
“If it will come loose,” said the Israeli.
“The question is whether we can get it any farther,” said Granderson, looking down the path in the direction they were to take. “Nothing that way looks much better than this stretch.”
Most of the men had gotten out of the truck to stretch their legs. Turk walked over and leaned in the back. “How’s Tiny?” he asked.
Dread looked at him but said nothing.
Turk understood what that meant. He put his lips together. “How’s your shoulder?” he asked.
“It’s OK.”
“We’ll get home soon,” offered Turk.
“Yeah.”
A few awkward moments passed. Turk felt as if he should be able to offer something to the others, consolation or something. He felt responsible for Tiny. He’d been killed protecting him, after all. But there was nothing to say, nothing that wouldn’t sound bizarrely stupid.
He asked Dread for water, but the trooper was listening to something else.
“Truck,” he said, grabbing his pistol with his good hand. “Couple of them.”
A funnel of dust appeared down the ridge.
Grease was staring at the vehicles when Turk reached him.
“Three Kaviran tactical vehicles, and a pair of two-and-a-half-ton trucks,” Grease told him. The Kaviran were Iranian Land Rover knockoffs. “Two miles off, maybe a little more. They’re coming right up this way.”
12
Washington, D.C.
ZEN STARED AT THE NUMBER ON HIS BLACKBERRY phone. It looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it or the name above: DR. GROD.
He looked up from his seat in the stadium box. The National Anthem was still about five minutes off.
What the hell.
“Excuse me,” he told his guests, a pair of junior congressmen from Florida who had supported one of his bills in the House. “I guess I should take this. It’s on my personal line.”
He wheeled himself back a few feet and hit the talk button.
“This is Zen.”
“Senator Stockard?”
“This is Zen. What can I do for you?”
“It’s Gerry Rodriguez from the Vegas clinic. Remember me from Dreamland? I know it’s been a while.”
“Gerry.” Zen closed his eyes, trying to associate the name with Dreamland.
“I had interviewed you as a follow-up to the experiments that followed, well, what the press ended up calling the ‘nerve center experiments.’ The cell regeneration group.”
“Right, right, right.” The experiments he remembered; Gerry he didn’t.
“You asked if I ever came up with anything . . . about regenerating the spinal tissue. If there was a project—”
“Sure.” Zen glanced toward the front of his box. The two congressmen were rising; the National Anthem was about to begin.
“I’m going to be in Washington tomorrow, as it happens. And I’d like to talk to you. If, uh, we could arrange it. I know your schedule is pretty tight, but—”
Zen got requests like this all the time: scientists looking for direction on how to get funding—and often specifically handouts. Standard Operating Procedure was to fend them off to one of his aides.
“Come around to the office and we can discuss it then,” he told his caller.
“Um, when?”
“Whenever. I don’t have my appointments handy. Tomorrow, the next day. See Cheryl. She’ll take care of you.”
“Great. I—”
“Listen, I’m sorry. I have to go.” Zen hit the end call button and rolled toward the front of the box just as the music began.
13
Iran
THE IRANIAN MILITARY COLUMN WAS TOO CLOSE FOR them to simply avoid. Granderson decided their best bet was simply to play through—keep moving along the road, moving with purpose, and hope to pass the column without hassle.
It almost worked.
With the car in the lead, the American caravan quickly set out, moving along the scratch road as quickly as it could. As they approached the lead Kaviran, the Israeli tucked as far to the side as he dared, the wheels of the car edging into the soft dirt. The Kaviran kept going. Turk, who had his head back against the car seat, caught a glimpse of the driver, eyes fixed on the road ahead, worried about getting past the pickup and truck. The next Kaviran thumped by. Turk saw the passenger in the front of the third Kaviran turn toward them, craning his neck to see inside.
“Faster,” muttered Grease.
But the Israeli was struggling to keep the vehicle simply moving. The two troop trucks hogged the road, and the only way to pass them was to swerve onto the loose gravel at the side. The Israeli waited until the last possible moment, then pitched the car to the right, drifting precariously toward a drop-off on the other side. They held the road, though just barely. Turk grabbed the handle of the door next to him as the car slipped around, the back wheels sliding free on the gravel.
Clear of the last truck, they had just started to accelerate when Turk heard a loud pop behind them. It sounded a little like a firecracker or a backfire, not a bullet, and he at first couldn’t make sense of it. In the next second, Grease barked at the Israeli to keep going and get the hell out of there. Turk turned around, trying to see what was going on, but all he saw was dust swirling everywhere, a massive tornado of yellow edged with brown. Reaching to the floor, he retrieved his rifle. By the time he got it, Grease had leaned over from the front and was pushing down on his shoulders, yelling at him to stay down.
“We have to help them,” protested Turk.
“Just stay the hell down.”
The next few minutes passed in a blur, the Israeli going as fast as he could up the road, Grease holding Turk down while he tried to get the rest of the team on the radio. The jagged hills played havoc with the low-intercept; he kept calling to the others without a response. Turk struggled to free himself even as he realized there was little he could do.
By the time Grease let go, the Israeli had started braking. They came around a curve in the mountain, swerving into a descent and two switchbacks until finally coming to a flat piece of land. He pulled over behind a tumble of rocks.