Sorensen was wailing in my arms. “Do something!” He looked at me and shouted up at Freedom. “Why aren’t you helping them?”
Somebody yanked my radio out of my ear. Kennedy was standing next to me. She’d leaped down from the tower. “Sergeant Harrison,” she told me, “escort the doctor away from the fence.”
Sorensen grabbed her sleeve. “You have to help them,” he screamed. He was crying so much his beard had two wet streaks in it. “You have to do something!”
“I’ll lead the recovery team,” I said. “Twenty-one can be out there in ten min—”
“Sergeant,” snapped Kennedy, “I am ordering you to escort the doctor out of sight of the fence and into that building. Clear?” She pointed over my shoulder.
“Yes, First Sergeant.” That’s when I knew Britney was dead. They were all dead. “Clear.”
I dragged the doctor away. I could bench press over nine hundred pounds, but he was twisting and flailing and shrieking and trying to get to the gate. If you’ve ever tried to hold a really determined four-year-old, that’s what I was dealing with. I didn’t look back. My radio was dangling around my neck and I could still hear the screams. There were less of them, but one of them was a woman.
I kicked open the doors of the admin building, broke one of the hinges, and dropped Sorensen into a lobby chair. He was just gone. He wasn’t moving. There was a vacant look in his eyes I remember from a few guys after their first live fire test. He couldn’t process what was happening. Who could blame him? He’d just seen his daughter taken down in front of him.
I thought about Britney. Three hours ago she’d been alive. I was very cold all of a sudden. Cold and empty, like everything in my belly had just vanished and left me hollow. I thought about sitting down, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t get back up if I did. I leaned against the wall.
Britney was dead. Everyone in Twelve was dead. There was never going to be an Army Band again. No horn lessons for kids. No nights playing jazz down in the Gaslamp. Nothing.
“Sergeant Harrison?” The doctor’s voice was small and reedy. He was hoarse from screaming.
“Yes, sir?”
He looked up at me. It was like locking eyes with a sad dog. He was calling me by name, but I don’t think he really knew who I was.
“Are they…” he started. He coughed, cleared his throat, and whispered, “Are they going out soon to rescue Eva and Madelyn?”
Chapter 20
NOW
St. George pushed the last bit of toast into his mouth. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had butter. He almost felt guilty for eating it.
Across from him, Stealth sat before an empty plate with her arms crossed. She hadn’t made a sound since they’d been led to the officer’s mess for breakfast and sat down alone.
He pushed the plate a few inches away. “Are you going to eat anything?”
“No.”
“You didn’t eat anything last night, either.”
“As usual, George, your attention to detail is beyond compare.”
“You should eat something to keep your strength up. Might make you less grouchy, too.”
Her head tilted inside the hood. “You are making a joke at my expense.”
“In a good-natured way. You do need to eat.”
“I ate last night in my assigned quarters.”
“Ate what?”
“Food from the dinner with Colonel Shelly.”
“You smuggled food back to your room?”
“I did.”
“Weren’t you worried about someone watching you eat with all these cameras?”
“There are three in my quarters,” she said. “I disabled the two visible ones and allowed them to think I had not discovered the one concealed in the air vent. I ate with my back to it.”
“And then what? Slept in your uniform?”
“Of course.”
St. George stood up and stretched. “So you still don’t trust them?”
“I maintain a healthy skepticism, yes.”
A sergeant marched into the mess hall. “Good morning, ma’am, sir,” he said. “I have messages for you. Colonel Shelly has asked for a meeting with you at eleven-thirty hours to discuss reintegrating Los Angeles into controlled territory. Also Doctor Morris asked if you could join her in D lab once you’re done eating.”
“Where is that?”
“The far side of the complex, ma’am. East side, heading north. It’s the only tall building without satellite dishes on the roof.” He held a folded piece of paper out to her. “We also received a message from your people at the Mount. The colonel asked that you get any such communications as soon as possible.”
Stealth glanced at the sheet of paper and handed it off to St. George.
Just checking in. Hope things are going good with our new friends. Dark clouds here since last night, might even rain. Otherwise all good.
—— Hiram Eggplant Jarvis
“When was this received?” she asked.
“About twenty minutes ago, I think, ma’am.”
“Thank you, sergeant.”
He gave her a polite bow of his head and left.
The blank planes of her mask shifted. “We have a problem, George.”
“I kind of gathered.” He held up the paper. “Unless eggplant is Jarvis’s middle name, I’m guessing it’s a code?”
“It is, as I am sure the military has already deduced.”
“And it means…?”
“The message is authentic. Jarvis was to use the name of a vegetable we do not grow in the main garden as his middle name, rotating in a new name for each communication. Zzzap did not return to the Mount.” She strode out of the mess hall.
He took a few quick steps to catch up with her. “What?”
“Before we left I instructed Jarvis in a series of phrases and compromise words to use in any communications. References to the weather deal with us. The mention of the sun, or lack thereof, tells me Zzzap has gone missing.”
“I think you might be overreacting just a bit.”
“The message indicates he has been absent since last night. We were told on our arrival he had just left to return to the Mount. Since you did not see him there, the logical assumption is he went missing sometime after leaving Krypton Base. Assuming he did leave the base.”
They pushed open a double set of doors and stepped out into the morning sun. Stealth looked even more like a walking shadow in the brilliant light.
“Assuming he didn’t just go sightseeing or something,” said St. George. “He’s gone off flitting around the world before. You know what he told me the morning after the Fourth? He’s been thinking of flying to the Moon. Just to check it out. He was pretty sure he could make it there in under an hour.”
“He has always made a point of telling us where he was going and for how long.”
“Telling us, yeah. It might not occur to him to tell anyone else. Not until he gets back, anyway. You’ve got to admit, Barry can get a little absent-minded at times.”
She stopped walking and turned to him. “You do not find this disturbing?”
“A little bit, yeah,” he said. He glanced around and dropped his voice. “But I’m not going to declare war on the U. S. Army just because I feel a little disturbed. Do I disagree with some of their choices? Yes. Are they doing some weird things with the exes? Hell, yes. But it’s still America we’re talking about. From what Shelly was saying last night it sounds like the President might even still be alive and holed up at NORAD or something.”
“NORAD could be as much a trap as a safe haven if a single infected person was inside. Besides, Shelly did not say the President was still alive.”
“Yeah, but he also didn’t say he was dead, and he did say he was still getting orders from above.”
“I hope you are right, George. But there are too many people depending on us to not make contingency plans.”