Elizabeth turned to him.
“Yeah. Well-”
“And your leader. Marshall. Is he here?”
“Bring him over to the table,” Portman said. “Chitchat time is over.”
Good conversationalist, that Portman.
They sat at a small metal table.
Behind them, Lassard was at a keyboard at what seemed to be a decent computer setup. The sound of typing accompanied their talking.
“Want some food?” Elizabeth asked him.
Raine shook his head.
Portman sat with his elbows resting on the table, his arms folded.
Elizabeth looked at him. “There is a rush.”
“I see you got your I.T. guy working like crazy,” Raine said.
Portman looked back at Elizabeth, ignoring him. “Let’s get on with it. See if he’s really with us or not.”
Yeah… not much trust emanating from the weapons guy.
“Our leader isn’t here.”
Raine nodded, listening to Elizabeth.
“He was captured days ago and sent into Capital Prime. He’ll be questioned, tortured, then questioned again. Eventually he will tell them what he knows… or die. Either could happen.”
“Or both,” Portman rumbled.
“He’s in the Capital?”
Elizabeth nodded. “We know he’s still alive. We got word about that. We also got word that he’s close to breaking. Tomorrow will be the day they pull out all the stops and try to get everything they can from him. What he knows could destroy the Resistance. Expose our cells all over the Wasteland, our plans…”
She looked to Portman to see how she was doing. He made a slight shrug with his massive shoulders. She continued.
“If we don’t get him out by then, it’s disaster for the Resistance. And with what you brought, we could be close to a turning point in our war against them.”
Raine kept listening but noted that was the first time he had heard the word… war.
War was something he understood.
“We can tell you about that. About what we are trying to do. But none of it-the Resistance, the data on that hard drive-means much unless we get Marshall out.”
Raine looked around at the room. No one said anything for a few moments. A lightbulb came on, without anyone saying a word. Finally, he spoke up.
“And I’m guessing… that that would be my job.”
And no one said no.
THIRTY-NINE
Portman spread out a hand drawn map.
“This is the Capital. We’ve sent teams around there to do a recon. Some made it back. It’s as accurate as we could make it.”
“But where did you get this?”
“People who worked on the Capital buildings… a few deserted to us,” Elizabeth said. “The ones that could get away.”
“And we’ve had some people on the inside,” Portman added. “From time to time.”
Raine recalled what they said about learning Marshall’s condition.
Elizabeth was nodding to what Portman had said. “Still, there are a lot of things we don’t know.” She put a finger down.
“Here, this is the prison… right under one of the Enforcer barracks.”
“That’s convenient.” They didn’t acknowledge his sarcasm.
“Marshall is there. Could be any cell. Our last informant never could find out where, and now we don’t have any inside information at all.”
“Been in situations like that before.”
“Not like this one,” Portman said. “The outer perimeter of the place has weaponized fences. Enforcers patrolling all over the damn place.”
“You make it sound almost easy.” Raine glanced at a digital clock above Lassard’s bank of computers. It was just after twelve. He was tired of all this debriefing. Tired, and hurt, and drained from the hell of the last few days.
Couldn’t they do this tomorrow?
But no-he knew they had no time.
Which meant that he had no time.
As if sensing his internal struggle, Elizabeth ignored his last comment. “One thing we know is that we can’t send a bunch of untrained settlers in there,” she said. “They’d get destroyed. It needs to be someone with training. Your training.”
“What do you know about my training?”
“One thing we did get from an Ark were the dossiers on all the planned survivors, who’s still buried…”
“And all those who have already been killed or captured,” Portman added. “A lot of good people.”
Raine nodded, and once again thought about the mission. “So it’s just me?”
“No-just us,” Elizabeth said. “I’m going as well.”
Raine shook his head. “No, you won’t. If I have any chance at all, it will be on my own, with as much firepower as you”-a nod to Portman-“can give me. Besides, if I don’t make it, that means Marshall doesn’t make it, and that means this group will need you.”
“He’s right,” Portman said. Then to Raine: “But I can go.”
“No. I need what you can show me here, on the map and any weapons you have, but you’re not coming with me.”
“I can damn well go if-”
“What were you, before joining the Resistance?”
He sniffed the air. “Worked on engines. Dabbled in guns. But I can-”
“They’ll need you as well. And I need what you can give me. But if you’ve never practiced and carried out an infiltration, you’d do me more harm than good.”
The two of them stared at each other. Reluctantly, Portman nodded.
And Raine suddenly realized that the power had quietly shifted from them… to him.
Leading.
Now-he thought-that’s what the hell I was sent here for.
He rubbed his eyes. Fighting the fatigue.
“Got anything? To give me a boost.”
Elizabeth got up and went over to a shelf, grabbing a metal case.
“I can give you a shot-a mix of primobolan and testosterone. Some pills for a quick boost later. Your nanotrites still working okay?”
“Doing fine.”
She nodded. “As I said-don’t get used to them. When you come back, we’ll get them out. But you’re okay for now.”
“Good. Now-you say you have a plan?”
She looked back at Lassard, still tapping furiously at his keyboard. “Yeah. And it involves what Lassard is doing as well.” Elizabeth smiled and lifted the layout map of the Capital, to reveal a bird’s-eye view of the area from a distance… and what looked like…
… an aircraft carrier.
What the…?
“Ready?”
Raine let her finish, the plan well thought out even if it sounded like it was lifted from a suspense noveclass="underline" impossible, mad, no margin for error.
He shook his head.
“Lot of unknowns there.”
“We did the best we could.”
He looked over at Lassard. “And what if he doesn’t finish in time?”
“You go without it. Get Marshall. Come back.”
Abruptly, Lassard pushed his chair away from his monitors.
“Christ. I was close.” He turned back to them. The digital clock above his head kept clicking off the milliseconds. “So damn close!”
“Keep trying, Mark,” Elizabeth said.
He nodded and went back to his keyboard.
Raine said, “How did you know you could trust me?”
“Kvasir.” She smiled. “He may not like to think he’s with us. But he is.”
Raine realized then that she didn’t know.
About Kvasir. About what happened.
“Elizabeth-Kvasir is dead.”
Her eyes went wide. She kept them locked on Raine.
Then he explained how he had been rescued by the old scientist, and how he found him when he came back, slaughtered by the Authority.
She didn’t say anything as he spoke, but he saw her eyes glisten.
Hard to think of the crazy old scientist as a soldier of the Resistance. But it was clear that’s what he had been.
“Fuckers…”
The curse took Raine by surprise, coming from Elizabeth. Actually made him smile. “Right.”
She took a breath, the room so quiet now. “When he sent us word of you, he sent something else. Portman-”
Portman nodded, grabbed a crate pack and brought it to the table.