Meanwhile there were still two antiaircraft cannons operating, and as the stinks turned to watch the jet flash by, one of them brought its AA gun around in an attempt to fire on the Sabre, and exposed his back in the process. Hale saw the Marksman’s reticle flash red, and fired. Blood sprayed the AA gun’s shield as the ′brid slumped forward—and Yorba nailed another Chimera with his Auger. “That’s for Pardo!” Yorba shouted.
Only one AA gun remained as another Sabre Jet made its run across the base. However, the pilot had a Chimeran fighter on his tail and barely managed to get off a flight of rockets before being forced to pull up in a desperate attempt to escape.
It was at that moment that Barrie got up and began to sprint toward the last AA battery, firing all the way.
“No!” Hale shouted and took off after her, but it was too late as a hail of Chimeran projectiles brought her down. That prompted Kawecki and Yorba to fire on the surviving stinks, both of whom ducked.
Hale paused next to Barrie’s body, then pulled a grenade and pitched it in under the gun’s shield. There was a flash of light as both Hybrids were blown apart.
Moments later the Party Girl was there, throwing its shadow over the roof, and Hale scooped Barrie up. She was surprisingly light. There was blood on the front of her shirt and her eyes were open.
“Am I going to die?”
“No,” Hale said firmly, and even though he knew he couldn’t be heard over the roar of the VTOL’s engines, he could tell that she understood.
“You’re a liar, Hale,” she said, as he leaned in close to hear. “All of us are going to die. The only question is when.”
She passed out as medics rushed to take charge of her, and the rest of the survivors entered the plane. Kawecki and Yorba made certain that the box of fuel rods was securely fastened to the D rings set into the deck. They took off seconds later with the port gunner firing like mad as a pair of Titans arrived from the north.
As the Party Girl turned toward the south, Hale knew that the mission had been successful. So why did it feel like a failure? That question, like so many others, went unanswered.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dead End
Near Madison, Wisconsin
Thursday, November 29, 1951
It was pitch black, with only the car’s headlights to show the way.
The man called Twitch was behind the wheel, and had been ever since Henry Walker and his wife, Myra, had left Indianapolis two days earlier. Twitch was a runner, one of a very small group of men and women who dared to transport mail, medical supplies, and occasionally people back and forth between the government-controlled heartland and Chimera-occupied territory to the north.
Their destination was the city of Chicago, where the Walkers planned to join Freedom First and give that organization the recordings in which President Grace could be heard discussing what Walker viewed as treason.
The three of them had slept in the station wagon the day before, because they were well into what Twitch referred to as “the stink.” Chimera-occupied territory. So there was nowhere else to sleep except in a cold car, parked in an old barn, a hundred feet off the highway.
Now, as they listened to radio station WLK, and Twitch hummed along with Tony Bennett’s “Cold, Cold Heart,” Walker sat in the seat next to him, and Myra was propped sideways in the back seat.
Twitch had thinning hair, beady eyes, and a hatchet-shaped nose. A two-day growth of beard covered his gaunt cheeks. His incessant humming was starting to drive Walker crazy, and Twitch had a bad case of body odor, which was one of the reasons Myra had chosen to remain in the back seat.
Of course, we’ll smell like Twitch soon, Walker mused, and it won’t seem so bad then.
It had been snowing on and off for days, so they had put chains on the tires, which rattled against the inside of the wheel wells as the vehicle followed the road northwest past the remains of Lowell off to the east. There weren’t any tire tracks to follow, which was why Twitch was keeping the speed down to twenty-five miles per hour. It was a precaution Walker approved of.
The wash of the car’s headlights provided Walker with occasional glimpses of empty houses, burned-out vehicles covered in snow, and clusters of improvised crosses. Drainage ditches were frequently used as makeshift graves because they were both handy and the right depth.
The journey rolled by rather peacefully, with only the soft murmur of the radio, the incessant whir of the heater, and the steady rattle of chains to keep Walker from falling asleep. But then, as the station wagon started up a long sloping hill, Twitch swore. He wasn’t a talkative man, which made anything he said important enough to pay attention to.
Walker sat up straight. “What’s wrong?”
“Lights,” Twitch said laconically, as his head gave an involuntary jerk to the left. “Behind us.”
Walker felt a heavy weight land in the pit of his stomach as he looked back over his shoulder, past Myra’s sleeping form, stretched out across the back seat. Twitch was right. There, about a quarter of a mile behind, two headlights could be seen through the filthy rear window. “Who are they?” he wondered out loud.
“Don’t know,” Twitch answered grimly. “But I can tell you who they aren’t… And that’s friends of ours. You’d better wake your wife and get ready to bail out. If it’s a car that belongs to human jackers, that’s bad, ′cause they’ll take everything we have and leave us to die, but if it’s being driven by the Chimera, then we might as well blow our brains out and save them the trouble.”
It was a long speech for Twitch, and Walker knew the runner was serious. So he reached back to wake Myra.
“Wake up, hon… And lace up your boots. We have company.”
Myra sat up quickly, looked back, and saw the lights just before they disappeared into a dip. She made no response, but Walker knew she was scared, and had every right to be.
“It could be a coincidence,” Twitch said tersely, “but I doubt it. We can’t turn off, because they’d just follow our tracks. And odds are they have a roadblock waiting for us up ahead, so I’m going to pull over. Grab your packs, get out, and run like hell… Then, assuming you get clear, make your way north. Sorry, folks, but that’s the best I can do.”
“But what about you?” Myra wanted to know, as she pushed her husband’s pack over the seat. Both of them secured their heavy winter coats, and put on thick gloves. “What will you do?”
“I’m going to turn the lights off, turn around, and run straight at them,” Twitch replied grimly. “They won’t be expecting that. And, if I’m lucky, I’ll squeeze past to the left or right.”
Walker had doubts. Was this some sort of an elaborate hoax? A way for Twitch to rid himself of his clients, without having to drive all the way to Chicago? The lights might belong to a friend of his, a person who had been paid to show up at that point, and would accompany Twitch back to Indianapolis.
Such a thing was possible, Walker knew that, but he didn’t think so. Why go to so much trouble when Twitch could shoot his human cargo instead? So after accepting his pack, Walker unbuckled one of two money belts that he wore around his waist and laid it on the seat between them. The pockets were filled with gold double Eagle coins. The only kind of payment runners would accept anymore.