“But we’re experts,” Top said. “My old ass just has a feel for it.”
Bunny rolled his eyes and Top laughed again.
“There’s the checkpoint, though,” said Bunny. “They must have told someone. Maybe they sent teams out to invite some people.”
“Who?”
“Don’t know. Can’t be anyone who’s already pissed off at them. Has to be someone, though, because that checkpoint looks new. Maybe they spread the word to select groups. All it would take is a few of their people going from survival camp to survival camp dropping rumors to control the way the news spread. It wouldn’t be a stampede. People would come here in dribs and drabs.”
“Why would they do that?” asked Top, then suggested the answer to his own question. “Maybe they don’t have much of the vaccine. Or maybe it takes a while to produce. Control the news and they can distribute at a speed that works with their production.”
They thought about that.
“That makes sense,” said Bunny slowly, “but it doesn’t fit with the raids. Why take kids? Why take anyone? Why not send medical teams out to spread the vaccine? Why be bad guys when they’re trying to be good guys?”
Top looked at him. “Oh, hell, son, you want me to recite the number of times a group in power decided who deserves to get a resource?”
Bunny said nothing.
Below them the thick steel door began to slide slowly upward. Once it reached about five feet, several armed men ducked under and filed out to form two lines on either side.
“Six,” Bunny counted.
The soldiers stood and waited, chattering as the door continued rolling upward.
“They’re waiting on something,” Top said.
Bunny clicked his mouth and motioned to the left where a cloud of dust and sand had risen on a dirt road that led right to the compound entrance. As he and Top both focused their binocs on that point, a tan GMC troop carrier with matching camouflage fabric cover over its bed rolled into view. Two armed soldiers were in the front, but as it rolled up and waited for the door to clear its top, they saw only civilians in the back, each of them wearing a brightly colored red, white or blue band around his or her wrist.
“Where are they going?” Bunny wondered aloud as the truck pulled forward into the compound and the door immediately began sliding downward again.
“I don’t know, but we need to find a way in there,” Top said.
“So where’d the people come from?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Top replied, kneeing his horse and steering it toward a nearby trail that led down off the rise into the valley and paralleled the road the truck had taken. “Come on, Farm Boy.”
Bunny released his binocs, letting them slide down to hang against his chest as he absentmindedly rubbed his sore ass. “Great, more riding.” As he grabbed the reins, he added, “Hooah,” but it was almost a whisper.
—11—
The Soldier and the Samurai
They rode the bicycles all the way to the outskirts of Tucson.
Tom Imura was in his twenties, fit and lean and, as Ledger saw it, composed of whipcord and iron.
Ledger was north of fifty and none of his years had been easy ones. He’d long ago lost count of the number of bones he’d broken — either in the dojo or, more often, in combat — or the stitches. Or the surgeries, for that matter. He felt like an ancient mass of scar tissue and screaming nerve endings. After the first hundred miles he was sure the bike seat was made from iron and covered in spikes. His ass hurt. His balls hurt. His molecules hurt. After the second hundred miles of the four hundred and seventy mile journey, he had developed a tendency to yap like a cross dog at anything Tom said. Even when the young man offered words of support or compassion.
They were somewhere on I-10 East when Tom said, “You’re not too old for this.”
“I didn’t say a fucking thing,” growled Ledger.
“You were going to.”
“The fuck I was.”
“You were,” insisted Tom, his voice calm, his face showing no sign of the strain of the long ride. “You’ve been saying it roughly every thirty miles.”
“Bullshit.”
“And you say it every time we have to get off and walk uphill.”
“You’re out of your frigging mind.”
“And you say it every time we—”
“You realize that I’m heavily armed and have no compunction about shooting people,” said Ledger.
“I’m not wrong, though,” said Tom.
“Sure. And that’ll look great on your tombstone.”
They rode for a mile in silence.
“And besides,” said Ledger, “fuck you.”
“Point taken.”
They rode on.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said Tom after a while, “but this was your idea.”
“Two in the back of the head, so help me God. I’ll leave you by the side of the road.”
Tom broke out laughing and the sound of it bounced across the desert and rebounded off ancient rocks and vanished into the hot sky. Ledger cursed him, his hygiene, his forebears, and accused him of fornication with livestock. Tom laughed harder.
It took a while for Ledger’s scowl to crack. Longer still for his lips to twitch. But when he started to laugh he laughed a good long time.
They pedaled along past abandoned cars and old bones, past the crushed hull of a 767 airliner, past dozens of wandering zoms. They laughed off and on for a long time. When the laughter fell away, one or the other of them would cut a sideways look and they’d be off again.
—12—
Top and Bunny
Top led the way along the trail, both turning their bodies to avoid identity by any surveillance equipment. They’d tucked all guns except for the sidearms behind their saddlebags so they looked like just two men riding across the desert — not that unusual to necessarily draw much interest.
The trail wound through rocks, scrub, and scattered cacti parallel to the road but about fifty yards out. Soon they’d followed it around a bend where they couldn’t see the lab compound’s imposing steel entrance door. The cloud of dust from the truck had faded, though Bunny thought he could still make it out in the distance.
They rode in silence, both alert and ready, Bunny’s hand resting on the top of his saddlebag so as to look casual yet ready to reach for his rifle at any moment. They began hearing voices ahead, almost like a crowd.
“You hear that?” Bunny asked Top.
Top nodded. “Some kind of gathering.”
“For what?”
“Could be where they got those people.”
“Did you notice those wrist bands? They were all red.”
Top grunted. “Yeah, whatever that means.”
And then they rounded another bend and found themselves facing five armed men with AK-47s aimed right at their hearts or foreheads. The trail here had wound much closer to the road, and a white van like they’d seen during the raid at Sun Valley sat parked at the curb behind the men.
“Halt!” one of them ordered loudly, eyes narrowing. The other men simply glared at the newcomers.
Top and Bunny both slowly raised their hands, faces taking on their best innocent looks.
“Somethin’ the matter, gentlemen?” Top asked, turning on his old-Georgia drawl.
The man who’d given orders nodded and the other four rushed the horses, two grabbing for Top and Bunny’s sidearms, while the others searched their saddlebags.
“Whoa! Look what we have here!” a young soldier barely out of his teens pulled out Bunny’s sniper rifle and two boxes of ammo.
“Here, too!” the one searching Top’s saddlebag called and produced Top’s rifle as well.