"He doesn't know," Laura supplied, and Gray again turned to her and waited. "He doesn't know which way things are going to break. That's why he wants balance. It keeps his options open."
"This is ridiculous," Hoblenz said, pressing his hands down on the table. "Those things are dangerous, sir! You cain't trust 'em."
"How did you get through the jungle?" Gray asked Laura.
"I rode Hightop piggyback."
"What?" Hoblenz shouted.
Dr. Griffith laughed in delight.
The telephone rang, and they all jumped. Gray reached over and punched the speakerphone. "Hello?"
"Good evening, Mr. Gray?" a woman said in a whisper.
"Janet?" Gray leaned closer to the phone. "You were on the list for the last flight out. Where the hell are you?"
"I'm at the house, sir," she whispered. "I changed my mind. It wasn't right to leave you. I'm cooking your dinner… at least I was."
Gray was now on his feet, both hands pressed down on the table.
"Why are you whispering, Janet?"
"There's someone in your kitchen, Mr. Gray. I think it's a robot."
42
Laura and Gray argued heatedly all the way up the computer center steps. "Well, I'm going to walk up the mountain, then!" Laura shouted. "Would you prefer that?"
"You're not going," Gray said amid the soldiers manning the sandbags at the top of the stairs. All of them warily eyed the open fields and jungle walls, weapons raised.
"Mr. Hoblenz, place Dr. Aldridge under arrest."
Laura's jaw dropped open. Hoblenz did nothing.
"Mr. Hoblenz?" Gray snapped.
"I'd feel better havin' her along, to tell you the truth, sir," Hoblenz said. "If… if she wants to come, that is."
Gray ground his teeth, trying but failing to stare the man down. "Get her a weapon!" he snapped angrily, pulling the bolt back on a machine pistol he'd been handed, to chamber a round.
Hoblenz handed Laura an identical weapon. "I don't want this," Laura said.
"If you're going with us," Gray said sternly, "you're taking a weapon!"
"I mean I want a bigger one. One of those rifles," she said, pointing at the long black weapons held by the soldiers at the walls. "The computer said that the big guns were the only ones that could get through the Model Eights' skin," she explained.
Hoblenz hesitated, then went and got two rifles from a box — one for Laura and one for himself. Crates full of equipment lay everywhere, their lids on the ground beside them. Soldiers continued to fill sandbags for the walls, which were growing to respectable heights around the entrance.
"Get one for me, too," Gray said, handing Hoblenz the puny machine pistol in exchange.
The long weapon was heavy, but Laura held it at the ready like the rest of the black-clad soldiers — one hand on the pistol grip, the other on the plastic guard around the barrel.
Hoblenz pried a heavy black belt lined with thick pouches over her shoulder. She sagged under its surprising weight. He opened one of the pockets. "You'll be needin' this, Rambo," Hoblenz said.
He slapped a magazine into the rifle, adding to its weight. He pulled the belt back and flicked the safety on, showing her how to switch the selector to Auto for continuous fire or Semi for single shots.
"Semi-auto only, if you don't mind. I've got a wife and kids."
He kept his eye on the road, waiting for their ride to arrive.
"You have a family?" Laura asked, and was instantly sorry for the tone.
Hoblenz laughed. "Yeah, can ya believe it? The kids are off at college, and I almost had to break my wife's kneecaps so my guys could rustle the ole gal on that last plane."
"You have children in college?" Laura asked. He looked too young to have grown kids, but it was hard to tell with outdoorsmen types.
"One of 'em took your class last year, as a matter of fact."
"They're at Harvard?" she asked, this time making sure the surprise didn't show.
"My youngest is. Followin' in his old man's footsteps. Plays nose tackle."
"At Harvard?"
"We do have a football team, ya know."
Gray arrived with all his gear now in place. "Hoblenz was all-Ivy League," he said with a smile.
Hoblenz tugged at the straps of Laura's ammo belt and stood back to admire his new soldier. "Anyway, Billy said you're a helluva teacher. Best he's ever had."
"Billy H. Billy Hoblenz!" Laura said. "Big guy? Red hair?"
Jeeps raced down the road from the Village.
"That's my boy!" Hoblenz replied with a grin. The vehicles screeched to a stop in front of the computer center, and a team of soldiers headed to the road to climb aboard.
Laura followed. They had to wait as Hoblenz's men mounted a heavy gun to a post rising from the back of their jeep. The thing looked like a machine gun, but its barrel was thick and stubby.
"When you did the security check on me," Laura asked, "did you talk to your son?"
Hoblenz chuckled. "Of course."
"What did he say?"
"Well," Hoblenz looked away, "like I said, he tol' me you were a damn good teacher."
"Anything else?" she asked.
Hoblenz shrugged, appearing to hesitate before looking Laura in the eye. "He said you were a piece, I believe was the word he used."
"Does the computer know he said that about me?"
"No! 'Course not."
"How did you talk to your son? Was it on the phone?"
Hoblenz squinted. "I don't trust phones."
"How then?"
"Encoded E-mail."
"Over the computer?" she asked, and he nodded. Hoblenz got into the jeep behind the wheel, and Gray took the passenger seat beside him.
Laura climbed into the back with two soldiers. When the engine growled to a start, she leaned forward and tapped Hoblenz's broad shoulder.
"When did you do your check on me?"
He looked around to make sure the second jeep was ready to go. "A few months ago."
"A few months ago?"
Hoblenz ground the gears, and the vehicle lurched forward.
Gray never looked over at her… but he was listening. They took off toward the Village. Her jeep with Gray, Hoblenz, and the two soldiers was followed by a second jeep similarly manned.
The jeep in back, however, had one of the antitank missile launchers mounted on it.
Laura looked up at the soldier standing beside her. His eyes were covered with night-vision goggles. "What is that thing?" she asked in a loud voice, pointing at the thick-barreled machine gun.
"Automatic grenade launcher!" he replied over the loud noise. She nodded knowingly. "Shoots these things!" He twisted a belt studded with stubby, bullet-shaped projectiles about the width of Laura's wrist.
Laura arched her eyebrows and nodded again.
The warm air felt cool as they sped up the boulevard toward the statue. Gray leaned over and asked Hoblenz, "Have all the SEALs pulled back off the island?"
"Yep. There were six teams best I can tell. Must've come in on mini subs 'cause we didn't see any landing craft. They might've come in through the window, but they left through the front door. Those surface ships put boats ashore at the harbor and recovered ever' last one of 'em."
"You mean they all just left?" Laura interrupted.
"Looks like it. Right after those firefights in the empty quarter."
"Why?"
"Must've seen a ghost, is my guess."
"The robots?" Laura asked.
Hoblenz looked over his shoulder at Laura and then rolled his eyes at Gray.
They passed through the Village and headed up the mountain, passing the wreckage of several robots. The further they went from the Village, the darker the night seemed to grow. There was total silence as the jeeps ascended the mountain, save the call Gray placed to Janet.