“Are you, now,” Orozco said, feeling his tension ease a bit. But only a bit. Nguyen had the names right, but there were a hundred ways he could have come by them. “How come Randall didn’t come himself?”
“He’s not traveling much these days,” Nguyen said grimly. “Lost his right leg below the knee two months ago. Something new Skynet’s started putting in the rivers.”
“A new model Terminator?”
Nguyen shrugged. “All we know is that it’s metal, travels in water, and has lots of big teeth. No one’s gotten a pedigree for it yet.”
“Not to be rude, but could we possibly take this inside?” Vuong put in, throwing a look northward past Nguyen’s shoulder.
“What’s your hurry?” Orozco asked.
“A mile or so back we spotted a group of nasties paralleling us a few blocks to the north,”
Nguyen said. “Eight to ten of them, all heavily armed. I don’t know if they spotted us, or if they’re even planning on turning in this direction, but we’d just as soon be out of sight before either of those things can happen.”
Orozco grimaced. More swaggering young men with guns who would need to be taught to stay away from his building. Just what he needed.
“We’re almost done,” he assured Vuong. “So if Randall really sent you, he must have told you who you’d be dealing with”
“Yes, after a fashion.” Nguyen’s lips tightened. “But then, he also told us to look for the Moldavia Los Angeles. Obviously, losing his leg hasn’t affected his sense of humor.”
“Apparently not,” Orozco said, a little more of the tension easing. Only someone who knew Randall would also know what sorts of things the man found funny. “So who did he send you here to see?”
“He just told us to ask for Auntie Em,” Nguyen said. He frowned. “I don’t suppose…that’s not you, is it?”
“Hardly,” Orozco said as the last remnant of tension faded quietly away. That had been his and Randall’s private joke, one the grizzled farmer had come up with the last time he was here. “Go ahead and bring your people and animals inside—we’ve got a room over to your right past the fountain where you can put them.”
“Thank you,” Nguyen said, making no effort to take Orozco up on his invitation. “But even a private joke has two sides.”
“In other words, how do you know I’m the one Randall said you could trust?” Orozco asked.
“Correct.” Nguyen inclined his head slightly. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Orozco assured him, his estimation of the man going up a notch. That kind of caution, that refusal to ever take anything for granted, was how you stayed alive these days. “Here’s Auntie Em.”
He hoisted his rifle to point at the ceiling, giving Nguyen a full profile view of the weapon.
“Nguyen, say hello to Auntie Em. Auntie M16, say hello to Mr. Nguyen.”
Nguyen gave a slightly twisted smile.
“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Em,” he said. “I take it, then, that you must be Ms. Em’s keeper and guardian, Mad Sergeant Justo Orozco?”
“Call me Huss,” Orozco said, beckoning to Kyle and Star. “This is Kyle and Star,” he added as the two kids rose from their concealment and started across the lobby. “They’ll help you get your burros inside and unloaded.”
“Ah…you may have slightly misunderstood our intentions,” Nguyen said carefully. “We’re not necessarily planning to sell all of our goods to you.”
“I understand that,” Orozco said. “But given the late hour, and given that the Ashes is the safest place around, I’d hoped you would accept our hospitality for the night.”
For a moment Nguyen studied Orozco’s face. Then, he again inclined his head.
“Thank you. We would be honored.”
“Good.”
Orozco turned to Kyle as he and Star came up beside him.
“Mr. Nguyen and his party will be our guests for the night,” he told the boy. “They and their animals will be in the Lower Conference Room. Take them there, and on your way tell Pierre I want him to stay at his post, but that the rest of his team can stand down and give you a hand getting our guests settled in.”
“Got it.” Kyle gestured to Nguyen. “This way.”
They boy headed off toward the conference room, walking sideways so that he could watch the traders’ progress as they picked their way across the lobby. He hadn’t stuck the Beretta into his belt, Orozco noticed, but still had it ready in his hand. Like Nguyen, like Orozco himself, the boy knew better than to take anything for granted.
Orozco waited until the last of Nguyen’s group was inside. Then, stepping beneath the archway, he signaled the man in the sniper’s nest across the street to come in. Once he was back in the building, Orozco would have him take over the post here at the entrance.
And then Orozco would have the unpleasant task of admitting to Wadleigh and the others that, yes, the party Kyle had spotted were just traders. The information would probably lead to more snide comments about Kyle’s paranoia, which thanks to the politics of life here, Orozco would have to endure in silence.
As Kyle had already noted, Wadleigh was an idiot. What was worse, he took things for granted, and this incident would simply reinforce the man’s mental laziness.
If there were any justice in the world, Orozco mused, Kyle would survive for a long time, while Wadleigh would suffer a quick and unpleasant death.
Baker appeared from the sniper’s nest and headed briskly across the street. Orozco gestured to him, then pointed to the floor beside the archway to indicate his new post. Then, cradling his M16
under his arm, he headed across the lobby to close down all the rest of the fire teams.
Including Wadleigh’s.
No, there was no justice left in the world. Not anymore. Justice had died on Judgment Day.
CHAPTER
SIX
The storm drainage tunnel was dank, fungus-infested, shin-high in fetid water, and tight enough that Connor and David couldn’t walk without stooping over.
But it was underground and out of sight of HKs and T-600s. That alone elevated the experience to the level of a walk in the park.
They were nearly to their target when Connor spotted a narrow slit of pale light angling in from the tunnel’s roof. David, in the lead, noticed it about the same time and signaled for a halt.
“Does that look suspicious to you, too?” he whispered to Connor.
Connor studied the dim light. They’d passed beneath similar openings at various points along their journey, most of them a result of warped or broken manhole covers that had once protected access points into the tunnels.
But none of those other covers had been inside a Skynet staging area. This one was, and it demanded a higher degree of caution.
“We’ve come this far,” Connor whispered back. “Let’s take a look.”
David nodded, taking a moment to fold up the strip map he’d made of the tunnel and tucking it away inside his jacket. Then, getting a grip on his shoulder-slung MP5 submachine gun, he started forward.
They reached the ray of light without anything jumping out of the darkness or, worse, opening fire. The manhole cover was at the top of a five-meter concrete cylinder, accessible via a set of rusty rungs set into the cylinder’s side.
Connor peered up at it. This particular cover wasn’t cracked, but had merely been angled slightly up out of its proper position, either by movement of the ground around it or by a small warping of the cover’s seating. The gap itself was very small, no more than half a centimeter across at its widest.