Orozco watched for another moment, then returned to the lobby.
Four people. Only four people had been willing to leave the Ashes’ false sense of security in order to take on the more immediate risks of standing up against humanity’s common enemy. Only four people. And one of them had been just a teenager—
Orozco felt his breath catch in his throat.
Damn.
Damn.
CHAPTER
TEN
His measured tread switched to a reckless sprint as he tore across the lobby toward the entrance. He reached the archway, automatically getting a grip on his holstered Beretta as he dashed outside.
But Connor and his people were already gone.
Orozco took a couple of deep breaths, swearing viciously and uselessly to himself as he looked up and down the street. His plan had been to wait until Tunney’s recruitment talk was over, then quietly call them in from the sniper’s nest so they could meet the Resistance team.
But in all the excitement and tension it had completely slipped his mind. Now, it was too late.
Swearing one last time under his breath, he gave the hand signal to call Kyle and Star back in.
A minute later the two kids emerged through the battered doorway, Kyle with the Remington cradled ready in his arms, a taut look on his face.
“Where did all those other people come from?” he called as they started across the street. “They went south—I couldn’t see how far. Zac and Callahan and the Iliakis were with them. They weren’t being—I mean—?”
“No, they weren’t being kidnapped,” Orozco assured the teen as he took back the Remington.
“They left entirely of their own free will.”
“Should I have tried to stop them?” Kyle persisted, clearly still concerned that he’d failed in his assigned duty. Maybe he was assuming Orozco’s frustration was directed at him. “Maybe pinned them down until you could get there? I didn’t hear any shots, but there were all those others with them—”
“Kyle, you did fine,” Orozco said firmly, resting a reassuring hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Just relax, okay? I’m just sorry you didn’t get a chance to meet them.”
“Okay,” Kyle said, still sounding a little uncertain, as Orozco led the way back under the archway into their building. “Who were they, anyway?”
“Resistance recruiters,” Orozco told him. “They—”
“They were Resistance?” Kyle interrupted sharply, an unreadable expression on his face.
“That’s what they said,” Orozco answered, taken aback by the unexpected intensity of the boy’s reaction. “Why? Did you recognize any of them?”
Kyle looked away.
“No,” he said, his voice back under control again. “I just…wondered.”
“Ah,” Orozco said, letting the subject drop and looking around the lobby. Barney and Copeland, who had ostensibly been guarding the entrance, and who had really been put there to draw down on Barnes’ men, had of course disappeared with the rest of Grimaldi’s crowd.
“I guess you and I are on guard duty,” he commented to Kyle. “Unless you need to get some sleep.”
“I’m okay,” Kyle said, looking at Star. “So’s Star.” He peered closely at Orozco. “You’re the one who needs sleep.”
“I’ll be fine until Johnson and Baker show up for their shift.” Orozco handed the Remington back to Kyle. “Go put this away, if you would, and get me the M16.”
Kyle nodded and headed for the arms locker, Star trailing as always behind him.
Orozco watched them go, a dark heaviness settling in around his heart. Of all the people in their sorry little community, Kyle and Star were the ones who should have gone with Barnes’ group.
They were the ones who could have been of the most value to the Resistance’s war against Skynet.
But Barnes was gone, and Orozco didn’t have the faintest idea where to go looking for him.
Even if he had, he didn’t think he would appreciate having someone trying to chase him down, what with Skynet and the whole world right there watching.
Still, the universe was a crazy place. Maybe Kyle and Star would have another chance someday.
Kyle was swapping out the Remington for the M16 when Orozco spotted movement across the lobby. It was Nguyen, heading toward him, his expression ominously rigid.
Orozco winced. Nguyen and his fellow traders had been conspicuous by their absence during Tunney’s big sales pitch and Grimaldi’s botched attempt to show him up, but Orozco had no doubt they’d been listening closely to the proceedings. From the look on his face, it was a safe bet that the man had some piquant things to say about the whole fiasco.
Things Kyle and Star probably didn’t need to hear.
“Thanks,” Orozco said as Kyle handed him the M16. “You and Star never got breakfast this morning, did you?”
“Not really,” Kyle said.
“Neither did I,” Orozco said. “Why don’t you go see what Bessie’s got going in the kitchen. And bring me some back, too.”
Kyle glanced over his shoulder at Nguyen.
“Okay,” the teen said. Nodding to Star, he headed across the lobby toward the kitchen.
Nguyen watched them go, and it seemed to Orozco that he perhaps slowed down his pace a bit.
Maybe he didn’t want the kids hearing this, either.
“Morning,” Orozco said, nodding politely at Nguyen as he came into conversational range.
“And to you,” Nguyen replied. “Interesting morning it’s been, too. May I ask what in the name of hell and all its little demons you and Chief Grimaldi thought you were doing?”
“Actually, that was all Chief Grimaldi’s idea,” Orozco said, eyeing Nguyen closely as an odd thought suddenly struck him. If Kyle and Star couldn’t go with Barnes and Kate Connor…
“In that case, it would appear that Chief Grimaldi has lost his mind,” Nguyen said. “You’ll excuse us if we don’t bother to make our formal farewells before we go.” He lifted a hand, and across the lobby the rest of the traders appeared, Nguyen’s second-in-command Vuong in the lead, with the group’s harnessed burros trailing closely behind them.
“I understand completely,” Orozco said. “But before you go, I have one last deal to offer.”
“We don’t deal with madmen, Orozco,” Nguyen said bluntly. “Anyone who pulls weapons on a Resistance group—”
“You won’t be dealing with madmen,” Orozco cut him off. “This is my deal, not Grimaldi’s. All I want is for you to take a couple of our kids back to the farm with you.”
Nguyen shook his head.
“Impossible. We can barely grow enough for ourselves and for necessary trade.”
“They could work,” Orozco offered. “Both of them.”
“We already have as many people as we have work for them to do,” Nguyen said. “There’s no more farmable land in our area.”
“But there will be someday,” Orozco persisted. “The soil is detoxifying as the short-life radioactives disintegrate. It’s happening here—it must be happening out there, too.”
“The radioactivity may be fading, but the soil is still contaminated with dangerous levels of heavy metals,” Nguyen said. “We have some techniques for clearing them out, but they’re slow.
We’re still years away from more arable soil.”
“What if I paid their room and board until you had work for them to do?”
Nguyen snorted. “With what?”
Orozco braced himself. “Gasoline.”