Now, though, he was starting to think that might not be such a good idea. Hopefully, Williams would take the hint and keep her own mouth shut.
She did. Her forehead wrinkled briefly, but she kept quiet.
“Besides, their positioning clearly shows they were expecting their quarry to come from that side of the river,” Preston continued. “No idea who it might be, though.”
Halverson grunted. “Maybe they’ve taken over Buzby Jenkins’s old property,” he muttered. “Probably just don’t want us hunting on that side of the river.”
“Then why did they head upriver away from the ford just now?” Lajard asked. “Come on, Halverson—if you can’t be logical, at least try to be consistent.”
Halverson’s face darkened. “Look, professor—”
“I have a question,” Williams spoke up quickly. “Do you get a lot of Terminators out here?”
“I just said we didn’t,” Lajard said testily.
“Then how come you know so much about them?”
Barnes looked back at Lajard. That was a damn good question.
“Well?” he prompted.
Lajard’s lip twitched, some of his arrogance melting away.
“I have a certain familiarity with them,” he said evasively. “It comes of having—”
“It comes of him having worked for Skynet since Judgment Day,” Halverson said. “Just say it, Lajard.”
Barnes felt his face go rigid.
“You what?”
“It wasn’t all the time since Judgment Day,” Lajard said hastily, flinching back from Barnes’s glare. “And it wasn’t like I had a choice, either. None of us did.”
“None of us?” Barnes echoed. “How the hell many of you were there?”
Lajard sighed. “About a hundred in all,” he said. “If it makes you feel any better, I think the three of us were the only ones who made it out before the attack.”
“Out of where?” Barnes persisted. “Where were you? San Francisco?”
Lajard shook his head. “No, we were in the big research center in the desert southeast of here.”
Barnes felt his eyes narrow.
“Not a chance,” he said flatly. “No one made it out of there alive. Connor said so.”
It was Preston’s turn for widened eyes.
“That was Connor’s group that blew up the lab?”
“Connor’s group attacked it,” Barnes said. “Skynet blew it up.” His eyes flicked across the other men and women grouped silently around them. “You said there were three of you. Who are the other two?”
There was a brief pause.
“I’m one of them,” a woman’s voice came from behind him.
Barnes turned. It was Susan Valentine, the woman who’d been on backstop duty when Preston’s kid had tried to get the drop on him and Williams.
“Who else?”
“Nate Oxley’s the third,” Preston said. “And Lajard’s right. The people who were working there didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” Barnes growled.
“Right—we could have let the Terminators kill us,” Lajard retorted.
Barnes shrugged. “Like I said. There’s always a choice.”
“Look—”
“How about we hear the whole story?” Williams suggested. Her voice was carefully neutral, Barnes noted, but he could see his same suspicions lurking behind her eyes.
Because people under Skynet’s control didn’t walk away from that. They just didn’t.
“Certainly,” Preston agreed. “But we’ll have to go back to town if you want all three of them—Oxley’s helping Doc Meade set up an emergency trauma center.” He looked at the pile of broken Terminator pieces still visible above the river water. “In case we needed it.”
“Yeah, well, we still might,” Halverson growled. “Somebody needs to stay here and guard the ford. And we ought to track those Terminators, too, and figure out where they’re going.” He looked pointedly at Lajard. “You know. In case they decide to come back.”
“I was just going to suggest that,” Preston agreed. “Chris, Pepper, you two stay here. Trounce—”
“Trounce, you stay here with Chris and Pepper,” Halverson interrupted. “Ned, Singer—you two are on chaser duty. Find the machine that’s on this side of the river and keep it in sight.”
“But don’t get too close,” Lajard added. “And don’t shoot at it.”
“Not unless it shoots first,” one of the men said grimly. Hefting his rifle, he headed off along the riverbank, another man following close behind.
Barnes looked back at Preston. There was a fresh tightness at the edges of the man’s mouth as he watched the two men disappear into the woods. But he merely turned back to Barnes and gestured.
“Shall we?” he invited. Without waiting for a reply, he started back down the trail toward town, his daughter Hope beside him.
Picking up his minigun, Barnes dropped into step behind them. The rest of the crowd shambled their way into the procession behind him.
He’d made it out of sight of the river when Williams wandered casually up alongside him.
“What do you think?” she murmured.
“I don’t know,” Barnes muttered back. “But I don’t like it.”
“Me, neither,” Williams agreed. “I’ve never seen a machine deliberately shoot to miss.”
“Or just walk off when one of its buddies gets its gun and half its hand blown off.”
“Or leave any wreckage behind,” Williams added. “Especially with so many of them lying around in pieces in San Francisco.” She hissed between her teeth. “What the hell have we gotten ourselves into here?”
“Damn good question,” Barnes agreed. “Let’s see if Preston can give us a damn good answer to go with it.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There was a long line of people waiting at the mess tent when Kyle and Star arrived for breakfast a little after dawn. Most of them were members of the Resistance, men and women Kyle had already met or at least recognized.
But a number of them were strangers, more of the seemingly endless supply of tired and hungry civilians who’d been cautiously emerging from the hills and woods around San Francisco ever since Connor and the others had set up their temporary camp here.
They reminded Kyle of the people he’d left behind in Los Angeles. People who’d been there, just like they were here, mainly because there was nowhere else to go.
He could feel their eyes on him as he and Star walked past to the front of the line. He didn’t like doing that, but he didn’t really have a choice. Vincennes and some of the other men and women were already seated at one of the tables, and they were watching him and Star. Vincennes had made it clear that Resistance people on duty had first claim to whatever food was available.
Fortunately, none of the civilians said anything. Maybe they knew the rule, too.
Still, orders or not, Kyle could see that the mess servers were doing their best to stretch their supplies as much as possible. The small tin dishes they handed him and Star were less than a third full.
Which was all right with Kyle. He could still feel the civilians’ eyes on him, and he was willing to make do with a little less.
By the time they reached Vincennes’s table, the other Resistance men had finished their own meager breakfasts and headed out, leaving Vincennes alone.
“Morning, Reese; Star,” the older man greeted them.
“Hello,” Kyle said for both of them. Star didn’t say anything—Star never said anything. But Vincennes knew that. “Are we late?” he added, looking at Vincennes’s empty dish.