Blair braced herself. Was this where he was going to cut her down?
“If Skynet doesn’t want us crossing the river,” she said, “I say we do precisely that.”
Once again, he surprised her.
“Okay,” he said. “Go ahead—I’ll cover you in case the guards give you any trouble. Once you’re across, you can cover me.”
“Right,” Blair said, eyeing the guards. For their sake, they’d better not give her any trouble. “Keep an eye out for Preston and Hope, too. There’s no guarantee they’re actually ahead of us.”
With the three guards focused on the river, Blair got within five paces before one of them noticed her and snapped a warning that brought the others spinning around, rifles held at the ready.
“It’s all right,” Blair said hastily. “Blair Williams. I came with Barnes on the helicopter.”
“What’s happened?” one of the men asked, looking anxiously over her shoulder. “Did that Terminator find the town?”
“No, not as far as I know,” Blair assured him. “It occurred to me that no one’s tracking the T-700 that’s still on the other side of the river. I thought I’d go over and see if I can figure out where it’s gone.”
“Sounds dangerous,” the woman said.
“Also stupid,” the first man said brusquely. “We sure as hell don’t want you drawing it over to this side.”
“I won’t,” Blair promised, a thought suddenly occurring to her. “I could use a guide, though. One of you want to come along?”
The first man shook his head. “Halverson told us to stay on guard here.”
“You always do everything Halverson tells you?”
“Damn right,” the first man growled. “You listen to experts, you stay alive longer.” He gestured. “And one of the things experts say is not to go into a forest alone.”
“Oh, I’m not alone,” Blair assured him, glancing back over her shoulder. “I guess he’s fallen behind a little.” She looked back at the others. “Last chance for one of you to come along and help out.”
“Just go,” the man growled. “And if you hear a whistle—three shorts, three longs, three shorts—get back here as fast as you can.”
“We will,” Blair promised, wincing at the thought of a T-700 rampaging through Baker’s Hollow. “I’d better go—Barnes can catch up whenever he catches up. By the way, Preston did head up the east side of the river, right?”
“Preston?” the first man repeated, frowning.
“He was ahead of us,” Blair said. “You didn’t see him?”
“Haven’t seen anyone since you all headed back to town.”
“He might have taken another route,” the woman offered. “There are a couple more paths heading upstream off the main one that you can’t see from here.”
“That’s probably where he went,” Blair said. “See you later.”
Blair had seen the river depth at the ford when the T-700 was crossing, and had already calculated that her boots would be high enough to keep out most of the water. What she hadn’t anticipated was the sheer raw strength of the river’s current. Over the twenty-five-foot trek she had to stop four times to consolidate her balance, and even then nearly had her feet knocked out from under her twice. The water was cold, too, and by the time she stumbled up onto the bank her bad leg was throbbing and her feet felt like chunks of ice. She climbed up a short embankment, found a convenient tree where she would be out of sight of the guards, and drew her Desert Eagle.
She’d barely gotten settled when Barnes appeared, striding toward the river as if he owned it. He didn’t stop to chat with the guards, but merely exchanged nods with them and headed across.
Headed across quite effortlessly, in fact, to Blair’s annoyance. He stopped only once, at one of the spots where Blair had nearly been knocked over, but aside from that simply walked straight through.
Of course, he was massive compared to her. And he’d had the chance to watch her cross first and see where all the trouble spots were.
Blair backed up a few steps as he reached the riverbank, waiting until he’d entered the relative safety of the trees before holstering her gun.
“Anything from the guards?” he asked, turning to look behind him.
Blair shook her head. “They weren’t even watching you, let alone targeting you. I invited one of them to come along with us, too, just to see how they’d react.”
“And?”
“No interest,” she said. “If they’re worried about us stumbling across something we shouldn’t, they’re more worried about disobeying orders.”
“Halverson’s orders.”
“He does seem to be the real power in town,” Blair agreed. “Makes you wonder why they even bother with a title like mayor. Or why Preston’s the one wearing it.”
“Makes me wonder why Preston puts up with him,” Barnes growled. “Where do you want to start?”
“Let’s head up along the river,” Blair suggested. “If we keep the water within hearing distance we shouldn’t get lost.”
“If we head upriver, we might run into that Terminator,” Barnes warned.
“If there’s something out here Skynet’s hiding, we’ll probably run into more than just one.”
Barnes hefted his assault rifle.
“Bring it on,” he invited darkly.
A minute later they were making their way through the trees, the rushing water a constant muffled roar off to their right. As they walked, it occurred to Blair that if Skynet’s actual plan was to lure her and Barnes away so that it could hit the town without any serious resistance, they were playing right into its hands.
Still, if Skynet wanted the town destroyed, it could have sent in the T-700s last night. Or this morning, while she and Barnes were walking in from the Blackhawk.
No, there was something going on that she was missing. Some piece to the puzzle she didn’t yet have. Maybe they were about to find that piece.
Maybe all they were about to find was more Terminators.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
From Kyle’s vantage point, the Terminators’ midnight attack had been short but incredibly noisy, with an awesome display of firepower from both sides.
It was therefore something of a surprise to discover how much ammo the Terminators hadn’t fired.
Callahan put it into words first.
“Good God, we’ve hit the jackpot,” he breathed as they stood together by the broken machines, gazing at all the extra magazines still strapped to the Terminators’ upper arms and thighs.
“That we have,” Yarrow agreed. “Callahan, you and Reese take left; Steiner and I will take right. Get the magazines off the T-700s themselves first, then hunt around for anything that might have fallen or been shot off them. Remember that a magazine blown off by a high-speed round can fly and bounce quite a distance.”
“Vincennes said to check the guns, too,” Kyle said as they fanned out across the thirty or forty meters of last night’s field of destruction. “Some of them might be worth tagging for salvage.”
“I’m not optimistic,” Yarrow said. “T-700s are usually fast enough to wreck their guns before they shut down completely. But sure, go ahead and check—we might get lucky. And don’t forget to pull the magazines out of the wrecked guns. If we can’t get the weapons, we can at least salvage their ammo.”
Yarrow’s prediction turned out to be correct. The T-600’s minigun was still in decent shape, though two of the six barrels were badly dented. But all of the T-700s’ submachineguns either had warped barrels or broken firing mechanisms.
“You suppose that’s why they’re using this caseless ammo, too?” Kyle called across to Yarrow as he picked up an intact magazine and slipped it into his pack. “Skynet figuring that it can wreck all the guns that can fire the stuff and we won’t get any extra brass to reload?”