Preston hissed between his teeth.
“More likely they found him somewhere, dredged out his memories, and then killed him. They might even have deliberately searched him out because he’d been in Baker’s Hollow and they were using us as their damned—”
“Hold it,” Barnes cut him off, dropping the minigun’s muzzle from chest-rest into firing position. There was definitely movement over there, too much for Jik’s rope-and-stick gimmick. “Jik?” he shouted. “Hey, you! Terminator!”
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a pair of bushes parted—
And Halverson stepped into view.
But it wasn’t the swaggering, arrogant, overconfident Halverson who’d left Barnes and Williams prisoners in Preston’s living room while he went off hunting T-700s. He was limping as he made for the river, his face contorted with pain. Instead of a rifle, a bow and quiver dangled loosely from his right hand. His left hand was pressed against his right side.
He was barely in sight when Preston broke from cover and sprinted to the river, slinging his rifle over his shoulder as he ran. He splashed through the rushing water to Halverson, taking the man’s left arm and laying it over his own shoulder. He wrapped his other arm carefully around Halverson’s back and side, then half led, half carried the injured man across the river and back to the trees where Barnes was waiting.
“Give me a hand,” he grunted as he put Halverson’s back to one of the thicker trees and started to ease him to the ground.
“No—don’t,” Barnes said, catching hold of Halverson’s arm and pulling him upright again. “If you sit him down, you’ll just have to stand him up again in a minute.”
“He needs to rest,” Preston insisted.
“Not here he doesn’t,” Barnes countered.
“But—”
“No, he’s right,” Halverson said, shrugging off Preston’s hand. “Besides, I think a couple of my ribs are cracked,” he added, making a face as he again pressed his left hand to his side. “I sit down now, I probably end up with a punctured lung.”
“Fine,” Preston gritted out. “What happened back there? No—dumb question. I mean—”
“You mean did anyone else make it out alive,” Halverson said bitterly. “The answer is no. He killed them. All of them.”
“How’d he miss you?” Barnes asked.
“Does it look like he missed me?” Halverson retorted. “He took my gun, clubbed me with it, then started shooting everyone else.”
“Probably planned to come back to you later.”
“You think?” Halverson said acidly. “Only I saw how it was going. I saw there was nothing I could do. Badger was already down, so I grabbed his bow, just to have something if he came after me. Then I took off to try to warn the rest of you.”
Barnes grunted. “Nice thought. A little late, though.”
“What are you talking about?” Halverson asked, frowning. “He couldn’t have gotten past me.”
“He didn’t have to,” Preston told him. “Oxley was already there.”
“Oxley?”
“And Valentine,” Preston said. “Remember those Terminator hybrids we were talking about earlier?”
Halverson’s face went rigid.
“Oh, God. Did he—is Ginny—?”
“Ginny’s okay,” Preston hastened to assure him. “It looks like he only got a couple of people before we were able to take him down.” His throat tightened. “The full count will have to wait until later.”
“Where is she?” Halverson asked. “Ginny. Is she still in town?”
“No, they’re all heading to the Glaumann place,” Preston said. “You think you can make it that far?”
“I can make it,” Halverson said. He looked at Barnes. “What about your partner? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine,” Barnes said, a small part of his mind wondering how he felt about Williams being called his partner. “She’s headed back to the chopper to get us some extra firepower.”
“Hope’s taking her via the snaky,” Preston added. “With luck that’ll get them past Lajard and Valentine.”
“Yeah, what’s with Lajard?” Halverson asked. “You didn’t mention him before.”
“We think he’s pure human,” Preston said. “Possibly the Thetas’ controller and observer. But that still leaves Valentine on the loose.”
“And Jik,” Barnes said, frowning at the river. “Where the hell is he, anyway?”
Halverson shook his head. “Last I saw, he was collecting all the T-700 pieces we were supposed to dump in the ravine.”
“Collecting the pieces?” Preston asked, frowning. “What for?”
“How the hell should I know?” Halverson snarled. “All I know is that he was picking them up and laying them out like a jigsaw puzzle. I only got the one glimpse.”
“Maybe he’s trying to scavenge enough parts to put together a working machine,” Barnes said. “How badly damaged were they?”
“They looked pretty bad,” Preston said. “But now that we know it was all for show, maybe they weren’t as bad off as we thought.”
“What do you mean, it was all for show?” Halverson asked. “We nailed those damn machines.”
“Are you blind, or just stupid?” Preston said sourly. “The only reason Skynet let us take them down was to prove Jik’s credentials as the great John Connor. How better to do that than let him help the brave little locals wreck a couple of fearsome Terminators?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Halverson protested. “Why even bother if the damn Thetas were just going to shoot up the town anyway?”
An unpleasant sensation ran up Barnes’s back. Suddenly, the pieces were starting to fall into place.
“Because that wasn’t the plan,” he said. “What did Oxley say back there, Preston? That they would have been perfectly happy to keep things going the way they were?”
“Something like that,” Preston said, frowning at him. “You saying the plan was for them to stay in Baker’s Hollow?”
“I think so,” Barnes said, his mind racing furiously. “Only they’d be here with Jik joining them as John Connor. Did he ever say whether he had a radio or not? Or access to one?”
“He said that he had a small one,” Preston said. “I never saw it, but from the size of his backpack it couldn’t have been very big.”
“Perhaps he left a bigger one out in the woods,” Halverson suggested.
“Or maybe it’s both,” Barnes said. “He’s got a small transmitter with him, but it’s only sending as far as a bigger version out there in some hidden Skynet base.”
“Somewhere out in the mountains?” Preston asked, frowning.
“Somewhere right here in this area,” Barnes growled. “Probably where Jik came from, in fact, Jik and those four T-700s. Maybe even the H-K that attacked us outside the wrecked Skynet base last night.”
“We heard an H-K last night, too,” Preston said. “It could have been the same one.”
“Where did it come from?” Barnes asked.
Preston pointed across the river.
“Somewhere to the west of here, heading southeast.”
“If this base had an H-K, it would have to be in a clearing,” Halverson offered. “You can’t land those things just anywhere.”
Barnes fingered the minigun thoughtfully. Only Williams had said there weren’t any clearings near town on that side of the river. Which meant—
“It’s been camouflaged,” he told the others. “Probably with camo netting strung between treetops. You two know the area. Where could it be?”
Preston and Halverson eyed each other.
“Has to be somewhere with mostly flat ground,” Preston said. “That leaves out the two on Beelee Ridge.”
“Also has to be some place where we haven’t been hunting lately,” Halverson added.