Moving around to bring its portside M240 into range.
“He’s suckering them,” he growled. “Jik saw you light the camo net with a fire arrow, figured we might be smart enough to try marking his position with another one, and decided to get there first.”
“How could we mark him?” Preston said, his voice bewildered. “We don’t even know where he is.”
“We do now,” Barnes said, looking across the clearing to where the arrow had come from. In the fading light from the smoldering camo net, he could just make out a figure standing motionless beside one of the bigger trees.
“Shoot him,” Preston urged. “Come on, shoot. That’ll show Blair who we are.”
Barnes sighed. Only it wouldn’t show Williams anything of the sort. If things had been reversed, if it had been Preston who marked Jik’s position with a flaming arrow, the Theta would certainly respond by opening fire toward his attackers with whatever weapons he had.
Williams would know that. Rather than getting her to hold her fire, an attack on Jik now would simply get her shooting at him and Preston that much faster.
He looked up again, his mind whirring as he tried to figure out a plan. The chopper was too high for Williams to be able to distinguish either of their faces well enough for a positive ID. Ditto for their clothing, Preston’s bow, or anything else they had with them.
Their only hope was to find cover.
Only there wasn’t any. Not from a machinegun firing from above.
“Barnes,” Preston said, the name a sigh of resignation.
Barnes squeezed his hand around the grip of the G11. The chopper was nearly to firing position now. Five more seconds, maybe six, and they would be dead.
He had exactly that long to come up with some way to stop Williams. Any way that he could.
“Almost there,” Halverson called tensely. “Come on, come on.”
“Easy,” Blair said, frowning out the side door as the Blackhawk continued to turn back toward firing position. She could see the figure down there now, just visible in the flickering light from Preston’s fire arrow. He was standing still, possibly hoping the hunters wouldn’t spot him. There was a flicker of movement a meter to his side—
“Hold it,” Blair said, leaning toward the door. Was that a second figure hunkered down in the bushes? “I see someone else.”
“Oh, damn,” Halverson snarled. “I knew it. He got one of the T-700s working. Come on, come on—we’re almost there.”
Blair bit hard at her lip. Yes, that could indeed be a T-700 down there. It could also be a T-600, or even another Theta they hadn’t yet accounted for.
It could also be a human being.
But it had to have been Preston who had fired that arrow. Preston had a bow, and there was no reason she could think of why Jik would have bothered to pick one up.
And if that was Jik down there, he had every reason to position his reconstructed T-700 under just enough cover to masquerade as another person in hopes of throwing Blair off track.
She huffed out a breath. It wasn’t perfect, but it made more sense than any other theory.
And until and unless she got some solid reason to think otherwise, she would just have to go with it.
* * *
“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” Preston murmured. “They’re going to shoot us down, and we’re going to die.”
And then, with the chopper nearly to firing position, Barnes suddenly had the answer.
Maybe. Maybe the whole thing was complete insanity that would do nothing but get them killed a little faster.
But it was all he had.
“Here,” he said, shoving the G11 into Preston’s hands. Taking a deep breath, he left his partial concealment and stepped directly in front of the burning arrow.
And standing straight and tall, he threw his arms out to both sides.
“You want to stop me?” he murmured toward the sky, the way he’d snarled at Blair last night from outside the chopper. “Shoot me.”
And as Halverson swung the M240 onto his target, the vague figure down there stepped directly into the light and threw his arms out to both sides.
And suddenly that image, and the accompanying words, flashed up from Blair’s memory.
You want to stop me? Shoot me.
“Stop!” she snapped at Halverson, twitching the Blackhawk’s nose to throw off his aim. “Don’t shoot!”
“What are you doing?” Halverson snarled. “That’s Jik.”
“That’s Barnes and Preston,” Blair snarled back, resettling the helo’s nose and looking past Hope out the starboard door. The flaming arrow had come from somewhere over there...
And there he was. Another figure, standing beside a tree.
Waiting to enjoy the show as Blair cut down her own people.
“That’s Jik, over there,” she called back to Halverson. “Hang on—I’ll bring the helo around.”
But she didn’t. There was no need. Even before the words were completely out of her mouth, the starboard M240 unexpectedly roared to life, sending a long, violent stream of machinegun fire down at the shadowy figure below. Even as Blair caught her breath she saw the body jerk and spasm, then duck behind a tree and stumble out the other side. Another long burst of fire, and it crumpled to the ground.
The roar of the machinegun ended, and Blair raised her eyes from the motionless Theta to the girl hunched over the weapon.
And in the dim light she saw the tension lines in Hope’s young face. The grim set to the jaw, and the dark unyielding resolve in her eyes.
Hope Preston was no longer a girl. Not even a girl hardened by a tough forest life.
Hope Preston was a warrior.
And even amid all the death and misery of the post-Judgment Day world, Blair found a distant part of herself mourning the girl’s loss.
And suddenly, the perfect plan fell apart. Without warning, without reason, the sky opened up and began to rain death on him.
“No!” Jik shouted in fury and disbelief. He ducked sideways, trying to get to the shelter of the tree beside him. But it was too late. The heavy machinegun rounds had already hammered across his side, shredding skin and bursting blood vessels and shattering bone. His left leg collapsed beneath him, pitching him back out from behind the tree and into range of the guns again. For a moment the fire faltered, and then the stream of killing lead once again opened up full fury.
No! he tried to shout again. But his voice was gone, as was most of his throat. No! You can’t do this! I’m John Connor! I’m John Connor!
He was still trying vainly to scream that message to the distant traitors when his vision faded into eternal darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“It isn’t often,” Connor said from the middle of the organized tangle of tubes and wires that encircled his bed, “that I get the chance to commend and chew out the same group of people for the same actions.”
Kyle carefully avoided looking at Callahan and Zac. With the tension of yesterday’s events behind them, and with a little catch-up on food and sleep, he could see things more clearly.
Clearly enough to see that Connor was right. On both counts.
“Let’s start with the chewing out,” Connor went on. “Any of you want to take a stab at that one and save me the trouble?”
Callahan cleared his throat self-consciously.
“We should never have gone down into the tunnel, sir,” he said. “Not without first reporting our find.”
“You shouldn’t all have gone down anyway,” Connor said, a little less severely. “Obviously, I wouldn’t have wanted you to abandon an injured teammate, either. But two of you could have gone down to help Yarrow while the third came back for help.”