Ocho pushed past the other troops and the girls, past the smell of coywolv roasting and headed down to the canals.
He didn’t have any place to go. Wasn’t even sure what he wanted, but he needed to think and with the R & R, he was going to take the time.
There was something that he’d been thinking about a lot, ever since the run-in with the 999.
The gun was banging away on them all the time, now.
They’d tightened security to keep spotters from getting deep in again like that. But it meant they needed to worry about more than a company of soldiers actually pushing the territory. Now a couple cross-kissers could sneak in and find a barracks tower and start raining death in on them. And that made Ocho start thinking about the endgame.
A pair of patrol soldiers called out to him. He held up his hands, careful not to make any moves while they came over. For a second he was afraid that he’d forgotten the call signs—but then they came to mind.
“Charlie Sweet Bogey.”
Tomorrow it would be something else. The call signs were coming down from above, changing fast and furious. They needed to keep switching up to keep out any more infiltrators. The order came straight from the Colonel.
Ocho doubted it would last. The Colonel would need something better to identify his own. Ocho couldn’t even get out to his own boys without almost getting his ass shot off.
It made it almost impossible, really. How were they supposed to let farmers in if they were looking for someone with a tiny little radio? They were used to looking for guns, but if it was just spotters now…
He made it to the company HQ, and checked in on the soldiers. He had downtime, but still, he couldn’t help checking in.
“About time,” someone said.
Ocho looked over at the boys. “Why?”
“Got something.”
“Another spotter?”
“You mean forward observer.”
“Right.” FO was the new term. Forward observers. Handed down from the Colonel, also. Stern had gone to war college. He knew about forward observers. Just no one expected to have to actually fight them.
“You got to see this.” One of the boys handed Ocho the squad’s binoculars.
“What am I looking at?” Ocho asked as he peered one-eyed through the single good lens.
“You’ll see. Just watch the water down there.”
And so they sat, taking turns.
Nothing moved for a long time, and then suddenly the water moved and a girl surfaced…
What the…?
Ocho squinted, looking at her.
At first, he thought she was just taking a bath, getting the sweat off, but he’d been watching that spot, and she hadn’t gone in. There was something about her…
Were the cross-kissers sneaking girls in as spotters?
Something was off. It wasn’t that she was a girl in a war zone. They were around. Here and there. If she had the kill instinct, she was in, just like any boy.
He’d commanded a killer of a girl with curly brown hair that she kept cropped real short. Pale skin and freckles, and crazy as any warboy he’d ever known. She’d gotten blown up working point for a patrol when the Army of God mined a building they’d taken and were trying to clear. Walked right into a wall of nails. But she’d been good. Smart…
Ocho froze. This girl didn’t have a hand. That was it. She was missing a hand.
You’re sliding, he thought. That’s all. Just a bad slide on the crystal ride. There’s no way. She couldn’t be here. She can’t. There’s no way.
The girl came out again, checking both ways.
Fates. It was the girl. He was sure of it. The one-handed castoff who’d stitched him up. Dark skin and Chinese eyes, and that look of a survivor. On her cheek, he could just make out the triple hash of Glenn Stern’s chosen. He had to give her credit. She was almost as sneaky as Army of God.
The girl made a motion toward the water. Ocho stopped breathing.
“Oh shit.”
“What is it?” his boys asked. “What you see?”
A huge shape was emerging from the still waters of the canal. Graceful despite its mass. The monster came out of the water and climbed onto the floating walkway. Whole and healthy. Not a sign of a war wound on it.
The half-man paused, crouched there on the edge, head swiveling left and right. Ocho couldn’t breathe. Suddenly he was right back in the jungle, the creature exploding from the leaves, slamming him with a clawed fist and sending him flying. It was huge. It was too close.
Ocho yanked the binoculars away from his face. Realized he was being stupid. They were far away. They had no idea he was here. He lifted the binoculars again.
The monster was gone.
“Dammit!”
“What?”
Ocho pointed at the distant building. “I want spotters on that tower. Every side. We know what’s in it?”
“Nothing. Old junk. Apartments.”
“Get spotters on it. And kick this up to the LT.”
“For some girl? You don’t want us to just go grab her?”
“No!” Ocho whirled. “Don’t go near her. Just watch. If you see her or the half-man come out, stay off them. Put two layers of spotters out, in case they slip by. And watch the water. They’re using the canals. Swimming under our lines or something.”
He turned and bolted for the stairs, galloping down flight after flight. The half-man was here. In the Drowned Cities. Inside their damn territory. The castoff and the dog-face.
Faster and faster. His trot turned into a flat-out run. The half-man was here. He slammed into a patrol.
“Hold!”
Their guns whipped up. Ocho skidded to a halt. “Don’t shoot!” He tried to remember the passwords. Finally remembered, dragging them from his panicked memory.
“You need help, Sergeant?” they asked.
Ocho shook his head. “No. I’m fine. Bad rippers, that’s all. Just a little shaky.”
“Don’t run like that.” They waved him past. “We got warnings to be on the lookout for infiltrators, right?”
“I look like I wave a green crucifix?” He gave them a dark look. “Get out there and patrol.”
He turned and kept going, but he was gripped with a sense of creeping horror. It was just dumb luck that his boys had picked a new pair of binoculars off the Army of God and were trying them out. Surveillance was at the edges, not this deep in.
What was that girl doing here? Every time Ocho had run into either of them, it had been bad news. And now they were here together, inside the perimeter, stealthy and deadly.
They had no reason to be here unless…
Unless they were hunting.
And if they were hunting, they either wanted revenge, or they wanted Ghost, and either way, it meant he needed to shut them down before they got any deeper.
35
CROSSING INTO UPF TERRITORY was harder than Mahlia had expected, but with Tool, it was at least possible. The half-man could sniff out the patrols, and sense them far away. After abandoning the boatman, they made slow progress across the city, moving at night.
When they reached the boundaries of the war between UPF and Army of God, where gunfire was traded every few minutes and buildings echoed with screams of soldiers trying to break through against one another, Mahlia nearly gave up. There was no way they could cross an active war line.
“We’re dead,” she said. “This ain’t going to work.”
Tool just smiled. “Do not be so easily discouraged.” He took her hand and led her into the bowels of a swamped building. “We will swim.”
“Swim where? They’ll see us.”
Tool’s teeth showed. “Come.” He drew her down into the water. “Trust me.”