The Terminals (22 page)

“I don't care about your pension. The children!”

But the phone was dead. I called again and he didn't pick up.

Attila, summoned by my yells, hovered in the doorway. I waggled the phone at him, and attached to the spiral cord, the rest of it danced on the desk. I tried to speak, but no words came out. Then my eyes fell on the police evidence kit; I'd seen something like it before but couldn't place it.

I paused and turned to Attila. “Come on,” I said. “I'm wasting time.” I left the office and headed for my quarters.

“What about Volt?” Attila asked.

“Refuses to respond,” I said.

“So what are you going to do?”

I stopped and turned.

“Get those kids out myself.”

“Not alone.”

“I won't let Charlie's sacrifice be in vain, Attila.”

“Let me come with you.”

I owed it to the kids to send somebody whose blood wasn't like paint thinner, but Hillar was dead and no longer a threat. If a bomb went off, I would be the one to die, not Attila. He was worth too much. As soon as I confirmed the location of the kids, the cavalry would follow.

“I have something else I need you to do.”

“Attila,” Deeth grumbled. “A word.”

“I'll meet you on the helipad in five minutes,” Attila said.

I waved as I dashed into my room and snapped up a sack of gear I had in my closet. I collected the envelope I needed for Attila and scrawled across the top of a sheet of paper what I wanted him to do for me.

I only knew one other person I trusted to move on this faster than the blood flowing in my veins.

Chapter 36

After handing the note to
Attila, I burst on to the hospital roof. Sabo was still on shift, and although I deserved suspicion, he showed none. The blades wound up as I sat hunched on the seat, holding a pressure bandage against my arm.

I was beginning to feel guilty leaving Attila to the general. Although I was riding out alone and likely into another of Hillar's traps, Attila was shut in with a unit leader whom I'd antagonized. Before I came along, Attila and the general had had a mutual understanding of
you look one way and I'll look the other
. Now I'd forced an assault and wasn't sticking around to provide covering fire. But the general needed him for the unit, he couldn't kill him. Not until he had a replacement.

The image that filled my skull was even nuttier than that idea—the general cuddling a baby—I cackled, and Sabo looked my way. My brain was addling, too little sleep, too much happening, and I tried to think of something else. What
was
I doing having sex with Attila anyways? I wasn't in the right state of mind for a relationship, but even I couldn't fully subscribe to the excuse that I'd merely wanted to distract him from a discussion of suicide. So he was attractive in a Johnny Depp way, more than a few years younger than me, and I wanted to go out with a pleasant buzz? Nothing I could do would make me any more of a monster, I decided. And the buzz was long gone. We flew into the sunset and that seemed appropriate.

Blood dribbled from my right nostril. I dug into my pocket and pulled out a clump of tissue, applying pressure to my nose. Because of the Coumadin, the bleeding would never fully stop, but I could slow it. Soon I would begin to bleed from my eyes, my mouth, and my ears as well as my nose. In a couple of hours it would all be over, and, with any luck, Sabo would be flying a load of kids back to the hospital along with my corpse. Justice prevailing.

I listened to the steady beat of the rotors and shut my eyes. I was sick of the taste of blood slowly trickling down my throat, sick of endlessly trying to atone for my mistakes and prove to everyone that I was good enough. This last effort would at least prove that I was prepared to act, to lead the charge.

Whether due to lack of blood, or my training letting me know nothing remained to be done, I drifted a little. When I woke, the Appalachians had given way to the central lowlands, night had fallen, and I focused on sorting through my flashlights and other gear.

I slid one penlight beneath the barrel of my gun, and then pulled out my Interceptor body armor. I didn't know when the Coumadin would peak in my system, but at this stage I suspected a hard punch could cause internal bleeding. Hillar had set traps at every turn. I needed the protection to give the kids a fighting chance, and so I buckled on the tactical vest.

“Any other helicopters radio, Sabo?”

He shook his head and glanced down at the controls. “Only some towers for flight path.”

So I was doing this alone. Being alone didn't bother me. But failing to finish the job because I popped too much rat poison did.

I needed to free the kids and carry them onboard a helicopter. It wasn't going to be easy, and I should have brought someone to help haul the kids into the cabin. Even Sundarshan would have sufficed. If I could withstand bleeding out, I could certainly handle a leering, old codger. My ire at Handso and Volt roared back. They should have been here.

Would have, could have, should have. I sounded like your average American about to die.

Would have: had more friends and skipped the Army. Maybe I would have made a decent housewife? I chuckled crazily.

Could have: been more thorough in my search of one particular grain elevator.

Should have: blown that little boy's scalp off.

I ran my bloodied fingers through my hair and held my head, eyes shut. I was just about done punishing myself for everything. Maybe it was time to start punishing someone else.

“Incoming …” Sabo relayed.

The happy face on the water tower materialized under the beam of the helicopter lights. I signaled for Sabo to drop down over top.

I ensured my gun was firmly tucked into my bag and checked the straps on my armor.

“Take me in, close as you can,” I said. And the helicopter eased toward the roof of the tower. I threw back the cabin door, but could only smell the blood in my nose, despite the warm air swathing me.

“I'll plant the skid; you step out carefully onto it when I signal.” He squinted at me. “No quick movements.”

Sabo was good. Hovering above the water tower, he powered off to plant the right skid on the roof. At the flick of his wrist, I shifted my weight to the door, dropped the coil of rope and my sack, and stepped gingerly down. I hunkered as Sabo immediately ramped the power to the rotors.

I had learned from my last run-ins with Hillar. The key risk was triggering a bomb. I unzipped the haversack, took out three flares, and struck each one so that the top of the water tower blazed red-orange. Out of the sack I drew a telescoping wand tipped with a mirror. Sabo had pulled off and hovered half a mile distant, dark canopy eyeballing me, tail boom pointed away.

With my light on and my gun drawn, I approached the water tower hatch, which was chained and secured by a small brass lock. I crouched and inspected the lid for wires. Seeing none I stepped back, aimed, pulled the trigger. The shot was wide and gouged yellow paint from the happy face's scalp. It was then that I noted the circle and cross rune scratched into the hatch lid. I was in the right spot. I fired again. The lock shattered, and I gathered the chain to release the hatch.

The lid swung up and knocked into the tower with a gong. I extended the wand and positioned the mirror over the hatch so I could peer inside.

The ladder continued downward with hoops of steel ringing it. In the middle of the lowest ring a series of hands pointed inward, as if the ladder had a mouthful of finger-teeth. I wanted to hoot with joy, but stood and fumbled the radio to my ear.

“They're here—” I began to say into the handset in my fist, but the radio had disintegrated and my hand and face ran with wet. A second muzzle flash from within the water tower clued me to what was happening. My ear rang so loud it was difficult to think, but I managed to curse myself and duck.

In ancient times, the killers had come as a pair. I should have known Hillar could have a partner now. I tossed the mangled radio on the roof with the mirror and gathered the flares. Something Attila had said gave me an idea, one I hoped would save a few lives. I didn't have time to spare. Whoever was inside could be finishing the children off.

The hatch was the only way in or out. If I stuck my head through, I'd be rewarded with a bullet in my skull. There was no good way to approach the interior, except with teargas, which was not something I had. That was something Volt had. And when his time was finally up, and he stood at the pearly gates, I hoped Saint Peter would ask Volt why he hadn't helped me.

But I had another plan. The dead kids had told Attila that it was dark. Pitch black. Blood dripped from my earlobe and ran into my eyes. Drawing a deep breath, I dropped the three flares inside and never hesitated. To hesitate would be like waiting for an oncoming shark and not trying to swim away. I jumped through the hole, swinging toward the ladder with my arms on the edge of the hatch. With any luck, I'd have a second or two of surprise while the killer's eyes adjusted to the flares.

I was wrong.

I slipped on the rung, the misstep saving me, and rattled off the ladder cage as gunshots rang out, sparking off metal. One bullet slammed into my back as I was falling, hitting the armor with enough force to wind me and cause me to drop my handgun. I fell to the bottom of the tank, landing in a squelching pile of bodies. I felt around for my weapon.

I found another. Its barrel pointed down at where I lay. Attached to it was a woman in a shooting stance, hands supporting one another and feet comfortably apart. The orange glow of the flares lit her face. I hadn't been counting bullets, but she couldn't have many left. I stared up at the barrel. One would be enough.

It was the whisper of a girl that galvanized me, a reminder why I was here.

“Alistair …”

The woman's eyes flicked away and then back.

In the instant of her distraction I rolled over the bodies and under the sweep of legs that draped down from where the kids hung over the bars. The woman fired, and I heard the bullet slap flesh, but it wasn't mine. One of the flares cooked a child's foot and I grabbed the flare as I rolled and flung it into the woman's eyes. She jerked her hands up to protect herself, and I rammed into her ribcage with my shoulder.

She dropped, and I went over her. I landed in a tumble of limbs, rolled over something that shattered and collided with the side of the tank. When the sickening, sweet smell hit me, fear shot down my back, but then my nose told me it was chloroform and not ether in the air. If it was ether, the place would be a fireball, and I didn't want to burn to death. Bleed out, fine, but burning was true hell and I'd had enough of the experience.

The woman hunted on the ground with her palms. My gun's flashlight shone on the far side of the tank. I jumped to my feet. But she had been faking her search and lunged with unexpected ferocity. Unable to halt my own momentum, her blade glanced off the body armor. She swung again, this time for my throat. I leapt up and back, the blade slicing across my protected abdomen with enough force to disembowel.

I kicked out, caught her knife arm so that the blade jumped from her hand and punched her in the stomach. Bent forward, her fists pummeled my ceramic-sheathed sides. With my arms wrapped about her back and belly, I held her tight to me. Her head was in my groin. My eyes watered from the smoke from the flares. The bodies of the children were like phantoms in orange mist. As she punched and scrabbled for purchase, all I could hear was the hiss of flames. A knife edge cut through the thick fabric of my fatigues, burning across one thigh.

Fear surged through me and bonded with anger at my shitty choices and at sick killers. Fear—that I was too late. That none of this had been worth it. That I had failed again. I tightened my grip around her waist and leaned back, straining, feeling the blood vessels pop in my eyes.

The eyes of a kid, wide and grotesquely stitched open stared on, surprise on an otherwise expressionless face. But she wasn't chained to the ladder any longer, and she held something at eye level.

I roared and hauled upward.

The killer's legs left the ground, so that they ran in the air and she kneed me in the face. With a shout of utter frustration, I sat on her head. I drove her head into the steel floor of the tank. Gunshots rang out, ricocheting, and slamming into the killer's upside-down chest. In the haze of the action, the kid was driven backward by the recoil of the gun she fired. She hit the metal rings and fell over. I held the woman's head in the chloroform pooled at the bottom of the tank until her body stopped wriggling.

When I released, I left her face down in the anesthetic, my ass soaked with it. But my attention was captured by the eyes of the others. Hollow, staring eyes sewn like weird dolls, arms and legs limp like dolls; dead, like dolls. The kid with the gun was a girl, and her head shifted and lolled toward me. Oriental features, but it was difficult to tell with the eyelids stretched back. A strange glow in her eyes held me, not the reflection of the flares, something else. It flickered as the head tilted and she mouthed: “Thank you.” If I'd the strength, I would have mouthed the same back.

The hissing of the flares muted.

And darkness closed in, taking me to all fours.

Maybe it was the eyes or her gratitude. Maybe it was the chloroform, or sewing kits and generals, but my stomach heaved, and I vomited blood. I created a puddle of it, which I collapsed upon. Into the silence came a distant shrieking, a stringent voice.

And I thought, “Oh God, if that's You, we're not going to get along.”

There was a video camera, which shone with the bright light of heaven.

“What the fuck,” the voice said, and turned back to the light. “Lose the camera and haul her out of here.”

“But the footage,” the light retorted.

“Just do it,” the voice ordered.

The light disappeared. I had expected a more leisurely ascent into heaven; instead rough hands slung me across a shoulder, and I climbed in jerks and grunts to the night sky. By the stubble and scar running down the side of his face, the man that looked down at me wasn't a saint, and I began to understand that I wasn't dead yet.

A helicopter carefully lowered to perch on the water tower and I was loaded aboard, and then it slowly dropped the remaining height to the ground. When next I came to, I had been left on the concrete slab that supported the tower. A dozen sets of headlights washed over me. Cool air returned my lucidity, but I'd heard stories of the dying regaining consciousness just before death and decided that this must finally be it.

Black shapes climbed the water tower ladder. Cops.

“Slowly, easy now.” A man waved a flashlight at a descending bundle. It looked like a spider dropping from above.

“Got it right this time.” Volt hopped onto the concrete and crouched; he looked sleep tousled. “I'm not going to stand here and say I'm bitter. Few more hours and no one would be alive. Not that you'll receive the credit for it.”

By the watery sheen to his eyes, I believed him. Relief smoothed his features as the paramedic called out.

“Alive!”

A cheer sounded from behind me, and the boy was loaded on to a stretcher. I wondered why I wasn't on one, too. I quaked with cold.

Hearing the paramedic and seeing the relief on Volt, a serenity bloomed in me, the same sort of hyper-aware calm that occurs after a car crash—where you're just glad everyone's going to be okay. That you're alive. I thought of Attila and our car crash.