The father would be told that he was fine, and they would manufacture reasons not to show his picture again. If that turned out not to be enough to keep the man from talking, well, that was not Ponder’s problem.
The distant dome of light pulsed and grew brighter. Ponder set his jaw, ready to kill.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Because the enemy was likely to expect them to emerge from the far side of the building, Jonathan and Boxers instead emerged from the same spot where they’d entered. They cut left when they were clear of the building, through the searing alleyway between the barracks fire and the factory fire, shooting the same fields as before.
When it felt like they’d passed their enemy’s left flank, they buttonhooked to the right and began killing in earnest. Any silhouette with a gun was a legitimate target.
They moved together, their bodies nearly touching, firing and reloading without pause, zigging and zagging at random to frustrate any effort to stop them. This wasn’t about covering fire anymore. This was all about accuracy on the move, firing two bullets at a time, each pair finding their target and killing it. Where an enemy shooter presented a frontal profile, Jonathan went for a double-tap, a bullet in the heart followed by a bullet in the head. If it was a sidelong silhouette, he aimed for the ear. If they were running away, the choice target lay between the shoulder blades.
Where they pointed their weapons, people died. Jonathan made no attempt to count, but he knew for a fact that he dispatched five in the first ten or fifteen seconds. The enemy returned fire, but it was all wild and random. As far as Jonathan knew, not a single round came within five feet of him. By comparison, not a single round that left his muzzle missed its intended target.
Twenty seconds into the assault, the enemy was at a dead run, their instinct to survive obliterating their desire to win. All but a few ran in straight lines, among the surest ways to meet one’s maker during a firefight.
Jonathan and Boxers never slowed. Where bodies clogged the path, they vaulted over them. Under other circumstances, with an enemy who was better trained or more operationally aware, this kind of full-on assault would have opened the door for a counter-flanking maneuver, where bad guys would hold back and wait for the attackers to pass and then assault from the rear or the side. As they charged forward, Jonathan continued to check his six o’clock, but the maneuver never materialized.
They charged northward along the eastern edge of the compound, and as they passed what was left of the gasoline shed-Building Alpha-Jonathan saw asses and elbows retreating into Building Bravo, which, judging from the construction design was a mirror image of the kids’ barracks, but minus the locked doors and wired windows.
Jonathan and Boxers slid to a halt against the near wall of the building, well below the window, but easily vulnerable to anyone who thought to shoot a rifle through the thin siding.
The shooting had stopped, but Jonathan knew that the silence couldn’t last.
“I say we blow the building,” Boxers whispered.
Jonathan agreed. It was the only-
He glanced out into the center of the compound. “Oh, shit,” he breathed.
Evan thought this was like living the scariest movie he’d ever seen-only the explosions were real and the bleeding bodies were real. All of it was real. There wasn’t a single moment of the past few days that made any sense to him, but this topped the charts. People were dying, for God’s sake. Things were blowing up.
And Mr. Jonathan! Jesus. He’d always seemed like a tough guy and all-friendly, but in a hard kind of way-but never in a million years did he imagine the man killing people to rescue him. He felt like his head had been stuffed with glue. There was too much going on for him to understand any of it.
“Evan, what’s happening?” Charlie said way too loudly, unused to the sudden silence. “Who are these people?”
“The guy out there is Mr. Jonathan. He’s-”
“Quiet,” snapped the man who’d joined them back here. Evan had never seen him before, but he seemed nervous. He had the helmet and the gloves and the gun of a soldier, but he seemed scared. That was the thing about Mr. Jonathan: he didn’t seem even a little bit scared. Evan didn’t know if he liked that or not.
“Who are you?” Evan asked. He changed his voice to something north of a whisper but south of a shout so that he could still be heard.
“I’m a friend. My name is Harvey, and I need you both to stay quiet.” As an afterthought, he held out a gloved hand. “You’re Evan Guinn. Nice to meet you.”
Evan cocked his head, confused, but he shook the man’s hand. “Nice to meet you, too.”
“I’m Charlie,” the other boy said, thrusting his hand between the two of them.
“He’s my new friend,” Evan explained. “He’s been here a long time. They killed his parents.”
Harvey shook Charlie’s hand, too, but something changed in his face as he did. He looked sad. “Well, I hope we can find you a nice home,” he said.
“What are we doing?” Evan asked.
“We’re getting you out of here.”
“But how?”
Harvey gave him a funny look, as if he didn’t know the answer to the most obvious question in the world. “Watch and learn,” he said.
“Are we hiding?” Charlie asked.
“Damn straight we’re hiding,” Harvey answered. “Their job is to eliminate the threat to you. My job is to make sure you stay safe while they do it.” As if to punctuate his point, he readjusted the grip on his machine gun. “To get to you, they’ve got to come through me.”
Harvey heard the tough-guy words coming from his mouth, and he nearly cringed. He hadn’t felt this terrified since The Sandbox. Nor had he felt this alive. Warfare was the God-awfulest experience life had to offer to anyone; but out here, in the middle of this firefight, he recalled the addiction he’d felt back in the day. Bathed in mortal terror, the world became supernaturally vivid; the colors brighter, the fear sharper, the jubilance greater. It wasn’t until after it was over, when the enemy dead and friendly dead all looked human again, that the remorse and doubts sneaked in to steal your soul. It wasn’t until it was all over that the thrill transformed to horror.
At this moment, the reality of his life back home-the tent, the perpetual state of fear, and his general sense of uselessness-felt light-years away. They felt as if they belonged to someone else. Here he was in the middle of a by-God war, and he had something worth fighting for. Something worth dying for. He remembered his drill sergeant from a million years ago in Basic Training telling him that the only life worth living is the one worth dying to protect.
He’d understood the words intellectually back then, but now they resonated in his heart. Maybe he needed to lose everything once before he understood the need to protect those things that were important to him. These two kids were his responsibility. If they died out here, it would be his fault, but if they lived to see tomorrow, that would be his fault, too. His victory.
God help anyone who threatened that.
Out in the compound, one of the boys ran in a tight, panicked circle, clearly not knowing what to do. He stopped at the body of a soldier who’d fallen dead just thirty feet away. Jonathan remembered shooting him.
He didn’t know where the other children had gone, but this one was very much in harm’s way. Jonathan yelled, “ Tu! Nino! A cubierto! ” You! Boy! Take cover.
The boy didn’t respond. Instead, he wandered closer to the corpse, where he bent at the waist to look more closely at the face. Then he stomped on it with his heel. Once, twice, then a third time.
Jonathan spat a curse under his breath. “ Parar! ” he yelled. “ No hagas eso! ” Stop! Don’t do that! But the kid wouldn’t listen. “Shit. Cover me, Box.”
“What the hell are you-”
Jonathan was already gone. The kid kept kicking the corpse. No cadre of soldiers would stand by and watch-
Gunfire erupted from Buildings Bravo and Delta, ripping the night and the ground. And the boy. He dropped where he stood.
