Adrian took three paces and heaved her over his shoulder. Ellen was beside him, rifle discarded; she grabbed for his son and dragged the boy backwards out of the pool of blood, throwing him into a fireman's carry. Together they struggled through the wreckage of the gate. Adrian tossed Guha's limp form into the van, and dove after her.
Blackness.
'Had the devil of a time getting you out of that steel coffin before you smothered,' Farmer grumbled, looking down at the plastic cast on his arm. 'That's where I got this from a stray round, and the ricochet hit Cheba in the thigh. We weren't even sure your etheric form had made it back to the meat body. Then the black helicopter spiraled in and we piled in…God, what a movie it would make.'
Adrian smiled thinly. He still felt as if every inch of him had been beaten with clubs until his skin came off and then he was dipped in acid; that was what you got for overusing the Power. Even a private feeding with Ellen had made him feel only a little better, enough to keep down some of the Brotherhood's shanghaied Red Cross blood. The institutional beige-and-brown atmosphere of the safe-house hospital wasn't helping either.
'You need help, honey?' Ellen said. 'You could stay in the wheelchair for this, you know.'
Slowly Adrian stood. The rail of the bed rattled a bit as he put out a hand when everything swayed, and then steadied. He opened his mouth to say he could stand on his own, then smiled and let her put an arm around his waist; his went over her shoulders.
'Thank you,' he said. 'Thank you very much.'
'You're welcome. This way. The doctor says she can't say much, but she insisted.'
'She saved my son,' Adrian said. 'She can insist as she pleases.'
The hospital was set up in orthodox fashion, until you noticed there were no exterior windows; the rooms opened off a central corridor, with two or three beds in each. Most were vacant; the next held a sullen Cheba, and Eric Salvador sitting in a chair beside her bed being politely implacable about keeping her in it. Beyond that was Guha's.
No convalescence here; it was simple flat-out borderline-fatal injury. Adrian's nose flared slightly at the smell of pain. The doctors thought the agent would live, but three pulverized ribs and a perforated lung were not something you could shrug off. Jack Farmer was speaking as they walked in:
'And you are going to take some time off. We never did get to go on that holiday in Mauritius you always talked about…Okay, here he is.'
The nurse watching the monitors gave him a warning glance as he nodded.
'Second…time…save,' Guha said breathily as he bent over her.
The painkilling drugs were making her muzzy, but he could feel the effort of will she put forth into mastering it. The tubes rattled a little as she moved one arm slightly.
'Got to tell you. Harvey…said not. Owe you. Harvey…has the bomb. I…can feel…you should know. Black-path if you don't. Harvey…has the bomb.'
'Bomb?' Adrian said softly.
There was an image in her mind. A flash of light…
'Used…plutonium from the…Never mind. Twenty-five kilo-ton. In Istanbul. To Tbilisi.'
Adrian blinked. 'What? You could never conceal something like that-'
'Boase. Figured it out. Got it. Harvey's taking it to Tbilisi.'
Her eyes fluttered closed. The nurse pointed warningly out the door, and Adrian walked-stumbled-in that direction, holding himself up against the jamb. Images strobed through his mind, a wild tangle of possibilities with a dead center where the Power simply wasn't.
'Bomb?' Ellen said. 'That redneck maniac has a nuclear bomb?'
'He's going to try to destroy the Council,' Adrian said with soft wonder. 'All the most powerful Shadowspawn adepts in one place. That hasn't happened since before Hiroshima. And with Boase's shield to keep it from being detected.'
'And it's going to work!' Farmer said with quiet vehemence. 'We're going to win!'
'There are over a million human beings in Tblisi, you…you fanatic!' Ellen began.
Adrian held up his hand. Both of them fell silent, and he stared at the wall. Ellen's hand stole into his and he squeezed it, drawing strength.
'You don't understand,' he said. 'Either of you. Adrienne is alive. She's been moving behind the scenes all year, and we didn't know she was alive. She must know about the bomb. She's been playing us like a violin!'
'God,' Farmer said, half a grunt, as if he'd been struck.
Ellen made a wordless sound.
' Harvey doesn't know she's alive. He has to be told.'
Farmer backed up three steps. 'He can't be.'
'What do you mean?'
'He went into Istanbul and picked it up, and he was going to deliver it under deep cover. I think he was afraid the Brotherhood would change its mind. I don't know how to contact him-and with that thing of Boase's we can't even use the Power to trace him.'
The three looked at one another. A moment later, Adrian spoke:
'What have we done?'
EPILOGUE
The dun plain of Anatolia stretched out before Harvey Ledbetter, dark and immense, rising to snowcapped mountains in the far distance as the big truck rumbled through the shadows. He whistled tunelessly in the blue glow of the control screen and sipped at a cup of tepid, acrid-strong coffee; his eyelids felt as if sand had been forced underneath, but keeping going through fatigue was the oldest of his skills. Then he began to sing along with the sound system that filled the bubble of warmth. The tune was an old favorite, Cory Morrow:
This is some kind of crazy
You're my favorite kind of lonesome…
Behind him, the bomb was invisible to the eye of the Power. But he knew it was there.
Singing, he drove eastward through the night.
