front of him, skimming his gaze back and forth through the half-light.
Something moved to his left.
Cam raised his RPG launcher.
Then an object whispered overhead and clanked from a metal surface to his right, bouncing in the wreckage. Maybe there was another impact in front of him.
Three explosions bracketed him harmlessly. Cam was untouched by the nearest bang, though the noise slapped into his ear like a pencil.
Alekseev’s response was more dangerous. He set off another block of C-4. A boxy commuter car flipped out of the wreckage. Fifty feet away, shrapnel punched into Cam’s shoulder and hip. Roughly the same distance from the bomb, the torrent of fire also illuminated a man in a hollow against one of the still-standing walls. The Chinese had used the noise of their grenades to advance. Cam fired but sent his rocket high, shoved off balance by the hot metal in his side. Then the man was obscured by smoke and dust.
Cam flung himself down. Had he seen a second soldier in the dark? Either way, the instinct was correct. Bullets snapped past his position. It was as if the explosions had opened a door. Submachine guns chattered in the haze, stitching through the wreckage. Cam leaned up with his rifle and got a face full of splinters, closing one eye against the pain.
Alekseev’s AK-47 roared on his left. Maybe he took some of the heat off of Cam. The submachine guns didn’t stop, but most of the noise turned away from Cam. Far to his right, he heard guns at Medrano’s position, too.
Cam lifted his rifle again as the firefight tapered off. Without thinking, he hesitated, too. The battle had a life of its own. Every burst of gunfire stimulated more shooting, and each pause did the same. They communicated with friend and enemy in the same way.
There was silence.
Ash fell.
Somewhere, a burning wall peeled apart and clattered on the rubble beneath. Cam listened to the dark. Alekseev’s gambit was a risk — trying to engage the Chinese with lies, offering to trade nonexistent hostages for the chance to escape — and Cam wanted to protect his ally. He stood gingerly with his rifle at his shoulder.
Someone called,
Two grenades detonated on either side of Alekseev, one of them above his head. The Chinese must have held their weapons as the fuses burned down, only throwing the grenades at the last second.
The concussions shredded Alekseev in a twisting white hurricane. Cam screamed and fired. Another weapon chattered back at him. Bullets thunked into the wood and drywall on his left. He hit someone. There was a yell. Then a round slammed through his forearm and spun him backward. He lost his rifle. Get up! he thought.
The Chinese were breaking through.
Deborah reloaded quickly, leaning her bad shoulder against a wall. She’d stayed at the edge of the campus instead of wading into the ruins. It was a decision that allowed her to support Medrano and Obruch, sniping at the muzzle flashes on their flank while keeping the option to run toward Cam and Alekseev or even to retreat to Kendra’s lab.
It was like shooting at sparks. The enemy guns flickered, faded, and flickered again. Hit or miss, she never saw anyone. Her frustration helped her concentrate. Every muscle was centered on her weapon, because firing her AK-47 was agony. Deborah barely had enough strength to control the weapon and she probably couldn’t have managed it on semi-auto. Instead, she picked at the Chinese with single shots, jarring her shoulder with each round.
She knew she’d better move. They would get a bead on her if she didn’t. So far, other guns had distracted them, being much closer, but now everyone on her side was either hurt or hiding or dead. The fighting had stopped.
Deborah crept forward in the orange light, torn in two directions as her body shook with adrenaline and fear. Were any of her people still alive?
Jia slogged through the rubble on both knees and one hand, keeping his pistol up. He’d slung his slender- barreled Type 85 submachine gun in order to climb. The wasteland was peppered with sharp edges and gaps. It slid. It creaked. He’d lost count of the bruises on his legs. His left arm ached inside its cast.
Only Jia and the copilot were still mobile. The other soldier was dead and they’d left their pilot behind after he was wounded in both thighs.
Jia thought they were very close. In the half-light, past the ragged shapes of the debris and a bent lamppost, he glimpsed a somewhat open field that must have been a parking lot. Several cars were strewn across it in clumps, and the flat ground was covered in soot and trash, but compared to the rest of the city, this clear space was a garden. Beyond it stood larger buildings that might have been the same size and shape before the quakes — the lab site.
The enemy was using AK-47s, not American rifles. Nor was the one man he’d glimpsed wearing a containment suit, so why weren’t they sick with the mind plague? Who were they really?
Jia was out of grenades. Otherwise he would have thrown one to mask his approach. It was very quiet. Every movement was painstaking. He crept toward the lamppost through glass and tree branches and the soft cushions of a sofa, testing each bit of junk for noise. He wanted to holster his pistol — he needed both hands — but couldn’t bring himself to climb without any weapon at all.
He wondered if he would hear his planes before the bombs fell. How much time was left? Jia was close enough to the site that napalm or high explosives would incinerate him, too, and yet he pressed on, caught between the need for silence and the need to hurry.
A running shape broke across the field, sprinting out from the buildings. Jia did not hesitate. He leaned up from the wreckage and opened fire.
The pistol barked in Cam’s face — but it was not directed at him. It was pointed over his head.
It was Kendra. What was she doing? He caught one hint of her expression in the fires, huge white eyes, white teeth, black cheeks streaked with sweat or tears.
The gunfire cut her down.
“No!” Cam screamed.
Jia reeled backward when an AK-47 stuttered in the ruins beneath him, surprisingly close. It chewed through the lamppost, then cut within centimeters above his head. Jia was lucky the copilot was to his left. He heard the copilot’s submachine gun chatter.
The two guns dueled, exchanging bursts. In a sudden break, Jia swung himself up and fired, too, emptying his pistol.
His reward was a thrashing body in the night. The enemy soldier collapsed.
Deborah saw the new firefight break out on the perimeter — and just as quickly, she saw the rifle on her side fall silent. Was it Cam or Alekseev? Deborah scrambled to help. She left her corner.
The enemy guns swung toward her. She was spotted against the open face of the building, drawing fire from at least two Chinese.
She leapt into the parking lot, finding safety behind an overturned car. Her shoulder felt like an oven, a hot box of bone and meat. The vehicle rang with bullets. Glass and paint showered her hair, but that didn’t stop her from peering through the wheelwell for her friends.
What she found was an even greater surprise. Twenty feet away, Kendra lay dying as she groped at her ruptured chest. No. The crazy witch seemed to be making passes at the air above herself, reaching for heaven or
