'You stay here, I've got to find out if Hal and Tony are alright,' she yelled over the rotor noise. 'I just can't leave without knowing.'
'Mom, that's nuts. Ryan said he would be right back, and that major guy will be seriously pissed,' Billy pleaded, tugging at her shirt. 'Let them check, Mom, they won't leave anyone.'
'They're our family, Billy. We have to be sure. I'm only going in for a minute.' Then she opened the trapdoor and disappeared down the darkened staircase.
Billy looked around nervously and wished Gus were here, but he and Matchstick had been lifted off with Ryan, the colonel, and the major twenty minutes before. He was guessing they were at the crash site. He bit his lip as he too made a decision, then followed his mother.
TWENTY-NINE
You're going to what?' Lisa asked a little too loudly.
Sarah checked her pack one more time, then she looked around at the preparing Delta and Ranger teams as they checked their equipment. Only a few of them looked their way when Lisa raised her voice. Sarah looked at her friend and nodded toward the commandos sitting around them at tables. Then she withdrew the nine-millimeter automatic from the shoulder holster and chambered a round, checked the safety, then replaced it. She checked for the fifth time the small oxygen tank that was lying on the cot and saw the needle well into the green. Then she turned and faced her friend.
'I'm leading the main excursion into the first excavation made by the parent, right here at the crash site,' she finally answered as nonchalantly as she could.
'That's nuts, sister of mine. Did you hear what those things are capable of? Did you see the wounds on some of those airborne guys?' Lisa looked around her and stepped closer to Sarah. 'Does Major Terrific know about this?'
A few more of the Delta and one or two of the Rangers looked up at the two women, who stood toward the front of the huge tent. Lisa eyed them until they looked away.
Sarah held the night-vision goggles to her eyes and adjusted the width of the eyepieces. 'Lisa, it's my job, and, yes, it's the major's plan. He chose me. The geology teams are split up among the other tunnel teams.' She lowered the ambient-light device and looked at her taller friend. 'Look, we have to find these things in less than nine hours, and if the air force is cut loose on them, we won't be able to piece together enough bodies to tell how many we bagged. It's not like I won't have company. Other members of the mine and geology teams, plus the zoology members, are leading groups into over fifty holes. Besides, since those Delta guys and Rangers arrived, our odds of surviving have gone up substantially.'
Lisa walked over and closed the tent flap, cutting off some of the sunlight and noise from the helicopters coming and going.
'That's those
Sarah turned and looked at her roommate while inserting a thirty-round magazine into her XM8 light assault rifle. 'Why aren't you that concerned about Carl or the commandos going down there? Why me?' she asked, looking her friend directly in her eyes.
Lisa didn't back down. 'Because, goddamn you, they're macho schmucks with not one fucking ounce of brains, which I used to believe you had, but I guess not.'
'It's my
Lisa lowered her head and bit her lip, cutting off more of her argument because she knew her friend was right.
'I'll be okay. If I have to, I'll toss a few of those Delta Force guys in front of me and run like hell, alright?' Sarah looked over and smiled at the few of the elite troops who were still watching them. They nodded.
Lisa smiled for the first time since her friend's arrival. 'Just watch out for Carl, he thinks he's the hero type.'
'I would, but he's not on my team. But he's with Jack, that spunky little navy guy, and Will Mendenhall, so he'll come back, I promise,' Sarah said, taking her friend's hand into her own. 'I've got to go, Lisa. We have a briefing in five. Those things don't know it yet, but it's our turn to start hunting
Julie slowly stepped off the bottom rung of the ladder, afraid the noise of her tennis shoe coming into contact with the broken floor would be enough to bring one of those things up through the broken tile and grab her away. But all was quiet in the kitchen. She saw a hole that had been made during the attack and stared into the dark and forbidding pit and shivered. Blood lined the mouth of the hole, and she silently prayed it hadn't been Hal or Tony who had been pulled down to their death. As she moved forward, she heard the hiss and pop of the jukebox as the needle was stuck and kept hitting the stop and sliding back.
Overhead she heard the powerful turbines whining from the large helicopters settling just above the rooftops. Things in the kitchen began to rattle loudly as the down blast from the powerful five-bladed rotors hit the Broken Cactus. She jumped when one of the hanging frying pans fell from its hook over the stove and clanged to the floor. Then her heart fell to the floor as she was touched on the shoulder from behind. She gave out a yelp and quickly covered her mouth. Billy placed his small hand over his mother's and held up a finger to his lips.
'Shhh,' he hissed. 'Come on, Mom, what're you doing?' he whispered, removing his hand.
'Goddammit, Billy, get your ass back up those stairs, now,' she half whispered, thanking God for the loudness of the turbine-driven engines of the Pave Lows.
'No way, not without you,' Billy said, looking around for any sign of the animals that had so ravaged everyone in the town. He had yet to see one of them and didn't ever want to. He was putting up the best look of bravery and defiance he could muster; he just didn't feel either of those at the moment.
Julie pursed her lips, trying hard to' hold her temper. Then she consciously counted out loud to ten, angrily forcing out each number as she did. She calmed a little and opened her eyes.
'Alright, it doesn't look like anyone's here anyway, so let's get back upstairs and the hell out of here.'
They were just starting to turn when, over the rumbling sound of the settling Pave Lows, they heard the sound of voices. They weren't traveling down the stairwell from the rooftop, but were coming from the dining area just around the corner out of their vision. Julie raised an eyebrow.
'There must still be people in here,' she whispered a tad nervously, as she knew that everyone was supposed to be on the roof.
She took Billy's right hand in her own and gently pulled him out of the kitchen and around the bar. They crept as quietly as they could, stepping lightly over fallen barstools and broken tables, and as they moved, the voices grew louder.
'Whoever they are, they don't speak English. It sounds like French, I think,' Julie said in a whisper.
They finally reached the corner of the bar and looked around it. Julie quickly counted sixteen men. They all wore black suits like Ryan and the others who had come into the bar earlier, not the brown desert fatigues of the other soldiers of the 101st. These soldiers were different somehow from the black-clad men of Lieutenant Ryan's outfit. Their uniforms were a different make, and some of these men had beards. They looked, in Julie's unprofessional opinion, lethal.
As Julie started to pull Billy back, a hand fell on her shoulder. She couldn't help it; she hated being this scared and tried not to, but she screamed anyway.
'Hey, can I pay you later for this?' Tony's slurred voice asked loudly.
The men that had been sitting around loading weapons suddenly stood, and the ones who had already been standing brought their weapons up and ran to a better angle inside the dining area and aimed at the intruders. A
