serious. I can tend to it myself.’
Jules answered that with a very dubious look. ‘Jesus Christ, Birendra, at least let me patch you up. You can keep an eye on the corridor behind me. I’m afraid the chap you left to look after me won’t be joining us. Some little munter did for him down on the first floor. Popped out of a room at the top of the stairs and shot him.’
‘A stay-behind,’ grunted Birendra, as she tied off the tourniquet he had fashioned for himself.
‘I wouldn’t have a clue. But I killed him anyway. It seemed the decent thing to do.’
‘Yes,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Now you must go. We must finish this quickly before any others come … Down the hallway, first left, and take the stairs down. You will find Mr Shah through the second door on the right. Ignore the bodies.’
‘Thanks,’ she said giving his shoulder what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze. He hefted his shotgun to point it down the hallway up which she had just come.
Somewhere below her, it sounded like hundreds of men were chanting along in animalistic ritual. The floorboards, possibly the framework of the entire building, was thumping in time to it, as though hundreds of feet were stamping out a beat together. The tempo picked up, building to a crescendo, before erupting into what sounded like applause and shouts of encouragement.
She hurried on, following Birendra’s directions. Another of Shah’s men stood guarding access to the next floor via the stairwell. He watched over three corpses that seemed to have been piled neatly on top of each other. She vaguely recognised him from her visit to the compound the other day. He nodded brusquely and jerked his head in the direction of the doorway a little further down the hall. Julianne safed her weapon, raising an eyebrow in question.
He nodded. It was safe.
‘It’s me, Shah,’ she called out softly as she tapped on the door, fearing to walk in unannounced.
‘Come in, Ms Julianne,’ Shah replied. ‘There’s somebody I would like you to meet.’
47
TEMPLE, TEXAS ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION
It was a strange assignment, not difficult, but nerve-racking in its own way. Corporal Summers had taken a couple of semesters of high school drama, many years ago it felt like, in the lost time before the Wave. She had no illusions about her acting ability, but then General Musso and Colonel Murdoch assured her she wasn’t going after an Oscar.
Like they still gave those out.
And like Colonel Murdoch was a real air force colonel.
In Amy Summers’ experience, USAF colonels were either full-time flyers or full-time paper pushers, especially nowadays when there were much fewer USAF colonels to go around. She’d been happy, even intrigued, by the Kim Possible mission they’d given her on Sunday evening, keeping Colonel Murdoch sober and bagging a set of fingerprints off that asshole from Fort Hood. That had been fun enough, but this was just weird, even a little scary.
‘You’ll be fine,’ General Musso told her, just before giving her a hand-drawn diagram detailing the location of the listening devices in Colonel Murdoch’s room. ‘It’s all audio, no cameras. We just need you to go in, put yourself to bed, and go to sleep.’
Certainly not Corporal Amy Summers.
*
Master Sergeant Milosz pulled over in the civilian Jeep at their rendezvous point, on the corner of East Avenue A and North 20th Street, in the ashen wasteland of Temple’s western reaches. This part of town had burned sometime after the Wave and the landscape was an eerie wilderness of ruins and scrubby regrowth. Caitlin could hear animals moving through the thickets as she waited in the burnt-out remains of a brick bungalow. She had her pistol to hand, the Kimber Warrior, and Milosz had told her to think nothing of shooting at anything with teeth that got too close.
‘This is for what I am supposed to be doing tonight,’ he’d said. ‘Hunting vermin and dog packs. People will expect gunfire, and this part of the town, everything east of 14th Street, is off limits.’
It made for a decent enough pick-up point. According to Caitlin’s watch, Corporal Summers would be climbing under her blankets right about now.
As Milosz cranked on the handbrake, Caitlin emerged from the shadows of the ruined dwelling. She holstered her weapon and slung a small backpack over one shoulder, throwing up black puffs of dust and ash as she picked a way through the front garden out to her ride.
‘So, Colonel Murdoch, I see you are PFC Murdoch now, yes?’
‘I’m still the same girl inside, Sergeant,’ she replied as she climbed in.
‘So probably not Colonel Murdoch then.’
‘Probably not, Sergeant Milosz, formerly of GROM. I’m sure you know the drill.’
‘Like the fat Sergeant Schultz of Stalag 13, I know nothing,’ he said with a grin. His teeth gleamed white in the darkness of the cabin. ‘Mr Musso, he asks Milosz to undertake special mission for him. Milosz is happy to comply. Anything to escape tedious discussion of football which is not football back at hotel.’
The Ranger was in BDUs, as was she, although her uniform was slightly different, being that of a private first class in the Texas Defense Force - her battered winter-weight camouflage with the proper tags sewn on. Tusk Musso had seen to that personally. Her shoulder patch marked her as a combat veteran of the now defunct 1st Armoured Division. The triangular patch was similar to the one on her other shoulder, representing the 49th Armoured Division, now of the TDF. She knew enough of a potted history of both to breeze by anyone who might stop her briefly.
‘For purposes of propriety, ma’am, what should I be calling you?’ the Polish non-com asked, as they pulled away from the kerb.
The roads in this part of Temple had been cleared a few years ago, but neglected ever since. They were not impassable, but nor was Milosz able to drive at speed. He had to manoeuvre the Jeep carefully back to Adams Avenue, which was regularly cleared.
‘“Kate” will do,’ she said. ‘So, Sergeant, you ready to drive me back into the lion’s den?’
‘Of course, Miss Kate. I have chosen route that will avoid usual patrols of TDF knuckle-draggers. Is long and winding road, like song by English Beatles, but it will put you within easy walk of lion’s den. I shall wait for you for extraction.’
‘I may not get back to a rendezvous,’ she cautioned.
Milosz shrugged. ‘I fought in Iraq and New York. Nothing in life is certain, Miss Kate. Not for you, not for Milosz, not for anyone. But I shall wait. I have foraged some literature, and some mandarins, which I found in Killeen this morning. Mandarins,’ he repeated with evident satisfaction, ‘they are much more convenient than oranges.’
He handed her a brown paper bag filled with three examples of the convenient fruit and a copy of
‘This book I read in New York, during the battle,’ he continued. ‘It survived with me and so now I think it charmed. Irrational, stupid, but I cannot let it go. It is listed as a great American novel, which I suppose it is, although I still do not understand this Gatsby man. Perhaps, if you take this book, it might be of luck to you too. And you might be able to explain this Gatsby to me when next we meet.’
Caitlin took the paper bag, finding herself unexpectedly touched by the soldier’s gesture. ‘Why thank you, Sergeant,’ she said. ‘I promise I’ll read this book again. It’s been a long time. Not tonight, of course, but I will read it.’
Milosz’s face lit up as they pulled on to Adams and began to speed up.
‘So you are familiar with this Gatsby character? Who is he, do you think, Miss Kate? He appears to be a little shady to me. Perhaps one thing, perhaps another.’
The Jeep began to eat up the tarmac as they headed for the Dodgen Loop. The break in the clouds sealed itself up again, plunging the ruined landscape outside the car back into darkness.
