couldn’t finish it.
She swallowed and relayed the info, then clicked off her mike. “Your men?”
“No casualties.”
Courtland nodded, and for a moment we shared a look. Soldier to soldier, or warrior to warrior. The ugly truth was that there were going to be casualties among my men. This event would scar every single one of them.
She looked around as the first wave of EMTs spread out through the room. The children shrieked and wept. Some of them ran toward the men and women in uniforms and the EMTs gathered them up in their arms, some of the medics and soldiers weeping as they held the kids. Other children shrank back, all trust in adults having been torn out of them. A few sat in unmoving silence, speaking of damage that went all the way down to the cellar of their souls.
“Was this how it was at St. Michael’s?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. Everyone there died. My team was outside the whole time.”
I nodded. “This morning I was just a cop,” I said.
“I know.”
There was more to say but it didn’t need to be said aloud. We both understood.
“We got a live one!” Dietrich called, and we turned to see a wounded lab tech trying to crawl out from under a dead walker. In his nearly mindless state of pain he reached out to the nearest person in a soundless plea for help. Ollie Brown stood over him, a sneer of contempt on his face. He drew his pistol and racked the slide.
“Stand down!” I bellowed, starting forward, but Brown was already bringing the barrel down toward the tech. Suddenly Gus Dietrich stepped forward, grabbed Ollie’s wrist and swung it violently upward. The pistol blast was shockingly loud, even to my wounded ears, but the bullet just buried itself in the wooden roof timbers thirty feet above.
I got up in Ollie’s face. “Stand down right now, Lieutenant.”
His face was ugly with fury, but after a long moment the tension bled out of his limbs. Top Sims stepped between him and the lab tech, his hand on his holstered pistol.
“Let him go, Sergeant,” I said, and Dietrich carefully released Ollie’s wrist and took a short step to one side, his eyes hard. To Ollie I said, “Secure your weapon.”
Ollie’s eyes bored into mine and then past me to the tech, and for a second I thought he was going to try for the shot, but then he eased the hammer down, flicked on the safety, and holstered his piece. EMTs immediately stepped up to triage the wounded man.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” I snapped. “What part of the mission orders sounded like ‘shoot unarmed prisoners’?”
“He’s a piece of shit.” Ollie sneered.
“He’s the only person we have left to interrogate.”
Ollie said nothing, so I grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him a few yards away. I wasn’t nice about it and when he tried to pull his arm away I dug into a nerve. Even with his stone face the pain showed through. I eased the pressure and he jerked his arm free.
“Okay, Ollie, let’s sort this out right here, right now.”
“There’s nothing to sort out,” he said, then added a sarcastic, “sir.”
“You’re one more smartass remark away from getting bounced off this team.” He blinked at that and snapped his mouth shut on whatever he was about to say next. I leaned close. “You’re a top-notch fighter, Ollie, and I’d rather keep you than lose you, but if you can’t follow orders then you are no good to me or anyone. Now I’m going to ask you only once and that’s it. Are you on my team or not?”
Ollie met my stare for a long ten-count and then he inhaled sharply through his nose and exhaled slowly. “Fuck it,” he said.
I waited.
“I’m in.”
“My rules, my way?”
He nodded and closed his eyes for a few seconds. “Yes, sir.” No sarcasm this time.
“Look at me,” I said. He opened his eyes. “Say it again.”
“Yes, sir. Your rules, your way.”
I nodded and stepped back. “Then we won’t discuss this again.” I turned and walked away, passing Dietrich and Courtland without comment, and rejoined Echo Team. After a moment Ollie followed.
To the team I said, “I guess they’ll debrief us once we’re back in Baltimore. They’ll need to know everything.” I paused. “I have a friend, Dr. Rudy Sanchez. He’s a police psychiatrist, and he’s a good man.”
“A shrink?” Skip asked.
“Yeah. He’s at the DMS, and I want each of you-each of us- to take a few minutes and sit down with him.”
“Why?” asked Skip.
Top turned to him. “Tell me something, kid; when you woke up this morning did you think that by suppertime you’d be killing zombies and gunning down little kids?”
Skip dropped his eyes and looked dejectedly down at the floor.
Top laid a big hand on his shoulder, gave it a squeeze. “Believe me, Skip, you don’t want to go to sleep tonight with this in your head and no one to talk to.”
Ollie just stood there with his eyes glistening and his fists balled into knots.
Bunny said, “I ain’t ever gonna sleep again.”
Chapter Forty-Five
The DMS Warehouse, Baltimore / Tuesday, June 30; 8:51 P.M.
A CHOPPER TOOK us back to the warehouse in Baltimore. On the way Grace told us that quarters had been set aside for each of us. “It’s not much,” she said over the whine of the rotor, “we had small offices converted into bedrooms. Mr. Church has asked that you and your men go to your quarters and wait until called for. He doesn’t want any of you talking to other DMS personnel until he’s had a chance to meet with you himself. Don’t worry, you’re not under suspicion, it’s just that a lot of the DMS staff are new and some have not been informed about the nature of this crisis. Security is paramount.”
We didn’t like it but we all understood and we flew the rest of the way in silence. I noticed that Top was pretending to sleep but was actually studying Ollie, who had turned stiffly away from Courtland and me and was staring out the window. When Top noticed me watching him, he smiled and closed his eyes. After that he really did look like he was sleeping, but I didn’t believe it.
IT WAS NEARLY dark when we landed. A guard met me as I debarked and took me to Church’s office. His face showed little emotion, and he sure as hell didn’t rush up to embrace me, but I could see his eyes behind the tinted lenses of his glasses as he gave me a thorough up-and-down appraisal. He waved me to a chair and then sat down behind his desk; and the guard poured me a cup of coffee before he left.
“Grace said that there were no injuries sustained by Echo Team.”
I almost said, “Nothing that will show,” but it was trite. He seemed to guess my thought, though, and nodded.
“And you managed to secure a prisoner.”
I said nothing. If he knew about Ollie-and I’m sure he did-he left it off the table.
“What’s going to happen with those kids?”
“I don’t know. They’ve all been admitted to the hospital with FBI protection. The Bureau’s taken over the problem of identifying them. Some of the children are too traumatized to even give their names. None of them remember how they were taken. A few had recent burns on their skin consistent with liquid Tasers, so we can assume they were taken unawares, perhaps randomly.”
“Experimenting on kids puts a whole new spin on this thing.”
“Yes,” he said, “it does, and I want to hear your full report on what happened today, Captain, but first I want your assessment of the crab plant. When is the absolute soonest you can hit it?”
“There’s maybe a slim chance that the hostiles in the other plant won’t know about the hit we just did. The
