“No,” Grady said. His voice cracked slightly, and there was a tense edge in it. “You’re going to leave the boy here, and you’re going to come with us.”
Fletcher cursed again, then turned and advanced toward Megan and Gerry. Grady and Malone launched themselves at the drunken private. They tried to restrain him, but Fletcher closed his hands into fists and viciously hammered both of the younger men, driving them down to the ground in seconds. The meaty smacks of flesh against flesh rocketed through the hallway.
When he’d shaken free of his would-be captors, Fletcher aimed himself at Megan again. He cursed Gerry and in his diatribe blamed everything wrong in his life on the boy.
Megan stood her ground, fear rattling inside her like an insane beast. She felt Gerry cowering behind her and heard his whimpering sobs. I will not falter, she told herself. I will not step away from him. She thought of Goose somewhere out there on the Turkish border, dealing with God only knew what. Surely she, too, could hold her ground in a hostile situation.
Before Fletcher could reach Megan, though, Malone and Grady—bleeding and bruised—rose from the floor and threw themselves at him. Malone went low, wrapping his arms around Fletcher’s ankles while Grady hit the man waist-high.
Driven off-balance, Fletcher fell forward, slamming into the floor at Megan’s feet. He screamed and raged, shouted curses, and struggled to get to his feet. His face, when he looked up, was covered in blood.
Megan stepped back and turned around. Gerry was no longer standing behind her. She watched helplessly as the boy ran to the other end of the hallway and crashed through the emergency exit. A warning Klaxon shrilled in his wake, but he was gone out into the night before the door closed.
United States of America
Columbus, Georgia
Local Time 12:55 A.M.
“Hey, Joey, what are you doing? I thought you came here to dance.”
Mesmerized by the action on the television screen behind the bar at the heavy metal club, Joey didn’t recognize Jenny McGrath’s voice at first. The news anchor was saying that the current footage had been taped, that the live transmissions had been lost, and that the station hoped to re-establish a live transmission within the next few minutes.
Goose is over there in that! The thought screamed through Joey’s mind like a banshee wail.
“Joey?” Jenny’s voice took on a plaintive note. “I didn’t come here with you to be ignored.”
A television anchor hunkered down behind a wall of sandbags. He held a microphone in one hand and squinted against the dust and smoke that eddied across the screen. “—what we understand is that there’s been a full-scale assault upon the Turkish army and U.N. peacekeeping forces.”
“Do you know what precipitated the attack?” an offscreen anchorwoman asked.
A tremendous explosion sounded nearby before the reporter could reply. The man in the field dropped prone and covered his head with both arms. Sand and earthen chunks rained down, pelting the newsman mercilessly. The cameraman took cover a moment later, dragging the camera behind him. The view from the field tumbled along the desert floor. The scene shifted immediately, showing footage of SCUDs streaking through the sky, then a line of explosions leaping up from the distant horizon.
“Joey,” Jenny called again.
Aggravated with the girl for interrupting him, still smarting over the way she had deserted him to dance with the band, Joey said, “I’m trying to listen to the television.”
Jenny’s voice turned cold. “Catching up on the Lakers game?”
Aware that Jenny wasn’t at all happy with him, Joey said, “No. It’s a special bulletin. The Syrians just attacked Turkey.”
Crossing her arms, Jenny didn’t appear mollified by that explanation in the least. “So instead of a guy who’s a sports fan, I’m trading up to one who’s totally a political science nerd? And what, exactly, is so fascinating about that?”
Memory of the way Jenny had danced on stage only moments ago rattled around inside Joey’s skull. Looking at her, he realized that he wasn’t as happy to be out with her as he’d thought he would be when she first asked him.
“I told you my dad was a soldier,” Joey said, biting back his retort. “He’s stationed over in Turkey.” He pointed at the television. “He’s one of the guys over there in the middle of that right now. His unit, the 75th Rangers, was assigned there. He could be hurt right now, or maybe worse.” He couldn’t bring himself to say that Goose might have died in the initial assault.
“Oh.” Her features softening somewhat, Jenny glanced at the television. “There’s nothing you can do about what’s going on over there. I mean, whatever’s going to happen is going to happen.”
Joey looked at her in disbelief.
A frown creased Jenny’s forehead and lips. “Don’t give me that look. I work five nights a week at Kettle O’ Fish, which is a dead-end job no matter how much you seem to like it. Do the math. I work five nights. That leaves two nights off. On those nights, I like to dance.” She paused. “This is one of those nights, Joey, and we’re not exactly dancing here.”
Overwhelmed in the face of such an uncaring attitude, Joey didn’t know what to say.
“Besides,” Jenny said, “I thought you said your dad was in California.”
Tony Holder had lived in California for the last half dozen years. He had been a small-time filmmaker in L.A. since divorcing Joey’s Mom and leaving Columbus.
“It’s Goose,” Joey said. “My stepdad.”
Jenny frowned again and shrugged. “So what? You said yourself that the guy hardly has any time for you these days. Why should you worry about him?”
Because I care about what happens to him, Joey thought immediately, but he didn’t say it. Maybe he’s forgotten about me, but I still don’t want anything to happen to him. Mom would go crazy. And Chris would lose his father. Joey knew all about that and didn’t want his little brother to experience something as bad as that.
