west side of the river—we weren’t sure what it was. It looked like it was under construction. They were working on the thing day and night.”
“And you made no contact?”
“No.”
The president directed Lucius’s attention to the perimeter. “This here …”
“Fortifications. A fence line. Nothing insubstantial, but not enough to keep the dracs out.”
“Then what do you think it was for?”
“I couldn’t say. But Crukshank had a theory.”
“And what was that?”
“To keep people in.”
The president glanced at the map, then back at Lucius. “And you’ve never spoken about this? Not to anyone.”
“No, ma’am. Not until now.”
A silence fell. Lucius had the impression that no more questions were forthcoming; the president had gotten what she’d come for. She returned the map to her portfolio. As she rose from the chair, Lucius said:
“If I may, Madam President, why are you asking me about this now? After all these years.”
The president stepped to the door and knocked twice. As the tumblers turned, she turned back to Lucius.
“They say you’ve become a prayerful man.”
Lucius nodded.
“Then you might want to pray that I’m wrong.”
27
Peter was in the medical bay for ten days. Three cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, burns on his legs and feet, his hands scraped raw like slabs of meat; bruises and gashes and cuts all over, too many to count. He’d been knocked cold but had apparently failed, despite his best efforts, to crack his skull. Every movement hurt, even breathing.
“From what I hear, you’re goddamn lucky to be alive,” the doctor said—a man of about sixty with a bulbous nose veined from years on the lick and a voice so coarse it sounded dragged. His bedside manner involved using the same tone, more or less, that a person might take with a hopelessly disobedient dog. “Stay on your back, Lieutenant. You’re mine until I say otherwise.”
Henneman had debriefed Peter the day the team had returned to the garrison. He was still a little out of it, doped up on painkillers; the major’s questions glided over his brain with the disassociated contours of a conversation occurring in another room among people he only vaguely knew. A man, a very old man, with a tattoo of a snake on his neck. Yes, Peter confirmed, nodding his head heavily against the pillow, that was what they saw. Did he tell them who he was? Ignacio, Peter replied. He told us his name was Ignacio. The major obviously had no idea what to make of these answers; neither did Peter. Henneman seemed to be asking the same questions again and again, in only slightly altered forms; at some point, Peter drifted off. When he opened his eyes again—as he would soon discover, a day and a night having passed—he was alone.
He saw no one else except the doctor until the afternoon of the fourth day, when Alicia appeared at his bedside. By this time Peter was sitting up, his left arm dressed in a sling to hold his shoulder in place. That afternoon he’d taken his first walk to the latrine, a milestone, though the voyage of just a few shuffling steps had left him enervated, and now he was faced with the problem of trying to feed himself with hands encased in mittenlike bandages.
“Flyers, you look like hell, Lieutenant.”
The light in the tent was dim enough that she’d removed her glasses. The orange color of her eyes was something Peter was accustomed to, though she rarely let others see them. She slid into a chair at his bedside and gestured toward the bowl of cornmeal mush that Peter, without much success, was attempting to spoon in his mouth.
“Want a little help with that?”
“Don’t you wish.”
She flashed a smile. “Well, it’s good to see you’ve still got your pride. Henneman grill you?”
“I barely remember it. I don’t think he liked the answers very much.” The spoon slipped from his grip, dragging a glob of the gluey paste onto his shirt. “Shit.”
“Here, let me.”
He was now endeavoring to clamp the spoon between his thumb and the edge of the bowl to wedge it into his palm. “I told you, I’ve got this.”
“Will you? Just stop.”
Peter sighed and let the spoon drop to the tray. Alicia dipped it into the bowl and aimed for his mouth. “Open up for mama.”
“You know, you never struck me as the maternal type.”
“In your case, I’m willing to make an exception. Just eat.”
Bite by bite, the bowl was emptied. Alicia took a rag and wiped his chin.
“I can do that myself, you know.”
“Nuh-uh. Comes with the service.” She leaned back. “There, good as new.” She put the rag aside. “We had the service for Satch this morning. It was nice. Henneman and Apgar both spoke.”
Though Satch was presumed killed in the explosion, Henneman had led a squad back up the mountain to look for him. The gesture was symbolic; still, it had to be made. In any case, they’d found nothing. What had happened at the base of the cave would never be known.
“So that’s that, I guess.”
“Satch was a good guy. Everybody liked him.”
“We always say that.”
Alicia shrugged. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”
Peter knew they were thinking the same thing: the plan had been theirs, and now Satch was dead.
“Seeing as you’re fed, I should be heading off. Apgar’s sending me south to recon some of those oil fields.”
“Lish, how did you know something was down there?”
The question seemed to catch her short. “I don’t really have an answer, Peter. It was just… a feeling.”
“A feeling.”
She was staring past him. “I don’t really know how to put it into words.”
“I thought only Amy could do that.”
Alicia shrugged, pushing the subject aside:
“This whole thing has had it, hasn’t it?” he said glumly.
“Apgar’s going to do what he’s going to do. I’m not a mind reader.”
“Do you think he believes us?”
Alicia said nothing. Her eyes had gone away again. Then, with a quizzical expression:
“Peter, do you remember that movie
The memory called him back five years. Peter had been watching it with Vorhees’s men in the Colorado garrison on the night Alicia had returned from the mission that had found the nest of virals in an old copper mine.
“I didn’t know you saw it.”
“Saw it? Hell, I
