The Library at Mount Char Part 30

"Nah," Steve said. "It's OK." By now it was getting to be late afternoon, 4:13 p.m. according to the dash clock in Erwin's car. They turned out of the parking lot and headed back down Highway 78. Steve gave Monsieur Taco a longing look as they drove away. He was getting hungry. "Where we going?"

"DC."

"Seriously?"

"Yup. Lotta people want to talk with you."

"About what?"

Erwin looked at him like he was an idiot. Which, Steve thought, I suppose I am. "Sorry. I guess what I meant was, 'What do they expect me to be able to tell them?' I'm as confused as anybody. More so, probably."

"Hmmm."

"Hmmm what?"

"Just hmm. I sort of believe you, I guess."

"Yeah?" Steve felt absurdly grateful to hear this. "I appreciate that. I really do."

Unexpectedly, Erwin turned off the main road and rolled to a stop in the parking lot of a lumber yard on top of a hill. There were a couple of cars in the parking lot, but mostly the place was empty. "What are you doing?"

"Well, like I said, I'm taking you to DC. This is just a little detour."

"Detour?"

"Yeah. The Delta guys didn't want me riding along with them, even as an observer. I'm here to ID that David fella."

"They had cameras at the jail. When he broke me out, I mean. I saw them."

"Yeah. Funny thing about that. They didn't work. They were fine when I was talking with you. But when the big a.s.shole showed up, them cameras just kinda magically broke." He gave Steve a look.

"That's kind of weird, isn't it?"

"I'd say so, yeah."

"OK, so that's why you're in town. But why are we in the parking lot?"

"Well," Erwin said. "n.o.body said I couldn't watch." He pointed. They were on the edge of a steep bluff, maybe a hundred feet high and almost vertical. Below them and about a half a mile away two military vehicles were pulling up outside of a small subdivision.

"Are those tanks?"

"Nah. A tank's got a bigger gun. That there's a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. It's for carrying soldiers, mostly."

"What are they doing?"

"It's called 'going in hard,'" Erwin said. He pulled a big green knapsack out of the backseat and rummaged around in it, coming up with a pair of field binoculars. "I got a night scope too. You can borrow it if you want to watch. Don't need the starlight, but it'll magnify about six-X."

"Sure."

Erwin handed him a biggish rifle scope with ATN stamped on the side. Steve held it up. It magnified pretty well-too well, actually. It took him a couple of minutes of scanning to identify the house.

"What are those guys-"

"Shhh!"

Steve shushed. He heard a thumping noise, and looked up from the scope. Two black helicopters were flying in from the west, low and fast. He could see them clearly, but their rotors were m.u.f.fled somehow. They weren't quite silent, but they didn't have the thunder you'd expect, either. A moment later the Bradleys started up with a puff of blue smoke.

The helicopters hovered just over Mrs. McGillicutty's house. Black ropes dropped out of each one. Men slid down the ropes, a dozen in all. Their synchronization wasn't quite perfect, but it was close-they touched ground within a second of one another. As Steve watched they lined up on either side of the French doors that opened onto Mrs. McGillicutty's back patio, black boots pounding silently over red brick in 6x magnification. The helicopters dropped back.

The men made hand gestures at one another. Two of them beat the doors in with a metal ram. A third man tossed something in. There was a flash and a bang. The men streamed into the house. Watching them, Steve thought of the dogs flowing out of the woods.

Muzzle flashes began, first one, then a long pause, then two more, then a fusillade. The explosive brightness was startling in the long, dreamy shadows of this suburban afternoon. The sound of the shots arrived a moment later, carried on still autumn air. One of Mrs. McGillicutty's windows shattered.

Faintly, from a great distance, Steve heard the sound of a woman screaming. An automatic weapon delivered a short burst of fire...then a much longer one. There was another scream, a man's voice. Steve heard something that sounded a little bit like Dresden's roar. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

"What the h.e.l.l was that?" Erwin asked.

Steve shook his head. David, maybe?

There was more gunfire, more flashes. Another woman screamed. More broken windows. Gla.s.s rained down on Mrs. McGillicutty's neatly trimmed lawn, flas.h.i.+ng in the sun. Holes appeared in the wall, sending splinters of aluminum siding flying. They're all shooting now. Steve heard screams, men's and women's voices mingled, rising. It must be h.e.l.l in there.

"Hmm," Erwin said.

One of the black-clad commandos dove out a small window in the back of the house. His face was covered with blood. His helmet was gone. He didn't have his gun anymore. Probably he hoped to tuck and roll before he hit the ground, but he only made it about halfway out the window before something caught him. His torso crashed against the side of the house. Screaming, arms flailing, he was yanked back inside. Steve saw a flash of gold metal, a spray of arterial scarlet. All this happened in less than a second.

Now the screams overlapped, building, rising to a crescendo.

Steve nodded at Erwin's walkie-talkie sitting in the console. "Can you hear what they're saying?"

"Nope," Erwin said. "They use encryption. I couldn't get it even if I knew what frequency they were on." He paused. "It don't look real good, though."

One of Carolyn's people, a woman in gray-green robes, fell through the French doors onto the back patio. She lay where she landed, not moving. Her chest was covered in blood.

"Hey," Steve said. "I recognize that one. I think her name is Jennifer?"

The helicopters, still trailing their long ropes, moved a bit closer. A moment later they backed off again. The two Bradleys in front of the neighborhood started rolling. Once in front of the house, they each disgorged a small horde of men in green carrying automatic weapons.

The Army guys moved toward the front door. Only a couple made it. Automatic weapons fire from the house cut the rest down in the front yard-head shots mostly, mercifully blurry at that distance. The soldiers fell in the gra.s.s, boneless. All but one lay still, but that one, a black guy, writhed and screamed. His legs didn't seem to be working.

"Holy f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t," Steve said. He looked over. Erwin's face was twisted with fury. His gray hair stood out wildly against his flushed red face.

"I told them," Erwin said. "I told them this was different. I f.u.c.king told them."

Three of the men from the Bradleys made it as far as the house. As the men from the helicopter had done, they stood on either side of the door and made hand gestures at one another. Steve thought, They're going to do it. They're really going to go in there. On purpose. "Daaaaaaaaaaaamn."

But they didn't. Something punched through the wall. Again Steve caught a flash of bright-yellow-bra.s.s and blood in the afternoon sunlight as a soldier's throat exploded. A moment later the other two dropped as well, one after the other in rapid succession. He's stabbing them through the wall. It reminded him of a sewing machine needle.

Steve heard a whirring sound. The barrel of a Bradley's main gun began to turn on the house. They're going to blow up the house, he thought. They're going to blow it up, even with their own people inside.

But they didn't. The rear doors of both Bradleys were still open, so when David streaked out the front door there was nothing to stop him. My G.o.d, Steve thought. He's so fast. David disappeared inside the vehicle. A second later the hatch on the gun turret flipped up and a single hand, b.l.o.o.d.y, rose up. Fingers clawed at the air, helpless, then the hand slipped back inside.

The driver of the second Bradley began closing his back door. It was the right idea, but he wasn't quite quick enough. David dove over the back gate, smooth and graceful.

A minute or so later the back hatch opened again. Now the Bradley was red inside. David stood alone in the back, carrying his spear and-is that somebody's head?-something tucked under his arm. For just a moment he seemed to lock eyes with Steve, half a mile away. The hair on the back of Steve's neck went all p.r.i.c.kly. David grinned, then turned and darted back inside the house.

The helicopters moved in close again. Their guns started up and began to whir, chewing away the roof of the house, the siding, the windows, the chimney.

Then Steve saw a man silhouetted against the blasted window of the house. He was holding a rifle. Steve hoped for a moment that it was one of the Army guys, but the fluff at his waist could only have been a tutu. David fired, just once, and sparks flew from the helicopter's tail rotor. It jerked, then spun around, level but moving backward. Its tail section crashed into the spinning rotors of the other chopper in a shower of sparks.

Both helicopters dropped the hundred feet or so to the ground. One of them landed on a neighboring house, the other landed half in and half out of the swimming pool behind it. The house exploded with an enormous gout of yellow flame and black smoke.

Then the day was silent again.

"Holy f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t," Steve said. He turned to Erwin, hoping he might confirm this diagnosis, perhaps weigh in with insights of his own. But Erwin was otherwise occupied. His eyes were fixed on Carolyn. She was standing a couple of feet outside the driver's-side window, pointing a pistol at Erwin's head.

"Hi," she said.

IV.

"Hi yourself," Steve managed. From this angle he saw yellow hair next to her at about waist height. His first thought was that she was standing next to a blond three-year-old. But when he stretched his neck up to see better, he met yellow eyes. "Hey! Is that Naga?"

He knew as soon as it was out of his mouth that it was a dumb thing to ask-how many lions are there in a typical suburb? It was her. She stood on her own power, strong and alert.

"Yeah, I tracked the two of you to the vet," Carolyn said. "I figured you might want me to patch her up for you."

Steve, still cuffed, scrambled out of the car and went around to the driver's side. He was heading for Naga, but Carolyn put a hand on his shoulder and nodded at his cuffs. It took Steve a moment to recognize the thing in her hand as a stone knife. "I don't think that'll be sharp enough to-"

She cut through the tough plastic in a single swipe.

"Thanks."

Steve knelt down beside Naga, hugged her neck. Her wound was mostly healed-her fur hadn't grown back, but where only an hour ago there had been a b.l.o.o.d.y, gaping hole he now saw pink skin. She licked his cheek.

"I'm guessing you're Carolyn," Erwin said.

"Good guess," she said. "How you doing, Erwin?"

"You know me."

She didn't answer. Steve noticed that her index finger was trembling, just a little.

"You gonna shoot me with that thing?" Erwin asked.

"Don't hurt him, Carolyn," Steve said, still kneeling. "This guy's OK." Then, to Naga, who was still licking him, "C'mon, OK, that's enough."

"I wouldn't dream of it," she said. She opened the back door of the Ford and flopped down onto the backseat.

Erwin, sitting in the front seat, gave Steve a little nod.

Steve waved it away. He stood by the open back door, looking down at Carolyn. She sat leaning against the rear headrest, eyes closed. The gun lay on the seat beside her. Steve looked at the smoking ruin of Mrs. McGillicutty's house. "Were you caught up in that mess?"

Carolyn shook her head. "No. I got out about an hour before the shooting started. I was looking for you at the house." She opened her eyes and gave him a stern look. "You were supposed to wait for me there. It's not safe out here."

"Out here?" Steve said, incredulous. "Out here's friggin' Disneyland compared to that place. Anyway, I thought the whole point was that you couldn't go into-"

Erwin was studying her in the rearview mirror. "You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?"

She nodded again. "This or something like it. The president is a prideful man. When I rattled his cage yesterday he needed to do something to show what a scary fellow he is."

They both looked at her. "Yeah," Erwin said, all trace of the amiable hick gone from his voice, "I'd say you pretty much nailed that one. I'm curious, though-how did you get the codes to get through the switchboard?"

She fluttered a hand in the air. "I'm tricky."

"She is," Steve agreed.

"Yeah," Erwin said. "I'm starting to get that."

"What happened to the rest of them?" Steve asked. "Your, um, 'brothers and sisters'?"

Carolyn opened her eyes. "I was going to ask you," she said. "Did anyone get out? Maybe someone with an animal?"

"No one that I saw," Erwin said. "I don't think so."

Carolyn's expression was impossible to read. "Then they're almost certainly dead. That was the most likely outcome."

"There's someone on the back porch," Steve said quietly. "A woman. Blond hair, kinda short and spiky? You can borrow my scope if you-"

Carolyn shook her head and closed her eyes again. "I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you. It's Jennifer." Then, speaking to herself, "At least she went out stoned. She would have wanted it that way."

"I'm sorry to hear that, ma'am," Erwin said.

"Thanks, Erwin. That's good of you to say. Now it's just David and Margaret and me."

"Margaret?" Erwin asked.

"The one who smells bad," Steve said.

"Ah," Erwin said. "How do you know she's not dead too?"

Carolyn smiled, still holding her eyes closed. "David would never let anyone else hurt Margaret."