do
want to attack the Retros?” I asked.
“There are only a few ways to damage an operation like that. It could be bombed from the air. We don’t have that ability. It could be invaded by an army. As you pointed out, we don’t have an army that’s capable of that. But there’s a third option.”
“Sabotage,” Charlotte declared. “We’re going to be like silent hunters. Snakes. They’ll never see us coming.”
“Small groups,” Matt said. “Demolition teams. No fanfare. No warning. We’ll enter and be gone before they knew we were there.” “And take out hundreds of those damn planes at a time,” Charlotte said with relish. “By the time the fires are put out, we’ll have disappeared back into the desert, invisible until the next time we come calling.”
There were positive murmurs throughout the crowd. These people had all lost something, and if they had made this trek into the desert, they were ready for some payback. Tori said, “Will it be enough to stop them for good?” Matt shrugged. “Who knows? But it will hurt them, and it’s what we can do. That’s good enough reason to give it a try.” “I like it,” Kent said with glee. “Where is this place?” “Close enough for us to strike and far enough for us to stay hidden.”
Tori asked, “How soon do you plan on—”
“Cover!” came a terrified cry from a woman who ran into the courtyard. “Now!” Charlotte, Matt, and their friends all tensed up.
“What? Why? We’re not doing a drill now,” Matt said, confused. The mood had suddenly changed.
Did I sense true fear in his voice?
“No!” the woman yelled. “It’s real. They’re minutes away.” She backed out of the courtyard and took off running. “What’s going on?” I demanded. Matt and the others looked stunned. There was a painfully long moment when it seemed as if they didn’t know what to do. “Talk to me, Matt,” Charlotte demanded.
Matt snapped into focus. He had gone from a jovial big brother to a man with a mission.
“Bring them below,” he said without a hint of panic. “We’ll take cover with the other Chiefs.”
“How is this possible?” Charlotte asked, though I don’t think she expected an answer.
“Let’s hope we get the chance to find out,” Matt said. “Go, now!” Matt and his friends took off running. Most of the others followed.
The rest of us gathered together in confusion. We all looked to
Charlotte for answers.
“What’s happening, Charlotte?” I asked.
“They’ve found us,” she said soberly. “The Air Force is attacking.”
Tori, Kent, Olivia, and I stayed with Charlotte. “We’ve gotta find Jon,” I said.
“He’s with his escort, he’ll be okay,” Charlotte said. “We’ve
She led us out of the indoor park, through the lobby, and straight into the darkened casino. I’d only seen casinos on TV. They were lively places full of color and light and excitement. Slot machines rang, people gathered around roulette or blackjack tables, and everybody would be having a great time, except for those who were losing, I guess. Bottom line was that they were places loaded with energy.
This casino couldn’t have been further from that. It was dark and quiet. There were long rows of dust-covered slot machines that would never again play their electronic tunes, empty tables with no gamers, and restaurants that smelled like putrid food.
Charlotte wove her way through the islands of slot machines as if she knew exactly where she was going. The rest of us followed, trusting that she wasn’t just winging it.
“We can access the underground behind the cashier’s window,” she announced.
“They’re here,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I can’t believe they found us.”
“Believe it, Sarge,” Kent said sarcastically. “This is old news to us.”
“It’s daytime,” I said. “They can’t penetrate the buildings with their light weapons.”
More rumbles were heard. It sounded like fast-moving thunder, but we knew what it really was. Thunder didn’t make the floor shudder.
“Those planes have plenty of firepower during the day,” I cautioned. “They can easily—”
The roof over our heads exploded, sending a shower of splintered wood and shattered plaster down on us. We all dove for cover as heavy beams plummeted to the floor.
I ducked under a large roulette table, for whatever good that would do. All around me the beams crashed to the ground, hitting the metal slot machines and crushing them under their weight. The blast ripped open a hole in the ceiling, allowing sunlight to shine in. The casino was alive again, but not in a good way.
“Keep moving!” Charlotte commanded from somewhere.
I peered out from beneath the table to look for the others. It was nearly impossible to see. The air was filled with dust and debris that reflected the sunlight to create a white haze.
“Tori!” I shouted.
“Right here,” she said calmly.
I jumped when I realized she was directly behind me. “Let’s get outta here,” I said and grabbed her hand.
We scrambled out from beneath the table and ran in the same direction we had been headed when the bomb hit.
The first bomb.
The second struck the instant we were on our feet. The pulse of energy must have traveled directly through the hole in the roof, for it made a direct hit on a row of slot machines. The heavy metal machines blew into the air like they were toys. I pulled Tori behind a pillar as two machines tumbled past, banging and clanging as their metal skins tore each time they hit the floor. The machines bounced across the casino floor, spewing coins and bashing others before coming to rest in a pile of twisted steel beams.
“There’s Olivia,” Tori shouted.
Olivia was sprinting along another row of slot machines. She was headed for a heavy gaming table where I thought she would try to take cover. Instead, she leaned down and reached out her hand.
“You stay here and you die!” she shouted.
I’d never heard her so commanding. I guess fear will do that.
A hand reached up from under the table and grabbed hers. Olivia pulled a dazed Kent to his feet. He nodded and went with her.
A second later another energy surge hit—directly on the table Kent had been hiding beneath. It exploded the table into kindling, sending sharp slivers of wood and a bloom of colorful casino chips flying everywhere. Olivia had just saved Kent’s life.
I saw Charlotte take cover behind a bar. As soon as she disappeared behind it, she screamed.
I ran for her, with Tori right behind me. After a pained scream like that, I figured she must have twisted her ankle or slammed into something sharp. I made it to the bar, circled around behind, and saw that she wasn’t hurt. At least not physically.
She was kneeling over somebody. A guy. He wasn’t moving.
“Is he okay?” I asked.
“No,” she said, sounding as though she was trying to hold back her emotions.
“How?” Tori asked. “Did something hit him?”
Charlotte shook her head. She had tears in her eyes. At first I thought they were tears of sorrow, and they were. But they were just as much a show of her building rage.
“He was murdered,” she said, gritting her teeth.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
Another bomb flew through the hole in the ceiling, blasting a whole in the floor that sent an avalanche of rubble into the next level down. It was far enough away that we barely paid attention.
“I’m a sheriff,” she said. “I’ve seen plenty of murder scenes. But it doesn’t take a crack detective to see what happened here.”
She rolled his head to the side, where I saw the telltale gaping red hole that was a bullet wound, square in the middle of his forehead.
“His name was Tom,” Charlotte explained. “He was my best friend here, I guess because he was a sheriff too. From LA County. We had plenty of stories to share.”
She seemed dazed, in shock from what had happened to her friend.
“I’m sorry, Charlotte,” I said. “But we gotta get outta here.”
Several more energy bombs hit, turning the once opulent casino into a junk yard.
“This is just . . . wrong,” she said, sounding numb. “Why would somebody shoot him? We’re all survivors here.”
“Find the others,” Tori said. “I’ll get her to the cashier’s window.”
I crouched low and ran to the far side of the bar, where I could scan the wreckage of the casino.
“Olivia? Kent?”
No answer.
Through the haze I spotted the word “Cashier” on a wall over a long window with security bars. That was our target. I took off running while looking around for the others. When I hit the wall with the cashier’s window, I heard a voice coming from behind it. A familiar voice. I relaxed, knowing that Kent and Olivia had made it. I turned to head back for Tori and Charlotte and heard the voice again.
It wasn’t Kent’s.
It was Jon’s.
“No, end it now,” he commanded. “You were supposed to wait for nightfall. Destroying empty buildings is useless. This will only force them to crawl deeper.”
What?
I slid closer, listening intently, trying to understand what he was saying.
“It’s too late, you idiots, the rats have already gone underground,” he said to . . . someone. He sounded angry, which wasn’t like Jon at all. There was a sense of authority in his voice that I’d never heard before. It brought me back to the night in Ohio when I heard him talking to somebody from behind the closed door of the radio room. But the radio wasn’t working. He told me he was talking to himself. Was he doing the same thing now?
“Stop the attack,” he ordered. “I will not take responsibility for this.”
A few seconds later, the bombardment stopped. There was no more distant thunder. Was it coincidence? The immediate danger seemed to be over, but the reality of a new danger was right in front of me. Part of me wanted to run, but I was tired of running.
I opened the door that led into the cashier’s room.
Jon was huddled on the floor under the counter, speaking into a small black device.
He hadn’t been talking to himself.
When he saw me, there was a frozen moment when neither of us knew what to do. He then jumped to his feet and jammed the device into his pocket.
“Tucker!” he called out with a more familiar, vulnerable voice. “Are you okay? Where is everybody? I heard this was the way down to safety, but I only got this far when the bombs started falling and—”
“Shut up, Jon,” I commanded.
That was all I needed to say. Jon knew I had heard his conversation. He stood up straight. That one small move made him look like a different person. He was always someone who blended into the woodwork. Someone who didn’t stand out. A real meek geek. Not anymore.
“I like you, Tucker,” he said, once again sounding like the confidant guy who had been barking orders into his phone or whatever it was. “I was hoping you guys would make it through this.”
“What’s the deal, Jon?” I asked. “Were you always with them? Or did somebody get to you and force you to join?”
“It was my mission,” he said with a shrug. “I guess you’d call it cleanup duty. We’re everywhere, you know.”
“Like termites,” I said aloud, thinking back to Granger’s words.
“Termites?” Jon asked.
“You’re a traitor,” I said, seething.
“No, I’m actually very loyal. What I am is an infiltrator.”
My anger took control. I made a move for him but . . .
Jon pulled out Tori’s gun and leveled it at me.
I stopped short.
“You’re the one who killed him,” I said. “Charlotte’s friend.”
“He wouldn’t leave me alone,” Jon explained, as if it was a justifiable excuse for murder. “I had to complete my mission. Besides, what’s one more death?”
My anger flared.
“It’s not just one more death,” I growled. “It’s a life. A person with a past and a family and now . . . no future.”
“Just as well,” Jon said casually. “He probably wouldn’t have liked his future anyway.”
Without thinking, I grabbed a snow-globe that was on the desk and whipped it at him.
It surprised him, and he flinched, giving me enough time to attack. I grabbed his gun hand and wrestled him for the weapon. I’m not a fighter, but I was driven by rage. We had trusted Jon. Taken him in. Taken care of him while he was betraying us at every turn.
It wasn’t a contest. I twisted the gun out of his hand and nailed him in the face with my elbow. Jon grunted in pain. I hit him again with my fist, using all of the pent-up frustration and anger that I’d been holding in since day one. So many images flew through my mind. Quinn’s death, Granger shooting an unarmed civilian, my mother crying on the far side of the prison-camp fence, the burning skeleton of a pilot in his crashed plane, the dying Mr. Sleeper. So many horrors came flooding back, and they all rushed out through my fists.
“Whoa, easy!” Kent said and pulled me off of Jon.
Kent had entered the cashier’s booth. Olivia stood in the doorway, watching.
“It’s him!” I declared. “He’s a traitor!”
Jon scrambled away and got to his feet.
“He’s crazy!” he cried, sounding like the old Jon. “He just started going nuts on me! He thinks I shot somebody in the head when all I did was hide in here!”
I spotted Tori’s gun on the floor and went for it.
Jon went for it too, but I beat him to it. I backed away, aiming the weapon at him, trying to keep my hands steady.
“Look!” Jon shouted. “He’s lost it! Now he wants to shoot me!”
“What’s the deal, Tucker?” Kent asked nervously.
Charlotte and Tori entered the room.
“Jon’s a Retro,” I said with a shaky voice. “He’s been playing us from the get-go. He’s probably been telling them everything we’ve been doing. Even back at Faneuil Hall. Remember? He’s the one who warned Campbell that we were going to escape.”
“That’s crazy!” Jon cried. “If somebody got shot, it must have been Tucker who did it. He’s the one with the gun.”
“Charlotte,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and reasonable. “You want to know how the Retros found us here? It was Jon. He called in the air strike. But he had to get away from your friend Tom to do it. That’s why he shot him.”
“Tucker!” Olivia cried. “How can you say something like that?” “You guys know me,” Jon protested. “I’ve been in just as much trouble as you. Just as much danger. Heck, I’m the one who told you about the radio broadcast! Tucker’s just looking for somebody to blame this on.”
“Check his pocket,” I said. “He’s got some kind of communicator.”
All eyes went to Jon.
“Empty your pockets, Chadwick,” Kent said.
Jon licked his lips nervously. He reached for his pocket. “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” he said. “If there’s something in here, then Tucker planted it, and I’m not gonna—” Jon rushed me. I was so surprised that I didn’t have time to shoot. He knocked me back and went for the door, but it was futile. Kent’s instincts took over, and he tackled him as Charlotte pounced. There was a short scuffle before she was able to grab Jon’s arm and twist it behind his back. The linebacker and the sheriff had done the job.
While keeping his arm twisted with one hand, Charlotte used her other hand to dig into Jon’s pocket. She pulled out a small black device that was no bigger than an iPod shuffle and held it in front of Jon’s face.
“What is this?” she demanded to know.
She was being professional, but her anger was bubbling close to the surface.
“I have no idea,” Jon replied. “Tucker must have put it there.”
“He was talking into that when I found him,” I said. “He was telling somebody to call off the attack because everyone had already taken cover. He said they were supposed to wait for nightfall.”
Charlotte gave me a worried look.
“That’s what he said? They were supposed to wait for nightfall?”
“Yes. They’ll be back. Tonight, when those light weapons can wipe out this whole city. There won’t be anywhere to hide, not since they know so many people are here. They’ll evaporate the buildings until they root us out.”
Charlotte nodded gravely. She twisted Jon’s arm.
“Where did you get the gun?” she demanded.
“It’s mine,” Tori said. “I dropped it in the car when we were shot in the Valley of Fire.”
“So then where did
you
get it?” Charlotte insisted, twisting Jon’s arm further.
He winced but didn’t complain.
“Once I passed your silly interrogation, I had your friend take me to our vehicle,” Jon said through gritted teeth. “What was his name? Tom? I told him I had to get my medicine. That it was a matter of life and death. I wasn’t lying. It
was
a matter of life and death. Tom’s.”
He gave Charlotte a twisted smile.
Charlotte wrenched his arm so violently I thought it would break.
Jon finally broke down and howled with pain.
“What do we do with him?” I asked.
Charlotte stood and pulled Jon to his feet. She held one of his arms behind his back while Kent held the other.
“There’s a holding cell down the hall,” she answered. “It’s where security puts cheats and drunks until the authorities arrive. We can keep him there and call the Chiefs in.”
Olivia stood in front of Jon. She looked at him like a hurt little girl.
“So it’s true?” she asked. “You’re one of them? Jon, we could have been killed.”
Jon started to reply quickly, probably to deny everything. But he stopped himself. Once again, he stood up straight and his personality changed. He gave us all a small, superior smile.
“You’re already dead, you just don’t know it yet,” he said with smug confidence.
Olivia hauled off and slapped him across the face. Jon’s head snapped to the side, but he didn’t react or whimper.
“Feel better now?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
“It won’t last.”
“Come on,” Charlotte said. “Through that door.”
I jumped ahead and opened the door so Charlotte and Kent could lead Jon through.
“Flashlights,” Charlotte said.
There were a few emergency flashlights fixed to the wall. Olivia and I each grabbed one.
“Here,” I said, handing the gun to Tori.
She took it and jammed it into her waistband.
We were in a plain hallway, which was a huge contrast to the extravagant casino we had just left. We had only walked a few yards when Charlotte stopped in front of a door.
“In here,” she ordered.
I opened the door to what was probably a security office. There were a few desks still covered with papers, as if whoever worked there had just stepped out for lunch. Charlotte led us down a short hallway and turned into an open door, beyond which was the barred cell used by the casino’s security force.