The Ashes of Pompeii (Purge of Babylon, Book 5) (42 page)

Gaby pushed through until she was almost at the corner, when there was a flurry of movement in front of her. A man clad all in black, with a thick beard that might have been red (though it was hard to tell when everything was awash in green), took a step backward and stopped in front of her and began reloading. The man’s night-vision goggles protruded forward from his aging face like a pair of alien eyes. She guessed he had to be in his forties, and he looked a bit like her Uncle Bill.

He must have sensed her, because he turned his head and saw her—

Gaby shot him once in the chest.

Even as the man fell, she was running up the hallway and flicking the fire selector on her rifle to full-auto. She reached the corner and stepped over the crumpled body, turning right to find three men crouched further up the narrow passageway—two on one side, the third on the opposite—with their weapons aimed at a door that had already been perforated by at least two dozen bullet holes. The backs of all three men were to her, their black uniforms glowing green under the phosphorous lens of her night-vision scope.

Once upon a time, Gaby might have hesitated. Certainly, the Gaby from a year ago, who depended on Matt (and, to a lesser extent, Josh) to keep her safe would have been horrified at the thought of shooting men in the back. That Gaby would never have made it off the beach earlier tonight.

This Gaby, at this very moment, only saw three enemies trying to kill her friends.

She emptied the remaining rounds in her magazine into the three figures. She didn’t let go of the trigger until she couldn’t feel the rifle bucking in her hands anymore. Then she immediately slung it and drew her Glock and looked for something else to shoot.

The men lay still on their stomachs and she was glad she couldn’t see their faces in the semidarkness, though one of them had his head turned slightly to one side, revealing the side profile of a young man in his twenties, the brim of his helmet riding low over his eyes, the night-vision device thrown askew against his face during the fall.

Her heart was racing, battling to be heard over the continuous
pop-pop-pop
of other gun battles taking place outside the hotel, on other parts of the island right this moment. She imagined the
Trident
engaged in its own fight. Did Nate make it to the yacht? What about Keo? What about Carly and Benny, who were at the Tower earlier—

There was a
click!
behind her and she spun around, finger tightening against the trigger, as a familiar voice said, “Stop, or my mom will shoot.”

He was pushing his way out of a badly damaged door at the end of the hallway. She recognized the infirmary on the other side and the owner of the messy blond hair and blue eyes looking back at her.

“Danny,” Gaby said.

“That’s me,” he said. “Aren’t you supposed to be gone by now?”

“What about you?”

“Point taken.”

While Danny struggled with the bullet-riddled door, she holstered her gun and crouched, then went through the dead bodies looking for spare magazines. She had done it instinctively, the need to have a loaded rifle overwhelming the part of her that was still squeamish about going through a dead man’s pockets.

“Where’s Lara and the others?” she asked.

“Lara’s in here with me,” Danny said. He had returned to the room, and now came back outside with Lara leaning against his shoulder. “They caught us out in the open, forced us into the hotel. Fearless leader and I stayed behind to give the others time to make their exit points.”

“Did they make it?”

“I have no idea. Too busy trying not to die. And that last grenade fried both of our radios. And, ah, other things.”

She was able to salvage three magazines and shoved two into her ammo pouch, using the third to reload her carbine. She stood up and watched Danny and Lara walk over to her.

Or hobbled. Danny was moving on his one good leg, using his rifle as a crutch, while holding Lara against him. Blood dripped down his temple, and there were cuts along his right cheek. His neck was covered in blood, as was almost the entire right side of his clothes.

“Jesus, Danny,” Gaby said. “How are you still alive?”

“It’s not mine,” he said. “Well, most of it isn’t mine.”

She didn’t have to ask whose it was. Lara had a field tourniquet wrapped around most of her left shoulder and right thigh. Blood was already seeping through them, and she leaned back against the wall and sighed, catching her breath and somehow managing to grin back at Gaby anyway. She didn’t have her rifle and her hip holster was empty.

“They threw a grenade into the lobby,” Lara said. “Looks like we’re going to have to redecorate.”

“Let’s get some better wallpaper this time,” Gaby said, trying her best to smile back. “Are you okay? Where’s your rifle?”

“Lost it. My Glock, too. Got this big piece of shrapnel in my shoulder, though.” She touched the bandage over her thigh and shook her head. “And I think I was shot here. I don’t remember.”

“She was shot down there,” Danny said. “I’m the one who wrapped it up. Trust me, that was a bullet hole.”

“If you say so,” Lara said.

“I do, I do. And I also say we gotta go.”

“Where?” Gaby asked. “Lara told Blaine to leave in the
Trident,
remember? The exit points are useless now.”

“The beach,” Lara said. “There are boats on the beach, remember?”

*

They left the
hotel through the same side door she had used earlier and stepped back out into the chilly night. The world looked different behind the night-vision goggles attached to her head. She thought things were surreal peering behind the scope mounted on her rifle, but it was nothing compared to actually wearing one of the NVGs she had taken from one of the soldiers.

Gaby went outside first, then let Danny and Lara move in front while she brought up the rear. She wasn’t looking forward to returning to the beach and seeing all those dead bodies again, but they didn’t have any choice now. Blaine and the
Trident
were already moving and the last thing Lara wanted was to stall them, to make them vulnerable again. There were too many people on board. The kids, the adults…and Nate.

As they moved away from the hotel, they could hear isolated bursts of gunfire continuing from the other side of the island. It was difficult to pinpoint the location, almost as if the battle was constantly moving.

Gaby pulled her earbud out of her ear and disconnected the wire before keying the radio. “Blaine, come in.”

“Jesus, are you guys still alive?” Blaine said. His anxiety came through her radio’s speakers loud and clear, along with the
brap-brap-brap
of machine gunfire in the background, echoing what they could hear from across the island.

Gaby held the radio out for Lara, who said into it, “We’re heading to the beach for one of the boats. Is Keo with you?’

“No, I thought he was with you guys.”

Lara exchanged a brief look with Gaby, then she said into the radio, “We’ll meet you at the rendezvous point as planned, Blaine.”

“Good luck! We’ll wait as long as it takes!”

“See you soon.”

Gaby clipped the radio back on. “What about Keo?”

Lara glanced across the hotel grounds. Gaby saw the conflict on her face.

“Keo’s resourceful,” Lara said finally. “He’ll find a way off the island. I’m more worried about us.”

“Don’t forget, the guy’s half-dolphin,” Danny said.

They continued to the beach, moving as fast as Lara and Danny could manage, while essentially keeping each other from falling. Gaby wanted to lend a hand, but she was their only security at the moment and she had to make do with keeping an eye on them while also scanning the blackened grounds.

Soon, they had left the hotel behind and were moving down the cobblestone pathway that cut through the woods. She could already feel the colder air from the beach wafting up in their direction. She shivered slightly before realizing it wasn’t from the dropping temperature. No, it was the prospect of seeing those bodies lying across the sand one more time. She had wanted to avoid that at all costs, but that was impossible now.

“Watch your step,” Danny said in front of her.

“Why?” she asked, turning around and almost stepping on a helmet.

The owner of the helmet (or, at least, one of the possible owners) lay in front of her among a pile of dead men in black clothing. There must have been two dozen of them, their arms and legs draped over each other’s bodies and limbs, like friends that had fallen asleep during some kind of commando sleepover.

Gaby flinched. She always knew this was part of the plan, that the objective was always for her, Danny, and Keo to kill as many as possible on the beach while funneling the rest into the pathway where Lara and the others laid in wait for them. But knowing and being faced with the reality of what they had done…

She pulled the NVD off and sucked in a lungful of cold air.

“Gaby,” Lara said. She was standing with Danny on the other side of the bodies looking back at her. “Come on, we have to go. There’s no telling how many more of them are running around the island. Sooner or later, they’ll find their dead friends at the hotel and start looking for us.”

She nodded and started moving again, but made sure to go around the dead as much as she could, skirting along the edges and doing her best to ignore the lingering smell of almost-vomit on her lips.

The bodies, the death, the blood…

All of it made her glad they were abandoning the island, despite doing everything possible to hold it. Even if they had been successful and repelled the attack, she wasn’t sure if she could look at Song Island in the same light ever again. In the morning, the dead would still be there, and the knowledge she had contributed to the body count weighed on her.

She had helped to do this. One year removed from high school. If her friends could see her now, she wondered what they would say. Would they be impressed by her growth or horrified by what she had become?

And what was that? A shooter? A killer? A survivor?

Even she didn’t know for sure—

Bang!

She was almost beyond the pile of dead and looking back to make sure she didn’t step on a pale arm covered in blood when the gunshot exploded behind her. She spun around, lifting her M4, just as Danny and Lara collapsed to the ground in front of her.

There had just been the one shot, so her mind couldn’t reconcile why both of them were falling. That quickly gave way to the sight of the dark figures standing at the other end of the pathway, blocking the exit to the beach. With the night-vision goggles dangling around her neck instead of over her eyes, all she could see were shadows. Although she couldn’t make them out, she could see the rifles in their hands just fine, and they were all pointed at her. That wasn’t entirely true. Four of them were pointing weapons at her, but the fifth one—in the center—was pointing a handgun at Lara and Danny.

She waited for them to shoot, to get it over with. She would fire back, even knowing she had no chance of surviving this, especially at this range. She could probably take out one, maybe two. If Danny or Lara weren’t too badly hurt, they would chip in. Together, maybe the three of them could kill the rest, or enough to make this a pyrrhic victory.

“Gaby,” one of the silhouettes said. It was the one in the middle. He had lowered the handgun and was looking across the darkness at her. The way the others flanked him, she guessed he was their leader.

And his voice!

She would recognize his voice anywhere.

“Thank God you’re still alive,” Josh said, taking a step toward her until she could see his face in a sliver of moonlight. He picked up Danny’s rifle from the ground, then pulled out Danny’s sidearm and tossed both weapons into the woods. “This whole thing has been a real mess. Everyone’s shooting at everyone; no one’s following orders. I was even hoping you’d gotten on that yacht, just so you’d be safe.”

Somehow, she knew it would be him to lead this invasion. Somehow, just as Will could never escape Kate, she knew she would never be rid of Josh.

Gaby took the opportunity to glance down at Danny and Lara again. Lara was kneeling, with Danny lying on his back on the cobblestone floor, his head resting in her lap. Danny’s body was very still, and Lara was moving her hands frantically around his midsection.

She looked back at Josh, her forefinger never leaving her rifle’s trigger. She thought she’d know what to say when this moment came, but staring at him now, she didn’t have a clue. All she could remember was what she had told Lara back at the hotel, hours ago.

“He’s gone. He’s not a boy anymore. You can’t think of him as the same boy who you met in Lancing. If you get the chance—if you see him tonight—don’t hesitate. Shoot him, because he’ll shoot you.”

And she was right. Josh had done exactly that—shot Danny.

So why didn’t she pull the trigger? Why didn’t she do what she told Lara to do? Why was she hesitating?

“You shot Danny,” she said. “Jesus, you shot Danny.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know it was Danny. It’s dark…”

“You
shot
him.”