As soon as I shoot, the rest of the ambush team is going to track the source, and I will lose surprise. I can perhaps rely on Barkov to take the cue and start whatever plan he’s surely been cooking up, but I don’t want Marilyn caught in the crossfire.
They are only a few yards from the HRV. Marilyn could reach it in a few seconds; she could find cover inside. I’m going to have to take that as a gift and hope that Barkov knows what he’s doing. She won’t react quickly: he’s going to have to shove her to safety.
It’ll have to do. I sight the ambusher and take a few long breaths. The scope settles down as my rhythm steadies. I tremble at the awareness that I am about to shoot a rational man, then find a way to quiet that feeling, too. I squeeze the trigger.
The next ten seconds are an eruption of gunfire and motion. Two more men sprint across the ramp from their downed companion’s side, heading for my friends. They run with pistols raised, reacting to my shot by expecting a response from Barkov. It comes immediately after he does what I was hoping—pushing Marilyn toward the HRV—when he draws two small knives seemingly out of thin air and throws them full force at his assailants.
At the same time, shots ring out from the tree line, most of the bullets dancing within a few yards of my position. In a crouch I move along the overpass wall toward the top of the exit ramp.
One of the weapons down below is fully automatic. It sounds like another G36. The weapon fires almost thirteen rounds per second, so a count to three tells me definitively that the shooter’s weapon is fitted with a C-Mag and is able to fire a hundred rounds before reloading. The idiot below is unloading his entire magazine. I have to wait only five more seconds at most. As soon as the rapid shooting stops, I pop up, aim as quickly as I can, and squeeze off three rounds of my own. At least one of them strikes true.
Shots are still being fired, one at a time, sporadically. I move all the way to the ramp and stick close to the trees as I make my way down toward the HRV. Another shot, from a handgun, is the last of them. Barkov calls out, “That’s all five.”
His voice is strained. I hurry to the truck and find Marilyn crouched over him, calmly applying pressure to a wound in Barkov’s side. He has one of the ambushers’ pistols in his hand, but he drops it to the ground when he sees me.
“You have to move,” he says as soon as I reach him. Blood is squeezing out from under Marilyn’s hand as she reaches into her medical bag with the other.
“We can’t,” Marilyn says with the stoicism of a modern doctor. “There’s a chance I can stop the bleeding or slow it until I can see what I’m dealing with. But not if we’re moving.”
I clasp Barkov’s hand. He shakes his head. “They knew we were coming. They were warned. You, me, Marilyn. They had our names. You have to take the truck and go. Hide. It’s too dangerous.”
“The bullet went clean through,” Marilyn says as she stuffs gauze into the open wound.
“You see?” Barkov says. “You have to move.”
I sit in stunned silence for longer than I’d like. A bullet that has passed through front and back leaves two holes, not just one. Everyone always thinks it’s better for the bullet to come out clean, but for immediate survival, a bullet trapped inside the body is orders of magnitude better than one that got away. The blood has only one way out.
“Tell me what happened,” I say at last. I know my friend: he doesn’t want sentimentality to interfere with the mission.
“We were taken almost as soon as we got to the gate,” Marilyn answers for him while he coughs up blood. She continues to work, fighting against inevitabilities. “They knew our names and wanted to know where you were. Mikhail told them as soon as they asked. Your whole plan. All of it. I thought he was crazy. But it worked. They already didn’t trust him. So they didn’t believe a thing he said. He told them you were going to meet us here at midnight, coming down the ramp. So they watched the street instead.”
Barkov finishes his coughing fit and wipes the blood from his chin. When he speaks, his voice is much weaker than even a minute ago. He is forced to pause for breath every few words. “They didn’t ask us many questions. They didn’t care what we knew. I tried to learn what I could. Your friend’s daughter is still here. Still in Athens. But the man they call Ravana is not.”
Marilyn tells Barkov to stop talking. She has bound the wound as well as she can and rocks back on her heels to inspect her work. She doesn’t look happy. “I can’t do any more,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
Barkov smiles. “Amy will be happy to see me. Even though I never caught the man who killed her.”
“You didn’t see Randall,” I say, realizing that neither of my friends has yet mentioned him.
“No,” Marilyn says. “He wasn’t there. They recognized us from descriptions they were reading off papers at the gate.”
“But—” I start. Barkov’s new fit of coughing interrupts my thought: no one from Clarke County has ever met Mikhail. How did they know what he looks like? How did they know his name?
“Go,” he says through the pain in his lung. “It isn’t safe.” He reaches for the pistol at his side and waves it weakly at me. “They will be coming.”
We debate moving him into the HRV, but there is no place to put him where he won’t bleed out in less than a minute. Already his skin is pale, and his breathing is labored. He has accepted what is coming. I need to do the same or at least pretend long enough to leave him here to die alone. But I’m already so tired.
“I’ll—” Marilyn says.
“No,” I interrupt. “You’re not staying with him. I should never have—”
“Sam.” She clutches my arm. “It’s not your fault. We’re not here because of you.”
“Okay,” I reply. “But we can’t stay. Mikhail’s right.”
Controlling the ache in my chest by grinding my teeth hard enough to shoot pain along my jaw, I start the HRV’s engine and put it in gear. Mechanically, refusing emotion, I turn it around on the ramp and head back onto the loop. I don’t look back. Marilyn doesn’t look back.
I drive three exits down and park the HRV on the nearest ramp, hiding it again. I just need a minute to plan. To think. To make all of this make sense again. I stare out the front window for a long while, and Marilyn does the same. There should be words for this, but I don’t know which of us needs the greater comfort.
Marilyn’s hand clasps mine. “I love you,” she says.
Those are the words.
“I’m sorry,” I reply. “For before. For this. I’m not—whatever I thought I was. Whatever I thought I had to be. First Luther, then Kloves, now Barkov. All on my watch.”
“I love you,” she says again, “and I needed you to know that.”
There is no pity in her voice. There never was. She never asked me to seek comfort in her. It was simply there. She doesn’t want me to drown in self-recrimination any more now than she did when I lost Jeannie.
I blamed myself then, too. And then, too, she simply said, “Don’t.”
I look away from the window. I look at her. I see her again, and the rising pang of missed opportunity is obliterated by the smile that tells me nothing ever changed. She was always there. But we could only be together when I accepted myself to be as strong and as weak as I truly am. The day I lost sight of the truth was the day she walked away.
So I push aside the anguish. I let go of the self-pity. I find in Marilyn’s declaration the capacity to continue. I will mourn later. Right now, I will do my job.
“Clarke County is run by traffickers,” I begin. “They’re all over the place, like an infection. But Phoebe isn’t with the primary population of captives. If she’s still in the city, she’s either in private hands or being prepared for sale elsewhere.”
Marilyn lets go of my hand and leans forward in her seat, propping her elbows on her knees. “What can we do?”
“There’s an old elementary school that’s being used as a kind of clearinghou
se. I’m hoping they have records. I might be able to find her through them.”
She glances at me briefly, about to speak, then looks away. She clenches her fists, one over the other. The dried blood on her palms spreads over her knuckles like soft clay. “Of course, you have to go back. And I want to be angry at you for being stupid like always, but I’m not. And I know—” She spreads her hands wide, then rubs some of the blood between her fingers. “We’ve lost so many friends. Of course, you remember. You lost Jeannie. And I’m going to lose you.”
“Lyn—” I interrupt. I haven’t spoken that name in years.
“No,” she says, clutching my wrist. “I’m not being maudlin. Maybe I was, before, a long time ago. Though I wouldn’t have admitted it. But I am going to lose you. Someday you’re going to go do something stupid, something ridiculous and heroic like you’ve always wanted. To make up for everything you lost. And then you’ll be gone. I know I’m going to lose you.” She pulls away, opens her door. “I just don’t want it to be today.”
Marilyn drops to the pavement. “So I’m coming with you,” she says. “Let’s go.”
The first changes I notice on our way back in are the perimeter patrols, sweeping the fence with flashlights and lanterns, passing by my breach every five minutes. I uncover the Remington from its hiding place and sling it across my shoulder, handing the G36 to Marilyn.
“Just to carry,” I say. “So they don’t rattle together.”
She puts the assault rifle on its side and looks at the switches. “Tell me what these do.”
“We’re not going to need them. If we need them, we’re already screwed.”
But the intensity of her stare disarms me. So I show her how to operate the safety, how to set the fire selector, how to aim, how to shoot. We can only afford a few minutes, but she feels more confident about my chances after the instruction.
I time the next passing of the patrol, then untie the wire from the cut section of fence. We slip through and head down the path I took before. Once we reach the streets, however, I turn to take ones with more trees, fewer big buildings, using Eileen’s map. The darkness is overwhelming, and we can hear voices in the distance. They shout orders and updates to each other, making it easy enough to avoid them, but with each voice I grow more anxious. My heart begins to race. My ears strain for the slightest sound.
We approach the elementary school from the north, through the remains of a Mexican restaurant that once must have looked like something out of a beach resort. I can’t see the school entrance around one of the spurs of the building, so I tell Marilyn to hang back around the corner while I check. She wants to hand me the G36, but I refuse it. I’ve started to feel safer knowing she has the weapon, even though she’s as likely to shoot the branches off a tree as she is to hit a real target.
Coming around the front of the annex, I notice immediately that we’ve been anticipated. Three guards are planted in front of the door, with a fourth on the sidewalk at the end of the covered walkway. Although their presence does create a problem, it’s also a relief to know we’re on the right track. People tend to make plans based on their own knowledge. They know we’re here for Phoebe, so it makes sense for them to guard the place where her location can be found, even though there’s no good reason for them to assume I would know to look here. Eileen had no idea who I was.
Perhaps I have another advantage here as well. I didn’t see any guards on the other entrances as we approached, and if my experience at the slave camp building is typical, there won’t be anyone watching the other sides of the complex. For all their preparation as a militia and fledgling army, they don’t have any experience defending against incursions.
I slink back to Marilyn and tell her my plan. We move clockwise around the building until we come to a section directly opposite the guards on the other side. As expected, there is an unguarded door and a number of ground level windows, none of them boarded up.
Unfortunately, the door is locked securely. I doubt even Luther could have gained access. So we will have to use a window—but they, too, are locked down.
“We’ll have to break in,” Marilyn says. “But that’s going to make a hell of a lot of noise.”
I look behind me, through the trees. Across the street is the edge of the coliseum field complex, where I saw the workers yesterday. An open space like that won’t contain sound well: any loud noise would echo around the buildings beyond it.
“When you hear the gunshot,” I say, “break this window with the rifle stock.” I demonstrate what I mean, showing her exactly where to hit. Most of the windows are made of wire-threaded security glass, but one of them must have been replaced on a budget. The pane is thick but made of simple glass. A well-placed strike will crack it like an egg.
I leave Marilyn with questions but an agreement to do as I’ve asked. Crossing the street, I come up to the low iron fence that separates the complex from the road. In the moonlight I can tell that the field directly across is ringed by an outdoor track. I allow myself a smile at my own cleverness. The rifle is going to make one hell of a racket against that surface.
I aim for the opposite side of the track and fire off a single round. The echo is like rolling thunder, and while I can hear Marilyn breaking the glass behind me, I’m sure it’s only because I knew it was coming. I dash back across the street and find Marilyn in the shadow of the building.
“I made enough noise to wake the dead,” Marilyn says. “You’re sure they won’t find us?”
Already I can hear calls and responses from the guards and from the roving search teams. I see shadows running across the streets a block away, heading in the wrong direction.
“We’re good,” I assure her and hoist myself into the classroom on the other side of the window. After helping Marilyn through, I take stock of where I am and realize that this space is just as much a holding area as every classroom in the College of Education building. Mats and blankets litter the floor, though none of them are occupied. Another reminder of the scope of Ravana’s network. I lead Marilyn out into the hall and do my best to navigate to the front offices where I first encountered Eileen. Each step adds to my anger, my desire to wash this town clean, or burn it to cinders.
I’m thankful that I can’t see anything out the front windows. The guards may still be standing a few yards away, but I can see only vague, diffuse shadows on the glass.
The principal’s office is unlocked. I make sure to lock it once we’re inside. “I can’t see anything,” Marilyn whispers, staying close to the door. I wait a moment for my eyes to adjust. Even if I had a flashlight or lantern, I wouldn’t use it. The risk would be too great.
The furnishings of the space very much resemble the administrative desk of an elementary school principal’s office, but the walls seem to reject the very thought of it. Maps are tacked to every surface, looming over me like taunts. One of them must be like the one that Owen had, that Phoebe saw—the one that I never found.
I allow myself a few minutes of searching the maps, even though they’re not likely to show me what I need to see. The first map I come to has been divided with permanent marker into sections like counties, though the boundaries don’t match old Georgia’s political segmentation. There are nine sections in all, covering just over half of the state. Most are labeled functionally by cardinal location: northwest, north, northeast, and so on. A central section covers most of what used to constitute the greater metro Atlanta area. The whole display resembles a child’s drawing of a flower.
Other maps don’t seem to have been modified at all, serving only as close views of different sections from the first map. The last map I come to, however, haunts me with the ghosts of Owen and Abigail.
Dozens of pins are pressed into a map of Georgia, and beside each one is written a set of numbers that appear to represent shortwave radio frequencies. There are two pins close together inside the boundary of Clarke County. Another in Dahlonega. Griffin. There is a hole wh
ere a pin once sat squarely in Conyers. Another one in Marietta. Roswell. And many more.
But something about the map isn’t quite right. I run my fingers over the section bounded by the I-285 perimeter loop around Atlanta and don’t feel anything. There is no pinhole and certainly no pin.
I glance at the flower map. Then look again at the radio map.
There is not, and never has been, a numbers station anywhere within the perimeter of metro Atlanta. At least not according to this map. The human trafficking network appears to operate only in the petals of the flower, not in its center.
Now I understand why Owen and Abigail sought sanctuary in the Little Five, despite him having a map that presumably showed where the network held influence. For whatever reason, our community’s participation has been kept hidden.
They knew we were coming. They knew our names, our faces. They knew Barkov and Marilyn, even though Randall and Banderas had never met either of them, and the men of Conyers never got our names.
Someone must have warned them. Someone I didn’t uncover before I left. Or one of the conspirators was released from the Little Five jail and permitted, intentionally or accidentally, to contact Clarke County.
Or—
“Oh, hell.”
“What is it?”
“We have to get back. We have to find Phoebe, and we have to get back. Right away.” I turn away from the maps and start hunting for papers, files, anything that will lead me to the girl. “This whole thing was a setup. It bothered me from the beginning. Why take Phoebe at all? To punish Braithwaite? That made no sense. She was already trying to comply. To send a warning? But why? I was running down everyone who was part of the conspiracy.”
I open a metal filing cabinet and rifle through folder after folder of notes and forms spat out by mimeograph. “Phoebe was taken to get us—to get me—out of the Little Five. Because I didn’t have everyone. They were afraid I was going to track down whoever was really running that numbers station. So they needed me out of the way. Out of the way and hopefully never coming back.”
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