by Sam Sisavath
“There are plenty of things you can do besides the dirty grind.”
“‘Dirty grind?’”
“Isn’t that what the kids call it these days?”
“I have no idea what the kids call anything these days.”
“So, did you guys get all nasty or not?”
“We didn’t. We just talked.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s boring.”
“It was a productive talk,” Keo said, remembering the kiss on the cheek at the end. It wouldn’t have seemed like much to most people, but it was a large bridging of the gap between the two of them after everything that had happened.
It’s a good start.
“I’m just curious…” Gaby was saying.
“I like you, Gaby, but I’m not above throwing you off this rooftop.”
Gaby laughed again. “Okay, okay. I’m just happy for you guys, that’s all. Even if clothes were kept on.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Yeah. Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess because the both of you have been through a lot. I’m mostly happy for Lara. But a little bit for you.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“She’s been through more.”
“So have I.”
“But I haven’t been there with you when you went through them, so I only have your word for it. I’ve actually seen all the shit Lara had to slog through to get here and still remain standing.”
“Was it really that bad?”
Gaby didn’t answer right away, and maybe that was more of an answer than what she eventually said. “She hides it well, but I’ve been with her for a long time now. Danny and Carly, too. We can see it on her face when she doesn’t think we’re looking.” Gaby reached over and smacked him on the shoulder, so hard that Keo almost pitched forward and off the edge. “So good on you, Keo.”
“I’m not sure whether to be embarrassed by this conversation or… No, I’m pretty sure it’s mostly embarrassment.”
Gaby laughed again, and they watched the Sikorsky getting ready, its crew constantly moving around it like ants from this distance. Around them, the first glimpses of sunlight began washing across the city of Darby Bay.
A new day. A new mission. But an old destination.
Back to Fenton. I’m going back into Fenton.
Now how did I know that was going to happen sooner or later?
“What was that quote again?” Keo asked.
“‘War does not determine who is right, only who is left,’” Gaby said. “Is that worth a daebak?”
Keo nodded. “Dae-definitely-bak.”
Eighteen
THOOMPF!
The noise the M141 made as it fired its one and only missile was almost anticlimactic. The resulting backblast as the warhead launched kept Keo from feeling any noticeable recoil, and he remained kneeling for five seconds afterward, watching as the warhead cruised through the night air and slammed into the side of the conference building forty meters away. The detonation occurred instantaneously on contact, and the structure was swallowed up by an eruption of fire and gray and white clouds that pounded the area in a horrific inferno in less time than it took Keo to take a breath.
The blast shook the entire compound for a few seconds, with the only sounds coming from Keo’s faster-than-normal heartbeats and the crumbling of masonry in front of him. Thick clouds expanded outward in all directions like a living, breathing fog creature, swallowing up the poor souls with the misfortune to be too close to the blast site.
Keo tossed the shoulder-mounted launcher and stood up, unslinging the MP5SD as he did so. Doors slammed open from his left and right, and footsteps echoed all around. Men, appearing from seemingly every direction, began running toward the remains of the conference building even as pieces of it came raining down on them. A few fell under the onslaught, but most of them were smart enough to retreat until the hail had settled.
Good luck finding anyone still alive in there, boys.
Keo turned and began moving toward the other side of the alley as voices erupted behind him and the strong, strong first wisps of explosive residue finally reached him.
It smelled like goddamn satisfaction.
A figure appeared in front of him, and Keo stopped and lifted the submachine gun.
“It’s me,” a familiar voice said. Rita.
Keo relaxed. “Jeremy?”
“He’s waiting nearby,” Rita said, even though he couldn’t see anything but her outline in the moonlight. “Jesus, that was one hell of a blast.”
“It’s one hell of a weapon,” Keo said, and picked up his pace until he could slip out from between the buildings and into the open.
They weren’t alone, but the closest Bucky was at least twenty meters away and too busy racing toward the source of the explosion behind them. The shouts had gotten louder, the clamor of people trying to make sense of what had happened coming from every direction.
Chickens with their heads cut off. Just like how I like ’em.
It didn’t surprise him to see the confusion; after all, these people didn’t even have enough sense to keep track of what went in and out of their armories at any given time. But maybe he was expecting too much from a group of killers being led around by a man who had made a deal with the devil.
Lights were blinding into existence from the recently constructed structures around them. The constant flow of loud voices, along with suddenly too-loud-to-miss car engines erupting in the night. There was no one source. It was the entire compound suddenly waking up and shouting and moving at the same time.
“Let’s go,” Keo said, and turned right and began walking.
Jeremy appeared out of the shadows in front of them, his face covered in sweat despite the chilly air. Keo hoped no one saw him like that—or the way his hands were shaking as he hurried to meet them halfway.
“Stick to the plan,” Keo said, just as three figures burst out of an alley between two buildings in front of them.
One of the men saw Keo, and they locked eyes.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Keo shouted at the man before the Bucky could say anything.
That did it, and the guy shouted back, “How the fuck should I know!” before racing to catch his two comrades up ahead.
“Clever dog,” Rita said, grinning next to Keo as they walked in the opposite direction as the three Buckies.
“Every dog has his day,” Keo said.
“God, that was loud,” Jeremy was saying. He was walking briskly in front of them, gripping the M4 perhaps a little too tightly. He was still sweating, which Keo could see whenever the former Bucky stepped into a pool of light, of which there was suddenly a lot of in front, behind, and all around them.
What’s that old saying? Sweating like a whore in church?
“It’s supposed to be,” Keo said.
“But I didn’t expect it to be that loud,” Jeremy said.
“Be glad you weren’t in that building when it hit,” Rita said. “I’m betting it was even louder in there.”
I told you I’d get you, Buck. I warned you, didn’t I? Don’t say I didn’t warn you, you piece of shit.
Jeremy made a sharp left turn and left the path they were on, slipping between two buildings that looked like shacks. As they moved between them, Keo thought he heard something growling (?) inside the structure to his right. It almost sounded like an animal, but also slightly…human?
“What is it?” Rita asked when she noticed him looking back.
“Nothing,” Keo said. Then, forward at Jeremy, “Slow down, kid. We don’t want to be caught running away from the scene of the crime.”
“But isn’t that what we’re doing?” Jeremy said, looking back over his shoulder.
“Yeah, but they don’t have to know that. We belong here, remember? People who belong don’t run like they’re afraid of being caught.”
“Okay, okay.” The young man
nodded, even if Keo didn’t believe him for a second.
Stick to the plan, kid. Just stick to the plan.
Keo took a moment to peek back at the plume of gray smoke rising from almost the center of the compound. There was a fire, just barely visible over the roofs of the buildings in the way, but it was the sounds of seemingly the entire Bucky nation moving toward the blast site that made him smile.
A continuous wave of voices, shouts, and running boots echoed from inside of the compound, and flashes of dark-clad figures raced through a sea of lights in front of them. It was becoming harder to find shadows to skulk in, and they had to stop every now and then, but never for too long before they were on the move again.
“You think you got him?” Rita was asking next to him.
“If he was in there, then yeah, I got him,” Keo said. “They call those things bunker-bustin’ munitions for a reason.”
“God, I hope so. I hope this is it—”
“Hey!” a voice shouted, cutting Rita off.
They both turned left at the same time to find a Bucky standing outside a shack staring across at them from about thirty meters away. The man was partially hidden in the darkness, and Keo had walked right past him without realizing it. When he turned around, he easily caught the almost-glowing white M on the man’s assault vest.
“Don’t stop,” Keo said to Jeremy, who had slowed down and was about to do just that.
“Where the hell are you going?” the man shouted over.
“Patrol,” Keo shouted back.
“Bullshit—” the man began to say, even as he was lifting his rifle.
Keo beat him to it and shot the guard—the first pfft! of the suppressed submachine gun was barely audible against all the chaos around them—using the circled M as a target. He kept pulling the trigger until the M vanished along with the silhouetted body.
“Go,” Keo said.
“So we’re running now?” Rita asked with a grin.
“Yeah, we’re running now,” Keo said, grinning back. “Take point.”
Rita jogged up ahead toward Jeremy, who had stopped completely and turned around and was staring at the partially shadowed, crumpled outline of the dead man.
“Come on,” Rita said, and grabbed Jeremy’s arm and dragged him forward. The Bucky went hesitantly, throwing one—then another—glance over his shoulder toward the dead figure.
Keo jogged after them but stayed far enough back to watch their retreat. Around him, the commotion hadn’t lessened for a second. If anything, it was gathering steam, the confusion of war consuming every inch of the place. Which was exactly what Keo wanted. This was by far the best-case scenario. A part of him, though, wondered how long it was going to last.
Captain Optimism, pal. Captain Optimism, remember?
“I knew him,” Jeremy was saying to Rita in front of Keo.
“Who?” Rita asked, even though Keo suspected she already knew because he did.
“The man Keo shot. I knew him. I recognized his voice.”
“Doesn’t matter. Keep moving.”
“Doesn’t matter?”
“He’s dead. Doesn’t matter anymore.”
“But—”
“Keep moving.”
The authoritative tone of Rita’s voice did it and Jeremy kept moving, even if that didn’t stop him from sending a third glance back at the body, which by now had all but disappeared into the darkness behind them.
Keo focused on the open ground in front of them. The buildings were all but empty, their occupants swarming the blast site near the center of the compound. It was clear sailing to the rendezvous point.
So far, so good, Keo thought, when he heard it.
Car engines.
Approaching their position.
Fast.
Goddammit, Keo thought even as Rita grabbed Jeremy’s arm and pulled him out of a pool of light they had been walking across and toward a nearby dark building, the two of them vanishing into the shadows before Keo’s eyes.
Keo joined them and went into a slight crouch.
And things were going so well, too.
A jet-black Jeep Wrangler raced by in front of them, two men in the front seat and a third in the back manning a mounted machine gun. Bright spotlights on the roof of the vehicle’s cab, flanking the welded MG, lit their way as the vehicle’s large tires ground loudly against the gravel under them.
Keo stood up in order to follow the Wrangler’s path. It was headed toward the perimeter fence about fifty meters in front of them. The “wall” that separated Buck’s authority from the civilians of Fenton was easy to spot, its metal links glinting under the plentiful lights. As soon as the Wrangler reached the fence, it turned right and continued south.
Rita and Jeremy reemerged partially out of the darkness in front of him.
“It’s a patrol,” Rita said.
Keo nodded. “At least there’s just one,” he said, when bright spotlights sliced across the shadows in front of them as a second vehicle, this one a white Chevy truck, raced along the length of the fence.
“You were saying?” Rita said.
Keo sighed.
Like the Wrangler, the Chevy had men inside its front seats, but Keo had difficulty making out the numbers. It was easier to spot the machine gunner in the back. Like the first technical, this one proceeded south along the fencing, leaving behind nothing but clouds of dust in its wake.
“What now, boss?” Rita asked.
“Stick to the plan,” Keo said.
He looked across the distance—the very open distance—between where they were currently and where they wanted to be: the fence. There was nothing out there to hide them once they left the sanctuary of the generous shadows the building next to them cast. There wasn’t a single piece of artificial or natural defilade to hide behind.
And there were a lot of lights. God, there were so many lights out there.
Keo squinted, but he couldn’t make out any figures on the other side of the fence. And he should have by now. Claire and Jeremy had agreed on a spot to meet, and they both knew the exact location.
So where was Claire with their rescue posse?
Come on, kid. Where are you?
“We need to go back,” Jeremy was saying.
Keo glanced over at him. The former Bucky was sweating less than before, but there were still beads of wetness along his forehead.
“Stick to the plan,” Keo said.
“But she’s not there,” Jeremy said. “I can’t see her. Can you?”
“She’ll be here. She won’t let us down.”
“What if she didn’t have any choice? What if she couldn’t make it? What if—”
“She’ll be here,” Keo said. He glanced down at his watch. “We just have to give her more time.”
“This is too risky,” Jeremy said. He was shaking his head as if he was trying to convince himself more than them. “We shouldn’t have done this. You shouldn’t have changed your mission.”
“It’s done and over with. Stick to the plan.”
“But what—”
The white Chevy was back, shooting up the length of the fence on its way up north, the harsh grind of its oversized tires against the dirt cutting Jeremy off in mid-sentence. Less than ten seconds later the Wrangler also reappeared, and it too raced back toward the front gate.
Thank God for small favors, Keo thought, watching the trucks as they drove past them one by one. He wondered if that was why Claire hadn’t shown herself yet. Because she couldn’t, with two technicals—that they could see, maybe more on the other side of the front gate—going back and forth along the perimeter fence. Claire was too smart to expose herself until she absolutely had to, and she would assume Keo would do likewise. And she wouldn’t have been wrong, because that was exactly what he was doing now.
Keep going, Keo thought, watching as the Chevy disappeared up the length of the fence, with the Wrangler right behind it—
Until it stopped.
Oh, Goddam
mit.
The Wrangler had slammed on its brakes and was now idling underneath one of the lampposts next to the fence. That lasted for a few seconds before it backed up and turned around until its bumper almost touched the chain-link fence. The driver and his passenger climbed out while the machine gunner remained at his post behind an M249 with a laser mounted underneath the barrel. The red dot from the light machine gun swept across the ground and the buildings in front of it before moving over in Keo’s direction. It raked the path in front of him, missing the three of them by about two feet before jumping off in search of targets elsewhere.
Rita hadn’t said a word, but Keo could feel the “Now what?” on her face when she looked back at him. He shook his head before glancing over at the fence again. There were still no signs of Claire and the others. But then, there wouldn’t be with the Wrangler parked nearby, lit up like some nightmare Christmas tree underneath the lamppost.
“We can’t stay here forever,” Rita finally said. Or whispered, even though there was no real chance the technical and its occupants could overhear. “Sooner or later, they’re going to find that guy you shot. If they haven’t found him already.”
“Yeah, I know,” Keo said.
“We should go back,” Jeremy said. “We should go back before it’s too late.”
It’s already too late, kid, Keo thought as he focused on the wall of hurricane fencing in front of them. He wasn’t looking at wrought iron or metal, and it wouldn’t take much to blast a hole through them with a well-lobbed grenade.
Of course, that would make a hell of a lot of noise, and he didn’t think those Buckies near the Wrangler would just let him, Rita, and Jeremy run past them without saying Hi.
So close, and yet so, so far away…
“Keo,” Rita said. “What do we do?”
“M203,” Keo said. “The Wrangler first, then the fence.”
“Well, at least I didn’t drag this thing along for nothing.” She took a 40mm grenade round out of the pouch around her waist and slipped it into the launcher underneath her M4’s barrel. “Ready whenever you are, boss man.”