The rolling thunder slowly died away. Chunks of flaming wreckage tumbled from the sky, each piece starting new fires when it hit the earth.
The black wedge of the enemy hovercraft hung above the ridge, as if scanning the devastation. Silver ovals fell from its belly, stitching bright death across the horizon.
Promise was the first to recover from the shock. "Oh my God."
Glenda dropped her shovel. "That was the road."
Numbed for a moment, unable to move, Aubry watched the wall of fire climb, crawl across the highway. Watched their exit from the valley churn with flames.
The hovercraft swooped back once, emptying its loads of death into the valley. Flame arced up as it sealed the dirt road leading up to the mill.
The hovercraft tilted its wings sardonically, and then disappeared over the edge of the valley.
Jenna stood in the middle of a group of women, their grimy faces streaked with sweat and tears. "What in the hell is there to do now?"
"Die," Glenda whispered.
"To hell with that," Jenna said sharply. "We can get the buses out. There's a logger's road that will take us out east. We can get through there—there shouldn't be a real problem about it. We have to move now, though."
She opened the communications pack at her belt and brought the handset tight to her mouth. "Fall back. Fall back IMMEDIATELY. Emergency. All normal exit routes have been sealed. Fall back."
Exhausted women and men began to materialize from the surrounding brush, tumbling down toward the floor of the valley. They piled onto the ancient, yellow vehicles.
Jenna spread a map on the ground, and Aubry crouched next to her to read it. "All right. We have fire blocking us here and here ... but it should be possible to get out near the mill road."
"And if not?"
"I hope you brought popcorn. Let's go."
There were only three buses in the valley, and a small Nigerian Sokoto compact with a square funnel for a nose. Promise, Aubry, and Jenna waited until the three larger vehicles were crammed to full, then Jenna nudged them. "Come on. We'll take the car." Aubry squeezed in last, watching the thickening smoke nervously.
Jenna cranked the engine. The Sokoto lurched on its way, two lengths behind the rattling buses.
The road was abysmally bad, and the Sokoto's shocks seemed primeval. The wheeled box shimmied from side to side, and Aubry fully expected to feel the undercarriage drop out at any moment.
Fire erupted above them on the ridge, smoke curling up, sparks and ash spiraling into the sky.
Timing. Timing was everything. Could they . . .
They creaked past the mill. The pass ahead was shot through with smoke and ash. The wooden bridge was barely visible. The front bus stopped just before it reached the first planks.
Jenna barked into her handset. "Get going! The bridge will still hold you. Just move!" The bus began to roll again. The bridge creaked plaintively beneath it.
Aubry watched the bus nervously. "Isn't there another way?"
"None. This is the last road out. It's this or nothing."
The smoke from the surrounding brush was thicker now, and the second bus virtually vanished into it. Jenna's phone crackled. "This is murder," a male voice said, fighting hard to remain calm. "Send that last bus through fast. I don't know how long it's going to last."
"You heard them." Jenna's hands were slick on the Sokoto's stick shift, rubbed its knob nervously. The last bus began to crawl across the bridge. Smoke gushed up through the planks now, and as the bus reached the far side, a wheel smashed through the weakened wood. The rear axle sagged. Promise cursed between clenched teeth.
With a mighty effort, the ancient behemoth chewed its way free, crawled up onto the far bank as smoke and flame swallowed the bridge behind them.
"Damn!" Aubry jerked the Sokoto's door open, and jumped out. The bridge crawled with flame now. The heat drove them back.
"We're going to die. ..." Jenna murmured.
Aubry put his hands over his ears, trying to block out the sounds, trying to think, drawing a blank. Then he looked up and saw Promise. Her eyes were locked on the mill, and the winch, and . . .
The hoist balloon. It bobbled at the end of its tether, straining toward the sky.
For a moment he didn't understand, then he cursed himself for not thinking of it first. He grabbed her and spun her around, kissing her. "Listen, Jenna. I'm going up to get the balloon."
"What . . ."
"Come on!"
He spun and began to sprint up the hill. Jenna caught up with him when he paused to catch his breath.
"All right—how do we do this?"
He traced lines and angles with his finger. "We have to get into the mill, and get the balloon to drop its cable. Then we can attach it to the car, and cut the ballast. What have we got to cut a chain?"
"Chain saw do it?"
"Might, if the teeth are tempered."
"There's one in the station."
"Good enough."
He started back up the hill. Breath whistled in his lungs as he ran, and he paced himself. This was too damned urgent to let himself burn out before the job was finished.
The mill, deserted now, yielded to the driving force of his heel. The power was still on. "Where's the equipment shed?" Jeanna was right behind him. "Left side. Should be open."
"How do you disengage the balloon? Unfasten the hoist?"
"I can do some of that from here—better still, I can loosen the cable from here, drop it to the ground."
"Then do it for God's sake. We're running out of time."
The lights went on briefly, flickered, then strengthened again as the auxiliaries cut in. The gears began to grind, and fed more cable into the loop. Aubry watched as the hoist wire drooped toward the ground.
He wrenched a fire axe from the wall, smashed it into the lock on the equipment shed. Three blows and the door shattered on its hinges, swinging free. He snatched the red, teardrop shape of the chain saw.
Jenna yelled approval. "Good going. We may have to cut it free. We're running out of time."
The huge balloon, still weighted by logs and ballast, began to sink toward the ground. There was a triumphant yell from below as Promise grasped the tether.
"Let's go."
The fire was closer now. The entire ridge of the valley was ringed with smoke, and flaming debris plunged down through the underbrush.
Aubry was the first to the Sokoto. He backed up until the tether chain scratched its roof, then yelled, "Let's have it!" Promise fed it to him, and they ran it through the open windows and back up to the top. He knotted the chain about itself as best he could, and checked it.
"This will have to do."
The ballast line was stretched tight, attached to its nested rings of iron counterweights. He examined the chain, and grimaced. "We'll ruin the saw, but let's do it."
Jenna started the saw, and touched the burring teeth to the cable. Sparks flooded away from the cutting edge in a torrent.
Sitting atop the roof, Aubry scanned Flint Ridge in uneasy fascination. The fire was climbing down off the ridge, barely slowed by the firebreak.
The woven steel strands began to pop, twisting away from each other, spanging with tension. Aubry screamed: "Get in there!"
The cable was straining now, and Aubry jumped down from the roof, spun Promise around and swept her into the car.
She looked up at him with eyes that were wide and loving. "Whatever else has happened between us, Aubry . . ."
"Save it for later. We're winning this one."
The saw roared, and teeth flew, one of them scraping Aubry's arm. It ached, he ached everywhere. The air was hot now, and thick with smoke. The cable spanged again as another strand broke. Jenna said "that's it" and threw the saw down, climbing into the car. Aubry waiting outside. The last few strands, stretched impossibly taut between the car, the balloon, and the ballast, were still holding.
Aubry started the saw up again, leaning into the effort as the d
ull, broken teeth battled with the last strand of cable. The saw chain broke.
"Damn—"
And then the cable popped, and the car jerked into the air. Aubry grinned and leapt after the frayed end. His sweaty palms slipped the first time, then found purchase as he began to climb.
Hand over hand he climbed up, until he reached a window and Promise helped him in.
The air from the forest fire buffeted them as they rose.
The circle of flame surrounding Marjo Valley crawled down the mountainside, but they were no longer its targets.
"I still can't believe it," Promise murmured.
"The only way to fly." They were above the flames now, and the gusts of wind shook them more violently.
But still the Sokoto rose, buoyed by the swelling balloon, its yellow expanse pushed onward and upward by the mass of heated air.
Smoke boiled around them, and for a full minute there was nothing to breathe. Promise clawed at her throat for air, then collapsed against him. Jenna sweltered on the floor of the car.
Christ. Air. Air. They were too low. They were too high. In another moment the balloon was going to burst, sending them hurtling to their deaths, or they would suffocate. Air. More air, please—
Then they were through the smoke, and drifting south toward the camp.
Aubry sobbed for breath, and shook his head. He didn't ever want to come that close again.
He pulled a knife from Jenna's belt, and stuck it in his own. Checking his grip carefully, he climbed out of the window, and grabbed the cable to keep from slipping. The instant he clambered up the line, the balloon shifted and he almost fell, sliding down until his back thumped into the top of the Sokoto.
He looked down from the top of the car, and his stomach soured. They had to be sixteen hundred feet above the ground, and still climbing.
He gripped the cable, and climbed. His shoulder ached, and he wasn't sure how long he could climb before the abused muscles gave out.
Hand over hand the last few feet, hanging on, he pulled the knife from his belt, and slit the underside of the bag.
The gas whooshed out, and again the entire jury-rigged structure lurched. He lost one hand's hold, his entire weight dangling by a grip that grew feebler by the moment. He reached back and found the cable, put his weight on it, gritted his teeth as the car slowly began to drop.
The pain raced up his arm, and he hissed, cursing to himself. It hurt. God, it hurt so much. Vision swam away into a line of thin white dots.
Then there was another jolt, and he fell. His back hit the roof of the car, and then rolled over. He reached out for a handhold. Something. Anything. There was no purchase. Arms reached out from within the car, grabbing. His shirt tore and stretched with the holds.
His senses swam. The ground was looming up, a slow- ; motion tumble. There were people down there, firefighters shouting and pointing. Now they were fifty feet below, and now thirty, and now—
The cloth of his shirt ripped. His fingernails clawed into the paint as he slid, and then he fell. . . .
Chapter Eighteen
An Ending
Saturday, June 3
Promise stood at the edge of Ariane Cotonou's bed, senses blinded with pain and confusion. It felt so unnecessarily cruel to have waited all of this time, and come all this distance, merely to stand and watch her mother die.
Pale plastic tubes led from Ariane's nose and arms. Gleaming glass-walled, chrome-plated machines at the edge of the bed kept silent deathwatch, emotionlessly measuring each drop of life as it flowed from her body.
Three doctors were at the bedside, but they no longer desperately busied themselves. It was too late for that now. Now it was a matter of comforting, keeping Ariane as comfortable as possible. Ariane had aged horribly in the past three days. Her skin seemed to absorb the room's dim light only to throw it back hollowly, more reminiscent of something dredged from the bottom of the sea than a human being.
Promise was utterly exhausted. She needed sleep, rest, needed to close her eyes or just crawl off and die. That simply wasn't an option. She heard the growl of Scavenger machinery outside, and faintly the bark of Aubry's voice as he coordinated the engineering and demolition teams.
From the hospital window she could see the devastation— it would take years to rebuild, but at least the process had begun. Makeshift kitchens had been set up in the undamaged shelters, and the wounded and exhausted had been cared for.
Ephesus was filled with Scavengers—workers, medical personnel, and children, hundreds of children who were now screaming and running through the ash-strewn streets, playing makeshift games of pursuit and evasion with their new friends.
Trees still smoldered north of Ephesus, but Oregon state units were on the line now. They were fully patched into the Tillamook network, the most efficient emergency firefighting force in the Northwest. The gross danger had receded, revealing more intimate terrors in its wake.
Jenna sat at the edge of the bed, holding Ariane's hand. She kissed it gently as the old woman shuddered. Ancient lips breathed a single, indistinguishable word.
Jenna leaned closer. "Mother?"
"Doctors," she said. "Have them . . . leave."
Jenna stood. "Please," she said to the white-cloaked women. "She wants to speak with us alone."
There was no disagreement, no argument. Without a word, they filed out.
Promise and Jenna sat alone in the room. The wind riffled the curtains gently. It was near dawn now. The sun was close beneath the horizon. The air still stank of smoke.
Ariane opened her eyes, tried to focus them on the window. The curtains whispered to her. "I ... have sinned."
"We've all sinned." Promise held her mother's hand desperately tight. Mother. I don't even know you, and now it's too late.
"No . . . don't understand. Listen. You have to . . . listen. I controlled everything. Everything. I . . ."
"Rest. Please." Jenna's voice was frantic.
"Too late for rest. Have to talk now, and . . ." She panted for breath. "Thousands of them, all dead. God, the lies. The clinics. Oh, God, it hurts."
"I'll have them add a little more painkiller."
"No." She gripped Promise's wrist with sudden, savage strength. "Must listen. And learn. No time. No time. McMartin. Oh, bastard. Freak bastard. I helped him."
"Helped him what?"
Ariane didn't seem to hear. "Feds tried to take our land. McMartin made deal—"
"Mother, you need to rest."
"Listen to me." Her eyes blazed. "The fetal storage clinics. It's a lie. It costs too much to maintain the fetuses. They don't care about reviving them."
Jenna's face darkened. "Then what are they . . . ?"
"Thousands and thousands of babies ..." She began to cry now, her chest heaving with the effort. "I knew. 1 knew. I sold our babies to keep Ephesus alive." Her voice broke into sobs.
Jenna soothed her brow. "They what?"
"They stole ... oh, they . . ." She coughed again, and this time blood was on her lips. "I don't care. They can kill the bastard."
"Kill who? McMartin?"
"DeLacourte. Kill him. Before it's too late. Only three months. I wouldn't be a part. That's why. That's why . . ."
"Mother?" Sudden, nauseating suspicion bubbled up into Promise's mind. Something cold and sharp stabbed into her guts, made her abdomen feel leaden and numb. "Who stole babies?"
"McMartin. Used the Ortegas. Used everything, everybody. I know. I know. Trying to live forever. Selling our babies ..."
She coughed again, and this time the machines at her bedside screamed shrilly, and the monitors peaked with jagged spikes. "Ahhhh . . ."
Her eyes wobbled wildly, and she sobbed for breath, and her breathing grew quiet.
"She's exhausted. Let her sleep awhile." Jenna pulled the sheet up closer to Ariane's chin. She looked dead already.
Jenna and Promise looked at each other. Promise was reeling against the wall.
They steal babies . . .<
br />
' 'Stole fetu—''
The Ortegas . . .
You lost your baby.
Promise's mind whirled madly. The images came in an avalanche now. At first she fought for control, then gave up. All thought and sensation dissolved into a gray wall.
When her vision cleared, Jenna was standing over her. "Are you all right?"
"Yes." A gust of adrenaline cleared the gray mists, and once again the images danced. "Yes I am. 1 have to be."
"Do you want to go lay down?"
"No . . . I'll just wait here." She tried to smile. "We'll just wait here for a while, with our mother."
Jenna took her hand, and squeezed it once, briefly. "I'm sorry it took this, Promise."
Her temples throbbed as she descended the stairs. I know now. I'm sure. It has to be true.
Aubry waited for her in the lobby. He leaned against the wall, dark circles ringing his eyes, his body heavy with fatigue. He hadn't slept eight full hours in the past three days. Only his indomitable drive and phenomenal physical conditioning had kept him on his feet. His right arm was in a compact sling, and his skin seemed a little pale, but his facial lines were tight and ugly. They softened only marginally at the sight of Promise.
"Is it over?"
She nodded. "She just stopped breathing. Nothing fancy. I was holding her hand, and she just sort of relaxed."
"I'm sorry."
Promise took his arm. His skin was hot. "Aubry ... It sounds crazy, I know it, but our child is alive."
His dark broad face twisted with shock. "What?"
"Listen to me—"
"Did Ariane tell you that?"
"No . . . but she told me that somebody named McMartin—"
"Him again? Who is this bastard?"
"—was involved in stealing fetuses from their mothers' wombs. Ariane was tied up in it somehow. I don't know how. She said that the Ortegas were involved."
"The Ortegas are involved in anything that makes a dollar." "But don't you see? It was an Ortega doctor who examined me. I was unconscious for hours. They stole our baby!"
His mouth was still hard, and she realized that her words hadn't reached him. His eyes were swollen with his own pain and exhaustion. "I saw things here," he said, voice low. "I saw thirty years of work destroyed for nothing. I saw unborn children dying for nothing. I saw innocent people slaughtered. I almost died yesterday. I have to find out how, and why."
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