His mistake had confirmed two things—the bullets could entirely penetrate the hotbox and Halsidier was hiding behind the one slightly northwest of the hotbox Keagan had initially suspected.
Running in a crouch toward the one he’d initially shot, Keagan maintained a vantage point over the north and south ends of the battlefield, trying to corner the general further.
Wasting no time—and trying not to waste bullets—he fired three times around the corner at the hotbox he now suspected was the right one. Immediately, he dropped to his belly as the general unleashed a scattered spray of at least six shots.
Good. Six against three.
He could keep this up.
Ducking and removing his sidearm, Keagan launched the pistol at a hotbox slightly southwest of him. The gun hit the wall will a hollow bang.
Bullets peppered the hotbox—the wrong one.
Four, five…
Lunging in the opposite direction, Keagan sprinted toward yet another hotbox closer to where the general had just given away his position.
Eight, nine, ten…
Halsidier must have been firing wildly now, overcome with what might have been rage, fear, Selarix-induced paranoia, or a combination of all three.
Blinking away the sweat pouring down his body, Keagan still couldn’t see the general, but he was certain he’d located the man’s position behind a different hotbox, this one closer to the center of the scattered cluster.
He fired three shots, counting the bullets fired, not wasting a single one.
Again, the general returned fire. Keagan flung himself onto his belly to avoid the shots.
Struggling to remember, he reevaluated his count. Around twenty shots from Halsidier’s weapon so far, half that many from Keagan’s own rifle.
The pattern repeated twice more, Keagan sprinting from one hotbox to the next, firing rounds and counting them. With the gunfire erupting from the group of prisoners and soldiers, he had to divert some of his precious concentration on discerning between the ones in the background and the others he needed to count.
Twenty-five, twenty-six from the general’s rifle…
Or was it only twenty-four?
Closing in on Halsidier, Keagan readied for the moment he knew would inevitably come—the deadly chance he would have to take.
When the general’s latest shot was followed by silence, Keagan made his move.
Andrea, Sarah…
As he ran into the open, the names of his dead wife and daughter rang inside his head louder than the shots he expected to mow him down any second now.
I’m sorry…
But there were no shots. Glimpsing a shred of what appeared to be fabric—a section of sleeve that could only be the white shirt Halsidier had been wearing—Keagan immediately fired a string of shots at the hotbox in front of him, no longer keeping count or ducking to get away.
When his ears stopped ringing, he approached with measured steps, rifle aimed and steady. He still had a few shots left, maybe a handful. Or maybe not. His emotions spun too wildly to think in terms of numbers and facts.
And yet, there was no fear. If he died, he would join his wife and daughter.
So be it.
As he neared the corner of the hotbox, he heard a grunt, followed by the sound of someone spitting. Blood flecked the barren dirt.
“It’s over, Halsidier.”
From behind the hotbox, the general’s AR-15 flew through the air and landed with a thump several feet away.
“That bomb was meant for me, wasn’t it?” Keagan asked, rounding the hotbox to find Halsidier sitting against the wall, legs extended across the dirt, his hands clutching the bloody wounds on his chest.
Halsidier had the same wild look in his eyes from before, as if the pain from his wounds hadn’t reached his conscious mind just yet. His lips were stained with blood. Each breath caused the fluid in his lungs to rattle.
“They died…” Halsidier said, coughing wretchedly. “…because of you.”
Chuckling at his own imagined victory, Halsidier held up a bloodstained palm.
“Their blood…is on your hands…Simon.”
Keagan emptied what remained of the AR-15’s magazine into the general’s chest and belly.
Without a word, he left Halsidier like that, the man’s smile having faded, his blank face tipped against one shoulder, blood-soaked palms upturned as if in repentance for his sins.
It was how Keagan wanted to remember him.
Heading back to the commotion, he realized the gunfire had ceased.
15
Over a hundred prisoners—half armed with rifles and shotguns—formed a circle around a group of kneeling camp guards. Many of his own men gazed up at Keagan as he approached. The prisoners appeared not to notice Keagan other than the occasional glance.
It was as if he’d become one of their own, free to walk among them.
“Where’s Hampton?” Keagan called.
“Here,” a prisoner who wasn’t Hampton responded.
Circling the group, Keagan noticed a dozen bodies littering the ground. Most of the casualties appeared to be his own men, though he saw at least three or four dead prisoners.
Hampton lay on his back at the other end. Two prisoners were down on one knee, trying to staunch the bleeding. The man had sustained a belly wound. At once, Keagan knew Hampton wouldn’t live.
Dropping to one knee beside the dying man, Keagan took one of Hampton’s hands.
“I’m sorry it had to end this way,” Keagan said.
“It had to be…this way,” Hampton sputtered. “So they could see…”
Tears filled Keagan’s eyes. His voice shook as he tried to speak, but the words were lost to him.
“I’m…sorry, too,” Dean Hampton said. “About…your family.”
Keagan focused at the smoldering garage in the distance, heartbroken at the knowledge his wife and daughter’s remains were buried deep inside the wreckage.
“I didn’t think about the bombs,” Keagan said. “I knew he had them, but I didn’t… Oh God, they’re dead because of me.”
Reaching up, Hampton seized Keagan’s shirt. Pulling until Keagan’s face hung mere inches from his own, Hampton spoke with sudden force.
“Make it right.”
Dean’s head fell against the dirt. Free from the man’s grip, Keagan watched the life fade from his eyes. One of the prisoners—no, they aren’t prisoners any longer, he reminded himself, but soldiers in their own right—moved to gently slide the dead man’s eyelids shut.
“I want to speak with him,” Keagan said, rising. “I want to speak to Michael Cairne right now.”
“I’m here,” a voice behind him said.
Keagan whirled to see a familiar face.
The boy once known as Marshall Towne—who had seemed so timid only weeks ago, the least likely among the prisoners to survive—now approached with confident, straight-backed strides, wearing a fiercely intense expression.
“My men will help you clear the wreckage, then assist you in properly burying your wife and daughter,” Michael said. “I’m sorry for your loss, Simon.”
My men, the boy had said, as if the prisoners were a small army and he was their general.
“What about my men?” Keagan demanded.
Michael had gone to kneel by Dean Hampton’s side. Gently, in the affectionate gesture of a son saying farewell to his dead father one last time, he placed a hand on the man’s chest and bent to kiss his forehead.
“They’re not your men anymore,” Michael said, standing and catching Keagan’s eyes. “They’ll be sent back to the People’s Republic alive, to share what happened today. Harris Kole will know it’s only a matter of time.”
He addressed the men around Hampton’s body. “Bury him outside these walls, along with the others. Then help me clear the wreckage. We’ll destroy the Selarix before removing the trackers from the trucks.”
With that said, he turned his back on his men and headed toward the
burning remains of the garage, Keagan following.
***
As Simon Keagan spoke the last words of his story, Reggie felt silence fill the town hall like spirits crowding around them in mourning. Not even a chair creaked.
Then he abruptly stood.
“When are they coming back?” Reggie asked.
“Louis Blake wasn’t ready to travel that day,” Keagan responded, also rising from his chair. “When I met the man, he appeared to be near death, but the doctor seemed confident. My guess is another day or two.”
“Until then, you men should rest,” Reggie said. “I’ll show you where.”
Gesturing for the group to follow, he silently led them to a cluster of empty houses his trusted men had outfitted with fresh beds. They all needed a night of quality rest, though Reggie felt he might never sleep again. Too much was about to change. Their entire lives were about to be transformed.
16
A shooting star grazed the night sky.
Dietrich stood watching it as, behind him, seated on a toppled tree trunk, Charlotte finished her incredible story.
He turned to face her in the near darkness. Their only light came from a solar-powered lantern Dietrich had stolen from a supply shed in town, which illuminated the girl’s eyes and the distant look she’d been wearing all night.
“An army,” Dietrich said. “So, the boy’s a warlord now.”
Warren interjected with his usual sarcastic tone. “An army of skeletons who haven’t had a decent meal in years. Some good that’ll do.”
“Weren’t you listening?” Dietrich snapped.
“He’s not wrong,” Charlotte said. “Plus, Harris Kole could send men in a lot better shape, with more training. You are prepared for a battle, right?”
“With the Republic’s backing,” Dietrich said, “I could squash him and his men like ants. But to isolate Michael—to return him to the Republic alive… that’s a different matter.”
“I think I could help with that,” Charlotte said, a bit too brazenly for Dietrich’s taste. If anything was going to stand in his way, it was followers with large egos and delusional plans. Charlotte didn’t seem like the type to lose her grasp on reality, no matter how much she clearly hated Michael. But she was no match for him and his friends if they resorted to the best weapon they had.
The Dreamscape… Simply amazing.
“Well? What is it?” He crossed his arms. “Your strategy, if I may ask.”
Charlotte smiled—again, a bit too boldly. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders, shake her, yell that this wasn’t a game. Maybe plant a passionate kiss on her lips while he was at it.
Shame on you, Dietrich, he chided. This isn’t the time.
“Is it possible someone could sneak up on a man like you?” she asked.
Dietrich didn’t like that smile. Not at all.
He glanced at Warren. The hillbilly looked confused, but that was nothing new. He’d spent the past hour whittling, probably only half-listening.
“What are you playing at?” Dietrich asked her.
“Answer the question.”
“Not a chance. Not in a state like this. I’m a master of maintaining passive telepathic scans that would notify me of anyone’s presence within a half-mile range. Only a significantly more powerful Type II telepath—or, theoretically, a Type I with some skill—could bypass or override what I’m capable of.”
Warren snickered. “It was a yes-or-no question, you arrogant bastard.”
“I’m sorry full sentences confuse you.” Dietrich glared at Warren, who frowned and went back to sharpening his stick like a ten-year-old.
Studying Charlotte’s face, Dietrich’s curiosity propelled him a few steps toward her. The girl remained still. She eyed him with the confidence of someone who undoubtedly had the upper hand in whatever game this was.
“Why do you ask, anyway?”
She ignored his question. “What if I asked you to perform a scan right now? Not a passive one. An active one, meant to detect any and all telepaths. Even—theoretically, as you say—one more powerful than you.”
Dietrich felt his rib cage tighten the slightest bit. Something was going on. Suddenly, he felt as vulnerable as a man standing on a shaky wooden bridge over a deep chasm.
“I would, without a doubt, be able to detect anyone’s presence using such a scan. Even if you—or another telepath—say, Michael Cairne or Louis Blake—tried to block me, I would sense a disturbance at the very least, which would alert me to the possibility I was being hunted or spied upon.”
Losing the smile, Charlotte cocked her head, one eye narrowing in what Dietrich interpreted as a condescending attempt to mystify him further.
“What if…” she began.
“Enough with the questions. What are you playing at?”
“What if,” she said again, “I told you a nine-year-old boy with no skills in telepathy—let alone battle telepathy—was standing behind that tree over there…” She glanced at a spot behind Dietrich, who stiffened slightly at the implication. “…and that all this time, he’s been watching and listening, completely undetected by you.”
Frowning, Dietrich shook his head. “Impossible. But just in case…”
He closed his eyes.
A moment later, his frown deepened.
It can’t be!
Squeezing his eyes shut, gritting his teeth, he tried again. The scan was a simple one, but even as he increased its power to the point of summoning a painful pressure inside his skull, the effort was useless.
His telepathy had abandoned him.
“What in the spiteful name of God,” he shouted, eyes springing open to stare accusingly at Charlotte. “You had better tell me what in the spiteful wrath is going on.”
No change in her expression, even as Dietrich clenched his hands into fists and glared.
“William,” she said, calm as an autumn breeze, “you can come out now.”
Dry leaves crunched behind Dietrich.
Spinning around, Dietrich’s arms rose instinctively as if to deflect a bullet. Darkness formed an impenetrable wall in front of him. He grabbed the lantern and thrust it toward the noise, illuminating a stand of ghostly trees.
“Holy shit,” he gasped as he trained his eyes on the face of a tiny phantom standing among them.
He was just a boy—a whelp no older than eight or nine—standing in the underbrush, wincing at the sudden glare.
The boy began to walk toward them.
Not walk—limp.
Warren jumped to his feet, dropping his stick. “I’ll be damned.”
Frozen in place, Dietrich could only stare in stunned silence as the boy, who seemed painfully uncomfortable and nervous, cringed beneath the lantern’s light on his way to Charlotte.
The source of the limp seemed to be an oversize, awkward-seeming boot he wore on one foot. The poor boy was clubfooted, his toes turned inward as if his foot had been twisted at birth, then cast in place to remain that way for the rest of his life.
Dietrich had never seen a clubfoot before, but that was the least curious thing about the boy.
Everything else about him was terrifying.
“He’s a blocker,” Dietrich said.
Charlotte extended her arms toward William, and the boy practically fell into her embrace like a child much younger than he looked.
“He’s my shield,” Charlotte said, rocking him from side to side. “My little blocker.”
Nestling his face against her neck, the boy silently peered up at Dietrich from the corner of one eye.
“Unbelievable,” Dietrich said. “Blockers have been around since I’ve been alive, but one so young…”
“He’s a Type I,” Charlotte said proudly, and now Dietrich understood why her tone had been so brazen before, so arrogantly confident.
If it were true, the boy curled in her arms was more precious than she could possibly know.
Dietrich approached William, the boy flinching in response, arms tight
ening around his mother’s shoulders. He was clearly a little coward, but that didn’t matter.
A Type I blocker…
“I want a new life,” Charlotte stated. “I want to be escorted to the People’s Republic and given a large house, wealth, and high status within the Party. I want to attend ceremonies and political events, dressed in jewels and wearing the finest clothing. I want my son to grow up with the same opportunities as any other Party member’s kid. If you can promise me that, then I have no problem giving you Michael Cairne. And don’t lie to me. I’ll be able to sense it.”
“No, you won’t. Not with the boy—”
“Trust me, little man. I’m a woman. I’ll know.”
Warren guffawed at the insult, then sat and returned to whittling.
Dietrich almost laughed. If Charlotte’s beauty had astounded him before, it was nothing compared to the radiance of her personality. A woman like this was made for Party life. She would go far on brains alone, not to mention the rest of her charms. But he kept his cheerfulness under control, not wanting to validate her superior attitude in any way. He was calling the shots here, not her.
Plus, the material things Charlotte desired were nothing—like asking a king to be a squire in his court, easily overlooked among so many others of the same status.
Dietrich’s palms began to sweat from his excitement.
Crouching in front of her and the boy—making sure to flash William the warmest of smiles—he wanted to sing his next words.
“You’ll have all that and more, my dear. If we succeed, I will personally lead you and William by the hand into Harris Kole’s office, and proclaim you both to be the heroes who returned what was stolen from him. You’ll have an estate, servants, Party membership, and more money than you can spend. A new life the likes of which none of the rats living in this trash heap could ever imagine.”
Fully expecting Charlotte’s features to light up, he was mildly disappointed to see her lower that pretty gaze to the ground instead, as if her mind were suddenly on the verge of changing.
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