by Sam Sisavath
Rita hesitated. “We really gonna do this?”
“You having second thoughts?” Keo asked.
“No, but I just wanted to make sure that you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“It’s not like we can come back from this, you know. Everyone in this place is going to be trying to kill us after you fire that thing.”
“They’ll have to find out it was us first.” Then, “Go. And be ready for anything.”
“Just in case, right?”
Keo grinned at the shadows in front of him. “Yeah, just in case.”
He listened to Rita and Jeremy retreating behind him until he couldn’t hear them anymore. Keo placed his left hand on the second pistol grip in front of the launcher’s trigger guard, then squinted through the darkness at his target. This particular model M141 didn’t have an extended range sight or a scope of any kind, which was fine with Keo. He’d have to be dumb, blind, and stupid to miss from less than forty meters, since all he had to do was aim straight using the available iron sights and hit any part of the building.
Easy peasy. I almost feel sorry for you, Buck.
Almost.
He sucked in a deep breath and watched a patrol—one man and one woman—walking alongside his target, passing by one of four windows on this section of the conference building. It was impossible to miss all four windows because of the bright lights coming from inside. All the activity was clearly focused on this part of the building, which worked out perfectly. The closer he could get the warhead to its intended victim, the better.
A figure walked past one of the windows inside the building. He was too far to tell if the man had white hair and hazel eyes, or if he was in his late forties to early fifties, the way Gaby had described Buck, and Jeremy had confirmed. The man wasn’t alone, and two other figures walked behind him, passing the windows before they stopped and began talking.
Keo sucked in a breath and calmed every part of his body. He tried to imagine what Lara would say when she eventually found out what he had done. Not just the whole going-against-her-orders thing—though he was certain she wasn’t going to be thrilled about that—but the murdering-Buck-when-she-told-him-not-to thing.
“Sorry, Lara, but I did it for you. I stopped the war before it could get out of control. Before it got really bloody. Trust me, you don’t want that blood on your hands. It’s hard to wash off. I should know.”
Would she buy that explanation? Would she accept that he did it for her, even if it was the truth? Maybe a small part of him was getting back at Buck for Winding Creek, for taking Emma and the others, but it was a very small part.
This was for Lara. She couldn’t order him to take out Buck even though she had to know it was the right move. But she couldn’t do it because she was Lara—the voice on the radio, the woman who brought order to the chaos. She couldn’t be associated with something like this. Because she was right; this was murder, and good people didn’t commit or order murders.
It’s a good thing I’m not good people.
There would be consequences to this. With Lara, with others—but especially with Lara. He couldn’t care less about what others thought of him. But he cared what she thought. God help him, he probably cared too much about what Lara thought.
You’ve gone soft, pal. Real soft.
He sighed and slowed down his heartbeat, and recalled that brief chat over the radio he’d had with Buck. It seemed like years ago now, but was really just a few weeks back.
“So now that we know each other better, where do we stand?” Keo had asked him.
“I think we both know the answer to that one,” Buck had replied. “Now, let’s see you make good on your promise. You know where to find me.”
Oh, I know where to find you, all right, Keo thought as he slipped his forefinger into the trigger guard of the M141.
“Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo, motherfucker,” Keo whispered, before he pulled the trigger.
Seventeen
One Night Ago
“I don’t want you to kill him, Keo. Unless he’s standing in front of you, with a gun aimed at you or someone else, and is ready to pull the trigger. Unless one of those things is happening, I don’t want you to kill him.”
“You’ve already said that. More than once. I’m not deaf, you know.”
“Look me in the eyes and tell me you won’t murder Buck if you get the chance.”
“I won’t murder Buck if I get the chance.”
“We have to be better than him. We have to abide by rules. We’ll capture him alive and we’ll hold him responsible for everything he’s done. That’s how it has to be, Keo. That’s the only way we can do this. Otherwise, we’re no better than him. And we have to be. Do you understand that? Tell me you understand that.”
“I understand.”
“I just need to be sure. I’m not sending you out there if I can’t trust you, Keo. Can I trust you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“You want me to sign a form or something? How about a blood oath?”
She stared at him, and he stared back.
Seconds became minutes, which became hours even though it was probably just a few seconds. After all, how could two people possibly stare at each other for hours without either one of them blinking?
Seconds. Definitely seconds.
I think.
Lara finally looked away first.
I win! he thought and wanted to laugh, but that probably would have given it away that he’d been lying out of his ass ever since the conversation about Buck started.
Instead, he watched her take out the bottle of painkillers she’d been carrying around in her jacket pocket and shake two of the pills into her palm before swallowing them with the help of some water. She was up and walking and looked better on her feet, but she was still pale around the eyes and lips, and it was clearly easier for her to sit.
“Satisfied?” Keo asked as he went back to reassembling the MP5SD submachine gun after a thorough cleaning. The Heckler & Koch was a hell of a weapon when it worked, which Keo was determined to make sure it did before he took it out into the field.
He leaned over the makeshift workbench and snapped the parts into place, hoping to avoid her eyes. Lara sat across from him and watched him work without saying anything for a moment.
A moment became ten seconds.
Then thirty.
“What about your team?” she finally asked.
“What about them?”
“Are you good with everyone?”
Keo shrugged. “I won’t know until we’re actually out there. Right now they’re just names on a sheet of paper.”
“I thought you’d already met them.”
“I shook their hands, and we introduced ourselves. It’s basically still just names on a paper. I won’t know what they’re capable of—or not capable of—until I see them in action. Everyone’s a tough guy until the bullets start flying.”
“I guess you don’t have that problem. I mean, everyone knows who you are. The guy who killed Mercer and singlehandedly ended his war on the towns. Everyone knows you’re the real deal.”
“Is that what they’re saying?”
“More or less.”
“Did you correct them?”
“There’s nothing to correct. They’re all true.”
He harrumphed. “As I recall, you did your part to put an end to Mercer’s little crusade.”
“Not as much as you did. No one did as much as you.”
“Which makes your insistence that I don’t put Buck out of his misery the first chance I get somewhat baffling.”
She sighed. “The situation isn’t the same, Keo.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Gaby doesn’t agree. I bet Danny doesn’t, either. Did you talk to him?”
“I did.”
“What did he say?”
“The same thing you and Gaby said.”
“It’s the difference between us being the good guys and them being the bad guys. If we start going around murdering people we think deserve it, we’ve lost the high ground.”
“That’s not what the people of Winding Creek will think. The ones still alive, anyway. God knows where Buck’s people took them. Did you forget about the women and children they’ve been taking from the raids?”
“No. I haven’t forgotten,” she said somberly.
Keo slipped the last piece into the submachine gun and laid it down before folding his hands over the weapon and seeking out the blue of her eyes across the table. “Buck is no better than Mercer. He’s out there committing crimes. If there were still a Hague, he’d be standing at the front queue of the International Court of Justice. You know that.”
“If the Hague were still a functioning body, they’d want him alive, not executed on the spot without a trial.”
“A man like Buck doesn’t deserve a trial. Neither did Mercer.”
“This situation is different.”
He ground his teeth together. “Why are you so sure about that?”
“Because this is what law and order looks like. And if we’re going to bring it to what’s left of this country, we need to show them we’re not above it. We can’t go around murdering people, Keo. You can’t go around murdering people because you think they’re guilty.”
“I don’t think Buck’s guilty. I know he’s guilty.”
“It’s not your job to decide.”
“Isn’t it? I decided Mercer was guilty and I sentenced him. And look what happened. You got your very own army, and Texas and the world are better off for it. Tell me I was wrong to kill Mercer.”
“I can’t.”
“Then how can you say it’d be wrong to kill Buck?”
“Because we’re in a position now that we weren’t in when Mercer was still around. We’ve done things, brought so many people together. Five years of work. Five excruciating years of hard work. We’ve sacrificed too much to get this far to just throw it away now.”
Keo picked up the H&K and laid it on the chair next to him, then grabbed the Glock and began taking it apart. “Gaby and Danny disagree.”
“They’re soldiers. Like you.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
“It is true, whether you want to accept it or not. If it weren’t for Danny, you’d be the best soldier I have.”
“Now you’re just being mean.”
She smiled. “Only because Danny follows orders.”
“Ah.” He started cleaning the Glock’s parts with a brush. “You know, when you knocked on my door, I wasn’t expecting us to pick up arguing about Buck.”
“What did you think I was here to do?”
“To wish me luck?”
“I was saving that for tomorrow morning, before you guys leave in the chopper.”
“We’re leaving pretty early.”
“I know. I rarely sleep a lot these days anyway.”
“Even with all the pills they have you on?”
“It’s going to take more than pills to help me with that. Besides, I also came to give you this.”
She took a small bundle wrapped in a slightly oil-stained linen handkerchief out of her jacket pocket. Keo took it, and knew what it was from the shape and size before he even opened it: A knife—ten inches in all, five of that made up of a silver blade.
“A girl named Alice gave it to me about three years ago,” Lara said. “It belonged to her father. She inherited it and carried it with her until The Walk Out. After that, she said she didn’t need it anymore and it was because of me—because of us—and she gave it to me as a gift.”
Keo ran his fingers along the smooth side of the blade. The double edges and point were razor sharp. “How many times have you used this thing?”
“I’ve never used it.”
“Never?”
“That’s why it’s a good luck charm, Keo.”
“The MP5SD is my good luck charm. Wanna know why?”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“Because it never jams and it always works. Now that’s what I call a good luck charm.”
She sighed. “Give it back to me.”
“What?”
“Give it back to me,” she said, holding out her hand.
“No, you gave it to me,” Keo said and put it down on the table next to the submachine gun. “No backsies.”
“‘No backsies?’ What are you, five?”
“I’ve been called worse.” Then, “You could have just given it to Gaby or Rita to give to me. You didn’t have to come here in person.”
“I could have, but then we’d have missed out on that scintillating conversation about putting a bullet in Buck’s brain.”
“Definitely wouldn’t want to skip out on that.”
They exchanged a brief—and maybe just a little bit awkward—smile before Lara stood up, probably more gingerly than she had intended—and walked to the door. “I should go. You need to get all the rest you can for tomorrow.”
Keo got up and followed her to the door to make sure she made it there in one try. It was easy to tell she wasn’t even 50 percent yet even if she did her best to try to hide it from him. Keo recognized all the signs. God knew he’d seen enough of them on himself.
“What about you?” he asked.
“What about me?”
“You said you don’t sleep a lot these days. How much is ‘not a lot?’”
She gave him a pursed smile. “Not a lot.”
Lara had her hand on the lever when she turned back around to face him, and he was accidentally too close to her when she did. There was a brief moment—a second, maybe two—when he didn’t know what to do, and he suspected she didn’t, either.
He was about to say something when she slipped her arms around his neck and pulled him close to her and kissed him on the cheek. It was a quick peck, and she let go just as quickly.
“Get in, get out, and don’t do anything stupid,” she said, and then she was gone.
“Danny said something to me a few years ago when we were in Georgia…”
“What were you guys doing in Georgia?”
“This, that, something in-between.”
“Touché.”
“He said, ‘War does not determine who is right, only who is left.’”
“Danny said that? Our Danny?”
Gaby smiled. “I think it was something Will used to say, that he recalled.”
“Will coming up with something like that, I can believe.”
“He didn’t come up with it. It was a quote from someone else. I’m not sure who or when they said it.” She paused. “Anyway, I thought it was interesting.”
“Yeah. It’s interesting,” Keo said, thinking about what Lara had said to him earlier.
“Get in, get out, and don’t do anything stupid.”
Don’t do anything stupid. Right. Easier said than done, Lara.
It was still dark, but the first hints of sunrise had begun to wash across the Gulf of Mexico to their left. The port city of Darby Bay was only now starting to wake up even as the solar-powered lights secured to the lampposts along the streets began shutting off one by one. Keo watched a couple of boats already heading off into the water, the whites of their sails flapping against a chilly wind.
He stood at the edge of the high school rooftop and tried to imagine that the coffee he was drinking tasted better than it really did. Gaby stood next to him, sipping from her own steaming mug with one hand inside her jacket pocket. From up here, they could see almost every part of the city, including the ocean waves to one side and the flat Texas countryside on the other. There were sentries on the other rooftops and in the streets below them, and the guards had been doubled after what had happened to Lara. Except for four stray ghoul incidents in the last week, there hadn’t been any further trouble from outside
.
As the town came to life around them, the makeshift airstrips were already brightly lit. One spot in particular—the chopper LZs—was a buzz of activity as dark-clad crewmen crowded around a Sikorsky UH-60 helicopter. Soon, Keo would be on that chopper and headed back toward Fenton.
“I should be going out there with you guys,” Gaby said after a while.
“Who are you worried about? Us, or Claire?”
“Both.” Then, with a slight smile, “But mostly Claire.”
“I don’t blame you. You practically raised that kid.”
“I must have done a pretty shitty job of it for her to think allowing herself to be captured and taken to Fenton was a good idea.”
Keo chuckled. “She took initiative. Probably asked herself, ‘What would Gaby do?’ before she did it.”
“Like I said: I should have taught her better.”
“She’ll be fine. She’s still making contact on a daily basis, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“So don’t worry. The kid knows what she’s doing,” Keo added even as he thought, God, I hope the kid knows what she’s doing, or this might be a very short mission.
“That’s the problem,” Gaby said. “She’s still a kid, but she doesn’t know it.”
“Sounds familiar…”
“Oh, shut up.”
Keo grinned before drinking more of the disgusting coffee. It turned out that it wasn’t the cafeteria people that made the thing undrinkable, but just the ingredients they had available. He’d had better tasting swill when he was out in the wilds searching the remains of convenience stores for bagged instant coffee.
“So,” Gaby said, “I went to Lara’s room earlier. To check up on her.”
“Oh yeah?”
“She wasn’t there.”
“Where was she?”
Gaby sneaked a look in his direction. “I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me.”
“How would I know?” Keo said and took another sip, hoping that the steam rising from the mug would hide some of his face from Gaby’s squinting eyes.
“Did you guys do it?”
Keo almost spat out the coffee. “What?”
Gaby laughed. “Oh, come on. I was born at night, not last night. Did you guys do it or not? Who got to be on top?”