“I got a text from Mace as I was coming here,” he said. “He and Clint and Mitch are fine. They’re at the Granger Valley Hospital. I told them to stay away, but I doubt they’ll listen. Still, I don’t want them to walk into that clusterfuck.” He gestured at the screen, just as a car sailed up into the air and exploded.
Bodies were strewn everywhere. Some of them were burning.
Elisa turned away from the screen. “Call them,” she said. “Tell them to stay away.”
“I don’t have a phone,” he said. “Clemens’ guys took them.”
Elisa turned to the counter in front of the monitors, pawing through all the stuff scattered there, and picked up a big, heavy black device out of a substantial charging cradle. She held it out to him. “Here’s a satellite phone.”
He punched in Mace’s burner number. Mace picked up on the first ring, but didn’t speak. He just waited.
“Mace?” he asked. “It’s Nate.”
“Holy fuck!” Mace exploded. “Nate! What happened? Where are you? We’re still about twenty minutes out from the coordinates you gave us, but we—”
“Stay away,” he said. “Turn around. Get off the road. Wait for my signal before you get anywhere near this place. It is seriously fucked up.”
“But what happened? And where are you?”
“Kimball’s guys are hammering Clemens’ people. Elisa got me into a bunker underneath the mountain, and I think we can wait it out in here. When it calms down, and they leave, we’ll call you. Don’t come now. It’s a death trap.”
Mace waited for more. “How the fuck did you get into a bunker?”
“Elisa,” he said. “She is a serious bad-ass. She saved me when the drone opened fire. Slashed that prick Clemens’ eye with a glass shard. She cut me free. And then she dragged me into a tunnel and hid me in her dad’s luxury end-times bunker.”
Elisa leaned toward the phone. “You should know that he’s exaggerating,” she called out.
“Fuck me,” Mace said, clearly impressed. “You’re lucky you have that woman to protect your sorry ass, dude, because you are bat-shit crazy.”
“Yeah,” he said distractedly. “Whatever. Please, stay away. Do not engage with Kimball. He’s got drones that strafed the living fuck out of this house.”
“Shit,” Mace muttered. “I had my heart set on to tangling with that bastard.”
“Not this time. You’ll lose. And you’ll die.”
Mace let out a sharp sigh of frustration. “If you’re sure you two can ride this one out. You’re not fucking with me, right?”
Nate looked at Elisa. “I don’t think so. If we have any chance at all, I think that hiding in here is probably that chance.”
He closed the call, and he and Elisa studied each other silently as the deafening soundtrack of battle, distorted by the speakers, came into the foreground of his consciousness. Her eyes were so clear. So deep and direct. Holding him.
She seized his bloodied hand. “You came for me,” she said.
“Of course,” Nate said.
“It was a crazy thing to do,” she said. “It was suicide.”
“No, not really,” he said. “What life would I have if I’d left you with him? What would the point of that be?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “But it would still be life. Any kind of life. A different life.”
“I had one more shot,” he said. “One more random chance to shake things up. So I took it. I fucked with Kimball, just to see what would happen. Told them I was taking the virus to sell. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And look—we’re both still alive. Somehow. For a little while longer. It’s good enough for me. Just to see you again. No matter what happens.”
“Oh, Nate.” Her lips were shaking. “You’re so damn stubborn.”
He shook his head. “Saving you is like saving myself. And if I lose you, I lose everything.”
They came together into a hug that made his soul shake. It was charged with all the fierce brightness of hope. Hunger for tomorrow. For more life. More of each other. A lifetime of it.
“I don’t know for how long we’ll hang on, but fuck it,” he muttered into her tangled hair. “I want to be there for all of it. A single moment with you is worth any fucking price to me. Anything, Elisa.”
She could barely breathe, she was so tear-fogged, and she didn’t care. She laughed through her sniffles. “You know what? You are very big and hard and stiff in this vest.”
“I can take it off,” he offered. “Anytime. Say the word.”
“Oh, no! Not yet. Not until we’re safe. That vest took bullets for you today. I saw it happen.”
“Yeah,” he said ruefully. “I felt that. Every time. Think it cracked a few ribs.”
“Oh no! Did I hurt you when I grabbed you?”
“No. Please. Hug me some more. It’s my healing balm. Never let me go.”
He could have stayed in that embrace forever. Just melted into her and stayed there for all of eternity, with his nose buried in her hot, damp, fragrant hair. His bruised body felt weak with relief. Shaking with adrenaline. Awestruck with joy.
After a while, the noise from the speakers abated. He glanced over at the monitors and saw a car pulling up.
“Someone’s coming,” he said.
Elisa stiffened. “Who? Who is that?”
They leaned over the counter to watch. It was a big black Mercedes SUV. The doors opened, and four men got out. Three of them were heavily armed.
One of them seemed slightly older, with white streaks in the black hair at his temples, and in his neat black beard. He walked stiffly, with a noticeable limp.
“That one must be Kimball,” Nate said. “Look at him limping. So his balls still hurt, after Fiona stabbed them with the scissors. She will be pleased to hear it.”
Elisa leaned over the monitor, watching in dread as Kimball and his men, plus a few others who joined them, walked up the stairs and into the house.
“Gil,” she whispered.
“He’s probably dead already,” Nate said. “He must have taken a bullet in that hailstorm. Or maybe he bled out from that cut.”
Kimball went inside with two of the men, while the third took up a guard position. Elisa toggled screens with the mouse to watch the living room.
They saw Kimball and his man, finding Gil on the floor. They pulled him up, and began to question him.
Soon, the screaming began.
25
Mace scanned the woods around the wrecked luxury home with the thermal imager as he gave a still-smoking minivan a wide berth, trying not to breathe in the stink of burning plastic and scorched metal. No one there that he could see.
He skirted a half burned corpse, blood mixed with snow and shattered glass as he made his way up the steps to the wraparound deck. He peered inside the house, then around the corner of the side deck. No one. At least no one living.
He signaled an all-clear to Jim Wong and to Fiona. Nothing here but blood-drenched bodies. But not Nate’s body, or Elisa’s. Not yet. Please, God.