He stood looking at her, surprised she had asked. “Because people die.”
Forrest walked into Launch Control and sat on the edge of the console. “Excuse us, Linus.”
Danzig gave Vasquez a quick look and got up from his chair. “I guess I can use a break.” He pulled the door closed after him, and Forrest sat looking down on Vasquez.
“Look, Jack, before you read me the—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Forrest snapped.
Vasquez sat back in his chair, unprepared for Forrest’s anger.
“This isn’t a goddamn frat house! Who the fuck do you think you are, deserting your goddamn post?”
“Oh!” Vasquez said. “I… I’m sorry. You’re right. It won’t happen again. I mean I—”
“And who are you diddling besides Maria two?” Forrest quickly demanded, sensing that Vasquez had been expecting to get his ass chewed for an entirely different encounter.
Vasquez hesitated. “Um… Renee… and Joann.”
“Jesus Christ! And none of ’em minds about the others?”
Vasquez shrugged. “I don’t think they know.”
“You bet your sweet ass they don’t know!” Forrest flared. “Because the second one of ’em finds about the other two, they’re gonna tell your wife so goddamn fast you won’t know whether to shit or wind your watch!”
“I don’t think so,” Vasquez said innocently. “They ain’t like that. I mean… they know I ain’t gonna be around long… you know? And I think they like the thrill of doing something bad… seize the day and all that.”
“I’m gonna seize something,” Forrest told him, standing up from the console and shaking loose a cigarette, “and it won’t be your goddamn day. So who’s Linus screwing—and don’t tell me nobody! He skulked outta here looking guilty as shit.”
“Nobody, I swear. He just covers for me sometimes… like the other night with Maria two. I didn’t abandon my post, Captain. I’d never do that.”
Forrest at least took some comfort in that. “It stops now. Understood? If I find it’s still going on, I’ll tell Maria myself. Got it?”
Vasquez nodded. “But suppose they don’t agree?”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
Vasquez shrugged again. “I’m just saying they look forward to it… you know?”
“End it, Oscar!”
“Yes, sir.”
Half an hour later Forrest’s voice announced calmly over the intercom: “Wayne and Melissa to the LC. Wayne and Melissa to the LC.”
When they arrived in Launch Control, Forrest and Vasquez were sitting in front of the receiver listening intently to a very panicked radio transmission.
“Kiddo, it sounds like your wind farm friends are getting zapped,” Forrest said, offering her a chair. “Along with Patrick and his gang.”
“Both? But how—”
“… and you’re sure you didn’t tell anyone where we are?” Patrick was demanding.
“Yes!” Valerie replied in a shout, with gunfire obvious in the background. “They’re hitting us too, goddamnit! I told you! None of our people ever even leave here. One of your people must have said something, one of your scavenging parties maybe. Patrick, you’ve been double-crossed!”
“No, he hasn’t,” Vasquez muttered, shaking his head. “Stupid pendejos!”
Melissa stood staring at the radio, almost as if she were watching the drama play out on television.
“No way!” Patrick insisted. “The leak has to be at your end! Can you escape on your own somehow?”
“Escape? We’re completely surrounded! They’ve got rocket launchers, Patrick. You’ve got to come help us!”
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Melissa said. “What did we miss?”
“I called you the second I turned it on,” Forrest said.
“I’m sorry, Val. We’ll be lucky to save ourselves. I’m hoping they’ll let us go once they see we’ve left the food behind. We’re pulling out right now. Gotta go. Good luck to you!”
“Patrick, no!… Patrick, are you there?… Patriiiick!… Patriiiiiiick!”
“Turn it off,” Ulrich said. “Turn it off, Oscar.”
“Patrii—”
“But… but what the hell happened?” Melissa demanded, clearly crestfallen, her eyes darting between the three men.
“They’ve obviously been talking back and forth in the blind for some time,” Forrest said sadly. “Broadcasting for anyone and everyone to listen in. They were naive.”
“But… what does that mean?”
“It means that someone’s been triangulating their individual signals,” Ulrich explained. “Someone with the resources, the muscle, and the patience to arrange a simultaneous assault.”
“And that’s why we don’t talk to anybody without a damn good reason,” Forrest said. “There are just enough people left alive out there to finish killing each other off.”
“That’s sick!” she said in disgust. “They weren’t hurting anybody! They were just… they were just trying to survive.”
“This is also why we don’t relate every contact to the other women,” Ulrich added, having already discussed the matter of Melissa monitoring the radio in great detail with Forrest earlier that morning, right down to the part about her smarting off, the two of them agreeing to wait and see whether she would apologize. “Too many of these disappointments would irreparably damage morale. So understand that you’ve been trusted with something very important here today.”
With effort, Melissa broke eye contact with him long enough for a glance at Forrest, who confirmed what Ulrich had said with a nod. “You guys knew this would happen,” she said quietly, looking at the floor.
“No,” Forrest said. “But now you see the trouble we could have been in had we joined in on their conversation last night. It’s possible we could have brought this same kind of hell down on ourselves—even though it’s likely the triangulation had already been done.”
“But not necessarily,” Vasquez warned.
“Those women are gonna be… they’ll be raped, won’t they?”
“Let us hope not,” Ulrich said quietly. “There are alternatives.”
She stood looking at the three men. “So I should keep this a secret?”
“What do you think?” Forrest asked.
“I think we’re just buying time down here,” she replied, suddenly feeling a new kind of heaviness.
“Do you want the others to start believing that? To start dwelling on it?”
She shook her head. “I won’t say anything. I don’t feel good. I think I’m gonna go take a nap.”
“Okay,” Forrest said. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”
“Yeah… me too.”
When she was gone Ulrich dropped down into a chair with a sigh, squeezing his temples between his forefinger and thumb. “So is the military hitting civilians now? Is that what we just heard?”
Forrest switched the set back on just long enough to make sure there was nothing more to hear and switched it off again. “I think we’d damn well better assume as much,” he said gravely. “And what’s that tell us… the military has finally degraded to the point of committing murder?”
“Men are men,” Vasquez said. “And men with guns aren’t going hungry if they don’t have to.”
“So you’d kill an innocent for his food—her food?”
“If she left me no choice,” Vasquez answered without batting an eye. “I’ve got a family to feed.”
“That’s too easy,” Forrest said. “Say it’s just you?”
“Maybe I’d split it with her, offer her a pact like we’ve made down here. Look, I’m not a murderer and I sure as hell ain’t no rapist… but a starving person doesn’t have any choice about food. Instinct will make him do what he has to do to get it.”