Gritting my own teeth, I kick one last time with my other foot, my free foot, right at the man’s face.
The satisfying crunch of bone, and at once he lets go of me.
Scrambling away, I run straight for the truck. The door is still open, and I jump up inside. Pressing the clutch again, turning the key, the engine rumbles to life once more and I steer the truck toward sunlight.
seventy-two
Zach lay on the concrete floor, staring at the ceiling, choking on his own blood. Somewhere beyond him, the truck’s engine faded as it headed up the drive, John Smith taking the children to safety-assuming, of course, the state trooper wasn’t waiting for them out by the highway, or someone else Tyson called as a second line of defense.
His nose was broken. His ribs were cracked. He was feeling weak. Might as well give up now. Just lay here and wait for the end. It would come in less than four minutes. It would be quick. A drone somewhere in the area, one with a missile locked on this building’s coordinates. That’s all it would take. One second the missile would be in the air, the next it would be in the building, and boom: goodbye, world.
But no-fuck that. He wasn’t ready to die just yet.
Tilting his head, coughing up blood, Zach attempted to sit up. It wasn’t easy, but he had learned long ago that nothing in life was easy. He turned his wrist, just enough to see the face of the watch. One hundred twenty seconds left. He could do this. He could. Zach knew he could. He just had to … move.
He clenched his teeth against the pain, just as he had been taught. He reminded himself that there was no pain, because there wasn’t any pain. No, of course there wasn’t. No pain, no pain at all, and he managed to sit up, bring up his knees, climb to his feet. Before he knew it, then, he was stumbling toward the garage door, holding his ribs, shuffling forward and trying not to close his eyes. Seconds later sunlight hit him and he smelled smoke and gasoline.
Someone was shouting his name.
Pausing, turning, he saw Matheson’s car flipped over onto its roof, still on fire. Hogan was halfway through the broken passenger window, trying to climb out.
Zach glanced at the wristwatch.
One hundred seconds left.
Ninety-nine seconds.
Ninety-eight seconds.
Zach started toward Hogan. He fell to his knees beside the car, all too aware that the flames might cause the car to explode at any moment.
“My leg,” Hogan said, his face scrunched up in pain. “It’s stuck on something.”
Zach lowered his head and peered inside. The driver-Matheson’s driver-was dead, secured behind the steering wheel, already half charred. Hogan’s pants had also caught on fire, but most of the fire had died out.
Hogan’s foot was secured in the webbing of the safety belt. In Hogan’s mad rush to escape the fire and possible explosion, he had managed to tangle himself.
“Hold still,” Zach shouted. He leaned in, pushing past Hogan’s bulk, and loosened the safety belt holding Hogan in place. Then he was leaning out, just as Hogan was crawling out, climbing to his feet, and then they were running, away from the building, heading toward the trees, and Zach glanced at his watch at the same moment the numbers turned to all zeros and the building behind them exploded.
The blast, even at over two hundred yards away, was enough to send them both sprawling forward. Hogan went right into the trunk of a tree. Zach tripped over a root and hit the ground. They didn’t move for the longest time. Then, slowly, they turned back to see the flames and the black smoke billowing toward the sky.
Hogan groaned in pain, touching his forehead that was wet with blood. “Wonder how they’re going to cover this up.”
Zach used the support of a low-hanging branch to pull himself to his feet. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone. The screen was cracked. He tried powering it on anyway but it wouldn’t respond.
“Your phone working?”
Hogan dug in his pocket. Then he dug in his other pocket. “Shit,” he said, struggling to his feet, “I must have lost it when the RPG hit us.”
“RPG?”
Hogan shrugged.
Zach said, “Let’s move.”
They moved. It would be another half hour before they made it out to the other side of the woods. It would be another ten minutes before they found a phone and Zach got in contact with Tyson. It would be another minute before he learned the aggravating news that John Smith had managed to slip their surveillance; even satellites had lost them. That the state trooper Tyson had sent as a second line of defense had even been shot and killed. But all of that was in the future. For now, the two men walked through the woods, away from the destruction, neither one speaking, until finally Zach couldn’t stand the silence anymore.
“So,” he said, spitting a gob of blood at the ground, “tell me more about this FBI agent.”
epilogue
They arrived in two minivans, John driving the one, Ashley the other. It had taken them a full day of driving, after having abandoned the U-Haul back in the city. They had already planned ahead for such a crisis, knowing that there was a very good chance they would be watched from the sky. And so they took the U-Haul into a parking garage, where the two minivans were waiting, and it was into these that they made their escape, leaving from two separate exits, making one circuitous route after another before they were convinced they weren’t being followed. And so then it was time to stop, get the children food, and continue on their way, through Maryland, through Pennsylvania, to a town just outside of Erie.
The house itself wasn’t so much a house as it was a mansion. Three stories tall, over fifty rooms, made completely of stone, perched on nearly twenty acres of woodland. A sign beside the drive leading back to the mansion exclaimed ST. NICHOLAS HOME FOR CHILDREN.
They parked in front of the main entrance. Off in the distance, children in gray uniforms played a game, two nuns in habits watching them.
Ashley told the children to wait. They just stared back at her. She wasn’t sure if any of them could understand her. Hardly any of them had spoken this entire time. It was almost like they didn’t know how.
Up ahead, John exited his van. Ashley opened her door and stepped out. The air was fresh and smelled of pine trees.
John forced a smile. “Ready for this?”
“I could go for a cigarette.”
“That’s probably not a good idea. The nuns might frown on smoking.”
“I’m not even Catholic.”
“Neither am I.”
“Are you sure this will work?”
“This is where Eli told me to bring the surrogates. I figure it’ll work just as well for the kids. Didn’t you see the sign out along the road?”
The main entrance doors opened then, and two nuns stepped outside and descended the steps. One looked to be in her fifties, the other in her thirties. It was the older one who spoke.
“May we help you?”
“Yes, hi,” John said, clasping his hands behind his back. “My name is John Smith. This is Ashley Walker. We were hoping to speak with Sister Catherine.”
At once, the expressions the women wore-natural smiles-faded, and their eyes turned sorrowful.
“Regrettably,” the older nun said, “Sister Catherine passed away three years ago. I’m Sister Sara. This is Sister Anne. How may we help you?”
Ashley watched John from the corner of her eye, as he assessed the situation. This certainly threw a wrench into the plan.
When the silence ensued for more than a few seconds, Sister Sara asked, “How did you know Sister Catherine?”
“I didn’t,” John said. “But I knew someone who did. His name was Eli Craig.”