“Six hundred and four!”
For a moment, Luke almost ordered Decker to kill him, but the fear in the counselor’s eyes was pure and uncalculated. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“I swear—”
“Lower your voice.”
“I swear, it’s true, I swear.”
“This is where Epstein brought the kids who escaped from Davis Academy two weeks ago. There were only about three hundred students in the whole school.”
“We p-p-paired them. With other children.”
“Why?”
“The academies—these kids were taken from their parents, brainwashed. Taught to hate each other. For years. They need care, help. That’s why we’re all the way out here, the middle of nowhere. Please, don’t cut me again.”
“What other children?”
“Huh?”
“You said you paired them with other children.”
“Oh. Holdfast kids. V-v-volunteers.”
Luke weighed that. It made sense; it wasn’t that different from the kind of counseling veterans with PTSD had access to. It’s a gift. It’ll make Miller’s plan twice as effective. “You an abnorm?”
“Yes. I’m a tier-four reader, with a master’s from—”
“I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to read me and think very carefully before you answer.” He leaned forward. “How badly do you want to live?”
The man stared at him. For a long moment, Luke could see him wrestling to hold on to notions of honor and duty. But abstract concepts were slippery, especially in the middle of the night with a bowie knife resting on your throat.
“What do you want me to do?”
“How many therapists are on staff?”
“Uhhh . . . about ten professionals, plus administrators.”
“If you could pick two others to survive the night, who would they be—and where do they sleep?”
Twenty minutes later, Luke and Decker had recruited a couple more therapists.
It would have been quicker, but two of them didn’t want to live as badly as Gary.
Considering how packed it was, the big dome of the gymnasium was eerily calm. The children sat on the floor, some in pairs, most alone. The ones from Davis Academy had simply lined up and held out their arms to be zip-tied, one at a time. Gary and the other two counselors had been useful; when the children saw adult faces they recognized, they’d just mutely done what they were told.
The only ones who had argued or offered resistance were the Holdfast kids. But the sight of commandos with automatic rifles had kept them in line.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Gary said, his voice trembling. “These men have promised that no one will be hurt.” He stood in the center of the gym, spinning slowly as he talked, trying not to look directly at the armed men surrounding them.
Luke walked the perimeter, taking a headcount and wondering what the academies must be like to have so cowed these kids. He remembered assemblies from his grade school days as noisy affairs, no matter how loudly the staff yelled. And those had been regular kids; these were gifted, mostly tier ones. It wasn’t just that they could do things straights couldn’t, it was that they would have known that. He’d expected them to be cocky, sure that their abilities allowed them special privilege. And even though they were young, there were more than six hundred of them against a dozen soldiers.
Of course, they didn’t know that he had no intention of hurting a child. Whatever the academies were like, the people who ran them must not have operated under the same principle. Ugly, but useful. As he’d told General Miller, they were accustomed to taking orders.
500, 502, 504.
Decker and two of the others came in from the outside in a wash of loud, cold wind. The biker nodded to Luke. Good. It was done, then. The rest of the staff had been neutralized, leaving just Gary and his fellow therapists.
The facility belonged to the New Sons of Liberty.
A wave of exhaustion rolled across Luke. No doubt the rest of the team was in the same boat; it was nearing dawn after a long day. They’d left in the middle of the night following the drone attack, and marched hard to get here, covering almost fifty miles in twenty-four hours, breaking only briefly for meals, lying in thorny scrub as they waited for traffic to clear on the roads they’d crossed, nervously eyeing gliders soaring high above them. Add to it the adrenaline of action, even action without resistance, and what he wanted more than anything was to snatch a couple of hours of rack time.
You’ve still got a long day ahead.
580, 582, 584.
They’d managed the raid because no one in the Holdfast had expected it. General Miller had estimated as many as two thousand people would desert after the drone strikes, and while many would go back the way they’d come, groups would scatter in all directions, too many to track and intercept, especially with the New Sons pushing on toward Tesla.
At least his team wouldn’t be walking back. The buses he’d seen in the parking lot, no doubt the same ones that had brought the children here, would return them to the militia quickly enough.
“I know you’re scared,” Gary said. “We all are. But it’s going to be okay. Everyone stay with your buddy and do what you’re told, and we’ll all get through this.”
598, 600, 602 . . . 603.
Luke frowned. On the first headcount, he’d assumed that someone had swapped places, or that his own tired mind had made a mistake. But either Gary had lied to him, or else a kid was hiding somewhere.
On one hand, it didn’t matter. A single child wouldn’t make a difference. But if the kid was bright enough to try to reach a phone, they’d lose their advantage. The only way they were going to be able to return to the militia was if the powers that be in New Canaan didn’t realize what had happened.
As Gary droned on, Luke moved to Reynolds, the former tactical cop. He’d done well, his team taking down the guards inside the facility without alerting anyone. “We’re missing one.”
Reynolds cursed. “Want me to search?”
“No. Stay here, and stay sharp.” Luke cut around the perimeter, trying to ignore the stares of frightened children. The dome was modular, with the gymnasium being the largest section, and inflated halls led to group dorms and classrooms. The good news was that there couldn’t be too many places to hide. Doubtless he’d find the missing one under a bed.
At the door, a thought struck him, and he turned around and did another quick headcount. 2, 4, 6, 8 . . . 9. Ten counting himself.
Something in him went icy, and he unsnapped the strap on his sidearm.
The hallway beyond the gym was quiet, just the moaning of the wind against the fabric, and, faint, the sound of a voice and something that might have been a whimper. Luke started out as swiftly as silence would allow, then decided screw silence, and ran.
He found them in one of the classrooms, the sound of pleading coming through a zippered canvas door. The girl was blonde and crying, stretched face-first over a desk. She flopped and yanked, but she was probably sixteen, and thin. Gorecki was behind her tugging at her jeans, while one of the others, a guy out of Michigan named Healy, held both her arms in beefy hands.
When Luke ripped the door open, Healy straightened, an oh shit look on his face. Gorecki turned awkwardly, his pants around his ankles to expose his weapon.
For a moment they all stared, Luke and his teammates and the girl too, her head turned sideways and tears streaking her face.
Gorecki said, “She’s just a twist, man.”
Luke thought of his boys, his fine sons, burning alive. Josh burning in the sky, Zack burning in his tank. Soldiers, both of them. Both murdered by abnorms, by the work of a tier-one computer programmer. A tier one like this girl.