“I’ll get a gag,” Quinn says.
He darts to the coffee corner and is soon binding a dishcloth around Sarge’s mouth. We march our prisoner over the walkway, across the open central area on the other side, and push him to his knees in front of the scanner beside the closed door.
“You okay to stay and guard him?” I ask Evyan, speaking as softly as possible.
“Oh, yeah,” she says with an evil grin.
“We’ll need to move quickly once the door is open. Any ideas what we should do when we get inside?” I ask Quinn.
Sarge rolls his eyes and shakes his head. I swear he’s laughing at us, at my pathetic attempts to lead.
“I’ll do Sarge’s finger. You go in first with your gun. But after that…?” Quinn gives me a helpless shrug.
I know what he means. He’s a data guy, and we’ve got no data. Without knowing who and what and how many are behind that door, how can we plan?
I aim my rifle at the door. Evyan presses her weapon against Sarge’s back while Quinn seizes his injured right arm, stretches it up and presses the index finger on the scanner pad. Sarge hisses in pain, but otherwise nothing happens. Quinn repeats the process with the middle finger and thumb, but the scanner’s display light glows red, and the door stays locked. Quinn stops, thinks for a moment, then hauls Sarge to his feet and gets him to position his eye over the scanner. A green light flashes, and the door opens with a soft pop.
I charge into the room, yelling, “Nobody move! Nobody move!”
In a single glance, I take in the whole room. Seven people, three of whom I know well, are seated around a long table. Automatically, my eyes scan for possible sources of danger.
Leya!
Leya, who pretended to be a sniper cadet at ASTA, who pretended to be my friend while she spied on us for Roth, is sitting on a stool in the corner of the room. Her mouth is open in shock, but her hand is already reaching for the sidearm holstered at her waist.
“Freeze!” I yell, aiming my rifle at her.
She holds her hands still, about a foot away from her body.
“Behind your head,” I say, and she reluctantly crosses her arms behind her head.
Quinn steps up to Leya and removes her firearm. He returns to my side and holds it out to me.
“Point it at them, Quinn?”
“Oh, right.”
He aims it at Leya and then at the group around the table. Of course, I know he would never shoot unarmed people, but they don’t know that.
“Just what the hell are you doing, Jinx?” Leya yells.
“At least I’m not betraying my unit by spying on them.”
“No, you’re just betraying your country,” she retorts.
“You,” I instruct the high-value target seated at the table. “Go stand next to Leya.”
Looking completely unruffled by this turn of events, Roberta Roth walks over to stand beside her agent.
Only then do I allow my gaze to travel to my twin brother, with his blond hair and blue eyes so like my own. He’s seated at the center of the table, surrounded by what must be the computer security experts who are investigating how he hacked their systems. Nearby, in her blue ASTA jumpsuit with its silver intel unit pin, Sofia sits wide-eyed and absolutely still.
“Robin! You okay?” He looks to be unharmed.
“Well, hi, Jinxy,” he says, smiling bemusedly. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”
I only just stop myself from running around to give him a hug.
“Are you going to screw this up, too?” Leya’s face twists in anger. “Do you realize that every time you impede us, you help them — the terrorists?”
“Robin, come over here, quick. And you too,” I say to Sofia. “You can be our hostage.”
I’m not sure exactly where Sofia’s allegiances lie. She may want out of ASTA, but that doesn’t mean she wants to join the rebel movement, so I’d rather leave Roth with the impression that Sofia isn’t coming willingly.
“You don’t want me as your hostage?” says Roth, tossing back her sleek black hair, with its iridescent purple underside.
I shake my head. “I’d be too tempted to murder you, and I don’t want another death on my conscience.”
At the words, “another death,” Robin cuts me a sharp glance. He doesn’t yet know that his sister has killed several plague victims, one of whom was a good friend.
“C’mon!” I tell Sofia.
“O-Okay,” she stammers convincingly, wiping a hand over the filigreed henna tattoo surrounding her eyes. “Just d-don’t shoot.”
“You are making a serious mistake here, Miss James,” says Roth. “Once again, you are acting like a very silly little girl.”
“I thought you said I wasn’t just a girl, that I was a combatant in the war against terror,” I say, throwing her own words back at her.
“It seems we failed utterly to install a correct mindset in you,” Roth continues. “You were supposed to be on our side fighting the terrorists, not on their side opposing us.”
“I’m not on their side,” I say, gesturing to Robin and Sofia to stand behind me, and to Quinn to hold Sofia’s hands behind her back as though she truly is our prisoner.
“War is coming, and we need to be ready for the fight. You should be supporting your country in any way you can,” Roth says.
“It isn’t that simple,” says Quinn.
“You are such fools! You’d be a joke if you weren’t doing so much damage to our country,” Leya says.
“Have you ever thought about how what you’re doing is damaging this country? Betraying everything our Constitution stands for?” Quinn snaps.
Oh, Quinn, are you really still trying to convert them with logic and integrity?
I gesture to the tech-heads to move to the side of the room where Leya and Roth stand, and when I see that one of the older men is trembling and has tears in his eyes, a pang of guilt stabs at me.
“Just do as I say and you won’t come to any harm,” I tell them all.
“No harm,” Leya mocks. “People like you make me sick. Newsflash — there isn’t any way to win this war without causing harm! You can’t fight killers by being nice and kind and understanding. You can’t keep your hands clean.”
“So we’re supposed to fight dirty? We’re supposed to become as bad as them?” Quinn says.
“That would take some doing! I don’t know how you can even compare us. We have a hacker who’s compromised national security, and we’re just questioning him about —”
“Yeah, you are now,” I say. “But in a few hours you planned to do more than just question, didn’t you?” The thought of Robin in that room with the chair and the drain sends a shiver through me.
“Only if he didn’t tell us what we need to know.”
“How can you justify torturing and interrogating a kid who hacked a computer game? What gives you the right?” Quinn asks.
I see Roth and Leya exchange a glance. They’re good questions. In the mad rush to get here and free Robin, I haven’t stopped to think why they consider hacking a game to be an issue of national security.
“You’re just corrupt,” says Quinn. “You’re abusing your power to protect your profits, same as always.”
Roth shoots him a filthy look. Leya looks like she’s not above adding a physical charge to her verbal attack.
“Robin, can you tie them up with this?” I motion to the coil of wire looped over Quinn’s shoulder.
“With pleasure.”
While I keep my weapon trained on the group in the corner, Robin gets them to stand in a tight, outwards-facing circle with their hands behind their backs.
“We have to fight fire with fire.” Leya continues her tirade as Robin binds her hands behind her back, and then loops the cord around the programmer standing next to her in the same way. “Don’t you get it? There are monsters out there preying on us, committing evil deeds. Everyone lives in fear because the monsters prey on innocents, like wolves on sheep. A
nd they’ll keep doing that until someone stops them. That’s what we’re doing here — we’re finding ways to stop them, smart ways. We’re training people who will be ready to take the fight directly to the terrorists.”
Roth starts to say something — to Leya, I think — but there’s a banging at the door. I sling my rifle over my shoulder and across my back and take Leya’s handgun from Quinn. It’s a Ruger 9mm. Slim, compact and accurate, it’s a better weapon for these close quarters. I ease off the safety and hold it ready while Quinn opens the door a crack. I’m ready for an attack, but it’s just Evyan.
“What’s taking so long in there?” she says. Her eyes are fierce, and there’s a sheen of sweat on her face. “Hurry up already!”
Chapter 8
Out of the frying pan
“We’re almost done. Just keep that weapon on Sarge,” I tell Evyan, because I know he’s a trained soldier who must be searching for some way to turn this situation around. “And don’t stand so close to him, back up.”
“You’re a coward,” Leya yells. Trying to bait me into a time-wasting discussion? “You don’t want blood on your hands, but bad things happen when good people do nothing!”
“Are you still talking?” I ask.
Robin, who has finished tying up Roth and her team, now yanks the long cord out of a landline telephone and starts winding that around the group for good measure. We’re almost ready to go, but Leya is not yet finished having her say.
“You of all people should be supporting us — after what they did to your father. You should be out there avenging his death, not in here resisting our efforts. You’re a traitor to his memory!”
“Shut up about my father. You have no right to talk about him, or to tell me how I should feel, or live my life,” I snap.
My throat is suddenly tight, and my old doubts are crowding my mind. I do want to fight those responsible for my father’s death. If the terrorist who injected him with rat-fever serum was standing in front of me right now, I’d shoot him myself.
Or would I?
What would my father want me to do? What would make him proud of his daughter?
“Maybe not. But I have a right to talk about my life. See this?” Leya turns and tilts her head so that the tattoo on the outer corner of her left eye is facing me. “Ever wonder what it means?”
I’m curious, in spite of myself, in spite of the urgency of the situation.
“Cactus Rock,” she spits.
“Cactus Rock?” Quinn says the words like they mean something to him.
They sound familiar to me, too, though I can’t quite think from where.
“Yeah, Cactus Rock High. Remember that attack?”
I nod slowly. I do remember. It was right at the start of the wave of attacks. A group of terrorists posing as parents came to a basketball game at a high school in Reno, Nevada. They sealed the doors to the gym and injected dozens of kids, parents and teachers with the serum before the tactical response team arrived. The kids were taken to the hospital and examined, tested for poisons, kept overnight for observation, but no one knew about rat flu yet, and the victims weren’t quarantined. They were discharged the next morning. By the time they started showing symptoms, it was too late. They’d already infected others who were out in the city — virtual viral bombs, waiting to explode.
“I remember. I was there,” says Leya, her voice hoarse with emotion. “I was in the restroom washing my hands when the screaming started. I tried to get back to my team, my friends, but they’d jammed the gym doors shut, and I was stuck outside, close enough to hear the screams and the shouting and the begging. But not able to do a damn thing about it.”
Tears are streaming down her cheeks now.
“Leya …”
“And I was there at the hospital when my friends were dying — bleeding and screeching and falling apart. I saw it all. I saw half my class suffer and die. And there was nothing I could do about it.” She lifts a shoulder to wipe her cheek and glares back at me with blazing eyes. “I vowed never to be that helpless again. I promised to get revenge, and I will. I am. So don’t you talk to me about ‘fighting dirty’. Because I’ve seen dirty, and I don’t think we’ll beat them by playing nice.”
For a few moments we’re all still, silenced by the horror of her account.
Then Robin says softly, “I’m done here.”
For a moment I think he’s talking about the war, then I realize he’s finished tying up everyone, and has also thought to collect all their phones, which he bundles into a turquoise scarf he takes from one of the programmers.
“Time to go,” I say, nodding at Quinn to open the door.
He gestures to Robin and Sofia to leave first, then follows, leaving the door open. I can’t see Sarge from where I’m standing, but I can see Evyan. She still has the submachine gun pointed down at him.
“Bring him in here,” I say to her and Quinn.
I back up from the doorway and raise my weapon, not wanting to be within grabbing distance of Sarge when he enters. While I wait, I try to think of something to say to Leya. I know she won’t want my pity or attempts at consolation.
In a way, we’re similar, she and I. We both lost people we cared about to the plague, we both hold the terrorists responsible, and we both want to do something to help in the war. But Leya’s a real fighter — more of a soldier than I’ll ever be. She’s fighting the monsters who’ve attacked our nation directly, while I’m trying to prevent us from becoming monsters ourselves.
Quinn says that killing people who are killing people, to show that killing people is wrong, is a crazy strategy. And I agree, I do. But I’m still not sure I’ve chosen the right side. Hell, after my time with the rebels, I’m not sure there is a right side. I want Leya to know that I’m not her enemy.
“Leya, I’m —”
My head snaps to the side at the shot that comes from outside the office.
I’m out the door in the same instant, taking in many things at once — Evyan, uselessly pulling on the trigger of her weapon; Sarge in a half-crouch amidst a litter of cellphones, holding a handgun awkwardly in his blood-slippery left hand; Robin collapsing, clutching his shoulder, where a bloom of vicious red is spreading. Quinn is stepping toward Sarge with his hands outstretched. Sarge is unsteadily raising his weapon.
Instinct takes over. It’s instinct which calculates that Sarge’s shot will hit Quinn square in the chest. It’s instinct that lifts my arm and aims, selecting the one sure and immediately incapacitating shot. It’s instinct that pulls the trigger. It’s not me who sends a 9mm round into the dead center of Sarge’s forehead. It’s instinct.
It’s me who rushes over to Robin. It’s me who calls his name, heedless of the scuffles and yells behind me. The world narrows to this moment, to my brother, to the blood streaming out of his shoulder and his wrist.
“Robin!” I cry over and over. “Robin, please!”
His eyes open and he stares at me blankly. He’s alive. Someone pulls the weapon out of my hand, and a moment later the deafening bang of another shot jolts me from my panic.
I glance over my shoulder in time to see Quinn sending a second shot into the scanner lock mechanism. The door is sealed and won’t easily open now.
“Help!” I cry.
Sofia rushes over, grabbing the turquoise scarf from where Robin dropped it. She wraps it tightly around his wrist.
“We need to get him to a doctor, quick!” she says.
I try to get one shoulder under the arm on Robin’s uninjured side, but Quinn sets me aside gently.
“Here, you take this,” he says, handing me Leya’s handgun. I tuck it into the waistband of my jeans, behind my back. “I’ll get Robin.”
He lifts my brother over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. Sofia removes her jacket, wads it up into a ball, and wedges it between Robin’s shoulder and Quinn’s back. “You’ll need to go ahead with the weapons,” Quinn says, grabbing Robin’s bleeding wrist and squeezing tight.
The weapons! I scramble over to the door, where Sarge was when I … Where Sarge was.
He isn’t there anymore. Quinn and Sofia and Evyan must have dragged him inside the office already.
No, not him. His body.
Evyan is outside the door, holding Sarge’s weapons.
“What happened?” I demand, taking the submachine gun from her and running to get in front of Quinn, who has already started striding back to the walkway with a groaning Robin slung over his shoulder. “Where did he — where did Sarge get the sidearm from? Why didn’t you shoot him?”
Sofia runs past us across the walkway. “I’ll get the elevator.”
“That gun you left me with wouldn’t fire, I tried and tried, but nothing happened,” Evyan complains from the rear.
I glance down at the sub, see at once that the safety is still engaged. Sarge would’ve noticed that, would’ve known it would give him precious seconds in an attack. Why didn’t I think to take it off? Or show Evyan how it worked?
We cross the office on the other side of the walkway and slip into the elevator Sofia is holding open for us.
“And then,” says Evyan as the doors close and we move down, “as he got up, he reached across to his other leg, and suddenly he was shooting! And Robin had his hands up like this” — she holds her hands up against her shoulders — “and the shot went through his wrist and into his shoulder.”
Oh God. Sarge must have had the sidearm hidden in a leg holster under his pants. Why didn’t I check? I know better. I should’ve checked. Of course he would have had a backup weapon. I was an idiot not to have patted him down. I’m supposed to be a professional shooter, but I made an elementary mistake. And now my brother might die because of it.
“Robin?” I touch the back of his head, smoothing his silky blond hair.
He groans an unintelligible answer as the doors of the elevator slide open and I step out.
And come face to face with two people who know exactly who I am.
“Blue?” says the big guy with buzz-cut hair, at the same time as I say, “Bruce?”
The Recoil Trilogy 3 Book Boxed Set: Including Recoil, Refuse and Rebel Page 51
