Purge of Babylon (Book 3): The Stones of Angkor

by Sam Sisavath

  “That’s the way he wants it,” she said.

  She watched Will through the windshield, waiting for the gas inside the GMC to finish transferring over to the F-150. She could see the outline of Zoe’s head in the front passenger seat, probably still fuming.

  “That’s what he wanted last time,” Nate said, “but you followed him out here anyway.”

  “He also made a good point.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Take you to Song Island before you bleed to death.”

  “I won’t bleed to death, Gaby. Zoe made sure of that. If you want to go where Will goes, I’m good with it.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Why?”

  “Why are you so nice to me? Besides the fact you’re desperate to get into my pants, I mean.”

  He chuckled. “What, that’s not enough?”

  “No,” she said, still serious. “Why the devotion to someone you’ve only known for one day?”

  “A day and a half.”

  “Don’t deflect the question.”

  “That wasn’t my intention.”

  “Answer the question,” she pressed.

  “Because you’re…you.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Besides the physical appearance—which is pretty damn spectacular, big nasty looking gash on your forehead and an outrageous amount of scars and bruises notwithstanding—”

  She had to smile at that.

  “—the rest of you is pretty awesome, too.”

  “Like what?” she said.

  “You’re really making this difficult.”

  “What about me specifically makes you willing to risk your life over and over again? It can’t be just the potential for sex.”

  He sighed. “The first time I saw you, I thought you might be it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know. It. The one. The girl I’ve been waiting for.”

  She was speechless.

  Nate laughed. “Oh, shit, now you’re going to make fun of me, aren’t you?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “No?”

  She shrugged. “I asked, and you answered.”

  “So…”

  “So, what?”

  “So…that’s it?” He gave her a strange look. “I confessed that the only reason I’ve been following you around like a lost puppy is because I have this totally abstract notion of you being ‘the one,’ and all you can do is shrug?”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Well, say something.”

  “Thanks?”

  “That’s it?”

  “I told you, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Hunh,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I would really like to kiss you right now, but I’m afraid you might punch me.”

  “I probably would.”

  “See?”

  “If it makes you feel any better, the old me would be sucking face with you right about now.”

  “Damn, really?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Dammit.”

  She smiled, then opened the door. “I’ll be right back.”

  She climbed out of the Mustang and walked over to Will. He looked up from the gas tank as she approached.

  “You’re still here,” he said.

  “We decided we’re coming with you.”

  “Gaby…”

  “Nate’s fine.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “Yes.” Gaby leaned through the open F-150 window and looked across the front seat at Zoe. “How’s Nate? The truth.”

  Zoe looked confused by the question. “He’s fine. Why?”

  “Is he in any danger of bleeding to death anytime soon?”

  “Unless he plans to get involved in a gladiator fight, then no.”

  Gaby looked back at Will. “He’ll be fine. We’ll keep back, stay in support. Besides, if I go back without you, Lara is going to kill me.”

  “No, Gaby,” he said.

  “Why the hell not?”

  He motioned for her to follow him. She did, and he led her almost to the very end of the parking lot. She glanced back at Zoe, realizing it was because he didn’t want the other woman to hear. Zoe had apparently come to the same conclusion, because she stared curiously after them.

  “What is it?” she asked in a softer voice.

  “I’m going to do some recon,” Will said. “That’s all. The truth is, I’m better on my own.”

  “What about the doctor? You’re taking her with you.”

  “She’s a necessity.”

  “For what?”

  “In case it gets FUBAR.”

  She knew what that meant. FUBAR. Fucked Up Beyond All Reason. Military jargon for when everything you planned went completely awry. Will was doing what he always did. Hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.

  “She’s my bargaining chip,” Will continued. “But I can’t keep an eye on her and at the same time worry that Nate is going to bust a stitch and bleed to death. Even if it’s unlikely, the possibility exists. Besides, I need you to go back to the island and tell Lara I’m fine.”

  “And you’re just doing recon,” she said doubtfully.

  “That’s it,” he nodded.

  “No hero stuff?”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  “You were never in the Scouts.”

  “Let’s pretend I was.”

  She stared at him, trying to read his face. He looked back at her, as cool and calm as he always was. Unflappable. Unreadable.

  Like I could ever read him.

  Gaby looked back at Zoe. “Can you trust her?”

  “No,” Will said without hesitation.

  “But you’re willing to risk it anyway.”

  “I need to know.”

  “Need to know what, Will?”

  “What the hell they’ve been doing out here. Not just in the camps, with the pregnant women, but in these towns they’re taking over. I need to know if we can fight it, or if we even should.”

  “If we even should? What does that mean?”

  “Things have changed, Gaby. The world’s changed while we hid on the island. Why do you think they haven’t attacked us in three months?”

  “Josh seemed to think it was because of him.”

  “Josh is delusional,” Will said. “They haven’t been attacking us because we don’t matter to them. What’s a handful of humans trapped on an island compared to what they’ve been doing in these camps? We’re insignificant. That’s why they haven’t bothered.”

  “Josh said the camps were just the start.”

  “That’s what worries me. What’s on the other side of the camps?”

  “The towns.”

  “Yeah. The towns. I need to know for sure.”

  She couldn’t blame him. The same questions had been bugging her ever since she learned what was going on in the camp. And that wasn’t even the end of the line. There were the towns…

  “All right,” she said. Glancing over at the Mustang, she saw Nate curiously watching her back. “I’ll take Nate on ahead to the island. What should I tell Lara when I make contact?”

  “Tell her I’ll be back by tomorrow. Later this evening, if everything works out.”

  “Right,” she said, smirking back at him. “Because things have always worked out great for us in the past.”

  CHAPTER 28

  WILL

  HE DIDN’T MOVE from the Phillips 66/Burger King until nine in the morning, about an hour after Gaby and Nate had left in the Mustang. When his watch clicked over to nine, he turned on the F-150 and pointed it out of the strip mall and back toward I-49 in the distance.

  Zoe sat quietly in the front passenger seat through most of the trip. She didn’t speak until they were almost at the highway.

  “You’re going to follow them to the town, aren’t you?” she finally asked.

  “What ma
kes you say that?”

  “All those questions last night.”

  “I guess there’s a reason they gave you a medical diploma.”

  She snorted. “Are you always this much of an asshole?”

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  He turned left, merging back onto I-49 and slipping into the mostly barren northbound lane. They were the only thing moving for miles, which both comforted and concerned him. The fact that Josh hadn’t bothered to pursue them remained in the back of his mind. He had hardly slept at all last night, and had spent most of it listening for the sounds of car engines that never showed up.

  What are you doing out there, Josh?

  “So who’s Lara?” Zoe asked.

  He thought about not answering.

  “I’m just going to keep asking,” she said.

  He sighed. “She lives on the island.”

  “Is she your wife?”

  “No.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess? So you don’t know?”

  “I haven’t really thought about it.”

  “Oh no? I bet she has. A lot. That’s what we do, you know. We think about these type of things.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Wow, you must have majored in asshole in college.”

  “Greek history.”

  “Greek history?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You majored in Greek history in college? That was unfortunate.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t talk much, huh?”

  “No.”

  “So Lara likes the strong, silent type, is that it?”

  “You’d have to ask her.”

  “Is that your way of telling me you won’t kill me after this?”

  “I’m not going to kill you, Zoe.”

  “No?” She stared at him for a moment, as if trying to gauge his trustworthiness. “I can take that to the bank?”

  “Why do you think I’m going to kill you?”

  “How the hell should I know. I never met you until yesterday, and back then you were named Givens. I don’t know anything about you. Why you’re doing what you’re doing, or how you could so cold-bloodedly shoot those two men back in the tent.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “You could have wounded them.”

  “Too risky.”

  “You’re good at it,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “The killing part.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I guess everyone has something they’re good at,” she said, turning her head into the breeze outside her open window. “So why Greek history?”

  “What do you have against the Greeks?”

  “Nothing. Some of my best friends are Greeks.”

  “Is that right?”

  “No.”

  “Hunh.”

  “You’re a real conversationalist, Will.”

  *

  HE WENT BACK to Sandwhite Wildlife State Park, but this time he didn’t take the off-ramp. Instead, he stopped a half kilometer from the exit and climbed out, then scanned the flat, gray concrete highway for signs.

  Zoe looked at him strangely when he settled back into the Ford twenty seconds later. “What are you doing back here, Will? Do you have a death wish?”

  “Not the last time I checked.”

  He put the F-150 in drive and continued up the highway.

  “So what are we doing back here?” she asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  “Great. Another surprise. You’re full of them, aren’t you?”

  “You have a very acerbic sense of humor for a doctor.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m just trying to piss you off.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Not working?”

  He shrugged and kept driving.

  He didn’t stop again until he had almost passed Sandwhite completely, and only when he saw another on-ramp. He put the truck in park, climbed out, and saw what he had been looking for.

  Large tire tracks caked in mud, curling from the on-ramp and onto I-49 heading northbound. They weren’t quite faded yet, so they weren’t more than a few hours old. The tracks overlapped, but not so much that he couldn’t tell there was more than one vehicle driving in a convoy. He guessed Josh was using either all or most of the military five-tons he had seen back at the camp.

  Will climbed back into the Ford.

  “Tire tracks,” Zoe said. “From the big transport trucks. You’re using the mud falling off them to track them. You’re smarter than you look.”

  “I’m sure there’s a compliment in there somewhere.”

  “They’re not going to last, you know. The tracks.”

  “They’ll last long enough. I don’t see Josh moving that many people for that long of a distance. Like you said, it can get pretty hot in the back of those transports.”

  “How did you know they would be heading north and not south toward us?”

  “South takes them back into Lafayette. There aren’t any towns big enough to settle everyone at the camp between here and the city. There was always only one direction for them to go—north.”

  “You really are smarter than you look,” she said.

  Will grunted and drove on.

  *

  IT WASN’T HARD to track the trucks. The trails were visible from the high perch of the F-150, and he drove for thirty minutes or so, doing forty-five miles per hour because of the lack of traffic. After a while, the tracks turned right onto an off-ramp, then merged onto State Highway 106.

  “Have you been here before?” he asked Zoe.

  She shook her head. “No. But like I said, they have camps and towns everywhere. I’m sure there are more that I don’t even know about.”

  He drove along the two-lane state highway for another ten minutes, passing mostly overgrown farmland, with the occasional stables or abandoned silent tractors, reminders that at one point people used to live and work here. Wild grass had begun to reclaim the land, and as soon as the buildings were covered up, there wouldn’t be any reminders at all that man once tilled them.

  He passed a small bayou and kept going for another ten minutes. Houses began cropping up on both sides of the road. A pair of two-story farmhouses, one white and one slightly brown—or maybe it was faded or dirty white—stood next to each other.

  Soon, the tracks told him to turn left along a new stretch of state highway.

  More farmland, until he saw smoke rising in the distance. Will slowed down and, purely out of habit, pulled over to the side of the two-lane road.

  There were three columns of smoke drifting lazily into the air farther up the road—two kilometers, give or take. Close enough for the sound of a car engine to be heard, especially with so few noises, except for the chirping of birds and clicking of crickets around them. He thought about Josh and how smart the kid was. An ambush or two wouldn’t be out of the question.

  “The town,” Zoe said. “Looks like you found it.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “So what now?”

  Will looked around at his surroundings.

  More overgrown farmland, a long ditch, and the bayou curving slightly to his left before evening out to run parallel with the road again. He remembered passing a couple of farms back down the road.

  “When was the last time you went for a walk, doc?”

  *

  LIKE MOST BARNS in rural America, the one he chose was painted red, with a slightly burnt orange shade. It was wide and long, and he had no trouble driving the Ford F-150 inside once he opened the large twin front doors.

  There was enough darkness inside to worry about ghouls hiding in the shadows, forcing him to spend a few minutes poking around the old bales of unused hay on the first floor. He started breathing through his mouth against the metallic mold smell, stepping around spores along the back walls and floors that were visible in the bright pools of sunlight spilling in through
holes that pockmarked the building. He finished by climbing up the rickety steps to the second floor and scanning in a complete 360.

  Satisfied, he returned to the Ford and slipped on his pack, then shouldered the M4A1.

  Zoe followed him out of the truck. “Are you going to kill me, Will?”

  “You already asked me that.”

  “I wanted to make sure you hadn’t changed your mind.”

  “No,” he said. “I promise, I’m not going to harm you, Zoe.”

  He pocketed the key fob and left the barn. After Zoe followed him out, he swung the big wooden doors closed, then made sure the latch caught.

  “I don’t know what you expect to find here,” Zoe said. “It’s a town. With people. What else is there to see?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Oh, clever.”

  He started off, Zoe following behind him. He expected her to bolt at any moment, take her chances anywhere but with him, but she didn’t. Instead, she followed him quietly, the only noise coming from her footsteps.

  Will glanced at his watch: 10:45 A.M.

  He pointed them toward the smoke, keeping to the field of tall grass along the roads for cover.

  “I should have worn hiking shoes,” Zoe said behind him.

  “Stop complaining.”

  “Says the guy with boots. I only have tennis shoes.”

  “Tennis shoes are all-purpose.”

  “Not when you’re walking across farmland. What kind of shoes does Lara wear?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You don’t happen to have a pair of boots in that bag, do you?” she asked.

  “I had a pair of shoes I picked up for Lara, but I had to throw them away.”

  “Boots?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad. I could use a pair of boots. Even those clunky army boots. Tell me about Lara.”

  He ignored her.

  “Come on, you know you want to. Is she pretty? Blonde? Brunette? Probably pretty. I also bet you have a thing for blondes, don’t you?”

  He pretended he couldn’t hear her.

  “Who doesn’t like blondes? Everyone likes blondes. You wanna ask me if I’m a natural blonde?”

  He didn’t.