"Were they looking for us?" Dee said.
"Don't know," Ellie said. "But it might behoove us to call it a day."
It was only another hour till dusk. She was cold and wet, and after hiding on the ice, her palms and knees had gone numb. She headed dead east out of the park and continued to Madison, putting some buildings between them and the Kono-roamed fields, then headed north toward their apartment.
Back "home," they stripped off their wet clothes. Ellie had walked a hole in one of her socks. She wadded it up and flung it in the bin they'd set up in the corner of the front room. She was down to just two decent pairs; the skin on her toes was soggy and white and one of her old blisters had sloughed off, showing tender pink skin. The apartment had socks, but they were white Hanes athletics, thin and flimsy. Should go search the other apartments. She knew that. But the energy wasn't there.
She wrenched apart a loaf of bread and handed half to Dee. They had no way to warm it and no butter. They sprinkled salt and poultry spices on it instead. It took a long time to chew; Ellie had to soften each bite with saliva before swallowing. After the sun went down, they moved to the back room, which was the only one without windows, and lit candles Ellie had taken from a Bed, Bath, & Beyond. They were peach-scented.
"I figure we've searched about half the park," Ellie said. "Could finish it in another couple days."
"If the Kono don't grab us first," Dee said.
"We could back off for now. Let things cool down, then pick up again after New Year's."
Dee's jaw was planted on her knees and when she spoke the rest of her head flapped strangely. "What if we just went home?"
"For the time being?" Ellie said. "Or..?"
"For the winter. If we come back after the snow melts, we can bring a wagon. All the food we need. No more stupid wet socks."
She gazed at the flickering pink-orange candle. "Do you want my opinion as your mother? Or as an investigator?"
"I don't think Quinn and the sheriff need a mother."
"Then here's the deal. If we leave, there's a good chance we'll never come back."
Chin planted on her knee, Dee rocked her head to the side. "Why wouldn't we?"
"Imagine us four months from now, when the weather's not so bad. We'll be three hundred miles away at the lake. Sowing the fields. Planning how we can afford a cow or a pair of goats. It won't be easy to interrupt that for another trip back here."
"I think I'll be more interested in getting my fiancé back than a new goat."
Ellie shrugged one shoulder. "The point is you'll be removed from him in time and space. Psychologically, too. We'll be mired in our regular routines. Pulling ourselves away from that will take motivation and effort."
"I'm not going to give up after four months! I've spent longer than that looking for my favorite pair of jeans."
"Then how long until you do give up?"
Dee's face scrunched in disgust. "Never."
"Really? Next winter, you'll be back down here? What about five years from now? When you turn thirty, and it's been more than ten years since the last time you saw Quinn, you're still going to be interrogating park-farmers who answer the door with a shotgun? You'll never look at another man again? That's how you want to spend your life?"
Dee blinked, knocking tears down her cheeks. "Why are you saying this?"
Ellie lowered her voice. "Because your life will move on. Sooner or later, once the guilt of the idea has faded, everyone stops searching. So when you talk about going home for now, I want you to be very, very clear about the decision you're making. Do you want to keep searching? Or do you want permission to stop?"
"I want to find him," Dee said. "But I don't want to lose anyone else."
"That's the other factor."
"Then it all comes down to the leads, doesn't it? So long as we have a good one, we keep looking. But if they dry up, staying here means risking ourselves with no plausible hope of success."
"That would be my decision-making process." Ellie aimed a small smile at the peach-scented candles. "But there are those who would consider me a cold hard bitch."
"It makes sense." Dee rocked forward and back, chin on her knee, gazing across the dim room. "But if we finish the park and still haven't found them, I'm not sure I'll be ready to leave."
"Not everything you do has to make sense. Just understand when you're not so you can snap back to reality if things get rough."
Dee didn't say more. Ellie went to the windows overlooking the park. She had tried to keep herself focused on the narrow edge of their search, on the actual locating of first Quinn and now the sheriff, but Dee had veered onto ground that had been neglected for too long. A search was only useful so long as it was moving forward. It was never easy to quantify these things, and a personal matter was leagues different than a professional one, but if she'd been handed this case to view through the prism of the DAA, she would be on the verge of calling it off.
She might give her agents the leash to continue a canvass of the park. But with the Kono on their heels, no hard proof the original subject was in the city, and the loss of an agent during the course of the investigation, the leash would end there. She would cut their losses, pull back, and engage more passive, low-risk methods. Hire a local such as Nora Ryan to keep an eye out for Quinn while she and Dee resumed their lives at Saranac Lake. Maybe pay another visit to Kroger and let him know they'd pay handsomely for a very specific ALP.
It was never easy to admit defeat. But Ellie didn't take such things personally. The world was too big and messy to control its every corner. In another day or two, when they wrapped up the park, she would propose they pull back. Dee's thinking was already halfway there. It wouldn't take much to prompt her to the right decision.
She slept through the night. They ate and dressed and hiked into the park. Dee was quiet. Ellie didn't push her. The day before, she'd focused the canvass around Turtle Pond, hoping that someone had witnessed the sheriff being marched away, but that had been a bust. Today, she took them northward, where winter wheat grew under softball backstops and the palatial Met rested on the eastern border.
She heard the first shots while she stood in the dirt in front of a cabin door. Nothing too alarming. They were at least a half mile south, and gunfire wasn't exactly a rarity on the island. She sighed inwardly and knocked again. Half the residents never answered, either because the homes were abandoned or they had no interest in whatever Ellie was peddling. She hadn't been keeping track of which homeowners had actually come to the door. It wasn't impossible that Quinn was being kept in one of the shacks they'd already visited.
After a third try, she walked across the converted softball field to the next cabin over. More shots erupted, still distant and southward. Ellie turned for a look. To the southwest, black smoke boiled from the trees. Six shots counted off one after another.
"Mom?" Dee said.
She hitched her rifle up her shoulder and reversed course for the boathouse. "Better warn Nora."
"What is it?"
"My guess? That war we keep hearing about."
Shots popped a couple times a minute. Locals emerged from their cabins and gazed at the smoke rolling from the other side of the park. Whenever they caught sight of Ellie, they stiffened, heads swiveling to watch her go.
Ellie emerged from a stand of trees and jogged across the grass to the boathouse. The door opened before she got there. Nora beckoned them inside and locked the door behind them.
"What's happening out there?"
"I don't know," Ellie said. "I just wanted to make sure you were aware. We'll leave if you want."
"You can stay." Nora smiled wryly. "Won't hurt to have another couple of guns around."
They gathered at the windows of the back porch to watch the land across the lake. Nora had sent her kids downstairs with strict orders to stay put. She cracked one of the windows to better hear whatever was happening.
"There can't be that many," Dee said. "They're hardly doing any shoot
ing."
Ellie nodded. "Maybe the other side isn't shooting back. Or there is no other side."
Nora took half a step back from the window. "You think they're attacking the farmers? That's crazy. The whole island depends on them."
"Which makes them an especially fat target."
Without warning, the gunfire increased tenfold. Shots rang back and forth, concentrated bursts followed by snipers' measured fire.
Ellie got a bad feeling low in her stomach. "If this keeps up, do you have somewhere you can go?"
Nora shook her head slowly. "All my friends live right here."
"Our apartment is right across the street," Ellie said. "No heat or running water, but at least it's out of the park."
The firefight roared on.
"This is ridiculous," Dee said. "Why doesn't the government stop it?"
Ellie stared at the flat gray water. "For all we know, that is the government."
Movement across the lake. Ellie pushed her nose close to the window. Along the top of the red terrace, a line of people walked eastward. She raised her binoculars. Most of the people carried weapons, but some of the young men appeared to be unarmed. They walked steadily, but without extreme haste.
A heavy hand knocked on the door. The three women whirled. Silently, Nora moved inside the kitchen and grabbed a rifle from a rack inside the door.
The knock repeated. "Open the door! For your own safety!"
"If you want to open it, we'll cover you," Ellie whispered.
Nora nodded. They crept into the front dining room. Ellie and Dee knelt behind one of the sheets hanging from the ceiling to partition the sprawling eatery. Ellie got out her 9mm and switched off the safety.
The man knocked a third time. Nora moved behind the door. "Excuse me if I'm not eager to open up."
"Ma'am, my name is Brian Devereaux," the man said. "I'm with the Kono. Distro gangsters have attacked the park. We're moving everyone to a safe place until we can secure the grounds."
"What happens if I want to stay?"
"Then we can't be responsible for your safety."
"I've done all right for myself up till now," Nora said. "But thanks for your concern."
The man went silent. After a moment, his footsteps crunched away from the house.
Nora laughed nervously. "Was that the right move? Maybe it's time to head to the apartment."
Ellie pushed aside the hanging sheet. "You're welcome to it. We'll take you there, but Dee and I won't be staying."
"Huh?" Dee said. "Where are we going?"
Ellie raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. "Where do you think? To find Quinn and the sheriff."
27
Ash yanked off his hat and slung it across the street like a frisbee. "Shit and shit some more. We went to the trouble of putting this fort together and now they refuse to play along? They'll be hearing about this at the next UN meeting."
"They were shooting people," the scout said. "Civilians. It's like they've gone crazy."
"When you cut off someone's head, their body tends to spazz out." Ash sighed and climbed onto the hood of a flat-tired Range Rover. "Listen up! Distro just made a big breakthrough: they realized they're a bunch of pussies who can't face us in a fair fight."
Some of the fifty-odd men and women listening laughed. He swept his hair back from his forehead, took a quick look at the sky, and went on in his high and cutting voice.
"Problem is, they know we can't sit back and wait while they execute this completely batshit plan of theirs. Third division, we're keeping you here in reserve and to hold down the fort. Fifth division, your job is to evacuate the park. Save all the farmers you like, but we've got property there that would be a real pain to replace. I want you to escort it to the safehouse. You got me?"
Heads nodded.
"Everyone else? Your job is to shoot Distro's asses like they ran off with your daughter. Let's go!"
He leapt from the hood and landed with a blast of snow. Troops whooped and rushed behind him. Lucy thought about pretending to be part of third division, but the organization was split up by area of residence, and Lucy's division—first—were those who lived directly above the bar. The real members of third would know she was faking. So she fell in with the others, in body if not spirit, jogging east in the snowy gray morning.
Anyway, being in the thick of things wouldn't be all bad. Maybe she would get a shot at Nerve.
The group ran down the street in loose columns. Scouts reported in every few blocks, but Lucy didn't see what information they were in such a hurry to deliver. Distro's gunshots told well enough where they were. And the arms of smoke reaching into the sky told exactly where they'd been.
Ash took them parallel to the park until 81st, where he stopped in the road and sent two men ahead. They came back with the all-clear.
"This is so obviously a lure," Ash said. "That means it's our job to not get hooked. Don't overcommit. We're here to save our land and workers. If you can kill a few Distro, please bring me the heads, but we'll worry about exterminating those rats once we've retaken the high ground. Got it?"
He was met with nods. Didn't sound like a real intricate plan to Lucy. She had the idea Ash was good at two things: the overarching strategy, and small raids. Not so cunning a figure when it came to battlefield tactics involving more than a handful of people on either side. She filed that intel away.
But she had to give him credit for one thing: he was bold. He jogged at the head of the columns, leading the way down the snowy, twisting paths. Shots filtered from the south at irregular intervals. Lucy hung toward the back third of the group. Pigeons fluttered in the trees. People used to jog down these paths for healthier lives and now Ash was using them to go end a whole bunch. Under different circumstances, she would have gotten a kick out of that.
Once they came within a few hundred yards of the gunfire, the fifth division split off to go door to door and get the locals evacuated. Ash stopped beside a road and spread his people out along the treeline, ready to stop any Distro advance from messing with the retreat of the farmers. The troops waited in the trees for some time. The hot, choking smell of smoke drifted across the park. Distro kept shooting. Nothing too crazy, but a fresh shot or two sounded off every minute. Either the farmers were fighting back, or Distro was cowing them—or executing them.
After five minutes of relative silence, with the fifth division away to the north, Ash stood and gestured his people onward. Their feet soughed through the snow. Smoke hazed the air, speared by the sun's faint rays; between the smoke, the clouds, the early hour, and the overhanging branches, it was hard to tell where the daylight came from. The sound of the crackling fires had both an immediate and a hushed quality, as if it might be burning from five miles away or from behind the next tree. The path curved, stretching the divisions' lines across from a series of low hills.
A shot boomed from the other side of the road.
"Contact!" a woman yelled.
Gunfire exploded from both sides. Muzzles flashed from behind trees. The Kono troops clung tight to trunks and fell prone to the snow. Lucy knelt beside a maple. Stray shots shredded the branches, dusting her with splinters of twigs. Up on the hill crosswise to her right, a man stood six feet behind a tree, hidden from those directly across from him, but exposed to Lucy. She took aim with the unfamiliar rifle and pulled the trigger. The stock jarred into her shoulder. Snow plumed and glittered behind her target. She fired again, hitting nothing. Her third pull staggered the man into the snow.
Facing limited return fire, it soon became clear they had the Distro probe outnumbered. Ash ran down the left side of the line. When he reached the end, he screamed a battle cry and his people followed him across the road into the trees at the base of the hills. Lucy joined those who stayed behind in taking potshots at the Distro soldiers as they shifted to fire on Ash's advance.
The outnumbered enemy dropped back, covering each other as they retreated through the trees. Ash turned and waved his hands at h
is people on the other side of the road. They broke cover and sprinted to join the others. Lucy lagged at the rear. The burnt-fireworks smell of gunpowder mingled with the smoke. One of the Kono had been knocked down in the initial charge and his body lay in the road, arms stretched out before him.
Lucy slowed to gaze at the body. Shots ripped into the snow beside her, ricocheting from the asphalt beneath. To the right, a wave of Distro soldiers poured in to reinforce the beleaguered front line. A machine gun rattled, whacking into the trees in front of Lucy. She threw herself beside the body and propped her rifle over its back. Her shots were wild and defensive. Distro soldiers ducked behind trees and fired back. The body thumped heavily. Blood fanned across Lucy's face.
Her heart thundered. She was pinned down. Separated. She fired at any man who broke cover, but otherwise conserved her ammo. Uphill, Distro and the Kono hammered away at each other in ferocious exchanges that went dead quiet for seconds at a time.
A thrumming force rushed past Lucy's cheek. It was gone before she understood it was a bullet. If she ran, she'd catch one in the back. If she stayed, a couple soldiers could keep her pinned while others circled around to hit her from behind. With the shouts and bangs of the main battle continuing to push south, no one would come to save her. The only people who knew where she was were the people trying to kill her.
Melted snow soaked her elbows. Her gun clicked, dry. She huddled behind the body and swapped out the magazine. She popped up for a glimpse of their movements. Rifles blared, spraying the air with bullets. Her knee slipped and she fell to her side.
And she stayed there.
Playing possum. Real American hero. But her fall had been real and in perfect sync with the shots. She lay perfectly still, snow stinging her face. A couple more rounds whisked past. Footsteps crunched, fading south to join the gunshots and screams.
She held there for several minutes. The clamor of battle grew more distant. Sounded like the Kono were doing just fine without her. With her cheek gone numb and her left leg dampened from ankle to hip, she eased her head up above the still-warm body. The trees stood by themselves. The snow was stirred with fresh footprints, but the grounds were motionless, abandoned to the dead.
Reapers (Breakers, Book 4) Page 33
