The Fires of Atlantis (Purge of Babylon, Book 4) (39 page)

“We’re sorry about your friend,” the woman, Annie, said.

“Friend”?
Gaby thought, then,
Oh, she’s talking about Donna.

“Thanks,” Gaby said, and wondered if Claire had deduced the same thing.

Gaby looked over her shoulder and out the back window.

Two trucks—the “technicals”—were coming up the road after them, but they weren’t going to catch Danny anytime soon. At least, she hoped not. After surviving Harrison and reuniting with Will and Danny, the idea of having all of that ripped away now was too difficult to stomach.

Will looked into the backseat and observed her for a moment.

“What?” she said.

“How’s the face?” he asked.

“It hurts. What do you think?”

He smiled, then took something out of one of his cargo pants pocket and tossed it to her. “Something for the pain.”

She caught the bottle. It didn’t have any labels, and there were only a few pills left when she opened it. She didn’t ask him what the pills were because she trusted Will. Gaby swallowed two of them.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“There has to be a back road, another way to the interstate and around what’s waiting up there.”

“And if there isn’t?”

“Then we’ll do what we always do,” Will said. “Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”

“
E
veryone’s in one piece
,” Bonnie said through the radio. “I don’t know how, to be honest with you. I think one of them had a machine gun. We could hear it shooting from miles away.”

A machine gun. Jesus.

“Where are you now?” Lara asked.

“Almost home. Thank God. I can see the sun starting to set, or maybe that’s just my imagination.”

“I’ll see you when you get back.”

“Okay. Over.”

Lara put down the radio. “They’re on their way back.”

Carly moved over to the north window and peered out with her binoculars. “I see them coming down the road now. Sarah will be relieved to have them back.”

“Blaine?”

“No, Lara, she’s been nervous about Bonnie. Of course Blaine.”

Lara smiled. “I wasn’t sure.”

“Everyone’s getting some nookie these days except us.”

“Danny will be back soon and you can make up for lost time.”

“Done, and done,” Carly said. “Has Will radioed in yet?”

“Not yet.”

She looked down at her watch: 5:29 p.m. It would be dark in less than an hour, and Will hadn’t called yet. If he was on his way, he would have told her so. But he hadn’t, which meant he was nowhere close to home and was busy doing something else
(like surviving)
. For some reason, she wasn’t surprised by that. She just hoped he had spent all that time out there looking for Gaby.

No one gets left behind, Will. Find Gaby. Find her and come home to me.

“Looks like all that time you put into convincing Keo paid off,” Carly said. “How did you know he’d go for it? Or come through with flying colors?”

“I didn’t. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, remember?’

“Well, you did good, kid.”

“Only if they don’t attack us tonight.”

“You think they might anyway? Even after what Keo did with that grenade launcher?”

Lara shook her head. “I don’t know. That’s the problem. I don’t know anything for sure.” She picked up the radio again. “Roy, come in.”

“What’s up?” Roy answered.

“Blaine and the others are headed back now. I need you to get one of the fast boats ready just in case they need a hand. Grab a battery out of the supply building and get Maddie to help you gas it up.”

“Will do.”

“I heard some Russians on the radio today,” Carly said behind her.

“Russians?” Lara said.

“Yeah. They were talking to some Italians.”

“What were they saying?”

“I have no idea. The Russians were talking in Russian to the Italians, who were talking Italian back at them. It was, uh, kind of confusing for everyone, not to mention super surreal.”

Lara smiled at the thought. She’d done that. Got people around the world communicating with one another. Even if they couldn’t understand a single word the other was saying, her broadcast had connected them by letting them know there were other survivors out there. That, she found, was what they needed to hear most—that they weren’t alone.

We started something. Now all we have to do is survive it.

Yeah, no pressure.

B
laine
and the others didn’t shove off from shore on their way back to the island until five minutes after six. They were cutting it close, and Lara only allowed herself to breathe easier when they were halfway home and she could see their boat in the distance, with the sight of the sun dipping in the horizon behind them. She still didn’t feel comfortable sending people out there, and she didn’t think she ever would be.

It was beginning to darken, and still no word from Will. That meant there was no chance he was coming back today. A part of her always knew they’d have to survive another day without him. Maybe that was why she took such a big gamble with Keo.

“How many?” she asked Keo later while he was eating in the dining room.

Keo tore apart a white bass and gobbled up the meat. “Over twenty, easy. They were definitely preparing for an assault.”

“One hundred percent sure?”

He nodded. “They were loading supplies onto boats when I showed up. And they had night-vision gear.”

“Even after you killed some of them, they were still coming…”

“Like I said: they really have a bug up their ass for you people.”

Will was right. Kate’s coming, and nothing’s going to stop her.

Keo grabbed a glass of water and gulped it down and didn’t stop until he had drained the entire thing. Even Blaine and Bonnie, eating across the table from him, looked impressed. Lara exchanged a brief grin with them.

“Ice cold water,” Keo said, putting the glass down. “Worth its weight in gold these days, especially in the summer.”

Lara had already eaten with the others two hours ago, so she was the only one at the table not pulling apart fish at the moment. Blaine and Bonnie still looked a bit shell-shocked by their experience, and to hear them tell it, they hadn’t really done much except dropped Keo off, then picked him back up when the shooting started. Keo, who had been in the middle of the firefight, didn’t look the least bit fazed. At first she thought it was an act, a tough guy façade. She only had to watch him eating for a few minutes to realize that wasn’t the case.

“What happened exactly?” Lara asked Keo. “It sounded like you had to improvise.”

“There was a kid,” Keo said. “He ruined the plan.”

“We didn’t see him,” Bonnie said. “But then we had to stop the truck pretty far away so they couldn’t hear us coming.”

“Carrie told me about them,” Keo said. “The soldiers are using them as lookouts. They send the brats across the cities to look for survivors, then radio in if they find any.” Keo wiped fish oil from his lips. “I should have shot the little bastard.”

Lara and Bonnie stared at him.

“I said
should
have,” Keo said. “I didn’t, for the record.”

“So, in your expert opinion,” Lara said, “do you think you stopped them?”

“Stopped them? Not even close.” He shook an ice cube out of his glass and popped it into his mouth, crunching it loudly. “Delayed them, maybe.”

“Maybe?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know these ghouls as well as you do, so I can’t predict what they’re going to do next. I would have liked to take out more. That house, for instance. But situations being what they were…”

“The kid,” Lara said.

“Yeah. The kid.”

“They’re using children,” Bonnie said, shaking her head. “It’s hard to believe they’ll stoop that low.”

“It’s actually pretty smart,” Lara said. “Kids are impressionable. Adaptable, too.” She thought about Elise and Vera and how the two young girls had carried on despite everything they had been through. “You give them a job and they’ll glom to it. Especially if you make them think it’s the most important thing in the world. And by extension, they’re important for doing it.”

“Yeah, well,” Keo said, “I still think I should have at least stolen the little tyke’s bicycle. That was a pretty sweet-looking ride.”

“
T
here are
plenty of rooms left to choose from if you don’t like the one I picked out for you,” Lara said when she was walking with Keo up Hallway A after dinner. “This is assuming you’re at least staying the night.”

“It’s a little too dark out there to be sailing, don’t you think?” Keo said.

“I didn’t want to presume. You’ve already done more than enough to earn everything I promised you. We’re grateful. I’m grateful.”

“Are you propositioning me?”

“What?”

He laughed. “I’m just messing with you, Lara.”

“Oh.” Then, because she thought she had been blushing just a bit, “You’re anxious to get going.”

“I made a promise, and I’m way overdue.”

“She doesn’t know you’re trying to make your way over?”

“No. We didn’t exactly plan to separate. It just came up at the last minute, so we didn’t put any kind of communications system into place, the way you have with your boyfriend. You guys are a lot smarter than us.”

“We have our moments.”

“But it’s not going to last, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Regardless of how many times you push them back, delay them, or repel a full-on frontal assault. You can’t do it forever. Sooner or later, if they want this island bad enough, they’ll get it. And when that happens, a lot of people will die.”

She didn’t answer him because she knew he was right. She had spent countless days and hours thinking about it, trying to find a way out, a way that would keep them all alive. And each time she failed to see the answer. Always.

They walked in silence for a moment, the only sounds coming from their footsteps against the hallway and the slight hum of the lightbulbs.

“What would you do if you were in my position?” she finally asked.

“The odds are against you,” he said with that matter-of-fact tone that annoyed her, but at the same time she found herself grateful for because it was the
truth
—or at least, as he saw it. “Even with the Army Rangers, you won’t be able to keep the island indefinitely. I understand why you don’t want to leave. The hotel, the power supply, the beach… Hell, I’d risk it just to have ice water every day, but that’s me. I’ve survived past my sell-by date even before the world went kaput. Bottom line? There’s no reason why you and the others can’t start again someplace else.”

“Where would we go?”

“I can’t tell you that.” He paused, then added, almost reluctantly, “This island is a paradise, Lara, but it’s not worth dying for. What’s that old saying? ‘Home is where the heart is’? These days, it might be enough just to have a home that isn’t constantly under attack.”

I
t was almost
dark outside when she stepped out onto the hotel patio with Keo’s words echoing inside her head.

“The odds are against you… This island is a paradise, Lara, but it’s not worth dying for.”

Wasn’t it, though? If Song Island wasn’t worth spilling blood for (and God knew, they already had, too much), then what was these days?

She just wished Will were here with her. Right now, she would be satisfied with just hearing his voice.

She looked toward the Tower, where Carly was still posted with Jo, Bonnie’s little sister. The two of them were moving from window to window with night-vision binoculars. Lara had doubled up on the watch to improve their chances of catching an attack if Kate decided to send her collaborators anyway. It was dead quiet out there, so if they were coming by boat (which they would be—was there any other way?), even using those trolling motors, they would give away their approach.

“This island is a paradise, Lara, but it’s not worth dying for.”

Maybe. Maybe not.

Lara unclipped her radio and said into it, “Everyone in position?”

“Lake looks quiet from up here,” Carly said. “Jo and I are good to go.”

“Keo’s coming up to relieve you later tonight, Carly.”

“He’s staying?” she asked, sounding surprised.

“For tonight.” Then, “Roy?”

“Beach is clear,” Roy said.

“Piers, too,” Blaine said.

Blaine and Roy had the beach tonight, with Bonnie scheduled to relieve Roy in an hour, and Gwen for Blaine an hour after that. Not that she expected two people on the beach to repel a full-scale attack. But if they could see an assault coming, it would give them time to set up the real defense at the hotel and, if necessary, start putting Will’s Plan Z into motion.

God, that’s such an awful name for a plan that’s supposed to save our lives, Will. We need to come up with a better, more optimistic-sounding one.

“Benny?” Lara said.

“Looks good from up here,” Benny said.

Lara glanced up at the roof of the hotel behind her but couldn’t see Benny up there. He wasn’t alone; Stan the electrician and Kendra’s son Dwayne were also up there somewhere. Lara had been hesitant to make use of twelve-year-old Dwayne until she saw him shoot with his bolt-action rifle. Even Benny and Blaine were impressed. The kid was, easily, the best shot on the island. She hadn’t asked the boy if he had ever shot anyone before, because she didn’t really want to know.

She listened to the others calling out through the radio. Gwen and the fourteen-year-old Derek were with Sarah, along with Carrie and Lorelei, in the hotel lobby. They had looked nervous when she walked through the room a few minutes ago. She didn’t blame them and she wondered if they were thinking the same thing:

“We’re prepared…but are we
really?
”

She didn’t know the answer to that, and she wouldn’t know until the real thing. Lara prayed none of them had to find out tonight.

One more day. Until Will and Danny come back.

And then what? We do it all over again, because Kate isn’t going to stop. She’s going to keep coming, and coming, because what’s one or a dozen more human sellouts to her?

“This island is a paradise, Lara, but it’s not worth dying for,”
Keo had said.

Maybe he was right. Maybe…

Her radio squawked and Carly’s excited voice came through. “Lara. It’s your boyfriend on the radio. Should I tell him you’re busy?”

Lara smiled and ran down the patio, then across the grounds toward the Tower. She felt ten years old again and didn’t care.

If she was going to die tonight, at least she’d get to hear Will’s voice first…