The Rule of Three (38 page)

“I can’t prom—”

“No, you have to promise me!”

“I promise, but if it doesn’t go the right way, then you have to promise me that Rachel and Danny are with you, that you and your family will take care of them.”

“They’ll be with us, I promise.”

“And then we’ll meet at the planned spot. Agreed?” I asked.

“Agreed.”

This time I kissed her.

*   *   *

I pulled the night-vision goggles down. Herb pulled his down at the same time. The world took on a soft green glow, and I could see the road ahead of me. I gunned the engine and we rolled down the darkened strip. Faster and faster, we were coming up to the two lights, guards holding flashlights to mark the end of the road. I wanted to be in the air well before I reached them. I gave it full gas and pulled back on the stick. We jumped off the strip and soared. I held the throttle fully open and kept pulling back.

The plane still felt sluggish. Between the protective plating that had been fitted on the plane, Herb, and the equipment and weapons we were carrying, it was well above the weight it normally would be.

I started a long, slow bank, trying to see through the darkness. If we could have waited an hour or so, there would have been a little light on the horizon instead of complete blackness. Below, looking ghostly, was my neighborhood. In the day, I could have seen the lush green plantings, the pools sparkling with water, the hundreds of secure houses, all contained within the high, strong walls that surrounded it. It was beautiful and precious and fragile and vulnerable. I couldn’t let anybody harm it or the people in there. They weren’t just my neighbors anymore—they were part of my tribe.

Herb was quiet beside me. In fact, over the past few days, he had been much quieter than usual. I knew he’d been busy supervising all parts of the whole plan, but still there seemed to be part of him that wasn’t there even when he was standing beside me. There were questions I’d wanted to ask him, but I didn’t want to trouble him when he had so much on his mind. Or maybe that was just my rationalization, because I was nervous about some of the answers I might get.

Darkness was our ally, and in a world where there was so much against us, it was nice to have nature on our side. There was one more thing that had been installed in the plane that might help. Atop the controller, a carpenter’s level had been screwed into place. The little luminous ball that glowed in the dark would show me when I was flying level. Flying low, without light and the ground obscured below, it could be the only thing that would let me know I wasn’t tilting toward the earth. We were moving slightly up, still gaining altitude.

“Are you okay?” Herb asked.

“As okay as I can be, I guess.” I paused. “Will this work?”

“It will work better than doing nothing except waiting for them to attack us. We have a chance.”

“A big chance?”

“Maybe a bigger chance than I deserve.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Herb remained silent.

“This is no time not to answer,” I said.

“I’m just trying to figure out what to say. Look, I can think of at least two dozen times I should have been dead,” Herb said. “And more than that, I can’t stop thinking that after the sort of things I’ve been part of, maybe it would have been fair if I had died.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Karma. Good things happen when you do good things. Bad things happen when you do bad things. I deserve some bad karma for all the things I’ve done.”

“I’m sure you’ve always tried to do the right thing,” I said.

“No, there were times I did things that I
knew
were wrong but that had to be done. I tried to justify it by thinking I was just following orders.”

“But you were, weren’t you?”

“Just because I was following them didn’t mean I believed they were right. Do you believe in God?” Herb asked.

I hadn’t seen that coming. “Sure, yeah, of course.”

“I’m almost afraid to believe. I’ve broken more than a few commandments in my time. If there is a God I certainly deserve to be punished.”

This was the most personal conversation I had ever had with the man, and I wanted to make sure I said the right thing. “I know that without you, a whole lot of people we just left behind on the ground wouldn’t be alive.”

“I guess we’ll see how long they’ll still be alive.”

We flew along in silence after that. I was usually the one pressing for Herb to be completely honest, and now I would have welcomed a reassuring lie and false confidence. Maybe that confidence had to come from me.

“Herb, I don’t know what you did in the past, but I know what you’ve been doing over the past couple of months, what you’re doing now. Maybe all those times you were kept alive, there was a reason, and that reason is this, here, now, to keep all of us alive.”

“That’s a nice theory, although no lives have been saved yet. In fact, a lot of lives are going to be lost tonight. There always is a reason for killing. When I was working it was us against them, and ‘they’ were the evil empire or the threat to democracy, or our way of life, or our ideals, or our very survival.”

“But this
really
is about our survival,” I said.

“Actually it’s about more than just our survival,” Herb said. “This is about the very survival of a way of life, of the ideals that we believe in. The people we’re fighting are destroyers, tearing down any attempts for civilization to ever reestablish itself. What we’re doing today isn’t just about us—it’s about so much more. Right is on our side.”

Now Herb was sounding more like his old self. “And right always wins,” I said.

“Not always, but just maybe, this time. You know, I’m an old man. I’ve lived my life. Whatever happens to me doesn’t matter that much.”

“It matters to me. It matters to my family. It matters to the people of the neighborhood. So I want you to do me a favor.”

“Favor?”

“Yeah, stay close to me so I can keep an eye on you.”

He laughed. “Since they can’t shoot down half of the ultralight, I think we have no choice but to watch each other.”

“And we’ll watch everybody else, too,” I suggested. “We’re the eyes in the sky.”

“How long before we get over the top of them?” Herb asked.

“At this speed no more than fifteen minutes.”

Timing was crucial. I knew we couldn’t arrive at our objective early or we might tip them off that an attack was coming.

I banked toward the south and reduced the throttle until it was only half open. Herb was right. There was no need for speed.

“Our objective”—it sounded so clinical, sanitary, almost harmless. It was none of those. We were going to attack a group that was four times bigger than we were, more heavily armed, better trained, and completely ruthless. We were going to sneak into their stronghold during the night and try to destroy as much equipment as possible, kill as many men, and retreat without being wiped out ourselves. The odds weren’t good, but we had surprise. They couldn’t even think that anybody would be crazy enough to attack them.

Herb had said that their strength was their biggest weakness and that we had to exploit that weakness. If we couldn’t, it would mean the death of lots of people today—and it would mean the end of our neighborhood and the deaths of most of the people who lived there.

I’d seen, up close, what these people were capable of.

Herb was right, this was more than just about
our
survival. These people had committed
evil
. We had to stop them. Or die trying.

There was a burst of light on the horizon, and then a loud explosion shattered the silence of the night.

It had begun.

42

“Hold on,” I said. “This is going to be a rough ride.”

Off to the left I could see a blaze of light and flashes of explosions. I banked sharply and aimed right for the middle of the light. I opened the throttle up full.

There was another explosion, and then one more, bigger than the first, shot up into the sky.

“It looks like our people have managed to infiltrate the perimeter defenses,” Herb said. “Those are fuel tanks going up, so they got to the vehicles.”

“Will we be there in time?”

“Just get me close enough and low enough to do some damage.”

I dropped down and leveled off at around fifty feet.

“Just about perfect. We can afford to come in low because they won’t be expecting an attack from above.”

We were closing in fast. Along with the light from the fire there were bursts of light—guns being fired—and headlights sweeping this way and that as vehicles were swerving around inside the compound.

Herb had pulled up the bag, placed it on his lap, and opened it. I couldn’t see inside, but I knew what it contained. There were two dozen hand grenades and another dozen Molotov cocktails—simple bottles of gasoline with a wick. Herb would light them and drop them, and they’d set fire to whatever they landed on. It was great to have this arsenal of explosives and flammables—unless a bullet hit one of them before it was dropped. Then we’d be instantly incinerated. At least it would happen so fast it wouldn’t even have time to register before we were dead.

We were now so close that the sounds of gunfire punctuated the roar of the engine. There was a hailstorm of bullets flying through the air—just hopefully none of them high enough to hit us.

Flames were shooting up into the sky, some almost as high as we were flying. It was so bright that I could clearly see figures running around, scrambling away from vehicles and buildings that were on fire. We were coming in at full speed, but it was as if everything were slowing down. Herb had the bag on his lap and two grenades in his right hand. As we raced overhead he pulled a pin and dropped a grenade, and then did the same with another and another and—

The light from the explosions reached us before the noise.

I pulled up and banked hard, both hands gripping the yoke to stabilize us as we were rocked by another explosion. Herb tossed more grenades over the side, and the sounds of explosions overwhelmed the roar of the engine. We sailed away from the light and were swallowed by the predawn darkness.

I took a glance over my shoulder as I continued the curve. I could see the whole scene playing out. There were more flames, more light, and more chaos.

“Do you want me to make another pass over the compound?” I asked.

“No. Come along hard and high. I want you to come in right over the top of the road,” Herb said. “Do you see those lights?”

“I see so many.”

“There are vehicle lights, going along Burnham. That’s them chasing after our squads.”

“Where are our people?”

“Somewhere in front of those lights, driving as fast as they can, or scrambling on foot to disappear into the surrounding houses,” Herb said. “Catch those lights. I want to get to them before they get to the first ambush site.”

I wanted that, too. I banked hard. If we could stop them in their tracks they couldn’t pursue our people, or even get to where my mother and her squad were waiting in ambush. Todd was with that group. They had been situated to protect the retreat of the attacking squad led by Brett. I could picture Brett down there acting like an action hero. I was grateful to have him on our side.

The compound came into full view off to the left as I completed the turn. I could see dozens of vehicles and half as many buildings on fire.

“As you close in on the vehicles I want you to come in low and slow,” Herb said. “They’ll be so focused on the chase that they won’t be expecting to be attacked from the air and from behind.”

I straightened out as we came over the road. There were seven or eight vehicles up ahead. Despite being almost at full throttle I wasn’t closing very fast. Our extra weight was slowing us down.

“How soon before they hit the spot where the ambush is going to happen?”

“Soon. Less than two miles,” Herb said.

We’d catch them before that. We were coming up to the last truck in their convoy. If they looked back and up they’d see us and we’d be a sitting duck—or at least a low-flying duck. I had to hope that Herb was right about the surprise.

I pulled back on the stick, gaining some more height and slowing us down in the trade-off. Herb wanted me to come in slow, anyway. The altimeter read seventy-five feet.

My eye was distracted by a flash of light. I looked over. Using a little cardboard box as a windshield, Herb had sparked his lighter and lit the wick on three Molotov cocktails. Now we’d no longer be invisible in the dark sky.

“Get me closer.”

I pushed down on the stick until we were right over the top of the last truck, keeping exact pace with it. Then Herb dropped the flaming cocktail and as I shot ahead there was a burst of light from behind and the plane was bathed in the glow. We kept on flying, passing the second truck and a third, as Herb dropped his other two gas bombs over the side, followed quickly by a couple more grenades. The explosions and percussion waves pushed against the plane, bucking and rocking us.

The rear lights of the trucks ahead blazed as the two lead trucks slammed on their brakes and the three cars behind smashed into the back of them.

We raced past the first truck and were caught in the upper edge of its headlights. I pulled up, trying to avoid the glare, and gunned the accelerator.

Herb lit another Molotov cocktail and dropped it over the side. I could picture it shattering and exploding onto the road beneath us.

“I want them to think hard about going any farther,” Herb said.

He lit another one and dropped it to the pavement.

“Take one more pass,” Herb said. “But this time they’ll be looking for us to come in head-on. We’re going to hit them from the side.”

I banked sharply to the right. I wasn’t positive, but I figured they might have seen my turn. That meant that if anything they would be expecting us to come in from the north. I wasn’t going to do the expected. Herb had said the side, but he didn’t say which side. I reduced the turn. I was going to go long and curve completely around them in a big circle so that I could attack from the south. As I continued to bank there were a number of pools of light on the road. Two were the Molotov cocktails Herb had just dropped on the road itself. The others had to be trucks on fire. There were no more headlights. The drivers had finally figured out that they should turn them off, and with my goggles there was still enough light on the road for me to see the darkened shapes moving along …