There were too many hostiles. More swarmed into the kitchen and headed for the freezer. Luther lay down suppressing fire and drove them back.
“I count six more on the opposite end of the kitchen!” Luther said. “They’ve fallen back behind the stairwell!”
A hostile on the floor groaned. Liam swiveled and fired security shots into the heads of the operators on the floor. His slide locked back.
The air stank of blood, urine, and feces. Their bowels had loosened in death.
Liam dropped the spent Colt 1911 and dragged the General’s corpse off himself. With a sideways lurch, he seized a fresh carbine from the still warm but very dead hands of Dobson.
He came up on his knees and pointed the weapon at Luther. “You betrayed me!”
Luther didn’t turn around. He crouched behind the insulated wall. “I did what I had to do!”
Liam clambered to his feet. He staggered to the right of the doorway, seeking cover. He moved sideways, swiveling the carbine, and kept it trained on Luther.
Adrenaline kept him upright, but he was limping. His limbs weren’t working right. The intense pain left him shaken and lightheaded.
He tried to put it in a box and lock it away.
It didn’t work.
He’d reached the limits of human endurance. His tortured body was giving out on him.
His jaw clenched. “I should kill you.”
Luther kept his eyes on the kitchen. He fired rounds to suppress the next wave of hostiles from rushing them. “Gibbs suspected me, sniffed a trap. One of their guys searched you after I did. I knew they would. They were just waiting for me to trip up. I had to do it, act like I was playing both sides for the General.”
“Sounds like you played both sides for real.”
“I left you the tactical pen, didn’t I? No one bothered to inspect it, but I knew what it was. You’re special forces. I had a hunch you had a back-up plan. That you could figure it out.”
Liam stepped back, breathing hard. “A lot riding on a hunch.”
He fired two suppressing shots, then ducked back behind cover. “I got everyone out of the room to give you a shot. I had Baxter contact the General’s people in Lansing, to get the Secretary of State to call him. That was me!”
“You signed your own death warrant. We’re trapped.”
“We’ll find a way,” Luther said.
Several rounds struck the outside wall, hitting steel with a metallic ping. Luther fired and ducked back behind cover.
He dared a glance back at Liam. Something haunted in his eyes. “I’m going to get you out of here. For Hannah.”
Liam’s anger didn’t dissipate, but reason took hold. Luther wasn’t a snitch. Things had gone sideways—as they always did. He’d made the best of it.
Besides, Liam needed him if they were going to have a snowball’s chance in hell.
Maybe he would survive this night, after all.
A flare of hope ignited in Liam’s chest.
64
Hannah
Day One Hundred and Fifteen
The ATV raced through the countryside, jostling over ruts in the road.
Hannah leaned forward, gripping the handles, her bad hand stiff and awkward. Dark shapes whizzed by. Cold air blasted her face.
They’d taken the off-road trail to get outside the town perimeter before turning onto a rural country road. The headlights bathed the pockmarked pavement in an eerie red glow. Perez had attached a transparent red film over the headlights to keep from attracting the wrong sort of attention. The growl of the engine was enticing enough.
Luckily, it was four in the morning, and most enterprising criminals were sleeping like everyone else. Everyone not intent on invasion.
To their right, two dark shapes appeared on the front porch of a white house thirty yards from the road. Mere shadows in deeper shadows. Hannah barely registered their presence.
Perez fired a warning shot. The shadows retreated into the house.
Then the ATV rocketed past, and they turned west on Shawnee Road, tires squealing, and headed toward Stevensville.
The darkness stretched out forever and ever, without end.
In thirty minutes, they arrived at Cook Nuclear Power Plant.
As before, four armed soldiers stopped them at the front gate. The guards pointed their weapons at them, hostile until Hannah identified themselves and explained their mission.
A female soldier radioed Major Hamilton, and a few minutes later, two soldiers escorted them past the gates. Hannah and Perez approached the makeshift barracks on foot, flanked by guardsmen carrying M4s.
Hannah caught only a glimpse of large concrete buildings clustered behind the tall razor-wired fencing. In the darkness, she couldn’t see the twin concrete cylindrical domes rising above them—the containment facilities for the reactors.