Southern Cross (34 page)

We’d
gotten maybe three feet deep with our tunnel when I heard the gunshots—three of
them. Glenda screamed. I saw the horror on George’s face, and shook my head.

“Don’t
give up yet,” I said. “We don’t know what that was. Or who.”

He
nodded. Beside me, Sally kept digging without a word.

By
the time Jenny came in to get her next batch, we’d broken through to the room
next door—not enough for anyone to actually make it through, but enough to give
me hope that we’d get there. When we heard someone coming this time, George
plopped down on top of the hole like a nesting hen while I tried not to look
like I’d been digging an escape route for the past two hours.

It
didn’t matter, though: Jenny skipped right over George and me, picking Glenda,
Riley, Sally, and three others. She smiled at me, and I was grateful for the
dim lighting.

“I’ll
be back for you, slick. Just in case you start to feel neglected.”

“Can’t
wait,” I assured her.

As
soon as she was gone, I set back to work, shutting out the sound of Glenda’s
deafening screams as they led her away with the others.

Jenny
led them to a bunch of seats on the right side of the auditorium. Danny and
Casey sat together, both of them still tied. Biggie and a couple of the big
flannel-wearing rednecks sat in front of them. Casey let her head drop onto
Danny’s shoulder like she was too tired to hold it up anymore. He knew how she
felt.

The
reverend was up front, a couple video cameras pointed at him from the center
aisle of the auditorium. There were about seventy, maybe seventy-five others in
the audience—all of ‘em people Danny recognized from the reverend’s church.
Maybe a quarter of them were just little kids.

Another
dozen guys were spread out all along the walls. They were all young, maybe a
little older than Danny, with buzzcuts and camo pants with pressed white
button-up shirts.

Every
one of them carried a rifle.

“What
in hell is goin’ on here?” Casey whispered to me. He shook his head. 

“Hell
if I know.”

Whatever
it was, Danny wasn’t loving their chances of getting out.

A
couple people fiddled with the video cameras, and one of them cued the
reverend. He straightened out his tie and cleared his throat before he started
up.

“Brothers
and sisters,” he said. “The devil is on our doorstep. There’s no more time to
waste. We can’t wait another minute before we take that final leap of faith and
walk into the arms of the Almighty. We been persecuted and mocked and belittled
on this earth too long, friends. The government’s men are on the way, prepared
to take our children and say whatever lies they have to say to pull the wool
over your eyes.”

A
couple of the ladies in the audience were crying. So were the kids. Danny felt
sick. There was a table up front with five pitchers filled with purple liquid,
a bunch of crackers on platters beside them.

Casey
shifted beside him. He turned and looked at her. She tried to smile, but she
couldn’t quite make herself. Danny wished he could take her hand. Hold her. He
tried to get that across with his eyes, while the reverend kept up babbling and
everybody in the audience prayed and cried.

“You
remember what Diggs said?” he asked, low in her ear. She nodded.

“Soon
as midnight’s close, duck down low. Stay down. Don’t panic,” she recited.

He
nodded, even though he was already way past panicking.

“I’ll
do everything I can to get us out,” he said to her. “But if we don’t…” he
trailed off.

“Me
too,” she said, her pretty eyes on his.

They
just sat there after that, watching the clock wind down, arms touching. Casey’s
head stayed on his shoulder, even when the reverend told his people to stand up
and get in line. A couple of the boys went to the tables and poured the grape
juice into little paper cups.

“This
is our final communion on this earth, brothers and sisters,” the reverend said.

Danny
swallowed hard, trying to fight back the fear. One way or another, they didn’t
have long.

There
were only five of us left in the room. I was breathing hard, covered in dirt
and sweat, my fingernails bloody from digging.

But
we’d done it.

“Go,”
George whispered to me as soon as we were sure I’d broken through. “We’ll stall
‘em as long as we can, but you need to get out of here. Try and find a way out.
Get to Danny.”

I
nodded. The fact that I knew he was right didn’t make it any easier to leave
him. He looked pale and weak—nothing like the man I’d known; the man who’d
saved me all those years ago. Whatever had happened with him and Barnel and
Billy Thomas when they were still kids hardly mattered to me now. I hugged him
quickly.

“I’m
coming back for you,” I said. “This isn’t the way this ends.”

“Just
go, son,” he said. “One way or another, I reckon I’ll see you on the other
side.” He held onto me fiercely, his hand at the back of my neck, mouth at my
ear. “I’m proud of you, boy,” he whispered. “You’re a good man. This ain’t the
way your story ends.”

He
released me. I wiped tears away with a muddy hand, and dove down the rabbit
hole.

I
emerged to find myself in almost total darkness—no ticking clock, no bare red
bulb. A thin strip of light filtered in from beneath a door about ten feet from
me. My pulse quickened. I stood, tread carefully across a packed dirt floor,
and tried the knob.

It
stuck for a minute, then gave way.

The
door creaked as it opened, the sound deafening. I waited a second, then
another, and pushed it open a little more.

The
corridor—dirt floor, stone wall, wood beams overhead—was empty. I searched for
a sign of a camera somewhere that might be capturing my movement, but I found
nothing.

My
hand was on the door, ready to free George and the others, when I heard footsteps
on the stairs. Jenny’s voice echoed down to me.

“We
need to get them up there—then the bus is waiting. Everything’s on schedule.”

“You
don’t think it’s a risk, us leaving our post before the clock’s up?” The Giant
asked.

“The
alternative is going up in flames with Barnel’s nuts,” Jenny said. “You might
be up for that. I’m not. We’ve done our jobs.”

I
searched desperately for a place to hide as the footsteps got closer. The only
doors in the narrow space belonged to the rooms I’d just come from, and as far
as I could tell, the only exit was the stairwell Jenny and The Giant were
using.

I
flattened myself back against the wall just behind the stairwell door. It
opened, the knob narrowly missing me as Jenny stepped into the corridor. I
waited for her to discover me, pulse pounding.

Just
as she was getting ready to shut the door behind her, subsequently finding and
probably killing me, I heard George shout from inside our prison. Someone else
followed, their voices raised until it sounded like they were about to kill one
another in there. Jenny swore, and she and her comrade hurried over to
intervene. Or watch the fight. The motive hardly mattered, as long as the end
result was the same: they left the door open and the stairwell empty.

I
raced up the stairs and opened the door into a bright white corridor with an
exit sign on one end. I stayed low, scanning corners and doorways for guards.

There
was no one.

My
gaze lingered on the exit for only a second: if I left now, there was no way in
hell I was getting back in to try and save anyone else. The best thing to do
was figure out where I stood and locate Danny and the others. Then, when I made
an escape, I could do so with everyone.

I
found the stairwell leading up to the next level and took the steps at a run,
just as I heard Jenny’s footsteps pounding toward me on the stairs below.

The
hunt was on.

The
chopper ride to Smithfield only took half an hour. Unfortunately, we only
had
half an hour. Juarez called ahead and sent local cops and every other resource
available to him out to the site, but so far we’d gotten no word back. I sat
buckled in the back beside Rick, both of us on the edge of our seats.

“I
didn’t know she’d tell anybody about the place,” Rick said, shouting over the
noise of the engine and the whirring rotors. He looked miserable. “Jessie, I
mean. I was just tryin’ to impress her. Danny’s good with girls—not me.” He
stopped, swallowing hard. “You think Jessie only went out with me ‘cause of
that project I did?”

I
didn’t say anything. That silence was all the confirmation he needed, though.
He looked down, eyes filled with tears, and didn’t speak again for the rest of
the interminable flight.

Ten
minutes from our destination, Juarez got a call. When he hung up and looked
back at me, I knew my hunch had been right… and we still might be too late.

“They
sent a couple of local cops out,” Juarez said. “When they didn’t report back,
someone went to check on them. Both shot dead. It looks like Barnel has
fortified himself inside Kildeer Hall. You know where that is?” he asked Rick.

Rick
nodded.

“He’s
broadcasting a live feed from the college’s closed circuit TV station,” Juarez continued.

“Can
you tap into it?” I asked immediately. Juarez shook his head.

“They’re
watching down there,” he said. “Barnel has armed guards at all the exits. No
one’s getting in or out of the place. His entire congregation is in that
auditorium.”

“What
about the others?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I even wanted the answer. “Are they
there, too? Danny? Casey?” I swallowed, trying not to sound like my heart was
tied up in the name. “Diggs?”

Jack
hedged. “We spotted Danny and Casey in the audience, along with more than a
dozen others they’d taken.”

“But
not Diggs,” I said.

He
shook his head. “They could be keeping him somewhere else,” he said. I nodded.

“Do
you have a plan for getting in?” I asked.

He
looked at Blaze. She looked at me. “We’re still working that out. If the place
is set to blow at midnight, though…”

I
looked at the clock.

We
had six minutes.

Danny
scooted back in his seat to talk to Casey. The line of Barnel’s worshippers was
halfway through, everybody walking away with a cracker and their shot of grape
juice—which was supposed to be wine for the blood of Christ, Danny knew.
Instead, Danny’d bet his favorite guitar that it was poison. Everybody went
back to their sets, still holding their communion cups.

He
kept waiting for somebody to get him and Casey up and force them in line, but
so far it hadn’t happened. Maybe everybody else was supposed to get poisoned,
but the reverend was gonna let the sinners die in the flames. Barnel kept
talking at the camera, all about how there was a conspiracy of men going
against God, and they were out to strip everybody of their freedoms. Take their
kids. People were getting more and more worked up, but it was nothing compared
with the reverend. Sweat poured off him. He’d taken off his jacket, and his
shirt was soaked through.

“You
think it’s safe to break out yet?” Casey whispered to Danny.

He
looked around. The second and third wave of sinners had been rounded up, taking
up a good section of the right side of the auditorium. Everybody’s hands were
still tied, and they all looked sore and beat up. Diggs had already given them
their instructions:

Wherever
they take you, your best shot at escape is during the confusion of whatever
they have planned at midnight. Don’t drink anything they give you—spit it out
if you have to. And just before midnight, get out of the zip ties the way we
showed you. There are too many guys with guns for you to try and fight. Just
wait. Stay low. Seek cover just before twelve o’clock.

They
had four minutes to go.

Danny
shook his head. “One more minute,” he whispered back.

He
gave the signal to the others to hold off, everybody staying calmer than he
ever would have expected of such a bunch of deadbeats and dirtbags.

That
was thanks to Diggs, he realized.

You
keep cool and stay strong
, Danny imagined
his daddy saying to him. 
You do that, and nobody can beat you down. You can
do this, son.

Danny
swallowed hard. He stayed strong.