The Kill Order (26 page)

“Real generous,” Alec says in a low voice.

Mark jumps to his feet as the man brings his weapon up and points it directly at the old man’s face. “No! Stop!”

The stranger swings it to point at Mark, who throws his hands up
and scoots back against the cubicle wall. “Please! Just stop it! We’ll get you whatever you want!”

“That’s right, you will, boy. Now move. All of you. Time to go on a little scavenger hunt.” He jerks his weapon in a gesture to get people in motion.

“Be careful not to step on your dead friend,” the woman says.

“Shut
up
!” her partner lashes back. “Seriously. You get dumber every day.”

“Sorry, boss.”

She’s suddenly a meek little mouse, head hung low. Mark’s heart is still beating a thousand times a minute, but he can’t help feeling sorry for the lady.

The man returns his attention to the others. “Show us where it’s at. I don’t wanna be here all day.”

Mark half expects Alec to do something crazy, but he just begins walking back toward the stairwell. As he passes Mark, he gives him a quick wink. Mark doesn’t know if he should be encouraged or worried.

They march down the hallway, leaving the bloodied form of Baxter behind, prisoners in what has become their castle over the past few weeks. They reach the stairs and start climbing. Boss—that’s the only way Mark can think of the man with the gun now, hearing over and over in his mind the pathetic way his partner saluted him—takes turns poking people in the back as they ascend, making sure they don’t forget who’s armed.

“Just remember what I did to your buddy,” Boss whispers to Mark when it’s his turn to get prodded.

Mark keeps moving, step by step.

*

They spend the next two hours scavenging the Lincoln Building, top to bottom, for food and fuel. Every inch of Mark’s skin is sweating, and his muscles ache from carrying the large containers of generator fuel from the emergency supply room on the thirtieth floor down to the boat. They scour the vending machines, emptying over half of the dwindling stock throughout the many break rooms and other common areas.

The yacht is an oven inside the cabin, which only makes the smell within even worse. As Mark unloads the supplies, he wonders if Boss and his partner have bothered to so much as dip themselves in the warm waters that surround them. They literally live in bathwater—dirty as it may be—yet refuse to bathe. Mark grows more disgusted with the pair on every trip. He also wonders at the biding silence of Alec, who’s worked hard without the slightest sign of rebellion.

They’ve filled almost every spare inch of the vessel when the entire group finds themselves on the twelfth floor—part of one last sweep through the lower half of the building. Boss tells them they can have whatever’s left above that.

The man, still pointing his gun at each of them in turn, is standing next to the windows. The orange sheen of the setting sun paints the glass behind him. His subordinate stands right next to him, looking as blank-minded as ever. Trina is grabbing a few last chip bags and candy bars through the busted cover of a vending machine. The Toad, Misty, Lana, Alec and Darnell are waiting for her, not much to do now. The place is emptied out and each of them is probably like Mark, just counting down the seconds until these people are gone. And hoping no one else dies.

Alec walks toward Boss, holding his hands up in a conciliatory gesture.

“Careful,” the armed man warns. “Now your work’s done, I wouldn’t mind gettin’ a little more target practice. Close-range, even.”

“It’s done, all right,” Alec says in a half growl. “We’re not idiots. We wanted to get that boat loaded first. Ya know, before …”

“Before what?” Boss seems to sense trouble and the muscles of his arms tense; Mark sees his finger tighten on the trigger of the gun.

“This.”

Alec suddenly bursts into motion. His hand shoots forward and smacks the weapon out of Boss’s hands—the gun fires a wayward shot just as it spins away, clattering on the floor. Boss’s partner turns and bolts down the hallway along the bank of windows, as quickly as she’s done anything yet. Lana chases her, even though the other woman is armed. Mark barely has time to notice this before Alec throws his body forward and tackles Boss, the two of them slamming into the glass of the large window.

Everything happens so fast. An icy splintering sound fills the room as cracks branch out from their point of impact. Then the entire pane bursts, exploding into a million pieces just as Alec is trying to get his balance and lift himself off of Boss’s body. Both of them begin to fall, tipping as if in slow motion, leaning toward the water below. Mark is already rushing at them, diving, then sliding across the floor so that he can brace his feet against the window frame for support while reaching for Alec’s arm. He grabs it, grips his fingers, holds tight, but his feet miss and are suddenly in open air. His entire body is about to topple out with Alec and Boss.

Someone grabs him from behind, arms slipping around his chest. Mark holds on to Alec with every ounce of his strength and is looking straight down into the river-street. Boss is falling, madly flailing his arms and legs and screaming. Mark’s arms feel like they may come out of their sockets, but Alec recovers his wits quickly, turns his body and puts his free hand on the bottom sill of the window, begins to hoist himself inside while whoever has captured Mark drags him in as well. It’s the Toad.

Soon they are all standing again, safe. Lana comes charging back down the hallway.

“She got away,” the woman says. “I bet she’s hiding in some closet.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Alec replies, already on the move. Mark and the others follow. “Plan worked perfectly. Got the boat stocked up and now it’s ours for the taking. We’re getting out of the city.”

They find the stairwell, descend rapidly, taking two steps at a time. Mark is sweating and exhausted, and anxious about what they’re planning to do. Leaving the place that has become home in the wake of the sun flares. Venturing out into the complete unknown. He doesn’t know which is stronger, the excitement or the fear.

They make it to the fifth floor, sprint down the hallway, go through the missing window, board the boat.

“Get us loose,” Alec yells to Mark.

Alec and Lana go into the cabin. Darnell, the Toad, Misty and Trina find places to sit up top, looking a little lost and a lot uncertain. Mark begins untying the rope the woman used to secure the yacht earlier. He finally gets the knots loose and pulls in the rope just as the engines come to life and the boat starts moving away from the Lincoln Building. Mark sits on a seat at the tail end of the vessel and twists backward to look up at the towering skyscraper, where the dwindling glow of the day’s sunshine reflects an amber sheen.

Boss suddenly leaps out of the water like a crazed dolphin, his arms slamming onto the back of the boat as he begins to frantically scramble on board. His legs kick and scissor as his hands search for anything to hold on to; he grabs a hook and his muscles bulge as he pulls himself up, water streaming off his body. He has a huge purple bruise covering half his face—the other half is red and angry to match his eyes.

“I’m gonna kill you,” the man growls. “Every single one of you!”

The boat is picking up speed. Everything explodes inside Mark at
once—he’s not going to let this sorry excuse for a human ruin their chance to escape. Gripping a seat, he rears back his foot and launches it forward, kicking Boss in the shoulder. The man barely budges. Mark pulls back and kicks him again. Then again. He connects each time. Boss is beginning to lose his grip.

“Let … go!” Mark yells as he slams his foot into the man’s shoulder again.

“Kill …,” Boss says, but he seems to have no strength left.

Mark yells with a burst of adrenaline, then throws all his strength into one last assault, this time leaping up and throwing both feet forward. He smashes them into Boss, connecting with his nose and his neck, and the man releases a strangled scream and lets go, falling back into the wake of the churning boat. His body disappears in the white bubbles.

Mark is desperately sucking in each breath. He scoots himself around and crawls up onto the lip of the seat and looks over the edge. Sees nothing but the wake and black water behind that. Then he spots movement at the open window of the Lincoln Building where Boss fell. It’s receding now, growing smaller, but the woman—Boss’s partner—is standing there, holding her gun. Mark slouches down, waiting for the barrage of bullets. But instead, he notices the woman aim the weapon at herself, the muzzle propped against the bottom of her chin.

Mark wants to scream, to tell her not to do it. But it’s too late.

The woman pulls the trigger.

The boat drives on.

Mark woke up in a cold sweat, as if the spray from the water in his dream had doused him while he slept. His head hurt badly again—like something rolled around loose in his skull every time he moved. Thankfully Alec was easy on him and didn’t talk much while they both ate and strengthened themselves for the day ahead. For the search for their friends.

The two of them were sitting in the cockpit, the light of late morning spilling in through the windows. A warm breeze whistled as it blew through the broken one.

“You were too dead to the world to notice,” Alec said after they’d sat in silence for a while, “but I took this baby up for an observation run while you were sleeping. And … I confirmed what I’d suspected. Just a couple miles away, the bonfire … they … have Lana, Trina and Deedee. I saw them being herded like sheep.”

That left a sick lump in Mark’s stomach. “What … do you mean?”

“A few people were being herded from one house to another. I spotted Lana’s black hair and Trina with the kid in her arms. I got closer to make sure.” Alec took a deep breath before he finished. “At least we know they’re alive and where they are. And now we know what we have to do.”

Mark should’ve been relieved that his friends weren’t dead. But instead he was consumed by the gnawing realization that to get them out, they’d have to go in and fight. Two against … how many?

“Did you forget how to talk, kid?”

Mark had been staring at the back of the pilot’s chair as if something mesmerizing were painted there. “No. Just scared.” He’d given up long ago trying to act brave for the old army vet.

“Scared. That’s good. A fine soldier is always scared. Makes you normal. It’s how you respond to it that makes or breaks you.”

Mark smiled. “You’ve given that speech a few times. I think I got it.”

“Then pour some water down your gullet and let’s get hopping.”

“Sounds good.” Mark drank long and hard from his canteen, then stood up. The weighty burden of his dream was finally starting to fade a little. “So what’s the plan?”

Alec was just wiping his mouth. He nodded in the general direction of the Berg’s middle section. “Go get our friends. But first we break into the ship’s weapons stash.”

Mark knew nothing about Bergs, but Alec knew more than most. In the central area of the ship there was a locked storage facility that required passwords and retinal scans to open. Since they had neither the words nor the eyeballs for such access, they decided to work at it the old-fashioned way: with an axe.

Luckily the Berg was old and had seen its better days many years before, so it only took three turns each and a half hour of sweat to bust the hinges and locks off the metal door. Little shards of steel clattered across the hallway and the big door tipped over and slammed into the opposite wall. The echo seemed to reverberate through the vessel for a solid minute.

Alec had thrown the last blow of the axe to make it happen. “Let’s hope there’s still something inside this beast,” he announced.

The storage room was dark and smelled like dust. The Berg had power, but most of the lights had been broken, except for a small red
emergency bulb in the corner that made everything look like it was washed in blood. Alec started searching, but Mark could already see that most of the shelves were empty. Nothing but trash and discarded containers strewn about from the ship tipping upside down now and then. Alec swore under his breath with every disappointing discovery, and Mark was feeling it, too. How could they possibly have a chance if all they had when they went after Trina were their fists and their feet?

“There’s something over here,” Alec muttered, his voice strained. He was already working to get open whatever he’d found.

Mark stepped up to him and looked over his shoulder. The object was mostly in shadow, but it appeared to be a large box with several metal clasps.

“It’s useless,” Alec finally said when his hands slipped off the clasps for the third time. “Go get me that axe.”

Mark quickly grabbed it from the hallway where Alec had dropped it after pounding the door hinges. He hefted it in his hands, ready to take a shot at getting the box open.

“
You’re
gonna do it?” Alec asked, straightening up. “You sure about that?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Alec pointed at the box. “Boy, do you have any idea what could be inside that thing? Explosives. High-voltage machinery. Poison. Who knows?”

“And?” Mark pushed.

“Well, I wouldn’t just start whacking at it or we might be dead before noon. We need to be careful. Delicate, precise hits on the clasps.”

Mark almost laughed. “Since there’s not one delicate cell in your entire body, I think I’ll give it a go.”

“Fair enough,” Alec replied, taking a step back and sweeping his hand out with a bow. “Just be careful.”

Mark gripped the handle of the axe tightly and leaned in, taking little chops instead of full swings at the small but stubborn brackets. Sweat poured down his face and the thing almost slipped out of his hands a couple of times, but eventually he broke the first seal and moved on to the next one. Ten minutes later his shoulders ached like nothing else and his fingers had grown almost numb from gripping so hard. But he’d broken through every last clasp.

He stood up and stretched his back, unable to keep himself from wincing. “Man, that wasn’t quite as easy as it looked.”