The Rule of Three (36 page)

“Subtract those from the bodies we’ve counted and that means that there should be more survivors. More people must still be hiding or escaped.”

“Or are dead in the burned-out buildings,” Herb said.

“Herb!”

We spun around. It was Brett, running toward us. “We found one of their men. He’s badly wounded, but he’s alive.”

“Take me to him so I can ask some questions.”

“He’s not going to be answering many questions. They left him for dead because he’s almost finished.”

“Then get him into a vehicle and back to the neighborhood. We have to save him.”

“After what these people have done we should be putting a bullet into his head,” Brett snapped.

“We need him to live. Get him back right away. We need information. We need to know about them, and more important, we need to know what they know about us.”

38

We lifted off straightaway. I felt a wave of relief wash over me as we gained height and put more distance between us and what had happened at Olde Burnham. I didn’t want to even think about it, but I couldn’t shut the images out of my mind. There were bodies and more bodies. The final count was close to two hundred, and of those there were almost two dozen who had obviously been executed. That same pattern, shot in the chest and the back of the head. I knew some of them, either by name or face. I couldn’t help but think about what it would be like to be standing there, hands up to surrender, and then realize that men with guns were going to kill me anyway.

Whoever these people were they were ruthless and uncaring. Human life didn’t mean anything to them.

In the end we had found thirty-five survivors, people who had been hiding in the rubble or in basements or had scrambled away and then come back. They were all being taken to our neighborhood. That left close to fifty people who were still unaccounted for. Had those people escaped, or were they still hiding? Or were they buried in the rubble?

I was flying the most direct route back, right along Burnham. Almost immediately I flew over our trucks and cars going back to the neighborhood, carrying the survivors.

Before I could say anything, Herb reached out and put a hand on my arm. I looked over.

“That doesn’t have to be our fate,” he said.

“Really?”

“There are times I haven’t said everything, but I’ve never lied to you or your mother. This is serious, deadly serious, but we have time. I just hope that man doesn’t die before I can get more information.”

“He deserves to die!” I exclaimed. “Even if he doesn’t die from his wounds, he should be killed, and I think I’d be willing to kill him myself!”

“No you wouldn’t,” Herb said. “And I wouldn’t let you, even if you could. Taking a life takes away part of your soul and—”

I let out a scream. Out of nowhere the Cessna had appeared, right beside us. I dove and banked as it raced past us and in that instant I saw the brilliant flashes of weapons fired toward us from the side window of the plane. I’d turned too quickly, the harness holding me in place as we slid sideways, and the g-forces were practically pulling me out of my seat. I had to think. I had to act quickly.

I pulled the stick up and gave the engine as much gas as I could to power it to counter the spiral and get us upward. I felt the plane buckling beneath me, could sense the wings straining against the body as if the force was going to rip them free, and then it stopped and we leveled off.

“There it is!” Herb said.

The Cessna was well ahead of us, but it was starting to bank. It was moving so much faster than I was that it needed more distance to come back around. I turned much more quickly, putting distance between us. But that wouldn’t last long. I strained my mind, trying to think what to do. My head was practically charged with electricity. I wanted to run away, to hide, to land, but none of those options were possible. I couldn’t go higher or faster or farther, and there was no place to hide in the brilliant blue sky.

“It’s made its turn,” Herb said, looking backward. “It’s coming back toward us.”

I tried to look over my shoulder but couldn’t see it.

“Which side?” I asked.

“My side. It’s coming fast.”

There was no way I could outrun it. I looked over my shoulder again and this time saw it racing toward us, eating up the air between us. It would be right on top of us in less than ten seconds. I put my hand on the throttle to open it up completely, to give it all the gas we had to get all the speed we could—and then thought better of it. I instead closed the throttle, and the engine almost stalled as we slowed down to almost nothing.

The Cessna shot by so fast, but so close, that I could see the people in the cabin—all four of them—and the weapons they were holding, but I figured they weren’t able to fire at us because I’d caught them by surprise.

I banked hard again, almost forgetting to give the plane more gas to counter the drag of the turn. If I hadn’t remembered, we might have stalled out. We picked up speed and executed a complete turn while the Cessna was still banking, trying to come back at us again.

“That was a good move. Do that again,” Herb said.

“He’ll be ready for it this time,” I said. “He’ll probably slow down as he approaches.”

“But he can’t slow down as much, right?”

“His stall speed is almost twice as much as mine.”

“Good, just get me in position to take a shot at it.”

He reached down and pulled up his rifle. If they were the cat and we were the mouse, we were at least a mouse with teeth.

Below us was the river and its valley. I dove down the side of the valley and at the same time opened up the accelerator to gain even more speed. If he was trying to slow down to try to match my speed, I’d open it up enough that he wasn’t able to catch me. My top speed was much more than his stall speed.

I saw him over my right shoulder. Still far away, but he was closing, and not nearly as quickly as before. As I’d expected, he had significantly reduced his speed. That would give him more time beside us to take more than one shot. He wasn’t going to let my slow speed be as much of an advantage. He was still curving, coming at me from about seven o’clock. If he came in from that angle Herb might get a shot, but only after they’d had a good long time to take shots at us first. I didn’t want to trade shots.

“Do something unexpected,” Herb said.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. You’re the pilot. Do whatever he doesn’t expect you to do.”

There was only one thing he completely wouldn’t expect.

I banked hard to the left, as hard as I could to bring the plane right back around, then aimed directly at him. We were going to play chicken. We raced toward each other, and then I pushed back on the stick and he soared over the top, so close that I could see the rivets in the bottom of his cabin.

There was a loud explosion. Herb had taken a shot at the Cessna with his rifle as it passed.

“Did you get it?” I exclaimed.

“Not even close. Everything is too fast, but you certainly surprised him. Did you see the expression on the pilot’s face?”

“I didn’t see anything except the plane.”

“If I’m to have any chance of hitting him, I need to have a clean, level shot.”

“I can’t do that without him having a shot at us first.”

“Then that’s what we’re going to have to do,” Herb said.

“What?”

“What choice do we have? He can keep coming back at us until we crash, run out of fuel, or get shot down. Just do it.”

I nodded. I knew what to do. I just didn’t want to do it.

I banked again, pushed down on the stick, and hit hard rudders. I kept the turn until I was almost parallel with the bank of the valley on my left and then kept dropping until I was just below the top of the ridge. I wanted him to have to come up on the right, on Herb’s side. Next I adjusted my speed. I needed to be going slowly but well above my stall speed to force him to fly as slowly as he could to try to match my speed. I had to focus on the contours of the valley as it jutted in and out. I wanted to make sure I was so close that he couldn’t come up on our left, but that meant flying dangerously near the side of the valley.

“Tell me what he’s doing,” I yelled at Herb.

Herb’s head was swiveling around, trying to find the plane. “He’s there, almost right behind, slightly to the right, slightly higher.”

“How fast is he closing?”

“He’s closing but not quickly.”

“How far is he?” I demanded.

“Two hundred yards or even less than that.”

“Keep watching. I need to know when he’s about twenty-five yards behind.”

“Okay. I’ll count it down,” Herb said. “He’s less than a hundred … closing quickly … seventy-five.”

“Get ready to fire,” I said.

“I’m ready. Forty … Thirty-five … It looks like he’s slowing down even more … Thirty.”

“Is he still to the right?”

“On the right, almost level with us and farther out.”

I couldn’t see him, but I could
feel
him there in my blind spot. I had to fight the urge to swerve, bank, dive, climb, or speed up.

“Twenty-five!”

I pulled back hard on the stick and eased up on the accelerator. We slowed, and the Cessna roared by us again. I opened the throttle fully and dove, and suddenly we were not only on the tail of the Cessna but gaining on it. It had all happened so quickly that the pilot hadn’t adjusted to the speed.

Herb fired again and again, the bullets finding their targets in the tail and fuselage of the Cessna—six, seven, eight, or more spraying along the top of the plane. The Cessna jerked to the side as the pilot tried to shake us and more bullets hit into the top of the cabin—and then it dropped sharply.

We soared past, and I knew what was going to happen next. There was an explosion, louder than the roar of our engine. The Cessna had crashed into the valley wall.

Herb strained to look back at the wreck. I kept my eyes focused ahead, both hands on the stick, and slowly started to turn, putting the bank at a safe distance.

“We got him,” Herb said with hardly any emotion.

I understood. I should have felt happy, maybe even thrilled. Instead I just felt drained, worn out, worn down. I cut the turn and plotted a sight course back to our neighborhood. All I wanted was to get home, and get on the ground, and I wanted to get there without passing by the crash site. I could already picture it too sharply in my mind without my eyes having to see it. But still, I couldn’t look completely away. There on the far side of the valley, almost at the top of the cliff, thick black smoke rose into the sky. Whatever was left of the plane and its crew was burning away to ash and bone and twisted metal.

I banked again so that I couldn’t see it and then gained elevation and climbed up and over the Burnham bridge, flying above it as a convoy of our cars passed over it. The bridge was so far above the river that it almost looked like they were flying, too, and I had the irrational thought that I should bank away again so they couldn’t chase after me.

Slowly I brought the plane around, coming in from the north. I’d land and get something to eat and drink. It was funny how, despite it all, I was so hungry and thirsty. After what I’d seen, what had just happened, all I could think about, all I was worried about, was my stomach. I’d witnessed so many people who were never going to have to worry about eating again. There were hundreds of dead on the ground and the four in that plane.

I aimed the front wheel for the middle of the strip the way I always did. I passed over the highway, the walls ahead, the heads of guards poking over the top, slower and lower until I could have seen their faces if I had looked directly down. We dropped beneath the height of the houses and the little bit of crosswind that had been present was blocked out completely. I focused on the landing and eased the plane onto the road, smooth and perfect. We rolled along and slowed down, finally coming to rest almost directly in front of our houses.

I turned off the engine.

“Nice touchdown,” Herb said.

“Better than the Cessna made.”

Herb gave me a concerned look. “Adam, there was no choice.”

“I know that.” I hadn’t fired the weapon, but their blood was still on my hands.

“We did what we had to do.”

“I know that, too. I just want to eat.” I unbuckled my belt and Herb grabbed my arm.

“I killed those people, not you.”

I laughed and, judging from Herb’s expression, it surprised him as much as it surprised me.

“Herb, I know you fired the gun, but I know I’m just as responsible. And you know what? I don’t care. I just want to eat.”

39

“Do you remember what you’re supposed to say?” Herb asked.

I nodded. I remembered. I hoped I could pull it off. After three days’ rest, hanging out with Todd and Lori, who both worked hard at trying to distract me, trying to blunt the horrors of that day, I was ready to do what I could do to help. And that meant getting information from the enemy.

“You look so honest that he’ll believe you. You could fool anybody.”

I hoped he was right. If this didn’t work, though, Herb would simply try to convince the man to provide information through interrogation. He said it was best to try this first in case he wasn’t willing to cooperate.

I opened the door and walked in carrying the tray. Herb slipped in behind me, staying out of sight behind the curtain, and I stepped around it. Inside, recovering from his surgery, was the man—the enemy. He was propped up in bed, both wrists handcuffed to the rails of the bed. He eyed me suspiciously.

“Afternoon.” I gave him my best attempt at a friendly smile.

He gave a semi-smile back. Smiles meant nothing. Not mine and not his.

“I’ve brought in your lunch. Are you feeling like you can eat?”

“I could, if I had a free hand.” He held up his right hand and the handcuffs rattled loudly.

“I’m going to undo one wrist.” If he was right-handed, I figured it was better to free his left hand to eat. I tapped the revolver strapped to my belt. “Don’t make me use this.”