The Spears of Laconia (Purge of Babylon, Book 7) (16 page)

“You know this guy?” Nate asked.

They sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the floor, with the door to their right and the windows to their left. She had no desire to mix with the collaborators in the room; as a result, they sat staring across at each other.

“L15,” Gaby said. “He was there at the same time as me.”

She stared forward, holding Mason’s brooding dark beady eyes, and at the same time ignoring the other four men in the room with them. It might have been two against five, but she was going to let them know—all of them, but especially Mason—that there were no cowering damsels in distress among them at the moment.

“The one with Josh?” Nate said.

She nodded.

“Sorry about your boyfriend,” Mason said. “Never made it off the island, from what I heard. Kid had a lot of potential, but he bit off more than he could chew. I tried to warn him, but he got it into his head he was something special. That’s when you know a fall’s coming—when they think they’re too big. You can never be too big, especially these days.”

She didn’t reply. If Mason thought talking about Josh was going to elicit some kind of emotion from her, he was mistaken. She hadn’t erased Josh from her memory—she couldn’t, even if she wanted to, which she didn’t because he was a part of her and would always be—but she had learned to push him into the background and focus on what was still important, like Lara, the girls on the
Trident,
her job, and Nate.

“Do yourself a favor and shut the hell up,” Nate said to Mason.

“Just trying to be friendly,” Mason said.

“You can stop now.”

“You the new guy, huh?” He looked back at Gaby. “
Tsk tsk.
The kid isn’t even cold yet, and you’ve already moved on? Where’s the loyalty?”

“Hey, asshole,” Nate said. When Mason glanced back at him, “Keep talking, and we’re going to find out if my fist can fit down your throat.”

Mason chuckled. “I’m shaking.”

“You should be.”

“What’s with the Mohawk?”

“What’s with the blood on your face? You make a habit of getting your ass kicked? Keep it up, and it’s going to happen again.”

Mason smirked, then exchanged a brief look with the other collaborators in the room, as if to say,
“Listen to this guy.”
But he didn’t say anything again, which told her he wasn’t taking Nate’s threats nearly as lightly as he had made it seem.

With seven people stuffed inside what was essentially an enclosed space of about fifteen-by-fifteen feet, it should have been uncomfortable, except it wasn’t, thanks to the two open windows. There was enough light inside the hangar to see with, and the sounds of Mercer’s people working and engines coming and going made for a constant soundtrack behind them.

Now that Mason wasn’t running his mouth, she spent the next few seconds observing the collaborators in front of her. Mason’s hair was damp with sweat and his clothes were dirty, with spots of dried blood stretching all the way down to one side of his neck. There might have been blood on his clothes, too, but the fabric was too dark for her to be sure. The others looked as disheveled and beaten as Mason, and apparently even more tired, because none of them had said a word.

Then, just when she thought she was going to be able to enjoy the peace and quiet, Mason said, “Like what you see?”

“Keep it up,” Nate said. “You just keep it up, shorty.”

Mason ignored him and focused on her. “We’ve been looking for you, you know. After Song Island. They had us searching every building along the coast. What do you think I’m doing back in Texas? It ain’t because I miss it.”

Gaby didn’t answer him, but she stared back, almost daring him to keep talking. Will had drilled it into her during all those months of training: the importance of intel. Here was Mason, volunteering information she didn’t have but that might come in handy one day—or maybe sooner. She remained silent and let him keep talking.

“I liked him, the kid,” Mason was saying. “He could be a little annoying at times, but smart as a whip. Hated to hear what happened to him. Were you there? Did the kid go down like a champ?”

Josh died to save me, and I’ll always love him for it,
she thought, but didn’t say it out loud, because this man didn’t deserve to know about Josh’s fate.

“I bet he did,” Mason said anyway. “He talked about you all the time. Gaby this, Gaby that. Hell, after the first month, I think I could have written a book about the life and times of Gaby. Little Miss Perfect. Personally, I don’t see what the big fuss is about. Mind you, not that I’d kick you out of bed.”

“Mister,” Nate said, his voice rising noticeably, “I’m going to tell you one more time—”

“Or you’ll do what?” Mason said.

Nate started to get up, but Gaby grabbed his arm. “He’s not worth it.”

“That’s right; listen to blondie,” Mason snorted before miming a whip snapping in the air.

A couple of the men sitting around him chuckled, but the rest remained quiet. Mason might have been “whipping” for Nate’s benefit, but it was his men that looked as if they’d had all the fight whipped out of them. The blood on Mason was old, and they were clearly still wearing the same (smelly) uniforms since their capture. How long had they been here? A day? A week? Longer? If Mercer’s red-collared soldiers had treated her, Nate, and Danny like pieces of meat when they were captured, she couldn’t imagine what they had done to these collaborators, who as far as she knew, were the real targets.

Like Morris. Like the people back in T29.

Gaby fixed Mason with a hard stare. “Did you ever think this was how it would all end?”

“How’s that?” Mason said.

“Here, in this small room, wearing that uniform you thought would be your salvation.”

The man seemed to actually put some thought into her question. She had no doubts that Mason was every bit the opportunist she’d always seen him as: a conniving asshole who did whatever was necessary to get by, even if it meant selling out the human race. And for a while, it had worked out very well for him. Mercer’s people had changed that. They had changed everything, for everyone.

Finally, Mason shrugged. “It could have been worse. I could have spent the last year running for my life like the two of you. If this is it, you won’t get any complaints from me.”

“I don’t believe that,” Gaby said.

“No?”

“I think you’ll complain to the very end. Guys like you always do.”

“‘Guys like me’? Sweetheart, you don’t know anything about guys like me.”

“I know everything there is to know. You think you’re complicated?” She gave him a pitying smile. “You’re so simple, it’s embarrassing.”

“Is that right? Why don’t you share this great insight with the rest of the class.”

“I would, but I’d just be wasting my breath. Maybe one day, if you’re really nice, I might tell you.”

“Hope springs eternal, they say.”

“Not for you.”

Mason might have had a clever comeback, but before he could offer it, a voice from one of the open windows said, “Move to the back, now.”

She glanced up at Erin’s familiar face looking in at them.

Gaby and Nate stood up. Mason, across from her, stretched up next to a collaborator who towered over him like a giant. The sight was absurd, but Gaby didn’t have time to enjoy it before she had to move to the back of the room with everyone else.

The door opened behind them and Danny stepped inside. “Miss me?”

“You okay?” she asked.

“Hey, that’s my line.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ll let it go just this time, but only because of the clearly shitty company you’ve been keeping while I was away.”

Erin closed the door behind him, and Gaby and Nate walked back over to the other side and they sat down together.

Three against five now. I like those odds.

“Is it just me, or is Erin kind of hot?” Danny said.

“She’s okay,” Nate said, then sneaked a look in Gaby’s direction for some reason.

Men,
she thought.

“You kids been getting into trouble while I was away?” Danny asked.

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Nate said.

“Glad to hear it.” He held up one of his wrists. “Got my watch back.”

“Aren’t you special,” Gaby said.

“I know, right?”

“Why’d they give it back to you?” Nate asked.

“I told you, I’m special. Pay attention.”

“Did you find out where we are exactly?” Gaby asked.

“Some podunk town called Larkin.”

“We’re way off course.”

“Would appear so.”

“What did he want to talk to you about?” Nate asked. “Mercer?”

“Mostly, our differing approaches to fighting the ghouls,” Danny said. “His is to strike, while I lean more toward hiding. Like every other officer I’ve ever met, Mercer doesn’t seem to have any problems sending other people’s boys and girls to go die for him.”

“How do you know he’s an officer?”

“I can smell them from a mile away.”

“But did he actually say he was an officer?” Gaby said. “You know as well as I do that anyone can call themselves anything these days,” she added, looking across the room at Mason.

The short man didn’t respond and pretended to look at one of the open windows to her left instead.

“Oh, he’s a fancy pants, all right,” Danny said. “Or was, anyway. These days, he’s the Everyman leading the charge. We both know it’s bullshit, but as you saw out there, it seems to be working gangbusters with the masses.”

“So what else did he say?”

“The takeaway is that he thinks the only way to beat the ghouls is by destroying their food supply. One way or another.”

Food supply?
she thought, but it didn’t take very long for her to understand.
Oh.

“The towns,” Nate said.

“Specifically, the people in them, yeah,” Danny nodded.

“You said ‘one way or another.’ What does that mean?”

“He’s keeping that one to himself.”

“There were 400 people in T29, Danny,” Gaby said.

“I mentioned that. He may or may not have gotten a boner when he found out how many people his Warthog killed this morning.”

“Jesus Christ,” Nate said.

“What I said. Minus the whole using the Lord’s name in vain part.”

Gaby didn’t know how to respond to any of this. Nate didn’t, either, and the three of them sat very quietly against the wall and listened to a truck
beep-beep-beeping
its way into the hangar outside the room. One of the guards standing outside coughed just before a loud
clang!
as a tailgate slammed open.

“What did he want with you?” Nate asked. “He knew you were a Ranger. I got the feeling my ROTC credentials didn’t measure up, or Gaby’s.”

“He wanted me to enlist,” Danny said. “Told me I had two choices: either get with the program or get out of the way. Or, and I quote, ‘You’re either with us, or you’re against us.’”

“And what did you say?” Gaby asked.

“That I’d think about it. He wants an answer in two hours.”

“That’s why he gave you back your watch,” Nate said.

“You’re sharp, kid. I should call you Sharp Nate from now on.”

“No thanks.”

“Your loss.”

“What happens in two hours?” Gaby asked.

“They’re getting the hell out of Dodge,” Danny said. “I can be on one of those trucks with them when they do, or left behind with the dead weight. That’s what he calls everyone inside this room, by the by.”

“I’ve been called worse,” Nate said.

“I bet you have.”

“So they’re just going to leave us behind when they go?”

Danny glanced over at her and hiked a thumb in Nate’s direction. “Captain Optimism, this guy. Thinks they’re just going to let us walk out of here.”

*

They stood in
front of the windows, watching a small handful of people still loading up the only truck inside the hangar. Mercer’s people had done such a good job clearing out the place that she didn’t realize how large the building was until now. With the drastic drawback of people and vehicles, she could now hear every squeaking footstep and
clang
from the back of the transport.

“Being the thinker that I am, I’ve pieced together this plan of theirs,” Danny was saying, standing between her and Nate. “Mercer didn’t confirm or deny, on account of him not fully trusting me yet. Or at all.”

“Shocker,” Nate said.

“I know, right? I have a very trustworthy face. Anyway, they’ve been bombing towns around this part of the state all morning and all day. We had the misfortune of running across one of their strafing runs. Before that, they were gathering intelligence. Probably months of preparation, all for the big payoff—which was today. The patience and planning is actually pretty damn impressive, the whole indiscriminately killing civilians part notwithstanding.”

“Earlier, Erin let slip that they had more than one plane,” Gaby said. “Did Mercer say how many?”

“Numbers have nothing to do with it. There are more planes out there than there are guys that can fly them. Mercer only has a few pilots in his stable, which really puts a damper on how far he can extend his areas of operation. That’s why the one we saw take out T29 didn’t buzz very far afterward. Mercer’s using it as his eye in the sky, watching out for a counterattack.”