Contagious

“Now?”

“Yeah, of course now.”

“What about Montoya?”

“Forget her, man. We gotta get ready for the counterattack. If the general beats us there...”

“Fine. Let’s go, men. Haul b.a.l.l.s.”

Creaking boards. One last faint crunch of gla.s.s. Footsteps descending the stairs. Margaret and Clarence waited, but heard nothing. Her body sagged as if her soul had slid free and taken her skeleton with it.

Her body relaxed, but Clarence’s did not.

“I want you to stay here,” he said. “I’m going to follow them and see if I can spot this Bravo location.”

“Clarence, no. You’ve only got one bullet. We need to get out of here.”

“I’m not discussing this with you. I have to see what it is.”

“Fine,” Margaret said. “Then I’m going with you.”

“Margaret, G.o.ddamit, knock it off. There is some serious s.h.i.+t going down. It’s not just Ogden’s men. It’s total chaos out there. You could get hit by friendly fire. Stay here, and as soon as I make contact with someone, I’ll have Murray send people right to you.”

“I’m not leaving your side,” she said. “I don’t want to get shot at anymore, believe me, but if you go, I’m following you. So it’s your call. If you want me out of harm’s way, that’s exactly where you need to be.”

He glared at her. He looked even angrier than when she’d broken his tooth.

She glared right back.

He shook his head and sighed. “You stay behind me and be ready to run, got it?”

d.a.m.n it. She a.s.sumed he would stay with her. Well, she’d opened her mouth, and no matter what, she wasn’t letting him go alone.

“I got it,” she said. “After you.”

He walked out of the room, quickly but carefully, letting his pistol lead the way. Margaret stood and followed.

1:06 P.M.: Target Locked...

Dew popped up over the trunk of a Ford, fired off a burst, then ducked back down. Bullets peppered the car, hitting metal, gla.s.s and rubber. Whiskey Company had cut through most resistance up until now, but Ogden’s men seemed to have concentrated in this area. The fighting grew nastier by the second, racking up casualties—about fifteen so far. With the uncontested and constant air support, that left plenty of fighting strength to push forward. When Ogden’s men did fire, Apache chain-guns quickly ripped into their positions.

“Come

Perry lay curled up half under the Ford, slush-wet pavement coating him in black winter road grime.

“I’m trying,” he said. “They’re jamming me. It’s getting bad. I think it’s Chelsea, Dew; I think that little b.i.t.c.h is doing it.”

Another burst of plings and cracks as bullets ripped into the Ford.

Dew heard the buzzing roar of a chain gun, then the firecracker-on-steroids blast of thirty-millimeter rounds tearing through brick and wood and gla.s.s.

Then nothing, a pause in the action. Dew pulled Perry back up to a sitting position and leaned him against the ruined Ford.

“Look at me, Perry,” Dew said. “We’ve got nine minutes. Come on, kid, focus.”

Perry nodded and closed his eyes. “It’s blurry, Dew. It’s two signals, and... and one of them is moving.”

“Key on the signal that is not moving,” Dew said. “They can’t move the gate.”

Perry nodded. He breathed in deeply through his nose and let it out slowly from his mouth. Eyes still closed, he raised a hand and pointed over the hood of the battered Ford.

He was pointing down At.w.a.ter Street, toward downtown. A snowy field stretched along the left side of the road, and past that, the Detroit River. On the right side of the street, he saw a dilapidated three-story brick building surrounded by empty lots. Faded blue paint up on top had a barely legible sign painted on it: GLOBE TRADING COMPANY.

“That way?” Dew said. “Where, behind that building?”

“No, in it. I think.”

“You think or you know?”

“I think,” Perry said. “I told you, the signal is fading really fast.”

Dew scratched at his face, then looked around. Even in the middle of the firefight, he could see civilians scrambling for cover, cowering in doorways, frightened eyes peeking out from windows.

Apache HEAT rounds would destroy the building, but that didn’t guarantee destruction of the gate. Was there a bas.e.m.e.nt? Had Ogden built protective berms or other support structures to harden the target?

Dew could have one of the F-15s drop a two-thousand-pound bomb, but again he wouldn’t know for sure if that took out the gate. Not to mention inevitable civilian casualties. Those bombs could kill people as far as a hundred yards from impact. Dew’s conservative guess was that a bomb would kill at least fifty people: men, women and children.

He checked his watch—1:08 P.M. Five minutes to go.

Dew pulled out his satphone. “Murray! Come in!”

Murray’s scratchy voice came back immediately. “Murray here, over.”

“We think we found the gate,” Dew said. “Corner of Orleans and At.w.a.ter.”

“Understood,” Murray said. “Can we bomb it?”

“Negative. Do not take out the building. There are too many civilians around. I’ll take Whiskey Company in and make sure this is the real deal. We’ll capture it, blow it manually if it gets hot.”

There was a pause.

“Dew, this is President Gutierrez.”

“Uh... h.e.l.lo, sir.”

“It’s admirable that you want to protect civilian life, but I was informed that Dawsey is one-hundred percent sure that gate opens at one-fifteen.”

“That’s correct.”

“I’m ordering the bomb run for one-fifteen,” Gutierrez said. “If you want to stop it, enter the building and capture the gate in the next six minutes.”