The Infinite Sea

I throw open the door, shove Teacup into the passenger seat, jump behind the wheel, and take off across the parking lot, cutting hard to the left to make the turn north toward the airfield. A siren screams. Floodlights blare. In the rearview mirrors, emergency vehicles race toward the burning magazine. The fire brigade will have a hard time of it since someone has shut down the pumping station.

Another hard left, and now straight ahead are the hulking bodies of the Black Hawks, glistening like the bodies of black beetles in the harsh light of the floods. I grip the wheel hard and take a deep breath. This is the trickiest part. If Razor couldn’t kidnap a pilot, we’re all screwed.

A hundred yards away, I see someone jump from one of the choppers’ holds. He’s wearing a heavy parka and toting an assault rifle. His face is partially obscured by the hood, but I’d know that smile anywhere.

I hop from the M882.

And Razor says, “Hi.”

“Where’s the pilot?” I ask.

He jerks his head toward the cockpit. “I got mine. Where’s yours?”

I pull Teacup from the truck and jump inside the chopper. A guy wearing nothing but a drab green T-shirt and a matching pair of boxer shorts sits behind the controls. Razor slides into the copilot seat beside him.

“Fire her up, Lieutenant Bob.” Razor grins at the pilot. “Oh. Manners. Ringer, Lieutenant Bob. Lieutenant Bob, Ringer.”

“There’s no way this is going to work,” Lieutenant Bob says. “They’ll come after us hard.”

“Yeah? What’s this?” Razor holds up a mass of tangled electrical wire.

The pilot shakes his head. So cold, his lips are turning blue. “I don’t know.”

“Neither do I, but I’m guessing they’re very important for the proper operation of a helicopter.”

“You don’t understand . . .”

Razor leans toward him and all his playfulness is gone. His deep-set eyes burn as if backlit and the coiled force I sensed from the beginning springs free with such ferocity, I actually flinch.

“Listen to me, you alien sonofabitch, you fire this mother-effing stick buddy up ASAP or I’m—”

The pilot shoves his hands into his lap and stares straight ahead. After getting one into the chopper undetected, my biggest concern was getting a pilot to cooperate. I lean forward, grab Bob by the wrist, and bend his pinky finger backward.

“I’ll break it,” I promise him.

“Go ahead!”

I break it. His teeth clamp down on his bottom lip. His legs jerk. His eyes swim with tears. That shouldn’t happen. I press my fingers against the back of his neck, then turn to Razor.

“He’s implanted. He isn’t one of them.”

“Yeah, well, who the hell are you?” the pilot squeals.

I pull the tracking device from my pocket. There’s the hospital and the magazine surrounded by a swarm of green dots. And there are three dots glowing on the airstrip.

“You cut yours out,” I say to Razor.

He’s nodding. “And left it under my pillow. That was the plan. Or was that the plan? Shit, Ringer, wasn’t that the plan?” A little panicky.

I drop the knife into my hand. “Hold him.”

Razor understands immediately. He grabs Lieutenant Bob and puts him in a headlock. Bob doesn’t put up much resistance. I worry now that he might go into shock. If he does, it’s over.

There isn’t much light and Razor can’t hold him perfectly still, so I tell Bob to chill or I might sever his spinal cord, adding paralysis to the problem of a broken finger. I pull out the pellet, toss it onto the tarmac, yank Bob’s head back, and whisper in his ear, “I’m not the enemy and I haven’t gone Dorothy. I’m just like you—”

“Only better,” Razor finishes. He glances through the window and says, “Uh, Ringer . . .”

I see them: The glow of headlights expanding like a pair of stars going supernova. “They’re coming, and when they get here, they will kill us,” I tell Bob. “You too. They won’t believe you and they will kill you.”

Bob stares into my face, tears of pain streaming down his.

“You have to trust me,” I say.

“Or she’ll break another finger,” Razor adds.

A deep, shuddering breath, shaking uncontrollably, cradling his wounded hand, blood trickling down his neck and soaking into the collar of his T-shirt. “It’s hopeless,” he whispers. “They’ll just shoot us down.”

On impulse, I reach forward and press my hand against his cheek. He doesn’t recoil. He becomes very still. I don’t understand why I touched him or what’s happening now that I am, but I feel something opening inside me, like a bud spreading its delicate petals toward the sun. I’m freezing cold. My neck is on fire. And the little finger on my right hand throbs to the beat of my heart. The pain brings tears to my eyes. His pain.

“Ringer!” Razor barks. “What the hell are you doing?”

I pour my warmth into the man I touch. I douse the fire. I caress the pain. I soothe his fear. His breath evens out. His body relaxes.

“Bob, we really have to go,” I tell him.

And two minutes later, we do.

72

AS WE ASCEND, the truck screeches to a stop and a tall man steps out, and his face is a study in deep shadows thrown by the floods, but I see his eyes with eyes enhanced, bright and hard like the crows’ in the woods, polished blue while the crows’ were black, and it must be a trick of light or shadow, the small, tight smile he seems to wear.