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Lonnie thought Joe was going to shoot him, and Bryn thought he was probably right. . . . But then Joe shook his head, opened the passenger door, and descended from the truck. “Bryn,” he said. “You next. ”
She cocked an eyebrow at Riley. “You going to shoot me?”
“Probably not. ”
Bryn took her at her word, and eased backward out the door, hopping down onto the pavement and standing next to Joe. Riley followed, smooth as a snake, landing flat-footed and absolutely steady with her aim on Joe. “Are we done with this bullshit?” she asked.
“Guess so,” he said, and holstered his sidearm, apparently unconcerned with what she would do. Bryn watched her—not the eyes, because it wasn’t the eyes that betrayed people, it was the micro-twitches in the hands.
But Riley simply put her gun away, too, and the standoff was over. “Hold this, Joe,” she said, and gave him the syringe. “I’m going back for supplies before Lonnie rabbits it out of here. ” She disappeared back into the truck, and emerged about fifteen seconds later with backpacks, which she tossed to each of them. Bryn strapped hers on, and the weight settled in nicely. One thing about being in the infantry, you never forgot the feel of a kit on your back. Like riding a bike. Or at least, like going on twenty-mile hikes carrying half your weight.
By unspoken consent, they moved away from the truck and into the shelter of a big, low-spreading tree—the kind of landscape people called trash trees, Bryn recalled, short-lived and strong-willed. Lonnie wasted no time in laying the hammer down, and he was over the horizon in less time than it took Bryn to get her directional bearings.
“You’re sure about splitting up?” Joe asked. “Because I get where you’re going, but I’m not sure you’ll make it. ”
“Riley’s right about the formula,” Bryn said. “It needs to get back to Manny; that’s vital. If this is the answer, he’s the only one we can trust to analyze and—hopefully—reproduce it. ”
“You really think he’s going to let us back inside? He seemed a little, I don’t know, paranoid. ”
“Pansy will make him. ” Bryn tried to sound sure of that, but in truth, she wasn’t sure; no one could be sure of what Manny would do. But she hoped she was right, anyway. “And this plays into his paranoia, because he’ll be the
only one with the cure. Then it’ll be up to you to pry it out of his hands, of course, but one step at a time. I love the guy, but he’s definitely Handle With Care. ” She turned her attention on Riley. “Unless you think you’re going to take it and give it to your bosses. ”
Riley cocked an eyebrow. “I never made any secret of the fact that I work for the FBI. I never said I quit. And it doesn’t matter, because in this, the federal government and our little rogue op have exactly the same goals: stop the spread of infection, and stop the Fountain Group. Manny’s our best option. ”
“Are you under orders right now?” Joe asked. It sounded like a casual question, and it would have been easy to mistake him for relaxed, standing here under the gently rustling leaves of the trash tree, with the sun beating down. But he wasn’t.
“Not as such,” Riley said, and tilted her head just a little. Her eyes narrowed. “You think they surveilled us. Satellite?”
“Wouldn’t put that shit past them,” Joe said. “We already know they’re into the air force’s command and control; all it would really take would be a drone flyover. Could have been slipped in without anybody noticing at all. But yeah, if they were sharp enough to set the trap, they’re sharp enough to watch and see who walks away from it. We stay in the truck, we’re marked, at best. Or we’re—”
“Dead,” Bryn finished softly. She looked after the truck, but it was lost to view now, heading fast down the road. “You made the offer, Joe. Whatever happens now, you made the offer to him. ”
“Look, let’s not kid ourselves, the best thing that guy has to look forward to now is torture and death, or—if he’s really damn lucky—they’ll just bomb the shit out of the truck and kill him that way. But he’s not walking away unscathed. We all know that. ” Joe was expressionless, but there was a glitter in his eyes, something sharp and angry. “We owe it to him to not fail, you understand. We don’t owe Thorpe; he started this—fuck him. We owe Lonnie. We owe the Lonnies of this world who get caught in the middle. ”
Bryn was caught by surprise, but she slowly nodded. So did Riley. “I was Lonnie once, too,” she said. “I walked into this. I was just—taking a job. I went in the wrong door at the wrong time. And you’re right. But I can’t forget that we got Lonnie into this—not our enemies. ”
“Innocent people are going to die in this,” Joe said. “Don’t like it, but I have to accept it. Innocents are who we’re fighting for. Not ourselves, not the government, not the military, just . . . the ones who don’t even see this coming. ”
It was almost as if they’d made some kind of pact, and Bryn supposed they had—a quiet, unspoken sort of promise that didn’t need handshakes or salutes. Just nods.
Joe dug in his pocket and handed over what looked like—lipstick? No, it was the same general cylindrical shape, but when he pulled the cap off, there was a round black button on it. “You get where you’re safe, you push this,” he said, and recapped the thing. “Patrick will read the coordinates and come to you. But make sure you’re someplace you can wait for him. Like I said: one use only. ”
“Got it,” she said, and zipped it into a pocket on her pants. One thing she was hoping not to lose this time: her pants.
“Want to tell us where you’re heading?” Riley asked.
Bryn slowly shook her head, still watching the horizon. “No,” she said. “I don’t. ”
“Probably not wrong,” Joe Fideli said. He hugged her hard, and she hugged him back, suddenly shaky inside because, although she didn’t particularly mind splitting from Riley, Joe was . . . different. And he must have known that, because he kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Want to know a secret, kid?”
“Sure. ”
“If I wasn’t already married . . . ”
“Tease. ” She kissed him back on the cheek, and stepped away, and got a real, and very sweet, smile from him. “Take care of yourselves. ”
Riley didn’t hug. She settled for a nod, and then Bryn set out at a run, heading west.
