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CHAPTER 102
I SHOVED THE door open and walked outside, past the huge Black Hawks and all the men with guns. I felt sick. I felt angry. I felt relieved. I felt guilty. What the hell are you supposed to feel when you end somebody’s life—even if it’s somebody who was trying to end yours?
I walked across the yard to the stone wall that surrounded the compound. I stretched out and leaned both arms against it. I felt burning in my chest, but it wasn’t from the bullet. It was from somewhere a lot deeper. I squeezed my eyes shut and felt tears streaming out. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Thank you,” said Kira.
I felt sick to my stomach. I pushed off the wall and turned on her.
“Thanks??”I said. “I don’t want to be thanked. Do you want me to be proud of that??”
“I’m not asking you to be proud,” said Kira. “Would you rather seemedead? And you? Because that was the choice. Her or us.”
She was right. But it didn’t help. I still felt sick and twisted inside.
“I just made a big, noble speech about being human,” I said. “Now I’m a killer. And a good one. That’s what you made me.”
Kira cocked her head. She wasn’t joining my pity party. Something about seeing me breaking down made her toughen up. She was right in my face.
“So maybe I should have left you alone,” she said. “All by yourself in your one-bedroom apartment with your books and your research papers and your microwave dinners. Maybe I should have let you be nervous and afraid for the rest of your life. Would that have been better for you?”
I looked right at her.
“Everything I’ve learned over the last six months,” I said, “it was for you, not for me.”
She knew it was true. I was a tool for saving her life. And I’d done my job. She’d been raised to be a killer, and she’d turned me into one. A miserable piece of role switching. She turned and walked away. But I wasn’t done.
“You missed your calling, Kira,” I called after her. “You should have been a teacher.”
CHAPTER 103
KIRA SAT AT a long folding table in the Red Cross tent, making the last of her hundred calls for the day. She rubbed her right shoulder. The sling was gone. The pain was not.
After a week of DNA matching and searching missing-children files from all over the world, they’d made progress. The younger children were being sent home to their families or to temporary foster care, the older kids to deprogramming centers. The teachers and security guards had been processed, too. A high percentage had outstanding international warrants, some decades old. A team had been flown in from The Hague to deal with the extradition paperwork.
There were still hundreds of connections to be made, especially for the babies. One whole tent had been set up as a temporary nursery, with the military nurses in charge. From where she sat, Kira could hear squeals and cries all day long.
Something else had changed, too. As she looked out across the compound, Kira saw that the whole dynamic of power in the operation had shifted. Now it was Doctor Savage who was in control. She watched him striding back and forth across the compound like a giant, looming over volunteers, medical staff, and military alike. As he ushered groups of kids onto helicopters, commandos and pilots responded crisply to his orders. Some had even started saluting him.
Kira knew that the only person he wasn’t talking to was her. They hadn’t exchanged a single word since the day he’d taken a bullet for her. She still wondered if he’d regretted doing it.
One of the newly arrived military staffers dropped a new stack of papers onto Kira’s table. He looked out at the powerfully built man in the torn shirt—the one ordering everybody around like a general. He looked bigger than life. Superhuman.
“Who the hell isthat?” the staffer asked. “Is he from Delta Force?”
“Actually,” said Kira, “he’s a college professor.”
The tent flaps billowed as another loaded chopper lifted off. A minute later, a new Black Hawk settled down in its place. The side door slid open.
Kira saw the professor duck under the spinning blades and yell something up to the pilot. He put one foot on the skid. It looked like his ride had arrived. He paused for a second and looked toward the open tent. It wasn’t exactly an invitation, but Kira figured it was the closest she was going to get. Her last chance to say good-bye.
She stood up and walked outside. The chopper was idling now, the propeller in slow rotation, beating a rhythmic pulse. It was still enough to blow back her copper curls as she walked up. Doctor Savage had one hand on the grip inside the chopper door.
“No luggage?” asked Kira.
The professor looked up into the hold of the helicopter, then back at her.
“All I brought was a backpack,” he said. “You keep it.”
