Tom.

My God.

They had Tom.

120

He hadn’t lied to Chris. When he cooked up this cockamamy plan, he had one very healthy leg and one that was plenty strong, only slightly gimpy. The timing had worked fine. After the RPGs, that changed. So he miscalculated, didn’t factor in distance, how far and fast he could hobble on a bloody leg with a hunk of metal in it that kept wanting to give out. A lot of time got chewed up while he got the ball rolling, lurched his way to the huge compressor on the roof and then around back, making doubly sure all the outside vents were sealed. The last thing he needed was for the smell of burning thermite and live det cord to leak. He went as fast as he could, but by the time he was gimping back around the building and up the village steps to head for the jail, Finn’s men were halfway across the square—and he just . . . froze. Like Chris on the plateau: he looked, and the sight of all those Changed stopped him dead a good five seconds. Three seconds too long, as it turned out.

Which was not the plan. First principles, again: hold out bait, entice the enemy, lull them into believing they were safe. The idea was to arm the decoys, set off his incendiary, then hustle back to the real deal—that back room filled with propane tanks, C4, cans of fuel oil, and his homemade ANFO—and keep tabs on Finn while he waited for the thermite three stories above to eat through the floor and into an air conditioning duct where it would set off a long snake of det cord. If something failed along the way—say, the thermite didn’t work or the det cord didn’t ignite—or if it looked like Finn was delayed or ready to leave, all Tom had to do was wait for the right moment and then touch off the explosives himself. So, let Finn discover the fakes. Even if they suspected he’d survived the church, Mellie already thought she had all his bomb-making materials. That was the whole point of putting that small stash under the horse trough back at their old camp to begin with. The decoys here would reassure them they were right. Buy the kids a little more time, and then boom!

Great plan. Sucked about the leg. Anyway, it was bad. Frightened men are brutal. Storming the building, they crowded into the jail where he was desperately monkeying up metal shelves. It took four to pry him off, and they did it with enough violence that the back of his head cracked stone. He still felt the warm wet slither of blood down his neck. The rain of punches and blows was worse. One particularly well-aimed kick nearly buried that metal dagger in his left thigh, and his right flank, the recipient of a steel-toed boot, was screaming. Be lucky not to have busted a kidney. The only consolation? Tom’s eyes brushed Jed’s Timex. Assuming he got the right proportions of ABC to ground aluminum and plaster of Paris, and his math was correct— having experimented with those fire extinguishers enough, he was pretty sure it was—he had about, oh, fourteen minutes left to worry about that.

“Found him in the jail,” the steel-toed kidney kicker was saying, “with the fuel stores. Trying to start these up, but they’re fakes. Just, I don’t know, bread dough or something.”

“There’s nothing?” Finn was much bigger than Tom had guessed from that picture: a wide, imposing giant, all in obsidian-black, with a head that looked chiseled out of stone. On the other hand, Finn might seem huge because Tom was on his knees. Standing slightly off Finn’s right shoulder was that dark-haired boy in white, the one with Finn at the ruined church. Now that he was close, Tom saw how the kid’s savage, red eyes watched Finn with this eerie, quivering attentiveness reminiscent of a really well-trained dog waiting for a command.

“Not a single live bomb?” Finn asked Kidney Kicker.

“What about smoke?” This came from the woman next to Finn. “Cigarettes? Anything burning? It’s how he did it the last time.” Kidney Kicker pulled a frown. “Nothing like that. We’d have smelled det cord or smokes. No C4 either. Just these fakes. Probably thought he could get us going, running around, looking for the real deal, to buy those kids more time. Even if he tried the cigarette trick, we’ve been here long enough that if there was a bomb, it’d have gone off by now.”

“And we’d all be in hell before we knew we were dead,” Finn said, without a trace of irony. He tossed a look over his shoulder. “Which I’m sure you’d approve of, Yeager.”

“You need my approval?” Yeager’s face was calm, though his hungry eyes raked the face of a boy to Tom’s right. Tom nearly had a heart attack when he first spotted the kid. For a second, he thought, Oh my God, they got him before he could get away. But this boy’s hair was longer, almost to his shoulders. No fresh blood on his face or in his hair, no necklace of blue-black bruises, no cuts or raw flesh. This boy’s eyes were dark brown, almost black, no hemorrhage at all. Chris was lean, but this Changed was gaunt, his sunken cheeks like axheads. Then, of course, there was the very pregnant girl hanging onto the boy’s left arm.

Simon? Which meant the girl was Penny. His eyes ticked to the big blond with the mad red eyes, and he saw the sister’s ghost in the brother’s jaw, the shape of his nose. Has to be Peter.

At the sound of Yeager’s voice, Simon stirred, although without much energy. Tom knew the look. Throw a burlap bag over that kid’s head, slap on plasticuffs, squat him next to a mud-baked wall, and Simon could’ve doubled as a captured Taliban. Finn had broken Simon—and you were talking about breaking a monster.

Yeager saw it, too. To Tom, the old man looked like a weary scarecrow with no straw. “I won’t beg, Finn.” Yeager gestured to the waiting crowd. “We made our choice.”

“In a hurry to die? You’d be amazed how stubborn the body is, Yeager.” Finn turned back to Kidney Kicker. “Anything else?” “Only his weapons.” The man held up Jed’s Bravo and the Glock 19. “Lucky he was so busy trying to fake us out, he didn’t take a shot. Coupla knives, too.”

“That’s not right.” Mellie gave him a narrow look, her gray eyes careful and suspicious. Other than the blocky square of her head, she didn’t look like her brother. “He had an Uzi.”

“Yeah, and you would know. I saw where you got all my other stuff from under the damn trough,” Tom said, knowing the dismay showed. He tried pulling himself a little straighter, but his stomach grabbed and the words came on a grunt. He braced his middle with one arm. He kept the other hand propped on his right thigh, over that divot of scar from Harlan’s bullet, to keep from falling over. A crazy thought sparrowed: now he had a matched set—scar on the right, scar on the left. “I lost the gun in the explosion at the church.” “But not your head.” Finn’s right hand rested on the revolver’s pearled handle, his index finger keeping time in a slow, thoughtful tap-tap-tap. Like the tick of a countdown. A sheathed parang hung from his left hip. “Mellie said you were smart. I wondered if you’d made it.”

“Yeah, I noticed you wired my tent. What’d you do?” His lips skinned back in a grimace against a jab of pain. “Count left feet?” “Would’ve, if there’d been any to count.” One of Finn’s bushy white eyebrows arched. “I suppose we have you to thank for all this? No children? Well, but those shots. Does give you the willies, doesn’t it? All those poor kids, so much shish kebab.”

This guy really was an asshole. “No shots now,” he said, and noticed that Simon’s gaze had drifted from his grandfather to the bell tower. The tiniest crinkle had appeared between the boy’s brows, almost as if he’d spotted something. Was one of Finn’s men up there? Well, no big deal. There was only another decoy to find. “I hope not. But, well, I’ve got your kids.” Finn eyed him. “What tipped it?”

“The trash.” Bracing his side helped as long as he didn’t take too deep a breath. At least he was no longer gasping. The ache in his back was down to a dull roar. Not much longer he’d have to deal with either, though, or Finn. First principles: keep him busy, keep him relaxed, looking at me. All warfare is based on deception. “Cindi always picked up. Not like I’ve never seen IEDs hidden under garbage. I just wish it hadn’t taken me so long.”

“I’m impressed. I mean that, sincerely.” Finn gave him a speculative look with eyes that were colorless and cobra-flat. “That’s twice now you’ve survived. First on the snow, now this. And here I thought you were just another dumb grunt. That’ll teach me. How old are you?”

“Why does that matter?”

“Well.” Finn hooked a thumb at Peter, who only glared mutely.

“Let’s just say he’s from the bad section of the Petri dish. If I’m not mistaken, you’re younger.”

“Never.” Tom knew where this was going. The fact that none of them had much longer to argue this didn’t stop the chill from shivering down his spine. “Not in a million years.”

“That’s what I said.” Peter suddenly let go of a broken, brittle laugh. “I fought, I—”

“Peter.” Ernst’s flaccid jowls were streaked with tears. He lumbered a half-step before two of Finn’s men moved in to block him.

“Don’t. You’re not to blame.”

“Then who is?” Peter looked at Tom with brimming, vermillion eyes. “You won’t be able to hold out forever. Best thing is to die fast. Cut your throat first chance you—”

“Please be quiet, Peter. We’ve had so many interesting talks, I’d be sorry to lose you now.” Finn’s hand hovered over that Colt, although his eyes never left Tom. “But Peter does have a point. Everyone has a price, an Achilles heel. We just need to find yours.”

“You have my kids. I don’t have anything left for you to take.” He was afraid to glance at Jed’s Timex. Funny how subjective time was, dragging when you most wanted it to fly. He hadn’t lied to Chris. He didn’t want to die. There were the kids and Ellie to live for, and Alex, out there, somewhere. Stay alive, Alex, stay safe. Please understand this was the only way.