ABOUT 3 HOURS LATER. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 1:15 AM EST. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2025.
Jenny had never
looked more beautiful than she did in candlelight; she had been
waiting in his favorite nightie to give him a hero’s welcome, and
he’d accepted enthusiastically.
Now he sat
cross-legged and upright on the bed, catching his breath. Jenny lay
gasping like a trophy marlin. Pity that the
only men I actually killed were those pathetic stooges, he
thought. I would have liked to see old
stone-faced Cam-boy beg for his life. . . .
The thought of Cam
screaming, the real memory of his slack dead face, Jenny’s spill of
blonde curls across the pillow, and the sheen of sweat on her big
breasts, started him again. He sprang onto Jenny, pinned her,
pushed her legs apart.
She squirmed and
cried out; this was past the point of her pleasure. He knew she was
sore, and he knew too that she would not only forgive him but come
to treasure the memory, as she had their wedding night and the
other triumphant nights when he had been like this. Teenage-boy
bragging resounded in his mind: she’ll walk
funny for a week, she won’t be able to sit
down—
Her cries of pain and
fear brought him to another climax. She curled away from him. “No
more, please, baby. I hurt.”
Instantly remorseful,
he brought her ointment, stroked her hair, soothed her while she
cried about how scary he was. She clung
to him; he rubbed her back. If ever he had really made anything his
own—
Pounding, then
shouting, at the door.
He rolled from the
bed, yanked on sweater and pants, put his boots over his trousers,
and threw the door open. Reverend Whilmire and Reverend Peet stood
there, escorted by four soldiers with rifles.
Whilmire said, “We
have an emergency. The Pueblo spies and General Phat are gone, two
of their guards are dead, and the medic doesn’t think the third one
will regain consciousness. Did you know anything about their escape
plan?”
“Only that Shorty
Phat was supposed to be the guy that knew it, and if we kept them
all locked up it wasn’t going to matter.” Grayson grabbed his coat
from the rack; it was freezing outside. “Are any troops in motion
yet?”
“We told the sergeant
that brought us the news to alert the officer of the watch. He sent
back that he’s bringing Second Battalion to Terrell Hall, and he’s
also activated the lockdown plan, so there will be troops at the
airport and railway station—and on every bridge, ford, and road—in
a few minutes.”
“How long ago?”
Grayson was solving the problem already; airport locked up, trains
locked up, guarding the roads would slow them down, moonless night
so horses couldn’t move much faster than a healthy man could walk.
“How long ago?” he demanded, again.
“Sir, the message
from the officer of the watch came back eighteen minutes ago, sir,”
the sergeant of the escorting soldiers said. “And the situation at
the facility was discovered about ten minutes before
that.”
Grayson nodded.
They have at least forty minutes’ head start,
but not an hour. The Pueblo spies and Phat had to be within
a couple of miles; call it three by the time he had his troops—a
long head start, but if they were hiding somewhere to await pickup,
maybe.
“Two of you men come
with me,” he said. “I’ve got to go to Terrell Hall and take
command. Reverend Whilmire, go wake up the Board, drag them into a
meeting, no matter what the actual numbers are it’s a quorum, and
vote in a temporary declaration of martial law. To expire in two
weeks—if we haven’t salvaged things by then we’ve lost
anyway.”
“I’d only slow
everyone down,” the Reverend Peet said. “I’m going home to bed to
let younger people cope with this. Reverend Whilmire, you have my
proxy.”
Most useful thing I’ve ever heard Peet say, Grayson
thought. “Mine too,” he said. “Good luck.”
As he ran, the
sergeant and one soldier at his heels, he thought, Ask me for anything but time. Supposedly Napoleon said
that. For the first time, I really understand him. He ran
down the road, faster and faster as his eyes adjusted to the
starlight, everything forgotten but the need to be there now, now,
now.