Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

After he’d moved to Wisconsin—after he became John Worthy—his guardian, a man named Ken, took him fishing. This was during salmon season on Lake Michigan, and what John remembered most was the salmon swarming in the rivers, their sleek blue and luminous green backs breaking through the surface as they battled their way upstream to spawn. There were so many, he thought all he had to do was pluck fish from the river by hand. As it was, he didn’t really recall doing much fishing. He’d only gawked.

This was, in a perverse way, exactly like that.

In a hundred feet, they were met with a swarm of panicked civilians and shouting Marines trying to keep order, trying to fight against the current and, like them, struggling to reach the Gate. There were more wounded now, a lot more blood, but all were either staggering alone into the alley or being helped by others. Part of him thought about stopping, quickly assessing the injured, then thought better of it. He knew there had to be casualty teams on the way, and Marines were very good at coping with battlefield casualties.

So, keep going. Heart pounding, sweat streaming down his neck and oozing over his spine, he raced after the sergeant. The people who need you most are beyond the wall. One might even be ? —

No. His heart closed with a painful squeeze. You can’t afford to think that, not yet. But, please, God. He sent up a silent prayer to a deity he didn’t believe in, had no reason to suppose existed—a deity who had failed a certain boy when that kid had needed that god most—but he did it anyway. Please, God, make her be all right. If she’s there, keep her safe.

Then, ten seconds later, they ran dead-on into a mosh pit of shrieking, panicked people trying to force their way into the airport. These civilians had already managed to bypass the shipping containers the Taliban had set up as a checkpoint—a chokepoint, really—to keep the flow of refugees manageable. A few Taliban were shooting into the air, though most had left their posts. The result: nothing and nobody to hold the hordes back. Ahead, John spied the barrier where the barbed wire hole had been pulled and widened to hoist the chosen to safety. Many Marines were already there, shouting, waving their arms for people to back up, but John couldn’t hear them at all above the tumult.

“No!” The sergeant snagged John’s elbow as he veered toward the hole in the barbed wire. “You don’t want to get hung up in that!” the man bawled over the crowd noise. “ This way, Doc!” The sergeant pointed to a mound of sandbags. “We get to the top of the shipping containers, got a better view of what’s going on. Wait, wait, hold up!” The sergeant scooped up a discarded helmet and thrust it at John. “Put that on. You get your head shot off, you’re no good to anyone.”

He wasn’t going to argue. The air was alive now, not only with screams and a rising chorus of wails, but a percussive thump as helos took up position or circled the area, looking for other problems or a coordinated attack. The gunfire he’d heard before had stopped, but he didn’t know what that meant.

Jamming on the helmet, he followed the sergeant, who was monkeying his way up the sandbags mounded against a shipping container. Hooking his hands on the container’s hot metal rim, John pulled himself up—and got his first good look.

And thought, Oh, my God.