Atlantic Island (38 page)

The others had taken his lead in the commotion. Within seconds, the guards were dead. The entire scene beginning with Bill's move against Bertier had happened in a flash. Theo realized this night had been a succession of incredible good luck followed by horrible misfortune. This nightmare had to end.
 

His men stripped the Security Force agents of their weapons.
 

"Would you look at this," Ryan said, "all of Bertier's buddies were here. This was his elite squad? Man, did Tiberius botch this one."

Theo smiled. Ryan sounded much better, at least for the moment.
 

"What do we do now?" asked Wes. "We should follow after Bill."

Theo shook his head. "We can't."

"Theo!" exclaimed Ryan. "We have to help him!"

"I wish we could. If we drop down to the beach we'd have to come all the way back through the garage. We can't afford to start over, not after making all this progress. It kills me, Ry, but Bill's got to handle this himself. We need to get to the executive floor."

Bill and Bertier fell to the sand, eight feet below the doors to the casino. Shattered glass rained down around them as they plunged into deep dunes. Bill tried to spring to his feet but the slipping sands kept him off balance. He moved laterally instead, trying to fight out of the side of the dunes. He had just made it out when Bertier tackled him sideways. They sprawled onto the beach in the shadow of the massive screens that not much earlier had shown Tiberius's murder of Michelle.
 

"I'm gonna make you die slowly," said Bertier. He punched Bill in the face. Bill grabbed onto him and rolled him over. He went to deliver punches of his own but Bertier grabbed a handful of sand and tossed it at him. Bill covered his eyes with his arm and Bertier pushed him off.

The leader of the Security Force scrambled to a safe distance and back to his feet. Bill got up slowly, rubbing sand off his face. A small cut had opened above his right eyebrow, where Bertier's wild haymaker had glanced off his face.
 

Bill cracked his knuckles and rotated his neck, loosening up his muscles. "You sure you want to do this, Bertier?" he asked. "Why not just give up? Admit that you're an inbred skinhead and you've got nothing productive to offer society. I'm sure the new regime will go easy on you after Daddy Tiberius falls."

"You don't get it," said Bertier. His eyes were wide and wild. "The Supreme Leader isn't going anywhere. He's our lord and savior!"

"Oh, Berty, Berty, Berty, have you been fed a load of malarkey. That gunfire we heard just a minute ago? I bet you ten bucks that was Theo and the rest killing your goofy friends. Guess who they are going to kill next? Your false messiah."

Bertier let out a scream of rage like a mindless beast. He rushed at Bill, who connected with a powerful right hand. Bertier buckled and fell over. In a second, Bill was on top of him, unloading shot after shot. He hadn't known he had so much anger in him but here, now, every wrong thing he had experienced: his arrest, Mark's death, Dale, Menendez, Michelle, everything that had happened to his friends and to him since they had made the mistake to come to the shore, all of that went through his mind. He took all that rage and frustration and channeled it into his fists. Bertier's face, never much to look at, dissolved into a bloody, misshapen mess.
 

Bertier reached into his pocket. Bill felt a sharp pain on his arm. He stopped his onslaught. His arm was bleeding from a shallow cut where Bertier had slashed him with a knife. Bertier went to stab at him and Bill knocked the knife away. Bertier brought his other hand up and hit him in the temple. He saw flashes of light in his vision. His own, private Event. Bertier rolled him and got back on top, and now it was Bill who was trying desperately to cover up.
 

They rolled over and over, each landing shots to the face and body. Bill felt cool water and knew they were at the edge of the ocean. Bertier flipped him into the water and grabbed him by the throat, pushing his head under the waves.
 

Bill had just enough time to take a breath and now he held it as best he could, as Bertier's beefy hands squeezed at his throat.
No,
he said to himself.
You didn't come all this way to drown in a foot of water.
 

He thought of Mark, whose body had fought for so long after he sustained his injuries. Bill had promised to make his life count for something, to live on so that Mark's memory would live on through him. He wasn't going to let it end here. Bill grabbed Bertier's wrists in his hands. With every bit of strength he had left, he squeezed, cracking the small bones in the thug's wrists. Bertier's hands relaxed on Bill's throat, and the large teen fell backward clutching his broken wrists to his chest.
 

Bill rose from the water, coughing and sputtering as he reclaimed his footing. Now he was towering over Bertier, who tried an awkward crabwalk away from the edge of the tide.
 

"Get away," said Bertier. "Get away from me! The Supreme Leader will make you pay! You're gonna die, and all your friends. Your girl. Everybody you love. You're all dead, man."

"No," said Bill. He dove on top of Bertier. The Security Force's young leader made one last thrust backward, and scooped up the knife. His broken wrist moved at a strange angle as he swung at Bill. Before he could think what he was doing, Bill grabbed the knife out of the air and redirected its trajectory down into Bertier's chest. Bertier continued to struggle for a few seconds and then he was gone.
 

Bill rolled onto his back in the cold sand. He watched the stars as he struggled to catch his breath. His arm hurt like hell but he was alive. He thought maybe he'd sleep for a while here on the beach. He had been running on pretty close to empty most of the night and sleep seemed like a great idea. But that wouldn't be right. Not when his friends were still fighting this war.
 

Bill rolled to a sitting position and slowly dragged himself to his feet. Sleep would come later. "I'll sleep when I'm dead!" he shouted to the wind. He didn't like the hint of madness in his voice. Better just get back to the fight. He walked up the beach and found Bertier's gun. Checking to make sure it was still loaded, Bill walked toward the street, where he would follow the rebels' steps into the building.

Theo and his group took the staircase as high as they could. Floor by floor the exhausted men climbed. Periodically they heard distant bursts of gunfire. The rebel army was fighting the Security Force. Of that he had no doubt. Each new wave of shooting energized him as he scaled the floors. It meant Kylee's group was still fighting. Still alive, some of them anyway.
 
He looked at the floor number. Twenty-four. "We're almost there," Theo called. Then, suddenly, a wall appeared in his path.

"They built a wall to block the way to the executive floor?" Ryan asked.
 

"Looks like it," Theo said.
 
"They wanted to limit access, probably for situations like this."

"Where do we go?" asked one of the other men... Seth, was it? Theo was struggling to remember the names of all the new people he was meeting. He felt ashamed, asking people to die for his cause when he didn't even know what to call them.
 

"We go down there." He pointed to the door leading to the highest accessible floor.
 

"But won't they know we're coming?" asked Wes. "They're going to herd us down a chute like cattle going to slaughter."

"They're going to try," Theo agreed. "But we have no choice. If that wall blocking the stairs was drywall I'd say we could tear it down. We don't have the time or the equipment to get through concrete block. The main elevator is in the middle of the hall and I have to imagine there's a stairwell there that goes all the way to the top. There's no other move we can make."

Theo hoped his voice still sounded calm and confident. His arm was completely useless now, tingling and numb. He wondered just how much damage that bullet had done to him. His head was starting to swim from the slow loss of blood. There was a very good chance that Wes was right. There was only one way for them to get to Tiberius and this was it. The Security Force, what was left of it anyway, would be blocking their path, he had no doubt.

He sat down on the step, trying to reorient himself physically and mentally. He hadn't feared dying for a worthwhile cause, and he still didn't particularly worry about it now. What frustrated him was the thought of failing his friends, of dying this close to his goal.

"Are you okay?" asked Ryan.
 

"I'm going to be," Theo said. "This will be over soon."

"I want you to know something," said Ryan.
 

"What's that?"

"Despite…despite everything that's happened, all the hardships, all this madness… you've been spectacular, Theo. I'm honored to be your friend."

Theo didn't know what to say. He wrapped his good arm around Ryan's shoulders and pulled him into a hug right there on the stairwell. He stepped back, ready to see the war come to an end one way or another. Somehow, his friend had given him the strength to carry on.
 

"Guys," he said, "I have to be honest. I can't use my right arm. I'm going to try to keep shooting with my left but my aim may be terrible. I will stand with you to the end but you can't rely on me to make a shot. I'm sorry."

"Not a problem, Theo," said Wes. "We'll just have to kill a few for you."

Theo smiled. "Okay, then. Let's go."

One of his other soldiers (was it Hugo?) reached for the door and whipped it open. A thunderous round of gunfire sounded and the man went flying backward in a hail of bullets.

"Damn it!" Theo yelled. "Take them!" He led his team in low while the Security Force reloaded. They fired as many shots as they could. He thought they might have hit one or two agents, but he couldn't be sure. He pulled his men back quickly to the relative safety of the stairwell. Theo looked at the others. They had no way forward. The Security Force was prepared. There was nothing to hide behind in the hallway. All they could do was take potshots through the doorway until they ran out of ammo.
 

"What do we do?" asked Wes.

"We don't do anything, not yet." Theo scratched his head. He knew Kylee's troops were working their way up but he didn't know what condition they were in. If Kylee had been hurt or killed they would be in disarray. They might very well be coming up right underneath his group in the stairwell, which would do no good.
 

He considered Wes's grenades. He wished there was some kind of flash bang, something that would give them an advantage without being so destructive. If they took out the hallway the top floor could collapse in on them. It might not be pleasant for Tiberius but it might also kill Theo and everyone with him.
 

Just then he heard sounds of motion coming down the hall. "Someone's coming," he said. "Be ready."

There was a grunt of exertion and then Michelle's body came flying through the door landing on the floor in a heap. Ryan screamed, a sound that chilled Theo to the bone. He saw his friend go running for the door, gun drawn. Theo moved as quickly as he could, but Wes got there first, tackling Ryan and pinning him to the ground.
 

"Let me go!" Ryan screamed. "Let me go!"

"You'll die out there!" Theo yelled.
 

"I don't care! I want to kill them all."

Theo turned to Wes. He was trying hard not to see Michelle's twisted body in his peripheral vision. "Wes, keep him down. He's no good to us like this."

What the hell was he going to do? Theo was completely out of options. Throwing Michelle's body at them like that… Tiberius wanted to disarm them emotionally, and remind them that he was in control. Maybe he was. Maybe this had been a giant fool's errand. For the first time in a while, Theo thought of his family. His real bed in his real room in his real home. He sat down on the step and stared at the blank wall across from him while Ryan kicked and struggled.
 

He was just so tired. Tired from being awake for so many hours, but even more tired on a deeper level from everything he had experienced the past year. He'd had enough.
 

A new spate of gunfire caught Theo's attention. It was like those he'd heard periodically, but this one was much closer. He could hear the sound coming through the open door. Curiosity motivated him to his feet. "Can someone get me a visual?" One of the men crawled to the opening and moved his head out and back.
 

"It's Kylee, Theo, sir," the man said. "It's the army! They're fighting the Security Force!"

Theo snapped back into action. "We can't go into the hall without risking hitting the other rebels or them hitting us. I want careful shots taken at the floor between the Security Force and us. Draw their attention. Let's help our army win this."

Theo's men did as he ordered. Ryan had collapsed into a weeping mess draped over Michelle's body. That was fine for now. At least he wasn't getting himself killed, and Wes was now free to keep shooting.
 

It was a confusing few minutes. His men fired sporadic shots at the floor. The Security Force and the rebel army exchanged far more gunfire. Finally, the shooting sounds slowed, becoming less frequent and less intense, before they ceased altogether.
 

Silence surrounded them like a heavy blanket, deadening thought and emotion. Time slowed. Finally, Theo dared speak. "Kylee?" he shouted. "Kylee!" We're across the hall in the stairwell. Can we come out?"

He froze, petrified that he might not hear Kylee's voice in response. Then there it was: "Theo! Come on out here!"

He walked out. He still felt a little dizzy from his wound, but nothing would stop him from seeing Kylee again. There she was, at the opposite end of a hall filled with smoke, dust and bodies. They ran to each other, past the shredded carpet and chunks of violated concrete from his team's contribution to the fight, and embraced in the center.