Zhukov's Dogs (22 page)

On edge was an understatement, but I had hoped Anya wouldn’t notice. I pulled my eyes into focus and looked away from the empty road. I flashed a small smile as I said, “What can I say? I’ve never been part of a car-jacking before.”

“Technically, it’s a truck, so there’s no need to be nervous.” Anya laughed. She lifted a pair of binoculars to her eyes and looked at a warehouse’s rooftop across the street. Michael waited there, ready to give the signal when our target came up Seventh Avenue.

A buzz of static from the two-way on Patrick’s hip made the furry-faced boy jump. He whooped with an embarrassed laugh before answering it. “Yeah?”

“Streets are clear all the way up to Seneca. We’re ready on Maddison,” came Tibbs’ voice over the two-way.

“Awesome. We’re in position on James. Just waiting for—”

“There! That’s the signal,” Anya said suddenly, pointing to where Michael waved a green scarf and bounced excitedly.

Patrick quickly relayed to Tibbs, “You heard the pretty lady. It’s show time.”

Anya whistled across the street where Jayne and Lee were crouched in the doorway of a grungy laundromat. I wasn’t a fan of Jayne, and from the way he kept glaring at me, it was safe to assume he wasn’t too fond of me either. Val called him and Lee in to help with Operation Oxford, though, since they were considered to be two of the best shots in Seattle.

“Run on ahead, Anya. Don’t want you getting caught up in the crossfire,” Patrick said as he hoisted a gun four times the size of my own. Anya wished us luck and took off up the street. Patrick leaned out and watched her go, mumbling so only I could hear, “Man. Just look at that.”

I stared after Anya, her blonde hair bouncing softly as she ran. The playful swish of her hips. The slightest glimpse of pale skin between her jeans and small, discolored sweater. A rhythmic thump of the pack around her waist, hitting her thigh.

“Girl is
fine
,” Patrick hooted.

I agreed? I agreed! I still found girls attractive! It should have come as some relief, or, at least, reassurance that what happened with Val earlier was a spur-of-the-moment situation. Instead, I was only more confused. Because even as I watched Anya run off, I thought of her brother and the way his body felt pressed tight between mine and the wall.

A sigh left my lips louder than I intended, and Patrick eyed me oddly. His furry, caterpillar-like brows wagged. “Dude, I call dibbs.”

“Whatever.”

I couldn’t believe I was wasting time thinking about Anya, Val, or what exactly “dibbs” meant. Everything and everyone down here would be buried in a matter of days. I’d be back in D.C. soon, and this would all be a memory filed away in the Y.I.D. archives.

The sound of engines, at least two, resonated up the street. Still no cars in sight. Patrick came to my side, chuckling as he asked, “Ready for this?”

There it was again. That nagging sensation that I knew him from somewhere. Considering the people I’d met and my line of work, I hoped it was nothing more than a horrible coincidence. I studied his face, trying to get a good idea of what he looked like behind the beard and without his glasses.

My mind worked slower than usual, thanks to my fever, and before I could put anything together, a black town car came around the corner two blocks down. Through the windshield, I counted three men. They weren’t suits, though.

“They’re Grey Men!” I shouted across the street at Jayne and Lee.

They exchanged a quick look, trying to decide what to do. There was no time to stop and make a new plan. What if the Grey Men recognized me? What if they announced who I was? I had to stop them. I rushed from the loading dock.

“What are you doing?” Patrick yelled after me.

Panic faded into a wave of adrenaline as I ran in front of the speeding car, ripped the gun from under my belt, and fired two shots, aimed at the front tires. The Grey Man behind the wheel hit the brakes. The vehicle swerved sideways as the tires blew out, upheaving a streetlight in its path before crashing into the side of the warehouse.

I fired again, this time through the driver’s side window. Glass shattered, and the Grey Man behind the wheel jolted as the bullet lodged itself in his neck. I shot him twice more to make damn sure he was dead.

Over the ringing in my ears, I heard Patrick shouting something on the two-way. I’d never put down a Grey Man before. My hands were usually steady when a gun was in them, but now they trembled. They moved by themselves, ejecting the magazine and reloading the gun in one fluid, reflexive motion as the remaining two Grey Men scrambled from the vehicle.

Jayne and Lee emerged from hiding. Lee dove for cover behind a dumpster while Jayne followed my bold lead in charging right at them. We fired on the Grey Men before they could even get their weapons up.

The supply truck came around the corner, right as the two Greys, filled with lead, hit the ground. I turned my gun on the man behind the wheel screeching the truck to a dead stop. Not a Grey Man. It was a suit, one of Granne’s goons. He threw his hands up to shield his face. As I lowered my gun, Jayne fired. The suit’s head whipped backward, ricocheted off the seat, and fell forward against the steering wheel. The truck’s horn blared.

I looked to Jayne. Over the noise of the horn, I couldn’t hear him, but his shoulders shook as he laughed. Lee ran to the truck, opened the door and heaved the suit off the horn. She tossed him from the driver’s seat and climbed over the body to shift the truck into park.

The adrenaline gave way to panic again. Everything ached; my body was too tense, skin too hot, and head too heavy. I’d just killed three Grey Men. What were they even doing in Seattle? Were they here for me? Did the S.O.R. send them to prepare for the collapse of the city?

Behind me, footsteps rushed to meet us. I turned and saw Patrick slowing to a stop before me, Val, Tibbs, Fritzi and everyone else coming from further up the street. They were only a block and a half away when Patrick muttered, “Christ, what the hell was that, Zhukov?”

I seized the front of his jacket with one hand and jabbed my gun under his jaw with the other. Patrick knew my name. My real name. His yellow eyes filled with terror, and he squawked out a horrified cry. Yellow eyes. Private Marco Petroze of the Y.I.D. He’d put on weight and grown out his hair, but up close there was no mistaking a splotched, ratty face like his.

“Nik!” Val shouted.

Over Marco’s shoulder, I saw him reach for his gun. Marco was Patrick, and Patrick was one of the people Val had threatened to kill me for. I shoved Marco away and raised my hands to show I wasn’t going to hurt him. Everyone looked mortified by my actions, some reaching for their own weapons, others backing away slowly, and all exchanging wary glances. Val’s hand still gripped his gun, like he wasn’t sure whether or not it was all a trick.

“Sorry! Sorry, I thought he was a suit trying to get the jump on me,” I insisted.

“It’s okay, guys! I’m okay. It was a misunderstanding.” Marco laughed, fanning his face. He put on such a show for them, joking about how he should have been more careful when sneaking up on me and turning the blame on himself.

My legs felt weak. Marco Petroze, yellow-eyed and yellow-bellied rodent of the Y.I.D., was in Seattle. He knew who I really was. He knew, and for some reason, he was lying to protect me. I’d slaughtered three Grey Men who, for all I knew, could have been in Seattle to escort me back to D.C. And if that wasn’t enough, I was still trying to accept the reality that everything and everyone around me would soon be buried by the frozen city above.

Marco’s lies put the others at ease, so I flicked the safety back on my gun and tucked it away. My hands were still shaking slightly and damp with sweat, so I stuffed them into my pockets as the others came closer.

“These are really Grey Men,” Tibbs said, cautiously approaching the bodies. “We haven’t had these sons of bitches down here in years.”

I considered commenting on how strange it was, just to help throw suspicion off of me, but I worried my voice wouldn’t come out steady. My head spun, and to make everything worse, I could feel Val’s eyes on me. He didn’t trust me.

“Nik?”

I shut my eyes and took a deep breath.
Here it comes
.
He’s figured me out. I can run. I can outrun them all and hide at the station until the train comes
. My thoughts of escape were interrupted when a hand rested on my shoulder and Val asked, “You okay?”

The relief that washed over me spurred a wave of nausea I had to fight down. I opened my eyes and saw Val hadn’t been watching me with mistrust at all. He was concerned. My world made out of lies wasn’t about to fall apart, and yet, somehow the longer I stood there, under his worried stare, the guiltier I felt.

“Yeah,” I replied, batting his hand away and striding toward the supply van. I deliberately avoided looking at the Grey Men as I passed.

Michael joined us in the street and rushed forward to walk alongside me. He was practically beaming as he said, “That was
so
cool! You were all like, ‘bang-bang-bang,’ and they were all, ‘blurg, I’m dead,’ and I was all like, ‘
whoa
!’”

“What are Grey Men doing down here?” Fritzi asked over Michael’s cheers.

I had my hunches, but all I could think about was everything I wanted to ask Marco. He stayed very close to Anya and Lee with his back turned to me. I had just started forming a plan to get him alone when Val commanded everyone’s attention with a loud whistle.

“Let’s not worry about the Grey Men right now,” he said, herding us toward the truck. “We don’t want to be seen here. Patrick, you drive.”

And there was my chance. I walked away from the others and toward the front of the truck, waiting until Marco was getting in on the other side before climbing in. His pupils shrank to the size of pins behind the thick glasses. He fidgeted and looked around for help, someone so he wasn’t all alone with me. Everyone had piled into the back, though.

“Better get driving,
Patrick
. Don’t want the others to get suspicious,” I said, gesturing toward the keys in the ignition.

“If you try to do anything, I’ll scream,” he muttered.

I took out my gun and ejected the magazine, setting both pieces on the dashboard between us. I leaned back and waited until Marco shifted the truck into drive to ask my first question. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’ve been here for months.”

“Liar,” I spat back. “There aren’t supposed to be any dogs in Washington other than me.”

Marco’s eyes remained focused on the road, determined not to look at me. “Right… There aren’t
supposed
to be.”

“What’s that mean?”

Marco huffed and readjusted his grip on the steering wheel. He took his sweet time with answering, and during the silent seconds, I tried to remember when I’d seen him last. It must have been at the Spring Inauguration. Yes, he’d come in late and stood in the back, shifting awkwardly for the entire two hours.

“It means,” he began slowly, “That I’m not supposed to be here.”

“You’re AWOL?”

Marco shushed me and jabbed his thumb over his shoulder to remind me we had company. “Keep it down! And yeah, I guess you’d call it that.”

“But why? I mean, what are you even doing here?” I asked, already taking out my phone and swapping out the cards so I could tap into the Y.I.D. database. I needed to confirm whether or not Marco was telling the truth.

“Well, it’s not like I could go to some tropical paradise. The government would catch up with me if I put myself in plain sight.” Marco sighed.

“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, why did you run off?”

Marco laughed. He scratched at the unruly beard with one hand as he told me, “Not all of us are cut out for the military, Nik. You and I might not have ever worked together in the field, but I’m sure you heard as much about me as I heard about you. Private Petroze, AKA the runt of the litter.”

My phone beeped when it found Marco’s file. In large red letters, right after his name, was the word AWOL. I still couldn’t believe he was here, but I felt ten times better knowing he wasn’t with the Y.I.D. anymore. It meant he wasn’t secretly relaying information back to them about me and my mission.

Marco might not have been a dog anymore, but he definitely still thought like one. He made that much clear when he asked, “So what are you doing in Seattle? When Gemma and Michael told me about you I thought to myself, nah, it can’t be him. Figured I’d check just to be sure.”

“I’m not here for you if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Good,” Marco said with a relieved sigh. “That’s all I care about. Seriously, don’t tell me anything more. I don’t want to know.”

Marco was the same runt as before, only looking out for himself. There was one thing I needed to be sure of if I was even going to think about letting him live. “You tell the others anything, and I mean anything at all, I’ll make you wish I’d dragged you back to D.C.”

“Secret’s safe with me,” Marco said. He mimed zipping his lips and flicked the imaginary key away before flashing me a thumbs-up. I narrowed my eyes. His charade wasn’t enough to convince me not to snap his neck the second we were alone together.

We spent the rest of the ride in complete silence. It was easy to know when we reached the Oxford District. The road became wider and the people thinner. Small cul-de-sacs with beige, single-story homes branched off the main road where almost every other streetlight was broken. People chatted in small groups on their porches while watching their children play in the street. Each identical cul-de-sac bustled with noise and life, but with a sense of peaceful chaos, as they were overshadowed by enormous, metal columns.

I’d seen the columns from a distance. It was only as we pulled up to park alongside one, though, I appreciated how massive they were. Its presence was made even more daunting by the poor lighting and small houses scattered around the base. There were four others exactly like it within a four-block radius, each spanning from the ground to the ceiling, high above.

This was the Oxford District. This was ground zero.