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  Since he could walk now, Nick had gone outside for a smoke. As he lit the cigarette, he pulled the bottle of antibiotics Briggs had given him out of his pocket and popped one of the pills in his mouth. The medic had noticed some discoloration around Nick’s bullet graze and feared it was infected. Nick rolled the large pill around on his tongue for a moment before swallowing it.

  Bryce came outside as he choked down a horse pill, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket and lighting one of his own.

  “Medic says you were touch and go there for a bit,” Bryce said, walking up to stand next to Nick.

  “Nah. I’m tough to destroy. Runs in my family. We’re like tanks.”

  “My first time out, back in 1-8 Echo, we had a guy get hit in the neck with a pistol round. Could’ve saved him if we’d just put him back in the truck and sent one guy back to the base, but my CO just left him there to bleed out,” Bryce said. “Captain Sayed. You remember him.”

  “Yeah, that guy was an asshole,” Nick said. He’d only met Sayed twice, and punched him out shortly after they were introduced.

  “Thing is, he did it just to remind us that we were convicts, that we rated just below dog shit in his opinion. You could have legitimately left Daniel back there, or not spoken up about being able to give him your blood. But you almost died just so he wouldn’t. I know he already thanked you, and everything, but I just wanted to let you know…that means a lot to me, brother.”

  Bryce looked as though he wanted to say more, opened his mouth to do so, but nothing came out for a long moment.

  “He’d have done the same for me,” Nick said.

  “No doubt. But I still owe you one.”

  Nick shook his head as the pill tumbled down into his stomach.

  “You owe me nothing. Neither does Daniel. What’s our transport situation look like?”

  “Approximately not good, boss. Truck’s not gonna start again. No way we can all fit in the little thing you stole, even if the transmission wasn’t on its last legs. We’re on foot back to the main roads, unless we can find something up here.”

  “Which isn’t too likely. Chris tells me there’s been nothing out here since we arrived.”

  “Correct. We’re burning through cars like mad on this trip, aren’t we?”

  Bryce ran his hands through his hair and shook his head.

  “Yeah. Suppose we are. I’ll head down the mountain tonight, see if I can find us something.”

  “Sure you should be the one to go? You’re barely vertical. And your skin’s got this weird gray thing going on. You look like some of the guys in jail who were coming down off heroin.”

  “None of you guys can speak the language, and y’all do kind of stand out. I’m elected.”

  “At least take someone to watch your back.”

  Nick finished his cigarette and crushed the cherry under his boot heel.

  “You volunteering?” he asked.

  “Shit yes, I am.”

  “Good man. We’ll talk with Mary, see what she can find us on the map within ten miles or so. We’ll leave at dusk.”

  * * *

  “Okay, here’s us,” Mary said, pointing at a spot in the mountains on the satellite image on her computer screen.

  To Nick, it looked like they were, indeed, in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing but more mountains and what looked like a large lake around them. It’s gonna be a long walk, he thought.

  “These satellite images are from before the war, but they say we should be alone up here. I don’t think we are,” she continued. “I started picking up a low-level signal yesterday morning.”

  “What kind of signal?” Christopher asked.

  “Data. Encrypted. Something I haven’t been able to break yet. But it’s a pulse, and it’s regular. It’s coming from here,” Mary said, moving her finger a half-inch to the right on her screen. Nick saw nothing but more mountains.

  “Any idea as to what it might be?” Nick asked.

  “Nope. Encryption suggests military, but other than that, couldn’t tell you. Still, it’s only a mile and a half away, versus a ten-mile hike back down to the main roads. Might be worth checking out.”

  “Yeah,” Nick said, nodding. “It is. What do we have for ammo?”

  “A clip and a half for the AK-47s. About twenty rounds for all of the pistols. Almost a full clip for your M4,” Christopher reported.

  “All right. Load it all up. Bryce and I will head out that way, see if there’s anything useful to us. If not, back down to the main road we go. Mary, can you load these maps onto McPherson’s command screen?”

  “Already done, boss.”

  “See if you can find us some food while you’re out there, will you?” Briggs said from across the room. “We’re down to about a half-day’s rations here.”

  “I’ll put it on the shopping list. Anything else?” Nick asked his team.

  “Ooh! Jell-O! I was injured, I get Jell-O, right?” Daniel said, smiling.

  “And cigarettes. You know, if you see any lying around,” Christopher added.

  “I should rephrase that. Anything mission-critical?”

  “You see any medical supplies, grab ’em. We’re running kinda low on those, too, thanks to you two,” Briggs said.

  “Right, then. Bryce, ready to take a walk?”

  Bryce slammed a clip into his AK-47 and slung it over his back.

  “Following you, boss.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Plastic Bomb

  “What does that look like to you, Bryce?” Nick whispered, handing the compact binoculars over.

  Bryce took a look at the building just below them in a small valley. It was long and rectangular, with two tall smokestacks near the north corner. Several large, blocky trucks were parked outside. They were marked with the red-star crest of the Korean People’s Army.

  “Factory of some sort. Those are ZIL 131s. Russian-made cargo trucks.”

  “Tankers?”

  “Nah. I mean, yeah, the ZIL has a tanker variant, but those aren’t. Just regular cargo haulers. One of those would do us nicely.”

  “You have a creepy knowledge of Russian trucks,” Nick told him.

  “See a lot of ’em as workhorses on the race circuit. Hauling cargo, pulling race trucks out of the mud. They’re all over the place. You wouldn’t believe how many countries bought ’em in the eighties and nineties. They’re pretty awesome, really.”

  “Yeah. Now all we have to do is sneak down there and grab one without anyone seeing us,” Nick mumbled.

  “Might not wanna do that, boss. Check out the guys that just came outside,” Bryce said, passing the binoculars back.

  Four men had exited the factory, Nick saw as he looked through the binoculars. All of them were wearing white HAZMAT suits, black rubber boots and gloves, and gas masks. Even though they were outside, none of them removed any of their protective gear.

  “Chemical weapons,” Nick guessed. “Great.”

  “Think we’re exposed to anything up here?”

  “If we are, it’s already happened. But that explains why no one was coming up into the mountains, I guess. No one wants to be neighbors with the local death factory.”

  As Nick watched, two of the four men opened a large rolling door while the other two climbed into one of the ZIL trucks. The truck backed up to the open door, and a forklift drove up. Nick zoomed in with the binoculars to see if he could get a good look at the pallet full of barrels the forklift loaded into the back of the ZIL.

  “You see what it is?” Bryce asked.

  “Labeled in Korean. Might as well be hieroglyphics to me.”

  The forklift slowly set the pallet down in the back of the truck, but the men in the HAZMAT suits didn’t close the door. A moment later, another forklift appeared with another pallet. This time, one of the barrels was labeled in Chinese.

  “Wait a second. I can read that one.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s just a code number.
118-B-12.”

  “So, it could be anything.”

  “Yeah. But we know it’s nothing good.”

  The men in white closed the back of the truck, then closed the factory door. The truck slowly pulled away.

  “Two of them, two of us. We might not get better odds,” Bryce said.

  “Agreed. Where does that road go?”

  “Probably the same one we passed over a minute ago. Can’t imagine there’s a whole bunch of traffic up here.”

  “All right. Let’s get back up that way. Keep out of sight. I’ll try to stop them with my MSS credentials. If shit goes pear-shaped…”

  “Right. Kill ’em both.”

  “Yep. Be careful, though,” Nick said, stifling a yawn and willing his eyes to stay open—adrenaline wasn’t even working anymore. “We have no idea what’s in the back of that truck, but shooting it probably isn’t a good thing.”

  Nick and Bryce got to their feet and moved quickly, heading back up the hill for the dirt road they’d crossed two minutes before they’d seen the factory. Bryce tucked his small frame behind a large tree, and Nick saw headlights coming up the road. He stood in the middle of the dirt path, legs a shoulder-width apart, his MSS ID held up high. As the truck approached, it stopped and the driver stuck his head out the window.

  Neither the driver nor the passenger wore gas masks now, Nick noticed. Their HAZMAT hoods were pushed back, revealing two thin Asian men in their mid-thirties.

  “What’s going on?” the driver asked in Chinese. Nick could tell from his accent, though, that the guy didn’t speak Chinese as his native language. He was North Korean.

  “Ministry of State Security,” Nick shouted back. “Vehicle inspection checkpoint. Both of you step out of the truck.”

  The driver eyed Nick suspiciously but did as he was told. He and his partner stepped out of the large cargo truck and moved to stand in front of it.

  “What is your cargo?”

  “Four hundred gallons of Cyclosarin.”

  Nick nodded, as if this was the answer he expected to hear. Really, though, he had no idea what that was. Cyclosarin? The word meant about as much to him as the code number he’d seen through the binoculars.

  “And your destination?”

  “The Kanggye Munitions research facility,” the passenger said. His Chinese was better than the driver’s, though not by much. “You’ll excuse me, sir, but you don’t look like an MSS agent. Your clothes—they’re in terrible condition.”

  “Your identification, both of you,” Nick snapped. He knew he was about to lose control of the situation. He could tell from their faces that these guys weren’t buying his act.

  Still, both of them reached inside their HAZMAT suits and withdrew ID cards on lanyards around their necks. Nick motioned for them to move closer, and as they did, he sprang into action, his right fist shooting out and crashing into the driver’s throat. Bryce hopped out from behind the trees and cracked the passenger across the face with the butt of his AK-47. The passenger bounced off the truck’s grille as the driver went down, holding his throat and gurgling.

  “Thanks for the assist,” Nick said, breathing heavily. His arms and his legs didn’t want to move, and all he wanted to do was curl up next to the side of the road and go to sleep.

  “All part of the friendly service,” Bryce said. “They tell you what that stuff was?”

  “Cyclosarin. Do you know what that is?”

  “I heard of Sarin before. Nerve gas. Horrible stuff. I’m guessing the ‘Cyclo’ just makes it worse.”

  “Awesome. Come on. Let’s stash these guys and get the hell out of here.”

  “What about the plant, boss? I don’t feel right about just leaving it up and running,” Bryce said as he grabbed the unconscious passenger under the arms and started dragging him off the road.

  “Yeah, me either. But not much we can do except mark the location and let command know about it.”

  “I guess.”

  Nick had a thought then.

  “Hold up. Take that guy’s HAZMAT suit. You’re short like me, so it should fit you.”

  * * *

  “All set here, boss,” Bryce’s voice crackled in Nick’s ear.

  “Give me a minute,” Nick whispered, confident his throat mic would pick up his words and send them back to Bryce in a normal volume.

  He rolled the last barrel into place, sweating inside his liberated HAZMAT suit. Bryce had helped him unload all eight barrels just outside the factory gates, then taken the truck and moved back up to the ridge where he could keep an eye on Nick. No one was moving outside, so Nick set up the barrels in a barrier across the gate as quickly as he could. They weren’t light, though, and he still felt weak.

  “They’re all in place,” Nick grunted, heading for the side of the road.

  “Shit. Boss, run. The loading dock’s opening up again.”

  Nick didn’t wait to be told again. He broke into a sprint, willing his exhausted legs to pump as fast as they could. Over the sound of his own panting, amplified by the gas mask over his face, he could barely hear Bryce’s voice.

  “They’ve spotted you!”

  “Do it! Now!” Nick yelled.

  He didn’t hear the shot—his own breath was too loud in his ears for that—but he certainly heard the effects of it. From behind him came loud shouting in Chinese and Korean, and, seconds later, gunfire. Nick dove into the trees at the side of the road and started scrambling up the hill, but the gunfire quickly cut off. Instead of gunfire and shouting, he heard a long, loud wail, the factory’s hazard alarm.

  Nick chanced a look over his shoulder as he climbed up the steep embankment back to the truck, and he was surprised by what he saw. He expected to see leaking fluid and several guys in HAZMAT suits freaking out. The guys in the suits were there, and they were freaking out, all right, but rather than just a slow torrent of liquid from a punctured plastic chemical barrel, he saw a wall of flame and yellowish smoke where the front gate should have been.

  Nick broke through the last bit of brush and popped out on the road, where Bryce had the truck idling with the passenger door open. Using the last bit of strength in his arms, Nick pulled himself into the cab and slammed the door as Bryce took off.

  “Huh. Guess that stuff was flammable,” Bryce said, his voice flat.

  “Yeah. Guess so. That ought to keep ’em busy for a little while, anyway. We’d better clear out of the area ASAP. As soon as they get that fire under control, they’ll be beating the bushes. Best if we’re a memory by then.”

  Bryce kept the engine idling as they pulled up outside the cabin, and Nick ran inside and told everyone to double-time it into the truck. Mary took the seat between Bryce and Nick up front, and the rest of the team loaded up in the back once Martin confirmed it was safe back there.

  “No liquid spills, no musty peach smell. Back of the truck is clean,” the older man said.

  He was the first to climb into the back of the vehicle, and the others followed him. As soon as they had the door closed, Bryce took off, heading back down to the main road.

  “Mary? Where are we headed?” Nick said, pulling back the white hood of his HAZMAT suit. He rolled down the passenger window and took a few deep gulps of the fresh, cold air.

  “The program says back on the road to Wuchuan,” Mary told him. The look on her face, though, said much more than her words.

  Her expression told him that she’d lost all faith in the program’s ability to predict their way around trouble. Nick didn’t blame her. He felt the same way after the encounter with the Chinese resistance fighters.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “I’m not a big fan of the program, either. You think you can find us a way on the fly? Try to steer us around big cities, monitor comm frequencies for trouble spots?”

  “Do it old-school?” she asked.

  “Yep. I trust you a hell of a lot more than I trust that thing,” he said, nodding to Eaton’s program, which was running in the top left corner of h
er screen.

  “Well, my first suggestion is to not get back on the roads. Not yet. Cut through the mountains to the south.”

  “Bryce?”

  “Right on, boss. Mountains it is.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  If I Had A Gun

  As the truck bounced through the mountains, Nick pulled out his phone and made the nightly call.

  “Evans,” Johnny answered.

  “Ortiz-Gonzales,” the MSgt’s voice came a half-second later.

  “Oh, good. Both of you,” Nick said, then quickly relayed their position.

  “You’re off from the program,” Johnny said.

  “Couldn’t be helped.”

  “Copy that. Be advised that the eggheads tell us these phones are now holding secure. So we’ve got a bit more time. How are your wounded, Nick?”

  “Healing up nicely. Briggs has us on some decent pills. Shouldn’t be any permanent damage.”

  “Good to hear,” Johnny said.

  “Any luck finding out more about the in-country insurgents, sir?” Ortiz-Gonzales asked.

  “We’ve been keeping an ear on their radio frequency. Nothing yet.”

  “Hope it wasn’t just those eight guys,” Johnny mumbled.

  “Exactly what I said, sir,” Nick told him, nodding as if the Colonel were in the cab with him. “Also, we came across a plant manufacturing Cyclosarin in the mountains around here. Possibly other agents, as well. We might have slowed them up, but didn’t have an opportunity to destroy the facility.”

  “Coordinates?”

  Nick relayed the factory’s position, then signed off and hung up. Mary had apparently heard the entire conversation. She gave Nick a look as he stowed the phone.

  “Yeah?” Nick said, sighing.

  “You didn’t tell them we’re not using Eaton’s program from here on out.”

  “That’s correct. It’ll get them to their destinations fine.”

  Mary opened her mouth to say something, but Nick just stared at her for a moment without blinking. She said nothing, and the truck rolled on.

  “Chris,” Nick called into the back of the truck a few minutes later, “How are we looking on ammo?”