ust (Silo, #3)(89)

Darcy readied his pistol and stood at the end of the hall. He pressed his ear to the door and listened.

Someone talking. He tried the knob and found it unlocked, took a deep breath. Any sign of a man reaching for a weapon, and he would shoot. He could already hear himself explaining to Brevard what had happened, that he’d had a hunch, had followed a clue, didn’t think to ask for backup, had come down and found this man wounded and bleeding. He drew first. Darcy had been protecting himself. One more dead body and another case closed. That was his line if this went badly. All this and more flashed through his mind as he threw the door open and raised his weapon.

A man turned from the end of the room. Darcy yelled for him to freeze as he shuffled closer, his training ingrained and coming as naturally as a heartbeat. “Don’t move,” he shouted, and the man raised his hands. It was a young man in gray coveralls, one arm over his head and the other held limply at his side.

And then Darcy saw that something was wrong. Everything was wrong. It wasn’t a man at all.

????

“Don’t shoot,” Charlotte pleaded. She raised one hand and watched this man approach her, a gun aimed at her chest.

“Stand up and step away from the desk,” the man said. His voice was unwavering. He gestured with his gun to indicate the wall.

Charlotte glanced at the radio. Juliette asked if she could hear her, asked her to finish what she was saying, but Charlotte didn’t test this man by reaching for the transmit button. She eyed the scattering of tools, the screwdrivers, the wire cutters, and remembered the gruesome fight from the day before. Her arm throbbed beneath the gauze wrapping. It hurt to raise her hand even to her shoulder. The man closed the distance between them.

“Both hands up.”

His stance – the way he held his gun – reminded her of basic training. She did not doubt that he would shoot her.

“I can’t raise it any more than this,” she said. Again, Juliette pleaded for her to say something. The man eyed the radio.

“Who’re you talking to?”

“One of the silos,” she said. She slowly reached for the volume.

“Don’t touch it. Against the wall. Now.”

She did as he said. Her one consolation was the hope that he would take her to her brother. At least she would know what they’d done with him. Her days of isolation and worry had come to an end. She felt a twinge of relief to have been discovered.

“Turn around and face the wall. Place your hands behind your back. Cross your wrists.”

She did this. She also turned to the side and glanced over her shoulder at him, caught a glimpse of a white plastic tie pulled from his belt. “Forehead on the wall,” he told her. And then she felt him approach, could smell him, could hear him breathing, and thoughts of spinning around and putting up a fight evaporated as the tie cinched painfully around her wrists.

“Are there any others?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Just me.”

“You’re a pilot?”

Charlotte nodded. He gripped her elbow and spun her around. “What’re you doing here?” Seeing the bandage on her arm, his eyes narrowed. “Eren shot you.”

She didn’t respond.

“You killed a good man,” he said.

Charlotte felt tears well up. She wished he would just take her wherever they were going, put her back to sleep, let her see Donny, whatever came next. “I didn’t want to,” was her feeble defense.

“How did you get here? You were with the other pilots? It’s just … women don’t …”

“My brother woke me,” Charlotte said. She nodded at the man’s chest, where a Security emblem blazed. “You took him.” And she remembered the day they came for Donny, a young man propping up Thurman. She recognized this man in front of her, and more tears came. “Is he … still alive?”

The man looked away for a moment. “Yes. Barely.”

Charlotte felt tears track down her cheeks.

The man faced her again. “He’s your brother?”

She nodded. With her arms strapped behind her, she couldn’t wipe her nose, couldn’t even reach her shoulder to wipe it on her coveralls. She was surprised this man had come alone, that he wasn’t calling for backup. “Can I see him?” she asked.

“I doubt that. They’re putting him back under today.” He aimed his gun at the radio as Juliette again called for some response. “This isn’t good, you know. You’ve put these people in danger, whoever you’re talking to. What were you thinking?”

She studied this man. He looked to be her age, early thirties, looked more like a soldier than a cop. “Where are the others?” she asked. She glanced toward the door. “Why aren’t you taking me in?”

“I will. But I want to understand something before I do. How did you and your brother … how did you get out?”

“I told you, he woke me.” Charlotte glanced at the table where Donny’s notes lay. She had left the folders open. The map was on top, the Pact memo visible. The security guard turned to see what she was looking at. He stepped away from her and rested a hand on one of the folders.

“So who woke your brother?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Charlotte was beginning to worry. Him not taking her in felt like a bad thing, like he was operating outside the rules. She had seen men in Iraq operate outside the rules. It was never to do anything good. “Please just take me to see my brother,” she said. “I surrender. Just take me in.”