Chapter 38
Taylor whispered, “Scott…”
He grabbed the thumb drive out of the computer and pocketed it, and they both backed away toward the door to the lab as they watched Lou struggle to break free.
Taylor said, “It… it doesn’t even have its key installed.”
“The key was bullshit, just like everything else at this place.” He walked quickly to the door, throwing one last look at Lou as the bot used its hands to rip off the remaining restraint on its only leg.
Taylor grabbed Brodie’s arm. “We need to leave.”
Lou slid off the table onto its leg, almost lost its footing, and slammed its titanium hands against the glass to retain its balance. Its black slit remained locked on the agents through the window.
Brodie grabbed the handle to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. He tried again, twisting and yanking on it as hard as he could.
“Oh my God,” said Taylor. “He fucking locked us in.”
Brodie looked at the tin man’s titanium hands pressed against the thick glass, and he wondered if the thing was strong enough to break through it. Maybe. Brodie was quickly learning that a lot of the security at Camp Hayden was as artificial as the tin men.
But Lou didn’t try to break the glass. Instead, it hobbled over to the door.
Taylor ran to the only window in the lab, a rectangular opening about six feet from the ground.
She stood on a chair and tried to rattle the window open, but it was either locked or stuck.
Brodie ran over to the window, an awning style that swung up vertically. He tried the latch, but it was rusted shut.
Behind him, he heard digital beeps. Lou was inputting a code on the door lock. Then it opened the door into the main room.
Brodie said, “Stand back.” He unholstered his SIG, aimed at the small window, and fired two rounds, shattering it. Then he took off his suit jacket, wrapped it around his arm, and used it to clear away the remaining shards. He said to Taylor, “Go.”
Taylor did not move. She was frozen, staring at the D-17, which was now in the main room with them and bracing itself against a metal table near the door.
It swung its single leg forward and pushed itself along, like a person on crutches.
Except it did all the motions too quickly and was rapidly coming toward them.
Brodie repeated, “Go.”
Taylor jumped on the chair, then pulled herself up toward the window.
Lou said in a monotone voice identical to Bucky’s, “You are not fast enough.”
Brodie replied, “Faster than you, asshole.” Then he aimed his SIG at the bot and fired two rounds at its midsection.
The bot twitched backward slightly as the bullets glanced off its titanium armor, barely making a dent.
Taylor pushed herself up and out of the window. Brodie dropped his jacket as he climbed up after her and pulled himself out.
They began to run. They were heading west, which was toward the houses, and most likely where that bastard Dan Klasky was headed, if only to get his car and make an escape.
Taylor glanced over her shoulder. “Scott!”
Brodie turned around. Lou had climbed out the window. But instead of hobbling after them, it had gotten down on its hands and its single foot and was galloping after them like a demonic three-legged dog, and at an impossible speed. It was rapidly gaining on them.
Brodie darted his eyes around as they ran, but did not see any Rangers in the area. Bad luck.
He got on the walkie as they sprinted down the dirt road. He didn’t have time to check the channel but yelled, “Mayday, Mayday! Tin man on the loose. West of the lab.”
Up ahead and a little to the north were a dozen tightly packed shipping containers. Brodie figured that might be their only hope of slowing down their pursuer. He cut to the right and Taylor followed.
He looked over his shoulder again and was shocked to see Lou almost on top of them, maybe twenty feet away, galloping on its three limbs with its bucket head tilted up and fixed on them. They wouldn’t make it to the shipping containers. Not even close. In a few seconds it would be on top of them…
Brodie made the only move he could and stopped, spun around into a firing position, and pumped five rounds into Lou’s head, aiming for the thin polycarbonate strip that protected its sensors as the bot rushed at him.
He dove to the left as the thing lunged at him and barely missed.
Lou scrambled to a stop and pivoted around, and Brodie saw that the sensor strip had cracked.
The D-17 was only a few feet from him now and was about to lunge again.
Brodie took aim and emptied the rest of his mag toward the sensor strip, then dove again, and when he sprang to his feet the bot was thrashing around on the road and blindly swinging its deadly limbs at the air.
Brodie and Taylor sprinted between the shipping containers, then rounded the corner of one of them and took cover. They waited and listened. Nothing.
Brodie peered out to the road. Lou was gone. The agents stayed there a moment, listening to the quiet night.
Then they heard slow, shuffling footfalls coming toward them, like something dragging along the sand.
Brodie sprinted between the shipping containers with Taylor close behind. They rounded another and stopped again.
The footsteps quickened now. Brodie saw that Taylor had unholstered her pistol. He looked at her and gestured a horizontal line across his eyes. She nodded.
They waited as the sounds grew closer. A streetlamp threw a bright spot on the container across from them, and as the thing approached Brodie saw its shadow against the metal wall. It was upright, holding a rifle and wearing a beret.
Taylor spun out from her cover.
“Wait!” Brodie grabbed her arm and pushed it down as she pulled the trigger and fired a round into the sand.
The Ranger fired back, followed by the bass punch of an EMP blast. It was a blank round.
Brodie and Taylor stared at Corporal Daniel Powell, who lowered his rifle. He said, “I’m sorry, sir, ma’am, I thought—”
“Where is it?”
Powell shook his head. “I didn’t see anything. We heard you on the walkie.”
Two other Rangers jogged up behind Powell. One of them, the redheaded staff sergeant named O’Connor, asked, “Who fired?”
Brodie said, “Everyone. No injuries. Mistaken identity, Sergeant.”
O’Connor gestured to them, and they all walked out from between the shipping containers back to the open road. Brodie scanned the area. No sign of it. He said, “Lou Gehrig is on the loose.”
O’Connor looked at him. “What number?”
“Four.”
“That’s Lenny. For Lenny Dykstra.”
“Well, Lenny’s got a missing leg, and its sensors are at least partially shattered from a mag full of nine-millimeter bullets.”
“Good,” said O’Connor. “What the hell happened?”
Brodie looked the sergeant in the eyes. “Major Dan Klasky is wanted for the murder of Major Ames, and Specialist Kemp, and the attempted murder of me and Ms. Taylor.”
The three Rangers looked shocked.
Brodie continued, “He must be found and detained. Get the word out. Meanwhile, he is likely going to want a vehicle to get out of here. What cars would he have access to?”
O’Connor said, “The major? A lot of vehicles.”
“We’ll check his house first. Meanwhile, get on the horn and make sure your men guarding the gates do not let him leave.”
O’Connor nodded. “I’ll take you to Klasky’s in the Hummer.” He said to Corporal Powell and the other Ranger, PFC Stiglitz, “Spread the word. I want a sweep of every building, road, and alleyway. And I want men at the helipad to make sure Klasky doesn’t use the escape hatch.”
“Yes, Sarge,” said Powell.
Brodie guessed that was their name for the tunnel under the fence.
Powell and Stiglitz departed quickly on foot, and the sergeant led Brodie and Taylor to a Humvee parked farther down the road.
Before they got in the vehicle, O’Connor said, “By the way, General Morgan issued orders to place you both under arrest.”
“Everyone will get their turn,” said Brodie. “We go first.”
They all climbed in the Humvee. Brodie sat shotgun, and O’Connor sped down the sandy road in the direction of the houses.
Brodie looked out the window as the darkened buildings of Camp Hayden streaked by. Taylor tapped him on the shoulder from behind, then placed eight bullets in his hand. She said, “Sharing is caring.”
“Thanks.” He unholstered his SIG, slid out the empty mag, and loaded the bullets one by one.
As he slapped the loaded mag back in his pistol, he noticed predawn light blooming on the horizon. It was a new day. And for Major Klasky’s life as a free man, it was the last day.