Dez snorted. “How many human assholes have we dealt with so far?” she asked. “Much as I’d love to pop a cap in some of them—and the name General Zetter comes to mind—I don’t think that would go over well.”
“And you think Tasing him would?”
“They don’t execute you for making a dickhead general piss his pants.”
Outside the storm battered at the building. Dez walked over to one of the windows and looked down at the parking lot. On one side of the lot the National Guard had set up their camp, and there were all kinds of vehicles and portable structures down there, all of it turned gray by the rain. However, at the other end of the lot were big yellow school buses. Lots of them. Some from Stebbins and at least twice as many from surrounding regions. Buses that had brought the kids here to the emergency shelter.
Trout joined her and looked out.
&nb
sp; Some of the buses had burned. Others were wrecks, torn apart by gunfire. The dead had attacked while the kids were being off-loaded. Thousands had died, but there were fewer than a hundred bodies. The rest had walked off. Trout wondered how many of them had been killed along with JT.
“They could clean out those buses,” said Dez. “They could hose them out and put some heavy-grade clear plastic over the windows.”
“To what end?”
“To get us out of here. There are places they can take us. Places where they could quarantine us but where’d we all get better food and medical attention.”
“Maybe they will,” he said. “Maybe in the morning.”
She just shook her head. He studied her profile, and then he saw her sudden frown. He followed her gaze and saw that something was happening down there. People were suddenly running everywhere, soldiers scrambled to climb into troop transports, and beyond the fence the big vanes of a dozen helicopters were beginning to turn.
“What is it? Are they coming for us?”
“No,” said Dez, “I think … this is something else.”
As they watched, the soldiers dragged boxes toward the armored personnel carriers.
“It looks like they’re leaving,” said Trout. “Why do you think? Because of the storm?”
Dez shook her head.
“Maybe,” Trout began, “maybe it’s over. Maybe they’ve stopped this thing and they’re standing down.”
Dez turned to him and gave him a brief, harsh look. “Does it look like anything’s over, Billy? Is that what it looks like to you?”
Trout hesitated before answering. His statement had been on the stupid side of hopeful and they both knew it. The troops below did not move like people whose long, dark night was over. There was none of the postcrisis malaise in anything they did. There was none of the laughter that comes at the end of great tension. Every movement down there was fast, but not everyone moved with the smooth and practiced ease of professional soldiers.
“They’re definitely leaving.”
“Yeah,” agreed Dez. “And in a big damn hurry.”
Trout saw people collide into each other. He saw them drop things. He saw people running for transports only half-dressed. There was only one word that appropriately described what he and Dez were seeing.
Panic.
PART THREE
COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Pale death with impartial tread beats at the poor man’s cottage and the palaces of kings.
—Horace, Odes
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
WHAT THE FINKE THINKS