The North (#wattys2016)

Chapter 23

I checked the body of the spotter for Intel and found a cotton-duck-covered field message pad. I tore off the cover and flipped it open. Each page that had been written on was folded in half – a neat way to refer back to earlier orders, but not the smartest of tactical moves - you might wind up getting killed, and anything left in that pad is valuable information for whoever killed you should they check your body.

Clearly the dead man broke that rule. I scanned the pages looking for anything that would be of use. All I found were map references and timings – ten full pages of them. I quickly pulled out my map and checked to see where the grid references led but they didn’t make any tactical sense: each location was either middle of farmer’s field and area of high ground or in the center of thick bush. The timings were interesting, though, and I decided to question the sniper to see what they meant, assuming he was in the mood for sharing.

All soldiers are trained to keep their traps shut - that’s why interrogation techniques have become so complex over the years. I wasn’t planning on water boarding the guy, but I was going to make it crystal clear that his life depended on answering questions. I also had an ace up my sleeve. Dawn-Marie recognized him. I made a mental note to have her with me when I started asking questions.

Climbing back into the carrier, I ordered Doug to take us back to Ark Two. I left the navigation up to him, turning my attention to the rear of the carrier. Our prisoner’s hands were bound behind his back with cable ties. He stared at the floor while Cruze and Dawn-Marie kept a close eye on him. He wasn’t bleeding to death, but a 5.56 millimeter bullet was lodged in his thigh - that would have to come out if the guy had any hope of keeping his leg from becoming infected and eventually turning gangrenous. It probably hurt like hell, too.

A few minutes later the carrier rolled to a halt alongside Ark Two. Jo did her level best to give me a big smile, only it wasn’t working. Her eyes were puffy and she’d been crying pretty hard.

I climbed inside and lifted her chin with my index finger. “Hey, kiddo – how are you holding up?”

Jo offered the tiniest of shrugs and sniffled loudly. “I’m okay,” she said in a whisper of a voice. “I’m just sad because of what happened to Katie.”

I drew her close and gave her a warm hug. “I know, Jo. It’s not fair that she was killed. Katie was the bravest person I’ve ever met, but we have to be grateful that she didn’t die … badly.”

Jo gazed up at me and blinked a few times. “You mean that it’s a good thing it wasn’t a creeper that got her.”

I nodded. “That’s the worst way to go.”

She sniffled again and said, “Are you mad at Sid?”

“Sid made a big mistake, Jo,” I replied. “And I think he knows he let everyone down, especially Kate. That’s why it’s so important that we’ve got each other’s backs. We can’t let our feelings cloud our judgment, because it has an effect on everyone in the team.”

Jo’s eyes darkened as she lowered her eyebrows, shifting her gaze to the floor of the carrier. “You have the bad guy that shot Katie now, right?”

I nodded. “That’s right. I need to question him. We have to find out as much as we can about Sunray and all the people who work with him.”

What she said next sent me reeling.

“I want you to kill him, David,” she said in a cold, hard voice. “He killed Katie and I want you to shoot him in the head just like he shot her.”

Holy shit.

I might have done a lot of things wrong since Day Zero, but I’d tried my level best to protect Jo from the worst of this dangerous new world. I’d long known that there was no way to shield her from every bad thing that could happen, but if we were going to survive, I was desperate to provide my little sister with that most precious of commodities: hope. But maybe I didn’t understand Jo as much as I’d thought. The long months of scraping by, of surviving by inches and facing threat after threat after threat had changed my little sister, in spite of my best efforts. She was a soldier now, just like the rest of us.