Wounded Earth (36 page)

He helped her into the helicopter and she beamed down at him like Rapunzel peering from her tower window. He dragged himself by the strength of his arms up into the pilot's seat. Sitting there beside her, surrounded by the encompassing orb of the windshield, he felt like the prince seated with Cinderella in her glass coach.

It was such ecstasy to have her sitting beside him in his own cockpit. He loved helicopters and he loved flying nothing more than flying them at night.

Almost nobody learned to fly helicopters outside of military service, because the training and equipment were so unspeakably expensive. He was fortunate to be filthy rich, because the damnable government had not seen fit to train him. They had made him a cargo specialist and he had hated it.

Cargo specialists were denied the freedom of the pilot and the life-and-death power of ground troops. They were not denied the risks. He had barely survived the crash. Sometimes his neck still pained him. Sometimes his arms and legs went weak from the effort of communicating with his brain through a battered spinal cord. He had been a nanometer away from complete paralysis, but he was mostly healed.

Well, he had risen above the limitations imposed on him by the military. He had learned to fly despite them. Reveling in the memories, he watched Larabeth flinch as he let the helicopter plummet, for the pure hell of it, until it skimmed just above the darkening treetops. He pulled the cell phone from his pocket and raised the General.

The General sounded displeased at being called from his rampage in front of the cameras, so Babykiller jerked his leash hard.

“Did you forget that I hold the success of your ridiculous ‘army’ in the palm of my hand?”

The General showed more backbone than Babykiller gave him credit for. Instead of sniveling, he barked, “Where is my arsenal and where are the rest of my men?”

Babykiller considered whether the General should live or die and decided to defer judgement. “Your weapons and your men are safe. They will be deployed when I say so and not before. You will not live to enjoy victory unless you follow my next orders implicitly.”

“And what might those orders be?”

Babykiller noticed that the General had stopped calling him “Sir.” Fair enough. He had double-crossed the man in a big way. But if the General thought he was wounded by this display of disrespect, then the General was mistaken.

“Listen carefully, General. Your life and your army rest on your actions. An unmarked helicopter is approaching the site. It is certainly being tracked by the Feds and by your men. It must be allowed to cross the boundary and to land on the site, then it must be allowed to leave, unmolested and unfollowed. Am I understood?”

“You are understood. Sir.”

“If the helicopter fails to return safely, five of your truck bombs will come rolling onto the site within one hour. The drivers are instructed to chain you to the bumper of the last truck so you can watch them blow, one by one, blasting you and the Savannah River Site straight to hell.”

* * *

Little Austin Davidson needed to go to the bathroom, even though he had messed up his pants when the bad men stole him from Miss Emma's house. It had been a long time since then, so he needed to go again, but he was afraid to ask the bad men with their guns.

He was tired of being a hostage. The men standing over him used ugly words that his mommy wouldn't let him say. Every time he cried, they showed him their guns. Then he was too scared to cry. The one they called the General wouldn't shut up talking for the cameras. Sometimes Austin saw the cameras pointed at him.

The General was holding a walkie-talkie thing up to his ear. Austin could feel his mean eyes boring into him. When the General put the walkie-talkie down, he grabbed Austin around the middle, letting his legs dangle free.

Austin saw the General look hard into the cameras and heard his voice go dark. The General said, “A helicopter is coming across the site border, right about now. It will land briefly, then take off and leave the site. If it is molested, here today or tomorrow in Timbuktu, we will carry out every threat we have made so far. But first,” he said as he laid the barrel of his gun against Austin's cheek, “this kid will die, and the whole world will be watching.”

When Austin felt the gunmetal against his cheek, he couldn't help himself. He went to the bathroom in his pants, with the whole world watching.

* * *

Chao watched the helicopter fly overhead and disappear into the darkness. It flew over the swampy backwoods of the site. Chao had men armed with rocket launchers, set to bring the chopper down if it made a wrong move. The helicopter never came close to a known nuclear target.

Chao didn't know what the helicopter pilot was up to, but he certainly wasn't carrying the arsenal the General had been expecting. The General didn't look relieved or victorious. He just looked befuddled.

It was only a hunch, but Chao didn't think the General knew what the helicopter and its pilot were up to, either.

Larabeth
watched the darkening wilderness pass below her. The Savannah River Site was 300 square miles of uninhabited nature, centered around a few small specks of poison. The land was peppered with Carolina bays. Their dark ovals stretched, northeast to southeast, across the landscape.

“I can see why some people think the bays were formed by a meteor storm,” she mused aloud.

“I think they were dug by aliens, myself. The antimatter theory is attractive, too. Imagine the earth slamming into a swarm of anti-protons and obliterating large pieces of itself. I always find cataclysm compelling.”

In her lifetime, Larabeth had enjoyed as much cataclysm as she could stand. She looked at the sky, where peaceful stars were emerging one by one.

He chattered on. “I find stars compelling, too. Hydrogen fuses to form helium and dies, throwing off light to mark its passion. Then helium fuses...well, you know the drill.” He piloted the helicopter straight up and allowed it to hover. “There is nothing so romantic as flying under the stars as they come to life.” He brushed his hand against her cheek and she let him.

* * *

Babykiller panned across the countryside with his chopper's powerful searchlight. He saw the BioHeal worksite below them, perched on its bluff above the creek he had polluted. The excavated landfill, surrounded by heavy equipment and work staging areas and parked cars, lay like an old wound across the lush South Carolina lowlands. Nature would take it back.

He had heard that Vietnam was healing, regaining the beauty he had helped blast away. The Earth was improbably resilient, patiently restoring the things obliterated by humanity, when the smarter defense would be simple destruction of the species.

Babykiller imagined volcanoes rising from the seas, earthquakes shaking the land, droughts, and floods. If he ruled nature, he would have long since cleansed the world of Homo sapiens. He thought of Hanford and weapons-grade plutonium and of his plans for the General's arsenal, and he smiled. Perhaps he did rule nature after all.

* * *

The helicopter settled lightly near the high bank of the swollen creek. Cynthia didn't know if it carried good news or bad news and she sensed that her captors didn't know either. They were moving toward the chopper, but staying out of the illuminated cone of its searchlight.

Two passengers stepped out of the helicopter and into the light. The first passenger was a slight, middle-aged man with a limp. The second passenger was a tall, patrician brunette.

“It's Dr. McLeod.” Cynthia was talking to herself, but J.D. heard her and stirred.

“Get her out of here.” His voice was barely audible. “—supposed to keep her safe. I'd do anything—”

He was unconscious again, but he had said enough. Cynthia knew that her mother had sent J.D to save her. J.D. himself had said that he had done it for love. And his love for Larabeth McLeod could hardly be more obvious. Cynthia drew the only obvious conclusion. Her mother had stopped sending emissaries. She had come, herself, to save her long-lost daughter.

And Cynthia was, in that instant, finally positive that she had found her long-lost mother. Even from a distance, she could see that Larabeth had her hands, her long slender arms, her narrow shoulders attached to a narrow ribcage.

She rose to her feet, preparing to rush to her mother's side, to just hold her. She could save her questions for later.

The helicopter pilot was speaking to the leader of her personal band of thugs, perhaps negotiating for her release. Larabeth hadn't left his side. Cynthia suppressed the urge to run to her mother, because something weird was stirring in her brain.

The body language was all wrong. Larabeth stood too close to the pilot. She held her arms too stiffly. When she scanned the crowd standing at the edges of the chopper's searchlight, she located Cynthia and J.D. immediately, but she just stared. She didn't rush to their side, urging the pilot to load J.D. on the chopper and fly him to a hospital. And the pilot looked blandly sinister, not at all like a knight in shining armor who had come to whisk them all to safety.

The pilot nodded at J.D.'s supine form and said, “I see you followed my orders. I suggest you get rid of the body.”

He cupped Larabeth's elbow in his hand and kept talking. “We've just come to pick up a small item, then we'll leave you to carry on with your mission.”

Cynthia felt like an abandoned child. Her mother hadn't come to carry her away from her captors. Her mother was a prisoner, too.

Cynthia considered her situation. The odds that she could free herself, armed with nothing but a pocketknife, were infinitesimal. Even if she could break free, she would never leave J.D. alone with a band of terrorists who'd been ordered to kill him. But this strange man was going to pick up a small item and get back on his helicopter, alone except for Larabeth. Armed with nothing but a pocketknife, her mother might have a fighting chance to overcome a single, smallish man with a noticeable handicap. She made her decision quickly.

Cynthia looked into the bright searchlight. She could barely make out Larabeth's silhouette but it was important to reach her. She had something that Larabeth needed. And she had something to say that Larabeth needed to hear, just in case one of them didn't survive the evening. It was time to tell her mother that she knew the truth, and it was time to let her know that the past didn't matter at all.

She whispered, “Hold still and play dead,” to J.D., then she took off running.

* * *

Larabeth watched Cynthia run past Babykiller as if she didn't see him, with her arms flung wide. She threw her arms around Larabeth and cried, “You came to rescue me. I knew you would.” She pulled away, took Larabeth's hand and said, “I thought I would die out here, Mother, just like J.D.”

Larabeth flinched at the words.
Die, like J.D. Mother
. Then she felt the cold steel in her hand and understood that Cynthia knew everything. She knew that the man she was calmly ignoring was a murderer. She knew that the woman she held by the hand had given her away and had never come back to make amends. Knowing those things, she had still rushed into the bright circle cast by the helicopter's searchlight and handed her mother hope. It was only a purse-sized pocketknife, but it was open and Larabeth had defended herself with less.

* * *

Cynthia was startled to feel the pilot's hand on her back, urging her into the helicopter. She had not realized that she was the “item” he had come to retrieve. He was forcing her into the rear seat when Larabeth spoke.

“No, let Cynthia ride up front where she can see. As you said, it's so glorious to fly right under the stars as they come to life,” Larabeth said, hopping into the seat directly behind the pilot.

The pilot frowned, but he let Larabeth make the seating arrangements. Cynthia sat in the great glass bubble of the cockpit and watched the ground recede.

“It will be pleasant to watch tomorrow's entertainment as a family, just the three of us,” the pilot said.

Cynthia twisted in her seat to study the man at her side. ‘A family,’ he had said. She studied his face for a resemblance to her own and found none. Surely he wasn't her natural father. If she and Larabeth survived the evening, her mother would have a great deal of explaining to do.

Larabeth's voice emerged from the darkness behind them. “"What entertainment?” she asked. “What happens tomorrow?” To Cynthia, Larabeth sounded as casual as someone asking what type of sandwiches she should pack for a picnic.

“Tomorrow, the rest of the Army of the Resurrection and all its weapons arrives in D.C. Their long list of targets begins with EPA headquarters.”

Cynthia had vowed only to speak when spoken to, but she forgot herself. “You're going to blow up the EPA?”

“For starters. After that, who knows? The Army of the Resurrection has truck bombs and grenade launchers, and fun stuff like body armor and booby traps,” he said. “Even I don't know what I'll do with freeze-dried bubonic plague bacteria, but I'll think of something.”

Larabeth's voice came again from the rear seat of the helicopter. “You are a piece of work, Babykiller.”

“You are precisely right. I am your government's piece of work. I am dying an emasculated cripple, poisoned by Agent Orange and Agent White and Agent Blue and all the others. Although our government claims otherwise. I am what they made me. A babykiller.”