You cannot be who you were.

And maybe that's best.

Greg worked his way along the second row, followed by three of his guys. Two of them stood there with rifles ready, but not held aggressively. The third held a large duffel bag from which protruded a few rifles-two of the M4s they'd received from Captain Harden, and a hunting rifle. The bottom of the bag swayed with ammunition. So far they'd spoken with two families, both of which were staunch supporters of Jerry and while they raised an eyebrow at the request, they seemed to be convinced by Greg's statement that, if they were not going to help with guard duty or fighting for Camp Ryder, that they should help the men that were by giving them much-needed equipment. It was this sort of pseudo-patriotic sacrifice that most people went for.

Now he came to Kristy Malone's house. The first person that he knew didn't support Jerry. Not only that, but he was positive that she was a supporter of Bus and Captain Harden-after all, her own husband was out there with Harper's group, wasn't he? Out there trying to complete "The Mission" for Captain Harden.

For a brief moment of clarity, Greg stood there in front of the shanty that belonged to Kristy and Nate Malone and he stared at it, taking in the old, graying pallets that were used as walls. The tarps and plastic to seal out the weather. The pieces of corrugated roof over the top to give it that little extra staying power. It was a nice shanty.

Greg smiled, forlornly. This was the world that they lived in. When, with a little wood and plastic, you could be the proud owner of a nice f.u.c.king shanty. Only four months removed from central air conditioning, big screen TVs, disposable everything, and a 1000-square-foot-house just being too d.a.m.n small.

Four months. How quickly, and how far they had fallen. What made anyone think that they could fix that? What made Captain Harden and Harper and LaRouche think that with some ordnance and a can-do att.i.tude, that they could reverse the tides that had turned the United States of America into one big G.o.dd.a.m.ned homeless camp?

Hopeless.

If you had half a brain, which Greg believed that he did, then you would find a new way. You would not try to get back what was obviously gone. You could not recreate that life. You had to make a new one, and you had to figure out a way to thrive in it.

Eventually, Camp Ryder would be his. Jerry would be a long-forgotten problem, and Greg would reap the rewards of salvaging the world around him. If anything could be rebuilt, it was the mechanical aspect of the modern world, and in order to rebuild mechanical things, you had to have sc.r.a.p. You had to have salvage. Greg was on the cusp of having enough manpower and guns to exert his plan, to take the salvage, and to monopolize the last commodity this world had to offer.

But right now, he was still Jerry's lackey. And he was content to do that for now. He was a patient man. He could wait for the right time. Wait for the right opportunity. No use jumping the gun early, so he would do what Jerry asked him to do, and he would do it with conviction. Because a lot of his goals matched up with Jerry's, and disarming the populace of Camp Ryder was only going to make it easier to kick them the f.u.c.k out when the time came.

But then you had Kristy Malone. You had the wannabe "Freedom Fighters." People that still believed in the good old US of A, and thought that they could resurrect that sad, rotting corpse. These were the people that were going to be a problem.

He knocked on the wood. "Kristy! It's Greg! Can you come to the door, please?"

There was a rustle inside.

The hair on the back of Greg's neck stood up. He took a step away from the shanty, trying to make sure that his shadow did not play across the tarp, giving away his location. For some reason he pictured Kristy just behind those thin plastic walls with a shotgun leveled at his shadow.

"What do you want?" Kristy barked from inside.

"I'd like to talk to you face-to-face, if you don't mind."

"I mind."

Greg looked back at the others. The man with the duffel lowered it to the ground, unslung his rifle. Greg spread his feet just slightly, slipped his hand onto the grip and his finger hovered over the trigger. "Kristy, can we not make a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be?"

"Can you just leave me the f.u.c.k alone?"

"C'mon, Kristy."

"So, no? You can't leave me alone?"

Greg swore under his breath, held his weak hand up in a signal for the others to get ready. They slid over, stacking up behind him. "Kristy. I'm not playing around."

"Greg...why don't you go suck Jerry's d.i.c.k, you f.u.c.king lapdog? Come in my house and I'll blow your G.o.dd.a.m.n head off."

Greg raised his rifle. The hand that he held up sank down and took the foregrip of his rifle. He tightened everything up. Dammit, I'm gonna have to take this b.i.t.c.h out. Not what I was hoping to do.

But that would be Jerry's PR nightmare, not his.

He took a step, and then a series of odd things happened to him. First, he registered a rifle shot. It boomed, then crackled and rolled, the sound of a bullet traveling a long distance. He thought for a half second that it was Kristy, but no, that shot had come from a long way off. There was another half second when he heard someone in the camp screaming, and then there was another boom-crack-zip, and then the entire world around him was suddenly alive with gunfire.

He didn't know what to think in that singular, frozen moment. He could see straight down the row of shanties to the fence. Beyond it, in the woods, he could see the little bursts of gunsmoke-it wasn't Kristy shooting at them, it was someone in the woods!-and he whipped around to look behind him and two of his men fell, one with a hole in his gut, the other holding a spurting neck wound, while the third lay flat on the ground, screaming.

Greg turned, put one foot in front of the other, about to launch into a dead sprint to anywhere else. Then his calf exploded. He didn't really feel it. It was more like a tug, like someone had tripped him. He just watched the world shift onto its side as he fell over, then he looked down at his leg, wondering what the h.e.l.l had just happened, and saw the ragged exit wound on his shin, pieces of flesh exploded outward, little bits of bone shards blooming out like some gruesome flower.

He stared at it for another moment, until the bullets popping into the dirt around him snapped him back into real time. He rolled onto his belly, as flat as he could make himself, the rifle trapped underneath him and gouging against his skin, though he could barely feel anything but the growing fire in his left leg, like it was being brought to a boil and he knew that true agony was coming.

He began to crawl.

The two sentries had been walking along, carefree. Tomlin did not look at their faces, did not think about how young they were, or whether they had families or loved ones inside Camp Ryder. He would not allow himself to humanize them. It did him no good. It did n.o.body else any good. It was only a recipe for self-torture in the future. They were simply Blue Shirt and Green Shirt.

Or Blue and Green, if you prefer.

So he put the reticle on Blue, accounted for the downward trajectory, and the distance, and held up two mil-dots. No wind to speak of, so he held the vertical line of the crosshairs right in the middle of Blue's body and breathed out, felt his body reach that one second or so of complete stillness in the moment between breaths, and slowly applied pressure to the trigger.

Follow-through, Tomlin reminded himself, keeping his eyes on the target.

Blue took the bullet in the chest, toppled over, most likely instantly dead.

No follow-up shot necessary.

Green began to panic.

Tomlin worked the bolt, seated another cartridge. The second shot was a little low and right, clipping Green in the side, and now the other snipers were firing, a fusillade of shots. He wasn't sure what they were shooting at, couldn't see Shantytown behind the Camp Ryder building, but it wasn't his concern. He was focused on Green. His target grabbed his side, started trying to run. Tomlin slapped the bolt again. Fresh cartridge. Green was running now. Tomlin held the mil-dots two-by-two, leading his target just slightly. Fired.

Green fell. Tomlin watched him for a moment, unsure where he'd struck the man, but fairly certain he wasn't getting up.

He hoped that Lee was moving to the fence, but he didn't look. He kept his scope trained on the building and on the areas around it. That was his responsibility. That was his lane of fire. Watch your lane. Always watch your lane. He racked a new round into his rifle, waiting for the next target to show itself.

Waiting...

Lee ran for everything he was worth. The shots had been fired. The fight had been initiated, and there was no turning back now. His only option was forward. The others could retreat, they might have that in them, they might have the capability of giving up and not living the rest of their lives in shame for it, but Lee could only move forward. For him, his life had suddenly been distilled down into two very simple paths. In an hour's time, he would either have taken the Camp Ryder building, or he would be dead.

Over their heads, Tomlin took another shot-the distinct zzzip of the bullet splitting the air over their heads, followed closely by the whu-POW of the rifle report. Lee didn't hesitate, didn't stop or falter. Tomlin's shots ringing over their heads was like a bullwhip spurring him on. He had to get there. He had to get to the fence.

Through the woods, Lee could see the fence drawing closer as he ran for it, still about 50 yards out. It was an eight-foot fence, and the fortifications here were spa.r.s.e, leaving large gaps that could simply be cut through to make a man-sized hole. Lee looked behind him as he closed the distance with the fence, slowing just slightly to allow Devon to take the lead.

"C'mon, Devon! It's on you!"

Devon thrust himself past Lee, bolt cutters held out in front of him as he ran, like he intended to simply ram them through the fence. Lee and Nate flanked him in the last few yards, Jacob taking up the rear of their breaching element. The fence seemed to rise up to meet them in that last few steps.

Lee hit the dirt on one knee, like a runner sliding into first. He hit the fence, then backed up off of it just in time for Tomlin to fire another shot over their heads. He brought his rifle up, keeping far enough off the fence that the barrel didn't get entangled in the mesh, and tried to scan for what Tomlin was shooting at. He couldn't see anything.

On the other side of the fence there was a section of dirt that had not-so-affectionately been named the "Back Lawn" of the Camp Ryder building. It was here, in this 30-or-40-square yard area of red clay and gravel that they housed the single cargo trailer where they stashed all the broken, defunct machinery that they thought they might find a use for in the future.

Also where Lee had imprisoned Tomlin, less than a week prior.

Lee could see two bodies, several yards away from him, along the inside of the fence and to his left. They were down for the count. One was toppled neatly, probably in the middle of his patrol. The other looked like he'd made a run for it. Ultimately unsuccessful.

Past them, it was another twenty or so yards to the back of the Camp Ryder building-just a big square of windowless, doorless cement blocks. He eyed the top of the building, catching his breath, forcing himself to breathe through his nose as much as possible in an attempt to control his stammering heart. The top of the building looked clear. What he could see of the left side of the building looked clear.

"Nate!" Lee glanced across Devon's back at the other man. "When we breach, you move to the right side of the building and lock down that corner, I'll move to the left side, okay?"

"Gotcha."

Lee checked Devon's progress. The kid sweat, despite the cold air, breathing through an open mouth and baring his teeth, his already-pinkish cheeks flushed red. He trembled badly and at times it took him a few attempts just to get the mouth of the bolt cutters around a wire. He had only made four or five cuts so far-less than a third of the way down.

Lee grimaced, looked up at the building. Every second they were not in that building, the possibility that Jerry would pile up his men inside grew more and more likely. As soon as they figured out what the f.u.c.k was going on, that they were under attack, it would be the most commonsense, strategic response. And Lee would not make the mistake of a.s.suming that Jerry was not intelligent enough to figure that out for himself.

"Devon," Lee tried to sound calm about it, but failed. "I'm gonna need you to go a little faster than that."

The room seemed frozen like it had been blasted with liquid nitrogen. Jerry stood completely erect, arms stiff at his sides, fingers splayed like he was caught in the action of grabbing something. The look on his face was one of dawning fear. The look of things slipping away, out of his control.

Angela sat there, head buzzing uncomfortably, reality still swaying through the distortions of trauma to her face and head. She watched Jerry's face through her swollen eyes, and at first, she was terrified. The first shot had not even echoed before she could hear screaming, and then a second shot, and it was in that penultimate moment when the world outside of the Camp Ryder building abruptly turned into a warzone, that things changed for her.

Like he'd been hit with a cattle prod, Jerry suddenly lurched, jumped, scrambled to the office window that overlooked Camp Ryder. Kyle, who still stood there with his hands on Abby's shoulder, holding her there just inside the door to the office, his feet began to move, unsure of what he should do-go or stay?

Jerry clutched the window sill and stared out, the daylight glowing in his wide-stretched eyes so that they seemed grotesquely large in his face. Angela could not see what he saw, but she just watched his face, felt like a block of ice in her gut was melting as she witnessed him grab his hair, his perfect white teeth seeming to glow as he grimaced.

This was no random smattering of gunfire. Angela was not stupid, and she had learned from Lee. She had learned by watching and by listening to him plan operation after operation, carried out in cities and towns and industrial and residential complexes around the Camp Ryder Hub. The first opening shots, the quick response like a sudden thunderstorm that comes upon you within minutes of a clear sky.

This was a coordinated attack.

This was Lee.

Jerry turned towards her, his expression souring.

Angela stared back at him, feeling hot and cold at once. Giddy, almost. She did not do it as a jab, or an insult, or as a way to enrage Jerry, but simply because she could not help herself: a small smile touched her swollen, broken lips. She'd read news stories about miners trapped under the surface of the earth after a cave in. Trapped there in the darkness with nothing but hope to get them through. And she thought that this must be what they felt like when they saw the first patch of daylight after a week of blackness, as the emergency crews rolled back the first stones, like opening a tomb.

Jerry stared at her, trembling. Though she couldn't tell whether it was from rage or fear. Like a growling dog backed into a corner, simultaneously baring its teeth and tucking its tail to protect its genitals. Angela stared right back at him, her expression hardening.

He raised a hand, pointed a long, accusing finger at her. "You b.i.t.c.h!"

You b.i.t.c.h! You b.i.t.c.h!

She was suddenly in her back yard again, running from Tom, holding that aluminum bat up to ward him off as he staggered towards her, s...o...b..ring, sweating profusely, mind lost forever. She felt the fear, but she pushed it down and remembered where she was.

That was in the past. That was a weaker Angela. That was a jilted housewife just trying to survive. That was not the same person she was now. She would not feel terrified by Jerry anymore. She was done with fear for now. At some point, when you keep dissolving the same substance in water, it over-saturates and falls out. For her, fear had suddenly oversaturated in her mind, and fell out.

She could take no more of it.

There was nothing left for Jerry but contempt.

Jerry s.n.a.t.c.hed his shotgun up, brandishing it wildly. "Who the f.u.c.k is that, Angela? Huh? That your friends trying to break into my camp? Is that them? f.u.c.king tell me!"

Angela's face gave nothing. It remained undisturbed by his outrage, as though she had suddenly transcended this situation, she was above it, untouchable. She just stared at him with that damaged face he'd given her, like she was throwing it right back at him.

"No, Jerry," she said, quietly, so that he leaned forward unconsciously in an attempt to hear her. "It's Lee. He's coming for you."

CHAPTER 40: COMPLICATIONS.

"C'mon, Devon..." Lee flicked his gaze back and forth between the left corner of the Camp Ryder building, and the progress that Devon had made. He'd made ten cuts so far, almost halfway down. Lee knew that it had only been a minute or so since the first shots were fired, but it felt like time was dragging. He looked at the building again, wondering what Jerry was doing, what defenses was he setting up? Would they be barricaded inside the building? Would they have hostages?

Devon licked his lips. "I'm going as fast as I can."

"You're doing good," Lee a.s.sured him.

Out beyond the Camp Ryder building the gunfight raged.

"Alright," he said, pulling back a bit and turning to face Jacob. "Back yard looks clear for now, go run and get the others. By the time they get up here we should have this fence open for them."

Jacob nodded and took off running. Lee watched him go, sprinting between trees, dodging low branches and jumping fallen logs. What a strange transformation the man had made, from a bookish scientist to someone who could move as fluidly through the woods as though he'd been hunting them his whole life. Lee was in the process of admiring this when Jacob stopped short, just before disappearing into the trees.

"The f.u.c.k is he doing?" Lee growled, impatiently.

Nate craned his head back to see. "What's going on? What's he doing?"

"He's just stopped there!"

"f.u.c.king go!" Nate yelled, but not quite loud enough for Jacob to have heard.

Though Jacob hadn't heard him, it seemed that he reacted to it. As the words left Nate's mouth, Jacob turned partially, looked back at them. Then he started running again, back towards Camp Ryder.

Lee didn't question Jacob's actions a second time. "Nate! Watch the f.u.c.king yard!"

Something was wrong.

Lee turned his back to the fence and raised his rifle, sighting over Jacob's shoulder as the man ran back towards them. Abruptly, Jacob stopped at the base of a large tree and spun again, turning away. He pointed his rifle and began waving his hands, as though urging someone on. Lee scanned through the trees and quickly saw what Jacob saw, though it made no sense.

The entire entry element sprinted towards them in complete disarray.

For the briefest of moments, Lee allowed himself to believe that maybe nothing had gone wrong, maybe they were just running for the fence as instructed, and they were just a little scared of the gunfire going over their heads. But they kept looking behind them as they ran, twisting and firing wild shots into the woods. Jacob posted up on the tree and sighted his rifle, allowing the entire element to pa.s.s him by, providing cover for them.