Father Knows Best. He began to say, Trust me, but stopped. That was what he’d said to Bobbie.
“I’ll get you someplace safe, Holly. I can do it, I swear.”
But he never got to the Hummer and escaped, not right then.
Because there were explosions.
And though Michael didn’t know it yet, what he would find out soon was that Jopek had just killed the Bellows in the store and the attacking members of the Rapture with several (perfectly thrown) hand grenades. Panic told Michael to run, but he stood there, with Patrick coldly mute against him—which was so much worse than screaming.
Michael walked around to the front of Walgreens, where smoke coiled out the shattered windows. He heard someone cough inside.
“You know not to say anything about the gun, right?” he said to Holly as he jammed the pistol into his pocket.
“Or you’ll bust a cap?” she replied, hurt.
The door swung open, glass tinkling from it. Captain Jopek came out grinning a boy-on-Christmas-morning smile.
“Well, thank God for little favors, there ya are! What a hoot, huh? You see that? Huh? Hoo! Was that a rodeo, or was it?”
Make yourself look upset, some part of Michael instructed. How? A thought came easily: Patrick, lying speechless and far-eyed in his hospital bed. “Th—that was scary as crap,” Michael said.
And, as Holly looked at him like he had lasers flying from his nose, Michael improvised. He told Jopek how scared they had been, and how this attack made no sense, did it, Patrick? Michael told him how relieved they all were to see Jopek’s living face, how lucky they were to have such a good soldier as Jopek drove them to the Capitol. But I’m the one who’s really taking us somewhere, Michael thought from the passenger seat, holding his brother, inches from a grown soldier who could fight off an ambush but couldn’t see who was really sitting right beside him. Yes-yes, a new plan accumulated in the bottom back of Michael’s brain. Load ’em up, Captain, he had to fight not to say, and he touched the gun hidden in his pocket. Load ’em on up: we’re headin’ for a new game.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Abraham Lincoln watched them.
There was something eerie about the way the marble president stood, unchanging, even as snow slashed his face.
The storm had built: the sky above the golden dome boiled with storm heads. Michael lifted his face toward the clouds, willing his eyes wide open to the cold, bringing fresh tears as Jopek threw open the double doors to the Capitol and exclaimed, sounding both angry and happy, “Gaawwwd DAMN!”
Michael brought up the rear of the group, and he set his brother down as they entered the Capitol. Patrick stood in the marble entryway, sniffling. He hooked an arm around Michael’s leg, but loosely. The ride had calmed him a little; Michael knew that his own agreement that things didn’t make sense, that they did need a break, had helped, too. But Michael also wondered how much his own new certainty—his total yes-yes—had made a direct, comforting transmission from his own heart to his brother’s. This weird Charleston nightmare was going to end soon, Michael knew; Michael felt that as absolutely as he felt his tears and his blood and the gun in his pocket. Yes, he was almost sure that Patrick could sense that. Oh, I ya-ya, Bub. Just a few minutes, and I’ll get you out of the Capitol, and we can finally, really win.
Hank was in the rotunda, which was lit by the tripod light-banks and by the very last of the twilight that showed through the windows. Hank whirled at the sound of Jopek’s shout, pulling a bottle from his lips, a little liquid spilling down his front.
Hank blurted, “Captain, I think I saw enemy movement.”
“Holy shit, Eagle Eye, you want a medal?” Jopek threw his head back, laughing.
Hank blushed. Beside Michael, Holly breathed out hard, like she was trying to force out inner tension. Hank took this for silent laughter and shot her a look of burning sibling contempt.
“Ambush out there, Henry. Damn near Charleston’s own little Alamo.”
Jopek marched to Hank and swiped the squat brown bottle from his hands. “Thankee,” he said, and sucked several noisy gulps. Hank’s empty hands hesitated, then went to the pockets of his striped track pants, from which he drew a lighter and cigarette from a pack. He fumbled with the wheel of the lighter; it spun out of his hands.
Drunk, Michael realized. Hank is drunk. Was that going