Page 64 of Circle of Death
Wait!Shecan fly!
Who needs a jet? She can shape-shift into a bird right now and launch herself across the Atlantic. She spins the idea out in her head for a few seconds, then comes back to reality. Three thousand miles over open water? She wouldn’t make it. She’s not that strong. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Suddenly, the shortwave speaker crackles. A burst of static. Then, a male voice, garbled and faint. Maddy whips around. “Who the hell is that?” The voice starts to cut through—stronger, but incomprehensible.
Maddy leans in. “What is that? Norwegian?”
Hawkeye reaches across Burbank and grabs the microphone. “No,” he says. “Swedish.” Burbank slides over and adjusts a dial on the radio panel. A second later, the static clears. The Swedish voice is gone.
“Hello. New York base. Anybody there?” It’s Tapper.
“Tapper! Hawkeye here. Extraction Point Echo. Repeat. Extraction Point Echo. Code Four. Do you copy?”
“Extraction point Echo. Copy.” Then a long pause. “Code Four? Confirm.”
Hawkeye repeats it, his head drooping. “Code four. Confirmed.”
“Dammit!” says Tapper. “How did…?” His voice dissolves in another flood of static. Burbank twists the radio dial again but it doesn’t help. A second later, the line cuts off. Hawkeye puts the microphone down.
“He got the message,” he says. “He’ll get it done.”
Maddy grabs his arm. “Extraction point?Whatextraction point? What the hell is Code Four? Why are you talking like goddamn spies?”
Hawkeye sets his jaw and looks straight at her. “Because that’s what we are,” he says. “We can’t use the same airfield they came in on. It’s not safe. The pickup is at a spot Lamont knows—just across the French border, in Belgium. Remote and secure. At least it should be. Nobody’s used it for a long time.”
Maddy is burning with anger. First Moe. Then Deva. And nowMargo? Not possible. Not after all that’s happened, after all they’ve been through together. “Don’t worry,” says Hawkeye, “Tapper will bring her home. Dead or alive, nobody gets left behind. That’s the code.”
On the worddead,Maddy falls back against the wall and sinks to the floor, head in her hands. She starts sobbing. The room goes quiet for what feels like forever. When Maddy lifts her head, all three men are gone. But her grandmother is here.
Maddy feels Jessica’s arm around her shoulder. Warm. Strong. Steady.
Like when it was just the two of them.
CHAPTER 77
The Western Front, Belgium / 1918
DEATH IS EVERYWHERE. By now, he’s numb to it.
The lieutenant shifts his boots under six inches of muddy water and human waste. The private crouching next to him in the filthy trench is a green replacement—assigned to the platoon just that morning. Now it’s midnight, and in this winding seventy-foot stretch of the Allied forward line, they’re the only two left alive.
The lieutenant breathes through his mouth. It doesn’t help. The smell of dead bodies rises like an invisible fog. Most of the platoon is in bloody pieces, hardly recognizable as human. He’s got a five-inch shrapnel gash in his leg from the last explosion. He barely feels it.
For the past hour, the German artillery has been mercifully silent. But the lieutenant knows that it’s only a temporary reprieve. A parachute flare lights the sky over the trench for a few seconds before fizzling out. The kid fumbles with his Springfield rifle.
The lieutenant snaps at him. “Don’t drop that.”
The kid tightens his grip. “No, sir.”
The officer pulls out a cigarette, lights it. Passes it over. The greenhorn is even younger than he is. The only thing to do now is to keep him talking, keep him thinking, keep him sane until the relief column shows up. Or until the next shell ends them both. Whichever comes first.
“You from New York, Private?” Easy guess, based on the accent.
The private nods. “Yessir.” He takes a deep, grateful drag on the cigarette.
The lieutenant eases his back against the wall of the trench. “Me, too.”
“Manhattan?” the private asks.
