“Some kind of hopped-up maniacs, right?”

“That’s them. Run by a fellow called Crews. Calls himself a preacher”-the Colonel spit-“but him and me must be reading a different Bible. He’s outside my authority, but I’ve been meaning to pay him a visit anyway, and clean out the whole nest. Couple hours ago I got a report of End-Timers around here. Nothing credible. Rumor mostly. Still, it made me wonder if the attacks around Hattiesburg and Marston were just feints to get me to split my force.” He smiled but there was no humor in it. “Maybe this Crews figured he’d get to me before I got to him. Always somebody wants to find out if the old dog still has teeth.”

“Might not be you Crews is after,” said Rakkim. “Maybe he wondered what you were digging for these last few months.”

The Colonel looked into his eyes. “Hard to keep a secret, isn’t it?”

Rakkim looked away from the path up the mountain, focused on the treeline in the distance. You could hide a whole division there and no one would know. Or there could just be trees. Hard to imagine that Malcolm Crews could have gotten his men into position so quickly. They’ll do whatever I tell them to do, that’s what Crews had said last night, already knowing that the Colonel had divided his forces. He had agreed to attack in four days, on the night of the new moon, but Crews had made other plans, because either he didn’t trust Rakkim or he didn’t trust his own men. Either way, they were on Crews’s timetable now. Not bad for an English professor. Rakkim had never intended for Crews to be a threat to the Colonel’s forces, never thought that Crews had that sizable a force-he just needed a diversion so that he and Leo could escape with the weapon and take Moseby with them.

“Might be time to send up that Chinese bird,” said Rakkim. “Thermal imaging should be able to tell you what you’re up against, and there’s more than enough firepower in the Monsoon-”

“Chopper’s down for maintenance. Temperamental piece of shit.” The Colonel touched his ear, listened. “On my way.” He looked at Rakkim and Leo. “Come on, boys, let’s see what Moseby found in the lake.”

The three of them piled into a nearby jeep. The Colonel raced up the mountain road, skidding on gravel, leaning on the horn to blast laggards out of the way.

Leo hung on with both hands, eyes squeezed shut.

“The information you must have fed to your people when you lived with Redbeard-” The Colonel banged against Rakkim as he hit the brakes, sent the jeep into a controlled spin around a switchback. “When you were in the Fedayeen. Why did the Russians want you to give up your commission?”

“They didn’t. I decided to be my own man.”

“Dangerous decision.” The Colonel bounced off the seat as they hit a pothole too fast. “But I expect they weren’t too surprised. You got the look of a man who has to dance to his own tune.”

“You fortifying the eastern slope in case you’re attacked, Colonel?”

“It’s the easiest approach. Got to figure that’s the way Crews’s men would come. From what I hear, his men are poorly trained…it’s the dope that gives them courage. Dope and some crazy-ass snake-handling mumbo-jumbo.”

“Don’t neglect the southern route either,” said Rakkim.

“Too rugged,” said the Colonel. “I’ve got to place my forces at the most likely choke points.”

“I studied every engagement you ever fought, Colonel. Battle of Big Pines, the rest of the Belt commanders concentrated their men at the shallows of the river, where it was easiest to cross. You-” Rakkim almost flew out of his seat as the Colonel accelerated. “You sent your men downstream, where the river was deepest, and fastest, and enough of them survived the crossing to circle behind the Second Army of the Republic. You surprised them…then annihilated them.” He hung on. “I’m just saying, maybe I’m not the only one who studied your strategy.”

The Colonel drove on, his knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel. He touched his earlobe. “I want you to move four squads along the southern approach. Heavy machine guns…Do it, Lester. Goddamnit, Lester, you disobey another one of my orders, I’ll shoot you myself.”

Another ten minutes and the Colonel parked outside the entrance to one of the many tunnels into the mountain. He got out, saluted the guards inside the entrance, and kept walking. Rakkim and Leo followed. The tunnel was barely lit, rock debris everywhere. It smelled like sweat and engine grease.

“Hang on,” said Leo, voice reedy as he struggled to keep up.

Neither the Colonel nor Rakkim slowed his pace.

Leo was gasping for breath when he finally caught up with them a hundred yards later, the two of them waiting for him outside a cleft in the rock. He clung to the wall, bent over. “I…I’m claustrophobic,” he wheezed, shaking his head.

Rakkim grabbed Leo by the hair, dragged him into the opening.

“Intellectuals,” snorted the Colonel as Leo banged his head against a rock outcropping. “Always a reason they can’t do something. The porridge is too hot, the porridge is too cold, but it’s never just right.”

Rakkim dropped Leo on the other side. “Careful, Colonel, he’ll give you some fancy math problem, then laugh at you when you can’t solve it in your head.”

“I wouldn’t waste my time,” said Leo, scrambling after them. “Might as well try to teach a chimp particle physics.” The kid did okay. He kept up, even though he’d put his shirttail over his mouth, trying to cut down on the dust they were breathing.

It took longer than Rakkim anticipated to get there, the barely lit tunnel gradually sloping, down, down, down, until even he found himself slowing his steps, feeling the weight of the mountain closing in on them. The Colonel felt it too.

“Almost…almost there,” said the Colonel, his voice too loud.

They rounded the bend and there it was…the lake. Even with the floodlights spread along the rocky shore, the surface was the color of an oil slick. They approached cautiously, stood blinking as they looked out.

“This is what the hour before creation must have been like,” Rakkim said quietly. “Darkness moved across the face of the water…” He took in the oxygen bottles littering the shore, the single thermal blanket. “You let him dive alone?”

“Moseby insisted,” said the Colonel, not taking his eyes off the black lake. “I told him to wait…he’s been pushing himself for days and-”

“I see something.” Leo wiped his nose. Pointed.

Rakkim saw a light deep below the surface, coming closer…brighter now.

A diver burst out of the water, sent spray into the air. He paddled toward shore, almost invisible in a full black dry suit and black dive hood. Only the flickering halogen penlights on either side of his face mask made his position clear. The diver paddled crookedly, exhausted, his gloved hands barely clearing the water. He left a wake…he was towing something.

Rakkim splashed into the shallows, immediately felt his legs go numb from the cold. He stayed there, took another step. “Moseby!”

Moseby turned his head awkwardly, barely able to stay afloat.

“This way!” shouted Rakkim, teeth chattering as he moved to deeper water. “Here!”

Moseby swam toward him, arms flopping as he kicked himself forward.

Rakkim reached for him, dragged him closer; then he fell backward, head underwater for just an instant, but his ears felt like they were going to burst from the cold. He scrambled up, pulled Moseby partway onto the shore, slipped on the wet rocks. He tore off Moseby’s face mask. “J-John…” he gasped, shivering. “It’s…it’s okay now.”

His eyes bright red from exploded capillaries, Moseby tried to speak but couldn’t. He just lay there, trembling like a hooked fish.

Leo ran over, looked down at both of them, unsure what to do.

The Colonel bent down, grabbed Rakkim and Moseby by the collar, and pulled them farther up onto the stones, then sat down beside them. The sound of their breathing echoed off the rocky cavern. Echoed. Echoed.