Sam didn’t get on his knees like they wanted.

So they knocked his feet out from under him. He landed heavily on his side, tried to take a breath and something gave, so deep inside he felt it in his back. He doubled over, hacking red globules across the sidewalk.

Ed spoke slowly and relentlessly, taking his time getting on his knees. “Chicago PD, Detective Jones and Johnson, we’re here under orders, you have our badges, we’re just like you guys, radio it in, check it out, we’re supposed to be here.”

The lead soldier, an older merc with tired eyes, ignored Ed and repeated, “On your fucking knees. Head against the wall. Now.”

Qween helped Sam onto his knees. The three pressed their foreheads against the rough-hewn rock of City Hall.

“Hands behind your head.”

Ed wouldn’t stop talking. “Just check with your superiors, we’re on your side, you don’t have to do this right away, give it a minute, just give it a minute.”

The leader gave a call, a grunted “Hup,” and the three soldiers stared at him for a moment. He glared back. They glanced at their weapons and readied them as quietly as possible. If they didn’t like executing three civilians, too damn bad. The folks that signed the paychecks didn’t give a shit if the soldiers liked their jobs or not. The three soldiers didn’t dwell on it too much. This was the job.

Sam knew they were dead once they had been lined up and had prepared himself. He also knew that he was leaking blood, as if someone had popped open an old oil can, and now it was now taking its sweet time dribbling out of him. He’d been wearing his seat belt, but hitting that fucking Stryker had been like hitting one of the concrete slabs they’d erected around the Chicago Board of Trade after 9/11. He knew that unless he got to a hospital in the next five minutes, nobody was going to be able to plug the hole before he was empty.

A bullet in the head from the soldiers didn’t concern him much. But the thought of bullets in his friends’ heads did. So before the leader could get the second command out, Sam rose and spun, using the inertia of his twisting body for leverage as he unfurled his arm, reaching out with Qween’s straight razor. The blade slashed up through the leader’s face, catching him on the chin and slicing both lips in half, severing the entire right side of the nose, splitting the cheek and carving through the right eye.

At the same instant, Ed fought to get off his knees, twisting and trying desperately to pull his feet under him so he could lunge at the last soldier in the line. The two soldiers in the middle sensed this and turned to cut him down when the street rumbled. Sam thought the sudden vibration was coming from inside his own head, and ignored it. He got control of the leader’s assault rifle, and fired. His aim was off and instead of killing both of the middle soldiers outright, the bullets tore through their legs, shattering bones and knees.

They went down, writhing and howling, where they met Qween. She couldn’t quite rise to her feet yet, and went after them on her hands and knees. She got her hip on one of their shattered knees, and starting kicking out with her other leg, driving her heel into the shredded muscles and blood and jabbing the closest one in the chest with her elbow.

Sam ripped the rifle away from the leader, who couldn’t resist and raised his hands to his face. He had to touch himself, see the damage. Blood ran down the fresh canyon like an ancient river. Sam did him a favor and shot him in the head.

Ed fought to rise, reaching out, clutching at empty space.

The last soldier had just enough time to pivot, raise his rifle, and fire. Three bullets stitched through Sam’s chest. The third spiraled through the left ventricle, killing him instantly.

Then Ed was on the soldier, catching hold of the assault rifle, twisting it against the soldier’s arms, jamming the barrel up into the soft flesh between the V of the jawbone, and pushed on the trigger finger. He emptied the clip. Nearly thirty rounds exploded up through the soldier’s skull, obliterating the brain, transforming it into a fine red mist that hung in the air like steam over a hot dog stand.

Ed brought his foot down on the next soldier’s head, driving his heel through the man’s temple. He ripped that assault rifle away and unloaded it into the man in a blind tsunami of rage.

Qween rolled onto the last living soldier and drove her thumb and forefinger into his eyes, brought them together in the soft meat behind the bridge of his nose, and pulled. The man’s mouth flopped open, and he moaned. It was an alien, uncomprehending sound of pain and confusion. She shook his skull back and forth, the way a small dog will shake its master’s sock. Eventually, the man stopped twitching and lay quiet.

Ed dropped the assault rifle. He stumbled past Qween, and knelt next to his partner. Sam was dead. Ed knew this immediately. He did not try to shake his friend. He did not try to speak, to try and reach the man. He laid his hand over Sam’s chest, then patted it once.

He found another clip, reloaded, and stalked off, heading for the helicopter. Qween retrieved her razor and followed.

CHAPTER 75

9:09 PM

August 14

They kept Tommy pinned to the ground, a boot on his head. When he’d been pushed to the sidewalk, he’d had a quick flash of everyone kneeling down behind the wall of sandbags. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought that Grace and Phil were somewhere behind him, fifteen to twenty feet back down the wall. Kimmy too. Tommy tried to concentrate.

How many soldiers?

He couldn’t remember. He tried to twist his head slightly, feeling the grit of the concrete grind into the side of his face, just to count the boots. The pressure on his skull was unrelenting. When the soldier felt him trying to move, the weight increased. Black stars bloomed and popped in front of his eyes.

Maybe a dozen soldiers. Maybe.

All he could really see was that the smoke was really pouring out of the subway tunnels now, obscuring everything in an acrid mist. He didn’t think he could hear anything over the thunder of the helicopter, but he recognized the brief burst of shooting across the street, back toward City Hall.

“It’s done!” Phil called out. “Let’s go!”

More gunfire.

The soldiers paused. Maybe one of the prisoners wasn’t quite dead, and that could explain the second round of shooting. They watched the trucks lined up along City Hall. For a moment, nothing moved but the smoke rising from underground. Then more gunfire, this time long and sustained. Someone was emptying a clip. Then, incredibly, even more firing.

Tommy rolled his eyes, trying to see how the soldiers were reacting. Several pairs of boots gathered, and he could hear them arguing. The crack from a single shot echoed across the plaza and was lost in the roar of the helicopter. Tommy barely heard it. But he felt the sudden release as the boot squashing his face against the sidewalk was suddenly gone. He twisted slightly and saw the soldier falling askew over the sandbag wall.

The soldiers around him opened up, sending a long, continuous barrage at the trucks across Clark. The gunfire even drowned out the Sikorsky for a quick second. Curved ammunition magazines hit the sidewalk around Tommy, bouncing and hollow. Fresh, full clips were slammed into place in the soldiers’ rifles.

Several soldiers started back across Clark.

Tommy eased into a sitting position, when he felt a hot barrel against the back of his head. “Sit still, or I will kill you outright, I shit you not,” a voice yelled above him.

Tommy froze.

Another burst of gunfire. This time it came from farther up Clark, halfway to Randolph. Another soldier fell. The rest responded, drenching the area with bullets. More clips hit the cement and more soldiers started drifting across the street.