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CHAPTER 229
"A quick end." Marco spoke gently, which made it worse. "No pain, no humiliation, no cell. You have fought a long war and you have lost it. I can give you a clean finish, and I will do it myself."Colton stared at him. The firelight flickered across his face, and a muscle ticked once in his jaw. Behind them, on the wall, Okafor's rifle barrel gleamed in the orange light."You are offering me mercy." Colton said the word as if it tasted strange. "After everything.""I am offering you a choice you did not give anyone at your checkpoints."The silence stretched. A hot wind carried ash across the road, and one of the burning trucks collapsed with a groan of tearing metal. Colton lowered his head and looked at the rifle lying in the snow by his boots. Then he lifted his chin, and his voice came back steady and cold."No.""No?""I will not die on my knees, Mr. Ferretti." He straightened, and for a moment the old Colton stood in the road again, lean and upright and unafraid. "Not in a ditch
CHAPTER 228
The fog had begun to thin by the time Marco reached the western gate. Behind the wall, the burning road still glowed orange against the dark sky, and the air smelled of smoke and scorched rubber.Natalie caught his sleeve before he could step through. "You cannot go out there alone.""I am not alone." Marco glanced down at Tank, who stood at his knee with his ears forward. "And he is not armed anymore. Not really.""That is exactly what worries me." Natalie's eyes were wide and tired. "A man with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous kind.""I know." Marco pressed her hand gently and let go. "That is why I am bringing a flashlight and not a rifle. If he wants to kill me, he can try. But I think he wants to talk."Okafor stood at the gate with his weapon at his shoulder, jaw tight. "I still say we shoot him from the rooftop and be done.""We could." Marco nodded slowly. "But then we would never know what he came here to find."He walked out into the smoky night with Tank at his he
CHAPTER 227
"I misjudged you. I will say it plainly because you earned it." Colton's gaze swept across the settlement, the shimmering blue edge of the barrier, the empty craters on the road, the rooftops dotted with volunteers. "The barrier. The traps. The way you herded my men like sheep. None of it was in my intelligence reports. I spent three months studying you, and I studied the wrong man.""You studied a man hiding in a bunker." Marco's voice was cold. "I stopped being that man weeks ago.""So I see." Colton nodded slowly. "Which is why I have come to ask whether you would be willing to trade."Natalie let out a short, incredulous breath. Okafor's voice crackled in Marco's earpiece. "He wants to trade? After this?""Trade what?" Marco asked."You hold nine of my men in your garage. Perhaps more by now." Colton's tone stayed even. "I would like them back. In exchange, my forces withdraw and leave your settlement alone. Prisoners for passage. A clean arrangement, and nobody else has to die th
CHAPTER 226
The smoke over the southern road had thinned to a grey haze when the radio on Marco's table crackled with Okafor's voice."Marco, you need to see this. Colton is coming out."Marco leaned toward the camera feed. Beyond the burning wrecks, the Consortium line had pulled back to the far bend of the road with one armored truck and about twenty men. Wounded soldiers lay in rows on the snow. A single figure had stepped out from the group and was walking toward the settlement alone."He is carrying something." Natalie stood beside him with her arms wrapped around her body. "A rifle?""A rifle with a white cloth tied to the barrel." Marco zoomed in. Colton held the weapon high above his head with both hands, the cloth fluttering in the cold wind like a pale flag. His silver stubble was dusted with ash, and his coat was torn at the shoulder. He walked slowly and evenly, with no sign of hurry, as if he were crossing a quiet street on a Sunday."He is surrendering?" Perry's voice cracked from t
CHAPTER 225
The argument was over. None of the kneeling prisoners moved or spoke.Delgado marched the nine of them across the courtyard toward the garage with his rifle at his hip, and the wounded tenth man was carried between two volunteers on a makeshift stretcher. Inside the garage, Wendy Castellanos was already waiting at her first triage table with sleeves rolled to the elbow and a glint of fierce attention in her eyes."Put him here." Wendy tore open the stretcher blanket and cut away the man's sleeve with a single sweep of her scissors. "Through and through. Missed the bone. He is lucky.""Lucky." The wounded soldier gave a pained, bitter laugh. "I am your enemy.""You are bleeding on my table." Wendy pressed a thick wad of gauze into the wound without looking up. "I treat everyone who bleeds on my table. Hold that."The soldier stared at her, mouth half open, as she tied off the bandage with quick sure hands. Around them, two more wounded Consortium men from the road fight lay on cots bes
CHAPTER 224
The ground beneath Building 7 was quiet when Delgado crouched beside the cracked manhole cover with his rifle across his knees. Six of his officers and volunteers knelt in a half circle behind him, breathing slow clouds into the freezing dark. Nobody spoke. Somewhere below their boots, men were moving through a pipe that had been built for water."Remember what I said." Delgado kept his voice barely above a whisper. "Nobody fires first. Marco wants prisoners if we can get them.""Why would he want prisoners?" the young volunteer beside him murmured, eyes wide. "They came here to kill us.""Because a dead man cannot tell us anything." Delgado's mouth twisted in the ghost of a smile. "And because Marco never wastes a good source of information."The volunteer swallowed hard and nodded. His rifle trembled against his shoulder.Far underground, Colton's flanking team crept forward with muffled boots and thermal goggles, ten men moving single file through the dripping tunnel. They had no i
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