The God's Eye View

CHAPTER 51

Manus walked down to the boat launch. The director was alongside him. Manus could see him gesticulating and knew he was talking, but it was as though he had forgotten Manus couldn’t hear.

Other than the night his mother had died, he thought he’d never been so sad. He felt… amputated. Orphaned. Marooned. Like his future had been extinguished by a sudden surge of the darkest parts of his past.

He couldn’t stop crying. He didn’t care if the director could see it. It didn’t matter anymore.

They stopped at the edge of the water. A slight breeze had picked up. It felt good on Manus’s face. He looked out. There was a tunnel under a stone bridge, a tunnel that led to the canal, which led to the Potomac, which led to the Chesapeake Bay… all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. He imagined floating through that tunnel, and on and on and on, nothing able to see him or touch him or hurt him. Ever.

The director put a hand on Manus’s shoulder. Manus turned and looked at him.

“…and I’m so sorry, Marvin. So sorry. Can you forgive me?”

Manus cried harder.

“It’s all right,” the director said again, rubbing his thighs. “We’ll make it all right. We’ll stop these people. You’ll see.” And then he shocked Manus by putting his arms around him, and cradling Manus’s head against his shoulder.

Manus held him, a huge sob wracking his body, and then another, and another. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wept like this. Not since his mother. And his grief now was like a bridge to the grief of that earlier time, fusing all the grief, amplifying it, magnifying it. He held the director tighter, his eyes squeezed shut, crying out all the pent-up anguish of a lifetime alone. The director held him, too. And then stiffened. And tried to push him away. Manus squeezed tighter, crying harder. The director squirmed and kicked. Manus doubled over, bending the director back, squeezing as though if he could just squeeze hard enough, he would never lose what he had once had with the director, with his mother, with his long ago vanished life.

He felt a crack deep in the director’s body, and suddenly the director wasn’t squirming anymore, or kicking, or moving at all. His head lolled, and his legs settled, and his arms flopped open as gently as a butterfly’s wings.

Still crying softly, Manus lay him down on his back, then rolled him into the water. He watched as the body began to drift toward the tunnel, the head tilted back slightly, the mouth open in mute incomprehension, the eyes staring sightlessly at the clear sky above. Manus wondered whether it would float all the way to the ocean.

He walked back up. Evie and Dash were by the canal. The boy was skimming stones. Evie was coaching him. It made Manus want to cry again, how good she was to the boy, how protective and loving. But he had no more tears inside him.

He walked over. Evie heard him coming and turned. Where’s the director? she signed.

Manus shook his head. There is no director.

She nodded slowly, her eyes frightened, but seeming to understand. He was glad of that. He didn’t want to have to explain.

The breeze shifted, carrying a slightly acrid odor along with it. Hair gel. Floral soap.

Manus glanced around casually, his eyes sweeping across the tree line to their right, upwind from their position. The smell was coming from there.

I have to tell you something, he signed.

Evie and Dash looked at him, their expressions open, questioning.

Manus squatted in front of Dash. Can you promise not to act scared when I tell you?

Dash looked at Evie, then back to Manus. He nodded.

Evie signed, What is it?

Delgado’s here. I smell him. Smile now. Don’t look afraid.

Evie managed a tight smile. Dash signed, Who’s Delgado?

Manus eased his truck keys out and discreetly placed them in Dash’s hand, who pocketed them. He’s a bad man. But he can’t understand sign. So we can talk and he won’t know what we’re saying. You hold these keys until you’re in my truck, okay? Then you give them to your mom.

Dash nodded.

He doesn’t even know we’re talking about him right now. He doesn’t know I know he’s here. And that’s good. That gives me a big advantage.

Dash signed, How?

I’ll explain later. For now, I want us to walk back to the truck. I’ll keep watch while you two get in. I want you to drive off. I’ll make sure you’re safe.

What? Evie signed. No, I’m not going to just leave you with that sick—

I’ll be fine. Just get in the truck. I’ll follow on foot, okay?

Evie didn’t look quite persuaded.

If there’s shooting, you have to run. That might be your only opportunity to make it to the truck. Do you understand? Because he’ll try to hit me first.

Dash signed, I understand.

Manus nodded. Good boy. I want you to stay behind me.

I’m not afraid.

I know you’re not. You’re brave. But I still want you behind me, okay? Evie, you too.

They started walking to the pickup. Manus kept Evie and Dash to his left and casually scanned the tree line while they moved. There were a number of fat trees and some boulders, too. Delgado could have been behind any of them.

Manus hoped he was playing it right. He didn’t think Delgado would be much of a shot. The man seemed to prefer knives, and Manus had never known him to fire a gun. He’d received no military or intelligence training. Even if he’d managed to replace the gun Manus had taken from him in the reservoir the night before, the new one would be unfamiliar to him. So on balance, Manus’s chances of getting hit seemed low. But knowing all that wasn’t quite the same as wearing body armor, either.

He kept glancing over at the tree line. He knew what he’d smelled. But he detected no movement. Where the hell—

All at once he realized his mistake. Stupid. So stupid. He was so tired, so overwrought, that he’d missed the incredibly obvious.

His own truck.

The smell was coming from the right, from the tree line, that’s what had thrown him. What had stopped him from thinking clearly.

They were thirty feet away. He moved in front of Evie and Dash and stopped. His hand swept to the Force Pro—

Too late. Delgado popped up from the truck bed, a pistol extended. He was proned out, most of his body covered by one of the long panels. Had Manus been alone, he would have instantly moved offline while laying down fire. With Evie and Dash behind him, that wasn’t an option. He let his hand drift back to his side.

Delgado smiled. His face was a mess — swollen, bruised, a strip of angry red where the hair plugs had once been.

“Hello, sweetheart,” he said, looking at Evie. “I told you I’d see you soon.”

Manus felt Evie putting Dash behind her, then moving in closer herself. She put her left hand on his shoulder. For comfort, he thought — but then he felt her other hand on the butt of the Force Pro, easing it out of its holster.

“How’d you like the cologne?” Delgado said. “I sprinkled it in the trees. Just for you. I knew you’d smell it, you fucking freak.”

Manus held up his hands as though in surrender and started walking forward. “I like the new hairline,” he said. “More handsome than ever. Thomas Delgado, ladies’ man.”

Twenty feet. Still too far for an inexperienced shooter juiced on adrenaline to reliably hit the mark. He kept moving slowly forward.

Delgado laughed. “Yeah, that’s it. Get it all out now. I want to hear everything you have to say in that goofy voice of yours. Christ, you have no idea how stupid you sound when you talk. Like a lobotomy case or something.”

Twelve feet. “Really? Have you known a lot of lobotomy cases?” Just keep him talking, he thought. Engaged.

“None like you, freak, I’ll say that. That’s close enough, by the way. And keep those hands up.”

He stopped. They were ten feet away. They weren’t going to get any closer.

“What’s the problem?” Delgado said, looking at Evie. “You scared, sweetheart? About what I’m going to do to you and your little boy as soon as I’m done splattering your boyfriend’s brains all over both of you? Hmm?”

Manus felt Evie tensing. Delgado seemed to sense it, too. Manus needed to distract him somehow, with something.

An image came to him. It was funny. He started laughing.

Delgado looked at him suspiciously. Manus laughed harder.

“Okay, dimwit. What’s the joke? Make it good, it’s going to be your last.”

“Those hair plugs Evie ripped out of your head. Do you think they’re growing on the forest floor?”

Delgado’s face darkened. It was now or never.

Evie stepped to the right and brought up the Force Pro in a two-handed grip, just as Manus had showed her. Manus heard a faint pop as she fired. The round caught Delgado in the shoulder and spun him back. Evie walked forward and kept firing, too rapidly to place her shots. A few went high, a few went low, and the rest hit the truck panel, which probably stopped the rounds. The pop pop pop Manus could hear abruptly ended, and he realized she had emptied the magazine.

He sprinted in and vaulted onto the truck bed. Delgado brought up his gun and Manus swatted it aside so hard he felt Delgado’s wrist crack. The gun flew past Manus’s field of vision. Delgado tried to stand and Manus blasted a knee into his face. Delgado was knocked back and slammed his head against the edge of the panel. Manus saw his eyes lose focus. He grabbed him by the lapels, hauled him up, and hurled him into the air.

Delgado hit the ground with a thud Manus could feel all the way through the truck tires. He unlatched the toolbox and pulled free the Berserker, then leaped out of the truck bed alongside Delgado. But Evie was already there, one hand gripping the back of Delgado’s collar and hauling his limp upper torso off the ground, the other holding the muzzle of Delgado’s gun against the side of his head. Her face was a mask of fury and determination.

“I told you,” she panted. “The next time I saw you. I told you.”

Dash was watching, his fists curled against his cheeks, his eyes wide with horror. Manus said, “Evie, no. No! Take care of Dash.”

She blinked and looked up at him.

“Not in front of your boy. Give me the gun. Walk out of here. Walk out. I’ll pick you up along the way.”

She blinked again, then looked at the gun as though not understanding how it had wound up in her hand. She released Delgado’s collar and he collapsed. Then she handed the gun to Manus.

“The keys,” he said.

Evie gently removed them from Dash’s pocket and gave them to Manus.

“My gun?”

She glanced around, her expression confused, then pointed. “There. I… must have dropped it.”

Delgado managed to get to his knees. He was panting and snorting. Blood ran from the ruination that had once been his nose.

Evie looked at the Berserker as though noticing it for the first time. “You did kill those Turks,” she said. “It was you.”

Manus didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure what connection she was making. He would think about it later.

Evie took Dash by the hand and they started jogging up the road. Manus circled around Delgado so he could keep him in his field of vision while he watched them go. Within a minute, they were over the bridge and he could no longer see them.

Delgado looked up at him. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’ll always be a freak.”

Manus smiled. “You know what, Delgado? There’s something I always wanted to say to you.”

“Yeah? And what’s that?”

The smile widened. “This.”

He stretched and brought his arm high, as though the Berserker were a tennis racket about to deliver a blistering serve, then brought it down with all his strength. The blade cleaved Delgado’s head in two. A fountain of blood erupted from within his riven skull, and Manus leaped back to avoid the spray. Delgado’s body twitched and jerked for an instant, and then folded up and collapsed, all useless joints and truncated nerve endings.

Manus retrieved the Force Pro, swapped in a fresh magazine, and reholstered the weapon. He wiped the Berserker in the grass, placed it and Delgado’s gun in the truck toolbox, and headed out. A moment later, he pulled up alongside Evie and Dash. They got in, Dash in the middle. The boy was crying hard. Manus extended an arm and rubbed his back as he drove. He didn’t know where he was going, and Evie didn’t ask him. He supposed she was in shock. Maybe he was, too.

Twenty minutes later, he started to get the shakes. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened to him. He pulled into the parking area at Black Hill Regional Park and waited for it to pass.

Dash had stopped crying. You okay, Mr. Manus? he signed.

Manus nodded. I will be. How about you?

I don’t know. Who was that man?

He was a bad man. He was going to hurt your mother. And maybe you, too.

And you stopped him?

Yes. We don’t have to worry about him anymore. Ever.

Was there really a scavenger hunt?

Evie stroked his hair. Not a real one, honey. But… a kind of one. It’s a long story.

I want to hear it.

I’ll tell you. But only if Mr. Manus promises to help. He knows parts I don’t.

Dash looked at Manus, his eyes questioning. Manus raised his hands, but found no words. He looked at Evie for help. But all she signed was Well?

That feeling of being amputated, marooned, seemed to slacken. Only a little, but a little was enough.

I’ll try, he found himself signing.

Dash gave him a hesitant smile and a thumbs-up. Then he turned to Evie. Can we go home?

Evie nodded and looked at Manus. Yes. Let’s do that. I’m ready.

Manus drove slowly and carefully. He didn’t think anyone was watching. But he knew he could never be sure.