“Come on, let me help you up,” she said.
She gave me her hand, and my muscles trembled as if I were about to have a seizure. I could not get warm, and my ears would not stop ringing. When I was standing, I could see Toto near the door. His eye had been scorched, his head blackened, the domed top of it gone. He was silent in his cold trail of fiber optic cable, and no one paid him any mind as one by one all of the New Zionists were taken away.
Lucy looked down at the cold body on the floor, at the water and IV, the syringes and empty bags of saline.
“God,” she said.
“Is it safe to go out?” I had tears in my eyes.
“We’ve just now taken control of the containment area, and took the barge the same time we took the control room.
Several of them had to be shot because they wouldn’t drop their weapons. Marino got one in the parking lot.”
“He shot one of them?”
“He had to,” she said. “We think we got everyone-I guess about thirty-but we’re still being careful. This place is wired with explosives, come on. Are you able to walk?”
“Of course I am.”
I untied my soaked gown and yanked it off because I could not stand it anymore. Tossing it on the floor, I pulled off gloves and we walked quickly out of the control room.
She snatched her radio off her belt and her boots were loud on the catwalk and the stairs Toto had maneuvered so well.
“Unit one-twenty to mobile unit one,” she said.
“One.”
“We’re clearing out now. Everything secure?”
“You got the package?” I recognized Benton Wesley’s voice.
“Ten-four. Package is a-okay.”
“Thank God,” came a reply unusually emotional for the radio. “Tell the package we’re waiting.”
“Ten-four, sir,” Lucy said. “I believe the package knows.”
We walked fast beyond bodies and old blood and turned in to a lobby that could not keep anyone in or out anymore.
She pulled open a glass door, and the afternoon was so bright I had to shield my eyes. I did not know where to go and felt very unsteady on my feet.
“Watch the steps.” Lucy put an arm around my waist.
“Aunt Kay,” she said. “Just hold on to me.”