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Luke moved through the crowd, shaking hands, answering questions. Everyone knew who he was, and more than one of them said, “This ends now.” He returned it, the meaning of the words already lost to him, transformed into mere sounds.

It took him an hour to catch up to Miller. The general was near the front of the ragged column, on foot. He smiled when he saw Luke. “‘And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered.’”

“‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,’” Luke replied. “‘For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.’ Henry the Fifth. You think the bleeding is gonna start this afternoon?”

Miller shrugged. “Soon enough.”

“We could have spared a jeep, you know. You didn’t need to walk.”

“MacArthur didn’t need to wade ashore in the Philippines, either. Army engineers had put out pontoons for him. But old Douglas knew what he was doing.” The general checked his watch, glanced at the horizon. There was nothing to see but dusty scrub leading to distant mountains beneath grim skies. Very grim; when the destruction started, it would come from above.

That will be the moment, Luke thought. We’ll either win in that moment, or we’ll break, and the New Sons of Liberty won’t be even a footnote in the histories. “Ask you something? Secretary Leahy. You trust him?”

“Not particularly,” Miller said. “Owen’s a politician. But he’ll do what he said, and hold off the military. It serves his ends. He figures if we drive deep enough into the Holdfast, Epstein will come to the government with his hat in hand. Trade his people’s freedom for their lives.”

“That was my read too. But if he’s just using us—”

“Why go along? First, it serves our ends. But more than that, by the time he realizes we’ve got other plans, it will be too late.”

Luke glanced over sharply. “You don’t mean to stop?”

“You were in Viet Nam. What did you learn about partial measures?”

“They don’t work.”

Miller nodded. “We go all the way. Burn the NCH to the ground.”

“But . . . the Vogler Ring. If even half of the rumors are true . . .”

“They’re true. I called an old friend in the DAR, got the agency report. Ten thousand microwave emplacements with overlapping fields of fire. It’ll feel like heat at first, then a bad sunburn, then your eyeballs pop and your blood boils.”

“The government let him build that?” Luke shook his head. “Politicians.”

“Indeed. No doubt Epstein made a lot of generous donations. Mostly, though, I suspect he got away with it because it’s purely defensive, and useless against American military forces.”

“Bombardment could clear a path in ten minutes.” Luke sucked air through his teeth. “But we don’t have artillery or air support. Can we go around?”

“They designed it to turn Tesla into a final refuge. The entire population of the Holdfast can fall back into the capitol. The network surrounds the city with a perfect, unbroken ring of death.”

“So then how are we going to get through?”

Miller smiled.

“I’m your neighbor, for Christ’s sake. Why are you doing this?”

—LEE PARKER, 32, TO THE MASKED ASSAILANTS WHO ALLEGEDLY HELD HIM AT GUNPOINT AND SET HIS PORTLAND HOME ON FIRE. THE ATTACKERS HAD MISTAKEN HIM FOR LEIGH PARKER, 25, A TIER-THREE GIFTED—AND A WOMAN—WHOSE NAME APPEARED ON THE LIST OF ABNORMS LEAKED BY THE HACKER GROUP KONSTANT KOS.

CHAPTER 12

The lobby was broad and tall, with big metal ventilation tubes that flexed and hummed as air whistled through. Three feet above was the concrete ceiling, the wiring for the rooftop solar panels bursting through in colorful bundles that reminded him of the ribbon his mom used to wrap around Christmas presents, the edge of her scissors ripping them into tight curls. Between the ventilation system and the roof were open struts, and it was from there that Hawk kept watch, perched out of sight in the crook of a metal elbow. He’d always liked to climb, and he’d been delighted to discover that if he planted his feet on the wall, he could scurry up a pipe, then swing his legs over and do a sit-up into the struts. Hawk would spend hours here, mostly in the lobby, but sometimes creeping across to other rooms in the building, following people as they moved below.

The others made fun of his habit, but mostly not in a mean sort of way. Once Tabitha had even said, “Leave him alone. Aaron is keeping a vigil.” She was nineteen, and went on missions, and when she’d said it she’d smiled at him in a way that he liked to pretend meant things he knew it didn’t.

You’ll go on missions too, Aaron Hakowski thought to himself. Maybe you and Tabitha together.