Page 81 of V-Day
19.
A STRONG WIND STUNG HISface, which helped Duardo stir and reach for consciousness. The skin of his face, especially his cheek, was hurting. It brought him closer to wakefulness.
Every inch of him hurt.
How badly was he injured? The question surfaced slowly. It made him struggle the rest of the way to proper awareness.
He was lying on his back on what felt like lumpy roadway. A howling gale whipped sand about at cyclone speeds, reminding him of the hurricane which had taken out the silver mine. Even the sound was the same.
That was why his cheek stung. The wind scoured it with the sand it was blasting.
Duardo bought a hand up to shield his cheek. Carefully, he opened one eye.
What he saw took a few minutes to make sense. When he realized what he was looking at, he jerked up into a sitting position, stunned.
He was laying on the far side of the big circle from what used to be the gates of the Palace. He was nearly eighty yards from where hehadbeen standing when the Palace blew. There were no gates left. What bits of fencing remained was bent over at an acute angle.
There was no fountain left, either.
The Chevrolet he had been crouched behind was not there. Neither was the antique Ford. One of the Ford’s spinner hubs was pressed up against the one-foot high remains of the building it had been standing beside, completely flattened. It would never spin again.
Over everything, including Duardo, was an inch-thick gray dirt the consistency and fineness of ash. He absently brushed off his sleeves, as he stared at where the Palace had once been. Nothing was there now but rubble.
Then he realized he could see the remains of the Palace, because little was left of the administrative building at the front of the grounds. It had been flattened just like the Palace.
Even the sky overhead was the same color as the ground. More dust was drifting down like snow. Duardo had seen snow once, high in the mountains.
He looked around the area where he was sitting and spotted the heel of what had been a polished officer’s boot. Groaning with the effort, Duardo crawled around the chunks of masonry and bricks and bits of fencing.
Aguado laid on his face. Duardo turned him over. He groaned heavily, making Duardo grin with pleasure. Aguado, at least, had come through.
There were more people stirring. Not everyone, though. Now he knew what to look for under the dust, Duardo saw more bodies. There were a few survivors, though, picking themselves up and shaking themselves off.
Including Insurrectos.
Duardo looked around for his gun. He remembered leaving it on the ground in front of him for fast pickup. It would be long gone now. He pulled his back-up knife out of his boot and with supreme effort, got to his feet and headed for the nearest Insurrecto, the knife out.
The Insurrecto’s eyes grew larger when he saw Duardo coming. He threw up his hands in surrender. “No more,” he said, his voice hoarse. “No more, I beg you.”
Duardo lowered his arm. “Yes, you’re right. This is more than enough.” He looked around at what was left of the Palace grounds once more.
Beside the Insurrecto, more of his companions were getting to their feet and putting their hands in the air. Their eyes were wide and white, the only part of their faces not covered in the fine dust.
He told the Insurrectos to sit in a line on the ground and tell anyone who came to do the same. Then he went back to check on Aguado.
There were twenty-seven cowed Insurrectos sitting on the ground by the time the first helicopter edged carefully onto what had been grass in the Palace grounds. The men who got out wore full hazmat suits with independent air tanks on their backs.
Duardo watched them approach him and Aguado, who was on his feet by then. Duardo’s belly tightened. “Where the hell does Vistaria go from here?” he asked softly.
*
CARMEN HEARD THE FIRST SURVIVORSto be processed through the decontamination tent Robert’s people set up right in the middle of the valley included Duardo Peña and the Mexican general.
She did something she had never done before. She pulled rank. “I am the daughter of the former President and the niece of the Presidentpro tem—the otherpro tem,” she amended hurriedly, as Roberts crossed his arms, studying her. “I demand to speak to the current Presidentpro tem, so I can learn what happened to the rest of my family.”
“Everyone wants to know what happened to their family, ma’am,” Roberts said gently. “Full radiation decontamination takes days.”
“I don’t care. I need to speak to him. Someone has to run this country and I might be the only one left with half a clue how to do that.”
