“They might have whiskey,” said the woman. “Ask if they have whiskey.”

The big man smiled, lowered his maul, and spoke.

“The name’s Skullfucker Mike,” he said. “The lady who shot down your drone is Topaz MacMillan. Do you guys have whiskey?”

Manny didn’t. But Reggie did. (“Holy fuck,” he shouted, “I actually do!”) Somehow, the journalist hadn’t lost his backpack in the chaos. He unzipped the main compartment, dug around for a few seconds and produced a small metal flask. Reggie passed it off to Skullfucker Mike, who took a belt of it and let out a dog’s bark. He didn’t bark like a dog. It was the exact sound of a large hound barking.

Skullfucker Mike passed the flask up to Topaz. She took a pull and cooed appreciatively.

“Alright Skully, I like these guys. They get a ride.”

“A ride?” asked Reggie. “A ride to where?”

“To Rolling Fuck,” she said. “To the city of wheels.”

Chapter 8

Roland.

“So you were there, right?” Sardar asked. “You saw the White House burn?”

Sardar was Jim’s mechanic. He was a short, slightly pudgy kid with a wide, handsome face and skin a couple shades darker than Roland’s own. This was maybe his twentieth question since Jim’s aircraft had dropped their transport off two hours ago. The other members of Jim’s team hadn’t said so much as a word to Roland. They’d all listened though. He could see the tension in their shoulders and feel the vibrations in the air as their ears twitched and their eyes darted over to watch his replies. The fact that they were all cramped together inside the armored confines of a Mattis APC made it easy to read the room.

Roland wasn’t 100 percent sure if the young merc had been put up to the task of questioning him or if Sardar was just an inquisitive soul. Roland smelled a light drizzle of nervousness waft off the boy. He’d caught several glances between Sardar and Bigsby. But neither of those facts were proof of anything. Nervousness was a perfectly natural reaction to hanging out in a cramped metal box with a guy you’d just been trying to murder.

“I remember pieces of it,” Roland replied. “Fucking someone in the Lincoln Bedroom. Stealing liquor from the kitchens. Shitting in the ball-return of the White House bowling alley.”

Sardar shook his head.

“That’s fucking loco. You’re like a history book. I bet I read about shit you did back in high school.”

“Probably,” Roland said with a shrug. He had about nine clear memories of his life before the shack on Camelback Mountain, and none of them felt very historic.

“Can I get your autograph, man?” Sardar asked.