Twenty-nine
The rocket flew from the launcher. Abe saw the
crosshairs move to keep the target in view, an electronic lock-on that
took him by surprise. The rocket became a lightning bolt tearing up the
hill, its eye-searing exhaust sweeping unerringly to the dark window Abe
had targeted at random. In that split second, Abe knew that he had been
the agent of Evie’s death.
“God, no!”
The explosion swallowed the sound of his voice.
Light dissolved all of existence. A blue-white fire ate through his
eyeballs and into his brain, flaring to pearlescent white as it
intensified, then sizzling in his ears like fallen power lines.
The blast hit next, ripping at the flesh of his face
like a superheated claw. He pulled his legs to his chest and drew his
arms about his head as he fell. Thunder burst across the landscape,
echoed against distant hills, and drowned out the feeble scream from his
own pitiful lungs. The detonation on the hill sent the very earth to
shaking.
