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secured efficiently and with a great deal of
injury.
    The eighth boy
was Thomas.
    Liam pulled
his mask off. “Tommy,” he said softly, knowing his voice was
unreliable at the moment. So much needed to be said but no words
came.
    “Dad?” His
face showed his confusion. The last he would have heard was that
his father had disappeared after his helicopter went down. After
more than a year, he wouldn’t have expected to see him again and,
yet, here he was. A hint of his old smile came back. “Dad!” He
jumped across his former captor and threw his arms around his
father.
    Liam finally
felt a moment of peace. All the fears that he had been holding at
bay since his release from captivity began to melt away. Thomas was
alive. He closed his eyes and held his son, the chill of the rainy
night forgotten.
    “Something in
your eye, Simpson?” a voice inquired.
    “Shut it,” the
big man growled.
    Liam opened
his eyes and looked around the room. His troopers were checking on
the boys, looking for injuries and assessing their mobility. He
looked down to the boy who had been taking the beating. His men had
moved him to the couch and were assessing his injuries. “Tommy,
what was going on here?” He nodded toward the couch.
    His son
stepped back and looked over to the prone, bruised figure on the
couch. “They caught him trying to leave,” he said, woodenly. “They
make examples of the ones they catch. The last one died. I yelled
at them to stop – they said I was next.”
    Liam didn’t
know what made him angrier, the fact that these men were about to
beat his defenseless son or that Tommy was able to discuss it in
such emotionless terms. It was a survival mechanism; kill your
emotions before they kill you. How many murders had his son watched
in this room? How many times had he spoken up?
    Liam pushed
his anger aside for a moment and smiled at his son. “You spoke up
for him,” he said as he reached out to grasp his shoulder. “That
was a brave thing to do, considering what you can expect from them
in return.”
    Tommy
shrugged. “Didn’t do much for him, did it?” He angled his head
towards the couch.
    Liam shook his
head. “They took a break to put you in the lineup, yeah?” He gave a
shrug of his own. “Otherwise, they might have beaten him to death
by now.” He looked at the rest of the boys, activating his headset.
“All units to rally point Delta. We are bringing out eight
children; one of them is seriously wounded. Second unit to have
their stretcher slung for patient transport.”
    Liam pulled
his mask from its precarious perch on top of his head and shoved it
back into the storage bag at his hip. They moved the evacuees
quickly to the stairwell, passing the two men who guarded against
incursion from higher floors. They filed out into the lobby where
the soft rumble of diesels could be heard. The drivers were already
backing into the small courtyard, coming to a stop with the last
three feet of their vehicles under the building canopy.
    Six men went
outside, opening the back hatches of the armored vehicles before
moving to take up defensive positions in the dying rain.
    The exodus
began.
    Two boys were
sent to the front of the second vehicle while their injured friend
was laid on a stretcher. He was carried inside and suspended 
between the rows of seats that backed against the outer walls of
the vehicle. The other five, including Tommy, were guided into the
lead vehicle.
    The snipers
had rappelled down the faces of the two flanking buildings and now
ran to climb into the front passenger seats of their vehicles as
Liam followed the last of his men, climbing in the back hatch and
dogging it shut. “Up to the front end,” he told Tommy with a nod
towards the engine compartment that separated the cab from the rear
compartment.
    “Two loaded.”
Simpson’s accent was re-surfacing, even over the radio.
    “One loaded,”
Liam answered. “Let’s get to the post hospital.”
    They pulled
away with a roar;