Lacey shook her head. "I'm not following."
Carole sighed and looked at the ceiling. "Torture. Am I the only one who's bothered by the fact that we tortured that creature into giving us the information?"
"Yeah," Lacey said with an edge on her voice. Joe could sense his niece's back rising. "I guess you could say you are. They're already dead, Carole."
"No, they're undead. And they very obviously feel pain."
"Hang on now," Joe said. He caught Carole's troubled gaze and held it. "We did what we had to, Carole. I didn't like it, and I'm sure Lacey didn't either, but this is war and—"
"A war for what?"
"For survival," Lacey said. "Them or us. This isn't a war of ideologies, Carole," Lacey said. "And it's not a war of religions either. This is a war for the survival of the human race."
"Even if we have to sacrifice our humanity to win it?"
Joe leaned back and kept silent. This wasn't what he'd wanted to talk to Carole about, but he sensed this argument had been brewing all day, maybe longer. Best to stay out of the line of fire unless it escalated too far.
"Ever hear of the Spanish Inquisition, Carole?" Lacey said. "That was 'humanity' at its most creative. We invented torture."
"You sound proud of it."
"Not at all. I look at a picture of a rack or an Iron Maiden and my stomach turns. My point is that we, as the living, don't exactly have clean hands when it comes to depravity."
"I'm not worried about humanity's hands," Carole said sofdy. "I'm worried about ours—the three of us. I'd like to believe that we deserve to win. But if in the process we become like the enemy, what have we won?"
"The right to survive!"
"Is that all you want?"
"No!" Lacey shot to her feet and pounded the table. "I want more! I want to see every single one of those bloodsucking parasites dead and rotting in the sun! They robbed me of the person I loved more than anyone in my life, they took my parents—maybe I was on rotten terms with them, and maybe I'll always be pissed at them for naming me Lacey, but they were still my parents—and then they took one of the few men in the world that I love and respect and tried to turn him into a monster like them. I want them gone,
Carole, I want them wiped off the face of the earth, and I want them to go screaming in agony, and I'm for doing whatever it takes to achieve that!" Her voice broke and tears streamed down her cheeks as she pounded the table with each word. "Whatever—it—takes!"
Joe rose, put an arm around Lacey's shoulders, and let her lean against him. Time to make peace.
"I'm okay," she said.
"No, you're not. None of us has been okay since the invasion. We're all damaged to varying degrees, but we all want the same thing. Carole has a valid point. We need to win—we must win—but maybe there should be a line we won't cross in order to win. I think we may have crossed that line at the Post Office."
He felt Lacey stiffen and shake her head. "No lines, no limits, no quarter, no mercy."
Joe tightened his grip on his niece's shoulders. How was he going to salvage this?
"Can we leave it that we agree to disagree and hope we don't have to cross the line again—hope that we don't find ourselves in a position where we even have to think about crossing it?"
But if that moment came, Joe wondered, what side of that line would he come down on?
Lacey shrugged, reluctantly, he thought. "I guess I'm all right with that."
Carole nodded. "So am I. I pray we're never faced with that choice again."
"Good," Joe said, sagging with relief. "You two had me worried there."
"What?" Lacey said, looking up at him with a half-smile playing about her lips. "You thought we'd break up the team? Never happen. Right, Carole?"
"Never. Our work is too important. But I thought it needed an airing."
"Well, it's aired," Joe said. "Now let me air something else." He sat and took Carole's hands in his. "How long have you been wiring yourself with explosives?"
She looked away. "A while."
"Why?"
"I think that should be obvious."
It was. But for Joe it was unthinkable.
"Carole, you mustn't. . . you can't..."
"I won't," she said. "Not unless all hope is gone."
"Even then—"
She faced him. "I will not become one of them, Joseph. And didn't you tell us yourself that you jumped off the Empire State Building?"
Yes, he had, hadn't he. He wished he hadn't told them. It cut off his argument at the knees. What could he say—that it was all right for him but not for her?
"But blowing yourself up ..."
The thought of Carole being torn to pieces, bits of her splattered against the walls and ceiling of a room, or scattered up and down a street, sickened him.
Her smile was tremulous. "What better way to go? I put my hand in my pocket, I press a button, and it's over—instantaneous, painless, and, considering the straits I'll be in at that moment, I'll probably take a few of the enemy with me."
"I kind of like that idea," Lacey said. "Maybe you can wire me and—"
Joe held up a hand. "Lacey, please." He stared at Carole. "All right. What can I say? It's something only you can decide, Carole. But I beg you, when things look blackest, when you think there's no way out and the situation can't get worse, hold off pressing that button. Give it just one more minute."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want to lose you. And who knows? Maybe in that one extra minute the situation will start to turn around. Promise?"
She shrugged. "Promise."
Joe leaned back. He'd thought he'd feel better confronting her about this, but he didn't.
He put it behind him for now and looked first at Lacey, then Carole.