Interview With the Mockingjay

by Kiwiwriter47

Here's a slightly different take on the events after "Mockingjay." A journalist from the Capitol's newspaper goes to District 12 to find out the real story - and come to terms with his own role in the Second Rebellion and his own lost love. Author's note: This story has become increasingly about the folks who fought the revolution and are building the post-war world.

14. Chapter 14

INTERVIEW WITH THE MOCKINGJAY – Chapter 14

As we approach the drop zone, the hoverplanes tighten up in formation, and Lewis, Kae Lyn, and I return to our stations. The DZ is on the north side of the bridge. A leading hoverplane activates its radar jammers to mask our drop. The hoverplane's dispatcher opens the side door, and yells, "Stand up and hook up!"

Lewis yells at us, "Stand by for red and green! Strike sure!"

The red light goes off in the plane, and so does a buzzer. Lewis yells, "Red on!"

We all yell back, "Red on!"

The dispatcher peers out of the open door, her body covered by her flight suit, nods, and looks back at Lewis, who nods back. He glances at the cockpit, and the green light goes off.

Lewis yells, "Green on! Go!" He leaps out of the plane first, figuratively and literally leading us into battle. One by one, the Black Devils leap out of the plane, shouting off their numbers as they pass the dispatcher. Failure to leap out of the plane – "jump refusal" – is a court-martial offense, which will result in savage disciplinary consequences by District 13 martinets and total social alienation from the rest of us. But we all leap out of the hoverplane, with me last in line, behind Kae Lyn.

As I jump, I tuck my head in, and the parachute spreads with a jerk. I can see all the other parachutes beneath me, and I guide my chute towards them. We will all land close together.

For a few moments, I can only hear the wind rushing past, my heavy breathing, and my heart pounding. It's my first combat drop – all of our other missions have been land operations. I can see a band of trees between the drop zone and the bridge. We will mass in the small woods for the attack. The Appian Way bisects the woods. At left of the bridge on our side, is my target, the Peacekeeper barracks. On the right is the truck stop, which is unoccupied, according to our intelligence. The primary defenses are a sandbagged machine-gun post on our side of the bridge and a similar one on the other side, as well as the Peacekeepers snoozing in their two-story barracks.

I hit the ground with a jar, and immediately unsnap myself from the chute, and run over to Kae Lyn, who has landed a couple of feet away. She nods, and we "roll up the stick" of Black Devils from our hoverplane silently, heading directly into the woods.

Overhead, the hoverplanes are pulling out.

We move to the edge of the trees, all wearing night glasses, supplied by District 11.

"They were like the night glasses you had in the arena," I say to Katniss.

She frowns for a moment. Then she remembers, nodding her head. "Rue showed me how they worked. They were amazing."

"We rounded up every one of the glasses we could find from District 11," I say. "Well, I should say that Gus Lewis did. He was meticulous about preparation. We even had sand tables and models to prepare for the attack."

I shoot Meredith, sitting next to me, a look. "Thank your folks for the glasses," I say.

She pales a little. "I didn't know they did that," she says. "I didn't have any."

We need to talk, I think. Before I can check myself, I blurt out, "Meredith, what happened when you got home to District 11?"

She grabs my hands. "Later," she says, firmly.

I can't wait. "Did something happen when you got home to District 11 after the war?" I ask.

Katniss cuts me off. "You two can resolve that later," she says, her voice hard. "I want to hear about your war. We were at the edge of the trees."

"Oh, right," I say.

All of us have our night glasses on, except Lewis, who has a powerful pair of binoculars. He scans the scene. We are all silent, knowing our jobs. First we take out the two Peacekeepers standing guard in the sandbagged emplacement on our side of the bridge. Then my platoon and Salmon's silently seize the sandbagged position, and take the guardhouse next to our emplacement. Simultaneously, Jennifer will take the rest of the battalion across the river by coup de main, grab the high ground opposite, and start "consolidating," or digging in.

Kae Lyn and Salmon are next to me, camera ready for Kae Lyn, a satchel charge for Salmon.

We stare at the thin defenses. There are about 30 or so Peacekeepers guarding this bridge, most of them snoozing in the guardhouse, four of them manning the two emplacements. And one guy sitting inside at the desk, watching his buddies on cameras, and probably playing Solitaire. Lewis's attack is dependent on speed, surprise, and sudden violence.

Lewis studies the positions. The two Peacekeepers in the nearer emplacement are standing there, gazing into the empty night. Next to their emplacement stands a flagpole. Lewis is satisfied. He nods his head. All is set. He whispers to me, "Let's get on with it. Strike sure."

I turn to a pair of Black Devils, who are aiming high-powered rifles with infra-red scopes. They can "paint" their target for accuracy. They aim their rifles at the two Peacekeepers, and squeeze gently on the triggers. Seconds later, the two Peacekeeper flop down into their emplacements, with little noise. It's like they've gone to sleep.

The two snipers aim their rifles again, this time on two cameras on the guardhouse, and fire two more shots. This time there is a shatter of glass, and a flash of sparks.

Lewis puts up his right arm in the air and points his hand forward. Then he rushes out at the head of our attack. All the Black Devils follow him, on rubber-soled boots, trotting across the open area. I lead Kae Lyn and Salmon and our platoon on a zigzag course, towards the sandbags. As we get there, I peer inside. The two Peacekeepers lie dead. I give my men a "thumbs-up" signal and point at the guardhouse, as Lewis and Jennifer and their men snake across the bridge. Two snipers flop down and prepare to take out the guards on the emplacement on the other side with their sniper scopes.

Silence, speed, surprise. These are the keys. We trot up to the guardhouse. A single light blazes from one of the first-floor windows, which are all covered with wire mesh to prevent someone from tossing in a grenade. The single light is the duty watchstander, who has probably given up his card game, and is fiddling with his camera monitors, trying to see if the reason they have gone black is mechanical before he goes out into the dark.

I hope he opens the door, so we can take him silently, and avoid having to use the satchel charge. I take up a position next to the doorknob, flattened against the wall, knife at the ready, Kae Lyn behind me. Salmon places his satchel charge.

As he does, the door opens. The duty Peacekeeper emerges, yelling, "Ovid? Serena? Are you awake?"

He's obviously asking for the now-dead Peacekeepers, to find out what's going on with the cameras. As he emerges, I grab him by the throat, jamming his Adam's-apple, and slam his head against the wall, slicing my knife across his neck. Blood spews out in a ferocious gush, and the Peacekeeper gurgles helplessly before slumping to the ground.

I point at Salmon, and he rips open the door, places his satchel charge inside, timer on, and nods. Our platoon all hits the dirt. Kae Lyn and I pull out two grenades.

The satchel charge explodes with a terrific roar, shattering all the windows on the guardhouse's first floor, blasting the light out. Yellow and red fire and smoke billows out of the building. The sound is deafening.

Kae Lyn and I run into the building, and we hurl our grenades down the hall into the fire and smoke. The grenades go off with the usual bang and we charge up the stairs on our right to the second floor, rifles out, firing ahead, screaming.

As we rush up the stairs, two Peacekeepers in their underwear appear at the top of the stairs. We mow them down and storm up onto the second floor, where Peacekeepers in various states of undress are leaping out of beds and reaching for rifles on stands in the center of the room. We fire at them, expending our clips. I turn around and hurl another grenade at the Peacekeepers behind us, which explodes, stunning them and giving me and the men behind me a few seconds to storm into the room and gun down the rest of the opposition. While I change clips, my men shoot the defenders. Then there is silence in the barracks room. My ears are ringing from the noise.

"Cease fire!" I yell. We hold up our rifles, and gag on the smoke. I run down the barracks room, past the beds and collapsed Peacekeeper bodies, and smash out the window at the end of the hall, to try and ventilate the building. The lights still glow harshly.

My men all stand around the room, looking to see if any of the Peacekeepers have escaped our fusillade. Peacekeepers lie grotesquely spread out, across the beds, on the floor, their bodies ripped open by the gashes and tears created by our bullets and grenades. There are no clean holes, like in the movies I used to watch with my girlfriends back in the Nut, which suddenly seems a million years ago.

Nobody is shooting, which may mean we've got everybody, or the survivors are under cover, hiding under the blankets or beds, waiting for a chance to whack an officer.

"Check this place out," I yell at my men. The guys start flipping over the beds, looking for living Peacekeepers. They find dead bodies, streaks and pools of blood, and scattered personal items in the debris – uniform components, clothing, dirty magazines, but nothing living.

I exhale. We got them. We got the bastards. "I think we're secure here," I say, finally able to hear again. I pull off my helmet, and clip it to a ring on my uniform. I grin at Kae Lyn. "You call that shooting?" I ask her, teasing her.

"You call that covering fire?" she retorts. "You suck."

"You suck, too," I fire back, as she advances toward me. As we are about to do a fist-bump of victory, I hear a moaning sound under a bed. I fling the bed over on its side, and there's a Peacekeeper, in his underwear, pale and puny without his armor and uniform, reaching for a pistol on the floor – and a framed photograph next to it. He is looking at me in terror.

I don't waste a second. I fire two bullets straight into his head, ripping it open, spewing bits of skull and brain all over the floor. He flops on the floor, hands just short of the pistol – and the photograph.

I stride over to him. "I hope he was reaching for that pistol," I say.

Kae Lyn grabs my shoulder. "I'm pretty sure he was," she says.

"I'll believe that if you do," I answer.

"I believe it," Kae Lyn says.

I pick up the pistol. It's loaded. I hand it to one of the soldiers in my platoon. "Shit," I say.

"Dodged one right there," Kae Lyn says.

"I said that your covering fire sucked," I say.

"Next time I'll do better," Kae Lyn answers. She smacks my arm. "Hey, back to work, you."

"Right," I say, and give her the overdue fist-bump.

"If you two are finished with the banter up here, I'd like to know how you did," Lewis says, coming up the stairs, trailing Jennifer, who waves the smoke out of her face. Lewis gazes at the carnage. "Looks like you secured the place. How many dead?"

"Haven't counted them yet," I say. I point at the Peacekeeper on the floor. "I shot him as he was reaching for his pistol – or his photograph."

Lewis looks down impassively at the dead man, whose eyes are vacant and head is a semi-liquid mass of blood, skull, and brain. "It was you or him," he says.

"What if he was reaching for the photograph…"

"We don't have time for that now," Lewis says, cutting me off. "You got him?"

I nod.

"Well, better you than him. Now you can sleep tomorrow night." He pauses. "Get the bodies hauled out of here. We'll get rid of them later. Take your platoon and follow Jennifer back across the bridge. She'll show you where to start digging in."

"Yes, sir," I say, still staring down at the man I just killed. Lewis, Jennifer, and Kae Lyn start heading down the stairs. Lewis glances up at me as he descends. "Forget it, Shakespeare. He probably didn't know what he was doing, either."

I follow Kae Lyn down the stairs and out of the guardhouse, back into the cleaner air. My platoon is gathered outside the building. My platoon sergeant, Charles Descheneaux, a former District 6 factory floor manager, stands there, ready to report. "Building's secure, sir. All dead."

I tell Descheneaux, "Get the platoon formed up, and follow Jennifer. When she shows you our sector, get everybody to start digging in. I'll be with you in a few minutes."

Descheneaux nods. My men move off behind him. I turn to Lewis, and put on my helmet again. "Sir, I have to put on my other hat now."

He smiles. "You have to be a combat correspondent now, hey?"

"Yes, sir, and Kae Lyn has to get some photographs. How did we do?"

"Just fine. The other two Peacekeepers are dead, and we're consolidating on those knobs," Lewis says. "No casualties."

"I need a quote," I say.

Lewis takes a professorial stance. "The assault went in with textbook precision and went according to plan. We could not have achieved this without the training, commitment, and strict obedience of every Black Devil. Now we have to hold the ground, until properly relieved."

He walks over to the sandbagged emplacement, trailing Kae Lyn, me, and the headquarters team. Lewis and I look into the emplacement and the grotesquely sprawled dead Peacekeepers. "Those bastards probably never knew what hit them," he says. "Good. Stupid idiots. That's what you get for not paying attention."

"I don't understand," I say.

"If they'd had any brains, they would have had more troops defending, land mines, sensors, and night patrolling," Lewis says. "But these are Peacekeepers. They expect to just bully their enemies into submission." He pauses. "Don't put that in your story. If we tell people what their weaknesses are, they might learn something."

Lewis kicks over a corpse, and uncovers their machine-gun. "Jennifer, have your guys take these sandbags and the machine-gun and add it to our defenses." He looks at the flagpole next to the emplacement. Lewis reaches for the wires, and tugs at them. "You want to get some pictures of this," he tells Kae Lyn. She obediently whips out her camera.

Lewis takes a cloth out of a front pocket, and attaches it to the flagpole wires. Then he raises the cloth, and it bursts out into a flag. The flag has three vertical stripes, a red one, a white one in the center, and another red one. On the middle white stripe is a red maple leaf. Lewis tugs and the flag rises to the top. He ties the flag wires, and the flag flutters in the darkness.

Lewis steps back, gives a spine-tingling salute, and then nods, folds his arms, and looks pleased. "Good, good," he says.

Kae Lyn snaps her photos. "What's all that about, sir," I ask.

"That's a Canadian flag," Lewis says, pointing up at the banner. "It was in a desk drawer in my office."

"Another family heirloom," I say.

"Right first time, Shakespeare," Lewis says, looking up at the flag with pride. "I want our guys to know that we're holding the ground and those Peacekeeper bastards to know just who took it from them. That flag stays there until we're relieved. You can put that in your story."

"What does the flag signify?" I ask.

"The red refers to Canada's English heritage and the white to its French heritage, and the maple leaf was a traditional symbol of Canada," Lewis says. "Panem is finished here."

He turns to one of his headquarters staff, a District 5 woman with red hair, burdened down with a huge backpack and headphones. "Let's get that re-supply mission in here," Lewis says. "Send the 'success' signal, Lombardi."

The signaler speaks into her mouthpiece, "Ham and jam. Ham and jam. Ham and jam." She says it over and over again. Lewis moves away from the flagpole, and says to me, "The success signal is from a famous British assault on a bridge in an invasion in World War II. Put that in your story."

"Yes, sir," I say.

Lewis glances at his watch, and his Holo. The blue light of its geographic information lights up the darkness for a few moments, while he studies it. Then Lewis flips it off. "Okay. We should be getting our drop in 20 minutes. That should give you enough time to get your quotes. I'm going to check out this truck stop, see if it's got any additional supplies." He starts walking off.

Kae Lyn asks, "What should we do with the bodies of the dead Peacekeepers? Dump them in the river?"

Lewis turns on her. "You crazy? We have to drink that water." He thinks for a minute, then points off where we came from. "Have a couple of guys in your platoon start digging a mass grave for the dead Peacekeepers. We'll bury them there. Get their names if you can, but don't waste time on any ceremony." He starts walking off.

"What about our guys?" I hear myself asking.

Lewis turns around, clapping his swagger stick behind him into his hands, and strides right up to me, looking me in the eye. "I don't propose to lose any of our men, Shakespeare."

"Yes, sir, but what if we do?"

Lewis smiles tightly. "We'll create a proper cemetery for them on the far side of the bridge, and each one will get a separate burial, photographed, and properly marked," he says. "If we have to. But I don't propose to lose any of our men, Shakespeare. And we will hold this ground." He turns to his crew. "Let's get on with it, then."

Without waiting for an answer, he turns around and walks over to the darkened truck stop, leaving me shaking my head.

"He really thought that you would take no casualties," Archer says, amazed.

"Yeah," I say, nodding. "Gus was an elitist. He said we were better than anything the Peacekeepers could throw at us. We could not lose, we would not lose. He was going to bring every one of us back home alive."

"But he knew that couldn't happen," Katniss says. "He knew that his men and women would die."

"He didn't want us to think about that," I say. "He wanted us to believe we were invincible. And it worked."

Peeta leans forward. "What happened to that Peacekeeper you killed?"

"The one in the barracks, you mean," I say. "The one who was reaching for the photograph."

"Or the pistol," Meredith says, squeezing my hand.

"We dumped his body in a big ditch with all the other dead Peacekeepers," I say.

"Who was in the picture," Peeta says, continuing.

"It was his mother, of course," I say, shaking my head, feeling the unpleasant memories again. I can smell the cordite, the sweet stench of blood, and feel the concussion of the grenades again. "Gus Lewis said that no soldier ever died shouting for the glory of Rome, or Napoleon, or the Emperor, only for his mother."

Katniss bends her head over into her lap, then looks up again. "So you never knew if that Peacekeeper was reaching for his pistol or his photograph," she says.

"No," I say flatly.

"You just shot him," she says.

"Yes," I answer. "Two shots. In the head. At close range. His head exploded in front of me."

Katniss gives me the thousand-yard stare. "I did the same thing, in the Capitol. I have nightmares about it."

"So do I," I say. "I think about that Peacekeeper a lot."

She plops her head back in her arms, then looks up again. "So you got your airdrop from your sponsors."

I smile wanly. "We had good sponsors. Right after I finished getting my quotes and Kae Lyn got her photos, the hoverplanes showed up on cue and started dropping all our supplies to us."

"So far the odds were very much in your favor," Archer says.

"We spent the rest of the night 'consolidating,' which is a fancy word for digging foxholes and trenches, laying out landmines and barbed wire, and deploying machine-guns," I say.

"Was there anything good in the truck stop?" Peeta asks.

"Not a lot," I say. "Not much food. Fuel for trucks, stuff like that."

"So you just dug in," Katniss says.

"Well, it was pretty easy, with those night goggles. We could see everything. We laid out necklaces of mines and infra-red sensors, barbed wire. It took most of the night. By the time Kae Lyn and I had finished filing our copy, our foxholes were ready."

Katniss looks at me, puzzled. "Foxholes?"

"They're little holes in the ground like a fox would dig, for us to be concealed."

"What do you mean, 'they were ready?'" Archer asks.

"Kae Lyn and I didn't have to dig ours. We were officers," I say. "Sgt. Descheneaux took care of that for us."

"So where is our foxhole," I ask Descheneaux.

The huge sergeant points to a large one. "All set, sirs. I had the new guys do it. Luther and de la Cruz."

Kae Lyn and I slump down into the foxhole with Descheneaux. Our gear has already been placed in it. "Your guys are good," I say.

"They needed to get straightened out a little," he says. "They're replacements, so they're a little nervous."

"Better nervous than cocky," I say, as I light up my laptop computer. Kae Lyn does the same with hers, to file her photographs.

"Yes, sir," Descheneaux says, standing by the foxhole.

As I type, I ask, "Is the platoon in position and properly deployed?"

"Yes, sir," Descheneaux answers. "We're setting up mines and sensors. We're ready."

I bang away at the keyboard. "Make sure everybody's fed. I'm sure we'll have to stand-to at dawn." I look up at the sergeant. "For goodness' sake, Sergeant, please, join us down here."

"I've got my own foxhole nearby, sir," he says. "Gotta stay with the men."

I shake my head. "Okay, Sergeant." For some reason, Descheneaux is very big on the officer-soldier separation. I guess he doesn't want the men to see him cozying up to the officers, even if Kae Lyn and I are really journalists in uniform. "You can take off now, Sergeant," I say.

He nods and heads for his foxhole, and I continue writing my article. I glance up at the sky. It's nearly 3:30 a.m. In a short time, Cassius Gray will begin his attack, opening with an artillery bombardment. Thirty miles from the front lines, we should see the flashes in the sky and possibly hear the rumble of his heavy guns.

But the only sound is the thud of spades into the ground, the mutter of conversation, and the clink of messkits as the Black Devils take advantage of the break for some breakfast.

"They used to have a phrase, 'Smoke 'em if you got em,'" I say to Kae Lyn. "This is the time for that."

She laughs. "The calm before the storm."

I slap my laptop closed, having finished and filed my story. Later today all of the Rebellion will be reading it, learning about the big airborne assault. I climb out of the foxhole to inspect my platoon's positions, making sure everyone is dug in properly. On the hilltop, it's a little windy. The guys are huddling in their green camouflage uniforms, rifles and machine-guns ready, peering out into the dark in their night goggles. Nobody is talking much.

When I return to my dugout, Gus Lewis has turned up, checking on us. "You got your story filed, Shakespeare?" he asks.

"Yes, sir."

"Several hundred years ago," he says, "There was a British leader named Winston Churchill. He fought in a couple of wars, where he did the same thing you did. He was a lieutenant in the British Army and a special correspondent for a newspaper. He was hoping to make a name for himself by filing stories about heroic action and participating in it. He thought it would get him elected to political office."

"Did it work," Kae Lyn asks.

"He became Britain's greatest leader," Lewis says. He smiles at me. "Are you planning to run for office after we win the war, Shakespeare?"

"I haven't thought ahead that far, sir," I say.

"Maybe you should." He climbs down and sits in the foxhole with us. "When we take this bridge, it's a clear road all the way to the Capitol. After we dig out Snow's government, we have to build a whole new country. You could be one of its political leaders."

I laugh. "I'm not that grandiose. I'd rather write about the country than lead it."

"Fair enough," Lewis says. He peers out into the night. "How about you, Kae Lyn?"

"I'm a photographer," she says. "What about you, sir?"

"I have a particular goal," he says. "One of my ancestors is a guy named Isaac Brock. On my mother's side. He was the only foreign general to accept the surrender of an American city. He took the surrender of Detroit in 1814." He grins at us. "I want to be the second, when I make President Snow surrender the Capitol to me, personally. Then I'll raise that flag I have over the Capitol. Just long enough to get some photographs."

"What will that accomplish, sir," Kae Lyn asks.

"It would amuse the hell out of my ancestors," he says. "Canada never had a tradition of being a nation of conquerors and invaders." He pauses. "After I've had my personal joke on Coriolanus Snow and his pals, I think I'd like to get back to military instruction. I'd like to set up a whole new army, a professional, non-political force to protect our borders and perform humanitarian missions."

As we stare into the night, Jennifer emerges out of the gloom with two more Black Devils, who bring mugs of freshly-brewed tea, Lewis's favorite drink.

"Tea's ready, sir," Jennifer says. It's interesting how quiet and deferential the brassy cattle rancher is when she's dealing with her boss. She hands us cups of hot, fresh, steaming tea.

"Thanks, Jennifer," he says. "I'll be back at the CP in a little while." She goes.

Lewis sips his tea. "If anything happens to me, Shakespeare, she's the boss," he says. "Just want you to know."

I don't respond to that. I can't imagine the force without its founder. Instead I ask, "Borders, sir? What are they?"

"That's another thing we need to do," he says. "We have 13 scattered districts and a central capital city. We need to define our borders and find out what's going on with the rest of the world. We don't know what's out there. There are whole continents beyond us. Hundreds of years ago, we had satellites in orbit and means of immediate communication across the entire world. Nowadays, if it wasn't for Capitol-controlled television, District 2 wouldn't know there was a District 1."

We stare out into the darkness quietly for a while. Then I ask, "So who's going to run the country, sir?"

"It won't be me," Lewis says. "That's certain. Maybe it'll be the Mockingjay. Katniss Everdeen. She can run the country. She started the rebellion. She united us. I would not have done it if it hadn't been for her."

"How's that, sir?"

"I was watching the 74th Hunger Games in my office at the Peacekeeper Academy in the Capitol, when she and Peeta held up the nightlock at the very end," Lewis says. "I was correcting tests while watching the games. The essays stank, of course. And I'm pretty sure the students were cheating on the multiple-choice portions of the tests. I was sitting there, thinking, 'How stupid is this? I'm one of the very few people in all of Panem who knows anything about what this world used to be like, and how much better it could be than this idiotic tyranny, and I'm sitting here, helping it continue and making things worse by supporting it.'"

I sip my tea, and Lewis continues.

"Then I saw Katniss and Peeta holding up the nightlock, and them telling the Gamemakers that they could take their sadistic and idiotic game and shove it up their rear ends. And the Gamemakers panicked, and surrendered. So I thought, 'It's that easy? I'm doing the wrong thing, in the wrong place, for the wrong reasons.' I was betraying everything my family had ever stood for. And two teenagers young enough to be my kids were braver than me. I felt embarrassed.

"So I phoned up a friend of mine, who I knew was part of the Underground, and told him we had to meet. After I finished correcting the tests, we met up in a park, and I joined the Underground. He told me what they were doing.

"When I got the word the fighting would break out, I signed a few movement orders for my family and our gear, shipping them to District 8, to get them away from the authorities. Then I told my classes I was going to District 8 to take charge of putting down the rebellion, and off I went." He sips some more tea.

"While I was riding the train to District 8, I threw my electronic pass card for the Academy out the train window, and I remembered something Julius Caesar said when he led his men across the Rubicon in his revolution. He said, 'Alea jacta est.' It means, 'The die is cast.'"

"See what you did?" Archer asks Katniss, grinning. "Look at that."

"It was Peeta's idea," Katniss says, quietly. "It was such a mess…when they announced that there could only be one winner, he took out his knife and threw it in the lake."

"I was going to kill myself. I couldn't kill Katniss," he says. "But it was really your idea."

"I realized that they had to have a victor, and if we both died, they wouldn't have a victor, and the whole thing would blow up in their faces," Katniss says.

"And it did," I say.

"I just didn't realize how big the explosion would be."

"It's something my pal George Altman calls the 'law of unintended consequences,'" I say. "It was waiting to happen."

Katniss shakes her head. "But it's not what I wanted. Not what I was planning. And look what happened…so many people dead, my district ruined, my sister Primrose killed."

"You freed a whole nation," I say.

"I didn't do all that," Katniss answers. She looks back up at me. "You did. At that bridge. Go on."

"Oh, right," I say.

Lewis glances at his watch. "They should be about to open fire now," he says. He turns around in the foxhole and looks north, expecting to see lightning flashes reflect against the sky, and to hear distant rumbling.

We wait and watch, reluctant to break the silence. All the Black Devils are looking to their rear, waiting for the barrage.

Nothing. For the longest time.

Lewis looks down at his watch again. He shakes his head. "They should have opened fire five minutes ago."

Wind whistles through the trees. Leaves shake. But no artillery bombardment.

Lewis stands up in our dugout and yells, "Jennifer! Lombardi! Get over here!"

Jennifer and the signaler come running up and jump into our dugout. Lewis snaps at Jennifer, "Am I stupid or is it past 0430 hours?"

"4:45 a.m., just like the big book," Jennifer says.

Without being prompted, Lombardi pulls the phone attachment out of her radio transmission pack and hands it to Lewis, who starts talking into the phone, a flurry of military jargon.

There are answers at the other end, and then Lewis says, "What do you mean, 'postponed?' What the hell?"

More muffled words.

"I see, all right, thank you." He hangs up the phone on its pack. Lombardi looks petrified. Jennifer is puzzled. Lewis stares out at the direction the Peacekeepers will come from.

He purses his lips, and taps his swagger stick into his left hand for a minute. Then he says to Jennifer, "What time is dawn?"

"5:07 a.m.," she answers.

"Have the battalion stand-to. Assume the threat direction is our front. Pass the word."

"Yes, sir," Jennifer says. She and Lombardi hop out of the foxhole. Lewis stares out, his face a mask of rage. Then he cools down. Still staring at the front, he says, "The attack is postponed by 24 hours."

"What?" I gasp.

"Twenty-four hour delay," Lewis says. "General Gray's logistics people botched up their job."

"Bellamy screwed up?" Kae Lyn asks.

"Bellamy was doing our logistics, and he did fine," Lewis says, his voice harsh. "Not Gray's cronies. Traffic's screwed up for miles. They didn't get enough fire units to the guns last night, and they won't have enough rounds until late this afternoon. So, a 24-hour postponement."

"So we're stuck out here for an additional day?" I ask. "What the hell?"

Lewis smiles grimly. "I told you Cassius Gray could not get up to us in two days or even four. That's all right. We'll hold this ground. We hold until relieved."

He points out at the front. "We'll stand-to in case of dawn assault, which is what I would do. If they don't attack by 7, we can stand down, but I want everybody ready now. That includes you, Shakespeare."

I leap out of my foxhole and yell, "Second Platoon, stand-to! Sergeant Descheneaux, get everybody up!"

I hear Descheneaux roar back, "Second Platoon, off your asses!"

"Make sure you have your machine-guns in position for interlocking fire," Lewis says, pointing his swagger stick. "They'll attack in a broad mass first."

"We took care of that, sir," I say. "We won't let you down."

"Great." Lewis climbs out of the foxhole. "I have to brief my CP guys." He looks down at us. "Don't get so worried, Shakespeare. We just have to hold for an additional day, that's all." He smiles. "No problem. We're Black Devils."

Then he jogs off in the dark, not running too quickly. Officers, he has said, should not run too fast, to inspire the men with their contempt for danger.

I turn back to Kae Lyn. Her eyes look wide. "What," I ask. "Are you scared?"

"No," she says. "It's something else."

"What?"

"What if they don't attack at all? What if they leave us out here? We'll run out of food, ammunition, and men."

I stare out at the front. That's a good question. If Gray never attacks, we're surrounded, 700 men and women against every Peacekeeper and the entire Panem arsenal. Tracker jackers, gas, mutts, artillery. We'll get slaughtered.

"Gus says we'll hold this ground," I say to Kae Lyn.

"But what happens if they leave us out here," Kae Lyn repeats. "And the Peacekeepers slaughter us?"

Finally, I come up with an answer. "Well, if we get slaughtered, it'll be a hot one for the after-action debriefing," I say.