I must go, he realized.
Even if it meant that he might never see Caesar again.
Caesar also seemed to realize that this might be their final farewell. He reached and gently grasped Rocket’s head, pulling their foreheads together as they shared a moment of silent communion. Rocket’s throat tightened with emotion as he recalled how he and Caesar had started out as rivals and enemies so many years ago, and what a long, winding journey they had taken together since.
Was this finally that journey’s end?
Caesar pulled away from Rocket and looked his friend in the eyes.
“Go,” he said.
Rocket reluctantly turned away from Caesar and returned to the tunnel entrance. Glancing back over his shoulder, he paused to look at Caesar one last time before descending into the tunnel after the others.
He wished his friend luck.
And he wished the Colonel death.
34
Hurry! Bad Ape thought. Hurry, hurry!
Remaining by the tunnel exit to assist the adults climbing from the pit, he watched Maurice lead the fleeing children onward across the icy waste to the base of the mountain. They had just reached the nearest foothills when the ground began to shake beneath Bad Ape’s feet. An ominous rumbling grew louder and louder.
Confused and frightened, Bad Ape peered up at the immense wall guarding the entrance to the camp. The sentries on the wall appeared to be equally agitated by the approaching noise. They frantically scanned and pointed at the horizon, which was where the clamor was coming from. Following their example, Bad Ape paused and turned his binoculars toward the noise. A jolt of fear ran down his spine as the terrifying source of the rumbling came into focus.
The other humans! Bad Ape realized. They’re coming!
Through the snowy haze, headlights appeared in the distance, cutting through the dark and the swirling white flakes. The lights preceded a huge convoy of large, imposing armored vehicles advancing toward the camp across the wide frozen tundra. Their heavy treads dug great trenches through the accumulated snow. Winter’s fury failed to slow their approach.
Alarms sounded along the length of the wall. The battle between the warring humans was about to begin.
And the desperate apes were trapped in the middle.
Oh no, Bad Ape thought. Not now!
* * *
Sirens assailed Caesar’s ears. Lights blinked on all over the camp, including the soldiers’ barracks, which suddenly came alive with activity. Soldiers poured out of the barracks, clutching their weapons. Many of them were still tugging their ragged uniforms and winter gear into place as they charged toward the war, shouting wildly at each other.
“Holy shit!” someone yelled. “They’re here!”
Crouching in the shadows by the barracks, Caesar cursed the bad timing of the attack—and his own protracted caution earlier. Getting to the Colonel, and remaining undetected, was going to be much harder now that the entire camp was wide awake and the Colonel was bound to be directing the battle. Caesar feared that he had waited too long to seek his revenge.
With no time to waste, he broke from cover and hastily scaled the side of the barracks to reach the roof. He raced along the edge of the snow-covered rooftop, tempting gravity as he headed toward the watchtower, even as the adrenalized soldiers rushed in the opposite direction to get to the wall. None of them looked up to see the agile chimpanzee making his way along the roof several stories above them. Their enemies were attacking by land, not air.
Because of the blizzard? Or have humanity simply lost command of the sky since the plague?
Caesar didn’t know or care.
Just as long as they don’t look up… until I’ve done what I have to do.
Reaching the far end of the roof, he paused on the brink of the precipice. The Colonel’s watchtower lay before him, several feet away. Frantic shouts and banging drew his gaze down to the base of the tower, where a group of human officers were pounding on the metal door guarding its front entrance. They yelled up at the watch station high above them.
“COLONEL! COLONEL!” a lieutenant shouted, then turned and snapped at his fellow officers, “Why the hell is this door locked?”
Good question, Caesar thought.
Not that he’d been planning to walk in the front door anyway. He stared up at the open window four stories above, on the other side of the daunting gap dividing the barracks from the watchtower. Judging from the chaotic scene he had just witnessed, the Colonel was still holed up in his eyrie all by himself, for reasons known only to his own troubled brain. Caesar recalled the man’s peculiar behavior earlier that night and was relieved to find out that the Colonel had not yet joined his forces on the wall. The ape knew he would never have a better opportunity to take his revenge—and protect his people.
No ape was safe while the Colonel lived.
The time had come. Caesar gauged the distance between the roof’s edge and the window above, just as he had often calculated the gap between sky-high treetops and branches. Backing up to get a running start, he took a deep breath, mustered all his remaining strength and vigor, and launched himself off the rooftop toward the tower.
* * *
The sun was just beginning to rise as Preacher, along with his fellow soldiers, ran for the wall to defend the Colonel from his enemies. The young soldier was grateful for the few hours of sleep he’d managed to snag before the sirens had sounded, but he was not looking forward to the coming battle. Beyond the imminent danger to life and limb, he hated the very idea of having to fire on his brother and sister humans. He glanced over at the ape pen as he started to run past it. Fighting the kongs was one thing, but…
“Jesus Christ!”
Preacher froze in his tracks. His jaw dropped and it took his befuddled brain a moment to process what he was seeing: an empty pen where the apes had been locked up only hours before. Empty chains lay discarded in the snow. Swallowing hard, he remembered that lost key he had never actually managed to locate. His voice edged on hysteria as he shouted at the top of his lungs:
“THE APES! THEY’RE GONE!”
35
Racing the dawn, Caesar crept through the window into the Colonel’s lofty abode. It occurred to him that his surreptitious home invasion echoed the way the Colonel had silently infiltrated Caesar’s own dwelling back at the fortress, right before the merciless human had slaughtered Cornelia and Blue Eyes. Now Caesar was returning the favor with equally murderous intent. There was, perhaps, a certain poetic justice to be found there.
He glanced around, getting his bearings, and was immediately struck by a sight both incongruous and unnerving. The front door of the command center, which led to the stairs descending to the base of the tower, was barricaded by a heap of furniture—a desk, chairs, file cabinets—shoved up against the door from the inside. It appeared that the Colonel did not wish to be disturbed, but who was he trying to keep out: his enemies or his own officers?
The entire room was in disarray, as though the Colonel had lashed out in anger at his own lodgings. A stockpile of munitions, including belts of grenades, were strewn across the top of a messy table that had somehow avoided being added to the barricade. A tray of half-eaten army rations sat beside the disordered armaments, along with the Colonel’s steel flask, which was lying on its side, spilling its pungent contents onto the table. Soaking in a pool of whiskey was a photo of a small human boy smiling at the camera. The Colonel’s son, Caesar guessed.
Caesar felt an unwanted twinge of sympathy for the Colonel until he remembered that it was the Colonel himself who had murdered his own son, ruthlessly executing the infected soldier who had once been the smiling boy in the photo.
Just like he killed Blue Eyes and Cornelia and Percy and Malcolm…
The Colonel’s medals were also scattered on the table, but the man himself was nowhere to be seen. Caesar’s eyes scanned the eyrie, searching for the human he had come so far to kill. Caesar knew the Colonel had to be nearby.
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But where?
* * *
Missiles blasted off from the top of the wall, targeting the approaching army, streamers of bright orange flame trailing behind them. Bad Ape watched the flames light up the wintry landscape before diving for the enemy convoy. Massive explosions rocked the ground and the armored vehicles erupted into smoke and flames. Mangled metal fragments flew like shrapnel through the falling snow. The humans in the camp had drawn first blood, but Bad Ape knew the battle was only beginning.
“Hurry!” he urged a few stray children, who had hung back waiting for the parents. “Go, go, go!”
A tremendous roar, accompanied by a blinding flash, announced that the invaders had returned fire. Artillery shells soared toward the wall as Bad Ape lunged to drape himself protectively over the children. The shells made impact thirty feet short of the wall. A deafening boom briefly drowned out the world, including the fearful gasps and pants of the frightened little ones. Pulverized rock and ice pelted the apes like hail. Bad Ape’s ears rang from the echoes of the explosions.
This is no place for apes, he thought. We need to be anywhere but here!
* * *
Down in the tunnels, Rocket and the other adults reacted in dismay as a violent rumble shook the frozen earth surrounding them. Dirt rained down from the ceiling and the ancient timbers supporting the tunnel trembled and creaked, making Rocket fear for the structural integrity of the passage. It felt like an earthquake, but the battle-scarred chimpanzee guessed that they were feeling the shock waves from large explosions instead. He recalled the massive artillery the apes had been forced to haul up onto the wall, in anticipation of the coming battle between the Colonel and his human enemies.
We waited too long. The fight is underway. Now we must make our way through the humans’ war.
More explosions shook the tunnels, which were crammed with apes, slowing their progress toward the waiting ladder. More of the ceiling began to give way, adding to Rocket’s fear that the tunnels might soon collapse. Despite the conflict being waged on the surface, there was no safety to be found down here; they needed to keep moving and catch up with the children who had gone before them.
Just like Rocket needed to find out what was waiting for them above.
Gripping his rifle, he tried to push his way through the crush of bodies. It was a tight squeeze, but Rocket kept shoving, desperate to reach the surface. For all he knew, the children, along with Maurice and Bad Ape and the human girl, were trapped in the middle of the war—or had already been blown apart by the explosions. He needed to know what had become of them. He signed urgently to the apes in his way.
Let me through!
36
The thunder of war penetrated the walls of the watchtower.
Caesar wheeled about at the sound of the shelling. Racing to the window, he gazed in horror at the fierce battle being waged outside, practically at the Colonel’s doorstep. Incoming missiles flew over the wall to explode inside the camp. Entire sections of the dilapidated barracks were blown apart, adding to the rubble piled along the edges of the yard. Fiery debris erupted where missiles struck, igniting numerous small fires despite the cold, wet snow everywhere. Pristine snow was blackened by smoke and ash. The lofty watchtower rattled and swayed beneath Caesar’s feet, bleached simian skulls tumbling from the Colonel’s morbid shrine. Caesar realized that the watchtower itself would be a tempting target for the enemy artillery.
Time is running out…
A muffled crash came from an adjoining room. Remembering that he was not alone in the tower, Caesar turned away from the destruction outside and advanced cautiously toward a partially open doorway. Although eager to finally rid the world of the Colonel, he knew better than to proceed rashly when his quarry might well be waiting with a loaded firearm on the other side of the door. Caesar had not come this far to have his quest for revenge ended by a bullet to his head or heart.
The end is near, he thought. For one of us. Steeling himself, ready to spring for cover at the slightest hint of a gun being cocked, he peered warily around the doorframe. The first thing he saw was a broken Coleman lantern lying at the foot of a small wooden table. Spilled fuel pooled around the fallen lamp with its cracked glass pane. The harsh odor of the kerosene invaded Caesar’s nostrils, rendering his keen sense of smell useless. His eyes watered at the stink. Labored breathing came from beyond the door. Pushing it open as quietly as he could, Caesar peeked inside the room, which appeared to be the Colonel’s private sleeping quarters. A hint of dawn came through a small window, lighting the room… and its occupant.
At last.
The Colonel was sprawled on his stomach on a simple military-issue cot. His head drooped forward, while a flailing hand groped blindly for something just out of reach. His outstretched arm and trembling fingers clutched at empty air, while his face sagged against the cot, making Caesar suspect that the man was indeed well and truly drunk. It was not hard to guess how the unlucky lantern had been knocked over. Caesar’s alert eyes quickly spotted what the Colonel was actually reaching for: a loaded automatic pistol resting on the table by the cot. His heart racing, he crossed silently to claim the gun before the human could. His fingers closed on the grip as he snatched the weapon from the table.
That’s better, Caesar thought. The pistol felt cold and heavy in his hand. Lifting it, he trained the weapon on the prone form of his mortal enemy, who was still groping uselessly. The Colonel seemed to not even be aware that Caesar was present, let alone aiming a gun at his head.
It was almost too easy.
Pitiless green eyes glared down at the Colonel as Caesar recalled all the innocent blood on this man’s hands, all the friends and loved ones he had taken from Caesar: Cornelia, Blue Eyes, Malcolm, Percy, even Luca. Not to mention the countless other lives, ape and human, that had been needlessly destroyed by the Colonel’s genocidal madness.
No more.
The ape’s face was as hard as granite as he prepared to finish off the Colonel once and for all. It dawned on him belatedly that he had never actually learned the killer’s name.
Not that it mattered anymore. In a moment, the Colonel would be history.
But before Caesar could pull the trigger, the human finally lifted his head from the cot. Caesar paused, wanting a chance to look his enemy in the eyes before killing him, so that the Colonel would go to his grave knowing that Caesar had made him pay for his crimes, but then Caesar noticed the fresh blood smeared beneath the man’s nose.
Just like on the bodies of the infected.
And the mute soldier in the woods.
The Colonel’s bloodshot blue eyes were wide with fright and desperation, like a wounded animal’s. He opened his mouth as though to speak, but nothing emerged except meaningless gasps and grunts.
Caesar reeled back in shock. His foot found an object lying on the floor next to the cot. Glancing down, he recognized it immediately.
The girl’s rag doll.
Flecks of fresh blood stained the doll, which the Colonel had carried away from Caesar’s cage only hours ago. The doll the infected girl had been holding onto for who knew how long. Caesar recalled the pile of torched personal effects they had found by the impromptu graveyard near the coast. The Colonel had ordered the bonfire to try to contain the spread of the mutated virus.
But he hadn’t known about the doll.
Caesar was thrown by this unexpected discovery. Of all the savage punishments he had meted out to the Colonel in his vengeful imaginings, the possibility that the Colonel himself might fall victim to the contagion had never crossed Caesar’s mind.
This is worse than death for him, he realized.
Caesar started to lower the gun, then caught himself. The Colonel was still clumsily reaching for the weapon, but Caesar had no intention of letting the impaired human take it from him. Raising the gun once more, he aimed it directly at the Colonel’s head. Diseased or not, the man still deserved to die.
The barrel of the pistol was
only inches from the Colonel’s face, but the man did not even flinch. Instead he lifted his head toward Caesar and pressed his sweaty brow against the muzzle of the gun. Garbled, inarticulate noises escaped his lips. Tortured eyes pleaded mutely for death.
Caesar stared back at the stricken human, his next action suddenly uncertain. He had visualized killing the Colonel so many times since his family had been murdered, but he had never expected that the Colonel would wish for death. Caesar looked long and hard at the Colonel’s agonized features. His gaze drifted slowly to the gun in his hand. His finger rested tensely on the trigger.
Just one squeeze and it’s over, he thought.
But he slowly lowered the gun and stepped away from the Colonel. His stony expression softened as he felt a terrible weight slide from his shoulders. For the first time since his family had been killed, his heart was no longer at war with his conscience. He felt like an ape again.
I don’t need to do this. Not anymore.
The Colonel gaped at him helplessly. Caesar understood the man’s confusion; he was just as stunned by what he had chosen not to do. He looked again at the pitiable creature the Colonel had become.
He wasn’t a monster anymore. Just a sick animal.
In a moment of mercy, Caesar gently placed the gun down on the table. Within the Colonel’s reach.
A look of primitive gratitude flickered across the man’s agitated features. His hand fumbled for the weapon.
Caesar turned away and walked out of the room.
A shot rang out behind him.
37
Soldiers shouted impatiently at Red and the other apes, demanding more ammunition for their weapons as they hastily prepared for the firefight to come. Along with his fellow renegades, all of whom had once chosen Koba over Caesar, Red scrambled up to the top of the giant defensive wall. Multiple ammo belts were slung over his brawny shoulders, a rucksack packed with military gear and weaponry weighed heavily upon his back. He handed out a belt of .50 caliber cartridges to a gunner loading a big M2 machine gun mounted on a tripod.