The pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire was easy to pick out from the boom! of shotgun blasts and the occasional cracks! of high-powered rifles. The skirmish was coming from higher up along the same hillside. Close enough that Keo could hear the echoes fading after each shot, but not near enough that he was in any danger.
The boys realized that too, and stood back up.
Keo joined them. “What’s going on out there?”
“We’re hunting down your buddies,” Mick said.
Keo looked back at the teenager. “They’re not my buddies.”
“That hat says different,” Mick said, pointing at Keo’s cap with his rifle. “Falcons suck, by the way.”
“I don’t know baseball.”
“Football.”
“Same difference. Also, I’m still not their buddy.”
“Whatever.”
Mick turned around and continued, and Keo followed. The soft, squishy tap-tap of Pick’s boots as he went over the same patch of muddy puddle that Keo had stepped through less than a minute ago followed somewhere behind him.
Keo hadn’t noticed it before, but they were definitely traversing the same grounds that others had moved across earlier in the day. The tracks were still fresh—boots and sneakers—and were leading in the same direction where Mick was taking him. He guessed that was the other Arrowhead party heading back to town in a hurry with the wounded Cody.
Speaking of Cody, a.k.a. Suzanna, Keo hoped she was still alive. Right now, there was only one person who could keep him alive today, and that was her—
A small, round object, the size of a rock, glinted brightly in the corner of Keo’s right eye. He looked over as it sailed through the crisp morning air.
It wasn’t a rock.
Oh shit, it wasn’t a rock.
“Grenade!” Keo shouted.
Mick stopped and turned even as the grenade continued on its path toward them. It was going to land somewhere between him and the kid, less than a foot or two from where Keo stood.
Or was standing, because Keo was already spinning and diving, shouting, “Get down!” at a shocked Pick as he did so.
Luckily for Keo, Pick didn’t have his rifle pointed at him at the time, because otherwise all he would have had to do was pull the trigger and Keo was done for. Not that that stopped Pick from doing just that—starting to lift his bolt-action—when Keo lunged in his direction.
The crack! of Pick’s rifle as it fired—the heavy round zipping just a few inches from Keo’s left ear—as he crashed into the teenager and drove both of them to the ground.
Not more than a second later, the earth-shaking boom! as the grenade went off somewhere behind him.
Keo was on top of a struggling Pick as dirt and grass and mud and everything else on the forest floor rained down on him.
A voice inside him screamed for him to Get up! Get up now, or you’re a dead man!
He couldn’t get up yet, but he could roll over and off the teenager, even as he heard footsteps coming.
“We’re under attack, you idiot!” Keo shouted. “Find a target! Shoot! Shoot!”
He’d just thrown out the shouts in case Pick was listening. He didn’t have a whole lot of confidence the kid would, but Keo was wrong. The crack of Pick’s rifle, followed by the sounds of him working the bolt, then crack again.
Keo didn’t know whom Pick was shooting at. He was too busy rolling, rolling, and rolling until he’d gotten out of the open.
The pop-pop-pop of rifle fire, followed by the forest ground shaking again as another grenade detonated.
Fuck!
He kept moving, the thoughts Stop, and you’re dead! Stop, and you’re fucking dead! thundering across his mind even as he rolled, rolled, and rolled some more. Fortunately, he was moving downhill, so he was picking up speed with every passing heartbeat.
But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He was unarmed, and there were men trying to kill him. Men with guns and grenades and probably knives, too—
Thump! as his back slammed into a waiting tree trunk.
Pain. A lot of pain.
But Keo pushed them all into the back of his mind and scrambled back up to his feet. He didn’t waste the second or two it would have taken to check to see if anyone was already in pursuit.
He took off.
He didn’t know where the two Arrowhead teens were, though he was pretty sure Mick was dead. Pick, too, maybe.
But he had no time to find out either way.
He was too busy running for his life, because there were still bullets zip-zip-zipping! around him. Someone was still trying to kill him!
He found out who that someone was when the man shouted, somewhere behind him, “Run, Chang! Run as fast as you can, but you’re not going to get very far, you motherfucker! I’m coming for you, Chang! I’m coming for you!”
It was Harvey.
But of course it had to be Harvey.
Fuck my life, Keo thought as he dodged branches and darted around trees.
He was running as fast as he could, because stopping was not a viable option. He was in no man’s land. First Shaker Town, now Arrowhead. And it wouldn’t surprise him one bit if both sides thought he was the enemy and shot him on sight.
He should have stayed back at Black Tide with Lara. He should have said no when Danny asked.
Stupid Danny.
If Keo survived this, he was going to kick Danny in the balls.
Kick him real good.
Thirteen
“Chang! Where are you?”
Nowhere you can see, pal.
“Come on out! I just wanna play!”
Yeah, I highly doubt that.
“Don’t be shy! Come say hi!”
Pass.
“Chang!”
Yes?
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
This guy…
Keo sighed to himself and thought about how great it would feel when he shut Harvey the fuck up. Because the big man was annoying him. More than that, Harvey was drawing a lot of unwanted attention to him.
You’re begging for it, Harvey.
Be careful what you wish for, fucker.
Except Keo couldn’t shut the man up. At least, not yet. He was between a rock and a hard place at the moment.
Or, should he say, a tree branch and five guys trying to kill him. Because that was how many were below him right now.
Five guys.
Harvey was one of them. The other two included Fridge, the trigger-happy kid, and three others that Keo had never bothered to get to know. Toby the not-really-a-medic medic was nowhere to be seen. Keo assumed he’d gotten himself killed when the Arrowhead folks attacked their, well, would-be attackers.
Five guys. All armed.
That was the problem. The all armed part.
The bigger problem? He wasn’t armed.
One of many problems, anyway. Keo wished he could say not having a gun was the least of his worries. After fleeing the scene of the ambush, Keo had considered running back to take refuge in the cave from last night, but he’d decided against that.
One: It was a friggin’ cave.
And two: Going into it meant not having a way out. Or maybe there was a way out, but Keo didn’t know about it.
So Keo had made the best decision he could under the circumstances. He’d relied on his old skills: Climbing.
He’d always been a very good climber. His mom, who was Korean, used to call him wonsungi. The Korean word for monkey. Keo had put that childhood skill to very good use over the years, and this was one of those times.
Harvey was still calling out to Keo as he led the four Shakers through the wooded area, seemingly oblivious to the fact they were still in enemy territory. All of them were, including Keo. As far as he knew, both Mick and Pick were dead and the Arrowhead folks were now looking for all six of their scalps. They would have no idea that he wasn’t a Shaker, and truth be told, he didn’t blame them one bit.
Snap! as one of Harve
y’s boys broke a twig in half.
Another snap! as another one of his boys did likewise.
They weren’t being all that subtle about moving around. Maybe that lack of care had something to do with what they’d already gone through. Harvey had blood on one side of his cheek, where a bullet had grazed it. He’d stanched the bleeding with a square bandage, but blood still trickled down his chin. The others looked similarly battle-weary, as if they’d been fighting for the last week instead of… What? The last hour or so?
Keo hadn’t heard shooting last night after he’d fled into the cave with Suzanna, or he would have woken up. Most of the fighting had taken place this morning while Keo was being marched down to Arrowhead.
Whatever had happened, and however long it had taken, it had cost Harvey a good deal. He’d arrived here with nineteen men—Keo being one of them—and had four left. And to look at the remaining four, they were ready to go home.
Also, they were walking instead of riding, which meant they’d lost their horses. That was going to make returning to Shaker Town a little more difficult, not to mention a whole lot more time-consuming.
Keo had lost count of how far he’d run since the ambush. He guessed two kilometers before he finally got winded and decided climbing was the better route. He was pretty sure he was still inside the wildlife preserve that the Arrowhead people had made their home. Although, to look at Harvey and his remaining four guys, Keo was having second thoughts about that.
Why wasn’t Harvey in more of a hurry to hightail it back to Shaker Town? Why did they seem so damn unconcerned with their surroundings? It was possible they’d killed all the Arrowhead people they were fighting with. But even if they had achieved that, they would know the town would just send more people. After all, there was a reason Arrowhead and Shaker Town had been at odds for years now: The two factions had more than enough men to keep a fight going for days, if not weeks, in a head-to-head battle.
So why did it look like Harvey was on a Sunday stroll in the park?
It had been exactly two minutes and ten seconds since Harvey last called out Keo’s name, and the man hadn’t made another peep since. Not that he kept quiet. He was making as much noise as his lackeys; none of the five Shakers seemed capable of going stealth even though they’d done very well at staying silent last night. Maybe the skirmish with the Arrowheads had hurt them more than just what Keo could see.
The crack! of a rifle exploded, scattering the birds in the trees around Keo.
But the gunfire had a much more devastating effect on one of Harvey’s men. A tall guy with long hair that flailed underneath his slightly slanted Atlanta Falcons cap crumpled to the wet ground between Harvey and Fridge.
Another one of Harvey’s men—they were spread out in a jagged line to cover more ground as they searched for him—spun around and fired. Or sprayed indiscriminately would probably be the better description. Keo couldn’t locate who had fired the first shot, and if he couldn’t from his high angle on the branch, then there was a good bet the Shaker had even less ability to find his target.
Not that that stopped the man. He fired every round he had until his M4 ran dry, then he began reloading. Or fumbled to do so, anyway. He didn’t get close before there was a second crack! and the man’s brains exploded out the back of his head, the black cap flicking off him and landing about five feet at just about the same time the body hit the ground.
Keo remained as still as possible and watched the fighting unfold. Not that he could have done anything else.
It wasn’t much of a fight. Harvey and his men should have left when they had the chance, instead of coming after Keo.
But they hadn’t, and now…
Sucks to be you, Harvey, Keo thought as the big man took off running, spinning and firing into the woods behind him occasionally.
Fridge and the other remaining Shaker—a black guy wearing denim jeans and an Atlanta Braves jacket—took off after their leader. Denim twisted around in mid-stride and unloaded the entire magazine in his AR-15, screaming incoherently as he did so.
Guy’s seen one too many action movies.
Fridge didn’t bother to return fire. That was smart of him, because there was absolutely no one to shoot at. At least, no one that he could see. Instead, Fridge ran underneath Keo, following in Harvey’s footsteps.
Keo turned slightly but couldn’t relocate Harvey. The big man had already disappeared into the wall of trees, and Fridge was right behind him.
The last Shaker should have taken off after them. That would have been the wisest move. Instead, he was wasting bullets shooting trees and branches and shrubs and scaring everything that lived in the place.
Guy’s definitely seen way too many action movies.
And there was no return fire. It was almost as if the shooters were biding their time, waiting to see how long it would take the Shaker to run out of bullets.
Then he did, and the man scrambled to reload.
The Shaker had managed to push the spare into the mag well and was about to pull on the charging handle when another crack! echoed.
A large caliber round blew through the man’s chest and exited his back, before pekking! loudly into the trunk of the tree that Keo was perched on. Keo swore the whole tree shook slightly against the impact.
And just like that, the “fight” was over.
Three bodies lay on the ground, and two were missing. Harvey and Fridge had made it. At least, for now. Keo didn’t think they were going to get very far. This was still Arrowhead territory, and there was a lot of woods left to go.
So where did that leave him?
He continued being as still as possible, breathing slowly as not to make too much noise, and waited for the shooters to show themselves. He was pretty sure it was more than one, even though they’d all used the same large-caliber ammo and, likely, a similar type of high-powered bolt-action rifle. Keo could tell the difference between those and a semiautomatic like the weapons the Shakers had dropped.
…like the weapons the Shakers had dropped…
The closest was the AR-15 next to Denim, about seven feet from Keo’s tree. He could see it in the tall grass, about half a foot from the man’s outstretched right hand. Close enough that if Keo jumped down and went right for it, he could probably reach it before the shooters could react.
Was he willing to bet his life on that, though?
Yeah, maybe not.
So he remained quiet and patient. He didn’t have to wait very long. About twenty seconds later, two figures revealed themselves.
They were wearing ghillie suits, but these were more elaborate—and as a result, more effective—than the ones Keo had seen on Mick and Pick. Keo hadn’t even spotted this duo until they stood up.
They walked forward, making barely any sounds as they did so. They didn’t even seem to be trying to stay quiet; they just were.
Or they were quiet until one of them took out a radio and spoke into it. “Tangos on the move.”
The two-way squawked, and a familiar male voice said through it, “How many?”
“Two.”
“The rest?”
“Accounted for.”
“Roger that.”
Keo was pretty sure the shooter had been talking to Horatio. That is, if he’d been right and it was Horatio when he eavesdropped on Mick and Pick talking to the man through their own radio back in the cave.
The man put the radio away while his partner walked to the closest dead Shaker and kneeled next to him. The man rolled the body over onto its back and went through the pockets.
Both men, like Mick and Pick, wore camo paint on their faces to help them blend into their wooded environment. As with the ghillie suits, these two had put their paints on much better than the kids.
Keo was looking at professionals. Maybe they weren’t soldiers, but they’d been doing this long enough to know how to set up an ambush and kill. They’d done both of those things easily, taking out Harvey’s trio without much fanfare o
r theatrics. They’d just performed the job. It was cold-blooded, in a way, but also admirable.
“What’d you find?” the first one asked as he walked over to his crouching partner.
The way they moved and talked convinced Keo they were a two-man team. Like Mick and Pick, only, well, more effective.
“Diddly squat,” the second one said. He stood up and looked around. “Lots of guns, though. We should probably take those.”
“We have plenty of guns,” the first one said.
“You can never have too many guns.”
“Then you can lug them all back with you.”
The second one glanced around again before shaking his head. “Nah, let’s let the kids come back here and pick them up.”
“Now you’re being smart.”
Both men were close enough now—about ten meters away—that Keo could just barely make out strands of white hair poking out from underneath one of the hoods. They were carrying pouches that bulged underneath their suits.
Keo watched the shooters standing nearby. They didn’t bother picking through the other two dead Shakers. In fact, they didn’t seem interested in doing much of anything but just…loiter.
“You know what I hate about Shakers?” one of them finally said.
“What’s that?” the other said.
“They smell.” He sniffed the air as if for effect. “You can smell Shaker Town on them. It reeks from their pores. Everywhere they go, they leave a stench behind.”
Keo’s eyes lifted slightly. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear the man was talking about him.
No, the guy couldn’t have been talking about him. He wasn’t exactly hidden—he only had some branches to cover him, and they barely did that—but he was high up enough that he’d eluded Harvey and company without a problem.
But then again, the Shakers were city people. They didn’t live in the woods and lived off the land. Hell, they wouldn’t even be able to do survive more than a week out here before starving to death first.
“Worse than ghouls?” Mr. Sniffer’s partner was asking.
“Definitely worse,” Mr. Sniffer said.
The partner sniffed the air too, his paint-covered nose wrinkling. “Maybe you’re right. What do you call that smell, anyway?”
Road To Babylon | Book 10 | 100 Deep Page 11