There was a peppery smell in the air that stung my nostrils, and the house itself was obscured by a haze of smoke. Occasional gunfire barked between the house, and a couple of separate positions flanking the cottage. Angie must have tried out her new gift.
I paused and scanned around. There wasn’t a clear line of fire anywhere ahead, and the tear gas would hit me pretty hard without gear. Hopefully, the attackers didn’t have gas masks, either, but I suspected they did. I moved to another tree and looked up at one of the many cameras we’d installed. With a wave and a smile, I moved on. Goldeneye had disappeared again, probably bothered by the smell of the gas. I really didn’t blame him.
This was going to be a bit harder than I expected, and while the farm was probably drawing the most fire, it was better protected. I forced down my urge to rush to Angie and Estelle’s aid, then circled back and around to get a look at the humvee. I needed an edge, and I might just get it if I played my cards right.
The gunner was crouched behind the .50 cal, scanning the place I’d gone off-road in the Silverado. At the angle he was at, all he could probably see was the tailgate, if that.
I swung my rifle up and aimed, bracing against a pine tree. Marksmanship was never my really strong point during training and qualification, but I could pass with scores a little higher than the average soldier. With a braced position, a moment to aim, and a mostly stationary target and less than a hundred yards, though, no problem.
Inhale, aim, exhale, squeeze.
The AR-15 kicked in my grasp, and the gunner dropped, his helmet flying clear of his head in a spray of scarlet.
37
The ease of that shot caught me by surprise, but I broke cover and sprinted for the humvee. The second I got there, I yanked open the driver’s door and dove inside. At this point, I couldn’t have been luckier. The vehicle was on and idling. I quickly slid past, wrapped my arms around the dead man’s legs, and heaved him up through the turret opening and over the side of the vehicle before I dropped back down into the driver’s seat.
I quickly cast around the cabin for a gas mask or something, found one, and donned it as fast as I could. Then I jammed the vehicle into gear, yanked the wheel around, and roared up the road towards the driveways. A quick look towards the Roberts’ place showed nothing. The Blackhawk sat out in the empty field, and the house looked quiet.
Screw it. If I freed up Angie, she could help me out with anything else. I turned the humvee down the homestead driveway and braked to a halt between the house and where I remembered the attackers were. Hopefully, no one from the house would shoot me in the back of the head when I did this…
I popped up behind the .50 cal and swung it around. From what I remembered, the rate of fire on this thing was slow enough to squeeze off single shots. Maybe in the billowing gas and confusion, I’d get the chance.
A couple of shots from the house rang out and spanged off the humvee’s armor. I winced. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Then one of the attackers broke cover ahead of me, perhaps thinking that I was here to help. He wore a gas mask, digital forest camo, and looked to be in full kit, including armor. I swung the machinegun in his direction, squeezed the trigger, and shot him.
His friend saw this and opened up on me just as I ducked back down. Bullets hammered the armored vehicle, cracking the glass. The door of the house swung open, and I saw a figure silhouetted there for just a moment before-
Bloop!
The second man, plus the tree he’d taken cover behind, exploded in a burst of fire and smoke. Unfortunately, that left part of the tree to fall, and it fell right on top of the humvee.
“God damn it, Angie,” I muttered under my breath as I shifted the thing into reverse and hit the gas. It dragged the fallen pine about halfway up the driveway before getting free.
I disembarked on the passenger side and ran for the house. Angie, in a gas mask and combat vest, met me halfway there, the 40mm barrel of the grenade launcher pointed menacingly in my direction. That lasted all of a couple of seconds before she dropped it down and rushed to hug me.
“There’s at least two more,” she told me, her voice muffled by the gas mask.
“Up at the Roberts’ place,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Without hesitation, we piled back into the humvee.
“Is everyone okay?” I asked as I backed it up the driveway onto the road and aimed the nose up the other house’s driveway.
“Terrified and hiding, but yes,” the Marine reported. “Penny’s early warning system worked, but they were moving so fast we barely had time to prepare.”
The humvee bounced up the driveway, and I braked to a halt in front of the house. No one was in the field, the cows had retreated away from the house, and the horses were running around their pasture like idiots. A single goat stood by the gate, chewing its cud.
“I’m on the gun,” Angie said, not even waiting for me to answer before she popped up into the turret.
I drew my Les Baer and put it in my lap as I reached for the intercom. A moment later, my voice boomed out of the external speakers.
“The rest of your team is down,” I said. “Surrender yourselves.”
From here, I could see most of the front of the house, and, right there by the wall, just out of sight, say a big, tawny coywolf, grinning away. I chuckled to myself and waited. Hopefully, they hadn’t already killed anyone inside. There’d be hell to pay if they had. Most of us would probably forgive a lot of things, but that wasn’t one.
Minutes passed, and Angie and I were getting antsy when the front door opened. Gene, hands up and open, hobbled out ahead of a man probably in his thirties with close-cut dark hair, wearing full military kit and sergeant’s chevrons on his sleeve. He had a service pistol at the ready and a hand on one of the big man’s shoulders.
“Let him go, sergeant,” I said over the intercom. “Let them all go, and you and what’s left of your team can walk.”
“I don’t think so!” Wilcox yelled back. “We’re taking the old man and the doctor, along with the helicopter. Back the hell off, farm boy.”
“Stand down, son,” Gene called. “It ain’t worth it.”
I stared through the bullet-resistant glass at the old veteran. There was a sly smile on his face.
Behind him, Wilcox nudged the older man forward. There was a second soldier behind the sergeant, and this one had Gwen Markovski in a similar position.
“Keep them covered,” I said to Angie. “I think something’s going to happen.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
“Don’t call me that,” I complained as I put a hand on the door handle. Something was going to happen, but I had no idea what. Goldeneye stood up, stretched, then stuck his head around the corner of the house to watch.
Gene took the stairs slowly, grimacing painfully while Wilcox moved with him, keeping the older man’s body between him and us. The second man followed, nudging Gwen along. She had her hands on top of her head. Seeing us, she took on a relieved smile, then started down the stairs as the two ahead hit the bottom and began to move towards the Blackhawk out in the field.
That was when the coywolf moved. Snarling and barking, he rounded the corner and charged at the lead pair.
Gene yelled something like, “Mad dog!” and dove forward while the sergeant whirled around to aim at the charging coywolf.
I snapped open the door as I grabbed my .45 and took a bead at Wilcox, squeezing off two rounds at his center of mass. The other soldier took his gun off of Gwen and started aiming at Goldeneye, too. Before he could fire, the small woman struck him in the elbow, grabbed the front of his uniform, and sent him sprawling down the stairs.
The coywolf landed on Wilcox. Angie put a three-round burst into the ground between the second soldier’s splayed legs, and it was over. I inched around to point my Les Baer in the face of the gasping soldier, pinned under about a hundred pounds of lean canine.
“You done?” I asked.
“I’m done,
” he replied, then coughed and winced. “Think I broke a rib.”
Gwen bounded over to check on Gene, who had rolled onto his back and was just lying there, groaning.
Goldeneye backed off of the downed sergeant, rather deliberately, I thought, planting a big paw in the man’s crotch before trotting off to sit and watch the fun.
“Which one do we need to keep?” Angie called from the turret.
“Both of them,” I replied. “For now.” Then I glanced at Gwen and Gene. “Is he okay, Gwen?”
“My hip’s not broken, dammit,” the big man complained. “I just knocked the wind out of myself.”
“Just lie there,” the doctor said as she looked up at me. “Anything I can do?”
“How about disarm this asshole and point his pistol at him?” Angie called, pointing at the soldier she was covering with the .50. “That way, I can get down out of the turret and be more useful.”
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked.
“Inside and tied up,” Gwen replied. “Bill got a crack on the head from mouthing off, though.”
“Help Angie out, then, if you don’t mind, go in and cut them loose,” I said. “Please.”
She nodded and gathered up the younger soldier’s pistol and rifle, then his knife, and put them in the passenger’s side of the humvee. I picked up Wilcox’s pistol and stuck it in my belt, then tugged free his rifle and got his knife before backing off.
“Where d'you get a trained whatever-that-is?” the sergeant asked.
“Coywolf,” I replied. “He’s not trained, either. He did that all on his own.”
“Well,” the man said, “I’ll be damned.”
Once they were both disarmed, Angie got out of the vehicle, grenade launcher slung over her shoulder and her own Sig Sauer M18 sidearm in hand. “What’s your name?” she asked the younger man.
“Wilson,” he replied sullenly. “Wilson Pryor.”
“Okay, that’s an interesting name,” she said. “Thanks for that.”
He just looked at her with a sour expression and fell silent.
“What are you going to do with us?” Wilcox asked, looking at me as Gwen went inside to take care of the others.
“I reckon that depends on you,” I said. “You probably aren’t going anywhere if you’ve got broken ribs.”
“Yeah,” he replied. “I’m guessing you won’t kill us.”
“So long as you don’t give me a reason to, probably not. Sorry about your team, though.”
“How the hell did you get back so fast?” Wilcox asked, looking up at me.
“The guy you left at the camp spilled the beans,” I replied.
“Of course he did,” the man on the ground sighed, then coughed and clutched his chest.
Gene looked over and said quietly, “Mind giving me a hand up, Henry?”
I shook my head. “Not at all,” I replied.
About five minutes later, we all heard the small engine buzz of a four-wheeler, and Jackie sans Samuel barreled up the driveway with her mostly blonde hair streaming behind her.
“Where’s your captive?” I asked.
“Oh,” she replied. “He pissed me off, so I tied him up in the blind. Dumbass thought he could overpower me and run for it. He couldn’t, though.”
I chuckled and then sighed. “Okay, I think I need to take care of cleanup.”
“Yeah,” Jackie said. “There’s a dead guy on the road up there.”
“Right. We’ve got these two captives, too, and no holding facilities.” I scratched my beard and looked at Bill. “Once Estelle and Gwen take care of the sergeant here, I want you and Angie to load them up in the back of the BearCat and take them to the police station. After that, we’ll figure out what to do with them.”
We’d spent some time a couple of months ago cleaning out the police station of the handful of bodies and burying them in the downtown park. We’d done the same with the fire department, but the hospital was just too daunting of a task for the few of us.
“Jackie,” I continued, “you and I will get Samuel and take him to the station as well. We’ll rotate through me, Gene, you, and Angie as guards, I think, until, well…” I trailed off.
Wilson swallowed hard.
Taking care of most of the business at hand only took a couple of hours, although the destroyed tree and cleaning up the remains of that particular soldier would be a more daunting task. That meant keeping Tommy from playing out in the yard for a while.
With the backhoe, we rapidly laid the other two soldiers to rest in the back of the property with a couple of simple markers. After that, Bill and Angie ran the sergeant, freshly taped ribs and all, and the young soldier Wilson Pryor, into town while Jackie and I retrieved Mister Rosenthal.
We took the humvee since my truck was going to need to be pulled out of the mud at the back of the larger pasture. We’d need to round up the cows, too. They’d made good an escape along with Joe, the Black Angus bull.
Jackie directed me back towards the hunt lodge and down a trail not too far past the main one. We parked in a rough clearing about three hundred feet from the road and walked about a mile further to a cleverly disguised hunter’s blind. Hoarse cries of “Help! Help!” came from inside as soon as Samuel heard us.
I pushed open the door and looked in. Jackie had trussed up Rosenthal on his knees, with his hands bound to his ankles, and his ankles tied together. He’d fallen over onto his side and looked miserable.
“You really tried to fight her?” I asked, laughing.
“Yes,” he whined. “I’m twice her size. I don’t know how she did it.”
“She knows how to fight,” I said. “Fortunately, she didn’t just shoot you and be done. I would have.”
“Want me to cut him loose?” Jackie asked.
“Might as well,” I answered. “We should haul him to the pokey with the other two.”
“What happened?” Samuel wheedled.
“We captured Wilcox and Pryor,” I replied. There really was no reason to hide it. “The rest of your team didn’t make it.”
“Oh,” he said quietly. “Damn.”
“Fortunately, the kids didn’t get hurt, and there were only minor injuries among the rest of my people,” I continued as Jackie roughly cut the ropes she’d used to tie the big man up. “If one of the kids had gotten hurt, you’d all be learning the meaning of Gulag Style.”
Samuel shuddered and looked up at me with big, liquid eyes.
“I’m not buying it,” I told him. “Get up and start walking.”
On our way back to the humvee, with Samuel stumbling along between us, I asked, “Who sent you guys, really?”
“Reverend Price,” he answered quietly. “We were sent here to watch for you guys and find out what happened to Hunter Blake.”
“We happened to Hunter Blake,” Jackie said dangerously. “After he tried to happen to us.”
“The sergeant suspected as much, although we never found his body.”
“There wasn’t much left of it,” I said.
Samuel turned a bit green around the gills.
“Umm, does Wilcox know I told you guys where he was?” he asked timidly.
“Yep,” I replied.
38
“So, what are we going to do with them?” Angie asked, breaking the silence as she, Estelle, Jackie, and I sat around a table in one of the conference rooms at the Opelika Police Department.
“I don’t know,” I said, drumming my fingers on the table thoughtfully. “I’m a bit dubious about Wilcox, especially. Samuel is an idiot, and Wilson’s a follower with maybe a little bit of thug. None of them seem terribly broken up about losing the other three, so either they weren’t friends, or they’re hiding it.”
“You don’t always like your co-workers,” Estelle pointed out. “You work with someone for years, then find out they were killed by a mugger walking home from the bar. You barely even think twice about it, and you certainly don’t go looking for vengeance.”
“So you’re saying these men are just co-workers?” Jackie made a face. “That just doesn’t compute with me.”
“I guess I see it,” I said slowly. “They went after us, knowing the risks. There wasn’t any real loyalty between the six of them, they were co-workers, and Wilcox was their manager.”
“What’s that guy’s first name, anyway?” Estelle asked. “Wilcox and Wilson are starting to confuse me.”
“Jake,” I replied. The sergeant had told me that when Jackie and I dropped off Samuel and I took a moment to speak with him.
“All of them actually service?” Angie asked.
“No,” Jackie and I said together.
“Jinx!” she shouted first, and we laughed.
“Samuel isn’t,” I said, completing the thought. “I don’t know about the three we killed, though.”
“I’m fairly sure Wilson is, or maybe he was ROTC or boot when all this went down,” Angie added. “Jake is definitely a sergeant.”
“Here’s my thought,” I said after a minute or so. “Let’s put it to a vote, or maybe a grand jury sort of thing.”
“What, like, hold a court?” Angie made a sour face. “I don’t like it, but I’ll go along with it if the rest of you agree.”
“It’d be one way to give everyone a voice,” Estelle said thoughtfully. “But do we want a vote or a court?”
“Secret ballot,” Jackie suggested. “We don’t want to put people on the spot just yet, and we want them to be honest about their opinion. A court is too public, and I don’t think we have an impartial jury.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “So, we’ll put it to a vote, but I want to do something first.” With a sigh, I reached up and rubbed my temples. I was probably about to present the worst idea I ever had. “I’m going to talk to each of them individually. Maybe y’all should do it, too. Then we talk and figure out where we stand on each of them, call a town meeting, and I’ll give the pros and cons of each man, and put it to a vote. We’ll make ballots and have a box and everything. I’ll do the counting myself.”
After The Virus (Book 2): Homesteading Page 27