“I’ll say.”
Chapter 28
Houston, Texas
A bonfire blazed outside a nightclub that the cartel had appropriated for one of its hubs, and several armed men glared from the doorway, rifles in hand. Abandoned vehicles, the glass gone from their windows, rusted in a procession in all four lanes of the boulevard that fronted it, the cars stripped of anything that could be bartered or used for fuel or survival. A hand-painted sign hung over the door with La Concha painted on it in bright red letters and a crudely drawn Fibonacci sequence spiral beside the name. A trio of musicians strummed traditional Mexican music inside, and occasional shouts and peals of laughter carried onto the sidewalks, which were otherwise quiet.
The cartel had cleared the streets of Crew members upon consolidation of its power, and the area was now a no-go after dark for anyone but cartel enforcers, who preyed on the locals with impunity and brutalized any resisters with swift and outsized violence. Most of the residents who could had moved elsewhere, leaving those who hadn’t at the cartel’s mercy now that the protection of the Crew was nothing but a sham.
Wink peered around the edge of a brick building a block from the club and scanned the street. After several moments, he turned to the two men standing behind him and whispered, “They’re watching the door, like we thought. But you should still be able to get in if you’re careful.” He paused. “Let’s check out the back and make sure it’s clear.”
They edged down the street until they reached the service alley that stretched along the rear of the buildings and eyed the dumpsters and detritus that clogged the way.
After a minute of silent scrutiny, Wink exhaled softly and murmured to the man nearest him, “Two more at the back. Vito, you see them?”
“Yep.”
“All right. You know what Julio looks like. Make sure he’s deader than Elvis or don’t bother coming back.”
“You got it.”
The pair padded along the dumpsters to the first darkened doorway and disappeared inside the gutted building, leaving Wink standing in the shadows with his hand on his .45 pistol. The plan was to gun down the Houston cartel boss and, before the Mexicans knew what had hit them, to neutralize as many as possible so they had no chain of command and could be easily picked off. It was a risky strategy if anything went wrong, but things had been getting steadily worse for the Crew, and it was obvious that Houston would be under complete cartel control shortly, with no need for the Crew to act as street thugs for them. That left a small window of opportunity Wink had decided to capitalize on, and when his informer had confirmed that Julio, the local chief, spent his nights drinking and whoring at the club, he’d sought out the two most capable of his men and come up with this plan.
Inside the tenement, the pair of Crew assassins mounted the stairs until they reached the ladder that led to the roof. The interior of the building was so dark they could barely make it out, but their informant had reconnoitered the space that morning and given them a detailed description of what to expect.
Vito reached out, felt for the rungs, and muttered to his partner, “Showtime.”
He climbed the ladder, pushed open a steel cover that prevented rain from entering the two-foot-square opening, and pulled himself onto the roof before calling down into the hatchway, “All clear, Dom.”
Dom followed Vito up, and then they were sprinting across the flat tar paper, making for the club. They paused at the lip of the next building and studied the shafts jutting from the club roof a story below, searching for any guards the cartel might have posted. Three minutes later they’d seen nothing, and Dom uncoiled a length of rope with knots in it every foot for ease of climbing. Vito cinched it to a pipe and tested his weight, and then lowered himself over the edge, careful to avoid striking the surface with the barrel of the rifle that hung from a shoulder sling. When he set down on the roof, he freed the rifle and scanned the rooftop and, after verifying it was clear, whispered up to Dom, “Let’s do this.”
Dom joined him and left the rope in place for a quick getaway, and they felt their way to the trapdoor in the center of the roof, where another steel cover waited. Vito set his rifle down and eased the cover aside, and Dom peered down into the gloom before looking up at him.
“Another ladder. Just like he said.”
“Let’s hope he was right about the rest. This’ll be a piece of cake.”
Dom gave him a dark look. “We aren’t there yet.”
They descended the ladder into a dusty storage room. Vito removed a small crank-powered LED flashlight and switched it on. The beam played across broken wooden crates until it settled on a door at the far end, and Vito grinned before switching it off and allowing his eyes to readjust to the darkness.
When they reached the door, he twisted the handle and pulled it open a few inches, wincing at the creak of rusty hinges. The volume of the music instantly increased, which masked the sound, and Vito eased it wider as Dom stood with his rifle raised just inside the room.
Outside the door was a railing and walkway that ringed the club. Smoke from hand-rolled cigarettes and joints drifted to the rafters, and rowdy voices called to each other in Spanish over the sound of the guitars and singing. Vito pointed at the floor, and Dom crouched down and then lay flat and dog-crawled onto the wooden walkway, leading with his rifle. Vito did the same, and they stopped just short of the edge, sweating in silence, their eyes roaming over the far walls.
Vito slipped a mirror on a telescoping antenna from the breast pocket of his vest and extended it until he could see the scene below. He slowly panned across the crowd until he spotted the cartel boss seated at a table near the door, surrounded by heavily armed men and three scrawny local women who looked half starved. Vito calculated their position based on the reflection, and then retracted the mirror and murmured to Dom, “He’s in a booth on the right side of the door from where we are, almost directly across from us. Got his posse with him, and some skanks.”
“Okay. On the count of three, I’ll move into position. Cover me when they start shooting, so I can get to the ladder.”
“You got it.”
Dom counted in a hoarse whisper and then crawled the rest of the way to the edge, rifle in hand. He adjusted the weapon until the barrel was poking through the railing, and then raised himself up on his elbows so the angle of the weapon would allow him to take out the cartel chief with a single burst.
An explosion of gunfire from directly beneath him exploded off the walls, and slugs tore through the floor, splintering the planks. Dom yelped in pain as two rounds seared through his rib cage, and he squeezed the trigger when Julio ducked down to use the table for cover.
More shooting from the cartel gunmen shredded the walkway, and a round blew off half Dom’s jaw as he rolled to the side in a futile effort to avoid being hit. Another bullet ended his life when it passed through his throat and severed his spine, leaving Vito to beat a frantic retreat back to the storeroom as dozens of rounds punched through the floor around him.
Vito slammed the door shut, flipped the lock closed, and ran to the ladder. He grunted in pain when his shin skinned one of the crates, but he didn’t slow, his pulse pounding in his ears as loud as a kick drum. He reached the steel rungs and pulled himself skyward, and once on the roof slid the steel hatch in place with a screech before running for the rope that dangled lazily from the adjacent rim in the humid breeze.
He was almost there when the hatch clanged behind him. Vito spun and loosed ten rounds at the opening to deter anyone from poking their head through it, and then sprinted for the rope, panting from exertion. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and threw himself at the rope, and hauled as hard as he could, nearly flying up the wall as rifle fire peppered the mortar around him.
A round sent a spike of searing pain through his thigh, but he gritted his teeth and didn’t falter. His breath hissed as he pulled himself up and over the edge, and then he yanked the rope up after him to slow his pursuers.
; There were at least ten men on the roof, with more coming. Vito freed his rifle and sprayed them with lead and was rewarded with agonized screams, but he didn’t linger. More gunmen were spilling onto the roof through the hatch and he was vastly outnumbered, so he inched backward, leaving a streak of bright red blood where he’d been lying. When he was out of sight, he forced himself to his feet and limped to the next building, where his escape route opening was a dark square in the gloom.
Vito reached it and slid down the ladder, not bothering to slip the steel cover in place, speed now more important to him than stealth. He stumbled down the stairs to the ground floor, each step sending a shriek of agony through his thigh. When he arrived at the rear door, he did a quick scan of the street and then bolted down the sidewalk to where he was to reunite with Wink.
Vito’s head was spinning by the time he made it to the storefront two blocks away, and his muscles felt suddenly drained of energy with every step. He leaned against the façade and ran his hands down his leg. They came away slick with blood, and he realized that his pants were soaked through and that there was more collecting in his boot.
“Shit,” he muttered, and removed his belt to craft a primitive tourniquet. He’d been so fixated on making his escape he’d failed to accurately assess the extent of his injury, which was worse than he’d thought. He cinched the belt tight and entered the shop, weapon in hand.
“What happened?” Wink demanded as he stepped from the shadows. “Sounds like world war three back there.”
Vito shivered involuntarily. “It went ugly early.”
“Did you get him?”
Vito shook his head. “Negative. Dom bought it before he had a chance to make the kill shot. I barely got out with my skin.”
Wink’s face fell. “You left him there?”
Vito nodded. “No choice.”
“Damn. We need to get back to headquarters and warn everyone. They’re going to come after us hard.” He eyed Vito’s leg. “Can you make it?” Their horses were another block away.
“I…I think so. I’ll need a hand.”
Wink helped him down the street, craning his neck to check behind them every few yards. By the time they made it to their animals, Vito was leaning heavily on Wink, and it was obvious that he was struggling to stay conscious. Wink tried to help him onto his horse, but he couldn’t get into the saddle, and after several tries, Vito shook his head. “You go,” he said. “I’ll rest here until I can make it.”
“I’m not going to leave you.”
“It’s okay. I just need a few minutes to rally.”
Both Wink and Vito understood that was basically a death sentence, but Wink had little choice but to agree. Every minute he lingered was another that the cartel would be readying an attack that would end the Crew once and for all, and Wink had no doubt that it would be coming that night. Attempting to take out Julio was a de facto declaration of war; the cartel didn’t shy away from fights, so Wink was now racing the clock to make it back and salvage what he could before hellfire rained down on his men.
“All right. Good luck,” Wink said. He swung onto his stallion and raced off, leaving Vito sitting on the ground with his back against a wall, his breathing ragged. Vito knew that if they failed to kill Julio, Wink planned to evacuate Houston with his loyal inner circle and any Crew gunmen who wanted to accompany him, and had every expectation that the gang members who stayed would be dead by sunup, himself included. But he also understood he was in no shape to ride, so he was doomed to be butchered by the Mexicans whenever they got around to finding him – assuming he didn’t die of infection first, which was likely given the severity of the wound.
He sighed and loosened the belt, allowing the blood to ooze from the entry and exit holes, and closed his eyes. The pain that racked his body slowly subsided, replaced by a numb chill and a sense of being a distant observer of himself, watching the wreckage of his physical form from above. Eventually he drifted from consciousness as he bled out, and his last thought was that death wasn’t so hard or so bad as he’d feared, and that his life had been needlessly obsessed with remaining alive as long as possible.
When a cartel patrol found him three hours later, he was stiff and cold as marble, a smile frozen on his face, his expression as peaceful as a Rembrandt cherub in spite of the coagulated pond of blood in which he lay.
Chapter 29
East of Provo, Utah
Sierra squinted down the barrel of her AK-47 at the dark trail while Eve and Tim lay hushed in their little tent behind her. The muddy slog had been brutal since they’d left Provo, and her plan of easily catching up to the army within a couple of days had quickly proven to be overly optimistic. Now she was stuck in the middle of nowhere in miserable conditions and had heard the unmistakable sound of hooves approaching her camp, which could only be bad.
A figure rode from the gloom with a packhorse in tow, and she aimed for his chest. Her finger was brushing the trigger when she gasped and lowered the rifle with a shocked expression.
“Elliot?”
Elliot reined his horse and stopped a few yards away. “I found you! It’s about time.”
“What are you doing here?”
Elliot lowered himself from the saddle and stiffly walked his horses to where Sierra and the kids’ animals were tethered to a sapling. He tied them off and turned to face her. “Same as you, looks like.”
“I…I’m not going back with you. If that’s what you’re thinking, you wasted your energy.”
Elliot sighed and began unpacking one of his saddlebags. “Nice to see you, too. Where are Eve and Tim?”
Two small heads poked out of the tent. “Elliot!”
He nodded. “That’s right. You have room for an old man in this camp?”
Eve looked to Sierra, who shrugged. “Sure,” she said.
Elliot unbuckled one of the packs on his second horse and extracted a two-man tent. “Let me pitch this and fix some dinner. Have you eaten?”
Sierra glanced at the kids. “Not yet.” She sniffed. “Actually, we don’t have any more food.”
“What? How is that possible?”
“Yesterday we ran into a woman with a little boy about Eve’s age and decided to share a camp for safety. They seemed harmless and said they were headed for Provo to look for some family there. When we woke up, they were gone, along with most of our food.”
Elliot’s face darkened. “You’re lucky they left your horses.”
“We would have woken up if they’d taken them. That’s probably the only reason.” She exhaled heavily. “I should have known better.”
Elliot busied himself with setting up his tent rather than responding. When he was done, he turned to her. “I’ve got plenty of food. You’re welcome to some.”
“Not until I know what you’re doing here.”
He rolled his eyes. “Why, I would have thought it was obvious. Following you.”
“I thought so. The question is why. I told you I’m not going back, so you can save your breath.”
Elliot’s face crinkled with a smile. “Who said anything about going back?”
Sierra’s expression radiated confusion. “Then…what?”
Elliot removed a food bag from his kit and sat on a log in the moonlight. “I can be more valuable helping Lucas than getting fat and old in Provo. My job there is done. I led my people to safety, and my continued presence does nothing but create risk for them. It’s time to move on, and I figured that if I rode hard, I could catch up with you, and we could finish the journey together.”
Sierra called the kids over and Elliot distributed food to them. They sat chewing their rolls and jerky in silence, obviously famished, while Elliot pretended not to notice. Once they were full, he leaned back and considered Sierra with a neutral gaze.
“How far ahead of us do you figure they are?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t bank on the rain. It makes it hard to read their trail, even if they leave one a mile wide.”
“If we get a break and push our horses, we should be able to.”
The children retired to their tent, leaving Sierra alone with Elliot. She shifted her AK to her lap and cleared her throat.
“Thank you for sharing your food. It was stupid to let that girl steal ours.”
“You were trusting. Can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same. All’s well that ends well, right?”
“Maybe. I suppose I could have thought this through better before heading into the wilds with the kids.”
Elliot shrugged. “We all have regrets. Better to focus on the future than beat yourself up over things you can’t change.”
“You’re actually going to join up with Lucas? Or are you really just looking out for us?”
“Could be a little of both, couldn’t it? They aren’t mutually exclusive.”
She bristled and her voice hardened. “I don’t need your help. I’m not some damsel in distress who needs a big, strong man to save her.”
“Sierra, if you’re convinced everyone’s the enemy, eventually you’ll be right. It’s a lousy way to go through life. You have real threats all around you. Don’t treat your friends in a shabby manner and you’ll get a better result.”
She looked down at her boots. “I’m sorry. I’m just exhausted from trying to keep watch and riding.”
“I’ll spell you. Three hours each. We can get going before dawn. That work for you?”
Sierra nodded. “Thanks. It does.”
“I’ll take first watch. Get some sleep. We’ll have hours on the trail to bicker.”
She managed a smile and stood. “Deal. Good night, Elliot.”
“Night, Sierra.”
She walked to her tent and slipped inside, and Elliot focused on the forest around them. The camp was just off the trail, at the edge of a brook, which was good from the standpoint of water but bad in just about every other way. They were too exposed to anyone using the track, and there was no natural cover. He’d have moved deeper into the woods if he’d been selecting a spot, but it was too late for that night, so he’d just have to keep a sharp eye out and hope that nobody else was crazy enough to be traveling in the rainy conditions.
The Day After Never - Nemesis (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 9) Page 14