They approached the corner, where four young men were lounging on a stoop, fiddling with a variety of assault rifles. One stood as they neared, and Lyle caught his eye.
“We’re here to see Levon.”
The tough looked Lyle over and shifted his attention to Lucas, who met his stare with one of his own. After a tense moment, the youth pointed down the street. “Next block. Middle building. 218.”
Lucas spurred Tango over to where two muscular men were standing with crossed arms outside the shell of a furniture store. The one on the right pointed to a lamppost.
“You can leave the horses here. Levon’s waiting for you inside.” He eyed Lucas’s M4 with a squint. “No guns.”
Lucas shook his head, his expression stony. “Nobody touches our weapons. If your boss has a problem with that, we can come back with a thousand heavily armed men to discuss it,” he said, quickly tiring of the gangsta bluster. “Go tell him we’re here.”
The man glowered at Lucas for several beats and then turned to enter the building. A few minutes went by before he returned and faced him again. “Levon says it’s okay. Tie the horses there. We’ll watch them.”
Lucas and Lyle swung down from their steeds and walked them to the lamppost. Lyle cinched his reins to the pole with his free hand. In his other he clutched a vintage Thompson Model 1928 submachine gun he’d used to great effect during the battle with the Chinese.
They entered the building. Levon was seated in the rear, behind a simple metal desk, leaning back in a ragged executive chair. He indicated two seats in front of the desk.
“Sit.”
Lyle did as directed, but Lucas remained standing. “Too much time in the saddle. Think I’ll keep my legs stretched.”
Levon shrugged. “You wanted to talk?”
Lucas nodded. “We want you to think about joining the council so you have a voice.”
“Already got plenty of voice around here. I can’t see any reason to shuck and jive with those clowns,” he replied evenly.
“There’s a big one you’re missing,” Lucas said.
Levon’s eyebrows rose. “That right? Do tell.”
“Town’s going to get civilized whether you like it or not. Has to, in order to fight off the next wave of Chinese when they come. If you’re not a part of that, you’re against it, and there’s way more of us than you.”
Levon snorted. “You seem pretty sure of yourself for a guy who rode into town a few days ago.”
Lucas refused to let himself be goaded. “And cleared that town of an invasion force nobody else was able to take on. Including you. So the question is, you want to be on the receiving end of that, or part of it? All the same to me either way.”
“That a threat?”
Lucas shook his head. “Quite the opposite. It’s an invitation to power. Because once the council is organized, that’ll be where it lies. Rogue operators will get mopped up, just like the old days.”
“I was around during those days. Not all got mopped up.”
Lucas shrugged. “You want to spend the rest of a short life running from the inevitable, that’s your call. But you were invited.” He looked to Lyle. “We’re done here.”
Levon shrugged but said nothing.
Lucas threw a final glance at him. “Invitation’s open. You want my opinion, you’re making a mistake by turning it down. You can help rebuild the city instead of running game on it. That offer won’t come up again.”
“If I want your thoughts, I’ll ask for them,” Levon snapped.
Lyle and Lucas walked back to the storefront, their boots crunching on debris, Levon’s glare searing into their backs. Outside, Lucas murmured to Lyle, “Friendly, wasn’t he?”
“You had to try.”
“Sure.”
They made their way back to the horses and mounted up. Lucas was turning Tango around when gunfire from a block away shattered the calm. He ducked low in the saddle as several bullets tugged at his trail coat, and a round skimmed his plate carrier at the base of his left ribs. He goaded Tango across the street to where a row of rusting cars would provide some cover. More shots rang out, and Lyle moaned and fell from the saddle, hitting the pavement hard. His horse continued on without him, and Lucas leapt from Tango’s back, braced his M4 against a burned-out Suburban, and scanned the street for the shooter.
Movement several hundred yards away caught his eye, and he squeezed off a couple of rounds. He didn’t hit anything, but caught a glimpse of a pair of men running to where two horses were standing by an intersection. He took three more shots, and one of the figures fell forward. The other kept going, and Lucas moved to Tango while the gunman was more intent on escaping than on taking another potshot at him.
He remounted and spurred Tango forward, still peering through the scope. The other man was on his animal and tearing away at a gallop, his focus on getting clear of the area rather than shooting it out.
Lucas slowed when he reached the fallen man, who was lying facedown in a lake of blood, his shirt stained red where a shot had drilled between his shoulder blades. After a glance at the man’s cheap rifle, he continued along the street, trying to keep the rider in sight. The man’s horse turned a corner, and Lucas coaxed Tango faster, eyes fixed on the building behind which the rider had disappeared.
He guided Tango through a snarl of wrecked vehicles that littered the street and slowed as he reached the intersection. When he was a few yards short of it, he pulled Tango to a stop, cocked his head, and listened. Hearing nothing, Lucas dropped from the horse’s back and moved to the corner and looked around it. Three blocks down, past yet more wreckage, he saw the rider make another turn and vanish. Lucas swore and climbed back into the saddle, and the big stallion thundered around the corner and down the street in typically fearless fashion, his hooves like hammers on an asphalt anvil as he navigated around the steel detritus of a vanished civilization.
Lucas leaned forward, presenting as small a target as possible, and let Tango run however he liked. When they reached the point where the rider had turned, Lucas repeated his prior dismounting and cautiously studied the unknown area around the corner over the M4 sights. This time there was no sign of the rider – just an endless procession of ruined cars abandoned where they’d gridlocked and run out of gas. Lucas could imagine the scenario as the virus had ravaged the city and panicked survivors had fought to get out, sitting behind the wheel as their tanks had run dry, nothing moving, trapped in a mobile prison of their own devising. He’d seen the same scene countless other places, but for whatever reason, here in Seattle, with buildings stretching as far as the eye could see, he could feel the ghosts of the past weighing heavy in the air.
The distinctive bark of a Kalashnikov rattled from down the street, and chunks of brick blew from the building façade. Lucas pulled back and waited for the shooting to stop. The sound of this rifle was different than the one that had waylaid them, which had sounded more like his smaller bore M4 to his ear, whereas the AK had a deeper tone due to its larger caliber.
There was a lull in the shooting, and Lucas debated his options. Forward lay the unknown – the layout of the streets was a mystery to him, and the identity of the shooters was a question mark. That they’d had the foresight to make a stand here didn’t augur well for him, and he could see nothing to be gained by fighting it out. Worse, he had to assume that the longer he stood his ground, the more he was inviting his aggressors to circle back around him, which he would have done in the same situation. That there was more than one gunman was obvious from the two rifle types. The real question was how many more were in the party.
“Come on, boy,” he whispered to Tango. “We’ll figure out how to get out of this.”
Lucas led Tango down the block and steered him left, opting to try a different direction than he’d come. If the ambush were Levon’s doing, he didn’t want to give the gangster’s men another shot at him, and to retrace his steps would have been suicidal. Lyle was dead, and there was nothing waiti
ng back at the furniture store other than a bullet with Lucas’s name on it, so he pushed south, moving as quickly as he could, keeping Tango to a slow trot while sweeping the street with his rifle.
At the next corner he made another turn and noted that the neighborhood was degrading further. Remnants of graffiti marred the buildings, and the abandoned cars were older than on the other arteries. Here the empty stores were mostly laundromats and liquor stores and pawnshops, their windows staved in long ago by the desperate and the opportunistic.
He paused at the next street, and seeing nobody, mounted up, the value of stealth now offset by Tango’s greater speed and agility. The problem was that while the big horse could move faster than Lucas could ever hope to, he had no idea where he was, and there were no landmarks Lucas could see to guide him back to Art’s headquarters.
“All right. Steady, boy,” he said with a glance at the sky. Based on the position of the sun, barely visible through a marine haze that hadn’t lifted since they’d arrived in the waterfront city, he calculated that headquarters had to be off to the right, so he pressed Tango forward, eyes roving over the broken windows with laser intensity, wary for any hint of threat.
Chapter 5
Sacramento, California
A horse with a single rider leading a pack mule picked its way along the highway to Sacramento’s main entry, where a barrier erected by one of the most violent gangs on the West Coast – the Blood Dogs – blocked the road east. Three guards were loitering in the shade of a Greyhound bus that towered among the cars and trucks clogging the road, a tarp strung from its front entrance as a makeshift overhang flapping in the breeze.
The rider approached, and the guards reluctantly rose with their assault rifles in hand to greet him. The road into town was usually deserted. Sacramento was one of the more dangerous enclaves of what once had been civilization, due to the Blood Dogs’ dominance over the city, and few were desperate enough to brave the journey over the mountains from Reno or Carson City to see if the gang’s reputation was deserved.
One of the men, his face scarred on one side from acid that had been thrown in his face as a last-ditch defense by a victim he was preparing to rape, raised his rifle and leveled it at the newcomer.
“That’s far enough,” he growled.
The rider held up both hands to show he wasn’t carrying a weapon. His rifle was in his saddle scabbard, and the pistol at his hip remained in the holster.
“I’m here to see Amos,” he said, naming the gang’s leader.
The guard exchanged a glance with the others, and his lips curled into a sneer. “That so?”
The newcomer nodded. “I have business with him.”
“What kind of business?”
“That’s between me and him.”
The guard spit on the ground. “We don’t let just anyone into town because they wanna talk to the boss.”
“If you’re uncertain, send someone to tell him a representative of a powerful organization is here with a proposal. I’ve ridden a long way to meet with him.”
“What organization?”
“One that can change the Blood Dogs from controlling a city to controlling the whole western seaboard.”
The guard looked the rider over. He spoke with the certainty of an educated man. His features were lean, his beard jet black but neatly trimmed, and his trail coat was clearly an expensive one, as were his boots and saddle.
“What’s in the mule’s bags?”
The rider smiled. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
The guard’s expression hardened and he took a step forward, still training his rifle on the man. “You’re in no position to make threats.”
“Were you ever in the service?”
The guard frowned, confused by the question. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It’s helpful to know who I’m speaking with.”
“Fine. Yeah, I was in the Army for one tour.”
“Excellent,” the rider said with the trace of a smile. “Then you’ll understand the full import of what I’m about to say. Right now there’s a sniper with a Barrett who’s got you in his crosshairs.” The rider noted the look of recognition in the guard’s eyes. “I see you know what that is and what it’s capable of. So let’s make this simple. If you don’t lower your weapon, you’ll never see your death coming. Same for your friends. If I don’t give my man the all-clear signal, or if you fire at me, all three of you are already dead. Do you understand?”
The guard’s frown deepened, along with the confusion in his eyes. He was used to giving the orders, not being handed ultimatums. But the rider was absolutely calm and indifferent in spite of the AK pointed at him, and seemed utterly disinterested in the exchange beyond mild irritation that he hadn’t yet been allowed to enter the city limits.
“You’re bluffing,” the guard spat.
The rider glanced at the two gunmen standing a few steps behind acid face. “Which one of your friends would you like to sacrifice to learn that I’m not?”
The guard on the right shuffled farther back. “Drew, man, I don’t think he’s bluffing.”
“Sure he is. Where could a sniper be hiding?”
The rider nodded as though he’d been expecting the question. “On the roof of one of the buildings by the airport. Perfect line of sight. We got into position last night, and I waited until the shift change to approach you. And now here we are.”
Drew sneered again. “That’s almost a mile away. Nobody could make that shot.” He looked to his companions. “I told you he was bluffing.”
The rider sighed. “The Barrett M82A1 fires a .50-caliber round and has an effective firing range of 1800 yards – granted, that’s usually for larger targets, like material, but the point is that it can more than reach us. But just in case you think I’m pulling your leg, the building in question is a little less than 1300 yards. The sniper who’s got you in his scope’s crosshairs has been known to put down smaller targets than your torsos at near the maximum range on a clear day with a light breeze, like…now. So while you’re correct that it would be nearly impossible for someone without the proper skills and training, I’m afraid today isn’t your lucky day.”
He paused and looked over the other guards before returning to Drew. “Let’s save one of your chums’ lives, shall we? Send someone to alert Amos and pass along my message. Either that, or choose who has to die so you learn that while I have a number of vices, bluffing isn’t one of them.” He paused, his body language relaxed. “We’re wasting valuable time.”
“You’ve got a mouth on you, I’ll give you that,” Drew said.
“Make your choice. Of course, I can’t guarantee that he won’t pick you for his first kill. One in three odds, but you’re also pointing a gun at me, so maybe not. I suppose there’s only one way to find out, right?”
The rider sat motionless in the saddle, watching the guards as the wheels in their heads seemed to grind in slow motion. Eventually one of the other guards walked over to where the horses were tied. “I’ll go.”
“No,” Drew snarled.
“Drew, I’m not getting shot to prove a point. The man wants to talk to Amos; seems like we should let him decide, not you.”
The rider dipped his head once in acknowledgment. “A wise decision, I assure you. It’s early in the day to have blood on my hands.”
“Don’t move a muscle,” Drew threatened.
“You might want me to signal to the sniper that all’s well, unless you want to take the chance he puts a bullet through your skull. Again, it’s your call, but that’s how I’d play it.”
Drew chewed his lower lip and shook his head when a fly landed on the mass of scar tissue that passed for his left profile. “Fine. Do it.”
“Certainly. Lower your weapon so he doesn’t get the wrong idea, and we’ll just wait for your man to return.”
Drew did as instructed, but still held the gun so he could fire it in a split second if necessary. The o
ther guard rode away, and the rider reached up and removed his hat, ran gloved fingers through his hair, and then fixed the hat back in place. “That pauses everything. Now we wait.”
“It’ll be a while,” Drew said sullenly.
The rider shrugged. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
The pair stared each other down and then tired of it. Drew’s eyes flitted to the buildings by the airport. The rider, if he had a concern in the world, didn’t show it and could have been watching someone change a flat for all the emotion he displayed.
“Where you from?” Drew finally asked.
“All over.”
“What the hell kind of answer’s that?”
“An honest one.”
Drew fell silent again, his attempt at an interrogation failed, and resumed sullenly staring at the rider.
The guard returned a half hour later with three more brawny gang members on horseback, their skin bronzed by the sun, their Hispanic heritage obvious from their black hair and features. The biggest of the bunch faced off with the rider and looked him up and down.
“You wasting Amos’s time, you got a death wish,” he snarled.
“I don’t waste people’s time.”
The thug glared at the rider for several beats and then gave in. “Follow me.”
They escorted the rider through a destitute residential area, all the windows broken out and the doors kicked in, and stopped at a shopping mall that was now fortified with gun turrets and hundreds of heavily armed gang members.
“Welcome to the Pleasure Dome,” the big gangster said, and swung down from his horse. The rider did the same.
“Where can I tie my ride up?” he asked.
“Over there. The mule too.”
The rider smiled good-naturedly and shook his head. “The mule’s coming with me. She’s carrying gifts for Amos.”
“I gotta inspect the bags.”
The rider shrugged and held out his hands by his sides. “Fine by me.”
The man moved to the mule and unstrapped one of the enormous saddlebags. He opened it and his eyes widened, and then he turned to the rider. “You serious?”
The Day After Never - Legion (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 8) Page 3