The man’s body still lay motionless below the watchtower from which he was thrown. Thomas went to ensure nothing was left with the man’s body—after all, he wouldn’t need it. “Where’s his firearm?”
“I got it. You want it?”
“No, let Eric's crew take it.” Thomas started to pick through the pockets. Nothing still. What a waste… Thomas scratched the back of his head. This is getting out of hand. James just isn’t getting it. If he wants to get himself killed that’s one thing, but— Shit, he’s not going to lose this for me and Joseph. Once we're away from Eric's crew, I have to straighten him out. This makes too many close calls already. This is ridiculous. Can’t follow simple instructions. Almost got killed. Twice! Thomas looked over to James while he stood there chatting with the medic. He was smiling. Nothing seemed to take with him. He just doesn't seem to give a shit.
There was nothing else on the body. Any other valuables would be in the boxcar or socked away somewhere these two dead souls would never be able to share. “You about ready, James?”
“So... We're letting them take everything from here?” He seemed annoyed by the idea, glaring at Thomas as he approached.
“Taking this stuff is not our mission. We need to focus on our job and let them do theirs. They're completely capable of handling this from here.” Thomas bumped fists with Eric. “I'll leave you to it.”
Chapter Five
“…but I don’t get why. It’s like you’re running on borrowed time, man,” Thomas said while peering back occasionally. Each time James’s head sank lower and lower into his chest. He was falling behind—the two of them trudging up the steep incline of Probasco St. “If I can’t trust you to listen or to have some damn patience when it’s needed, I don’t know how the hell we do this.” The thought of leaving him behind kept playing in his head. This idea seemed like the right thing to do. He couldn’t allow James to prevent him from his own goals, even though the two were supposed to be striving for the same thing. “I’m not trying to lecture you man, but damn… What the hell else can I say? You’re too damn impulsive.”
James muttered a response that sounded more like the growling of a hungry dog.
“I don’t get you,” Thomas said. “You’ve always kind of been a free-spirit or whatever, but now your carelessness is getting you hurt. Worse than that, I can’t have you do something stupid again and get someone killed. I think you’re involvement in this is over—”
“Look! So yeah, maybe I was trying to do too much, but…” James trailed off.
“No. Come on. Give me that classic James excuse.”
James sighed. “Maybe I haven’t changed, but neither have you. Still the same Thomas, afraid to make decisions. So yeah, sometimes I make ‘em for you. Is that what you want to hear? Sorry. Sorry I saved your life.”
“Don’t have to worry about that anymore. We’re even now after your fuckup in the train yard. Now, I don’t owe you shit—certainly not this mission. If this is so important to you, then suck it up. Act like it!”
They walked in silence through a few more intersections before James switched gears. “My bad, man. I do need this promotion… just like you.”
Thomas could hear James’s rucksack shifting along his back as he picked up his pace, bringing himself shoulder to shoulder with Thomas.
“I’m on board.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Thomas didn’t even bother to look over to him.
“It means we’re a team,” James said.
Thomas broke his stride, stopping to glare at him. “You better promise me more than that.”
“Alright…” James looked him in the eye. He deflated right there as he stood, letting out a long breath of air. “I’ll follow your lead from here on out.”
“We’ll see.” Thomas stepped off again. “If things don’t change, tomorrow you’ll be sitting on the sidelines of this operation.”
All James could manage was to keep his head down and his mouth shut.
Finally.
They crested the hill—an echo of laughter alerted them to the presence of others. Thomas drew his pistol and broke for a row of hedges on the cool side of a large church that overlooked the corner. James, in his newfound obedience, hustled over and crouched down beside him.
Thomas took out his binoculars, holding his pistol between his legs as he knelt, and took a cursory scan of what might be awaiting them. A man pulled a child's wagon down the street as he chatted loudly with another, both of them seemingly unaware of the fact they were being watched. What the hell? How can these people act out in the open like this? They’re probably not a threat. “When they get out of view we’ll head across the street to that building there.”
“We could set up on the roof and get some good Intel on the park,” James offered.
Thomas nodded, his mind drawn to discovering what had grabbed the two men’s attention as they were now turned, watching another man run toward them—the newcomer yelling, “Hey! Wait up, fellas!” The three of them came together, and a conversation picked up, but what was being said stayed beyond earshot.
It didn’t take long before they began showing off what little they had. A few trades of mostly books and a few cans of food took place between the men. There appeared to be a brief disagreement that dissolved quickly—one of them revealed a pistol hidden within his waistband. That display put an end to the festivities, but no violence erupted, not even a raised voice. What the…?
The man with the gun watched the others intently until they disappeared around the corner. He removed the pistol from under his shirt, took a furtive look around, and ditched it inside a bush. From there, he cut up some stairs that bent their way around the courtyard of the college and toward Burnet Woods.
His actions were those of a guilty man trying to cover up a crime that, from what Thomas saw, never occurred. Places like these were assumed to be a free-for-all, especially this far from Second Alliance occupied territory. Not that it would’ve been right, but that man could have taken all the stuff from their wagon. Perhaps some presence prohibited that sort of action? Is this some kind of neutral zone? Who could enforce something like that? The Butcher?
Thomas and James waited a good ten minutes to ensure the area was clear, then made their move across the street. Before following the man’s path up the stairs, James shook through the bush, eventually finding what he sought and tucked it away into his rucksack. “Why would he ditch it you think?”
“Probably not allowed to have it wherever he’s going,” Thomas said from half-way up the flight of stairs. “Right now we need to figure out how we get on this roof.” They crept up the remaining steps and found themselves overlooking the courtyard at the rear of the college.
“Didn’t you go here?” James asked.
“Yep, for three years I smoked back here in this courtyard. They wouldn’t give us an ash can back here, so we used to just flick them up on the roof over there.” He pointed to where the roofline dropped down. “The maintenance guys would get blamed for it though, because they’d be the ones up there actually smoking all the time.”
“How’d they get up there?”
“There’s a hatch, but it’s nothing that’s going to help us from down here.”
Thomas could tell James was thinking, working to redeem himself with a plan to get up on that roof. His eyes surveyed the roofline, his eyebrows knitted with thought. “There’s where we go up.” James smiled. “It’ll take a little bit of doing, but…” He padded through the overgrown grass, bedding down trails from the sidewalk to the building as he paced.
Great lengths of ivy scaled the retaining wall and had made the transition to the gray stucco that covered most of the college. James pulled a few vines from the wall and cast them into the planter beds ten feet below. It was here, where the retaining wall met the building, that the roofline dropped low enough they’d be able to grab hold and pull themselves up.
“This’ll work.” James removed his equipment, took
a deep breath and squatted down, settling his back against the brick wall. “Come on. Let's get you up there.”
“Seriously? What about the shoulder?” Thomas eyed him.
“It’s good.” James interlocked his fingers and nodded to Thomas. “Seriously, now or never, man.”
“Hold on a sec.” Thomas set his rifle against the building then slipped the ruck from his shoulders. He took pause. “Get a little closer.”
James edged his foot closer to the drop-off. “That’s as much as I’m going to get.”
Thomas placed his hands against the building to steady himself and set his foot within James’s cradled hands. “You sure you got this, man?” He applied some pressure from his enormous boot.
James nodded.
“Here we go.”
Thomas let the full weight of his body into James’s hands. There was an immediate grunt, but he held strong—Thomas doing everything he could to grab hold of the roof’s edge, to help alleviate this burden from James. “Only a little more.” He could feel James’s strength wavering as he worked to straighten his legs—Thomas’s foot swayed. A few more grunts of agony slipped out.
“Almost!” James’s back and legs were almost completely straight.
Thomas could feel the concrete, finally curling his fingers around the ledge. “Got it! Just a bit more.”
“Jesus, man!” A deep breath and James gave him one last exhausted push. “You're heavy as shit.”
Thomas finally brought his leg over the top and planted his feet firmly on the roof. He looked down over the edge to his partner—James leaned against the wall, hunched over, his palms cupping his knees as he worked to catch his breath.
“Pass the rifles up.” Thomas motioned with his hand.
James raised a finger. “One second,” he puffed while untwisting the bandage wrapping his wounded shoulder. “See, it’s all good.”
Thomas took a breath for himself. “Just let me know when you’re ready. Rifles and packs, then you.”
James chuckled while he shook his head. “You never stop, huh?”
“Can’t afford to waste any more time.” Thomas took a few steps in, gazing out across the tops of the trees beyond the far end of the roof. “So close now, we got to get this done.”
“Here we go.”
Thomas peered back over the edge to James.
“I'm gonna toss these up,” James said while swinging the rifles toward the roof, anticipating the okay.
“Just hand them up.” Thomas lay on his stomach and inched himself over the edge. He tucked his knees into the ledge. The concrete dug into his hip bones as most his torso hung suspended from the top. “Okay, I'm good,” he said, as his hand reached as far as he could manage.
“Here.” James lifted each rifle.
“Rucksacks?”
They too were passed up.
“You're next.” Thomas took a large breath in, exhaled, and then clapped his hands together. “Shoulder okay?”
“No doubt.” James took several steps back from the building and bounced on the balls of his feet a few times. He bent down, peeling a long, single blade of grass from the trail. Smiling, he dropped it—not a flutter, it just fell. “Good. No wind.”
“Yeah, cause that's the difference.” Thomas moved just slightly further over the edge with both hands waiting for James to make his move. “Ready?” Thomas clapped his hands together again.
“Yep.” One last bounce and James rushed toward the wall, leapt for Thomas’s hands, scraping the ivy from the building with his boots. Their hands clasped. The two strained—Thomas inched back from the ledge as he pulled James with him. James’s feet continued chopping at the wall. “Come on!” Bit by bit, they grunted through the stress until both of them finally lay in the gravel. “Hell yeah, man.”
Thomas shifted to one knee and grabbed his gear. “Stay low. We'll move between those A/C units.
James nodded, picked up his rifle and pack then followed Thomas toward the north side of the building. They quietly made their way across the roof, picking spots in between the rocks where the lining was exposed. They settled into position—James watching the rear while Thomas glassed over the southern portion of the densely wooded park.
A small barricade stretched across the service road that led into the park. Two guards, both armed with rifles, held post there. One stayed partially hidden between the wood and flimsy metal. The other patrolled the space in front of the barricade between the sidewalks.
As Thomas took the binoculars along the road, he spotted a rover dressed casually—jeans and a t-shirt—holding his own rifle while he marched along his route. Thomas tapped James on the shoulder and whispered, “Three. All armed with long guns. None of them appear scoped.” He scratched the details in his notepad as he said it. “We should be okay up here.”
“Is it the Butcher's men?” James scooted toward Thomas and took his own binoculars across the park.
“It's got to be, right? Who else would be out there?” Thomas continued to eye them, focusing more often on the rover—noting that his patrol ended toward the intersection with the boulevard that separated the woods from the campus. He stood for a moment in the shade of several trees, watching over his surroundings before bending down to tie his shoelaces.
“That's definitely his people.”
“Positive?”
“Just look. All of them have that scar he puts on them— you know…” James rolled his hand as if to bring Thomas up to speed. “The Butcher. He marks his people across the cheek.” James ran his finger from the corner of his mouth back toward the ear.
“I just thought it was a stupid nickname or maybe his job before Almawt.”
“Nope… Same scar—mouth to ear... Always mouth to ear.”
“Damn,” Thomas said under his breath. He just stared at the Butcher’s men. The rover stood from tying his shoelaces and turned back toward the woods. Why the hell would someone let that happen? You'd have to be desperate to let someone do that to you. Brainwashed… Thomas looked on as the armed stranger disappeared into the park.
James leaned back against an A/C unit, removed a thick, white portion of a deer's antler from his rucksack and began carving—he started to hum a tune that Thomas couldn’t quite place in his head. “What is that?” Thomas nudged him. “I know I know it.”
“You’ll figure it out.” James looked up for only a moment to give Thomas a teasing grin, then resumed.
He isn’t going to change. It’s probably wrong for me to expect that already…
“We sleeping up here tonight?” James asked.
“No.” Thomas pointed. “That’s the hatch that goes straight down into the maintenance room connected to the library offices. That’ll suffice for the—” Thomas jerked his binoculars to the right. James perked up, setting the antler to the ground.
A lone traveler approached the park on a bicycle that whined with each revolution of its wheels. The small trailer attached to the back teetered from loose books that shifted about as the man squeaked his way from the parking garage adjacent to the college.
This is what they had waited for—someone to interact with the camp—someone to give them an idea of how they ran shop. Thomas was certain the men from earlier had made their way into the camp, but they didn’t observe the process.
“What’s tha—“
“Shush.”
The man approached—the guards patted him down—he was allowed to enter. Not a lot to that, huh?
…
A few hours passed. James had prepared food from some cans (which consisted of opening them and putting a fork in each.) He set two aside for Thomas, but the spectacle of arrival after arrival had kept him away from his meal. The scattered caravan of strangers didn’t stop. After a slow start, now, they were in business, managing to spot them from all over—men, different in appearance, but similar in this strange, menacing eagerness by which they came.
Each traveler arrived as peasants with a tribute for a king or simply
payment. It didn't matter. They came and left—most of them with much less than when they arrived—only one case broke the pattern. A woman, tethered, she trudged alongside a man and child. After an hour or so, only the man and child left, pulling a bounty of food and ammunition in a cart they hadn't arrived with.
The occasional shadow of clouds that cooled them throughout the day became lost in the slow descent into night. It seemed to signal the end of the Butcher’s operations for the evening. A parade of men filed out of the park, many of them Thomas couldn’t recall seeing. He set his binoculars and notepad down. The watch was over. In the early evening light, he was unable to make out the details needed to justify this any longer.
He took the cans James had prepared and began to eat.
“What's the plan?” James asked.
“We have to hit them at night.” Thomas took a bite and chewed as he reflected on their next move. We really need more time to properly scout these guys. I’m going to have to get in there and get some better details. I can’t think of any other way to do it. “There's just too much foot traffic during the day. We don't need extra enemies. Even if they don't want to fight, these people will be in the way.”
“What's the count?”
“Of civilians or guards?”
“Civilians.”
“Sixteen men that I saw come and go, but maybe twenty more just now that I had no idea were in there. Tomorrow after the meet up I'm going in.”
“By yourself?” James’s eyebrows knitted with disbelief.
“We aren't going to learn enough from the outside. The bulk of their forces have to be on the inside if that many people are coming and going. That's where all their valuables are—everything they want to protect. We could sit out here for weeks, and we aren't going to know anything.”
“I’m going with you,” James insisted. “If things go bad, you aren't going to want to be by yourself, especially with the one guard patting everyone down.” James locked eyes with Thomas. “You'll never get a weapon in there.”
Days Since...: Thomas: Day 758 (Almawt Virus Series Book 1) Page 7