by David Nees
She looked back up to see Thomas coming over the top. The wall was making more snapping and crunching sounds now. Catherine and Gibbs stepped back. Thomas looked down at them, lowered his right foot to settle himself on another foothold, and jumped. He landed with a loud “oomph” as the breath came out of him. A cascade of rubble followed him and bounced across the pavement, and then the silence returned.
The three looked around at the structures around them, clearly illuminated by their goggles. The houses stretched out along the blocks, with larger buildings visible in the distance. No hints of candlelight showed in any of the windows.
“Where are we?” Catherine whispered.
“Not exactly sure, but I’ll get my bearings as we move into town. Don’t worry. I’ve got Lori Sue’s address and I’ll get us there. Just have to get some street names so I can orient myself. This way.” He led them quickly across the street and along it to their left.
They kept to the shadows, staying close to the buildings, and they carefully scanned the intersections. The street crossings exposed them to anyone who might be keeping a lookout. Occasionally they heard the sound of a vehicle far off across town, but none came in their direction.
After three blocks, Gibbs stopped. “This is Pine Street we’re on. It runs east to west.” He stepped around the street sign and looked up at it. “And this is Sullivan. This will take us south, into Lori Sue’s neighborhood. We’ll still have to angle east a bit, but this will be good.”
They turned down Sullivan. “We get close to Lori Sue’s place, I’m betting we’ll run into some of Chief Cook’s men.”
“Dangerous?” Thomas asked.
“Could be. They’ll be skittish about anyone moving around at night. We got to not look like a militia patrol.”
“Will they recognize us?” Catherine wondered. “If they think we’re militia, they’ll just hide…or shoot at us.”
“We have our uniforms on,” Thomas said.
“Won’t help much in the dark.”
“Both of you quiet down. Less talk, more listening,” Gibbs said in a harsh whisper.
After seven blocks of walking south and then east, the environs had become discernibly more neglected. Gibbs stopped and took off his helmet. “Take off your helmets,” he told them. “Hook your arm through the strap. Let’s all take our rifles and hold them as far under our coats as we can.”
“Won’t be able to use them if we do that, Sergeant,” Thomas said.
“If we have to use them, we’ve screwed up this mission. Gunfire will only draw unwanted attention. We’re trying to not look like the militia.”
“What do I do?” Catherine asked.
“Here.” Gibbs stepped closer to her, and his fingers deftly unclipped the goggles from the harness. The gloom instantly engulfed Catherine. She was almost shocked. We wouldn’t be able to see to shoot anyway, she thought. While Gibbs put the goggles in her backpack she blinked rapidly to try to make her eyes adjust faster, but she was still almost blind when they set off again. Gibbs led them more slowly at first, she was pretty sure for the same reason.
They moved more openly as they approached their objective. Suddenly Gibbs stopped them again.
“Catherine, take off your cap,” he whispered.
“What?” She wore a billed cap, with her hair in a ponytail to keep it out of her face.
“Take it off. And let your hair down. I don’t think there are any females in the militia, so if anyone sees you, they’ll know we’re not them.”
Catherine turned to look at him, “You think that will help?”
Gibbs shrugged. “It won’t hurt.”
Her fingers struggled with the harness, but it came off more easily than she had expected. She took off her cap, stuffed it and the harness into her coat pocket, slipped the elastic tie off her ponytail, and shook out her dark hair. “Not sure they’ll see it, I’m not a blonde.”
Gibbs didn’t answer.
They walked on, searching for any sign of light in the buildings, listening for any sounds as they went. Except for distant sounds, nothing disturbed the dark and quiet of the night. It was nerve-racking.
“This could get us killed,” Thomas complained. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“You got a better idea?” Rodney asked. “You want us to shout out loud and announce ourselves?”
“Wait,” Catherine said, “That’s maybe what we ought to do.”
The other two stopped walking and looked at her.
“We can’t really hear what’s going on in Stansky’s section of town…and I’m sure they’re not asleep. So why should they be able to hear us? So when we get close to the building, why don’t I call out? I could call something like ‘Sergeant Gibbs and Catherine here, looking for Chief Cook.’”
“I guess we could try that. Militia raiding parties don’t announce themselves,” Rodney said.
Thomas just shook his head. They started walking again.
When they got to the block that contained the right street number, Catherine began to call out. Just before they reached the building, they heard someone shout, “Stop! You’re covered from multiple positions. Don’t reach for your weapons. Identify yourselves.”
“I’m Sergeant Gibbs. I’m with a squad led by Lieutenant Cameron. With me are Catherine Whitman and Specialist Thomas. We’re here to connect with Chief Cook.”
“What’s your mother’s name and your sister’s name?”
Catherine spoke up. “I assume you’re asking me. My mother’s name is Anne and my sister is Sarah.”
“Wait where you are. Don’t try to leave the area.”
Some five minutes later, which seemed like hours to Catherine, the front door of the apartment building opened and two men stepped out. As they approached, she could recognize Chief Cook from his white hair.
He came up to them and shook Rodney’s hand enthusiastically. “I’m sure glad you found us. Is everyone in the valley okay? Did you and Cameron get there in time?”
Gibbs hesitated. “We got there late, but the valley prevailed.”
Catherine held back any comment. They were past that point now. “Most of the raiders were killed or captured, but one escaped,” she said.
“We’ve haven’t seen any increase in activity in town. They may not know about the outcome yet,” Charlie said.
“That’s what we’re hoping, but they will by tomorrow. We have to get the rest of the men inside the wall, tonight if possible.”
“Come on,” Charlie said. “We’ll figure out the best place to get through. Back to your places, everyone.”
He led them across the street into a three-story building that looked as if it had housed offices. They followed him up a dark flight of stairs and into a large room that was even darker. There was the sound of a match, and then they saw Charlie leaning over the growing glow of a gas lamp. Charlie moved across and checked the curtains that were tacked to the walls, completely covering the windows. The lamp sat on a large table in the center of the room, and spread on the table was what Catherine immediately recognized as a huge map of the city.
She stepped closer and looked at the map. The wall was drawn in as it curved around the city. The downtown area was marked, showing the central area of Stansky’s offices, militia compound and warehouses, and that part of the map was densely annotated with handwritten notes. The whole area was noted as ‘Militia HQ.’
But Catherine only really had eyes for the broad stroke of the wall, marked with a heavy black line. Along the western arc there was a break in the line. It was close to the river. She looked up at Chief Cook, and his eyes were on hers. He was already nodding.
“That is probably the best place to enter.” Charlie said. “The wall petered out at that point. It’s tricky through there. They’re going to dig out an old canal that ran through there, that used to divert flow off the river to feed a water mill. The city’s rebuilding the mill as a hydropower plant, so they need the flow, but that means they can’t wall
that part off. The city keeps a small guard force there, two men. Where are your people?”
Catherine looked in confusion at the map.
Gibbs leaned over and pointed to the main road heading north out of Hillsboro. “We stopped somewhere along this road, well before the checkpoint. Didn’t want to be heard.”
“The trucks are pulled back onto a side road for concealment,” Catherine added.
Charlie looked at the map. He took a pencil from the end of the table. “The cleared area starts about here,” he said, putting a mark on the road north of the mark for the wall. “Since you hadn’t reached it yet, you’re somewhere north of this point.”
Gibbs pointed. “We walked to the west of the road to get across the wall.” He traced his finger along the map, like a hound trying to pick up a scent.
“We walked three blocks before coming to the cleared space,” Catherine said.
“Right.” Gibbs’s hand stopped circling and zoomed to the wall. “Bet we crossed here, and I’ll bet the convoy is located about here.”
“That’s good enough.” Charlie began to draw a path through the network of roads, keeping the line well back from the broad black bar of the wall, until he got close to the break. “That’s the route they should take. Now how do we tell them?”
Catherine saw Gibbs smile, and she felt herself breaking into a big grin. “We have radio contact with the convoy,” Gibbs said. He took off his pack and pulled out his radio.
Charlie looked surprised. “That’s great!” He stared at the device. “It’s a wonder it still works.”
“Hardened circuitry and hand-cranked chargers. It’s low tech but it works.”
Charlie shook his head. “Wish we had them.” Then he turned back to the map. “Do your people have a map of town?”
Gibbs nodded in assent.
“You should get them going. With the trucks it will take some time. Those are small roads, and I can’t speak for obstructions.” Charlie looked at his watch. “I don’t think they can make it before dawn.”
Chapter 20
Just before dawn, Charlie set out with Les Hammond and four other officers for the guard post at the gap. Charlie remembered that the morning shift for wall guards began at sunrise, so he and his men would wait until after the changeover. That might give them as much as eight hours before anyone noticed something amiss.
The sun had been peeping over the rooftops of inner Hillsboro for twenty minutes when Charlie approached the guards with his officers. The two guards had taken up positions on a curve of roadway that looped over to the mill building. They stood about midway between the slow dip of the former canal and the dwindling end of the rubble wall ten yards to their right—and they stood slightly inside the line of the wall. Which meant that they couldn’t be seen from a distance by anyone far to the right who happened to be out in the razed area.
“What’re you doing way down here?” one of the guards called out.
“Checking on security,” Charlie responded genially. The guard gave him a quizzical look, but didn’t appear to be suspicious of his presence.
“Not much going on here. No one really comes and goes this way,” the guard said. “Pretty boring if you ask me.”
Charlie nodded to the others, and he and the other five police officers pulled out their pistols. “Don’t try to bring those rifles up. It will only get you shot,” he said in a sharp voice.
“What’s going on?” the militia guard said.
“What’s your name?” Charlie asked the man.
“Steve.”
“Well, Steve, we’ve got some people coming in and I’m here to make sure there isn’t a problem.”
“We were told no one is to be let through.”
“That order is changed now,” Charlie replied.
“We don’t take orders from you,” Steve said.
“These pistols say you do,” Charlie said. “Les, disarm these two and handcuff them.” Charlie took the radio out and held down the transmit button. “The door’s open, you can use it now.”
“Roger that,” came the reply. A moment later the guards’ faces changed as they saw distant figures appear among the half-dismantled structures that marked the far side of the razed area. The tiny figures jogged into the empty space, coming straight toward them. They were all carrying rifles and packs along with different sized boxes.
“Those are Army uniforms,” exclaimed Steve. “I heard they left town. What’s going on?”
“Let’s go have a conversation about that,” Charlie said. He turned and pointed to a shed back toward the mill, about a third of the way down toward it. “Is that shed unlocked?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, let’s go find out.” He nodded to Hammond, and Hammond detached himself from the group and turned to watch the approaching soldiers. His other officers took hold of the two guards and marched them quickly down the road toward the shed.
The door to the shed turned out to be unlocked. There wasn’t much space inside, only five feet by five feet, with several shovels piled in the corner, but it would serve. Charlie looked at the other guard. “I didn’t get your name, friend.”
“Um… Frank.”
“You fellows walk Frank a little down the slope of the canal, where you won’t be seen. Stay where I can call you. I’ll talk to him second.” Charlie smiled and motioned with his pistol for Steve to go into the shed. Steve looked a little pale, but he obeyed. Charlie followed him in.
“Sit down,” he told Steve. Steve hesitated, then he sat down cross-legged on the dirt floor. Charlie closed the door, leaving about six inches of gap for light; more shone through gaps between the boards in the walls.
He looked seriously at Steve. “Steve, we got a situation here. It’s dangerous for you. For all of us, really. So I’m going to ask you a few questions and you’re going to have to make a decision.”
Steve looked at Charlie suspiciously “We were told you weren’t in charge anymore.”
“Forget what you were told and listen. I don’t have a lot of time. Leo and the militia, the group you’re a part of, tried to murder the valley farmers, the ones who came to trade with us earlier this spring. The militia was defeated. Of the three truckloads of men who left, only one man got away. The rest were killed or captured.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Just be quiet and listen,” Charlie said. “I’m giving you a chance to save your life. You keep interrupting, it won’t work. Right now you’re talking to someone who thinks like a cop. You saw the soldiers coming out there. Lieutenant Cameron is with them, and if you and I don’t have an understanding by the time he gets here, he’ll decide what to do with you. This is now a war situation. You’re essentially a prisoner of war. The lieutenant knows we don’t have room or time to hold prisoners of war securely. You might try to escape, and you know what happens to prisoners who try to escape?” Charlie leaned closer. “They’re shot. You get my point?”
Charlie saw the fear come into Steve’s face. Good, he thought. “The point is, we’re in a state of war with Joe. You have the option to join our forces or remain a prisoner. If you don’t join us, after we defeat Joe you will be put on trial as a militia member, and I don’t think the townspeople will go easy on militia members.”
“What do I got to do?”
“Stay on guard duty, and when the next shift comes on, don’t let them know we brought these men in.”
“What if you lose? I’ll be killed by Stansky’s men. He’s got a lot of men.”
“We got a lot of men also. The valley people, the army, some mountain clan people, the police. And all of these people know how to use weapons and fight. They’re not amateurs.” Charlie let that sink in. “But if we do fail, I figure you’ll have a chance to talk your way out of any problems. You can say you were disarmed and forced to say what you said. Hell, no one may even figure out they came in through this point.”
“I don’t know—”
“You
have one minute to decide,” Charlie said, looking at his watch. “I can’t spend more time with you, and I don’t even know if Cameron will want to talk. You seem like a decent guy, Steve. Are you on the side of killing men on trumped up charges, like what went on last week? Are you on the side of killing civilians, the people in the valley? Women and children?”
Steve looked down at the pavement and shook his head. “Nah, can’t say I am, but I don’t want to get myself killed either.”
“So what’s it going to be?”
Steve looked up at Charlie. “I guess I’ll put in with you. You’re holding the cards.”
“That’ll do for now,” Charlie said. He motioned with his pistol for Steve to get up.
He led Steve outside. Up toward the wall he saw a growing knot of soldiers around Hammond. He called softly for his officers, and they came up the slope and exchanged Frank for Steve. Charlie took Frank into the shed and sat him on the ground.
It didn’t go as well. Frank remained unimpressed by Charlie’s argument. “You’re all going to get killed. And you’ll make it worse for the regular citizens after this is all over. Bunch of fools.”
“Maybe but you’re in a tough place now,” Charlie said.
The door squeaked open. Lieutenant Cameron was there. His eyes were cold; apparently Hammond had given him an idea of what role to play, or else Cameron had figured it out himself. He looked down at Frank where he sat. “What do we do with him?”
“I think we turn him over to the insurgents.” Charlie met Frank’s gaze. “Friends of the two men the whole town watched the militia execute.”
Frank’s expression changed from disdain to fear. “That ain’t right. You got to arrest me. I’m a prisoner. I got rights as a prisoner.”
“Like the men shot by the firing squad?” Charlie retorted. “We could give you those same rights.”
“Please,” Frank pleaded.
Charlie looked at Cameron. The lieutenant studied his eyes. “Enough,” Cameron said. We’ve wasted enough time already.” He turned to Specialist Thomas, who stood behind him. “Take this man into our custody. Secure him until we can turn him over to the insurgent group. We’ll give them the handcuffs to keep him locked up, but they can do whatever they want to him once he’s in their control.”