by A. J. Powers
****
Barging inside the room with Simms and Elliot in tow, Arlo walked up to the old, metal desk on the back wall. “How did this happen?” he asked as he looked at his son’s cold, lifeless body lying on top of the desk.
“After the explosion, Brendan came up to the roof. He couldn’t have been over at the edge for more than a few seconds before he was hit by sniper fire,” Simms said somberly.
Arlo winced as Simms’s words came to life in his mind, making him wrought with grief.
“I tried to save him, sir, but he was already gone by the time I reached him.”
Feeling lightheaded, Arlo caught himself on the edge of the desk before falling to the ground. Elliot rushed a chair over and eased him into the seat before giving the man space.
Grasping his son’s hand, and putting his head on the desk, Arlo mourned silently over the death of his only son. “And…this sniper…did he shoot at you, as well?” he asked, his head still on the desk.
Simms thought about it for a moment. “No, sir. Come to think of it, I’m not sure they shot at anyone else after the explosion.”
“They?” he asked, slowly standing from the chair, his back still turned to them.
“Yes, sir,” Simms replied. “I engaged two targets that fled the scene immediately after Brendan was,” he paused for a moment, realizing who he was talking to, “after your son was shot.”
Arlo’s knuckles throbbed from his clenched fists. “You shot at them?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
Arlo’s seething eyes narrowed on Simms. “Then why aren’t their bodies right here next to my son’s?”
Simms swallowed nervously. “I’m sorry, sir, but they were quite far away and—”
“And yet, they were able to kill my son from the same distance?!” he screamed, kicking the back of the desk and leaving a furious dent behind. “Well, imagine that!”
Simms knew he would be wasting his breath to try and explain to the dejected man about the higher degree of difficulty when shooting at a moving, evasive target, as opposed to a stationary one. “I’m sorry, sir. There’s no excuse for my poor performance.”
Arlo shrugged off the man’s apology and refocused his attention on the ghost-white face of his departed son. He had known the risks in having Brendan be part of this undertaking. With his involvement of the initial strike, as well as taking part in several other attacks since, Arlo was not blind to the reality that his son could very well die in this war, yet he was woefully unprepared for it.
As the lamenting father observed the traumatic injuries to his son’s chest and Simms’s words echoed through his head, Arlo realized that Brendan had not just been another casualty in this war—someone in the wrong battle at the wrong time. The twenty-seven dead and fourteen wounded from the explosion had just been the cherry on top of the real objective—the assassination of his son.
Shelton, no doubt, would be expecting a fierce retaliation from Arlo, and he had no plans to disappoint. Despite the bad blood between the two, up until now, Arlo had viewed this war politically rather than something personal. It was about satisfying his group’s needs more than it was about revenge for his banishment. But when Shelton ordered the death of his son, he made it personal. And now, Arlo was going to see to it that the mayor of Liberty suffered a most excruciating demise, witnessed by every last one of the survivors from his beloved town.
“Go tell the others to get ready, we move out in one hour,” Arlo said to Simms.
“Sir, if I may,” Simms bravely spoke up—something he wouldn’t have dreamed of doing if it hadn’t been important. “I understand that you’re upset, but our guys need to rest. It’s already past midnight and with everything that happened this morning, and the new troops fresh off a fifteen-mile hike, I really think it would be best if we at least waited until dawn.”
Arlo’s shoulders dropped. He placed his hand on Brendan’s face and lovingly stroked his cheek with his thumb. “I love you, son,” he whispered before kissing him on the forehead. Arlo turned around and calmly walked across the room, heading for the door. As he passed Simms, he pulled his H&K VP9 from his holster and snapped it up to Simms’s head. “If you make me repeat myself, I will have Elliot dig your grave right next to my son’s.” Arlo lowered the gun as he took a step closer to Simms. With eyes depraved of all mercy, he got within an inch of the jittery man’s face and hissed, “So do you need me to go ahead and repeat myself?”
Simms forced himself to keep eye contact with Arlo as to avoid setting the man off further. “No sir, that won’t be necessary,” he said, his words unsteady.
Arlo took a step back and gestured toward the door.
“I’m very sorry for your loss, sir,” Simms said as he walked out of the room.
“What would you like me to do, sir?” Elliot asked.
“I want you to make it very clear to the people downstairs that I am removing all restrictions on weapon usage. Minimizing destruction to the town itself is no longer of concern. We will storm that gate, and get inside those walls—even if it means burning the whole damn place down.”
“Yes, sir,” Elliot replied sharply before leaving the room.
Taking possession of Liberty was no longer a priority for Arlo. Claiming the town in the name of the “honorable” Joseph Patrick would merely be the cherry on top of his primary objective. The judge’s threats over failure no longer concerned him, because after tomorrow, either they would both have gotten what they wanted or he would be dead. There was no middle ground, therefore no need to fear reprisal from his former colleague.
Walking to his quarters, Arlo picked up a Galil leaning against the wall next to his bed. Once practically an extension to his arm, the rifle now felt foreign in his hand. With so many people around willing to take a bullet for him, it had been a long time since the former district attorney had found a reason to pick up the old Israeli rifle.
But tonight, the reason had found him.
Chapter 49
The night was disturbingly still and impossibly dark. It was unnerving enough on its own, but throw in the fact that at any moment a throng of pissed off marauders could besiege the town with a ferocity not yet seen in the war only added to the contagious anxiety.
With his senses firing on all cylinders, Clay lay silently in the clock tower, his eye peering through the holographic sight on his AR-15. He scanned the abyss in front of him from south to east while Dusty, just a few feet away, covered south to west. The effort almost seemed worthless, as Clay wasn’t even able to make out the front gate through the dense blackness, much less people walking through the field across the street. However, if just one of Arlo’s men made a mistake, accidentally bumping a flashlight switch or lighting up a cigarette, Clay was certain they would spot it.
The entire town was under strict noise discipline. So long as the sun was down, no one was to speak unless absolutely necessary. With visibility practically zero, they would have to rely on sound instead of sight. Foreseeing this scenario, Kohler had ordered the placement of several noise traps outside the walls, including one particularly crucial trap halfway down the Deadly Eighth.
In addition to the noise discipline, light discipline was also in effect. Lights and flame of any sort were not allowed. The only exemption was the infirmary, which had blacked out its windows with canvas tarps, boards, and anything else that prevented light from escaping the inside. Kohler wanted to make any night assault as difficult on the enemy as it would be on them.
As the soundless night drew on, the waiting game began to have its way with Clay’s psyche. Despite trying to stay alert, his mind drifted over the if’s, when’s, and how bad’s of the imminent attack. And even though history told him that the bark was often worse than the bite, Clay was not optimistic that that would be the case this time around. When Kohler acted on the opportunity Brendan had presented, the Army veteran knew exactly how Arlo was going to respond—in fact, he counted on it.
“There’s no greater enemy to a strateg
ist, than emotion,” Kohler had said to Shelton during their mission debrief after getting back to town. It was the sole reason why Kohler had decided to pull that trigger; why he dared to inflict a pain upon Arlo that he had never wished on his worst enemy. Kohler had bet the farm—literally—that killing Brendan would all but obliterate Arlo’s judgment, making his attack strategy one-dimensional. A passionate, but shortsighted assault was the very thing that could finally give Liberty the edge it needed to end this war. “The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long,” Kohler said, quoting Lao Tzu.
Clay convinced himself that it was unlikely that just one final battle stood between him and returning home to his family, but it didn’t stop him from daydreaming about waking up in his own bed on Christmas morning, his wife tightly wrapped in his arms as the kids played downstairs. What a gift that would be. But, with Kohler’s words about emotions and war fresh on his mind, Clay quickly snuffed those happy thoughts out. He needed to keep his mind razor sharp, which was already a challenge with the crushing fatigue.
The closer it got to sunrise, the darker his surroundings seemed to be. With no way to check the time, Clay hoped that that hazy orb in space would soon make its appearance for the day.
Having not moved in several hours, Clay’s idle state started to catch up with him. His eyelids became heavy as he used the stock of his LaRue to prevent his head from plummeting to the floor. Ordinarily, he would have already requested relief from someone else, but every capable fighter in town was already awake and each with their own assignment.
Reprimanding his brain for craving sleep, Clay pinched his forearm to the point of pain. The discomfort jolted his mind awake, but the desired effect was minimal and short-lived. He rubbed at his eyes, but stopped when he heard a faint noise in the distance.
*THWACK*
“Did you hear that?” Clay whispered softly.
“Yes,” a barely audible reply came from next to him.
Seemingly impossible, the silence around them got even quieter as the soldiers of Liberty held their collective breath, waiting for a confirmation on the sound.
Then Clay saw a soft, green glow about halfway down the driveway. Having rigged a mousetrap and chemlight to a trip line, Captain Kohler had created not only an audible alarm, but a visual one as well. But the chemlight was more than just an alarm; it acted as a marker.
“Dusty, do you see it?” Clay whispered.
“Yep, I’m on it.”
Dusty swung her rifle to the left and found the only source of light around. Having simulated this moment hundreds of times before sunset, she operated purely on muscle memory as she centered her crosshairs on the chemlight before dipping it down one hashmark. She couldn’t see the Tannerite, but she knew it was there.
The call was Clay’s to make. Though it was unlikely a wild animal would have wandered down the long driveway, tripping the trap, it wasn’t impossible, either. And with the last pound of Tannerite—the final ace up their sleeve—at stake, Clay found the decision more difficult to make than he had expected.
With a deep breath, “You’re green,” left Clay’s mouth; there was no point in whispering now.
When Dusty fired the rifle, every eye looking in that direction became blinded by the fireball billowing through the darkness. Having used just a quarter of the amount of Tannerite as they did in their ambush at the auction house, the blast was far less impressive. However, Kohler had made up for that by packing as many flammable materials around the explosive, creating a fiery wall across the Deadly Eighth.
Clay noticed a few bodies illuminated from the burning light, but there was no way to know just how many were taken out from the blast.
“Contact!” Clay heard Kohler shout from near the gate. This word was relayed around the whole town, alerting the troops that the enemy had arrived—as if there was any doubt after the explosion.
An eerie silence fell on the town once again, stirring up a flurry of emotions for everyone inside. Looking through his EoTech, Clay swung his rifle left and right, searching for a target. His stomach sank when he finally found one.
“Molotov!” Clay shouted as he saw the makeshift wick on the petrol bomb ignite. Clay placed his illuminated reticle on the only thing he could see, and fired several rounds, deafening him and Dusty inside the small, concrete room.
Suddenly, the flames spread, quickly engulfing the man who had held the homemade incendiary device. The burning man screamed in agony as he dropped to the ground in an attempt to put out the flame.
By the time Clay looked away from the man, he saw several other flaming bottles flying through the air, including one coming right at them. “Watch out!” he said as he shielded his face with his arm.
The glass bottle hit high, striking just inches above the window they were looking through. Though the bulk of the fuel was deflected, residual splashes had made it inside the window, burning both Clay and Dusty and igniting a blanket Dusty had been using.
After a furious growl, Clay looked up, through the dripping fire from above, and saw another bottle lighting up. He got to his knee and attempted to take a shot, but was forced back into cover from the hail of bullets screeching his way. He and Dusty grimaced as the bullets smashed into the wall, peppering them with small chunks of concrete shrapnel.
Dusty’s efforts to put out the flame on the blanket were in vain, and the room started to fill up with smoke. Staying low, Clay and Dusty made their way to the trap door. “Go!” Clay shouted as he lifted the hatch. Dusty wasted no time getting to the ladder and made a quick descent. Clay dropped his legs through the hole in the floor, finding the ladder rungs with his feet. After climbing down a few feet, he reached up and grabbed the handle of the trap door. As he started to close it, he saw another Molotov cocktail flying in, this time the pitch had been in the strike zone. Clay slammed the door shut just as the bottle hit, but he had lost his footing on the ladder while doing so. The flimsy cabinet-style handle on the door was not strong enough to withstand Clay’s weight and quickly separated from the door, sending Clay to the ground below. The drop was only eight or nine feet, but it took him several seconds to find his breath, and there just wasn’t time to waste on such trivial things as breathing.
“Holy crap! Are you okay?” Dusty asked.
“I’m fine,” Clay managed to eke out before rolling over and, with Dusty’s assistance, getting to his feet.
As he and Dusty made their way to the first floor of the tower, the echoes of war from outside let Clay know that Kohler had been right—Arlo had brought the fury of Hell with him.
The first thing Clay and Dusty saw as they emerged from the clock tower was several structures on fire, including the one they had just vacated. Like looking at a train wreck in the making, Clay watched in horror as the buildings, already riddled with dozens if not hundreds of bullet holes, were gradually consumed with fire. The sensation of his stomach being torn out of his body made him want to double over in pain. There would be no efforts made to douse the flames—to save these buildings that were part of what Clay considered his second home. They would continue to burn until they were reduced to nothing more than a pile of ashes—almost symbolic.
A barrage of incoming gunfire snapped Clay out of his daze, bringing him back to the gritty reality of his present situation. With chaos in every direction, Dusty looked around, trying to figure out where she could be most useful.
“What do we do?” she asked. Having planned on being in the clock tower far longer, the teenaged soldier was unsure of her next move.
“Kohler’s going to be somewhere near the pool house, go see where he wants you,” Clay said. “I’m going to make sure the rear perimeter is secure, then I’ll swing back around and meet up with you guys.”
“Okay,” Dusty said, a tinge of fear in her voice.
“Hey!” Clay said, grabbing Dusty’s attention. “It’s gonna be okay. Just be smart,” Clay said, giving her a reassuring slap on the shoulder before turning around and j
ogging toward the northern border.
As Clay got further away from the front, each of the individual shots started to meld together, transforming into a constant, thunderous rumble. As was the case with the previous attacks, Arlo concentrated his efforts on the front gate. However, the lingering embers and melted snow from several unsuccessful Molotov throws around the foxholes suggested they were attacking on all fronts.
“DeMarcus, give me an update!” Clay shouted as he jumped down into leftfield’s foxhole.
“Can’t see nothin’, brother, but as far as I know, ain’t nobody dead back here,” he replied, “but that goes the same for them guys outside the wall, too.”
“So, no breaches?”
“Far as I can tell, no. But, like I said, we can’t see nothin’, so one of those fools could have tip-toed his way past us, and already be on his way into town.”
Just then, another fiery bottle tumbled over the fence. The aim was long, and it landed about fifteen feet behind them, but as they all prepared for the impact, a rifle barrel squeezed between a gap in the fence and opened fire.
“Tag that SOB!” DeMarcus yelled as he raised his shotgun, squeezing off several shots along with a half-dozen other men. By the time Clay had raised his AR-15, the muzzle flashes from the fence had stopped.
“Cease fire!” DeMarcus shouted. “You all heard the Captain before, make ‘em count.”
Clay turned around to see the crackling fire behind them started to burn out. “You got your flare?” Clay asked, redirecting his attention to DeMarcus.
DeMarcus felt around his vest to make sure. “Good to go.”
“Remember, if they get through, you paint the sky,” Clay said.
With only two flare guns to share and three flares in total, it was decided that the two most vulnerable positions in town—the front gate and the northwestern corner—would be equipped with them. In the event the perimeter became compromised, a flare was to be deployed, and depending on who sent the signal up, a nearby post would act as a QRF (quick reaction force) to close off the breach.