Eventually, inevitably, it always seemed to come back to her…
*
He opened his eyes to what sounded like hell on Earth and promptly sought out his watch in the semidarkness of the back room.
11:47 A.M.
Shit.
The realization that he had dozed off despite having been knocked unconscious just hours ago was troubling, because it could have been a sign there was something wrong with him. Or, at the very least, a lingering effect of the blows he had taken to the head.
That, and he knew what those thunderous brap-brap-brap sounds coming from outside were without having to think about it. God knew he had heard and been around them often enough. Someone, somewhere, was firing a machine gun, and the pop-pop-pop that accompanied it meant a gun battle.
He stared at the door, waiting for it to burst open and for someone to run inside. Maybe Mason, the short guy in charge of this mess they called an operation. People were definitely running around in the store outside; the vibrations of boots racing frantically back and forth were hard to ignore. Shouting, too, though that was mostly lost in the back and forth gunfire.
It was chaos out there, which was both good and bad for him.
It was good that someone was attacking the soldiers. The phrase, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” ran through his head.
Bad, in that he was stuck inside the back room of a gas station while men were shooting machine guns outside in the streets. Depending on how much gas was still left inside the tank under the Palermo (Or the Chevron, either/or), there was a very good chance he could die in a raging fire sometime soon. Double the chances if someone had some kind of incendiary device and decided to stupidly use it.
Okay, so it was mostly bad.
He couldn’t tell who was winning or where the shooting was coming from, because it seemed to be some kind of running gunfight.
How many men did Mason have out there, and how many were attacking them? Better yet, who was attacking, and what were the chances they could be friends instead of foes? The only group he’d seen proactively attack the soldiers had been Harrison’s group back in Dunbar. And that, unfortunately, hadn’t ended very well for them.
“What you saw out there when you tried to come through was just a small part of it,” Mason had boasted earlier. “We have people everywhere.”
But how many of those people were here, now? Especially since the ambush had succeeded. He knew for a fact Mason had sent more men up the interstate after Danny and Gaby. So how many were left? How many would Mason think he needed when he had already, essentially, won the day?
Will was still trying to come up with a viable number (or, at least, one that would make him feel better) when the door finally banged open and a familiar camo uniform rushed inside. No, not familiar. Same uniform, but different person inside it. Taller, skinnier, and younger.
The kid (he couldn’t have been more than eighteen, maybe seventeen?) spun around and slammed the door shut before stumbling away from it. He was cradling an AR-15 and wore a gun belt with a sidearm, but Will recognized the awkwardness in the way he carried the equipment.
He’s green. Really, really green.
“Kid,” Will said.
The teenager whirled around, lifting his rifle and aiming it at Will. He looked frightened, even shocked to see Will there. “Jesus! I almost shot you!”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t. What’s going on out there?”
The kid (he was tall for his age, which was amusing when Will thought about the thirty-something but much shorter Mason) lowered his weapon and shook his head. He wiped at beads of sweat along his temple and whirled back around to face the door. Then he hurried over and leaned against the wall and listened to the pop-pop-pop of gunfire still raging outside.
The battle hadn’t slowed down even a little bit in the minute or so since Will woke up. That meant there were a lot of people out there, and all of them well-armed. Meanwhile, he was stuck in here, hog-tied and weaponless.
Will looked for and finally caught the name written across the kid’s uniform: “Michael.”
“What’s going on out there, Michael?” Will asked.
The kid looked momentarily confused by the sound of his name, then must have realized how Will knew and shook it off. “They’re attacking,” he said.
“Who’s attacking?”
“I don’t know. They came out of nowhere. They must have…they must have been crawling along the fields all day toward us.”
‘Crawling along the fields all day’?
Will watched the kid closely. He was scared. That much was obvious. So Will did what he always did: He took stock of his situation and considered his available options. Because there were always options. You just had to see it.
“Kid,” Will said.
Michael didn’t react, either because he was too focused on what was happening outside or he was purposefully ignoring him. Will would have put good money that it was the former.
“Michael,” Will said, louder this time.
That did it. Michael looked over. “What?”
“Listen.”
“I am…”
“No, I mean, really listen.”
Michael looked confused again.
Doesn’t take much, does it, kid?
“You’re losing,” Will said. “You know that, right? The other guys are winning. You can hear that, can’t you?”
Will had said it all with absolute certainty. It was in his voice and on his face. He knew what he was talking about, and Michael would be smart to listen.
Of course, it was all bullshit. It was impossible to tell who was winning the battle outside. He had no idea how many were taking part or even who they were—two very important details needed to predict the outcome of a gun battle. Who were the good guys and who were the bad guys? If there were any good guys at all. For all he knew, Mason and his men could be putting down the attackers right this moment, which would lead him right back to where he started.
But he didn’t tell Michael that. No. The kid was frightened and out of his element. Running in here to hide was proof of that. The shaking hands trying desperately to keep their grip on the assault rifle sealed it.
“Your unit’s losing,” Will pressed. “Mason’s losing. If he’s not already dead.”
Michael didn’t answer. Instead, he looked back at the door so Will couldn’t see his face to gauge if he was getting through.
“You need to get out of here, kid,” Will said. “Before it’s too late.”
“There’s too many of them out there,” Michael said. His voice shook noticeably. “I think they’re using our trucks. The ones with the machine guns. How’d they get those?”
“I know, I can hear them using it,” Will said. More bullshit. He couldn’t tell one way or another who was firing the machine guns, but Michael didn’t need to know that at the moment, either. “Trust me, kid, I’ve been through enough of these situations to know a losing side when I hear it. And your side’s losing. Bad.”
Michael shook his head. “You can’t be sure of that.”
“I am. And you are, too.” Then, with a harder edge to his voice, “You wanna live or not?”
Michael glanced over. He opened his mouth to answer, but then snapped it shut just as quickly.
A second, then five…
“Yes,” Michael said finally. “I want to live.”
Will held out his bound wrists. “Cut me loose, and I’ll get us out of here.”
“How?”
“You’ll have to trust me on this.”
“What? No fucking—”
An explosion ripped through the building and something smashed into the door on the other side. The clatter of shelves falling, glass pelting tiled floors, and someone (or someones) screaming in pain. Chunks of the ceiling rained down on them, and Michael threw his arms over his head as if that would save him. Thankfully, the bulk of the store remained in one piece, leaving them to cough in the aftermath o
f falling debris.
Oh, hell. That was definitely a grenade.
“Kid,” Will said, watching Michael pick himself up from the floor and coughing. “It’s either get out of here with me, or stay here and die with the rest of your guys. What’s it going to be?”
Michael was on his knees and looking for his rifle. He had accidentally tossed it while falling and grabbing for his head. Now he crawled over and picked it up, even as the gunfire continued to rage outside, the brap-brap-brap of a machine gun continuing to fill the air as if the damn thing had an endless supply of belt-fed ammo.
“Michael,” Will said. “You gotta decide and you gotta decide now: You wanna live or not?”
The teenager got up and hurried over, drawing his knife. The blade was trembling as he cut the zip tie from around Will’s wrists, then did the same to the one around his ankles.
“What now?” Michael said. “How are we going to get out of here?”
“I need a gun,” Will said.
The soldier stared at him.
“A sign of good faith,” Will continued.
Michael sighed and drew his sidearm—a Sig Sauer 9mm—and handed it over reluctantly. “Can I trust you?”
Will stood up. “Kind of a little late to be asking that, don’t you think?”
The kid made to smile back, but it came out badly forced. “I guess.”
“A deal’s a deal,” Will said. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here before whoever’s wiping out your friends finishes the job and comes looking for us next.”
He grinned at the kid.
For a moment there, Will actually thought he was in trouble.
Option found. Opportunity seized.
I’ll be home soon, Lara.
*
“How many of you are out there?” Will asked.
“Ten,” Michael said.
“I saw more than that this morning. A lot more.”
“Most of them left after we captured you.”
“Where did they go?”
“I don’t know. They really don’t tell me very much.”
Of course not. You’re the kid so wet behind the ears he runs into the closest room to hide the first time someone’s shooting at him.
“What about Mason?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I think he left before the attack. Like I said, they don’t really tell me very much.”
Will crouched among the ruins of the gas station (the Palermo, as it turned out) and watched through the broken windows as a bullet-riddled blue Ford F-250, its front windshield dotted with the same bullet holes that had punctured its side and front hood, moved slowly down the street. There were two men in the back, one swiveling a heavy M60 perched on the roof of the vehicle.
Christ, no wonder Mason’s people hadn’t stood a chance. The all-purpose American machine gun was capable of firing 500 rounds per minute with an effective range of over 500 meters and beyond. That single weapon probably accounted for all the broken windows in the stores up and down the street that he could see, not to mention the destroyed cars that hadn’t been there this morning, along with the crumpled uniformed bodies visible in the parking lot on his side of Route 13.
The Ford looked like one of the technicals Josh’s soldiers had been using, though he’d never seen this one before. While one man was behind the machine gun, a second was slightly crouched behind him with an AK-47. Other well-armed men were walking alongside them, easily keeping up with the truck’s slow pace.
This wasn’t a charge, it was a victory march through occupied territory.
The gunfight had stopped almost at the same time Will and Michael slipped out of the back room and into what remained of the convenience store. They hid behind a couple of fallen shelves now, within sight of two bodies lying next to the gas pumps outside. The frag grenade had landed inside where it had left behind a crater in the middle and torn apart everything that wasn’t nailed down, including the poor soul whose shredded uniform they were looking at.
There were no rifles for Will to find, though he did see the remnants of an M4 stock among the debris. Which meant he had to make do with the Sig Sauer. At least Michael was smart enough to carry spare magazines, which Will had pocketed. The young man continued clutching his AR-15 (as if he knew how to use it, which Will doubted), eyes snapping from the remains of the uniform and out the shattered windows at the technical and its companions.
The sight of the attackers was intriguing. They were wearing civilian garb, including jeans, cargo pants, and long-sleeve shirts. The fact that they had come extremely well-armed and had acquired one of Josh’s technicals offered up more questions than answers.
Who are these guys?
“What now?” Michael whispered behind him.
“Do you know who took my rifle?” Will asked.
“Your rifle?”
“Yeah. I had an M4A1 with me when I was captured. It was in the truck.”
“I dunno. What’s an M4A1 look like?”
Will started to answer, but shook his head instead. “Never mind.” He looked back out the store at the figures moving slowly down the street. “We’ll let them pass us by. There’s no point in engaging. We’re outmanned and outgunned—”
He hadn’t finished “outgunned” when two of the attackers broke away from the technical and started angling—right toward them.
Right. Because why would luck be on my side now?
“Oh no,” Michael whispered a few seconds later.
Kinda late there, kid, don’t you think?
“What now?” Michael said in a hushed voice.
Will didn’t answer right away. He glanced back at the teenager’s terrified face, then looked past him at the back room. There was nothing in there that could help him escape. The window was too high to climb out of, and he wasn’t going to break down a wall with his bare hands. The only way out was through the front door of the Palermo. Or the broken windows would do just as well.
The technical had continued down the street and out of his view, but the two figures were stepping over dead bodies at the pumps after checking them for signs of life. One was a man, the other a woman. They both looked haggard, as if they had been fighting for days instead of ten, maybe fifteen minutes, tops. The woman looked in her mid-thirties and was wearing a Texas Rangers baseball cap that she pushed slightly up when she stopped in front of what remained of the windows so she could peer inside.
“Anything?” the man, who was older by at least ten years, asked behind her.
“I see a body,” the woman said.
“Dead?”
“I said a body, didn’t I?”
The man grunted. “So let’s go.”
“There’s a back room.”
“What about it?”
“It’s open and it looks undamaged.”
Shit. Should have closed the door… Too late for that now.
“Be careful,” the man said.
The woman didn’t answer him. She stepped through one of the broken windows, crunching glass under her boots.
Will’s mind turned. Spun. Then whirled.
He looked back at Michael again. The kid was trembling badly, causing the rifle in his hands to shake along with him. He looked like he was about to throw up.
Will back to the woman, the man in the background, and the technical out there, along with, from what he could see, at least four more heavily-armed men.
Then he glanced down at the Sig Sauer in his hand. It was a good weapon. He could probably kill the woman, take her weapon (it looked like an M4), and use it on the man outside. But then there was that damn truck and the M60 mounted on top of it. That thing could chew up what was left of the gas station in no time, and him right along with it.
Gotta get to Song Island. Can’t do that if I’m dead.
As long as I’m alive, there’s a chance…
“Shit,” Will said, before he realized he had said it out loud. Or whispered, anyway.
“What?” Michael said
, alarmed. “What are we—”
Will grabbed Michael’s rifle and jerked it out of his hands. It came easily, as if the teenager was barely holding onto it. Before Michael could protest, Will tossed the rifle along with the Sig Sauer toward the woman. The two weapons skidded across the floor and stopped in front of her. She immediately snapped up her M4 and took aim at them, hiding behind one of the many toppled shelves, though he was certain she couldn’t actually see them.
“Don’t shoot!” Will shouted. “We’re unarmed!”
The woman didn’t answer right away. She looked confused. Then, “Step outside. Slowly!”
Will nodded at Michael, who stared back, horrified. “Slowly, like the woman said, okay, kid?”
Michael sighed, but didn’t respond. He did, though, stand up when Will did, and they moved slowly—ever so slowly—out from behind the shelves. The woman’s hands tightened around the rifle, and Will was almost certain she was going to shoot them down at any second. There was something in her eyes…
I’m a dead man. Any second now…
But she didn’t fire. Instead, she held her ground and glared at them over the iron sights of her weapon, even as the older man rushed into the store behind her. “Where’d these jokers come from?” he asked, slightly out of breath despite the relatively short distance.
“Dunno,” the woman said. “They tossed their weapons.”
“Step forward,” the man said, motioning at them with his rifle.
Will and Michael did as they were instructed, the kid still shaking so much it looked as if he was moving in a herky-jerky motion, desperately trying to make each leg move forward one at a time, one at a time.
The older man hurried forward and circled them before patting them down. He found Will’s pill bottle and pocketed it, then stepped back. “They’re clean.”
“Hear me out,” Will started to say.
“You don’t have a uniform,” the woman said, cutting him off.
“No. I’m not one of them.”
“So what are you doing here with them, then?”
“I was captured this morning.”
The man and woman exchanged a glance. Will was suddenly very thankful he looked like he had been through the blender, with his bruises and dried blood clinging to one side of his face. He really didn’t look anything like the clean-cut Michael in his spiffy uniform standing beside him.
Purge of Babylon (Book 5): The Ashes of Pompeii Page 10