“It’s okay, I’ll stay behind with Jonah,” Colleen volunteered.
“Colleen, you go back,” Jonah said firmly. He knew that once behind the Ring, the camp’s inner defense line, his wife would be safer than out in the forest. “I can manage these skangers on me own.”
Mary stared at him briefly. “All right, but no heroics. Five minutes, then get back to the square.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind yis.”
Colleen squeezed Jonah’s upper arm. “You hear that? No heroics,” she whispered in his ear. “Or I’ll murder you.”
Jonah grinned. “I hear yeh loud and clear.”
A moment later, the group of seven retreated from their position and headed back toward the main trail. Practically as soon as they’d left, Jonah realized just how vulnerable he was on his own in the forest. “Jaypers,” he gulped, staring across the clear-cut and into the inky darkness. “That’s another fine mess I’ve gotten meself into. What was I bleedin’ thinking?”
CHAPTER 11
Rollins knew the tide had turned against them the moment Bert Olvan’s breathless report came in over the radio. Olvan and a man called Ray Faber were the two on patrol at South Beach.
“Bravo Four to Base. We got a boat coming in fast across the channel! Looks like it’s going to land just north of us. Ray and I are on our way now to intercept it, over.”
Rollins and Granger exchanged glances. “Copy that, Bravo Four. Report back as soon as you know the size of their force,” Granger replied. While he remained calm and steadfast, Rollins knew his friend was under severe pressure. It looked like Mason had recruited two groups to help him with his assault on the camp. Not for the first time, Rollins cursed their luck that they hadn’t scheduled their attack for earlier that evening, or this would be a very different scenario.
“Careful, Bert,” Granger added, keeping his finger jammed on the Talk button. “I can’t commit any resources to you yet.”
It was becoming impossible for Rollins to keep up with what was going on, and for the first time in his life he came to truly appreciate the military term “fog of war.” Mason was now attacking multiple points, with the last report indicating heavy gunfire at the Papa Two post. With Mary’s QRF squad only just returning from North Beach, he prayed the perimeter would hold. If it gave way, he knew all would be lost.
Granger turned to Rollins, his face creased with worry. “Mason must have recruited more than a dozen people. I’m not sure we can keep everyone at bay. We may need to give the order to retreat to the Ring.”
Rollins felt dizzy. The Ring was their fallback position, only to be used in dire circumstances, just one step away from abandoning the camp. “Really? That bad?”
The grimace on Granger’s face deepened. “We’re not quite at that point, but it’s close.”
“All right, your call.” Rollins glanced down at his watch. It was 1:53 a.m. Walter’s group was due to arrive at Devil’s Point at 2 a.m., in position to attack the lodge. Though that scenario was well and truly dusted, he could certainly put the additional men to good use.
He keyed his radio to the channel assigned to the Eastwood group. “Sheriff Rollins to Eastwood. Do you read me, over?”
There was no reply. Walter and his group must not have arrived yet and were still out of range. Through thick forest, radio contact was limited to under a couple of miles.
He tried again. “Rollins to Eastwood. We have an emergency situation. Do you read me, over?
Still no answer. Rollins kept trying, praying that Walter arrived soon. It might make all the difference in saving Camp Benton.
***
Walter and his companions rode north along Baker Creek Road. Cody sat beside him in the Tundra’s front passenger seat, while in the back of the crew cab were Ralph and Clete, their rifle stocks gripped between their knees. In the cargo bed, Pete sat on his own.
They had passed the Harris Branch ten minutes ago. Devil’s Point was only five miles away, and the mood was tense. Mason ran a ruthless crew, vicious as scorpions, and the five knew that a dangerous night lay ahead, one that perhaps not all would survive.
“Almost there,” Walter said, swinging the Tundra right at the junction with Card Spur, the road that would take them down to Devil’s Point. “We should be in radio contact soon.”
He pulled his radio out of his jacket pocket and tweaked the power button at the top of the device. There was the sound of static, and then a practically inaudible voice could be heard. “Bravo…east…you…over?” The message was too broken up to make it out properly.
“Not quite in range yet,” Walter muttered.
“Why is he us calling us?” Cody asked. The attack on the lodge wasn’t for another hour, and the plan had been that Walter would call the sheriff when the group arrived at Devil’s Point.
“He’s probably just checking we’re on our way,” Walter replied. “Maybe he’s nervous whether we intend showing up or not.”
Slowing down, he turned off Card Spur and onto a forest service road that would take them down to Devil’s Point.
“Rollins to Eastwood. Do you read me, over?”
“This is Eastwood,” Walter replied. “Read you loud and clear, Sheriff. Over.”
“Walter, change of plan!” The sheriff’s urgency could be heard perfectly now. “Mason has attacked the camp. We need you to get over here right away. Over.”
With a screech of the brakes, Walter pulled to a stop in the middle of the track. He turned to face Cody, both men’s eyes widening. Mason and his crew had raided the Benton camp an hour before their own attack took place.
“Damn,” Ralph said in the rear seat. “That royally fucks up our plan.”
“Damn straight,” Clete said, sitting beside him. “The fuck we do now?”
Walter raised the radio to his mouth again. “Roger that, Sheriff. How can we help, over?”
“Get back onto Cookson and park somewhere close to the camp driveway. We’re under severe pressure along our perimeter. Can you do that?” Cody could clearly hear the sheriff’s desperation.
“Affirmative,” Walter replied. “Where do you need us, exactly?”
“On the right-hand side of the driveway, there’s a trail that leads down to the south inlet. Our position is under heavy attack there. I’ll radio them now and alert them you’re coming. Over.”
“Roger that, Sheriff. We’re on our way. Over and out.”
Walter put the pickup into reverse and turned it around on the track. “This is one badass firefight coming up,” he said, worried, as he put the truck into forward gear again. “Let’s hope we don’t end up getting shot by both sides. Won’t be the first time it’s happened in my career.”
CHAPTER 12
Jonah crept along the west side of the clear-cut, careful to keep out of sight behind the tree line. For the past few minutes, it had been eerily quiet, and he suspected the intruders had stolen away. Mary hadn’t told him what to do in that situation, and his instinct was to go after them.
He reached the northwest corner. Holding his breath, he listened hard but heard nothing. He’d been right. The men had scarpered. To where, though? Only one thing made sense. They’d headed to the main camp to catch up with their companions.
A narrow footpath ran across the headland directly back to the square. The other day, Jonah had taken it on one of his walkabouts. Though riskier than heading through the woods, it would be the quickest way to catch up with the intruders. At a fast trot, he made his way along it, keeping as quiet as possible.
A few minutes later, he heard the sharp crack of a twig breaking under someone’s foot ahead. It sounded nearby, and he halted. Perhaps the intruders were using the trail to guide them through the woods and were only a few feet to one side of it?
He stepped off the trail and crept in the direction where he’d heard the twig snap. Once off the path, it was even darker and he couldn’t see more than a few feet. Just ahead, the crunch of a boot on the forest flo
or alerted him to how close the intruders were. He raised his M-15 to his shoulder, the selector already off safety.
Despite his bulky frame, Jonah was surprisingly light on his feet. With barely a sound, he continued quickly forward, and soon made out three shadowy figures ahead of him. Spread a few feet apart, they moved slowly between the trees.
Jonah aimed his rifle at the man on the left, took a deep breath, and squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession. The man stumbled and fell to the ground.
“Jesus!” the fellow next to him screamed. Jonah swiveled his rifle toward him and popped off another couple of shots, then darted behind a tree as the man fired back.
“Matt! Where did he go?” one of them shouted.
“He’s over there behind those trees,” a wary voice hissed back. “Just one person, I think.” Neither man sounded injured, which meant Jonah’s last two shots had missed their mark.
He presumed that Matt had pointed toward the tree he hid behind. The muzzle flash from his rifle would have given him away. At that moment, several shots fired in his direction, whining past his ear. Yep, they knew his position, all right.
There was the familiar sound of a magazine being ejected. Jonah took that moment to dart away to his right, running as fast as he could. He tore through the trees, pine needles scraping his face and arms.
One of the men cursed, then commenced shooting again. Jonah heard bullets thudding into the trees around him, and the sound of bark splintering. Thirty yards later, he pulled up behind another tree, gasping for air.
He stopped for only a moment. In a low crouch, he crept through the forest in a semicircular movement, using the last muzzle flash he’d seen to gauge the intruders’ position.
Until now, he felt he hadn’t done much to contribute to the camp’s defense. The last few minutes had changed that. He wasn’t done yet, either. He was going to take out the remaining two skangers or die trying. Pushing Colleen’s parting words not be a hero out of his mind, he continued as quietly as possible across the forest floor.
Whoever the remaining two men were, like himself, they obviously hadn’t much in the way of combat experience. Unlike Jonah, however, they didn’t have much in the way of street smarts, and he could hear them whispering long before he saw them. They obviously presumed he’d fled the area.
This time, he approached their position head on. Gauging the direction in which they were coming, he stepped behind a tree and held his breath. Seconds later he stepped out again. With his left hand C-clamped over the M-15’s fore-end, he squeezed the trigger twice at the man on his right.
Crack! Crack!
He aimed at his companion, and unleashed two more shots. With no more than a single grunt between them, both men collapsed to the forest floor.
Jonah stepped forward, pointing his rifle down warily. Neither man stirred. Nonetheless, he pulled the trigger twice more, dispatching a bullet into each man’s head, then headed back toward the camp, anxious to get back to Colleen.
War was a crazy thing. He’d killed three skangers and hadn’t seen a single one of their faces. He’d get a rise out of Mary later, though. During training, the old battle ax hadn’t approved of his fancy way of holding his rifle.
Even thinking about what had just transpired made him queasy, however. Some wise geezer once said that war was hell. He was dead bleedin’ right. Killing three men in cold blood like that didn’t make him feel good. Not one tiny bit.
CHAPTER 13
Mason and his team of six crept single-file through the forest, leaving two men behind to draw fire from the Benton defenders. After much probing, he’d found what he considered the best spot to squeeze past two perimeter posts and attack Camp Benton’s positions from behind. Farther north, Doney and his men were in the process of employing a similar strategy. With the camp’s defenses spread so thinly, especially now that both Nate’s and Gatto’s men had landed, Mason felt confident in his plan.
He kept off the forest trails, letting his excellent sense of direction guide him. From both left and right, the crackle of gunfire continued unrelentingly. In the dark, Mason grinned to himself. These were the moments he lived for: adventure, blood, and the satisfaction of improving his lot even further.
He and his team passed through the perimeter unimpeded. He swung left, and headed for the camp’s main post on the driveway. After a short hike, through the gloom he could make out muzzle flashes from behind the big eight-wheeler parked across the road.
He took out his radio and contacted his second in command. “Doney, we’ve broken through their lines. I’m just south of the main post. Where are you?” he whispered.
“I’m through too, boss. I’ll reach the driveway soon. We took some heat, though. Someone must have NVGs because they pegged two of my men, over.”
Mason frowned, thinking hard. If the Bentons had people with night vision glasses, attacking the main post from behind made even more sense. “Don’t think anyone has them around here. Nobody’s spotted us yet. All right, I’ll be in position in a couple of minutes. Wait until my signal. Over and out.”
The plan was for Mason and Doney’s teams to get behind either side of the eight-wheeler truck. That way they wouldn’t risk firing at each other. Once they took out the post, both teams would head through the forest up to the main camp, leaving the isolated pockets of Benton defenders behind to be mopped up by his remaining men. With Nate’s and Gatto’s men closing in from each side of the headland, it wouldn’t be long before he took the camp. Mason could feel it in his guts.
***
At the square, heavy gunfire opened up from the south. Bullets thudded into the backs of the cabins close to where Rollins and Granger stood, shattering windows. This was the first time the square itself had come under fire.
Minutes earlier, Bert Olvan had issued a garbled warning that the boat landing at South Beach had been packed with ten or more men. He and Ray Faber hadn’t been able to hold them back, and had retreated under heavy fire. The attackers had chased them into the forest, and Olvan’s last radio message had been to inform base he was turning his radio off so as to not give his position away.
Northeast of the square, a barrage of fierce gunfire opened up. The landing party that had eluded Mary’s QRF squad had obviously gotten into position too.
Ned Granger had barely given the order to dispatch defenders along the fortified positions of the Ring when a frantic message came from Papa Three. Caught off guard and attacked from behind, the main perimeter had fallen.
Rollins had just returned to the square after supervising the defenses up at the parking lot.
“John, I’m calling it,” Ned told him. “We’ve got to evacuate the camp.”
Rollins stared at him numbly. His mouth went dry, and he could barely get the words out. “Okay, let’s start getting people down to South Beach.” Even as he said the words, he recognized the problem. The extraction route to South Beach was currently blocked by the newly-arrived landing party.
Granger was one step ahead of him, already on the radio to Mary Sadowski, instructing her to disengage from her current position and make a flanking maneuver against the South Beach attackers. As he spoke, further reports came in over Rollins’s radio, describing how the bulk of Mason’s force was now streaming in through the forest toward them.
Granger ordered everyone to retreat to the Ring and sent reinforcements to bolster the QRF’s assault on the South Beach attackers. “John, we got to make an orderly retreat. If Mary succeeds, we need people to hold Mason back while everyone evacuates to South Beach.”
“I’ll stay behind and supervise,” Rollins told him. “You get everyone away safely.” He could barely believe he was saying the words. Their defenses had crumbled against Mason’s ruthless, well-planned aggression, and the men and women of Camp Benton were running around in disarray, many in blind panic. How Mason had found extra men so quickly he had no idea, but there had to be close to forty in this highly-coordinated attack.
&n
bsp; He raced across the square and returned to the parking lot where Mason would be arriving any moment, issuing orders on his radio to assemble more defenders there. At that moment, he remembered Walter. Things had moved so swiftly, he’d barely time to take him into consideration. He changed the frequency on his radio and hailed him.
“Eastwood, do you read me? This is Sheriff Rollins. What is your position, over?”
A moment later, Walter’s calm voice came over the channel. “We’re at the south perimeter. We took out a couple of Mason’s men, but it looks like your post has been abandoned, over.”
“The perimeter has been overrun. We can’t hold the camp any longer. We’re retreating to South Beach and evacuating by boat. Retreat from your position, there’s nothing you can do.”
There was a long pause, then. “Shit. There must be something we can do to help. Over.”
Rollins thought hard. With all that had been going on at the camp these past few days, the Bentons had not yet organized any vehicles or provisions along Route 302, at the area where the evacuating boats would land, as had been their original plan. Once arriving at the end of the Baker Creek Inlet, the fleeing survivors would be stranded.
“Can you return to your camp and bring back vehicles to help with the evacuation, over?”
“Of course. We can be back in just over an hour. Where do you want to rendezvous?”
Rollins hesitated. He didn’t want to risk giving the location where his survivors would land in case Mason had somehow cracked their privacy code. “Remember where Cody told me he bagged his first deer? My team will make our way there. Do you copy?”
It was a long hike from the southern tip of the Baker Creek Inlet to the Harris Branch. His group would arrive exhausted and demoralized. Still, he couldn’t take the risk of Mason knowing their rendezvous point. That would spell utter disaster.
On The Edge: Book Three in The No Direction Home Series Page 5