Battle Lines (The Survivalist Book 5)

by Arthur Bradley

  With the landing and hallway trapped, Mason turned his attention to the small Masonic lodge. Everything could be put to use in one way or another. He started by dragging the pews over near the exit door. Even though they were cracked, they remained heavy and solid, and he felt reasonably sure that they would stop small-arms fire—for a little while at least. This would be his first firing position.

  Bowie circled the pews a few times, looking for the elusive giant rat they had seen earlier. It was probably fortunate for both rat and dog alike that he didn’t find it.

  Mason retrieved the ceremonial sword from the wall and carried it over to the waist-high podium. The top of the podium was slanted, and he thought it would make a fine firing ramp. The trap he had in mind was typically done using an arrow, but he felt certain that the sword would work. He started by breaking off the ivory handle and decorative hilt, leaving only the polished blade and its rusty narrow tang.

  Bowie wandered over and sniffed the broken shards.

  “Stand clear,” Mason said, moving behind the podium.

  He pushed the podium off the checkerboard tile, stopping when he had it positioned a few feet from the entryway door. Then he placed the blade on the slanted surface and stretched the inner tube to get an idea of the dimensions required for the trap. When he had them figured out, he hammered a nail at the front of the podium and rigged two small lengths of wood and a piece of string to act as a trigger. Finally, he carefully hooked one end of the inner tube around the makeshift trigger.

  To his surprise, it held the very first time.

  “Okay,” he said, putting one hand around Bowie. “Let’s give it a go.”

  Mason gently pulled the string, and the trigger snapped free. The apparatus worked better than he had hoped. When the trigger released, the inner tube propelled the sword into the back of the door, where it hit with a loud thunk. The wood paneling was so rotted that the tip of the blade passed through both sides of the door, and it took Mason some effort to work it back out.

  Bowie stared at the hole in the door and gave a little whine.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s all very old school, but I’m working with what I have.”

  He tapped a final nail into the bottom edge of the door, secured the string to it, and reset the trap. When the soldiers pushed the door open, the string would trip the trigger, and the blade would fire at the lead man. That is, if everything went according to plan. Traps were never ideal. Most were either never tripped or failed to operate properly. Even so, guerilla wars were won by inflicting a thousand tiny wounds.

  He moved next to the hallway lined with crates and boxes, each piled high with faded documents. There was nothing obvious that came to mind to serve as a trap, so he decided to make the hallway his second defensive position. The stacks of paper were ideal for stopping gunfire. He slid the crates around until he had established three areas of cover, each staggered along the hallway. Then he brought his rifle up and practiced darting between the positions.

  All right, he thought, three traps in place, as well as a couple of defensive positions. There was just one more thing to do. The fourth trap would be the coup de grâce, the deathblow, the “Ah shit, here it comes!” finale. And it would only be tripped if everything else failed to stop the enemy.

  Mason hurried back to inform Lenny of his plans, only to find him leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. Except for the blue around his lips, Lenny’s face was nearly devoid of color. The blood loss was taking its toll. Rather than try to wake him, Mason quietly pushed through the door at the back of the room. A hallway led straight ahead for thirty feet and then turned right. At the corner, a portion of the ceiling had collapsed, and daylight shined in.

  Mason and Bowie clambered to the top of the rubble and looked out. It led to the back of the museum and out onto a grassy spread covered in rocks and more of the blue glass. The front of the museum was blocked from view, but Mason envisioned Leila faithfully standing guard at the small hole.

  Bowie pushed up against him, perhaps fearing that his master was trying to sneak away without him.

  Mason held the dog back while he studied the rubble. After a few seconds, he found what he was looking for—a large wooden utility pole leaning precariously over the museum. The only thing that kept the seven-hundred-pound pole from crashing down onto the museum floor was an antique toy wagon that had tipped up to stand on end. Mason was reasonably confident that he could kick the wagon out from under the pole, and that, he hoped, would start a chain reaction that collapsed the floor.

  He turned and slid his way back down into the museum. Bowie, however, stayed at the top of the rubble, whining in protest as he looked from Mason to the freedom of the outdoors.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re going, but first we need to give Lenny the justice he deserves.”

  Mason sat with his back against the wall, the M4 resting across his lap. It was a position he had been in more times than he cared to count. The calm before the storm.

  He glanced over at Lenny and saw that the man’s eyes were open and studying him.

  “You’re awake.”

  Lenny nodded weakly. “Are you ready?”

  “Just waiting on the enemy.”

  “You should go, Marshal. I wouldn’t hold it against you.”

  “Maybe not, but I would.”

  “This isn’t your fight.”

  “That’s debatable. Either way, this is what I do.”

  “The soldiers who come for me will be violent, well-trained men.”

  From what Mason knew of the Black Dogs, that was indeed an accurate description.

  “I would expect nothing less.”

  “But you still think you can stop them?”

  “I can fight them. The rest we’ll leave for fate to decide.”

  Lenny extended his hand. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to shake your hand before I go.”

  Mason leaned over and gripped the man’s hand. There wasn’t much strength left in it.

  “It’s been an honor, Marshal.”

  Mason nodded. “If the fight goes well, I’ll stay with you until you pass.”

  Lenny stared up at him, holding back tears.

  “I appreciate that. I don’t think it’ll be long.”

  “No,” he said, “not long.”

  “I’m glad to be leaving this world. What happened here was too much for anyone to wash from their mind… from their soul.” He swallowed to keep from crying. “I don’t have any fight left in me.”

  Mason stood up and readied his M4.

  “That’s all right,” he said. “I still have plenty.”

  A voice broke over the radio. Mason couldn’t make it out, but the signal was clearly getting stronger. The cord tied to his waist suddenly jerked tight, slackened, and then tugged at him a second time. They were coming.

  He untied the cord and tossed it away. Two minutes later, voices crackled over the radio. This time they were clear.

  We found a way in.

  Hold one. I’ll watch your six.

  Roger. Holding.

  Bowie growled, and Mason leaned down to stroke the dog’s head.

  “Yeah, boy, they’re coming.”

  Leila heard the X-49 SpeedHawk only seconds before it appeared over the top of the Lexington Financial Center. She jerked the cord twice and then dropped it on the ground. There wasn’t time to get back down to the bank where Annie and Flynn were hiding, so she stumbled over tables, concrete blocks, and all manner of memorabilia, searching for a suitable place to hide in the museum’s ruins. She finally stopped and squatted behind an old-fashioned carriage that must have been part of a Colonial exhibit. It had flipped onto its side, and one of its large wooden wheels spun in the air like the blades of a miniature smock windmill.

  She drew the Beretta and checked the chamber. It was ready to fire, but the first shot would be double-action. Normally, that wouldn’t have been a problem, but working the long trigger pull weak-handed would be ha
rd to do with any kind of accuracy. Deciding to trade a little safety for ease of use, she used her right thumb to cock the hammer. Reducing the trigger pull down to roughly five pounds would make it much easier to shoot but also easier to accidentally discharge. She would need to be careful.

  “Remember your training,” she whispered. It was a mantra she had repeated many times when facing similar life-and-death struggles. While it did little to improve her situation, it did help to calm her nerves.

  The SpeedHawk landed in a small clearing thirty yards from the museum’s stone staircase. The twin engines powered down, and the rotor came to a lazy stop. Even before the blades had stopped spinning, four men hopped out with silenced MP5 submachine guns. They spread out, quickly setting up a perimeter. All four men wore the same black uniforms and, at first glance, were indistinguishable in terms of their respective function or rank. The pilot remained behind, but Leila suspected that others could fly the helicopter if it came to that. A good special ops team could suffer the loss of any member without sacrificing the mission.

  The men shuffled up the stairs, two of them facing forward, the other two to the rear. Their movements were efficient and well-practiced. When they came to the hole that Mason had gone down, they had a brief discussion, the details of which she couldn’t quite make out. One of the men radioed something, and a few moments later, the pilot emerged from the helicopter. He was carrying a Heckler & Koch USP45 in one hand and a radio in the other.

  The team covered him while he advanced, and within seconds, he was standing by their side. They conversed briefly before tying off a black nylon-laid rope and dropping it down into the hole. The first soldier grabbed the rope and disappeared into the darkness. Almost immediately, a scream sounded from below. The pilot leaned over the hole with a flashlight and conversed with the first man. He nodded a few times, and then motioned for the other three soldiers to go down.

  When they were safely away, the pilot turned and stood watch over the entry point. Despite being left behind, his job was perhaps the most critical of all. The team couldn’t afford to have someone come along and block what might be their only way out.

  Leila quickly ran through her options. She could just sit tight and wait. It was doubtful that they would find her. However, if she did that, Marshal Raines would have to deal with the soldiers on his own. Even for a man of his caliber, four-to-one odds would not be easily overcome. On the other hand, if she could manage to come in from behind, together they might yet win the day. That’s not to say that it would be easy. Defeating a team of elite killers would require every bit of skill she and the marshal possessed, not to mention a healthy dose of luck. But she had to try. He was the best lead yet to accomplishing her mission.

  “Let’s get this done,” she whispered.

  She grabbed a porcelain teapot from the rubble and hurled it high over the soldier’s head. As soon as it hit, he spun with the USP45 up and ready. Leila stepped out from behind the carriage and rushed toward him. They were forty yards apart, a difficult shot using her weak hand. She preferred to be within twenty. She raced ahead, stumbling over debris, but never falling. Thirty-five yards. Thirty. Twenty-five. The soldier turned toward her, and Leila instinctively fired. Four quick shots, the Beretta bucking in her left hand.

  The first bullet caught him in the hip, and the second grazed his right ear. The next two ricocheted off the debris. He fell to one knee but managed to return fire, the USP45’s muzzle flipping up as it spit fire. Leila felt a sharp sting on her right calf. She fired twice more. One caught him in the shoulder. The other went wide. The soldier jerked as the slug hit him, but he quickly brought his gun back on target, firing two more shots. One grazed Leila’s scalp, and the other passed over her head.

  She was within ten yards and still firing. Boom. Boom. Boom. Three more shots. One punched a hole through his throat. The other two missed. Still, he refused to fall. The gun wavered in his hand as he tried to line up for a kill shot. Leila’s injured leg suddenly buckled, and she fell hard on a pile of concrete and metal piping. She pushed up onto her elbows, struggling to suck in a breath. Another shot rang out, the slug passing so close that it burned through a lock of her hair. She jammed the Beretta forward and frantically squeezed the trigger over and over. When the slide finally locked to the rear, the soldier lay flat on his back, riddled with bullet holes.

  Leila high-crawled toward him, glass and stone cutting into her forearms. She clambered on top of the man, mixing her blood with his. He tried to swing the USP45 up toward her, but she batted it away, knocking the pistol from his grip. He pushed at her, his arms heavy and weak, as she whipped the Beretta down, splitting the side of his face.

  “Die all ready!” she screamed, hammering him repeatedly with the muzzle of the pistol.

  When he finally stopped moving, Leila toppled off the man, weak and utterly spent. She lay on her back struggling to catch her breath, her leg and scalp both burning hot with pain. Afraid that the other soldiers might come up the rope to investigate, she forced herself to sit up and retrieve the dead soldier’s USP45.

  Keeping the pistol trained on the hole, she turned to inspect her leg. On one side of the calf was a smooth hole about the diameter of a dime, and on the other, a slightly ragged hole of roughly the same dimension. Both of them pulsed blood. She used her bandaged hand to apply pressure, but the gauze quickly became soaked in blood. She set the gun in her lap and worked the wound with both hands, hoping to stem the flow of blood. That didn’t work either.

  “Shit,” she breathed. The bullet had hit her fibular artery.

  She slid her hands up and squeezed behind the knee, compressing the posterior tibial artery that supplied blood to the lower portion of her leg. The bleeding slowed but didn’t stop. In that instant, the inevitability of her death became clear. If a hospital had been within an hour or two, she might have survived. But there were no hospitals, no doctors, no one standing ready to save the injured. She was dead. She had failed her country and her family.

  Leila closed her eyes and thought of her dead sister’s face.

  “I’m coming, Roni. Just a few more minutes.”

  Mason hurried into the Masonic lodge and took cover behind the pews. Bowie sat beside him, a low growl rumbling in his chest. They heard a scream, followed by shouts of profanity.

  Mason grinned. They had found his punji trap. He swung the M4 up and rested it on the pew, aiming directly at the door. Ten seconds later, a gunshot sounded, followed by a long agonizing scream and then more cursing. While the soldiers may have attributed the nail board to simple misfortune, they would recognize the cartridge trap for what it was. From here forward, they would assume everything was booby-trapped.

  Mason heard the moans of an injured man outside the lodge’s door.

  “I’m going to kill you for that!” a voice bellowed. “Whoever you are, I want you to know that I’m coming for you.”

  Mason shouted over the top of the pew.

  “I’m Deputy Marshal Mason Raines. I will continue to treat you men as enemy combatants unless you surrender your arms.”

  There were hushed whispers as the soldiers talked among themselves.

  “Is Lenny Bruce in there with you?”

  Mason saw no point in lying. They were coming in either way.

  “He is.”

  More hushed conversation.

  “If you send him out, we’ll leave the same way we came in.”

  Mason took aim at the hinge side of the door and fired a single shot. It wasn’t likely that the men would be standing directly in front of the door, but one might have moved up beside it to better converse.

  A soldier screamed and fell against the door, pushing it open. The string that Mason had tied to the inside of the door immediately pulled tight, tripping the trigger and launching the blade. The tip of the sword caught the soldier an inch beneath his Adam’s apple, passing through his neck and opening his trachea. He fell to his knees, clutching his throat as he choked on hi
s own blood. Another soldier tried to grab him by the shoulder, but two near misses from Mason’s rifle caused him to rethink the rescue. After a few seconds, the injured soldier collapsed to the floor. One down.

  Two rifles poked blindly around the door, spraying automatic fire across the room. Mason ducked back behind the pews, peeking through a small crack in the wood. Another soldier hobbled back down the hall, seeking better cover, but as he did, he set off one of the cartridge traps. The bullet blew a hole through his foot and sliced up into his groin. He fell, clutching at his gonads as he cried for help. Dead or not, he too was out of the fight.

  As the automatic fire eased off to allow for magazine changes, Mason retreated through the back door, pulling Bowie with him. He kicked the door shut, sliding a heavy crate over to hold it in place. Bowie struggled to get to the soldiers, growling.

  “Bowie!”

  The dog looked up at him.

  “I’m sorry, boy, but this isn’t your fight.”

  Bowie looked confused, not at all accustomed to being relegated a bystander.

  “Go to Lenny,” Mason said, pointing down the hallway.

  The dog stared at him as if he didn’t understand.

  “I mean it. Go!”

  Bowie turned and raced down the hall, disappearing into the room.

  Splinters of wood exploded toward Mason as bullets blasted through the door. He ducked down and raced behind the first stack of papers. No sooner had he taken cover than something slammed against the door, knocking the crate aside. Mason fired several three-round bursts, spreading them evenly across the open doorway. None found their mark.

  A small black aluminum canister tumbled in through the doorway. Mason recognized it immediately as an M84 magnesium-based flashbang grenade. He released his M4, letting it dangle from the sling, and pressed both hands against his ears as he raced for the opposite doorway. The grenade blew two seconds after it left the solder’s hand, emitting a deafening 180-decibel report and a flash of light brighter than one million candles. Mason had managed to get outside the five-foot zone of greatest impact, but the detonation still left him dazed. He stumbled into the final room, pushing the door closed behind him.