Purge of Babylon (Book 8): The Horns of Avalon

by Sam Sisavath

  “Well, shit,” Benford said, watching the man in black slump to the floor.

  Gaby stared at the dead man while Fritz chuckled from somewhere behind her.

  “Welcome to the Rebellion,” Benford said. “Your first assignment is to drag your old friends into the back office. They’re ruining the décor of the place.”

  “We sticking around?” Fritz asked.

  Benford glanced at his watch. “Got plenty of time before nightfall. Maybe we’ll get lucky and more of them will show up, give us extra target practice.”

  * * *

  THE REBELLION WAS REALLY JUST four people at the moment—Benford, Fritz, Kip, and the fourth man, Justin. To hear Fritz tell it, they never had any intentions of a prolonged engagement with Danzinger’s people, since that went against their mission of hitting and running.

  “We kept waiting for them to get reinforcements,” Fritz said. He was perched on the island counter, feet swinging back and forth as if he were at the park. “But no one ever came. We were pretty sure they’d at least get a few extra bodies from that buildup in Port Arthur. We put two guys on the road, just in case, to do a little sniping. But nope. We hit them all day, poking at them from every angle, and no one ever showed up. I guess they’re stretched thin ever since R-Day. Probably keeping most of their forces in the towns.”

  “R-Day?” Gaby asked.

  “Resistance Day. Our little name for it. Nothing official or anything. He’s not a big fan of titles. Or rank, for that matter.”

  “‘He?’” Danny said.

  “Mercer,” Fritz said. “The Big Cheese.”

  “Where’s he now?”

  Fritz shrugged. “He’s around.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I know, but you don’t need to know.”

  “I thought we were all friends now. You guys even showed me the secret handshake and everything.”

  Fritz grinned. “Not yet. But maybe if you keep proving yourself we might show you the secret lair.”

  “Awesome. Do we get costumes, too?”

  “Hey, what you do with your free time is your business.”

  Danny grinned back at him. “Sweet,” he said, and went back to eating from the bag of MRE Mercer’s men had given them.

  She concentrated on her own bag of Meal Ready-to-Eat, gobbling up the clumps of chicken pesto pasta with the cheap spoon that came with the food. It probably said a lot about how desensitized she had become to how the new world operated that her appetite only increased after dragging the dead bodies into the back room with Danny. She wished she could say she felt sorry for them, but besides Lopez, she didn’t know a single person or even their names, and she didn’t care enough to read their name tags.

  They tried to kill us, and they shot Nate. Screw them.

  The MRE tasted a bit bland at first, but a little salt and seasoning from the provided packets lent some life to it. She had pocketed the cookie and beef jerky and saved the coffee grounds for later. The last time she had coffee was on the Trident, where they regularly dipped into the reserves they’d brought from Song Island. She thought about Nate and how much he’d enjoy his own calories-heavy bag, but he was still asleep in the back office.

  Despite having been “welcomed” to the Rebellion, Benford hadn’t given them weapons, and she used the opportunity to try to come up with a scenario where Nate wouldn’t be left behind when Benford finally decided it was time to move on, which he would eventually. Right now the only thing keeping them in the bank was Benford wanting to rest his men. They might not have lost anyone in the gunfight, but they had been at it all day and actually looked more tired than her and Danny.

  Benford was outside on the sidewalk now with some kind of portable radio set on the hood of a bullet-riddled Jeep. She recognized it as the same one that had chased them yesterday, backed by the technical. The vehicle was damaged, its front windshield smashed and hood badly dented from, she guessed, the same explosion that had taken out the wall. Benford had his M4 with the grenade launcher slung over his back, and he didn’t seem all that concerned about standing out in the open, maybe because Justin and Kip were somewhere out there keeping watch while he and Fritz stayed back.

  Benford was talking into the radio’s microphone and occasionally listening, but she couldn’t make out what was being said from inside the building. The radio didn’t look like the kind they had been carrying around with them and using to communicate with the Trident. Benford’s was probably military-issued, while theirs was a civilian model.

  “He’s like a dog with a bone,” Fritz was saying while looking out at Benford. “He knows something’s not right about this place. The collaborators have no reason to stake a base all the way out here, and we’ve seen multiple nests in the bigger buildings. Those things don’t normally waste time in a no-nothing place like this, so why are there so many nightcrawlers around?”

  “You saw them?” Danny asked.

  “Couldn’t miss them. They were crammed into every store and building we passed. Had to be hundreds of them in the place. Maybe more…”

  “How many did you guys kill?”

  “Six in all, counting the one you popped. Why?”

  “There were more than six earlier today,” Gaby said.

  “If there were more, then they weren’t here when we hit the bank. And if they’re out there, Kip and Justin would have spotted them already.” He shrugged. “My guess is they knew they were beaten and took off.”

  Gaby could picture Mason doing exactly that. The man was an opportunist and a survivor first and foremost. If he thought Danzinger was going to lose, he wouldn’t have any hesitation about abandoning them. The only other reason he wasn’t one of the dead was if he hadn’t been around when the fight got out of hand. She didn’t know which explanation she preferred, not that either one did anything to change the results: Mason was still out there, somewhere.

  Like a goddamn cockroach that needs to be stepped on.

  “Why’d you do that, by the way?” Danny was asking Fritz.

  “You mean the bank?” Fritz said. When Danny nodded, “Benford’s decision. They had one on the roof and one on the sidewalk outside, but other than that it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Benford had us prodding them all day until he was finally convinced they didn’t know what the hell they were doing. It was like they were just satisfied to sit here and wait.” He eyed Benford, who looked like he was in the process of wrapping up his radio call outside. “Like I said, dog with a bone. He wants to know why they were here, why no one came to their rescue, and what the nightcrawlers are doing in a place like this.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” Danny said, looking out at Benford.

  “Yeah, well, don’t say that to him,” Fritz chuckled.

  “Mum’s the word.”

  Gaby drank her bottle of water and dabbed some onto her fingers to clean them against her pants. Like Danny, she knew something Fritz and Benford didn’t—the collaborators hadn’t abandoned Gallant despite the constant attacks and lack of reinforcements because they couldn’t. She remembered how Mason had talked about them earlier and how unsettled he had looked. He had tried to hide it, but she could see through his façade.

  She looked up when Benford came back inside the bank and put the radio away in his pack.

  “What did they say?” Fritz asked.

  “They don’t have any intel about this place,” Benford said. He looked and sounded disappointed. “As far as they know, there’s nothing important about Gallant, no reason why the enemy didn’t want to leave or why there are nightcrawlers all over the place.” He looked over at Danny. “What about you? You don’t know what they were doing down here?”

  “Not a clue,” Danny said. “The only reason we’re here is because Port Arthur was crawling with soldiers. Your guess is as good as mine why they’re messing around this place.”

  Benford seemed to believe him. Maybe it was the way Danny had told the story—while casually eating his prepac
kaged food without a care in the world—but even Gaby would have bought the lie if she didn’t know better.

  “So that’s that, then,” Fritz said. “We bugging out or what?”

  “Short of tearing the place apart?” Benford nodded. “We had our fun. Besides, there’s plenty of other targets out there to pick from.”

  “I can dig that.”

  Just then, the crack! of a gunshot echoed outside, and all four of them dropped to the floor instinctively.

  Two more shots followed, then silence.

  Gaby glimpsed Danny’s bag of MRE skidding across the tiled floor and looked over in time to see him reaching for his hip for a sidearm that didn’t exist. He looked over at her and mouthed an exaggerated sigh.

  Benford had unclipped a two-way radio from behind his back and hurried over to the hole in the wall. “Justin, Kip,” he said into the radio, “give me a sitrep.” When they didn’t answer, “Justin, Kip. Give me a sitrep, goddammit.”

  The radio in Benford’s hand and the one clipped to Fritz’s waist squawked in reply, and a male voice said, “You boys should have left town when you had the chance. This is what happens when you lollygag.”

  Fuck me, Gaby thought when she recognized the voice.

  “Do yourself a favor and let us go in there and collect your guns,” Mason said through the radio. “Trust me when I say it’s your best option, because you’re not going to like what happens when night falls. Nosirree, you are not.”

  Then, because it was Mason and he knew exactly how to get on her nerves:

  “Oh, and that hot blonde number who is no doubt listening in on this? Hey, sweetheart, you miss me yet?”

  14

  LARA

  “THE RIG WAS DESIGNED to accommodate about 150 crewmen, but we don’t have nearly that many onboard right now,” Riley said as he led her off the top platform and into a stairwell, their boots clanging off heavy metal stairs as they went down.

  She expected to feel claustrophobic as they entered the belly of the structure—like moving around in a submarine—but their path was lit by LED lights, and everything, including the walls, was surprisingly clean. She didn’t know why, but she thought a place that was supposed to house oil workers who slaved on heavy machinery for most of the day would be grimier…and smellier.

  “Sounds like it should be pretty comfortable with all the extra space,” Lara said. “So why are you in such a hurry to abandon it?”

  “Comfort isn’t the problem.”

  “So what is?”

  “We’ll get to that later.”

  “You keep saying that, but I’m not hearing anything that would make me hand the Trident over to you.”

  “I’m not asking you to hand it over to me, Lara. You just need to let me borrow it for a while.”

  “I still haven’t heard anything that would make me do that, either.”

  “I haven’t gotten to my sales pitch yet,” he said as he pushed through a door and they stepped inside a hallway lit by bright natural sunlight.

  “Where are we?”

  “The crew area, where the workers stay when they’re not working.”

  She found out why the place was so bright when Riley led her past an open door and she looked in at two kids about Vera and Elise’s age, propping their chins and arms against an open window on the other side of the room. One of the children, a girl, glanced over and smiled at her, and Lara reflexively smiled back.

  “You said you had civilians onboard, not children,” she said. “How many?”

  “About a dozen in all.”

  “Why are they here?”

  “Because their family is here.”

  They walked past a couple of closed doors, and Lara thought she could hear voices coming from the other side of both of them.

  “Is this what you wanted to show me?” she asked. “Two kids in a room?”

  “It’s a beginning.”

  “So there’s more.”

  “I wouldn’t be much of a salesman if I didn’t have more under my sleeve.”

  He stopped at another open door, then took a couple of steps out of the way to let her look in.

  It was some kind of exercise room, except the equipment had been removed and the space taken over by people. Sunlight streamed inside through windows along the far wall, and she counted at least twenty civilians either standing or sitting around. Some were occupied with card games while others were gathered around a TV watching some kind of movie on a Blu-ray player. A few had staked out private spots to read books. There was conversation, but it was of the hushed variety, as if they were all waiting for something—something bad, or big, or maybe both—to happen. A few of them glanced nervously over at her and Riley.

  “Who are they?” she asked. “What are they doing here?”

  “Everyone has their own rooms, but I guess they find it easier to all be in the same place,” Riley said.

  “No. I mean, what are they doing here, on the Ocean Star?”

  “They’re part of a support network. Cooks, mechanics—basically the lifeblood of every war effort. They’re here because this is an FOB and our job is to keep the war going.”

  “What war are you talking about?”

  Riley was looking at her intently. “I think you know.”

  He’s talking about Mercer’s crusade in Texas.

  She’d known who Riley was as soon as he began talking about what was happening back in Texas. He was a part of Mercer’s army. So were Hart and Faith, and now, the people in this room. She didn’t have any doubts anymore, but she couldn’t let Riley know that. At least, not until she had squeezed him for every piece of information.

  “I don’t,” she said.

  “Are you sure about that?” he asked, not taking his eyes off her.

  “I should know what I know, Riley, and I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He nodded, but there was a ghost of a smile on his lips, as if he had just gotten what he had been waiting (looking?) for. “All right. Let’s stick to that story for now.” He turned and continued up the hallway. “Come on; I have more to show you.”

  She looked into the room one more time before following him. “How many people are on the rig?”

  “Thirty-two civilians.”

  “I thought you said you were all civilians.”

  “Some are more civilian than others.”

  They turned a corner and passed another large room, this one equipped with flat screens along the walls, but unlike the previous room, none of the TVs in this one were turned on. There was a stack of red chairs in one corner because the space had been converted into living quarters. Instead of civilians, there were a half dozen men and women in assault vests sitting or lying down on spring cots. Everyone wore gun belts, and rifles leaned against their beds or the walls nearby.

  They didn’t stop at the second room.

  “So this is where you’re hiding the rest of your Harts,” she said.

  “I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  “Which would be what?”

  “That I was looking to jump you as soon as you were onboard.”

  “They’re soldiers.”

  “They’re the security force that’s supposed to keep the FOB safe.”

  “How many?”

  “Fifteen. I’m responsible for forty-seven lives in all, not counting myself.”

  “They look a little jumpy.”

  “Things are a little tense right now,” Riley said. “Not just here, but back in Texas, too. Which you don’t know anything about.”

  She smirked at his back but if he heard or saw it, he didn’t react.

  “There are more FOBs like the Ocean Star out there,” Riley continued. “Not quite like this one, and staffed differently, but we all serve the same purpose.”

  “Which is?”

  “Keep the war effort alive. Keep the fighting on course. Keep the killing going.” He stopped and turned around to look at her. “Mercer.”

&nbs
p; “Mercer who?”

  “Cut the shit, Lara. You know about Mercer,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  So here it is. The moment of truth.

  “No more lies,” she said.

  “No more lies,” he nodded.

  “I’ve heard stories about Mercer, but I’ve never met him or seen what he’s doing out there in person.”

  “Everything you’ve heard is true, and it’s the reason I need to get these people as far away from the Ocean Star as possible.”

  “I’m listening…”

  “We don’t want anything to do with the bloodbath that’s taking place in Texas right now. That’s why I need the Trident. It’s the only thing big enough to carry everyone here away.”

  “So you’re running, is that it?”

  “Yes,” Riley said without hesitation. “We’re running, Lara. I’m not ashamed of it. It’s why I volunteered for this job in the first place, why the people in the other rooms are here, too. Will you help us get as far away from Mercer as possible?”

  She didn’t answer him, and Riley never took his eyes off her.

  “Lara,” he said. “Please. I need your help. I’ll beg if you want.”

  “I don’t want you to beg.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Tell me everything about Mercer. About this war of his. If you want a prayer of me saying yes, I want to know everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything,” she said. “Start at the beginning…”

  * * *

  THEY SAT across from one another in the Ocean Star’s galley—the only two people in the entire place—with chunks of SPAM and fried fish on plastic trays between them. Like life on the Trident, Riley’s people had no trouble fishing the Gulf of Mexico for a steady diet of fish every day. She took note that the kitchen in the back still had a working refrigerator, which meant Riley had plenty of diesel fuel to waste.

  We could definitely use some of that.

  “The people here and the ones out there fighting his war right now wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for him,” Riley said. “He saved our lives. Literally and figuratively. The first few weeks were the hardest, but I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. You were out there, too.”