Standing Before Hell's Gate

by William Alan Webb

  “Sara…”

  Before the old woman could move, her young twin sister fell to her knees and clutched her like a frightened child does her mother. Tears flooded eyes that had coldly killed scores of men, and she pressed her cheek against her sister’s.

  #

  Overtime Prime

  0531 hours, April 29

  “Is everybody clear?” Wingnut said to the other three people in the tiny room. Rather than use their normal quarters, which Adder had probably bugged, they’d found an empty ammunition ready room in the hangar complex. “No shooting today no matter what. Adder’s gonna push your buttons, so act like a fuckin’ pro and take it. He’s got a big mouth, but they’re just words. Any problems?”

  “What if we get a clean shot at Steeple?” said One-Eye.

  “If you get a shot today, it’s a trap. Adder’s not gonna let you kill his meal ticket. Without Steeple at the top, the whole thing falls apart, and I’m bettin’ Adder knows it. So today we play nice and earn his trust. Everybody capiche? Razor, you’re the new guy. You get it?”

  “Fuck you, nut-for-brains, that joke’s getting old. I was with the team for four years before we went cold and you know it. Pick on H.P. next time.”

  “Hollowpoint’s been around longer than you, but all right. H.P. you down with this?”

  The tall man nodded his long, narrow head, and not for the first or last time, Wingnut thought he should have called himself Horseface.

  “What about Nipple?” One-Eye asked.

  “Nipple’s gone, man, and she ain’t comin’ back. Weirdest thing I ever saw, someone changing overnight like that. I never really bought that whole psycho thing before, but now… something’s wrong. It’s not natural for a person to totally change their identity. But forget her and concentrate on the mission.”

  “I still wish you let me kill Adder,” One-Eye said with a faux snarl.

  “If I actually thought you could do it, I’d let you.”

  #

  Chapter 53

  Get ye hence, stand to God’s ramparts,

  Take thy shield to ward off the darts

  of the servants of foul Perdition;

  Wield thy sword with all courage and skill,

  Fell the foe and know it is God’s will

  that you obey of your own volition.

  Unknown, found after the Siege of Vienna in 1529

  Groom Lake Air Force Facility

  0612 hours, April 29

  By dawn, the concrete runways and tarmacs had radiated all of the previous day’s heat away and absorbed cold during the long desert night. Randall stuck his hands between his thighs, took them out and blew on them, and stuck them between his legs again. His breath came in huffs that filled the air with icy vapor.

  Carlos walked in a circle, his hands in the pockets of the old jacket they’d given him. “I’m freezing,” he said.

  Rifle in hand, Bondo stood in the shadows near the hangar door, grinning.

  “You’re lovin’ this, aren’t you?” Randall said.

  He nodded. “Yeah, I am.”

  “I thought we’d at least get a decent breakfast.”

  “You did. Desert duty gets extra rations.”

  “I could still eat a dozen eggs,” Carlos said. “And two pounds of bacon.”

  Randall rubbed his eyes some more. “I just want coffee.”

  Bondo shook his head in disgust. “No wonder the old world died.”

  The fourth member of their group pushed through the side door into the hangar, carrying a leather sack filled with gear and provisions. She was almost as big as Bondo, only with a worse disposition. They called her Roe.

  “Where’re your guns?” she said.

  Randall shrugged and stuck his hands down the front of his pants, not giving a damn what it looked like.

  “Do that on your own time,” Roe said. “What about your rifles?”

  “They’re on the fuckin’ flitters,” Bondo said after a few seconds. “No thanks to these desert flowers. I put ’em there.”

  Randall made no obvious sign of excitement, but his mind started racing when he heard the word flitter. Those were the hovercraft they’d flown the other day, and if he and Bunny could get their hands on a couple of those…

  “Let’s go,” Roe said. “It’s a long trip.”

  “Mind telling us exactly where we’re going?” Randall said as they walked. Out from the shadows of the hangar, they found a patch of early morning sunlight, and the temperature increased at least ten degrees. This was more like it!

  “You’ve got EP1 today. It’s about fifteen miles from here, about as far out as we post sentries. Today’s the first of seven days on, three days off.”

  “We’re going there for seven days?”

  “Relax, Petunia, you get to come home at night.”

  “All right.”

  Bondo laughed and Roe joined him.

  “Are we funny?”

  “Just obvious,” she said. “You’re wondering if you’ll be far enough out to take off, leave, try to get back to wherever you came from. Go ahead and try it. I hope you do.”

  They took four flitters, with Roe in front, Bondo in the rear, and the two semi-prisoners in between. With Randall and Carlos being less skilled at handling the nimble aircraft, it took half an hour to get there, not to mention their need to battle brilliant sunlight as the sun cleared the mountains to the east. As they skimmed low over the desert floor, and wildlife scurried for cover, Randall noted any terrain features he thought might come in handy later on.

  EP1was an acronym meaning East Point 1, an important sounding name for a half-ruined concrete bunker on a small hill overlooking the main road leading in from the east. Inside the structure, a concrete platform allowed observers to see intruders coming many miles across the desert. But that was assuming the intruders were human and not reptilian, avian, or mammalian, which Randall was told hadn’t happened for at least ten years. Otherwise their job was to enjoy the view.

  Desolation stretched away in all directions.

  And if they did see something suspicious?

  “That thing there is called a crank phone,” Bondo said, pointing at a homemade device that was half radio phone, half hand-crank ice-cream maker. “Turn that handle and it sends an electric charge down the line, which they’ll pick up in the comm. room. Then you can talk to them.”

  “How clever is that? Is it a radio?” Randall wondered aloud.

  “No radio. There’s a cable all the way back to the comm. center. It was part of the original security setup.”

  “Awesome,” he said, but couldn’t completely hide his disappointment.

  For once Bondo didn’t pick up on the sarcasm. “Yeah, it is. The network is so extensive, you wouldn’t believe it. They used to have cameras and pressure sensors everywhere out here, thousands of them, but that was a long time ago.” For a short moment, his eyes wandered off to the left. “So, if you have a problem, let us know and we’ll be here on the double quick.”

  “If a bunch of Rednecks show up, do we just pull out?”

  “No, you can’t.” Roe had come into the bunker and held out her palm, where two identical rectangular metal items caught a ray from the rising sun and reflected on one wall in a pinpoint of yellow. Her other hand held a pistol that was not pointed at them, but wasn’t pointed away, either. Randall understood both implications immediately.

  “Relays?” he said, pointing to the odd devices in her hand.

  Bondo nodded. “You’re grounded until we come back.” He then shifted his finger to the gun.

  “I thought we were part of the happy family now. Trusted comrades.”

  “Trust, yes, but verify.”

  “So what do we do if bad guys show up?”

  “Can’t our hotshot pilot figure that out? Why do you think we gave you rifles?”

  #

  Chapter 54

  All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, ho
nor, duty, mercy, hope.

  Sir Winston S. Churchill

  Shangri-La

  0832 hours, April 29

  From the first day he settled in the valley that become the core of Shangri-La, Winston Ballinger had conceived of the compound being a fortress for the protection not only of its citizens, but of as much collected scientific knowledge of the United States as possible. In the early years, when fuel was still available and heavy equipment hadn’t worn out yet, under Ballinger’s direction the land had been reformed with an eye toward not just defense, but livability. For example, the huge underground hothouse and solar ovens had required months of work, while under Ballinger’s direction they’d simultaneously created defensive valleys that channeled would-be attackers into killing zones, and bunkers at critical points with escape tunnels carved from the living rock.

  Subsequent leaders had continued the work. An extensive tunnel system honeycombed the ground under the desert. Forward firing pits, concealed by wooden hatches, had crawl tunnels for the shooter to get out alive. Blast doors had even been installed, heavy sheets of scrap metal that could be swung into position behind someone evacuating the hole and fastened down to absorb the blast of a hand grenade or other explosive device.

  Other traps had been constructed, such as a trench with a thin wooden cover that could be covered with dust and which appeared to be solid ground, but would collapse under the weight of a man or horse. Sharpened spikes lined the bottom eight feet below, but an even nastier surprise had been planned for any attacker who fell in there. Rainwater ordered the plan put into action and dozens of people began gathering rattlesnakes from the area. Once captured, they were then thrown into the trench. Hundreds of smaller holes were also dug, with scrap metal embedded in the bottom that had been sharpened and smeared with animal feces, or with rattlesnakes ready to strike. These were covered with thin wooden lids designed to crack underfoot, then camouflaged with topsoil.

  In another place, a rocky hillside beside the main highway leading into the compound, Highway 4, had been hollowed out and more than one thousand pounds of black powder poured into a specially protected chamber designed to both keep out moisture and funnel the blast outward. The ingredients for black power were abundant in that part of New Mexico, with the potassium nitrate being the hardest to get, but between the numerous caves and deposits southeast of Los Alamos, the supply was never a problem.

  The forge and blacksmith shops turned out many of the guns the defenders were busy cleaning, primarily rifled muskets and some handguns. Modern weapons equipped the fittest and best trained of the militia. After so many years, most of them had been repaired multiple times and all of the ammunition used were reloads. Policing brass was mandatory. Hundreds of double-fired ceramic hand grenades had sat for years in rows in a cave near the springs, waiting to be filled with powder and fused. And now that day had come.

  Rainwater personally oversaw the placing of the two homemade Gatling guns, built to fire nine millimeter rounds. They’d gotten the parts from Idaho Jack, the scraper who came around every now and then, who later dug up more than thirty thousand empty casings to go with them from an old shooting range somewhere. Operating them required four people, mostly to rotate cranking the firing mechanism.

  The first thing he’d done after the meeting was send scouts out as far as Gallup in the west and to Santa Fe and Angel Fire in the east. If the Sevens meant to surround them, he needed to know. The very old and the very young he ordered to get ready to move north to San Antonio Mountain, which had been prepared over the years as a final refuge for just such an emergency.

  Not until after midnight did he return to the simple pueblo that served as his home and fall fast asleep on a blanket four feet inside the door. He didn’t bathe in the hot springs, or even check for scorpions, a precaution he’d learned when still a toddler. He simply grabbed a blanket and lay down. Sometimes exhaustion demanded immediate sleep.

  #

  Abigail Deak had only taken over as Governor of the Pueblo of Jemez two weeks earlier, and while the area comprising Shangri-La had traditionally been the homeland of her tribe, she immediately recognized Johnny Rainwater as leader of the community, with her as his second. Rumors of an invading army of Sevens were already in circulation and she considered him a much better warrior if it came to a fight. Her specialty was the agricultural side of things.

  She’d spent the early morning preparing their food supply for the coming battle. The staple would be hard, twice-baked bread made from barley and wheat, various jerked meats that could be boiled to soften them, with the water then used to soak the bread. Under her direction, the food staff had spent the previous week drying various beans and legumes. Livestock was slaughtered, butchered, and washed for cooking, and the trimmed fat and marrow used as the basis for large vats of pemmican.

  The potters fired new vessels for hauling food to men guarding the passes into Shangri-La, many of which would have challenged a brown mountain goat not to slip. An ingenious strap and buckle system, combined with a tight-fitted lid, allowed sentries on the highest peaks to eat hot food at least twice a day. The dried foods the men and women in the defensive positions held against the day of battle, when exposing yourself to bring food could be fatal.

  Water had long since been supplied to the community through the original system that had supplied the Pueblo of Jemez, which had been expanded using salvaged pipes from abandoned settlements from as far away as Santa Fe. Hand- and water-powered pumps allowed distribution to even the farthest reach of Shangri-La, including many of the defensive positions. The underground facilities, including the hothouse, got their water from a gravity system using old garden hoses brought in by the scraper named Idaho Jack.

  Anyone could bathe in the once-famous hot springs, as long as they didn’t use soap and bathed nude. As might be expected, after dark the springs tended to be popular with young people. Early on Ballinger had tried to prohibit such behavior, but quickly realized that, short of posting round-the-clock guards, it was futile. The rules on soap still applied, however, and the usual routine was to bathe first in cold water and then float in the hot water, much like the ancient Romans.

  By midday, Deak was satisfied she’d done everything possible to prepare, and went to find Johnny Rainwater. She found him on a towering slab of red rock that had made the area famous as a tourist destination in the years preceding the Collapse. From atop the outcropping, he could see down a long slope toward the flat ground north of Albuquerque.

  He turned at the soft scrape of her double-soled moccasins on a stairway cut into the rock on its north side. “They’re coming, Abby,” he said.

  “We’ve heard that for three days,” Deak answered.

  “That’s what worries me. These Sevens aren’t reckless. They seem to be held under tight control by someone.”

  “We’ve hurt them many times in the past, so maybe they are simply being cautious.”

  “Mmm… maybe. It’s just a feeling, but I think this time is different. Are we ready in the homestead?”

  “As ready as we’ll ever be. The food is prepped and ready, and we had so much extra fat and bones that I had the cooks make it into pemmican.”

  “The bones?”

  One side of her mouth curled up as she looked at him sideways. “The marrow, not the bones themselves.”

  “How should I know that? I just eat it, I don’t make it.”

  “Well, you should. Everybody in Shangri-La should know how to cook basic foods.”

  “Let’s argue that some other time, eh? How’s everything else coming along?”

  “Granny Guntree organized the oldest of the women to cut bandages from the clothing discards. Once cut, they’re boiling them. Century Tom and the other men who either can’t walk or can’t hold a gun to shoot straight are behind the stone wall surrounding the Council house. They’re the last line of defense.”

  “They’ll be useless. All they’ll manage is to get killed.”

  �
�What else are they gonna do, Johnny? They can’t run away.”

  “Yeah.” He turned back so she couldn’t see his face in the afternoon sun’s glare. “What motivates people like the Sevens, Abby? Why can’t they live in peace? Life is hard enough without making war.”

  “How should I know? I don’t understand it either. All I know is that if they’re really coming this time, we need to be ready.”

  “I sent out riders looking for the Americans we heard about.”

  “Who did you send?” she said, knowing who he was going to say and dreading hearing it.

  “You know who I sent.”

  “Not Billy Two Trees. Please tell me you didn’t send Billy.”

  He nodded. “And Sally Makepeace and Ronald Hampton.”

  “They’re just kids!”

  Rainwater wasn’t usually a stern man. Indeed, she’d opposed him as leader because in a crisis, she hadn’t been sure he could take the situation seriously enough. But the expression she now saw on his square face frightened her with its intensity.

  “In a fight for your life, there are no children. Everybody’s a warrior.”

  “But we both know Billy hasn’t got the sense God gave a rabbit.”

  “He’s one of our best riders.”

  “He’s fifteen!”

  Rainwater stopped in mid-response as a young man scampered between two boulders and ran toward the rock where they stood. They were nearly fifty feet high and words tended to be swept away by winds racing through the narrow canyons.

  Cupping hands around his mouth, the man shouted up at them. “They’re on the move, Johnny!”

  #

  Chapter 55

  The most glorious victory of all time!

  Adolf Hitler, June 25, 1940, after the surrender of France