The Battle: Alone: Book 4

by Darrell Maloney

  But from the time McDonough had been placed on the couch to die, they’d been surrounded by angry and frightened men, barking orders and running in all different directions.

  Then, as things started to calm, Lindsey had to report to the insurance room, as it was now called, to pull her shift handcuffed to the bed, the end of a rifle inches from her head.

  Swain, the man who was still in charge but rapidly losing control, had done what all cowards do in a tense situation.

  He’d run, to the relative safety and comfort of his upstairs bedroom, and hadn’t been seen by anyone in at least three hours.

  Sarah had no doubt he was shooting up, or smoking his junk, or hot-railing it through a heated glass pipe.

  Oh, before he left he’d barked out a bunch of orders to his men.

  And even though they, to a man, resented him just a bit because he thought a time of crisis would be a good idea to retreat to his room to do his drugs, they did as they were told.

  Because they feared him more than they resented him.

  McDonough had confided in several of them that a mutiny was in the works. He was planning to overthrow Swain and run the operation with a little more integrity. A little less drug-induced paranoia. And perhaps a little more compassion toward the hostages.

  But McDonough was gone now, or almost so. He was within a couple of hours of death. And none of the others were strong enough to take Swain on.

  So they, like Hitler’s henchmen so many years before, carried on their leader’s orders although they thought he was going insane.

  Or at least was out of his mind most of the time on drugs.

  Swain had ordered everyone inside, as soon as the hours of darkness gave them cover.

  They were hunkered down at various places throughout the compound, he said, hiding in the cornfields or barn or other outbuildings. Out of touch and out of reach of the sniper’s bullets.

  Swain didn’t even know how many men he’d lost, and wouldn’t until darkness allowed them to assemble within the house.

  They assumed they’d lost at least two, besides the man in the truck and McDonough. Someone peeking out the window noticed that not one, but two, riderless horses, had returned to the front of the house. They appeared to be waiting for someone to unsaddle and feed them and put them up for the night.

  In the meantime they grazed on the lush green grass.

  It was just over an hour before darkness now. Those inside the house peeked through the window blinds, wondering what other chaos was headed their way.

  In the dining room, three of them were secretly making plans to high-tail it after they could safely sneak out and make their way to the forest.

  “Screw this,” one told the others. “We’ve had a good run here, but I’m not hanging around in a place where we’re being picked off one or two at a time.”

  Upstairs, Swain was blissfully unaware that he’d lost the men’s confidence and their trust. Through glassy eyes he stared out into a room where things were slightly out of focus, still delusional in his thinking that things were still going relatively well.

  And trying to fight his way through the fog that was his drug-damaged mind, in search of a plan to defeat his enemy.

  Chapter 34

  Dave was back at the farm just before sundown. He knew they would wait until dark to make their next move for fear of coming out of the house and being picked off. He also knew they’d take no action to relieve the sentries that were still out there. By now the sentries on duty would have realized something was wrong. Anyone still in the hay barn would have seen the sentry in the hayloft get shot.

  The men riding the fence line would see the black SUV in the yard with a dead body inside when they made their circuit and rode past the front part of the house.

  As each man realized they’d been hit again, Dave expected they would go to ground. They’d dismount, hug the dirt or find something sturdy to hide behind. And they’d wait until dark to move to the house to be relieved.

  They had no idea that Dave’s long-range rifle had night vision capability.

  But they soon would.

  There were doors on three sides of the house: a front door and a back door on opposite sides, and a service entrance on a third side.

  Dave positioned himself dead center on the side of the house with the service entrance. From that vantage point, he couldn’t see either the front or the back door.

  But he could darn sure see anyone approaching any of the three doors from anywhere in the compound.

  Only a man approaching from the blind side of the house, then shirting the house’s exterior walls to work his way around to either the front or the back door, had any chance of avoiding Dave’s view.

  Anyone else’s ass belonged to Dave.

  He guessed correctly when he assumed they’d go to ground once they realized they’d been attacked again.

  They tied their horses to whatever trees were available. The riders themselves hiding in the corn and hay fields waiting for dark. And they were doing a pretty good job. As the waning minutes of daylight ticked away, Dave scanned the area and was unable to spot a single one.

  But he knew they were out there. He didn’t know how many were left alive, or where they were. But he knew they were there.

  The bad guys, meanwhile, were less certain. They knew they’d been hit by snipers again, but didn’t have a clue whether the snipers were still out there. Or how many there were. They might have been surprised that only one man was shattering the tranquility of their world. They might have been surprised that any one man was capable of causing such turmoil.

  But then again, they didn’t know Dave Speer.

  While he waited for his shot, or shots, Dave sniffed the air again. His senses were well tuned. Rain was on its way. He hoped it held off until he’d taken out a couple more of the enemy.

  His eye remained on the scope, scanning the area on each side of the house for any hint of movement. But as he did so, his mind wandered just a bit, back to the days when he and Sarah were a young unmarried couple learning each other’s ways.

  She thought he was kidding when he mentioned that rain was coming.

  “You’re nuts. There’s not a cloud in the sky.”

  “Not yet. Give it a couple of hours. My nose never deceives me.”

  Her mouth had dropped and she’d said, “Are you meaning to tell me you can smell rain?”

  “Well, duh… can’t everybody?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. I’m not. I swear. I can very clearly smell the rain, even as we speak.”

  Sarah wasn’t sure whether Dave was playing one of his stupid practical jokes, so she let the subject drop.

  And then her best friend walked into the bar.

  She said, “Hey, Becky… this clown claims he can smell rain when there’s not a cloud in the sky.”

  Becky looked at Sarah and said, “Well, duh… can’t everybody?”

  Sarah went into a minor funk, disappointed that she couldn’t do something practically every other human on earth could do.

  Super Dave brought her out of it by saying, “You know, if you have to have one single flaw, that’s a small one to have. From what I can see, you’re perfect in every other way.”

  That was the night, after Dave drank several more beers to steel his nerves, that he proposed to his sweet Sarah. He thought he could never love her more than he did that night.

  But all these years later, he did indeed love her even more.

  He wondered if she saw the Explorer in the yard. He wondered if she knew that Super Dave was on his way to rescue her again.

  He saw movement to his right. Someone was crouched against the side of the barn, preparing to make a run for it.

  Dave never gave him a chance.

  As the man stood up to run, a bullet entered his chest and caused his heart to instantly explode.

  The bullet made a slight sound not unlike someone pumping his fist into his palm, as it
passed through the body and splintered rib bones and spine.

  But no one more than a fifty feet away heard it.

  He was dead even before his body crumbled to the ground.

  Nobody heard him fall, either.

  Probably the loudest noise was that of his rifle, which fell on the end of its barrel and bounced a couple of times.

  But even that wasn’t loud enough for anyone to notice.

  No alarm went up. No shots were fired. There was nothing to tell the others it wasn’t safe to try the same thing.

  Dave smiled and waited some more.

  Another fifteen minutes went by.

  A shadowy figure ran from the corn field toward the house, a hundred yards away.

  He was carrying a rifle. It wasn’t a hostage.

  Dave lined up his shot carefully, knowing he had several seconds to make it. He led the man just a bit, then squeezed the trigger.

  The man went down, and appeared to be rolling around, holding his midsection.

  “Damn!”

  Dave’s shot was low. He wondered, “How in hell did that happen?”

  But he didn’t have time to ponder it. His target was now immobile, and much easier to hit.

  Through his scope he aimed for the man’s head, so he could silence him before he started to cry out. He gently, almost tenderly, squeezed the trigger and saw the man’s head shatter into a dozen pieces.

  And then it started to rain.

  Chapter 35

  Inside the house Sarah finally got a chance to talk to Lindsey when one of Karen’s sons relieved her in the insurance room.

  Sarah was waiting for her at the dining room table when she walked in.

  “Hi, Mom. How’s McDonough?”

  “He could go anytime.”

  “Swain?”

  “Still upstairs. We need to talk quickly, before somebody else comes in for coffee or water.

  Lindsey asked, “Did you get a good look at the vehicle that Snyder drove into the yard?”

  “Yes. I know. It looks like your dad’s. But I hope it isn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Snyder had it. And your father wouldn’t just give it to him. I’m terrified that might mean that something has happened to him.”

  “Oh, Mom, don’t say that. I’ve been looking at it another way.”

  “How so?”

  “I think Dad may have given it to Snyder, or maybe bartered it for something he needed, like weapons or ammunition or something. I think he intentionally wanted him to drive it into the compound, so we could see it, and know he was out there. And so we could start preparing ourselves for the rescue. Maybe even start thinking of ways we could help him.”

  Sarah was dumbfounded.

  “Wow! I honestly never thought of that possibility. But it kinda makes sense. If your father is involved in the shootings, he’d want to let us know he was out there. What better way to do that? And I’ve been worried sick, thinking maybe Snyder shot him and took the car from him.”

  Lindsey managed a smile. “If Dad were here with us, you know he’d make fun of you for calling it a car, right? He’d say, ‘It’s not a car, darn it. It’s an SUV.’”

  “I know. I used to call it a car just to egg him on.”

  “Really? I always suspected as much.”

  “Lindsey, honey, you’re a very clever girl. You’ve provided another scenario that I’d never even considered. And you’ve succeeded in keeping my hopes alive.”

  “One of us has to be an optimist, Mom. You’ve always been a ‘glass is half empty’ kind of person.”

  “I hope you’re right, honey. But let’s not get our hopes too high, not yet. My scenario is a possibility too, whether we want to accept it or not.”

  “I know, Mom. But I just refuse to believe that Daddy’s dead. He is Super Dad, after all.”

  The door opened and Jessika walked in.

  “McDonough’s dead. I said a prayer over his body. I know he was one of them, but every man deserves God’s mercy, no matter how bad he was.”

  She poured herself a glass of water from a pitcher on the counter.

  “I’m sorry. Am I interrupting?”

  “No. Not at all. We were just talking about Lindsey’s father. We think he might be…”

  But she never finished. The door opened again and Swain stuck his head in.

  “I want to get everybody together in the den for a meeting. Five minutes. Don’t be late.”

  The three women walked out of the kitchen as two men were carrying McDonough’s body out of the den.

  “Where are you taking him?”

  “Right now he’s going in the insurance room, until it’s safe to go outside again.”

  Sarah heard raindrops hitting the roof of the porch outside. She wondered if it was good news or bad for Dave and whoever was out there helping him.

  Swain was pacing back and forth across the den, occasionally making a comment or giving an order. He appeared to be frazzled. His twitching seemed to be worse than it was when he’d gone upstairs, and he looked around constantly at those assembled in the room.

  Sarah had seen him like this many times before, when his paranoia was kicking in. The episodes were typically marked by irrational thinking and the accusations that his men and the hostages were plotting against him.

  “Now that it’s dark, they should be coming in from the field. We’ll see how many the bastards have taken and come up with a plan to attack them on their own turf.”

  Several more minutes ticked by.

  The rain got heavier.

  “Thomas... you and Sanchez go out on the front porch. Yell to the men that it’s safe to come in.”

  The two men looked at each other but didn’t respond.

  “Are you assholes deaf?”

  Sanchez mustered up the courage to say, “But sir, if they were still alive they’d have come into the house by now.”

  Swain looked at him and said, “I’m only going to say this one more time, Sanchez. Get your ass out there on the porch and yell for the men to come into the house. Hell, it’s raining cats and dogs out there. The enemy can’t use their rifles in heavy rain. And it’s dark anyway. Leave the porch light off so they can’t see you and get your ass out there and do what you’re told.”

  Still, the men hesitated.

  “God Damnit, you men are nothing but a couple of cowards. Get the hell out of my way.”

  Swain strutted through the door and out onto the darkened front porch.

  He yelled loud enough to wake the dead.

  “Foley! Johnson! Kolinek! Come in here! They can’t fire their rifles in the rain! Get in here where it’s safe!”

  Swain knew his men, if they were within earshot, would recognize his voice.

  He knew that if they were still alive, they were soaked and cold and hungry. And that they were looking for a way to make it safely into the house.

  And he knew that they wouldn’t dare cross him after he ordered them to make their way in.

  Knowing all that made the next five minutes difficult for him.

  Because nobody came.

  He knew that everyone not already in the house was dead.

  Actually, not all of them. Four of them saw the carnage Dave had wrought and took the opportunity to hop the barbed wire fence and disappear into the woods. They figured that going back on the lam was better than dying. There were other farmhouses out there. Other people they could take hostage. Other places to go.

  Swain went back into the house.

  He took a headcount. He had himself and five men left.

  It never dawned on Swain, perhaps because his mind was altered by the drugs he was on, that his attackers might have night vision scopes. He knew they required batteries, and batteries no longer existed. He assumed, as the others did, that his men died during the daylight hours. That all evening they were thought to be alive and hiding, and instead were dead and starting to stiffen.

  “Thomas. You go on the front porch
and keep watch. If you hear or see anybody moving around out there, shoot them. It’s not our guys, or they would have been back in by now. We’ll leave the lights off downstairs so you don’t make a silhouette. Come in just before sunrise. Davis, you take the back porch.”

  Perhaps because Swain himself had gone outside for several minutes and had returned unscathed, there was no hesitation this time.

  “Holliday, you and Sanchez go upstairs and get some rest. At first light you two will relieve Thomas and Davis, but you’ll watch from the windows on the front and back of the house.

  “Garcia, get back in the insurance room. I’ll get some rest and will relieve you at sunrise. If you hear any shooting or scuffling in here, you put a bullet into that boy’s head. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Karen gasped. The boy Swain was referring to was her eight year old son Tony.

  Chapter 36

  Swain was right about one thing. Rifles, and particularly sniper rifles, were worthless in a driving thunderstorm. They would have fired, sure. But Dave couldn’t see more than twenty feet in front of him. Anyone close enough to see could be taken out with a handgun or a knife.

  As the first raindrops fell, Dave made his way back to the green fiberglass box deep in the woods. He stashed his sniper rifle and rested a bit, trying to figure ways to use the rain to his advantage.

  A driving rainstorm hid many things. It hampered not only vision to the point it rendered rifles useless. It also made it very difficult to hear someone sneaking up behind you.

  And it muffled a man’s screams.

  Dave was determined to take advantage of it. As he saw it, the rain was a gift from God. A chance to lean the odds into Dave’s favor. At least for a bit.

  After ten minutes or so, Dave’s breath came back and he’d had his plan in mind. He guzzled two bottles of water and three granola bars. That would sustain him for several hours if he had to take cover and couldn’t make it back for awhile. More importantly, it would enable him to leave his backpack behind and travel a little lighter.

  He crept up the steps at the end of the tunnel and snuck out of the fiberglass box back into the bone-chilling rain.