Those two factors combined would almost certainly make his shot slightly off its mark.
He decided that a center mass shot would be a better option under the circumstances.
He lined his weapon up to fire a bullet through the man’s heart.
And he waited, moving the gun slightly to follow his target as the man moved about the room, still doing his laundry.
Dave had to wait for the right moment.
It came some fifteen seconds later, as a brilliant flash of lighting lit up the night sky to the west.
And a viciously loud crack of thunder followed it a second later.
It was during that crack of thunder that Dave pulled the trigger, and his target went down instantly with not so much as a whimper.
Dave was counting on the sound to muffle his shot. Between the rain beating down on the roof and windows, and the thick outer walls of the farm house, he hoped that no one heard a thing, other than maybe the soft tinkling of breaking glass or the soft thud of a man falling forward onto his bed and piles of folded shirts.
And, to be sure, Dave hadn’t even heard the shot himself.
He’d find out soon whether anyone else had heard it. If they had, they’d either come bursting into the bedroom and would instantly start spraying bullets through the window and in Dave’s general direction. He’d have to leap to the ground, hope he didn’t break his ankle while doing so, and scamper for cover.
Or… they would come rushing outside and shoot at him on the roof. In that case, he’d damn well shoot back well and quickly, or he could be a sitting duck.
The seconds ticked by, and seemed like years.
And the greatest thing happened… absolutely nothing.
No one went tearing into the bedroom. No one came rushing outside. Dave had gotten away with it.
His luck was holding.
He crept back to the first bedroom.
Sure enough, the man was still in bed, still covered by a single white sheet, still reading his magazine.
This time, Dave felt a little bit uneasy. He still wasn’t comfortable with shooting a man in the back, despite the admonition given him by his Marine Corps lieutenant.
Dave had known men who were killed by friendly fire. He knew that accidents happened in the fog of war. Miscalculations were made. Clues were overlooked. And sometimes the good guys died instead of the bad ones.
Shooting a man in the back was bad enough. Not being able to see the man’s face was even worse. He cringed at the thought that he might shoot this man, and that he might fall backwards off his propped elbow, face up on the bed.
And that he might see his brother-in-law Tommy’s face.
Still, Dave could plainly see the rifle propped up in the corner. And as he ran possible scenarios through his mind, he couldn’t think of a single one that would call for a hostage being entrusted with such a weapon.
He once again lined up his target and said a short prayer under his breath.
He fired, and his aim was true. The man instantly fell forward, face down into his pillow, and didn’t move.
A tiny hole suddenly appeared in the white sheet in the center of his back, and the sheet around the hole turned bright red, as an increasingly growing oval shaped stain absorbed the man’s blood.
Dave hesitated, but only for a couple of moments. And in that short time, the blood stain grew to the size of a dinner plate.
It was a mortal wound.
He returned to the trellis and made his way down again, knowing full well that he was more vulnerable at that moment than at any time since his campaign began. With both hands on the trellis and his gun in its holster, someone else could do to him what he’d done to the man in the bed.
But Dave’s luck was holding. Or perhaps God was watching out for him.
He made it safely to the ground and looked around. The rain was starting to let up now. He still couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him, but he heard no shots or shouting, saw no movements other than the torrents.
As far as he knew he still hadn’t been discovered.
And that, in his mind, gave him license to go further.
He cautiously worked his way to the other side of the house. To the back porch.
To take out his next target.
But there was no one there.
Had Dave arrived just a minute before, he’d have seen Tyrone Davis leaning nonchalantly against the wall, rifle three feet away from him, smoking a cigarette. Like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Actually, he did have a single care. He’d eaten something for supper that night that had his stomach churning. And he desperately needed to use the bathroom.
Davis had slipped inside the back door mere moments before Dave rounded the corner of the house and came within view of the back porch.
It turned out that Davis’ irritable bowels saved his life.
Dave was disappointed. His killing had come to an end for the night. He’d simply run out of targets.
He pondered his letdown for a moment. No, he hadn’t developed a taste for killing. He still didn’t enjoy it, although he was becoming somewhat of an expert at it.
But it was necessary for him to free his family and the other innocents. So whether he enjoyed it or hated it or something in between, it had to be done.
There was no covered porch on this side of the house. No trellis to climb up. He noticed that the lights were on in the windows upstairs, but he had no way of getting up there to investigate or search for new prey.
He didn’t know that his loving wife was less than twenty yards away from him, close to the window directly above his head.
Perhaps it was a good thing he wasn’t able to peer in that window.
Had he been able to, there was a very good chance he’d have seen things he wouldn’t have wanted to see.
And perhaps would have gotten a very wrong impression about what was going on in the house.
Had he been able to peer into the window, he’d have seen a naked Swain sitting on his bed, his back against the headboard.
He’d have seen Sarah, also completely naked, sitting on the edge of the bed talking to him as she fondled him.
He’d have looked around the room and seen no weapons, nothing to indicate that his wife was being coerced in any way or fashion.
And he very likely would have jumped to a very wrong conclusion.
Chapter 39
“Thank you for doing this, Sarah. It feels nice and I like it.”
“I have no choice. You told me to do it or watch you put a bullet into my nephew’s head.”
“Ah, but even then you had a choice. Not a pleasant one, granted. But not all choices in life are nice ones. And I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if you didn’t.”
“You promised me you would never force me to touch you.”
He laughed insidiously.
“That’s true, my love. I certainly did. But you see, that’s another thing about life. I’m surprised you haven’t learned it by now. Promises are worthless. By anyone, at any time. Politicians make promises to get elected. Then they forget all about them. Cheating spouses place their loins over the ones they promised to be faithful to. Even your own husband, the one you consider your hero, said he would come for you should you ever be separated. And he broke that promise.”
She wasn’t sure whether he suspected Dave was his attacker, and was baiting her. She held her tongue.
He went on.
“Sarah, I think when this is all over I’m going to adopt a much more aggressive stance with you.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Meaning I’ve waited far too long. I’ve loved you from the moment I laid eyes upon you. I treated you differently than the others. I treated you with kid gloves. I gave you benefits the others didn’t have. I let you share my personal time, my attention. I pampered you. And it was all in an effort to show you I was worth your love. Yet you’ve never let yourself love me in return. Why is that, Sarah?”
“Love isn’t something you can make yourself do. Either it happens or it doesn’t.”
“Well, that’s true enough, I suppose. But going through the motions is something else entirely.”
“I don’t understand, sir.”
“Old married couples stop loving people all the time, yet go through the motions of doing so. They pretend to, for comfort’s sake. Because staying together is easier than breaking up. In fact, it happens to people who aren’t so old as well.”
“Maybe. But they were in love to begin with, or they wouldn’t have gotten married.”
“That’s not necessarily true either. People who aren’t in love get married all the time, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps after a night of passion they find they aren’t right for each other after all, but she finds herself pregnant. Perhaps it is a marriage arranged by their families. Perhaps he pretends to love her for her body or she pretends to love him for his money. I suspect it happens a lot more often than you think.”
“What is your point, sir?”
“My point is that love doesn’t always come first, then marriage, then a baby carriage.
“Sometimes marriage comes first, then love, and then perhaps no carriage at all.”
Her blank face told him she still didn’t understand where he was coming from.
“What I’m saying, my dear, is that after we resolve this thing with whoever is out there attacking us, I think you’ll marry me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I know there’s got to be a preacher in Dugan. I’ll send a couple of the men there to fetch him and bring him here. He’ll pronounce us man and wife. That’ll make it official. Then we can have a honeymoon, just like other people. I can legally force you to do this and many other things, just like men all over the world force their wives to do each and every day. And I won’t feel bad about it because you’ll be my wife. And I won’t have to threaten to execute your nephew to make you comply.”
“What if I refuse to marry you?”
“Oh, I don’t think you will. You know what I’m capable of. I’ve been very patient with you, but my patience has come to an end. You will marry me, even if I have to have you dragged kicking and screaming to the altar.”
“That won’t make me love you.”
“Oh, I think it will. I think eventually you’ll give in to your inner feelings and decide I’m not so bad after all. Our being married will allow you the opportunity to do that.”
“I’m very tired, sir. I’d like to check on Lindsey before I turn in. May I go now?”
He hesitated, then realized his efforts to sway her had fallen on deaf ears.
“Yes, I suppose. Go. But this won’t be the end of this discussion, I assure you.”
Chapter 40
By the time he made it back to the fiberglass box and down into the mouth of the tunnel, Dave was getting dangerously close to hypothermia. His body was shaking almost uncontrollably and he was having trouble thinking clearly.
He had no dry clothes. He’d made several trips from his Explorer to the tunnel before the Explorer was stolen. But he’d focused on the important things… food and water and ammunition. It never dawned on him that he wouldn’t be able to go back to his vehicle whenever he wanted to change into clean clothing.
The tunnel would do nothing to warm him. It was damp and dank and extremely humid.
He took off his soaked clothing and laid each piece out on the concrete floor, knowing that gravity would force the water against the porous concrete and the concrete, in turn, would soak it up. The clothing would still be wet when he awoke the next morning, but not soaked, and his body would be better equipped to handle it.
He actually became warmer by taking the clothing off, but his plans weren’t to just walk around the tunnel buck naked for the rest of the night. When his body stopped dripping, he crawled into the sleeping bag and shivered until he started to warm.
While he warmed, he thought about the night’s activities, and his plans for the following day.
And he tried to devise a way to communicate with his wife and daughters. He still lacked the intelligence he needed to finish his operation. He knew they had it. But try as he might, he couldn’t figure out how to get to them to get it.
A little after five a.m., his mind finally overruled his body and he drifted off to sleep. He was now dry and warm and would sleep peacefully for several hours.
A little after six a.m., in the farmhouse a few hundred yards away, all hell would break loose.
After he’d forced Sarah to pleasure him, then asked why she didn’t love him, Swain actually fell asleep for several hours. That was unusual for him, for the dope in his body usually kept him awake for days at a time.
He came to with a start and was temporarily blinded by the room light. It seemed much brighter to his dilated pupils than it really was, and he had to squint while he regained his bearings.
His high was now gone, and he was rested a bit yet irritable.
When he recalled the previous day’s drama he became even more so.
Once his eyes adjusted to the light, he glanced over at the clock. It was ten after six. The sun would be rising any time, and he’d told Garcia he’d be relieving him so Garcia could get some sleep.
Swain didn’t want to get out of bed. After being up for four straight days his body had melted into the bed and had become one with it. Every one of his limbs weighed a ton. Lifting each one was a monumental task unto itself.
No, he didn’t want to get up. What he wanted to do was to call out for Sarah to get him another bump.
But he knew that Sarah, like Lindsey and most of the other hostages, was likely sound asleep in the large storage room in the basement, sleeping on cots and air mattresses that Karen and Tommy had stocked in the months leading up to Armageddon. It amazed Swain that they had seen the crisis coming. In any event, even if he’d mustered the strength to yell for Sarah, she wouldn’t have heard him. He was on his own.
But he couldn’t start his day without some help. So he stumbled out of bed and over to the dresser, and poured a gram of crystal meth onto the dresser’s top.
It was a mixture of chunks and powder. He took a disposable ink pen and used its top to crush the chunks into powder, then used a playing card to form it into a line.
He could snort it dry, the same way those who used cocaine as their drug of choice. But he hated snorting it dry because it burned like hell. And he was a self-admitted sissy in many ways despite being a former Army officer. That was the same reason he needed Sarah to inject him when he did his bumps. Because he couldn’t look away and wince when the needle went in if he was doing it himself.
When he hot-railed the meth it still burned, but not as much. And the rush was more powerful.
He opened a dresser drawer and took out a glass tube that could easily have been mistaken for a drinking straw, were it not for the soot on one end of it.
Adjacent to the tube was a disposable lighter, which he used to heat the dirty end of the tube until it glowed red. He put the cold end just inside his nostril and snorted the line.
The superheated end of the pipe turned the powder into gas instantly, and he exhaled a thick cloud of pure white smoke, then held onto the dresser with his free hand as the rush overtook him. Once the initial rush took over his brain, he placed his hands on his knees, so that the blood rushed to his head.
After a full minute he straightened up very quickly and experienced a secondary rush that was almost as powerful as the first. This one caused the room to spin and he almost fell over.
A few minutes later he was back in his zone, having fought off the initial pangs of withdrawal his body always felt several hours after his bump. Now he could cope. In his own drug-addled mind, he was capable of anything, and could conquer the world. He saw himself as superior to everyone else on earth.
He didn’t know, and wouldn’t have cared anyway, that the rest of the world saw him as a pitiful junkie, incapable of con
quering anything.
He checked the clock again. It was past six thirty now. He couldn’t tell it by looking out the window, because the room light was still on, but he knew the sun was up and Garcia would be getting antsy. He wouldn’t say anything to Swain, of course. Garcia was afraid of his leader. But he’d bitch to the other men that Swain was late in relieving him. And such bitching fomented discontent, which was the first step towards mutiny. And mutiny went hand in hand with anarchy. Neither could be tolerated.
He dressed and walked down the stairs, opened the door to the insurance room and walked in. Garcia was sitting on a chair in the center of the room, his feet propped up on the foot of the bed, trying his best to keep from dozing off.
Eight year old Tony, Karen’s son and Sarah’s nephew, had already lost his own battle and was sleeping peacefully in the center of the bed.
“Anything happen last night?” Swain asked Garcia. “Any noises outside?”
“No, sir. Nothing.”
“Very well. Give me ten minutes to check on the other guys and I’ll come back and relieve you so you can get some sleep.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Swain went to the kitchen to find Jessika talking to Lindsey and pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“Good morning, sir. Ready for coffee?”
“No, I’ll take this one.”
He took the still steaming cup from Lindsey’s hands and sipped it.
“But she’ll have another one.”
His paranoia was acting up again. When he was having a paranoid episode, he was convinced that everyone, his soldiers and hostages alike, were all plotting his demise. He refused to eat or drink anything unless someone else had eaten or drank from it first, and even toyed with the idea of having one of the hostages becoming his official taste tester.
“Fix me some pancakes and eggs. I’m hungry.”
“I’m sorry, sir. We haven’t been able to go to the barn to milk Daisy, or to go to the coop to gather eggs yet. No one has come to escort us.”
It was one of Swain’s own rules. No hostage was allowed outside for any reason without an armed guard.
The Battle: Alone: Book 4 Page 16