by Sam Sisavath
The truck behind him…
That was truck, as in singular. The second one had left ten minutes ago, not that Gaby ever believed for one second it was going to actually leave the area. It had done precisely what she thought it would—drove down the highway, then circled back, leaving the road behind until it could approach the barn from an angle where she couldn’t pick them off from the loft.
There were, at the moment, already men surrounding the barn. Men that had previously been piled into the second truck. She had no idea where they were, exactly, but they were down there. For all she knew, they were getting ready to shoot their way into the building, and there would be very little she and Keo could do to stop them.
Any minute now…
Gaby adjusted her position behind the open loft doors, peering out at the man walking toward them. She couldn’t see well enough from her (still too) limited angle to find a target among the Buckies hidden behind the truck on the highway. The machine gunner was an easy shot even at one hundred meters, despite the fact the man was slightly crouched to limit his visibility.
Not nearly low enough, my friend.
But she didn’t squeeze the trigger because right now no one was shooting, and once bullets started flying, she wasn’t sure if she and Keo could survive an onslaught from one of those MGs, never mind both of them at once. The barn’s second floor was already perforated so much it wouldn’t have taken very much more to reduce the front side of the building into kindling. The newcomers hadn’t opened fire yet, so she hadn’t, either.
They want me alive…unless I give them an excuse.
It was obvious now that Buck had given the men clear orders: Take her alive, unless they couldn’t. That was why they had tried to take her out with the leg shot earlier, then later firing at her position in the loft only when she started picking them off with her rifle. That would explain why the ones below them, along with the MIA second technical (Where the hell did that thing go?), hadn’t knocked on their front doors yet.
Any minute now…
So she held her shot and watched the flag waver pass a second still body on the ground. He was still moving the flag back and forth over his head, but it was waving a little slower now, probably because his arm was getting tired.
Keo crouched behind her, occasionally moving around the trapdoor to get a better look at what was down there. Like her, he was waiting for the inevitable—for the assault on the barn that they both knew were coming, and the fact that it hadn’t was making him more than a little jumpy.
Any minute now…
“What’s he doing?” Keo asked.
“He’s still just walking toward us.”
“What about the others?”
“You mean the ones I can see?”
“Uh huh.”
“Still playing hide-and-seek.”
“Can you get a shot?”
“Yeah. The machine gunner.”
“So why haven’t you taken it?”
“Because they might start shooting back. Right now they’re trying to take me alive…unless we give them a reason not to.”
“Good point. Don’t shoot yet, then.”
“Anything over there?”
“Not a peep,” Keo said, just before he moved around the opening to get a better look at another part of the first floor. “They know they have us cornered like fish in a barrel. We’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”
She didn’t reply, because Keo was right. The Buckies had them exactly where they wanted them, and they weren’t going anywhere.
Any minute now…
Ponytail had gotten close enough to the barn that Gaby could see the whites of his eyes as he exchanged a glance with someone (or someones) somewhere below her, beyond her limited angle. The man continued forward before finally stopping about ten meters in front of her.
“Hello there!” the man called.
Gaby kept quiet. What were the chances he was just trying to gauge her location so one of the snipers behind the technical could get a bead on her? Buck might have given them orders, but Buck wasn’t here…
No. If they wanted to kill us, we’d both be dead by now.
“What do you want?” Gaby called back even as she rested her AR’s red dot on the man’s forehead. All it would take was a simple squeeze of her forefinger, and another life would end…
“Got something for you,” Ponytail said.
“What’s that?”
“Radio.”
I could definitely use a radio, Gaby thought, remembering the one she’d dropped earlier when she was fleeing the snipers.
“Someone wants to talk to you,” Ponytail said.
“Who?” Gaby called over.
“I’ll need to get closer to toss you the radio,” the man said, ignoring her question.
She glanced over at Keo, still perched next to the trapdoor with his submachine gun pointed down the hole. He shrugged back at her.
Gaby returned her focus to Ponytail. “Do it.”
“Don’t shoot,” the man said, and came closer.
She watched him the entire time, a part of her expecting the man to pull out a grenade and toss it through the open loft doors when he was within striking distance. Instead, he put down the stick with the white flag and unclipped a radio from his hip, then, gauging the distance, tossed it in a nice high arc—
Gaby instinctively reached up and snatched the portable two-way out of the air. She grimaced as she settled back down, the brief spurt of activity sending a sharp jolt of pain through her right leg.
“Nice grab,” Ponytail shouted, before turning and walking back across the yard. He broke off into a jog about five seconds later and didn’t stop until he was behind the cover of the lone technical on the road once again.
Gaby checked the radio. There was duct tape on the bottom with the words, “Let’s talk” written on it in black permanent marker.
“What is it?” Keo asked behind her.
“They want to talk,” Gaby said. She pressed the transmit lever and said into the radio, “So talk.”
“Nice to hear your voice, too,” a man said through the radio.
Redman.
She was a little surprised to hear his voice and not Buck’s. Then again, why did she think Buck himself would be chasing her all the way out here? He was in charge of everything (along with this Copenhagen guy, whoever that was), and it made perfect sense he would send an underling like Redman instead of doing the dirty work himself.
“Redman,” Gaby said.
The redhead chuckled through the radio. “You were expecting someone else, Jodie? Or is it Maggie? Which one is it?”
“Whichever one you prefer.”
“I’d like to know what to call you. I think it’s only fair since you know my name.”
“You mean your made-up name?”
“It may be made up, but it’s what I go by. Officially. There’s a difference.”
“Maggie is my real name.”
“Really,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“Take it or leave it.”
“I guess I have no choice but to take it.”
“What do you want?”
“First, statements of fact. I have you surrounded. The second technical’s parked behind the barn, in case you were wondering. And that’s not counting the men I already have watching the front doors and back window.”
Gaby glanced over at Keo. He could hear the radio just fine from his position, and she watched him get up and move across the loft over to the back. He peered out through a small hole in the wall before looking back at her and nodded.
“It’s back there, all right,” Keo said. “Fifty meters, give or take. A couple of heads moving around down there, too.”
“How many?”
“Can’t tell for sure. Not from up here. See what else you can squeeze out of Mr. Chatty Cathy there.”
She nodded and keyed the radio. “Sounds like you have us right where you want us, Redman. Congratulations.
”
“Your fault for sticking around when you should have turned tail and run for Black Tide,” Redman said. “Of course, if you’d tried to leave yesterday, my guys would have shot you anyway. They’ve been watching you since last night.”
So I was right. They were out there this entire time.
Gaby wasn’t sure if that confirmation made her feel better or worse.
Oh, who are you kidding. Nothing’s going to make any of this feel better.
“The point I’m trying to make here, Maggie,” Redman was saying through the radio, “is that you’re not going anywhere. You or your friend. Keo, isn’t it? What kind of name is that, anyway?”
Keo grunted behind her.
“He says Peter was taken,” Gaby said into the radio.
“Psst,” Keo said behind her.
When she glanced back, Keo was on the ladder in the trapdoor. He put a finger to his lips, then disappeared down the hole.
“He’s a walking dead man, is what he is,” Redman was saying. “No two ways about it. Buck’s given me the all-clear to take him out the first chance I get.”
“I was hoping to see Buck out here himself,” Gaby said.
“Buck’s a busy man. But he’s not too busy to talk to you again.”
I bet, she thought, but said, “What does he want with me?”
“What do you think? He’s got a lot of questions for you. Questions he’d really like answered. That’s the only reason I haven’t let these boys blast that little shack of yours into piles of fireplace wood by now. Consider yourself lucky you still have some value despite everything you’ve done.”
Everything I’ve done? You started this, asshole.
But Gaby didn’t waste her breath correcting him, and instead looked out the open loft doors at the technical.
He was there, somewhere.
Where are you? Show yourself so I can pop you like the zit you are.
She wasn’t surprised she couldn’t locate Redman. He would be an idiot to expose himself unnecessarily. A hundred meters wasn’t child’s play, but Gaby had hit targets at longer range with just iron sights before. There were, after all, a lot of advantages to being stuck on an island with a shooter like Danny.
“Cat got your tongue, Maggie?” Redman said through the radio. “Why so quiet all of a sudden?”
“It’s been a shit conversation, Redman. So what is it that you want from me, exactly?”
“You know what we want.”
“Why don’t you say it anyway, just so there’s no misunderstanding.”
“Was it a misunderstanding when you drove a knife into the back of poor Bruce’s head?”
Bruce’s name brought back memories of that night. The greasy feel of his hair against her fingers, her uncertainty if she could penetrate his skull with his own switchblade, then the horrifying feeling as the blade actually punched its way through…
It was him or you. Get over it.
She keyed the radio. “You’re wasting my time.”
Redman laughed. “You got somewhere else to be?”
“What do you want?”
“You. And only you. That specific enough for you, Maggie?”
Gaby looked back at the trapdoor, but Keo hadn’t returned. She wondered if he had heard that last statement from Redman. The radio’s volume was tuned up high enough…
“What if I say no?” she asked.
“That would be bad for you, Maggie. I already informed Buck what this little standoff of ours has cost him in terms of manpower, and he’s told me he isn’t willing to lose any more. If you won’t be taken alive, he’s given me the okay to bring you back in a body bag. It’s your choice.”
“It’s not much of a choice.”
“Sure it is. You can come back to Fenton with us alive, or stay here, dead. Pretty easy decision, from where I’m standing.”
From where you’re cowering is more like it, Gaby thought, and squinted at the white truck again.
She could just barely make out the tops of a couple of heads through the vehicle’s open front windows, but neither one was red. There were two just-barely visible faces peering over the front hood, but again, no red hair among them.
She thought about taking out the machine gunner again. He had exposed himself a little bit more, but what difference would that make? Another man could just take his place. Worse, it would be the signal they had been waiting for.
“I already informed Buck what this little standoff of ours has costed him in terms of manpower, and he’s told me he isn’t willing to lose any more.”
Gaby shivered at the thought of having to brave those MGs.
Noises from behind her, just before Keo poked his head through the trapdoor. “They’re doing something with the front doors. Maybe getting ready to breach.”
“How many are we dealing with?” Gaby asked.
He shook his head. “Don’t know. I guess it depends on how many they could pack into that technical earlier. Six or ten would be my guess.”
Six or ten men, somewhere outside the barn right now getting ready to storm inside. And what would happen when they did? She and Keo could maybe slow them down, but then what? If Buck’s men wanted to enter the building, they were going to enter the building.
And fighting back meant certain death, for both of them.
But the alternative wasn’t very appetizing, either.
“I already informed Buck what this little standoff of ours has cost him in terms of manpower, and he’s told me he isn’t willing to lose any more.”
It wasn’t much of a choice at all, but it was a choice.
“Gaby.” Keo’s voice, bringing her back to earth. She glanced over and found him staring intently at her. Had she drifted off as she mulled Redman’s ultimatum? “What’s on your mind, kid?”
“We don’t have a choice, Keo. If we fight, they’ll kill us. All it takes is one of those MGs out there to do it. They don’t even have to give us a chance to shoot back.”
Keo didn’t reply—and he didn’t argue, either.
“Buck wants information on Black Tide,” she continued. “That means questioning me. But you…”
Keo smirked. “I know. I’ve been a pain in their side since they took out Winding Creek. In my defense, they started it.”
Same here, brother, she thought with a smile, before asking, “Still no signs of your horse?”
“Nada. But he’s not a dummy. My guess is, I’m not going to see him again while that small army is out there. Especially the truck with the machine gun. I don’t think he likes trucks with machine guns very much.”
She forced a smile but knew it came out badly. “You know they’re not just going to let you walk out of here, right? Even if I give myself up?”
Keo nodded. “I know.”
“So what are we gonna do? What’s our backup plan?”
“Backup plan? I didn’t even know we had an original plan.”
She smiled again, and this time it came out better. “I have plenty of bullets.”
“So do I.”
“How much punishment do you think this barn can take?”
He chuckled. “I don’t know, but I guess we’re going to find out.”
“Let’s take bets—” she started to say, when the sound of car engines revving to life drew her eyes back out the loft doors.
The Buckies were scrambling away from the white truck as its engines roared. At first she thought they were fleeing it, but no, they were just spreading out along the asphalt to give it space.
What the hell?
“Already?” Keo asked behind her.
“I don’t think so,” Gaby said.
Gaby got into a better position to see what was happening outside.
She thought one of the Buckies on foot might have had red hair, but the morning sunlight was too bright, and she couldn’t be sure. Some of the Buckies were running toward nearby trees for cover, while the man in the back of the technical swiveled the machine gun around to point it
down the road.
No, not down the road, but up into the air.
The same harsh sunlight that had kept her from being certain if one of the Buckies had red hair or not was glinting off the dull gray exterior of an object in the sky.
She heard the roar of its jet engines a few seconds later.
It was a Warthog.
Twenty-Two
The Warthog was officially the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, a single-seat fixed-wing aircraft first put into service in the late ’70s. But Gaby had never met anyone, even the guys who trained on it, call it anything but “The Warthog.” And when they were really lazy, it was simply “The Hog.”
The aircraft she was looking at now was gray from nose to tail—a single dull color that made it look almost mundane when viewed from below. Missiles hung from its wings, and the sun danced off the 30mm GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannon that jutted out of the front of its nose. Originally designed as a close air support weapon, the Warthogs had one main purpose: kill enemy armor on the ground—and any poor schlub that happened to get in its way.
And she was damned glad it was on her side.
Or she was assuming it was, anyway. In the five years since The Battle of Houston, Gaby had yet to meet another group in Texas, or any of the surrounding states for that matter, that had the A-10s in their arsenal. It wasn’t really a matter of finding such an aircraft—if you had the time and inclination, you could take just about any war machine of your dreams from the Army and Air Force bases sitting unguarded out there. But finding someone who could fly them was the real trick.
She wasn’t the only one who recognized the Warthog. The Buckies did, too, judging by the way they were scrambling around on the road and pointing at it. She thought she could see a figure (Did he have red hair?) shouting into a radio while simultaneously retreating onto the shoulder of the road.