by Sam Sisavath
She hated thinking about the phrases Will used to say, because it always reminded her of how much she missed him. The last five years would have been so different, in so many ways, if he were still around. Even more different for Danny and Lara. Gaby missed him. They all did, even those who only knew him for a short time. Will was that kind of man.
“Hurry up and wait,” she said quietly to herself.
“Did you say something?” Keo asked behind her.
She glanced over as he poked his head through the trapdoor. “Just making an observation.”
“Good or bad?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Keo climbed up and walked over to where she stood before staring up at the graying skyline. “Still nothing?”
She shook her head and looked over at the radio on the floor nearby. “Not yet.”
“They could have run into trouble.”
“Probably did.”
He checked his watch. “The exfil bird has to be on its way by now.”
“They’ve been in the air for the last thirty minutes and are due at the rendezvous point in an hour.”
“What happens if Peters and friends don’t show up by then?”
“Should I tell Danny to recall the chopper?”
Keo thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. “Give them thirty more minutes. You can still make the LZ if they get here by then.”
“Unless they bring trouble with them.”
“Yeah, unless that.”
“Even if they don’t, we’ll be cutting it close,” Gaby said.
“Definitely close,” Keo nodded.
Twenty-Five
“What happened?”
“We ran into trouble on the way over here. Lost our long-range radio at the same time. I’m using our emergency two-way for this.”
That explains a lot, Gaby thought, before answering. “Where are you now?”
“North edge of town. Axton Fire Department.”
“There’s a fire department?”
“Not much of one. A couple of buildings and what looks like a very, very old shack.”
Gaby peered over the bell tower wall and looked north, but despite her high vantage point, all she could see were the old rooftops of homes. Any one of them could have been the fire department Peters and his team were currently hiding behind.
“I don’t see anything,” she said into the mic.
“I can see you just fine through my binoculars,” Peters said. “Wait for it…”
“For what?” she was going to ask, when she caught the beam of a flashlight in the distance.
It blinked once, twice, three times, then disappeared.
“I see you,” Gaby said. “Can you make it to us?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Peters said. “Are we clear?”
“I’ll let you know. Give me a sec.”
Gaby spent the next minute scanning the town, then the grounds between it and the highway, before turning a full 360 degrees and making sure she had covered all of Axton. After watching so many Buckies moving around out there all day, she wanted to be absolutely sure.
She keyed the radio. “Start making your way to us. I’ll send Keo to meet you, and I’ll keep an eye out from up here.”
“Will do,” Peters said.
Gaby put the mic down and leaned over the trapdoor. “They’re on their way now, coming from the north.”
Keo was waiting below her. “Did you remind them not to shoot me?”
“I might have mentioned that.”
“You should be sure. I’m very allergic to bullets.”
“I’m sure I did.” She grinned. “Pretty sure.”
He smirked before unslinging his MP5SD and disappearing out of view. She heard the front doors opening, then closing back up.
Gaby picked up the AR with the red dot scope and returned to her position at the wall.
There—movement. Two, three—four figures stepping out into the open from a lone building on the outskirts of town. Four? Hadn’t Danny told her there were five on the recon team? Or were there five and she could only spot four?
Below her, a lone form darted from the side of the church and raced across a yard, staying out of the open as much as possible. Keo, zig-zagging his way toward Peters’s group as they moved steadily, house by house, in his direction.
She checked their surroundings again. Dark clouds above them and gray emptiness below. Night was already encroaching, and it would be thirty minutes—maybe less—before all of Axton was under the cover of darkness.
“They could be dead, or hurt, or just lost their equipment,” Danny had said to her earlier. She had called him after failing to ring up Peters’s team on the radio. Black Tide hadn’t heard from them, either, not since their last situation report three hours ago. “A lot of reasons why they went dark. But the chopper’s still on its way, regardless. It should reach you in an hour.”
“What if Peters’s team isn’t here by then?” she had asked.
“Then it’ll just be you.”
“We can’t just leave them behind, Danny. Not if they’re hurt.”
“They could be dead already. We don’t know anything. That’s the problem.”
“If they’re alive, but hurt, they’ll need my help when they finally reach Axton. You were the one who told me never to leave a comrade behind.”
Danny had sighed. “Is Keo still with you?”
“Yeah. He won’t leave until I’m on a chopper.”
“Good for him. I always knew Keystone Cop was a good guy.” Danny had paused for a moment. “It’s your call, kid. After what they did to Lightning Two and what Mayfield did to them this morning, we might just get one shot at this. Hate to say it, because it makes me sound like a wuss, but I’m antsy about sending too many birds into that area until we know for sure what kind of firepower they’ve gotten their dirty little hands on. Bottom line: It’s your skin, so it’s your call.”
Gaby hadn’t thought about it for very long before answering. “Recall the chopper, Danny. If Peters isn’t here by morning, you can send it back for me. Until then, I’m staying in Axton, just in case.”
“Just in case,” Danny had said. “First light tomorrow, kid. Be ready.”
“We’ll be ready,” she had answered, while thinking, I hope.
She followed Keo’s progress now. He was already halfway across town, and almost exactly ten seconds later, finally linked up with Peters’s group. If she squinted hard enough, she thought she could make out Keo and Peters shaking hands, then chatting briefly before starting to move back toward the church. As they did so, she counted the bodies, and came up with five—including Keo.
As they got closer, she could make out two of Peters’s team carrying a third wounded member between them. And her count was right both times—Peters had reached Axton with four people, not the five that had originally landed in the field behind her this morning.
Gaby tracked the men as they wound their way around houses and yards toward her. When the group finally reached the side of the church and she lost sight of them, Gaby hurried to the trapdoor and climbed down.
They were coming into the church as Gaby stepped off the last rung, grimacing slightly at the fresh stab of pain along her right leg. It wasn’t anything that would stop her dead in her tracks, but it was a friendly reminder that she wasn’t 100 percent. Peters’s group would have noticed how slowly she walked over to them if they weren’t too busy making sure the wounded man was being properly laid out on a pew.
She recognized Carter. Late twenties, with a crew cut like everyone on Peters’s team. Carter had bandages around his right leg and waist, and judging by the way he was blinking, barely able to keep his eyelids open, she guessed he wasn’t going to be much help if they ran into trouble before morning.
Peters walked over to Gaby and smiled before shaking her hand. He still had on that faded Astros cap that was a Peters trademark. “Hey, kid.”
“Hey, Peters.” She looke
d over at Carter as another man, Donald, checked on his vitals. “What happened?”
The team leader shook his head. “Got ambushed by the bad guys on our way down here. Lost Paul and almost lost Carter there, too.” He wiped at sweat dripping down his forehead from underneath the brim of his cap. His face, like his men’s, was tired and black and dirty. “What’s the word on the chopper?”
“They’ll be back for us first light tomorrow. Same rendezvous point.”
Peters nodded. “Makes sense after what happened to Lightning Two. Fenton’s carrying around some serious firepower.”
What else did you find out about Fenton? What about what they’re doing to the women and children? she wanted badly to ask, but Gaby said instead, “Your radio?”
Peters unclipped the two-way portable. “Just this. Lost the long-range one in the woods during the firefight. Sorry. I know you were looking forward to leaving this place today. Us, too.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m glad you’re all right. Well, mostly all right.”
“Mostly,” Peters nodded. He took off his cap and ran his fingers through his short dark hair before glancing around at his surroundings. Even in the low lights of the church interior, Gaby could see the streaks of gray along his temples. “Are we staying here for the night?”
“Unless you found some place better on your way over?”
“That’s a negative.” He looked over at one of his men, peering through a slit in the two-by-fours covering a nearby window. “Bart, you get the tower.”
Bart walked over. Like the other remaining members of Peters’s team, he was younger than their leader by a good decade. Bart was also Keo’s height and just as lanky, with sandy blond hair underneath a khaki cap. Peters tossed the man his bolt-action rifle with the large scope, and Bart gave Peters his M4 rifle in return before climbing up the ladder to take over Gaby’s spot underneath the steeple.
The fourth and final member of Peters’s team was the biggest by a good mile. Jolly filled out his black thermal sweater and cargo pants, and the M4 with the grenade launcher attachment looked like a child’s toy in his gloved hands. He carried a large pack of supplies as if it weighed nothing.
The big man looked over at her and Peters. “Getting dark out there, boss.”
“Good. That’ll keep the bad guys indoors, too,” Peters said. “You got the front doors all night, Jolly. Shoot anything that comes through. Donald will stay with Carter.” Then, glancing over at Donald, “How’s he doing?”
Donald was sitting next to Carter. “Vitals are regular, but he’s not going to be any help if we run into trouble tonight.”
“So let’s hope that doesn’t happen.” Peters turned to Keo, who was looking out the barricaded window across the doors from Jolly. “You see anything we should be worried about out there?”
“Not a thing,” Keo said.
“That’s good.”
“Is it?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
Keo shrugged but didn’t answer.
Peters exchanged a questioning look with Gaby, who shook her head uncertainly before saying to Keo, “What are you thinking?”
Keo didn’t answer right away.
“Keo,” Gaby pressed. “What is it?”
“Where are they?” Keo said.
“Who?” Peters asked.
“Buckies. They should have tracked you from that firefight you got into. You were moving slow after that, thanks to Carter. They have a lot of people out there; they would know you haven’t extricated from the area. No vehicles, no choppers swooping in for the rescue.” He looked over at Gaby. “Good call on the chopper, by the way. I don’t think it would have made it to us if it’d stuck to the plan.”
Gaby nodded, even as her last images of Lightning Two flashed across her mind’s eye. Danny’s words, too, echoed in her head:
“After what they did to Lightning Two and what Mayfield did to them this morning, we might just get one shot at this. Hate to say it, because it makes me sound like a wuss, but I’m antsy about sending too many birds into that area until we know for sure what kind of firepower they’ve gotten their dirty little hands on...”
“So why didn’t they follow you to Axton?” Keo was saying.
“Axton isn’t the only town out here,” Peters said. “Far from it.”
“True, but it couldn’t have been that difficult to track you, after the firefight.”
“He’s got a point,” Gaby said. “Why didn’t they keep pursuing you? I’ve been seeing their vehicles out there all day. And they have people on horseback. They seem to have plenty of manpower to spare.”
Peters seemed to think about it for a moment before exchanging a quick look with Jolly. The big man shrugged, as if to say, Might as well tell her.
“What?” Gaby said.
“They backed off after the firefight in the woods,” Peters said. “It made sense at the time—they clipped Paul and nearly got Carter, but I’m pretty sure we wasted three of them right back. But…”
“But what?”
“Like Keo said, it would have been easy to track us to Axton. We didn’t really take a lot of precautions on the way here. We couldn’t afford to. We were hauling ass, trying to make the chopper, until we realized it wasn’t going to happen. By then, we were already a mile or two out of Axton.”
“So where are they?” Gaby said.
“Yeah,” Peters nodded, his face—despite standing very close to her—becoming slightly lost in the darkening interior of the church. “Where are they?”
Gaby looked over at Keo, who was eyeing the street outside. “Keo…”
He glanced over.
“Maybe we should look for another base of operations,” Gaby said.
Keo shook his head. “The church’s well-fortified and the tower gives us an excellent view of our surroundings. We’ll see them coming long before they see us. I don’t think we’re going to find a better location than this one.”
“What about one of the ranches in the area?”
“Too much land between here and there. Too risky to move now.” He paused for a moment before shaking his head again. “No. Whether they come or not, this is our best option by far.”
Gaby turned back to Peters. “How are you for ammo?”
“Even after that firefight in the woods, we still have enough to hold off a small army,” Peters said.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, Gaby thought but said, “Let’s get ready for nightfall.”
Night fell over Axton, and there were no signs of pursuit from Fenton. There were no signs of anything outside, in fact, and Gaby wondered if they had all been wrong (including Peters himself) about the recon team leaving behind obvious tracks as they rushed to make the exfil point.
Because if they could trail Peters’s group, wouldn’t they be here by now?
So where are they?
The flat landscape around the town was as empty as it had been for the last few hours, and even the highway had vanished underneath the same unforgiving darkness that had swallowed up Axton.
Around nine, and to keep herself busy, Gaby relieved Bart in the tower. The man handed her Peters’s bolt-action and climbed back down, yawning as he went. Gaby settled behind the same section of wall she’d been guarding for most of the day and looked through the rifle’s night-vision scope.
There was something soothing about being able to see the world even under the cover of darkness. The fact that everything was rendered in an unnatural green hue had ceased to feel surreal to her; it was, actually, oddly comforting. The scope had 6x magnification, which allowed her to see the highway for miles in both directions. Not that she’d need it if vehicles appeared, because only an idiot with a death wish would be traveling at night without headlights on. Very, very bright headlights in a world where artificial light was a rarity.
She had left the trapdoor open behind her and could hear snoring from below. That would be Carter and Donald, because everyone else wasn’t goin
g to get a whole lot of sleep tonight. At least she wasn’t, and Gaby was convinced neither was Keo or Peters. She wasn’t so sure about Jolly, though, and Bart was already yawning as soon as she relieved him.
So where are they?
Maybe they were out there right now, hiding in one of the many dark buildings around her. Maybe they were waiting for the perfect moment to strike. If they were smart, they would hold off any attacks until morning. After all, there were worse things out there right now other than men with guns. For her and everyone in the church, and for Fenton’s killers.
She moved the rifle around, but there was still nothing out there. No figures in black assault vests with circled M’s, or vehicles, or men on horseback. She expected something to show up as soon as night blanketed the town, even if she didn’t know what that “something” would be.
But something.
Except there was nothing.
Just…a whole lot of nothing.
Movement!
Gaby slid behind one of the four columns that held the steeple above her head and leaned out slowly—slowly—before glancing down.
She was right: something was moving down there, very close to the front doors of the church.
Gaby gripped the bolt-action rifle in her hands. It was a lot heavier than her AR, not to mention slower when it came to sending rounds downrange. If not for the night vision scope on top of it, she would have ditched it for her rifle a long time ago—
A whinnying noise, coming from whatever was moving down there in the darkness, and Gaby thought, I know that sound.
She risked leaning against the wall and looking down, exposing herself to—
Horse.
Keo’s horse, named Horse.
The thoroughbred stood in front of the church doors looking up, big brown eyes staring back at her through the darkness.
Gaby shook her head and thought, Ninja horse is right, because she hadn’t heard it moving around down there at all. How’d it get so close to the building without her hearing it, or anyone inside the church seeing it? In fact, she was pretty certain she only heard its whinny because it had wanted her to, in order to get her attention.