“They dragged all of their dead over and threw them into the trash pit. They’re burning them all now.”
“Nice guy.”
“Definitely not somebody I want to hang out with.”
“So, what’s on the agenda today?”
“More of the same. I want to build that wall of sandbags a bit higher. Then I want to fill that bay with whatever we can find that’s heavy. They’ve already shown an affinity for crashing vehicles into things. I’m not so much worried about bullets coming through the door. The plywood and sandbags will stop those. I’m more worried about them crashing a truck through the door. Going at a high rate of speed, a truck would smash right though there. The more stuff we have in its way, the faster we can stop it.”
“Do you really think they’d attack us over here?”
“Probably not. For one, I don’t think they even know the mine is here. And if they did, I don’t know if they’d associate it with our hiding place. I’m hoping they think we’re all still in the woods trying to regroup.
“But… we can’t get in that guy’s head and don’t know what he’s thinking. So we have to plan for every possibility.”
“So, we fortify the main entry today. Anything else?”
“Yes. Two things. We need to build a bunker at the mouth of the tunnel. More sandbags and plywood. With firing ports so we can shoot anybody coming out of the tunnel if we have to.
“And we need to inventory our ammunition and load as much as we can into magazines. Then we need to distribute the mags to the shooters. If it gets ugly fast, we don’t want to be having to look around for ammunition. We want it to be with the people who are going to need it. And I’d like for you to be carrying Bryan’s AR-15 for the time being. Since he’s on crutches right now, he’s not much good to us in a firefight.”
“I’ve been saying he’s not much good ever since he was a little kid.”
Debbie walked up.
“Good morning, you guys.”
Hannah said, “Good morning, Deb. I was going to walk over and check on Sami. How’s she doing this morning?”
“Oh, she’ll be okay. She’s hurting a bit. That outdated morphine is too weak to take away all the pain. It helps, but isn’t as good as newer stuff would be. And the nerves that went numb on her yesterday are starting to wake up now. That’s not helping her. Mostly she’s mad at me and David, though.”
“Why?”
“We told her we want to keep her in the clinic for forty eight more hours.”
“I thought she was going to be okay.”
“She is. She will be. But we need to be extra cautious. She lost a lot of blood. It takes time for the body to make more. In the meantime she has to be careful not to exert herself. The last thing we want is for her to get dizzy or lose her balance. She could fall on that shoulder and tear her sutures and start bleeding again.”
“She’s a reasonable girl. She didn’t understand all of that?”
“Oh, she understood it. She just didn’t like it. Yes, she’s reasonable. But she’s also stubborn. She knows there’s a lot going on out here and she feels bad that she’s not able to contribute.”
“Oh, that’s not a problem. I’ll tell her I’ll lie in the hospital bed and she can fill sand bags in my place.”
“Very funny. I did make one concession. I told her that if her blood pressure looks better tomorrow I’ll talk to John about letting her man the security desk. That’ll free someone else up, and she’ll be playing an important role.”
“Well, I’ll go see if I can cheer her up.”
“Thank you, Hannah.”
“Hey, it’s what best friends do. Have you seen Sarah?”
“Sarah’s over there with her now. They’re playing cards, and Sarah’s letting her win to brighten her spirits.”
“Is that what Sarah told you?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Sarah never lets anybody win. She just sucks at cards.”
Chapter 48
Three more days passed without incident, and both camps had settled into something of an uncomfortable routine. In the compound, it finally dawned on Alvarez that the compound and everything in it was of little value to him if they let everything die.
So he appointed one man to do nothing but water the plants in the greenhouse, water the wheat and corn crops in the fields, and keep the chickens and livestock fed.
It was a full time job for one man, and he quickly became the hardest working man in the compound.
And the most scared.
“If you let any of my cows die, or any of my chickens, you die along with them. And you’d better take good care of those strawberry plants also. Same goes for them.
“As for those stinkin’ pigs, I don’t care if they live or die. If you have to kill something, kill them.”
Hawkins, who took on the name “Farmer” from that point on, wasn’t sure if Alvarez was kidding or not about taking his life. But he sure wasn’t taking any chances. He not only made a valiant effort to keep everything from dying. He also picked Alvarez a bowl of fresh strawberries each morning.
He felt he was paying homage to a king. But he’d never complain about it.
In the mine, John, Bryan and Mark were formulating plans to take back the compound. They had the details pretty much worked out, and were mainly waiting for two things.
First, they wanted to wait until they were back at full strength. Specifically, they needed to wait until Bryan was off his crutches and able to move around. He was one of the group’s better shots, but he needed to be mobile. And Sami, although she wasn’t a designated shooter, was also an integral part of the team. She helped in a lot of other ways, and was at a disadvantage until she was able to move quickly and keep up with everyone else.
The group of three was sitting at a table in the dining room, discussing how disgusting their MREs were.
John changed the subject and asked David at the next table, “When will Sami be able to run again?”
“Well, she could run now if she had to. But that wouldn’t make it a good idea. It’s not the running that worries me. If she hit the ground again for any reason, and impacted that injured shoulder, she could rip the sutures I put in that vein and start it bleeding again. She needs another week.”
John looked at Bryan.
“And you? Will you be ready to go by then?”
“Yes. I’m able to put a little bit of weight on it now. In a week I’ll be running marathons again.”
“Well, I was hoping to go before then, but maybe it’s better we give them some time to get complacent. To think maybe we’re not coming back. That’ll put the element of surprise on our side.”
Mark agreed, but for another reason.
“It’s easy to see from watching the monitors that there’s a lot of tension over there, with the big guy ordering everybody around. Maybe waiting a few extra days will give them a chance to start shooting each other, and make it easier on us when we do go.”
John got a call on the radio. It was Karen, on the security desk.
“Hey, John?”
“Go ahead, Karen.”
“John, you might want to come back to the desk. We might have a problem.”
John sprinted back, Mark right behind him. Bryan hobbled far behind them, but would get there eventually.
“What’s up, Karen?”
She pointed to monitor 7.
A tractor trailer rig had stopped on Highway 83, blocking the road to the mine.
“Do you think the trailer’s full of men? Are they going to attack us?”
“I don’t know. It may just be a breakdown. Maybe somebody was gathering supplies and something happened to the truck.”
Mark added, “It would be a stupid place to start an attack. They’re two hundred yards away from us. Anybody who gets out of the trailer and heads this way is out in the open. I agree with John. I think it’s just a breakdown.”
They continued to watch the monitor for half an hour. They wa
tched as two men exited the cab and lifted the hood on the tractor, then appeared to be working on the engine.
Finally, one man climbed back inside the tractor and they saw black smoke coming from its exhaust pipes. The other man lowered the hood back into position and locked it into place. Then he got in the passenger side of the tractor and the rig pulled away.
As it disappeared from view, Karen said, “I’m sorry to call you all over here on a wild goose chase.”
“Don’t be silly,” John answered. “You did exactly what you’re supposed to do. You saw something that you thought might be a threat, so you checked it out. Don’t you dare change a thing. You feel free to call me any time you see something suspicious.”
“I’m just on edge, John. We’ve been through a lot these past few days. And we all know that there’s more ugliness and pain coming at some point. We just don’t know when, and that’s really been getting to me.”
“I know, dear. We’re all on edge. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and certainly nothing to apologize for. It just is what it is. And you’re doing a great job helping out here on the desk. I mean that. Some of the others might have just watched the truck and never even have called it in. And then if thirty armed man suddenly came streaming out the back of the trailer, we’d have less time to react. So, like I said, you’re doing a great job. Don’t change a thing.”
Mark said, “You know, John, I’ve been thinking. I agree that our primary threat is a truck being driven at high speed through the front door. I think while we’re waiting for Sami and Bryan to heal, I’m going to take some of that old pipe we have in the back of Bay 18 and use a cutting torch to cut it into sharp spikes. We’ve got two pallets of Sacrete instant concrete back there too. We can spend a couple of days burying the spikes into the ground out front. That should blow the tires of any truck coming up to our door and slowing it down.”
“Great idea, Mark. I’ll pass the word and see how many volunteers I can find you.”
Then he turned back to Karen.
“See, if you hadn’t called us over about that truck, Mark never would have thought about the spikes. It’s working together through all of this that will enable us to survive this thing.”
She smiled. “Yeah, yeah. If you say so…”
Chapter 49
Back at the compound, Alvarez was in the feed barn. He’d been surveying his stock of cattle and chicken feed when he noticed something interesting.
There were several sets of muddy footprints that went halfway across the wooden floor and then disappeared completely. One floor panel was muddy, and the next panel was perfectly clean. And the footprints all pointed in one direction. There was no indication that anyone had turned around and left the barn again.
Alvarez wasn’t the smartest guy in the world, by any means. But he wasn’t an idiot either.
And he remembered that it had rained two days before they attacked the compound.
He went to the door of the barn and yelled for two of his men who were patrolling the yard.
“Come here. I want to show you something.”
He pointed to the muddy footprints and asked them, “What does that tell you?”
His men weren’t rocket scientists either.
“I don’t know. You want us to scrape the mud off the floor?”
“No, stupid. There’s a secret room or something under that floor.”
“Oh.”
Alvarez looked around and found a crowbar hanging on the wall along with some other tools.
“You guys cover me.”
He took the crowbar and pried up the floor panel just high enough to see the wooden steps beneath the floor. He could see more muddy footprints on the steps.
He lowered the panel back into place and said, “So that’s where the bastards went.”
He went back into the big house to formulate his attack plans. Once finished, he called everyone together, except for the four sentries.
He told them about the false floor, and the staircase beneath it.
“I don’t know if it’s a safe room, or a tunnel that leads somewhere else. It may be nothing. It may just be another escape route to the woods. Or it might lead us right to them.
“Whatever it is, we’re going to find out, and we’re going to do it tonight. That’s when most of them will be sleeping. Six of you will come with me. The other six will stay here to keep an eye on things.
“McMillan, Linkes, Harter… you guys are good fighters. You’re coming with me. Jason, you and Tony and Johnson, you’re in too. We’ll hit them when they’re most likely to be sleeping. You guys go get some rest. Meet me back here at three a.m., and be loaded for bear. Anybody who’s late will have my bad side to deal with. And that’s something you don’t want to contemplate.”
Alvarez tried to get some sleep, so he’d be fresh for his night mission. He lay on Hannah and Mark’s bed for almost an hour, as things kept running through his mind. Finally, he turned on the computer on the desk next to the bed and restarted the video of Hannah playing with the dog. He thought it might relax him and help him fall asleep.
Instead, it stirred something else inside him. The first time he’d watched the video a few nights before, his eyes were focused on the dog. This time, he noticed Hannah’s beauty. It reminded him that he hadn’t been with a woman in a very long time.
And he found himself hoping that Hannah was one of the women who’d escaped the compound during the attack. He wanted to capture her alive and bring her back to be his personal concubine.
At three thirty five, Sami called John on the radio.
“Dad! Dad! Come in!”
John reached over to the night table and picked up his radio, then turned down the volume.
“Go ahead, baby. What’s up?”
“Seven men have left the big house. They’re armed and heading toward the feed barn.”
“I’m on my way. Hit the panic button now!”
Mark, Brad and Bryan all heard the initial call and were already on their way.
The panic button, which was in reality a fire alarm loud enough to wake the dead, woke everyone else up within seconds.
Everyone knew what to do. They’d been drilled on it many times in previous days. All of the children and elderly adults were evacuated to a hidden part of the mine. Most of the women accompanied them. Sarah, Brad and Bryan took up positions behind a barricade at the main entrance of the mine, in case they were attacked from both positions at the same time.
David, Mark, Jacob and Joe took up positions at the bunker overlooking the mine’s entrance to the tunnel.
John and Sami manned the Security desk. John would coordinate operations. Sami would keep an eye on the monitors and keep everyone advised of what the enemy was doing.
In the compound, Alvarez was briefing his crew.
“Okay, we’ll go quietly until we start acquiring our targets. They should be mostly asleep.”
“Shoot all the men on sight. I don’t care if they’re old or not. Even old men can carry guns. Kill all the kids also. I’m not a damn babysitter.
“The only ones I want to keep alive are the women. If you have to kill them, do it. But try to take them alive so we can look them over and pick the ones we want to keep.
“McMillan, you take point. We’ll give you a couple of minutes. Then we’ll follow.”
“What’s point?”
“You go first. You’re our best shooter.”
They pried up the false floor and McMillan looked down on the staircase.
“What if I don’t want to go first? If I’m first in there, I may be the first one shot.”
Alvarez put his weapon to McMillan’s chin and growled, “And if you don’t follow orders I’ll shoot you myself.”
“Okay, okay.”
McMillan crawled under the raised floor panel and timidly crept down the stairs.
The assault was beginning.
**********
Thank you for reading Breakout. It was a fun
book to write. I hope it was equally fun to read. Here’s a preview of the next book in the series, called
FINAL DAWN BOOK 4:
THE SIEGE
John and Bryan made their way through the woods on the west side of the compound on a four wheel drive Gator. The Gator was essentially a two seater quad runner on steroids, with a tiny pickup bed in the back for hauling feed, seed, manure, or anything else a farmer might need to haul. It was made by the John Deere Company as an all-terrain utility vehicle for farmers and ranchers.
And it worked equally well for two men who were determined to get back what was taken from them.
Strapped to the bed of the Gator were two sixteen foot extension ladders. Collapsed, they were still eight feet in length, and hung over the tailgate a considerable distance. But tie down straps kept them from going anywhere, and they only scraped the ground a couple of times when the machine climbed up the steep grades of the arroyos.
Both men had their radios turned on and wore headsets, listening to Mark, who stood in the open doorway of the mine.
Mark was blind to the goings on inside the compound. In fact, he couldn’t even see the compound from his position, but that was okay. His sole purpose on this mission was to relay information from Hannah.
Hannah’s radio wouldn’t penetrate the thick walls of the mine to the outside. But they would reach to the mine’s door, and Mark’s signal would reach to the west side of the compound.
Hannah kept her eyes on the bank of monitors, and gave a report every thirty seconds. Sometimes more often, if there was any movement.
“Okay, two men still at the gate. One on the south side of the roof. One in the dining room, and the others are in their rooms.”
Mark dutifully passed the information. “Two men at the gate. One on the south side of the roof. One in the dining room, the rest in their rooms.”
Breakout (Final Dawn) Page 17