“We do,” Branson nodded.
“Pull two of them away tonight. Tell your men that we encountered a large gang of people living not too far away and that we are going to be beefing up our perimeter security. Who’s your most worthless deputy?”
Sheriff Branson thought on it for a few moments. “Probably Tony Salino. You met him the day you came into town. He’s fat, lazy, and late for pretty much everything.”
“Ok then, make sure he is on duty tonight.”
“What are you planning to do to him?” Branson asked suspiciously. “He may be fat and lazy but he is also funny and well liked by most of the men.”
“Tony’s sacrifice will be total. It will also be the last rung on the ladder to get the people motivated enough to take up arms and defend their town.”
Sheriff Branson squirmed in his chair uncomfortably. “I’m not so sure that I’m ok with that...,” he said seriously. “Lying to people and some of the other circumstances that may or may not be happening around town I can stomach, but this seems a bit extreme even for you. That man has a wife and kid.”
Mr. Andrews stared at the Sheriff in challenge. “That just makes the story more heartbreaking, doesn’t it, that these scum would do that?” Mr. Andrews let out a long sigh as if the thought bothered him as well. “I will do whatever it takes to provide for and feed my town. Tony is just one member of our community and his sacrifice will feed a lot of people, saving multiple lives in the long run. The end justifies the means even if those means are sometimes hard to stomach,” Mr. Andrews smiled at the Sheriff in a consoling way.
Branson wasn’t convinced and didn’t really agree with Mr. Andrews’s logic. He looked down at his desk, breaking eye contact with the leader of their town, “I don’t know....”
Mr. Andrews’s facial expression quickly turned very severe. “Well, you better figure it out and come to terms with what needs to be done. The day we met outside of town, I thought you told me that the town needed a Sheriff that was able to make tough decisions to keep his town safe. You are that man, right?”
Sheriff Branson still wasn’t happy about the situation but at the same time didn’t want to cross Mr. Andrews. If he was willing to kill a man he didn’t even know just to add credence to a story he wanted to tell, then what would he do to someone who stood in his way? “What time do you want him on duty?”
Mr. Andrews’s dangerous countenance instantly turned optimistic. “Whatever time the night shift usually goes on duty will be fine, just as long as he is there alone around 3 a.m.” Mr. Andrews got up to leave and turned back to Branson as he was walking through the door. “Don’t worry, Sheriff. You’ll see. Once these things happen, the people will be firmly on my side and rush to join me and take up arms.” He smiled at the Sheriff once more and then closed the door behind him.
“That’s what I’m worried about,” Branson muttered under his breath at the closed door.
Chapter 22
Two nights later, the entire community once more crammed together into the cabin’s living room. Randy opened the meeting in prayer as was the custom and asked God to provide clarity in the decisions they were about to make. When he was done, Sean opened the floor to ideas on how to handle their dilemma.
After a short pause, Damian opened up, “I was thinking that even if taking Mr. Andrews out in public isn’t an option, why don’t we just send someone to town and take him out as the opportunity presents itself?”
Sean was getting ready to discuss the option when Brody stood up and answered Damian. “That may be an option, but I think it is also really risky. From my discussions with Beth Ann over the last two days, it sounds like Mr. Andrews spends most of his time indoors at the city building with the sheriff. She had rarely seen him driving around town and when she did, he was usually with his security team. That’s a small target of opportunity. Any one of us wandering around town would surely be noticed as probably only about a couple hundred people still live there. His building is definitely guarded and to try to take him out when he is guarded could end up being a suicide mission for the person who would undertake the assignment.”
“I think our best option is to take him out as he is heading into town. That still requires some intel though. We need someone on the inside who can figure out which road he uses entering and leaving each day....”
Beth Ann stood up, cutting Brody off mid-sentence. “I’ll go. When should I go back?” Everyone in the room was quiet. Sean looked at her in amazement. She was probably only a little over five feet tall and skinny, but her calm courage made her appear ten feet tall and bulletproof. Sean was one of the few in the group who fully understood the risks she would be facing.
“Tonight...,” Brody said solemnly. “We are already two days behind whatever preparations Mr. Andrews is making.”
“Ok, I’m ready,” was all she said. Her brother got up from his chair and stormed out of the meeting. Beth Ann stared after her brother for a moment. “I’m going to get my things.”
“Go ahead. We’ll come get you in a couple hours or so to give you some time.... We’ll work on your back story and go over it with you while we escort you to the edge of town, alright?” Brody asked.
“Ok,” was all she said and went quickly through the door to catch up to her stricken brother.
With Beth Ann gone, the room fell silent again with no one sure what to say. Brody broke the silence, “Beth Ann came to me yesterday and we discussed the idea and the risks involved with her going back to town to gather intel, so we worked out a plan. I know most of you don’t completely know what is going on here, but Beth Ann is risking her life to help our group. We need to keep her in our thoughts and prayers over the next few days.” Brody sat back down, signaling that he was finished speaking.
“Alright, does anyone have anything important to bring up or add before we break up?” Sean asked. “We need to get started planning Beth Ann’s back story.”
“I want to go tonight,” Damian offered, looking up at Brody.
“Me too,” Andrew said, standing up beside Damian.
Brody nodded his head at both of them. Others started to volunteer but Brody stuck his hand up to silence them. “Thank you, guys, for volunteering but that should be enough. We don’t want too large of a group.”
There was a brief pause with no one speaking up so Sean brought the meeting to a close and watched as some of the neighbors filed outside back to their houses. Maria stared at Sean from across the room with a strange gaze, and he wasn’t sure if she was mad at him or just thinking. He would have to find out later though as Randy, Caleb, Brody, Damian, and Andrew were already making their way into the kitchen for some privacy. Sean joined them and they discussed different stories for Beth Ann to tell and finally decided on one. Beth Ann had left the town to seek out her brother’s farm. Upon arriving, she had found her brother and his family murdered and the farm ransacked. She stayed long enough to bury them and wanted to stay longer, but with no food, she was forced to head back to town.
Around midnight, the small group made their way towards Tionesta using the roads at first and then navigating through the woods the rest of the way. Everyone in the group besides Beth Ann was used to navigating at night with only their normal night vision and the use of a military Cammenga tritium compass for navigation. A few hours later, as they approached closer to town, they slowed their pace and focused on moving as silently as possible. Beth Ann hadn’t been taught hand signals but caught on quickly. Since she was the only one not wearing camouflage, she was last in the column.
After circling the town a short distance, they came upon a row of houses that abutted the woods and would make it easy to enter town closest to where her apartment had been. They rallied together and each gave Beth a hug before they watched her quietly walk between the houses. They stayed put for a half hour and listened intently. They had instructed her to cry out if she was discovered sneaking back to her place after curfew and they would charge in to try and rescue he
r. The escort group was just getting ready to leave when the sound of automatic gunfire was heard from the other side of town. In the silence of the night, it had startled Sean to the point that he almost fell backwards. They listened intently to the short bursts of automatic gunfire before silence again. A minute or two later they heard the sound of a diesel engine rev up and take off. The sound grew louder as the vehicle sped towards them and then out of town on the same road they had travelled to bring Beth Ann. There was another spattering of gunfire as they plowed through the roadblock on the edge of town, and then silence. They all gave each other curious looks and stayed put for a while longer. There was some commotion in town but it was too far away to really hear what was going on.
They made their way back to the retreat, keeping watch for the pickup that had driven off in the retreat’s direction, but the trip back was uneventful. As Sean undressed and crawled into bed, Maria stirred and turned in his direction. In the faint light Sean could see the same look on her face that she had earlier in the evening.
“Is she going to be ok?” she whispered.
Sean hugged her close, “Yes dear, she’s ok.”
“No, I mean is she going to be ok?”
“Yeah babe, she’s smart. We told her to keep her head down and not to take any risks. I’m sure she’ll be back in a couple days,” he soothed his wife, not sure if he was telling the truth. Sean wasn’t entirely confident that Beth Ann being gone an entire week wouldn’t be noticed or if her back story would even work.
“What about us? Are we going to be ok? With the baby coming soon and everything...I’m worried.” Maria lifted her head and looked into her husband’s blue eyes in the near darkness.
Sean reached down and rubbed her growing belly while looking back into her eyes. “Yeah babe, I think we are going to be just fine. It may be crazy the next week or so, but I really believe that if we remove this guy from the equation, then things will be safer.”
She snuggled back in close. “I just wish none of this had happened. I want to go back home to a normal life.”
“Me too, babe.... Me too,” Sean agreed.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING went back to some semblance of normal for their retreat life. The retreat had doubled up on security details and people were on edge, but there was still planting to be done as well as some extra security barriers and a gate to be erected on the neighboring road where it entered the fields. Shortly after midday the western alarm was set off. With one short blast, it let everyone know that there was a single person or a non-threatening group approaching. Even so, everyone scrambled for their positions as Sean raced back to the cabin and his pregnant wife. She was waiting in the front doorway with his Tikka .308 rifle and tactical vest in her hands and her Ruger PC-9 slung over her shoulder. As he reached her, she opened the vest so he could slide his arms in. She handed him his rifle, which he slid into the scabbard attached to the back of his vest, while she snapped the clips together on the front of his vest. She reached inside the door and grabbed his ghillie parka, which he immediately threw over his head, making sure the rifle butt was sticking out. As he finished adjusting everything, she handed him his SU-16 and smiled faintly.
He leaned down and kissed her quickly. “Be careful, baby,” she whispered as he turned to hustle away.
“I will. Lock the door and join the others in the tower!” Sean shouted over his shoulder. He scanned the tree line as he hustled across the open ground to where Brody would be waiting in the woods. As he crawled into the sniper hole alongside Brody, he was handed a pair of binoculars.
“It looks like a single family waiting at the gate. They don’t seem to be armed or making any threats, just waiting,” Brody informed him. Sean could see a man in his late forties with a woman and two teenaged boys. They seemed relatively well fed and dressed. They definitely didn’t look like they had travelled very far.
“Can’t they read?” Sean said, exasperated, referring to the new sign a little further down the road warning all trespassers that they would be shot on sight.
“It could be a trap,” Brody observed, not very convincingly.
“I don’t think so,” Sean said. “Either way, stay here and keep an eye out. I’ll have Damian come with me.” Sean slid his rifle out of its scabbard and handed it to Brody with both extra magazines and a handful of loose .308 rounds from his chest pouch. Sean climbed out of the sniper hole and shouldered his SU-16 as he left the tree line and walked towards the gate. “Damian!” he hollered towards the opposite tree line, “On me!” Damian materialized out of the woods and double-timed it to the road alongside Sean. The family at the gate stood still and the man raised his hands in the air as they approached. The man had no idea that there were probably ten other rifles pointed in his direction. Sean slowed walked up to the gate and stopped about ten feet away.
The man opened his mouth to say something but Sean cut him off, “Can’t you read?” When confronted by travelers, the group always put forth a stern demeanor and didn’t want to be taken as too friendly or accommodating.
“Yes,” the man replied. “We need your help, and I will be willing to help you in return.”
“We don’t need anything from you!” Damian said, forcefully stepping forward.
Sean held up his hand as if to calm Damian down, knowing that it was all an act from his normally docile friend. “What makes you think we need anything from you?” Sean asked coldly.
“You need something from me—information to save your camp of looters here,” he said with an unmistakable scowl, “...and I need your help to save my daughter.”
The man’s tone and seriousness surprised Sean. The man had a look of desperation to him which couldn’t be faked unless he was a professional actor. For the first time he noticed the man’s wife who seemed to be all right physically but her eyes were sunken in and red. She looked as if she had spent the entire night crying. They were definitely not faking anything and Sean softened his approach.
“Why do you think we can save your daughter?”
“Because you guys are fearless and obviously well trained, and if I help you kill Mr. Andrews and his ilk, I’ll get my daughter back.”
“What are you talking about? What makes you think we are fearless and well trained?” Sean asked suspiciously. Something wasn’t adding up.
“I don’t think it, I know it! Anyone able to sneak into town, take out three guards the way you did, steal supplies from the most heavily guarded building in town, and get out alive must know what they are doing. You’re our only hope!” The man’s desperation was oozing out of his pours.
Sean looked over to Damian who stared back and then nodded in an unspoken agreement. Sean turned back to the man and his wife. “When’s the last time your family ate?”
The man had a curious look on his face, not sure what it had to do with anything. “I don’t know; yesterday afternoon we had our usual rations around mid-day.”
Sean pulled the keys out of his pocket and opened the gate, allowing them entry. The man looked at his wife who Sean could tell was terrified. She looked back at her boys briefly and slowly shook her head and mouthed “no” to her husband.
“No harm will come to your family, I promise, and you will be free to leave whenever you like. I would just prefer to have this discussion in a safer location besides our perimeter fence. We are not the looters whom you think we are.” The woman still hesitated, unsure, until the man reached out and gently took her hand in his. They crossed through the gates followed by their two boys.
“Are you armed, mister?” Damian asked the man. The man looked at Sean who nodded reassuringly to him.
“Just a handgun. I have a .357 revolver in...," he started reaching towards his waistband to retrieve it and Sean jumped into action. He closed the short distance between them in a flash, startling the man when he grabbed his wrist.
“What do you say we just leave it where it’s at, okay mister? I have other friends watching us who have itchy trigger fingers, an
d might mistake your intentions,” Sean sighed in relief. “Let’s head over this way, shall we? There are some old picnic benches in the woods over there and we’ll have a bite and discuss how we can help each other.” The man shrugged suspiciously and followed Sean and Damian towards the picnic benches. Sean signaled the “all clear” sign over his head in each direction as they were walking.
“Damian, would you mind gathering up the guys to meet with us?”
“Sure, but Randy and Brody are on watch right now....”
Sean thought for a brief second. “We’ll find someone to replace them for a short time. We should have them here, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, we probably should. I’ll figure it out.”
“Cool, thanks.” Sean caught his sleeve as he was walking away, “Do me a favor and grab Brody first. Send him back to the cabin and have the ladies bring us some of the stew that’s on the stove. Let them know we have four guests that’ll be eating with us.” Damian nodded then hustled off towards Brody’s general direction. Sean sneaked a glance over at the family as they were walking. He hadn’t tried to hide his discussion with Damian from them and the man seemed thoroughly perplexed. Apparently the man was under the impression that their group had performed the raid in Tionesta the previous night and must have been expecting some group of ex-military Rambo types.
Sean preferred not to get into any substantive discussions with the man until the rest of the group arrived a short time later. “Sooooo, what’s your name, mister?” Sean started off with a smile.
“My name’s Luke. This is my wife Allison and my two boys: Ben and Brian. And you?” They passed the next few minutes in silence till the other men joined them.
“Luke, my name is Sean. The gentleman that was with me earlier is Damian, the other big guy there is Randy, that’s Caleb, Andrew, and behind me here is Brody.” There were a few nods between everyone as introductions were made.
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