Conor did not have the wind nor the energy to rebuff her comment, but the indignity of the insult must’ve provided some motivation because he grasped the saddle horn and swung himself aboard. He struggled to find his balance and get his right foot into the other stirrup. Finally squared away, he kicked the animal into motion. Barb accelerated past him and took the lead. Conor was pleased to find that they were on some type of logging road, a flat patch dozed into the mountainside but covered with leaves and dead grass. They could make good time here. They could escape.
54
The Bond’s injured went untreated unless they were able to attend to themselves. All effort had been directed at taking the hillside. For the most part the men were acting of their own accord. During the initial attack, they leapt out of their vehicles with their weapons and minimal gear. Only a couple of them possessed the foresight to sling on their body armor. That was the reason so many of them lay dead now. Thomas was not happy about it. Most didn’t have their radios either. The orders he shouted into his own, commands on how to best engage this enemy, had largely gone unheard and unheeded.
Had his men been listening, Thomas would never have supported a charge against that hillside. It was obvious they would lose too many men, which was exactly what happened when his men blindly jumped the guardrail and attempted to rush over there. It wasn’t until an explosive device eradicated a dozen of his men in one fell swoop that they began to question the wisdom of their actions. It was only then that they sought out their leader and asked for direction.
Thomas was nearly blinded by anger, both at the enemy that had laid such waste to his troops and at his own men for allowing themselves to be killed. He was so angry at his own dead that he almost wished he could bring them back to life just so he could kill them himself for their ignorance. With the weapons and the training they possessed there was no reason they should have experienced such casualties. It was because they reacted like idiots. They were using their street minds instead of their military minds. Perhaps that was his own fault. He hadn’t been enforcing discipline like he needed to be. They needed to be reminded they were soldiers now.
When his surviving troops rallied in a protected alley, he choked down his anger and started handing out orders. “Get a couple of those trucks over there and bring those M60s into play. If we can chew up that hill we’ll end this thing. If you dumbasses had done that to begin with, half of you wouldn’t be spread out dead all over the place.”
Thomas had a lot more to say on that topic, but it would have to wait for another time. He would prefer his men be pissed off at the enemy and not at him. They needed to focus and get this shit wrapped up. It took the men several minutes to get a path cleared and bring the trucks around to the back street. Taking orders focused them. They were starting to function as a combat unit again and not like a bunch of knuckleheads planning a drive-by shooting.
While his men were getting the trucks into position Thomas watched the hillside. He had nothing to use but his naked eye. He’d been forced into a hasty retreat from his vehicle, diving out the door to save his neck. He didn’t have his binoculars or any type of magnified optic on his weapon. He couldn’t see anything on the hillside but one thing was certain. He was not facing a single enemy. If this was the Mad Mick, he was not acting alone.
Yet he couldn’t be certain this was the Mad Mick. Could be that it was simply a bunch of pissed off townspeople who had enough of strangers showing up to wreck their town. Perhaps they’d taken a proactive approach and decided they would drive The Bond out of town before they had the opportunity to get into trouble. He might never know, but he would take measures just in case that was the situation. He would level this town before he left. He would burn it to the ground and he’d blow up what wouldn’t burn.
When the M60 started firing it got his head back in the game. He found a pair of binoculars in the cab of a truck and scanned the hillside for any sign of the people who’d been shooting at them. He didn’t see anything but he didn’t tell his men to quit firing. If nothing else, that heavy gun sent a message. It let people know what was waiting on them if they messed with him.
“Hey, T!” one of the men called over the rattle of the machine gun.
Thomas cupped a hand over his ear to better hear what he had to say.
“You want us to drop some mortar rounds on them?”
His first instinct was to say no. Since he couldn’t see the enemy and had no intelligence that would assist him in directing their fire, part of him thought they shouldn’t waste the rounds. They might need them later. Another part of him thought this could serve the same purpose as the machine gun fire. Sometimes it was as important to send a message as to inflict casualties, though inflicting casualties was pretty damn nice too. So why not?
He grinned and nodded in the man’s direction. “Light’em up!”
Two men teamed up on the weapon and had it set up in no time. Thomas went to their side and directed them where to send a round.
“We have a lot of these things,” one of the men said. “We should use them before they go stale.” The men didn’t really think the rounds went stale. It was just true that all soldiers would prefer to use ammo rather than carry it around.
“Drop one on that first target I gave you,” Thomas instructed. “Then drop a second fifty yards directly behind it. Put another fifty yards behind that. Three total.”
“Roger that, T.”
Thomas watched with the binoculars. He saw no signs of their attackers. He went to the machine gunners and signaled them to cease-fire. It was no use cooking the barrels. They didn’t carry spares. He gestured at the mortar team. “Fire!”
They sent the first round. All the men watched with satisfaction as it blew a chunk out of the hillside, raining dirt and splinters all around them. When they were done, Thomas was going to send a team over there and they better find some bodies.
55
When the mortar fire ceased, Conor was certain The Bond was done with their random shelling. They’d gotten it out of their system. They had no targeting intelligence and their leader apparently had the restraint to know when it was time to stop. If he’d been trying to send a message, Conor received it loud and clear. He was certain of what kind of weaponry The Bond had now and that made it even more critical that he keep these people away from home. A mortar round on Wayne’s camp could wipe out all his people and preparations. The same for the pastor’s camp. Worse yet, if a round was dropped on Conor’s precious compound the efforts of the last decade of his life would be reduced to rubble.
He directed Barb’s group back in the general direction of Route 23 when The Bond quit firing on them. Deep in the forest they made camp at a clearing along a gravel road. A high chain link fence surrounded green pipes and panels of electrical switchgear. Shannon checked the wounded while Barb instructed the group to get several small fires going. They would put off less light than a large one. Even though they were in remote country, deep in the middle of gas company property, there was no use broadcasting their position.
The young man with the neck wound had died during their retreat and was tied across the back of his horse, a stained sleeping bag covering his body. Men from the pastor’s group insisted on leading the horse out of a sense of duty toward one of their own.
“We should bury him here,” Conor said.
“He needs to be returned to his people,” a man named Jonathan insisted. “His momma will want to bury him in the family cemetery.”
“That’s a bad idea,” Conor said. “By the time we make it home, that body is not going to be anything like the young man his family remembers. Better they remember him the way he left home. If you bury him here by this equipment it’ll provide a good landmark and you can get his family back here to pay their respects.”
“It don’t seem right,” Jonathan mumbled.
“It’s not,” Conor said, “but it’s what has to be done.”
He went to one of the packhorses
and retrieved two folding Gerber shovels. He assembled one and handed it to Jonathan, then started unfolding the second.
“You bring these because you expected to dig graves?” one of the men asked.
Conor nodded. “Sadly, yes. Where do you think we should dig?”
They eventually settled on a location that was outside of the work zone and would provide easy digging. While Conor and a handful of men from the pastor’s group dug the grave, others set about making a marker. They used a folding saw to cut two lengths from a tree branch. With a couple of wraps of paracord they formed a rough cross.
The Appalachian Mountains were nearly half a billion years old, though Pastor White would beg to differ. Over that time, most of the soil had eroded from the ridge tops, leaving only the thinnest layer. The men were only able to dig a little more than three feet before they hit a solid limestone sheet.
“Do we have to start again?” a sweating man asked. “I’m not sure I have another grave in me.”
Conor sighed in frustration. “This entire ridge is probably just like this. I think we’re going to have to go ahead and bury him, then cover the grave with rocks to keep out predators.”
The thought of predators tearing into the grave didn’t sit right with the men. A sour expression crossed all their faces, as if each man had shared a sip of the same spoiled milk. They all understood the truth of it though. It was a bad spot for dying. They’d all dug holes in these mountains before, whether it be hunting ginseng, burying a carcass, or digging to set up a moonshine still.
They gently placed the body in the ground and tugged the sleeping bag up over the dead man’s face. They took turns shoveling dirt over him, then worked by headlamps to pile rocks over the fresh soil. The pastor’s group insisted on saying a few words over the dead man. Conor was quite impressed at their restraint, having heard that they could often go on for hours until even the corpse was rolling its eyes and begging them to shut up already.
With their grim work behind them everyone gathered around the fires. Wayne and Sam had volunteered to do the cooking that night and put together a rice concoction. Tired and traumatized by the events of the day, no one realized how hungry they were until the food appeared before them. Then they couldn’t get their cups, plates, and mess kits out fast enough. Soon they were sitting on rocks, downed logs, and their own packs eating as fast as they could shovel it into their faces.
“Do any of you know what this place is?” Conor asked, gesturing toward the fenced enclosure. “I’ve lived here for a while but I’ve not seen anything like this.”
“It’s the PLC panels,” a man named Lonzo replied. “It’s how they monitor the gas control valves from back at the office. It’s your computerized controls.”
“Did you work in that industry?” Conor asked.
Lonzo nodded. “For over twenty years. I built these panels and maintained them.”
“In this area?”
“Here, home, all the way up into West Virginia. I’ve worked for a couple of different outfits.”
“What happens to the gas in the line since we don’t have power?” Conor continued.
“Well, none of this stuff right here works without power. All your communication and remote control capabilities are lost. Your prime movers, your compressors, can still work if you activate them directly.”
“Even without power?” Conor asked.
Lonzo stared at him like he was an idiot. “The compressors can make their own power. They have generators built into them and they got fuel running right there in the pipeline. They draw off just enough gas to run. It’s a pretty smart system.”
“So the system works, you just can’t control it remotely?”
“I suppose, but I’ve never tried to do it that way, except during the initial installation and startup. I’ve never come back and done it after it’s all hooked up and running.”
An idea formed in Conor’s mind. He turned it around in his head and examined it from all sides like a 3-D model being manipulated in design software. Around him, exhausted people filtered off to turn in for the night. Conor had no idea what time it was and could not remember the last time he’d slept. Accepting that the day ahead of him was likely to be a beast he decided to throttle his mind back and turn in.
He unrolled his sleeping bag, stretching it out on the ground beside Barb’s.
“So what’s the plan for tomorrow?” she asked now that they were alone.
“I don’t rightly know yet,” Conor said. “But I’ll be dreaming about it and I’ll let you know in the morning.”
“Sometimes, Dad, you’re completely full of shit.”
“There’s some things in this world you can’t explain, Barb. The working of my mind is one of them. All I know is that when I wake up in the morning, you’ll have your answer.”
“I think the lack of oxygen at this altitude is affecting your brain.”
“Love you too. Good night.”
56
It was a dark, cold night. Hours had passed since the early winter sunset. Thomas stood on the bank of the Levisa River watching the moonlight reflect off the rocks. He couldn’t recall that he’d ever spent any time beside a river like this, listening to the water tumble over the rocks. It was relaxing, like a fountain at the mall. His relaxation was further aided by the joint pinched between his cold fingers.
The scuff of boots on asphalt caught his attention and he found Lawdog behind him. Other than to shout a few orders in his direction, Thomas hadn’t really spent any time talking to Lawdog since things broke loose that day. The two of them needed to have a serious talk at some point but there was business to attend to first.
“What's the damage?" Thomas asked.
"Twenty-three men either died in combat or were made dead because we couldn’t treat their injuries. We got two more so severely injured that they might make it or might not. I figured we were hurting for men at this point, so I didn't want to kill them if I didn't have to. The rest will make it."
Thomas nodded stoically while he absorbed the information. "You may redistribute the teams as necessary," he said, turning back to the water.
Lawdog knew he'd been dismissed but he wasn't done. "Sir, the teams need to know how much effort to put into this camp before they set up. Is this a one night deal or are we heading out tomorrow?"
Thomas let out a long, frustrated sigh. In the low light neither man could read the other’s expression. “The men want to know that, Lawdog, or you want to know that?"
"We all need to know that."
Reading between the lines, Thomas began to get angry. "So what you really feel you need to know is if we’re staying here for a while or if we’re heading out after the Mad Mick?" He was getting that tone that warned most men off. Tonight it wasn’t working. Lawdog just wouldn’t shut up.
"I guess. Or if we're headed in some entirely different direction?" Lawdog said. "I would assume that's an option. Hell, we could even head west. We can do anything we want to do."
"What I want to do is track down the Mad Mick," Thomas said. "Look, I know what you’re doing. You’re over here sniffing around like some mangy dog, trying to figure out if I'm ready to call off this mission or not. That it?"
Lawdog didn't respond. Thomas was right, though. That was exactly what he was getting at. The two men continued to stare at each other without being able to make out more than the vaguest silhouette. Without expressions or menacing glares this could go on all night.
Lawdog finally broke the silence. "Thomas, we've known each other long time. Do I have permission to speak freely with you?"
Thomas chuckled. There was a rhythmic grating to it, like a rusty chain being slowly pulled from a barrel. "Lawdog, this ain't the Army anymore. A man can say any fucking thing he wants to say. He can do anything he wants to do. That doesn't mean we’re without consequences though. I can do what I want to do and die for doing it. You can say what you want to say, but you may have to answer for it. You feeling me? You make t
he call."
Lawdog kept going, which surprised Thomas. Lawdog was getting above his raising. Too big for his britches, as Thomas’s grandmother would have said.
"I know the roots of this organization, T. I know where we came from and I been there since the beginning. I believe in this. Our roots are twisted together and that makes us stronger. That gives us the bond that you're so fond of. But we can't keep losing people at this rate. It’s going to leave us weak. I think we're either going to have to take on more people or easier missions. One or the other."
"Both of which mean giving up on this Mad Mick, right?"
"I'm not sure he’s worth it," Lawdog said. “Who knows if he's even real? He may just be some shit people make up, like Santa Claus or the boogeyman. He may be the scary face of a bunch of old hillbillies or coal miners that are running around driving off strangers. We don’t even know who we’re fighting. They know this country and we don't. We had superior firepower and more training. We should have dusted those assholes but we didn't find a single dead body over there."
"That don’t mean we didn't hit anybody," Thomas said. "They could have carried off their dead."
"They might have but I bet they didn’t carry off twenty-three dead."
That stung, and both men fell silent. The joint Thomas was smoking had gone out from his inattention. He pulled a lighter from his pocket and flicked it to life. Briefly illuminated in that warm flare of light, his face appeared almost disembodied, the only thing of substance in an enormous black void. Thomas took a hit and extended it to Lawdog.
"You’ve given me a lot to think about. Let’s sleep on it and we can deal with this shit in the morning. I’m too tired for decisions."
Lawdog stepped forward and took the joint. He had to pinch carefully to avoid burning his fingers. He closed his eyes and took a big draw, anxious for the relaxation it would provide. It'd been a rough day and he was whipped.
Brutal Business: Book Three in the Mad Mick Series Page 31