by Sam Sisavath
Are those mine? Yes. I think so.
Harrison towered over her, his bigger frame blotting out the sun. “You should have stayed out of my city. Everything was going fine until you showed up. Everything that’s happened, it’s all your fault.”
She looked up at him and shook her head. “No,” she said, but before she could continue defending herself, he punched her in the face—right in her broken nose. All the pain in the world seemed to come down on her at that very moment.
Someone screamed, then someone else joined in.
She heard her name just before the loud roar of another shotgun blast silenced it.
BOOK THREE
‡
RUN AND GUN
CHAPTER 26
KEO
“THAT’S ONE NASTY scar,” the woman, Bonnie, said.
“You should have seen the other guy,” Keo said.
“Worse than that?”
“He’s dead, and I’m not.”
“Hunh.”
“That’s what he said.”
The redhead (Auburn hair? Close enough) with the supermodel good looks was crouched on one knee at the bow of the eighteen-footer, as if she expected someone to start shooting at them from the shoreline at any moment. She had a Remington tactical shotgun slung over her shoulder and wore a gun belt with a sidearm, though the combination of the deadly items on someone that gorgeous struck him as somehow unnatural.
The boat they were traveling in was used primarily for bass fishing, with two seats in the middle, one behind the steering wheel, and two pedestal seats—one in the back next to the loud outboard motor and the other up front where Bonnie was crouched next to at the moment. It was also the same boat they had used to intercept Carrie and Lorelei last night. No wonder it hadn’t been much of a chase. The damn thing was fast.
The big guy, Blaine, was maneuvering them toward the shoreline. His target was a spot about half a kilometer up the road from a burnt out marina and what looked like the blackened foundations of a fire-gutted house.
“Coming up,” Blaine announced.
Keo freed his MP5SD and moved from his seat and toward the bow, then crouched next to Bonnie. He still had the M16 with the M203 grenade launcher. It was a heavier weapon—about nine pounds loaded—than the submachine gun and felt like a baseball bat thumping against his back.
Bonnie glanced nervously at him. “You’ve done this before, right?”
“What’s that?”
“This, what you’re about to do.”
He shrugged. “First time for everything.”
She gave him a horrified look. “Are you kidding me right now? Tell me you’re just kidding me.”
He looked back at Blaine instead. “Bring her in easy. Fifty meters.”
Blaine nodded, then pulled back on the throttle. The boat slowed noticeably before continuing forward on a glide. A tall ridge and muddy banks greeted them, but no signs of another living soul anywhere. There was a long field on the other side crowded with overgrown and sun-bleached grass. That would come in handy if there was a sniper out there waiting to pick him off. If he was lucky, Blaine’s bigger form would make a more tempting target and give him the early warning he needed to retreat.
I’d shoot him first, too.
It was hot and Keo was already sweating under his T-shirt. Both Bonnie and Blaine looked similarly drenched and uncomfortable under the unrelenting heat.
“Shore’s coming up,” Blaine announced.
Keo stood up and put his submachine gun away. He waited until the boat slipped onto the muddy bank before leaping out. He grabbed a line Bonnie tossed to him and tied it around a boulder nearby. After the islanders climbed out after him, he tightened the rope and made sure it wasn’t going anywhere. The last thing he wanted was to swim back to the island. Once was enough, and he was closer last night.
He glanced at his watch: 11:13 A.M. “There and back again by five should give us a ninety-minute cushion.”
“It’s your operation,” Blaine said.
“As long as we’re on the water by the time the sun goes down,” Bonnie said. She might have involuntarily shivered when she added, “I don’t like the idea of being caught out here at night.”
Keo took point. He climbed up the ridge and went into a crouch before scanning the area. Despite the oppressive weather and lack of shade, the grass had grown three feet high from the ridgeline all the way to the road on the other side. Route 27, according to a map Lara had shown him. Blaine and Bonnie climbed up behind him.
“I don’t see it,” Keo said. “You sure this is the right spot?”
Blaine nodded. “Should be.”
“‘Should be’?”
“It’s here,” Blaine said, with just a little more conviction that time. He stood up to survey the area before crouching back down. “I see it. It’s where it should be.”
“Take the lead, then.”
Blaine picked up a car battery he had brought with him, got up, and jogged through the grass. Keo followed, Bonnie right behind him with two red plastic cans of gas in each hand. She was surprisingly strong for such a skinny beanpole.
The big man was leading them toward an old tree about thirty meters from the flat highway. As they neared it, Keo began making out a large object. Square-shaped, covered in some kind of brown tarp and repurposed grass that blended it, if not perfectly, then just enough into the surrounding field to make it mostly invisible to passing eyeballs unless you knew what you were looking for and where.
They slowed down as they reached the vehicle sitting underneath the makeshift camouflage. Blaine grabbed one side of the tarp and pulled it, revealing a black Dodge Ram that looked to be in reasonably good condition.
Blaine tossed Keo a key. “Pop the hood.”
Keo got a whiff of stale air when he opened the door. Apparently they hadn’t needed to use the Ram in a while. He leaned in and pulled the lever. “How many of these things do you guys have stashed around the lake?”
“About a half dozen,” Blaine said. He stuffed the battery back into its slot and reconnected the wires. “Most of them still have some gas left in the tanks, but we bring enough extra just to be sure.”
Behind him, Bonnie had finished pouring the two cans of gasoline into the tank. She closed it back up now and tossed the empty cans into the back, then wiped her hands on her shirt and made a face at the smell.
When Lara had told him that Blaine knew where to get a vehicle and they would need a battery for it, Keo hadn’t been convinced. But the more he got to know these people, the more he realized he was dealing with seasoned survivors and not civilians fumbling their way through the end of the world.
Most of that, he thought, was the result of good leadership. Lara, and this Will guy whom Keo hadn’t met yet. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to, either. Keo had never gotten along especially well with Army guys. His father had been proof of that, and subsequent encounters with grunts during his career with the organization had never turned out especially well. As much as he didn’t have any use for career soldiers, Keo suspected they thought the same about him and his ilk.
Blaine slammed the hood down and walked back over. “How far up the road?”
Keo did the calculations in his head, replaying snapshots of the map and where he had encountered the weekend warriors. Or collaborators, as Lara called them. “Twenty kilometers north, but since we’re on the wrong side of the lake and we’ll need to loop around the south end, add in an extra ten. Thirty kilometers, give or take.”
“How much is that in miles?” Bonnie asked.
“Just a shade over eighteen,” Keo said.
“Eighteen miles,” Blaine nodded. “As long as we don’t get held up by anything, we shouldn’t have any problems making it back down here by five, and we’ll be on the island thirty minutes later.”
“Sounds like a plan. Let them know we’re off.”
Blaine unclipped his radio and keyed it. “Song Island. Can you read me. Over.”
“Loud and clear, Blaine,” a voice answered. It was one of the women, Maddie. Song Island, Keo discovered, had a lot of very capable women. Gillian and Jordan would definitely have fit in like gangbusters.
“We’re heading off now, Maddie,” Blaine said. “Wish us luck.”
“Good luck and see you when you get back,” Maddie said.
Keo climbed into the front passenger seat while Blaine slipped in behind the wheel. Bonnie settled into the back and leaned in between the two front seats. She gave Keo a long, curious look.
“What?” he said.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” she asked.
“No, but it’ll be fun to find out.”
Bonnie sat back with a heavy sigh. “Oh God, you’re going to get me killed, aren’t you?”
“That’s the spirit,” Keo said.
*
YOU REALLY THOUGHT it was going to be that easy, huh? Think again, pal.
They were exactly where he last saw them yesterday, gathered around the red two-story house near the shoreline. Except this time there were more vehicles and more men guarding the roads and standing along the docks. He counted almost two dozen uniforms, likely more scattered elsewhere that he couldn’t see.
The radio clipped to his hip squawked, and Blaine’s voice came through at half volume because he had lowered the volume halfway. “How’s it look up close?”
He told Blaine about what he could see and what he couldn’t.
“Damn,” Blaine said.
“Yeah.”
“What’s the plan now?”
If I’m smart, I’ll go back and shoot you and the girl and take the truck and not look back until I’m halfway to Texas.
“Sit tight,” he said instead.
Blaine and Bonnie were waiting for him about three kilometers up Route 410. They had stopped even further back than that before pushing the vehicle with the gear on neutral for almost two extra kilometers so they wouldn’t give away their approach. Well, he and Blaine had pushed anyway, while Bonnie steered. Keo had hiked the rest of the way. It was a pain in the ass, but necessary since sound traveled these days, especially car engines. Even with all those precautions, he kept expecting gunfire coming his direction at any moment.
He was probably 200 meters from the red house, just further back than when he was last here with Carrie and Lorelei, and well hidden behind a brown building that was once a house before a fire gutted it years ago, leaving behind three walls and not much else. Keo was crouched along one of those still-standing sides, peering through his binoculars up the road at men transferring supplies from the house and parked trucks over to the docks. One of the men was looking through a box and pulled out night-vision goggles and tried it on.
Looks like they’re getting ready for a night assault.
The sentries at the two-story structure, including the one on the rooftop, looked alert. Two men paced the road almost exactly halfway between him and the shoreline. One of them was carrying an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, an ammo belt wrapped around his shoulder and waist like he was a bandito out of a Western. That was the first time Keo had seen a machine gun in the last year, and he wondered where they found that little beauty.
“Are we still good?” Blaine said through the radio. “Keo?”
Keo didn’t answer right away. Then, “Nothing’s changed. Just more targets.”
“Maybe we should come up with another plan,” Bonnie said.
“I’m listening…”
“I didn’t say I had any ideas. I just think we should go back to the island and talk it over with Lara. Or wait for Will and Danny to come back tomorrow.”
“They’re going to attack tonight,” Keo said.
“How do you know that?” Blaine said.
“They brought night-vision goggles.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah,” Keo said.
He put the MP5SD away and reached for the M16. Besides the extra two pounds, he also disliked the length of the rifle, but the M203 grenade launcher more than made up for that. Keo opened the ammo pouch along his right hip and took out a 40mm grenade round—the size of a deodorant dispenser, except cylindrical and with a bulbous head—and fed it into the tube under the barrel.
The M203 had an effective range of 400 meters, which was more than enough to take out the house and maybe a few of the trucks. They were still moving supplies back and forth, so if he could knock out the vehicles and what they were carrying, all the better. Maybe they had ammo in there, or if he was really lucky, things that went boom. Some secondary fireworks might even result in collateral damage.
The house, though, was the main objective. Besides being the biggest and easiest target, he counted at least a dozen soldiers inside (and the one on top of it). If he could take it out, that would probably cut the invasion force in half, or close enough. Hell, if he was really lucky, he’d take out their command and control, too. That would really cripple them. Even weekend warriors needed someone to give the orders.
It wasn’t a bad plan. Best of all, it was a safe plan, with minimal risk to his scalp. He felt even a little bit like a coward shooting from a distance hidden behind the gutted house, but what the hell, these soldiers were about to invade an island full of women and children. Keo had done a lot of bad things in his life, but he wasn’t going to sit by and let that happen.
I’m an asshole, but I’m not a fucking asshole.
The M16 came with a second sight for the grenade launcher toward the front of the barrel, and Keo flicked it into position now. He remained crouched but scooted a bit further out from behind the building, then moved left toward the road until he could see (and shoot) around the wall. He spent a few seconds adjusting for wind and elevation.
It was going to be a hell of a shot, but firing a grenade launcher wasn’t quite the same as shooting a rifle. It was mostly about angles and adjustments and letting the round do all the work. Unlike shooting a rifle from long-distance, an explosion was easier to “miss” with and still be effective. He was also comforted by the fact that he had extra ammo in his pouch if the first shot went astray.
See, adjust, and fire again. So simple even a baby could do it.
Of course, he would have loved to get closer. Maybe another fifty meters. Oh, who was he kidding. A nice, round hundred meters would have been ideal.
He aimed for the roof, hoping to land a round somewhere in that vicinity so the resulting impact would take out the second floor and collapse it down onto the first. If not, a second shot into one of the walls would just about do it. The one thing Keo knew for sure was that if one grenade didn’t accomplish its goal, two—or hell, three—usually got the job done. Usually—
Clink!
The sharp sound of metal grinding against metal made Keo stand up and spin around, his finger sliding away from the grenade launcher to the main trigger. He was prepared to fire, to spray and pray (Thank God he had kept the fire selector on three-round burst), but instead Keo lost a second processing what he was seeing.
It was a kid.
A goddamn kid.
He was sitting on a shiny new bicycle in the middle of the road, wearing one of those plastic shell helmets that was supposed to protect him from cracking his head if he fell. He had on wrist and knee pads and brand new Nike sneakers. The kid couldn’t have been older than ten, sporting a white T-shirt that was stained in equal measure with sweat and what looked like chocolate.
He stared at Keo, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Join the party, pal.
Then the brat reached down and unclipped a rectangle black object housed inside a holder along the bike’s down tube, where a water bottle was supposed to go. The kid pulled out a walkie talkie, and Keo remembered what Carrie had told him after the marina shootout back at Lake Dulcet. It was how the soldiers knew there was a boat at the marina in the first place.
“They’re spies. Lookouts. Their job is to go around the city looking for survivors. The g
uys in uniform come later. That’s how they found us. One of those stupid kids spotted us and the trucks swooped in.”
“No,” Keo said, taking his finger off the M16’s trigger, hoping that would have some kind of effect. “Don’t do that, kid. You don’t want to do that.”
The little bastard didn’t hear a word he said. Or if he did, it never registered, because he lifted the walkie talkie to his lips, pressed the transmit lever, and shouted into it, “There’s someone here! There’s someone down the road! And he’s got a machine gun!”
Aw, hell.
Keo turned back around and saw the two soldiers in the road looking in his direction. Because he was standing now, they saw him immediately and started pointing.
When Keo glanced back at the kid, the little tyke was bicycling away at full speed, the clink-clink-clink of his chains against heavy metal frame.
“Yeah, you better run, you little bastard!” Keo shouted after him, but he hadn’t gotten “bastard” completely out when gunfire split the air and bullets buzzed past his head.
He ducked instinctively and moved back behind the wall, which started coming apart piece by piece in front of his face. He slipped down to one knee and tried to wait out the pop-pop-pop of a carbine shooting, which meant the guy with the M249 hadn’t opened up yet. Of course, it was only a matter of time. Chances were the guy was waiting to get closer. Either that, or he wasn’t comfortable firing that heavy weapon standing up—
The wall behind him disintegrated before he could finish the thought, ripped apart by a barrage of brap-brap-brap gunfire that seemed to go on and on and on.
The M249 light machine gun had just joined the party.
“Keo!” Blaine shouted through the radio. “What’s going on? Keo!”
Keo could barely hear Blaine’s voice over the roar of the machine gun fire. He didn’t know how far the two soldiers were at the moment, but he guessed they would keep together, which meant slowly moving up the road toward him. At the moment, staying down and keeping his head from being detached from his shoulders by one of the SAW’s 5.56mm rounds seemed the more prudent move.