by Justin Bell
“And before we didn’t have the horses and we didn’t have the two of you,” Rhonda continued, looking at Swift and Jacques.
“No pressure, right?” Jacques asked.
“Maybe a little pressure,” Rhonda replied.
Rebecca broke away from the group and walked back toward the duffel bag, bending low to rifle through it.
“Max!” she shouted. “Here’s your Smith!” she tossed him the revolver under hand and he caught it gracefully, turning it over in his hands with a wide smile. It still felt like an old friend to him.
“I warn you kid,” Rebecca continued, “the kind of action we might find ourselves in, you’re gonna want something with a bigger punch.” She extended her arm with another weapon and Max snatched it out of her hand easily. It was a semi-automatic pistol, its square barrel long and thick. “That’s a Glock 35, bored for forty cal. Fifteen round magazine instead of six or eight with the super loader. We’re running low on rounds for the revolver, too.”
Max looked longingly at the revolver, but then peeled open his shirt and tucked it into a shoulder holster, pinning the weapon there. He buttoned his shirt back up and ejected the magazine of the Glock, checking out the ammunition inside, then slammed it back home.
“Angel, we’ve got an M4 in here with your name on it.” Angel nodded as she handed him the automatic weapon, an M4A1 variant for military issue that they had appropriated from Ironclad somewhere along the way. Julie and Pietro had their own pistols tucked away and slowly Rebecca handed weaponry out to the others gathered around her, finally pulling out the last rifle, her trusty SIG 716 Battle Rifle that she had used to bail them out during the fight at the parking garage that felt like a lifetime and a half ago.
Fields snatched up the duffel bag, now a good deal lighter without being loaded with weapons and she slung it over her shoulders, cinching it tight like a backpack. All around the room they stood in a scattered group, weapons clutched in one or two hands, eyes roaming over their comrades, their partners, their family.
Things had come to a head and were still coming to a head, and although the end felt so near, everyone in the room was certain there was still a very long way to go.
***
Rhonda fought with the horse, the jet black stallion that Phil had taken out from under Elias, and she was slowly able to coax it out of the store and out onto the sidewalk. It had been a greater challenge than she anticipated, and after a full night’s rest, the creatures were growing hungry, anxious, and troublesome to manage. She had the most experience handling the animals; one of her neighbors had horses when she was growing up and sandwiched in between the marksmanship training and wilderness survival, her parents had introduced her to the horses and gotten her acclimated to them. Rhonda enjoyed her times with the horses so much that she had taken Max, Winnie, and Lydia to several summer riding camps as well, hoping to instill the same love of horse riding in them that she had. In truth it was one of the few joys in her relatively joyless childhood.
Phil came up behind the animal and set a flat palm on its flank, rubbing gently and the huffing horse calmed a bit, snorting, but then grew quiet, lowering its nose toward the ground. Rhonda smirked at Phil and petted the near side of the stallion, easing its thrashing heart to a calm, steady beat.
Looking over her shoulder, she could see Rebecca, Julie, Angel, and Max leading four more horses out onto the road, each one of them behaving and following their leads. For all of Elias’s faults, at least he did a good job training the animals.
“So what’s our play?” Julie asked as she approached, letting Winnie take control of her horse as she walked away. “Do we remember where this place is without the map?”
“The horses need to stretch their legs,” Rhonda replied. “Our first move is just seeing if we can find some food for us and them. Meanwhile, your old friend Pietro is hitting some gas stations to see about digging up some road maps.”
“Mission accomplished,” a voice came from the street, drawing both Rhonda and Julie’s attention. Pietro Jacques was trotting down the pavement toward them. “Hit four gas stations,” he gasped between breaths. “Finally found a good street map!” He held up his fist which was clamped tight around folded paper.
“Great job,” Rhonda complimented. “Phil, you remember the address, right?”
Phil nodded. “Oh yeah, it’s burned into my brain.” He walked over to Jacques, and the customs agent handed the map over. Phil peeled the paper apart, unfolding it and looked at the diagram of Philadelphia city streets. Rhonda moved toward him and looked over his shoulder as he traced the location that he’d remembered from the recovered paperwork that Fields had dug out of the transport copter. For a moment he thought about the lineage of those papers, about all of the hands they’d been through, hands that were now attached to corpses, and a swift shiver ran up his spine.
“That’s walking distance from here,” Rhonda said. “If you skip through these alleys…”
“Yeah, Brad and Tamar could have gotten there in a matter of minutes,” Phil finished.
Rhonda looked at him. “So where are they then?”
Everyone in the group had been holding out some hope that they knew where Brad and Tamar had gone and that if they mounted up and took off quickly they might be able to either intercept them or find them before they risked capture. Now, as Rhonda and Phil looked at the map, it was quite clear that it would have only taken the two boys minutes to get to the warehouse, and by all accounts they’d been gone for a couple of hours, if not more.
Something had gone wrong.
“What’s the matter?” Winnie asked, leading her horse toward them. “I see that look on your faces.”
Phil looked at his daughter and tried to smile reassuringly. “The warehouse is a lot closer than we thought,” he said.
“Yeah, we could have told you that,” Julie replied.
“But Tamar and Brad have been gone… they’ve been gone a while.”
Phil nodded. “Maybe they found a place to hide out, or maybe they’re just doing some surveillance.”
Winnie shook her head. “There’s no reason for them to be hanging out there this long, Dad. Just admit it. Something’s happened to them.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I do,” she spat back.
“How can you know, sweetheart?” Rhonda asked.
“How?” Winnie barked back. “How can I know? Because something always happens, okay? Anytime something can maybe go wrong, it does. There are no exceptions. Not anymore.”
“We need to have faith,” Rebecca replied, though she herself struggled to feel it.
“Faith in what?” Winnie asked, shaking her head. “Faith in who?”
Footfalls slapped pavement behind them and to their right.
“We’ve got company!” Rebecca shouted, and in an instant the SIG Battle Rifle was elevated, clutched in two hands, sight level with her opened eye. She took a few steps toward the corner of the building where the footsteps had come from. To her right, Rhonda and Phil moved forward as well, pistols raised.
A figure burst from around the corner, skidding to a halt startled, his arms lifting.
“Whoa, whoa!” he shouted. “Don’t shoot!”
“Tamar?” Winnie yelled, pushing her father aside and breaking into a run. She sprinted over the pavement and wrapped him up in a fierce bear hug, nearly knocking him off his feet. “You’re okay! Where’s Brad?”
Tamar returned the embrace, but gently broke away, patting Winnie on her shoulder. “Yeah, I’m all right. Brad, not so much.”
“What happened?” Max asked, stepping forward.
“He took a mad dash for the warehouse,” Tamar said. “I woke up just in time to see him take off and I followed him there. I caught up with him and tried to get him to vacate, but the boy is freaking determined.”
“Yeah, we got that impression,” Rhonda said.
“We were spotted and they swarmed the alley. I just barely got away. As
it was, I took a bunch of wrong turns to try to throw them off. I’m lucky I even made it back here.”
“So what did they do with Brad?” Max asked.
Tamar shook his head. “I just saw them grab him and take him down. I don’t know what happened.”
“And you just ran off? You left him?” Max asked, his voice growing louder.
“Hey, little man, there were like eight of those dudes. Most of them Korean. If I’d stuck around we’d both be in shackles right now and nobody would have been here to tell you what happened. Slow your roll, all right?”
“Cut him some slack, Maxie,” Phil said. “He did good.”
“Wait… did you say they were Korean?” Julie asked, stepping forward.
Tamar nodded. “I think so. I’m pretty sure I recognized their language from my time in Tae Kwon-Do DoJangs. It’s pretty distinctive.”
Rhonda lowered her head. As much as the picture became clearer and clearer in regards to her parents, she held out a small sliver of hope that maybe there was still some mistake. But if this was the warehouse where they were, and if Koreans were indeed there, the picture being painted was damning to say the least.
“So this warehouse,” Rebecca said. “Give us a rundown.”
Tamar nodded. “I didn’t see the whole place, but where we were was an alley across the south side parking lot. There were two delivery trucks and a dark green Humvee parked there. Concrete loading dock with a bunch of metal doors, those kind that ratchet open.”
Fields nodded and gestured for him to continue.
“There were a bunch of dudes there, those Korean dudes I was telling you about, all decked out in military uniforms. Tac vests, rifles, the whole nine.”
“Any other points of entry?”
Swift stepped forward. “There’s a set of double doors on the north side, but it’s under constant surveillance. Employee entrance on the west side near an alley parallel to that edge of the building.”
Rebecca nodded, her eyes narrowing as if deep in thought. Tamar could almost hear the gears turning inside her head as she did the mental gymnastics required to calculate an attack strategy.
“If we approach from the south side, is there a place we can leave the horses?” Rhonda glanced over at Rebecca and she nodded in agreement with the question.
Tamar nodded. “Yeah that alley cuts through two buildings, there’s a side street a block away, and I seem to remember a chain link fence there. Maybe even a bike rack? There’s a place to do it, I’m pretty sure.”
“So that’s our play?” asked Jacques. “We ride the horses to the warehouse, pop some caps, take down the bad guys and then ride off into the sunset?”
“I was just going to say we’d ride in and kick some ass,” Fields said. “Your way sounds a lot more romantic.”
Angel flashed her a look, lifting his eyebrows suggestively, and Rebecca rolled her eyes right back at him. “Don’t get any ideas, Menendez.”
“So, realistically, what are our chances?” Rhonda asked, looking at Swift first, then shifting to Tamar.
“There were like ten guys there that I saw,” Tamar replied. “But that was just outside the building. I don’t know about inside. I don’t know about surrounding buildings.
“Okay,” Rhonda replied. “We need to come up with a strategy.” She looked up into the pale blue sky, squinting at the sun. “With the warehouse as close as it is, I think trying a daylight raid is a mistake. They’ll see us a mile away and we’ll be intercepted before we get within a hundred yards of the place.”
“So you want to wait until tonight?” Max demanded. “No wonder Brad was getting antsy and pissed off. Come on, Mom, we can’t just leave him sitting there!”
“And what would getting the rest of us taken down prove? At this point we’re talking about twelve hours. Time enough to develop a plan of attack that will succeed instead of bum rushing the place and getting mowed down.”
Max shook his head and turned away, stomping off toward the abandoned department store.
“Come on,” Rhonda said. “Let’s follow his lead. Get the horses back under shelter. They’ve gotten some exercise. We’ll send a search party out for some food while the rest of us strategize an attack plan. Then tonight, we move.”
***
His shoulders pulled tight against the back of the chair and his arms ached as if he’d been carrying something just a little bit too heavy. Brad pulled on his binds, but the torn cloth dug tight into his wrists and would not budge or loosen.
“Struggle all you want, little man,” one of the gunmen said. “We’ve got you, whether you like it or not.”
“You don’t scare me,” Brad replied. He pulled forward, the wooden chair hard against his legs and back, his arms twisting along the narrow edges of the chair back. He was in a small room, but light shone through the window, casting a pale hue throughout the small room. There was no furniture beyond the chair, and the floor was a rough, pock-marked concrete, hard against Brad’s feet.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” the gunman asked. “What were you looking for exactly?”
“None of your business, jerk,” Brad spat back.
The man shook his head, throwing the boy a crooked grin. “You got spunk. Tough to argue with that.”
“Untie me and I’ll show you just how spunky I am.”
The man coughed a loud laugh which rattled against the walls of the empty room like an animal’s frantic scurry. He took a few steps toward Brad and leaned over, clasping his fingers in the loose fabric of his shirt.
“Look, you make me laugh, kid, but watch your mouth, got it? There ain’t much keeping me from dragging you out and shooting you in the street.”
“Do I qualify as ‘not much’?” a voice boomed from the door and the man jerked back, whirling around. Brad turned and saw the large, older man walk in, flanked by a much younger girl. A small group of others trailed them, and soon the room was half full of people Brad didn’t recognize. His eyes did drift over the face of the younger girl, however, and a spark of familiarity was there, lining the cheekbones and etched into the light brown fibers of the girl’s long hair.
“When did killing children in cold blood become part of our repertoire?” the man asked.
The gunman chuckled. “How many children do you think died in those nuclear detonations, Krueller?”
Brad’s eyes shifted to the man who had just entered. He was tall and large, and the boy recognized the name used by the gunman. Krueller. Wasn’t that Max’s grandparents’ last name? Brad started to speak, but thought better of it and clamped his lips shut again.
“I’m sorry, who are you again?” Krueller asked.
“Grandpa, don’t,” the younger girl said. “It’s not worth getting mad over.”
The larger man glanced at the woman, then nodded and turned back to Brad. He took another step toward him.
“Lydia’s right, of course,” he said. “My boy, can you tell us what you were doing? Why you were snooping around?”
Brad just shrugged. “Just looking for food and stuff,” he replied quietly. “That’s it.”
“You can understand why I might find that hard to believe.”
Brad didn’t reply.
Krueller crouched low, looking Brad in the eyes. “My name is Gerard. This is Rita,” he said, gesturing back toward one of the women who had entered with him. “This is Lydia.” He pointed over his other shoulder to the younger woman with the familiar features. Brad had suspected it was Max’s sister, but tried hard not to show that glimmer of recognition.
“What is your name, young man?”
“Brad,” he said simply, offering no other information.
“Well, Brad, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Brad glared up at him, his young face firm and stoic even under the close scrutiny of Gerard Krueller’s steel eyes.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” Krueller said. “That’s not what we’re here for. But we need you to tell us the truth.”<
br />
“I am telling the truth,” Brad replied.
Krueller closed his eyes and lowered his face toward the floor, chewing on something invisible. Lifting his head, his eyes were even cooler, narrowed further, the scant sliver of his eyes glaring out from between the lids.
“Okay. I suppose we will have to do this the hard way, then.”
“Krueller?”
Gerard looked back over his shoulder at the new voice just as another man entered. “What do you want, Park?”
Park remained where he was, near the entrance to the small room. He made no effort to move in toward Gerard, and Krueller sighed deeply, pulled himself upright, then turned to walk toward him. Brad saw the two men converse for a moment, Park leaning in to speak into Krueller’s ear. Gerard stepped away from him for a moment, a crooked smile splitting his lips, then he leaned back in and spoke for a few more moments.
Brad looked over and his eyes met Lydia’s. There was a warmth there, a resonate kindness that wasn’t present in Krueller’s cold glare and she actually smirked slightly, nodding back toward him as if to tell him that she wouldn’t let the other man hurt him. He smiled back, feeling an odd sense of heat soak into him, a feeling he had not felt in quite some time.
Krueller broke the silence. “Bradley. Can I call you Bradley? Turns out we don’t need to have ourselves a conversation after all. Turns out our timeline just got accelerated and we’re getting ready to head out. So, if you don’t mind, just stay where you are, and I’ll send some folks back in a few minutes to get you moving.”
“Moving?” Brad asked. “Where are we going?”
Krueller smiled long and wide. “Bradley, my boy. We’re going to Washington.”
Chapter Eight
They worked in silence the minute the sun set behind the clouds. Within the abandoned department store, the light faded from outside, starting to cloak the interior in a dim gray. Flashlights were removed from the duffel bag, their pale cones of light shining throughout the darkening cavern of the store. Scattered clops of pounding hooves interrupted the flurry of activity as the horses shuffled, snorting air through clenched nostrils. Magazines clacked into place within their weapons, the loose jingling of spare rounds were collected and gathered, sorted by caliber.