by RW Krpoun
From the noise coming from the back room those stews were working on their education. Some of the others had just given up, but those two still cursed and struggled, which was why they were here and not zombies: they hadn’t completely absorbed the lesson yet.
Satisfied with the blade, he sheathed the knife and stowed the sharpening stone before checking his watch. The Gnomes ought to be here soon, and once that detail was done they could get back to business. The guy in charge of the Gnomes was some GI who thought he could make an easy buck escorting some NSA geek, but he was in for a rude surprise-this wasn’t some Third World backwater and he wasn’t up against some goat-humping Arabs. He was up against Wade Schmidt, who had spent twenty of this thirty-nine years inside without once getting punked, with sixteen hits inside and four outside under his belt before the outbreak.
The guy had some good ideas, which Wade expected he had gotten from an army book: he had laid out three routes to their first goal, which was an abandoned dairy farm, and planned to randomly switch between them on the trip. Since the Gnomes were using military radios listening in wasn’t an option, and the Gnomes had put sentries and camera systems covering their vehicles so getting a GPS tracker on one of them was out, but it had all been for naught because all three routes led to the same place: an old country store that had gone belly-up back in the late 1990s. The Gnomes planned to stash their vehicles there while they walked to the farm two miles away.
Except they weren’t walking anywhere: Wade and his team were already established in the store, and the entire front parking lot was a kill zone.
Now all they had to do was wait.
Joshua Barton was sick of waiting. He and Juan were guarding the team’s two SUVs a quarter mile from the store and it was exceedingly dull work. It would be cold work, too, if he hadn’t zipped himself up into his sleeping bag. Wade would have been pissed if he knew, but Wade was in the store, probably banging a stewardess, so screw Wade. At least he wasn’t hitting the wacky baccy the way Juan was, but in the end, who gave a shit? The last few days they had been sitting around with nothing to do but play their PS4s and bang an increasingly apathetic bunch of stewardesses, all so they could ambush some stupid hired guns. They needed to get out and grab some loot, restock their supply of booze, and find some fresh girls who still had some fight in them.
The team’s two SUVs were parked nose to tail facing north on a little trail that led through the trees that seemed to coat this part of Minnesota. He and Juan were sitting on opposite sides of the trail south of the vehicles watching the trail where it ran to the county road.
Joshua squirmed against the tree trunk to settle into a more comfortable position and closed his eyes, pulling his arms into the sleeping bag. It was actually kind of nice sitting here in a sort of doze with the wind making soft noises in the branches. Peaceful: that was the word.
Juan hacked out a couple coughs to his left and Joshua started to smile before the sixth sense prison had instilled in him sparked: the first noise had been cough-like, but was metallic, like a machine. Opening his eyes, Barton started to reach for the rifle across his lap, but even as this gloved fingers found the weapon he heard a footstep behind him and then the world exploded and swam sideways.
Marv leaned against a birch and watched the shaved-headed man with a healthy coat of convict tattoos come back to full awareness, a process speeded by the ammonia capsule Chip held under his nose while Brick held the convict’s head immobile.
“Have a nice nap?” the Ranger squatted down and grinned at the ERF terrorist who was in his shirtsleeves and bound to a tree. “If you try to yell the guy behind you will stick a knife in you, not that your buddies in the store could hear you.”
“Go fu…” the convict froze as Brick laid a knife against the side of his throat.
“Be nice,” Marv warned. “Your buddy is dead, so now its up to you to tell us about your friends.” He glanced at the billfold. “You can start any time, Josh Barton.”
“I got rights,” Barton sneered.
Marv picked up a road flare and read the instructions printed on the side of the red paper-covered cylinder with interest. Removing the cap, he struck it alight, holding the flare carefully while the flame steadied and the stench of burning magnesium spread across the little group. “Ah, the rights of the individual as established by the Bill of Rights. I fought for those rights, while a piece of Human garbage like you did nothing but exploit them in order to hurt other people. Its my opinion they should have drowned you at birth, Josh, but as usual somebody dropped the ball. So now I’m left with a piece of trash, a lit flare, and a need for information.” The Ranger smiled. “I know enough to tell if you lie, Josh, so tell the truth.”
“I ain’t a snitch.”
“You didn’t used to be a snitch,” Marv corrected. “Of course, you used to be a guy with two eyes. Everything is subject to change.” He reached forward with the flare; Barton twisted his face away and gasped as blisters rose on his ear.
“Hot, isn’t it?” Marv drew the flare away. “How do you think we got here, Josh? You think we’re that lucky? We knew all about the ambush days ago. I bet you’ve been sitting around with your thumb up your ass waiting for us to get to Grand Forks. I bet you thought we didn’t know about the audio feeds in our quarters.” He grinned at Barton’s expression. “Yeah. Now, you can die really badly here, and then we can go kill your friends, or you can answer a few questions and then we go kill your friends, and you get to test your luck with the Feds.”
“Cut me loose and I’ll tell you.”
“I can’t let you go; fact is, I don’t want to let you go. What I want to do is burn you for a while and then gut-shoot you and leave you to die. Nobody will care because besides being someone nobody every cared about at any point in your life, you’re a freakin’ terrorist.” Marv thrust with the flare; Barton managed to duck, getting a row of blisters across his scalp. “But I’m willing to compromise because we are men of reason: tell me how many are in the store and you can go to the Feds alive and as intact as you are now.”
“Seven,” Barton spat. “Seven shooters and two women, stewardesses.”
“The women are captives?”
“Yeah.”
Marv looked over at JD, who nodded. “Who is in charge?”
“I answered…,” Barton hissed as the flame licked across his cheek, narrowly missing his left eye. “Wade Schmidt.”
“Who are you guys with?”
“The ERF.”
“Why us?”
“One of you is with the NSA, looking where they don’t want you to look.”
“What is the ERF hiding around here?”
“I dunno…damnit, I don’t know!”
Marv pulled the flare back. “You know this guy?” Dyson held the playing card close to Josh’s eyes.
Barton shook his head disgustedly. “That’s the big boss.”
“Where is the boss?”
“I don’t know-I don’t drive, and we don’t use maps, just GPS things. Little TV screen gadgets on the dash.”
“OK. Tell me about Wade.”
“That was pretty gross, dude,” Chip observed as the senior Gnomes gathered in front of the lead SUV.
“Not as gross as losing one of our guys. These assholes have caught me on a bad day, and they’re going to come to regret that fact,” Marv observed as he examined a tablet he had taken from Barton.
“So seven more shooters and two captives,” JD looked at his notes. “That matches what we gathered from the equipment in the vehicles.
“Addison, what did the GPS units tell you?” Marv spoke without looking up from the tablet.
“They came from a place inside our search area.”
“Hodges came to see them, so his location won’t be in the unit,” Dyson pointed out. “It takes us closer, but we’re still guessing.”
Marv held up the tablet. “This is Wade Schmidt, the leader of this crew. We need him alive because I bet he knows where the big
boss is. If anyone still has some moral compunctions about offing guys waiting to ambush us there’s a lot of in-progress rape pictures and video on this tablet to help ease your conscience.” The Ranger looked at Chip. “I’m losing my patience with these people, I really am. I’m capable of a lot more than I was six weeks ago. Is that a problem?”
Chip flushed, but he didn’t flinch away, and secretly Marv was pleased: Chip was capable of a lot more than he had been six weeks ago, too. “Its not a problem, just, I dunno…”
“Its really, really unpleasant?”
“Yeah.”
“For what its worth, it makes me sick to my stomach,” Marv admitted. “But so does the pictures on this tablet. We’re out here in the boonies without legal or political systems, just a group of men trying to do what is right. I’ve got two compass points I’m navigating by: that the crew in that store are terrorists, and that whatever Hodges is up to spells death and destruction on a large scale. Stopping either group counts as a good thing.”
“I can see that,” the medic conceded. “Would you really have burned his eye out?”
“No, but I was willing to go to the high end of second degree burns, and an accidental eye loss was something I could live with. The key is that you have to convince these guys that you are willing to go all the way; once they accept that, they’ll talk.” Marv thought for a moment. “Usually.”
Doctor Davenport dug out his unlisted sat phone from his briefcase. The Yard Gnomes were in Minnesota, and no doubt whatever ERF tactical resources Hodges had were moving to intercept them, so it was time to get the rest of the operation into motion.
Smiling, he punched in the number, the code word, and hit SEND.
Chapter Thirteen
“All right, we’ll do it just like we’ve covered in training: an eight-man stack, work in pairs,” Marv pointed towards the rear of the store just visible through the trees, a pale blue wood frame building surrounded by a gravel parking lot.
“I’ll take lead,” Bear announced.
Marv looked startled, but nodded.
“Second,” JD said tightly.
“I’m third,” the Ranger said quickly, sensing a harder edge on his fellows. They settled on Bear, JD, Marv, George, Brick, Dyson, Sauron, and Bad Dog, in that order, with Addison opening the door and prepping, and Chip trailing the group ready to act as a medic.
Bear left his assault shotgun with Bambi, preferring his short stockless Mossburg pump shotgun which normally rode on a quick-release buckle on his back. As he followed Addison out of the trees across the weed-broken gravel of the rear parking lot towards the back door he wondered why the hell he had volunteered to go first. He had shot at people on their run across the South, but he wasn’t sure if he had ever killed anyone.
It was the assumption on Marv’s part that the Ranger would lead the stack, or squad, that had done it, he realized: it had bothered him that Marv didn’t think anyone else was up to the task. The problem was that right now he was bothered by the suspicion that Marv might be right.
Addison, MAC-10 at the ready, led them to the rear door, moving quietly and quickly. Dropping the machine pistol to hang on its sling he ran a probe around the cracks of the door and examined the lock as Bear pressed his ear to the wooden door, listening carefully.
Satisfied, the dark Gnome produced a set of lock picks and methodically eased the deadbolt back into the door. Stowing his tools, he pulled a modified pipe bomb from a thigh pocket and checked the ignition mechanism. He cocked an eyebrow at Bear.
“Three voices, none close, and a woman crying,” the biker breathed.
Addison held his right hand above his head, fingers spread; deliberately he folded each finger in turn, then dropped his arm. Turning the knob, he tugged the door open, pulling the igniter on the bomb as the door started to swing open and pitching it into the store overhand, then catching the door and holding it in place.
Bear pushed in the shotgun’s safety and sucked in a deep breath as someone inside yelled in surprise; a split second later an explosion shook the building, sending down a shower of paint flakes like sun-bleached blue snow onto the waiting Gnomes. Hitting the door with his shoulder the biker hurled himself through the doorway with the feeling of a man crossing an irrevocable line.
Inside all was chaos-the air was thick with dust and black powder smoke, someone was screaming in pain, high wet howls of agony, and there was shouting and movement on either side. Bear bored in, keenly aware that his job was to get in far enough so that the rest of the stack could enter and disperse before the enemy could bring fire to bear on the ‘fatal funnel’. Vaulting an old chest-style cold case he saw a Hispanic man with a Zapata mustache and a neck tattoo struggling to get to his feet and to bring a shotgun to bear. Reacting purely on instinct Bear fired twice, the man’s face collapsing into a bloody crater, and then he was past and gunfire was roaring on either side.
He passed a man on his knees who was screaming while clutching his face with both hands as blood drizzled down between his fingers. The kneeler was hit by someone shooting from further back in the stack, but Bear paid no attention, firing three times to his right at a muzzle flash and keeping moving.
Then he was face to face with Wade Schmidt, a big man with inmate yard muscle, three teardrops under his left eye and a scorpion tattooed high on the left side of his neck. The ex-convict managed to parry the Mossburg’s barrel aside with the pistol in his right hand, but the concussion of the muzzle blast clearly stunned him for long enough for Bear to slam the receiver of the stubby weapon into Wade’s forehead, knocking him back into the wall.
Schmidt was an experienced brawler and swept Bear’s legs from beneath him even as he fell back. The Gnome released his shotgun, useless until the action was worked, and caught Wade’s shirt as he fell, jerking the ex-convict off his feet.
The two crashed onto the floor as gunfire roared around them, Wade losing his pistol as he caught his fall. Rolling to his side Bear punched Schmidt twice in the face, good solid jabs that rocked the man’s head back and sprayed blood across the wall behind him. The biker blocked a savage knee-thrust, wincing as his thigh took a hard hit, and tried to get a good grip on his opponent; for several eternal seconds the pair thrashed, kicked, and punched at each other, both trying to get an upper, leveraged position, and neither managing it. Rounds impacted into the wall a few feet over their heads but neither paid the shots or the rain of sheet rock powder the slightest mind. They fought with a savage intensity and complete concentration, both fully aware that there would only be one survivor of this fight.
Bear, chest heaving on the fouled air as his lungs tried to take in enough oxygen to maintain the level of exertion, caught the movement and instinctively parried, the knife drawing a line of lava-hot fire across his left upper forearm instead of his throat, blood pouring down over his watchband into his tactical glove.
Cursing, he seized Wade’s shirt and tried to head-butt the ex-convict as he grabbed for the wrist of the knife-hand. The head butt just banged into Schmidt’s shoulder, and the pain from his wound prevented him from getting a good grip on the ex-con’s wrist. As lights flashed before his eyes, part of his mind warned him that he was not winning and that he was running out of air.
Then JD was on top of Wade with a sleeper hold on the terrorist leader, and Bear used the distraction to grab the knife-arm with both hands. Caught between the two men Schmidt struggled bitterly even as the promoter shut down the blood flow to his brain; finally his eyes rolled up and after a couple spasmodic lurches he slumped over, unconscious.
Marv checked each body personally to ensure they were dead; it had been fast and brutal in the store and the Gnomes, keyed up and green, had shot first and didn’t ask any questions. A waxy-faced George and a deathly pale Scarface were stripping each body of arms and equipment while Sauron, who had quietly stepped outside to vomit, was searching the building itself. Addison, unperturbed as ever, was studying the controls to the explosives the ERF had set u
p in the kill zone in front of the building.
He located a strong five-foot length of metal pipe that had been used as the load-bearing portion of a clothes rack, and poked through a few odd corners before leaving.
Stepping outside and gratefully taking in a deep breath of air that wasn’t polluted by smoke, dust, and the stench of violent death, the Ranger checked dispositions. JD was positioning sentries as the last of the captured SUVs rolled in, the Gnomes’ vehicles already having been brought up. Bad Dog was helping hold Bear’s left arm steady on a table they had dragged out of the store while Chip stitched up a nasty knife wound, and Anna was bent over by the rear wheel of Gnome-2, one hand clutching the pale blue fender, hacking and spitting after throwing up. In the back of the truck Bambi and Sylvia were tending to the two stewardess as best they could.
“Is he going to live?” he inquired, strolling over to the table.
“No,” Bad Dog grinned as Bear cursed bitterly.
“Almost done,” Chip assured the sweating biker.
“Do you even know what a fucking local is?” Bear snarled.
“Last one.” Chip drew the thread tight and tied it off, neatly snipping it. “Just some antibiotic, a bandage, and a tetanus shot to go.”
“Just my luck to get sewed up by a guy who learned on a correspondence course,” Bear muttered.
“I helped out in the ER last week, and they let me practice on corpses,” Chip smeared cream along the line of stitches, which Marv thought looked pretty even and tight.
“Don’t expect to use me as a professional reference.”
“You want Wade’s knife?” Marv held up the sheathed weapon. “It’s a Chris Reeve Pacific model, pretty decent blade, about five hundred bucks’ worth of hand-crafted steel.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Bear took the weapon, watching Chip bandage his arm. “Although I think that damned needle did more damage.”