by AJ Powers
“Rational thinking goes out the window when you find out your son is dead—trust me on that one,” Kohler said with a grief-stricken look in his eyes. He began walking and Clay quickly fell inline. “I assure you, Clay, Arlo is coming, he’s coming soon, and he is going to bring everything he’s got.”
Was Brendan next to the truck, Clay asked himself. That was when he remembered Kohler’s only shot of the morning. The feeling sent a chill down his spine.
Yes…Arlo would be coming very soon.
Chapter 48
Surrounded by four of his best men, Arlo braved the deadly evening temperatures as he led his new recruits to the auction house. Ordinarily, a journey like this would be spaced over the course of two days, but Arlo’s fervor to stake his flag inside the walls of Liberty overpowered his own physical limitations. He wanted his newly acquired fighters to be well rested, fed, and properly motivated to storm Shelton’s gates the day after next. So, as they passed their usual pit stop for the night, Arlo pressed on.
Arlo’s enthusiasm, however, waned once the smell of burned rubber and plastic drifted into his nose. With each step, it grew stronger, as did Arlo’s anger. Somehow, he knew what had happened. And there was going to be hell to pay.
“Jenkins, give me some light,” one of Arlo’s bodyguards said as they approached the pickup truck.
A few of the men flicked on their flashlights, revealing the disturbing aftermath the IED had left behind. Smoke continued to pour out of the shattered windows as the seats inside smoldered. The melted snow around the truck gave way to cracked asphalt covered with corpses, detached limbs, and pools of blood that had started to crystalize from the below-freezing temperatures. It was a massacre.
“What the…?” one of the men said, verbalizing what everyone else thought.
“Nobody move or you’re all dead!” a voice in front of them cried out from the darkness, sounding more afraid than threatening.
Recognizing the voice, a man standing next to Arlo replied, “Hey Morris, when you’re all done pissin’ your pants, why don’t you come over here and talk to us.”
“Is that you, Elliot?” the man replied, his voice slightly bolder.
“Just get over here!”
Morris jogged over and was greeted with a furious look from his boss.
“Care to tell us what happened here?” Arlo asked.
“Uhm, well, sir, s-s-someone hit us,” Morris nervously replied.
“Oh, someone hit us…” Arlo scoffed before bringing a closed fist across Morris’s jaw. “Do you think that I am blind, son? Can I not see plainly that ‘someone hit us?’ How about you enlighten us and elaborate a little further.”
Morris still held his jaw, using every ounce of strength to suppress his whimpers—he was just barely seventeen. “My apologies, sir. I did not personally see what happened. All I know is that someone had planted some sort of bomb on the truck, and it detonated as our troops were passing by.” Fearing a reprisal from a lack of information, Morris’s body tensed up. But he only heard an infuriated sigh flee from Arlo’s nose. “I b-b-believe Simms was on the roof when the attack occurred.”
Arlo nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Morris. I presume my son is inside?” he asked.
Morris feared for his life. “Yes, sir, I believe he is.”
Without saying a word, Arlo continued walking toward the driveway up ahead. Elliot looked over at Morris with contempt. “Clean this mess up, boy,” he said, pointing to the bodies around.
“Y-y-yes sir.”
“Let’s go!” Elliot said as he and the rest of the men followed Arlo down the road.
Morris busied himself with a corpse until the group faded into darkness. More willing to face the Screamers than Arlo’s wrath for lying about his son, he turned and ran in the opposite direction, never looking back.
****
Barging inside the room with Simms and Elliot in tow, Arlo walked up to the old, metal desk on the back wall. “How did this happen?” he asked as he looked at his son’s cold, lifeless body lying on top of the desk.
“After the explosion, Brendan came up to the roof. He couldn’t have been over at the edge for more than a few seconds before he was hit by sniper fire,” Simms said somberly.
Arlo winced as Simms’s words came to life in his mind, making him wrought with grief.
“I tried to save him, sir, but he was already gone by the time I reached him.”
Feeling lightheaded, Arlo caught himself on the edge of the desk before falling to the ground. Elliot rushed a chair over and eased him into the seat before giving the man space.
Grasping his son’s hand, and putting his head on the desk, Arlo mourned silently over the death of his only son. “And…this sniper…did he shoot at you, as well?” he asked, his head still on the desk.
Simms thought about it for a moment. “No, sir. Come to think of it, I’m not sure they shot at anyone else after the explosion.”
“They?” he asked, slowly standing from the chair, his back still turned to them.
“Yes, sir,” Simms replied. “I engaged two targets that fled the scene immediately after Brendan was,” he paused for a moment, realizing who he was talking to, “after your son was shot.”
Arlo’s knuckles throbbed from his clenched fists. “You shot at them?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
Arlo’s seething eyes narrowed on Simms. “Then why aren’t their bodies right here next to my son’s?”
Simms swallowed nervously. “I’m sorry, sir, but they were quite far away and—”
“And yet, they were able to kill my son from the same distance?!” he screamed, kicking the back of the desk and leaving a furious dent behind. “Well, imagine that!”
Simms knew he would be wasting his breath to try and explain to the dejected man about the higher degree of difficulty when shooting at a moving, evasive target, as opposed to a stationary one. “I’m sorry, sir. There’s no excuse for my poor performance.”
Arlo shrugged off the man’s apology and refocused his attention on the ghost-white face of his departed son. He had known the risks in having Brendan be part of this undertaking. With his involvement of the initial strike, as well as taking part in several other attacks since, Arlo was not blind to the reality that his son could very well die in this war, yet he was woefully unprepared for it.
As the lamenting father observed the traumatic injuries to his son’s chest and Simms’s words echoed through his head, Arlo realized that Brendan had not just been another casualty in this war—someone in the wrong battle at the wrong time. The twenty-seven dead and fourteen wounded from the explosion had just been the cherry on top of the real objective—the assassination of his son.
Shelton, no doubt, would be expecting a fierce retaliation from Arlo, and he had no plans to disappoint. Despite the bad blood between the two, up until now, Arlo had viewed this war politically rather than something personal. It was about satisfying his group’s needs more than it was about revenge for his banishment. But when Shelton ordered the death of his son, he made it personal. And now, Arlo was going to see to it that the mayor of Liberty suffered a most excruciating demise, witnessed by every last one of the survivors from his beloved town.
“Go tell the others to get ready, we move out in one hour,” Arlo said to Simms.
“Sir, if I may,” Simms bravely spoke up—something he wouldn’t have dreamed of doing if it hadn’t been important. “I understand that you’re upset, but our guys need to rest. It’s already past midnight and with everything that happened this morning, and the new troops fresh off a fifteen-mile hike, I really think it would be best if we at least waited until dawn.”
Arlo’s shoulders dropped. He placed his hand on Brendan’s face and lovingly stroked his cheek with his thumb. “I love you, son,” he whispered before kissing him on the forehead. Arlo turned around and calmly walked across the room, heading for the door. As he passed Simms, he pulled his H&K VP9 from his holster and snapped it up to Simms�
��s head. “If you make me repeat myself, I will have Elliot dig your grave right next to my son’s.” Arlo lowered the gun as he took a step closer to Simms. With eyes depraved of all mercy, he got within an inch of the jittery man’s face and hissed, “So do you need me to go ahead and repeat myself?”
Simms forced himself to keep eye contact with Arlo as to avoid setting the man off further. “No sir, that won’t be necessary,” he said, his words unsteady.
Arlo took a step back and gestured toward the door.
“I’m very sorry for your loss, sir,” Simms said as he walked out of the room.
“What would you like me to do, sir?” Elliot asked.
“I want you to make it very clear to the people downstairs that I am removing all restrictions on weapon usage. Minimizing destruction to the town itself is no longer of concern. We will storm that gate, and get inside those walls—even if it means burning the whole damn place down.”
“Yes, sir,” Elliot replied sharply before leaving the room.
Taking possession of Liberty was no longer a priority for Arlo. Claiming the town in the name of the “honorable” Joseph Patrick would merely be the cherry on top of his primary objective. The judge’s threats over failure no longer concerned him, because after tomorrow, either they would both have gotten what they wanted or he would be dead. There was no middle ground, therefore no need to fear reprisal from his former colleague.
Walking to his quarters, Arlo picked up a Galil leaning against the wall next to his bed. Once practically an extension to his arm, the rifle now felt foreign in his hand. With so many people around willing to take a bullet for him, it had been a long time since the former district attorney had found a reason to pick up the old Israeli rifle.
But tonight, the reason had found him.
Chapter 49
The night was disturbingly still and impossibly dark. It was unnerving enough on its own, but throw in the fact that at any moment a throng of pissed off marauders could besiege the town with a ferocity not yet seen in the war only added to the contagious anxiety.
With his senses firing on all cylinders, Clay lay silently in the clock tower, his eye peering through the holographic sight on his AR-15. He scanned the abyss in front of him from south to east while Dusty, just a few feet away, covered south to west. The effort almost seemed worthless, as Clay wasn’t even able to make out the front gate through the dense blackness, much less people walking through the field across the street. However, if just one of Arlo’s men made a mistake, accidentally bumping a flashlight switch or lighting up a cigarette, Clay was certain they would spot it.
The entire town was under strict noise discipline. So long as the sun was down, no one was to speak unless absolutely necessary. With visibility practically zero, they would have to rely on sound instead of sight. Foreseeing this scenario, Kohler had ordered the placement of several noise traps outside the walls, including one particularly crucial trap halfway down the Deadly Eighth.
In addition to the noise discipline, light discipline was also in effect. Lights and flame of any sort were not allowed. The only exemption was the infirmary, which had blacked out its windows with canvas tarps, boards, and anything else that prevented light from escaping the inside. Kohler wanted to make any night assault as difficult on the enemy as it would be on them.
As the soundless night drew on, the waiting game began to have its way with Clay’s psyche. Despite trying to stay alert, his mind drifted over the if’s, when’s, and how bad’s of the imminent attack. And even though history told him that the bark was often worse than the bite, Clay was not optimistic that that would be the case this time around. When Kohler acted on the opportunity Brendan had presented, the Army veteran knew exactly how Arlo was going to respond—in fact, he counted on it.
“There’s no greater enemy to a strategist, than emotion,” Kohler had said to Shelton during their mission debrief after getting back to town. It was the sole reason why Kohler had decided to pull that trigger; why he dared to inflict a pain upon Arlo that he had never wished on his worst enemy. Kohler had bet the farm—literally—that killing Brendan would all but obliterate Arlo’s judgment, making his attack strategy one-dimensional. A passionate, but shortsighted assault was the very thing that could finally give Liberty the edge it needed to end this war. “The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long,” Kohler said, quoting Lao Tzu.
Clay convinced himself that it was unlikely that just one final battle stood between him and returning home to his family, but it didn’t stop him from daydreaming about waking up in his own bed on Christmas morning, his wife tightly wrapped in his arms as the kids played downstairs. What a gift that would be. But, with Kohler’s words about emotions and war fresh on his mind, Clay quickly snuffed those happy thoughts out. He needed to keep his mind razor sharp, which was already a challenge with the crushing fatigue.
The closer it got to sunrise, the darker his surroundings seemed to be. With no way to check the time, Clay hoped that that hazy orb in space would soon make its appearance for the day.
Having not moved in several hours, Clay’s idle state started to catch up with him. His eyelids became heavy as he used the stock of his LaRue to prevent his head from plummeting to the floor. Ordinarily, he would have already requested relief from someone else, but every capable fighter in town was already awake and each with their own assignment.
Reprimanding his brain for craving sleep, Clay pinched his forearm to the point of pain. The discomfort jolted his mind awake, but the desired effect was minimal and short-lived. He rubbed at his eyes, but stopped when he heard a faint noise in the distance.
*THWACK*
“Did you hear that?” Clay whispered softly.
“Yes,” a barely audible reply came from next to him.
Seemingly impossible, the silence around them got even quieter as the soldiers of Liberty held their collective breath, waiting for a confirmation on the sound.
Then Clay saw a soft, green glow about halfway down the driveway. Having rigged a mousetrap and chemlight to a trip line, Captain Kohler had created not only an audible alarm, but a visual one as well. But the chemlight was more than just an alarm; it acted as a marker.
“Dusty, do you see it?” Clay whispered.
“Yep, I’m on it.”
Dusty swung her rifle to the left and found the only source of light around. Having simulated this moment hundreds of times before sunset, she operated purely on muscle memory as she centered her crosshairs on the chemlight before dipping it down one hashmark. She couldn’t see the Tannerite, but she knew it was there.
The call was Clay’s to make. Though it was unlikely a wild animal would have wandered down the long driveway, tripping the trap, it wasn’t impossible, either. And with the last pound of Tannerite—the final ace up their sleeve—at stake, Clay found the decision more difficult to make than he had expected.
With a deep breath, “You’re green,” left Clay’s mouth; there was no point in whispering now.
When Dusty fired the rifle, every eye looking in that direction became blinded by the fireball billowing through the darkness. Having used just a quarter of the amount of Tannerite as they did in their ambush at the auction house, the blast was far less impressive. However, Kohler had made up for that by packing as many flammable materials around the explosive, creating a fiery wall across the Deadly Eighth.
Clay noticed a few bodies illuminated from the burning light, but there was no way to know just how many were taken out from the blast.
“Contact!” Clay heard Kohler shout from near the gate. This word was relayed around the whole town, alerting the troops that the enemy had arrived—as if there was any doubt after the explosion.
An eerie silence fell on the town once again, stirring up a flurry of emotions for everyone inside. Looking through his EoTech, Clay swung his rifle left and right, searching for a target. His stomach sank when he finally found one.
“Molotov!” Clay shouted as he sa
w the makeshift wick on the petrol bomb ignite. Clay placed his illuminated reticle on the only thing he could see, and fired several rounds, deafening him and Dusty inside the small, concrete room.
Suddenly, the flames spread, quickly engulfing the man who had held the homemade incendiary device. The burning man screamed in agony as he dropped to the ground in an attempt to put out the flame.
By the time Clay looked away from the man, he saw several other flaming bottles flying through the air, including one coming right at them. “Watch out!” he said as he shielded his face with his arm.
The glass bottle hit high, striking just inches above the window they were looking through. Though the bulk of the fuel was deflected, residual splashes had made it inside the window, burning both Clay and Dusty and igniting a blanket Dusty had been using.
After a furious growl, Clay looked up, through the dripping fire from above, and saw another bottle lighting up. He got to his knee and attempted to take a shot, but was forced back into cover from the hail of bullets screeching his way. He and Dusty grimaced as the bullets smashed into the wall, peppering them with small chunks of concrete shrapnel.