Of course, there was no obvious way of telling who was part of the resistance and who wasn’t, but Fernando felt that a disarmed citizenry was an obedient citizenry. If Randy had felt more solid in his current position, he might have pushed back on the idea. But with every passing day he saw the writing on the wall. With the arrival of the Brigade, he and his men were becoming more and more redundant. In Fernando’s world, a person without purpose could find themselves swinging from a noose at a moment’s notice. It was important that Randy seem vital to the war effort, even if his allegiances were mixed.
Jesus regarded him from the passenger seat. “You done daydreaming, ese?” He tapped the gold-plated watch dangling from his wrist. It looked like something he’d looted off a dead body. “Time is money. We got a job to do.”
Randy pulled a hand towel from the middle console and dabbed at his face. When he was done he slicked back his hair and stepped into the bright, blinding sun. There was no telling which of these homes was still occupied. Even back when Mayor Reid was running the show, there had never been a focused effort to fill in the gaps. In a way it was an inadvertent gift they’d given the resistance—the ability to flit from location to location unchecked. When the cartel was finally gone and Randy was once again back in control of the sheriff’s office, determining who lived where would be his first order of business.
Jesus marched up the withered lawn of the first house and cupped his eyes to the window. This was followed by a rap at the door, whether or not a red x was present. Back when the H3N3 was busy ravaging the town, there hadn’t been the time, the manpower or the safety equipment necessary to bury everyone who had died huddled in bed or reclined in their favorite sofa chair. A simple red x on the front door had served as a warning to stay away. But so many weeks out from the height of the epidemic, there was no telling whether any biohazard remained.
Randy and Jesus hopscotched one another, peeping and then knocking and, most importantly, listening for the pitter-patter of feet. There was no sense kicking down every door on the block, especially considering the horrors contained inside all but a few of these homes.
It wasn’t long before things changed. Randy cut across the lawn to a bungalow with a tiled roof and broken windows. Peering through one of the holes, he noticed the air inside smelled of freshly cooked food. On the table was a collection of empty cans and beyond that a sliding glass door which looked out onto the backyard and a BBQ sitting with an open lid. Someone lived here, maybe lots of someones. If helping the cartel meant he was working against his own best interests, then skipping over this house and saving these people the heartache of a home invasion was the wisest course of action. Randy started heading for the next house when Jesus circled back to look inside the bungalow.
“Nothing there,” Randy started, before Jesus raised his hand, a single digit aimed at the sky.
This was where things got tricky. If the cartel thought he had gone soft, or worse, thought he was helping the enemy… well, there was no telling what they might do to him. He would be tortured, then slowly killed in the most horrific way. For many, suggesting there were “worse things than death” was an unforgiveable cliché. But in this case, it was true.
“There’s someone in here,” Jesus said, moving around to hammer the door with his fist. When ten seconds passed without anyone answering, he took a step back, drew his pistol and kicked it open. Randy was right behind him, moving from room to room.
“Sheriff’s office,” he called out as they went through the house. Eventually, they found them, hiding in a walk-in closet. A man and his two sons. They were thin and ragged, but not completely emaciated. Heck, they were barbequing something, even if it was only rats.
Jesus stood them up.
“Why didn’t you answer the door when I knocked?” he asked, waving his gun around.
The boys flinched whenever the barrel swiveled across their faces. If Jesus was a smarter man, he’d realize he was answering his own question.
“We were scared,” the man told him.
“Do you have any weapons?” Randy asked, trying to take over.
“An air rifle and a .22, but we only use them for hunting.”
Randy and Jesus exchanged a look. “You can keep the airgun, but we need the .22,” Jesus said.
The man’s hands went up. “How will we―”
He was going to say ‘eat,’ or something like that, but didn’t get the words out before Jesus clocked him in the head with his pistol.
“Give me another excuse,” the enforcer said. “’Cause I’m just getting warmed up.”
A tear of blood rolled from the man’s temple. “We haven’t broken any laws,” he said.
Jesus replied with another smack.
This guy wasn’t learning his lesson and if he didn’t shut up, Jesus was going to introduce him to his namesake.
“You want to get killed?” Randy shouted. “Do as the man says.”
“All right, fine,” the man replied, defeated. He rose and left the room.
Jesus motioned with his gun. “Follow him. Make sure he doesn’t make a run for it.”
Without his sons? Randy thought, heading down the hallway after him. Unlikely.
The man disappeared into the kitchen. When Randy turned the corner he came to a skidding stop. The man moved to snatch the rifle off the kitchen counter, but not like he meant to hand it over. In a rapid motion, he swung around, pushing the bolt up, forward and back. Randy drew his pistol at the same time, telling him to stop. This was not the way he’d intended for this to go down. The rifle barrel rose toward the middle of Randy’s chest. Once it arrived, he would fire, there was no doubt in the sheriff’s mind. This was no longer about mitigating damage, it was about choosing who lived and who died.
In that split second of chaos, another part of Randy kicked in. Gone was the mediator attempting to limit the cartel enforcer’s wrath. Standing in its place was the survivor who had no compunction taking another life if it meant preserving his own. Randy’s pistol jerked in his hand as he rattled off six shots. Five of them found their mark, striking him in the torso and face. One of them must have hit the man’s heart because he crumpled to the floor, his finger depressing the trigger on his way down, drilling a round into the tile floor.
The next moment, Jesus sprinted in and shouted, “You lucky bastard. I had a feeling he was gonna to draw on you.”
“The guy’s kids…” Randy started to say, still reeling. He’d killed before, that wasn’t the problem. Maybe it was the way it had happened. Maybe it was the look of glee on Jesus’ face.
“Should we waste them too?” the enforcer asked. He might as well have been talking about a pair of stray dogs.
“I think we’ve already done enough.” Randy grabbed the rifle and both men left.
They searched six more houses after that, successfully scaring folks half to death, but failing to find a single contraband item. If the families they encountered were hiding any communication equipment, weapons or extra food, they had done a pretty good job of it. After the shooting earlier, Jesus was even more agitated than before, almost angry that he had missed out on an opportunity to gun someone down. A sixty-three-year-old retired vet who dared to maintain eye contact with the enforcer paid for it with a vicious sucker punch to the gut.
Watching all this was something of an eye-opener for Randy. These were things he and his men had done, forcing homesteaders off their land, confiscating their resources and possessions. But he had always managed to justify the barbarity of his actions, even those perpetrated against Dale. Things had seemed so simple back then. Either the townspeople of Encendido bent to his will or they paid the price, and maybe that was the big difference. This was no longer Randy’s will they were defying, it was Fernando’s. And with every passing day, that seed of doubt laid when the younger Ortega first showed up had only grown. Now under Fernando, that sapling was fast becoming a fully-fledged tree.
Finally, they arrived at an Arizona-ranch sty
le house settled on the corner of Chantilly and Regency. Recessed slightly from the street, the house was surrounded by a veritable wall of trees and bushes. If Randy was going to set up a safehouse, this was where he would do it. Jesus sauntered across the street to cover more ground, while Randy planted his feet before the front door, noticing a red x which seemed far fresher and less faded than most of the others. Randy knocked a second and third time before he heard people moving inside. At last, the front door opened a crack and the sliver of a face peered back at him.
“What are you doing here?” the female voice asked, genuinely surprised.
It took Randy a moment to figure out the woman on other side was Sandy.
Chapter 25
Sandy
She let him in, still unsure how Randy had known they were here. She and Zach were talking to Tahoma and another resistance member named Jake Campbell about devising a way to use the Navajo language as a sort of encryption device over short-wave radio. They had a set in one of the back bedrooms donated by a sympathetic civilian in town. Since much of their equipment had been confiscated or destroyed during the recent raids, it was imperative that they protect what little they had left.
“Is anybody else in the house with you?” Randy asked quickly.
“Three others,” she replied, trying to follow his rapid speech. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“If you have any weapons or contraband, you have exactly thirty seconds before someone named Hey-zeus comes waltzing through that door. And believe me when I tell you, turning the other cheek for this guy is less philosophy and more foreplay.”
Sandy wasn’t sure what the heck the sheriff was talking about, but she left to warn the others. Zach was already in the hallway, marching toward them, his pistol drawn.
“Put that away,” she barked. “And tell the other two to hide the shortwave.”
Zach peered over her shoulder. “Is that Randy?” he said, hardly believing it. “Who’s he with?”
“Might be cartel, but that isn’t the point. If we kill one of Fernando’s men, they’ll suspect Randy had something to do with it.”
“Great,” Zach said, pulling back the slide. “It’s always better to have someone take out the trash for you.”
He began to move toward the front entrance when she pounded against his chest. “Would you just do as I say?”
Zach stopped. “Okay, fine.”
Returning to the entrance, Sandy saw Jesus closing the front door behind himself. The cartel man stared at her with unfiltered lust in his eyes.
“You gonna start searching or what?” he asked Randy, a mix of annoyance and maybe even a little suspicion in his voice.
“I was waiting for you,” he replied.
“We have nothing you need,” Sandy said, trying to thicken her accent. She’d never seen this particular enforcer before. He must have been part of the crew that had rolled into town with Fernando. Thankfully, that meant he didn’t know she was once a deputy and now technically a criminal. Nor did he know Zach, Tahoma or Jake.
Randy began pretending to look around while Jesus came closer.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, señorita. You definitely have what I need.”
There was a silver-handled pistol sticking out of his belt. If she did not humor him, there was a chance he might take it out and shoot her right on the spot.
He clutched a handful of her hair and brought it to his nose, breathing her in as though she were a wild flower. “I like her,” Jesus said, speaking to Randy, who was pretending to search through a nearby closet. “Honey, throw a few things in a bag. A fine woman like yourself shouldn’t stay all alone. It’s a dangerous place out there. Filled with criminals who might try to hurt you.”
No kidding, she thought, but didn’t say.
“I can take care of myself,” she replied instead, trying to slow her beating heart.
Jesus grinned, exposing a gold tooth. “I’ll bet you can.” He eyed her up and down, settling once again on her delicate facial features. His eyebrows knitted together. “Do I know you?”
Sandy’s chest tightened. She tried to giggle, but the noise came out all wrong. “Did you go to Encendido High?”
He snickered. “Not exactly,” he said, brushing past her and into the hallway. The shortwave was in the far room and she needed to slow him down so the others could hide the equipment.
“Going so quick? I was just getting to know you.”
“We’ll have plenty of time for that later,” Jesus said, glancing into the first bedroom.
She and Randy shared a nervous glance as she followed the enforcer.
Soon Jesus was on to the second bedroom. This time he gave the place a more thorough look. “This where you sleep?” he asked, pushing down on the mattress. “Feels comfy.” He winked at her.
Sandy laughed. “A girl should never kiss and tell.”
Jesus liked that.
He came toward her and she retreated into the hallway, her spine hitting the wall with a bang.
Jesus leaned in for a kiss. He stopped when he heard voices in the far room. He glanced in that direction. “You never told me someone else was here.”
“You never asked. It’s only my brother and two of his friends.”
Jesus headed for that final room, pawing open the door and in turn releasing a cloud of smoke. Coughing, Jesus waved his hand in front of his face. Zach and Tahoma were sitting on folding chairs, chain-smoking cigarettes while Jake reclined in a large bean bag. A desk by the window had a blanket thrown over it. From here it appeared as though they’d placed the shortwave beneath the desk and covered the whole thing with the blanket. Not the most subtle job, but the best they could do with such short notice.
“What’s this?” Jesus asked, pointing at the blanket, annoyed.
“Huh, I hate sharp edges,” Zach replied, drawing on the cigarette and making an O.
Jesus shoved past them and yanked the cover from the desk. Sandy’s heart froze in her chest. Beneath it was a patch of empty carpeted floor. She breathed a silent sigh of relief.
Jesus stomped into the hallway, pausing to look back at Sandy. “I thought I told you to get packing?” Out of the enforcer’s line of sight, the other three eyed one another. Jesus looked at her funny again. “I remember now, you used to work at the sheriff’s office,” he said slowly in his heavy accent. “Saw your picture on the wall.”
Sandy batted her eyelashes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, I’m sure of it.” He went to reach for his pistol right as Sandy slammed her knee into his crotch. Jesus bent forward, his eyes bulging in agony. Sandy then reached for the pistol sticking out of his pants, but instead of pulling the weapon free, she pulled the trigger repeatedly. He grabbed at her hand, tearing it off the weapon. Sandy was strong, but not strong enough. Jesus now had control of the pistol and even in his pain managed to swing it around to finish her off.
Three shots rang out and Sandy flinched. She looked down expecting to see holes in her shirt, pools of blood forming on her chest, but none of that was there. Instead, Jesus fell forward, releasing a final groan on the way down, and died. Before she could even blink, Zach was in the hallway, scooping up the enforcer’s pistol and aiming it at Randy. Both men stared at each other through iron sights, fingers on the triggers. Zach’s eyes were cold, Randy’s no different.
“Don’t do it,” she told them. “We’re on the same side.”
“The hell we are,” Zach barked back. “You may have set aside what he did to us, but I haven’t.”
“You’re not the only one who lost someone,” Randy snapped. “Your son killed my brother.”
“Well, he had it coming then.”
One of them was about to shoot and Sandy could only see one way to stop it. She stepped between them and held out her hands in either direction. “Listen to me, you jerks. We can’t keep fighting one another. All that does is make it easier for the cartel to pick us off one by one.”
&nbs
p; Randy’s pistol sagged and then dropped to his side. Zach’s didn’t budge.
“She’s right,” the sheriff said. “Right now, we have bigger problems. You wanna settle this once the cartel’s gone, be my guest. Until then, you either get on board or stay out of our way.”
Zach stood there with a look of astonishment, watching as the sheriff walked away. Sandy could see the wheels turning in his head. Could he have been wrong about Randy? After all, he had just killed a cartel enforcer, a move that might put him under a cloak of suspicion. The two men had come within a hair’s breadth of blowing each other away. They needed someone who could bring all of the self-interested factions together. For this reason and so many others, Sandy missed Dale now more than ever.
Randy stopped near the doorway. “There’s a bungalow on Coronado with two orphans who may need your help.” He drew in a deep breath. “And I have news on Dale.”
Sandy stepped forward, her lips parted with surprise and hope.
“He escaped the cartel’s hitmen, but right now that’s all I know. I’ll tell you when I hear more.”
Randy walked away, leaving Sandy clutching the wall to keep from falling over. Zach swooped in and grabbed her. The sheriff’s news should have left her feeling elated and hopeful, but somehow it only increased the overwhelming fear in her heart.
Chapter 26
Randy
In spite of the blinding noonday sun, the now defunct Teletech TV plant was filled with deep pockets of shadow. This was the location Fernando had decided to make his command center. It was also where he was now, leaning back against a conveyor belt on the factory floor, his fingers laced together, his ice-cold gaze drilling into Randy’s soul.
Defiance: Judgment Day (The Defending Home Series Book 3) Page 13