Sandy winced. “Sounds horrible.”
“Only if you’re caught in the middle,” Dale said. “But there’s something I need to do first.”
“What’s that?” Gruber asked.
Dale pointed to a spot on Charleston. “This is where my house is and where the Brigade has their headquarters. If there’s any viable counterattack, this is where it’ll come from.”
Gruber nodded. “All right, take a few people with you. When you’re done, link up with the others at the north end of the park.”
Zach cleared his throat. “I’ll join you, Dale.”
Sandy, Dannyboy and Travis also spoke up.
“All right,” Dale said, nodding to those assembled. “We all know what to do. Pray that everything goes according to plan.”
When they filed out of the offices, Brooke and Caleb were there with Duke. Dale tapped his leg, summoning the dog to his side. Duke came at once, perched inches from his master, staring up in obedience.
“Where is everyone going?” his daughter asked.
Dale explained the plan of attack.
“Then I’m going with you,” she said.
“Stay with Caleb and the others,” Dale told her. “You’ll need to hold the ground north of the park. We’ll join up with you as soon as we can.”
He could see she wanted to argue and he gave her a look. Brooke lowered her chin and bit her lip.
Around them, members of C Company and other resistance fighters were arming up with whatever they could. Some of the weapons had been scavenged from the dead cartel members who had attacked the military base. In a worst-case scenario, if weapons or ammo grew scarce, they could always turn to the handful of caches his daughter had buried nearby.
Dale grabbed the FX-05, a chest rig stacked with 5.56 mags and a pistol.
“You’re not taking your sniper rifle?” Zach asked, pulling on his own chest rig.
“Not where we’re going,” Dale replied. “I expect this first battle’s going to be up close and personal.”
Chapter 32
Dale and his team left the water treatment plant at high speed heading north on Mason. A mile ahead of them was Charleston, the road where Dale’s house was located. But no matter how lightly defended it was, they weren’t foolish enough to engage Fortress Hardy in a frontal assault. They would use subterfuge. Dale remembered reading about castles during the Middle Ages and how few of them actually fell in battle. More often than not, someone on the inside was bribed to throw open the gate, allowing an enemy army to come pouring in.
Dale pulled off the road about three hundred yards from Charleston. The plan was to cut across the open field parallel to his property, approaching from the rear. The Brigade was a fierce military force who had no equal among the civilian population. They had proven that time and again. But Dale had also calculated how that might work to his advantage. In their arrogance, the enemy believed the resistance was crushed. With their guard lowered, they would never anticipate such a bold move, especially not with what Dale had in store.
“Keep your eyes peeled for booby traps and trip wires,” he told them as they moved ahead in single file spaced several feet apart. Duke was by his side, treading quietly, never more than a few feet away. After the two of them had been reunited, it seemed his furry companion never wanted to let him out of his sight.
The wild undergrowth and smattering of small trees scattered across the arid landscape provided some concealment as they approached, but moving along on a single path also limited the number of anti-personnel devices they might come across.
As they drew closer, Dale patted the ground, telling them to stop. He peered through the scope on his FX, surveying the land around his house. The good news was the place was still standing, along with the barn at the back. But even from this far away, he could tell the chickens and vegetables were gone. Not a huge surprise from people who only knew how to destroy and steal from others. As they drew closer, he also noticed the retractable stairs were pulled up, which meant they wouldn’t be able to simply waltz in unannounced. Dale froze when he spotted two Brigade guards on patrol, circling around back, heading toward the garage. Nearby was another soldier, dragging a hose from a water truck toward his pumphouse. Dale remembered engaging the convoy close to the border and his suspicion that Fernando was draining his aquifer. Now the suspicion had become a fact.
When the patrol walked past the pumphouse and out of sight, Dale waved them forward. Their first stop was the barn. Inside, they would remain out of sight and figure out the next plan of attack.
Charging across open ground, they quickly made it inside. Once there, Sandy wiped the sweat from her forehead. The air was cooler in here and each of them was thankful for the small reprieve. Zach took a sip from his CamelBak.
“All right, what now, kemosabe?” Zach asked, licking every last bit of moisture from his lips.
“Keep an eye out for that patrol,” Dale told them.
Travis shuffled to the open barn doors and peered out, making sure to stay in the shadow. For his part, Dannyboy scaled the ladder to the second story, setting up a firing position that covered both angles of approach.
Once they were all in position, Dale went to a spot in the corner of the barn, next to a bale of hay, and began pushing at loose straw.
Zach looked at him as though he had gone insane until the edges of a trapdoor came into view. Gripping the metal handle, Dale yanked it open, fishing a pen light from his back pocket.
“After you,” he said, waving Zach inside.
One by one they descended the short ladder and entered the tunnel. During construction, Dale had been careful to keep the entrance hidden. The idea was that he and his family always had an escape route, but in this case it also acted as a secret back door.
After duck-walking along the narrow tunnel, Dale and the others arrived at the hatch which led into the basement. As quietly as he could, he nudged it open and stepped out. As he stood, Dale’s knees popped in protest. But popping knees wasn’t the only sound he heard. From his right came the sound of static. Someone had been on the shortwave and as the others followed him into the dimness of the basement, the man by the radio was rising to his feet.
“What the hell?”
The only light came from a small lamp by the shortwave. It wasn’t enough to illuminate the man’s face, but it was more than enough to show he was wearing Brigade fatigues. The enemy soldier’s right hand dropped to the pistol by his side. At the same time, Dale leveled his assault rifle and let fly a half-dozen rounds. At least three of them struck home, sending the soldier sprawling backwards over the chair.
“So much for the element of surprise,” Sandy said.
From there, they moved up the stairs fast, covering multiple angles as they hit the landing.
Another Brigade soldier popped out of the kitchen armed with a pistol, right when Dale was looking the other way. In a blur of motion, Duke leapt through the air, snarling as he latched onto the man’s arm holding the weapon. The dog shook violently, tearing at tendons and flesh. The intense pain made him recoil long enough for Sandy to put three rounds into his chest.
Then came shouting from outside. The patrol had caught the sound of gunfire and raised the alarm. Dale motioned for Zach and Dannyboy to head back toward the garage, since it was the most likely entry point.
Dale, Travis, Sandy and Duke ascended the staircase, the muzzles of their weapons covering every angle. Swinging right, Dale moved into his old bedroom. The place was a mess. His bedsheets were covered with dirt, as though someone was sleeping here with their boots on. A uniform jacket tossed over a chair gave him his answer.
The name Captain Lee was embossed over the breast pocket.
Meanwhile, Travis and Sandy cleared the rest of the upstairs bedrooms. There they found a similar-looking pigsty.
The sound of gunfire rattled up at them from downstairs as well as Dale’s open bedroom window. That meant Zach and Dannyboy were indeed engaging the Briga
de guards. Dale poked his head out the window and saw one of them taking cover near the pumphouse, focused on someone inside the garage. Dale waited for him to pop out and filled him with lead. Seeing his comrade shot and killed, the other guard took off running. He must have thought his comrade had been shot by Zach. Leaning out the window, Dale took careful aim and dropped his target with a single shot to the spine.
When he turned around, he saw Sandy and Travis motioning toward the bathroom. Someone was inside. Dale approached and stretched a hand out to knock on the door, making sure to keep the rest of his body off to the side.
A barrage of gunfire riddled the door, ending in an audible click as the slide on the attacker’s pistol telegraphed he was out of bullets. Dale stepped over and kicked open the door.
“Go get him,” he told Duke, following right behind, his rifle poised.
Inside the bathroom a naked man was curled into a ball, trying to ward off Duke’s vicious attack. A sight which was both disturbing and held a large dollop of poetic justice when Dale realized who he was looking at.
He called Duke back while Travis pulled the man to his feet.
Dale went back to his bedroom and tossed Captain Lee his uniform. Captain Lee must have been taking a bath, preparing for the hanging in town, when they showed up.
The Brigade commander began to dress, his forearm bleeding from where Duke had clamped on with his powerful jaws. “Thank you,” he said, referring to the clothes.
Dale shook his head. “Don’t thank me. I want people to be able to identify your body after we execute you.”
In the distance came the sound of gunfire. The battle for Encendido had begun.
Chapter 33
With his house cleared and Captain Lee similarly taken care of, Dale and the others hopped into the pickup and sped toward town. Merging onto Coronado would bring them past the sheriff’s office and along the southern end of the park. Staying on Charleston, on the other hand, would allow them to cut through a small suburban neighborhood and emerge on the north end of Memorial Park.
As they got closer, the ferocious sound of gunfire only grew louder. Within minutes, the park and the fire station at the far end came into view. To their left, resistance fighters were firing at Fernando’s men from concealed positions. Along the park’s southern tip, Dale spotted Gruber’s men engaging elements of the Brigade.
They pulled up next to the road and scrambled out. Dale, with Duke and Sandy next to him, darted for a clump of trees twenty yards away. From here he would reassess the situation and attempt to acquire targets in all of the chaos. At the same time, Zach, Travis and Dannyboy went to the right, shoring up the firing line.
Dale scanned the battlefield through his scope. At the other end, the scaffolding showed no sign of Nobel or the others, although with bodies strewn around it and men fighting from between its thick wooden beams, it was difficult to say for sure what had become of them. With any luck, Gruber and his men had managed to rescue them before it was too late.
Toward the middle left of the park, Dale spotted several deputies behind a boulder, exchanging gunfire with a group of cartel enforcers. Many were already dead on both sides, but it was clear that Randy’s men had joined the resistance at a critical time. Dale then saw that Randy was with them, sitting with his back pressed against the rock, reloading his pistol. A few feet over was Keith, clutching a bloody left arm. They appeared to be pinned down. Movement on their left flank confirmed his fears. Members of the Brigade had circled around back of the sheriff’s office and were preparing to attack Randy’s flank. Left with no cover, they would surely be cut down to a man.
“Stay here and cover me,” Dale told Sandy.
He jumped up and sprinted to his left, Duke at his heels, both of them darting along a slight depression as bullets whizzed overhead.
If he could reach the collection of buildings that ran along El Camino, then he might be able to keep the Brigade detachment off balance and give Randy’s deputies a fighting chance.
After pushing up alongside a real estate office, he slid to the edge of the building and peered around the corner. Not fifty yards away the enforcers were preparing to ambush the sheriff and his deputies. Dale dropped to one knee, settled the crosshairs of his weapon over the target closest to him and opened fire. With the enforcers clumped tightly together, his 5.56 rounds passed right through the first enemy and into the next, killing them both. Dale continued laying it on thick, forcing the Brigade men to move into the alley, exposing them to the deputies, who made short work of them. As Dale circled around the other side of the building, he locked eyes with Randy, nodding to one another. He hoped the sheriff didn’t think this meant they were suddenly best friends.
The sound of the M3 Bradley’s main gun opening up snapped his attention toward the park’s far end. A short distance away were both Humvees from Camp Zulu, each armed with a .50 cal machine gun.
This was where they broke the cartel’s back, Dale thought with glee. He was in the midst of heading back to where he had left Sandy when he heard a hissing sound, followed by a tremendous boom. The shockwave reverberated off the nearby buildings, pushing Dale off his feet. He pushed himself up and looked on in horror as the Bradley burst into flames. One soldier tried running out from the back and was cut down. Seconds later, two more hissing streaks of white smoke left both Humvees engulfed in flames. The Brigade were armed with anti-tank missiles.
The losses only emboldened the enemy, who sprang out and attacked with even greater ferocity. Suddenly, fire was coming from Dale’s right flank as cartel enforcers appeared from between the houses along the other end. He watched as first Travis and then Caesar were struck down in quick succession. They were losing men fast. Twenty yards to his right, Dannyboy stood up to return fire and was hit, throwing him flat on his back. Zach cried out with rage, shooting wildly. The resistance was starting to crumble.
As if things couldn’t get any worse, resistance fighters along the northern line began calling out for ammo. Staying low, Dale shuffled over to them. When he arrived, he was surprised to see Brooke and Caleb, fighting alongside them. Dale raised himself up long enough to rattle off a few shots to try to keep their position from being rolled up.
It now seemed that the resistance was being beaten back on all fronts. They needed to do something and fast.
“There are plenty of weapons and ammo caches hidden in the area,” he told one of Zach’s Rangers.
The Ranger loaded his last magazine. “We already checked three of them and they were empty.”
Empty? But how is that possible? Brooke had been the one to divvy the caches up precisely for this sort of situation. He looked over and saw that Brooke was gone. An insane, unimaginable thought struck him just then. Could she be working for the cartel?
The gut-shattering idea scurried through his mind like a rat in a maze. Dale’s heart sank.
The cartel was about to crush Encendido’s last and only shot at freedom and all because his own daughter had betrayed them.
Chapter 34
Dale was still reeling when the old air-raid siren blared to life atop the Encendido fire station. Starting from a low hum, it built to a tremendous whine as the horned speaker began to rotate. For a moment, fighting on either side ground to a curious halt as everyone wondered what was going on. Then from behind him, Dale heard a chorus of feet stomping over the cracked asphalt. Turning, he watched as dozens of armed townspeople descended on the park from every direction, firing and quickly overwhelming the enemy. Those without guns carried spiked bats and other improvised weapons. Soon, the entire area was awash with movement as Fernando’s men struggled to defend themselves on all fronts. The siren continued to blare as Dale got up and charged with them, stopping here and there to fire as enemy soldiers began to flee.
What was looking like an imminent defeat for the resistance had just as quickly turned into a rout for the cartel.
He passed the boulder where Randy and his deputies looked on in amazem
ent. Within a matter of minutes, hundreds of armed citizens had swept the battlefield, leaving only the occasional burst of sporadic gunfire as the few remaining pockets were flushed out and destroyed.
Dale turned as the siren stuttered and then began winding down. He spotted his daughter standing on the roof of the firehouse and he’d never felt more proud of her than he did in this moment.
When the battle shifted, most of the Brigade threw down their arms while many of the cartel enforcers fought to the death. The POWs were rounded up and brought to the park, where they were seated back to back, bound and blindfolded. But with so many wounded and dead, the terrible work was still ahead of them. Already, survivors began pitching in to do what was needed.
With Duke and now Sandy by his side, Dale made his way to Major Gruber, who was standing with First Sergeant Mendez by the scaffold.
“Did you get them?” Dale asked, referring to the planned execution.
“Almost,” Gruber replied, saddened. “We managed to save the old man and the nurse, but I’m afraid the others were shot in the back as they ran.”
Dale’s heart fell into his gut. Not only had Dannyboy, Travis and Caesar been killed, but now he was learning that Nobel and Ann were also gone.
“How many in C Company did you lose?” Dale asked.
Gruber shook his head. “About eight. Culver, Burrows, Carmichael and five other fine young men.”
Across the street, Dale found Walter cradling Ann’s body. Dale sat next to him and touched his back.
“We didn’t make it in time,” Dale told him, saddened. “I’m sorry, old friend.”
Walter glanced up, his surprise at seeing Dale again muffled only by the overwhelming grief he was feeling.
“I know it’s a cliché, but I wish I could take her place.”
Defiance: Judgment Day (The Defending Home Series Book 3) Page 16