Rainy faced the boy. “Karla’s better than any ten of you.”
“That’s enough, Rainy,” Lamar said. “You’ll have your wish. You can die with your hero. Put the plate on her.”
Rainy stuck out her chest, put her hands behind her back, and stepped toward Cameron.
“She’s just a kid, Lamar.”
“And she’ll never be anything more.”
Karla sprang forward. One step, two: Surprise on the boy executioner’s face. Three: his rifle moved. The two women beside him held still. Four, five: he struggled with the bolt as a bullet from the guard on the left whizzed behind Karla’s ear. Six: he raised the rifle as Karla’s head smashed into his chin and her knee found his groin.
The boy gripped the rifle in one hand as Karla plowed him backward into Morgan Denney and all three hit the ground in a tangle-footed heap. People scattered. A few closed in. Hands yanked at Karla, pulled her from the boy. She thrashed wildly. Her restraints snapped. The rifle swung toward her and she ripped it from the boy’s hands. She pushed up and broke from the crowd. She glimpsed Lamar for a millisecond but could neither aim nor fire amid the swirling mass of bodies.
Karla sprinted for the corn crib and powered through the door. Bullets tore holes in the barn board front. She scrambled up the slatted back wall and launched herself out the auger-feed hatch. She hit the ground, rolled once, and cut left. Men yelled. Rifles cracked. A bullet nicked her thigh. She hopped a masonry half wall and sprinted low to the long disused milking room. Splinters flew from the door frame as she sped through.
Straight on and out the other end. Open ground ahead. To the left, the equipment shed. To the right, the barn and the Golf. A pickup roared to life. Karla spun and shot the engine as the vehicle rounded the curve from the drive. She ejected the shell, understanding too late the only bullet in the rifle had been the one meant for her. She tossed the useless weapon and ran for the Golf, her only chance the guns inside.
A security man to her right fired from the half wall. Men from the pickup chased from behind. The Golf sat ahead, facing down the drive. Karla passed the hatch and swung around to the driver’s side. Noel, her overnight guard, crouched at the front door holding a pistol in a two hand stance.
Karla barreled into him, slapping at the gun. He pulled the trigger and fell on his butt, the gun vanishing in the tall grass. Noel reached out. Karla kicked his head and sent him sprawling. She punched the lock code then yanked open the car door.
Danny Vallen hit her hard and wrestled her to the ground. He held her as other men bound her hands and ankles with plastic ties. They put a wrap on her arm where Noel’s bullet had torn through and hauled her roughly to her feet. They dragged her to the bench and sat her in Lindsay’s blood. Karla slid to the end and pushed herself upright against the wall.
The boy executioner was still down. Jill Asbury knelt beside him, tending a bloody gash in his neck. Lamar spoke to Danny Vallen. He reassembled the rifle squad and checked their weapons. Then he took over for the boy, himself.
Cameron prepared a new plate and pinned it to Karla’s chest. She drew a small heart in the center of the red circle, then added Karla’s name at the bottom, as though it were a child’s crude project ready for display. Cameron showed the faint smile, tapped the heart once, and stepped away.
Lamar’s grin returned. He glanced to Karla, then the marksmen, and held up his hand.
“Ready.”
Rifle bolts clicked. Karla mumbled, “Where are you, Ray? I’m sorry.”
“Aim.”
The rifles came up. Karla stared at the Golf, the barn next to it, and the empty fields beyond. So many images—everyone dead or gone. She flashed to a shaded porch on a windswept prairie, her unborn daughters laughing . . .
“Fire.”
Two bullets ripped through the paper plate and Karla’s heart. She dropped to her knees, then slumped to her side. Her feet wiggled in their bindings. Her blood leaked to the rich, dark soil that had once been her farm.
Lamar nodded to Cameron. She stepped to Lindsay, pointed a rifle at her head and pulled the trigger. Then she swung the rifle to Karla and fired a bullet through her brain, too.
Karla’s leg twitched once. Then she lay still.
Cameron unpinned the plate and brought it to Lamar, her eyes holding on the hole through the center of her little heart.
Chapter 127
“Someone’s coming,” Brittany said. Ray slid behind a log. Brittany moved beside a tree, then she stepped into the clearing in front of the cabin where their fire circle still smoldered from dinner.
Rainy appeared from the forest.
“Hey.” Brittany stretched out her arms.
Rainy hugged her, tears falling on Brittany’s shoulders.
“It’s okay. You’re safe here.” Ray reached out for her next.
Rainy shook her head as she clung to Ray. “They killed Karla.”
Ray pushed back, hands on Rainy’s waist while he stared into her eyes. “Who? When?”
“Lamar. He had her shot. He told them to shoot me, too.”
Ray hugged Rainy for a long minute. Then they moved to the screened porch, and Rainy sat on a camp chair and told them about the trial, the firing squad and the paper plates, Karla’s brief escape, Lamar’s anger at them both, and of Cameron. Rainy said nothing of the security boy’s taunts or her knife in his throat.
Ray sat on the porch swing, staring at the gapped pine floor boards. When he looked up, his eyes were wet. “What stopped Lamar from killing you?”
“Everyone was there. It was mandatory. I shouted out a Lamar question—for anyone who thought Lamar should be allowed to have people shot down on his whim to step forward . . . and kill me. Cameron moved to do it. Gail shot her. I never guessed she carried a gun, let alone she would use it.”
“What did they do to her?”
“Security took her. But without Cameron, Lamar doesn’t control the committee. They might put her out. I think people have had enough of killing their own.”
“And Lamar just let you leave?”
“I helped bury Karla, with Jessie, as she asked. Then I got in her car. I don’t think security figured out what was happening until I was out the gate. Lamar wasn’t at the burial. Apparently no one volunteered to shoot at me. I’ve been a full day since looking for your smoke.”
“A dozen times I called her the luckiest woman alive.”
“You also said the farm would be her undoing.”
Ray squinted at her. “I thought we were alone.”
“She told me. She loved you. She talked of nothing but you and Jessie her last night.”
Ray shook his head. “I should have killed Lamar.”
“Then you’d have been dead,” Brittany said. “I saw those men.”
“If I’d known, I would have.”
The western sky turned to oranges, reds, and purples. The three talked of Karla—in the mountains, at Craig, and at her farm—and her role in bringing them together.
“We should get you settled while there’s light,” Ray said.
Rainy gave Brittany a raised eyebrow and a subtle head nod toward Ray. Brittany returned a mildly distasteful eye roll.
“I’m going to the river.” Brittany picked up a rifle and let the screen door smack closed behind her. “I’ll sleep upstairs when I get back.”
* * *
Ray’s door opened and Rainy slipped through in the dark.
“Something wrong?”
She crossed to the bed and sat on the edge. She placed a hand on Ray’s thigh and felt denim—ready for action at a second’s notice.
“I sat with Karla the last night. She asked me to find you.” Rainy leaned and kissed him, softly at first, then building as she imagined it would. She broke the kiss and whispered in his ear. “She said to give you that kiss and tell you she was sorry for the rain check.”
“I figured she had forgotten.”
Rain
y kissed him again. “I promised to clear her debt.”
“Did she tell you what that meant?”
“She knows my feelings. I told her about the barn.”
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“I’m thirty, best I figure.”
“I know. And the only man in my world.” Rainy kissed him and rolled on top. She squeezed against him and felt him respond. She rubbed in encouragement and slipped off her top.
Ray kissed her uncertainly.
Rainy undid the top button on his jeans. “Karla wanted us to do this. We may not get many chances.”
Ray’s hands traced Rainy’s curves. He thought of the guilt waiting in the morning, then of the woman in his bed. He kissed her deeply. Karla had accused him of feelings toward Brittany, but she had been wrong in the targets of his yearnings.
Chapter 128
Ray dug until he hit the electric line then severed it, cutting power to the outer cameras on the north side. He refilled the hole and smoothed his work, then joined Rainy in tall grass across the road. They waited an hour. Two men rode out, climbed poles to check the cameras and left. It was the third power line Ray had disabled in a week. None had yet been repaired.
Ray and Rainy crawled through a cut in the fence, crossed a field, and climbed the low angled roof of a house half a mile from the farm. They lay in the sun below the ridgeline, each with binoculars, scanning the activity in the garden. All they’d seen for days as they had moved progressively closer.
Rainy took another distance reading and stared through the scope of the TAC 50, resting on its bipod. She returned to the binoculars. “He sure doesn’t like fresh air,”
Ray stabilized the Remington. “Could be he’s expecting us.”
They watched and waited, drank water and ate jerky. A pickup rumbled down the road, and turned into the farm—spooled wire visible in the bed. The truck disappeared behind the first additions then reappeared and parked by the equipment barn. Three people climbed out.
“He’s with them,” Ray said.
They tracked Lamar across the yard, hoping he’d stop.
“When he turns the corner, at the entrance,” Rainy said. “I’ll have a shot.”
Ray shook his head. “You are only ever going to get one. We come back tomorrow.”
Lamar walked between Danny Vallen and Greg Horton. The men glanced at the crew pulling weeds in the garden, but they didn’t stop to talk. Rainy stared through the scope and made an adjustment. The first man, Greg Horton, made the turn at the narrow walkway to the building entrance and now moved directly away from her. Lamar followed. As Rainy fired, Danny Vallen stepped behind Lamar.
The bullet caught Danny high in the back. He stumbled into Lamar and both went down. Ray fired as fast as he could sight the rifle, driving away would be caretakers. Lamar struggled to his knees and crawled toward the steps, his shirt dark with blood. He took hits to the thigh and buttocks, then tottered on one knee. Rainy fired twice more. Her second bullet sent Lamar to the concrete.
A bullet shattered the window below them. Others hit the side of the house. They climbed down the back and hurried away. They saw no need for more killing, and doubted anyone there had the nerve to come after them.
* * *
Rainy drove the Mule along Toddville Road. “Karla said you hit a man anywhere with a fifty and they’re a gonner.”
“You hit him twice. I did, too. Lamar wouldn’t survive at the world’s best trauma center.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“I didn’t plan to kill Danny Vallen.”
Ray sucked his lips. “He should have watched whose company he kept.”
“He was one who shot her.” Rainy didn’t debate his motives. Karla had asked for a quick death, and he’d helped provide it.
They worked through a series of gravel roads ending at the cabin above the river. Brittany stepped from the trees toting an M16.
“We killed Lamar,” Rainy said.
“Can we go back, then?” Brittany asked. “I’d like to watch a movie and take a hot shower.”
“And eat something besides deer meat?” Rainy added.
Ray looked at them. “I don’t think we’d be welcome. I know I’d spend a lot of time looking over my shoulder.”
“At least he’s dead,” Rainy said.
“I’ll post a note in front of a camera,” Ray said. “They need to know why and that we’re done. Maybe it’ll start a conversation.” He shrugged. “Who knows.”
Chapter 129
“Mom.” Brittany opened the screen door to the porch. “When you and dad have a minute you need to come out here.”
Rainy rolled her eyes, but Brittany didn’t smile back. Ray stood and started for the door. A distant boom had Rainy a step behind. A series of smaller explosions sent them all running for the Golf. Machine gun fire followed and scattered small arms.
Rainy drove south, crossed the interstate, and headed roughly toward the farm. Ray pointed to a cell tower on County Home Road. Rainy stopped beside it. They scrambled up then watched through shared binoculars.
“M1 Abrams.” Ray eyed the armored vehicle in the field south of the buildings. Gaping holes in building one testified to its firepower.
Twin rockets whooshed from building three and exploded short of the tank. A third rocket struck it head on. The tank’s turret rotated slightly and the cannon boomed. The tower on building three collapsed. The building’s east wall shrugged off three hits. The fourth punched through. And the fifth.
The tank spun a few degrees and leveled the gun on building two. The first round obliterated the rifle pit. The next two blew a hole in the side wall. A dozen rocket propelled grenades whistled through the openings and shook the buildings.
The shelling stopped. An amplified voice blared. Residents slowly emerged with their arms raised. They assembled in the driveway and were escorted to waiting trucks.
“Fifty-two,” Rainy said, though Ray couldn’t see how she counted them.
“Fourteen missing.”
The tank raked the barns and outbuildings with its machine gun then fired the cannon once more at building three. Two Humvees and a canvas covered truck arrived. Twenty men in battle gear jumped from the vehicles and spread out.
RPGs flared. Explosions rocked buildings and threw debris skyward. Teams searched the outbuildings and dragged two men from the equipment barn. A man stood before the kneeling captives. Minutes passed. He shot one man and the other was hauled away. Yet another truck stopped in the yard and men carried boxes into the buildings.
When they hustled out, the tank moved deeper into the field. The other vehicles pulled back on the road. Then massive explosions threw hunks of concrete and block a hundred feet into the air. The three residence buildings collapsed into giant holes, and ditches snaked the property where connecting tunnels had been only minutes before.
Men walked through the wreckage. A Humvee circled the farm, spiraling out a quarter mile. It returned to the drive, then the tank drove up on a flatbed. Men secured it, and the convoy pulled away, heading south. The three on the cell tower traded glances and scrambled to the car.
Rainy floored the Golf and flew west on County Home. “Karla said Denver was growing stronger. They had bases clear across Kansas.”
“Hard to believe they could be here,” Ray said. “I’d bet on Tri-State teaching us a lesson.”
“We can see which way they turn.” Rainy braked into the drive of a farmhouse.
Brittany leaped out with binoculars and climbed a silo. In thirty seconds she raced back to the car. “This way!” she gasped, jumping in.
“Can we hit them back?” Rainy asked, accelerating west.
“We can’t take on the tank. But we might strand the truck that hauls it. That’d piss ’em off.”
“Wouldn’t they just drive it back?”
“To Rockford, if their lucky
. Denver, no way.”
Rainy turned south on the interstate. Before they’d gone a mile, Ray pointed her off road, up the east side of the highway, and into tree cover. Beyond stood a farm and a paved road.
“This’ll do fine on short notice,” Ray said. “If they turn south.”
“Shouldn’t one of us take the other side?” Rainy asked.
“Cross fire would be great if we had two guns that would hurt the Humvees and a means for the person across the way to get out in a hurry. What we’ll do is sting them and run.”
Ray laid out the plan, and they took positions in the trees above the northbound lanes. Ray had the TAC 50, Brittany the Remington, and Rainy an M4.
Four Humvees led the column, two with manned machine guns on top. Ray shot the machine gunners through the protective glass then went after the drivers. Rainy and Brittany focused on the flatbed, flattening nine sets of tires on one side and hitting the driver through an open window. The trailer listed. The truck slewed into the depression between lanes, the angle of the grade exaggerated by the airless tires. The tank slid in its restraints, unbalancing the load and tipping the flatbed. The tank slammed the ground and rode its side twenty feet before halting the truck’s progress.
The Humvees veered left and right. Two collided. They came to stops at odd angles on the pavement. The five covered trucks and two trailing Humvees dodged the lead vehicles and continued south.
Rifles on full auto sprayed bullets from the halted Humvees. Ray picked off two men. Brittany and Rainy two more as they climbed to the machine guns. Ray killed the engine in the flatbed then turned on the Humvees, methodically disabling the vehicles.
The tank’s machine gun began to rotate, its motion limited. Ray watched its range and called the women in. He sent Rainy to the farm for a mortar he had kept under the floorboards in the barn. While they waited for the increased firepower, Ray and Brittany ranged along the hill, firing down at men hunkered inside, behind, and between Humvees.
The men below fired back in occasional bursts. Then several opened up at once as a man ran for the trees behind the vehicles. Ray dropped him and the shooting stopped for several minutes.
Times What They Are Page 49