Truesdale swore.
Maggie Parker swung down off her horse. Quarter horses were the most common and popular breed in America, which the two men with her rode, while hers was an Appaloosa—a breed that was independent, intelligent, and a favorite among riders who knew how to handle horses.
“Easy, girl,” she said to the mare. Digging in a pocket, she produced some dried apple and fed it to the horse. Then she looked at her two bodyguards as they dismounted. “Stay sharp,” she told them. She didn’t like Truesdale.
Turning, she saw Truesdale and some of his men approaching, but she ignored him to scan the area, trying to spot Sara. Disappointed, she faced Truesdale as he walked up to her. She didn’t like the man any more than she had Gruber who’d met an untimely death along with Dr. Marr and truthfully, she didn’t feel bad that he was gone. Maggie, like Marr, considered them necessary evils, but she’d grown very distrustful of how much power both men had managed to acquire.
“Maggie,” Truesdale said. The man always seemed to be smirking.
“Hello, Theo,” she said. “I’m bringing the parishes’ news from the head office.”
“Wouldn’t think there’s much left of the head office, what with Marr gone and all,” Truesdale said, and smiled. He lit a cigarette.
Maggie Parker kept her face a careful mask of neutrality. Lorraine Marr had been her world in many ways. She’d loved the woman in a complex combination of both sisterly and motherly affection, and her death had struck Maggie even harder than the break-up of her marriage.
“Dr. Marr was our heart and soul,” she told him. She looked him in the eye. “But her work lives on. There’s still a Church, still a head office, and administration expects the regional sites to continue following instructions. Is that a problem?”
Truesdale looked away from her gaze, suddenly very interested in smoking his cigarette.
“That’s not the problem we have,” he said. His tone was icy.
Maggie was instantly on alert. “Oh yeah? What exactly is our problem?”
Truesdale dropped his cigarette and ground it out under his heel. His smirk was back. “Our problem is your daughter.”
“Sara?”
“She’s working for the Council.”
“Bullshit!” Maggie snapped, glaring at him. There was no way her daughter was involved with the Council.
“I caught her going through my office,” he said. “Next day? She shoots one of my section leaders in the woods and takes off. You want to tell me again that she’s not involved with the Council?”
“Sara’s gone?” Maggie asked.
“That’s what I said,” Truesdale barked. “Keep the fuck up!”
Maggie rammed her hand into his throat, using the space between her first finger and her thumb to strike underneath his Adam’s apple. Truesdale gagged and dropped, both his hands going to his neck in the universal choking sign.
The section leaders standing behind Truesdale looked on in shock for a moment before each of them reached for their rifle slings. Maggie’s bodyguards had no such confusion or hesitation. Their weapons were up and leveled even before Truesdale’s knees hit the grass.
“I pulled that,” Maggie said. “So, get up. You’re fine.”
Red-faced, furious, and frightened, Truesdale stood up slowly. He cleared his throat noisily, and spat. “You got some balls on you, lady,” he coughed. “But we both know that was a cheap shot.”
“This isn’t the fucking UFC,” Maggie told him, meeting his glare without flinching. “There are winners and losers, full stop. Now what’s this bullshit about my daughter working for the Council?”
“Think about it.” He held up his hand when Maggie scowled. “No, I mean it. She fucking killed Dexter—that’s my dead section leader—and ran. And she killed him with a gun. Where’d she get a gun? What do you think? What could Dexter have done that she would have killed him for, but learn the truth?”
“One hears unpleasant rumors, Theo,” Maggie said.
“Dexter didn’t try to rape your daughter,” Truesdale sneered. “He would have had to answer to me and he knew it. He also knew who her mother is.” The look he gave Maggie was pointed. “Either way, even if she’s not Council, she’s in the wind, and if she gets picked up by a patrol, she could talk about this place. We’ve been really lucky dodging the authorities so far; they pull in a disgruntled Church member that could change real fast.”
“Do you know how I met Lorraine?” Maggie asked.
“Dr. Marr?” Truesdale asked, seemingly caught off guard by the topic shift. “No, I don’t.”
“It was at a Farmer’s Market in town.”
“Oh yeah? You lived around here?” His every word was guarded now. In fact, his unease was so palpable it almost made Maggie laugh.
“In a manner of speaking. We have a family cabin near here. We used to come up almost every weekend in the summer. We’d take our vacations here. Hunting season; everything. We even had a Christmas there once.” Maggie felt her throat tighten at the memories, and she clamped down hard on her sentimentality. That had been a different life. A different her.
“So, you ran into her in town?”
“Yeah,” Maggie nodded. “We kept running into each other.” What she didn’t add was that, even as their friendship had grown, she’d kept it secret from her husband because she knew he wouldn’t approve. He didn’t even want to marry in a church and instead, they’d gone to the court house, which had always left a sour taste in her mouth. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter.” Maggie said, her voice curt. “What does matter is that we met because my family had a cabin near the Vineyard. And so—”
“You think she went to the cabin?”
“I think my daughter would never betray me,” Maggie said. The way I betrayed Jim, she thought. “So, I think something happened. Something your man Dexter did to set this in motion, and she’s scared, and would head for something or someplace familiar.”
“Where’d she get her hands on a gun?” Truesdale demanded.
Maggie smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Sara’s a very resourceful girl.”
19
Fingers of smoke wove their way through the trees, thin and wispy, smelling acrid as Parker broke through the brush along the bank. He turned, looking upriver and then the other way. Ava crouched behind an overturned tree, its bark rubbed smooth from the river, her weapon pointed in his direction. Behind her, Finn crouched next to the boat.
They hadn’t followed his instructions to leave him behind. Punchy from crashing off his adrenaline high, he felt tears building up behind his eyes. He blinked, and hawked up some phlegm from the back of his throat and spit.
“You two are stubborn,” he said.
“Gee, you catch on quick,” Ava said.
Parker had to admire her. She’s a dangerous person, he thought. Trained, and with experience, she would have been as fine a police officer as any he’d ever worked with. As it was, she was already well on her way to becoming a savage guerilla fighter.
“Are you badly hurt?” Finn asked him.
She peered at him anxiously. He shook his head, feeling something like a father’s pride. Somehow, in all the chaos and death, they’d found each other. As incredible as it was, he knew, he’d somehow formed a pack of his own.
He couldn’t let these two down any more than he could his own daughter. He would get clean; he would start behaving like a man who deserved their respect.
“I’m good, guys,” he said. “Let’s get in the river; they could come down this way once they get themselves together.”
“What about the family?” Ava asked.
Weary, Parker shrugged, a little fatalistically. “We bought them time,” he said. “We did the best we could.
Not wanting to risk being spotted on the river, they hid in the bushes until sundown. No one fell asleep and they all seemed to startle at the slightest sound. It was with relief when they finally entered the river.
They floated for sev
eral hours, keeping in as close to the bank as they dared. Still fighting infection, bone weary, and no longer able to stay awake, Parker dozed intermittently after the first hour of travel. As evening fell, they found the river branch Parker had been looking for and they drew the boat up into the weeds and bushes along the shore so they could strike out on foot.
Walking along the hills above the river, they kept eyes out for activity below them. Given how far they were from New Albany, it was unlikely that the local FEMA forces would have put two and two together, but the damage they’d managed to inflict was severe enough to have the authorities out in force hunting them even if they didn’t know who they were. As the daylight faded into night, they crossed a highway between checkpoints without raising an alarm and pushed farther north.
Fifteen minutes later, they bumped into a small patrol of National Guardsmen walking the terrain. They simply went to ground, hugging the damp, leaf-strewn dirt as the squad walked past them. Parker recognized the configuration as the team passed; it was a Small Kill Team.
An idea borrowed from the Iraq war, an SKT was essentially a beefed-up sniper patrol. Usually, sniper teams consisted of a shooter and a spotter who also served a communications role. SKT strengthened the number of guns in the team while still keeping the size mobile. In their current form, a light machine gunner and a commo/rifleman were added to the sniper and spotter personnel, forming the SKT now working for the Council.
Ostensibly not much different in theory than a normal fireteam, one of the two or three sub-units making up a squad, SKTs had quickly managed to take on folklore status in the new, occupied America. Since the Event, SKTs had been given license to rein in the bands of marauders and violent criminals who’d become so ubiquitous in the past weeks. Then there’d been the dark rumors of civilians found dead, face-down on country roads or in suburban parking lots, and the rumors had started to spread in a way that suggested they were more truth than rumor. The word had gone out: go out past curfew and the SKTs will get you.
They had become the boogeymen of the FEMA occupation.
Seeing them, the trio had gone to ground automatically, hiding among the brambles and cheatgrass, nervous fingers on their triggers. The contact had forced them to move west as they headed north, into more remote terrain, even as vehicle lights remained visible on the highway below them, signaling motorized patrols.
As they pushed on, growing more tired by the hour, the patrols increased, driving them back down toward the river to avoid them. Finally, after almost walking up behind a knot of state troopers standing around while one of them shit in the woods, they were forced all the way back down to the river, almost going full circle. Still, they kept going, sticking to the brush and following along behind the patrols who had moved on; instead of trying to go around them.
There were so many patrols out, Parker didn’t dare stop for the day insisting that they keep moving so long as they could put one foot in front of the other. They had to put distance between them and the Deckards.
As they drew closer to his cabin, Parker began recognizing the area more, and decided that since the tributary was so much smaller than the Ohio had been, they’d cross when they found shallower water, keeping the road on the other side of the large stream.
They reached the county access bridge a little after noon and hid in the trees while Parker determined the best spot to cross since they couldn’t simply walk across the bridge. They ate quickly, watching the area before risking exposing themselves. Two patrols crossed the county bridge as they watched—first another SKT, moving silently, their faces obscured by camouflage paint, and then a louder squad of guardsmen escorting two deputy sheriffs. Parker decided they should wait until dark to cross.
Taking turns, they kept one of them aware and on the look-out for patrols while they got some rest.
The riverbed of sand and gravel bars was wide and flat at this point along the river. Ninety minutes after nightfall, they started across. When they were halfway to the other side of the river, a four-vehicle convoy trundled down the dirt road ahead of them, headed directly for the county bridge.
“Down,” Parker whispered.
Ava and Finn crouched down, mimicking his actions, kneeling in the murky water and immediately soaking their boots and pants. They began shivering almost immediately. A group of men, Parker counted eight, emerged from the back of Humvees and a Chevy Suburban and entered the tree line, leaving the drivers to provide security on the vehicles.
“Should we go back?” Finn whispered.
Parker shook his head. “Hold on; we already know we’ve got a shitload of patrols behind us.”
The eight-man dismount squad came back out of the woods after fifteen minutes and, for the next half hour, they swept up and down the bank, appearing to size up the area for a longer stay. Finally, they got back in their vehicles and drove away, leaving a single Humvee with two men behind.
The rest of the unit crossed the old bridge and drove back the way Parker and the girls had come. The two men who remained, immediately lit cigarettes and began lounging against the front bumper of the Humvee, rifles hanging by their slings.
Forcing his teeth to stop chattering, Parker brought the girls in close. “I’m going to get a little closer and make sure there isn’t anyone else up there,” he whispered gritting his teeth as the cold water flowed around them. While he appreciated the noise from the river to mask their passage, he knew they couldn’t handle much more.
Ava touched his arm; she was shivering. “B-b-b-be careful.”
“Maybe we should cross back,” Finn suggested.
Parker hesitated, considering. “We need to get across this water if we’re going to make the cabin. This is the only place to cross that’s shallow enough for miles. We already know there are an ass-load of patrols behind us.” He shook his head. “It’s risky, but the way to go is forward.”
A bit of warm water floated around him, startling Parker with the abrupt temperature change. He looked at Finn, who was standing upstream from him.
She shrugged, her teeth starting to chatter.
He sighed. “This is my life.” He looked at Ava. “If I get hit, you can’t wait for me this time, you understand? We’re too exposed, and gunfire will bring every asshole in a five-mile radius down on us. Head downstream until you can get to shore on this side and then make for Canada. Understand?”
Ava shrugged.
Parker leaned in closer. “Understand, Ava? This time, you need to do what I’m telling you to do.”
She nodded, and Parker shifted to stand, but he paused and grabbed Finn by the upper arm and squeezed, nodding to her. Meeting his eyes, she nodded back.
Moving slowly, using the sound of the river as cover, Parker navigated his way beneath the bridge to where the two men stood above, talking.
Beneath the shadow of the bridge it was darker, and he knew the girls lost sight of him for a few very long minutes. Then he emerged, headed back toward them, still moving at an almost comically exaggerated slow pace.
His expression was grave when he drew close enough to them to speak safely.
“Well, the good news is it’s only the two of them. The bad news is they’re setting up a checkpoint at the bridge,” he said. “Not only are they not going anywhere, they’re going to dig in.”
“They have to go,” Ava said.
Her voice was flat, declarative. She might have pointed out a flat tire and said, “That’s going to have to be changed if we want to drive.”
“Can’t we go around them?” Finn asked.
Parker nodded. “We can. Problem is, we have to go back across and find a new place where it’s feasible to cross. And we already know there are more searchers behind us than in front of us. The next contact we have could be under different circumstances and against far more of them. This is our best shot.”
“We shoot, it’s going to alert people,” Ava said.
Parker nodded again and held up the two-liter Coke bottle he’d
scavenged from the riverbank. “We need to try and get this done as quietly as possible.”
“What are we going to do?” Finn asked. Her mixed feelings about the situation, and what her companions were clearly thinking, were evident in the tone of her voice.
“We’re going to come out from under the bridge on the far side where there’s a worn footpath,” he said. “Best chance of not slipping. Then, we’re going to come up behind them and attack with our knives.” He turned to Finn and held up the plastic bottle. “You’re going to come behind Ava and me. We’re going to use masking tape to attach this to your .380, the smallest caliber we have.”
“Why?” Finn asked.
“It will mute the subsonic shot—muffle it, suppress it. Hopefully, if you have to use it, it will cut the weapon report down enough that we get away with it.”
“It’s a silencer?” Finn asked.
“For lack of a better word,” Parker answered, “Yes. Only, it won’t be silent like you’d see on TV, and it only works for one shot.”
“So we’re going to shoot them?” Ava asked.
Parker shook his head. “No, that’s not the plan,” he said. “That’s our last chance back-up. You and I put the guys down with the knives—that’s the plan; if something goes wrong, Finn uses the muffled pistol to help us.”
“If something goes really wrong?” Finn asked.
Parker shrugged. “We shift to our primary weapons and then run like hell.” He looked at Ava. “Can you do this?”
Ava nodded. “I want to live. I want to make it out of here. I want to punish the bastards for what they’ve done. Whatever it takes, I’m in.”
Parker nodded, then spent several minutes showing her where to strike a body with her blade. Finally, he slipped the plastic bottle over the barrel of Ava’s Bersa and taped the bottle into place. A .22 caliber would have been ideal, he knew, but a .380 was still workable.
They moved slowly, creeping up out of the river careful not to slosh water and call attention to themselves. Stepping onto the steep dirt path leading up from the riverbank, Parker shivered knowing the girls were as cold as he was. His M4 was in his hands so that it wouldn’t rattle as he approached, and also in case they inadvertently alerted the two men too early; Ava, behind him, held her own weapon the same way. Finn brought up the rear, the bulbous shape of the bottle looking slightly ridiculous on the end of her compact handgun.
Dead End (911 Book 2) Page 16