I could ring the Custodians and let them sort it, but if they caught David they'd surely execute him for being a traitor. And the squad of Rangers could be more than a match for any Custodians sent after them.
I hated having to make decisions like this! I grabbed Shorty by the shoulders. "Nanako's not well - you stay here and look after her. I've got to see if I can catch David before he lets them in."
"Gotcha," Shorty said, clearly relieved I wasn't asking him to go up against the Rangers again.
"But first, I gotta warn the Custodians about the danger to the nuke."
Shorty reached out a hand to stay me. "But what about David? What if the Custodians get to him before you do?"
"David made his own bed, now he'll have to lie in it," I snapped as I hurried to the phone and quickly dialled Custodian Command.
"Who is the ranking officer on duty?" I asked when a private answered the phone.
"Captain Smithson," he replied bluntly.
Now that was a stroke of luck. "This is Sergeant Ethan Jones; I need to speak to him immediately on a matter of utmost importance."
"Stand by," the private said, and I waited for what seemed an eternity for the captain to come to the phone.
"What is it, Jones?" he asked gruffly.
"Sir, I've just been informed that a squad of Rangers is about to enter the town - if they haven't already done so. I suspect the nuclear warhead to be their target."
"What nuclear warhead?"
"The one in the primary automotive factory that's being fitted to a cruise missile, sir."
The captain paused, making me wonder if he was even aware of the nuke. "Where is this information coming from, Jones? And how are these Rangers supposed to be getting into the town?"
"Through the western wall's secret entrance. I'll explain more later, but we must act immediately... "
"Who is letting them in?" the captain demanded harshly. "Is it your wife?"
"No, it's David Chen - he's being blackmailed by the Rangers somehow."
"When did you find out about this?" he demanded suspiciously.
"Literally a minute ago, sir."
"You've got a lot of explaining to do when this is all over," he spat angrily. "But in the meantime, I'm sending two squads to the secret entrance and I'll take the rest of the company to the factory."
"I'm going to the secret entrance too - tell the squads to wait for me if they get there before I do," I said hurriedly. "And sir, be careful - these are Rangers - they're professional soldiers, not policemen."
The captain responded by hanging up - I don't think he was too pleased with me at the moment.
"Look after Nanako," I said to Shorty. I looked at Nanako's, fast asleep, and my heart went out to her. I wished I could stay, but I had to go.
* * *
I 'borrowed' a neighbour's bike and somehow got to the western wall's secret gate before the Custodians, even though I had further to travel.
I rode through Hobsons Road to get to the wall, hopped off the bike, and with towering ten-story apartment blocks on my right and the twelve-foot town wall on my left, crept silently but quickly towards the gate. I was hoping against hope that I could spot David and that he hadn’t admitted the Rangers to the town yet. I wanted to sweep the entire area with ultrasonic shouts so I could see clearly, but as I was still inside Newhome, I didn't dare, for that could set off who knew how many alarms and cause a dozen Custodians to come looking for me. So I'd have to rely upon my enhanced hearing and normal vision.
I soon reached the place where I remembered the door to be, but it was shut and flushed smooth with the wall. If I hadn’t known it to be there, I wouldn’t have spotted it.
There was no sign of David, nor of any Rangers, which could mean only one thing - they were already in the town.
I heard two G-Wagons approaching, so I sprinted up the street to meet them. They braked to a stop and Sergeant Xiao leaped out of the lead vehicle. "Any sign of them, sir?"
"Nope, they must already be in the town."
"Right, hop in then. There's reports of heavy fighting going down over at the automotive factory," he said as he opened the passenger door.
I clambered into the G-Wagon and sat beside two other members of Delta Company. The two G-Wagons then drove at break neck speeds through the residential zone and into the manufacturing zone, screeching to a stop beside a two story factory that manufactured household appliances such as washing machines and dryers.
We jumped out of the G-Wagons and heard the sounds of a major gun battle in progress, coming from around the corner in the direction of the automotive factory. The Custodians readied their assault-rifles and prepared to move out, though a glance at their faces revealed their lack of confidence.
Sergeant Xiao grabbed my arm with a crushing grip. "Captain Smithson wants a word with you. Follow me."
I went along with Xiao and the two squads of Custodians to the end of the street, and then we slipped as unobtrusively as possible around the corner, giving us a good view of the primary automotive factory and the battle being fought over it.
Several squads of Custodians had taken up positions in the street in front of the factory, taking cover behind lamp posts, fences, and even the G-Wagons. They were trading bursts of gun fire with whoever was holed up in the automotive factory - the Rangers, no doubt.
A solitary Bushmaster had responded to the crisis but had been hit by a rocket and was burning furiously. Several Custodians had been hit and were lying on the road in the open, while another squad that had clearly attempted to enter the factory via its front entrance had been blown apart by some sort of bomb.
The factory's roller door was raised and a truck had been backed up to it as though it had been about to make a pickup. But it wouldn't be picking up anything now, for it was riddled with bullet holes.
Crouching low so as to present as small a target to the Rangers as possible, Sergeant Xiao grabbed my sleeve and tugged me after him. We darted from cover to cover until we reached the G-Wagon that Captain Smithson was using as cover.
I wasn't expecting a particularly good reception from the captain, and I didn't get one. He grabbed me by my hoddie and pulled me close.
"I've lost eight, maybe nine men to these blasted Rangers, Jones, so right now I'm about ready to strangle you, so start talking. What is in that warehouse and what are the Rangers planning on doing with it?"
"There's a nuclear warhead being fitted into a cruise missile - a missile that's gonna be fired at Hamamachi when it's ready. The Rangers are here to prevent that. How, I don't know."
"Forgive me if I find that hard to swallow. If Newhome does have a nuclear warhead, why would we use it against Hamamachi? Surely not because of the sniper?"
"No, not because of the sniper, but because Custodian Command believes Hamamachi is behind the Skel attacks on Newhome and they believe it's either them or us," I explained as I ducked my head instinctively when a burst of bullets peppered the other side of the G-Wagon we were using as cover.
"Where are you getting all this information from?" the captain demanded angrily.
Not knowing which way to turn, I met his fierce gaze apprehensively. "Sir, I'm under direct orders from Colonel Kim not to reveal what happened when our trade delegation went to Hamamachi."
Captain Smithson stuck his face in mine. "Tell me anyway!"
"King tried to destroy Hamamachi with a nuke concealed amongst the trade samples we took with us. It was detected, and the plan failed with the loss of King and his Custodians, and one of my foragers. Even though my foragers and I were innocent, we were still arrested. We only got away because Councillor Okada helped us escape in the middle of the night."
The captain let go of my hoodie and rocked back, his eyes wide with shock. "Custodian Command tried to nuke Hamamachi? Those fools! If they'd succeeded, every other town in Victoria would have ganged up against us and would not have rested until Newhome was nothing but a memory. And now they're trying to do it again? Did
n't they learn anything from World War Three?" The captain suddenly went very pale. "Those Rangers over there, could they be attempting to detonate the nuke in revenge for what we tried to do to them?"
"It's possible," I said.
"Then we've got to stop them right now," he said frantically.
"Let me sneak into the warehouse through the back door and I'll take them out," I said, though I didn't add what I was really planning, which was to take out the Rangers and then destroy the cruise missiles myself.
"Sir," interrupted a private, "Just got word from the general. He's on the way with three more Bushmasters and Echo Company. E.T.A. ten minutes."
"We may not have ten minutes," the captain mused aloud. He turned back to me and handed me his gun belt with pistol and ammo. "Go!"
"Thank you, sir," I said, and then using the cover of night, worked my way back down the street, crossed over the road, and then hurried down the side of the adjacent factory. From there I hopped over the intervening fence and made my way towards the primary automotive factory's rear door, wondering if I'd be able to pick its lock, or if I'd have to find another way in.
Turned out I could simply walk into the factory, for its rear door had been blown open. However, I gasped in dismay when I saw the bodies of four Custodians sprawled on the ground near the door. They were the security detail that had been guarding the factory's rear entrance, but they must have been ambushed and taken out by the Rangers.
I stepped past their bodies and slipped into the factory's darkened interior. The Rangers had not turned on any lights, and I could not see any sign of them from back here, due to all the machines and vehicles crowding the floor.
I know I was in Newhome, and that there could be ultrasonic detectors in here, but there was no way I was gonna take on Hamamachi Rangers in the dark without the edge I got from flash sonar, so I began echolocating immediately and the surrounds lit up as bright as day.
I could hear three Rangers at the front of the building, one near the entrance and the other two near the loading bay, firing sporadically at the Custodians outside. I could also hear a doozy of an argument between three people over near the middle of the factory, so I crept silently in that direction, passing work benches, stamp presses, injection moulding machines, car hoists, and trucks and cars in various states of being constructed or reconditioned.
I hadn't gone very far when I noticed the cruise missile near the middle of the factory. It was fitted to a rail launching system, which itself was mounted on the back of a flatbed truck. I shuddered involuntarily when I realised that the nuclear warhead - the hydrogen bomb - was in that missile. Those blasted things destroyed the world a hundred years ago, and here they were, trying to do it again!
I drew close enough to see the people who were locked in argument, and recognised David and the Corporal Reina. The third person I'd never seen before. He was a grizzled Ranger lieutenant in his mid thirties, and he towered over David by at least six inches. Both Reina and the lieutenant wore light amplification/thermal imaging goggles - and that spelt bad news for me - for it negated my advantage in one fell swoop.
"You sold us out, David!" the lieutenant shouted with a gruff voice.
"I did not!" David practically whimpered.
The Ranger lieutenant reached down behind a workbench, grabbed someone by the collar and hoisted him to his feet. To my utter astonishment, it was Leigh Williams, the fifth member of our foraging team, and who was supposed to be in a Hamamachi hospital recovering from his wounds. The Rangers must have pulled him out of hospital and brought him here in order to blackmail David into letting them into the town. Leigh was very pale and had lost considerable weight.
The lieutenant placed his pistol against the side of Leigh's head. "Tell me who you told about us or I'll pop your friend right now!" he said to David.
Chapter Thirty-Three
"I didn't tell anyone," David replied, terrified.
"You said we would be able to sneak in, grab the nuke, load it on a truck, and get it to a gate before the Custodians were any the wiser. So how come they got here minutes after we did?" the lieutenant asked.
"We must have missed an alarm," David suggested.
"Rubbish, we bypassed it good and proper."
"Lieutenant," Corporal Reina interrupted, "We don't have time for this. Whether we like it or not, the Custodians are here, so what are we going to do?"
"Thanks to this lying fool we've got no chance of getting away with the nuke now," the lieutenant raged, glaring at David.
"Then let's blow the cruise missiles and get out of this town in the ensuing chaos," Reina said.
"Not until I put a bullet in Leigh's head to show David what happens when you cross the Rangers," the lieutenant said, his finger tightening on the trigger.
I know I vowed I'd never attempt to take a Ranger prisoner again but would simply shoot them on sight. However, to shoot them here and now, without giving them a chance to surrender, went against everything I believed in.
So I sprang to my feet, jumped around the corner of the workbench I'd been hiding behind and aimed my pistol at the two Rangers. "Drop your weapons and put your hands on your heads or I'll shoot!" I shouted.
Two heads adorned with light amplification- thermal imaging goggles turned in my direction. And neither of them made any attempt to comply with my instructions.
"Jones?" Reina asked, her mouth hanging open in surprise.
The lieutenant, meanwhile, simply spun towards me and opened fire with his pistol. I'd been expecting as much, so I fired two shots at him while simultaneously flinging myself back behind the workbench.
The lieutenant grunted in pain and swore, but I didn't hear him go down, so I must have only winged him. "Jones is in here!" he bellowed. "Maeda, Miyazaki, take him out. Kimura, keep those Custodians busy. Reina, with me, let's get those bombs on the missiles."
Two pairs of booted feet rushed towards me, coming from opposite directions. Aware they'd be able to see me as well as I could see them, I scooted backwards, trying to stop them from boxing me in.
I ran behind a large metal press, and using it as cover, tried to get the drop on one of the Rangers. But with his thermal imaging, he spotted me before I did him, so I had to duck back as a hail of bullets ricocheted off the metal press, barely missing me.
I continued pulling back, using any available cover in an attempt to avoid getting nailed, but when a burst of bullets hammered a workbench on my left, I realised my peril. By working in tandem, the Rangers had managed to corner me.
I could hear them, coming closer and closer, and I began to panic. What was I thinking, coming in here and trying to stop five Ranges by myself? And if I died here, what would happen to Nanako? Her fears that I'd be killed on duty would be realised, and coupled with her current fears that I did not love her two years ago like she'd assumed, she would probably fall into a very severe depression.
I could not allow that to happen! So thinking, I was about to rush one of my two stalkers when the impossible happened - all the factory lights suddenly turned on.
All five Rangers screamed in pain as the bright light overwhelmed their visual senses, thanks to their light amplification goggles.
I acted immediately, leaping to my feet and climbing to the top of the skeletal truck chassis beside me. I spotted both Rangers hunting me and despatched them with two shots.
That threat gone, I jumped off the truck and sprinted towards the truck carrying the cruise missile, firing several shots at the Ranger lieutenant, who had removed his goggles and was blinking rapidly, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He put down the detonator he was holding and fired several shots in my general direction.
I jumped behind a metal press, took aim, and put a bullet through his head. He collapsed back against the truck and slid to the concrete floor like a rag doll.
That left only Reina and the other Ranger near the roller door. I ran towards the roller door but stopped when I caught sight of the Ranger. He was sprawled o
n the floor in a most unnatural position. A Custodian bullet must have found its mark.
"Tell me Ethan, has Nanako told you yet what happened to her after the Custodians dumped her back in Hamamachi two years ago?" Reina's voice rang out loud and clear. She was still over near the cruise missile, so I made my way towards her.
"I asked her, but like I told you before, the only thing she said was that no one would give her a lift back here."
"She didn't tell you she lost the baby, did she?"
"Baby - what baby?" I asked, her words slamming into me like a tidal wave. What was she talking about? She was lying, she had to be!
"She was pregnant when she brought you to Newhome. But when the Custodians dumped her back in Hamamachi and no one would give her a lift back to you, she stopped sleeping and eating, and she had a miscarriage. After that, they had to stick her in the nut-house for three months."
"The what?" I spat as I continued creeping towards her.
"The nut-house, the loony-bin, you know, the mental hospital."
"I don't believe you!" I shouted, refusing to believe a single word. Surely if Nanako had been pregnant and had a miscarriage she'd have told me.
"Hamamachi's a small town so everyone knows everything that goes on there," Reina said. "Besides, we'd been friends, you and I, so I tried to look out for her."
"Really, like the way you tried to strangle her on Sunday?"
"Oh get real, Ethan, I was just trying to knock her out. And I'm not the one who's been hiding what I'm like from you - I bet she hid her history of mental illness from you before you married her too."
"She didn't hide anything from me," I said, though my mind was buffeted by doubt - what if Reina was telling me the truth about the baby?
"Then why is she hiding these things from you, hey? What is she afraid of? You need to ask yourself that."
I froze then, for Reina's questions forced me to face the truth. And the truth was that these things really did happen to Nanako, and the fear that I'd leave her if I found out about them, was what she was afraid of.
Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series) Page 44