by Tom Abrahams
“Anybody in the HQ?” Battle adjusted the pack on his back and walked back to the curb in front of the old hardware store.
“Shouldn’t be,” Pico said.
Lola rounded the bed of the Humvee. “Sawyer could be in there.” Her hands were stuffed into her pants pockets, her shoulders raised to her ears. Her teeth chattered. “They could be holding my son in there, right?”
“I don’t know. Guess I need to find out.” Battle stepped to the front glass doors. He took the butt of his rifle and jammed it into the door. Glass shattered and Battle used the rifle stock to clean out the remaining shards hanging to the frame.
“That was kinda loud,” said Pico. “I thought you were trying to surprise ’em.”
Battle looked back at Pico and shrugged. He stepped across the threshold and disappeared into the darkness.
He flipped on the night-vision scope mounted onto his rifle and pulled it to his eye, carefully working his way around the main space of the building. He bumped into a table on one side of the room and then crossed the room to a bar. On the far side of the room past the bar, he found a locked door. He stepped back and punched through it with his foot, blowing past the lock. The door shot open and bounced off the wall behind it, almost hitting Battle as he slid into the hallway behind the door. There was another door to the left and a side exit at the end of the hall. He stepped to the door and tried the handle. It was unlocked. He opened the door and stepped into an office. He checked closets, a bathroom, a storage locker. The place was empty.
Battle started to leave when he thought better of it. This was a private office in the HQ. There had to be some actionable intelligence lying around. He quickly crossed the room to the desk. He leaned the rifle against it and sat down, his pack hitting the back of the chair. There was a stack of papers on the desk and a tablet computer in one of the drawers.
Battle stood, slipped off his pack, and set it on the desk. He unzipped it, pulled out four grenades, and replaced them with the papers and tablet computer.
Battle closed the pack, slid it on to his shoulders along with his rifle, and took two grenades with each hand. When he reached the doorway of the office, he turned around, pulled a grenade pin with his teeth, and tossed it toward the desk. That gave him five seconds.
He marched up the hall to the second doorway, pulled a second pin, and rolled another grenade down the hall. Battle hustled into the main room, yanked out the pin on the third grenade, and tossed it as the first grenade exploded in the office.
Battle was using MK3A2 concussion grenades. Unlike fragmentation grenades, the MK3 was designed for blasting and demolition. The overpressurization it produced was far greater and was effective inside buildings or bunkers. The resulting blast wave produced external shrapnel from ripping apart anything hit within its effective radius.
The eight ounces of TNT exploded, destroying the office and shaking Battle’s balance. He nearly tripped as he bolted to the entrance. The second grenade detonated, blasting debris into the main room as Battle leapt through the glassless front door.
He spun, pulled the pin, and the noiseless fuse activated. He heaved the final grenade through the door. “Run!” he yelled to Lola and Pico, not aware they’d already crossed the street to the post office fencing after the first explosion.
Battle was halfway across the street when the final two grenades blasted shrapnel through the HQ. He looked over his shoulder, the backpack bouncing against his body as he ran to join the others. The Humvee rattled against the explosion.
Lola gripped Battle’s arm. “Sawyer wasn’t in there?”
Battle coughed and cleared the phlegm from his throat. “I wouldn’t have blown up the place if he had been.”
“So that was a big wake-up call,” Pico said. “I guess you wanted to invite them out to play?”
“No. We’re not sticking around.” Battle started back across the street and waved for Pico and Lola to join him. Thick gray smoke plumed from inside the HQ and through its aged flat roof. Battle slid off his pack, tossed it into the Humvee’s bed, and climbed in. He took the Inspector by the forestock and checked it for damage.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Pico, you’re driving.”
“Where?”
“Who’s the big boss?”
“The captain?”
“Whatever. Captain. Boss. Who is it?”
“His name is Cyrus Skinner,” Pico said, pulling open the driver’s side door. “I don’t think—”
“You know where he lives?”
“Yes. But—”
“Drive.”
***
Cyrus Skinner heard the series of explosions and felt them vibrate the water glass in his hand. He dropped the glass and ran out to his front stoop. In the distance, a couple of blocks away, thin wisps of gray smoke spiraled into the air against the faint glow of a flickering streetlight.
Skinner tensed and he stomped his foot on a wooden plank of the stoop. “Son of a b—”
“Captain Skinner,” called a posse boss named Tom Horn. He lived in the house next door and was standing on his stoop. He was dressed in cargo pants, a faded Pink Floyd T-shirt, and his brown boss hat. One hand was wrapped around a coffee mug. “You think that’s the HQ?”
“It’s the HQ,” Skinner sneered. “Get your posse together now and meet me over there pronto. You see any others on your way, you tell ’em the same.”
Horn slipped back into his house. Skinner punched a wooden column that ran from the stoop’s wooden floor to the low-hanging ceiling. He punched it a second time and cursed Mad Max.
Skinner marched back into his kitchen and retrieved his Browning. He checked his revolver, assuring it was fully loaded, and dropped it into his hip holster.
He exited the house through the back door and found his horse cribbing on the wooden fence to which it was tied. Its teeth were clamped onto the top rail, its back was arched, and it was pulling against the rail, sucking in air.
“Cut it out.” Skinner yanked on the bridle’s throatlatch and unloosed the reins from the fence. “You’re gonna suck in a splinter and kill yourself.” He shoved the Browning into a saddle scabbard, stuck a foot into a stirrup iron, and heaved himself into the thick leather saddle. He gripped the saddle horn with one hand and looped the reins around the other.
“Git,” he said to the horse, digging his boot heels into its sides. “C’mon, let’s go.”
The horse trotted to the front of the house and picked up its pace. Others emerged from their homes, pointing toward the dissipating smoke. Skinner’s horse was nearing a full gallop when he tugged on the reins and stopped in the middle of the street.
He rubbed his eyes, not sure of what was moving toward him. It was still dark and he could only make out the roughest outline of the approaching machine. The sound, though, was unmistakable. A Humvee, with its lights turned off, was rolling at him.
He reached for the scabbard but decided against pulling his rifle. If he took aim now, he’d waste ammunition. He directed his horse to the side of the road. He stopped in front of a ramshackle house and hopped off his horse. He tied it to the leg of a rusted swing set in the yard, took his rifle, and crouched down behind it.
As the Humvee neared, a light flipped on inside the house and a man swung through the front screen door, standing there in his underwear. He wasn’t Cartel.
Skinner stayed low, hiding from the man. He squatted lower and leaned forward on his knees, careful not to make a sound.
The Humvee slowed in front of the house. Skinner got a good look at it. Aside from the driver, he could see an armed man standing in the bed, wearing a dark cowboy hat. Skinner couldn’t place the man’s face, at least not in the little ambient light the moon provided.
“Hey!” the man called from the Humvee. Skinner shrank lower to the ground. “You know where Cyrus Skinner lives? I hear it’s on this street.”
Skinner glanced over at the man in his underwear. The man hesitated and extended his left arm outwar
d and pointed down the street. “Five houses down. Got a covered wooden stoop.”
“Thanks.” The man in the Humvee rapped on the top of the Humvee’s cabin and the vehicle rolled along.
Skinner stood up, his hands on the shotgun. “Psst,” he said to the homeowner. “Hey, you.”
The man spun around, his face contorted with confusion until recognition washed over his expression. The man started waving his hands and stammering.
Skinner kept the Browning at waist level, hidden from the man’s view. He stood there silently, listening to the man apologize and grovel. Midsentence, Skinner pulled the trigger. The man dropped in a heap.
Skinner turned toward a red light to his left. The Humvee’s brake lights cast a glow. It was stopped in front of his house. He left his horse and started running toward the Humvee, staying along the edge of the street in the knee-high weeds and grass.
Others were leaving their stoops and yards to fall in behind the Humvee. Skinner couldn’t tell how many of them were Cartel and how many were civilians. There were maybe a dozen total.
Skinner stopped two houses from his own and crouched low. He scanned the crowd again. None of them were Cartel. None was armed. None was wearing a hat. None was doing anything other than standing around looking dumfounded by the machine in the street.
The man in the back of the Humvee jumped out. He reached back into the bed and pulled out another weapon, bigger than a rifle, though it wasn’t something Skinner recognized.
“Y’all are going to want to step back,” the man called out to the crowd. He pulled the weapon up to his shoulder, his silhouette giving away how large a man he was, tall and muscular.
Skinner pulled his rifle up and leveled it against his own shoulder. He knew the distance wasn’t good for the Browning, but he wasn’t going to let someone shoot holes into his house.
He drew the man into his sight and pulled the trigger at the exact moment an explosion of light and the percussion of a cannon blast tore through the air.
Skinner couldn’t tell where his shot hit. His eyes were focused on the instantaneous inferno his house had become.
His eyes wide, his breathing quickened, Skinner stood and started marching toward the Humvee. The man wasn’t looking for him. He’d hit him by surprise.
A loud, skin-crawling scream came from the crowd. Skinner instinctively looked to his right. The crowd was gathered around a body on the ground. A woman was screaming and moaning as she held the body. Another woman tried to console her. A couple of others turned toward Skinner and pointed at him.
The Humvee was already on the move, speeding away. Skinner stopped and took a second shot, aiming at the man standing in the bed.
“You killed him!” the moaning woman wailed. The crowd parted and Skinner saw her face. Even in the dark, he could see the anger. “You shot my husband. Why did you shoot him? I don’t—”
Skinner leveled the shotgun at her head and snapped the trigger. The blast silenced her and sent the crowd running back to their homes.
He looked at the mess. He wasn’t happy about it. While he didn’t want her dead, he’d learned a long time ago not to leave an angry person alive. It could only come back to haunt him. Revenge, he knew, was a powerful motivator. It made good people do bad things and bad people do worse.
The heat of his burning home took the chill from the air. It was hot on his neck. He turned around to look at the flames.
The fire devoured his home, crackling and popping as it chewed through the wood frame. He didn’t recognize the man in the back of the Humvee. Still, he knew who he was.
“Captain Skinner,” a voice called from his left.
Skinner swiveled with the Browning in position to fire. It was Tom Horn, the posse boss. He was running toward him with a half dozen grunts trailing behind him. Skinner lowered the shotgun, holding it with one hand where the stock met the receiver.
“Where the hell you been?” Skinner asked when Horn was close enough to hear him above the fire.
“I did what you asked,” Horn said breathlessly. “I went and gathered some men.” He nodded at the house. “What happened?”
“Mad Max.”
“The guy from Rising Star?” Horn tugged at his brown cowboy hat. “The one who took the woman?”
“That’d be the one,” Skinner said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. He lit it and slid it between his pursed lips. “You see a Humvee pass you on your way?”
Horn shook his head. “No. I think I heard it though. Must have turned off the street.”
Skinner drew the cigarette from his mouth and slowly exhaled. He closed his eyes and listened to his house burn.
“You seem kinda calm,” said Horn. “I mean, ain’t you upset? I’d be madder than a wet hen and fixin’ to whoop somebody good.”
Skinner chuckled. “Oh, I ain’t calm,” he said. “I’m simmering here while I think of the best way to deal with Mad Max. In a second here, I’ll be at a boil.”
CHAPTER 7
JANUARY 3, 2020, 4:45 PM
SCOURGE -12 YEARS, 9 MONTHS
ALEPPO, SYRIA
“This is already a bad idea,” Buck protested.
Battle helped him inch down the concrete embankment into the track valley. They were exposed in the orange light illuminating the rails.
Battle didn’t answer him. He was too focused on each step. If they slipped on the steep decline, they’d make too much noise, Buck could aggravate his injury, they could lose their weapons.
“Did you hear me?” Buck pressed. He was hopping more than walking. His bad leg was useless.
“Shut up, Buck,” Battle said, sliding his boot downward. “Focus.”
Buck grunted and adjusted his grip on Battle. They were halfway down the slope when they took fire.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
The shooter missed to their left. The bullets smacked into the concrete mere feet from them.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Another volley was closer to them. The shooter was finding his aim. Battle knew the next round of slugs would hit them. He yanked on Buck, eliciting a howl from the sergeant, and pulled him flat to the concrete.
“Roll!” he said and cradled his HK against his chest. He turned his body sideways and began rolling down the embankment to the tracks, Buck’s body slapping against his. He knew the sergeant was rolling with him. Each time he spun, he could see Buck right behind him.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Battle heard the rifle cracks and felt a punch to his lower back as he slowed near the bottom of the slope. He rolled to a stop near the first of the four sets of tracks, got to his feet, and grabbed the back collar of Buck’s Kevlar vest. He crouched low and dragged the sergeant behind one of the two series of train cars. They were flatcars, absent walls or a roof, so they weren’t the best protection, but they were enough to stop the incoming fire for the moment.
“You okay?” Battle scrambled to his knees and shuffled over to Buck, who was lying on his back.
Buck nodded. His eyes were squeezed shut and he was holding his breath.
“We’re okay here for the moment,” Battle said. He reached around to his back and felt where a bullet had embedded itself into his vest.
Buck exhaled. “I lost the sidearm,” he said. “I dropped it somewhere.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Battle said. “I’m good. I’ve got plenty of ammo. Lie there until I find us a path out of here.”
Battle grasped his HK at its sling and let the front hand guard rest on his forearm. Keeping the muzzle off of the ground and dragging the butt, he dropped to a low crawl position. He pushed his arms forward underneath the flatcar in front of him and then pulled his firing-side leg forward. He pulled again with his arms and pushed with his leg until his body was entirely under the car on the tracks.
The rock ballast was digging into his legs, and his thighs were draped uncomfortably across one of the rails. He was hidden. Battle pulled his rifle around to his front and set it in
to a firing position, the butt against his shoulder. He peeked out from underneath the flatcar and scanned the opposite end of the valley for the sniper. He didn’t see anything.
He inched forward, trying to see up the incline on the far side of the tracks. On the edge of the orange glow, against the fence, he caught a slight flicker of light. It looked like a reflection off of a mirror.
Battle kept his eyes on the spot and waited. Again, there was a quick flash of reflected light. The sniper was there. The flashes of light were from his scope.
Battle tried to figure if he could accurately hit the sniper from his position. The HK416 had a short barrel and the velocity of its 5.56x45mm NATO rounds were relatively low.
He knew within fifty yards, maybe seventy-five, he could unleash a tight pattern. Beyond that, without the hollow-point bullets he wished he carried, he’d be taking a huge chance. If he missed or winged the sniper, he’d expose his new position.
Battle closed his eyes and tried to calculate the distance in his head. He guessed it was between seventy-five and one hundred yards. It was worth the risk.
He popped up both sights and took aim. He’d wait for another flash and then he’d fire. Battle lay on his stomach, his elbows propping him up. This wasn’t ideal. Nothing about war ever was.
He exhaled twice and slowed his breathing. He steadied his left hand and rewrapped his fingers around the barrel shroud. Battle was targeting the spot where he’d last seen the flash.
He waited. Waited. Waited. His finger was pressed to the trigger.
There it was. A brief, slight orange flicker.
Battle pulled, holding the trigger long enough to release an effective burst of five-and-a-half-millimeter rounds.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
He lay still, his eye still focused beyond the twin metal sights. If he’d missed, he’d be taking incoming fire. There was nothing. Then, in the distance, from the direction of those brief flashes, he could hear men yelling in Arabic.