A brief, thoughtful silence fell “It's a workable plan,” Carl mused. “I assume you'll want us to hit the armory and supply tent on the way out, grab any weapons we can get our hands on and enough food to keep us going until we get to wherever you live?”
“We definitely want whatever we can take with us, especially the food,” Brandon agreed. “We've all lived in this world since the Ultimatum, we know you can never get enough of that.”
“That's always what it comes down to, isn't it? No matter the situation.” The prisoners' spokesman sighed. “On the upside, even if most of us die in this wild jailbreak of yours, at least the rest of us can hope for a proper meal for once. That might put fire in everyone's bellies, if the prospect of freedom doesn't.”
Hard to argue that. “How closely do the guards keep track of you guys?” Brandon asked. “I'd like to bust you out, Carl, so you can come with me and talk to everyone in the other cages. Maybe send out a few more of your people, too, so we can visit several cages at once and speed things along.”
“Pity the cages aren't all clustered together like they are in the slave camps, or we could spread the word in no time,” Carl whispered back. “Sangue probably did it on purpose, since chances of an attempted jailbreak or revolt are higher out here.” He paused, thinking it over. “We could probably get away with three or four slipping out. We'll want to head to that cage closest to the blocked road first. That's where Tanner and his boys are kept . . . he's the closest thing we've got to a leader, someone people will pay attention to.”
“Okay.” Brandon said, looking around. “Play it cool, and keep an eye out for guards while I work.” He scrabbled around to the cage's door, removing his bolt cutters, and snipped the lock as quickly as he could. He held his breath the entire time, expecting to be caught or at least challenged.
But he was sort of committed at this point, since the first guard who came around checking the lock would immediately raise the alarm. More immediately, the slaves might not trust his plan and in a panic might decide to make a break for it now that the lock was off.
The men inside didn't so much as twitch as the chain link door swung open. Carl, Zack, and two other men the slaves' impromptu leader picked out all wormed their way outside to join him, then the four headed off together to go talk to this Tanner fellow. Brandon sent everyone else in the cage out on their own to the other cages to talk to the slaves, instructing them to head south to Jenny and pick up bolt cutters and begin ferrying weapons as soon as they got agreement from the other slaves.
As for Brandon, he left them to it and began picking his way south through the camp. Now that the ball was in motion, he was going to need to find a way to sneak around and take out the guards and sentries along the southern perimeter so they could work in the area. That was probably the most dangerous part of the plan, but it couldn't be helped.
Andy should already have been on that, but he didn't see any sign of his friend as he approached the last tent before the road. That was probably a good thing.
He made straight for one of the nearest defensive positions, manned by two bloodies on a platform elevated six feet off the ground. He'd hoped they'd be sleeping, or at least inattentive, since it was near the end of the first shift.
To his relief it looked as if they were; the platform was deliberately constructed to not be large enough to lay down on, keeping guards from just falling asleep on shift, but that hadn't deterred the men there. One had climbed down the ladder to sprawl on the ground leaning against it, while the other was slumped in a chair with his rifle across his chest, snoring.
Brandon slipped his knife free of its sheath, thinking of Skyler's inability to do what he was about to do. Or, for that matter, his own emotional turmoil the first time he'd had to do this, at Trapper's ranch. Even knowing the danger the enemy presented, and the need to do it, he still couldn't shake an almost surreal sense of guilt and remorse whenever he thought about it.
But whatever he might've felt about slitting a sleeping man's throat, the crushing guilt of failing his people felt worse.
So he crossed the distance to the platform and, without wasting a moment, crouched to cover the mouth of the soldier on the ground with his hand, at the same time yanking the man's head back and planting his knife into the exposed throat. Then he kept the Sangue's mouth covered as he thrashed and gurgled for fifteen or so seconds.
The entire time, he listened with his heart in his throat for the soldier above them to wake up and see him, or someone in camp to notice and raise the alarm. But there was nothing; just a sleeping camp.
A sleeping camp full of his people carrying out their own tasks.
He swiftly climbed the ladder to the platform. The sentry in the chair stirred and mumbled a question, which became a muffled shout as Brandon jumped forward and planted the knife in his eye, scrambling to cover his mouth with his free hand.
The shout became muffled grunts as the man's weight shifted and he slid bonelessly onto the platform. Brandon swallowed away the queasy sensation in his gut and dropped back to the ground, sneaking across the road towards the patrol route of the sentry that stood between him and where Jenny waited with the horses.
He was relieved to find that instead of a sentry, there was a corpse slumped against a tree; Andy had been busy, looked like. Brandon kept going around a low hill to a small clearing, hissing a greeting to Jenny so she didn't panic and shoot him.
“How's it going?” she hissed back as he hurried towards one of the bundles on the ground, waiting to be hauled into camp. It was full of shotguns and pistols, already loaded and ready to be used, with extra loaded magazines and boxes of shells in the bag with them.
“Nothing's gone wrong yet, far as I know,” he replied as he hefted the bag over his shoulder. “Stay alert, people will be heading your way soon.”
“Yeah.” Her tone was serious, with none of its often sharp edge. “Be careful, huh? You've got your wife and kid waiting for you.”
Brandon grimaced. He could've done without that reminder right before he headed back into danger. But he had to remind himself that the young woman had grown close to Fi while she'd been living at the retreat, and genuinely cared. “Thanks, I will.”
He snuck back into the camp and deposited the guns at the first cage he'd visited. Carl's team was already back, with the news that Tanner was with them and would lead the slaves once the confusion began, ensuring as many as possible got safely away.
That was a relief; it would let Brandon focus on his part of things. He sent the other men with Carl out with the bag of guns and a pair of bolt cutters to a the nearest cage, then led Carl back to where Jenny waited so they could both grab bags, as well as another pair of bolt cutters so the freed slave could head to his own cage.
While they were there Brandon noticed a couple other bags missing; apparently a couple of his people, probably Andy and Derrick, had finished up their jobs and were getting to work delivering weapons to the alerted slaves.
He separated from Carl just outside camp, both heading to a different cage to free a group and get guns passed out. As he made his way through the silent tents, Brandon couldn't help but feel like his straightforward plan, if not exactly simple, seemed to be going off without a hitch.
Unfortunately, he thought that too soon.
The first hint of disaster came with the rattle of machine gun fire from one of the emplacements on the northern edge of camp, the one Bill Cawley had been assigned to sneak up on and eliminate. Then, judging by the resultant explosions once the confusion started, Ray had only managed to rig two of the six barracks tents with C4.
As for Brandon, he'd just finished delivering his bag of guns to the second cage. The moment the shooting started he cursed and threw open the door of the cage, urgently waving towards the cringing men inside.
“Grab a gun and get to cover!” he shouted, crouching to tear open the duffel bag full of pistols and shotguns and handing them out frantically, along with spare magazines a
nd boxes of shells. Slaves poured out the door, some grabbing the weapons he offered and others simply bolting for the nearest cover. A few even headed straight for the perimeter, seizing their chance for freedom and often not even going south towards the planned rendezvous point.
And leaving their buddies in the lurch during the coming fight.
Had the others managed to open many more of the cages? Brandon couldn't count on the chance that they had.
Leaving the slaves to pass out weapons and join the fight on their own, he bolted for the next nearest cage with his bolt cutters. Halfway there automatic fire from the direction of one of the barracks tents made him drop flat, scrabbling to unsling his rifle. The enemy soldier stopped firing after a few seconds, either shot or wisely deciding to get to cover. Brandon couldn't even be sure he'd been the man's target.
He pushed up to one knee, leaving the bolt cutters on the ground where he'd dropped them, and snatched an incendiary grenade from his vest. After pulling the pin he hurled it at the entrance of the barracks tent the soldier had come from, then yanked a couple fragmentation grenades free and tossed them towards the other tents enemy soldiers were pouring out of.
By that point there was gunfire coming from seemingly everywhere: his skirmishers, the slaves, and the sentries and newly awakened bloodies all shooting wildly. Hopefully at the right targets, at least where his own people were concerned. Brandon left the fighting to everyone else for now and snatched up the bolt cutters again, crossing the final dozen steps to the cage and throwing himself flat beside it, in case anyone had decided he was a tempting target.
No one had, it looked like. He pushed up to his knees and got to work on the cage door. “Where's our guns?” a prisoner inside the cage demanded.
“Back with the rest of the ones I didn't manage to pass out,” he said tersely as he heaved at the cutters to cut the chain. “Due south of here, edge of a copse about a hundred yards on the other side of the hill. Make a break for it, get armed, and join the fight.”
The frantic slaves shoved the door open the moment he got the chain cut, nearly knocking him flat on his back. They all stampeded in the direction he'd told them to, which was good, and he had few doubts about whether they'd go for the weapons. His worry was that after they had, there was no way to know how many would come back and join the fight instead of bolting for the hills.
Well, now that they were free and headed for safety they were pretty much at the bottom of his list of things to worry about; he hoped things turned out well for them, whatever they chose to do.
Brandon paused beside the empty cage to assess the situation, then hastily unslung his AK-47 and poured automatic fire into a knot of bloodies crouched behind a nearby tent, shooting around it at targets he couldn't see. Thankfully, in spite of the dim and erratic lighting, most of it provided by burning tents and muzzle flashes, he could identify them as enemies by all the shouting in foreign languages they were doing.
He gave himself just enough time to empty his magazine into the enemies as he swept his muzzle from one end of the tent to the other, then started to sweep it back. The moment his gun went click instead of bang, he dove behind the cage and huddled close to the links, praying his body armor would stop any return fire.
There was a lot of that, bullets whining all around him and pinging on the chain links of the cage, with one thudding into the dirt only inches from his face and kicking grit into his eye. Which would've been more of a nuisance if it hadn't been scrunched tightly shut.
The hail of bullets lasted for an eternity, or more likely just a few seconds, but in the chaos of the fight nobody could stand around firing for that long without drawing attention to themselves. Finally the whine of close calls and nearby ricochets stopped, and Brandon cracked his eyes open to confirm that not only was he still alive, but that nobody was running towards him or maneuvering to get a better position to fire at him from.
After a few seconds to satisfy himself that that was the case, he scrambled for the bolt cutters and began looking for another cage that hadn't been opened.
The next one he found was empty, the chain links torn away from the steel poles in one corner indicating that someone with bolt cutters had either chosen to get them out by a more cautious method, or the panicking slaves had managed to tear open their own path to freedom. Probably the latter.
Brandon passed quickly by the next cage, even though there were people inside; Sangue had gotten to them first, gunning down dozens of men as they huddled helplessly in their prison. Then he paused, swallowing the bile rising in his throat.
He didn't want to accept the fact, but those poor men had died because of him. If he'd never come to this camp tonight they'd still be alive. Facing short, miserable lives of endless backbreaking work, maybe, but alive. Now they were dead, without even a choice in the matter. Not even given a chance to get out of their cage and try to escape into the night.
He didn't want to see what had happened to them, but he would never forgive himself if he just left. So he went back to check if anyone had survived.
“Hey!” he hissed. “Any of you still alive? We need to get out of here.” No response. He raised his voice slightly. “I have to keep moving . . . if you're in there say something now.”
He waited a few tense seconds, ducking at a sudden roar of gunfire that sprang up near him. That was enough to get him to give up, and he'd just taken a step away when he heard a low groan from the cage, barely audible above the cacophony of gunfire and screams and explosions in the camp.
Cursing, Brandon rushed to the door and got to work on the padlock. He would've thought that after cutting a few of these he'd be able to do it faster, but either his attempts at haste were making him clumsy, or in his panic time seemed to be crawling. Either way, he cringed against the cage as he worked, expecting to feel a bullet slam into his back at any moment.
Then the cage door was open. Holding his breath and clenching his throat closed to block off his churning stomach, he began picking his way over the huddled bodies, trying not to see what he was stepping over. Or on.
Thankfully it was dark. “Where are you?” he hissed. “You still with me, bud?”
Another groan, almost underfoot. Brandon dropped to a crouch and began feeling at necks, searching for a pulse. It was a gruesome task, and he had to move a body aside before he found a stick-thin shape, a kid who couldn't have been much older than Skyler, huddled against the ground.
The prisoner's shirt was dark with blood from a wound to his shoulder, or maybe arm. Brandon felt around in the dark until the boy jerked away with a sharp cry of pain. “Shh!” he said, more to keep the kid from drawing attention to them than to comfort him. It was the boy's arm that was wounded, so Brandon quickly cut a strap off his flak jacket and got to work on a tourniquet.
Then he slung his rifle low on his back and hauled the prisoner over his shoulders. The weight was less than it should've been, but still enough to make him grunt with effort; it took every bit of strength he could muster to stumble to the cage door without tripping and slamming them both into the chain links, and once he was outside on flat ground he paused for a second to catch his breath and get his bearings.
There was still a lot he could, and should, be doing for this battle. But he'd made it his responsibility to save this kid, so that was his job now. At least until he could get him to safety.
Turning for the south end of the camp, he began ducking from cover to cover to get out.
Chapter Eleven
Escape
Andy rained fire on a dozen bloodies shooting from the cover of the vehicles parked near the road, cursing under his breath each time he squeezed the trigger.
So far nobody had noticed his position in the chaos, crouched beneath the southeast guard platform. That was where he'd paused, urging Tanner and his group of fifty or so freed slaves to keep going south and escape. With the plan blown in their faces, any hope of making it a fair fight had flown out the window; malnourished slaves
with pistols and shotguns who'd lost the element of surprise held no hope of beating trained soldiers with rifles.
Especially since they hadn't managed to get all the guns passed out, or even free everyone in the cages. Off to one side was a grisly reminder of his failure, a cage full of bodies that a single Sangue soldier had mowed down with a few sweeps of his AK-47.
The sight sickened Andy, squashing his desire to fight. Now he was just focused on getting as many people as he could to safety. What came after that, fighting off or delaying pursuit while the freed slaves continued to run south at the best speed their overworked muscles could manage, was a worry for later.
Assuming he survived to escape the camp. Speaking of which . . .
In his half-panicked state, it took Andy longer than it should've to notice that the muzzle flashes from the guns of the soldiers he was firing at seemed to have grown larger, as well as taking on a distinctive star pattern. It took another critical second to realize what that meant: the enemy's muzzles were pointed more or less directly at him.
They'd finally figured out where he was.
Andy dropped flat just as bullets thudded into the platform above him and the supports holding it up. But not before he felt a heavy force like a punch in the chest knock the wind out of him.
That pretty much took him out of the fight for a few seconds, as he struggled to draw a gasping breath, fully convinced he was dying. He tried to reassure himself that he'd just hit the ground too hard, but the pain in his chest continued.
He'd been shot.
How bad was it? Had his flak jacket stopped it completely? Would he even survive to find out, with bullets still kicking up dust all around him?
That last question galvanized him, and he desperately rolled out from under the platform, losing his rifle in the process. He didn't care, keeping up his roll until he was ten feet away and bullets were no longer whizzing past.
Mountain Man (Book 5): Final Stand [Last Ditch] Page 19