A loud bang! drew her focus back to the door.
It was a gunshot, and it had come from the lobby. A single, purposeful gunshot.
She exchanged another look with Danny when they heard a second bang!
“Shit,” Danny whispered. “Get back.”
He pushed off the wall and retreated across the room. She did the same, returning to her spot next to Nate, but her butt hadn’t touched the floor yet when the door smashed open and a man with an AR-15 stood in the open doorway, pointing the weapon in at them. He saw Danny first, sitting across from him, before swinging his rifle over to her, then back at Danny.
She expected to see Lopez (or someone else who had taken his place at guard duty) lying dead outside the door, but there were no signs of casualties that she could see.
The man was tall and thin, and his face was covered in black and green camo paint. The rest of him matched his face, including thick camo pants and a long-sleeve shirt underneath a tactical vest with slots stuffed with spare magazines. Equally full pouches hung from his narrow hips, including a gun holster.
“Don’t even fucking flinch,” a gruff voice said from behind the painted face.
Gaby sat perfectly still, and so did Danny. She worried that the loud, crashing door might have woken Nate, but one look at him eased her fears, though it made her wonder what kind of meds the collaborators had given him to make him sleep through all of this.
The gunman saw her eyes going to Nate and said, “He dead?”
“No,” she said.
“You sure? He looks dead to me.”
“He’s just sedated.”
“We’re on the same side,” Danny said, and raised his bound hands slightly off his lap to let the guy see the zip ties.
“Oh yeah?” the guy said, though he sounded doubtful. The fact that he hadn’t loosened his grip on his rifle for even a second was proof of that. The weapon was very steady in his hands, which told Gaby all she needed to know about him.
“You’re part of Mercer’s army, right?” Danny asked.
The man cocked his head, a glint of curiosity showing through the paint. “What do you know about it?”
“We found the flyers. Join us or die, right?”
Not quite right, Gaby thought, realizing what Danny was doing. He already knew this man with the rifle was one of Mercer’s killers—everything about him gave that away—and if he was here inside the bank, then that meant the collaborators were dead. (For a very quick moment, the thought of Mason finally getting what he had coming made her heart race with triumph.) Danny was playing on the propaganda flyers they had been finding all over the state, like the one Nate had found earlier yesterday while they were scouting.
But Danny was wrong. It wasn’t “join us or die”; it was more like “join us to take back Texas.” Or something close. Not that it mattered, and she suspected Danny knew it, too. He just needed to get the man’s attention, to sow the seeds of the lie he was already cooking up.
And it seemed to work, because the man relaxed the hand that was clutched tightly around the pistol grip underneath his rifle’s barrel. He didn’t lower the weapon, though, but it was a good start.
“Close enough,” the gunman said, and grinned, showing impossibly white teeth.
Gaby couldn’t help but relax a little, even if a part of her didn’t believe they were any better off than before. What was that old saying?
Out of the frying pan and into the fire…
But maybe she was worried about nothing because it looked as if Mercer’s men were more concerned with the collaborators than they were with her, Danny, and Nate. The man who had found them in the back room called himself Fritz, and he led them to the front of the bank, leaving Nate where he was, but only after Fritz had checked to make sure Nate wasn’t playacting.
The lobby was in pieces, and she didn’t have to go very far to see the source of the explosion she had heard earlier: Almost one entire side of the bank’s front wall was gone, leaving behind a gaping hole in its wake. Brick and mortar had been blasted across the once-wide lobby space, covering a large chunk of the floor. The island counter that had been used for filling out deposit slips had been chipped by gunfire but was somehow still standing, and the same was true for the teller windows at the end of the lobby.
She counted five bodies, all men in black uniforms—Texas collaborators. One of them had the name Danzinger stenciled across his tag. The rest were either lying on their stomachs or were buried in rubble along with their names. She didn’t see anyone among the dead who was even remotely close to matching Mason’s short stature, which made her just a little bit ticked off.
He really is like a goddamn cockroach.
Besides Fritz, there were two others wearing similar clothing, their faces also covered in camo paint in the lobby. One was standing guard next to the hole while the second one sat in a chair with a bent metal leg spooning chunky food from a bag of MRE. Gaby got a whiff of beef ravioli in the air, but she was more concerned about the M4 rifle with the attached grenade launcher leaning next to the man.
A wall versus a grenade launcher. Easy win.
The third man looked up as Fritz led her and Danny across the lobby. “Prisoners?”
“They were like this when I found them,” Fritz said.
“So, prisoners.”
“They said they’re volunteers.”
“Volunteers?”
“We saw the flyer,” Danny said.
“Flyer?” the man said, confused.
“That shit we’ve been tossing out of planes since after R-Day,” Fritz said.
“Ah, the flyer.” The man took a moment to shake some salt from a packet into his bag before going back to work with a plastic spoon. “Names?”
“I’m Danny, she’s Gaby,” Danny said. “The one sleeping it off inside the back office is Nate.”
“Three?” the man said to Fritz.
“Basically two and a half,” Fritz said. “Second guy’s mostly dead.”
“He’s just been sedated,” Gaby said. “He was shot yesterday.”
“How’d that happen?” the obvious leader asked.
Gaby nodded at one of the collaborators. She had never seen the man before and didn’t know his name, but one was as good as another right now. “They’ve been chasing us for a while; finally caught up to us yesterday. Almost killed Nate in the process.”
“Why?” the man asked.
“Like we told Fritz here,” Danny said, “we left the town we were assigned to so we could sign up. Fight the good fight. Take back Texas. All that good stuff.”
“You went AWOL? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“AWOL, who-gives-a-shit-wol, whatever you wanna call it. We’re not risking our lives for those night-crawling fucks anymore.”
Damn, Danny, you almost convinced me that time.
But Gaby couldn’t decide if the man was convinced or not, and his response was all that mattered. Even with all that gunk over his face, she could tell he was older than Fritz by a few years, and it made sense that in this rankless army of Mercer’s that the oldest man probably ended up leading, if just by default. Of course, she could have been entirely off base and the one standing with his back to them, guarding what was left of the wall, was the real leader, even though he hadn’t said a peep.
She decided to focus on the man sitting in the chair when she said, “Is it true? What the flyers said?”
“What do they say?” the man asked.
“That you’re going to take back Texas. Because that’s why we risked everything to leave the town. Tell me it’s true,” she added, injecting just enough desperation into her voice to be convincing but without overdoing it. Or, at least, she hoped she wasn’t overdoing it.
“If it’s not, tell us now,” Danny said, picking up on where she left off.
“It’s true,” the man nodded.
Gaby watched the leader slowly finish up his meal and toss the bag to the floor. He pulled out another
small packet from his pocket and fished out an oatmeal cookie. Gaby had to stop herself from drooling over the smell.
“We’re taking back Texas, and we’re always looking for new recruits,” the man finally finished.
“Thank God,” Gaby said, again putting just enough of the old Gaby—the girly high school Gaby—into her voice to be believable.
Jesus, when did I become such an actress?
“I’m Benford,” the man said. “You already met Fritz.” He hiked a thumb at the third man in the room. “That’s Kip.”
Kip tossed a glance over his shoulder and gave them a “what’s up” nod. He was much younger than both Benford and Fritz, and despite the paint caking his face couldn’t have been older than her. But then, age was hard to tell these days because everyone grew up so fast. You had to, or you didn’t survive.
Benford was smiling at them, white teeth poking through his camo and giving off a slightly sinister vibe. “Unfortunately, we can’t just take your word for it, you understand.”
“But I have such a trustworthy face,” Danny said.
“You won’t get any arguments from me. You get lost in Texas on your way back to California or something?”
“Nah, I’m just naturally sunny.”
“I can see that. But like I said, hard to trust people these days, so everyone has to pass a test first.”
“I suck at tests. Is it at least multiple choice?”
Benford ignored him and said, “Kip, bring him in.”
The kid disappeared through the wall.
“What’s going on?” Gaby asked.
“We need to make sure,” Fritz said.
“Make sure of what?”
“You’ll see,” Benford said.
Kip returned, but he wasn’t alone. A fourth man with camo on his face—another one of Mercer’s—along with Kip was flanking a black-clad figure between them. The man’s head was drooping like he didn’t have the strength to raise it, and his arms were duct taped behind his back. He was struggling with his footing, forcing Mercer’s men to drag and carry him at the same time.
Mason. Please let it be Mason.
The man lifted his head…and it wasn’t Mason.
Dammit.
Like the other dead men in the lobby, she had never seen the collaborator before. The part of his uniform where the name tag was supposed to be was missing, along with most of his right sleeve. Blood trickled down his face and thick, bloody clumps scarred both sides of his temple. He looked as if he were in tremendous pain, and she understood why he had so much difficulty walking: His right leg was broken, and blood dripped from both pant legs. When Benford and the others took out the bank wall, they had apparently claimed their share of collateral damage, and this man was one of them.
Kip and the fourth man dropped the collaborator to the floor in front of Benford. The man collapsed on his knees. Despite his weakened state, he somehow managed to stay upright, if just barely, and glanced first at her, then Danny, then around at the other faces in the room. Beyond the blood and bruises, defeat clouded his eyes, but there was a spark of defiance there, too.
Benford drew his sidearm and took out the magazine. Then he pulled back the slide and slid a bullet into it. “One round. Who’s it gonna be?”
“Me,” Danny said before Gaby could even process what Benford had just asked them.
“What’s wrong with the girl?” Benford asked.
“Not a thing,” Danny said, “but I talked her into this. The other kid, too.”
“Whatever,” Benford said, and tossed the gun to Danny. “Make it co—”
Danny caught the gun and shot the collaborator once in the chest before Benford could even finish.
“Well, shit,” Benford said, watching the man in black slump to the floor.
Gaby stared at the dead man while Fritz chuckled from somewhere behind her.
“Welcome to the Rebellion,” Benford said. “Your first assignment is to drag your old friends into the back office. They’re ruining the décor of the place.”
“We sticking around?” Fritz asked.
Benford glanced at his watch. “Got plenty of time before nightfall. Maybe we’ll get lucky and more of them will show up, give us extra target practice.”
The Rebellion was really just four people at the moment—Benford, Fritz, Kip, and the fourth man, Justin. To hear Fritz tell it, they never had any intentions of a prolonged engagement with Danzinger’s people, since that went against their mission of hitting and running.
“We kept waiting for them to get reinforcements,” Fritz said. He was perched on the island counter, feet swinging back and forth as if he were at the park. “But no one ever came. We were pretty sure they’d at least get a few extra bodies from that buildup in Port Arthur. We put two guys on the road, just in case, to do a little sniping. But nope. We hit them all day, poking at them from every angle, and no one ever showed up. I guess they’re stretched thin ever since R-Day. Probably keeping most of their forces in the towns.”
“R-Day?” Gaby asked.
“Resistance Day. Our little name for it. Nothing official or anything. He’s not a big fan of titles. Or rank, for that matter.”
“‘He?’” Danny said.
“Mercer,” Fritz said. “The Big Cheese.”
“Where’s he now?”
Fritz shrugged. “He’s around.”
“You don’t know?”
“I know, but you don’t need to know.”
“I thought we were all friends now. You guys even showed me the secret handshake and everything.”
Fritz grinned. “Not yet. But maybe if you keep proving yourself we might show you the secret lair.”
“Awesome. Do we get costumes, too?”
“Hey, what you do with your free time is your business.”
Danny grinned back at him. “Sweet,” he said, and went back to eating from the bag of MRE Mercer’s men had given them.
She concentrated on her own bag of Meal Ready-to-Eat, gobbling up the clumps of chicken pesto pasta with the cheap spoon that came with the food. It probably said a lot about how desensitized she had become to how the new world operated that her appetite only increased after dragging the dead bodies into the back room with Danny. She wished she could say she felt sorry for them, but besides Lopez, she didn’t know a single person or even their names, and she didn’t care enough to read their name tags.
They tried to kill us, and they shot Nate. Screw them.
The MRE tasted a bit bland at first, but a little salt and seasoning from the provided packets lent some life to it. She had pocketed the cookie and beef jerky and saved the coffee grounds for later. The last time she had coffee was on the Trident, where they regularly dipped into the reserves they’d brought from Song Island. She thought about Nate and how much he’d enjoy his own calories-heavy bag, but he was still asleep in the back office.
Despite having been “welcomed” to the Rebellion, Benford hadn’t given them weapons, and she used the opportunity to try to come up with a scenario where Nate wouldn’t be left behind when Benford finally decided it was time to move on, which he would eventually. Right now the only thing keeping them in the bank was Benford wanting to rest his men. They might not have lost anyone in the gunfight, but they had been at it all day and actually looked more tired than her and Danny.
Benford was outside on the sidewalk now with some kind of portable radio set on the hood of a bullet-riddled Jeep. She recognized it as the same one that had chased them yesterday, backed by the technical. The vehicle was damaged, its front windshield smashed and hood badly dented from, she guessed, the same explosion that had taken out the wall. Benford had his M4 with the grenade launcher slung over his back, and he didn’t seem all that concerned about standing out in the open, maybe because Justin and Kip were somewhere out there keeping watch while he and Fritz stayed back.
Benford was talking into the radio’s microphone and occasionally listening, but she couldn’t make out what wa
s being said from inside the building. The radio didn’t look like the kind they had been carrying around with them and using to communicate with the Trident. Benford’s was probably military-issued, while theirs was a civilian model.
“He’s like a dog with a bone,” Fritz was saying while looking out at Benford. “He knows something’s not right about this place. The collaborators have no reason to stake a base all the way out here, and we’ve seen multiple nests in the bigger buildings. Those things don’t normally waste time in a no-nothing place like this, so why are there so many nightcrawlers around?”
“You saw them?” Danny asked.
“Couldn’t miss them. They were crammed into every store and building we passed. Had to be hundreds of them in the place. Maybe more…”
“How many did you guys kill?”
“Six in all, counting the one you popped. Why?”
“There were more than six earlier today,” Gaby said.
“If there were more, then they weren’t here when we hit the bank. And if they’re out there, Kip and Justin would have spotted them already.” He shrugged. “My guess is they knew they were beaten and took off.”
Gaby could picture Mason doing exactly that. The man was an opportunist and a survivor first and foremost. If he thought Danzinger was going to lose, he wouldn’t have any hesitation about abandoning them. The only other reason he wasn’t one of the dead was if he hadn’t been around when the fight got out of hand. She didn’t know which explanation she preferred, not that either one did anything to change the results: Mason was still out there, somewhere.
Like a goddamn cockroach that needs to be stepped on.
“Why’d you do that, by the way?” Danny was asking Fritz.
“You mean the bank?” Fritz said. When Danny nodded, “Benford’s decision. They had one on the roof and one on the sidewalk outside, but other than that it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Benford had us prodding them all day until he was finally convinced they didn’t know what the hell they were doing. It was like they were just satisfied to sit here and wait.” He eyed Benford, who looked like he was in the process of wrapping up his radio call outside. “Like I said, dog with a bone. He wants to know why they were here, why no one came to their rescue, and what the nightcrawlers are doing in a place like this.”
The Purge of Babylon Series Box Set, Vol. 3 | Books 7-9 Page 54