Fall of Houston Series | Book 5 | No Man's Land

by Payne, T. L.

  “Let’s hear her out, Maddie,” Aims said.

  For the next hour, Stephens filled them in on what had happened to the country and about the new government. She needed them on her side. She needed all the help she could get. They seemed surprised that there was a functioning government operating in Texas, and that there was an effort to rebuild the country.

  “What is this President Latham doing to get the lights back on?” Maddie asked.

  Stephens explained the purpose of the mission, divulging much more than she was authorized to share. Without their help, she was doomed to fail, but it was a risk she had to take. She could see a spark in Director Harding’s eyes that told her he hadn’t given up on the country or his duty to preserve and protect it. She felt confident that she could at least count on Harding and Aims, and perhaps the two could convince the others. There was still hope.

  “That shipment is vital to our national recovery. I have to get it back.” She shifted to focus on the soldier. “I can pay—if you know men for hire. I can pay well.”

  The soldier looked over his shoulder to the big guy and then to Aims and Harding. “I don’t have any use for gold,” he said.

  For a second, Stephens felt defeated. She’d hoped that there was some shred of duty left in the man. She’d need to appeal to his human nature.

  “What about MREs? Do you have use for food?” she asked.

  The soldier’s eyes widened. “Now you’re talking. How many? I don’t see how you could be carrying enough to make me want to risk my neck,” he said.

  “They aren’t with me, but name your price. We’ll make it happen,” she said. “We have three days. I have to have that cargo back within three days.”

  “What happens in three days?” Aims asked, taking a step toward Stephens.

  “The gold must be at the Port of Houston in three days to purchase desperately needed supplies for the nation’s recovery effort.” Stephens cleared her throat. “But it’s far more critical that this happens than just recovery.”

  High-powered rifle fire cracked nearby. Everyone drew their weapons, fanned out, and took cover.

  “Can you see them, Dustin?” the big guy called.

  “Four. I see four, Larry,” Dustin said, peering through his rifle scope.

  Dustin and Larry began advancing toward the shooters. The others took up supported positions to secure the group from all directions. In minutes, the four shooters were down.

  “Too bad we couldn’t take any of them as prisoners,” Maddie said.

  “Yep,” Dustin said. “We might have gotten some information about where your gold is stashed.

  Stephens was impressed. These folks had excellent tactical skills. She was more convinced than ever they could help her. She just had to convince them.

  “Let’s get the hell off this highway and go get your gold,” Maddie said, walking past Stephens. “Are the horses ready, Jacob?”

  Another man stepped into view. “They’re fine. A little spooked but they’re good to go.”

  “Thank God,” Stephens said under her breath. They were going to assist her in the search for the gold. “I need to get to a trade fair in a place called Rolla. I was told they were heading there.”

  “Told?” Larry asked.

  “We interrogated one of their men,” Stephens said. She shook off the image of the boy, who’d died from his injuries before they could find out more.

  “We were heading that way ourselves,” Aims said.

  “Well, let’s get after it,” Larry said.

  The trade fair was impressive. Stephens had never seen anything like it. Of course, the civilians down south weren’t allowed to live outside of safe zones, and setting up anything resembling a trade fair would have alerted the government to their unauthorized activities.

  After they passed through a security checkpoint and tied up their horses, Harding motioned for Stephens, Collins, and Hogan to follow him.

  “Maddie, Aims and I will escort Stephens and her men. We’ll meet you back at our booth,” Harding said.

  While Larry, Dustin, Maddie, and the others in their group went about their business, Stephens looked for the men who had hijacked her gold shipment or any evidence they’d been there. After hours of searching, they hadn’t found the gold or the men who had taken it, but Dustin came through for them. He’d learned from someone there who knew a guy who’d paid a bar owner in gold. They had a lead. It was a good lead. They were back in business.

  Twenty-Six

  Isabella

  Junction of Highways N and 51

  Fagus, Missouri

  July 12th

  Event + Ten Months

  Morning came and went without any sign of Will or his squad. Isabella was beside herself with worry to the point of being sick to her stomach. She turned her nose up at the breakfast MRE Fisher offered her. Even if she hadn’t felt ill, she was no fan of Meals Ready to Eat.

  “You can’t lose hope, Fontenot. They’ll take care of business and catch up with us,” Fisher said, stuffing the MRE back into her rucksack.

  “I just wish we would’ve heard something by now.”

  “We will. Comms are difficult out here in the Ozarks. There are just so many damn hills that it’s hard for a signal to travel through this shit.”

  Fisher was right. The terrain was a challenge, not just for radio transmissions, but on the soldiers and horses. Climbing hills in ninety-five-degree heat with likely eighty percent humidity was going to be brutal on them all. She wasn’t sure how the draft horses were going to pull a heavy wagon filled with gold. She just hoped the terrain flattened out between Iron County and the military base.

  On the day of the twelfth of July, Isabella’s squad made it only twenty miles before stopping for the night just south of Poplar Bluff, Missouri. They still had slightly over eighty miles to go. At their current rate of travel, it would take five days to reach Iron County and the rally point to meet up with 1st Platoon. They’d miss their deadline to get the gold to the plane. In all likelihood, Stephens’ team would be forced to move the gold on their own, without the support from 2nd Platoon. Isabella prayed Stephens wasn’t running into similar problems, and that by some miracle that gold made it to Colonel Sharp and onto the plane to the Port of Houston.

  As the squad slowly rode onward toward the rally point in Boss, Missouri, on the second day since leaving Will and his squad back in Pollard, Isabella’s thoughts drifted back to Texarkana and her new family. If she and Will didn’t make it back there, what would happen to Cayden? Would Savanah be forced to relocate to Houston? Would that really be such a bad thing? She wasn’t sure. With the lack of communication coming from the new leaders of the country, it was hard to know if the authoritative rules they’d implemented were what was truly needed to restore order and bring services back to the citizens.

  It was early afternoon when Isabella’s squad leader called a halt and they stopped to rest and water the horses. She sat on a rock, took her boots off, and let her feet soak in the cold water of a stream just south of Ellsinore.

  “Grab your pack, Fontenot. We’re going to sleep in a real bed tonight,” Fisher said, holding her hand out to assist Isabella to her feet.

  “What?”

  “Summers and Russell found a house just over the hill. The squad leader said we could bunk there tonight, which means no sleeping on the ground. We don’t pull security until midnight, so let’s go, girl, before that raunchy Summers takes the master suite and stinks it up with his foot funk.”

  Fisher practically dragged Isabella over the hill and up the path leading from the creek to the back of a two-story white-clad house surrounded by trees. After climbing a steep set of stairs to a deck overlooking the creek below, Fisher dropped her rucksack on the floor just inside the master bedroom and plopped down fully dressed onto the bed. Isabella placed her rucksack next to Fisher’s and continued down a short hall to check out the rest of the home.

  The bedrooms all faced the front of the ho
use. The back of the house overlooking the creek consisted of floor-to-ceiling glass. The view was spectacular. A door in the center of the wall led to the enormous deck. Summer and Russel were seated there eating MREs and laughing like they didn’t have a care in the world. Isabella envied them. All she could think of was Will, Jason, Walker, and the rest of Will’s squad. They should have heard something from them by now. It was also concerning that they hadn’t been able to raise anyone from Team Lonestar or headquarters in Little Rock on the satphone. They were proceeding blind, with no way of knowing what they would be riding into when they reached Iron County.

  “You better get some rest, Fontenot,” the squad leader called from the kitchen. He was seated on a barstool drinking something from a flask. Isabella hoped it wasn’t liquor. They all needed to be clear-headed for this journey even in their downtime because the enemy could be lurking anywhere.

  “On my way there now, Sergeant,” Isabella said.

  She leaned her rifle against a chair in the corner of the master bedroom and stretched out on the king-sized bed next to Fisher. Isabella rolled onto her side and curled into a fetal position, listened to Fisher’s soft breaths, and drifted off to sleep. Sometime in the night, Isabella was jolted awake by the sound of gunfire. Her feet hit the floor and she dropped to her knees, scrambling for her rifle.

  “Which direction, Fontenot?” Fisher asked, grabbing her own weapon and moving toward the window.

  “I think it's coming from the direction of the creek,” Isabella said, peeling back the curtains.

  “Do you see anyone?” Fisher asked as she checked her rifle’s magazine and pulled on its charging handle, advancing a round into the chamber.

  “I see nothing. It’s pitch black.” Savanah pulled her rifle up and scanned through her night vision scope. “I can’t see where the firing is coming from.”

  Fisher scrambled back toward the door to the bedroom where she’d dropped her rucksack earlier. Isabella could hear her rummaging inside her pack. A moment later she was back at the window with a pair of night-vision goggles. She pressed them to her face and scanned the area behind the house all the way to the creek. “Holy shit!” Fisher cursed.

  “How many?” Isabella asked.

  Without a word, Fisher grabbed Isabella by her shirt and yanked her to her feet. “Grab your rucksack.”

  “Fisher?”

  “We have to get the hell out of here, Izzy.”

  Isabella struck her collarbone on the door jam as Fisher pulled her toward the front of the house.

  “What’s going on?” Isabella asked.

  Isabella felt her brush past. “There’s too many of them. There’s no way we can hold them off. No freaking way.”

  “Fisher, Fontenot, take the west side and go around where Summers and Russell are by that rock outcropping,” the squad leader said, as he slid open the back door and began firing on the combatants below.

  Isabella and Fisher made their way to a side door and down a short flight of stairs. Fisher had begun firing her rifle before Isabella even reached the last step. Isabella was blind there in the dark. She saw no enemy—only heard the rifle reports echoing through the hills as a fierce battle ensued.

  Fisher dropped to one knee by the trunk of an old tree in the side yard and pulled the NVGs to her eyes. “Four combatants, one hundred feet to our two o’clock,” she whispered.

  Isabella scanned the area and gasped as the attackers came into view. Through the green haze of the night vision scope, she counted far more than four enemy fighters. They were crawling out from behind every tree and rock and moving quickly up the bank toward the back of the house. Isabella searched for her squad members and spotted two near a shed in the backyard. To the right of them, two more were crouched behind boulders. Isabella handed the goggles back to Fisher, pulled her rifle to her cheek, and fired at the approaching enemy.

  “Fontenot, cover me. I’m going to try to get to the rock there on the edge of the clearing ”

  “Ready,” Isabella said.

  “Moving!”

  Isabella opened up, sending rounds downrange as Fisher sprinted off to her left.

  After she reached the large rock outcropping, it was Isabella’s turn. When Fisher began firing, Isabella took off to join her. She heard the enemy firing back and ran faster. A couple of yards before reaching the cover of the boulders, Isabella felt a bullet graze her left hand. She dove to her knees and twisted to return fire. As she did, a round tore through her left bicep, knocking her off balance. She was on her back with one leg stuck behind her. Isabella looked at the stars between the treetops. She thought of Will and Cayden. Would she ever see either of them again? Would she die there in Missouri never knowing the fate of her husband?

  “I got you,” Fisher said as she grabbed Isabella by the plate carrier and dragged her to cover behind the rocks.

  Once Isabella was safely behind cover, Fisher returned fire again. Isabella managed to somehow get her rifle braced on one of the boulders and her finger inside the trigger guard. Pure terror took over and she began firing in the direction of the enemy.

  Summers slid in next to her. “You okay, Fontenot?”

  Before Isabella could respond to him, a round struck the trooper in the neck and he slumped down behind the rock. His radio crackled to life with orders from their squad leader to pull back.

  “Where’s Russell?” Fisher asked.

  “Gone,” Isabella said, flatly. “Grab his radio. We have to run, Izzy.” And her battle buddy headed toward the front of the house.

  “What about the rest of the squad?” Isabella said, following after Fisher.

  Fisher grabbed Isabella’s injured arm and pulled. The pain caused her knees to buckle. “We’re overrun and outnumbered at least three to one. We can’t win this one, Fontenot. We have to drop back and regroup.”

  Retreat? What she meant was they were going to run for their lives and pray they weren't captured. “Save a round for me, Fisher,” Isabella reminded her as they ran toward the dark woods to the west of the house.

  “You do the same, Fontenot.”

  As the only two females in the squad, they’d promised each other they wouldn’t allow the other to be captured by the enemy. It was common knowledge what happened to female prisoners. They both agreed it was a fate worst than death.

  “This way, Izzy,” Fisher said, shoving Isabella down into one of the spurs to the west of the house. They had to go down. There was no way to climb to the top of the ridge in the dark. It was too dangerous.

  As Isabella dropped down into the rocky watershed, fear and adrenaline took over. She went somewhere else in her mind—to a time before all this. She escaped back to Houston and to her apartment by the bayou. She thought of Jaz and Gus for the first time in months. Fisher’s use of the nickname that only Jaz called Isabella must have triggered the memory. Isabella wondered if they’d survived this far and if they were working in Houston somewhere now? Jaz should have given birth to their daughter by now. It broke her heart to think that she would likely never have answers to those questions. She might never know what became of Will. If she and Fisher weren’t successful at evading the overwhelming force that had infiltrated their camp, her loved ones back in Texarkana may never know what happened to her.

  Fisher tried several times to raise someone on the radio but the squad leader’s order to pull back was the last transmission they’d received from any member of the squad. It appeared the two women were on their own—for the moment.

  “Look what I found,” Isabella said, producing the squad’s satphone.

  "Holy shit, Izzy! Where the hell did you get that?”

  “Russell had it clipped to his belt along with the radio.”

  Fisher pressed the “Last Call" button.

  “Colonel Sharp here,” Sharp said.

  Isabella’s heart skipped a beat. They’d reached headquarters.

  “Colonel Sharp, this is Specialist Fisher from Team Razorback. We were just attacked n
ear Ellsinore, Missouri. Me and Specialist Fontenot escaped. There were dozens of enemy combatants that attacked us while we were sleeping—they outnumbered us—we shot a couple of them but Fontenot was hit and we had to drop back and regroup or they would have killed us both.

  “Okay, okay, Fisher. Calm down. Are you hurt? Where was Fontenot shot—is she okay? Who else is hurt? Where is everyone else?”

  “Sir, I’m okay. I don’t know how we got out of there without being killed—I don’t know how anyone could survive—I think everyone else is… We don’t know for sure—there were so many enemy coming up the hill at us.”

  “Okay, Fisher. What about Fontenot? Where was she hit—is she okay?”

  “She got hit in the arm—her left arm—left bicep, sir.”

  Isabella was wrapping a handkerchief around her bicep and was trying to tie a knot in it with one hand.

  “How bad is the wound? Did you stop the bleeding?

  “Yes sir, she seems okay. We’re just now putting a dressing on it. There’s a lot of blood but I think the bullet passed clean through. She has been holding pressure on it with her right hand until now.”

  “Okay, Fisher. Is it safe for you to be talking to me wherever you are? Is the enemy near enough to hear you?”

  “No—I mean yes, sir—I mean I think it’s safe—I don't see or hear anyone near us.”

  “What's your location? I need to know exactly where you are.”

  “Sir, I don't know. I don’t know where we are exactly. We’re in the woods.”

  “Okay. This is what I want you to do. When you think it's safe enough, I want you two to pick a direction and start walking—being careful to stay hidden. Remember your Escape and Evade training? Well, now you get to put that training to good use. I need you to get to a location that a rescue party can find—a location such as a highway with a mile marker or on a road near Elsinore with a landmark we can find, like a gas station or a restaurant. When you find a location like that where we can come get you, call me back at this number.”