Lines in Shadow: Walking in the Rain Read online

  “Plus, it will get them stirred up tonight,” Mike observed thoughtfully. “They will be tired out from all the excitement. Might be better to go in and hit the water point tonight.”

  “Agreed,” Scott said, “If we had the personnel to do it. Which we don’t. So we run this misdirection play tonight, then spend tomorrow catching up on our rest. I want you fellas wide awake and capable of covering my ass when I hit the wire.”

  “That’s the part I really don’t like,” Yalonda said, finally joining the conversation. “I get the need for stealth, but shouldn’t you have somebody watching your back? Going in by yourself is just too dangerous, and doing it twice in a row is doubly dangerous. Just plain dumb.”

  This was no different than Sarah’s argument, made earlier when he’d taken her aside back at the Porter’s farm and briefed her on the new plan.

  “Look, if we go as a group, there’s too much chance of getting spotted. I can get in and out without being seen.”

  Mike, ever the voice of reason, had another suggestion.

  “Let me come with you for this one. Two can throw faster than one, and we aren’t going in past the fence anyway. Plus, I was a pitcher on my high school baseball team, boss. I can get more mustard on the ball than you can.”

  Scott didn’t run his team as a democracy. He spoke, they listened. But sometimes, a good idea just has a weight of its own. He didn’t want to risk Mike, but then, he was placing his own life on the line so how could be refuse the young man?

  “Alright, Mike, let’s try out your arm. Yalonda, I want you and Kevin to set up the accident scene with our crash test dummy there. Kev, before you judge, ask Yalonda what he did to earn this treatment. Ben, I still want you, Keith, and Sarah on sniper duty.” Scott explained again, catching Sarah’s eye as she drifted closer to listen while keeping her eyes directed out. “Targets of opportunity only, and don’t expose yourselves. Thirty seconds from the time of the first explosion, and I want your asses on those bikes and back to the first RV point. Everybody got that?”

  A quick “Yes, boss” from the gathering made Scott want to smile. He never intended to be any kind of leader, leaving that responsibility to Nick, who at least went to the right schools for it in the Army. Now, here he was, leading his little band of misfits on a dangerous mission against nearly unimaginable odds. Funny how life works out sometimes. The cargo from Scott’s pack rapidly split, with Mike carrying half, the two men exchanged quick farewells with the rest of the group and stepped out of the tiny clearing.

  Shouldering their heavy backpacks, Scott and Mike left for their target directly from the meeting point, hiking a good mile and a half through the scattering of trees and crossing a few backyards along the way. Scott knew his sniper team was taking a similar trail, leading their motorbikes on a path they’d previously scouted, so he urged Mike to take his time and not get ahead of their protective detail.

  Two hours later, and now under the cover of full darkness, Mike and Scott set up their hides and unpacked their little gifts for the gate crew. The only sound, the slight tinkle of the painstakingly packaged glass bottles, passed unnoticed to any listeners but sounded like church bells to the two men as they arranged the repurposed wine bottles.

  When they heard the clickers in the distance, like crickets but in a preset pattern, Scott spoke a one word order to Mike.

  “Go!”

  Crouching, Mike used a lighter to ignite the simple fuse and dropped the bottle to hang from its rope cradle. Holding the braided rope end, Mike began spin the foot-long missile until he achieved the desired velocity. Unlike Scott, who’d practiced the move a few days before as he formulated the plan, Mike was having to learn on the go, but his first cast was on the mark, a rotating pinwheel of fire.

  Shattering atop the conical metal roof of the first guard building at the front gate, the mixture of gasoline, laundry detergent and a few other special ingredients rapidly spread across the metal in a sheet of flame. Immediately, cries of terror began to sound in the night.

  Scott was aware of Mike’s first throw but he was already in motion, spinning up his own bottle of homemade napalm as he targeted the shed adjacent to the gate, where the gang stored a few drums of fuel for topping off their vehicles. The two men, having endured the scouting mission before, knew the layout of the camp quite thoroughly by this time.

  When Scott’s first bottle broke, he was dismayed when the fuel failed to ignite, but he didn’t hesitate even as bullets began to whip past his head. More rifle fire erupted and he knew his snipers were suppressing the first shooters. He caught the motion as Mike threw his second Molotov cocktail and dove into a roll, gaining distance from his prior position.

  Spinning up the bottle, knowing he was exposing himself to the view of the now panicking guards, Scott managed to deliver the second glass bottle to the roof of the targeted shed. This one went up in a whoosh of flame, and now it was time for the pair to exit the area.

  Dropping to his belly, Scott caught movement from Mike and knew his subordinate was wriggling into his own, now lightened, pack. Scott did the same and they snaked their way back out of the dead ground and back into the covering trees. They moved too fast to be truly stealthy, but as Scott hoped, the combination of the fires and the accurate sniper fire from their three shooters kept the pair of them from drawing too much attention.

  Ten yards into the wood line, Scott nearly tripped over his tarped motorbike, and he caught a glimpse of Mike wrestling with a similarly shaped object under a plastic tarpaulin. In seconds, they had their rides upright and were rolling them further back to the game trail. Noticing Mike was favoring his side, Scott sidled close to check on his condition.

  “Where you hit?”

  Mike grunted before replying.

  “Upper right chest.”

  “How bad?”

  “How the hell should I know? I’ve never been shot before,” Mike snapped, then got his pain under control enough to give a better assessment.

  “I can still move my arm, and the bleeding doesn’t seem to be arterial. I can go on.”

  “I hope so, ‘cause we can’t stop here,” Scott announced, gripping the other man’s bike to take some of the weight as they pushed.

  Behind them, as if to emphasize the point, the fires continued to blaze and illuminated their position for another hundred feet. Scott hoped the flames would spread throughout the camp, though the distance between the buildings meant the damage would be limited.

  Then the fuel in the shed ignited, and for a brief moment, night became day as the explosion shook the tree limbs overhead. Sparing a quick glance over his shoulder, Scott saw the fireball rising up to touch the velvety reaches of heaven. Well, maybe they had more than a few barrels of gasoline in there after all.

  Finally deeming they were far enough away, Scott helped get Mike mounted and gave him a shove in the right direction. Then, Scott hopped onto the slick plastic seat of the old dirt bike and worked the kick starter, once, twice, and felt the engine cough and sputter into business on the third try. Mike, for his part, was pulled up twenty yards away, waiting, his bike already purring. Fishing around in his hip bag, Scott withdrew a self-adhesive bandage and handed it to Mike.

  “Can you get that?” He asked.

  “Yeah, so easy a caveman could do it,” the younger man replied as he tore away the material of the tee shirt with his left hand, then pressed the absorbent material home. Other than another grunt, Mike didn’t reveal how much the maneuver hurt, but Scott knew.

  “How many you think we fried?” Mike asked when he was done, pitching his voice to be heard over the putt-putt of the engines.

  “Not enough,” Scott admitted, “but it will keep them busy all night, and hopefully throw them off our trail for a bit.”

  Nodding, Mike led the way out and Scott was happy to follow. He didn’t want to say anything, but with the added danger, he was glad Mike had talked his way into joining him. Without a second set of hands, Scott didn’t thin
k he would have had time to get all four napalm bombs off before having to bail. He just felt like shit that Mike had caught a bullet. They needed to get him treated quick, but they couldn’t risk stopping here to do more than slap a bandage over the leaking hole. There was no exit wound, which made Scott nervous.

  Joining back up with the two-lane road, Scott and Mike soon passed Yalonda and Kevin’s handiwork, and both men slowed slightly to take in the cherry on top of their deception cake. Scott was both impressed and a little frightened by how well the two had managed to stage the accident.

  The little motorcycle appeared to have met an old oak tree in a head on-collision, and the ensuing pool of flame surrounded the deceased rider. He was face down in the ditch, and on fire, as were the lower limbs of the tree that absorbed the force of the impact. Scott, however, could see the scorched denim Los Lobos colors clearly as he rode past. The rider was also doused with a least a little of the jellied gasoline as his face, hands and pants were ablaze.

  As long as the cannibals at the camp lacked a dedicated Crime Scene team, Scott doubted they would be able to uncover the deception. He also wondered if Roger had been alive or dead before fires began eating at his body.

  Leaving behind a scene of chaos and destruction, the two scouts drove on into the dark, feeling as least a little satisfaction in their pinprick attack. No, they wouldn’t wipe out the camp with these tactics, but the idea was to keep the raiders bottled up and off balance for the time being. The next step in their plan would come soon enough, Scott reasoned.

  Then, the killing could begin in earnest. He’d borrowed the Porter’s encyclopedia earlier, reading up on the symptoms of arsenic poisoning. The effects sounded grim, but Scott knew these scum, these murderers of children, could never suffer enough to satisfy him. Nothing he could inflict on them would ever be enough. Just like nothing would ever wipe away the foul atrocities he’d been forced to watch. No, he would carry those memories like scars, for the rest of his days.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  When Scott reported back to the family farm the next morning, he was leading a small caravan of two trucks, four motorbikes, and one Harley. Despite grabbing a night’s sleep at the Porter farm and getting Mike’s wound treated, all of Scott’s men and women looked hard worn. The medic with the Porters was no Doc Cass, but working with Yalonda, they’d managed to dig out the bullet and get Mike stabilized. Infection would still be a major concern, but Mike was lucky enough to escape with no severed arteries. Still, even with the pain meds, the wound continued to pain him severely through the narcotic haze. He endured the ride back to the farm with a stoicism that spoke to hard lessons already learned.

  Aaron Courtland, astride his Harley, was given the eye by the defense force members guarding the main gate, but Scott’s word that he was a friendly carried a lot of weight. Not because he was Darwin’s brother, but because of what he did, and continued to do.

  First, Scott dismissed his team, sending them off with orders to get cleaned up and to see their families. Except for a now complaining Mike, they had until noon, and then he was determined to head back out. They had a plan, and a timeline. Mike, despite his pro-forma bitching, needed help crawling out of the truck bed and Keith and Ben, with Yalonda monitoring, ended up carrying him in a litter to the clinic. Clearly, Mike was sidelined for the foreseeable future.

  Scott, once he had the rest of the group on their way, saw Sarah was still with him.

  “Tell Isabella I’ll be by to see her shortly,” he asked Sarah, “but I need to see Dar and Nick first.”

  Keeping Aaron close at hand, Scott asked around and tracked down his brother and his nephew in the main blockhouse. Ducking inside, Scott found the men he sought, going over maps with Mark, Bruce, and a few more of the defense force leaders. Scott knew them all, and when Darwin saw the state of his little brother, he asked everyone to give him a few minutes. The room cleared quickly, until only Nick, Darwin, Scott, and Aaron remained.

  “How’s the new team members working out?” Nick asked first.

  “Good. Willing to work hard and listen. We got one wounded, Mike Evans, but he’s been treated already. I told him to take some down time to recover.”

  Darwin digested this news and took a fresh look at his youngest brother.

  “Scott, are you okay?” he asked, concerned his brother had also taken an injury of some type. His eyes, already shadowed from lack of sleep after returning from the first reconnaissance mission to Lowell, now resembled black pits with bruising in the flesh.

  “I’m fine,” Scott lied. In truth, he’d barely managed to sleep for an hour the previous night, and he was teetering on the ragged edge of collapse. His nightmares seemed to be stalking him, and every time he closed his eyes he was haunted by the horrific images from that camp. Mike getting shot didn’t help, and now his guilt over allowing the young man, one young enough to have been his son, to become injured just added to his burden.

  “Bullshit.”

  Darwin seldom cursed, which simply drove home his level of concern. “Scott, I’ve known you since the day you were born. Learned a long time ago when you are lying to me, and I know you are far from fine. And who is your new friend?”

  That last question, laced with suspicion, made Scott look up and regain his focus. He knew Darwin was right, much as he hated to admit it.

  “Darwin, this here is Aaron Courtland. He’s one of Max’s lieutenants, and he’s got some story to tell. But first, you need to see these.”

  As he spoke, Scott withdrew the curled yellow pages from his shirt pocket, and unfolded them on the table next to the maps.

  “What do you have there?” Darwin asked, withdrawing his reading glasses and balancing them on his nose. The clan patriarch looked at the neatly printed block letters, and absently noted the blood smears on the edges of the paper. Looking up suddenly, he caught Scott’s eye.

  “How reliable are these notes?” Not waiting for an answer, knowing that Scott wouldn’t have bothered giving him unsupported intel, he continued to speak and his voice rose. “We’ve got to get this information to Nathan and the rest of the Guard units.”

  “I noticed,” Scott observed drily, “that our Guard platoon has apparently vanished. I’m sure you have an explanation.”

  Darwin looked around the room, taking in the tiny slits that served as windows and the thick logs he’d helped wrestle into place as the rough structure took shape. He seemed to be regarding the hours of hard work, by everyone, sunk into creating this bastion.

  “Colonel Hotchkins has taken over this operation. He’s recalled all the deployed units, relieved the survivors at Parmeyer and set about tracking and neutralizing the enemy military force.”

  Darwin’s manner said a lot more than his words to anyone who knew him. He was deeply concerned. Scott could read it in his face, gestures, and tone.

  “What else has happened while we were gone?” Scott asked carefully, mindful of Aaron’s presence.

  “You didn’t hear the announcement?” Darwin asked, then muttered, “How would you, running around risking your life for us out there?”

  When Scott merely shook his head, Darwin continued.

  “Yesterday, Acting President Jeffrey Chambers gave a radio address to the nation. Or, at least, to the few still able to listen. Flooded the AM and FM dials. Claimed he was acting on behalf of the President, who is too ill at the moment to discharge his duties. Cited the appropriate Executive Orders, he said he was in charge and taking steps to address regions currently out of control. Insurrection, he called it. He named certain states, and Arkansas was one of them. He called on all able-bodied Americans to rise up in support of the nation, and the Constitution, and to throw out these self-appointed dictators for the good of the people.”

  Scott just stood there for a frozen moment, shock running through his system as he digested what his brother was saying. Then he started laughing. A low, dark growl of a laugh devoid of any form of mirth or amusement. Nick, upon hearin
g the tone, shivered in spite of himself.

  “So, he had himself an ‘Al Haig moment’, is what you’re saying,” Scott continued. “And there’s no such office as ‘Acting President’ in the Constitution, even the parts he isn’t ignoring. You are either President, or not. The Cabinet only comes in if there’s no Speaker of the House or President Pro Tem of the Senate. And we start with Secretary of State on move down. Homeland Security is just about dead fucking last.”

  Scott punctuated his statement with another dark chuckle.

  “There’s nothing funny about this, Scott,” Darwin chided, but Nick held up a hand, unconsciously stifling any further protest from his father.

  “What is it, Scott?” Nick asked in wonder, surprised as anybody by his uncle’s reaction.

  “For Chambers to do this, now, is a sign. He must be feeling the pressure, and his reaction is typical Washington rhetoric. Who else did he claim was in rebellion?”

  Darwin looked down, checking his notebook before responding, a deep frown still creasing his features.

  “He listed off eleven or twelve states. No, I got the list here. Twelve states. That includes Montana, Texas, Louisiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and us, of course. We recorded the broadcast, but those are the ones that stood out.”

  “So, a big chunk of more conservative-leaning states? Us, and our likely allies, then?”

  Darwin, Nick and Aaron, drawn into the conversation, all nodded this time.

  “And who heard this announcement? Besides the captive audience in his holding camps, of course? Who has the access and capacity to receive radio broadcasts these days?”

  “Well, most of the military, of course, and whatever state and local level authorities still have the means of generating enough power to run a radio.” Darwin replied, but then stopped for a moment.

  “And us, and those like us. Preppers. Survivalists. Whatever. He was talking to us, too?”

  Scott grunted his agreement and glanced at Aaron, trying to gauge the man’s response. Then, he just broke down and asked.