“Back east,” Mercy said. “Goddammit.”
Tawny gunned the engine, “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get going.”
Rose looked up at the storm, “What about this? Shit, we’ll never find them in this—”
“Yeah, I know Rose, but we gotta try. We’ve always gotta try,” Mercy shouted.
Rose nodded, “I’ll lead the way on the bike, you follow my tail lights. I’ve got a feeling that fight we saw might not be over.”
Tawny gave a thumbs up, “Go ahead, I’ll be right behind you.”
Rose returned to the Harley-Davidson and started the engine. She pulled away, kept her speed down and her eyes glued to the road. Mercy checked the time, 3:02 pm.
This is turning out to be one hell of a day—
Chapter 16
Boneyard
The dust storm raged on for another hour then started to diminish as the front moved east.
“Wind’s dropping,” Tawny said.
“Yeah, visibility’s improving. Keep your eyes out for any—”
“Hey, what’s that over there?” Tawny interrupted.
Tawny pointed to a figure slumped on the ground on the side of the interstate. A crushed motorbike lay a few feet away.
“Rose has seen it too, slow down, looks like she’s going to check it out,” Mercy said.
Rose got off the Harley-Davidson. She walked over to the prone figure, her pistol at the ready. She kicked the body with her boot then knelt down for a closer look. She turned to the DPV and shook her head.
“He’s dead,” Mercy said.
Tawny grunted, “Along with the others we saw back there, that makes six. They’ve lost a lot of people to-day.”
“Good,” Mercy replied, returning her pistol to her thigh holster. “Let’s hope they’ve left a trail of corpses right back to their base.”
“Like a trail of breadcrumbs,” Tawny said. She coughed and spat onto the road. “I feel as if I’ve inhaled half the desert in that dust storm. I could still use a smoke. Jesus, what does that say about me?”
“If the cigarettes don’t kill you Tawny, life will. Come on, let’s get moving,” Mercy replied.
“Wait, Rose’s gone back to the dead guy. What’s she doing?” Tawny leaned forward in her seat.
Rose was gazing out at the desert.
“She’s spotted something. I’m going to join her, you stay with the vehicle Tawny,” Mercy said. She climbed out of the DPV and walked towards Rose.
Rose pointed at a large broom bush nearby, “I saw something move over there.” She pointed at the ground, “Looks like a fresh blood trail here. Ready to do this?”
Mercy pulled out her pistol, “I’ll go around this way, you take the other side.”
They split up and approached the bush from different angles, their guns at the ready. Mercy crouched as she rounded the undergrowth, her senses alert. She reached the other side to see Rose kneeling beside a semi-conscious man with a leg wound. A discarded M-16 lay on the ground, the man had managed to tie a tourniquet around his leg to stem the bleeding.
Rose looked up, “It’s one of those judgement fuckers, looks like he’s still alive, took a round to his leg.”
Mercy crouched down beside Rose, “Yeah, with that amount of blood it must’ve nicked the artery.”
“Well, he’s going nowhere,” Rose stood up.
“Wait, he’s opened his eyes,” Mercy lent into the man and looked him in the eye. “Hey mister, where’s your base? Where’s your camp?” She grabbed him by his shirt and raised her voice, “Hey, tough guy, where’s your crew at?”
The man opened his eyes, baring his teeth in pain. He tried to focus on Mercy’s face, “Go to hell bitch, I ain’t got nothing to say to you.”
Mercy pulled out her pistol, “Well, we’d better do something about that mister.”
Mercy leant back and prodded his wound with the barrel of her gun.
The man screwed up his face and cried out in pain. “Bitch, bitch, you fucking bitch…” the man gasped, his body shaking.
Mercy twisted the gun barrel deeper into the wound her eyes intent on the man’s face, “Come on motherfucker, tell me where your friends are and I’ll let you die in peace. Otherwise you get to die in a world of pain—”
The man’s eyes rolled, “OK, OK, OK. You win bitch. They’re at the Kingman boneyard. They’re holed up in there. Wylie’s people don’t know exactly where we are, they’ve been trying to flush us out but the Judge, she’s been playing hard to get—”
She? Christ, that was her, back at the crater—
Mercy’s pulse quickened, “She? You said she? The Judge is a woman? And who’s Wylie?”
The man gasped as Mercy pressed her gun back into his wound.
“Yeah, the Judge is a woman, tough bitch. She was a real judge back in the day…”
“Who’s Wylie?” Mercy persisted. “Who is Wylie?”
“Fuck you bitch—” the man’s eyes lost focus and his head fell back.
“He’s gone Mercy,” Rose said.
“Yeah,” Mercy wiped her gun on the man’s shirt. She stood up, “I think I saw her, the Judge, back at Meteor Crater. Tall, long coat, cavalry hat. She took the hat off, she’s shaved her head. There was some kind of tattoo going up her neck. A snake or scorpion, I don’t know—”
Rose grunted, “It figures… another psychopath. People seem to follow psychopaths for some reason, or is it sociopaths? Who cares? It’s all bullshit anyway, people love bullshit, people follow bullshitters. So, at least we’ve got their address. Kingman boneyard? What the hell kind of place is that? And who’s Wylie?”
“I’ve no idea Rose. I get a feeling we’re about to find out. I guess Wylie could be the other warlord—”
Rose grunted, “Wylie is Vegas, yeah that fits. Did you see the symbols painted on those mechs?”
“Ace of spades with a skull. Sure has got a Vegas feel about it. Come on, let’s go—” Mercy said, turning her back on the dead man.
They returned to the road and told Tawny what they had learned. Mercy retrieved the map from the DPV and spread it out on the front of the vehicle.
Boneyard? Boneyard?
They squinted at the map, looking for clues.
“Hey, Kingman’s got an airport, look,” Tawny prodded the map. “Why would such a small town have an airport? There’s one already in Flagstaff and Winslow.”
Boneyard? Boneya—
“Wait,” Mercy said, looking up at the sky. “Boneyard, a place you go to die—”
“Yeah, elephants do something like that. Saw it on TV once—” Rose mused.
“Like a breakers’ yard,” Tawny said.
“Yes, I remember something about old airplanes being sent to the Arizona desert for storage and scrap. The climate preserves them or something,” Mercy said.
“Like a graveyard for planes? Yeah, I think I’ve seen pictures of that somewhere,” Tawny replied.
Mercy raised her eyebrows and looked around. The dust storm had moved south. She glanced at her watch; 4:20 pm.
Storm’s gone—
“Let’s get a move on, we’ll drive up to Kingman then go off-road with this,” Mercy tapped the DPV. “We’ll approach the boneyard from the desert, go in at dark, and do a recon. Rose, you can leave that Harley stashed near the interstate. We’ve got to get in position tonight. We’ve still have one missile left and some ammo for the machine guns, so we’ve still got some punch.”
Rose nodded, “Sounds like a plan.”
“Seconded,” Tawny grunted.
Mercy and Tawny climbed into the DPV and Rose mounted the Harley-Davidson.
Three of us against… how many? They’ve taken a mauling from the other warlord so that’ll stand in our favour. Unless they’ve got reinforcements. Well, it’s not going to change what we’ve got to do, so get on with it—
Thirty minutes later they stopped outside Kingman and scrutinised the map.
“Let’s dump the Harley here and
go east, around Kingman. The airport is here, just off Route 66. We’ll get close but not too close. We’ll do a recon by foot. I’ll bet there’s a fence. Rose, tell me there’s wire cutters in the tool box—” Mercy said, she pointed at the DPV’s toolbox in the side basket.
Rose stepped back and opened the toolbox, “Yeah, we’re in business.” She held up a pair of rusty wire cutters.
“OK, so we’ll infiltrate their camp at dusk, get close to their living quarters, see if we can spot our people,” Mercy paused.
“Or at least the cars they were in,” Rose added.
“And then what?” Tawny asked.
Mercy pulled a face, “We improvise.”
As usual—
They concealed the Harley-Davidson in the desert, where Route 66 joined I-40. Rose and Mercy cut scrub to cover the motorbike, then they continued on in the DPV. Tawny swung east, across the desert, avoiding Kingman completely. She turned north once they had passed the city limits, then crossed over I-40 to the desert on the other side. They drove another three kilometres then Mercy raised a hand.
“OK, we’re about a kilometre from the boneyard. Let’s leave our ride here and walk in. They’re likely to have guards.”
“Shouldn’t one of us stay with the vehicle?” Tawny said.
“There’s only three of us, we’re just gonna do a recon. I think we need to stick together. We’ll go in on foot. I’ll take a bearing using the terrain and the map. I’ll be able to use that to find our ride again.”
Or at least that’s the theory—
Tawny nodded, “Gonna miss this thing,” she tapped the DPV, “it’s got us out of one or two scrapes.”
Mercy took a compass bearing and checked it with Rose. “OK, let’s move out. Single file, so there’s less chance of being seen.”
They walked towards Kingman Airport.
OK, there’s the fence—
“Mercy, stop,” Tawny hissed.
Mercy froze.
“Snake, right there, a couple of paces in front of you,” Tawny whispered.
Mercy looked at the stony ground and took a step back when she saw the rattlesnake.
Holy crap, I didn’t even see it—
The snake rattled and raised its head as they passed on one side.
That would’ve been ironic; being bitten by a rattlesnake on the way to rescuing our people—
Mercy clenched her jaw and pressed on. Twenty minutes later she lay on her stomach two hundred yards away from the airport fence. She pulled out her binoculars. The others followed suit.
OK, where are you? Jesus, there must be hundreds of planes in there. They’re lined up, like a car park. It’ll be like a needle in a haystack trying to find our guys. Shit—
“I can’t see any guards,” Tawny said.
“Maybe it’s too big a site to patrol the whole perimeter. Maybe they’re concentrated in one of the buildings further in. Maybe they’ve got power and CCTV. Hell… maybe they’ve got a minefield,” Mercy answered.
Too many maybes. We don’t have time for maybes, anything could be happening to our guys in there—
“What do you want to do Mercy? It’s still four hours to nightfall—” Rose asked.
“We need to move in, these people were badly mauled by those mechs. We can’t wait for them to regroup. Who knows? There could be more of them coming down the road from Flagstaff to reinforce this lot. We can’t wait until dark, we need to get closer now,” Mercy stood up and tucked her binoculars away. “Got the wire cutters Rose?”
“Have wire cutters, will travel,” Rose quipped.
They made it to the fence and cut a hole in the chain link.
“You got anything like a scarf?” Mercy asked.
Tawny pointed at Mercy’s neck, “No, but you do.”
Mercy reached up to her neck, remembering the face cover she had fashioned out of the tattered flag.
“Of course, nice one Tawny,” Mercy said. She tied the fabric to the fence to mark their entry point.
“Ah, OK. Just in case we need to exit the same way we came in,” Rose said, with an approving nod.
“Yeah, always—” Mercy started.
“Keep your eye on the exit. Yeah, I know,” Rose replied, finishing Mercy’s sentence.
They crept forwards, across low scrub and made it to a row of canary yellow airliners. Mercy shook her head.
Old planes everywhere. It’s like a maze—
“Jesus H Christ,” Tawny groaned, “needle and haystack are two words that come to mind.”
Rose nodded and spat on the ground, “You’re right Tawny but reframe the problem. Flip it on its side, if you were the bad guys where would you hold up?”
Tawny looked around, “Probably somewhere near the centre, with a good field of view of the airport.”
Mercy looked through her binoculars, focusing on the aircraft further in. “Yeah, like those Delta Air Lines planes over there. There must be thirty or forty of them. There’s three of us, we’ve got three binoculars, let’s stake out the place. We’ll divide the airport into three zones and watch. Sooner or later we should see something.”
Tawny grunted and pulled out her binoculars. They took cover under a DHL plane and swept the boneyard and airfield beyond with their binoculars. Five minutes later Tawny stiffened.
“I see something, there’s a guy on top of a TWA plane over there, two o’clock position. See him?” Tawny said, pointing to the partially stripped plane at the centre of the boneyard.
Mercy followed Tawny’s directions bringing her binoculars to bear on the spot, “Yeah, got the bastard. It’s a lookout, he’s got a 360 degree view of the place.”
“Yeah, and there’ll be others. But…” Rose stopped.
“But what?” Mercy asked.
“Well, they can’t see through aircraft wings, can they? I mean, they’re all so tightly packed together we could get right up close to that position by using the wings as cover,” Rose said.
Mercy chewed her lip, “Yes, you’re right Rose. We’d still need to watch for sound traps and all the usual shit but yeah, that works. OK, we’re going in.” She checked her watch; 6:18 pm. “Rose, you lead the way, light’s still good but your vision’s better in the dark. Good to go?”
“Good to go,” Rose replied.
Rose took a last look through her binoculars and nodded at the others. She ducked low and took a diagonal line beneath a section of tightly packed planes. Mercy and Tawny followed, keeping close. Mercy’s eyes darted left and right, searching for trouble.
Rose stopped after five hundred yards, she held up a hand and crouched down. “You smell that?”
The smell of cooking reached them from somewhere ahead. Mercy pulled out her binoculars. The sun was sitting low in west, sending long shadows out across the boneyard.
“Yeah, it’s chow time,” Mercy whispered.
“Tell me about it, my stomach is ready to eat itself,” Tawny said.
Mercy ignored Tawny’s comment, “We’re getting close. Come on Rose, let’s go, safeties off.”
Rose moved forwards, her rifle at low port. Her shin brushed against a length of fishing line. A deluge of bottles and tin cans clattered down from the sloping aircraft wing onto the ground.
Soundtrap. Shit—
A man’s voice shouted in the distance and a dog barked.
Goddammit. We’re fucked—
Chapter 17
Ingress
“Move, move, move,” Rose said, leading the way.
They ran away from the area, ducking under aircraft fuselages and wings. More voices filled the air behind them. A whistle sounded off to the left. Mercy kept her eyes on Rose and the ground ahead.
Get us out of this Rose, you can do it—
Rose stopped and held up a hand. Mercy pulled up behind her friend and listened. Rose pointed at a shadow on the ground a few feet ahead.
Someone’s above us—
Rose retreated and moved sideways, to the other side of the plane. T
hey ducked under another few aircraft and stopped, their breathing laboured.
“Maybe they’ll think it was a fox or something?” Tawny whispered, her voice uncertain.
“No way, that wire was at thigh height,” Rose answered, her voice bitter.
“They’ve got dogs, they’ll find us,” Mercy said.
“We need to do what they least expect,” Rose said.
“They’ll expect us to run,” Tawny whispered.
“So we attack,” Mercy replied.
Rose and Tawny stared at Mercy.
“I see no other way. We’re committed now. Our friends are in there,” Mercy said, her voice level.
Rose nodded, “Make every bullet count.”
They turned to face the centre of the boneyard. The sun’s dying rays painted the ground a vivid orange. A scattering of stars was already twinkling in the heavens. Mercy’s eyes narrowed, she grabbed Rose’s shoulder and pointed at the row of aircraft on their left. A phalanx of moving figures was visible fifty yards away.
“They’ve fanned out, they’re searching for us,” Rose whispered.
“Look right,” Tawny hissed.
Mercy glanced right. A second search party was moving in on their flank.
Christ, how did they do that?
“Behind,” Rose hissed.
Mercy swung around.
Fuck, they’re behind us too—
Rose cursed and moved forwards before Mercy could stop her.
No, Rose. That’s what they want, they’re funnelling us forwards—
Mercy ran after Rose and reached out to grab her shoulder. A blinding light stopped her in her tracks. She closed her eyes and brought a hand up to her face.
Goddammit. What the hell is that? I can’t shoot, I might hit Rose—
A siren wailed nearby, a few seconds later a series of explosions ripped through the night. Mercy dropped to the ground as gunfire erupted around her.
What’s happening?
She crawled under a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 airliner and hid behind a stack of timber shoring. She squinted at the blinding searchlight ahead. A figure leant out from behind the aircraft’s main landing gear, ten feet away.
The Survival Chronicles | Book 8 | Final Mercy Page 9
