by Joe Nobody
“How many men protect this place?” Butter asked, sizing up the defenses.
“As many as a dozen … as few as six,” someone answered.
“How deep is the water?”
A man stood and held his hand shoulder high, “Like this, Señor. In most places.”
It was clear to Butter that the armory’s security had been designed to repel an attack launched by a large mass of unarmed men. The two, elevated guard shacks were poorly placed, both on the front gate’s side of the complex. The fortified post on the roof wasn’t even manned, but probably would be at the first sign of trouble.
In less than a minute, Butter had made up his mind. Drawing the two pistols from his belt, he handed one to Julio Sr., the other to a capable looking comrade. “Do you both know how to use these?”
“Sí, Señor,” they eagerly responded.
Using a small rise to hide their huddle, Butter drew a quick diagram in the dirt as another man held a small candle close to the ground. “I want the two men with pistols here and here,” the kid instructed, stabbing the ground with his stick.
After scanning the faces of his troops and confirming understanding nods all around, Butter continued, “The rest of you come with me. When Julio’s father is set up here, he will shoot at this guard tower. The other pistol shoots at the second tower. You don’t have to hit anything, just keep them occupied. I’ll take care of the rest. Understood?”
Again, the Texan received a hardy round of nodding heads.
“Okay, let’s go.”
It took the revolting slaves just over five minutes to get into position. Butter took cover behind a low berm, less than 100 meters from the armory’s perimeter. Behind him, ready to charge on his command, were at least 150 men.
A single pistol shot rang out, quickly followed by another, and then several more. Alarmed voices sounded from inside the armory as a sentry fired an AK.
Butter thanked the bright moon, flipped the safety off his carbine, and loosed a volley at the left tower, and then another group of rounds at the right. Before the last piece of ejected brass had landed in the soft soil, he was up and charging the gate.
A man was screaming in pain from the left target, so Butter concentrated his wrath on the right. He fired three shots, ran ten steps, and then cut right. Five more shots, then cut left. Rinse. Repeat.
A screaming body fell from the right tower, and now Butter was the object of the guards’ attention.
Despite his size and lack of cover, Butter was a difficult target in the darkness. His aim was deadly, and the towers were simple plywood structures with thin walls. No one had ever thought to provide any sort of bullet stop. After all, the slaves didn’t have guns.
When he was within 50 meters, Butter flipped his blaster to full auto and slammed home a fresh magazine. Taking a knee, he sprayed the right tower with a potent blast, and then directed his lethal discharge to the left.
Waving for his comrades to rise and follow, Butter screamed, “Hit them! Kill them! Charge!” Without further ado, he pivoted and charged the gate full out, praying that no one was left alive in the towers.
A hundred voices sounded from behind the Texan as the slaves rose, their throats filled with a pent-up bloodlust that had simmered for years.
Almost reaching the heavily fortified gateway, Butter observed the outline of two human shapes exiting through the armory’s door. Puffs of dirt erupted as bullets thumped into the path at his feet. He rolled hard to the right, coming out of the desperate dive with his weapon pointing at the defenders and loosed another volley.
The wave of surging workers passed Butter, screaming battle cries at the top of their lungs as they rushed the entrance. They began to fall as the few remaining guards tried to stem the tide.
A wall of humanity hit the front gate and fence, as men pushed, climbed, and scrambled to get inside the perimeter. More of them fell bloody to the earth, but that didn’t seem to matter.
Butter laid back, pumping lead into the reinforced nest of the roof, hoping to keep the defenders down and minimize the damage they could inflict.
The metal barrier collapsed inward from the weight of the crowd, the now frothing mob raising their voices of fury to a new pitch. They were motivated by the realization that their lives and the fate of their families, depended on a single event. They had to take the armory – any other outcome meant a horrible end to their existence.
It was all over in less than two minutes, the few remaining guards torn limb from limb as they were overrun by the shouting, vicious throng of slaves.
Butter strolled through the entrance, his body weakened by the exertion and a week of brutal captivity. Still, there was energy in his step as he watched dozens and dozens of rifles being hauled hand over hand and distributed to the growing number of rebellious workers.
Soon after, two wagons arrived, and the rebels began loading cases of ammunition and more weapons. A sea of torches appeared on the surrounding hillsides, hundreds more revolting slaves coming to get their weapons and their revenge.
Standing and watching as hundreds of guns were passed out, Butter wondered how many of the revolutionaries would survive the night. It didn’t matter, he decided. They would die free men, struggling for a worthy cause. Compared to all of the SAINT missions he’d been assigned, Butter experienced a higher sense of fulfillment than he had ever realized. That warmth was only heightened when he felt a tug on his khakis and peered down to see Julio’s smiling face beside him. “Thank you, sir,” the boy earnestly beamed.
Smiling, Butter patted the child on the head and then glanced up to see a ring of anxious faces surrounding him. No one said a word as more and more armed men joined the circle. It took the Texan a moment to realize that they were all waiting on his orders.
“Where do we go?” Julio’s father asked. “What now?”
Butter was about to respond when the sound of another battle rumbled through the fields. His head snapped to scan north, realizing that he’d forgotten all about the column of armor that had rolled by the barn. “Oh shit,” he whispered. “I sure do hope the Alliance brought plenty of firepower.”
The front, up-armored semi swerved, sparks and slivers of metal flying from the truck as the driver drew his last breath behind the wheel.
Across the dark line of water cutting through the moonlit field, Grim spotted hundreds of twinkling, white flashes erupt.
As his foot slammed on the brake pedal, the driverless truck ahead jackknifed, the trailer arching into the air as a blizzard of hot lead shredded the diesel fuel tanks and engine block. A huge fireball turned night into day as trailer tumbled and rolled across the field.
They were too late.
With his pickup still skimming across the roadside dirt, Grim pushed the microphone’s button, “Circle the wagons!” he screamed. “Circle the wagons!”
Not that it was going to do them any good.
Dirt, blacktop, smoke, and lead filled the night air as the plantation militia unleashed a deadly barrage of fire at the convoy. Grim could feel the rounds smacking into his pickup’s sheet metal as he dove from the cab. One of the convoy’s gun trucks erupted in a fireball, the machine gunner’s flame-engulfed body shooting across the night sky as the doomed truck somersaulted across the field.
Grim fast-crawled to the ditch alongside the road, his gut instinct telling the old trooper to get his weapon into the fight … to return some of the hell that was raining down on his men … to do something.
Survival instinct prevailed a moment later. He was in command. His people were dying by the second. He had to lead.
The truckers were doing better than expected given the wall of death that slammed into their ranks. From his prone position, Grim watched as the semis assumed a defensive formation. Kevin was firing from his position on top of a trailer. A few others had managed to get their weapons into the fight.
Darting low from position to position, Grim did his best to maintain control. “Conserve your am
mo,” he shouted to one group, “Let’s make them come in and get us.”
The driver of the second gun-truck had watched his twin die and was playing it smart. Racing across the field, he managed to make it to cover behind one of the crippled trailers as the man working the belt-fed blaster sprayed round after round back across the water.
As drilled, the drivers jumped from their cabs, armed with an assortment of rifles and shotguns. Scrambling for wheels, low spots in the dirt, or anything that would provide refuge from the relentless hailstorm of lead, the rate of return fire released from the beleaguered convoy gradually began to rise.
The 25mm guns atop the militia’s armored units were wreaking havoc. Firing shells that were over an inch in diameter, the plantation’s security forces had somehow acquired exploding ordnance for their mini-cannons. Large holes began exploding through the fortress of trailers that now surrounded Grim’s constituency. Deadly shrapnel whizzed and screamed through the night air, creating bedlam amongst the defenders.
Were it not for Kevin and Cord’s sniper rifles, the affair would have been wholly one-sided. Within minutes of engagement, the plantation’s crews were learning a hard lesson about exposure.
The surplus French war machines weren’t designed to fight at night, their optical aiming systems several generations old. That mean that the gun commanders had to control the weapons from the turret to guarantee any level of accuracy. This provided the Alliance marksmen with plenty of prime targets.
Despite the deadly accurate fire from the convoy’s long-range shooters, Grim knew they couldn’t hold out for long. His 30 rifle barrels were no match for the hundreds on the other side of the canal. He didn’t have any way to knock out the tracked cannons. His team was basically fucked.
Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, another wave of gunfire rose from the convoy’s rear. “Shit!” Grim spat, knowing that the militia chasing them had finally caught up. Now they were completely surrounded, being squeezed from two sides. There was no place to go, no possible egress, no place to hide.
“Alright, Bishop. I did my best. Now it’s up to you and God,” Grim said, looking toward the plantation.
As the sounds of the second battle rumbled into the Castle’s sitting room, Castro tilted his head heeding the random shouts of his unit.
Picking up bits and pieces of conversation as the fighting raged, the plantation strong man grinned at Bishop. “My men have the truck drivers surrounded. Your friends have no escape and are dying by the scores.”
“Let us go,” Bella Dona offered with venom. “End this now, and I will spare their lives.”
Terri glanced at her husband and then shook her head. “I have a better idea,” she announced, motioning with her pistol barrel for Bella Dona to stand. “We’re going to sashay out there and tell them to drop their weapons, or I’ll blow your head off. How’s that for a fair trade?”
Shrugging, Bishop added, “Doesn’t sound like we have much of an option. We might as well sweeten the deal with Castro.”
Using the two hostages as shields, the couple moved toward the sitting room’s main threshold. Bishop pushed open the door and quickly retreated behind Castro’s shoulder.
Outside in the hall, a half-dozen security men stared up in surprise. “Back off or they both die,” Terri warned.
The royal guard did as instructed, slowly retreating toward the front door. Bishop spied a man who appeared to be in charge of the small team. “Go find whoever is in command of the fight,” he ordered. “We want to make a deal.”
“What is it you propose?” the brawny man retorted, pausing at the door.
“An immediate cease-fire. We all walk out of here … or the lady and Castro receive a lead injection,” Bishop threatened.
“Now stop wasting time and find whoever is in charge,” Terri hissed. “I’m nervous, and that makes my finger twitchy,” she added, pressing her pistol’s barrel hard against Bella Dona’s temple.
Nodding, the beefy bodyguard rushed off, soon disappearing into the night.
The couple and their hostages remained in the foyer, Bishop taking comfort in being able to peer out through the large glass windows that lined the exterior. Beyond the wide front porch, he could watch a ring of grey-shirted men at the edge of the grounds. Someone had issued them weapons.
The Texan could also see the strobe of battle flashing in the night sky. From the sound of things, Grim was taking an ass whooping. Bishop briefly wondered if his friend was still alive and how many of the truckers would make it home.
It seemed like an eternity before the low throb of a diesel motor reached the Castle’s foyer, followed a few moments later by the appearance of another French APC rolling through the courtyard, eventually rolling to a stop in front of the verandah.
As a single man hopped down from the huge machine, two squads of armed infantry followed, spreading out on either side of the tracked APC. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Bishop stated from inside. “Let’s hope this guy is reasonable.”
“Inside!” shouted a voice in accented English. “My name is Tito. I command the militia. Show yourselves, and we will talk.”
Bella Dona and Castro were shoved out first, Bishop and Terri following behind with weapons pressed into the captives’ backs.
Again, Bishop repeated his demands. “Call an immediate ceasefire, Commander, and let all of us go. In exchange, we won’t harm Bella Dona or Castro.”
Bishop knew immediately that something was wrong. With an evil sneer, Tito tilted his head and then turned to his troops. “Kill them all,” he ordered. “The plantation is now mine.”
The militia shooters were confused, acting as if they didn’t understand the order. The hesitation was just long enough for Bishop to move.
Grabbing Terri and shoving her hard toward the entrance, the Texan then managed to pull Castro down as bullets began tearing into the porch and door.
Realizing that a coup was in progress, the grey-shirts tasked with guarding Bella Dona started firing at the militiamen. In seconds, absolute mayhem filled the courtyard.
Bishop and Terri no longer had to worry about Castro and Bella Dona, both of their hostages diving for cover as bullets ripped through the Castle’s walls.
Glass, paint, wood splinters, and lead filled the foyer as the foursome crawled, scampered, and scooted deeper into the house, desperately trying to escape the maelstrom of deadly lead.
The group found a reprise, ducking behind the broad staircase and its shielding structure. “Those traitorous bastards!” Castro hissed, “I can’t believe they would turn on us!”
“Evidently, your benefits package leaves much to be desired,” Bishop quipped, trying to catch his breath. “The shareholders are unhappy.”
Outside, Bishop could discern an intense firefight between Bella Dona’s royal guard and the militia troops. He didn’t want to hang around to see who was going to come out on top.
Terri was thinking the same thing. “We have to move,” she announced calmly.
“Okay,” Bishop replied. “Let’s shoot both of them and then get out of here.”
“I like that idea, but unfortunately, we have to take them with us. They are our ticket out of here.”
Bishop’s eyes bored into Castro, spewing visual hatred and disdain, “How about we shoot him and use her as a hostage? I think she’s the lesser of two evils.”
The lady of the house offered a better idea. “I know a way out. A secret passage.”
The two Texans exchanged a glance, both of their eyebrows shooting skyward. “Is that so?” Terri asked Bella Dona. “And just why should we believe a word you say?”
“She’s telling the truth,” Castro chimed in. “There is an escape tunnel, created long ago when banditos roamed these hills. Only my sister and I know of it.”
Bishop shook his head as if trying to understand. “Your sister?”
“Yes,” Bella Dona admitted. “My father had an affair with Castro’s mother. She was
a servant here. He confessed this sin on his deathbed many, many years ago.”
The Texan wasn’t interested in anyone’s family history at the moment. “Where is this tunnel?”
“In the kitchen,” Bella Dona pointed. “I will show you.”
Waiting for a lull in the skirmish outside, Bishop nodded and waved Bella Dona and her brother out. The foursome made a mad dash for the back of the Castle, eventually arriving at the kitchen. After opening a small cabinet, the plantation’s master reached for a small lever and yanked hard on the device.
A panel in the wall popped, revealing a narrow, low opening. Mounted on the wall were a torch and matches. Stone stairs led down into the darkness.
“I need one of these,” Bishop told his wife. “This is like super-villain stuff. Very cool.”
Chapter 14
It was the strangest army Butter could have ever imagined.
The armory had been stuffed with a variety of different weapons, ranging from cases of brand new AK47 battle rifles to box after box of U.S. M16s. Intermingled with the military grade weapons were just about every brand, caliber, and style of hunting rifle, shotgun, and pistol.
For nearly 15 minutes, the first men into the facility had handed out the weapons and ammunition to a wall of eager, reaching hands. It seemed like every laborer on the plantation now wanted a gun.
They kept coming even after the supply of firearms had been exhausted, the late arrivals relegated to pitchforks, axes, and shovels.
Large baskets, originally used to haul the harvest from the fields were converted into supply packs, scores of women carrying heavy loads of ammunition on their heads and shoulders.
Butter secretly prayed someone had thought to bring along the first aid kits. They were going to need them.
It was April who pointed the young Texan in the right direction. “The battle is being waged over the main bridge,” she informed the new army’s de facto general. “That crossing has to be the key to the entire valley.”
