by Lou Cadle
Five hands went up.
Jackson said, “Show me the weapons you’re unsure of over here.”
Sierra stood back and watched as boxes were passed around, magazines were loaded, and extra rounds went into the pockets of the filthy pants the men wore. Now that there were so many together in close quarters, she was also aware of their rancid smell, like a convention of homeless men. “I’ll watch outside,” she said to Kelly. “You know what caliber I need? Grab me a box or two.”
Kelly nodded distractedly, focusing on the disorganized hunt through the ammo.
Sierra stepped outside, checked around, walked to the middle of the street, and used the goggles to look everywhere. She saw no motion, no body heat signatures. She took a moment to run back over to the other apartment. It was pitch dark, but she groped around the dim shapes until she found the bed and dropped to the floor, feeling beneath it. No, there were no metal boxes here.
It was a relief the men hadn’t lied. If they had, she’d have felt much more nervous going out with them again.
Back out on the street, she could feel that the rainstorm had entirely passed. A motion caught her attention, but it was only a bird overhead, a small owl or a nighthawk.
A few minutes later, the door to the duplex opened, and everyone filed out. Kelly said, “Sierra?”
“Over here.” She went to meet her.
She handed her two boxes of ammunition. “Forty rounds for you.”
“That’s great. I probably won’t need them if you and I are on the outskirts of this next thing.”
“Better safe than sorry.”
“They’re all well armed now?”
“Everyone,” Kelly said. “You and Jackson take point. He knows where he’s going and you have the night vision. I’ll bring up the rear.”
They moved through a still, damp night. Sierra had lost all track of time, but it couldn’t be anywhere near midnight, could it? She remembered how still the town had been just after sunset on the night she brought the Kershaws out. Near the jail, you’d think people would have been drawn out by the gunfire. But maybe they’d learned to hide from it, lock the doors, pull the kids into closets or under beds, and wait until the next day to dawn before they risked emerging again.
Ten silent minutes later, Jackson said, “That’s it ahead, a block and a half.”
“Lights on in there,” whispered a voice behind her. Four—no, five—windows showed the glow of lanterns, the blue light of LEDs. Their own lantern was off, but one of the townsmen still carried it.
“We’ll scout ahead,” Jackson said, turning to say that to the group. “Follow, but wait a few minutes, and move slowly.”
Sierra waited a second for Kelly to protest or give a different order, but when she didn’t, Sierra trotted up two steps to catch up to Jackson, who hadn’t waited for an order.
“Can you use the goggles with that light?” he said.
“Yeah, if I look at ground level and not directly at the light. You keep an eye on the windows.” As long as she didn’t stare right at the glare, she was okay. She cared only about men on the street, patrolling the base of the apartment building.
But as they drew closer and closer, she saw nothing.
“Stop,” Jackson said.
She stopped, looking all around, but seeing nothing.
“Okay. There was a guy at a window, but he’s gone. I don’t think he looked out.”
They crept forward until they were almost to the intersection where the building was. “Don’t go farther than the corner of the building until you check it out,” Jackson said, giving her a gentle push to the right.
“Got it,” she said. She moved quietly, easier with the wet pavement than it had been when it was gritty and dry, seeing nothing, making the building’s corner, and looking down the side of the building. Her side was the front, and she saw one man, smoking just outside the front doors. Again she wondered how they’d kept so many cigarettes. You’d think the tobacco users would have gone through them by now. Maybe they rationed them. Maybe there’d only been two smokers, the man they’d already killed and this one.
As she watched, he flicked the cigarette onto the sidewalk and turned for the door.
She went back to meet Jackson.
“Clear,” he said.
She said nothing, just tugged on his sleeve to get him moving back across the street. When they met up with the rest of the group she explained what she had seen.
Kelly said, “Okay. We’re going in. Remember, clear all the lower floors first. There are five floors, it looks like?”
“Five,” confirmed one of the men.
“Then we’ll do it this way. The teams going in on the north and south take the odd floors. Those going in on east and west doors, take the even floors. Whoever is done first gets floor five, if it hasn’t emptied by then. Above all else, make sure you don’t shoot each other.”
“We need a password or something.”
“Just whistle.” Kelly demonstrated with two soft whistles. “Twice, like that. That’ll be our friendly signal. If you don’t hear it, shoot. Don’t run out of the building unless it’s a dire emergency. If it is, yell my name, so we’ll know it’s you. If you need another password inside, feel free to use my name for that. When you’re in there, shoot to kill.”
“Gladly,” said one of them.
“We have the teams worked out? Jackson, you’re with Roy, and you two take the front door. Watch out that the smoker isn’t standing right at the entrance. Go.” She went on and assigned them, and when it was just Sierra and her left, she said, “I’m going down the front wall to the far right corner. I’ll be able to see the far wall and the street side, with the main entry. You stay on this near side near the left corner, and you’ll be able to see the other two walls, this side and the back wall. If we see the other group from the neighborhood coming, take cover before you try to make contact, in case one of them is a little too eager to shoot.”
“Got it,” Sierra said. “Be careful. We’re almost done. I don’t want to lose anyone now.”
“You too,” Kelly said, and then took off at a trot, following in the men’s wake.
Sierra went to her assigned spot, keeping back, nearer the sidewalk than the building, but giving herself views down both her assigned walls.
A minute later, she heard a pair of guns being fired from the building. She hoped it was by those on her side, getting their first kills in there.
Within three minutes, there were more than three guns firing. Many more. Defensive fire had to be more than half of it. Three of the lanterns she’d been able to see before had gone out. That let her look up at the windows. Backing up to the sidewalk, she looked up. She saw a head at one, a round glow, and then it moved, and then the thought struck her that she might be visible, so she ran for the corner of the building so she could duck around either side for cover.
A shot rang out, much louder than the rest, and the concrete sidewalk just behind her was hit, a sound like a quick echo to the shot itself. It sounded something like a hammer hitting wood instead of a nail, but she knew what it was. And as she ran for cover, she realized that she knew nothing about how bullets acted around concrete. Asphalt, yeah. Wood, sure. But Arch had mentioned ricochets, and surely concrete was hard enough to make the bullet skip off it. She ran hard for the corner of the building, hearing another shot, dodging when she did, knowing it was stupid, that the bullet had already hit or missed her by the time she heard it coming.
Missed her, apparently, for she made the corner and slipped around it, pressing herself tight to the building’s wall. She patted herself all over, looking for pain, for blood, but she was still damp from being rained on and couldn’t tell seeping blood from anything else. No pain, which was a good sign, right?
Another shot rang out, but no way could it hit her. If she couldn’t see the shooter, he couldn’t see her. Simple logic.
She looked overhead, making sure no one was leaning out of a window looking a
t her on this side. No one.
Damn. She didn’t want to be here cowering. If her job was to meet the incoming force of her allies, this wasn’t how to do it. If it was to help in the attack, she couldn’t while pinned down here.
Through her goggles, she saw the quick movement down the back wall of the apartment building.
She gave the two-note whistle.
Nothing.
“Kelly!” she yelled.
The figure stopped.
But it didn’t yell the code word back.
She pushed off the wall, raised the rifle, and fired at the figure. It dove back through the door. A miss. Maybe because she’d felt insecure about the choice. She should have been able to make that shot.
Her every sense was primed, straining to hear a shout from the person, an identification, Kelly’s name, her name, anything. But she didn’t.
It had been one of the invaders then. She should have trusted that the men would remember their instructions. And she’d missed the chance to remove a bad guy. Next time she wouldn’t hesitate.
A window overhead squeaked as it was opened. She flattened herself against the wall again and looked up. From the second floor, an arm flashed out then withdrew.
A fusillade of rifle fire came from deep inside the building, somewhere behind her head. She hoped her team was winning that battle.
She kept glancing overhead, but nothing else appeared up there. No shots rang out. Maybe they’d opened the window to allow themselves another escape route.
In the next moment, it struck her that if they won tonight, this could be her last battle ever. And while that sounded good, it also made her sad. She liked being a soldier. She was afraid, and the adrenaline was pumping, but she thrived on that. And she was pretty good at it. Sierra had never felt so alive as when ducking behind cover when the bullets flew. If they won, where did that leave her in the weeks and months to come?
In a very few months, she’d become a new person, a fighter, and even, when called upon, a leader of fighters. Though she would never have predicted it, nor sought out a career in the armed services, it was work she liked. There was meaning here, meaning it was impossible to find in gathering eggs or canning tomato sauce.
Sierra dragged her attention back to the moment. There was still no movement at the back door. That guy must have decided to try another exit. She edged to the corner and glanced back around at that wall, the one facing the side street. A pair of arms with a warm rifle barrel were still visible up there. She either needed to take that guy out, or she’d be stuck right here until the fighting reached his floor and made him turn away.
Another burst of gunfire, much farther away than the last, but still on the first floor, she believed. No movement on the side street. She had to be wary of returning invaders as well as her allies. For all she knew, the enemy had handheld radios and the men in the building were calling for reinforcements right now.
That wouldn’t be the worst thing. All they had, according to the men they’d interrogated, were roving bands of guards on the street. They’d come back in pairs or threes. She could take two or three. As she edged back around the corner to the back wall, she felt a twinge in her shin, just above her boot. Making sure first that she was still alone, she kneeled down and reached her hand up her jeans leg. She thought she was bleeding.
Her fingers wet, she brought them out and sniffed them. Yeah, blood, from the smell. She felt her shin again and decided it wasn’t so bad. Definitely not a bullet wound.
For long minutes, nothing happened except the sound of gunfire. She heard the first of it coming from the second floor. That was good news. Her side was doing its job. She peeked around the corner again, and the arms and rifle overhead had gone away. Cautiously, she backed up, getting a better view of the building and the street, looking all the while for heat, for movement, for danger.
The quality of the view changed, and she realized that a break had come in the clouds, letting through some moonlight.
Shots rang from the second story of the apartment building, nearer to her than they’d been. She glanced up but saw nothing.
Then movement at the front corner of the building caught her eye. Two men, one dragging the other around to this side of the building. She whistled twice as she headed back for the cover of the building’s corner. No response. She said, in a normal voice, “Kelly.”
Nothing.
She wasn’t going to make the same mistake again a second time. She raised her rifle, took aim, and fired. Once, twice, and the upright man fell. Good. Got him.
“Sierra?”
The voice came from the man on the ground, the one who’d been dragged.
No. No. It couldn’t be. Her men? But they hadn’t responded to her signals.
Chapter 15
“Jackson?” she managed to say.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
She ran forward, not knowing which man to attend to first. Inside the building, shots still rang out, but she no longer cared.
Her mind refused to put words to it. Just refused.
She said, “I want light.” Or she tried to. It came out as one strangled word: “light.”
“Where am I?”
“Outside the apartment.”
“Is it safe?”
Probably not. She glanced up again, but no one was at a window watching them down here.
Her phone. She had her phone—he had given it back to her. It was a light. She wriggled out of her backpack and pawed through the pockets, finding it. She stripped off the goggles, poked the phone on and shone it on Jackson, running it over his body. “Where are you hurt?”
“My back.”
“Were you unconscious?” She patted around his head, looking for blood.
“I guess?” He sounded nothing like the strong, competent man of a half-hour ago.
Shock? A guess, nothing better. Could be blood loss that made him pass out. “Can you move?”
“Painful.” He shifted, rolling more to his side.
“Lie still.”
“Looking for a less painful position. There.” He was on his side.
She shone the phone light on his back and saw only his backpack. “High? Low? Where were you hit?”
“Middle.”
She felt up under the pack. His shirt was sticky with blood. He must have been shot through the pack. It might have absorbed some energy from the bullet. Or it might have had something hard in there that fractured the round. The bolt cutters popped into her mind.
“I don’t know, but it might be better to lie on your back again if you can bear it for a minute. Your pack can slow the bleeding.”
“Jesus,” he said, but he rolled back toward her so he was face up. She stuck her own pack under his knees, for the shock, if that’s what he had.
“Be right with you,” she said to Jackson. She crawled to the other man, and shone her light on his face. Roy. His eyes were open and glassy.
Sierra reached a shaky hand to his neck, feeling for a pulse. She felt nothing. Hoping it was again that her hands were shaking too much to feel such a delicate movement, she leaned in to listen at his mouth.
Nothing. Not a stir of breath.
What have I done?
She’d shot him in the back too, above the center of his torso. Shining her phone light down his chest, she saw the tatters of his shirt and reached to pull them apart.
The blown-out hole of an exit wound lay six inches under his shoulder. It was as big as her fist. There was blood, but it wasn’t pulsing. It ran, a trickle from the spongy tissue, the last trickle of life pouring out of him.
She had killed him. Not a bad guy. She had shot a man who seemed nothing but good and decent. He was pulling Jackson out of the fight, rescuing a comrade, and as a reward Sierra had ended his life.
She kneeled by him and stared at the bloody hole and tried to make her mind go blank, but it wouldn’t. It was full of words, mean and vicious words for herself. Finally her mind lit on a very good one: stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. It kept repeating, angry, unforgiving.
As it should be.
“Sierra?” Jackson said.
“I’m here.” She gave one last look at Roy and wrenched herself away. “Let me deal with your wound. Should I cut off your backpack?”
“No. I like this pack.”
“You sound better.”
“I’m getting ahead of the pain.”
“Let’s get that pack off you. Roll that way again.”
It took some doing, and he gave a sharp cry of pain at one point, but she saved his backpack. Too bad Roy hadn’t known that Kelly was the medic. If he’d have pulled Jackson to her, they’d probably have both lived out the night. As it was, Sierra would be lucky to keep Jackson from bleeding to death in the next few minutes.
She said, “You have a knife?”
“In my pocket.” His breath was shallow, his voice more strained.
“Sorry it hurt you to get the pack off.”
“I’m the one who wanted to save it.”
She reached around and found his pants pocket, shoved her hand in, and found the knife. She pulled out a blade and slit through his shirt and shone her cell phone light onto his back.
A bunch of blood was all she saw. She couldn’t see where it came from. “You have water in your pack?”
“Yeah, in the outside pouch.”
She found it and poured it over his back, washing the worst of the blood away. There seemed to be three wounds. “How many times were you hit?”
“Once.”
“Then the bullet fragmented. It went through your pack, so it may have hit something in there.”
“I wonder what’s damaged.”
“I don’t know what I can do for you except try and stop the bleeding.”
“How many fragments?”
“Three that I can see.”
“That’s it? I shouldn’t hurt this much.”
“Who knows what they hit.” Or damaged inside him, but she wasn’t going to say that.
“Any around my spine?”
“All three are to the right of it.” One was less than an inch from the raised bumps of his spine.
