The late inclusion of the word ‘sir’ irked Arlo. So did the sergeant’s precise and extremely military bearing. Arlo envied the way the man operated with apparent casualness despite the grave nature of recent events. Barrett had not found it necessary to hide from snipers, making Arlo’s precautions seem a bit cowardly.
“Yes Sergeant, take whichever one fits your needs.”
Barrett snapped off another sharp salute and stalked off.
Arlo turned his head to see the rest of his men behind him. They were all now rising up from behind cover, their confidence restored by nothing more than the example set by Barrett. Arlo decided right then that he would have to watch the Sergeant closely. If he appeared to be gathering a following of admirers then…well…that could be handled.
Chapter 18
Marcus and his overloaded pickup rattled through the open gate and followed the long, winding and paved road up into the high foothills. He passed a couple who looked like they might be from the Philippines as he drove through the gate. They were smiling and pointing the way for him to travel. In his rearview, he saw the man and woman swing the gate shut and locking it.
George was sitting in the seat beside him. He was wincing slightly with every swerve of the road, the numerous bites to his arms and torso had not yet fully healed and were still tender.
“Damn, Bro,” George marveled. “We did it.”
Marcus smiled at his brother’s joy. “Well, we didn’t really do a whole lot. Dan and his people set this whole thing in action.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t wait to ask how they did it. I mean they seemed to know just where to tell us to go to avoid the Mojados and those other guys.” His face dropped. “Any idea who was in that last car?”
George lost his smile too. “Well, Lucio for one. He was the driver. I know because I noticed him at the wheel just before we took off. The others? I guess we’ll find out.”
They rode in silence for the next two minutes before cresting over a swell in the topography and coming in sight of an unusual structure.
“Damn, man! That’s a castle,” Marcus gushed.
It did indeed look like a castle, or maybe a fort, albeit a luxurious looking one. Marcus followed the curving driveway until he saw a pretty woman waving him forward and indicating a place where he should park. He and George exited their truck along with the others. A knot of men came walking over to them, and they recognized Pops and Major Morrison. The men reached them and exchanged handshakes all around.
“Welcome to Dragon’s Lair,” Pops said. “Sorry about the people in that car.”
“Yeah, so are we, but considering what we might have lost, I guess we got off easy.” George shrugged and looked over to where two women from his group were crying hysterically. “Excuse me.” He walked over to help console them.
Marcus longed to do the same thing, but a question was weighing too heavily upon him to delay pursuing it. “I’m sorry, but how do you know about our car? That happened less than five minutes ago. Do you have people out there hiding in the weeds and feeding you updates?”
Pops smiled sadly and led him over to the defense wall where myself and Pepper were sitting at the collapsible table we’d set up.
Pops put a hand on my shoulder as I worked. “Virgil, tell Marcus what you’re doing.”
I kept my eyes on the laptop screen while I answered. “Give me thirty seconds, and I can show him.”
The crates that we’d found in the warehouse had been wheeled up on the cargo ramp to the compound exterior. We’d set up the table, I got one of my laptops out, and we dug up another one for Pepper. While Pops and Jimmy were getting everything uncrated and set up mechanically, Pepper and I were busily installing the software that came with the crated devices onto our computers.
When everything had been done and checked, then re-checked, we were finally ready to go. That had been several hours ago.
“Okay, I’m bringing in number one,” Pepper announced.
“Just outside the wall would probably be the best place,” I suggested.
While Marcus watched us with a puzzled expression, he became aware of a droning noise. A few seconds later the droning became a high-pitched wail, much like a lawnmower.
Pepper brought in Drone number one and hovered it expertly just outside the wall before finally lowering it to the ground. The noise ended but was replaced by an identical clamor when I brought in number two and grounded it two feet from its twin.
The drones were not toys, they were big, and they had been expensive. Pops had only bought them because the prepper sites extolled their virtues as a safe means of being able to surveil one’s surroundings. He ordered them equipped with high-resolution video cameras which had night vision capability and a twenty-two-mile transmission range. Four electric motors powered them and they boasted a constant flight time of two hundred and fifty minutes. Even Pops had balked at the $6,000 price tag, but we were both now considering that to be money well-spent.
I had operated drones before. Right after Pops won the lottery and changed our lives, he entered into what I called his ‘let’s spoil Virgil’ phase in which I got pretty much everything I wanted. Drones had intrigued me for some time, and he bought me a small one to practice on plus a bigger one with a camera that I operated after getting myself trained.
Of course, the drones I had played with back then were nothing like the ones Pops had purchased as survival equipment. Besides the two we had just successfully employed against our enemies, he also bought one that was a smaller version of the big, fixed-wing military drones that the army used in the Gulf War. Instead of having a helicopter appearance, this behemoth resembled an airplane and had a sixty-mile range and a ten hour flight time. I had longed to assemble and use the bigger drone on this effort, but we didn’t have the time to put it together and then learn how to fly it. I did have plans for it in the future, though.
So it was that I had shown Pepper the basics of operating the second drone and we’d taken an hour to let her practice with it before sending them out to spy on our would-be attackers. The video signals sent back from the onboard cameras were picked up by the laptops. We operated the devices through base stations which came with the drones.
Marcus had shaken his head at the sight of the drones coming in for a landing. “I have to say, that’s one I never expected. No wonder you knew where all of their people were.”
“Well, we knew the most likely routes from here to your old location so we took the drones up as high as they would fly and just started searching along those courses. We were lucky that we suspected what they were up to and that limited our required search patterns.” I rewound the recorded video feed and showed Marcus the aerial views of the waiting ambush teams.
“Amazing!” He took another look around at the twin towers above us and the big walled compound and shook his head in wonder.
Pops gestured for Marcus to follow him. “Come with me, and I’ll show you where your people are going to be staying.”
✽✽✽
Arlo was seething with anger when his people got back to the motel. He imagined that every soldier he passed was holding him responsible for their loss of the people and the Stryker. Though he had other things he wanted to be doing, he took time to go check in on the injured. They were being cared for by other soldiers, few of whom had any real medical experience. The soldier with the suspected broken neck didn’t look like he would survive the night.
Arlo went from bed to bed acting as if he was devastated by the injuries. He gave a few pep talks, patted a few arms then got out of there and went back to his suite. He was well into his second bottle of expensive wine when the gang bangers arrived.
The sight of the cuts on Lobo’s face almost made him smile, but the anger was still looming too large within him. The gang leader, accompanied as always by his hulking companion, came bopping into the parlor as if nothing had happened.
“Hey, tough break out there today, huh Arlo?”
; The former officer looked to his four bodyguards and, in a flash, they had Lobo on the ground with a gun to his head. When they attacked the bigger man, however, he threw one of his attackers across the room and knocked the other one unconscious with a vicious punch.
Arlo spoke calmly to Arturo. “Sit down, or I’ll have my people put a bullet in your boss’ ear.”
Arturo was on the balls of his feet, fists held in a fighting stance, betraying the man’s training as a boxer. He looked down to where two of Arlo’s men still held Lobo on the floor with a Glock behind his ear. With reluctance, the big Segundo for the Mojados raised both hands in a gesture of surrender.
Arlo looked over to where one of his bodyguards was picking himself off of the floor, and the other was looking like he was taking a nap on the floor. He shifted his gaze back to Arturo.
“We could use a guy like you.” Arlo nodded to where Lobo was still lying prone. “How come you let this guy run your outfit? Looks to me like you should be the one calling the shots.”
Arturo kept silent. The brief tussle had ripped his shirt down the front, and his empty holster had found its way from his side to where it now seemed to be protecting his groin.
“Well, that’s your business, I guess.” Arlo took another slurp of wine then pointed to Lobo. “Let him up.”
The two guys on top of the gang leader released him. Lobo got to his feet slowly. When Arturo tried to help him, the smaller man angrily slapped at his hands.
Arlo pointed to two chairs opposite his place at the table. Both Mojados sat.
Arlo took the Smith and Wesson out of his holster and laid it on the table. He thought that to be an act which would frighten the two men in front of him. Arturo took one look at the big revolver and decided if things got rough again, he could reach it and kill six people without too much trouble.
“Now tell me how you got this thing so screwed up today.”
Lobo leaned forward with anger in his eyes. “Us? We’re the only ones who got a piece of them today. We gave you plenty of warning to intercept the convoy of survivors, and you never showed.” He pointed to his lacerated face. “We brought it to ‘em and almost got wasted. I got dead people out there in our trucks.”
Arlo took a deep breath and stared at the two men. They clearly had been through some sort of fight. Even the big guy had an ugly bruise visible on his chest, but that was not the point of the confrontation with his two former allies. This entire conversation was theater intended for the ears of his bodyguards.
Arlo was aware of the manner in which rumors could spread through the ranks. It was a given that any words spoken in this room would spread around the entire army by dinner time. Arlo wanted to plant the idea that this monumental screw-up was the fault of the Mojados, not his. It was unfortunate that the crazy little guy had made a good point about their part in today’s event.
“You said the people would be lured out of their hideout if we attacked the survivor outpost,” Lobo said accusingly.
It was Arturo who spoke now. His words were calm, but Arlo could see the anger behind his eyes. “You have a short memory. We wanted to hit them up in the hills before they were aware that we were on to them.” He stabbed a finger at the man across the table. “You nixed that plan and said we had to draw them out because you didn’t want to hit a fortified position. This whole thing was your operation.”
Arlo winced before he could check himself. This was the kind of talk that he didn’t want his people to hear. “My plan was solid,” he said defensively. “They set up a counter-ambush and took out one of my Strykers. They couldn’t have done that without knowing exactly where we staged our forces. And you were the only ones who knew where that would be.”
Lobo was about to explode, but Arturo was reading the room and had a pretty good idea of what was going on. Arlo was deciding whether he was going to kill the two of them and tell his army that the Mojados had sold them out, causing the deaths of their friends and the loss of one of their big vehicles. The big man saw the need to act cautiously if the two of them were going to get out of this room alive. He put a hand on Lobo’s arm to keep him from erupting.
“Okay, everyone needs to settle down,” Arturo advised. He made a show of taking a deep breath and folding his hands casually on the table. “It’s pretty clear the enemy outmaneuvered us today.” He shrugged. “It happens. You’re a military professional, and you came up with a great plan. It just didn’t work out. Hey, even Patton lost a few battles. We had no reason to suspect those Hilltop guys would be prepared for us. They figured out our plan and countered. Like I said…it happens.”
Arlo pretended to be studying the two men’s faces. In truth, he was surreptitiously looking at his men. This latest tack that the big gang banger was taking was putting Arlo in a better light. It might not be necessary to kill them right now after all. He gestured for Arturo to keep talking.
“It’s possible, even likely in light of what happened today, that they also have military people advising them up there. That would explain their ability to defeat…I mean to figure out what we were planning. The important thing now is, we know it. We know they aren’t stupid and we take that into account when we move against them the next time.”
Arlo slapped the table top, genuinely angry. “Next time? There’s no next time for us. We’ll stay here until our injured can move, then we’re gone. We’re a mobile force. It has worked well for us until we got sucked into this mess.”
Lobo couldn’t contain himself. “Hey, man, no one sucked you into anything. You came into our town and tried to jump a group of people without our knowledge. I offered you an alliance and a chance at getting revenge on the people who kicked your ass.”
“What he means is…”
“Shut up, Turo! I got this.” Lobo stood and leaned over the table in Arlo’s direction. “Are you really going to let this little bunch of bitches do this? Kick your asses not once but twice? And your remedy is to tuck tail and run?” He pointed to the conscious members of Arlo’s bodyguard. “You want your people to see you scared? You got an army, for crying out loud. Tanks, machine guns, people. And you want them to see you raise your skirt and run away?”
Arlo started to pick up the revolver and shoot the loud-mouthed little dwarf, but then he caught the expression of one of his men. It was a trace…no…a whisper of a smirk. And that was when he realized that the little man sitting in front of him was much wiser than Arlo had given him credit for. He had trapped the former Lieutenant and put him in the position of declaring himself afraid of a small group of survivors if he moved on. There was only one way to keep that story from spreading to the troops.
Chapter 19
Pepper and I took the batteries from the drones downstairs to charge them. Pops wanted at least one of them back in the air because he suspected the people we had outmaneuvered today would want to take revenge on us at some point.
After getting the batteries plugged in, we went back upstairs and joined the meeting that was taking place in the outdoor compound. It was the only place large enough now for everyone to be present at the same time. When we came outside, Pops and Marcus had just finished up making the introductions between our original group and the newcomers. Now the Major was standing on a bench, so we could all see and hear him. Pops had already introduced him to Marcus’ people and explained his background.
“Okay, everyone; give me your attention please.” He waited while the crowd quieted and looked his way. “Okay, we’re sorry about the people you lost out there today. It’s a shame, but we might not be out of the woods on this yet. We have tangled with both of these groups before and they seem to keep coming back. From what we have been able to glean from the limited information we have, there are two main factions that we are dealing with. One is a small-time gang that has tried to take over all of the resources in Clovis and put the people under their thumbs. We’ve had a small amount of success in limiting their plans. The second is a more significant force that is probably a
former military group, Army from the looks of them. Through some unknown collection of circumstances, they appear to have joined forces with the first group for the sole purpose of destroying anyone who stands in their way of dominating this area.
“From what we observed from our drone surveillance, they have some serious equipment to bring to bear against us should they decide to do so. They did have two Stryker Combat Vehicles, basically wheeled tanks, but two of our people, Buck Connely, and Isaac Brenner were able to destroy one of those vehicles today.” He paused to point at Buck and Isaac who were leaning against the wall. A few of the new folks patted their backs and shook their hands.
When they quieted down again, the Major continued. “Now with this many new bodies we’re going to have to share responsibilities. Standing watch, cooking, cleaning up, all of that stuff; we’ll need to coordinate. For right now the new people will take their assignments from Marcus and George, I understand they were performing that function anyway. That’s all I have for right now except to say we might be in for a big fight. It all depends on what those idiots down there decide to do. If anyone thinks they would have a better chance on their own, we understand and will help provide you with a gun, ammo, and food. Anyone electing to stay on here will be expected to pitch in should this come to another fight.
“One last thing,” he held up a finger. “I want to see anyone who has prior military experience over there by the white table.”
Virgil's War- The Diseased World Page 29
