•••
Minutes later, they were in the Brinks truck, gunning past the school, taking a screeching left on Del Sol Avenue toward the southern end of town.
“What did Dale say when you told him we were leaving?” Colton asked.
Zach and Dannyboy burst into laughter. “We’re grown men and we come and go as we please.”
“I know that,” Colton said, backpedaling slightly. “I was just saying.”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Zach said, shifting gears on the large armored truck. “Dale’s doing his best to turn you into his clone and I’m not having it. He’s not a bad guy—fact, he was there for you when I was locked up—but you’re a Baird, not a Hardy, and don’t you forget that.”
Colton nodded, although he didn’t seem entirely convinced. It was easy for Zach to talk tough, but even he had to admit to being away for the most important part of his son’s life. The thought tore at Zach often and in ways he wasn’t prepared to let on to anyone. That guilt was part of why he’d rushed home from Colorado the minute the opportunity presented itself. If he couldn’t change the past, then he’d sure as hell work to change the future.
They pulled onto Baker Street and found the area about as deserted as the rest of the town. It was hard to believe sometimes there were nearly three thousand folks still eking out an existence in Encendido. Seemed many of them had gone underground, both literally and figuratively.
The homes here showed fewer signs of vandalism and disrepair. Was this because they were still occupied or had the roving gangs of looters not made it this far? A sign on a front lawn answered their question.
Anyone caught looting or trespassing will be shot on sight!
“These people mean business,” Zach said, leaning over the giant wheel as they cruised down the street.
“We might be making the wrong impression,” Colton said.
“How so?” Dannyboy said, as though he found the very notion personally offensive.
Colton looked through one of the side windows, the bulletproof glass turning the world beyond into something out of a carnival house of mirrors. “This truck probably looks to them like a tank. Something Sheriff Gaines or the cartel might go around in.”
Dannyboy nodded. “Kid does have a point.”
The comment made Colton laugh. “Kid? You’re only a year older than I am and I’m twice your size.”
“Boys, stop fighting,” Zach called from the driver’s seat. “Don’t make me pull over.” He turned and winked at Colton. The family drive from hell. They sure were making up for lost years.
“On your right,” Dannyboy called out when he spotted the church, a quaint white structure topped by a tall white spire.
“We’re about to enter the Lord’s house, boys,” Zach said. “Hope your souls are clean.”
He pulled the truck into the parking lot around back, each of them searching for any sign of life, threatening or otherwise.
Dannyboy stood up in the narrow confines of the truck, his shotgun in both hands. “You know those zombie movies where the hero thinks he’s found a safe place and then gets swarmed by an army of undead?”
“Uh, sort of,” Colton replied, suddenly looking even more uncomfortable.
Dannyboy leaned in. “Well, this is that movie.” He racked his shotgun.
Colton flinched and stumbled backward. Dannyboy burst into gales of laughter.
“Lock and load, boys,” Zach said. “We’re going in. And in case it wasn’t already obvious, neither of you says a word. Leave the talking to me.”
Chapter 24
The three men were no sooner out of the truck than a disembodied voice told them to freeze. Zach glanced around and saw a fence line that divided the houses beyond church property. A rifle crack pierced the air, the round dinging off the Brinks truck a few inches from the roof. Zach swung around and swore when he saw the dent.
“Weapons on the ground and your hands in the air,” the voice ordered them. He was hiding somewhere behind the fence.
Zach did as they were instructed, motioning for the other two to follow suit. When he was bent over, laying his pistol on the ground, he whispered to Dannyboy. “I like these guys already.”
Two men came rushing out from the church, carrying a pair of Kel-Tec SU-16s. The first guy was dressed in cargo shorts with a green military-style t-shirt, the other torn jeans and a white shirt.
A moment later, the sniper from behind the fence emerged into the open. He was decked in full camo and carried a Ruger American hunting rifle.
“You nearly shot us with that piece of junk?” Zach barked, insulted.
The sniper glanced down at his rifle and shrugged. “Woulda done the job if you’d tried something stupid.”
“They look like scavengers to me,” said the one in the khaki shorts. His arms were well muscled, but his legs were skinny.
“We aren’t scavengers, but you do need to change your workout program,” Zach observed. “Those twigs you call legs aren’t doing you any favors.”
Colton nudged him. His son seemed worried they were about to get their heads blown off, but Zach knew what he was doing. These guys had to see they weren’t afraid, that they belonged here, maybe even owned the place.
The one with the jeans collected the weapons they placed on the asphalt. His arms full, he said, “So far all you’ve done is sling insults. That isn’t good for a man’s health.”
“I call it like I see it,” Zach replied. He reached behind him and all three men aimed their guns at him. “Relax, boys, it’s eight hundred degrees out here and my shirt’s starting to feel like a second skin. Any chance we can take this party inside?”
They looked from one to another, not sure what to make of their brash new visitor.
•••
Zach and the others were led into the church and a side staircase which led to the basement. Two flights later, they entered a dim room, brimming with activity. The windows had been boarded up and in some cases covered over with black paint. Light from candles and battery-powered lanterns gave the place a ghostly feel. Men wearing tactical vests and armed with pistols moved from one area to another. They seemed to be analyzing pictures and Zach wondered if these were part of further attacks they were planning against law enforcement and the cartel.
From out of the gloom, an imposing figure approached. He was tall, six foot two, maybe taller, with broad shoulders and hands the size of catcher’s mitts.
“They pulled right up to the back door in an armored truck,” the man in khakis reported. He fished a wrapped candy out of his pocket and popped it in his mouth. “We intercepted and disarmed them before they could get inside.”
The tall man nodded. “Good job, Travis.”
“Quite an operation you got here, Calvin,” Zach said to the tall guy he assumed was their leader.
His eyes narrowed. “Have we met before?” From out of the darkness, a man came and whispered into Calvin’s ear. “Ah, you’re Dale Hardy’s men.”
“We’re nobody’s men,” Zach corrected him. “Dale’s my brother-in-law, but that doesn’t make him my boss.”
“I was going to say that your reputation precedes you, but you don’t look like a man who enjoys flattery.” Calvin had read Zach well.
“I like results. When I heard there was a crew willing to trade blows with the cartel, I knew we had to meet.”
“So you want to join us?” Calvin asked, eyeing them over. “We could always use more men and women willing to fight for our cause. But first, I’ll need something from you. Call it a sign of good faith.”
Zach folded his arms. “This is normally where you take a perfectly good thing and mess it up.”
“You don’t like authority,” Calvin said, fixing him with a dark set of eyes. “And that can make you hard to control.”
“I don’t take well to orders,” Zach replied. “Everyone here has come to you as an equal, offering their help to overthrow the cartel. I’m no different, but I won�
�t be made to feel like a grunt.”
“Fair enough,” Calvin said. “I’m happy to have you join the cause. But your farm sits on the largest working aquifer in the county and water just happens to be the one thing we need most.”
“First off, what you need most are better weapons if you want any chance of going toe to toe with Ortega’s men. Second, it isn’t my farm, and getting a drop of water out of Dale is about as easy as drawing blood from a stone.”
“Five hundred gallons,” Calvin said. “Consider it an admittance fee.”
“I didn’t come here to follow,” Zach said squarely. “I came here to lead this group of ragtag misfits. You may need drinkable water, but what you need more is a real leader. One who knows what the hell he’s doing.”
One of the guards moved in but was waved off by Calvin. “Is that right?”
The other members of Calvin’s underground movement had stopped what they were doing and began to gather around.
Now it was Zach’s turn to stare his opponent down. It didn’t matter that the guy had three or four inches on him. Zach suffered from what a fellow inmate at Florence Supermax called Chihuahua syndrome. Not because he was a yappy dog, but because little dogs often had no idea how small they really were. Likewise, Zach didn’t mind in the slightest fighting a man twice his size. But as much as his fists were itching for a little exercise, he knew throwing down here and now with all these armed men standing around was not a good idea. Instead, he decided to throw another kind of jab. “You outed yourself as an amateur the minute you blew those water trucks up instead of snatching them right from under the cartel’s noses. You’re out of your depth, Calvin. I’m here to throw you a life preserver, help you get to shore before you drive the town’s only shot at freedom straight off a cliff.”
“We don’t need your help,” Calvin barked, and for the first time, Zach could see he’d touched a nerve. Cracks were beginning to appear in the tall man’s otherwise impenetrable edifice. More importantly, he could see the look of doubt creeping into the faces of the men standing around them. He had planted a deadly seed and he knew with time that seed would germinate. The real question was, how long would it take?
“Hand us our weapons and we’ll be on our way then,” Zach said.
Travis looked at Calvin, who said, “They’ll be waiting for you outside, by your truck. But if I see you snooping around here again, you won’t get a warning shot next time.”
Zach had about five great comebacks lined up, but chose to stay quiet. Watching Calvin come groveling for him to change his mind was all the satisfaction he would need.
Chapter 25
Randy
Encendido wasn’t known for its greenery. Few could be accused of describing the town as lush with vegetation. What existed in its place were stunted-looking plants and trees, adapted to living in a bitter environment, surviving off the few drops of rainwater which fell each year. So in 2010, when the council had voted to build a four-acre park near the center of town, in part to fill the space vacated by a defunct strip mall, it had seemed like a great idea. Little had they known then that a few short years later, the now dried and parched grass which carpeted the grounds would house an executioner’s scaffold.
The wooden structure smacked of something out of an old spaghetti western. A set of stairs led up to a gangplank where eight nooses hung at equal distances from one another. Except right now, none of those eight nooses were dangling free. They were cinched around the necks of six men and two women.
Four of the men had been picked up at a cartel checkpoint, driving in a vehicle witnesses claimed had shot at a sheriff’s deputy. But their first mistake, Randy realized, was travelling around four to a car. The cartel had recently passed a law that stipulated no more than three men could assemble at any one location, inside a vehicle or otherwise. The penalty for noncompliance was death. It was designed to dissuade the overly civic-minded citizens from taking to the streets in protest, which explained the rest of the executions slated for that day. There would be more tomorrow, depending on Edwardo’s mood and how lenient or bloodthirsty he felt at the moment in question.
Lately, there hadn’t been much in the way of leniency. Not since the bombing of his water trucks and the humiliating call he’d been forced to make to his father south of the border. Like Roman governors in the ancient world, Edwardo had been sent to rule this new part of his father’s kingdom. And like that long-ago era, acts of rebellion were met with justice that was both brutal and swift. Swift because instead of a trial, Edwardo, in his infinite wisdom, had judged the accused himself and come to what he declared was a flawless and infinitely fair decision. Death.
There was no longer room for dissent in this world Randy found himself operating in. So he had gone along with it. Better to be chasing away a nagging conscience than swinging from the end of a rope.
Much to his surprise, a crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle, perhaps more out of curiosity and disgust than anything else. The population was divided by acts of kindness and terror and as such they had become easier to control. And yet some opposition was occurring with greater frequency. It was almost as though the bombs which had destroyed those water trucks had awakened something inside people, giving them permission to stand up and say no. But the more they did just that, the more Edwardo’s anger turned to rage. There was at least one fairly well-organized resistance movement, but finding them wasn’t as easy as it sounded, even in a town the size of Encendido. Patrol cars had to pair up, sometimes driving in threes to avoid ambushes. The town was starting to boil over and Randy was certain the executions Edwardo had planned in the coming days would only make things worse.
A large number of the cartel enforcers were here, along with Edwardo himself, who moved next to Randy. He seemed agitated, tapping the grip of his pistol while his eyes darted around.
“I’ll be calling my father tonight,” Edwardo said and Randy suddenly understood the reason for the cartel lieutenant’s nerves.
“To tell him how the executions went?” Randy guessed.
Edwardo shook his head. “To ask him to send in La Brigada de Los Asesinos.”
Randy didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, although their name translated loosely into ‘the killers brigade.’ “They sound serious.”
Edwardo cackled. “You don’t know the half of it. Just as the SS had the lightning bolts, La Brigada have the skull and bones to strike fear in people’s hearts. One time, my father was having trouble with a little town called Cuauhtemoc. The people there didn’t want to pay him taxes anymore. He’d already bribed every member of the police force, but they became outnumbered by a militia the town had assembled to protect the people. They left him with no choice but to summon La Brigada.”
Randy felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. “What happened to the town?”
“They fought back,” Edwardo said, his eyes scanning the scaffold and the men and women who were waiting to die. “Big mistake, my friend.”
The executioner looked at Edwardo, who flicked his hand in the air, giving him the sign. A lever was pulled and eight trap doors snapped open. The men and women dropped, stopping violently, their legs dangling like marionettes.
Edwardo grinned. “Sooner or later your people will learn to accept my authority. I just hope when that happens a few of them will still be left alive.” He walked away then, surrounded by his bodyguard and the rest of his men.
“What should we do with the bodies?” Randy called after him, eyeing the dead with a sickening feeling as he watched them swing back and forth.
“Leave them for now,” Edwardo said. “A reminder to those who are tempted to resist.”
A moment later, Deputy Keith appeared.
“I need you to do something for me,” Randy said, his eyes fixed on the scaffold and the cruel work it had just completed.
“Sure thing.”
“You remember Betty Wilcox?”
“Joe’s sister? She used to be
the head nurse.”
“Yeah, she was taken by two men. I need you to find out where they took her.” Randy nodded at the scaffold and the implication was perfectly clear.
“All right,” Keith said. “I’ll see what I can do.” He left, moving away at a decent clip.
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that Encendido was a town under siege. For many, Randy included, it had become a hell on earth—a mini-North Korea nestled in the American Southwest. But Randy had a sinking feeling all this would look like child’s play compared to how things would be when La Brigada arrived.
Chapter 26
Dale emerged from the basement and the tunnel he’d been carving out these last few days, eager to fill his canteen, when he heard the sound of Duke barking. His hand went to the pistol at his side as he exited the garage and spotted a handful of traders standing at the end of his driveway.
“Easy, boy,” he told the dog, ruffling the fur on his head.
He waved them forward, his spirits beginning to rise. It seemed Billy had been true to his word and convinced some of them to return. A middle-aged neighbor named Pam Steiger was the first in line, pulling a cart laden with several five-gallon containers of gasoline she’d likely scrounged from abandoned cars. After verifying its quality and adding stabilizer, Dale would use it to replenish the fifty-gallon tank he kept in the barn.
Next was David Halper, a former accountant who had lost his entire family to the virus. Dale had seen him before and knew trading offered the man a chance to get out of the house and spend time with other human beings once in a while. David had become quite handy at woodworking and brought some foldable chairs with a fine lacquered finish.
As per usual, the other members of Dale’s household—save for Colton, Zach and Dannyboy—stopped what they were doing and picked over the items for sale, selecting what they wanted. When they were finished, Dale and the traders would then haggle over how many jugs were owed. Only after reaching an agreement would the water be poured and the transaction completed.
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