Setting up the listening posts the following morning posed little difficulty, as Scott knew his three experienced scouts had plenty of field time for this kind of work. Scott dispatched Ben and Keith on the higher risk position, observing the route they’d attacked the day before. They were to watch and listen but not engage. Next, Scott took Mike to go set up with Yalonda and Kevin Perkins on their assignment, watching the second most-used road leading away from the Lowell compound. This took nearly an hour, and Sarah pulled guard duty while he helped the three build their hide.
“Break up the lines,” he preached to the trio, as he helped arrange the freshly-cut foliage being weaved into a blind for their modified tree stands overlooking the two-lane county road. They would have clear sight lines along the road for nearly a mile in both directions, but Scott was determined nothing about the spot itself would draw the eye. Two on and one off would be the watch cycle, but Scott knew Mike wouldn’t rest for the whole time he was on duty here.
Scott’s constant low chatter was annoying, repeating his lessons over and over, but he knew from his own experiences how repetition pounded the message home. Mike, privately considered by Scott as probably the most all-around capable of his scouts, knew this as well and nodded along. Mike knew he was better and more deadly as a stalker, tracker, and scout just from following Scott’s lead. Scott taught by doing, as well as telling, and Mike soaked it up.
Mike, for his part, intended to use their twelve hours on this detail as an opportunity to teach new skills to both newcomers. Mainly, he wanted to bring them along in training as spotters. He knew before this operation was over, he would be using his long rifle yet again to take down more of the scum he’d seen killing children. He wasn’t a very religious young man, but Mike saw these monsters as demons polluting the world with their very presence.
Once the hide was complete, Scott and Sarah took their leave and spent nearly an hour walking their dirt bikes through the thick grass as they wound their path through patches of forest and avoided the housing tracts and commercial sites. This part of the county was fairly well-developed with plenty of asphalt parking lots and burned-out fast food joints as well as private homes, but wooded lots and overgrown acreages still checker-boarded the area.
Scott sought to avoid contact with anyone or anything, and twice he guided Sarah around small, crude encampments carved out of the suburban sprawl. Sarah remained on high alert throughout the trek, but still marveled at how Scott identified the hidden enclaves before either of them were within a thousand yards.
“How?” was all she whispered.
“Later,” came his low response, and Sarah colored slightly at her own inadvertent breach in security. She hadn’t meant to speak aloud, after all.
Finally, as the duo walked their bikes behind a vacant, open-sided pole barn, Scott signaled she could mount her bike. The little dirt bikes, with their simple engines and minimal electronics, were easily returned to running condition by Stan and his crew of mechanics. Using extra fiberglass insulation and a little tinkering, as well as consulting some printed instructions Darwin provided from some internet site, Stan had attached the extended mufflers with no perceived reduction in their efficiency. These did wonders in reducing their sound signatures, but the bikes still made enough noise that Scott was careful in where he deployed them.
Employing a series of overgrown trails that he’d previously scouted but never used, Scott led Sarah on a bone-jarring expedition that steered wide from known camps and other trouble spots. When they did have to cross anything larger than a goat path, Scott killed his bike and Sarah quickly learned to follow suit. The pair walked carefully through the long grass, and Sarah learned to copy Scott’s steps as he avoided overtly disturbing the tall green stalks. She’d noticed this particular way of stepping, of letting his foot probe the ground for a moment before allowing his weight to shift. She copied the move and found her calves quickly beginning to ache from the continued stress, but she never protested. Sarah Trimble had endured worse; that was her secret, her way of pushing her body past what her mind told her were her limits.
Of course, nothing could disguise the track left by their tires, but Sarah said nothing. Scott would have his reasons, she knew.
Each time they stopped, the pair paralleled the small roadways until Scott spotted a likely crossing point and then they squatted in the weeds to watch for several minutes before darting over the dead ground. Once across, Scott took a moment to silently point out the terrain features and other details he’d taken into account when making his decision. Some of it Sarah caught, while others remained a mystery. These she mentally filed away to ask about later. Clearly, Scott took her at her word as the trip also served to continue her training.
After what she judged as three hours of travel, based on the position of the sun overhead, Sarah began to suspect they were approaching their destination. The timing was right, and if anything, Scott seemed to be more intense and focused than ever. Suddenly, Scott threw up a balled fist and Sarah immediately braked. She quickly killed her engine and released one handlebar to palm her pistol, but kept it down by her side. Something had Scott spooked, but he didn’t use the open hand sign to indicate she needed to dive for cover.
Motioning to the ground, hand flat, Scott then rolled the bike forward a few feet before dismounting. Sarah followed suit and then copied Scott’s move as he lowered the bike to the ground rather than employing the kickstand. Clearly, Scott wanted the bikes concealed for the moment.
Holstering her pistol, Sarah quickly transitioned to her long rifle and for once, Scott copied her movement in bringing his Ruger around for immediate use. Catching Sarah’s eye, Scott knelt down next to an overgrown dogwood and Sarah joined him, her eyes focused on the woods now surrounding them. She didn’t see a threat, but trusted Scott to know that something was out of place. Scott, releasing the synthetic foregrip of the bolt action rifle, pointed at the ground with his free left hand and Sarah could make out a footprint partially visible as the tread had pressed deep, driving the blades of grass into the rich black soil underneath.
“Shouldn’t be here,” Scott husked, his voice nearly inaudible to the woman kneeling next to him. She also noticed how he intentionally softened the ‘s’ in ‘shouldn’t’ to prevent the sound from carrying. Okay, Sarah thought, Scott must be worried whoever it was must have heard the sound of their bikes approaching.
“Biker?” Sarah mouthed carefully, but Scott shook his head. Raising his free hand to his forehead, Scott rapidly flashed the goat sign. Raiders.
Again, Sarah gave him a questioning look, and this time Scott pointed to his nose. He can smell them, Sarah thought with a mixture of amazement and exasperation. When Sarah gestured to her wrist, fingering a non-existent watch, Scott almost smiled as he flashed his palm twice, then shook his hand from side to side. Ten minutes ahead of us, give or take, Sarah again translated in her head.
Taking a deep breath, Scott tested the air again and still, he could make out the faint scent of decay overlaid with a wisp of acrid body odor. Even at forty-five, Scott’s senses remained acute and attuned to his surroundings, and what he was scenting didn’t fit with the story his eyes were telling him. Unable to convey all that in a few mumbled words or hands signs, Scott just wanted Sarah to prepare for attack. Instead, the woman readied herself to go on the offensive. Silently, she unfastened the straps holding her spare magazines for the heavy rifle and loosened the straps on her pack.
Leaning in close, his lips flickering delicately over her ear, Scott murmured his instructions.
“I need to see what’s up ahead,” he said, “and I will call you up with the Cricket, okay?”
Sensing Sarah’s nod, he continued.
“You need to be ready to lay down fire on unseen targets. Count the clicks. That is the number of steps to take, and an odd number of clicks means look to your left. Even, look to the right. Fire when you have a target. Got it?”
With her assent, Scott ease
d his pack off his shoulders, and then gently placed his rifle across discarded bag. In these close confines, he couldn’t see lugging a bolt action rifle into a fight. No, this was going to be close-in action. Sarah, at least, carried a semi-automatic rifle with a twenty-round magazine and he still worried she might get tangled up. Scott, on the other hand, carried four spare magazines for the Springfield XD, and a six-inch fighting knife sheathed on his hip. Those would do for the moment, he thought.
Clearing his mind of worries and emotion, Scott glided across the sticks and fallen limbs littering the forest floor as he followed the scent trail. He moved at a half crouch, pistol drawn, as he surveyed the ground around him, his eyes flicking from side to side even as his head moved in a slow, deliberate arc. No fast motion, no jerky action, just smooth and gradual. Sarah watched until Scott disappeared behind a stand of new growth saplings, and she tried to maintain her breathing as she listened.
After months of training and several skirmishes as well as two full-blown gun battles, Sarah considered herself a steady, reliable fighter in the defense force. She knew others watched her when she first went into a fight, worried she might break into tears or suffer some other meltdown under the pressure. Instead, she coolly and methodically picked off the bandits attacking the southern blockhouse, helping to blunt one of the first organized attacks against the embryonic Kellerville Defense Force, and the farmers they protected.
Darwin Keller lamented the loss of life, and made sure the dead bandits received a Christian burial after last of the attackers fell. He’d stood on the line that day, and did his own share of shooting, but Sarah didn’t know if Darwin killed anybody. He was there, sharing in the danger, and that stand helped solidify Darwin’s position in the community.
Sarah, for her part, knew she killed at least three of the bandits, and wounded at least one other. She fired methodically, aiming for center mass with the borrowed lever action 30-30 rifle. She was two weeks out of the farm’s clinic, and from hanging some of the men responsible for killing her husband and torturing her children, when the call went out to man the southern battlements. Sarah had jumped into a trailer being pulled by one of the refurbished pickups, and five minutes later, she found herself shooting at a ragged line of men sprinting at the hastily-assembled fence across the road. She killed and found she still felt nothing but satisfaction. She later realized she never did, when she killed somebody threatening her children, or her new family.
This was new, but Sarah knew she wouldn’t fail. She might die, but the thought didn’t scare her. Sarah knew she was still not fully recovered from what was done to her, at least, not in her head. The physical wounds healed, some scarring over while others faded away to only memory. But inside her head, Sarah knew she was never going to be the same. Cass McWorter helped, urging Sarah to meet with a select few other women dealing with similar circumstances. Similar circumstances, meaning gang rape and torture, Sarah supposed.
Some of these battered and withdrawn women exhibited signs of depression, while others seemed to be trying, unsuccessfully, to ignore what’d been done to them. And the last group, and the one closest to Sarah’s way of thinking, were pissed off at what had been done to them. Sarah could relate, but she was more interested in making sure this never happened again, and above all, never happened to her daughters again. She would gladly die to insure they were spared, but she was careful not to say this out loud.
That was Sarah’s mindset, her reason for willingly pushing her still-healing body in an effort to get better, and be better. So, she spent more time on the shooting range, and more time in the makeshift gym. And more time running and conditioning herself for the next battle.
So asking Scott for more training just made sense. This, however, was not what she had in mind.
After thirty seconds, Sarah became aware of the sweat trailing down her back, and dripping from her short cut, spikey hair. And after five minutes, she felt her thoughts beginning to drift and savagely forced her mind to focus on the matter at hand. Then she heard it.
Anyone else would mistake the ragged clicks as a cricket, which was the beauty of the simple device. She strained, counting the slow clicks, hearing six, then a seventh. So seven steps forward, then look left for a target, she decoded the simple message. She knew Scott had a more complex system he devised for communicating with the other scouts, but simple was good for the moment.
Drawing herself to a half crouch, emulating Scott’s posture, Sarah took seven careful steps, her rifle at her shoulder and carried in the low ready position. Finger outside the trigger guard and safety off, she would be able to fire in a second. Sarah found herself splitting attention between the leaf litter and sticks on the grassy ground, and then sweeping the forest with her eyes constantly moving. Her head, though, stayed nearly motionless as she copied what she’d seen Scott do several times in the past. No sudden movements to draw attention, he preached.
Seven steps and Sarah silently sank to the ground, taking a knee as she shouldered the heavy M1A in a single, smooth motion as she started searching for her target. There, on the left, she detected motion as a camouflaged figure slid between the trunks of two old growth pines. Then she caught a flicker of motion, a second form briefly visible parallel to the first. This one wearing what looked like a sleeveless denim vest despite the heat of the day. The second figure she gauged to be forty yards away, and the closer man was about thirty. A chip shot with the sniper-adapted rifle. She didn’t bother to look for Scott. He’d given her the targets, and he wouldn’t be dumb enough to stumble into her sights at this point. No, he would be elsewhere.
Clearing her mind and taking a deep breath, Sarah took one more look. Nope, just these two in range, she decided. Shooting offhand, or without a rest, was not as easy as it looked on television, as the weight of the rifle tended to make the barrel wobble after a few seconds. But she needed to wait, paused in her shooting stance, until…
Suddenly, both targets were clear of the trees and Sarah took her first shot, striking the camouflaged target squarely between the shoulders. Sliding smoothly, her second shot caught the jacketed target just as he began his jump behind another tree. She didn’t see where the bullet struck, but from the spray of blood thrown out by the impact, he couldn’t be in great shape. Looked arterial, she thought with some satisfaction.
Suddenly, she heard a flurry of pistol shots and Sarah dove to the ground, cradling her rifle as she fell. Wriggling through the grass like a snake, she approached the kill site and heard more shots, a rifle this time, followed by two more pistol shots. Then silence.
Lacking further instructions, Sarah continued worming her way forward, driven by her toes and knees, supported by her elbows as she kept the rifle ready. Angling slightly, she worked her way around the first figure, seeing as she never saw him move once his body hit the dirt. No, she needed to check that second target.
Conventional wisdom, which meant the training she received from Nick and Mark Keller, principal trainers for the self-defense force, told her to let the second target lay there until he bled out. She felt certain she’d gotten a good hit on this one as well, but exposed as they were in the woods with no friendly forces around, she worried at leaving a still lethal threat at their backs.
Moving faster than she knew she should, Sarah eeled her way close to where the second body fell but now, she could see the man had moved. In fact, he was still moving, though sluggishly, as he tried to staunch the steady flow of blood emerging from his right chest wall. Sarah could see he was pressing some kind of dressing against the entry wound, using his right arm to hold the blood-sodden cloth in place. From his expression, this was a losing battle and he knew it.
Sarah felt conflicted. Not about shooting the man or watching him die. She felt fine with that. If Scott thought these men were a threat, then she was happy to kill them for him. Least she could do. No, the conflict arose when she began to wonder if Scott might want his one for questioning.
“You think he
’ll make it?”
The words triggered a swift reaction as the rifle started up but then she relaxed, recognizing the voice.
“Shit, Scott,” Sarah hissed, but the tone was one of irritation, not anger. “Give a girl a little warning next time.”
“Sorry,” he said sincerely, and rose from his crouch five feet on the other side of the still struggling body.
Blood covered his left sleeve, but the way he moved, it must have belonged to someone else. Sarah also detected a spray of crimson across his torso, bisecting the already dirty, gray, long-sleeved work shirt he wore for this mission. Gone were the fancy magazine pouches, the radios, and even the military surplus uniforms. Funny, mused Sarah, how that gray shirt seemed to blend into the greens of the woods and the urban landscape equally well.
Moving with a speed born of practice, Scott stripped the bleeding man of his weapons, including spare magazines for the dropped AR rifle and three pistols secreted about his body. Moaning in protest, the prisoner then released a string of curses at the two of them that made Sarah grin. She would file those away for use, later. Some of them, clearly biologically impossible, were new to her.
“Yeah, if we tried, I’m sure we could get him stabilized,” Sarah finally replied, answering Scott’s question.
“Alright then. I couldn’t take any of the others alive, so he’ll have to do.”
“Yeah, I heard the shooting. How many others were there?”
“Four more. Two teams of two, it would seem.”
“Scouting the place?” Sarah asked, as she moved to the other man and confirmed he was indeed dead. Not like anybody could survive with that much blood on the outside, she’s surmised. Rolling the corpse over, she saw her .308 round had missed his heart but punched through the spine on entry and left a ragged exit wound bigger than her fist.
Scott was busy patching their prisoner’s wound when he rolled the man to the side and got a look at the jacket the man was wearing.
Lines in Shadow: Walking in the Rain Page 17
