That awareness now grated on Graybeard’s psyche. If Haus was out there and operational, his reign was at risk, not just in the combat sense but from a sense of loyalty, which to Haus and the Crewmen was everything.
It was one thing when they believed that Haus and Clayton and most of the others were either taken out by the Voracious Soldiers or the DEVO’s. Then it was a matter of survival, join the only Outfit that could protect them and offer them trophies or perish. Loyalty was not an issue since the Crewmen were no more.
The Crewmen, now wearing the Day Breaker colors would never have signed on with that Outfit if Haus was operational. Graybeard was aware of that; the Crewmen that he added to his Outfit were now a danger to it.
Graybeard sheathed his knife with the same speed as he drew it; the man formerly at the knife’s business end stumbled forward. Forgetting about him, Graybeard raised his shotgun toward the three former Crewmen who all raised their hands slowly. “You boy’s hand over your weapons.”
Graybeard’s eyes moved to one of his supervisors, the man with the blood running down his neck. “Take their weapons, then have them sit on the curb. When Haus is confirmed dead, then we can evaluate whether they go with us or we leave them for the DEVO’s.”
None of the three Crewmen groveled or tried to beg their case. They were mindful of the unwritten rules; if Haus was still operational that meant they were too, as Crewmen. Rather than handing them over, they placed their weapons down and to a man they each dropped the vests that bore them as members of the Day Breakers.
“I see how it’s going to be. Sorry, just business, boys.” Graybeard aimed in with his shotgun to the three.
In a flash, faster than even Graybeard’s earlier move, Andy emerged on the big man’s right side. The speed surprised the boss and more impressively his crew who watched now with rapt attention. The three Crewmen about to be blown apart shared the same thought; only Haus could move with the same speed. The rest of the group now viewed their leader in a diminished fashion. Graybeard felt the muzzle of the handgun Andy drew from his tac vest in a blur, now raised up at an angle and nudging against his temple.
“Personally, I don’t care about these pukes. They are all part of the same trash heap that you hail from.” Andy glanced at the two dozen, or so Outfitter’s including the three Crewmen who watched, taking note that none had raised a gun to Graybeard’s defense.
“But if you fire that weapon you will wake all the DEVO’s just down the steps. That would be bad because then I can’t get the gold. Half of which goes to you and the other half to the Crewmen and myself.”
Andy hoped his words would sow division about who was getting the gold. The three Crewmen quickly realized that if they lived and joined Haus, their share would be larger than if they remained with the Day Breakers. A quick look around confirmed the calculating going on in all their heads.
“And if that happens, well I have no use for you. I think you get my meaning,” Andy pulled the handgun back slightly and then rammed it into Graybeard’s temple. Graybeard’s head snapped to the left. It didn’t hurt as much as infuriate the big man who certainly thought himself the physical superior to the smaller and leaner man. A notion that he now doubted as did his Outfit.
Whatever the Outfitters thought of this INFIL-man, the only way they addressed team members respectfully and usually only when they were at a disadvantage, they admired strength and toughness, and the guy underneath all that equipment and gear had it in spades.
“You can have your girl scout meeting later and take care of business then. Right now, I need to get inside and down to where I can access the vault. As it is, it’s going to take some time to cut into.”
Andy looked to the noonday sky, in two or three hours the angle of the sun would shadow enough of the streets and especially the alleys to allow the DEVO’s to come out and play, at least in those areas. The rest of the group, particularly the Outfitters who would have to travel much farther now to get to the Day Breaker bunker glanced nervously skyward.
The realization passed through the assembled group, Crewmen, Day Breakers and especially the Victor Sierra’s. Andy Crawley was calling the shots, and if he did what he needed to, they’d all have plenty of gold and not the least their lives.
Graybeard seethed. He had lost control to this pipsqueak, and that was making him look bad in front of his Outfit. He would bide his time, he had little choice, but when the time came, he would take care of business. No one would dispute him as the leading power in the zone after that. While Andy was inside getting the trophy, he needed to insure Haus was taken out.
Graybeard turned, looking directly down the large barrel of the handgun trying not to show the rage burning inside, “Let’s get on with it then.”
He looked to the three rigs, then to the lieutenant whose throat still bled. “Take three and go inside with Crawley.” His eyes moved to another man, the one who delivered the news about the bunker. “You take two rigs, six crew in each and go back and secure the bunker. Once it’s secure, you leave six to guard the bunker then send one rig back.”
“You stay out front here with me. We’ll make a defensive perimeter with our one rig and the two INFIL-rigs.” Graybeard instructed the third lieutenant, his second in command who up to now escaped his attention. A series of nods and “Yes, boss,” came back from the three.
Andy nodded to Ricky as he holstered his handgun back into his vest, “sounds like a plan. I’m leaving Ricky and some of his troops out here with you to help coordinate it. Logan and I and two of the newbies will go in along with Graybeard’s four. Ricky, which ones are the best?”
“Hell, they’re all DEVO snacks for sure, but I guess Anderson there and Hicks have the most training hours,” Ricky shrugged.
Andy turned toward the Humvees. Anderson and Hicks, it’s strictly volunteer but you’ll be paid a bonus, you game?”
Both responded together, “Victor sierra golden, Mr. Crawley!”
“Great, grab the cutting torches.”
“Yes, sir.”
Andy watched the two taking equipment out of the Humvee for a moment before turning to Graybeard.
“You need to keep it quiet out here, reposition a click or more away. I’ll radio when we’re out with the gold, or at least as much of it as we can carry.”
“No games, Andy.”
“I’ve got more interest in getting that gold out than you or Haus. In the meantime, you need to chill your little war with him. I need him alive, and with his share of the gold, anything less than that and I no longer need you, remember that.”
“I’ll try to talk to him if the opportunity presents itself.”
Andy’s grin came through even if the big man couldn’t see it through the face mask, “well if it doesn’t I suggest you hightail it to some hiding place where he can’t find you.”
Graybeard glared, his seething was overtaking his thinking. I just need this punk for a couple more hours.
“Get the gold, Crawley. Don’t forget who controls things here and on the outside.”
Andy ignored Graybeard’s comment as he started down the darkened steps leading to the upscale shopping complex.
“Let’s move out, boys. Nice and quiet.”
Graybeard watched the four infiltration troops, followed by his four crew. As soon as they were out of sight, he turned to the lieutenant getting ready to lead the two rigs back to the bunker and whispered.
“Find Haus and kill him, start at the bunker, then fan out. Most likely he is in a vehicle and topside so he can move faster. Whoever takes him down gets a solid gold bar in addition to their share.”
The man nodded and got into the front seat of one of the rigs. Graybeard watched both drive away. The humming of the two turrets on both Humvee’s caused Graybeard to turn to look at them.
They were all buttoned up with the INFIL-rats all cozy and protected inside. The muzzles of the .50 caliber pointed towards the boss and the exposed Day Breaker crew and their one unarm
ored rig, a pickup truck like the others. A short squeeze of the triggers of either of the weapons would obliterate him and his crew in an instant. It would also wake the DEVO’s. Fortunately, that was not the intention of the INFIL-scum.
“Drive, straight till the first roadblock, we’ll hold up there,” Ricky said via the external speaker in a hushed tone.
Moving slowly down the steps toward the Galleria Shops, Andy thought of Mia and how crazy this whole situation had become. He was doing his part. Slowing down Graybeard and hopefully Haus. He trusted that the FBI was doing its part.
Like Haus before him, Andy had no idea that Agent Wu was standing next to him, observing from the ghost mode that allowed him to move unseen and undetected in-world, even while simultaneously and physically at Lake Tahoe closing in on the kidnappers. Even Digital Adventures could not detect his presence.
Chapter Forty-Three
Bowen was comforted to see heavy traffic traveling Nevada Route 28 along the east shore of the lake. It made him just one in a long line of vehicles, many of them RV’s. The heavy traffic also made him nervous. It seemed to be taking too long putting miles between him and that cop.
Haus had told him to stay at the campsite and not move. If they needed to impress on the bitch’s boyfriend that she was in danger, he’d have Bowen pre-position the RV, then send a video of what awaited her.
But Haus had gone silent and now with the cop nosing around Bowen had to do something. Once he got the RV into place, then he could set the auto-drive feature, and the vehicle would do the rest, without him in it. Haus did not want to position it too early as it was a private road and a worksite. He feared that it might draw unwanted attention. Now that theory was out the window with the cop nosing around the supposedly safer campsite, where an RV would not be out of the ordinary.
Only a couple days IRL and Bowen was already climbing the walls. He didn’t much care for Lindel, or Haus as he preferred. He was older than he expected him to be and treated him like he was an employee instead of a partner.
Bowen panicked that maybe Lindel had been caught by the cops or somehow stopped by Digital Adventures. Nothing seemed to be going to plan. The broken nose and the painful groin injury were not part of the bargain. Did it matter if the chick lived or not?
Bowen’s heart raced at the sight of a marked police car going in the opposite direction. He watched it in the side mirror for what seemed like an eternity until it disappeared, nearly rear-ending a car in front slowing for a turning vehicle farther ahead. Slamming on the brakes, he cursed at the screwed-up situation he found himself in. If he got stopped now, the cops would discover him with the woman that he helped Lindel take hostage. But Lindel wasn’t around. All the risks were on him.
Bowen decided on what he had to do; as soon as he got to the staging area, he would set the auto-drive program then take off on one of the scooters in the small rear compartment of the RV. He’d go to Reno, and meet his partner. Haus would understand that he had little choice after the cop showed up and since he couldn’t contact him had to act. If things had gone badly and Haus couldn’t meet, or he couldn’t contact him Bowen planned on continuing to someplace where he could grab a bus, maybe a train depending on his cash situation, which wasn’t great.
The scooter would limit him to county roads, but it would be the only transportation available once the RV and Mia were in the lake. Regardless, Bowen convinced himself he needed to get away from the crazy bitch in the back and from any incriminating evidence, especially the easy to spot vehicle he was driving.
He felt no remorse that she would lose her life. This was Haus’s plan not his, now he was stuck doing cleanup. He briefly considered that he could just hide the RV someplace. It might be days before anyone found her, but then once they did she could identify him. With all the people around for the holiday that might report seeing the RV, he feared they would find it sooner, before he could get far.
Moreover, the thought of Mia not around relieved him of the panic of getting caught. Plus, due to her cheap shot, he could hardly stand up straight; the bitch deserved it.
***
Haus began to have second thoughts about his position. While the top of the parking structure gave him a commanding view of the street below and the only drivable entrance to the parking structure, it also gave him few escape options. His rig, parked on the other side of the train tracks, would necessitate having to climb back down the same way he came up making him vulnerable if any of the Day Breakers discovered the ladder or came around back when he was going down it. He could take one of the many rigs the Crewmen kept up here, including the one he was standing in, but that would require him to drive out of the front of the structure. He could get blocked in or shot up by a rig full of Day Breakers.
That is if they even came back here to search for him, assuming the wounded man he let go even got to the guard posts. Haus looked up and down the street then to the blue sky.
The noonday sun filled the road in front of the parking structure, and printing press building. A few more hours would change all that.
The muscular man who would, when not crouched as he was now peeking over a wall, rise to more than two meters in height looked at the buildings towering around his present location. Those buildings held tens of thousands of DEVO’s just in this general vicinity. Come sundown they would be all over the bunker. Graybeard would have nowhere to go.
There had been scant traffic on the radio he took off one of the dead Day Breakers. They were probably using the few Sat phones in their possession to stay silent from either him or the teams that might be around. Sound from the street lured him from his thoughts.
A manhole cover swung open. He trained the CAR-50 to the opening. A second or two later, the first of five Day Breakers emerged from the sewer, including the wounded man Haus let go, easy to spot with the injured arm that he still cradled.
Haus pressed a button on the forearm of his rifle. The M420 sight replaced the rifle site in his face shield. Another symbol indicated that the grenade launder mounted under the barrel was locked and loaded with an HE, or high explosive thermobaric-tipped round. Haus selected a section of pavement that was in the center of the group and moved his finger to the trigger.
The noise of two rigs racing down the street saved their lives, but only for a few more seconds. He shifted his aiming reticle from the four men and one woman to the center of the front window opening of the first rig. He waited as it slowed then stopped next to the five that emerged from the manhole. Haus watched as the second rig pulled around on the other side with the five on foot now between both pickup trucks.
Haus’s eyes flickered around the group as he did a quick headcount. There right in front of him on the street and in the open were fifteen to twenty of the enemy. In such proximity that even a chimpanzee with a hand grenade could take them all out. The Leader of the Crewmen, currently a one-man Outfit was no chimpanzee, and he had something much fiercer than a hand grenade.
He shook his head at their lack of discipline. How many times had he schooled his crews not to get bunched up in a potential kill zone? He admired the INFIL-rats, at least in that regard, they would never bunch up in the street like that and their turret gunners would be scanning the high ground, ready to engage. The bozos below, despite the heavy machine guns mounted on the back of each rig, were more interested in playing grab ass and reuniting with their pals from the bunker, at least the ones that survived. They would all die, but a part of Haus felt disappointed they would not even get the chance to fight back.
The Crewmen leader wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Good things come to those who wait.
Leaving the weapon trained on his adversaries below supported by the wall and by his right hand on the pistol grip of the rifle he moved his left hand to a pouch on the side of the tac vest and retrieved another 40mm HE round.
The group on the street were pointing his way towards the parking structure where Haus was perched, but lower down signa
lly the bunker underneath it. They seemed to be planning or deciding where to begin to search. It wouldn’t matter.
Haus, holding the HE round with his left fingers against the side of the weapon nuzzled the palm of that hand under the forearm, swinging the weapon slightly to the rig on the left. The crosshairs rested directly on the front bench seat between where two Day Breakers sat.
A pop followed by a swoosh caused the assembled group to look to the top of the parking structure. A few saw the projectile coming toward them; the worst view was from the front seat of the vehicle that it was streaking towards. Even while their minds realized they were under attack, their bodies did not have the time to react.
The round flew through the missing windshield and hit the seat burrowing into it before detonating, shredding both occupants before peeling back the roof. A plume of orange flames and black smoke erupting from it. The group sitting in the back were thrown from the truck, several were on fire as shrapnel that tore through them also tore into the gas tank.
Haus paid the burning inferno scant attention as he pulled open the breach of the grenade launcher, which ejected the spent shell onto the bed of the truck where it landed with a clank. He then fed the HE round from his left hand into the launcher then shoved it forward, closing it and placing the weapon into battery for firing. He swung the rifle to the right slightly and aimed through the front of the second rig. He could see that both the driver and passenger of the second one were slumped over, incapacitated from the first blast as was the mini-gun operator in the bed. Most of the crew riding in the back were on the ground on the opposite side.
Another pop and swoosh and a second later the other rig was an inferno. Haus reached for another 40mm round and reloaded as he surveyed the slaughter on the street. Bodies, and pieces of bodies some a flame lay scattered around the two rigs now consumed in flames roasting the occupants as well as any of the other unlucky ones nearby. The group that had been standing between the two rigs fared the worst; caught by shrapnel and burning splashing fuel from first one truck then the next.
METAVERSE GAMES: OMNIBUS Page 29
