Samantha eased forward and found herself next to Xan who was watching Rane’s men go to work.
“You’re giving weapons to a bunch of terrorists,” Samantha said under her breath.
Xan looked at her. “I’m sure you think the same of us.”
“No, you’re just a bunch of jerks. My gut tells me you were on the right side of things for a while, but now you’ve lost your way.”
“You gonna tell me about loss now?”
“I lost my grandfather and an uncle in the invasion,” Samantha said, glaring at Xan.
“I lost everybody,” Xan replied, her lip quivering. “My parents, my brothers and sisters, and nieces and nephews. All of them were in the FEMA camp down near Denver. They were burned alive during that first horrible night. You still have something to go back to, but not me. I’ve got nothing.”
“I’m sorry,” Samantha said.
“We are so far beyond sorrys,” Xan said.
“You don’t have to do whatever it is you’re planning.”
Xan considered this for a moment, a sad expression on her face. “It’s too late to turn back.”
Samantha watched Xan and some of the other resistance fighters move over to the weaponized kayak. They grabbed the kayak and moved it toward a rear door. Samantha watched Xan drop down a set of stairs to a sunken area where there was a single metal crate on a platform. She watched Xan run her hand over the crate, silently mouthing the words that were stenciled on it. Military acronyms that meant nothing to Samantha. Xan whistled to three resistance fighters who helped her lift the crate and move it through the rear door. She watched them open the crate and there was a warhead of some kind hidden inside in foam. One of the resistance fighters trapped the side of the warhead and up sprung a metal wand attached to a spring that, it was surmised, must be a hand detonator of some kind.
Quarrels appeared. “Que pasa? You’re seeing a few things you weren’t meant to see, eh young lady?”
“What’s in the box?” Samantha asked.
“What Xan came to get.”
“Can you be more vague please?”
Quarrels smiled. He gently grabbed her wrists and led her back out of the weapons vault, past the bandits and resistance fighters who were carrying gear and weapons out to the machines they’d driven in on. They stood in the hazy afternoon light as Rane shouted orders at his men, directing on where to place the materials they’d just taken from the vault.
“I’d advise you to steer clear of that man,” Quarrels said of Rane.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“He’s a bad hombre.”
“And you’re not?” she asked.
“He’s a zealot, I’m a pragmatist. There’s a significant difference between the two.”
Her nose scrunched up and Quarrels smirked. “It was because of you that we’ve gotten this far. In essence, you’ve done something for me, and now I’ve got an obligation to do something for you.”
“Transactional morality,” Samantha whispered.
“Coin of the realm when the rule of law ends,” Quarrels replied with a slight shrug.
“So since you owe me one, how ‘bout cutting me loose.”
Quarrels shook his head. “I can’t do that, kid. But stick close to me just the same. I’ve got a feeling some bad stuff is about to go down.”
15
Q uinn was perched on the edge of her seat as the Jeep drove through a commercial area. Eli let up on the gas, as the SUV coasted toward an intersection which was blocked by a cluster of vehicles. The Jeep came to a stop. Quinn squinted. She could see what looked like a group of armed men and women assembled near the vehicles. Her eyes ratcheted to the sideview mirror. The Jeep with Luke at the wheel pulled up and his window powered down.
“Looks like the local chamber of commerce is here to greet us,” Luke said.
Quinn smirked. She exited the Jeep, assault rifle in hand, and moved over as Giovanni did likewise. They studied the bandits fronting the roadblock of cars.
“We could try and drive around them,” Giovanni said.
“Take too much time and they’d follow,” she replied.
“Where the hell is the glider?” Giovanni asked, scanning the sky. There was no sign of it at all.
“I’ll go,” Quinn finally said. “I’ll go and talk to them.”
“You don’t even have any armor.”
“If they wanted a fight, they would’ve already fired at us. I’m thinking they just want to exchange pleasantries.”
“A few kind words,” Giovanni added.
Quinn held up her assault rifle. “Yeah, well, you can get much farther with a gun and a kind word than you can with a kind word alone.”
She winked at Giovanni and moved to the rear of the Jeep and opened the back. She pulled out the Raven drone as Eli appeared. Quinn pinched the quarter from the back of the drone and pocketed it. The drone’s propeller hummed to life. She looked to Eli. “You think you can do something special with this, if the situation calls for it?”
Eli held up the drone and smiled. “I got a few ideas.”
Quinn headed out, walking down the dusty street toward the bandits. Her eyes darted everywhere, taking in every inch of space within sight. She spotted obstructions, places where shooters could be hiding, possible avenues of escape. There were a few vacant storefronts behind the bandits, an overturned bus, a small industrial yard littered with what looked like gas or propane tanks, the entire thing circled with razor wire.
Mentally, she did a headcount: the bandits had five armored vehicles, maybe eleven fighters that she could see, all heavily armed. There was a flash of something at the back of one of the SUVs. A bandit was removing something. It looked like a metal tube. What was it? A rocket launcher of some kind?
She picked up her pace, aware that time was of the essence. Every second she wasted here, was one less spent searching for Samantha.
As she drew nearer the faces of the bandits became clearer.
The man who was standing in front of the others, the lead bandit she reckoned, was wearing a mask of some kind.
A mask in the shape of a pig’s head.
The eyes and mouth on the mask had been expanded so that Quinn could see the man inside the mask. His mouth was curled up in a loopy grin. He moved away from his closest comrades, two bulbous men and a woman with closely mown hair that was painted blue.
The bandit in the pig mask pointed at Quinn’s compression shirt, the one that said “Pain Is Weakness Leaving The Body.” “I like that,” the bandit said.
“I’m planning on seeing whether it’s true in a few minutes,” Quinn said, a diamond-hard expression on her face.
“I heard that,” pig mask said, whistling.
A few seconds of silence ensued as the two sized each other up, Quinn refusing to take any shit from the bandit who was a good five inches shorter than she was. She could tell he was a bit intimated by her size. Most men were.
“I know you’re the Marine,” pig mask said, one of the ears on his mask drooping over to one side.
“And I know you were police in the days before,” Quinn said.
“How’d you know?”
“You got that affect,” Quinn replied.
“Ain’t no reason to bullshit around. We knew you were coming,” pig mask said. “And we’ve been given orders.”
“I’ve got orders too,” Quinn replied.
“Mine says you ain’t to pass.”
“And mine say I must,” Quinn said. “Sounds like we’re at an impasse.”
Pig mask grunted and nodded.
“The ones who told you about us have a little girl with them?” Quinn asked.
“That’s classified,” pig mask said.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Quinn replied. She was about to turn and head back when she spotted a tattoo on pig mask’s bare, left bicep. The black ink showed a spidery woman emerging from a red flower, clutching a knife.
“That is the Virgin Maria
Auxilatrix,” pig mask said, reading Quinn’s look. “In the old country she was the patron saint of assassins.”
“In this country, we don’t worship murderers,” Quinn said.
“Give it some time,” pig mask replied, grinning toothsomely. “Besides, is the butcher a murderer because he kills the lamb for food?”
Quinn was silent.
“You should leave,” pig mask said after Quinn remained standing before him. “I heard about you, lady, and I got mad respect for what you done down here and up there, but you’re outnumbered. Go back in your Jeep and leave this place and live to fight another day.”
“So that’s how it’s gonna be?” Quinn asked.
“Can’t be any other way,” pig mask said with a shrug.
Quinn reached in a pocket and pulled out the quarter she’d taken from the drone. She flipped it to pig mask.
“What’s this?” he asked.
Quinn smiled. “There’s this guy who transports people into hell after they die. The only catch is you’ve got to give him a coin or two before he takes you down. You’re going to be meeting him very shortly, so I thought you could use it.”
Pig mask’s smile vanished. He said something in Spanish that Quinn couldn’t place.
“It’s in the wind now,” Quinn whispered.
Pig mask nodded.
“Since you’re a sister of the gun, I’ll give you the professional courtesy of two minutes,” Pig mask said.
“After that?”
“The shooting starts.”
Quinn spun on her heels and began moving back toward the Jeeps. She was counting on the bandits being too startled to shoot her down. As she reached the Jeeps Giovanni, Eli, Luke, and the others crowded around her.
“What’d the fella in the mask say?” Eli asked.
“I’m paraphrasing, but he basically said either we leave or we die,” Quinn said.
“That’s it?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“So what happens next?” Luke asked.
CRACK!
A bullet flew over Luke’s head.
“That happens next!” Quinn shouted.
Everybody scrambled toward the rear of the Jeeps as—
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Automatic weapons fire rang out. Quinn ducked fully behind her Jeep with Eli. She looked to the ground where the drone was humming, the propeller turning. Eli had secured it in place with a couple of bricks from a fallen wall.
Quinn’s gaze swung to Eli. “What’d you come up with?”
Eli took one of the grenades they’d appropriated from a resistance fighter back in Shiloh. He removed the pull-pin and knelt and wedged the grenade in the back of the drone, keeping the safety lever in place. Even as the bullet continued to fly, Eli lifted the drone.
“Are you able to control that thing?!” Quinn shouted over the gunfire.
Eli shook his head. “We’ve got one shot!”
Giovanni crouch-ran over and took the drone up into his hands. Braving the incoming fire, he darted between the Jeeps and pushed the drone into the air as if throwing a javelin.
The drone rose and fell and Quinn was certain it was going to crash for a moment. But then it ascended and began slicing toward the bandits, who immediately opened fire on the drone. Most of their shots flew wide until a single round nipped off the drone’s right wing.
Quinn watched as the drone suddenly whipped up into the air and then dropped straight down on a terminal dive toward the bandits. Pig mask and the others continued to fire at the drone, scattering at the last second as the drone slammed into the back of one of their cars—
BOOM!
Creating an explosion that blasted apart a section of the blockade. Quinn and the others used the moment to climb into their Jeeps. Eli slammed his vehicle into gear.
“What’s the plan?!” he shouted.
“Drive straight ahead and do not stop!” Quinn screamed.
“That’s it?!”
She nodded. “We’re going to kill them to the bone!”
She pulled the firing bolts back on a pair of assault rifles. Her eyes found the other Jeep where Giovanni was visible, behind the wheel. They traded looks and Quinn nodded. It was on.
“Get down!” she shouted at Comerford who cowered in the back, before turning back to Eli. “LET’S GO!”
Eli jammed his foot down on the gas as the Jeep leaped forward.
Quinn leaned out her window, protected by a square of metal that had been bolted onto the side of the door. She crouched as if in a hunting blind, easing both of her assault rifles out. She could see that the bandits had regrouped and were firing again.
Bullets hissed and snapped off the hood of the car and one quicksilvered off the window, barely missing Quinn’s head. She squinted, aimed and opened fire.
Quinn’s rifles flung a wall of lead back at the bandits as the Jeep accelerated.
In the canyons of her mind came images from Quinn’s past. All of the exotic locales, all of the places she’d fought. All of the people she’d cut down. She raised her guns and shot down three bandits as the blockade came up fast.
“RAM IT!” she screamed.
Eli did.
Stomping on the gas.
Monkeying the wheel.
Smashing the Jeep through the remaining portion of the blockade.
The impact jolted Quinn. The Jeep lost its front bumper and careened down a decline. Eli threw the wheel and Quinn ducked as bullets stitched her window. She spotted the second Jeep following behind and kicked open her door again and jumped out, Eli screaming for her to stop.
Quinn hit the ground and rolled forward and came up on the balls of her feet, an assault rifle in each hand.
Dust and smoke obscured everything and Quinn moved with terrible speed and ferocity through the din, like some avenging angel.
A form rose up out of the shadows and Quinn fired point-blank, blasting a female bandit back. The woman hit the ground and cried out for mercy, but Quinn knew that mercy was not hers to give. Not today. Not after all that had happened She shot the woman again.
Bullets hissed over her head and she ducked and spun, spotting two bandits shooting at her from the side of the storefront. An animalistic growl issued from her mouth as she ran laterally, spraying one of her guns. Her bullets skull-capped one of the bandits who dropped dead while the other rose and fired. Quinn shot him in the stomach. Blood sprayed and Quinn was shocked at how red it was. It was something she’d never really gotten used to, and then—
Hands grabbed her neck and wrenched her back.
She dropped her rifles and fell to the ground as a meaty fist pistoned her ear. Blood blossomed, the flesh folding up around her lobe.
Quinn reflexively covered her face as the fist came down again and again. She grabbed fingers and looked up to see the bandit with the pig mask.
“YOU BITCH!” pig mask shrieked.
He punched her again and Quinn felt several teeth dislodge.
She gargled blood and grabbed the man’s hand, forcing herself up, attacking him with a wicked thrust of her elbow. The blow staggered pig mask who tottered back. Quinn spat a mouthful of blood and lunged at her attacker.
The elbow came down again and she pulled the mask free to reveal a Hispanic man with a pleasant looking face in his early-twenties. As the man fell to his knees Quinn paused, and in her split-second of indecision, the young man whipped out a hidden knife.
He carved the air near Quinn’s head, grazing her cheek. She took a step and he swept a foot out, knocking her to the ground.
Before Quinn could react, the man was on top of her, knife daggered over his head when—
BAM!
A single gunshot echoed.
Quinn’s attacker seized.
He dropped the knife.
Quinn looked up to see a hole in the man’s temple.
A small black hole that began weeping red.
The attacker’s eyes rolled back and Quinn shrugged him aside. She mus
cled herself up to see Comerford standing twelve feet away, one of the assault rifles she’d dropped in his hands. Comerford raised a hand in a gesture of goodwill and—
BAM! BAM!
Shots ripped through him and he cried out and fell to the ground.
Quinn clawed forward and grabbed the other assault rifle, firing a full magazine of ammunition in the direction that the shots had come from. She heard screams and received no return fire, so she crawled forward. Comerford was lying on his side, chest matted crimson, his eyes already glassy, a few breaths rattling around in his lungs as his life seeped out all around him.
“Right t-thing,” Comerford said.
Quinn leaned down and he repeated, “I was just doing the right thing.”
“You saved me,” Quinn said.
“Not that,” Comerford said. “About your daughter. I was just doing what I thought was the right thing.”
“I know that now,” Quinn said.
Comerford reached out a hand and Quinn took it. “Make this mean something,” Comerford whispered and then his body trembled and stopped moving.
Footfalls echoed and Quinn spun, bringing her gun up…. at Giovanni.
Giovanni’s eyes hopped from Comerford to her, to the dead bandits littering the ground.
“Let’s go!” he shouted, moving over, hauling her up. They slashed through the dust and she spotted the two Jeeps up ahead. Quinn entered the Jeep with Eli at the wheel. She looked back to Giovanni who smiled. “We did it, Quinn. Just like old times, huh? We beat the bastards and—”
CRACKBOOM!
The side of a faraway storefront exploded as the massive, weaponzing dump-truck jackhammered right through it, speeding directly at the Jeeps!
Eli floored the Jeep, managing to power it forward before the dump-truck thundered past. Quinn held on for dear life, stealing a look outside. The dump-truck was wheeling around as the two Jeeps sped away, heading back down the highway on the other side of the bandits’ blockade.
BOOM!
An explosion cratered the road up ahead, sending geysers of dirt into the air. Quinn observed the smoke trail that led from the blast back to the dump-truck. The goddamn thing had rocket pods bolted to the side.
Syndicate Wars: False Dawn (Seppukarian Book 4) Page 9
