As soon as he spoke, David realized he’d made a mistake of some kind. From all appearances, the guards kept the place locked down tight. To get in, these men must have used something to get the heavy doors opened.
“What did they say, David?”
The big man looked down and I stepped closer, then slightly behind the restrained giant. I whispered softly, but I could tell Barden heard me when he jerked.
“David, there’s only one way you walk out of this alive, and unhurt. Tell the corporal what he wants to know. Otherwise, I’ll cut your tongue out so you can’t scream. You’ll still answer his questions, but you’ll have to write them down instead.”
I saw David’s eyes roll back in the faint light and he found his voice. David, I think, was figuring out this was about more than a brother trying to find his sister. He was scared of me, scared enough I thought I could smell his bladder let loose. Finally, he spoke.
“One of them said the Mayor of Siloam Springs sends his regards. Kind of like a joke, and one of the others just said his name. But I’ve seen him here before. A lot.”
“What was the name, David?”
“It was Rufus. Mr. Rufus. He’s…he is a very powerful guy around here and down south, too. He comes by here sometimes. To visit with the director.”
I felt my hands begin to shake as Conners continued the interrogation.
“Is this Mr. Rufus here right now? Upstairs?”
“I…I think so. Nobody has left yet and I know, from before, they wait until you soldiers leave before they do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
“Holy crap” I whispered. The Big Cheese himself. The boogie man who was behind so much pain and death was right here in the building. I didn’t try to calculate the odds, as they were insane. Maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket, but being under age I couldn’t even cash in a winner. We just so happened to pick the same day to visit as a man I been planning to kill for over a week now.
Even before I knew a name, I knew he had to die.
Corporal Conners continued to grill the man for information and I stood by and soaked it all in as I thought about how to make this circle jerk work. I might be crazy, but I knew three men were too few to carry out a proper assault on this place. David said they had over twenty shooters here, not eight, and all of them were in on Director Jimenez’s little side business.
Jimenez was running a whore house. Really, it was a rape house, since the women and girls didn’t get paid and were used against their will. Not here in the building, since that might cause too much traffic and bring down the heat on them. Jimenez took them from here, a few at a time, and moved them to the compound he had set up outside Rogers.
He’d started with the women in the refugee center, David said, and gradually moved over to girls younger and younger. David didn’t know if any of the girls we were here to get had been shipped over to the Rogers location, but if not, they would be soon. Not that it mattered. Now that we were here, the trafficking would stop.
It was interesting that David seemed just as scared of the Mexican gangs as he was the National Guard troops. Jimenez worried the gangs, who now virtually ruled parts of the remaining cities, would move in and take over his operation.
I gestured for Conners to follow me over to the other corner, and we conversed in low whispers.
“Do you have comms with Sergeant Erlich?”
“He’s listening in right now,” Conners replied with a grin I could barely see in the dark. “I’ve had him eavesdropping since we walked through the front door.”
“Good because we can’t handle this by ourselves. There’s too many of them and not enough of us. And if you didn’t pick up on it, this Rufus guy is the man who’s been running raiders and now apparently slavers in the area.”
“Yeah, Sergeant Erlich is already trying to scramble the Captain and the rest of the company to this location. Your guy Mark is also trying to reach your people back at your farm but he’s not having any luck. Besides, I thought you were a gung-ho Marine.”
I decided to cut to the chase. Corporal Conners needed to know who he was dealing with.
“Can you cut the radio for a second?” I said it so softly the corporal had to lean close to hear. He gave me a nod and adjusted something on his belt. I stayed close and continued speaking softly so only Conners could hear.
“Dude, don’t get the wrong idea. My dad was the Marine. I’m not a soldier, or a Marine. Or a cop, or anything like that. I’m just a kid. For real. Erlich knows, too. I’m sixteen. I’m not saying I can’t hang with you. I can. I shot competitively, pistol, rifle and three gun combo, as well as IDPA. I can run an M4, too. But don’t get the idea I know how to operate an M240 or something like that.”
“If you’re really a minor, why’d your people let you come in here? That’s just crazy.”
“Corporal, I’ve had to kill a lot of people to get this far. That’s all I’m going to say. I’ve got your back when things get hot, and I will not give up. But if you need somebody to run comms for you or call in an airstrike, you better get Barden up to speed.”
“When this is over, we gotta talk. You so should not even be here. So you okay with that shotgun?”
“If Big Boy over there has some more shells, I’ll be good to go. Got one like it at home.”
“I’m sure you do. And thanks for the heads up. I don’t know that it makes any difference in what we can do, but I appreciate the honesty.”
With that, he reactivated the radio and I wandered back over to Barden and David.
“What’s up?” the private first class asked.
“Nothing. Just the corporal busting my balls for not already stripping the other shells off of Jumbo here.”
As I approached David he seemed to shrink away for some reason. I’d set the shotgun aside, out of reach, and approached with just my knife. At this stage, I think he was more scared of the knife anyway. David had one of those little hunting bags on his hip, the kind with round elastic holders, and I used my knife to cut the strap and pulled the whole rig off his belt. My fingers confirmed fifteen extra shells and I dumped them in my pocket.
While I was doing this, Conners was back asking questions. David explained the girls were still being kept in the band hall, and that three guards were there at all times. Two at the front door and one camped out inside the back door.
The corporal did not let on that David’s statements were being compared against things we already knew, and we never caught David in a lie. I did grind my teeth when he referred to the music center where the cheerleaders and other teen girls were being held as the “pussy palace”. But, I refrained from taking it out on David, yet. I had lied to him a couple times already, though. You could still scream with your tongue cut out, just not very clearly, and there was no way he was leaving this school alive.
Finally, Conners asked one last question after he finished going over the layout of the party room upstairs. He caught my eye and I almost gasped out loud when I saw him touch his neck and make a gesture, but I knew what he wanted.
“Do any of the others in here know what is going on? The ones stuck here in town the city cops and such sent here. Are they part of this as well?”
“They know. What are they going to do about it? You guys bring water, and the director does get them some food. Except for the ones that get pissed off when we take their women for a little party. They get a little something else. Something permanent. Then the Director lets some of us break the new girls in after we take care of that chore.”
David started to actually laugh at that memory, forgetting his surroundings for a moment. He stopped when I slashed the little blade into the side of his neck. The sliver of steel ripped through those arteries in a satisfactory fashion, but I’d already reversed direction and drove the tip into the base of his brain from the back.
“What the fuck?” Barden barked, moving the carbine around slightly to aim in my vicinity.
“Stand down. He’s just fol
lowing orders, Private.” Conners said quickly, stepping up and laying a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “We can’t leave him behind and can’t afford to take him with us.”
“Sarge know about this?” he asked dubiously.
“Who do you think gave the go ahead? Bar, buddy, none of these scum are going to walk away. None of them.”
“Alright, corporal.” Barden said with a sigh. “Just caught me off guard. Damn, Luke, or Scott, or whatever the fuck I’m supposed to call your spooky ass, warn a brother next time.”
When Barden lifted his carbine, I knelt and wiped down the knife and my hands on David’s shirt. I’d tried to move quick but still got some spray on my sleeve as well.
“You got it. And just call me Luke. I think my cover was wearing pretty thin from the beginning. Now, what is the sergeant saying, Nathan?”
It was the first time I’d used his first name, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“We’re supposed to proceed upstairs immediately, secure Mr. Rufus and any of his henchmen, and sit tight. Captain Devayne is fifteen minutes out with the rest of the company. They will take care of assaulting the band hall and then proceed to extracting us from the admin building.”
“Well, good thing the party room up there is soundproof.” Barden suggested hopefully. “Maybe we can get in and take the bad guys out quietly.”
With that, the corporal started making plans and quickly went over assignments. In the hall, up the stairs and breaching the door, he gave us our responsibilities. I was to actually breach the door and once that was done, Conners made it clear my job was to hold the hall and the two of them would clear the room. I was okay with that. This pair seemed to be a pretty good team. I wasn’t going to mess with success.
“How am I getting through the door? Breaching charge?” I asked naively.
Conners patted Barden on the shoulder and when the younger guy turned around, he reached into his pack and removed a short handled crowbar. With some ceremony, the corporal handed it to me.
“The Navy Seals and the Greenie Beanies use explosive breaching charges. We just use this. Now hold onto that tool and let’s moving.”
This time, Barden again took point and Conners brought up the rear, but now I felt more relaxed and tied into the pair of them. We had our orders, basically telling me to go do what I wanted to do anyway. I was fully focused on the mission and my senses begin to sharpen even more as we moved. I felt like I did in the raider camp, and that engine in my chest, the one that ran on adrenalin, was primed for action.
The hallway outside was still deserted, but I could now make out enough noises in the building to let me know someone was around. Taking cover, maybe, or just unaware of our presence in the building. I was willing to leave them alone for the moment, as long as they didn’t come up with guns blazing.
I knew enough from my dad and from what I’d read that stairways were scary places when someone is trying to kill you. These guys had the training I did not, so I just stuck to the middle and did whatever Conners told me to do until we were on the second floor. Of course, Conners did all of his communicating with me by hand gesture, since I wasn’t part of their radio network. We saw no one in on the stairs and the second floor hallway also appeared deserted.
Barden was counting off rooms on the right side of the hallway when the door right behind him opened without warning. I saw a shape and a rifle emerge and that was enough for me. Drawing back, I delivered a solid buttstroke to the side of the man’s head and he dropped like I’d cut his strings. Maybe I had. In the dim light, his skull seemed to deform around the metal butt plate on the shotgun.
“He dead?” Conners asked, squatting down and taking up a firing position back the way we came. Barden was doing the same in front, and when he glanced back he gave me a little nod of acknowledgement.
“Give me a second,” was all I said as I knelt over the body. He was motionless and after I felt for a pulse, I pulled my knife once again. Separating the magazine fed rifle from the guard, I quickly patted the man down and located two more magazines. Then I cut the man’s throat to be sure he was going to stay down and peeked inside the open door. It was a bathroom, and from the stink one that was recently used. There was a bucket of water on the floor, which explained why the toilets still worked. Still on my knees, I tugged the body out, pulled the door shut and stood carefully to inspect the new rifle.
Some kind of AK variant, I quickly decided, and slung the weapon over my shoulder and slipped the two magazines into a back pocket. I’d stick to the shotgun for now, but I had a policy of never leaving weapons behind for an enemy to use. That just seemed like a prudent way of handling my business.
Without another word, we picked up our pace and quickly arrived at the seventh door on the right, just as David had said. Seeing the other end of the hallway ended in a closed door, Barden hustled down and used a screwdriver to jam into the top exposed door hinge. That would allow me to focus on covering the way we came up, at least at first. Cool. Sergeant Erlich had ordered us to hold in place and await extraction, which to me meant hunker down with any prisoners and keep from getting shot.
We took up positions with our backs brushing the wall and I withdrew the short handled crowbar from my belt. Before I could get the tool in place, Conners mimed something and on the second repeat I caught his message. Try the door first to see if it was really locked. I did and it was, but still a good idea.
The aggressive teeth of the crowbar bit into the wooden facing of the door frame and I was set to execute. As soon as I door was breached, I was to fall back and cover the hallway while my two companions poured through the door. They would clear the room and take down any hostiles. Then Conners gave the go, and thing started happening in rapid succession.
The crack of the shattering door frame sounded explosive in the otherwise quiet hallway, and before the door was even halfway open, Barden and Conners charged through like greased weasels. Following Conners’ instructions, I fell back and took a knee, shotgun aimed at the top of the stairs.
I heard shouts, screams and the familiar beat of 5.56x45 rounds being fired in controlled bursts. I wanted, needed, to look over my shoulder at the commotion, but duty held me in place. Those two brave men were risking their lives and depending on me to protect them in turn. The least I could do was watch the hallway.
In seconds, I heard first Conners and then Barden call out “clear” even as screams continued to echo in the cooridor. From the sound, it was a mixture a male and female, and I wondered what was going on in there. Conners didn’t leave me long in suspense. He called out to me from just inside the door.
“Luke, Bar and I are fine. We got two hostiles dead, one hostile wounded and three prisoners. Also have four hostages freed and in need of medical. What’s your status?”
“Clear. No movement yet.”
Then, to make a liar out of me, I heard boot steps coming from the stairway. I couldn’t say numbers but definitely more than one person.
“Check that. I got somebody coming to take a look, and I think he brought friends.” I replied in a soft voice, hoping Conners would hear me.
“If they have weapons, you are authorized to defend yourself, Luke. Watch our back. I’ll be along ASAP to assist.”
By the time Corporal Conners stopped talking, I could see a shape moving up the stairs. I hunkered down and took aim with the shotgun, wishing I had somewhere better to take cover. The figure was indistinct in the poor lighting but I could make out a rifle and he wasn’t wearing a uniform.
Boom! The shotgun roared in the confined space, and at a range of about twenty yards the responding guard’s head and upper torso erupted in a dark spray. He toppled back down the stairs amidst a chorus of screams. The shotgun must have been loaded with buckshot, I guessed as I racked another shell in the chamber.
Wild shots coming up from the wide stairwell struck nothing but the ceiling and windows. I belly crawled a few yards closer to the landing when the shooting died d
own. To be really effective, I needed a spot just back from the edge. Unfortunately, with the other access door behind me only jammed shut, I feared an attack from that avenue and I couldn’t watch both directions at once. That jammed hinge would not hold up for long.
Then I remembered the fresh corpse I’d dropped, and I slid back closer to the “party” room. With one hand holding the shotgun still pointed down the hall, I reached over and took a grip on the dead man’s belt. Slowly, I hauled the body down the linoleum as I walked on my knees.
Once I wrestled the dead weight into place across the hall, I dropped down and used the corpse as a rest for my shotgun. Aggravated by the slung rifle getting in my way, I laid it on the floor next to me and waited for the foot shuffling I could hear downstairs to reach critical mass.
By my count, about five minutes passed before they tried to rush the stairs again. This time, the effort was a bit more organized as shooters crept up on the first landing and laid down a barrage of covering fire before three men sprinted up the stairs. Fortunately for me, I was far enough back to avoid any bouncers from the blaze of bullets, and I triggered the shotgun as soon as I saw the lead runner’s head clear the level of the landing.
Working the action quickly, I fired a second and third blast from the weapon, catching the last two with overlapping patterns of shot. The first man never made it up the stairs. Of the two hitting the landing together, I saw one was dead immediately with a pellet striking in the center of his forehead. The last man looked like he took buckshot in the chest and legs. He was still alive and screaming at the top of his lungs, at any rate.
“Quit your whining,” I said to myself as I shoved additional shells into the shotgun’s magazine. Without the magazine extension, this model only accepted six rounds but I would deal. Without counting anyone eliminated in the party room, I’d already accounted for five enemy shooters. Well, six if you included poor David. After laughing about the women and girls he’d helped rape, I had a hard time dredging up a ton of sympathy for the slain giant.
Home Fires Burning (Walking in the Rain Book 2) Page 16
