Against All Enemies

by John Gilstrap

  “By looking harder,” Venice said. “Remember, I said that the vast majority came from Glen Burnie. There are two exceptions—the most recent payments. They both came from Bud’s Hardware Store in Whitesville, West Virginia.” She clicked again, and a map appeared. “I checked, and Whitesville is in the heart of Coal Country, surrounded on all sides by a whole lot of nothing.” The satellite image showed exactly that, vertical tree-crowded walls interspersed with deep valleys. Whitesville proper seemed to have maybe one hundred structures, all lining a riverbank.

  “So that’s his most recent known location,” Dylan concluded.

  “Exactly,” Venice confirmed. “The name on the card he used is Victor Carrington.”

  “You almost need to say that name with a British accent,” Jolaine said in a tortured cockney.

  “How does that help if the name is false?” Rollins asked.

  “There are only five hundred residents in the town,” Venice said. “Towns that small keep an eye out for new faces. A new face named Victor Carrington would probably leave a mark on people’s memory.”

  “Suppose he was just passing through?” Dylan asked. “The fact that he bought from there doesn’t mean he’s living there.”

  “I don’t know,” Jonathan said. He rose from his chair and approached the map on the screen. “This isn’t what you’d call a commuter-friendly location. Who would pass through there who was not going there?” He looked to Venice. “Can you search property records, hotel records? See if Victor Carrington has left any other footprints?”

  “That will take time,” Venice said.

  “It’ll take the time it takes,” Jonathan countered. “I figure you’ve got at least eight or nine hours.”

  The comment drew the same confused look from everyone in the room. Jonathan clarified, “I figure it will take at least that long to drive to Whitesville, West Virginia.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Ian Martin felt good about the way his troops were adjusting to their individual teams. He’d appointed both Little and Biggs to be team leaders, and they’d pleased him with their leadership skills. He still had no idea who they really were—he knew the true identities of precious few of the men—but he didn’t care. Some, he was sure, were exactly who they claimed to be, but he didn’t know which ones. He figured that the fewer details he knew, the better off everyone would be.

  Let’s face it. Even he could become a security risk if he was pushed hard enough.

  In the end, he’d settled upon twenty eight-man attack teams. Every member of every team was first and foremost a rifleman. It was the main tool at their disposal, and none of the other tools would matter if they couldn’t shoot straight. And truth be told, shooting straight was proving to be a bigger problem than he had anticipated. Apparently, they’d been allowed to play on the shooting range for a long time, and in the process ingrained a lot of bad habits that it was his job to counteract.

  In addition to rifles, he was training specialists within each of the teams. The communications man concentrated not just on team coordination, but on confounding the enemy, as appropriate. The explosives specialist was responsible not just for the demolition of the target, but for breach entries when called for. Finally, there was the team medic. The remaining five served as understudies for the primary specialists, but their primary job was to keep the enemy’s head down while the specialists plied their trades.

  Presently, Ian sat astride a brown and white palomino horse named Wellington in the thick woods surrounding Camp Wainwright. Wellington’s hooves stomped the thin grass of the steep deer trail, but Ian held him in place. Ian wore a helmet with a thick face piece, and an orange vest on which he’d painted the words, Don’t shoot the judge.

  Down on the slope below, Teams Delta and Hotel were engaged in an advanced form of Capture the Flag. Their weapons were real—the same weapons they would deploy in combat—and the ammunition was nearly real. Loaded with a significant charge of powder, the bullets were actually tiny marker pellets, thus earning the training ammo the name simunition. It hurt like hell when you were hit in an unpadded part of your body—thus reinforcing the need for body armor—but the ammo was nonlethal, though Ian imagined that a shot to the balls would be fairly crippling. Thankfully, that had happened only a couple of times. Once the pain subsided, everything worked as it should.

  The structure of the game was little different than the version Ian had played as a child, back when the opposing team was tagged by hands rather than shot with simulated bullets. This way, however, the strategies involved a concern with snipers that he’d never faced at summer camp.

  The game began with base camps established a half mile apart. At each camp, the team flag—red for Delta, yellow for Hotel—had to be displayed in plain sight. At an appointed hour, the game went live. To win, a team had to penetrate the opposing force’s defenses, capture the flag, and return it to their own base camp with at least one team member still “alive.” For the purposes of the game, a simmunition hit anywhere on the body was considered fatal, and the “killed” soldier had to stop at the point of impact and sit on the ground with his weapon at his side. He would remain there until the game ended, which could take many hours. In the worst case Ian was aware of, some poor bastard from Alpha was stuck dead on the ground for eighteen hours. The game did not end until someone had won, or until all team members on both sides were “dead.”

  The Delta-Hotel conflict was into its sixth hour now, and from atop his horse—why walk when you can ride?—Ian had taken a particular interest in the Hotel soldier below him on the hill. He sat “dead” on the ground, his rifle beside him, and he’d been there for over an hour. Thing was, as far as Ian knew, this section of the battlefield hadn’t yet been challenged. Tommy Piper, one of the other judges for the day, had summoned Ian to the spot, suspecting that they had a deserter in their midst.

  “That’s him,” Tommy said, pointing. “The coward is playing dead to avoid the fight.”

  “Put your arm down, Tommy,” Ian said. “And keep your voice down. We are not a part of this conflict, and we are impartial. We are also the most visible people on the battlefield. A smart commander will pay attention to our eye lines to gain advantage. Let’s not give anyone the satisfaction.”

  “A coward is no one’s advantage,” Tommy said.

  “Your concern is noted, but I believe it’s too early to pass judgment.”

  “With all respect, Colonel—”

  “Shut up, Tommy.”

  In the near distance to Ian’s right, the woods erupted in a fierce exchange of gunfire. That was the direction of Hotel’s base camp. Ian’s mind played it out as a full-on assault, devouring hundreds of rounds. Then it stopped.

  The bud in Ian’s ear crackled, “Hotel’s flag is in the grasp. All defenders dead. Declare Delta the winner.”

  Ian keyed his mike. “Negative,” he said. He spoke on a designated judges channel. “This is Liberation Six. The game continues until Delta returns the flag to their base. How many Delta remain?”

  “They’re down to two,” said the other judge, whom Ian could not see. “They attacked Hotel base with four, lost two. Four KIAs lost previously.”

  Ian smiled. “Do I understand that Delta base is undefended?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Ian nudged Tommy’s shoulder with his stirruped toe. “Watch this,” he said. “I think it’s going to get interesting.”

  Ian heard movement and talking from below and to the right. The sounds and actions of soldiers who no longer gave a shit.

  Directly below, the dead Hotel soldier they’d been watching coughed. To Ian’s ear, it was louder than it needed to be, but it had the effect of silencing the noisy approach. By the time Ian caught sight of them, the two Delta members had remembered themselves, and they were moving as professionals should—their weapons to their shoulders. Biggs was the leader, and he wore Hotel’s yellow flag as a bandanna around his neck.

  “There!” the o
ther Delta guy said, pointing toward Ian’s man.

  Biggs pivoted his aim and then relaxed. “He’s already dead.” He lowered his M4 and let it rest against its sling.

  The partner shouted, “Hey, you! Are you dead?”

  The sitting soldier flipped him off.

  “Oh, yeah?” the partner said. He prepared to shoot.

  Biggs pushed his muzzle down. “Shooting the dead will get us disqualified.” He emphasized the point by pointing in Ian’s direction.

  “Told you they keep an eye on the judges,” Ian said to Tommy under his breath.

  The partner got the point and lowered his rifle. “Hope you’re not sitting on an anthill,” he said. “I’d hate to see your losing candy ass all covered with bites.”

  Hotel guy said nothing.

  “Okay, watch this, Tommy,” Ian whispered.

  Biggs and his minion fell back to chatting mode as they walked past the casualty. When their backs were turned to their enemy, and less than twenty feet separated them, the Hotel soldier slowly and silently placed his hand on the grip of his rifle. With the grace of a dancer, he pivoted his from his butt to his knee as he brought the M4 to his shoulder.

  Biggs and his pall were literally knocked to the ground as they were nailed with half the contents of a thirty-round magazine. The soldier pulled the half-empty mag from the rifle and slipped in a full one, placing the half-spent mag into the front pocket of his trousers. He strolled to Biggs just as his prey was struggling to find his feet again. “So, are you going to take that flag off of your neck, or do I have to remove your head to get it?”

  “What the hell!” Biggs yelled. He looked ready to kill.

  “I wasn’t dead,” the Delta soldier said. “You asked me, and I never answered. I’ve just been waiting there.”

  Biggs shot a look up the hill to Ian.

  “He’s right!” Ian called. “Mr. Biggs, I believe you’ve been schooled.”

  “Add Whitesville to the long list of places where I don’t intend to retire,” Boxers said as he guided the Batmobile down Coal River Road.

  “What do you bet the cost of living is low?” Jolaine said from the backseat. She sat next to Dylan and in front of Colonel Rollins.

  “And what do you bet the suicide rate is off the charts?” Boxers replied.

  Jonathan smiled. But even he, who found Fisherman’s Cove to be the best place on earth for its bucolic slow pace, would go crazy living in a town this small, this slow. “There’s Bud’s Hardware just up there on the left,” he said, pointing.

  Boxers parked along the curb on the opposite side of the street.

  “What’s the play?” Rollins asked.

  “Big Guy and I will go in and ask Bud a few questions,” Jonathan said. “Why don’t you guys go over to Mary’s Diner there and get something to eat? We’ll join you after our chat.”

  “Works for me,” Dylan said, and he opened his door.

  “Yeah, me, too,” Boxers said. “It’s not like I’m hungry or anything.”

  “Are you whining?” Jonathan asked as he pulled open his own door.

  “No, I’m bitching. There’s a difference. I don’t whine when I’m hungry, I bitch when I’m hungry.”

  “This is the part where small animals get nervous,” Jolaine said. “He starts seeing them as merely undercooked meals.”

  When they were all gathered on the outside of the car, Jolaine said, “I think I should go with you.”

  “I don’t want to overwhelm the guy. Scare him off.”

  “So you bring Gigantor?” Rollins quipped. He backed off—literally—when Big Guy’s body language switched from bitching to menacing.

  “Over the years I’ve found that people listen to him,” Jonathan said with a wink to Boxers. “He’s got that . . . sincere way about him.”

  Big Guy added, “Jolie’s got a point, Boss. There’s a good chance that a guy named Bud might be more inclined to listen to a pretty young lady than a couple of weathered old grunts.”

  Jolie? Where the hell did that come from? “Watch the ‘old’ shit,” Jonathan said. “I might feel like it in the mornings, but I’m not old yet.” Still, he got Boxers’ point. “Yeah, okay, Jolaine, you come with us.” He looked to Dylan and Rollins. “I’ll take a club sandwich and a Diet Coke. Won’t take long.”

  “How about you, Big Guy?” Rollins said. “Which page of the menu should I order for you?”

  “I think it’s time for you to run away, Stanley,” Boxers replied, and he started walking away.

  Jolaine looked to Jonathan. “What is it with those two?”

  “That’s a very, very long story,” Jonathan said. “Just let it lie.”

  “But why—”

  “Just let it lie.”

  Boxers arrived at the door to Bud’s first, but walked past it and waited at the end of the block.

  “I don’t get it,” Jolaine said as she and Jonathan joined him. “Aren’t we going in?”

  “I didn’t want to gather in front to have this chat,” Boxers said. “Dickhead had a point back there. You two should go in and chat him up while I stay at the door and intimidate the townsfolk.”

  Jolaine’s shoulders sagged. “Oh, Box . . .”

  “What?” he said. “That sounded like pouting, didn’t it? No, I actually like intimidating townsfolk.”

  Jonathan pulled on her elbow. “Really,” he said, “it’s one of his best things.” Sadly, that was a statement of fact. “I’ll go in first and just look around, then you come in and ask the questions. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  As was his habit before walking into just about any place, Jonathan pressed his right elbow against his side to make sure that his .45 was nestled in the holster where it belonged. He normally preferred a more substantial cover garment than the T-shirt he was wearing, but to savvy observers, the presence of a jacket in this heat would raise unwelcome suspicions.

  The sleigh bells slapped as he entered the dark, narrow space. At first the cluttered rectangular space looked empty, but then he saw movement in the back, where an older guy wearing a denim shirt and a pair of suspender-supported jeans emerged from what had to be a little office. “Can I help you?” the man called.

  From this distance, Jonathan couldn’t actually see the firearm on the man’s hip, but he could tell from the pull of the waistband that it was there. That wasn’t a concern, necessarily, but it was a data point. “I’m in the market for a socket set,” Jonathan said. He had to be in the market for something, right?

  The manager pointed to his own right, Jonathan’s left, to a point along the back wall. “Right back here. Got a pretty good selection, if I say so.”

  Rather than walking directly toward the man, Jonathan turned and walked to the leftmost wall, then turned right to walk to the back of the store. He wanted to take in as much as he could. He noted the back door straight ahead. The lit EXIT sign above it seemed to contradict the heavy steel bar that blocked it shut. If nothing else, that was an indication that Bud—if that was the guy’s name—was concerned about break-ins. That could mean the presence of security cameras, and that, in turn, could mean their big break.

  “Where’d you go?” the man asked.

  “I’m coming.” Jonathan kept his tone light. “This is like stepping back into my childhood.”

  The man with the gun appeared at the end of Jonathan’s aisle, a big smile on his face. “I get that a lot. Where you from?”

  “Are you Bud?” Jonathan asked, sidestepping the question.

  “Last time I checked.”

  The sleigh bells announced the arrival of another customer. Jolaine, Jonathan presumed.

  Bud held up a finger to interrupt himself, and then pointed to the shelf directly in front. “The socket sets are right there. Take your time. Got another customer.” He disappeared. “Well, hello, young lady. What can I do for you?”

  It never failed, Jonathan thought. Something about the presence of a young woman made men transform.

/>   “Hi,” Jolaine said from beyond the shelving. “I’m hoping you can help me.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  Jonathan examined the back door more closely. That iron bar was held into the steel door by welded brackets, and it spanned across both sides of the steel door frame, which in turn was mortared into the brick. “Well, that’s pretty close to impenetrable,” he mumbled.

  “My uncle moved out here a few months ago, and I was wondering if you could help me find him.”

  Jonathan cringed. He should have coached her on what to say. Her cover story had a verifiable element, and that was a mistake. The lesson he had to learn more often than any other, it seemed, was that it was always a mistake to overestimate people’s capabilities—even the most competent ones.

  “Sounds more like a job for the police than a hardware store owner.”

  “Well, we think he’s been here.”

  Oh, shit.

  “We? Who’s we?” Jonathan could hear the man’s guards falling into place.

  Jolaine recovered as best she could. “My family and me.”

  “Are they here with you?”

  “No, sir, I took on this mission myself.”

  “What’s this uncle’s name?”

  “Victor Carrington.”

  “Never heard of him. What makes you think I might have?”

  Jonathan recognized the sound of shutting down. This wasn’t going to work.

  “He sent my mother—his sister—a money order from here.”

  “From here. You’re sure about that?”

  Maybe this wasn’t going as badly as Jonathan had feared. He became aware that he needed to do something other than listen. How long could it take to pick out a socket set? He pulled one off the shelf and strolled along the back wall. He wanted to peek into Bud’s office.

  “Positive,” Jolaine said.

  “And when might that have been?”

  As Jonathan had expected—hoped, actually—a tape deck and security monitor sat on Bud’s desk. That meant there was a camera, and that meant he had some work to do tonight.

  “About a month ago.”