He angled his machete at her face. “But if I’m wrong and you’re lying through your teeth and there is no lodge or there are no supplies… Well, let’s just say it won’t be a quick death for you or your friends. You have no idea what me and my compatriots are capable of.”
“I know what you’re capable of.” Katie didn’t bother to hide the disgust in her voice.
The corners of Mohawk’s lips quirked up once again. “Yes, I believe you do.” Mohawk kissed his fingertips and touched her down there. “Taste you later. Put her jeans back on. What are we? Animals? And bring the squealer. We might need to give her a little reminder of what’s at stake.”
His men hefted Darryl onto his feet. He didn’t put up any struggle.
“What do you want to do with the other two?” Holes said.
“Leave them here. You’ll stay here. We’ll deal with them later if this turns out to be nothing but a bunch of horseshit.”
Katie was on the verge of demanding they take them all along but then how would her grandfather and the others know what happened here? Added to that, it would be all too easy for Mohawk to whisper in his man’s ear that he wanted him to kill the twins the moment they pulled away in their car.
“Fine,” Katie said. “But you don’t get access to the weapons till after the twins are brought to the lodge.”
“You’re in no position to negotiate, girly.”
“Then no deal.”
Mohawk glared at her again. She could see the brute raw anger bubbling away behind those glassy orbs he called eyes. He scratched his chin with his dirty thumb and shook his head. “Where’s the trust?”
Katie nodded at Darryl. “The same place as yours.”
Mohawk threw up his hands. “All right. The twins stay. I swear, I’m getting soft in my old age.”
Buddy, you’re never going to reach old age. I’ll make sure of that.
Inwardly, she smiled.
64
The twin spires of HQ poked at the horizon, giving two fingers to the rolling green of the English landscape. Laurie tapped the driver on the shoulder and he pulled over.
Laurie ran out of time. He needed to make his decision now.
Owain fulfilled his side of the bargain, telling Laurie everything he wished to know before he suffered from too much blood loss and died. Laurie disbelieved what the little man told him at first, but as the story spun wider, like a spider’s web, it became far too complicated for a man to conjure such a story on the spot. Everything interlocked and made sense, like a puzzle perfectly constructed.
The terrorists weren’t terrorists at all. They were freedom fighters. The military were the repressors.
The thing that surprised Laurie the most was the fact he wasn’t surprised. Conspiracy theories were not his thing, but when too much genuine evidence piled up on one side of the argument it was difficult to deny its truth.
Someone in government or high up in the military was responsible for refusing to dole out the nation’s emergency supplies. Someone saw an opportunity to consolidate power and they took it. The freedom fighters were trying to do what the government should have been doing from the start.
And now Laurie had a decision to make.
Would he let the ‘terrorists’ go or give them a quick death?
He could deliver the men to the colonel and they would no longer be his responsibility. They would be imprisoned or worse. Most likely, they would be tortured, and with the current lack of technology and surveillance equipment, the military would get away with it. No one would ever know what happened to these men.
Except me. I would know.
And that fact would weigh heavy on his conscience for the rest of his life. Kill them, and their worries were over. Let them go, and who knew what they would do next. Join another cell somewhere? And how many soldiers’ lives would that cost?
Time was dwindling. He had to make a decision.
“Take the terrorists off the UTVs,” he said. “Bring them around that thicket of trees.”
“Sir?” Finnegan said.
“Just do it.”
The soldiers led their captives away from the road and across a muddy field, made sloppier by the men’s marching feet.
Behind the thick copse of trees, they corralled the captured battle-hardened terrorists into a small gathering, penned in by the trees on one side and the armed soldiers on the other.
There was no escape. Their situation couldn’t have been more obvious.
They were going to die.
Laurie stepped in front of the men. “I made a deal with your leader, Owain. He promised to tell me everything I needed to know to take back to my commanding officer. He didn’t tell me the identities of the other cell leaders or their locations, but we’ll find out in time. He was a man of his word.” Am I too? “In exchange for his assistance, he bargained for your lives. Freedom or a quick death. If you’re imprisoned, you will be tortured and die a painful death.” Laurie licked his lips. He daren’t look the men in the eye, nor his own at his back. But he knew what he had to do. “That’s why I’ve decided to let you go.”
Though they had long ago accepted they would die in pursuit of their goal, they were relieved. The stark silence of his own men behind him was deafening. The men weren’t pleased.
“I ask you to consider the actions you take next carefully,” Laurie said. “Join the military. We’ll oversee the sharing out of provisions so every man, woman, and child gets their fair share. It won’t be easy work but it’ll be legal.”
The freedom fighters exchanged knowing looks with each other. There was no way they were going to join the military. They believed too strongly in their goal. Removing an idea deeply rooted within a man was harder than removing cancer.
Finnegan approached and lowered his voice. “Are you sure you want to let them go? There’s a lot less risk if you end them right here and now.”
“Their leader told us everything we need to know. We’ll figure out the rest. There’s no need to add to the blood already on our hands. Remove their restraints and let them go.”
Finnegan nodded. “Our men aren’t going to be happy with this decision. Some might try to take action into their own hands. I’ll take a couple of good men with me to make sure they get far enough away.”
Laurie braced his friend. “Thank you. You’re a good man.”
“I do my best.”
Laurie paused before turning away. “No one can know about this.”
Finnegan winked. “It’ll be our secret.”
Having shed a little weight from his aching soul, Laurie marched back to the UTVs. It hadn’t been an easy mission but at least it had ended well enough.
65
The drive to the lodge was uneventful. Mohawk glanced over at Katie in the front passenger seat every few minutes, trying to catch her looking superior as if she were luring them into a trap.
She ensured she didn’t because she was luring them into a trap.
She worked on the details as they wound through the town’s empty streets and then out into the endless sticks of the English countryside. Mohawk’s brother Big Ears made notes of their location with a map he balanced on his knees on the back seat with Darryl.
Mohawk eased back into his seat and rested his arm on the armrest built into the side panel. Trying to look calm as if he were talking to a friend on a regular Sunday drive. “So, what brings you out this way?”
“The lodge.”
“You were intending on living out here? What’ll you do after we take all your supplies, leaving you with nothing?”
“Find somewhere else, I suppose.”
“You might not believe this but I’m glad I met you. No doubt the feeling’s mutual. I think what’s happened to the world is a good thing. People realise they took everything they had before for granted. Sure, they’re not going to get it back anytime soon, but they realise. The power outage created a kind of great unifier. We’re all equal now. You, me, everyone. You and I would ne
ver have met if it wasn’t for the power outage. Never in a blue moon. Our lives run on different tracks. Our paths would never have crossed. And now look at us, working together for the betterment of each of our situations. People worried about the mountain of debt they had to pay back, now no longer have them. Those who flirted with certain laws arbitrarily applied no longer have to put up with the unfairness of society. It’s a brave new world.”
Katie snorted. “I’m sure everyone who’s ever benefited from the suffering of others has thought the same way.”
Mohawk chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose that might be true.”
Katie raised her hands, still tied at the wrists. “Slow down here. There’s a small dirt road. It’s hard to see if you’re not used to taking it.”
Mohawk did as she said.
“There.” Katie pointed to a narrow track.
“Where? I can’t see it.”
“Between those two bushes.”
“It doesn’t look like a road to me.”
“It’s not supposed to.”
Mohawk frowned but did as she instructed. It hadn’t rained much lately so the dirt was dry and didn’t suck at the wheels as it did during the wetter months. Countless memories of shoving her dad’s truck through the mud on those long winter nights nipped at her heels. She shivered at the thought of it.
The road was windy and the trees came lurching out of the darkness like ghosts.
“How much further is it?” Mohawk said.
“Another half mile or so.”
“It’s really out of the way.”
“That’s the point. To get as far from big cities as possible and away from prying eyes.” Katie glanced at him out the corner of her eye. “And thieves.”
“Don’t push your luck, girl.”
The journey brought back a hundred similar journeys she and her family made over the years. Most not particularly happy. While she was here, shitting into a bucket, best friends were in town, eating and talking crap. Heaven. She knew which one she preferred. At least, she did then. Now, things were different.
She wondered how she would fare if she didn’t have the training her father had forced upon her. Would she have been able to stare Mohawk in the face earlier, knowing what he planned on doing to her if she failed to convince him to come out here to the lodge? Could she have thought quickly and planned her actions without her father’s tutorage?
Could she intentionally lead two men to their deaths, knowing it would cost her own if she failed?
She was thankful for her father’s lessons. It wasn’t the first time she thought that but it was the first time she acknowledged it.
The lodge swam from the darkness like a giant beast from the depths of the deepest ocean. They called it a lodge but it was really a converted barn. Her father bought it from a local farmer – a good friend of the family – who let him have it for a good price in exchange for helping out at the farm when work hands were short.
The car pulled to a stop and Mohawk left the headlights on. “Wait there.”
He and Big Ears climbed out of the car and moved around it to their passenger doors.
“Darryl, are you still with me?” Katie said.
Darryl’s voice was small. “We’re going to die out here, aren’t we?”
“Not if everything goes to plan. I want you to stay behind me, no matter what happens. If I step back, you step back. If I run, you run. Got it?”
“Yes. But what–”
“Sh. They’re coming.”
Mohawk opened Katie’s door and helped her out. It was difficult to walk with her wrists and ankles tied. Darryl faced the same problem.
Mohawk held Katie by the arm and led her, like a prisoner, toward the lodge. He took the keys out of his pocket and handed them to Katie.
“No sudden moves,” he said.
He raised his machete and pulled it back to let fly and sever her head from her shoulders if necessary. The blade was dull and would fail with the first attack. It would take multiple blows to rent her head from her shoulders like that.
Katie’s mouth felt dry. What a way to go.
“What do you think is going to happen?” Katie said. “There’s nobody else here and our hands are tied.”
“Blame my cautious nature.”
Katie shuffled between the dozen keys on the chain. Each one unlocked a different part of the lodge and surrounding area. Some keys opened locks to hidden compartments where other keys were hidden, and not all of those were real keys. Some not only opened locks but activated traps to take out aggressors in situations like this. It was impossible to tell the difference unless you knew what you were looking for.
Some were even on this very keychain she held in her hands. But she didn’t select any of those. She chose the correct one.
“Give me the keys,” Mohawk said.
“After we get inside, I need them to unlock the tool cabinet.”
His eyes narrowed. “You never said anything about tools.”
“You’re going to need shovels to dig up the supply stash. You didn’t think my father would just have them up on shelves like every other Tom, Dick, and Harry, did you?”
Evidently, he had. He glanced at his watch and nodded his head. “Fine. But get a move on. I don’t want to get back too late.”
Too bad, dickhead. Because my grandfather is going to deal with your buddy soon, if he hasn’t already, and he’s not likely to fall for the same trap we did.
Katie unlocked the door and turned the handle. It swung open and she stepped inside. Mohawk followed her and checked behind the door and under the large dining table for any signs of hidden aggressors.
“Lights?” he said.
Katie reached up and pulled a switch. The gas lamps cast a warm fuzzy yellow glow over the wide space.
Big Ears whistled. “This is a nice place. I bet it looks awesome when daylight hits it.”
“Even better during summer and it’s warm.”
“Have you two finished?” Mohawk growled. “Or do you want me and Dumpy over here to leave you alone while you finish up your date? Hurry up and get a move on.”
Katie turned to a door that led to the small enclave where a small number of tools were kept. Her father kept a few there in case they couldn’t reach the tool shed outside for whatever reason.
She selected the correct key again and slid it in the lock. If she chose another key, it would have not only unlocked the door but activated a gun hidden inside the wall. It would fire at whoever opened it. But even if she could get Mohawk to open the door instead of her, there was still his brother to deal with, and as both her hands and wrists were tied, she couldn’t hope to put up much resistance.
She would have to bide her time and wait for another opportunity.
She turned the key and the lock clicked. Then she pulled the door open.
Mohawk stiffened, senses on high alert, clearly expecting something to happen. He glanced inside at the tools. “Step away. I said, step away!”
He shoved Katie back. Darryl ensured to keep close behind her at all times as she instructed.
“Watch them,” Mohawk said.
Big Ears did, though he couldn’t stop glancing at the little cupboard’s innards.
Katie fingered the Swiss Army knife in her hands. Get the blade out and she could bury it in Big Ears’ neck. She could manage that much even with her wrists tied. Then she could shove Mohawk in the cupboard and lock the doors…
But he’d have access to the tools he needed to escape and would get out within seconds. The door was thin and flimsy and wouldn’t put up much resistance. The little blade could cause serious harm but Big Ears was armed with a machete blade and he could lash out at them after the initial attack.
She stayed her hand and again waited for a better opportunity.
Mohawk emerged with a pair of shovels. He shut the door behind him – due to a meticulous nature, Katie thought – and then nodded at the front entrance. “Show us where this stash is hidden.�
��
“There’s more than one,” Katie said. “What do you want? Food? Water? Medicine? Tools?”
“Weapons.”
“I told you–”
“Your friends are safe. Give me the weapons and I’ll let this chubby friend of yours go.”
It was tempting. An extra pair of hands were only helpful when they were willing to take action. “Let him go now as a sign of good faith.”
Mohawk chuckled. “You think I’m stupid? Give us the weapons. Then we’ll let him go.”
“I’ll give you some of the weapons. But you’ll set him loose in town. Nobody wants to get stuck out here with nothing but the shirt on their back.”
“As you wish. Now, show us.”
Katie led them out of the lodge. Now was when she had to make her decision. Give them the weapons, and at least Darryl would get out of this alive, or take them elsewhere and put Darryl’s life on the line.
She decided to stick to her original plan and take the gamble. Darryl would never survive out in the world by himself anyway. Setting him free was a sure death sentence.
Mohawk extended his hand. “Keys.”
Katie was loath to hand them over, but she did so.
She moved around the lodge and cut across a thin patch of grass. Her father cleared a large enough area of land for them to farm sustainably. The bushes and crops hadn’t been looked after for the past few months, so they were overgrown and in need of maintenance.
She turned right and counted her footsteps as she approached the forest’s edge. She came to a stop and made an X in the dirt with her boot.
“Here,” she said.
“What’s so special about here?” Mohawk said.
“Nothing. That’s why it’s buried here.”
Mohawk wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure?”
Cut Off (Book 2): Cut Throat Page 22
