“Wanna give it a go? Go ahead. Rip ’em off and throw ’em against the truck. It’ll be like an experiment. Like some of that shit Mr. Wizard used to do.”
“Who’s Mr. Wizard?”
“Eh, never mind. Probably a bit before your time.”
Lauren giggled shyly. “Do you think you might be able to find something a little more, I don’t know…petite?”
Santa scratched his head again, then thumbed his beard a moment. He stuck a finger in the air as if to indicate an idea had come to him. “Hold that thought,” he said with crazy eyes. “I’m going in for a closer look. Cover me.”
He disappeared back into the truck. Lauren could hear him rummaging around while he cursed occasionally in between bumps and sounds of boxes being torn apart.
Moments later, he emerged with another armload of clothing. Santa slid himself from the truck and presented it to Lauren, then stuck a thumb into his mouth. “We have wounded! Call it in! Damn cardboard cuts hurt like hell. Oh well, I think I got a tourniquet stashed around here somewhere.” He pulled out his thumb and wiped it on his pants. “Wanna hear a story? Sure you do. So get this shit. About a month ago, we raided a camp and fragged these pussies who stole a bunch of camping, hunting and fishing stuff—clothes, too. It was like they went on a shopping spree at a Cabela’s or a Bass Pro before they started hunting down and killin’ folks. Damnedest thing I ever seen. We found lots of name-brand designer shit and whatnot, like some of them real nice Blackhawk and 5.11 Tactical getups.” He tilted his head, and one of his brows shot into the air. “Even found some of the ever so lovely…female kind.” He dropped the pile of clothing at Lauren’s feet and pointed to it before plopping down. “Let’s see what we got.”
Watching Santa’s hands as he separated the articles of clothing in the pile, Lauren sat opposite him. “There’s actually a lot of nice stuff in here,” she said, holding up a pair of khaki pants with the retail tags still attached. She glanced at the size on the tag—a near perfect fit for her. “Looks like my spell of modest luck hasn’t changed yet. These will fit me just fine.”
“Those are nice,” Santa said, then presented a pair of women’s tactical range tights. His eyebrows danced and bounced up and down while he tugged at the waistband. “What do you think about these puppies?” he joked while continuing to prod, pull, and stretch the material.
Lauren smirked embarrassingly and nearly chuckled. “They’re nice…but not really my style.”
“Oh, come on!” He held the leggings to his chest and stretched the fabric to its limit. “That’s some skin-tight durable shit, right there. But, kinda sexy though, am I right?”
Lauren blushed. “It’s not that I don’t like them, I just don’t think they’d be suitable for our…environment right now. And if my dad saw me wearing them, he’d threaten to cut off my hair.”
“He would, huh?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Santa huffed and nodded, then tossed the tights over his shoulder, where they landed under a truck tire. “Damn overprotective fathers. Well, I gave it my best shot. Back to the drawing board.”
Lauren snickered. “What did you say?”
Santa resumed rummaging through the pile. “I’m just messing with you, Miss Jane. Thought it would be fun to poke at you a bit.” He made eye contact with her, bearing a rare look of sincerity. “It’s good to have you back, by the way. We missed you, and we’re all glad to know you’re doing okay.”
Once Lauren had successfully completed finding a cleaner, less raggedy set of apparel, she followed Santa farther along the vehicle train to another military truck very similar in size and color to the previous one.
“Now for the fun part,” Santa announced. “What kind of battle rifle do you want? I can’t promise we’re going to have unlimited options for you, and a lot of what we have isn’t exactly unblemished, but trust me…all the bang-bangs inside this truck are fully functional.”
“Did you check them all yourself?”
“Yep. Guilty. I…get bored sometimes.”
Lauren shrugged and cocked her head to the side playfully. “I’ve heard beggars can’t be choosers. I’m partial to ARs, and my last rifle was an M4, but I guess anything will do. Any gun is better than no gun at all.”
Santa laughed. “Okay. I’ll see if I can find you a nice Ruger 10/22, seeing as how any gun is better than no gun at all.” He then hopped into the truck, under the tarp, disappearing from sight.
Lauren went after him at first, but soon stopped. She had a feeling he was only kidding, at least, she hoped he was. If there was anyone in Dave Graham’s unit who met with the definition of unpredictable, it was Santa.
Santa mumbled and chuckled and chatted with himself while he rummaged through what Lauren could only assume to be an arsenal of confiscated firearms and other ordnance. Several minutes passed before the tone in his voice began indicating success.
While still inside the truck, Santa said, “Now, I know this isn’t what you might’ve chosen for yourself, but if you’ll allow me a few minutes of your time and indulge me a little, while I am a man of certain madness, there is a method to some of it.”
Santa emerged and hopped down with what could only be described as a nearly immaculate AK-47. He held it aloft in both hands like a priceless trophy and gazed upon it as a father would while holding his firstborn minutes out of the womb. “My lady, allow me to present to you the most stunning Avtomát Kaláshnikova I have ever laid eyes on.” He pulled it in close to his chest and considered it while his arms cradled it, his tone becoming subdued. “What do you think we should name her?”
“It’s a nice-looking gun, Santa, there’s no denying it,” Lauren said, allowing a chuckle to escape. “And I think it will do just fine.” She reached for it, but Santa tucked it away and took a step back.
“Hey, easy there, vise-grip,” he scolded, giving her his version of the stink eye. “The fuck are you doing? You can’t just be all reckless and manhandle her like that. You have to work your way into it, move slow, speak softly and romance her a little. I know you kids have all heard how robust and indestructible these rifles are, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve respect and love.”
“Okay, I’m sorry,” Lauren said, looking coyly at him. “And you’re right. Do you want me to leave so the two of you can have some time alone?”
“That’s not funny,” Santa growled, making it nearly impossible to gauge his level of seriousness. He presented the rifle to Lauren again so she could see the inscriptions on the block. “You see that? See that Cyrillic shit right there? This ain’t your ordinary Kalashnikov. It’s no chopper or cheap-ass Western clone, neither. This darling is a Zastava M70. It’s Serbian, former Yugoslav…and that makes it not only an endangered species, but a goddamn pièce de résistance.” He pointed to the foregrip. “You can tell these apart from any other AK ever made by these three cooling slots. The wood used for the stock is typically elm; it’s a lighter color than most other variants. This one even has a grenade sight on it, and you could fire twenty-two-millimeter shells right off the barrel if we had some. Just gotta replace the slant-brake with an adapter and, boom, rifle grenades. Talk about fun.”
Lauren nodded, and Santa finally allowed her to take possession of the weapon. She couldn’t tell if he was being overly facetious or not, but it didn’t matter. He spoke with expertise as well as passion, and she would never look at this rifle the same way ever again.
Santa lowered his head slightly while sliding his index finger along the receiver. “These used to be milled from one solid block of steel, not stamped together like this one. For a time, folks looked down on stamped receivers because they weren’t as strong. But the most widely produced M70s were made like this one, with the same thickness of steel as their milled ancestors—about one and a half millimeters, thicker than Soviet AKMs. They were the most commonly used rifle during the Yugoslavian wars twenty or so years ago.”
Santa paused, watching Lauren study the weapon
. “I seem to remember you being a southpaw,” he continued on through his whiskers. “I think that might mean you and Dragana here will get along well.”
“Dragana?”
“Yeah, means precious. Valuable. And she looks like a Dragana to me.”
“Okay, then henceforth shall she be christened.”
“That’s the spirit.” Santa combed his beard with his fingers. “Have you ever run an AK?”
“A couple of times. Norman has two of them, and Dad bought one a while back, but I don’t think it’s ever left the gun safe.” Lauren pulled back on the bolt and released it, then repeated the motion, feeling the snappy newness of the weapon.
“Dragana looks hungry to me,” Santa said. “We need to find her some chow most ricky-tick. I think her previous owner tried starving her to death.”
Lauren nodded, then opened the bolt and held the chamber to her nose. “I don’t think this thing—sorry, she has ever been fired before.”
“Indeed. Realize, young miss, that this thing isn’t your everyday AK, either. It’s selective fire. You know, what you kids like to call full auto.” Santa pointed to the fire selector. “On the AKs you’re used to, there’s two positions—fire and safe, bang and no bang. On this one, there’s three. In the middle position you can still see the R marking. That stands for rafalna or burst fire. That’s over six hundred rounds per minute cyclical rate of fire. Slap the selector all the way down to the J, that’s semiauto, one bang for every trigger press. Don’t forget that.”
“Okay. I won’t. Not sure how you haven’t, though,” Lauren said, her eyes following his finger. “What about magazines?”
“Magazines?” Santa reached back into the truck and extricated a small canvas shoulder bag. He flipped the top open to display a half-dozen standard thirty-round magazines. “What about ’em?”
Lauren smiled. “Okay, you seem to have that covered. Would you also happen to have a sidearm hidden inside one of these trucks?”
“Damn, you’re needy. I was getting to that. You think I’d send you off to battle without some means of retrieving your rifle? Especially one as regal as Dragana?” Santa chuckled. “What do you prefer, young lady? Glock? Sig? Beretta? I think there might be a few Hi-Points lying around somewhere. In a pinch, they’re useful for a good flinging.”
“A Glock, preferably.”
“Roger that. I’ll find you one. We got all the other stuff you’ll be needing, too…I just gotta find it and dig it up. Be patient, young one. Christmas is right around the corner. And this year…for you, it comes early.”
Chapter 18
Town of New Creek
Mineral County, West Virginia
Sunday, December 5th. Present day
Even through the dust-covered glass of the JLTV she was riding passenger in, Lauren could see the wooden poles, wire fencing, and other fortifications belonging to the prison camp from a long way off.
It appeared gruesomely artificial and looked as though it had been painstakingly pieced together with a blend of leftover, randomly mismatched components. It was strikingly similar to the camp from which she and the others had recently been rescued, and it seemed to jut out from the surrounding rural landscape like nothing she’d seen before.
The convoy slowed its pace and soon pulled off to the side of the road, coming to a stop not long after. Engines began to shut off, and doors were overheard as they creaked open. Unit personnel were soon seen filing out of the vehicles, but Lauren couldn’t tell if anyone from Tim Reese’s Unit Delta was present to greet them.
Then suddenly, as if they had all been drawn to the same commotion, several of the men furthest from the convoy darted toward the camp’s entrance while motioning and yelling for others to follow.
“What the hell was that all about?” Lauren asked, her head snapping left as her hand grabbed the door handle. “Did you see that?”
Woo Tang tranquilly removed his hand from the steering wheel and reached for her arm, pulling Lauren’s hand away from the door. “I did see. And while I am not certain what caused it, I am surely going to find out.” He glanced at her with a cautious eye. “Lauren Russell, you wait here until I return. Copy?”
“Yeah, I copy…I guess, but—”
“Please, just do as I have requested of you.” He then exited the JLTV and jetted off in the direction the other men had gone, leaving Lauren to remain with the influence of her inborn curiosity gaining ground at an exponential rate.
Lauren sat quietly for several minutes, but it was all she could do to remain that way. She stared out the window, her heart beating rapidly, unable to see anything apart from the makeshift, artificial structures within the camp and the primitive fencing surrounding them. “Dammit. This sucks. Am I a part of this campaign now or not?” she pondered aloud, but no one was present to provide her an answer.
She allowed a few more minutes to pass before taking one final look around and making the decision to exit the vehicle.
With the Zastava M70 pulled close at low ready, Lauren stepped cautiously away from the JLTV and the convoy, meandering off the gravel road and into the tall unkempt grass. The closer she got to the camp’s exterior walls, the more she could hear the source of the commotion.
Peering down the hill into a small valley and through the fence, she was able to see a large group of men, some of them members of the unit, others appearing as prisoners having recently been released from captivity, and they were engaged in a raging hand-to-hand brawl against one another. “Oh my,” Lauren said, her eyes opening wide while they skimmed the faces for participants she recognized.
When Lauren saw Sanchez’s face in the dead center of the scuffle, she broke from her position and hurried along the fence line, soon coming upon an entrance to the camp. It was instinctive, as if she had seen a member of her family being attacked.
Dave’s unit, mostly dressed in black and MultiCam ACUs, were fighting a number of men wearing similar getups. At first glance, they appeared to be members of a militia or even some form of paramilitary group. The clash was chaotic and hair-raising. Punches, kicks, and even head butts were being exchanged amidst infuriated screams and constant yelling, and there were just as many men involved in breaking things up as there were inciting the battle to continue.
Lauren had seen fights before and had even been involved in a few of her own, but had never quite seen anything like this, and bearing that in mind, she didn’t know what to do. She stood there stoically, her eyes wide in amazement, taking in the scene as the testosterone- and anger-fueled melee reached a crescendo, moving about like ocean waves during a coastal thunderstorm.
Soon the ratio of peacemakers began to overrun the agitators, and members of Dave’s unit started to pull each other away from the fight, eventually leaving one noncomplying devil dog to remain in the middle of a small sea of men to fight on his own.
Sanchez was bruised and beaten. His clothing was torn, and his face was bloodied, but he showed no signs that he had any intention of giving notice.
While one man grabbed Sanchez around his waist, attempting to throw him to the ground, Sanchez throttled a second man with a devastating roundhouse punch, the impact creating a sound lurid enough to echo between nearby buildings. While he smiled and cursed them, Sanchez rocketed his elbow into the man holding him in a bear hug, striking him square in the nose and dropping him.
After pummeling two others into submission with a tantalizing smile on his face, Sanchez watched a final combatant looming toward him. The man seethed with anger, his jaw agape and saliva dripping from his lips. Froth slipped between the gaps in his teeth as he exhaled. He stood there a moment, hands held up in a guard, livid enough to fight a war all on his own, only unwilling to make a move.
“What’s up now? Did you forget your cojones at home like the rest of the chaputos in your crew?” Sanchez jeered. “Just like Tupac said—you ain’t shit without your homeboys.” He grinned and wiped the open cut on his lower lip.
His opponent
screamed expletives at him and growled, one of his eyes tapering. Spotting a steel spike on the ground, he snatched it and held it aloft, aiming it in Sanchez’s direction. “I’m gonna ram this so far up your ass, you’re gonna taste your own waste—straight from the tap. After that, I’m going to send you swimming back across the Rio Grande.”
Sanchez laughed hysterically, almost to the point of tearing up. “Whatever. Another racist bitch. All that mouthing is foreplay to me…and I’m already getting blue balls.” He stomped on the ground like a raging bull. “Let’s do this already! Come at me!”
The man cried out and lunged at Sanchez, who effortlessly dodged him and sent his boot into the back of the man’s knee, sending him to the dirt. The Marine then moved in from behind and pulled his attacker into a textbook choke hold while steadily increasing constriction. “Yeah, that’s it. Don’t fight it…just let it happen. Time for your nap, puto!”
With Sanchez in control of his tussle, and most other fights seemingly over, Lauren studied the crowd of onlookers and found a set of errant eyes that gave her a particularly bad feeling. A mere ten seconds later, she learned why. The shifty-eyed man in the horde took two quick looks around before dashing for Sanchez, and the time left for second-guessing went to zero.
Lauren could see something in his hand, but he moved with such speed that she didn’t have time to discern what it was. She could only guess the worst—that it was a weapon of some kind and his intention was to harm Sanchez in some way.
In a streak, Lauren intersected the man’s path. Flipping the M70 around in her hands, she swung it at him and viciously smashed the buttstock into his chin.
WHAM!
The aggressor didn’t even see her coming, and as the unyielding wooden stock thundered into him, his legs went limp. He lost his footing and his eyes rolled into his forehead; then he fell backwards and lifeless to the ground over a pair of buckled knees.
Divided We Stand Page 18
