Fire From The Sky | Book 10 | Damned Nation

by Reed, N. C.

  Once they had taken a few more townspeople, maybe as hostages, then he would send a message forward demanding tribute or ransom, however they wanted to look at it. He didn’t care so long as he got results. That was all Cartwright ever cared about. Results. Maybe if he pulled this job off, he would get a promotion. They were still using the para-military style ranks that the prison had employed, and while there was no pay anymore, the perks of being a Sergeant would be sweet to have, even if-

  He never finished the thought.

  -

  Nate once again put a fist in the air and the group came to a halt. Nate motioned for them to wait as he slipped forward to get a look at their quarry. Moving ever so slowly, Nate moved to where he could view the campsite and the fires they had going. He avoided looking directly at the fire to prevent feedback into his night vision device. In years past, the presence of the fire would have been enough to dazzle his vision, leaving him blinking at stars that weren’t really there. New technology had gone a long way to eliminate such problems, often referred to as halos in reference to the glare that would creep in from around the edges of the device. Naturally, the more effective the device, the more it cost. There were many advantages to stealing millions in gold and jewels, however, and top-notch equipment was one of them.

  Nate studied the scene before him for fifteen minutes, using minimal head movement as he counted, and then re-counted, the number of adversaries in the camp. He took note of one man sitting off to the side, alone, and decided this was a good candidate for the boss of this little gang. Once he was satisfied that there were no apparent surprises awaiting him, Nate moved back slightly, deeper into the shadows, before starting to circle the group. This wasn’t strictly necessary, but he and five other men were about to tackle a group of what looked like thirty thugs, at least some of whom were likely to be good shots. Having survived this long at what they were doing also meant that they were at least marginally smarter than some of the other groups the farm had encountered. One thing that would never be said of Nate Caudell or any other member of the old CTG 31 ‘E’ was that they took anything for granted or underestimated anyone.

  Tonight would be no different. The campsite proper was roughly twenty yards square, give or take. There was gear spread haphazardly around the entire site, with no real order of any kind. Likely with friends sleeping alongside each other, or those sharing a spot on the watch schedule electing to stick together. Bedrolls were laid in a circle around the fire that mimicked a wagon wheel if the fire was the hub of the wheel. Though the men were obviously drinking, Nate did note that there was a cast iron Dutch oven over the flames as well as an old coffee pot.

  The lack of discipline was appalling to someone like Nate, who had survived in some of the most violent places in the world by being vigilant; but in this case their lack of care was working in his favor.

  He froze suddenly as something in the dark behind the camp moved slightly. Something large. Then he heard a whicker from a horse and realized he was nearing their picket line for their horses. Horses and saddles would be a great boon for the farm, assuming they could be captured. Even the gear, assuming it was any good, would be worth something.

  Realizing that to go any further was to startle the horse and possibly alert someone of his presence, Nate began to painstakingly make his way back to where his teammates waited. He had already formulated a plan by the time he got back to them. He used hand signals for the most part, speaking only when he had to, and gave the others the lay of the land before them. He did speak to mention the horses and their relative position to the camp, suggesting they seek to spare the horses any injury and try to capture them if possible.

  Then came his plan. He sent Xavier Adair and Zach Willis after the lone man at the edge of the camp. X would silence him with a knife to the ribs and leave him sitting upright in case his drunk friends noted him.

  Kevin Bodee and Gordy Sanders would move around the camp toward the horses, where Kevin would use his bow to take targets of opportunity that he could kill without drawing attention to himself or the others. Gordy would back him up and be near enough to try and contain the horses if it was possible. Gordy was without question the best horse wrangler among the six of them.

  That left Nate and Mitchell. They would take a flanking position where their fire would not endanger Xavier and Zach, nor Kevin and Gordy. The other two teams would need to be extremely cautious about where and when they fired, but everyone in this group was well trained and experienced. Nate had no doubt that if they executed according to their ability, they would prevail.

  Once he had ensured that everyone knew what to do and where to go, Nate signaled that they would have ten minutes to move into position. Xavier would kill the presumptive leader and use three clicks of his radio microphone to indicate the deed was done. After that, it would be Kevin’s turn. Then, once the group around the fire noted they were under attack, Nate and Mitchell would open fire and attempt to rake the entire group from the side.

  It wasn’t a perfect plan and held more unknowns than anyone was comfortable with, but it was completely workable, and no one raised any objection. Satisfied with that, Nate held up his hand and made a spinning motion, index finger pointing skyward.

  Time to move.

  -

  Haywood had just enough time to realize that something was wrong before something cut his air off. He raised his arms to try and relieve the pressure, which exposed his ribs. He felt a piercing pain in his left side, felt something bounce off a rib, and then settled into his side, staying there.

  His struggle for air became more desperate, but at the same time somehow less important. He could feel a trickle of some liquid or other down his side and knew, without really understanding how, that it was his lifeblood, slipping away.

  The arm around his throat was like an iron bar, firm and unyielding even as his struggling slowed. What had he been thinking about? About a promotion? Wasn’t that it?

  His last conscious thought was that Sergeant stripes weren’t any good to a dead man.

  -

  Xavier twisted his blade back and forth twice to ensure maximum damage to his target’s heart with a minimum of movement. He felt the man’s pulse weaken in the carotid artery as he held the man by the neck, and as the faint beating stopped, he slipped his knife from the now dead man’s side, using the same small tree that his target had been reclining on to keep him upright. He took a minute to study the scene before slipping away into the shadows where Zach waited, rifle trained on the campsite to cover his mentor.

  Giving Zach a thumbs up, Xavier cleaned his blade in the dirt before returning it to the sheath, then shouldered his own rifle. Their part in the opening act was finished.

  Now, they waited for act two.

  -

  Kevin Bodee pulled his bow into battery and then held it, examining his possible targets. The broadheads he was using were truly horrible things, designed specifically to tear, to cut, to rend flesh as harshly and deeply as possible. Assuming he could get a good heart shot, he should be able to drop a target without too much noise or notice.

  One man on Kevin and Gordy’s side of the camp had fallen behind the others, drinking heavily from a fruit jar. Taking aim, Kevin waited until he was between breaths before releasing the arrow. The target was agreeably only twenty yards away, and the arrow sliced right through the man’s clothing and into his heart muscle without really slowing at all.

  To anyone who happened to see the man fall, it would simply appear as if he sat down heavily, unsteady from his drinking. By the time the man was on the ground, Kevin already had another arrow nocked and ready. Without hesitating, he took the man directly in front of his first target. Unfortunately, that individual fell forward rather than backward or down. Which would have been fine had he not collapsed directly between two other men with what was so obviously an arrow sticking out of his back.

  That pretty much ended the stealth part of the attack.

  -
>
  Neither Nate nor Mitchell hesitated. As soon as they realized they were ‘made’, the two opened fire. Their advantage of being on a flank where they were not in danger of hitting their teammates meant they could pull a spray-and-pray movement on the closely gathered and drunken thugs, and they did. Though it was a complete violation of fire discipline, in this particular case it was too good an option to pass up, with targets in the open and bunched together.

  Two thirty-round magazines of 5.56mm rounds ripped through the men before them, only a few of whom realized anything was wrong until it was far too late. Neither man worried so much about ensuring a kill shot as putting their enemies out of action. Besides, they needed a few of them alive to find out who the hell they were.

  Their enemy was drunken, disorganized, and leaderless. Taken by surprise and unaccustomed to being under fire themselves, their panic simply made them easier to kill.

  -

  The two men who had seen the arrow protruding from the back of their comrade jumped to their feet before the shooting started, both grabbing the handguns they wore and pointing them in the general direction of behind them.

  Gordy Sanders was waiting for just such a move. His rifle slammed each man with a three-round burst, stitching each from belt to chest. As soon as they were down, he moved to another man, this one running toward the horses. Gordy managed to cut the runner’s legs from under him, sending him bowling over onto the ground. One final round put him down hard and ensured he wouldn’t get away.

  Kevin had his rifle up by now and shot two men who were running directly toward Gordy and himself, for what he had no idea. It was almost too easy to put them down, and the old saying ‘fish in a barrel’ came to mind. He held his fire after that rather than risk hitting Xavier or Zach, who were almost directly across from where he and Gordy stood.

  Besides, between Nate and Mitchell, there wasn’t much left to do at this point.

  -

  “Zach!” Xavier hissed. When Zach looked his way, Xavier nodded his head toward where two men were running into the woods. Without a word, Zach set his rifle on the ground and took off after the two.

  Knowing that his protégé would take care of the runners, Xavier himself took off after another who had run to the edge of the camp, likely to retrieve a weapon. As Xavier approached him, the man did indeed pull a shotgun from a bedroll and began to turn it toward Xavier and the others.

  Xavier’s left arm blocked the barrel, sending the shot harmlessly into the brush. Ignoring the rifle hanging on his sling, Xavier’s right hand dipped to pull his handgun. A shotgun was nothing to play with at this range and Xavier had no intention of doing so. A trip of slugs from his pistol turned the man’s head to mist, negating the threat of him and his shotgun.

  Before he could look for another target, a hammer blow struck him in the middle of the back and Xavier knew nothing but darkness.

  -

  Zach heard shooting behind him but ignored it. It was difficult to navigate the woods while running in the dark even under the best of circumstances and using a night vision device made it both easier, and yet more complicated. While he could plainly see obstacles in his way, his depth perception was often altered, as was his equilibrium. It was one of the reasons that they all trained with the equipment on a regular basis, despite their frightful expense.

  That training served Zach well as he followed the two men he had been sent after. Both were stumbling and crashing through the woods and brush with no idea where they were going, only that they wanted to get away from the massacre behind them. Unfortunately for both, the massacre was following them and gaining with every step.

  The first was too easy. Zach caught up to him in the dark and sliced the inside of his thigh with a razor-sharp blade. The man screamed in abject terror at the contact, not realizing at first that he had even been injured. Knowing the man had just minutes to live, Zach left him behind to pursue the second man.

  This one was somewhat smarter, and against a different opponent that might have helped him. Against someone like Zach, trained by someone like Xavier Adair, he was not so fortunate.

  The second man was holding a handgun. Hearing Zach’s first victim scream, the second man turned and emptied his handgun in that general direction, hoping to get lucky. All he accomplished was to shoot his already dying friend and leave himself with an empty firearm just as the man he was running from caught him.

  Zach wasn’t a showy fighter. He fought to win, and that was all. If you were impressed, hey, that was great. If you weren’t, he didn’t care. It didn’t hurt him either way. Seeing the outline of the handgun through his NVD, Zach struck down on that arm with his knife, the slash going clear to the bone before stopping and forcing the man to drop his weapon, screaming at the top of his lungs.

  Scared though he was, he did have the presence of mind to try and escape, but he had allowed Zach to get far too close to him at this point. The man felt an arm circle his head, locking it in a vice, then felt a thud against his chest as Zach’s knife plunged into the man’s chest cavity. Without a hesitation, Zach ripped his knife up and to the right, just as he’d been taught, slicing both of the man’s lungs as well as his heart.

  His work done, Zach released the body and let it fall. The man was technically still alive, but only for a few seconds more. He knelt and cleaned his blade on the man’s shirt before heading back to the others.

  -

  “-ful now. He’s going to be sore as hell.”

  Xavier fought his way back to consciousness slowly, hearing the voices of his comrades around him.

  “May I assume we won?” he asked, almost groaning it out.

  “You may assume that, yes,” Nate chuckled. “You took a round square in the back, X. I think from a .357 but maybe a .38. Your vest stopped it with no problem, but it sure kicked the shit out of you.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that,” Xavier grunted as Gordy helped him get to his feet. “That was quite painful. Which one of these fine gentlemen do I owe my thanks to for what I am sure will be a wonderful few days of misery?”

  “That dead one over there,” Gordy pointed.

  “Ah. Pity,” Xavier tried to stretch but found it painful to do so. “I should like to have gotten to know him better.” He took a seat near the fire on a log someone in the group had pulled there for the same purpose. Gordy watched him to make sure he could stay steady on his feet. Once Xavier was seated, he turned to look at the collection of bodies and prisoners on the ground around them.

  “So, are these the Army of God or whatever?” Gordy asked, looking around at the eleven still alive, all suffering from gunshot wounds.

  “I honestly have no idea,” Nate shrugged. “Don’t much care, either. Let’s get them searched. Weapons, ammunition, any kind of correspondence or identification, you guys know the drill. We-,” He stopped as Zach walked into the clearing.

  “Zachary?” was all Xavier said, wincing as he turned to look at the teen.

  “Done,” Zach replied just as simply. He retrieved his rifle, checked it to be sure it was clear, and then reattached it to his sling. “You okay?” he asked, frowning at Xavier’s behavior.

  “A mere misstep is all,” Xavier assured him. “One of these stalwart defenders of the faith shot me in the back whilst I wrestled with his shotgun toting friend.”

  “You going to be okay?” the teen pressed. Xavier smiled and nodded slowly.

  “Good equipment has preserved me to fight another day,” he promised. “My vest and harness likely need work, but that is far better than the alternative. I heard a great deal of gunfire from your direction,” he added.

  “I cut one and he screamed, so the other one emptied his gun right at him,” Zach shrugged. “I was already gone, so all he did was kill his buddy a little faster.”

  “You’ll need to remember where they are, Zach,” Nate told him. “We’ll have to search them and drag the bodies over here. But that can wait for daylight.”

  “Yes, s
ir,” Zach nodded.

  “We get everything we can, and we can look at it later,” Nate picked up where he had stopped when Zach arrived. He checked his watch.

  “We got maybe three hours now until daylight. I want these horses saddled. Everything this bunch had that was worth anything goes on those horses, which are going with us. We’ll let Adcock come and claim the bodies if he wants them. That’s up to him. Zach, how many did you chase?”

  “Two,” Zach replied. “Both down.”

  “That makes the final count thirty-three, with this bunch,” Nate indicated the wounded.

  “We need a doctor!” one of them moaned just then. Harsh laughter met his demand.

  “You’re lucky I’m not skinning you alive,” Zach growled, showing more emotion than most of his comrades had ever seen from him. “I may yet if these guys happen to not be looking. It’s just a suggestion, but if I were you and your buddies, I’d suffer in silence.”

  “We do need a volunteer from the audience, now that I think on it,” Xavier said softly. “We need to know more about who these upstanding citizens are, where they came from, and why they were attacking the town. Quite a list, really, when you consider it all.”

  “You got the three hours before daylight,” Nate nodded. “We’ll see to the rest.”

  “Lovely,” Xavier smiled down at the man who had asked for a doctor. “So, my good man. What might your name be? Just for the record.”

  -

  “Poncho,” Kurtis said quietly.

  “I heard it,” Jose replied. “Sounds like Nate and the others caught up to at least some of them, doesn’t it?”

  “Yep,” Kurtis nodded. “Sure sounded like it.”