by Ryan Schow
“How many of them do you think there are?” she asked.
“Could be twenty. Could be a hundred. It’s hard to say with little or no information. The girl that Cincinnati killed, she said they were over two hundred, but she could have been bluffing, or exaggerating.”
“What about that catapult thing?” she said.
He’d been thinking about that.
“They obviously have some proficient workers, and the contraption was no joke when we got to it. It must have taken twenty men to move it, which means they wouldn’t move it far. That’s why we’re thinking four blocks, maybe five if we fan out from where we found it.”
“Didn’t you say you saw fifteen or twenty guys at the catapult before you burned it?”
“Yes, we did. Maybe more. But was that all of them? Or was that just a sampling?”
They laid together in relative silence. Rider’s mind was just too amped up to unwind. If he had to go hunting on his own, he would do so happily, but he had more than just himself to think about.
“I missed you,” Sarah said.
“I missed you, too.”
“At least you had Macy to keep you company,” she said.
“We didn’t share a bed,” Rider joked.
She didn’t respond. Then: “Who would you take with you? If you were to scout the area?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
She moved on top of him, her hips adjusting slightly, her pelvis slowly grinding into his. Her mouth was suddenly on him, lips parted, kissing his neck, his cheeks, his lips.
For the first few moments of this welcomed exchange, he couldn’t break free of his thoughts. He was wondering, do we search every building and home in a one mile radius, or do we return to the same posts we just vacated and wait?
And then it happened.
His mind emptied out enough to take in Sarah, only Sarah.
When he woke the next morning, he felt refreshed, reinvigorated, and loved. This was what he missed most. This. Sarah in bed. No wars to fight, no scraping by on the streets, nothing to do but be with his girl.
That only lasted so long.
When he got up, Jagger was waiting for him.
“What did you come up with last night?” Jagger asked as Rider slipped out of his classroom turned bedroom. Sarah was in bed, still asleep, on her belly with her hair fanned out beside her.
“I had more important things to tend to,” Rider said without a grin. “That and I finally got a decent night’s rest.”
“Copy that,” Jagger said.
“Let’s get the unit together in the War Room after breakfast. We need to put our heads together on this one and see if we can develop a better plan.”
“You don’t have one?”
“It’s sketchy at best, nothing I want to put my name to,” Rider answered. “So start thinking of something and we’ll flesh it out if it makes sense.”
After breakfast, Rider arrived to a War Room full of baggy eyes and semi-alert faces. His outlook immediately soured. He told himself most of them were civilians, that stakeouts took a toll on anyone, even guys like him.
He was ready for more, though. That’s what he realized was different. Rather, Sarah made him realize it. What was normal to him was abnormal for everyone else. He chose to live on the streets. To fight other men’s wars. To assassinate on order without asking why or lamenting either the target or the task.
That wasn’t normal.
“First off, thank you for going out. I’m sorry we didn’t find what we were looking for, but Sarah suggested maybe we were looking for ghosts.”
“Do you think they’re in the wind?” Stanton asked. He seemed more alert than most, ready to prove himself in his unending quest to stand out in the team.
“Maybe. But why lob a few bottles at us then run?”
“After what Cincinnati did,” Indigo said, “maybe they think we’re more than we are. We shot three of their men and Sin went savage on their girl.”
Rider watched Cincinnati’s face turn red.
“It was a good move, Cincinnati,” Rider said. “We know they found the bodies because they’re not there.”
“You told me it was stupid.”
“I might have spoken too soon,” he said.
“So what is our plan B?” Atlanta asked. “Assuming there is one.”
Last night, when Rider and Jagger were alone, Jagger reported that the young blonde had done well, that her confidence came not necessarily from combat experience, but from tenacity and ambition.
Rider had said, “There’s clearly some underlying need to avenge her sister.”
“We haven’t seen her under fire,” Jagger said, “so it’s hard to tell what she’s got. I’ll give her this though. Her anger is a cool flame, rational with the potential to run hot. I don’t think she’ll go off half cocked the way Macy might, or Indigo might.”
“Don’t underestimate Indigo,” Rider told him. “That girl is as solid as you’ll find under fire. Trust me, this is personal experience talking.”
Back to the meeting at hand. Back to Atlanta.
“What do you think we should do for a plan B?” he asked in response to Atlanta’s question. “This question is for any of you, or all of you.”
He could see Macy wanting to say something, but she kept her mouth shut and waited for everyone else to have their turn first. When no one spoke up, she said, “We wait on pins and needles. Or maybe we put six on the roof in shifts. Four on each corner. Two with field glasses. It blows goats, the waiting, but at least we’ll have eyes on the outfield and six on high.”
After she said it, the statement just hung there until finally someone said, “This really sucks.”
“Yeah,” Rider said, “but I think Macy’s right.”
When the enemy finally arrived at the gates, it was not a move Rider saw coming. Not in a million years. But sometimes war delivered as many gifts as it did disappointments and betrayals.
Rider wasn’t sure what this enemy represented—a disappointment, a betrayal or a gift—but one thing was for sure: he was going to find out soon enough.
War was coming, of that he was certain.
Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Seven
Gunderson observed Lisandro’s methods. The boy was thorough, efficient and he was ruthless. Five years ago, Gunderson would have been proud. A little scared, even. The boy had become something of a legend in the clan. Where so many of these kids were once gamers, he was a true banger. Offspring to a freaking mercenary. Afraid of nothing.
They were in his office when two of Lisandro’s scouts knocked, were summoned, then entered. They did not look at the girls in the cage. No one was allowed to look at them but Lisandro. Gunderson broke that rule right away. Of course, Lisandro was less than pleased, but what was he going to do, tell his father what to do with his eyes?
“We have a report, sir,” one of the scouts said. He was tall with blonde hair, brown eyes and a slight deformity of his ears.
“Go,” Lisandro said.
“We found three guys armed but weary, and four girls ages twenty to seventy.”
“Twenty is good,” Lisandro said, eating an apple. “Seventy not so good. What about the other two girls?”
“Late twenties, early-thirties?”
“Good looking?”
The blonde haired scout looked at his counterpart, a brown haired kid with a wrestler’s physique but no nasty cauliflower ears to complete the look.
“I guess they had decent bodies, sir. But we didn’t get a good look at their faces.”
“Take John and his team, kill the guys and the grandma, bring the girls back untouched along with any weapons, food, water and supplies.”
“If the girls are ugly?” he asked.
“Then kill them, too.”
“Okay, boss,” the lead scout said. “Anything else?”
“Naturally I expect you to toss the place. These people aren’t going to keep their best wares out in the open.”
When the pair left, Gunderson said, “Why would you kill the grandmother?”
“I don’t see the point of keeping her around.”
“Knowledge, experience, a den mother for these pack of ingrates you’ve got running around.”
“This isn’t a summer camp, dad. This is an armed response.”
“An armed response to what?”
“To an open war.”
“Who’s picking a fight with you? Because as far as I can tell, the war is over, unless you’re intent on starting another war. And it looks as though you are.”
Lisandro thought about it, clearly not used to being questioned, and clearly not liking it one bit.
“No one’s waging war on us directly,” he finally said with a grin. “That’s why it’s genius. We are eliminating our enemies before they even present themselves. To always remain victorious, you must only engage in those wars you know you can win.”
“Someone else I heard about did that.”
Lisandro took another bite of his apple, not bothering to offer one to Gunderson, who was getting hungry.
“Oh, and who’s that?” Lisandro asked.
“Adolf Hitler.”
Lisandro’s nostrils flared and he narrowed his eyes.
“I always thought you were harder than this. Mom said your job was to break people, that you’d done time which I took to mean you weren’t a bitch.”
“Yes, well I’m not above evolving either.”
“None of us evolve out of who we are,” he said, devouring the rest of the apple. “We only sharpen our sticks and learn to kill better.”
Gunderson recognized his own words being given back to him.
“I was exactly where I wanted to be back then. But what was right yesterday might not be right for today. The world is rapidly changing.” Then: “Can I give you a bit of advice?”
Lisandro looked at the core of the apple, almost like he was ignoring the question (for who dared offer The Great Lisandro advice?), he said, “You hungry?” then offered Gunderson the uneaten core of the apple.
“No,” Gunderson replied, quietly offended.
“I hear your stomach,” Lisandro said, still thrusting the uneaten core his father’s way. “You should eat it.”
“If you don’t get that core out of my face, I’m going to shove it straight up your ass.”
Lisandro drew a deep breath in through his nostrils, then relaxed and said, “I was just joking.”
“Don’t you see?” Gunderson said. “We don’t have to be held hostage by our old ways. In this world, we can live the life we truly want.”
Standing up, grabbing another apple, he looked down at his father—who remained seated—and said, “I’m not held hostage by anything. I have an abundance of girls, plenty of power, and I have a damn castle. If anything, everyone else will be held hostage by me.”
Gunderson felt those old familiar urges. The last time he’d seen Lisandro, he tried to choke the boy to death. That was about a year ago. Gunderson was on pills when he came home and learned his son was selling crack cocaine at school and getting into fist fights.
The rage took over. When he’d grabbed the boy by the throat and started to squeeze, Gunderson didn’t see him as his son, rather his mind held images of him being his dead son. Fueled by pills and too much alcohol, the pressure on him more than he could bear at the time, Gunderson had taken so much of his hostility out on Lisandro and it wasn’t fair.
Now those same hateful emotions were resurfacing. Except a year had passed, he was not on speed, he hadn’t had a drink in a month and he couldn’t blame his bad temper on stress because he had almost none.
“Perhaps we should talk about this another time,” Gunderson said.
“Other than you threatening me with an apple core, I’m starting to think you’ve gone soft,” Lisandro said, dead serious. “Well? Have you?”
“You don’t have to be soft to hate the idea of killing old women.”
“Well get used to it,” he snapped. “Let’s go. We’ve got a strategy meeting and I could use a soldier with your experience.”
The heat stealing to his cheeks, Gunderson grabbed Lisandro by the arm and hauled him around. “Let me tell you something, you wisecracking little turd. This isn’t a video game and I don’t work for you. You get my experience if I let you have it and you don’t act like you out rank me because you won’t, ever. I don’t care what these clowns think of you.”
Lisandro shook his arm loose, gave Gunderson a mighty shove. Gunderson stepped back in time for Lisandro to shove him again, harder, catching Gunderson off balance. Before he could even comprehend this turn of events, Lisandro shoved him once more for good measure. This one put Gunderson on his ass, his cheeks beet red, his jaw flexed just about as tight as his fists.
“You aren’t the man anymore, old man. I’m the man! Get that through your thick skull. And get up. We have things to do and I don’t need to be wiping your butt.”
Gunderson got up, rattled, sick at how his boy had turned out.
“I never wanted this life for you,” Gunderson said as his son started for the door.
“Well I have it now, so either get in the boat and row or go back to whatever ditch you slithered out of.”
And with that, the boy was off. Gunderson followed the obstinate little rodent through the hallways toward their strategy meeting, this confrontation only reinforcing the notion that he should try once more to choke the boy to death.
When they had the meeting, Lisandro’s men said, “We were able to reach the windows with the bottles, sir. The rooftop, too.”
“All of you?” he asked. They nodded in unison. “Good. Let’s get everyone filling them up with gas this time. How many men are proficient with the modified sling shots?”
“Twelve,” Bear answered.
“And you?”
“I’d rather shoot the rats as they come scurrying out the back door. But yeah, I’m proficient with them.”
“We need lighters,” one of the guys said, referring to people who light the rags of the Molotov Cocktails just before they’re launched. “These should be people who have no problem being near these kinds of explosives. We’ll need six to assist simply for speed. By now they have to be anticipating something. Which means they may be ready with something of their own.”
“So the six lighters will also need to know there could be retaliatory strikes,” Lisandro said, eyeing each man. Well, everyone but his father who sat there having just been disciplined by his son.
“I’ll have six volunteers inside of an hour,” Bear said.
“Good.”
“So when do we do this?” Bear asked.
“Are you going with them?” Lisandro asked.
“And miss out on all the fun?” Bear replied with a glint of humor in his eyes.
“Alright then,” Gunderson said. “Take your men and head out just before dawn.”
Looking at Gunderson, Lisandro said, “You sure there’s only one exit?”
“The Hayes Street entrance is boarded up and sealed shut,” he said. “So yes. There is only one exit.”
“And it’s defended on high?”
“Four men on the roof, all good shots.”
“We hit the roof first, so we need one up-close team and five mid-range teams.”
“There are children in there,” Gunderson said. “And old women. Plus one of the girls is pregnant with her first child. You going to kill a pregnant girl, Lisandro? In this world?”
“Casualties of war,” Lisandro muttered with a dismissive wave of the hand.
“She’s pregnant,” Gunderson said again, this time drawing it out.
Lisandro spun in his chair and glared at his father like the eyes themselves were about to attack. “These people threw you out in the street because they didn’t like your ink,” he barked. “They threw you out like a dirty dog. And now you want to defend them?!”
“It w
asn’t like that,” Gunderson said calmly.
“Yet here you are, in my house, freshly tossed from theirs. If you haven’t got the stomach for the job, seriously, you don’t need to be my father.”
“But I am.”
“On paper, yes. But those papers and my allegiance to you burned up a long time ago. In here, you get to be a general behind Bear, if you want, or you can take the other option we discussed earlier.”
Smiling, chewing on his anger, Gunderson said, “Looks like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Lisandro hissed.
“It means I’m in,” Gunderson said. “I don’t need to think about it.”
Lisandro measured Gunderson with a long, cruel gaze, and then he relaxed into a weak grin and said, “It’s about damn time.”
Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Eight
He was curled in the arms of Sarah having the best dream of his life when he was ripped from the glorious slumber to a pounding racket. Rider woke just as Sarah woke.
“Rider?” she said softly in the dark.
“I got it,” he replied, crawling out of bed. The knocking persisted and he said, “I’m coming, I’m coming. Hold your horses.”
Groggy, still gathering his bearings, he pulled the door open to a man with a candlestick and a concerned look. Rider rubbed his eyes, recognizing Rowan from his security detail. Rowan oversaw the graveyard shift.
“Sir, you need to come with me and you need to come now,” Rowan said. “There’s someone here to see you.”
“Who?”
“I’ll let him tell you.”
Rider pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, then he stepped into a pair of black work boots sans the socks. For safe measure, he grabbed his Glock as well. When they got downstairs and out back, on the other side of the courtyard wall, that’s when he saw Gunderson.
Groaning audibly, he said, “What do you want?”
“I found your enemies,” Gunderson said.
The man looked nervous. He wasn’t wearing a coat, he looked cold and his teeth were chattering. If he was standing out in the dead of another freezing San Francisco night, there was indeed a purpose greater than warmth or safety. Against his better instincts, he was inclined to believe the man.
