by David Lucin
“No need to explain.” Jordan clapped him on the arm instead. Then his mood turned somber. “You were just downstairs, I presume?”
“We were,” Gary said. “Seeing war firsthand is a lot different than reading about it in books.”
“I would imagine that’s true.”
The group of deputies laughed. Gary noticed a few civilians among them as well. “Your people seem to be in good spirits, despite the circumstances.”
“They weren’t quite so spry before I told them the Militia’s out there, ready to deliver the knockout blow.” He moved closer to Gary and spoke quietly. “You think it’ll work?”
Gary, along with Jordan, Craig, and a few other leaders of the defense here at the Skydome, had known of Liam’s plan to withdraw to the airport since the beginning, but all had been sworn to secrecy. Only in the past hour, with the arrival of the wounded from the Fifth and Sixth Platoons, had news spread throughout the general population. “It certainly could,” he said honestly. “Though I’m not fond of giving the Great Khan the initiative. Waiting for him to make the first move makes me a tad squeamish.”
“I’d have to agree with that, but if what everyone says about this fella is true, I don’t think we’ll be waiting long.” He spoke to Tim next. “Say, when did your boss last sleep or even sit down for a few consecutive minutes?”
Tim’s mouth hung open. “I . . . um . . . He was—”
“I’m fine,” Gary interrupted. “If you’re all up, I should be, too.”
“We’re taking shifts,” Jordan said. “Everyone’s getting some sleep, if they can. Believe me, I understand wanting to be in the middle of the action, but we’re all set here. Plus, the body has its limits, and it’s less than useless when it’s overtired.” He nodded toward the radio hanging from Gary’s belt. “Anything changes, I’ll give you a call. Go see that wife of yours and try to get some shut-eye.”
“I’m not sure I could fall asleep right now.”
“Once you get under a toasty blanket and close your eyes, you’d be surprised.” He asked Tim, “Can I count on you bringing him up to bed?”
Tim only glanced over to Gary, then back to the sheriff.
“Fine, you’ve convinced me,” Gary relented. The thought of a quick nap was attractive indeed, and Jordan made a good argument about the body having limits. “But if anything changes—and I mean anything—you give me a shout.” Gary would also receive a radio call from Craig and possibly Liam, but it couldn’t hurt to have the sheriff beholden to giving him updates as well.
“I’m a man of my word, Mr. Ruiz.” Jordan shooed him away. “Now, don’t let me see you again for at least a few hours.”
Gary couldn’t help but smile. “I can’t promise a few hours, but I can probably manage one.”
“Good enough for me.”
With Tim, Gary trudged around the concourse, passing more groups of defenders manning barricades, then climbed the steps to the press box. He was happy to see Sam standing guard outside the door, Jenn’s Gunsite Scout slung across his chest.
“Hey, Mr. Ruiz. Have you heard anything else about Jenn?”
“No, Sam, I haven’t,” Gary said. “But like I mentioned before, there’s no reason to think anything’s happened to her. The whole First Platoon is safe and sound at the airport.”
Sam hung his head, despite what Gary considered to be good news. He empathized with the young man, nonetheless; until recently, Sam had believed Jenn and her unit would be returning to the Skydome. Hearing the Militia had withdrawn to the airport instead must have come as a shock and a disappointment.
“What about Nicole?” Sam asked. “Did you find her down in the locker room? I haven’t really seen her at all since we got here.”
“Unfortunately not, but I’m sure she’s fine.” Gary pointed to the door. “How’s everyone holding up in there?”
“They’re doing okay. We have a full house.” Sam lowered his voice, adding, “When you go in, keep it down. My mom’s finally asleep.”
Gary had learned it was best to think of Barbara as a child, and as a result, lately, he found her somewhat endearing. “Will do. Thanks for the warning.” He turned to Tim, who waited at the bottom of the stairs. “You can take a break. I should be all right on my own in here.”
“All due respect, Mr. Ruiz, but the chief told me to stick with you like glue, so that’s what I’m gonna do.” Tim aimed his flashlight at Sam, who lifted a hand to shield his eyes. “I’ll stay out here and help keep watch.”
“Thank you, Tim,” Gary said before slipping into the press box and easing the door shut behind him. A candle burned low in the center of the space. Liam’s wife, Erin, and his daughter, Debbie, sat along the right-hand wall. Debbie lay with her head in her mother’s lap, sleeping. Next to them were Mikey’s parents, Patricia and Peter. They were in their late sixties, Gary guessed, though Patricia’s hair only had gray near the roots. Peter had no hair to speak of, but his neat, short-cropped beard was white like snow. Both held fingers over their lips as if to say, Quiet! Patricia then pointed across the room, to where Barbara lay on a blow-up mattress, covered with a blanket. Kevin sat cross-legged beside her. He was awake but completely still, perhaps afraid a single movement would wake up his wife.
Nearby, Charlie, a quiet woman with a cleft chin and fine brown hair in a loose ponytail, aimed a flashlight at a paperback copy of Tolkien’s The Hobbit as her nine-year-old son, Evan, read away contentedly. Her father, Noah, wasn’t here; along with Mikey’s sister and her husband, he’d volunteered with the defense forces in the concourse. Allison Findlay sat with her mother, father, and brother. Mother and daughter, with red hair, freckled faces, and petite builds, looked like clones. So did father and son, but in a different way: they were tall, big-boned, and dark-haired. All but Allison were sleeping. Enthusiastically, she offered Gary a silent wave.
Sam hadn’t lied about the press box being a full house. The air was warm and thick with the smell of unwashed bodies, but Gary shouldn’t complain; on the field below, living conditions were far worse than in any of Phoenix’s modular housing complexes.
Maria sat in her corner, eyes closed, sleeping as well. Gary tiptoed around Barbara, past the Findlay family, and across the room, stealing a glance out the window. To preserve their batteries, the floodlights in the stands had been shut off, but points of white and yellow light flickered throughout the otherwise dark stadium like stars on a clear night. Directly opposite the press boxes, on the other side of the stadium, the concourse opened into a wide veranda overlooking the field. Within, a halo of light revealed the silhouettes of bodies. Beyond them stood the Skydome’s main gates. Only a thin layer of glass and wood separated most of Flagstaff from the White Horde. Gary wished it were a mile or two of concrete instead.
After removing his mask, he carefully lowered himself to the floor and sat next to his wife. As though sensing his presence, she shifted to lean against him but didn’t wake. He stroked her hair for a while and shut his eyes, listening to the hum of her oxygen compressor. Soon, the sound became quieter, more distant, and he felt himself drifting off to sleep.
* * *
“Mayor Ruiz!”
Gary’s name jolted him awake. His heart pounded in his chest, and adrenaline surged through his veins. He checked his watch, angling his wrist so the candlelight shone on its face. It was a few minutes after 2:00 a.m. Had he been sleeping for six hours?
Maria had awoken, too. She blinked hard and sat up straight as his radio squawked, “Mayor Ruiz, do you copy? Over.”
The disembodied voice belonged to Sheriff Wilson.
Fumbling, Gary removed the radio from his belt. “Gary here. Go ahead.”
Barbara and the rest of the room, save for Evan, who lay curled up next to his mother, watched him with wide eyes.
“I don’t mean to alarm you,” Jordan said, “but our friends outside are making some moves.”
A few peepholes had been cut into the wooden barricades over the doors
and windows so the defenders inside could watch the White Horde’s movements. Since the Khan besieged the building, he’d done nothing more than form a barricade around the parking lot. Any sort of movement now must mean he was preparing to attack.
Gary stood up, wincing as his knees popped, and peered through the window overlooking the field. On the opposite veranda, the shapes of bodies, tiny from this distance, rushed back and forth in the white light of a lantern.
“What’s going on?” he asked Jordan. His shotgun, along with a box of fresh shells, rested on the counter below the window. He flipped open the lid, plucked out two shells, and tucked them into his jacket pocket. “What’s your twenty? I’m coming down to meet you.”
“That’s a negative,” Jordan said. “If you’re not in the press box already, get there now. If you are up there, stay put. We’ll handle it from here.”
Gary didn’t respond, only continued filling his pocket with shells. As he reached for the weapon itself, a cold hand fell upon his wrist. Maria’s. Fear filled her eyes, and her oxygen hissed loudly. She said nothing, but her grip tightened. If he tried to leave, she wouldn’t stop him. Yet the person he loved the most on this Earth, the one he’d do anything to protect, was right here in this press box. He couldn’t abandon her now.
Gently, he took her hand in his, gave it a reassuring squeeze, and said into his radio, “Copy that, Sheriff. If you need me, I’ll be in the press box.”
There was a familiar click behind him. Turning, he saw Charlie slap a magazine into a SIG Sauer P226, then rack the slide to chamber a round. The sound woke her son, who made a startled noise. She shushed him, ran a hand over his hair, and said something Gary couldn’t hear.
“What’s going on?” Barbara asked. “Are they coming?”
“Yes, they’re coming.” Gary crossed the room in five long strides, pulled open the door, and poked his head outside. Sam and Tim stood at the top of the steps. Tim held his radio close to his ear. Only flickers of candlelight illuminated Sam’s face, but judging by the way he chewed his thumbnail, Gary assumed he knew what was happening.
“Copy that,” Tim said into the mic. To Gary, “Mr. Ruiz, I’m sorry, but I’ve been—”
Gary didn’t let him finish: “Go, Tim. We’ll be fine up here.”
Tim scrambled down the steps, drawing his sidearm as he went. Sam rushed into the press box, asking, “So what’s the plan?”
“The plan’s to hunker down in here and let the professionals do their thing.” Gary closed the door and pressed the button on the doorknob to lock it. A determined intruder could easily kick the door down, but the lock would buy Gary a few extra seconds to bring his weapon to bear.
Charlie stood at the window, handgun at her side, while Allison held Evan. Sam knelt next to his mother, who had begun to cry. She mentioned something about Nicole, but her sobs muffled the words, making them inaudible.
Gary crouched beside Maria. His hands were trembling, the palms sweaty. A terrible knot had formed in his gut, and breathing had become a chore. He knew this feeling, though; in his thirty years on the force, he’d learned how to control it. How to use it to his advantage, even. The adrenaline would sharpen his senses, quicken his reaction time. It was his friend, not his enemy.
“It’ll be okay, dear.” He cupped Maria’s cheek. So the entire room could hear, he added, “This means the Militia’s coming. We’ve been waiting for this. It’s all part of the plan. There’s no need to worry.”
Silence answered him. He could feel their fear, especially his wife’s. She pressed her hand to his, held it there for a second, and mouthed, I love you.
I love you, too, he mouthed back, then kissed her forehead and rose to his feet. Adrenaline dulled the pain in his knees, and the persistent exhaustion that had been weighing on his bones for the past three days melted away, replaced by fierce determination, an eagerness to see this through to the end.
He looked through the window, noticing the reflection of the candle. “That candle,” he said to anyone listening. “Blow it out. Now.”
Someone did, and the room darkened. Charlie knocked her knuckles on the glass dividing this press box from its neighbor. The occupants must have understood, because their flashlight went out as well.
The view out the window became clearer. Pinpricks of light danced in the stands and the field below, as they had earlier. The people down there might not even know the White Horde had begun its attack. On the opposite side of the stadium, a halo of white continued to illuminate the veranda near the main gates.
“The plan, think it’ll work?” Charlie asked quietly. Gary had only met her on a handful of occasions, and her voice was deeper than he remembered. He tried reading her face, but she wore a mask. In the days after the bombs, the woman had fought her way out of Albuquerque, saving Allison’s life, and then trekked across the desert to the safety of Flagstaff. She was more prepared for this moment than most of the police officers in the concourse.
As he began to answer, the light in the veranda went out. He snatched the radio off the counter and held down the talk button. “Gary for Sheriff Wilson. You have any updates?”
Jordan answered a half second later, sounding out of breath: “Yeah. Outside, the horde’s—”
The radio cut out, and a loud crash, audible even through the soundproof glass, echoed across the stadium. Then there was another. And a third. Almost immediately, the clatter of distant gunfire joined in.
Gary nearly shouted into his radio, “Sheriff, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. The—” His voice was drowned out by someone hollering orders. “The horde, they drove a damn snowplow through the front gate. We’re moving to intercept now.”
Sam appeared on Gary’s right as a burst of orange light lit up the veranda, accompanied by a sharp crack. Two more cracks erupted in short succession. The whole building seemed to shake, or maybe Gary was only imagining that.
“Whoa,” Sam droned in awe. “Those must be the bombs they were making.”
Darkness returned to the veranda, but the echo of gunfire continued. The radio beckoned. Gary desperately wanted to pick it up and ask Jordan or Craig or anyone for updates, but they would be busy coordinating the defense. He could still listen in, though.
He switched to the police channel, the one Craig used to communicate with his lieutenants, but kept the volume low so only he, Sam, and Charlie could hear.
“They’re coming through!” a woman cried.
A man Gary recognized as his friend Lieutenant Bill McLeod shouted over the crackling of rifles and pistols, “Keep up your fire!”
And then Craig, ordering, “Wilson, need your help on the west. We’re falling back.”
The reply from Jordan: “On our way!”
Gary could make little sense of what was happening, but he could imagine it: a fierce shootout in the dark, concrete passageway of the concourse, the gunfire impossibly loud in the confined space. Once, twenty-odd years ago, a trainee discharged his sidearm at the indoor range when no one was wearing their hearing protection, and Gary’s ears rang for a week. The ongoing battle might leave half the defenders temporarily deaf.
Light returned to the veranda, this time in the form of near-instantaneous flickers of white and yellow. Muzzle flashes.
“Is that the horde?” Sam asked. “Or our guys?”
“I’m not sure,” Gary said. “It could be—”
A sharp tink cut him off. His eyes flitted up, toward the ceiling. There, at the top of the window, a thumb-sized hole had pierced the glass, cracks radiating outward like a spiderweb.
“Get down!” Charlie took his arm and pulled him to the floor. Three more tinks sounded a half breath later. Had she not reacted so quickly, Gary realized with some consternation, he might have been hit.
Safe for the moment, he checked on Maria. She’d pushed herself into the corner, hands over her head. Sam had fallen onto all fours. The others lay flat on their stomachs. Two of them—Barbara and Patricia?—were cryi
ng. The radio blared with Craig’s voice: “Return fire! They’re shooting into the field. Stop them!”
The fear caught up with Gary now, overpowering his adrenaline and wrestling it into submission. Purely on instinct, he crawled toward his wife and held her so his body was between her and the shooters in the stadium. Through the new holes in the window, the sounds of fighting became clearer, sharper: gunfire, terrified screams, and something else, something primal and gut-wrenching. He could only describe them as war cries.
Over it all, he heard Craig say through the radio, “Hang on, people! The Militia’s on its way!”
22
Snow fell as Jenn and her squad crept through a patch of ponderosa pines.
It was just before 2:30 a.m. Shortly after 8:00 last night, the Militia moved out from the airport on foot and took up staging positions in the woods south of I-40. Scouts with radios kept an eye on the White Horde and maintained contact with the defenders in the Skydome. For over six cold, uncomfortable, and nerve-wracking hours, Jenn waited. Then, thirty minutes ago, the call finally came in: the Khan was maneuvering pickup trucks and the snowplow in what could only be the prelude to an attack. Fifteen minutes later, at about 2:15, they rammed the Skydome’s main gates, breaching the barricaded doors and windows.
By virtue of being the First Squad of First Platoon, her unit had been assigned to the left flank of the primary counterattack force, which now approached the Skydome from the east. Her troops were arranged in a line, with her at its center. She led them forward, through this stand of ponderosas, backpack shaking awkwardly as she moved. In it were two pipe bombs. Aiden carried the rest of the squad’s share, another two.
Gunfire crackled from the direction of the Skydome. Would Sam have volunteered to fight at the front lines? Jenn wouldn’t be surprised if he had. She’d be angry with him, yes, but also proud. He wouldn’t stand idly by while the White Horde threatened his family. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, she prayed he kept himself safe long enough for the Militia to break the Khan’s army.
