“You think she went to the cabin?”
“I think my daughter would never betray me,” Maggie said. The way I betrayed Jim, she thought. “So, I think something happened. Something your man Dexter did to set this in motion, and she’s scared, and would head for something or someplace familiar.”
“Where’d she get her hands on a gun?” Truesdale demanded.
Maggie smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Sara’s a very resourceful girl.”
19
Fingers of smoke wove their way through the trees, thin and wispy, smelling acrid as Parker broke through the brush along the bank. He turned, looking upriver and then the other way. Ava crouched behind an overturned tree, its bark rubbed smooth from the river, her weapon pointed in his direction. Behind her, Finn crouched next to the boat.
They hadn’t followed his instructions to leave him behind. Punchy from crashing off his adrenaline high, he felt tears building up behind his eyes. He blinked, and hawked up some phlegm from the back of his throat and spit.
“You two are stubborn,” he said.
“Gee, you catch on quick,” Ava said.
Parker had to admire her. She’s a dangerous person, he thought. Trained, and with experience, she would have been as fine a police officer as any he’d ever worked with. As it was, she was already well on her way to becoming a savage guerilla fighter.
“Are you badly hurt?” Finn asked him.
She peered at him anxiously. He shook his head, feeling something like a father’s pride. Somehow, in all the chaos and death, they’d found each other. As incredible as it was, he knew, he’d somehow formed a pack of his own.
He couldn’t let these two down any more than he could his own daughter. He would get clean; he would start behaving like a man who deserved their respect.
“I’m good, guys,” he said. “Let’s get in the river; they could come down this way once they get themselves together.”
“What about the family?” Ava asked.
Weary, Parker shrugged, a little fatalistically. “We bought them time,” he said. “We did the best we could.
Not wanting to risk being spotted on the river, they hid in the bushes until sundown. No one fell asleep and they all seemed to startle at the slightest sound. It was with relief when they finally entered the river.
They floated for several hours, keeping in as close to the bank as they dared. Still fighting infection, bone weary, and no longer able to stay awake, Parker dozed intermittently after the first hour of travel. As evening fell, they found the river branch Parker had been looking for and they drew the boat up into the weeds and bushes along the shore so they could strike out on foot.
Walking along the hills above the river, they kept eyes out for activity below them. Given how far they were from New Albany, it was unlikely that the local FEMA forces would have put two and two together, but the damage they’d managed to inflict was severe enough to have the authorities out in force hunting them even if they didn’t know who they were. As the daylight faded into night, they crossed a highway between checkpoints without raising an alarm and pushed farther north.
Fifteen minutes later, they bumped into a small patrol of National Guardsmen walking the terrain. They simply went to ground, hugging the damp, leaf-strewn dirt as the squad walked past them. Parker recognized the configuration as the team passed; it was a Small Kill Team.
An idea borrowed from the Iraq war, an SKT was essentially a beefed-up sniper patrol. Usually, sniper teams consisted of a shooter and a spotter who also served a communications role. SKT strengthened the number of guns in the team while still keeping the size mobile. In their current form, a light machine gunner and a commo/rifleman were added to the sniper and spotter personnel, forming the SKT now working for the Council.
Ostensibly not much different in theory than a normal fireteam, one of the two or three sub-units making up a squad, SKTs had quickly managed to take on folklore status in the new, occupied America. Since the Event, SKTs had been given license to rein in the bands of marauders and violent criminals who’d become so ubiquitous in the past weeks. Then there’d been the dark rumors of civilians found dead, face-down on country roads or in suburban parking lots, and the rumors had started to spread in a way that suggested they were more truth than rumor. The word had gone out: go out past curfew and the SKTs will get you.
They had become the boogeymen of the FEMA occupation.
Seeing them, the trio had gone to ground automatically, hiding among the brambles and cheatgrass, nervous fingers on their triggers. The contact had forced them to move west as they headed north, into more remote terrain, even as vehicle lights remained visible on the highway below them, signaling motorized patrols.
As they pushed on, growing more tired by the hour, the patrols increased, driving them back down toward the river to avoid them. Finally, after almost walking up behind a knot of state troopers standing around while one of them shit in the woods, they were forced all the way back down to the river, almost going full circle. Still, they kept going, sticking to the brush and following along behind the patrols who had moved on; instead of trying to go around them.
There were so many patrols out, Parker didn’t dare stop for the day insisting that they keep moving so long as they could put one foot in front of the other. They had to put distance between them and the Deckards.
As they drew closer to his cabin, Parker began recognizing the area more, and decided that since the tributary was so much smaller than the Ohio had been, they’d cross when they found shallower water, keeping the road on the other side of the large stream.
They reached the county access bridge a little after noon and hid in the trees while Parker determined the best spot to cross since they couldn’t simply walk across the bridge. They ate quickly, watching the area before risking exposing themselves. Two patrols crossed the county bridge as they watched—first another SKT, moving silently, their faces obscured by camouflage paint, and then a louder squad of guardsmen escorting two deputy sheriffs. Parker decided they should wait until dark to cross.
Taking turns, they kept one of them aware and on the look-out for patrols while they got some rest.
The riverbed of sand and gravel bars was wide and flat at this point along the river. Ninety minutes after nightfall, they started across. When they were halfway to the other side of the river, a four-vehicle convoy trundled down the dirt road ahead of them, headed directly for the county bridge.
“Down,” Parker whispered.
Ava and Finn crouched down, mimicking his actions, kneeling in the murky water and immediately soaking their boots and pants. They began shivering almost immediately. A group of men, Parker counted eight, emerged from the back of Humvees and a Chevy Suburban and entered the tree line, leaving the drivers to provide security on the vehicles.
“Should we go back?” Finn whispered.
Parker shook his head. “Hold on; we already know we’ve got a shitload of patrols behind us.”
The eight-man dismount squad came back out of the woods after fifteen minutes and, for the next half hour, they swept up and down the bank, appearing to size up the area for a longer stay. Finally, they got back in their vehicles and drove away, leaving a single Humvee with two men behind.
The rest of the unit crossed the old bridge and drove back the way Parker and the girls had come. The two men who remained, immediately lit cigarettes and began lounging against the front bumper of the Humvee, rifles hanging by their slings.
Forcing his teeth to stop chattering, Parker brought the girls in close. “I’m going to get a little closer and make sure there isn’t anyone else up there,” he whispered gritting his teeth as the cold water flowed around them. While he appreciated the noise from the river to mask their passage, he knew they couldn’t handle much more.
Ava touched his arm; she was shivering. “B-b-b-be careful.”
“Maybe we should cross back,” Finn suggested.
Parker hesitated, consideri
ng. “We need to get across this water if we’re going to make the cabin. This is the only place to cross that’s shallow enough for miles. We already know there are an ass-load of patrols behind us.” He shook his head. “It’s risky, but the way to go is forward.”
A bit of warm water floated around him, startling Parker with the abrupt temperature change. He looked at Finn, who was standing upstream from him.
She shrugged, her teeth starting to chatter.
He sighed. “This is my life.” He looked at Ava. “If I get hit, you can’t wait for me this time, you understand? We’re too exposed, and gunfire will bring every asshole in a five-mile radius down on us. Head downstream until you can get to shore on this side and then make for Canada. Understand?”
Ava shrugged.
Parker leaned in closer. “Understand, Ava? This time, you need to do what I’m telling you to do.”
She nodded, and Parker shifted to stand, but he paused and grabbed Finn by the upper arm and squeezed, nodding to her. Meeting his eyes, she nodded back.
Moving slowly, using the sound of the river as cover, Parker navigated his way beneath the bridge to where the two men stood above, talking.
Beneath the shadow of the bridge it was darker, and he knew the girls lost sight of him for a few very long minutes. Then he emerged, headed back toward them, still moving at an almost comically exaggerated slow pace.
His expression was grave when he drew close enough to them to speak safely.
“Well, the good news is it’s only the two of them. The bad news is they’re setting up a checkpoint at the bridge,” he said. “Not only are they not going anywhere, they’re going to dig in.”
“They have to go,” Ava said.
Her voice was flat, declarative. She might have pointed out a flat tire and said, “That’s going to have to be changed if we want to drive.”
“Can’t we go around them?” Finn asked.
Parker nodded. “We can. Problem is, we have to go back across and find a new place where it’s feasible to cross. And we already know there are more searchers behind us than in front of us. The next contact we have could be under different circumstances and against far more of them. This is our best shot.”
“We shoot, it’s going to alert people,” Ava said.
Parker nodded again and held up the two-liter Coke bottle he’d scavenged from the riverbank. “We need to try and get this done as quietly as possible.”
“What are we going to do?” Finn asked. Her mixed feelings about the situation, and what her companions were clearly thinking, were evident in the tone of her voice.
“We’re going to come out from under the bridge on the far side where there’s a worn footpath,” he said. “Best chance of not slipping. Then, we’re going to come up behind them and attack with our knives.” He turned to Finn and held up the plastic bottle. “You’re going to come behind Ava and me. We’re going to use masking tape to attach this to your .380, the smallest caliber we have.”
“Why?” Finn asked.
“It will mute the subsonic shot—muffle it, suppress it. Hopefully, if you have to use it, it will cut the weapon report down enough that we get away with it.”
“It’s a silencer?” Finn asked.
“For lack of a better word,” Parker answered, “Yes. Only, it won’t be silent like you’d see on TV, and it only works for one shot.”
“So we’re going to shoot them?” Ava asked.
Parker shook his head. “No, that’s not the plan,” he said. “That’s our last chance back-up. You and I put the guys down with the knives—that’s the plan; if something goes wrong, Finn uses the muffled pistol to help us.”
“If something goes really wrong?” Finn asked.
Parker shrugged. “We shift to our primary weapons and then run like hell.” He looked at Ava. “Can you do this?”
Ava nodded. “I want to live. I want to make it out of here. I want to punish the bastards for what they’ve done. Whatever it takes, I’m in.”
Parker nodded, then spent several minutes showing her where to strike a body with her blade. Finally, he slipped the plastic bottle over the barrel of Ava’s Bersa and taped the bottle into place. A .22 caliber would have been ideal, he knew, but a .380 was still workable.
They moved slowly, creeping up out of the river careful not to slosh water and call attention to themselves. Stepping onto the steep dirt path leading up from the riverbank, Parker shivered knowing the girls were as cold as he was. His M4 was in his hands so that it wouldn’t rattle as he approached, and also in case they inadvertently alerted the two men too early; Ava, behind him, held her own weapon the same way. Finn brought up the rear, the bulbous shape of the bottle looking slightly ridiculous on the end of her compact handgun.
As they approached from behind the Humvee, out of sight from the two guards, they heard the men talking and smelled cigarette smoke. Carefully, Parker eased into position at the rear of the Humvee leaning against the bumper. His palms ran slick with sweat. He looked back at Ava; she was white as a sheet, but her hands gripped the knife she held hard enough to make her knuckles show white in the moonlight. Behind her, Finn had the muffled .380 steadied in both hands. She looked like she wanted to throw up.
Parker risked a glance around the edge of the vehicle, locating the men. He waved Finn forward and pressed his lips against her ear. “Shoot the one on the right on my count,” he subvocalized. “Understand?”
He leaned in close to Ava. “Plan’s changed,” he breathed. “When she shoots, go for your guy; understand?”
Ava adjusted her grip, then nodded. Parker almost felt drunk, the adrenaline coursing through his system was so strong. He carefully stepped into place. He saw the back of his target and held his hand up, and silently counted to three using his fingers to tick off the numbers. When he reached zero, he pointed to Finn without taking his eyes of his man.
The .380 barked.
The sound was far louder than he would have hoped for, but still vastly muted compared to an unsuppressed weapon. He ran forward, seeing his target leap backward in shock as his partner crumpled against the broad hood of the Humvee. Parker reached out and snatched him by the back of his shirt, horse-collaring him straight down onto his back.
The Gerber caught the soldier in the hollow of his throat and went in with hardly any resistance. Wind suddenly whistled through his punctured larynx and blood sprayed into Parker’s face. He used his free hand to pin the man’s head against the ground and then slipped the knife into his left eye cavity.
Ava was on her man like a rodeo rider on a bull. Weakened and surprised, the wounded man had still managed to get his arm between himself and Ava’s knife. He bled profusely from a deep stab in his shoulder, and Ava stabbed him three more times in quick succession, the blade making snik snik snik sounds as she plunged the knife inward, twice into the man’s arm and then once in his shoulder.
Finn ran up to help and heel-stomped the dying man under Parker. The soldier grunted from the impact and his nose flattened across his face, pouring more blood as the tread on her heel tore the flesh there. Ava grunted, and as Parker stood to help, he saw the young woman bury her knife to the hilt in the man’s armpit.
The man went still, and he knew she’d hit the brachial artery on her last strike. Ava looked up at him, sucking in huge lungfuls of air, her hair plastered to her head with sweat. Her shirt, already damp, was now covered in splotchy brown stains where the man’s blood had splashed her. Behind her, Finn was quickly stripping the masking tape from the muzzle of her pistol.
“Search ’em, take what you need, and let’s get out of here,” Parker told them.
Moving fast, they took spare magazines and more smoke grenades. Out of spite, they threw the weapons they weren’t taking with them in the river. They were on the move again within five minutes of killing the checkpoint guards.
They were a pack of three now, unquestioned—part family, part military unit, part outlaw band—and Parker began thin
king they could actually get out of this mess and rescue his daughter. It was a strange feeling to have after the self-doubt and recriminations of the last six weeks, but it was a good one.
Eschewing the roads and cutting cross-country, they climbed up out of the river valley to the flatter land of the bluffs. The countryside here was thick with apple orchards stretching for acres and offering good cover at night. Worried more SKTs may have been sent out in a net to wait along likely routes, Parker led the girls as far from paths and roads as he could manage. This made for rough walking and his leg suffered for it, but his infection seemed to have receded some and he was able to suffer through.
They saw patrols several times, but always from a distance. When they came upon the smoking ruins of a trailer house, they saw there was a battered Celica in the driveway and that a woman had been tied to the hood, face-down. They cut her loose and wrapped her in a tarp, assuming she’d been the victim of criminal gangs and that FEMA burial details would happen upon her eventually.
Afraid of what he would find, and worried about what further evidence of violence would do to them in their exhausted mental states, Parker didn’t investigate the trailer itself. Instead, they put the place behind them and slept in a wrecker yard once daytime hit, surrounded by a labyrinth of flattened vehicles and mountains of car parts.
He felt the change in them all over the next couple of days. He hadn’t been the only one to leave the kills at the river different in some fundamental way. They were all changing, becoming harder and almost feral. They lived close to the ground, wild-hunted, and their trimness wasn’t only physical; it was also mental and emotional.
They had less energy to spend on thoughts not concerned with survival and warfare; they had less empathy to spare because the weight of what they carried with them was already so heavy. Dispatching those men at the checkpoint had begun not so much a metamorphosis, as an alteration from their baseline. They’d always been fighters, but now, because of the ambush, they were killers. Their actions at the bridge could have been avoided. They’d had other options, if not ideal, but they’d gone in with their guns and knives ready.
911: The Complete Series Page 40
