“If I told you—”
“You’d have to kill me,” Wayne finished. “I know. Why do I suspect you’ve used that line many times in your life and actually meant it?”
“If it makes you feel any better, I wouldn’t enjoy having to kill you.”
Wayne cracked up. “Oh yeah, that makes me feel much better. There’s that gift again.”
The highway ran high above the town but was descending as they moved. Most of the trees along the streets below them were hardwoods and had lost their leaves. This opened up lines of sight that the riders wouldn’t have had months earlier. The hillsides around them had hardwood too, but also held a mix of pines, cedars, hemlocks, and evergreens that obscured sightlines in the deep forest. It was odd that there was a town down there in total darkness. The sight of a “dead” town was something it would be hard to get used to.
They could now see it wasn’t totally dark. With the enhancement of night vision, they could see flickers of light at times. Conor was hoping to see a pocket of illumination brighter than the rest that might indicate a bonfire or lanterns. That could be the enemy camp they were searching for. So far he’d seen nothing like that.
The road was descending quickly and they’d be in town before they knew it. Conor didn’t want to push into this unfamiliar town in darkness, not knowing what they might stumble into. Even if they could find a place to hole up for the night they might have trouble hiding the horses. He’d rather stop somewhere soon and crawl into his sleeping bag to warm up and shake the nagging chill. Tomorrow they could stash the horses in the woods somewhere and spend the day skulking around town.
“I’ve got a thermal scope in my saddlebags,” Conor said. “I’m not sure it would give me any more information than this night vision though. I was hoping we’d be able to see their camp loud and clear at night. They’re either further into town than we can see or they’ve got a dark camp tonight.”
“I hope to hell those guys don’t have thermal,” Wayne commented. “I don’t have much experience with it but I imagine these horses probably put out a hell of a heat signature. We’d really stand out.”
Conor thought about that as his horse plodded forward. The loud clomping of shod hooves carrying in the night concerned him the most. This was a different enemy, a trained enemy. He began to feel really uncomfortable with the idea that the men they were pursuing had military gear and a military background. Why wouldn’t they have night vision? If they had the same advantages he had, that meant he really had no advantage at all.
He was about to suggest they hole up for the night when a shot rang out. What Conor actually heard was a round impacting the guardrail ahead of them, followed by the echo of a distant rifle shot.
“Run!” he barked. It was a simple command but primal and direct, leaving no doubt as to what needed to be done.
The men spun their horses and fled back in the direction they’d come from. There was a second shot and a whine when the round ricocheted off the exposed rock face behind them. Dirt and rock shards rained down on the surface of the road. Whoever was shooting at them didn’t have the rifle, the optic, or the skill required to make this shot. If he had, one of them would be dead by now.
“Get down, Wayne! Stay low on the horse!”
Wayne heeded his warning, leaning forward until the saddle horn bumped his chest plate, trying to make himself a smaller target. Aware that the element of surprise was gone, whoever was firing at them dumped their mag, replacing precision with volume of fire. Seconds later the shots died off and Conor rode alongside Wayne.
“I think they lost sight of us,” he said. “They had time to change mags.”
“That was fucking close.”
“I should have anticipated that,” Conor said. “I keep forgetting this is a military enemy and not just any bunch of rogue assholes. This is an occupying army and they need to be treated as such.”
Wayne slowed his horse and Conor matched his gait. “You say that like you have experience dealing with a military enemy. What the hell kind of machinist are you again?”
“The kind who hates getting shot at,” Conor growled. “The kind who takes it personally.”
“Oh right. Just a regular old machinist. Before this trip is over, you and I are going to have a serious talk about your background.”
Conor ignored the comment. “We need to find a good spot to hole up. If that was The Bond, they may come investigate what their sentry was shooting at. I would suspect they have night vision, but they might have thermal as well. We need to put a thermal barrier between us and the road.”
“There were a few roads going to the uphill side of the highway,” Wayne said. “Maybe we top this hill and find a spot on other side for the night.”
“Let’s do it,” Conor said, nudging his horse into high gear.
37
Conor’s synthetic-fill sleeping bag was heavier than a down bag but more resistant to moisture. He’d shoved it into a waterproof bivy sack before falling asleep, and was glad he had. He was covered in frost when he woke up. He’d stayed warm, the bag hooded over his head with only his nose and lips exposed, but he hadn’t slept well. He was dehydrated and experienced several cramps overnight as a result. There was nothing like getting a cramp in a tight mummy bag.
He also didn’t sleep as well on the ground as he used to, and blamed that on getting older. He’d launched into this mission just like his twenty-eight year old self would have, ready to sleep on the ground and spring out of his sleeping bag with a backflip the next morning. He clearly wasn’t twenty-eight anymore, every pain in his body reminded him of that. He wished he’d brought his hammock. He might have felt a wee bit better.
He sat upright, the sleeping bag wrapped around him. Wayne was in the same state, propped against a tree, neither anxious to roll out into the cold morning.
Conor blinked at him. “Your beauty sleep didn’t help you at all, Wayne. You’re still ugly as a dog’s arse.”
“I’d give up some of my good looks to go a few years back in time. I feel like crap.”
Conor thrust his bag down and climbed out of it. The days were short and it was light already. He needed to get this show on the road. “I’m with you, man. I feel like God ran a rolling pin over me last night, trying to crush me flat.” He dragged on his boots, then stood and started pulling on the rest of his gear.
Wayne wasn’t ready to take the plunge yet and continued to huddle in his bag. “This reminds me of deer hunting, only that’s fun and this sucks. Oh, and this time the deer are shooting back. How’s that for some bullshit? What’s our plan for today?”
“I thought about that last night when I couldn’t sleep. I’ve got a plan but I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”
“You’re probably right,” Wayne agreed. “I’m prepared for that.”
Conor dropped to his knees and began cramming his sleeping gear into a stuff sack. “I want you to turn around, head back the way we came, and catch Barb’s team.”
Wayne stared at Conor like he was crazy. “Let me get this straight. You dragged my ass all the way up here until we caught The Bond, marched me up a mountainside, let me get shot at, and now you’re sending me back?”
Conor yanked the drawstring tight to seal the bag, then crammed it into his Gunslinger pack. He pulled out two energy bars, tossed one to Wayne, and opened the other for himself. “Kind of sounds crazy when you put it that way, doesn’t it?”
Wayne tore open his energy bar and bit into it. “Here’s what I’m thinking,” he said, mouth full. “We let our people catch up with us and we launch a surprise attack on The Bond. I don’t think they’ll be expecting that. If we lay enough hurt on those fuckers they’ll turn and run. Even if they don’t, it’s not likely they’ll continue heading in our direction. They’ll go hunting for easier prey.”
Conor made a pass around the area he’d slept, inspecting for anything he might have left behind. “There’s a couple of problems with that idea. I think t
hey’re totally on guard against an attack like that. They have armed sentries watching the road with night vision. Our people would be slaughtered. The other issue is that even if did turn them around, we’d just be pushing them off on other poor, unsuspecting folks. After what I saw yesterday, I’m not good with that.”
“So that’s your plan?”
“I’m leaving my horse here and heading into town on foot. I’d like you to head back the way we came. At some point today or tomorrow you should run into Barb’s group. Every half-hour I want you to put a call out to them on the radio. When you meet up, I have a list of things I want you to prepare. Then you just wait on me to show up.”
“You’re going to take on The Bond by yourself? Eliminate each and every man in that force with no help?”
“No, that’s not the plan at all. I’m going to make them follow me. If we engage these guys head-on they’ll annihilate us. They’ve got better guns than most of our people. More armor, more men, and more training.”
“Not to mention they’ve got trucks,” Wayne reminded him. “They can pursue us faster than we can escape.”
“I’ve accounted for that.”
“How can you be sure they’ll follow you? Why would they break their routine for one man? You think you can be that much of an irritant?”
Conor smirked. “Barb doesn’t get her personality from her mother.”
Wayne’s eyes grew wide. “Then you can definitely be that much of an irritant.”
“Exactly.”
Wayne climbed out of his bag, slipped on his shoes, and began packing his own gear. “So what do you want us to do?”
38
The pair split when they reached the highway, with Wayne riding back to rendezvous with Barb’s force and Conor hoofing it into town on foot. Having learned from last night, he didn’t hop the guardrail and descend the scree slope as they’d done before. Instead, he moved along the shoulder of the highway, keeping a hawk-eyed watch for anything out of the ordinary. At the spot where they’d come under fire last night, there were indications that large trucks had run onto the shoulder of the road as they’d turned around. Just as the two had expected, The Bond had come searching for them.
Conor had stashed his Gunslinger pack in the woods, a distance away from his hobbled horse. He’d have preferred to carry all his gear with him in case he needed it but that load on top of a Go Bag and a plate carrier with hard plates was too much. He’d be unable to maneuver, and if he fell onto his back, he’d be stuck like a bloody tortoise.
The town appeared deserted but Conor had been in enough war zones to know what was happening along those silent streets and in those quiet houses. By this point, months after the loss of power and resources, the town had probably lost one third of its residents to health-related causes, starvation, and violence. By spring that number would be much higher.
With cold weather settling in, people would be migrating to houses they could heat with wood. They would be pooling their resources, working together to stay alive. Clean water would be an issue, compounded by a lack of proper sanitation. Those unable to walk outside of town and haul back spring water would probably be drinking from the most readily available source of water—the river that passed through town. Contaminated with sewage, bacteria, and parasites, those who drank from it would eventually be sickened if they failed to properly filter the water.
Despite the cold morning, the lack of smoke coming from any of the chimneys in town told him something else. It meant that word had spread among the residents that they were living in an occupied city. Even towns in the midst of disaster developed their own communication networks. Information continued to travel even without telephones, the news, and social media. People gossiped in backyards and through windows. People met while fetching water or conducting discreet commerce. As people had done recently in Bosnia, Czechoslovakia, and Italy in World War II, they would stay holed up and hope these invaders moved on.
Because mountain towns ran along valleys they were often long and narrow, which meant that as long as Conor hadn’t yet located The Bond, he needed to keep walking. It wasn’t likely he would be passing by them without noticing because the town was only one or two streets deep to each side of the main drag. He’d be able to see their convoy even if it was off to the side. He considered climbing a ridge for a better vantage point but didn’t want to expend the time or effort. He was too sore from yesterday’s climb.
He decided to save himself some time by simply asking people if they’d seen the invaders. He tried to flag down the few people he saw moving about but they all ran when he hailed them. He could hardly blame them. In his gear, bristling with weapons, there was nothing warm and fuzzy about him. He saw no need to further terrify these already terrorized people by chasing them down.
The only people who didn’t flee were those whose personal desperation blinded them to the threat posed by The Bond. These were the people who would normally be seen moving about in the same manner even in better times. The shuffling mentally ill, the drug-addicted, and those so poor they lived a hand-to-mouth existence. For some living with those conditions it may not have even been evident that the world had changed. Their lives may always have been on the precipice of an apocalyptic collapse, their burden ready to topple them into oblivion.
Conor saw such a being shuffling along a street. It was not evident until he got closer that it was a woman. Her face was dark and weathered in that look people got when they spent most days outside. She wore a crocheted yellow hat with a pink flower on it, the yarn stained, and the hat cocked at an angle that made Conor want to straighten it for her. She wore a shapeless, oversized sweater beneath a dark brown corduroy coat, green polyester pants that rose above her ankles, and ragged high-top tennis shoes that would have been no warmer in this cold than wearing plastic shopping bags on her feet. She appeared intent on passing by Conor without a word or a glance. Perhaps she didn’t notice him, so accustomed to living invisibly in the world of normal people in their normal lives.
“Excuse me, miss,” Conor asked.
She appeared startled by his invocation. When she looked at him, her eyes were yellowish, bleary, like an alley drunk. “I ain’t got nothing to take, mister. Leave me be.”
“I’m not here to rob you. In fact, I’ve got something for you if you’ll give me a second of your time.”
She glared at him suspiciously. No one ever offered her anything without conditions attached to it. She watched with interest as he fished an energy bar from the special pouch on his gear. He considered cutting it in half, wondering if he might run short on food and need it later, but she’d already seen the whole bar. If he was to put half of it back in his pocket she might just hold out on him, extorting the other half from him before answering any questions. He held it out to her.
She regarded it as she might someone showing her an abscess on their arm, her mouth crumpled and eyes narrowed. “That a candy bar?”
“Something like that. Take it. It’s good.”
She appeared uncertain but took it before he changed his mind. She struggled to unwrap it to the point Conor intervened, doing it for her and then holding it out as one might do with a child. She took a bite of it, chewed, and frowned. “It ain’t exactly a Snickers, is it? Tastes like chocolate sawdust.”
Conor smiled at her apt description. “It has a lot of protein. It will fill you up for a while.”
She was doubtful. “I think I’d rather have a Snickers and take my chances with being hungry later.” Despite her comment, she ate it. “Got anything to wash it down with? A cold Old Milwaukee beer?”
Conor smiled. “No, you’ll have to keep looking if you want beer. Can’t help you there.”
“What about a slug from your water bottle?”
Conor studied her grime encrusted mouth, her tongue coated in white film, and the blackened nubs of her teeth. “Sorry, I have herpes,” he said. “You shouldn’t drink after me.”
She recoiled in disgust an
d started to wander off, mumbling.
“Hold up,” he said. “I want to ask you some questions. Have you seen some folks in town that look like they’re from the Army?”
She stared him up and down before answering, as if this was a trick question. She was looking at a guy who appeared to be from the Army at that very moment. “Uh, yeah.”
“Besides me?” he added, sensing where her mind was going.
“Yeah, them other fellers.”
“Where did you see them?”
“They was riding around all over town last night. I hid and they didn’t see me. I can be right sneaky. I climbed under the river bridge. Drink under there sometimes with the boys.”
“That was smart,” Conor said. “These men are dangerous and you don’t want to let them see you. Have you seen where they’re staying?”
She nodded.
Realizing she had no intention of elaborating, he attempted to draw out more information. “Can you tell me where they’re staying?”
“Car dealership.”
“What kind of car dealership?”
“New cars.” She only knew of two kinds of dealerships, new or used. “They was a church near there that handed out food but they ran out. The scrap dealer that buys cans ain’t open neither and that’s how I make my money. Don’t know why everything is closed these days.”
“How far is the car dealership?”
She shrugged in an exaggerated way, rolling her shoulders nearly up to her ears.
“Can you see it from here?”
She turned and glanced back in the direction she’d come from. “You see that big blue sign?”
“That’s it?”
“Nah, but it ain’t far past that. A few minutes.”
“I appreciate your help,” Conor said. “You watch out for these people. They’re bad. They shoot people just for entertainment.”
Brutal Business: Book Three in the Mad Mick Series Page 23
