The gunshot that shattered the night startled everyone except Lawdog. He died so fast he had no time to be concerned. His last thoughts were of a good night’s sleep before the bullet severed the connection between his spine and brain. He would have a good sleep all right. He would sleep like the dead.
Thomas picked up his joint from the ground and took another hit from it. He keyed the mic on his radio. "That was me. Shot at a coyote. No worries."
He briefly considered tossing Lawdog's body over the rail and into the water but that was an awful lot of effort with no benefit. He walked back to the fire. The circle of men were on edge from the gunshot and fell silent at Thomas’s approach. If anyone noticed Lawdog's absence they had the sense to not comment on it.
Thomas pointed to Mundo. "You’re the lieutenant now. Second in command.”
Mundo's eyes widened. He understood what that meant and the potential consequences of that position.
Coyote my ass, he thought. Make the wrong call and he could end up like Lawdog.
He didn’t raise his eyes from the fire. “Thank you, T."
He sure as hell didn't mean it.
57
Everyone was slow to wake at Barb’s camp. Breakfast consisted of leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. There was no coffee, only spring water they’d filtered into bottles. Conor was awakened by the movements around him. He was usually a light sleeper, one of the first up, but took this as an indication of how exhausted he truly was. He glanced around groggily and found Barb sitting on her sleeping bag staring at him.
“Jesus, it’s like having a bloody cat, waking to find them staring at you. You never know if they’re demanding food or trying to decide if they can eat you.”
Barb ignored him. “So what did the great Oracle of Bojangles figure out in his sleep?”
Conor groaned. “I’m not going to repeat what my belly just called you. Why did you have to do that? You know how I feel about you bringing up the fecking Bojangles when I’m on the cusp of starving to death.”
“I’ve got no biscuits to offer the Oracle but we do have some reheated rice available.”
Conor sat up in his sleeping bag and rubbed his eyes, pulled his black toboggan off and scratched his head. He checked his watch. “I’ve wasted an hour of daylight.”
Barb shrugged. “It’s okay. I think these people needed to rest. Yesterday was a bit much for some of them.”
Conor regarded his daughter. “What about you, lass? How you holding up?”
“Fine,” she said simply, as if it were merely any other day.
Maybe it was just any other day for her. She trained obsessively, so the physical demands of the previous day would have been inconsequential for her. Additionally, growing up in his shadow, on the periphery of his world of paranoia and violence, none of the rest of it may have phased her either. She might have been the best suited of the group, aside from Conor himself, to experience days like yesterday with no lingering effect.
“You did well with your people,” Conor said. “I haven’t seen you working with them the entire time, of course, but what I saw was impressive. You gave orders efficiently and you didn’t lose your cool. You got people to do what you needed without having to threaten them. That’s certainly the best way to lead if you have that option.”
“I lost my cool a couple of times and I’m pretty sure I did threaten a few of them, but enough about me. What’s on the agenda for today?” She wasn’t uncomfortable with the praise but she wanted to move past it. It was a waste of time as far as she was concerned.
Conor smiled. He was trying to compliment her but she didn’t like him calling attention to her progress. “As a matter of fact I did come up with a plan. Once I get squared away I need to speak with you, Wayne, and Lonzo.”
Barb raised a curious eyebrow at him. “Lonzo?”
Conor nodded. “The guy who said he had worked on gas wells.”
“I know who he is, but why do you need to speak to him? Did it somehow come to you in your dreams that Lonzo was the missing piece of the plan?”
“You’ll know when I’ve stowed my gear and watered the nearest tree. If you can go find those two and bring them back here without raising a lot of attention, you’ll find out.”
With a frustrated sigh, Barb pushed herself up from the ground and walked off. Conor attended to his business in order of urgency. He stowed his gear in his pack and refilled his grenade pouches from his saddlebags. He was thumbing 5.56 rounds into depleted magazines when Barb returned with her companions.
Conor was pleased that she chose not to openly display her sarcasm and frustration in front of the other two men. She refrained from addressing him as the Oracle, which he took as a sign that she was beginning to understand the responsibility that came with her role. She apparently grasped that, even among this crew of guerrilla fighters, she needed to be professional.
Conor got to his feet and slung his rifle over his shoulder, making a quick check to make sure he hadn’t left any gear behind. “Let’s take a little walk.”
“I’m uncomfortable being singled out like this,” Lonzo said. “I don’t like keeping secrets from the rest of my group.”
“There aren’t any secrets,” Conor said. “But I have a plan and it’s not up for debate. Everyone has a role. Once you understand your role, we can tell everyone else. They all have a role to play. This ends tonight.”
“What ends tonight?” Wayne asked.
“The Bond, my friend. The Bond ends tonight.”
58
With a lighter load, their gear stripped to the basics, Barb and Conor rode hard toward the scene of their previous battle with The Bond. At the fastest pace they could push from the horses they reached the hill above Allen City in a little more than an hour. Just as Conor expected, their enemy had not left town yet. They would have to make sure they had collected all the gear from the dead. They would have to check the vehicles carefully to make sure nothing critical had been damaged in the gunfight. If a vehicle was disabled they would require a little time to transfer gear from that vehicle to an undamaged vehicle. At a minimum Conor knew that some windshields would have to be removed because Barb shot holes in a few of them.
Conor examined the scene through the optic of his Accuracy International rifle. Barb used binoculars. The Bond trucks were organized into a neat line along the riverfront street. Their tanker moved along the convoy, filling the individual fuel tanks. Behind the last of the trucks the men were assembled in a loose group.
“Looks like they’re having a little meeting,” Conor said.
“I bet they stayed at my old camp,” Barb said. “That giant woodstove was a nice feature.”
“Well, we know they can only go forward. The bridge I blew up was their only retreat.”
“I’m sure there are back roads out of town,” Barb said. “Some of them probably head north.”
“I’m sure there are too. That’s why we’re here. Our job is to make sure they continue to move forward.”
Conor had explained the details of his plan to her already. They were one of three teams carrying out assigned tasks as part of Conor’s plan. Each had a very specific role that was crucial to accomplishing the mission. Conor and Barb’s team was just the two of them. Their task required very specific skills and a good deal of risk. He didn’t feel comfortable giving it to anyone else.
“So what do we need to do?” Barb asked.
“They’re at least pointed in the right direction. That’s a start. If they get ahead of us in those vehicles though, we’ll never catch up. We need to put a few obstacles in front of them. Something that might slow their roll a little bit.”
“That’s hard on horses too. We can put plenty of obstacles in front of them. Drop trees, roll cars, whatever we find, but they’ll get from obstacle to obstacle faster than us. Eventually they’ll catch up and pass us, hopefully not killing us in the process.”
“If they do get past us, the burden falls on Wayne’s
team. I think I might have a way to kill two birds with one stone though. I can piss them off and give them an incentive to chase us.”
“Oh, I’m sure you can piss them off. It’s a little talent you have, Dad.”
Conor took offense. “Why, if that’s not the pot calling the kettle black.”
“I certainly inherited it from somewhere. It’s genetics. You can’t argue with science.”
“More like you can’t argue with Barb.”
Conor laid out a hasty plan and received no objections from Barb. If she felt it was a harebrained scheme, she kept her mouth shut. From the scene unfolding below them, they knew there was little time before The Bond pulled out. If they weren’t in position before those trucks started, Conor’s plan wouldn’t work.
As soon as Barb understood her role, Conor handed over his horse and began descending the same ravine in the hillside that had concealed him and Wayne yesterday, carrying only his Go Bag and his rifle. He had gravity on his side this time which helped tremendously. He was making a lot better progress going down than he’d made coming up.
In no time he was at the same spot along the riverbank where he left his little gift for his pursuers yesterday. The Bond, feeling no allegiance to their deceased, had not retrieved any of the bodies of the men Conor took out with his Claymore. Several had washed ashore or were hung up on rocks. The wounds on their bodies attested not only to the effectiveness of his explosive device, but also to an abundant and healthy turtle population. There was no way his bomb was responsible for the missing digits and bite marks.
Conor gritted his teeth against the impending cold and made his way across the shallow river. There were more dead men scattered along the steep rock embankment but he ignored them. They were far from the first dead bodies he’d ever seen and they were of much less concern to him than the live soldiers. One kind shot back, the other didn’t. He climbed carefully, making certain his rifle didn’t clatter against the rocks and that he didn’t dislodge any with his feet.
When he reached the top he flattened himself against the ground and parted the dead weeds beneath the guardrail. The bulk of The Bond troops, gathered at the rear of the convoy, were out of sight. The only man Conor could see was the bored fuel attendant waiting impatiently for the slow twelve-volt pump to fuel the trucks. Concerned that the troops might be released from their meeting at any moment, Conor had no time to arrive at an elaborate plan for his next step. This situation called for quick and dirty.
He rolled to his side and opened a long pouch on his plate carrier. He withdrew his custom suppressor and threaded it onto his 9mm. He stood as quietly and carefully as he could then eased over the guardrail. Once on pavement he closed the distance between him and the truck in short order. He heard the distinctive metallic sound of the soldier tapping the fuel nozzle against the tank, getting out the last drops before he capped the tank.
Conor swung around the front of the tanker and leveled his Glock on the face of the confused fuel attendant. He had no time to react before Conor squeezed off a round. The man fell over backwards, the fuel nozzle clattering to the ground. The handgun was now too long for its holster and Conor didn’t want to waste time unthreading the suppressor. He shoved the Glock through his battle belt and withdrew a Sharpie marker from the webbing on his plate carrier. He intended to leave a message on the dead man’s forehead, as he was so fond of doing, but there was not enough undamaged tissue, so he slashed the man’s shirt open and scribbled a message on the flesh of his stomach.
He made certain the fuel hose was secured and climbed aboard the tanker. While he’d driven one of these trucks before it’d been several years. He quickly familiarized himself with the controls and started the engine. He checked the mirrors and saw no one coming. It wasn’t likely the sound of the engine would alarm anyone. They probably assumed it was the fuel tanker repositioning itself to fill another truck.
He’d forgotten how slow the damn things were. He accelerated and ground the gears as he shifted the five-speed. He checked his rearview again and found that the sound of his accelerating engine had finally garnered some attention. A few confused-looking men stood at the rear of the convoy trying to figure out what was going on. Conor knew they would figure it out soon enough. After all, he’d been kind enough to leave them a message.
Just beyond Barb’s old camp, he passed her on the side of the road and waved. She gave him a thumbs up, then pushed a button on a remote control and detonated a charge. There was a sharp pop and two charges blew in tandem, dropping a pair of telephone poles across the road. He checked his rearview again and saw Barb hopping on her horse and galloping after him. The telephone poles would not be serious impediments, but they would slow the Bond enough to allow him to gain some distance.
The tanker was equipped with a winch and Conor stopped when he could to drag more debris into the road. He pulled leaning trees from the hillside, pulled trailers and cars into the road, and then tapped them with the rear bumper to wedge them into place. None of these barricades were meant to deter The Bond, merely to slow them. He wanted them to come after him.
He lost sight of Barb. Their plan was that she would travel by the road until she heard the trucks and then she was to disappear into the hillside like a ghost, taking Conor’s horse with her. They had a secondary plan from that point. The Bond would be pinched in the middle with Conor irritating them from the front and Barb nipping at their heels like a Chihuahua.
59
It was Mundo who first noticed the roar of the tanker truck’s engine. The guy was only moving twenty feet at a time. How fast did he need to go? Mundo took a few steps back from the group and craned his neck to get a better look down the row of trucks.
Thomas noticed Mundo’s distraction and was not happy about it, especially after the poor performance of his troops yesterday. “Am I boring you?”
“No, T,” Mundo replied, his attention glued to the tanker. “I’m just not sure what that fool is doing.”
“I think he’s turning the tanker around,” Thomas offered. “Maybe you should just tighten your own shit up and not worry about him.”
“No, T, something is wrong. He’s still going. His ass is booking down the road.”
Thomas moved to where he could see down the other side of the convoy. “Shit, is that a body on the ground?”
Thomas bolted toward the head of the convoy with his men in tow. They spread out to both sides of the convoy, their rifles at the ready. Everyone was scanning windows and searching beneath cars. They were checking over the guardrail and staring toward the hill beyond it, where their enemy had retreated yesterday.
Thomas beat everyone to the body, recognizing that it was the man who should have been driving that truck. “Dammit!” He stalked off angrily. All his men standing right there, in broad daylight, and he lost a man and a truck.
Mundo flipped the dead’s man’s shirt out of the way, noticing the ink on the man’s body. “What’s that?”
“Looks like a tattoo, man,” Droopy said.
“That ain’t no ink. T, you need to see this.”
Thomas stalked back over and read the message scribbled on the man’s belly: Go home, boys, before you piss me off, signed The Mad Mick.
“Meanwhile that tanker is getting farther away and y’all ain’t doing shit about it!” Thomas barked. “Get it back!”
Everyone flew to their positions. Engines were started and weapons readied. Before they could pull out, there was an explosion in the direction of the fleeing tanker.
“You think he blew it up?” Mundo asked into his radio.
“Negative,” Thomas replied. “Would have been louder.”
They quickly found the source of the explosion when they ran up on the two downed telephone poles. The men wasted no time there. One was immediately out of his truck and dragging the winch cable to fasten it to the first pole. He stepped clear while the driver winched it in, then directed a second truck to remove the second pole while Jawbone unhoo
ked the winch cable from the first. Unfortunately for them, just getting the poles clear of the road was not enough to let them pass. The downed power lines were draped and tangled across the road. Mundo was able to snip them out of the way with bolt cutters but it took time. As soon as the lines dropped, the convoy charged through. The entire effort, though conducted as quickly as possible, took around fifteen minutes.
That was not to be their last obstacle in this pursuit. They found themselves unable to go a single mile without running into some roadblock the Mad Mick left for them. Several times, blinded by rage, Thomas directed a driver to push obstacles from the road. It never worked. Every little trap was laid out to prevent that, like some maddening puzzle.
After four hours of travel they were no closer to securing their stolen tanker. Thomas insisted they had to be gaining ground. They had dealt with each obstacle as efficiently as possible. Surely they were cutting through them faster than the Mad Mick was putting them in place. Then they hit the coal truck and the whole thing ground to a halt.
Thomas could only imagine that the coal truck had ran out of fuel while traveling fully loaded. From the scene before him, it appeared that the Mad Mick must have transferred over enough fuel to restart the coal truck and raise the dump bed. He could have just dumped the load in the highway but he didn’t. He’d raised the bed without opening the rear gate, raising the center of gravity and making the truck extremely unstable. From that point it appeared as if the Mad Mick had backed the tanker into the coal truck and rocked it enough that it had fallen over. Not only was the road entirely blocked by a load of coal, but by a coal truck laying on its side, the bed fully raised.
Thomas climbed out of his truck and ranted. He yelled and cursed, dumped a magazine of ammo at full auto, shooting into the woods ahead of them. When that failed to make him feel better, he dumped another. Only then did his calm rationality return to him. He took a deep breath and went to study the problem before them.
Brutal Business: Book Three in the Mad Mick Series Page 32
