Half Past Midnight

by Jeff Brackett

  I tried to remember where Jennings was. If I remembered correctly, it was about twenty miles northeast of Bixby. “Why Jennings?”

  “So we can get around them and set up our ambush.”

  “Sounds good. How do you propose we do it?”

  “We head north in the morning. Jump up to Highway two seventy-nine and take it east to Jennings. At Jennings, we drop back down to one eighty, on the other side of Bixby. Then we wait for Larry and take out his Humvees.”

  “All right. And just how do we do that?”

  Something thudded into the ground in front of me. A miniature cluster of nails fused together in such a way that no matter how it sat, it always had one point sticking up.

  “Caltrops. Mark and I made several dozen this morning.” He stared at me like I was crazy when I started to laugh. “Did I miss something?”

  “No.” I laughed so hard tears flowed. Several seconds later, I got myself under control. “It’s just… hell, Ken, I take back every bad thing I ever said about making nails!”

  For as long as man has fought, the idea behind the ambush has been simple. One side attempts to catch the other by surprise and strikes hard and fast enough to compensate for whatever their opponent’s advantage might be.

  As Ken had pointed out, Larry’s advantage was superior firepower. Ours was superior numbers. If everything went as planned, we would turn off the main highway before getting anywhere near Bixby, cut to a parallel road some ten miles north, and drop back south when we got past him.

  Everything went as planned.

  We weren’t foolish enough to think we could take Larry’s group head-to-head, not even with the ambush, but the caltrops blew all four tires in the lead vehicle, two in the second, and one in the third. Our snipers took random shots at some of the others before fading into the trees to observe. Larry’s boys ripped the surrounding trees and brush to shreds in response, wasting much of their ammunition and hitting nothing but foliage.

  After considerable screaming and shouting, Larry finally got them to cease firing. “Leeland!” he screamed to the trees. “Leeland! I know you’re out there! I have your son!”

  I watched through my binoculars, and my heart leapt into my throat as I saw him reach down and drag Zachary up and lay a pistol to his head. So Eric had already reached him.

  Larry yelled into the trees again. “I don’t want to hurt him, Leeland. That would complicate things unnecessarily. But I’ll do it if I have to! Don’t make me kill him!”

  Zachary kicked Larry in the shins. “Let go of me you… you, asshole!” I remembered him telling me that I shouldn’t use that word-that it was a bad word.

  Then Larry cuffed him and lifted him by the collar of his shirt.

  As hard as it was, I held my tongue, and Larry eventually must have decided that he’d scared us off. He started yelling orders at his men to get the blown tires off the damaged vehicles and get the convoy moving. Men scrambled to pull spares off of other vehicles and rush them to the front of the line, while others hustled to remove the flat tires.

  The binoculars brought the terror on my son’s face right up to me. I could see the tears in his eyes, and his ten-year-old determination to keep them in check.

  But I thought I also saw something else. Something in the way Han stood beside Larry-a sudden tension in the big man’s stance.

  “For all his fine skills, my teacher has some simplistic beliefs. He would never willingly take the life of another person, except in self defense or honorable combat.”

  I sighed with relief as I realized that Zach was safe. My attention was drawn back to the ranting Larry. He screamed at his men about their incompetence, and I had to grin as I saw their problem. Seven flat tires and they only came up with five spares. They were going to have to lose a vehicle.

  He finally seemed to calm down enough to accept that fact and was soon yelling orders at his men to get two vehicles going, the machine gun and the two good tires off the final Humvee. I watched closely as two men pulled out simple socket sets and unbolted the makeshift mounting rig from the roof. They carried the big gun with them as they piled in the remaining vehicles and drove away.

  Ken slumped down next to me, his relief obvious. “When he pulled Zach up like that, I was afraid he was going to do something stupid for a second there.”

  “I don’t think he can.”

  “How’s that?”

  “It’s something Larry told me the first time I met him, back on D-day. Something about Han.” I explained what Larry had said about his teacher.

  “So he can’t kill Zach without alienating his teacher?”

  I nodded. “His teacher, his bodyguard, and I’ll bet Han is also one of the main reasons his men have stuck with him so long. He’s a combination mascot and enforcer.”

  Ken smiled. “So if Han leaves Larry…”

  “I’ll bet a good portion of his men leave, too.”

  “Best news I’ve had all day.”

  “All right. So, we stopped one Humvee, and two others left with leaking radiators. And I’d guess we used less than a dozen shots.”

  I put the binoculars back in their case. “And Larry’s boys used considerably more than that.”

  “Yep. And I guarantee you they’ll be traveling a lot slower now, too.”

  “Um, Ken?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do we have any spares for that Humvee?”

  Ken laughed and called Billy over. “Billy, see how many spare tires we have in this group that might fit that Humvee. If you can find four, then we just got another vehicle.”

  We got another vehicle.

  The tension between Megan and me eased some the next day, and she joined us in the Humvee during our second attempt to get around Larry’s troop for an ambush. Ken’s driving reminded me of the wild trip in the pickup on the day of the Kindley massacre. Unfortunately, there was something we hadn’t counted on this morning.

  Again, the idea behind an ambush was simple. One side attempts to catch the other by surprise and strikes hard and fast.

  They hit us just before our turn off. Our Humvee was in the lead when a storm of bullets sent us on a sudden swerving, bumping, sliding trip down the steep embankment that took us off the road. Our trip ended abruptly when the Humvee and a pine tree teamed up to prove quantum physics correct-two objects could not occupy the same space at the same time, no matter how much force was put into the attempt.

  I sat stunned for a second, but the recurring whine of passing bullets and the sudden cries of the battle brought me quickly back to the moment. In the back seat, Debra stirred and groaned, and I turned to make sure she was all right. Her eyes didn’t seem to quite focus properly. Shock, probably. But she nodded when I asked if she was okay. Cindy nodded, too.

  “Good. Get Megan and get out on her side!”

  I turned to Ken and was surprised to find him still in the driver’s seat. I had half-expected to find him already out and running toward the fight. Instead, he was turned away from me, bent over and rocking back and forth. I watched with horror as blood began pooling in his seat. “Oh, shit!” I yelled at Debra. “Open Ken’s door! He’s hit!”

  She still seemed dazed, so Cindy pushed past her and yanked it open. I pushed, she pulled, and Ken tumbled to the ground with a yell.

  Debra knelt beside him. “He got one in the leg.” She took off her belt and tightened it around the limb. “Went all the way through.” She and Cindy checked him for other wounds while Megan and I watched for approaching enemies.

  Finally, Debra called out that she was satisfied that his leg was the only injury. “It doesn’t look like he’s hurt too badly. It missed the femoral artery completely. But we have to get him back to Rejas.”

  Ken had stopped his moaning. “Bullshit,” he spat through clenched teeth.

  “Damn it, Ken,” I said. “This isn’t the time for you to play the damned hero. You’re going back to the hospital.”

  Ken shook his head, and I thought he
was going to argue. Then he hissed through clenched teeth, “Not bullshit to the hospital, bullshit to me not hurting too badly. This hurts like a son-of-a-bitch!”

  Cindy grinned through her tears. “He’ll be all right.” We all ducked as another burst of gunfire sounded from the trees on the other side of the Humvee. “Assuming we get him out of here, that is.”

  Our wreck had not only taken us off the main road, but had also separated us from the rest of our convoy. For the moment at least, no one seemed to notice us, and most of the gunfire remained concentrated about fifty yards up the road.

  Larry had evidently greatly underestimated the size of our group, and I saw several of our Humvees and four-by-four trucks wheel off-road into the forest to flank his troops.

  Fifty calibers notwithstanding, the enemy troops quickly realized just how greatly they were outnumbered and, as our flankers opened fire, they found themselves about to be outmaneuvered, as well. It took less than five minutes to completely rout them. Five frustrating minutes during which I could do nothing but sit and guard Ken.

  Debra and Megan looked like they felt the same way. Just a few minutes after the shooting stopped, I saw Debra tense and signal Megan and me.

  I slipped up beside her. “What is it?”

  “Something moving up on the road.” She pointed. I saw a furtive movement on the road where we had slid down the embankment.

  “There’s another one.” Megan raised her rifle.

  Then Sarah stepped into the open where we could see her. “Sensei?”

  We all sagged with relief. “Down here!” I yelled. “Sarah! Ken’s hit. We need to get him back to town.”

  “We’re on our way!” She slid down the embankment to where we sat with Ken.

  All in all, we lost four people and three vehicles. Seven more people, including Ken, were injured badly enough to warrant sending them back to Rejas. That meant that we also had to send people and vehicles back to care for them during the trip. By the time all was said and done, our group was down to eighty-six people and seventeen Humvees, pickups, and station wagons. In order to get our wounded back to safety, we had to send them in three vehicles, cutting our resources even more.

  I walked back to the rear window of the lead wagon. Ken lay inside sleeping with his head in Cindy’s lap. “Take care of him, Cindy. We’ve all gotten used to his ugly face.”

  She smiled. “I will. You just concentrate on getting that boy back.”

  I walked up to the driver’s door where Debra sat behind the wheel. Leaning through the window, I kissed her softly, worried at the thought of being separated from her in dangerous territory, yet relieved that she would be out of the coming fight. She had as much knowledge of first aid as anyone in the group and would be more of a help with the wounded than in a battle. “Bring Zachary back.” I nodded. “And you come back, too.”

  “You got it. “

  Once more, she kissed me and cupped my cheek, then she started the engine. Through misty eyes, she ordered, “Go get my son.”

  “I promise.”

  Over the next few nights, we slipped easily back into our guerilla warfare mode. Each morning, we set traps in the road in front of them to slow them down. Each night, we sabotaged their camp or killed one or two of their guards. Finally, we had them down to a single Humvee and the truck.

  Those last vehicles had all of the fifty-caliber ammo, but at least we had them pinned down. Or, at least that was what we thought until daybreak three days later.

  “Sensei, wake up!”

  If I had gained nothing else from the months of fighting, at least I had finally learned to bring my mind into focus the second I awakened. I opened my eyes to see Sarah hissing at me from a short distance away. “Problems.”

  I sat up and started belting on my gear. “What’s wrong?”

  “Larry’s gone.”

  “What! How the hell did that happen?”

  “They turned the tables on us. Sent scouts out and got our guards. I figure they pushed the vehicles down the road far enough that we couldn’t hear when they started up.”

  “Even with the truck, they couldn’t all fit into two vehicles.”

  “No. Tracks show most of them walking.”

  “Damn it! Any idea how long ago?”

  “Shift change was less than three hours ago. It has to have been since then.”

  “Wake everyone up!”

  We broke camp in record time and, within ten minutes, we were on the road. About half an hour later, we came across a small group of the enemy standing on the side of the road with their hands in the air. Another man lay on the ground at their feet. They must have heard our engines long before we saw them, but they made no attempt to hide.

  Sarah and Billy led a small squad to surround the seven men and get their story. The rest of us kept a nervous eye on the surrounding forest, painfully aware that this could be a setup for another ambush.

  After only a few minutes of questioning, Sarah trotted over to me. “They say Larry squeezed as many of them as he could in the Humvee and the truck and left the rest to fend for themselves. Most of them took to the woods, but this group wanted to try their hand at trading with us.”

  “Trade?” I snorted. “What the hell makes them think we’d be interested in trading anything but bullets with them?” As soon as I said it, though, I realized I had missed the obvious question. “What do they have?”

  Sarah cocked her head back to the man lying on the ground. “Eric.”

  Megan and I both scrambled out of the Humvee. She beat me there by half a second. “Pops?” She lifted his head and cradled it in her lap. “Pops? What happened?”

  He was in bad shape. Both eyes were swollen shut, and his body was a mass of blood and bruises. His right arm looked like it was broken in at least two places, and his left knee bent at an unnatural angle. Worst of all was the rib protruding through his side.

  “-egan?” His speech slurred, and I realized that his jaw was broken, on top of the other punishments he had sustained. Tears began to leak from the corners of his eyes. “-egan? Ith your fadder he’e?”

  “Right here, Eric.” Up until that moment, I hadn’t known how I would react when I finally found him again. Seeing my old friend like that, though, I couldn’t maintain my fury. For the moment, at least, all I could feel was pity. “I’m here.”

  He turned his face to me and tried to open his eyes, but the swelling was too severe. “Thorry, Lee.” He swallowed, wincing as if he had swallowed broken glass. “Had ta do thomething ta ge’ clothe ta Lawry.”

  “Yeah. Well, let’s not worry about that just now. We’ll work it out when we get back.”

  He shook his head. “Ah not gonna make it back. Fucker meth-h-ed me up too bad. Th’ thombitch ith good, Lee. Be cayhful.” Megan looked up at me with tears in her eyes as she realized what Eric was saying.

  “Who?” I asked. “Who’s good? Was it Han?”

  Eric swallowed slightly. “Yeah. Methhed me up inthide.”

  “Why now? What made them do this now?”

  “Ah tried ta get Zach out this mornin’. Kicked Larry’th ath, too.” Eric grinned for a second, then grimaced as the movement sent pain through his jaw. “Almoth’ made it out, bu’ Han caugh’d me. Be cayhful, Lee. He don’ feel nuttin’. No pain… nuttin’.”

  “It’s all right, Eric. We’ll get him.”

  Eric nodded. “Yeah, jutht don’ fight ’im.” He reached out his left hand blindly, and I took it in my own. “You get th’ chanthe, you thoot th’ bathtard.”

  “You can count on it,” I told him.

  I held his hand like that for a time while Megan cradled his head, until his hand finally lost its strength. As I lay his hand on his too-still chest, my emotions were so mixed up that I could hardly sort one from the other. In those last few minutes, I was almost surprised to find that I genuinely and completely forgave him. Once more, I found myself weeping over the loss of a friend and, as my daughter’s eyes met mine, I thin
k she finally forgave me as well.

  No one bothered us for the few minutes that we grieved, though we all knew that time was pressing. Finally though, I felt it was time to go. As hard as it was to leave Eric, there was a more impending matter. “Come on, Megan. Time to go get your brother.”

  She nodded. “Just give me a minute alone with him?”

  “Sure. I’ll be in the truck.” I walked away with a lump in my throat.

  I didn’t make it far before a soft voice from behind stopped me. “Sensei?”

  I sighed. “What, Sarah?”

  “Ahmm, the others?”

  “What?” I turned, confused.

  She jerked her chin back at the men Larry had abandoned. “They want to know about their trade.” The men who had brought Eric to us in this condition.

  “Trade?” I spun and growled, “What the hell do you want?” Running up to the nearest one, I grabbed him by the shirt and drew Brad’s dagger from my belt. “You march into our town! You kill our friends!” I jabbed the dagger at his throat, letting the tip break the skin. “Our families! Our neighbors! You destroy half the damned town!” I twisted the knife, and a bead of blood welled at the tip. “You steal my son!” His terror showed in the wide eyes that stared in shock at my reaction. “And now you have the balls to ask me for a trade?”

  “Sensei!”

  Sarah touched my hand, and I flinched away, withdrawing the dagger. I had nearly killed a helpless man. Worse yet, at that particular moment, I didn’t really care. I walked a few paces away to try to cool off and heard Sarah come up behind me again.

  I closed my eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. When I felt calm enough to be halfway civil, I turned to her. “What do they want?”

  “Tattoos.”

  “What?”

  “They heard about the slave tattoos from when Larry captured that foraging group a couple of months back. Seems they’ve decided they’d be better off as our slaves than fighting in Larry’s army.”

  I thought about it for a while, then walked back to the bedraggled men standing around Eric and Megan. “You’re asking for tattoos? You know what that means?”