by Gary Paulsen
CHAPTER 9
As the trucks sped through the night, Cody thought about Walmer. What if he wasn’t a plant? What if …
Rico touched his arm and whispered. “You did the right thing, kid. There are a lot of lives at stake here. Now it’s done with. Put it out of your mind. Think about the mission. These guys will all be watching you. Don’t let us down, okay?”
Cody forced himself to concentrate on the briefing Franklin had given them. They were on their way to the train depot at Wilcox. Rico and another man named Martin had the job of slipping in and checking out the site. When they gave the all clear, the rest of them were supposed to come in, take out the guards and load the missiles.
Franklin had especially wanted Cody to go along because of the wall safe in the depot office. It would be his job to crack it, gather the contents and meet the rest of them back at the truck.
Three hours passed before the trucks finally pulled off on a side road and turned out their lights. One by one the men silently jumped out.
Rico and Martin slipped down the hill toward the depot lights. The rest of them crawled to the edge of the road and watched, waiting for the signal.
Cody’s palms started sweating. He’d never actually killed an enemy before. There was the farmer he’d stabbed with the pitchfork. But that hadn’t been planned and he wasn’t positive the farmer had died.
He felt a firm tap on his shoulder and glanced down the hill. A light flashed three times. Rico and Martin were in.
Thompson led the way down the slope. There were eight of them altogether, including Rico and Martin. Franklin never sent very large teams. The idea was to take the enemy by surprise, get the job done and get out without being caught.
Martin was waiting for them at the bottom of the hill. “The troops sent to guard the missiles are housed over there in that building for the night,” he whispered, pointing to a square shack on the other side of the tracks. “There are six guards in front of the freight car where the missiles are stored.” He turned to Cody. “The depot looks empty. Give us a couple of minutes to take out the guards, then go in.”
“Let’s get to it.” Thompson and two men went one way and Martin and the rest went another. Cody was left standing alone, not quite sure what to do.
He waited, counting off the seconds, took a deep breath and haltingly made his way to the depot. When he reached the outside wall, he flattened himself against it and listened. After a long moment he peeked around the corner. The team had already dispatched the guards and was unloading the missiles.
Cody smiled to himself. Maybe this mission wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
As quietly as he could he crept across the wooden porch and tried the depot door. It was locked. Cody reached in his pocket for his lockpick and in moments the door swung open.
A dim yellow light hung from the lobby ceiling. Cody searched the room. Franklin had told him the wall safe would be in an office through a door to his right. He found the door, softly opened it and looked for the safe. It was there just as Franklin had said.
Slipping his gun sling over his head, he laid the submachine gun on the floor beside the safe. There was barely enough light from the other room for him to see what he was doing. Franklin had given Cody a small flashlight but cautioned him to use it only in an emergency. They had received the same instructions about their guns. If at all possible, they were to pull off the entire job without a shot to avoid waking the rest of the guards.
The safe looked like one of many he and Franklin had opened back in Los Angeles a couple of years before. Cody dropped to his knees and went to work. The first tumbler fell without a hitch. But the second one was stubborn. Cody missed it and had to start over.
He held his breath and turned the knob again. It fell on the right, then on the left and then, very slowly, listening with all his might, Cody turned the knob back to the right and finally heard the last tumbler drop.
Cody let out his breath and pulled the safe door open. There was no time to check the contents. He grabbed at everything and began stuffing it into a canvas pouch Franklin had given him for the purpose.
“Hurry it up, kid.”
Cody jumped and grabbed for his gun. He’d been concentrating so hard he hadn’t heard Thompson come in behind him.
“You shouldn’t do that,” Cody whispered angrily.
“Do what?” Thompson whispered back from the doorway. “Scare the baby?”
Cody ignored him and went back to cleaning out the safe.
“I have you covered.” A bright light snapped on in the other room. “Turn around slowly and put your hands on your head,” a voice commanded.
Cody realized whoever was in the next room couldn’t see him kneeling on the floor because Thompson’s large frame was blocking the doorway. He quietly crawled to the side while Thompson put his hands up and turned to face the voice.
“Step over here, away from the door.”
The soldier kept his gun on Thompson while he edged toward the room to see what his new captive had been up to. He spotted the open safe and cursed in the Republic language, then turned. “You will be shot for this—of course, you would have been shot in any case.”
The instant the CCR soldier turned his back, Cody was up. In one motion he slipped the combat knife from the sheath and threw himself forward, the knife in front of him like a short sword. It was all automatic and later he knew that if he’d thought about it he couldn’t have done it. The knife seemed to disappear into the back of the soldier and the man gasped, a tight breath, half turned to see what had hit him and fell forward and down on his face. The soldier moved a moment and was still. Cody stood, staring at the knife sticking out of the middle of the dead man’s back. He could not make himself move. Not an inch.
Thompson was not idle. He leaned over, made sure the soldier was dead and then smiled up at Cody. “You saved me.…” He was going to say something more but at that moment Rico sprinted into the depot, breathing hard, with an angry frown on his face. “What’s the holdup in here?”
He saw the soldier lying facedown on the floor and glanced across at Cody, who was still poised to attack. “Is everybody okay?”
“Thanks to the kid here,” Thompson said. “He’s something else. How old did you say he is again?”
“He’s fourteen.” Rico grinned. “But he’s a mean fourteen.”
CHAPTER 10
“Come on, Mike. Here, boy.” Cody whistled and called to the big dog, who had run off after a rabbit.
Mike bounded up behind him, nearly knocking him over. Cody knelt and playfully patted his head. “Where’s the rabbit? I guess you failed in your mission, didn’t you? That’s okay. With all that money from the depot safe, Franklin said he’d be buying everybody steaks for a while. What do you think about that?”
The heeler licked Cody’s face.
“Yeech. You don’t have to be that appreciative.” Cody stood up and adjusted his gun across his shoulder. Nowadays, he never left the compound without it. The gun, along with the combat knife he’d retrieved from the back of the dead soldier, had become a part of him and he felt strange when the weapons weren’t with him.
It had been almost three weeks since the depot mission. Thompson had bragged on him until it became embarrassing. Franklin was proud too. Even though he didn’t say much, Cody could see it in his eyes. Cody was not proud—that is, he was proud that he’d saved Thompson, but he had dreamt several times about it, dreamt about the knife going into the soldier’s back, and he always awakened in a sweat.
Rico continued to teach him martial arts and how to use the various weapons stored in the warehouse. But Cody felt restless. His thoughts turned more and more to Sidoron’s prison camp and his plans to try and rescue the kids there.
In the afternoons he had started taking long walks with Mike. He’d discovered a small window in the basement that was just big enough for the two of them to squeeze through. When he needed to think, they slipped out into the desert to
be alone.
He’d decided that he had put things off long enough. Today he had to tell Franklin about his decision to leave the organization. It would be hard. The men at the warehouse had become like a family to him. He knew Franklin would try to talk him out of it, maybe even volunteer some of the guys to go along and help.
Cody straightened. He’d just have to be firm. What they were doing at the warehouse was extremely important to the resistance effort and he couldn’t allow them to sacrifice it for his plans.
“Let’s go, Mike. I guess I better get it over with. Who knows, if things work out for me, they might even let me come back someday.”
He glanced down at the dog. His ears were pointed and the hair on his back bristled.
“What’s the matter?”
Cody listened. He could hear faint, rapid popping.
Gunfire.
It was coming from the direction of the warehouse base. He started running.
CHAPTER 11
Cody lay flat on the ground twenty yards from the fence in the cover of some low bushes. A shiny black car and a transport truck were parked inside the chain-link. Republic soldiers with machine guns were moving around freely in the compound.
Bodies were lying everywhere. The men inside had been taken totally by surprise and the CCR soldiers had cut them down where they stood.
Cody felt sick. He scanned the area. Something was hanging from the flagpole in the center of the compound. He squinted to see it better. It was a man. A tall man with dark skin.
Franklin.
Cody closed his eyes and buried his face in the sand. It wasn’t fair. He should have been there when it happened. Maybe he would have been able to help or would have seen something suspicious and warned them.
A low growl came from behind him where he’d told Mike to stay. Cody looked up. Gollgath, the Skull, stepped into the black car and it whipped around and sped out the gate.
The soldiers who had come in the truck had remained behind to guard the place.
“What do we do now?” Cody whispered. He sat on his heels, trying to think. What would Franklin want him to do? The warehouse had several large shipments of guns, ammunition and missiles inside waiting to be moved to the partisans and rebels. Surely the CCR had discovered them by now and had a call in to headquarters to have them removed.
Cody put his arms around the dog. “We’re all that’s left to stop them.…” He leaned back and watched the black car disappear down the highway. “And I say if we can’t have the stuff in that warehouse then nobody’s going to get it. You stay here, Mike. I’ve got a little fire to start.”
CHAPTER 12
The small basement window was half-open, the way he’d left it. Cody inched up to it and peered inside. It was too dark to see. He listened but didn’t hear anyone moving around.
Feet first, he wiggled down through the window and dropped lightly to the dirt floor. Then he worked his way around the deep pit in the corner and over to the rickety wooden steps. Climbing them quickly, he stopped on the landing and pushed the door open a tiny crack.
Two CCR soldiers were standing guard down the hall in front of the warehouse’s double doors. He pulled the door shut and rubbed his forehead. Somehow he had to get rid of those guards. Shooting them was out of the question. A dozen more would rush in if he tried it. If he was very lucky he might take one of them with karate but probably not both.
An idea formed in his mind. Hurrying back down the steps, he felt in the dirt for rocks and put several in his pocket. Then he raced up to the landing and opened the door again.
The two guards obviously didn’t consider themselves in any danger. They were smoking and talking about the fight to take the compound.
Cody let out a low whistle.
Both guards turned and looked in his direction. He deliberately left the basement door open a crack and darted down the steps to hide.
He heard them coming. The door opened and one of them yelled down, “Who’s there?”
Silence.
Cody stood completely still, not even breathing, hiding under the stairs—waiting.
“There’s nothing here, Comrade.” One of the guards started to leave. “It was just the wind.”
Cody took out a couple of the pebbles and tossed them at the corner of the room.
The guards immediately rushed to the bottom of the steps. One of them took a flashlight from a clip on his belt and pointed it around the room. He spotted the half-open window.
“I must report this.” He handed the light to the other guard. “Stay here. If anyone comes through that window, shoot them.”
Cody tossed a few more rocks near the corner. Both guards quickly moved toward the noise, their guns pointed, ready.
When they were standing by the edge of the pit, Cody made his move. He sprang out from his hiding place, putting all the energy he could muster into his legs, and charged like a mad bull.
He hit them hard. The guards lost their balance. One fell screaming to the bottom. The other dropped his rifle and was falling in when he managed to grab Cody’s leg.
Cody fell backward. He frantically clawed the dirt around him for something to hang on to. He was losing ground, sliding toward the edge. Somehow he had to break the guard’s grip. Using his other foot, he drew back and savagely kicked the guard in the face. The soldier lost his grip, started to swear and then dropped into the hole.
When he hit, Cody heard a light thud. Then the basement was eerily quiet.
Cody sat up and looked over the edge. The soft glow from the guard’s flashlight showed the outline of their tangled bodies far below and Cody felt a slight nausea. They looked so small.…
Then he thought of Franklin hanging on the flagpole and he shook his head and went back to work.
CHAPTER 13
Entering the warehouse was a snap. The CCR had blown the locks off, so all Cody had to do was slip inside and go to work.
He found a grenade launcher and a small case of grenades. Then he grabbed a machine gun and belt.
“This ought to about do it.” Cody carried his stack of weapons to the hall and hurried across to Franklin’s office.
From the window he counted the soldiers who had been left to guard the warehouse. There were fourteen in the open and he guessed a few more would be in the barracks.
His position was good. From where he stood he could see the entire compound. Quickly he opened the crate holding the grenades and loaded the launcher. Sliding the window open, he took aim at the largest group of CCR and without thinking pulled the trigger.
The wall of the building where they stood exploded. Bodies flew into the air and landed motionless ten feet away.
Not waiting for the enemy to recover, he launched one grenade after another until he couldn’t see anything but dust and flying debris. Then he set the bipod of the machine gun on the windowsill and fired randomly across the ground.
He heard someone yell as if they’d been hit. There was a movement near the barracks. Cody squeezed off several rounds in that general direction and saw a soldier spin around and fall to the ground.
He fired until nothing was moving. Taking the last of his grenades and his two guns, he moved down the hall to the door leading out into the compound.
He swallowed, opened the door and dashed around the corner of the warehouse, pointing his submachine gun in front of him and looking for anything that moved. To keep the confusion going he shot another grenade in the direction of the blockhouse.
The cement wall of the blockhouse took the force of the explosion and bits of concrete flew into the air. Cody climbed on top of a truck and jumped onto the roof of the offices. He set up the machine gun and waited.
To his right he heard a noise like someone trying to climb the drainpipe. He crawled across the roof on his stomach, aimed the short barrel of his submachine gun over the edge and straight down along the pipe and fired. There was a startled yell and a thump when the soldier hit the ground.
Quickly Co
dy went back to his position at the edge of the roof and scanned the compound. There was a moment of eerie silence, broken only by the sound of flames licking at a wooden bulletin board in front of the barracks.
Is that all of them? he thought. Are there no more soldiers? He was startled by a sharp crack as wood at the edge of the roof splintered and chipped off from the force of a bullet. He saw quick movement at one of the barracks windows and fired a grenade that exploded harmlessly against the side of the building. He loaded the launcher and held it a bit higher and was gratified to see the grenade go through a window. There was a muffled explosion inside and he waited.
No more shots came.
Cody waited still longer, watching the windows, but nothing more moved and he slipped off the roof onto the truck and then to the ground.
He checked the magazine in his gun and walked around the compound. Nobody moved. Mike had chewed the tie cord and was digging a hole near the gate, trying to get in. Cody opened it for him and the dog rushed inside, sniffing at the bodies strewn across the ground.
Cody followed him to the flagpole and lowered Franklin’s bullet-riddled body. He cried openly and kept working though his stomach was tight and he felt like throwing up.
Gently he laid his friend on the ground and looked around for Rico. Partly because of the destruction he’d caused and partly because the CCR had done such a thorough job, it was impossible for him to identify anyone else.
Knowing his time was short, Cody went back into the warehouse and started carrying weapons and supplies to one of the sand buggies. The radio and extra cans of gasoline were the last items he loaded before he went back into the storage area for the final time.
Rico had explained the mechanisms of the various bombs that came through the warehouse, though Cody had never been allowed to mess with them. He moved to the Big Red, an older bomb used to create landing pads for helicopters in thick forest. Rico had told him the bomb had an enormous concussion and would level everything for fifty yards in all directions. If he could set the bomb off here in the building it should easily detonate the rest of the stuff in the warehouse.
