Hannibal is at the Gates

by David Kershner

  Things were relatively quiet on this cold dreary winter day, but the dinner rush was approaching. Prep work was taking place, dough being kneaded, and dressings mixed. At ten ‘til five the bell on the door rang. All of the workers understood it as a signal that the crush of hungry patrons was beginning. Mama Renie’s grandaughter, which the town had nicknamed Mimi, was working behind the bar when Layla and the rest of the entourage entered.

  The woman looked up and barely recognized Katherine and her sister.

  “Oh my word! Katherine? Layla? Is that you?” Mimi announced. “Where have you girls been?”

  The two quickly glanced over and saw her, stepped toward the bar, and leaned over the lacquered mahogany impediment squealing ‘Mimi’ in unison.

  The three exchanged hugs as Mimi inspected their smudged faces and matted hair.

  “I haven’t seen you girls since the Harvest Festival! What in the world have you girls gotten into? Why are you so dirty? Wait. What’s changed?” she asked alarmed.

  The bell on the door rang again and James ducked as he entered. What remaining light there was outside was blocked by his imposing frame.

  “Lord have mercy! That answers that question. Who’s that tall drink of water?” Mimi whispered to the girls.

  They looked over their shoulder and saw James, Dallas, and Juan entering with Heather not far behind.

  “Oh, that’s Uncle James,” Layla said nonchalantly.

  “Uncle? You girls do know you’re white, right?”

  Katherine laughed at the comment. “That’s just what we call him. He and Dallas helped raise us. He was one of dad’s Marine buddies.”

  “Hmmm,” she purred. “I do love a man in uniform. Let me come out from behind this bar and you can introduce me to your friends,” Mimi replied as she started working her way out.

  The group stood in a semi-circle waiting as she approached.

  “Guys, this is Mimi. She and her family own this restaurant,” Layla started to say and then turned to the owner. “You already know Juan.

  “Hola,” Juan offered.

  “Next to him is our sister, Heather.”

  “I’m sorry. Your what?” Mimi said shocked.

  “It’s a long story. We’ll tell you later. The skinny one is Dallas McKutcheon. He grew up with Dad down in North Carolina. This big fella is James Rooney. He was one of Dad’s NCO’s.”

  Mimi walked straight over to James and offered her hand, palm down. James, ever the gentlemen obliged her unusual handshake.

  “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” James said in his baritone voice.

  “Welcome to Mama Renie’s, James. Please have a seat anywhere you like,” she replied flirtatiously.

  The group dispersed into two separate booths while Mimi retrieved her notepad. She pulled up a chair from a nearby table and parked it next to the girl’s booth. “So who’s drinking what?” she asked.

  Layla and Katherine both ordered their usual water with lemon. Heather shocked Mimi when she said “Seven and seven.”

  “Doesn’t she know about –,” Mimi started to say in reference to their mother’s addiction problems when Layla provided her with the answer.

  “Different mother.”

  “Ah, okay. I can’t wait to hear that story.”

  James piped up and said, “We’ll have three of the same over here and the brunette with the deer blood on her cheeks is buying.”

  Katherine had marked Heather with her kill. Her father had done the same to her so she figured she’d carry on the tradition. Heather was proud of the mark and was avoiding its removal until Josh saw it.

  Mimi cocked an eyebrow at the girls table and said, “Y’all went hunting in this weather?”

  “More like survival training,” Heather provided.

  “And who’s idea was that?” she asked.

  “Our step mother’s,” Layla said casually. “Well, soon to be,” she corrected.

  Mimi laughed and said, “What, there were no boarding schools to ship you girls off to?”

  The group chuckled at the comment, but all were careful not to say much more. So far, only the people at the farm had an inkling about the UN plans.

  “Why are you buying for them, Heather was it? Since when does the lady pay?” Mimi said as she directed the questions.

  In a heavily accented French voice, complete with pouty face, Heather replied, “They’re brooding because we won their little war game.” Then just as effortlessly, she switched to her usual tone. “I told them the first round would be on me if they’d quite their whining about losing to a bunch of girls.”

  Mimi laughed at the comments. “That’s pretty good. You should be an actress. Are they crying foul?” Mimi asked.

  Katherine smiled and sheepishly said, “They never said we couldn’t use night vision.”

  “Way to go, kiddo,” Mimi replied and the two high fived.

  The group’s collective attention was drawn toward the back of the restaurant when raucous laughter rang out. As the seven turned to see what was causing the commotion, a young man was being thrust forward and evicted from the herd. He slowly and cautiously began approaching Mimi and her patrons.

  As he neared, James stood and dwarfed the teenager. “Can I help you, son?” he said in his deep menacing voice.

  The lone brave soul slowly turned his gaze upward until he was looking James in the eye.

  The lad stammered, but managed to eke out, “My name’s Scott Watson and my friends and I were just wondering if that was Heather White with you. If it’s not too much trouble, would it be okay if we asked her to take some pictures with us?”

  Dallas nudged James’ arm and handed him a spoon. Recognizing the boys fear and Dallas’s propensity for a joke, James took the implement. He griped the cutlery so hard his knuckles turned white.

  “Do you have any idea how many ways I could kill you with this, kid,” he taunted as he showed him the instrument to his demise, then bent it half for effect.

  Scott swallowed hard. James could see that he was either about to speak or cry and decided to end the rouse, “I’m just messing with you,” he said as Dallas and Juan started laughing. “Go on over and say ‘hi’ if you dare.”

  The boy exhaled deeply and said, “Thank you, sir.”

  The young man took a few steps further and said, “Ma’am, we were wondering,” he started to say and then glimpsed the faces of the rest of the women in the booth. “Katherine is that you?”

  “Scooter!” she squealed as she leapt out of the booth and wrapped her arms around his neck. Before either knew what happened, Katherine pressed their lips together in an awkward and public first kiss.

  Dallas nudged James and said, “Uh oh.”

  “Katherine!” Layla exclaimed.

  The two quickly broke their impromptu embrace. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that,” Katherine said embarrassed.

  “Nice to see you too, Katie,” he replied in taunting jest for having called him Scooter.

  Katherine blushed and giggled at the childish reference to their school days.

  “What are you doing here? I thought you were back at OU?” Scott asked her completely forgetting about Heather. Not waiting for her to answer, he turned his attention to the back of the restaurant and excitedly said, “Guys, guys, guys! Katherine and Layla are here!”

  The group of young men stampeded toward the front and swarmed the girl’s booth. To James and Dallas, it appeared as if a reunion of sorts was underway. The three moved to another booth further away and casually observed the interaction.

  The men watched and sipped their Seagram’s as they admired the girls having normal interactions with friends. It was interesting to see them without the omnipresence of the fear that had once weighed them down. The boys dragged a table over and abutted it to the booth. The girls introduced everyone to one another and a never ending stream of questions and answers ensued, albeit reserved replies from the girls.

  Mimi extricated Heather from th
e mix by saying, “Come on darlin’, let’s you and I head over to grown-ups table.”

  The two joined the men in the other booth. The two groups sat and ate for the next few hours. From their uncle’s vantage point, it appeared that the ‘kids’ table did nothing but talk, laugh, whisper, and giggle. From Layla and Katherine’s perspective, it was probably one of the first times they did something normal without looking over their shoulders in more than a decade.

  Scott and Katherine seemed to shift closer to each other as the night went on. Before departing, as the groups were saying the collective goodbyes, he pulled Katherine aside.

  “Uh, Katherine, I was, ah, I was wondering if you –,” he stammered before she cut him off.

  “Yes!” she said excitedly. “Whatever it is, yes!”

  “Well all right. I was thinking that we could –,” he started more confidently, but she interrupted him again.

  “Anything you want to do is fine. Surprise me, okay?” she quickly added.

  “I think I can do that,” he said halfheartedly. “I may not come from much, but I’m pretty sure I could manage that. Will tomorrow work? Around 7:00?” he asked.

  “You know I don’t care about that stuff. If it helps, we can go Dutch,” she offered compassionately. “Come early though, around 6:45. We aren’t going anywhere until my dad has a crack at you,” she said playfully.

  The boy swallowed hard again. Fathers.

  “Oh, don’t worry. If you can stand eye to eye with this big lug,” Katherine said as she motioned to James who was holding a spoon menacingly. “You can get my dad’s approval.”

  Scott leaned in close and whispered, “What if I want to steal another one of those kisses?”

  Katherine blushed and said, “Well then you better make a good impression,” and then quickly kissed him on the cheek.

  They dropped Juan at his house, and the gear on their new front porch. The three daughters then strode triumphantly into their father’s home like conquering heroes. Their uncles came sulking in behind them like the defeated adversaries that they were.

  * * *

  As evening fell, Gregg was exhausted from his hike, but scouted around the outskirts of the farm all the same. As chance would have it, Gregg found one of James’ observation posts overlooking the main field and the cabin. How convenient.

  He unpacked a sleeping bag from his duffle and settled in. After the last light was extinguished in the cabin, Gregg opted to explore the land under the cover of night. He poked his head in each structure and assessed its usefulness. Greenhouses, root cellars, smokehouses, and storage buildings full of machinery held nothing of interest. As he worked his way by the cabin to the barn, he leered in a few of the windows. Nobody was stirring. The barn was a treasure trove however. What kind of man has a .50 unsecured in the back of a truck? I wonder what else he has lying around in here.

  His curiosity was rewarded when he checked the tack room. There he found a stand of walkies charging in their base. No sooner had he seen the little green ‘charged’ lights as an idea crept into his mind. He swiped two and set them to channel six. He placed one on top of a fence between the cabin and the barn and waited for his opportunity.

  Before dawn the next morning, Gregg was awakened by the sound of a machine starting. The engine revved before finally settling down to idle. He quickly picked up the rifle and peered through the scope. Gregg continued his over watch as Josh started his morning routine with Juan. He observed as the pair inspected the property. They came and went several times from the fields, pens, and barns all morning long.

  Since he began viewing the farm from his observation post, he had witnessed over a dozen people come and go. He’s probably starting a cult.

  For Josh and the rest of the group that had just returned from the mountains, the need to get back to some semblance of normalcy was paramount.

  Gregg watched as two men, a big one and a skinny one, emerged from the cabin and took a farm truck. They disappeared down the main road. They are probably running errands.

  He wasn’t far off. James and Dallas were on their way to town for a litany list of supplies Josh had previously ordered from the hardware store.

  Once the pair departed, Gregg saw no sign of what he assumed were the man’s daughters. He was watching as they excitedly entered the cabin the night before. Unfortunately, he had left his nest to relieve himself and didn’t see the girls depart on foot toward their farmhouse through the hedgerow. By Gregg’s accounting, there were four women still inside the cabin. None was his wife.

  In truth, Josh’s three daughters were all asleep in their new home. They too eventually found the sun just too bright to ignore.

  Gregg watched the comings and goings all morning with great interest through his scope. Hours went by until the right time presented itself. Emily was nowhere to be seen, but given President Sarkes description of Josh, coupled with the news articles he had read, he knew he was in the right place. She had to be here. If he didn’t know better, he swore he could even smell her sweet perfume wafting through the whispering pines. By the time lunch rolled around, everyone was off running errands or completing tasks. All except for the man that stole her from him.

  He watched Josh through the kitchen window as he finished his sandwich and exited the cabin. Finally!

  Then all hell broke loose.

  As Josh neared the walkie, Gregg awoke the beast in his grasp and blew the post in half. Time to dance!

  Reflexively, Josh hit the ground and began scrambling for cover. He quickly crawled behind the nearest car he could find. He peered around the fender of Dallas’ sedan at the remains of the fencing. What the hell?

  A second round echoed through the valley as Gregg put another round into the broken off chunk of wood in front of Josh. It seemed to exploded in to a hundred little punji projectiles. Turf, dirt, and snow were sent hurtling through the air. Come on out. Can you see it yet?

  Gregg waited for a while in order for the man to see what was on the ground. Josh was more concerned with staying behind cover. He was just about to squeeze off another round to direct Josh to the walkie when a truck hurriedly emerged from the woods carrying Juan and his sons. Where did you little fence jumpers come from?

  He quickly switched targets. The passenger side tire on the pickup shredded as the large caliber round tunneled its way through. The vehicle made a hard right and came to an abrupt stop just shy of the eviscerated fence post.

  The three hastily exited the driver’s door and took cover. Juan lay under the truck with his .308 and powerful scope scanning the hill. Jesus did the same from behind the bed of the truck. Abelardo felt useless. When they heard the shots, he had only grabbed the 1911 Josh had given him on his twenty-first birthday.

  These boys came to play. Let’s see what we have... two .308’s and one guy hiding behind the wheel well. This is doable.

  Josh knew what a .50 sounded like from just about any distance. As soon as Juan and his sons hit the dirt, he immediately began using hand signals to alert Juan that whoever it was had most likely found the .50 in the barn.

  Abelardo peered around the front of the truck and thought he saw something lying near the shattered post as the ground exploded once more. He quickly ducked back behind cover and looked over at his friend and employer. Josh immediately signaled that the shot had been the fourth from the five round magazine.

  Come on. Take the hint buddy.

  The fifth and final round from the first mag kicked up more debris. Abelardo poked his head around the front fender once more as Gregg reloaded. He wasn’t imagining things, there was a walkie on the ground. He motioned to Josh that he was going to go and retrieve it. His boss quickly shook his head ‘No’.

  Abelardo stood with his hands outstretched and slowly placed his .45 on the hood of the truck.

  What have we got here? Does he see it?

  Gregg watched through his scope as the young man cautiously ebbed his way forward. The walkie was carefully picked up.<
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  “Can we help you, Señor?” Abelardo said haltingly into the device.

  Abelardo stood there waiting for a reply. A few moments later he received one.

  “Give that to Josh,” Gregg growled into the handset.

  Abelardo slowly turned to Josh and said, “He wants to speak with you, Patrón.”

  “Tell him I’m coming out and to stop shooting,” Josh answered back.

  Abelardo relayed the message and placed the radio back on the ground. He then sprinted back behind the relative safety of the truck.

  Josh slowly emerged from behind the sedan with his hands up to show he was unarmed. Before he was able to reach the walkie, Josh saw Evan’s suburban passing the greenhouses and heading for the cabin.

  “Juan! The girls are coming. Run out there and stop them! He won’t shoot you. He wants me for some reason. Go. Now!”

  Juan extricated himself from under the carriage of his damaged vehicle. He too placed his weapon slowly on the hood of the truck.

  Gregg watched as he ran up the driveway with his hands raised to stop the inbound SUV. He already knew who was in that rig. He had seen them leave earlier in the day.

  Josh bent down and queued the mic, “Can I help you with something?”

  “I’ve got to hand it to you, this is a pretty nice rifle. You should think about upgrading your hardware though. Oh, and maybe locking it up, idiot,” Gregg started off by saying.

  The comment rattled Josh. “Um, okay,” was all he could think of. “That was top of the line in my day.”

  “Try the L115 which chambers a .338 Lapua Magnum or the McMillian Tac 50,” Gregg said.

  “I’ll have to look into those, thanks,” Josh said quizzically.

  “You serve?” Gregg asked.

  “Marines. Why do you ask?” Josh asked.

  “Because you didn’t bat an eye when I rattled off manufacturers and ammo specs,” Gregg answered.