by W. J. Lundy
Shane nodded and looked down at his empty hands. “The boss, the one you said wore gray? I seen some others like him at the attack on our Camp. Who are they? What sets them apart from the others?”
Henry stared at the whiskey and swirled it in his glass. “Ricky said they were called Captains. Some with military experience, some police. Just ones they promoted up in their ranks to take charge of the new fellers until they were ready.”
“Why would they come here? It’s so far off the path, just like Camp Cloud. Why bother all of us?”
“They’re taking every homestead, killing and leaving nothing behind. He told me about Crabtree, how they’d moved in. You know they picked it because of the railroad? They’re riding trains down from Ohio. My guess is they plan to turn Crabtree into a station of sorts.”
“We need to stop them. When can we leave?” Shane asked.
“Can you ride?”
Shane shot him a puzzled glance. “Ride?”
“A horse; can you ride?”
The young soldier looked across the table and nodded.
“Then we’ll go in the morning.”
Chapter 10
Free Virginia Territories
After more than two hours on the trail, Brooks turned toward a steep slope and took a knee. Sean was quickly at his side; he raised a gloved hand and signaled for the men to rest. Brad dropped in at the base of a tall oak tree where there the slope, sheltered by thick vegetation, had little snow. He turned so that his back was against the tree and removed his canteen.
Sean ordered the remaining vehicles and wounded back to Camp Cloud. They sent the Afghan scouts ahead on foot to root out any surprises and clear the route. Whoever attacked the Camp was going out of their way to delay their movement. It was a risk to split their force to go after the spotter, but it was also unexpected. Sean wanted to break their lines and put the raiders on the defensive.
The group was down to six plus the Texas Ranger—a bit more than a reinforced fire team, but exactly what Sean wanted. All familiar faces to Brad. Brooks and Joey Villegas were up front on point talking with Sean. Looking out to the rear, he knew Cole—armed with a Squad Automatic Weapon—would be dug in and listening for anyone trying to sneak up on them. If anything got in behind them, he would lay down heavy fire, allowing the rest of the team to get online. Hassan backed Cole up; more tactful, the man could move like a ghost and make silent kills. Originally, Sean had wanted Hassan, the leader of the Afghan Scouts, to lead the wounded convoy back to Camp, but the skilled warrior refused. He insisted that at least one of their own be on the rescue party. Reluctantly, Sean agreed.
The chief looked back and silently ordered the patrol back to their feet. All of them up and moving without making a sound. The last eighteen months of living and hunting on the mountain had turned them into expert woodsmen. Woodsmen combined with the soldiering skills of a previous life made them a dangerous adversary for anyone that was willing to antagonize them. And that was exactly what these men had done. They’d stirred a hornet’s nest of light fighters no longer constrained by the rules of war. They took their families and killed their friends. He didn’t know how Chelsea was doing, and Ella and Shane were both missing. Brad squeezed the pistol grip of his rifle in an attempt to compartmentalize the anger brewing in his stomach.
They stopped again, this time taking a knee before crawling into the thick vegetation, while Joey scouted a game trail ahead. Earlier, Sean had briefed all of them, laid out a map, and tried to anticipate where the spotter and mortar team may have fled. A narrow cut wended from the main highway all the way through the valley. The road splintered and branched off all along the ridgeline and valley where homesteads and a small hunting cabin were scattered. Clouds’ place was near the mouth of the valley where two roads forked; one side running east through his farm before turning north to the Camp and Outpost, the other guided west, eventually meeting a small river and passing several small mountain communities and again rejoining a main interstate. If they kept their current course up and over the slopes, they would intersect that trail before sundown—directly where the tracks were taking them.
Looking up, Brad saw Sean making a circling motion with his hands to call the men forward. Joey must have found something, he thought as he passed the word back. He watched Hassan and Cole materialize out of the brush behind him, and waited for the distance to close before standing and creeping forward. Joey was kneeling over a patch of snow, drawing a small diagram. Burt and Sean were beside him with Brooks, still glued to his rifle, looking out over the top of the slope and providing security.
Joey poked a finger in the snow four times and said, “I found the cabrones, held up less than a klick from here.” The marine rifleman moved his hand away and dragged it over the snow, creating a long waving line. “The stupid bastards are camped right off the trail with no damn cover. They’ve got no idea we’re following them.”
“How many?” Sean asked.
“Four; one with a gray military parka, the other three in rags. They’re all gathered around a fire, warming their asses.”
“Equipment?”
“Light rifles, heavy packs. Spotted a sixty mike tube.” Joey paused to accept a water bottle from Cole. He took a long sip, then looked back. “Chief, these cats look rode hard and put away wet. You want, I’ll go put them down myself.”
Sean grinned and looked up at the sky then back down at his watch. “We got time for that. Break out the NODS; we’re about to find out who the fuck these guys are.”
The marine nodded his head. “We taking scalps or prisoners?”
“I want Gray Parka alive; we kill the rest,” Sean whispered. “Joey, I need you to creep back up and keep an eye on them; someplace high to the right side of the trail. If they move, I want to know.”
“Aye, Chief,” Joey said.
“The rest of you, drink, eat, rest. As soon as the sun goes down, we move in.”
Brad turned on his rear and eased back to his boots, moving back to his hide spot. He pulled his NODS and night scope from his kit and readied them for the attack. He pushed back into the base of the tree and stretched his legs. From his pack he removed a poncho liner, which he draped over his shoulders as he gnawed away on bits of beef jerky he kept in a folded scrap of waxed cloth. He forced his body to rest while his mind raced. Who were they? Most of what he’d seen had been amateurs, rookies, but some of them were different. Did they have professionals in their ranks? Would they be asleep, smoking, or not on watch at all?
With his back pressed to the tree, he watched the sun go down. His legs began cramping from the snow. He dropped the goggles over his eyes and watched the dark landscape transform into hues of green and black. He heard the crunch of snow and saw Cole and Hassan move to his location. Having stashed their packs back in the hide locations, the men were already geared up for the fight. Brad did the same with his gear and took the offered hand from Hassan.
Sean was kneeling at the crest of the hill with Brooks and the Ranger. Brooks smiled at Brad and pointed off into the thick forest. In the distance, they could see the glowing ball through the trees. Brooks leaned close and whispered, “Arrogant tools; that fire will broadcast their position for a mile or more.”
Sean put a finger to his lips, then turned to them. “We’ll line up on the ridge overlooking their camp. Villegas is already perched in close. I’ll be down there on the ground so watch your targets. Sergeant Thompson you’re with me.”
Brad pitched back, surprised at hearing his rank and title. “What?”
“We need to take that leader alive, and I need Brooks on over watch with his rifle.” Sean paused again to look them over. “Brooks will initiate. Remember, the leader stays alive!” The men nodded a reply and Sean stood with Brad falling in close behind. The team moved out along the top of the ridge, following a narrow path, Joey’s footsteps in the snow barely visible. Sean led the way, walking straight up with his rifle in front of him but taking care to avoid branches
and limbs. The moon was lost in the clouds; nobody would see him tonight, especially those gathered around a bright, burning fire.
Twenty meters from Joey’s observation post, the men split off. Brad followed Sean while the others continued on to form a skirmish line along the ridge. Sean cut left and shuffle-stepped onto the downward slope, then stopped to survey the area. The fire was brighter here, nearly washing out Brad’s night vision. He reached up and pulled them away from his eyes and was able to see down into the campsite less than half a football field away.
Previously, Brad had wondered if the men were professionals. Now, seeing the raider’s camp at the base of a hill, surrendering the high ground, and burning a bright fire with no perimeter lookouts, he knew the answer. The men were reckless. The leader, identified by his gray parka and black watch cap, was sitting at the base of the fire with a bottle in his hand. Parka was talking in hushed tones to another across from him. The second man looked barely awake, wrapped in a striped wool blanket. Two more men were in sleeping bags on either side of the fire. Sean turned to Brad; with their faces only inches away, he said, “Boozing it up around a campfire. Let’s slip around behind and wait for one of them to take a piss.”
Brad nodded his response and dropped the goggles back over his eyes. The real threat here was noise. Brad searched the terrain carefully, placing every footfall like a surgeon. With the pre-action jitters filling his senses, every noise was now intensified. He could hear the creaking leather of his boots, Sean’s breathing, the snapping of the campfire, and the muted laughing of the whispering men. Sean guided them just along the outside of the clearing the raiders had chosen to make camp in. Brad could tell they were more worried about Primals when they selected the place. More concerned with standoff than concealment.
They thought staying in the center of a natural clearing with a man on either side of the fire would allow them to see anything coming. Brad shook his head, just wishing a horde would break through and prove the arrogance of the men wrong. It seemed a waste to put them down so easily when a Primal horde would be far more poetic. Sean moved into a depression and Brad followed, crouching beside the chief. He continued looking at the group around the fire. What was once apathy, now slowly turned to anger.
This was the group that killed the men on the convoy. They were probably part of the same group that attacked Camp Cloud. They stayed behind to ambush anyone that came to provide support. Even with their advance weaponry, they were nothing more than street thugs, feeling confident with their strength in numbers. These were just punks; punks playing the bully while holding a rifle. Brad gritted his teeth at the thought of how these men were about to be taught a hard lesson in tactics.
It didn’t take long before the man with the gray parka tossed the empty bottle into the fire and stood up. He stretched his arms and shifted his head from left to right. Brad watched as the man took a staggered, clumsy step back then walked to the nearest sleeping bag and gave it a kick. He stood over the man and barked, “Wake up! It’s your watch.”
The sleeping bag shuddered and turned before it was yanked down from a pale face. The man looked up at the leader wearily, then dropped his head back down, moaning. The leader grunted a laugh, then slung his rifle over his shoulder, walking to the tree line. Sean silently passed his rifle back to Brad and dropped into a crouch. Through the thick beard and the shadows, Brad could barely make out Sean’s features, though the man’s dark hide jacket made him look like a mountain man from old movies. Sean turned and took two steps to the edge of the clearing and waited.
The leader in the gray parka seemed to walk directly toward them. The man fidgeted with his trousers. Staggering and nearly tripping, he turned and veered off to the right. He stepped to the tree line and extended an arm, bracing himself against a tree as he urinated into the brush. Sean crouched out of cover and took three big steps. The man gasped and flinched at the sound, air hardly escaping his lungs before Sean was on him. He wrapped a big gloved hand over the man’s mouth and nose, blocking the oxygen. With a back trip and an under hook, Sean flipped the man through the air, crushing him face down into the fresh snow before planting a knee in the center of his back.
With hardly a swish and a thump, the raiders were left un-alarmed. The man squirmed until he felt the cold steel of Sean’s blade pressed against his closed eye. “We going to have a problem?” Sean whispered. The man struggled to breath and Sean relaxed his grip on the man’s mouth allowing him to speak. He yelped loudly, and the seated man at the camp fire looked up. There was a pop from the ridge above, just louder than the snapping of a branch. Before the seated man could recognize the danger, the top of his head was gone and his body had slumped forward into the fire.
The sleeping bags stirred and were quickly peppered with more suppressed gunfire from the ridge. Brad rose to his feet to find that the fight was over, three raiders dead, and the leader’s hands zip tied behind his back, his ankles strapped together. “Well, Bozo, you just got your people greased. Nice work, asshole.” Sean grabbed the man at the line between the man’s feet and dragged him toward the fire pit. The man screamed out, causing Sean to turn back and plant a boot into the man’s ribs. “You do that again and you’ll eat my knife.” The man looked back with wide eyes, the blood flushed from his face.
“Just let me go. I’ll pretended nothing happened; nobody has to know,” the man said.
Sean grinned. “Why would I care if anyone knows?” He shook his head side to side and laughed. He tightened his grip on the line and dragged the restrained man to the now motionless sleeping bag. He let the leader fall over the corpse of his man. Brad moved in and looked back, seeing the other members of the team moving out of the ridge line. The leader struggled and rolled to his back. Looking into the fire at the burning man, Sean used branch from the woodpile to work the body free, the dead man’s burning coat sizzling against the snow.
The prisoner’s eyes swiveled, finally absorbing the fact that his people were all dead. “Who are you?”
Sean grinned. Ignoring the question, he kicked the smoking body over and removed a small hand gun and knife from the man’s belt.
“Jesus! Did you have to kill them?” the victim asked.
Sean stood and put his hands on his hips. Looking over the casualties, he shook his head, then tuned to face the bound man. “No. I don’t even have to kill you, but I probably will.”
The man leaned back, horrified, his mouth gaping as Brooks and the others gathered around the fire. Brooks didn’t waste time; moving directly to the bodies, he made short work of stacking them together and dumping their pockets into one of the men’s upturned caps. “Lots of good intel here, Chief. I doubt we need this sucker,” Brooks said, moving to an empty stump. He sat down and began going through the cap. “Well now, what is this?” he said in an exaggerated tone, holding a folded sheet of paper. Villegas moved in and took the cap with the rest of the contents, opening a wallet, removing items, and one by one throwing them into the fire.
Brooks waved the paper in Sean’s direction. “Yeah, this looks important, Chief.”
“It’s nothing,” the man spat.
Brooks shrugged, holding the paper to the light and teasing that he might open it. Sean stepped closer and knelt down, giving a surprised expression. “It could be a map,” he said. “Hell, just think; if this is a map back to your compound, then we don’t need you.”
“It ain’t no map,” the man rebutted.
Brooks held the folded paper up against the moon turning it slowly. “I don’t know… looks like a map to me, Chief. Let’s just shoot this guy and get moving.”
“Fuck you. There ain’t no damn map,” the prisoner protested.
Sean grinned and moved closer, kicking a large chunk of firewood toward the bound man. He sat on the log facing him and rolled his shoulders before drawing an HK Mark 23 pistol from his holster. He pulled back the slide just enough to expose the glint of a .45 cartridge that he showed to the prisoner. “So, how c
onfident are you that it isn’t a map?” he asked. “And before you say anything, just know that the only reason you’re still alive is so you can tell me where you’re camp is at.”
The man shook his head. “I’m done talking to you. Shoot me if you want; I ain’t telling you anything.” The man looked away, grunting and struggling to sit up. Sean grinned and let him lay in the dead man’s bloody bedding. He reached into a pouch on his belt and removed a long tactical suppressor. “So, what? You’re like ninety percent sure it’s not a map, and no fear of being shot in the groin?” Sean said, making a show of attaching the suppressor to the handgun.
“Groin? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Oh, I think you know,” Sean said, his voice now lower and more deliberate. “You took some things that belonged to us. And we want them back.”
Another grunt, “I can’t help you with that. Besides, even if I told ya, you’ll kill me anyway.”
Sean turned and nodded to Hassan, who was eagerly standing just behind them with a length of rope. The Afghan scout swooped in and quickly tied the rope around the prisoner’s neck, then lashed the other end around a heavy bit of firewood—heavy enough that the man could still carry it, but with difficulty. The man fought against his bindings, straining against the tension of the rope. “What the hell are you doing?”
“We’re leaving you behind, but the level of cooperation you give will determine the condition we leave you in.” Sean got to his feet and stepped closer before kneeling, then pressed the end of the suppressor into the man’s crotch. His free hand grabbed the man’s windpipe and squeezed. The prisoner flailed to escape his grip as his eyes filled with real fear and he fought for air. Sean relaxed his grip and allowed the prisoner to break free.
