Stand Your Ground

by William W. Johnstone

  Alexis smiled and said, “Of course. I don’t want to be unreasonable.”

  Stark could tell it cost Baldwin considerable effort not to curse at that comment, or guffaw with derisive laughter.

  “Is there any particular prisoner you want to talk to?”

  “How could there be? The government has never released their names. The public doesn’t know who they are.”

  “I’ll just pick somebody, then.”

  “That’s fine. And once he’s assured me that he and his companions have been treated fairly and with respect, I’ll be glad to leave.”

  “Not as glad—Ah, never mind,” Baldwin said. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Mitch Cambridge had just gotten off his lunch break and was coming out of the employees’ cafeteria when Captain Frazier walked by. Mitch was going to say something, but Frazier beat him to it.

  “Cambridge,” the captain snapped. “Come with me.”

  Mitch fell in alongside Frazier, who didn’t slow down.

  “Where are we going, Captain?”

  “We’re making a run into town,” Frazier said. “Draw a vest and an AR-15 from the armory. Get a vest for me, too.”

  Mitch’s heart slugged harder. He said, “Is there some sort of trouble?”

  “Are you questioning my orders, Cambridge?”

  “No, sir,” Mitch replied instantly. “I just thought there must be something wrong—”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Frazier came to a stop. Weariness was in his eyes, along with worry, as he said, “That’s what we’re going to find out. Some of the outside guys saw smoke coming from the direction of Fuego, and one of them thought he saw and heard an explosion in the air toward town. Something’s going on, and the warden wants me to find out what it is.”

  “And you want me to go with you. I’d be honored, Captain—”

  “Just get the gear like I told you, and let’s go.”

  A few minutes later, they drove out through the main gate in one of the prison’s vans. Frazier was at the wheel, while Mitch sat in the passenger seat. Mitch tried to control his nerves as he gripped the assault rifle he had gotten from the prison’s armory. The vest he wore felt heavy and hot.

  He wasn’t afraid, exactly, although uncertainty always had a little fear mixed in with it. He was pleased by the trust in him Captain Frazier had displayed by picking him to come along, although he knew luck had played a part in that by putting him right there in front of the cafeteria when Frazier had come along the corridor.

  But if Frazier didn’t think he could do the job, the captain would have kept walking and found somebody else.

  This day wasn’t working out too bad, Mitch thought.

  “Do you have any idea what might be going on in town, Captain?” Mitch ventured to ask.

  “If I did, we wouldn’t be going to see,” Frazier said without taking his eyes off the two-lane blacktop in front of them.

  “Well, sure, but I thought you might have some inkling—”

  “I don’t.”

  The flat, hard sound of Frazier’s voice warned Mitch that now might be a good time to shut up.

  He didn’t need to be running off at the mouth, anyway. That would just make the captain think that he was nervous.

  And he wasn’t.

  Not really.

  Frazier narrowed his eyes and leaned forward a little to peer through the windshield.

  “What the hell is that?” he muttered.

  Mitch looked down the road, too, and saw what had caught the captain’s attention.

  Clouds of dust had started to rise from the ground on both sides of the blacktop. The terrain was flat, hard-packed sand, dotted with clumps of hardy grass and the occasional short, gnarled mesquite tree. Vehicles could drive on it without much trouble, and from the looks of the dust, a number of them were coming this way.

  “Captain,” Mitch said slowly, “that can’t be good.”

  Frazier hit the brakes. As the van skidded to a halt, he said, “There should be a pair of binoculars in the glove box. Get out and take a look, Cambridge.”

  Mitch opened the glove compartment and found the binoculars. He swung the passenger door open, set his rifle on the floorboard, and stepped out.

  When he raised the glasses to his eyes and peered through the lenses, it took him a moment to get oriented. Looking through binoculars had always thrown him a little that way.

  Then he located one of the brownish-yellow clouds and followed it down to its base, lowering the binoculars slowly until he could see what was kicking up all that dust.

  Cold fear stabbed into him. No point in denying it, what he saw scared him.

  “Captain,” he said, “there are trucks coming toward us. They look like . . . army trucks.”

  From behind the wheel, Frazier asked, “Some sort of military maneuver we weren’t told about? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Mitch tracked the glasses along the line of vehicles advancing toward Hell’s Gate.

  “It’s not just trucks. I see pickups and SUVs and vans. Even a few cars. That’s not the Army, Captain. At least . . . not the U.S. Army.”

  A couple of pickups spurted out in front of the formation and veered onto the road. Mitch’s heart began to hammer faster as he saw that they had something mounted on the roofs of their cabs. Men stood in the pickup beds as the trucks raced toward the prison van.

  Those were machine guns on the roofs, Mitch realized.

  And with that, he knew that he and Frazier were in deep shit.

  He leaped back into the van and said, “Captain, get us out of here! They’ve spotted us!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Frazier demanded.

  “They’ve got guns—machine guns—on top of their pickups. We’re under attack, Captain. We’re under attack! We’ve got to get back to the prison!”

  Mitch knew Frazier would balk at being given orders by a mere guard. Sure enough, the captain hesitated, and in that moment the onrushing pickups came that much closer.

  Close enough to open fire.

  The range was still a little long, though. The .50 caliber slugs chopped up the blacktop about twenty yards in front of the van. Frazier yelled a curse, took his foot off the brake, and slammed it down on the gas as he cranked the wheel hard to the left.

  The van lurched into a wide turn that took it across the road’s other lane and onto the gravel shoulder. The tires spun for a second, then gained traction. As the van skidded back up onto the road and sped toward the prison, Mitch heard pinging sounds.

  Those were bullets hitting the back of the van, he knew.

  He cursed and prayed under his breath as Frazier kept the van’s accelerator floored. The needle on the speedometer crept past 75, 80, and then on to 90.

  “Get on the horn to the prison!” Frazier shouted over the roar of the engine. “Let ’em know we got trouble!”

  Mitch fumbled with the microphone clipped to the dashboard. He had radio training, but fighting off the sheer terror that threatened to engulf him forced all other thoughts out of his head for a moment. He struggled to remember what to do.

  Then the training kicked in. He set the dials on the radio correctly, keyed the mic, and said into it, “Hell’s Gate, Hell’s Gate, this is Officer Mitch Cambridge. Captain Frazier and I are under attack by a large, armed force that is advancing on the facility. Repeat, Captain Frazier and I are under attack—”

  Movement in the side mirror caught Mitch’s eye. He saw to his horror that one of the pickups had almost caught up to them and had now swung out off the road to get a better shot at them. The muzzle of the machine gun swept toward the van.

  He dropped the mic and grabbed the rifle at his feet. More slugs hammered against the side of the van. Mitch twisted on the seat, rolled down the window, and stuck the AR-15’s barrel outside. He opened fire on the pickup.

  He couldn’t tell if any of his bullets hit the speeding vehicle, but the pickup veered farther off the ro
ad. Mitch kept shooting as it swung back toward them again.

  At least one of his shots was lucky. The pickup’s windshield exploded. He poured more lead into the cab and was rewarded by the sight of the pickup careening out of control. The men in the back yelled and jumped around frantically, but there was nothing they could do as the pickup’s front wheels hit a small dry wash and the vehicle flipped into the air. The men in the back were thrown clear, but Mitch couldn’t see if they landed safely.

  He hoped they hadn’t.

  He hoped they had broken their damned necks.

  The prison’s main entrance was visible up ahead. Mitch grabbed the microphone again and yelled, “Open the gate! Open the gate!”

  Then his heart sank as he realized that the guards couldn’t open the gate. Not with a large enemy force bearing down on the place. In fact, they would be hardening their defenses right now in response to his earlier message.

  The electrified outer fence was topped with razor wire. A few feet beyond that was a concrete barrier designed to stop any vehicles that broke through the fence. There were barriers around the entrance as well, located close enough together that only one vehicle could pass through at a time, and there was a reinforced steel gate that could rise from its housing belowground to block that opening.

  It would take an army to break into Hell’s Gate.

  Unfortunately, that seemed to be what was descending on the place.

  And he and the captain were stuck on the outside with the bad guys, Mitch thought.

  The other pickup moved up on the van’s left. Machine gun slugs pounded the side panel. When Mitch glanced back he saw light poking through scores of bullet holes on both sides of the van. It was a miracle none of them had found the gas tank so far.

  In a matter of seconds, though, the pickup would draw even enough that the machine gun could fire directly into the driver’s side window, and when that happened, the hail of .50 caliber slugs would chop the two of them into bloody, quivering chunks of meat.

  Before that could happen, Frazier hauled the wheel over and sent the van drifting into the pickup. The back end of the van hit the pickup’s right front fender in a jolting, metal-screaming collision. The pickup veered away, and the van squirted ahead again.

  “Hold it steady, Captain!”

  Frazier exclaimed, “What the hell?” as Mitch started squirming the upper half of his body through the open window. He sat on the sill with the slipstream tearing at him and braced his elbows on the van’s roof as he fired the assault rifle across it.

  He knew he was making a better target of himself, but they had to fight back somehow. Their chances of surviving were pretty slim anyway.

  Might as well go out with a bang.

  He targeted the men handling the machine gun. Not really thinking about what he was doing, letting instinct and long hours of practice take over, he fired five shots.

  One man’s head blew apart in a grisly explosion. The other went spinning out of sight into the pickup’s bed as blood spurted from his wounds.

  That put the MG out of action.

  But the passenger in the pickup had a handheld automatic weapon, and he blazed away with it. Mitch brought his rifle’s muzzle down to try for a shot, but the angle was bad.

  Then the van suddenly slowed, and the pickup jumped ahead. That gave Mitch the chance to fire through its rear window. Glass flew as the window shattered, and the inside of the windshield turned red as blood splashed all over it. The pickup’s front wheels turned sharply, probably from the mortally wounded driver slumping over the steering wheel, and the vehicle rolled, turning over several times before it came to a stop beside the road and burst into flame.

  The van was still slowing down. Mitch slid back onto the front seat and saw Captain Frazier leaning over the wheel with an agonized expression on his face. He gripped the wheel tightly, pushed himself up, and found the gas pedal again. His foot had slipped off it a moment earlier, and Mitch knew why.

  The front of the captain’s shirt was bloody.

  “I’m hit, kid,” Frazier grated. “But I’m gonna get you back to the prison.”

  “They won’t let us in,” Mitch said.

  “They’ll open the gate enough for you to get through . . . on foot. That won’t take . . . but a second.”

  “Captain—”

  “Shut up. You fought good . . . You’re a good officer . . . Cambridge. What’s your . . . first name again?”

  “It’s Mitch, sir.”

  “Keep up . . . the good work . . . Mitch. You’ll probably be . . . runnin’ the place . . . one of these days.” Frazier’s lips drew back from his teeth in a grimace of agony as he hunched forward over the steering wheel again, but he kept the gas floored and steered the van straight toward the prison entrance. “Tell my kid—”

  That was as far as he got. He slumped forward again, and his hands slipped from the wheel. His foot slid off the gas.

  Mitch knew the captain was dead. He reached over, grabbed the wheel, and got his left foot on the gas. The prison entrance was only about a hundred yards away now.

  And sure enough, the gate was opening. The guards inside were going to give him a chance to get through on foot, just as Frazier had predicted.

  The van weaved back and forth on the blacktop as Mitch tried to steer from the passenger side. Frazier’s head flopped loosely on his shoulders. Mitch glanced in the side mirror. The line of enemy vehicles was still several hundred yards away.

  He might have a chance.

  He let off on the gas, jammed his foot on the brake, spun the wheel. The van’s rear end swung around, and the van slid sideways along the road toward the gate. It came to a stop no more than ten yards away.

  More fire came from the attackers now. Mitch heard the bullets striking the van as he piled out through the passenger door and made a run for the narrow gap. What sounded like angry hornets buzzed past him. Guards in armor and helmets yelled at him from inside the gate, urging him on. The opening was right in front of him.

  Something struck him in the back and knocked him right through the gap. He hit the ground and lay there gasping for breath as pain filled his body.

  But he realized after a second that the bullet had caught him in an area where the vest protected him, and he didn’t think it had penetrated. The impact had knocked the breath out of him and might have even broken a rib . . .

  But he was alive.

  The narrow opening in the gate rumbled closed.

  The steel barrier started to rise a couple of feet in front of Mitch.

  He had to get over it. He forced himself up, got his hands on the top of the barrier, flung a leg over it. With a grunt of effort, he heaved himself forward and toppled over the thick steel wall, which continued rising to a height of six feet.

  He was safe for the moment, Mitch realized. Somehow, against all odds, he had survived.

  But Hell’s Gate was still under attack, and before this was over, it was possible none of the people inside the prison would make it through what was to come.

  CHAPTER 25

  Lucas Kincaid was about to leave for the day when he heard the voices of people coming along the corridor outside the library’s open door.

  He hoped they would go on past, whoever they were, but as he recognized Warden Baldwin’s gruff tones, he figured he was about to be paid another visit.

  Sure enough, Baldwin came in with that Devereaux woman, the news crew, and John Howard Stark.

  “We’re going to have to borrow your library, Lucas,” Baldwin said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “It’s your library, Warden, not mine,” Kincaid said. “With all due respect, sir, I just work here.”

  Baldwin shrugged, and Kincaid got the feeling the warden was saying that he was lucky to be just an employee. And that was true as far as it went. Kincaid’s responsibilities ended when he left the prison. Baldwin actually lived here, his quarters being located in the administration wing.

  Although the
personal lives of the people he worked with didn’t mean much to Kincaid, he had heard that Baldwin was a widower, and his children were grown and gone. His entire life revolved around this prison.

  “We’re going to be conducting an interview in here,” Baldwin said, although he certainly didn’t have to explain his intentions to Kincaid. “You’re welcome to stick around if you want, but we won’t actually need your help.”

  Kincaid gave in to curiosity and asked, “What sort of interview?”

  “Ms. Devereaux wants to talk to one of the new inmates.”

  Kincaid was surprised Baldwin was going to allow that, but again, Baldwin was the warden and could do whatever he wanted.

  “I’ll stick around,” Kincaid said, once more acting on impulse. He thought this might be his only chance to lay eyes on one of the terrorists, since it was unlikely they’d ever be allowed to use the library.

  It was possible he might even know the guy, he thought wryly. He had helped Company men and American contractors take down more than one terror cell.

  Of course, that would mean he was running the risk of being recognized in return.

  He was willing to chance it. The odds against anybody in Hell’s Gate realizing he had been at Warraz al-Sidar were pretty damned high.

  Those odds had been even more on his side before somebody got the bright idea of transferring all those fanatical bastards here. This prison had been a good, anonymous place for him to hole up until that happened.

  Now he might have to start giving some thought to moving on, finding some other isolated spot, where nobody would think to look for a man wanted by the authorities at the highest level.

  All because he hadn’t been able to turn a blind eye to what was going on. All because he had tried to do the right thing . . .

  “Will those chairs be all right?” Baldwin asked Alexis Devereaux as he gestured toward a pair of dark blue wing chairs.

  “Can that one be turned so that I can look directly at the inmate?” she said.