Atkinson grinned back at him from the shotgun seat and said, “You’re one of ’em, son. You’re one of ’em.”
“That’s Hamil,” Kincaid said to Cambridge as they knelt behind a fallen steel beam from a collapsed wall. “I recognize him from that TV broadcast we saw last night. This is our chance, Mitch.”
“Chance to do what?” Cambridge asked.
“Grab the son of a bitch and use him to make the others give up.”
Cambridge shook his head and said, “Do you really think they’ll do that? They’re fanatics. They come from a long line of people willing to blow up themselves and their loved ones to get back at their enemies. Even if you capture Hamil, the others won’t stop now.”
“Maybe not, but it’s worth a try. Give me some cover.”
Cambridge started to say something else, but it was too late. Kincaid had already darted out from behind the beam and was running in a looping pattern toward the pile of rubble where Hamil had taken shelter.
Hamil was watching the attack on the maximum security wing and didn’t see Kincaid coming. Some instinct must have warned him, though, because at the last instant he twisted around and fired the AK-47. He hurried his shots and missed . . .
Except for one bullet.
That slug laced into Kincaid’s side and knocked him half around. He lost his balance and fell, skidding behind the rubble. Hamil pounced, kicking the rifle out of Kincaid’s hands. Then he stood over Kincaid, pointing the Kalashnikov down at him.
“Infidel,” Hamil sneered, “do you know who I am?”
Kincaid’s jaw was tight against the pain that filled him. He ground out, “You’re the head bastard.”
“I am the Sword of Islam! The living personification of Allah’s great and glorious cause! I am the man who will bring your satanic country down to its knees and then crush it!”
“What you are is batshit crazy.”
Rage darkened Hamil’s face. His finger started to tighten on the AK’s trigger.
An explosion hammered the building. More gunfire rang out, and between the shots Kincaid heard voices shouting.
American voices.
Hamil had hesitated, and that was all the break Kincaid needed. He kicked the terrorist mastermind’s knee and rolled aside at the same time. The burst of lead from the Kalashnikov chewed up the floor but narrowly missed Kincaid. He hooked a foot behind Hamil’s ankle and tugged. Hamil was already off-balance from the kick. With a startled yell, he toppled over backward.
Kincaid went after him, ignoring the pain in his side as he scrambled up and landed on Hamil in a diving tackle. He grabbed the rifle with his left hand and wrenched it aside, while his right sought a hold on Hamil’s throat.
Kincaid had changed his mind about capturing Hamil. He didn’t know what was going on around him—all hell was breaking loose, from the sound of it—but it didn’t matter. Hamil was too big a threat to the country.
He had to die, here and now.
Hamil twisted and rammed a knee into Kincaid’s wounded side. Agony flamed through Kincaid’s body and mind, but he fought it back and locked his fingers around Hamil’s throat.
Hamil heaved up from the floor and with a surge of maddened strength broke Kincaid’s hold on him. Kincaid hit him on the inside of the elbow and knocked the rifle out of his hand. For all Hamil’s arrogance, fear showed in his eyes as he tried to writhe away.
Kincaid caught him from behind, looped his right arm around Hamil’s neck, and locked it into place with his left hand on his right wrist. As Kincaid started to tighten the choke hold, Hamil gasped, “Who—are you?”
“Just an American,” Kincaid said. He leaned closer to Hamil’s ear and whispered, “Just an American who knows what you and your kind are planning for this country . . . and I’m going to stop it.”
Then he broke Dr. Phillip Hamil’s neck with a sharp, clean snap.
Heavy footsteps made Kincaid look up as he let go of Hamil’s sagging body. He saw a tall, lean man with graying fair hair and a close-cropped beard grinning down at him. The stranger wore camo and had a cigar clenched between his teeth.
“Good work, soldier,” he said as he extended a hand to Kincaid.
Kincaid knew an officer when he saw one. He had been on the run for so long that he hesitated before reaching up and clasping the man’s wrist.
But only for a second.
Somehow, he knew he could trust this man.
They came like the howling horde of barbarians they were. The last defenders of Hell’s Gate, only two dozen of them now, stood at the makeshift barricade and fired until their weapons ran dry, and then they fought using rifles and pistols as clubs, along with anything else they could get their hands on.
In Billy Gardner’s case, that was the body of a terrorist whose skull he had caved in. He picked up the corpse by the ankles and flailed around him with it, driving back the savages. Bodies piled up around him, but the only one that really mattered lay at his feet. Albert Carbona might be dead, but Billy would protect him to the last.
They had to shoot him at least thirty times before he went down, and when he fell he toppled across Carbona’s body.
Somebody had had to show Travis Jessup how to fire a gun, but he had fought as long as he could before collapsing as blood flowed from his wounds.
When Jessup fell, Simon Winslow got in front of Alexis to shield her with his body. He had never been a fighter, never been physically adept at anything. That was one reason he had gotten so good with computers. But he gave it everything he had, even with a broken arm, and it was to his credit that it took six of the terrorists to haul him down and hack him to bits with knives.
Stark and Riley fought side by side and then back to back, and even in that desperate moment it occurred to Stark, who had two sons, that he would have been proud to have a daughter like Riley Nichols.
Then he grabbed one of the howling terrorists by the throat, took the man’s pistol away from him, and used it to blow the bastard’s brains out. Stark hung on to the corpse, using it to block some of the bullets aimed at him as he and Riley backed into a corner. As at least fifty more terrorists got ready to charge them, he thought about what she had said earlier about not wanting to be taken alive. That was pretty unlikely, but he could make sure of it.
Then he looked at her, saw the fierce snarl on her face, and knew he didn’t have to worry, and neither did she.
There was no way in hell those grubby little varmints were going to take Riley alive.
She’d see to that—and she’d take as many of them with her as she could.
“Mr. Stark,” she said, “if by some miracle you ever see Lucas again, could you tell him—”
“Tell him yourself,” Stark said, “because here he comes now.”
It was true. The terrorists started falling like bowling pins, chopped down by relentless fire from behind them, and leading the way were Kincaid and Cambridge, their faces streaked with gore and their clothes stained with blood and the guns in their hands spouting flame and righteous vengeance on the murderers who had invaded Hell’s Gate.
When the last of the terrorists were down, kicking out their worthless lives, Kincaid rushed forward and swept Riley into his arms. She clutched him with equal desperation.
Stark didn’t know how they were going to work things out, but as he limped out from behind the barricade, he thought there was a good chance they would find a way.
Then he frowned as he looked at one of the men with Kincaid, the one who seemed to be in charge, in fact. And in that man Stark saw something familiar, something that took him all the way back to Vietnam and a skinny soldier who always seemed determined to do things his own way, no matter what his orders said.
“Private Atkinson?” Stark said.
“Good Lord,” Atkinson said. “John Howard Stark! You turn up in the oddest places, Lieutenant.”
“Yeah,” Stark said as he shook hands with his old acquaintance. “And I’m getting too old for it, too.”
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“Nah,” Atkinson said. “Because that would mean I’m getting too old, and that’s never gonna happen. Men like us, we just go on fighting as long as there are wrongs to be righted.”
Stark was too tired to argue.
Besides, Atkinson was right.
This wasn’t over.
“The death toll, including the alleged terrorists, now stands at 1,247 and is expected to rise. The details of exactly what happened in Fuego, Texas, and at the nearby Baldwin Correctional Facility yesterday and early this morning are still very unclear and open to speculation. In a statement from the White House, a spokesman said the preliminary investigation indicates that overreaction by local law enforcement personnel to a peaceful protest may have sparked a riot as the protesters attempted to protect themselves.
“This stance would seem to be at odds with the broadcast from Fuego last night by Dr. Phillip Hamil, who perished later on in the disturbance. Dr. Hamil, a well-known academic and advisor to the administration, claimed in the broadcast to be the leader of a fundamentalist group calling itself the Sword of Islam. It appeared that several hostages were executed at Dr. Hamil’s order during the broadcast. The spokesman for the President says that he believes Dr. Hamil was being coerced, that the man he knows would never be responsible for such an atrocity. The President was quoted as saying, ‘Islam is a religion of peace.’
“Also in relation to this ongoing story, representatives of the Department of Homeland Security had no comment when they were asked about reports that some sort of paramilitary force entered Fuego early this morning to quell the disturbance. Governor Maria Delgado of Texas also had no comment.
“In other news, members of the Muslim community in cities across the nation continue to protest the deaths of several of the inmates at the prison, who were killed during the violence there. They say that these were political executions and the prison staff should be held responsible for them, with appropriate criminal charges filed against them. However, only a few of the prison employees actually survived the incident, among them Warden George Baldwin, who is in serious but stable condition at a hospital in El Paso.
“The correctional facility, known locally as Hell’s Gate, has now been placed under federal jurisdiction for the time being.”
“You get that Mexican bitch on the phone,” the President raged. “She can’t get away with taking military action in defiance of my orders! I’ll put the whole damned state under martial law! I’ll remove her from office! I’ll throw out all the Republicans down there and be done with it. Somebody should have cleaned out that rat’s nest a long time ago. They’ve been holding up our progressive agenda for too long.”
The advisors stood around in the Oval Office in uncomfortable silence and let the President pace back and forth and rant. When he finally ran out of steam, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ventured to say, “If you do that, sir, you’ll have a fight on your hands.”
The director of the Department of Homeland Security sneered and said, “I don’t think we have to worry about a bunch of redneck yokels kicking up too much of a fuss.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” the Attorney General said. “But in this case, Mr. President, we don’t have any real evidence against Governor Delgado. We don’t have grounds for any federal charges—”
“Screw grounds!” the President screamed. “I’m the President of the United States! The people have spoken! I have a mandate! I can do anything I want! My word is law!”
“But sir, the Constitution—”
The President raised both fists over his head, shook them furiously, and roared, “Fuck the Constitution!”
Later—much later—after he had calmed down, he made a call on a special encrypted phone that not even the Secret Service knew about. When a familiar voice answered, he took a deep breath and asked, “What should I do? Is it time for the endgame?”
“Not yet,” the man on the other end of the call said. “The day is not here.” He paused. “But it’s coming. Soon.”
Lee Blaisdell was made acting police chief of Fuego. He didn’t really want the job, but somebody had to do it. Putting the town back in order was going to take a long time.
There were mass funerals for two weeks. It took that long to lay all the innocent victims to rest.
Nobody knew what happened to the bodies of the terrorists who had been killed. They were loaded onto trucks and taken away, presumably by the federal government. Good riddance, most people thought.
Jerry and Lara Patel were both buried in Fuego, however. The authorities weren’t quite sure what their connection to the whole thing had been, so they were given the benefit of the doubt.
Lois Frazier had lost both her husband and son to the savages. Within a month, she sold her house and went to live with her sister in Houston.
Ernie Gibbs’s parents hadn’t been at church that fateful Sunday morning after all, because Mrs. Gibbs had turned her ankle in the garage when they were walking out to the car to leave for Sunday School. Together they mourned Chuck, the family’s lost brother and son, and three weeks later, when Fuego High School reopened with a much diminished and much saddened student body, Ernie was among them. He knew Chuck would have wanted it that way.
Lt. David Flannery resigned from the Texas Rangers and dropped out of sight.
The last network Travis Jessup worked for aired a thirty-minute special about his life and career. It got even worse ratings than their usual programming.
Alexis Devereaux never shut up. She was on some cable news show or other every day for a solid month, telling anybody who would listen about how none of the tragic events in Fuego would have happened if not for the reckless policies George W. Bush had set in motion more than two decades earlier.
Hell’s Gate was shut down, its remaining inmates transferred elsewhere. In the case of some of them, no one really seemed to know where they had gone.
Mitch Cambridge was hired as a correctional officer in another facility.
One of the other officers, Lucas Kincaid, was on the list of those killed in the incident.
“Cigar?” Atkinson asked Stark.
“Don’t use ’em,” Stark said.
“Suit yourself.”
“I wouldn’t say no to a cold beer, though, if you’ve got that.”
“Of course I do. Sit down and I’ll be right back.”
Stark sat down in one of the rocking chairs on the front porch of Atkinson’s rustic, isolated home. From here he could look out over the rugged, wooded slopes of the Palo Pinto Hills, and he thought it was a mighty pretty sight.
“Here you go,” Atkinson said. He handed Stark an ice-cold longneck dripping with condensation, sat down in the other rocker, and took a long swallow from the bottle he had brought for himself. “What do you think of the place I’ve got here, John Howard?”
“Pretty nice . . . if you want to hide out from the world.”
Atkinson snorted and said, “The way the world is today, wouldn’t you want to hide out from it?”
“Some of the time,” Stark admitted. “We still have to live in it, though.”
“That’s true.” Atkinson took another drink. “You hear anything from Kincaid?”
Stark smiled and shook his head.
“That boy’s so far back in the woods we may never see him again . . . especially since Riley went with him. He said he’d check in from time to time, just to see if we needed him for anything.”
“We’re going to need him,” Atkinson said, his voice growing solemn. “When the showdown comes, we’re going to need him to prove what’s really been going on.”
“You think people will believe it? Enough people?”
Atkinson sighed and said, “That’s a damned good question. I wish I knew the answer. But one thing I do know—that showdown is coming.”
Stark heard wheels rumbling on the narrow gravel road that led to Atkinson’s house. He sat up straighter and asked, “Are you expecting company?”
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
Stark and Atkinson stood up as a nondescript car drove into view. It stopped in front of the porch, and a man and a woman got out. Stark knew the man.
“Lieutenant Flannery,” he said with a nod of greeting.
“Just Dave now,” Flannery said. “I’m not a Ranger anymore.”
“Yeah, I knew that.”
Stark looked at the woman and recognized her as well, even though they had never met. As she came up the steps, she held her hand out to him and said, “Mr. Stark, it’s good to finally meet you.”
“You, too, Governor,” Stark told Maria Delgado. He glanced at Atkinson, who was grinning. “I reckon Tom asked me to come out here today so we could have this little get-together?”
“That’s right. We have something to discuss. Something important.”
“What would that be?”
Maria Delgado took a deep breath and said, “The future of Texas. The future of our country.”
“Got more chairs here,” Atkinson said as he waved a hand at them. “We might as well sit down and enjoy this pretty day while we talk.”
So that was what they did. They sat there on a beautiful autumn afternoon in Texas and talked about the days that were coming.
The bad days that were coming.
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2014 J. A. Johnstone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.
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