"Must make you a bit homesick for your own place, then, eh?" said Dalby.
She sighed and shook her head, imagining how cold and miserable those people were going to be. They were probably on a work-for-the-dole scheme.
"I forget sometimes how good we have it down there, Dalby," she said. "I mean, we have refugees and everything, and so you're always reminded of how fucked things are for some folks. But even for them, it's gotta be better than trying to scratch together a living up here."
"Well, I imagine that's why there is such a long waiting list to get onto farm stay programs like yours and Mister Melton's. I cannot think I would remain long in London were it not for work."
He swung off the A13 at River Road, just before the Lyon Business Park, where there wasn't a lot of business being done. Indeed, half the premises seemed to be shuttered up, but Creekmouth wasn't completely derelict. Trucks rumbled to and from the nearby gravel pits, and the sewage plant across Barking Creek was churning away as always. The Thames Cafe and Daddies Snack Bar were open, serving chip butties and sweet tea to a few hundred workers who had precious jobs in nearby metalworks and manufacturing plants. There was a surprisingly healthy marine engineering trade, an industrial cleaning plant, a wire factory, a joinery, and a food wholesaler. One of the largest, most modern facilities belonged to DHL, the courier company, a German engineering firm had just taken over six large factory buildings on Long Reach Road, and there was talk of them opening an engine plant for the new BMW compact under an EU redevelopment program. As far as Caitlin could tell, however, nothing had changed at the abandoned site beyond the erection of a high razor-wire fence.
Dalby drove past all this activity, carefully avoiding the jouncing trucks that rumbled along the crumbling, potholed road, spewing black diesel fumes and not much caring whether they sideswiped him. They carried on past the Crooked Billet pub, an honest drinking hole that smelled of stale food, refried grease, and cigarette smoke. Caitlin had lunched in there once and been taken by the stained-glass windows and an unusually large collection of Pat Benatar tracks on the jukebox but not so much by the grim Dickensian atmosphere and the openly lecherous stares of some of the factory workers nursing their pints and roll-yer-owns.
A minute on from the pub Dalby took a sharp turn just before the old power station and motored down a long driveway past a row of very obviously empty sheds and a large, quiet fenced-off area in which shipping containers were stacked three and four on top of each other. The Thames, gray and wind-flecked, flowed past a hundred meters away, where two men were unloading heavy boxes from a small boat tied up at the end of an old pier. They waved to Dalby as he pulled up and climbed out of the Merc, then went back to their work. The assassin and her handler took their luggage from the backseat and walked through a muddy parking lot in which sat more rusting shipping containers, piles of car tires, at least a dozen rotting wooden boats, and a few mounds of gravel covered in once-green tarpaulins that had been bleached nearly white by exposure to the elements. After a short passage through this junkyard, turning left and right as they threaded through the piles of rubbish, they came to an eight-foot-high electrified fence topped by more razor wire. A blockhouse where a young, well-built man in civilian clothes sat drinking from a paper cup guarded the entrance.
He greeted Dalby by name but insisted on seeing their papers anyway.
The hair on Caitlin's neck stood up as she sensed herself in someone's sights, but she didn't react to the uncomfortable feeling. She knew that snipers covered everyone who came to the Cage through the front door. As long as you had business there, you were fine. It was only those who came through the delivery entrance who had reason to be worried.
The guard thanked them for their time and apologized for the inconvenience of the painstaking accreditation check. The gate slid open smoothly, and they stepped through into Echelon's London op center.
26
Texas Administrative Division "These are definitely no banditos," Miguel said quietly. "They are road agents."
He passed the night vision goggles to Aronson. They were an excellent tool, he thought, well worth stopping in the next large town they might pass to salvage a pair for himself from a hunting supply store or army surplus outlet. He could easily make out a wealth of detail around the Hy Top Club, a slumping structure of old wooden slats with a broken-back roofline and a half-collapsed awning dropping down over a front veranda.
Aronson also spoke quietly, although without whispering. "Is there a difference?"
Miguel took back the goggles and resumed his surveillance of the old nightclub, or dive bar, or whatever it had been. The small town may have been a mausoleum haunted by the seven thousand souls of those who had Disappeared there, but one would not have known that if all one could see of Crockett, Texas, was the Hy Top Club of South Cottonwood Street. The agents who had attacked the Mormon party, stolen the better part of their longhorn herd, and ridden off with half a dozen of the women were doing their best to push back the darkness. The club roared with life-rude, vicious, drunken, and barbarous, but life nonetheless. The uproar had made it all too easy for Miguel and the Mormons to locate their quarry after cautiously approaching the ghost town from the southwest. Two days it had taken. Two days of nerve-racking stealth and caution, rewarded now by the road agents' total ignorance of the danger that had come upon them.
Miguel estimated the agents' fighting company at twenty strong, give or take, and in addition to the six Mormon women they had taken, there appeared to be another seven or eight camp followers with them. All of them were female, but some of them were not really old enough to be called women. About the age of his own daughter, Sofia, he thought with a glare that was hidden by the absolute darkness of the night.
His blood burned with the need to reach out and hurt someone, even though these men were not the ones who had attacked his farm and family.
Well, they would do for now.
"The banditos are all from the south," he explained to Aronson. "They raid into Texas, but they do not base here. Some say they are sent by my old friend Roberto Morales. I once knew him, you know. Before he became so famous."
The frank disbelief on Aronson's face was discernible even by starlight. Morales, the president for life of the South American Federation, was quite a name for a homeless Mexican cattleman to be dropping. But Miguel did know him, even if only in passing. They had worked together
"I joke, of course," Miguel continued. "He was not my friend at all. But I did know him for a short while, long before he knifed Chavez in the back. Whatever the case, the banditos they come and they go, taking what they can and doing their best to avoid Blackstone's troopers. If caught, they are hung… what is the word… summary?"
"Summarily," Aronson corrected him. The man's face writhed with warring emotions-anxiety, fear, impacted fury-all of them barely contained by the need to remain hidden from the men who had taken everything from him. Screams intermittently reached them in their hiding spot, a thicket of loblolly pine and pecan trees a block west of the club. The women's cries unsettled Miguel, too, reminding him of his family's last moments. It was all he could to restrain himself from storming in there right now. He wondered if Aronson was able to recognize any of the ragged, terrorized voices and prayed that he could not. It would be too much for any man to bear. Certainly if his own daughter were being held and abused by such human filth, Miguel doubted he would be able to remain detached.
He calmed himself with the thought that Sofia, at least, was safe for the moment. Hidden well outside town with the rest of the Mormons, she would not be exposed to the ugliness of what was going to happen there this night.
"For banditos, Blackstone's Texas is a hard country," he explained patiently. "Deadly if they are caught. For these men, however, not so much."
He jerked his chin in the direction of the Hy Top, which was illuminated by fires burning in oil drums. Rock music thumped and howled from inside. White man's music. Crunching guitars and pounding
drums to drown out all but the loudest wailing of the female prisoners. He stilled his sense of outrage, which was considerable, and regarded the scene with a heart crusted in salt and black ice. The camp followers were easy to distinguish from the Mormon women. Although just as likely to be struck or kicked or even dragged into the darkness by the agents, they did enjoy a noticeable freedom of movement not granted to the newest captives. They also enjoyed the privilege of kicking down on the other women. As he watched through the NVGs, two of the camp whores delighted a small number of agents by tripping one of the captives after she had delivered a tray of beers outside. They fell on her, pinning her struggling form to the ground, and then one sat on her face and shook her ass, laughing and yelling something that Miguel couldn't make out but that he was certain could only be a cruel taunt. It reduced the audience of road agents to helpless laughter.
Hot waves of fury washed through his head, making him dizzy.
Lying on the thick carpet of pine needles, he felt Aronson go tense and start to move. Miguel reached over and grabbed the man's upper arm, digging into the flesh with fingers as hard as rail spikes.
"No," he said firmly but quietly. "Now is not the time."
"But… they're… that's Jenny over there, Willem's betrothed."
Miguel drilled the tip of his thumb into a nerve bundle beneath Aronson's bicep. The Mormon was not a soft man, but the pain was excruciating and overwhelmed any other considerations. When Miguel was certain he was subdued again, he let go.
"I am sorry, Aronson, but if you move against them now, you will die and she will die. Possibly all of your women will be killed. And not quickly. The agents will make sport of it. We must wait. The others will not move until we report back, and we need all of them."
Aronson was silent for a moment, allowing more screams and reports of debauchery to reach them from South Cottonwood Street.
"This is intolerable," he said at last in a weak, broken voice.
Miguel nodded in the dark.
"Yes. We should withdraw for now, back to the meeting place. I can return and watch the agents' camp by myself. It might be better, anyway. I need to move around them, and I want to scout out the field where they have left the cattle. We must find out how many of them are on guard there, and I can do that without being caught. Probably. You, probably not. Let us go, then."
Without allowing the poor man another second to think about it, Miguel was up, drawing the Mormon to his feet and exiting the overgrown lot where they had been conducting their surveillance. The agents had set themselves up in a poor area of town, southwest of the main business center. Miguel could see that even before the Wave it would have been home to the poorer folk of Crockett. Many of the houses that still stood looked small and mean, especially on the western side of Cottonwood Street, where remnant forest still covered the hills and fields. A good deal of refuse and rusted machinery lay where it had been abandoned in gardens and driveways long before the inhabitants had Disappeared, but unlike the town center and some of the more affluent neighborhoods, the area had not been ravaged so completely by fire and looters. To judge from the scenes he had just witnessed, the Hy Top Club had not been relieved of its liquor supply in the years since the Wave had swept away its clientele.
He pondered that.
Perhaps one of the road agents was a fortunate local, someone who had been out of the country in 2003. Perhaps with the army in Iraq. If so, he could have led his comrades here after they had attacked Aronson's people. In the post-Wave world a little local knowledge could be a very precious resource.
The two men retreated carefully through the darkness. This far from the club, with so much scrubland in the way, not much light made it through from the burning oil drums, but the stars burned with cold brilliance high above and a half moon laid an opalescent glow over the ruins of the town, allowing them to pick their way through. They took it slowly, retracing their steps of an hour before, finally emerging into a small open area where the surrounding forest of hickory, elm, and sweetgum gave way to knee-high grass and a few thin saplings. In twenty years, thought Miguel, it would all be forest again.
Aronson whistled, a trilling call like a night bird, and five silhouettes arose from the grass in front of them. Miguel was impressed. Had he not known the Mormons were secreted in the little glade, he would not have spotted them unless he was especially alert. They had even taken care not to tamp down the grass, leaving a telltale path as they walked over it. He recognized the outline of Willem D'Age as the man spoke in a low, anxious voice.
"What have you seen, Brother Aronson? Are our women alive? Are they well?"
"They are alive, for now," Miguel said, before the other man could set off a panic among his fellows or tell D'Age anything that might tip him over the edge into a righteous fury. "And they will stay that way if we keep our heads about us. Gather around."
The group clustered around the returned scouts. Miguel deferred to Aronson, who delivered a competent report of what they had seen on the edge of town. He managed to contain his obvious distress about their women and shaded the details to spare his comrades. Nonetheless, they could not help themselves.
"So these animals, they have taken the women as chattels?" D'Age asked.
"They treat them very roughly, brother," said Aronson.
"Then we should go now and release them from this veil," another voice piped up. "We shall lay the Lord's vengeance on them for their trespasses."
The speaker was young, and Miguel recognized him as one of the boys, Orin. He was waving around a military assault weapon, and Miguel could tell even in the starlight that every line in his body was tensed and quivering like a bow drawn too far and held too long. He reached over and placed his hand over the boy's where it gripped the front end of the rifle.
"Boy," he said quietly but with great firmness, "this is no game. We shall kill these men tonight. Or they shall kill us. It is not play. Put your weapon away until it is needed. Until blood is the only outcome…"
Miguel hoisted his own rifle, his much-loved Winchester, and held it in front of the boy.
"I have leveled this gun at five men. They are all dead now. Do you understand? Do not wave your weapon around. It is not a toy."
Not only the overexcited lad fell still, but all the men around him.
"Good," said Miguel. "Then we can prepare." Miguel heard the lowing of the cattle, well before the stench of the animals reached him, and then the wind changed and the familiar bovine reek was in his nostrils, at the back of his throat, everywhere, thick as fresh shit on the heel of a new boot. He smiled thinly. He did not imagine for a moment that the road agents guarding the stolen livestock would be savvy enough to detect his particular smell on the night breeze. To get stuck with a job like this when there was a party to be had, they would be the bottom feeders of the crew, the new recruits with nothing to leverage. Still, he would pay them the heed due to men who would kill without a qualm, given the chance.
That was why they would never get the chance.
Two hours he had been watching them as they made their rounds of the football field that butted up against the big loop road that swung around the southwestern reaches of the town. The sporting field was fenced, and the fence line had not deteriorated too badly in three years without maintenance, providing the agents with a convenient area to pen their newly stolen herd within a reasonable distance of the Hy Top Club. It was, he estimated, no more than a ten-minute walk through the darkness, depending on whether you risked turning an ankle or even breaking a leg by cutting across the overgrown gardens that lay in between.
The sounds of revelry had died away in the last twenty minutes. No more music or laughter drifted through the newly grown forest that was quickly reclaiming the outskirts of Crockett. The occasional scream did so, however, and Miguel could only hope that the Mormons would be able to contain themselves until the moment was right. Before they could move on the main body of the agents, he had to dispose of these two quietly. E
ven two men, well armed, arriving at the wrong moment could be enough to turn the tide against them.
Miguel settled himself against the rough, sticky trunk of a pine tree and brought the night vision goggles up to his eyes again. There were two of them, both young, as he had thought. One was taller, however, and, unusually for these times, quite fat. A prodigious belly spilled over his belt buckle, and as Miguel watched, he appeared to be shoving some sort of long bread roll into his face. They were both dressed in a ridiculous mishmash of Hollywood outfits he would have thought of as cowboy biker: jeans with chaps, buckskin shirts, studded black leather vests, and wide-brimmed hats. The shorter and thinner of the two was also wrapped in what looked like a full-length black leather coat. They each carried pistols in hip holsters, but Miguel assumed they were modern semiautomatics, not revolvers. They were for show at any rate, because each was also armed with an assault rifle. Some sort of M16 variants if he was not wrong.
The smaller one was smoking and occasionally drinking from a flask he would take from inside his full-length coat. That was good, the vaquero thought. Drink up, my little friend. Drink up. They shivered and stomped around a small campfire they'd lit near the northern end of the running track that ran around the football field.
Or did they call it a gridiron field here? he wondered. True football was a game played with a round ball between civilized people.
Miguel waited another five minutes, until total silence had fallen over the empty wastes of suburban Crockett. When he was certain the main body of partygoers had exhausted themselves with debauchery, he made his move.
First he removed his shoes and dropped his pants-took them right off-before putting his boots back on.
Then he donned a leather motorcycle jacket salvaged by Ben Randall from an auto shop in Leona two days earlier, thankfully, not from the remains of its former owner. After his scare in the general store, that would have been too much. Miguel was certain he would have felt the dead man creeping all over him within a few minutes of pulling it on. But the jacket had been hung cleanly on a hook in the workshop of the town's garage. It matched the clothing of one or two of the road agents he had spied back at the club. They had also sought out other equipment, but without luck. Thus, he had no silenced pistol or hunting bow with which he might quietly send these two worthless chochas into the next world to account for themselves.
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