“I’d say you’re pretty close to right,” Rick said as he pulled the automatic weapons from the back of the Humvee and handed them out to everyone. “There were at least four shooters. Maybe more.”
Chase flinched when Rick handed him a weapon. “I’ve never fired one of these. We only practiced with the handguns, and just a couple of times.”
“It’s time to learn, son,” Dawson said.
“Look here,” Rick added. “Keep the rifle pointed down until you’re ready to use it.” He flipped the safety off. “Now it’s ready to fire. OK?” Chase nodded apprehensively.
“C’mon, kid,” Jake said. “Don’t you shoot all kinds of things in those video games you like to play?”
“Yeah, but—”
“It’s simple,” Rick said. “If something is moving, and it’s not one of us, then aim and shoot.” Rick gave him a slap on the back. “You’ll do fine. Stay here, and keep an eye on the vehicle. We can’t lose that no matter what. If you leave the doors open, you’ll have cover to hide behind.”
“We need to move,” Dawson said. “Whoever was shooting will be on the move. We can’t just sit here waiting for them.”
“Agreed.” Rick looked thoughtfully for a second at Chase. “New orders for you, Chase.” He motioned to the top of the barn. “I saw a window in the loft of the barn on the other side. Follow us around that side of the barn, and when you get to the main door, I want you inside and up in the loft as quick as you can. Don’t let yourself get spotted in that window, but make sure you get a good view of the property from up there. You’re going to provide cover fire for the rest of us. Got it?”
Chase looked to Dawson apprehensively. Dawson put a hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eyes. “We’re gonna find her. Don’t worry. We’ll get through this, and we’ll all be together. I promise.” Chase nodded confidently to both Rick and Dawson.
They waited till Chase was inside the barn before they moved up to a better vantage point. Rick took point, and from the corner of the barn, he could see the main house. The wooded area was just out of sight. Where they were now put them at a disadvantage. They didn’t have a good view of the area, and the only way to get to a better position was by risking a move across open ground. Open ground where they wouldn’t have a Humvee to duck into and race away in this time.
“What can you see?” Jake asked from behind.
“Not good. It’s going to be risky, but I think one of us has to draw fire to give the others a chance to make cover.”
“If there are four shooters, that won’t work. They’ll pick us all off too easily,” Dawson said.
“Only two shooters will have a clear line of sight. The shooters in the woods will be blocked by the house. I’m going to head straight for the house, and if I can get around back, then I should be able to flank the ones in the woods.”
“This is all assuming that they haven’t moved from their original positions,” Jake said.
“Why would they?” Rick answered, looking upwards at the barn loft window where Chase was. “Is Chase up for this?” he asked Dawson. “I’m hoping he can cover me while I make for the house.”
“He’ll cover you.” Rick made stern eye contact with Dawson. “If you’d prefer I go instead, that’s fine with me. He may even do better covering me than you … just saying.”
Rick smiled. “Well, that’s understandable. Don’t worry, he’ll get a chance to save your life as well as mine. Once I’m almost at the house, I want you to head for the water tower. You’ll be in the open on the way, but once you get there, you’ll be partially obscured by the safety cage going up.”
“You want me going up the tower?”
“Of course. You’ll end up with the best vantage point of everyone. Assuming of course that Chase does his job.” Dawson detected a hint of a smile on Rick’s face.
“He’ll do his job. Don’t worry.”
“Alright, but just to be sure, you’re going to lay down covering fire as I make my way across, and then Jake can lay down covering fire for the both of us when you’re on the run.”
Both Jake and Dawson nodded in agreement.
Rick stood, and Dawson crouched as they fired into the upper windows of Bert’s farmhouse. Chase joined in with them, alternating his fire from one window to the next. If these guys don’t kill us, then I’m sure Bert will for shooting the hell out of his family home, Dawson thought. No time to be worrying about that, though. Just focus, and get through this one step at a time.
The cover fire was doing its trick, as it caught the snipers in the house momentarily off guard. Rick was able to make it three-quarters of the way across the yard before they even got a shot off at him. He moved fast enough and in a random enough pattern to make the snipers miss with each shot.
Dawson started making his dash to the water tower. It wasn’t as far as the dash Rick had to make, but it was just as exposed. Dust kicked up around him as bullets narrowly missed. The tower was a hybrid windmill water storage unit. The windmill at the top served as a pump to bring water up from a well; then gravity delivered water from the tank. The tank would provide cover for Dawson if he could make it that far. He felt a slight twinge in his leg as he started up the ladder, but didn’t pause to check it. There’d be time for that once this was all over.
He was feeling a slight burn in his leg, but the tower wasn’t that high. Just keep pushing through, he thought. He heard a high-pitched metal clang as a bullet ricocheted off one of the ladder rungs. Halfway there, he looked up and thought, shit. Someone else had the same idea we did. He caught the back of someone disappear around the side of the tower, then move back. They had a rifle. Take them out, or retreat? No. Can’t go back now. Then the face of the sniper in the tower came into view.
“Maggie?” Dawson couldn’t believe his eyes. There was Jake’s wife Maggie on the tower calling to him.
“Get your butt up here, boy. These guys mean business.” Dawson was momentarily stunned. “Let’s go. I can’t cover you all day.” Dawson scrambled double time up the tower, then balanced himself precariously on the edge. Maggie grabbed his arm to steady him.
“It’s good to see you, Dawson. ’Bout time you and my husband stopped gallivanting around the state.”
Only one word came to Dawson’s mind. “Veronica?” His eyes were as desperate as she’d ever seen them. “Where is she?” He squeezed her arm tight.
“She’s fine. She’s fine,” Maggie repeated for reassurance. “She’s with Bert down in the tunnels.”
Dawson’s mind raced back to the hellish time they’d been chased by the terrorists through the tunnels. “No, not again.”
“It’s OK. Bert’s been a busy boy since we left. He figured that with the way things were now he needed to reacquaint himself with those old slave tunnels. He mapped them all out and hid caches of supplies and water at different points throughout. He’s even cleaned up a bunch of the rooms to make them more habitable. Small furniture and beds.” Dawson seemed to relax a little. “Don’t worry; she’s fine.”
Then, the weapons fire stopped. It was silent again, like it was when they first came down the drive. They moved cautiously around the tower and saw Rick walk out from the wooded area, his rifle pointing down. Then, Jake came out the front door of the farmhouse. They both signaled each other a thumbs-up.
“It’s all clear,” Jake called out. He waved to the window in the barn, indicating to Chase that he could come out. Then he caught sight of Dawson and Maggie holding on to each other on the tower. He sprinted to the base of the tower and looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Hey!” he yelled up. “How about you get your hands off my wife for long enough so she can come down here and give her husband a proper welcome.”
Dawson smiled down at Jake. “You’ve got it all wrong there, buddy; she’s the one that won’t let go of me.”
Maggie gave Dawson a gentle slap on the back, then worked her way as quickly as she could down the ladder.
Chapter 9 ~ Re
united
The old farmhouse kitchen looked a lot different than it had the last time Dawson was there. At least how he remembered it. He supposed that having a horde of radical terrorists living in your house while your housekeeper was away tended to ruin things. The cupboards, which had been full of all sorts of food, were now in a sorry state of disrepair. Not only were they mostly empty, but several were hanging off a single hinge. Some had been ripped off entirely. The rest were either all scratched up, or smeared with grime and dirt.
Bert had done his best to at least create some semblance of order again, by putting things back in their place. Dishes, chairs, and pictures had been thrown around the place. Family mementos from generations of living in the place had been knocked onto the floor and stepped on. The floor had mud and dirt dragged across it, from occupants who simply didn’t even bother to wipe their boots, let alone remove them.
The windows that had been shot out on the upper floor during the ambush were the least of Bert’s concerns. Dawson had been worried he wouldn’t be too happy about that, but he’d had no idea what had gone on here in the time that they’d been gone. Normally, Bert wasn’t one to overly express his feelings or explain his behavior, but today he was more than happy to talk.
“Within a few days of you guys leaving, these bastards rode in and just took over the place. Initially, they said they just wanted to talk. I had doubts about that, so I wouldn’t let them anywhere near the place. All our discussions took place at the front gate, under the careful supervision of my double barrel shotgun. That didn’t seem to faze them in the slightest, though.”
“What did they want to talk about?” Dawson asked.
“Well, mostly you. You and your family. They asked a hell of a lot of questions. How I knew you. Why I hired you. What kind of employee you were. Where you were living now.”
“And I must assume, based on the appearance of this place, that the conversation didn’t go very well.” Nobody smiled, least of all Bert.
“Conversation. Ha! It was never a conversation. It was usually me telling them to get their sorry asses off my property, and that if they didn’t I’d be happy to shoot the lot of ’em.”
“And they still kept coming back?” Jake said. “Imagine that.”
“What the hell was I supposed to do? Invite them in? It’s not like they ever left anyways. There was always a bunch of them camped outside the front gates. I swore they were sneaking around the property as well, but I never caught them at it. It’s a big place, and there’s only so much territory I can keep one pair of eyes on at the same time. Like Maggie told you, though, I did spend time getting reacquainted with those tunnels. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep them at bay forever if they really wanted in here. I figured that if I could map out the rest of the tunnels, then I’d at least have a hiding place as a backup. Somewhere I could keep an eye on them and plan my comeback tour, so to speak.” That garnered some grins around the kitchen.
“It turned out to be incredibly fortunate after all,” Maggie said. “We showed up here just before they attacked. I guess the fact that Bert took us in was more than enough to convince them that it was time to invade. Bert had enough early warning traps spread around the place to give us time to go into hiding.”
“But they knew about the tunnels,” Chase said. “They chased us around down there for a whole day.”
“Not these guys,” Bert said. “We took most of those guys out, if you recall. Besides, I found an entirely new section down there. They run under most of the farm. It’s crazy how many there are. There are other entrances as well in the woods. Not nearly as easy to find as the one under the old slave cabins. These new tunnels were connected to the other ones, but I did a little modifying and blocked them off. Even if some of those bastards from before had survived and remembered the old tunnels, it wouldn’t do them any good.”
“There are a few advantages with the new ones as well,” Maggie added. “Turns out that one of them comes out into one of the horse stalls.”
Bert laughed. “Yeah, right under old Betsy’s stall. I always wondered why that horse was so nervous. She must have sensed that the ground under her wasn’t very solid. She was always the hardest to get into her stall and the easiest to get out. We always figured that she just had a lot of energy.”
“That’s crazy,” Chase said. “So they just camped out here waiting for us to come back?”
“They were camped out for sure, and I would have to assume that it was you guys they were waiting for, but who knows. These are the craziest bunch of wackos I’ve seen in my life.” Bert continued putting things back in order. “Why would anyone wreak such havoc on a place they lived in? They’re a bunch of wild animals.”
“Even wild animals have the sense to keep their home nests in order. You don’t see wolves defecating in their dens,” Chase said.
Jake finally spoke up with the other question they’d all been asking. “Now, whatever prompted you all to leave the bunker?”
“They started bombing us,” Maggie replied.
“What! Bombing you?” said Jake.
“Well, that’s sure as hell what it sounded like. They’d been spying around the place for a few days. It was like they knew you guys were gone. Probably when they saw the Humvee gone and then the LAV leave, they figured it was a good time to try and take the place.”
“Damn,” Dawson said. “I’m so sorry. I thought for sure that by me leaving and making sure Harish knew I was gone, they’d all come after me. The plan was to draw them out.”
“I know, hon,” Maggie said. “Don’t feel bad, we knew that. Who knew there were so many of them around, and that they’d be so determined?”
“Rick did,” Chase answered.
Maggie looked confused. “What do you mean Rick did?”
Dawson raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Rick’s turned out to be quite the asset lately.”
“Is he still out checking the property?” Jake asked.
“Yes,” Dawson continued. “Apparently, Rick’s company knew more about these cells than he’d let on. They’d been tracking them here, and they knew about Harish and his brother Ahmed. Especially Ahmed.”
“Ahmed? The one that died in my barn?” Bert asked.
“Yes, that’s the one,” Dawson said. “He’d been recruited when he was very young as a sleeper agent. He was very young when his family came here from a war-torn country. He lost both parents eventually and had to blame someone. He was a pretty easy recruit. His brother Harish never got involved till just recently. Ahmed reconnected with him and dragged him back into this whole nasty business. I can only guess that it wouldn’t be too hard for a long-lost brother to rekindle some terrible memories of their tragic childhood and get him to join the fight.”
“That is tragic,” Maggie said. “Still, it’s hard to feel sorry for him after everything he’s brought down on this family.”
“I would agree,” Jake said. “Rick is thinking that there may be some way we can use Harish.”
Maggie looked confused. “You serious?” She looked around the room as if one of them would have the answers she was hoping for. “I don’t understand how you think we could use Harish. His whole mission in life is to kill you, Dawson. What makes you think that there’d be something redeeming in that man’s soul that you could use to make our lives better?”
“Things are never as simple as we’d like them to be,” Rick said, returning from surveying the property. “Everybody’s got a story, and everyone thinks they’re the hero of their story. That include Harish. The trick isn’t to go in thinking that we can make him do what we want, to help us. The trick is to find out what he wants, get under his skin, and then find a way to let him make the decision. Something that he would’ve done anyway if he thought about it from the right perspective. Our perspective.”
“Who is this guy?” Maggie said, motioning towards Rick. “I mean, I thought he was just another grunt soldier. Where are all the psychology and head games coming
from?”
“Like I said.” Rick smiled. “Things are never quite that simple, and people may not always be who they appear to be.”
“Well, that certainly seems to be an understatement,” said Maggie. “I really would like to know what went down when you guys were up in Taos.” She looked to Dawson. “I thought you were just going up that way to throw Harish off of your trail. I have to assume that there’s more to the story than giving somebody the slip.”
“You could say that,” Dawson said. There’s a whole community of people up there that are a little different. It was really quite amazing; it could have been a solution to some of our problems if it wasn’t for all the complications.”
“Complications?” Maggie said. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“Let’s just say,” Rick interjected, “we may not have seen the last of Harish.”
“Or more precisely, I didn’t have the guts to finish him off,” Dawson said.
“Don’t take that as being such a bad thing, hon,” Maggie said to Dawson as she put a hand on his shoulder. “Mercy may be something that’s in short supply with the future we’re facing, but that doesn’t mean we have to be like everyone else.”
“As it turns out,” Rick said, “if Harish is really still alive, that may be a good thing.”
Chapter 10 ~ Horses
Maggie and Jake weren’t used to being separated for such a long period. Especially given the circumstances of the current separation. Apocalypses and terrorist attacks weren’t the kinds of things that were good for anyone—civilizations, cities, countries or human relationships. The night’s sleep in Bert’s farmhouse had done them all a world of good. It was the first time in days, weeks even, that they’d had a chance just to relax and feel like they were at home. Even though the farmhouse was Bert’s family home, it had this inviting country appeal that made everyone feel like they were family. There were a lot of unspoken words between Maggie and Jake, in spite of the peaceful facade around them this Texas morning. The warm air blowing off the cotton fields onto their skin couldn’t make them forget what lay ahead.
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