by Joshua Guess
“Uh, thanks,” I muttered as we continued on.
The fracas outside the walls was part distraction, part psychological tool. My side was making as big a show as possible as another way of encouraging the people inside to fight back. In all honesty, I had no idea if it would work. My role—and that of my team—was not to foment an uprising. We weren't here to gather the forces and annihilate the Sons with them. We wanted them to fight back, absolutely, but for our purpose the distraction they caused would be enough.
Hey, if they wanted to help us out, we'd use them. But our focus was on the kids. That was the singular goal in my head as we ghosted through the mostly empty western half of the massive courtyard space. The eastern side of the compound itself was beginning to spill out a few troops, but for the most part the response from the Sons was to sit tight.
It wasn't a bad call. They knew we weren't going to hit the building with anything big because of the innocents inside. And though we'd killed almost everyone out here, they were already sending out new eyes to see. To watch the attack and warn those inside the building if a major assault was incoming. The place was easily defended from a large-scale assault. Lots of bottlenecks and blind corners. Even with help, fighting through the loyal Sons inside would be a long, bloody nightmare.
Which is why we used the distraction to circle the building and climb the hidden ladder tucked behind a tight boxed-in set of walls. It was impossible to see unless you were right next to the building itself. The nooks and crannies created by the complicated shape of the place hid it within its own little corner. There was no one guarding it. No one other than my people within a hundred and fifty feet at all.
One by one, we climbed. The hatch at the top was our point of no return.
The reason the ladder was not guarded was precisely because it was both hidden and far too important to draw attention to. Nestled as it was deep behind the defenses, someone had clearly taken into account what regular guard changes would do to make it obvious something of value was waiting back here between the odd angles of the building. Also, the hatch atop the slightly lower section of roof it led to was padlocked shut.
When we took positions around the metal door, Jo wasted no time scooting over to it to begin working on the lock. Picking it was the first option, and using a small battery-powered rotary cutting tool to slice through its shackle the second and worst. Shooting the damn thing was also on the table, but only if things got very bad, very fast.
Fortunately it didn't come to that. Jo was a breakin artist with years of practice as a scavenger. She'd always had a fascination with engineering and how things worked, and she had the lock open in thirty seconds. She stuffed it in a pocket and stood. “Okay, ready when you are.”
Jackie leaned down and grabbed the handle sticking up from the hatch, but Jo put out her hand suddenly. “Stop! Wait. I forgot.” She crouched down and pulled a small spray bottle from another pocket and liberally coated the hinges with it. She looked up sheepishly. “Lubricant. If they've got someone close enough to hear us, I'd rather not announce our presence with screeching metal.”
“Smart,” Jackie said. “Am I good now?”
Jo nodded. “Yeah, just go slowly.”
Amused, I added, “What she said, apparently.”
Every firearm pointed at the hatch as Jackie opened it. I was the first through, as always. The short ladder ended atop a narrow walkway bolted to one side of the building wall. There was barely six and a half feet of clearance, so I ducked a little just to be safe as I moved forward to make space.
The small wing of the building I stood in was dark and apparently abandoned. There were no lights here, not even the embers of a fire on the floor forty feet below. I raised a small night vision scope to my eye and flipped it on, giving the room a scan just to be safe. It was completely bare—this must have once been a storage area or something. Glad to know the intel from my interrogations wasn't total bullshit.
I waved for the others to follow and made my way to where the catwalk passed through a wall and into the nearest wing of the main building. There was no door, and through the hole I could see dim and distant light. The faint scent of wood smoke and something cooking wafted through as I stowed my weapon and crawled through the opening with the scope still clutched in my fist.
A truly observant person might have noticed me moving up here; the catwalk was the standard steel grid rather than a solid surface. That was unlikely given how gloomy it was in the space. I could barely see my hand as I brought the scope up. The distant fires were somewhat dimmed by the makeshift chimneys over them, and anyone crowded around them would have limited night vision at best. There were no electric lights that I could see.
Through the scope I made out an interesting sight in the form of many dozens of people being guarded by maybe ten or fifteen Sons. The former were huddled into a corner, and every one that I could see was furious. The latter were armed and clearly nervous about being overwhelmed, because every guard faced inward to keep an eye on their targets.
Someone put a hand on my boot and lightly patted it twice. I moved over and let them crawl up next to me while I continued to scope out—ha, literally—the scene below.
“What do you think?” Tabby asked, raising her own scope. “Can we get close enough to take out those guards and get a little help?”
There was a desperate edge in her voice, one I couldn't blame her for. She'd put in just as much work as anyone on the strike force in learning new skills and sharpening old ones. More than some, if I'm being honest. All so she could get her son back. The fact that she was closer to Logan than she had been in more than a year and still managed to maintain control of herself was, I thought, more than the vast majority of people would be able to manage.
“Gotta get around the bend and see what the rest of the space looks like,” I replied in a low voice. “Let's get closer to the turn and stay in contact with me in front.”
Having planned for exactly this situation, none of my team had any bare metal or bulky items on the front of their clothing. Even the strike plates in our chest armor had a bunch of layers of soft cloth over them just to be safe. We didn't want anything scraping or clanging. And even with all those precautions and the almost suspiciously ideal conditions for us being able to move unnoticed, the forty or so feet of travel to the corner where the catwalk vanished at a right angle were nerve-wracking. I moved with as much care as I could manage, even stopping a few times to make sure my holster wasn't slipping from its position over my right back pocket.
The last three feet were the worst. If it were me setting up defenses here, I would have placed a guard about ten feet past the bend. There was always a chance infiltrators like us would descend from the catwalk by rope as soon as they reached it—and we did have rope for just that purpose—but the far more likely scenario was exactly what we were doing. Staying hidden up here to get as big a picture of what was going on below as possible was the best use of the catwalk. But that meant moving around the corner.
I took that last yard at a snail's pace, and just before I allowed any part of my body to break cover around the corner, I paused to draw my knife. A gun would be safer for me, but even a suppressed shot gives off a fairly loud sound and there's still muzzle flash to consider. My precautions wouldn't help me at all if there was a guard and they fired at the sight of me.
Then another idea occurred to me. I waved Tabby, who was immediately behind me, back. Then I gave the team the signal to hold position until told otherwise.
With excruciating care, I got into a crouch and slowly unzipped a small pouch on my left hip. I felt for one of the spare magazines there, thumbed the top round from it, and closed the pouch back up. With no idea if my gambit would pay off, I lobbed the lone bullet over my head and toward the people below. I've said it before, but the reason the oldest tricks in the book are remembered as such is because they work so much of the time.
The hard smack of the bullet on concrete was sharp and l
oud enough to make several of the guards below turn around, their weapons following the motion. What I was hoping for was just a minor distraction, maybe enough to bring the guard I suspected waited around the corner to his feet so he wouldn't pay attention to me.
What actually happened was almost too fast to make out.
Several of the guards below turned, and the first rank of prisoners wasted no time taking advantage. They surged forward and a chaotic brawl ensued. The catwalk began to shake suddenly and a dark figured burst into view. It didn't so much as glance my way as it fumbled for its weapon, raising it and sighting on the fracas below.
Before a finger could slip into the trigger guard, I lunged and repeated my trick with the knife to the throat. It was only as I did it that the details came into focus. Small frame, long hair.
I lowered the teenage girl's body to the hard metal and tried not to think about what I'd just had to do. The cold part of me was in control—had to be—and my hope at that moment was that the blood dripping to the floor below wouldn't be noticed until it was too late.
21
I slid back down to my belly and went around the corner. To my total lack of surprise, there was no other guard. The confrontation below was starting to get interesting, but I led the team forward. A few random shots rang out, and I thought it best to pick up the pace. The noise would drown out any sound made by us, I was sure.
As it turned out, there were relatively few people around the bend. The distribution center this had once been was a hybrid facility with sections for different end customers. The exterior was deceptive in how monolithic it appeared. Inside the place was split into a number of smaller rooms. That is, relatively smaller. The space we were in now could have held a fleet of semi-trucks complete with trailers. It represented maybe a twentieth of the overall square footage. Possibly less.
Our goal was several of those partitions to the east. Our intel told us the children were kept in the most secure area of the building, a completely isolated room the size of a football field in the center of the complex.
The catwalk split in two directions midway down the long arm of the L-shaped room with parents now savagely beating their captors to death in one corner. We took the right turn and moved across to the other side just as the furious captives began moving our way. There was no other way to interpret the scene—these were allies.
I made a split-second decision. Turning to the team, I spoke in a voice that would have probably drawn notice in other circumstances. “Anyone want to volunteer to go down there and give them some direction? We can use them, but we don't want whatever they're about to do to interfere.”
If no one came forward, we'd just have to risk it. I wouldn't force anyone to go—being with that group was going to be suicidally dangerous. To my relief, one of the scouts who'd joined my team, a middle-aged woman named Wanda, raised a hand. “I'll do it.”
I nodded, and then stood. I faced the oncoming storm of furious parents and cupped my hands around my mouth. “Hey!”
Two of them raised weapons but thankfully didn't fire. I realized they probably couldn't see much more than a vague outline of me.
“We're here to help you,” I shouted. “I'm sending one of my people down to you. Please don't shoot her.”
“Uh, okay...” came an uncertain reply from below.
I turned to Wanda, who was already securing her rope around the hand rail. I put a hand on her shoulder. “Try to convince them the best thing they can do is find more of the captive parents and get them free, too. My guess is that King sent relatively few of them out to fight our people. After Ron's call to arms, I doubt King wanted to risk the parents armed and ready to join up with us. We need as much chaos inside this building as possible. You know the plan. Try to get them to clear a path for us.”
A look of grim determination fell over her face, barely discernible in the gloom. “Roger that.”
I gave her a slap on the shoulder and watched as she climbed over the rail and let her body drop as if there weren't four stories and a hard stop at the end if the rope failed. I smiled.
“Okay, let's move,” I said.
I'd love to tell you of the harrowing journey through perilous rooms full of enemies ready and waiting for us, but that would be a lie. Our move from that first space through the next and the ones after it was relatively easy—this part of the plan was meant to be just that—easy. The fact that gunshots were fired inside this place and no one came running was indicative of how distracted the Sons were.
The strength of our plan was in creating so much havoc that no one would even consider looking up in case a small team made their way through the barriers and sentries outside and broke in. What my team and I were doing was a low-probability move. Chances were very high we'd end up dead. Just not before we got to our target thanks to the poor lighting and basic human nature not to look up without a reason.
We crossed several large spaces filled with milling bodies moving from one place to another, sometimes very quickly. I knew when Wanda and her bunch made a move thanks to nearby gunfire. The weapons liberated from the fallen guards would only take them so far, but it was reassuring to know they were being put to good use.
By the time we reached the end of the catwalk just outside where the kids were being held, the entire building was in a state of pandemonium. Fights were breaking out everywhere, Sons being dragged to the ground by groups of three or more people all over the place. The space where the catwalk ended was empty but for stacks of supplies and a squad of nine Sons guarding the only door into the holding area for the kids. The walkway didn't extend through the wall, sadly. The wall itself was like all the others in the place, however, and didn't go all the way up to the steel trusses holding up the roof.
The cinder block extended about eight feet above my head—more room here than in other places—with maybe eighteen inches of clearance between it and the ceiling. I signed for the others to watch the guards and got a round of grim nods in reply. Jackie came over and gave me a boost. Not because I needed it to grab on to the top of the wall, but so I didn't make noise in the process. I put one hand on the wall and the other on the truss, and then hauled my body carefully up and into the space between.
It was a tight fit, and I was thankful I only needed to be there for a minute. Jackie handed me the rope. After I secured it to the roof, I slid the free end around my torso and into a very basic rappelling loop. It was janky and dangerous but I had upper body strength to spare.
Then I swung my legs over and I was with the captive children.
First impressions.
There were a lot of kids here. It was a big, big space. At least a hundred feet on its shortest side. The huge double door leading to the guards outside it was the only exit. At a glance there looked to be about two hundred of them, which fit with our intel. That translated to roughly six hundred parents and older siblings not kept in this room. All of them potential allies. There were bound to be more people like Colin as well. Folks who were dragged into this nightmare who also had doubts.
No babies that I could see. The youngest in easy view was three or close to it. The oldest perhaps twelve. Another five guards stood sentry at the far end of the room from me. The whole space was lit by a single battery-powered flood lamp pointed roughly toward the small guard post. It was bright enough to cast light a good fifty feet but I wouldn't have tried to read by it past thirty.
That would work for me.
My space at the very back of the room was close enough to pitch to make little difference. I reached up and grabbed the bottom of a truss and pulled myself back over the wall just enough to speak with Jackie.
“Five of them,” I said. “Couple hundred kids. Each of you pick a target and don't fucking miss. They won't be easy shots.”
Jackie grinned up at me. “Think we'll use your trick to lure 'em in a little closer.”
“Good idea,” I said. “I don't think I'm gonna have that option here. Too many kids making noises
. Also really don't want to open fire where I might hit one of them. You'll know when to go.”
She nodded. “When we hear the party start, we'll join in.”
I lowered myself back down and into position. The back end of the room was sparsely populated thanks to stacks and stacks of crates and boxes. It was only about twenty feet to the lowest of them, but I aimed for the ground on my way down.
I descended with the silent speed of a spider unspooling itself down a length of silk. My feet touched concrete soundlessly, the cloth muffling the hard soles of my boots doing its job nicely. I counted two minutes out in my head, giving Jackie the planned time to get our people in position. From where I stood between the western wall of the room and a stack of crates several times my height, I had a clear view of the distant guards. Too many of them, and too far.
Hmm.
I let my gaze fall to the floor. There were kids between us, most of them sleeping—or pretending to—against the wall itself, huddled together for warmth. The guards themselves stood lazily, their faces moving in bored conversation lost in the distance between us. They weren't looking my direction, and if they had, the light would have forced them to take a few seconds to adjust to its glare. Like seeing the car behind the brights on the highway, the brain requires a short period of adaptation.
Well, shit. I could use that.
I moved toward the middle of the stacked crates and crouched before slipping between them and into the open area. I ended up hovering over a small boy of five or six who was leaning against a crate. His eyes were wide as he took me in, but he made no sound. There was something hopeful in his shadowed gaze.
I raised a finger to my lips. The boy gave me a single slow nod.
Staying low, I crept up the middle of the room. I had to be careful not to step on anyone. A few of the kids let out little gasps or turned their heads sharply, but no one cried out. I suppose one more man with a gun moving through their personal space was either not a cause for alarm or was so terrifying to them they didn't dare make a peep.
