“How old are you, Brady?” Luke continued.
“Twelve, sir. I think. Is it February seventeenth, yet?”
Luke nodded while he snubbed the hard-plastic restraints around the boy’s narrow wrists. Brady sounded defeated, and Luke had to fight to resist the urge to say something comforting to the pre-teen. He wanted to promise that he and his sister were safe now, but he couldn’t force himself to speak the words. The lie. Instead, he continued speaking in the same business-like manner.
“Well, Happy Birthday, kid. And your sister?”
This time, Brady did whisper, and Luke, only a few feet away, strained to make out the words.
“That’s April. She only ten. Please, don’t hurt her, sir. She’s just a kid.”
April, for her part, remained silent. She refused to make eye contact, even when Luke eased the cruel plastic zip-ties around her bird-like wrists. Luke knew he should have ratcheted the restraints tighter, but he left them loose. Not free, but only for show.
“You have family here?”
Luke hated asking the question, but he needed to know. Had he just killed one or more of the boy’s parents? He didn’t kill any women, but that was luck of the draw this time. He’d done it before, and most likely left the luckless Rachel an orphan in the process. The thought made Luke’s stomach roil in a way he’d long thought was now impossible.
“Our momma,” Brady replied, seeming to deflate even more as the words left his thin, chapped lips. “She’s with Captain Bass. He’s one of the bosses here. He’s got her over in his quarters in the barracks.”
The way he spoke, Luke didn’t think the relationship was exactly consensual, but that was his own prejudice. What kind of mother is boning the boss and lets their kids live this way?
“What about your father?”
Brady shrugged. “Haven’t seen him since the lights went out. He traveled for work, and…”
Brady didn’t have to finish the answer. If he wasn’t here by now, he almost certainly wasn’t coming.
“Do you know if our momma is okay? She was only here because they made her. The Homeland people, I mean.”
Luke’s ears pricked up at the boy’s casual comment.
“Why was your mother being held here?”
Brady gestured at the racks of radio equipment and sighed, sounding far older than his years.
“Momma was in the Army back when I was little. She was in communications. Was still in the Reserves when the pulse hit,” he explained tersely. Luke could tell by the way Brady spoke, he was censoring his words with his little sister present.
“After we lost power,” Brady continued, “wasn’t too long before the FEMA folks came around and had their camp open. They had food, at first, but things got bad pretty quick. Then the Homeland guards who were running things, they started rounding people up. They had a list, and I figured out they were picking out all the ones that had been in the Army before. Mom didn’t want to go, but those soldiers didn’t give her much choice. So eventually, we ended up here.”
“And you just happened to be monitoring the radios tonight?” Luke replied skeptically.
“Not hard,” Brady stated with his own shrug. “We spent plenty of time watching our mom do it. She taught us, when some of the other radio operators were transferred out. Captain Brass wanted us to do something to earn our keep anyway, and this seemed like the best option.”
“You know how many guards they had in this building?” Luke queried.
Brady paused, thinking hard.
“No more than twenty, I think. Maybe a few less. Captain Brass was angry about that. Said he barely had enough to cover the watch.”
“You know how many are still in the barracks?”
Brady shrugged, but replied anyway.
“Not sure, but they had a truck come in empty a few days ago, and it left with men in the back. Not sure, but it was one of those big Army trucks, you know, the ones with the tent cover on the back?”
Luke was beginning to sense what Brady was trying to get across. The Committee, or General Collins, needed troops.
“Have you seen any soldiers with a patch on their uniform, like a number one highlighted in red?” Luke asked. It was a shot in the dark, but Luke figured he might as well ask.
He knew General Collins had seized command of the First Infantry Division, but Luke hadn’t seen any of them in combat yet. Unless they’d been some of the new troops being funneled into the assault on Joplin, but without their unit insignias.
“No, sir. Not here. I know that one. That’s the patch for the Big Red One, isn’t it? They’re out of Fort Riley. They had some troops come through about a month ago. Picked up four truckloads of flour and cornmeal.”
That made sense, Luke realized. After Major General Martinez was ‘disappeared’ about two months after the pulse, his second in command, Brigadier General Marcus Collins took over and made a deal with Jeff Chambers. Feeding his men must have been a big part of the transaction.
Luke filed this information away and decided he needed some information closer to home, right at the moment.
“What’s your mom’s name, Brady?”
“Suellen, sir. Suellen Pfahl. She’s a Staff Sergeant.”
“Fall?” Luke repeated, not sure he’d heard correctly.
“There’s a silent ‘P’ at the beginning,” Brady said, apparently well accustomed with explaining the details of his family name. After a pause, Brady continued speaking, his voice low enough that again, Luke strained to make out his words.
“Do you think she’s still alive, sir? She would have been in the officers’ quarters, attached to the barracks. That’s where the captain takes her, when, you know…” Again, Brady faltered, but this time, clearly embarrassed.
Luke felt his stomach knot at the renewed question, and he resolved to be as candid as possible under the circumstances.
“I don’t know, Brady. Depends on if she tried to fight when the rest of our men arrested the Captain. I know this may be hard to believe, but we really are the good guys here.”
Brady didn’t say anything else, but his eyes seemed to bore into Luke as he searched for some reason to accept these words.
Please let their mom be okay, Luke prayed while he waited for word from the rest of his unit. He also asked God to look over his father and all of his friends who were with the other squads. Unless the mission was compromised, Luke didn’t expect to hear anything on their encrypted radios, so he sat and cleaned the tacky blood from his knives and waited for what was to come next. As he’d warned Gus and Frank, using knives this way resulted in ruined clothes, and Luke didn’t even hesitate before he tore off the filthy smock he was wearing. He’d certainly gotten wet, and he wondered if he could ever wash off all the blood.
CHAPTER 62
When the last of his squad trickled in, Luke got a quick and dirty debrief from Dwayne, David, and Cameron. Between the other three teams, they’d managed to kill a combined thirteen guards scattered throughout the complex. With the eight dispatched by Luke and Gus, that made a total of twenty-one. Cameron and Drew also ran across another four women chained to cots, but since they weren’t being assaulted at the time, the pair left them alone.
“Angel, can you and Drew go collect those four and bring them back here?”
“Sure thing,” Angel replied. “You want us to collect the ones you and Gus found as well?”
“Reading my mind,” Luke responded with a tight grin. “Don’t like loose ends. We can evacuate them later, after we bail out of here.”
“Roger,” Angel said, and he and Drew headed out.
“We taking them with?” Frank asked.
“Don’t know about that, but I’m sure as shit not leaving them chained up here,” Luke replied without rancor. It was a legitimate question, and one Luke might easily have avoided, but he was still feeling a bit raw over the idea of killing kids.
Frank surprised him with his response.
“Agreed. I wouldn�
�t feel right about just walking away from them. Not knowing how they’ve been treated. Wouldn’t be right, you know, Sarge?”
Luke nodded. Yes, he knew.
After rotating out to replace Gus on watch, Luke directed the rest of his team back to the radio room and the office, to grab some rest. Dwayne and Cameron curled up on the concrete floor immediately and took advantage of the slow time. David, after he’d patched up Frank, agreed to monitor the radios and keep an eye on the kids. For someone who’d never spawned any biological offspring of his own, the former teacher seemed to have a way with the young ones.
Luke didn’t have long to wait. He’d barely gotten settled in when he heard Angel murmur the sign, which Luke immediately countered. That was another reason Luke sent Angel. They both knew the codes used around home, or at least, up until Luke left.
As the line of women shuffled into the light, Luke saw they’d been cut free from their beds, but the cuffs remained in place for the moment. The women wore simple shifts, torn dresses that barely came to their knees, and did little to hide their bruises. Like the children, these women appeared malnourished and lethargic from extended starvation. Like concentration camp survivors, and with a start, Luke realized that was exactly what they were.
“Couldn’t find the keys,” Drew explained apologetically when he stepped around the corner, “but Angel had the mini-bolt cutters in his sneak pack.”
Luke forced a tired smile at the reference, though he had no idea if that’s what Angel called the daypack-sized bag Luke and his squad used when infiltrating a target. These assault packs carried essentials, especially extra ammunition, spare weapons and other useful items, such as collapsible entrenching tools, or in this case, a fold-up bolt cutter barely larger than a pair of pliers.
“Fair enough,” Luke agreed. “See anybody else moving around?” Luke remained paranoid about any stragglers throwing a monkey wrench into their plans, but he recognized there was little he could do at the moment, except hold onto what he had.
“No movement,” Angel confirmed. He glanced quickly at his watch, a battered, old analog that was once again state-of-art. “The assault on the barracks should already be under way.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” Cameron muttered, and Dwayne delivered a quick smack to the back of the other man’s head. Not very hard, especially not with the helmet in place, but he got the point across.
“They’re using suppressed weapons,” Angel supplied helpfully, trying hard not to grin at Cameron’s scowl.
“Of course our guys are,” Cameron replied with a touch of acid in his voice, cutting his eyes to direct the glare purely at his old friend. “But I doubt the guards are similarly equipped.”
“Point,” Luke agreed. Looking around, he made a quick decision and began snapping out orders.
“Gus, I want you and Frank to stay here, cover the comms and protect these folks,” Luke gestured to encompass both the children and the recently liberated sex slaves. “Dwayne, I want you, Drew, and Cameron to proceed over to the southern gate and take up position. Strip the MG out of the shed but push out a bit and pick a better spot to cover the road in that direction. You might even repurpose some of those Claymores but keep them on command detonation. Don’t want to upset the neighbors. Good?”
Dwayne offered a nod and a tight smile before he replied with a simple, “Good.”
“Angel, did you find the north entrance? Facing the barracks?”
When Angel nodded, Luke pointed at the Hispanic man and the teacher, made a circle in the air with his finger, then pointed at the door.
“Head ‘em up and move ‘em out,” David sang under his breath, and the three of them headed for the door with Angel in the lead.
“You think our guys might have problems with the barracks?” David whispered, once they’d started down the hall.
“No, but I hate surprises,” Luke replied.
With nothing further to be said, the trio stalked down the halls and proceeded across the dimly-lit chambers of the creepy warehouse-sized building. Overhead, Luke knew a series of catwalks crisscrossed the larger rooms, but he tried to ignore the feeling of vulnerability. They hadn’t had the time or manpower to sweep those areas yet, and leaving those areas open, simply made Luke nervous. He’d lost Beatty to a sniper, and he wasn’t eager to repeat the experience.
They found the loading bay and Luke joined his two companions in clearing the room before approaching the steel door leading outside. The roll-up door, designed to handle semis, remained shut and Luke was willing to leave it that way, for the time being. The access door to the side featured a deadbolt lock, but Angel confirmed the door was still open.
“Can we wait inside and just crack the door to see out?” David asked, but Luke could tell from his tone, the older man was yanking his chain. “Even with no heat in here, it’s still better than outside.”
“You can stay inside, Grandpa, but I’ll take up a cover position outside,” Luke replied, his voice dry. Looking over at Angel, Luke gave him a tight smile. “Maybe you can find a rocking chair in here and get a sip of your Geritol, while you’re at it.”
“Fuck kid, you just have to twist the knife, don’t ya?”
“That’s kinda what I do, Mr. Metcalf,” Luke popped off, but then his voice reverted to a more serious tone. “I want to be outside, so we can provide cover fire, if the rest of the group needs it.”
“I know,” David said, and he was serious as well. “Worried about your dad, and the rest of our friends out there?”
“Yeah, I am,” Luke replied simply. He loosened the straps on his sneak pack, pulling out a waterproof ground cloth and a stack of extra magazines, depositing them in the cargo pocket of his heavy winter pants. The other two men repeated the procedure, readying themselves for battle. None of them wanted to open fire this close to the grain elevator, but all three recognized the truth: they would do what was needed to protect the members of their clan, and to hell with the consequences.
“That’s fair,” David agreed, but his voice held a trace of bitterness that surprised Luke. “Since he’s been worried sick and has been every day, since you pulled this fool stunt and took off to join the Army. The same with Amy, and that girl is still crazy about you. You fool. So many people have lost everything, and there you go, turning your back on your family.”
“I had my reasons,” Luke countered, his control starting to slip. “I know it might be hard to understand, but I couldn’t stay, not after what happened.”
“Hard to understand? Kid, that’s the understatement of the century,” David said, and from the indrawn breath, he was just getting started. In an unprecedented move, Angel spoke up and interrupted the growing tirade.
“David,” he said softly, but with force, “Just let it be. He needed to go.”
“What are you talking about?”
Instead of answering David, Angel turned to Luke.
“You felt the burning, like the demon was eating its way out,” Angel said, and Luke felt his anger turn cold.
“Yeah, I did,” Luke admitted. “I was afraid…afraid to stay around people I cared about. The hate got so bad, and I couldn’t do anything to make it go away.”
“And now?”
Luke paused, thinking with hard focus on the man’s question.
“I fed the hate, and in turn, I fed on it,” Luke said slowly, as he continued running knowing hands over his magazine pouches and harness. “But I felt weird. The burning turned cold. I know I scared some of the men, and certainly some of my officers.”
“That happens,” Angel observed with a small shrug. “I don’t know why, but it does.”
David looked back and forth between the two men and felt like he’d missed something. He knew little about Angel’s background, and indeed, the few times David tried to broach the subject, Angel managed to deflect the conversation. Thinking about this exchange between the two enigmatic young men, David wondered if he’d ever heard his friend Angel speak this many wo
rds at one time.
“Whatever you’re talking about,” David finally concluded, “Does it mean you’re done? That you can get back to acting as your father’s right hand? ‘Cause, Luke, he needs you back at the ranch.”
Luke didn’t answer for a long moment, and his ears picked up the sound of the gusts outside, buffeting the steel walls of the building. He felt like that wall, where despite the metal’s strength, he was constantly being struck by the changing winds and never being able to brace himself, or rest from the struggle.
But that wasn’t really the truth. He would never face the burden alone. Not anymore.
“Yeah, David. I’m in for the duration, however long that takes, but I’ll be coming home now when we get done.”
David snorted. “Don’t get too comfortable in the uniform. They can’t afford to pay you for long anyway.”
“Pay? Who said we were getting paid?” Luke declared. “Our compensation comes in the form of food and maybe a little loot, man.”
“So, not much different than we’re getting for this gig?” Angel chimed in, his eyes giving away his humor.
“You said it,” Luke agreed. “Now, let’s get back to work. We’re on the clock here, guys.”
“You hear that?” David asked suddenly, cocking his head.
“What”
“That booming sound,” David explained. “That’s artillery. Big guns. 155mm, if I had to guess.”
“Somebody is having a bad day.”
Angel’s words drove home the magnitude of the battle still unfolding. Forming up on the door, which they all observed opened out, Angel led the way out in what amounted to a blind rush, sprinting five yards and diving to the snow-packed ground. He hit with his rifle already shouldered, searching for targets, but the area around the makeshift power plant and barracks appeared clear. He was quickly flanked by Luke and David, who spread out enough to provide one-hundred-eighty-degrees of cover fire.
“Get your ground cloths out quickly,” David barked, putting words into action as he wriggled around enough to withdraw the folded tarp from his pocket, and the other two men followed suit. Like Luke, the other two men had been forced to abandon their gray winter smocks, soaked as they were with the blood of their targets. The winter uniforms resisted the cold nicely, but they knew their body heat would soon melt the frozen snow under them in seconds, if they failed to act.
Midnight Skills Page 49
