The second time, they were just a little more cautious, waiting for the bomb squad to arrive, clear the site with the Range-a-Radar-System (RaRS), some tech tool that looks through walls, but they only give it a glance. Seeing just one person inside, reading one pulse, in the far bedroom, the police take their orders to pull back, stand down, and let someone else take the risks. The reason for the “glance” is that the thugs get their information from Dixon, who is only allowed to look at the screen from the back door of the SWAT van – not being allowed into their secured area.
The image they see is of a single woman holding what looks like a Dragunov sniper’s rifle, sitting, braced against a closet door.
Someone is serving coffee at the back of the SWAT van, and everyone with a badge is gathering there, except Dixon. He was keeping James company, in his limo, as twenty-five mercenaries approach the home. It is a simple, three-bedroom, two-bath, ranch, in a very non-elite neighborhood. It is in fact, a rather lower-middle-class sort of place.
As the men approach the three entrances – front, rear, and carport – they each take high voltage as soon as their hands touch the doors. Because they are not cops or SWAT, they are not wearing gloves as the HRT operators do, so they hit the floor quickly, dead in a pool of their own waste. It will soon be discovered that each doorknob is wired to a high-voltage capacitor from an old TV. The next men behind them do not bother turning the knobs, but rather kick in the doors, which results in a Claymore blast coming right back at them, taking out these men and the ones behind them – three at each door. The Claymores are unnoticed in the hurried look at the RaRS, partly because of the haste, distance, and angle, and partly because of the newer model Claymores being encased in synthetics, and the pellets being steel-cored ceramic. The remaining thirteen are far more careful as they move into the little blue house with the pale green trim.
Slowly, tediously they creep through the house, like snakes looking for rats. They carefully clear each room on the way to their objective, lining up in the hall at the final bedroom door, as if waiting in a grocery line. At this point they breech the room in a heap, four of them bounding in, suddenly taking up sight of the only person in the room besides them, and sheerly out of fear, and rage, they begin unloading on that person. That person holds an empty rifle and is bound, in fact, to her weapon and a steel cable fastened to the floor and ceiling. It turns out that she is James’ wife – er, ex-wife . . . well, his dead ex-wife.
They had been married for about a minute after a drunken night, and it ended when James realized that she was only climbing the ladder. Zenia had become a trusted lieutenant along the way, leading a group of female dealers and call girls, working the northwest area, very good at getting into places where burly biker men would not be welcome. Because they never had kids and no common property together, their marriage was annulled after a few weeks. Legally, it was just as if it had never happened. She had been wire-bound, shins to thighs, in a kneeling position, with her torso fastened by wires to the closet doorframe, with her mouth stuffed with a sock, taped closed, locked into position like an armed mannequin.
It would be almost an hour before James would know, even though he is nearby, because the head and body are so shot up by the men who breeched the room, each emptying their 30 round mags. As the men enter the room, the crowd compacts on the far wall. All total, there were nearly 100 rounds in the woman, and shredded sheetrock all around; all out of fear for the mystery woman who has killed twelve of them, this hour, and she isn’t even here.
When the shooting is done, there is another gas attack, just like at the biker bum house before, bleach and ammonia, shattered jars in the periphery, but this time, the shooters were in the house, already hyperventilating. Thirteen more.
Dixon talks to James, James talks to the others, and it is decided that there would be more measured plans next time. Feelers, intel, word on the street . . . that’s the answer.
The club is almost out of soldiers, and the women that were under Zenia’s command, suddenly display some reticence over staying in play, especially as a target. Can you blame them? A few hours after her shooting, word is out that, whoever the person is, she’s killing the members, and they now have the members shooting at one another. Zenia had about forty-five women working for her, some as service girls, some as dealers only, and many as both, but by sundown, less than a dozen remain. The others have made short work of packing their belongings, whatever cash they had, and left town forever. Zenia’s dead, and she was the buffer between them and Jacob, so all bets are off. They are likely to leave town and go free-range.
Jacob calls their supply cartel in Mexico, speaking to a boss who may owe him a favor, or who may need a favor owed, and the favor Jacob asks is a connection to someone who can kill this woman. The cartel’s captain is in tight with a CIA officer of some sort, who promises that he will send someone to San Antonio – someone who is up to the challenge. What arrives is a three-man, one-woman team that has been used several times to sneak into hostile territory, sus out the location of a target by meeting local power players, pounding the pavement, and quietly sprinkling large quantities of cash. Then, when they find the target, they make covert entry, and solve the problem. Thrice, out of the last seven jobs, they have managed to make it look quite accidental. Jacob doesn’t care how it looks.
The knock on Jacob’s door begins their relationship with this club, and in thirty-six hours, it will be over. You see, since the President’s scare, the intelligence community is aware of the location of every significant operator on their horizon. The Company asks NSA, FBI, etc., and the Secret Service, “Who is in San Antonio that we need to know?” The answer comes back, her packet is uploaded, family is known, motivation is discovered, and a plan is formulated.
Six troops from the cartel arrive, looking hard as steel, but not as professional as the agency team. They work their magic with Google maps, looking at the satellite and street views, plan their attack, and in thirty-five minutes, they are at Mike’s parent’s house. In silence, they enter the front and back doors, and in silence, they clear every room on their way to the resting couple. Mom and Dad awaken to find a hand over each mouth and a gun to each forehead. They sit them up and gag their mouths, zip-tie their hands, blindfold them, and walk them to a waiting Nissan NV-3500 van. There’s plenty of room for the eight of them. In about forty more minutes, they arrive at Jacob’s house.
Two of the cartel soldiers walk perimeter guard on Jacob’s house, while three walk the inside of the house, and one sits in the room with her folks. The light is low in that room, with only a small table sitting in the middle, and her parents sit across from a swarthy man, medium size, jacket on the chair back, and a Berretta 92FS hanging from his shoulder holster. Jacob’s family is gone for the night, and more – they are to be gone ‘til the threat is done away.
The TV tells the world that there has been a kidnapping. News crews are all over the place, showing the house, sharing the footage from a neighbor’s security cam, reinforcing it all with, “It’s the parents of a young woman found dead, raped, in a dumpster recently.” Mike sees it all. She is at the front desk, renting a new hotel room, when the story breaks on the screen behind the clerk. She doesn’t even finish checking in, leaving a couple hundred bucks, in fives, tens, and twenties, on the counter as she goes. She knows that they will be in the possession of the Club, but she is uncertain where.
Returning to her storage unit, she armors up with a flak jacket marked FBI, Kevlar helmet, and half a dozen LAW rockets. She also carries her favorites, the Sig P229 and M4. As she rolls up on Luther’s house, she kills the engine a hundred yards away, coasts to a stop in front of the second house down, and walks into the yard.
In a minute, she has walked around his house and sees that there are no signs of anyone here. She walks back to her bike, kicking it up, she drives it down to Luther’s, and one at a time, she unloads three LAW rockets into the place – left, middle, right – dropping most of it
to the foundation. The first blast wakes the neighbors, and some of them come to their doors and windows to see what the hell is going on. When the police come around, they are ready to say, “It was a woman on a motorcycle,” but they know little more. Often the cops are told, “He seemed like such a nice man.” Then, “He was always so well dressed, quiet, private, you know?” And sometimes, “Especially for one of those gays.” The police will let it all sort itself out as it will, and soon, the sorting will be done.
People who live behind walls should not take them for granted, nor should they trust that they keep everything out. She coasts the bike the last half mile to the Inwood neighborhood, jumps the curb to lean it against the wall that surrounds and protects the subdivision. Considering it is only a five-foot stone wall, with no tech or bars above, it is not much of a deterrent for intruders. A wooden gate is all that separates her from the rest of the neighborhood. “Cake!” she thinks, and she is right. A few blocks this way, a couple blocks that way, mostly just strolling down a sidewalk ‘til she gets close, then into the shadows.
Jacob’s house is one that has a huge drive in front, curved from house to curb, with a drive around the side to the garage. It is a large enough place on just over three lots, which is a ton of room in this hood. She has her M4 with a 4X10” suppressor, which eliminates over 95% of the noise of the shots. She sets up about sixty yards down the road, behind the fender of someone’s Tesla. She watches for a few moments, ‘til she sees both perimeter guards come into view and disappear, then come again. She knows there are two on the outside, and when they are on the right and left sides of the house, she drops them each like a bag of spuds. Staying in and near the shadows, she makes her way up to the house, looking into the windows as she can. Dressed in black BDU’s with a lightweight, cotton, black hood, she can disappear from view almost anywhere. She steps up to within ten feet of most windows, stepping from side to side. Jacob should have had all the lights on outside. He should have had more of them installed. He should have had twice or thrice the guards. The noise of her shooting isn’t loud enough to penetrate the brick walls and triple-pane-windows, so with impunity, she targets all the lights remaining. She changes her magazine so she has a full 30 in her M4 and 15 still in her 229.
She makes her way all the way around the house, seeing that Jacob, Luther, and James are in the living area, sometimes going to the kitchen for a fresh drink, and guarded by two soldiers of the cartel. One of the soldiers walks the inside of the house, looking into every room. There is another cartel man guarding her parents. Her parents sit, each with long-chained handcuffs, intertwined with one another, fastened to a lock and loop in the middle of that little table.
In the back yard, there is a trampoline for the kids, but tonight it makes a nice rest for her elbow, steadying her barrel for the shot that detonates the head of the man watching her mom and dad. If not for the duct tape on her father’s mouth, there would have been screaming to alert the others. When the thug lost the right side of his head, and the wall spattered with his blood and brains, her mother fainted dead away. There was a thud when that man’s thoughts hit the wall, however, and that third man, walking through the house, burst into the room to see what was going on. As soon as the door opened, his brain pan force evacuated his skull, out into the hallway, and in came one of the others. There had been two watching the men in the living area, but one ran down the hall, into the room of hostages, and the other ran through the kitchen, into the back yard.
She was done with the pretense of silence now, so as the aggressor approached from the kitchen, she left-handed her M4 in his direction, taking her Sig in her right hand, pointing it at the bedroom window. The rifle spit out about a half dozen rounds at the one man, and her 9mm put one in the head and one in the chest of the man in the bedroom. As he died, he shattered most of the window with a fall and spray of bullets from his M16, one of which nicked her dad in the shoulder, but not too bad. One of his rounds pierced her left love handle with a clean punch out, but she barely noticed.
She dives into the bedroom, leaving her M4 on the trampoline, ready to face a close-quarters attacker, but when she stood in the middle of the room, she thought she felt bees stinging her, and a sudden drowsiness, slight nausea, then nothing. While being carried to her seat, she will vomit in her sleep, but professionals don’t mind; they just wipe her mouth and slap her head.
It would be about a half hour before she would become conscious again – maybe more. The Westminster on the mantle says it is one o’clock, and the chimes ring the hour. She is feeling foggy, but still angry, and strangely sore; as if someone has been beating on her in her sleep. And that is exactly what has happened.
It is James, Luther, and Jacob who have been beating her. If it had been the cartel, the pain would have been greater, or at least, that’s what she assumes. She realizes, from their clothes and demeanor that some intelligence operators have captured her, and she smells CIA, but they didn’t beat her. Spooks usually use gloves. It makes the work easier and the pain deeper.
Dixon comes in the room, a lot less calm than he had been when the thugs raided that little house, having found out that Zenia was the corpse. He’d had an on again-off again fling with her, which escalated as soon as either of them had something to celebrate or a struggle that needed some consolation. When that moment was over, they could each go their own way, ignoring each other, except for business. He did care for her, and now that her killer is in hand, he wants a piece.
Upon seeing her, tied to the chair, he crosses the room with his hand raised. He brings down a pretty good blow on her left cheek, knocking her to the carpet, chair and all. Luther sits her back up again. “Where’s my folks?” she asks, as soon as her head is clear enough. She gets no answer, but they are still cuffed together, now however, in the master bedroom at the far end of the upstairs. Jacob thought it best if they couldn’t hear what happened to Mike, and she could think they were gone.
“Is all this is because your sister died?” Jacob asks.
“My sister didn’t die! Asshole! Your god-damned club killed her.” She is still wearing Tiny’s vest and colours, but she has changed the name tag out for one that says, “Bitch!” stapled on.
“I could understand an eye for an eye, life for life. But you took down MY whole operation!”
“Our operation!” shouted Luther.
“Raaaaaah!” screams Jacob, and he grabs up Mike’s gun from the coffee table, shooting Luther in the foot. “Fuck you Luther.”
“Yeah, fuck you Luther,” says Mike. “And while we’re at it, fuck James for banging Angela, eh?”
This time there is no scream from Jacob, only the visceral reaction of James, taking a step back, raising his gun, but not fast enough. Before his gun is up, Jacob has released a round into his face, followed by another two in his chest. As James falls, he squeezes his trigger, unloading another round into Luther’s thigh. Too bad Angela isn’t here or Jacob would do her too.
Redirecting the gun toward Mike, he shouts again. “Why did you kill them all?”
“Because they all did it! You did it! Every single man in your little club did it to someone, or they wouldn’t be in your club. But, I’m almost done wiping out the disease that killed my little sister.” She sees the faint blue dots lit up on the glass of the front bay window. She notices on of the face of Dixon, moving around his forehead, with only a slight shiver to it. She recognizes the light from her job. “Goodnight everyone,” she says, and she bows her head as far toward her knees as she can. Jacob puts his left foot back, stretches out his right arm, pointing the gun at her head, and as he pulls the hammer back with his thumb, Dixon notices a blue spot on Jacob’s wrist. The window clinks, almost quietly, as the bullet passes through Jacob’s wrist against the gun, and Dixon hits the floor in fear. There’s another clink of the window, another, and another, as Jacob receives a shot through the upper spine, exiting the center of his chest, leaving a terrible mess all the way into the kitchen.
Luther, who had been sitting in a chair crying from the previous injuries, took a round to the neck, right behind the jaw joint, and another bullet passed into his left eye, out his right ear. James, barely alive, crawling toward the kitchen, is struck once in the back, through his left lung. He rolls over to be struck once in the front of his chest, through his heart, and in about two seconds, they are all laying on the floor with sucking wounds, sputtering, and gurgling to a stop, as they die. The CIA agents who were watching the interrogation of Mike, each take a half dozen shots, early, mid, and late in the shooting. None of them even manage to get a gun clear for returning fire.
Four people come in the front door, as casual as can be, dressed in full tactical gear, all in black, each with a Sig P226 Velcro-fastened to their chest, knife on the boot, lots of extra mags. Another three such snappy dressers come in the kitchen door, all covered except their eyes, in full blackout gear. One of them goes upstairs to check on the parents, because, unlike the thugs attacking the little house before, these guys did a full examination of this structure.
Mike feels her hands become free, and the circulation returns to her hands. She raises her head as the cords around her arms and legs are cut away. The lead operator reaches to the top of his stocking cap, and removing it, reveals that he is a friend of hers. Well, if not a friend, at the very least, a well-known ally named Mark.
The Warriors' Ends- Soldiers of the Apocalypse Page 18
