Another round of laughter from in front of them, and Wash thought, Those don’t sound like the kind of people who’d be scared so easily.
But he whispered back instead, “I’ll circle around, but I won’t show myself. If it’s friendlies, I’ll wait for your signal to come out, after you’ve warned them.”
He expected her to argue, but she nodded. “Wait for my signal, okay?”
“Be careful.”
“You too.”
They went in separate directions—Ana continuing forward on foot and Wash moving off the covered trail. He slid his way around trees and through thickets. It was impossible to be completely silent, but he did his best while still maintaining some speed.
It was easy to tell where the campsite was—about fifty or so yards to his left. All he had to do was listen to the raucous laughter as whoever was out there continued to enjoy themselves. He counted two, maybe three distinct voices talking back and forth. They weren’t loud enough that he could decipher every word they were saying and the thick trees and bushes between him and them didn’t help.
After moving for a few minutes, he changed directions and started angling toward the camp’s location. After another minute of walking, he started to glimpse a clearing in front of him through the trees. The voices were also becoming clearer, and the laughter even louder.
Wash slung the shotgun and replaced it with the carbine. The Mossberg was good for a crowd, but not if he had to distinguish between enemies and friendlies in one contained location. The M4 on semiautomatic would give him better target selection, and the thirty rounds would come in handy if a gunfight broke out. If all else failed and he needed to cover a lot of ground, he could always switch to full-auto—
“Wash!”
He forgot about his wounds and broke off into a sprint. He immediately regretted it, but he kept going anyway because that was Ana who had just shouted out his name.
The clearing was right in front of him, and Wash burst through a bush with some thorns and onto the other side, lifting the rifle as he slid to a stop.
Two seconds became an eternity as he surveyed the clearing:
Three men standing around a pit with a smothered fire looking across the grounds at Ana on the other side. Two of the men were clutching bottles in their fists while a third was holding what looked like a turkey leg. They were all armed, and shotguns and rifles leaned against the logs they had been sitting on.
Wash had tossed aside stealth for speed and knew he had made way too much noise, so he wasn’t surprised when two of the men instantly turned around to look at him as he revealed himself in the open.
Then Ana was screaming, “Shoot them, Wash! Shoot them!”
He pulled the trigger.
Sixteen
“Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.”
The Old Man’s words ricocheted back and forth in his head even as everything else faded into the background.
The campsite. The three men inside it. The pathetically put-together tent next to them. The wind picking up and tossing ashes from the dead fire. A bottle falling, then shattering as its owner dropped with a hole in his chest.
“In a firefight, the guy who shoots first doesn’t always shoot last. It’s the guy who shoots truest. To get there, you have to practice until it becomes muscle memory. Slowly at first, until it becomes smooth as butter. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast, kid. Remember that.”
Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast, Wash thought as he turned slightly to the left and pulled the trigger again, even as the second man reached for his sidearm.
Wash didn’t know if the man would have gotten to his weapon faster if he’d dropped the bottle clutched in his left hand first. But that was a moot point as a pinkish red cloud sprayed the crisp morning air and the man stumbled and fell, slamming the side of his head into the log he’d been sitting on seconds ago, then rolled off to the side.
“Avoid the gunfight if you can, but if you can’t, make sure you end it. Never, ever leave a man with a gun standing once the bullets fly. Finish it and move on. Next!”
Wash tracked the third man who had taken off. His target was still holding onto the turkey leg as he fled; he also hadn’t gone for his holstered sidearm. As far as Wash could tell, the man hadn’t even made an attempt for the pistol before running.
“Wash!” Ana shouted.
Her voice thrummed in his ears even as he followed the man’s progress, Wash’s forefinger tightening around the trigger. The target was moving surprisingly fast for someone of his size—six-two, at least, and well over two hundred pounds. Crunching autumn leaves scattered under his boots. The man was bundled up in cargo pants and a thick winter coat, and when he glanced over in Wash’s direction while still in midstride, Wash got an eyeful of a mask of fear looking back at him through his rifle’s scope.
“Don’t shoot!” Ana shouted.
Ana’s words registered almost too late, but he was able to process it in time to pull the reticle down even as he squeezed the trigger, and his target seemed to trip on an imaginary obstacle before spinning in the air and falling back down to the ground.
“Don’t shoot!” Ana shouted again as she raced toward the fallen man.
“Don’t shoot?” Wash thought as he lowered the carbine. First “Shoot them!” and now “Don’t shoot.” Make up your mind, woman!
Wash hurried over to the two men he’d dropped, while Ana rushed over to the third one. Wash had gotten him in the shoulder—if Ana’s words had come just a split second too late, the round would have gone through his head—and the man was grabbing it while rolling around on the ground clenching his teeth in pain.
“Stay down,” Ana said to him. “Stay the hell down, Travis.”
The man named Travis had other ideas, and began reaching for his sidearm. Wash was about to shoot him again, but Ana beat him to it. She kicked Travis in the shoulder—the same shoulder Wash had shot him. The man howled in pain, and in that moment probably didn’t even feel Ana stepping on his extended right arm—the same arm that had been reaching for the gun—to pin it to the ground.
“Don’t make me tell you twice,” Ana said.
Glad she’s on my side, Wash thought as he finished walking over to the other two men.
The first one was on his back, lifeless brown eyes wide open and staring up at the cloudless sky. He was dead. Wash had shot for center mass, but he’d gotten the man in the heart instead.
I’ll take it.
The second one was still alive, both hands folded across his chest where the 5.56 round had punched through his sweater. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, sweat covering his forehead. He was trying desperately to keep the blood from pumping out of his chest, but Wash had seen that kind of wound before, and without proper treatment, it was only a matter of time.
The man’s lips quivered as he struggled to talk. “Finish it. For God’s sake, finish it.”
Wash shot him in the forehead, remembering the Old Man’s words as he pulled the trigger:
“Never, ever leave a man with a gun standing once the bullets fly. Finish it and move on. Next!”
“Next,” Wash said quietly before looking over at Ana.
She was still standing over Travis, his pistol in her hand, and looking in his direction. If she had any objections to him just killing a man in cold blood, he didn’t see it on her face or in her eyes.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded and looked past him. He followed her gaze to the tent nearby.
“I’ll clear it,” Wash said and headed over.
He had to walk over four backpacks, all of them bulging with supplies, in order to get to the tent. It was beige and worn from use, and though it looked big enough for at least three people, Wash knew from experience it could be disassembled and stuffed into a backpack and still have plenty of space. Whoever had put it up hadn’t done a very good job, though, and Wash was afraid the canopy might fall apart when he pulled down the front zipper and
stuck his carbine inside.
A face covered in dirty brown hair peered at him, its owner huddled as far into the back of the small tent as they were able. Small, thin arms were clutched around bent knees as the woman hid behind her hair. She was nude and hyperventilating, her chest heaving with every pained breath.
Wash backed his way out of the tent.
He glanced across the campsite at Ana. She hadn’t moved and was watching him with an almost blank expression, barely able to contain herself as she waited for him to speak. She had Travis’s sidearm dangling from one hand, but he wasn’t sure if she even remembered the wounded man was there.
“You should come here,” Wash said.
Ana nodded and hurried to him. Wash walked over to meet her halfway, one eye looking past her at Travis, still lying on the ground clutching his wounded shoulder.
“What’s inside?” Ana asked.
“It’s a girl,” Wash said. Then, before she could ask, “It’s not Emily.”
She looked at him, and Wash wasn’t sure if that was relief or disappointment on her face. “Are you sure?”
“Brown hair.”
“Oh.”
Wash nodded at Travis. “Is he one of them? Mathison’s men?”
“Yes,” Ana said, and walked to the tent.
Wash continued on to Travis, who had managed to sit up. Blood trickled down his arm, and he was trying to grit away the pain while staring past Wash at his two dead friends. Or, at least, Wash assumed they were friends. Traveling companions, if nothing else.
The campsite was split into different sections, each with their own fire pit and large moss-covered logs arranged in a semicircle around them, as well as wooden benches for dining. The grass had gotten tall throughout the area, but it would still be years before Pond Creek Campsite was completely reclaimed by the thick woods that surrounded it.
“You’re pretty fast, for a big man,” Wash said.
Travis looked over at him. “Not fast enough.”
“No one’s ever fast enough.”
“You murdered Duncan.”
It wasn’t hard for Wash to figure out who Duncan was. The murdered part gave it away.
“He asked for it,” Wash said. “Literally.”
“Bullshit,” Travis said. “You’re a fucking killer.”
“I never said I wasn’t.”
“Who are you?”
“The guy with the rifle,” Wash said, and sat down on a log about ten yards from Travis.
Travis looked past him again, but this time toward Ana. Wash glanced over to check on her, but she was already inside the tent.
He turned back to Travis. “You’re one of Mathison’s guys.”
Travis didn’t answer.
“So what happened?” Wash continued. “Why’d you guys split up?” He gave the woods around them a quick glance. “Or is he still around here somewhere?”
“He’s gone,” Travis said. “Been gone for two days now.”
“Gone where?”
“Gone.”
“Texas,” Wash said. “Brownsville, Texas, to be precise.”
The sudden flash of surprise in Travis’s eyes told Wash that Ana’s information had been correct after all.
Wash smiled. “Yeah, we know all about Brownsville.”
“How the fuck do you know that?”
“Loose lips sink ships.” He looked back at the two dead men, then at the half-empty bottles of liquor they’d dropped. “Where’d you guys get Johnny Walker and his buddy Jim Beam over there?”
“You can find anything, if you look hard enough.”
“What was the occasion?”
Travis kept quiet.
Wash looked back at the tent, remembering the sight of the girl inside it. “Never mind. I figured it out.”
“Who are you?” Travis asked. “You from Newton?”
“No, I’m not from Newton.”
“Then who the fuck are you?”
“Just a guy who owes someone his life,” Wash said.
“Her name’s Teresa,” Ana said about thirty minutes later. “Mathison’s people killed her husband when they took her. She has a three-year-old waiting for her back in Newton.”
She glanced over at Travis, sitting on the grass with his legs tied in front of him and his arms similarly bound, but behind his back. He was leaning back against one of the logs, with a bandage wrapped around his wounded shoulder. He looked in pain, but neither Wash nor Ana cared enough to help him alleviate it. He kept looking over at the two men that Wash had killed and left to lie where they fell nearby.
“The other two are Duncan and Chris,” Ana said. “Were Duncan and Chris, now. They were Mathison’s people, too.”
Wash checked on Teresa, sitting on the wooden bench on the other side of the camping grounds. She was dressed in one of Ana’s shirts and pants, but Ana only had one pair of shoes so the woman had to stay barefoot. She was devouring the contents of an MRE bag that Travis and the other two were carrying around in their packs like someone who hadn’t eaten in days. And maybe that wasn’t too far from the truth, by the looks of her.
“How is she?” Wash asked.
Ana shook her head, and Wash wondered how often she had been thinking about Emily ever since they stumbled across the campsite. Because her sister was still out there, in Mathison’s hands, and Wash didn’t want to think about what they were doing to her now. If he felt that way, he couldn’t imagine what was going through Ana’s mind.
“What did he tell you about Mathison?” Ana asked, looking at Travis.
“I was saving that part for you,” Wash said.
She nodded, then walked over to Travis with Wash beside her. As they neared him, Travis looked up and swallowed. For such a big man, he appeared amazingly small at the moment. The bandage around his shoulder wasn’t exactly a great example of textbook field tourniquet in action, but then Wash hadn’t been concerned with aesthetics when he put it on the man.
“Where is he?” Ana asked when she stopped in front of Travis. “Where’s Mathison?”
“He’s gone,” Travis said. “To Brownsville.”
“Then why are you and the other two still here?”
“We parted ways.”
“When?”
“Two days ago.” He smirked. “He’s got a two-day head start on you, lady. You’ll never catch up to him. I don’t think he’s even on that highway out there anymore. Mathison’s smart. Too smart for you. He wouldn’t make it that easy.”
Ana ignored his taunts and said, “Why?”
“Why what?” Travis asked.
“Why did you and the others part ways with Mathison?”
“What are you going to do to me?”
“Answer the question.”
“Tell me what you’re going to do to me first.”
“Wash,” Ana said.
Wash drew the kukri from its sheath. “Evade another question with a question, and I’m going to chop off your finger. Keep doing it, and I’ll chop off another one. You get me, Travis?”
Travis swallowed again. “You wouldn’t do that. I’m no use to you dead.”
“Who said anything about killing you? You know how long a man can go without his digits?”
“You’re bluffing.”
“Only one way to find out,” Wash said, and grinned.
Travis looked away from Wash to focus on Ana. “You won’t get any answers from me until you call off your wild dog.”
“What happened with you and Mathison?” Ana asked again.
Travis hesitated. He glanced from Wash to Ana, then over at Duncan’s and Chris’s bodies.
“Wash, take one of his thumbs,” Ana said.
“Okay, okay, Jesus Christ,” Travis said. “Jesus Christ…” He gathered himself, before starting. “We decided—Duncan, Chris, and me—that we didn’t want to go back to Texas. That was always Mathison’s thing, not ours. He agreed to let us go our own way.”
“And Teresa?”
“He gave her t
o us as a going-away present.”
“How nice of him,” Wash said.
“Yeah, that’s Mathison; he’s a regular humanitarian, all right,” Travis said, though there wasn’t anything that even sounded like humor in his voice.
“So he’s still going to Brownsville?” Ana asked.
Travis nodded. “As far as I know, yeah.”
“And she’s still with him? Emily?”
“Again, as far as I know, yeah.”
“Where is he now?”
“I already told you, I don’t have any idea. It’s been two days since we said adios. He could be in Texas by now, for all I care. It’s not like we got phones to keep in touch, you know?”
Wash could see that Ana had more questions—most of them probably about her sister—but she didn’t ask them. Either she didn’t want to know, or she already knew and didn’t want the confirmation.
“What now?” Travis asked. “What’re you going to do to me?”
“I’m not going to do anything to you,” Ana said.
“I don’t understand…”
“Wash,” Ana said.
Travis’s eyes widened as he finally understood. Wash almost felt sorry for the guy. Almost. But then all he had to do was look across at Teresa, buried behind her dirty hair as she spooned food into her mouth like a wild child who hadn’t eaten in days, and all of that empathy went away.
“Hey, come on, we had a deal,” Travis said. “Didn’t we? Didn’t we?”
“No,” Ana said. “And if you don’t know where to find Mathison, then you’re no use to me.”
She turned away before he could say anything else to her, and walked over to where Teresa sat.
When Wash looked back, Travis was staring at him. No, not staring, but pleading with his eyes. “Look, it wasn’t my idea. All of it. None of it was my idea. It was Mathison all the way. He’s the real bad guy here. I was just going along with it. I mean, I had no choice, you understand? Mathison is fucking insane. Did she tell you that? That guy is fucking insane.”
“Where do you want it?” Wash asked.
“What?”
“Where do you want it?” Wash asked again as he put the machete away and drew the Beretta and thumbed back the hammer.
After The Purge: Vendetta Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 15
