by Lou Cadle
He didn’t say anything, but his eyes flashed with anger.
“Yeah, yeah, it was a lie. The attack is tonight. In fact, this is it.”
“Four people?” He snorted.
“You wish,” Jackson said.
“How many are meeting over there, and how many are on the streets patrolling?” Dev’s mom said. “Don’t lie. You’ll pay for a lie.”
“Like I’d tell you that. More than four, I’ll tell you that much. You people are screwed. You have no idea who you are messing with.”
“We do have an idea,” Sierra said. “The lowest of the low. And I’ve already killed six of you. I’m happy to kill more.”
“The hell you did,” he said.
Dev said, “She did, actually.” Sierra met his eyes and she gave him a small smile.
“We all have,” Dev’s mom said. Which wasn’t strictly true. Jackson hadn’t killed any of the invaders, so far as Dev knew. “And we’re extremely angry at you, and we’re on a tight schedule here tonight. So you either need to tell us what we need to know, and fast, or you’ll die fast and we’ll go on and execute our plan anyway.”
“I don’t believe there are more than four of you.” He glanced at Sierra. “Or that a girl killed any of us.”
Sierra aimed her rifle at his leg. “I hear getting shot in the knee is painful. What do you think?”
“If you don’t believe she’d happily pull that trigger, then you’re an idiot,” Jackson said. “Sierra, before you shoot him, where are my bolt cutters?”
“I left them on that desk in there.”
“Go get them, would you?” Jackson said. “I think they’ll help us get our answers.”
“So,” Dev’s mom said. “How many are there? We figure no more than fifty total. The ones who came up our way are all dead. Dead and cremated. And the children they had are in our care and doing fine, no thanks to you. So that leaves about thirty to fifty, we think. Maybe a few more, maybe a few less. So let’s start with half of that minimum. Are there fifteen men meeting over in that building? And where? Which room? Downstairs in a front office, most of them. I know that much. And we need the layout of the building.”
The prisoner only shook his head. But then his eyes caught on the body of his buddy, and he froze at the sight.
Sierra came back with the bolt cutters.
Jackson said, “Dev, get some of those flexicuffs we found. We’ll hog tie him, and—”
The man lunged up, despite all the guns on him. But Jackson kicked him back. Sierra swung the bolt cutters at him.
A gash opened up on his face.
“Oops,” Sierra said, not an ounce of regret in her voice. “You’ll have to forgive me. Ever since I had to watch two of you raping a little girl, I’ve had a very bad attitude about you.”
“Dev?” Jackson said. “Please, the cuffs.”
Dev went to where they’d left the cuffs and pulled a handful out. There was a huge box of them. He played with one on the way back, trying to figure out how it worked.
When he returned, Sierra had taken out the handgun she’d been carrying to hand over to a jailed man, and she had it pressed right against the guy’s knee. “Move, try to go for any one of us, and I will fire.”
Dev said, “Hands behind?”
Jackson said, “No. In front of him. But ankles and knees both, if those are long enough for them. May as well double up. And make them tight.”
Dev cuffed his ankles first, and then his knees, with Sierra moving back to let him do that. Then he said, “Hold out your hands.”
The man’s belligerent act—or genuine tough attitude, it didn’t matter which—was beginning to break down. Dev could smell a rank sweat coming off him as he cuffed his wrists.
“Hold him,” Jackson said.
“How?” Dev said.
“From behind. Like a bear hug.”
Dev didn’t want to—he’d end up carrying that foul smell on him—but he did.
“Okay, here’s what we’ll do,” Jackson said. “The nice lady there will ask you again, and if you don’t answer her, I’m going to take these bolt cutters, and I’m going to cut off one of your fingers.”
Dev felt the man’s arms tense, but he didn’t try to lunge up again. Not yet. Dev tightened his grip anyway.
“Sierra, grab his left hand. Get the pinky out where I can get at it.”
Dev glanced up to make sure his mom still had the rifle in hand. Sierra tucked the handgun away in the back of her pants and kneeled down.
“Okay, Kelly. Ask again.”
“How many men are across the street?” his mom said.
He shook his head once, a hard jerk.
“Hold his hand steady,” Jackson said, and he gripped the bolt cutters. Sierra grabbed the smallest finger and tried to hold it out, but the man was curling his hand tightly into a fist.
Dev had no idea if Jackson was serious or not. The world had changed so much that this—which would have once been unthinkable—had to be considered a real possibility. And he knew that no matter what they did to the man now, in five minutes, or an hour, or tomorrow morning, they’d likely kill him anyway. He felt a little dizzy with the perception shift, where he imagined him future just before his sixteenth birthday, and how he’d never guessed he would have been kneeling in a jail with his arms around a man, holding him still to be tortured.
And yet here he was. Back and forth, his perception shifted. Old Dev’s thoughts. New Dev’s thoughts. And the newest thought of all: What have we become?
Sierra had gotten the ring finger out. She knelt on his bound legs. One of her hands was on his fist, and one held out the end of the finger. “Okay, go on. Just don’t accidentally cut me.”
The blades of the bolt cutter slipped around the finger. Dev had to hold on tight to keep the man in place as he fought. Jackson gripped the bolt cutter’s handles.
“Wait, wait,” the man said. “I’ll tell you. There’s—uh.”
His mom made a disgusted noise. “Go on and cut off a finger first. Then he’ll tell the truth. Dev, hold him steady.”
“Four,” said the man.
“Try again,” Dev’s mom said. “I know there’s more than that.”
“Four! There’s four.”
Sierra said, “Maybe not his finger. Maybe his little wiener. That might do it.”
Dev was shocked to see Sierra drop his wrist put her hand on the prisoner’s zipper.
“Hey!” the man said.
“Karma,” Sierra said. “You guys rape, and now we’re going to disarm you.”
“No no no,” the man said, twisting hard in Dev’s grip.
Dev wanted to say the same thing. His genitals were trying to crawl up into his body in sympathy. He looked at Sierra’s face and thought she actually might do it. She started unzipping, the rasp seeming louder than it could be.
“Twelve! Me and eleven others,” the man said. “And six out on patrol. One here at the jail. Over twenty in the barracks. Twenty-two or twenty-three.”
“Where’s that?” Jackson asked.
“It’s an apartment building.” He named it, and Jackson and Dev’s mom nodded. They must both know of it.
Dev’s mother said, “Do they have anyone else with them? Anyone from Payson?”
“There’s a girl. But she stays with us. I mean, it’s her choice.” He shot a nervous look at Sierra.
“How old a girl?” Sierra said, and she was smiling as she said it. But it was a smile Dev never ever wanted to see aimed at him.
“She’s twenty! I swear it. Twenty!”
“Okay,” Jackson said, pulling back the bolt cutters. “I think that might be the truth. Now describe the layout of the place, and where the men are.”
He described the office building and a big meeting room, and it sounded like it was probably the truth. Sierra’s hand was still hovering over his zipper, and that might have helped.
“Kill him?” Sierra said, pulling the handgun from the back of her jeans.
“If you put me in with them, they’ll kill me,” the man said. “Go on and shoot me. It’d be better than what they’d do to me.”
Dev said, “We can lock him in that central area. Then they can’t tear him apart.”
“Check his pockets for keys and a knife first,” his mom said. “I don’t think he can get out of those cuffs, but there’s no reason to take a chance.”
Dev eased him to one side and then to the other, and checked his pockets. He was gentle with the man. What they had done to him—threatened to do—were going to do, more than likely—was weighing on him. It’s one thing to shoot invaders in your own yard who are shooting at you or your folks or stealing your food. It’s another to do it on behalf of someone else, somewhere other than home. Yeah, these were bad men. Horrible men, taking what wasn’t theirs, mistreating women in one way, men in another, children in yet a third. Maybe they deserved to die. But did they deserve torture? Or to be shot while trussed up like this?
Then he realized that the man hadn’t been tortured. Only threatened with it. They hadn’t done so much as slapped him. That made Dev feel marginally better. But he wasn’t rough with the man at all. He said, “Okay, I’m going to pull you through the hall. Want to go feet first or head first?”
“Head,” the man said. Al? Had that been his name? Or the dead guard’s? Probably better to think of him as an anonymous bad guy anyway.
Devlin took the keys, dragged the man by the collar, back through the door, and the hallway, and then he unlocked the final door. When he opened it, the din was considerably reduced. In fact, only a few voices were talking.
“It’s just me,” Dev called out. “There’s food out here, raw vegetables, but they aren’t clean. Today’s harvest, looks like. We’ll feed you as soon as we can.”
A voice said, “Devlin Quinn?”
It was the peacock man, Mr. Lambert. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“We’re sorry we were so crazy before. I know you can’t understand how it has been in here. And it’s no excuse. But we are sorry. We’re calm. We’re ready to come out.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Then why are you here?” shouted another voice. Immediately someone hushed him.
“I brought a prisoner. One of them, not of you.”
There was a strange silence then. Dev glanced down and saw the trussed man had gone stark white.
“But I’m not putting him in with you,” Dev said. “I know he couldn’t last long in there.”
“Thank you,” the prisoner said.
“It’s a kindness you in no way deserve,” Dev said. “But we aren’t any of us as low as you.” He was trying to convince himself of that as much as he was trying to convince this invader of it. “If it’s up to me, you’ll have a trial. Be put in jail. Be treated in jail just as you treated these men.”
A stirring in the cells.
“Dev,” said Mr. Lambert. “Is there any way we can talk you into letting us out?”
“I tell you what,” Dev said. “We might be willing to let eight of you out.” They had the four extra weapons. But now they also had the batons they’d found. And they could use the increase in troop size to make it twelve against twelve across the street. “If the others agree to it, we’ll be out here with guns. If we open a cell door and you rush us, or try to get out the next door—which is locked, and you can’t—we’ll have to stop you. And I really don’t want to hurt you. We’re here to help you. So, Mr. Lambert, because I know you, I’m going to suggest we pick your cell. Everybody else,” he said loudly, as a murmur started up in the other cells. “Everybody else, you just sit tight for now. This will be over tonight. So, Mr. Lambert, in your cell, we need four men who can shoot really well, two with a rifle, two with a semi-auto handgun. And four men who are fittest, not hurt, can run and punch and also know which end of a gun is which in case we capture one. You figure out who that is while I’m gone, and I’ll see what my group thinks of it. Is that something you’re willing to agree to?”
“Yes,” Mr. Lambert said without hesitation.
“Well, you all talk about it for two or three minutes and make sure. I’ll be right back.”
He left the trussed man leaning against a wall, then returned to the others and told them what he’d promised Mr. Lambert. And he apologized to his mother. “I know you’re in charge. If you say no, I’ll go back and tell them that.”
“No. I’m fine with it,” she said, “if everyone else is. But I really hope they don’t charge us. I’d hate to shoot the people we’re trying to befriend.”
“Me too,” Jackson said.
Sierra said, “We’re just trusting that they’ll know what they’re doing? And that they’ll take orders?”
“Yes,” Dev’s mom said. “Arch and I talked about that before. We thought they’d be grateful to have someone lead them. Maybe we were wrong, but if I act professional about it, I think they’ll fall in line.”
“Okay,” Sierra said. “If you’re happy about it, Kelly, I’ll go along. Not saying the back of my neck isn’t going to be crawling when these strangers have guns and are behind me.”
“They may not all be strangers,” Dev said. “Your math teacher is in one cell. And Mr. Lambert.”
“Who is that?” his mom said.
“Don Lambert, from 4-H?”
“Don’t remember him,” she said. “Okay, we’ve wasted enough time. Let’s go.”
They ended up letting nine out. Mr. Lambert said he was neither spry enough to be useful in hand-to-hand combat, nor a good shot, but Dev’s mom recognized him and let him out anyway. There was a collective sigh of frustration as she closed the door on the other men left in the cell.
“We’re trusting you not to kill that prisoner,” Dev’s mom said to Lambert. “We might need him for more information, so here are the keys. If we pound on the front door, let us in. Three knocks, then two. That’ll be our signal. If you’re in the kitchen, prop open the other doors with a chair so you can hear us no matter where you are.”
“I’ll wait right by the door for you.”
“I was thinking that you could clean these vegetables they brought and distribute them. They have little slots for delivering food on the cell doors, I see. You do not, under any circumstances, let anyone else out of a cell, right?”
“They’re hoping they’ll get out soon.”
“Might be as late as morning,” she said, and then she held a hand up to stop him from saying whatever he’d been thinking of saying. “I know it will seem a long time, but it isn’t. And we need to clear the town of all enemies. It’s dark and cloudy. Three of us have night vision capability, but your contingent won’t and most of the others trying to liberate the town won’t. They could and would shoot you if you go wandering around town. It could take six or eight hours, I’m saying, before the jail is emptied. I’m trusting you about this. Don’t open those cells.”
“I understand,” said one of the men. “That makes sense. But we’re really hungry.”
Sierra said to him, “You can rinse the vegetables in the next five or ten minutes. We probably won’t be back that quick.”
Jackson said to the others, “And you eight won’t break and go for your homes? Because if we do this right, it’ll be done tonight. And then everybody can go home and start to pick up the pieces. But if you run off on your own and we mess it up, then who knows if or when you’ll have your homes back. Or if you’ll survive.”
One of the men nodded. “We talked about it. We can agree to that.”
“Okay,” Dev’s mom said. “We’ll give this a go. Distribute the guns.” She took out the handgun from her pack, a Glock, and said, “Who is comfortable with this?”
Two hands went up. The other three firearms went to the men who’d volunteered. Dev was more than a little nervous having a loaded gun in the hands of these strangers now that Sierra had planted t
hat idea in his head, but he should have thought about that hours ago when his father told him about the plan, not now.
His mom watched the men with the guns check their weapons. They knew what they were doing. She had no extra magazines but some spare ammunition, which she distributed. “It’s not much, so choose your shots carefully. Okay, everyone. Remember, I’m in charge. Sierra, Dev, you’ll take the rear and once we’re up close, you two circle around to the back of the building. Everybody else, remember they are back there, and avoid taking any shot that would pass through a front and then back window. Jackson, you and me lead in front. If we see that guard again, you can use your silencer and we might just get away with the first kill without warning the others inside. Guys, remember, my son and Sierra are going to be coming in from the rear, so if you get inside don’t shoot out the back. Let them deal with everything back there.”
A new man spoke up. “We shoot to kill?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “Are you not okay with that?”
“I’m one hundred percent okay with it,” he said. He had some old bruises on his jaw.
A third man said, “Looking forward to it, you might say. You have no idea what went on here.”
“We have some idea,” Sierra said. “We do.”
“No more talk,” Dev’s mother said. “We need to move. New people, follow our lead. We have signals, we have experience, so don’t get too far from us. And when I say to retreat, we retreat back here. Again, no running through the street to your homes because you think it’s clear. Other invaders are out there with weapons, and our people will be coming soon, and you’ll probably just get yourself shot if you try. Wait for my orders.”
They all nodded. Dev studied their faces and thought they might obey that instruction. Hard to say. Sometimes, when bullets were flying and things were happening fast, you couldn’t seem to help doing what your heart told you, not what you knew was tactically sound. These weren’t experienced fighters. They were shop owners and tradesmen. He hoped they’d fall into line.
Dev’s mother had Jackson take the keys and unlock the front gate. While he did, she talked to the four they’d given batons, and then Jackson came back in. They were ready. Mr. Lambert stayed behind as they filed out.
