Gruman jogged across the road they'd been walking along, looking left and right along the barrel of her assault rifle. She was an impressive woman, Hick had to admit. He guessed she was in her mid-thirties, with brown hair tied up at the nape of her neck and a soft, round face that hid a deadly nature. She was wearing the militia uniform that Gert had given her and the others. He wondered where Gert was right now and wished he were here. They'd stand more of a chance with him.
Hick followed the others across the street once she'd signaled. More than once on this trip, he'd questioned what he was doing on this mission. He still found it hard to believe Marianna was a double agent, and that her father held the key to resisting the worst elements of the Sons of Solomon. Still, even a wild goose chase was better than skulking around the farmhouse being made to feel useless by Jessie Summers.
A rusting iron staircase led to an external fire escape door on the first story. Mara was already inside, her rifle sweeping back and forth. "Clear," she barked as Brain and Duck waited on the threshold. Hick helped the struggling Jay inside. "You okay, son?" he said.
Jay nodded, but it was obvious he was exhausted and in pain.
"Someone's been here. Not recently, though," Mara said. "I guess they recognized a good hideout when they saw it, just like we did. This habitable part is invisible from the highway." She gestured to a litter-strewn room covered in chunks of plaster that had fallen from the walls and ceiling, black blobs of mold spreading from the corners.
Hick was going to make a wisecrack about how his definition of habitable was obviously not the same as hers, but he thought better of it when he caught her watching him. The woman could read minds.
"I wonder what happened to the folks who were here before?" These were the first words Brain had uttered since they'd stopped to eat at noon. He'd been more taciturn after his rescue from Annie Wilkes, but he hadn't suddenly sprouted any extra neurons.
The fact that Hick didn't immediately swipe away Brain's comment gave a green light for Duck to contribute. "Yeah, I mean if it's such a good hidin' place, why ain't they still here?"
"Maybe they didn't like the view," Hick snapped.
Mara pulled back a moldy drape and looked out. "Maybe they moved on. But I guess they were found in the end. We only have to get through one night, and tomorrow we will be at our objective."
"Can we have a fire, boss? A warm meal sure would go down well."
"Sure you can," Hick said. "And once you've lit the place up like a beacon, why don't you go run through the streets butt naked and singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’?"
Brain's face, which had lit up with enthusiasm to begin with, now drooped again as his comprehension caught up with his ears. "Well, there's no need to be mean, boss."
"Over here," Mara said. She pointed at a blackened area where two walls met. "They had a fire in this corner. It's shielded from view. I think it is safe to have a camping stove here, if we are careful. Is that acceptable, Paul?"
Hickman flushed, but sucked down his annoyance. It was a little thing, but keeping Brain in his place was one of Hick's few remaining pleasures. "Sure."
A chill wind whistled through the half-demolished room, masking Brain's rhythmic snoring. He and Jay had shared the last of his half-bottle of whiskey and had settled down to sleep before dark. An unlikely combination: a bright young man with a crippled body, and an old idiot as strong as an ox. They needed watching.
Hick, Mara and Duck sat around the hissing gas stove, stirring their powdered hot chocolate.
"So, what's the plan for tomorrow?" Duck said.
Mara glanced across at Hick, who was contemplating the undissolved bits of chocolate revolving around the center of his aluminum mug. "Hick?"
"What? Oh. Well, I was gonna wing it, to be honest."
Groaning, Mara rolled her eyes. "This is not military thinking. You say our target is locked up in the large church building?"
"Yeah, the one on West Temple."
"Where exactly in the building?"
Hick shrugged. "I don't know. It's a church, so I can't imagine he'll be too hard to find."
"How many Mormon churches have you been in? This is not some Protestant chapel. These places can be huge. And then, assuming we get this man out, how do we get away?"
"Well, the message says he knows what to do. There's an arms cache, and …"
Again with the eye rolling. "This is pathetic. No, we must plan our own escape. If we are to find him quickly, then we should first capture a church official. We must also acquire an escape vehicle."
Hick sighed. She was right. He'd put off the planning until the last minute because he knew that if he'd thought about it too much, he'd probably never have come on this mission.
"Maybe we should split up. One team gets the escape car, the other goes for DeMille. Problem is, which of us goes on which team?" he said, looking directly at Mara.
Duck chuckled. "Oh, I get it. One of you two geniuses has to lead each team, am I right? But you reckon both of you need to be part of the rescue mission."
He was absolutely correct. Much though Hick didn't want to break into a Mormon church, he hated the prospect of succeeding in that only to find no escape vehicle waited for them outside. And yet he needed Mara on the extraction team.
"I ain't quite as stupid as you seem to think, Hick," Duck said. "I may have a stupid name, though God knows I've tried to shake it off over the years, but I ain't a complete idiot like Brain. You put me in charge of the second team and I guarantee you'll have an escape car waitin' when you're ready."
"Okay, Duck, you got it. You'd best take Brain and Jay with you."
Duck shook his greasy gray head. "No way. Jay can come with me cos he'll just slow you down, but I ain't havin' that moron on my team. You brought him, after all."
White clouds scudded above them as they climbed down from their hiding place just after dawn. Brain was yawning, even though he'd had a better sleep than any of them, and Hick scanned the burned-out landscape for any signs they'd been spotted.
Devon had told him that the Mormons he and Jessie had encountered during their journey east had fortified the center of the city, and it was obvious enough that where they were now had been abandoned early and left to rot.
It made sense, now he thought about it, that the bigger the city, the higher the casualty rate. The closer together the homes, the greater the devastation. They were walking along Poplar Boulevard, and on one side were the remains of what looked like ranch houses, while opposite were the shells of a row of two-story apartment buildings, like the one they'd sheltered in. Most were little more than charred metal pillars, some linked by horizontal joists from which hung the shreds of domestic life.
The ranch houses gave way to a small park with the orange red of a baseball pitch just visible within the knee-high grass. A year ago, kids would have been playing there. Today, almost none of those children were still alive.
For the next two hours, the landscape changed little. Ruined single-story houses with the occasional survivor that had later been plundered. Small workshops gave way to larger retail buildings—car repair, building supplies and wholesale groceries. All destroyed. And, as they approached the center of the city, Hick glanced up at the mountains that formed a backdrop on the devastation. They would still be here when all that man had made was dust. Looked at like this, any actions he took were insignificant. Except that here and now they mattered to him and those he … loved. In his mind's eye, he saw Sam. She was surrounded by trees.
"Movement!" Mara called out, ducking behind a low wall.
The others followed her and Hick peeked through a gap between two bricks. A Land Rover moved slowly along a small road that ran at right angles to the one they were walking along. If they'd gone another fifty yards, they'd have been sitting ducks.
"Well spotted," he said.
"I think, maybe, we're now within the area they control. We should have been keeping better watch."
The Land Rov
er reached a point twenty yards from where they crouched, at the intersection with the larger road they'd been on. If it turned right, there was no way they could miss Hick and the others. He pulled the Glock from its holster at his hip as the others tensed.
After a short pause as the two occupants of the car looked left and right, the driver pulled on the steering wheel and they headed north.
Mara pulled out the street map they'd found in the ruins of a gas station. We're here, and West Temple is two blocks up. There should be a Walmart just up that way."
They slid out of their hiding place as the Land Rover disappeared from view and followed it into Salt Lake City.
The Walmart was a ruin that had been systematically demolished, presumably after rescuing any remaining supplies from the wreckage. They turned right onto West Temple beside a sign declaring Oxycodone is an opioid that had somehow survived the inferno. A Sears distribution center had made it through the fire, but the loading bays were wide open and the contents long looted.
They slipped around the back of a ruined Lucky 8 and picked their way through to the parking lot, before resting among a small group of trees beside the main road. Hick sighed with relief to be out of sight, even for a few minutes. It felt as though he'd spent the past hours scurrying like a rat from hiding place to hiding place, eyes on the distant moving figures and vehicles. Despite their care—Mara had taken the lead now—they almost walked into two patrols and were only saved by her reflexes and good luck.
"The church is a few hundred yards along this road. This is where we split up. Duck, Brain and Jay, your job is to find a working vehicle and bring it to this parking lot."
Brain could barely contain his glee. "Yipee!"
Duck rolled his eyes.
"But you have to do it without attracting attention because I've got no idea how long we're going to be. Hopefully less than an hour, but who knows? So, Duck's in charge. You all got that?"
Jay's expression perfectly communicated how he felt about that, but he nodded.
"Good luck everyone," she said.
Hick shook their hands, lingering on Jay for a moment. "And don't go doin' nothin' stupid, hear me? Sam wouldn't want that, and you're fixin' on bein' on the good side of her, aren't you? Best place to be, if you ask me."
Jay tried to force his face into a reflection of Hick's smile.
And then Hick did something he simply couldn't explain. He opened his arms and hugged the boy to him, feeling Jay's body vibrate as he returned the embrace.
"Well, well, Paul Hickman has a heart after all," Mara said as they watched the others jog away.
"It's a character flaw I've developed. Not exactly welcome."
Mara treating him to a patronizing smile. "Sure. Well, let's go catch ourselves a Mormon. Best place to look is near the church itself. I suggest we take it slowly and remain under cover as much as possible."
"Sure," Hick said. "After you."
It took half an hour to make their way, yard by yard, to a hidden position in sight of the church. "I dunno," Hick whispered. "I sure am feelin' suspicious. I thought this place would be crawling with their fighters. Hope's got a lot more scum per square foot than SLC."
"Maybe Hope is where a lot of the SLC fighters have gone. Anyone would think they knew they were in for trouble there."
"Not near enough trouble, if you ask me."
They were hiding in the backyard of what had once been the nearest house to the church, looking out over an oasis of normality in the ruins of the city. The building itself was pristine, topped by a white spire that pointed to the heavens. Out front, a lawn of plush green grass was cut through by neatly maintained pathways and lined by birch trees whose leaf-laden branches provided shade for the benches dotted around. And on one of those benches sat their target.
Four Land Rovers sat in a line on the road as black-masked and camouflaged figures carrying assault rifles wandered casually back and forth. As they watched, two men in black suits walked toward the cars, paused for a few moments to show their ID cards, then headed across the gardens and into the church.
"We must get into position, and then wait for the guards to all turn away," Mara said.
Now it was Hick's turn to roll his eyes. "Obviously."
They made their way along the remains of a metal fence to the back of the garden, stopping when they were immediately behind the figure sitting alone on a bench.
"We're going to have to chance it," Mara said. "There's not much cover except for the trees themselves, and we can hope to get among them without alerting our target, but if we stop in the road, we'll be seen by the fighters."
"Gotcha," Hick said. He glanced over at the figures beside the Land Rovers. They seemed to be discussing something. "Let's go."
He burst out from cover, ran across the small road running along the side of the church and, trying to be as quiet as possible, crept up on the figure. Just as he reached the bench, the man turned around, startled by the noise. Hick slapped his hand over the man's bearded mouth, then dragged him back into the deeper shade under the tree. They were now out of sight of the guards, unless anyone chose to drive along the little road they'd just crossed.
After a brief struggle, the man went still, wide eyes looking up into the faces of Hick and Mara.
Hick put a finger over his own mouth. "I'm gonna take my hand away, but if you shout out, I swear to God I'll cut your throat. Got me?"
Hick drew the knife and held it close to the man, who'd gone still.
Nod, nod.
He took his hand away. "What's your name?"
"Matthew, Matthew Smith. Please don't kill me. I promise not to shout."
"Good to meet you, Matthew," Hick said. He felt a little sorry for the old man who looked small and frail as he lay, blue eyes flicking from one to the other. "My name's Hick and this here's Mara. Now, do you know someone called DeMille?"
Good grief, you wouldn't want to entrust a secret to this old fool, he had all the guile of a puppy dog. Yes, he knew the man.
"Don't bother denying it," Hick said. "I can see it in your face. Is he in there?"
Smith's eyes darted across to the church. "Yes. He is a prisoner. I take him his food."
"He's alive, then."
"Oh, yes. We are under strict instructions to look after him well. It has been hard on him to be unable to go outside, or even to know the news."
"Go on, then. Why don't you tell me what's going on here?"
Smith looked as though he wished he could take back the last few words he'd said. "Oh … "
"Tell me!" Hick said, bringing the knife close to his neck.
"No, don't hurt me! There's not much to say about our city since most of General Mendoza's fighters left."
Mara leaned forward. "How many are left?"
"I … I don't know."
"Guess."
Smith did his best to shrug. "Perhaps a dozen."
"Is that all? Couldn't your people have taken back control?"
Now Smith began shaking. "M … Mendoza … he showed us what would happen if we caused trouble. He … he … the temple president …"
"Let me guess. He hanged him," Hick said.
Smith nodded, tears moistening the corners of his eyes. "Him and two elders. Their bodies were left there for a week."
"He's a monster. But some of us have the guts to fight him. And that's where you come in."
"No!"
Hick brought the knife to his throat again. "You've got a choice, Matthew. Possible death at a future date, or dying here and now. So, are you going to help us get DeMille out?"
"You want to rescue Elliot? Why?"
"Because he has the information we need to oppose Mendoza. Now, tell us how to get in."
Chapter 21: Army
They shrank beside the vestibule door, watching for signs of any movement from the front of the building.
"Quick!" Hick hissed as Smith fumbled with the keys. Finally, he found the right set, and they were in.
&nb
sp; "How many people will be inside?" Mara asked as they slipped into a dark porch lit only by a glimmer of sunlight penetrating the glass of the door.
"Few," Smith said. "But, look, can't I just tell you where to go from here?"
Hick scoffed. "Why? So you can go hide under the nearest rock? Or tell those fighters outside?"
"No!"
Hick could just make out Smith's shiny head shaking furiously.
"This is going to be tough enough as it is without getting lost. Now, where is he kept?"
"There's a room off the cultural hall. It's … it's this way."
Smith's head moved away.
"Where are you?" Hick called out. They'd agreed not to use their flashlights because the dancing beams would be a giveaway, but he was about to flick it on anyway when Smith appeared in a burst of orange light. He held up a gas lamp and looked back at them like an old Victorian checking for ghosts prowling beyond the edge of his light.
Smith waved them forward. "This is the foyer," he said. "Straight ahead is the chapel, and to the right are the rooms of the high council and the Stake President. We don't want to go that way."
He turned left and took them along a plushly carpeted corridor, soon passing a brass plate declaring "Cultural Hall". Hick began looking for a door to take them inside, so he didn't immediately notice the woman emerging from the wall behind them, adjusting her skirt.
She had time for a brief shriek before Mara lunged at her, pulling her into a headlock, hand over her mouth.
"It's me, Millicent," Smith said. "It's … err … okay. These people are here to rescue Elliot."
Hick heard Mara sighing as their top-secret mission became known to yet another person.
The woman called Millicent looked from Smith to Hick and then attempted to rotate her eyes upward to see who had her. She nodded at Smith.
Last Hope: Book 5 in the Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series: (The Last City - Book 5) Page 15
