by Leigh Barker
Hospitable or not, he needed to know if the girl was in there, and preferably without making a lot of fuss. “You think you can get in there and look around?” he said to Winter. “Without getting your ass shot off.”
Winter nodded once and set off along the trail, still crouched low. He moved around a bend and disappeared into the reeds.
“We’ll give him ten minutes,” Ethan said, “then join him. He might have found cake.”
“Yeah,” Ben said, “or bad people. Did I tell you I hate bad people? They lower the tone.”
“You told me.” Ethan checked his watch and looked along the trail. Waiting while somebody else took the risks was tough, but when that person was a friend, it was almost unbearable.
Five minutes later he looked at his watch again. “Come on, let’s go.”
Ben raised a smile. “Doesn’t feel like ten minutes to me.”
“No, feels longer.”
“Copy that.” Ben crouched, but at six-four his shoulders still cleared the top of the reeds.
Ethan took the magazine from his M16 and tapped it on his knee. It was a habit, almost a ritual, and he knew it was unnecessary, rounds don’t get jammed in the magazine in modern weapons. But it didn’t hurt to do it, and if he didn’t, then anything could happen and probably would. It was the way of things.
Halfway to the compound fence, they met Winter coming back. They put their heads together.
“We’ve got a problem, Top,” Winter said, and nodded towards the compound.
Ethan guessed the place was more heavily defended than they’d expected. That was bad. But it wasn’t that, it was worse.
“There are four or five other kids in there. All girls.” Winter’s eyes blazed with anger. “Kids. Just kids.”
“Did you see the one we’re here for?” Ethan asked, while his mind assimilated the new data.
Winter shrugged. “They all look the same to me. Scared.” He looked back the way he’d come. “And they’re dressed like…” He shook his head as if to clear a glitch. “Like hookers!” He turned to Ethan. “Why’d they dress little kids like hookers, man?”
Ethan took a long breath. “Because they’re for sale. Or they’re sold already.”
Winter’s mouth opened and he blinked slowly. “Sold?” Then he got it. His face flushed red and his jaw locked into a girder line.
Ethan needed to stop him turning and storming the place. “They’re all in the same building?” Ethan asked quietly.
Winter made a visible effort to control his fury. “Yeah. East of that guard tower, near the corner.” He was breathing heavily, as if he’d been running.
Ethan was silent for several seconds, just looking at the tower sticking up above the sea of reeds. He watched it for several seconds until he was sure there was nobody up there waiting. He patted Winter on the shoulder. “Show me.”
Winter cocked his M16 and clicked the safety to on. “They need killing.” He didn’t say much, it was his way. But he’d said plenty there.
The reeds in front of the compound had been flattened to make a ten-yard open perimeter. A kill zone. Winter chopped his flat hand to his right and circled the clearing with the others staying low and slow behind him. He raised his fist and they stopped.
There was somebody coming along the trail. Ethan glanced at Ben and nodded. Ben handed him his rifle, drew his Ka-Bar knife and moved back to the trail almost on his hands and knees to keep below the reeds.
He heard voices and stopped. Two men approaching. Louisiana accents, but bent out of shape by something. Then he got it. They were chewing something. Tobacco. A disgusting habit, but he intended curing them of that.
They made no attempt at stealth as they trudged up the trail, talking about a woman bartender they’d seen in town, and what they were going to do with her, as soon as she realized how great they were.
Ben stayed crouched and dead still in the cover of the reeds, his left hand on the damp weeds next to his knee and his right holding his knife ready for use. He wasn’t afraid, excited, or in fact anything. It was just something that needed to be done, and he’d do it with the same deadly efficiency he’d applied many times before. Back in the day it had been Iraq, Afghanistan, and the jungles of South America, that it was now on mainland America made no difference; these were men who kidnapped kids to sell to the highest bidder, and they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him and his friends. If they got the chance, which they wouldn’t.
They were almost at the kill-point. He pressed down on his left hand and tensed, ready to emerge like a demon from the swamp. Now.
They changed direction at the moment Ben started to rise. The trail split and they took the left fork away from the compound. He sank back down onto his knee and listened intently. They were patrolling the perimeter and going clockwise. Had they chosen the other direction, they’d be dead.
Ethan sank down onto his knee next to Ben. “You frightened them away,” he whispered. “I know the feeling.”
Ben gave him a long look and shook his head. “Should we go get the girl, Top? Or do you like it here?”
Ethan looked around at the deep green vegetation and damp cypress trees. “Yeah, I think I could maybe build a cabin here and go fishing.”
Ben sighed, stood up and sheathed his Ka-Bar. “Fishing?” He shook his head. “Do you even know how to fish?”
Ethan stood up beside his friend and mimed pulling the pin on a grenade and tossing it into the water.
“Very scientific,” Ben said. “And sporting.”
Winter joined them as Ethan tossed the imaginary grenade.
“Bit drastic, Top, but if you like.” He pulled open his pack and handed them a grenade each.
They looked at the grenades and at each other, but didn’t ask. Getting things was one of Winter’s talents. But grenades in the swamp? That was a first.
“Come on,” Ethan said. “Chuck’ll be in position, and you know how he hates tardiness.”
“You remember you’re the boss, don’t you, Top?” Ben asked, as he started to follow him.
“I do,” Ethan said quietly. “Don’t know if Chuck does, though.”
They made their way slowly to the edge of the trodden reeds and searched the compound for any movement. The outer fence was square wire, the kind farmers use to keep livestock in or out. Winter pointed to a post off to their left and at the electric terminals at the top and bottom.
Ethan nodded and signaled to move right, towards the hut Winter had seen. They moved slowly, barely disturbing the reeds as they went. They didn’t see anybody in the compound, but that didn’t mean they weren’t being watched from the five greasy wooden buildings forming a rough square in the middle of the hundred-yard earthen square.
The swamp echoed with the sound of animals and insects, and the chatter of a plethora of birds. Ethan heard them without registering their sound, until his subconscious kicked him awake.
“Sniper!” He dropped to his knee.
The others were down at almost the same instant. A supersonic round went over their heads with the distinctive cracking sound of the sonic boom as the bullet passed by.
Ethan pointed to his right where he’d heard the rifle shot, and where the birds had been silent. He glanced at Winter, touched his watch and mouthed five. Winter disappeared into the reeds. Ben knocked off his M16 safety and scoured the trees scattered across the swamp. The shooter could be anywhere, but was probably no more than a few hundred yards away. No need to be farther than that, unless he was showing off.
He crawled across the narrow trail, climbed slowly to his knees and looked through the reeds to the south. A bullet zipped past him with inches to spare. He ducked. Okay, the shooter was that way, and not very good, or he’d be chatting with Saint Peter.
He looked back at Ben, who was lying on his stomach and watching him with a grin. Ethan pointed at his watch and held up three fingers. He crawled along the muddy trail, this time keeping well out of sight until he reached a bend that would put hi
m in full view of the sniper. He checked his watch and lay still, waiting.
Five minutes wasn’t long for Winter to get into position, but those five minutes took hours to pass. He took a long, slow breath, brought his M16 up in front and rolled out into plain sight on the trail and started firing at the most likely spots the sniper would be. He heard Ben’s M16 doing the same, and then off to his right, Winter’s.
Two things struck him instantly. There were too many possible perches, and—before he could articulate the reality of his position, he saw the sniper.
He was a hundred yards away and off to the left of where they’d been firing. And he was bringing his rifle into line for the kill shot. Ethan threw his body to his right across the trail and hit the bank of reeds as the heavy round splattered into the trail where he’d been. With the thick reeds padded against his body, he wasn’t going anywhere.
He looked up and saw the shooter clearly. He was smiling. And why not? He’d won.
He could hear Ben and Winter firing again now they’d reloaded. The plan had been to draw the sniper out. And it had succeeded, just not the way he’d hoped.
He was going to move again, timing it to the last instant. But without much faith it would work. The shooter would anticipate it. Worth a try. He moved.
There was another shot. He wasn’t dead. He looked up quickly and saw the sniper execute a near perfect forward somersault out of the branches. The only thing to spoil the elegance of the gymnastic move was the bloody hole where his head used to be.
Loco Mendez. Ethan grinned. The little guy was infuriating, but he could shoot like—what was it they said? He nodded. Like ringing a bell.
He got up out of the wet reeds and brushed himself off. That was close. He couldn’t remember one being closer, but then he wouldn’t, because he’d be dead. He walked back to Ben and saw the look in his eyes.
“Yeah, getting old.” He turned to check the compound. The shooting would have roused the dead.
Ben stepped up beside him. “You was a cat, I’d have to say six left.”
Ethan smiled. “Iraq and Afghanistan? More like four.”
Ben chuckled. “Shall we go and get the kids?”
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
The compound was alive with hillbillies running towards the electric fences, shouting and armed to the teeth with semi-automatics, shotguns, hunting rifles, and everything short of sharp sticks.
Ethan estimated twenty, twenty-five. It wasn’t going to be a stroll in and out, that was for sure. Kill a few, the rest might just turn tail. He almost believed it. Hell, it was somewhere to start.
He intended crossing the open ground and shooting out the electric fence connectors; then he felt the weight in his left waistcoat pocket, stopped and took out the grenade Winter had given him. Ben saw it and pulled out his.
“I’ll take the fence,” Ethan said. “You put yours right down their throats.”
He pulled the pin and tossed the grenade underarm across the ten yards of flattened reeds to land right against the fence. A second later, no fence. Then Ben’s grenade detonated and turned three of the kid- preppers into a butcher’s shop display.
Winter came in from their right, running at full pelt. He passed them and jumped the remains of the wire, firing as he went. Ethan shook his head and ran after him, with Ben right behind him.
They were in the compound, and in trouble. Men were coming from everywhere. Clones with the same baggy overalls and boots, and weapons. Ethan opened up with his M16, firing bursts of three rounds into them. He looked right and saw the prepper standing in the door of the nearest hut, trying to unjam the crappy hunting rifle he was holding across his crotch. Ethan put three in his chest and took off towards the hut, with Ben and Winter right behind him.
He stepped over the body, shouldered the door open and went in low and to the left. A huge cannon of a revolver fired to his right and took out most of the top of the door. Ethan put two rounds into the shape in the shadows and heard the thump of a body dropping onto the boards. He ran to the first of the three dirty windows looking out onto the packed-earth yard and knocked it out with the butt of his rifle, swung it down and killed the guy with the shotgun who’d stopped to look-see.
Ben and Winter hit the other windows and started firing. Ben was swearing loudly and picking his targets with a deadly efficiency. Winter was silently killing everything that moved.
A minute later the preppers had retreated into the other buildings, leaving the yard littered with dead and those soon to be. Then the return fire started. Bullets of every size punched through the thin wooden walls. Time to leave.
Ethan was about to give the order when Winter turned suddenly.
“RPG!”
They bolted to the door and threw themselves out onto the dirt just as the whole hut disintegrated in a cloud of burning matchwood.
Ethan shook the crap from his hair, rolled over and got onto his knees. His head spun and everything sounded like he was underwater. They’d be coming. He looked across at Ben and Winter and saw them moving, shaking off the debris and getting set to fight.
They crawled back to the burning hut. The boys in overalls had got their courage back and were coming in force. Less of them now they’d been culled, but enough. Fifteen maybe. Some running across the yard, some circling around the edge, looking to get even.
Ethan signaled Ben to go right, and he was going left, leaving Winter to hold the middle ground. There were more of them; they must be breeding. Too many, but the hell with it. It wouldn’t hurt.
He saw the prepper with the RPG trying to reload it. Killed him with a single shot and moved on to knocking down as many of the others as he could. It felt like one of those first-person-shooter games the kids have. Every time he dropped one, another seemed to pop up to take his place. He pulled out a magazine with his left hand while he rested the M16 on a burned beam and fired it one-handed, useless for accuracy, but effective for morale.
It took less than a second to reload, but it just stretched on and on, and the preppers were closing fast. He wanted to pick out the leaders and drop them, but they all looked the same: dirty, raggedy men with too much hair. A movement to his left. He sat down hard, snapped his rifle over and fired. The prepper flew backwards over the stack of lumber he’d used as cover. He wouldn’t be needing it anymore.
But they were still coming.
Then he heard it. The roar of a V8 diesel. The Humvee took out the double gates, tore across the yard and ploughed into a bunch of preppers just too slow to get out of the way.
Chuck stuck his M16 out of the side window and joined in the shoot-em-up game. A moment later Loco and Smokey ran in through the gates, took cover behind some lumber and joined in. Loco picked his targets with his M40 while Smokey hosed everything that moved with his SMG.
The remaining preppers started to throw down their weapons and put up their hands. The smart ones.
Ethan waved Ben and Winter forward to collect their weapons while the rest covered them.
“Chuck, go get the kids.” Ethan pointed at the hut to his right. “Smokey.” He signaled him to follow Chuck. “See anybody. Don’t be nice.”
“Copy that.” Smokey ran up onto the low stoop and kicked in the door.
Chuck bent low and went in fast. There was no firing, just screaming. The girls were alive.
Five minutes later the kids were in the Humvee with Loco and Smokey and heading for the gates. Ethan looked around the yard at the bodies sprawled and bloody in the dirt. They were going to have to get the hell out of there. The cops would be arriving any second, and paperwork was going to be a bitch.
They’d let the preppers run for it out onto the dirt road. They probably expected to be shot in the back, and deserved it. But Ethan let them go. They’d get theirs sometime soon, lowlifes like that always did.
“Take a quick look round,” he called to Ben and Winter. “See if there’s anything to ID who set us up for this.”
There was an
old pickup by the gate and Winter leaned in and lifted the tarp off the rear bed. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. Then turned and crossed towards the first hut. And stopped. “Top, there’s a shelter here.”
Ethan and Ben crossed to the circular hatch leading down to a small fallout shelter. Winter lifted the lid and climbed down carefully, his Sig in hand.
Ethan leaned forward and looked down as the yellow light filled the space. “These folks really did believe the bullshit.”
“Nothing down here, Top,” Winter called. “Just tins of stuff.”
Ben laughed a deep laugh. “Survivalists? Shit, who’d want to live like that? And then come up to—” He waved his hand at the compound and jumped. “Shit!”
Ethan snapped his head round and saw the white smoke trail of the Hellfire missile arching in from a hill across the swamp.
No time.
The Folded Flag
Ben tore his eyes off the incoming Hellfire smoke trail. He estimated the launch to be about a mile away, which meant he had a little over three seconds left and he’d used some of that thinking. So he stopped thinking, spun on his heel and straight-armed Ethan in the chest, sitting him down suddenly.
Ethan knew instantly what was happening, absorbed Ben’s push, turned and dived head first into the bunker, hitting every step on the way down.
The hatch slammed shut above him and a moment later the earthquake hit. He rolled onto his back and looked up at the hatch. The bunker was little more than a buried sewer pipe sold to the survivalists by some snake-oil salesman, and he expected the whole thing to crash down on him and Winter.
Dust and shards of concrete rained down on them and Ethan rolled into the wall and covered his head until it had passed, then looked over at Winter. He was hiding under the steel camp bed with his hands over his groin and his eyes closed tightly shut.
“Winter!”
He didn’t move, but he was alive, nobody dead could maintain that grotesque grimace.
“Winter,” Ethan shouted again. “It’s over. You can come out now.”
