by Schow, Ryan
His heart sank as he thought about Quan’s men, and Lienna. As his mind was scrambling to figure out who died, and which death would hit him hardest, Quan said, “We met some people. It was one of theirs, a fine soldier who died for the cause.”
Logan narrowed his eyes, noticed Quan laying it on thick, then said, “Why do I get the feeling you’re not all that broken up about it?”
Quan said nothing.
“Am I right?” Logan pressed. “It wasn’t that great of a loss, or it was a necessary loss?”
“Roger that,” Quan confirmed. “But we’re all safe, for now.”
“Tell me exactly where you’re at and…do you see the pillars of smoke in the air?”
He heard Quan getting up, most likely getting a view. “I see them.”
“That’s not good,” Logan said.
“On the contrary, the less men, ammo and trucks that show up in Yale, the better. So if the rebels here in Portland can cut away a little of the fat, we’ll have less to contend with when it really matters.”
“Yeah, that’s easy to say when you’re holed up in a building. We’re coming into town in broad daylight with a caravan of our own. Which is to say we’re not exactly subtle.”
“I’m going to give you the best way to get here,” Quan said. “It’ll take you the long way around them, but you should be able to get here in one piece.”
“Roger that,” he said. “Go.”
After he memorized the directions, Logan pulled ahead of Longwei. Harper motioned for them to follow their lead. Adhering to Quan’s directions to a T, the group was able to slide in through Portland’s back door and get to the building Quan and his team occupied. Quan met them on the street, rifle in hand.
“Get whatever’s valuable and bring it in with you,” Quan said. “One of the guys is working on getting the underground parking garage open, but it’ll be a minute and the SAA are going building to building, it looks like.”
“Doing what?” Harper asked.
“Kill and confiscation orders, I imagine,” Quan said. “They need food, gas, toilet paper, medicine, whatever they can get their hands on, same as us.”
“Are we going to sit back and wait them out?” Ryker asked, joining them. “Or should we thin the herd a bit before they get to Yale?”
Quan said, “I don’t think they even know to go to Yale. It looks like they’re just driving up through the state, not aimless, but not urgent either. We need to give them some urgency.”
“And how do we do that?” Harper asked.
“We give them Yale.”
“What the hell is that?” Steve Daily asked as he walked out of the downtown lofts and looked at the Fickmobile.
The car was a Frankenstein version of old Detroit pride. The flat white paint was bone dry and flaking, the seats were a bit too comfortable for a long ride, the engine was big and souped-up, and the tires were fat as hell. There was a police car ramming bar on the front, metal meshing on the steering wheel and two big steer’s horns screwed to the top off the roof and pointing forward.
“It’s what almost killed us,” Harper said of the vehicle. “It runs though, and it can obviously pack a punch. But most important…it’s EMP proof.”
Behind them, there was a loud clacking—a grated metal garage door rolling open.
“Let’s go, homies,” a smaller, but stout Hispanic kid called out. Nodding, waving them in, he said, “We open for business, yo, chop-freaking-sui.”
“Go,” Quan said.
The caravan pulled into the garage, all of them parking on the second floor. The Hispanic kid rolled the metal door down and joined them at the door leading to the stairwell.
He said, “We’re on the fourth.”
They just got settled into a few different lofts when the sounds of vehicles echoed out of the streets and into the building.
Zeke rushed in and said, “The SAA are here, guys. They’re here!”
“Gun up fellas,” Brandon announced. To Reed, he said, “If they come in, be quiet until it’s time to not be quiet.” Reed nodded. The big man turned to Logan and said, “How are you and your team in a fight?”
“Quan didn’t tell you?” Logan asked.
“He keeps things close to the vest,” the big man said, eyes on Quan, who was putting on his tactical vest and ignoring Brandon altogether.
“We can hold our own,” Harper answered. “Just don’t shoot us.”
“We know our enemies,” Cleavon said.
The way Cleavon was looking at Harper touched a nerve in him, but Logan kept those emotions off his sleeve, not wanting to start the infighting early.
“I’m with him,” Harper said to Cleavon. Meaning she was with Logan and Cleavon needed to dial back the charm.
“What?” Cleavon asked, like he was innocent.
“You know what, Romeo,” Harper replied. “Put your eyes back in your head and get your game face on.”
Brandon turned to Cleavon and said, “This ain’t the Love Connection, man. Readjust your priorities.”
Logan walked to the window, looked down and said, “They’ve breached the building.”
Brandon called it out to his guys. Logan and Harper walked right out into the hallway, brazen. Several guys were there, doors open, them tucked inside with their guns ready.
“What are you doing?” Quan asked in a clipped voice. He was one of the ones waiting for the SAA to enter the hallway from the stairwell.
“They’re isolated right now,” Harper called back. “A team of seven, no backup.”
“So?” he asked.
“So we’re going to be loud,” she muttered.
Logan got to the stairwell door, eased it open, heard the men down at the bottom floor coordinating their kill and confiscation orders.
Logan got one of the Fick family grenades out of his pocket, pulled the pin, waited a beat, then dropped it right on the head of one of the SAA soldiers, four floors down. It hit the man’s skull square on, knocking him out.
“Back,” Logan hissed.
Harper moved inside the hallway and Logan pulled the door shut. Both of them whipped out their guns as the blast rocked the building. People were cursing in disbelief in the hallway behind them.
He turned to Harper and said, “Ready?”
She nodded.
He pulled open the door and ran into the haze of smoke, getting to the first floor quickly. There were body parts everywhere. Two of the five men they saw were squirming. Harper put a bullet in the head of one, Logan did the other. They pulled the door open.
Automatic gunfire clattered outside, a line of lead threading up the front of the door. Harper glanced at him through the dissipating haze, waited for his signal. Flattening his palm, he patted the air. She nodded, understanding. Get down. Harper dropped low, almost prone. Low at his side, he showed her three fingers, starting the countdown.
Three, two, one…
The second Logan stood back and opened the door, gunfire erupted, bullets clanking off everywhere. Harper popped off three quick shots. A double tap on one, a single shot on the other. When she pulled back, Logan shut the door and waited.
Looking back at the slop of dead SAA, Logan said, “See if any of their weapons still work.”
When Harper began going through them, Logan opened the door and slipped out into the lobby, crouched, gun ready.
He saw two dead SAA men lying on the floor. Harper’s kills. He cleared the first floor, then headed to the front to clear the SAA vehicle. Inside the big truck the SAA arrived in, through the dirty windshield, he saw the smudged details of a man sitting in the passenger side of the vehicle. He was wearing Walkman style headphones and moving to a beat.
“Idiot,” Logan muttered.
He returned to the dead SAA men, took the hat off one of the fallen soldiers, then snugged it on his head and walked out front. Walkman man looked up, saw Logan coming and took the headphones off. Logan opened up the truck’s door, and when Walkman man went for his pistol, Lo
gan unloaded three rounds into his torso. Hurrying around the front of the truck, he ripped the door open and pulled the man out of the cabin sideways. The soldier hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of him.
Looking down, Logan saw not a man who looked like a fish out of water, but an executioner sent into the US to kill everyone and steal everything that was not his. Skylar and Harper were suddenly there. He didn’t care. The man was looking up at him with startled, scared eyes. His life was most likely flashing before his eyes.
“You want to know why I shot you in the torso with three bullets when I could have shot you in the head and ended it with one?”
The man blinked, his face beet red, the cords on his neck strained.
“It’s because I didn’t want your brains or your blood all over the seat. See we’re going to take this vehicle and we’re going to use it as cover when we kill your friends.” Aiming his pistol at the man’s head, he said, “I’ll tell them you said hello,” and then he pulled the trigger and the man stopped struggling.
“Cold,” Skylar said, looking at him.
His eyes were the dead stare of a man doing ugly, difficult things. Sneering, he said, “Chilling.”
When he looked at Harper, she didn’t seem to mind the look. Skylar didn’t really either. From the very first moment he and Skylar met, his super-psycho almost-girlfriend had been working to get him to this state of mind.
Well, here I am.
Harper climbed into the truck and backed it up to where Skylar was pulling open the gate leading to the parking garage. Zeke rushed out of the building as Logan was dragging the dead man’s body out of the street.
Looking at him, seeing what they’d done, Zeke said, “Well hot damn, man. I thought this was gonna be a redneck massacre, but you boys are technical.”
“The girls are technical,” Logan corrected him, “the boys are all blunt force trauma. Hence, the grenade.”
“Either way,” Zeke said, not sure what to say next.
Quan headed outside, looked at Logan with some scorn, but then said, “I’m sure you’re about to tell me how you played this just right…”
“You can see that for yourself,” Logan muttered. Then: “The SAA soldiers who aren’t blown up, get their uniforms before there’s too much blood on them. There’s a good chance we’re going to need them.”
“Um…there’s blood on all of them,” Quan said.
“We’ll need a Plan B then,” Logan said.
Chapter Eighteen
Clay saw what Logan and Harper did downstairs and was pissed off that he wasn’t part of the slaughter. After the BS that went on with the Fick kids, the warrior in him was waking up fast. The degenerates should not have gotten over on him, even in his sleep, but those two goat humpers hopped up on redneck hash and adrenaline had done just that, and once was enough. He needed redemption. The old Clay wouldn’t have taken a knee, much less let himself get zip-tied. More than anything, he was embarrassed, and needing to make up for it. Not for Felicity, or Boone, or the others, but for himself. That’s why—when it came to it—he insisted that he be the one to kidnap one of the SAA soldiers.
“After a fair amount of planning and discussing this Plan B,” Clay said, “we will need a girl, and we need someone who speaks Spanish. As for the Spanish, obviously that’s you, Logan.”
“What about me?” Edwin asked. “I’m more of a Mexican that he is.”
“You don’t even speak the language, knucklehead,” Brandon said, looking at his guy with a fair amount of scorn.
“So technically I’m more Spanish than you,” Logan said.
Edwin gave him the stink-eye; Logan blew Edwin a kiss. This little interaction caused a few of them to laugh under their breaths and a few of them to shake their heads.
“I’ll go,” Skylar said.
“Why you?” Harper asked.
“Because you killed people downstairs and it’s my turn.”
Harper shook her head, but Logan gave her a look, like he was proud of her. He was. More important, though, he didn’t want her to lose that edge she just recently unearthed and embraced. That was the edge she’d need in combat, the edge that might very well save her life, or his.
“Don’t you dare take her side on this,” Skylar hissed at him.
Logan raised his hands in mock surrender, then decided to keep his mouth closed. If she wanted to go that badly, she’d be an asset. Best she fight for position.
Brandon said, “I’m going, too.”
“Why?”
“This is my city, which means I know my way around,” he said. “Plus you can use another gun, should the circumstances warrant it.”
“It’s not safe out there,” Longwei said.
“We’ll be in one of their trucks, with a Spanish speaker and her,” Clay said, tossing a complimentary nod Skylar’s way. “That should be enough.”
“It’s not,” Ryker said. “I’m coming, too.”
“We’re not waging war,” Skylar argued. “This is a surgical strike. One that won’t need bullets, if we can help it.”
“I don’t trust him,” Ryker said of Logan. “Not after that cowboy crap he just pulled.”
“Suit yourself, Sally,” Logan said.
They were all loaded into the truck inside of five minutes and heading out. Logan was driving with Brandon riding shotgun. In the back, seated on the benches that spanned the length of the vehicle, were Clay, Ryker and Skylar. There was enough room for at least three more, four uncomfortably, six or seven if they were dead and you stacked them on top of each other.
Logan started down the parking garage toward the exit. Edwin was there, opening the gate. As he was driving out, Logan pulled up beside Edwin, rolled down the window and said, “Gracias, Amigo.” Edwin frowned, so Logan—still looking at him, unblinking—said, “That means ‘Thank you, friend’ in Spanish.”
Edwin was just over head-high to the window of the lifted vehicle. The LA Spaniard spit on the vehicle in retaliation, just below the window. Logan leaned out, saw the loogie sliding down the dirty outside of the door and frowned. Looking back up at him, he said, “Spitter, huh? I took you more for a swallower.”
Laughing, he rolled up the window. Edwin spit again, this time with more vigor. The loogie hit the window, the splat of it large and drippy.
“Gross,” Brandon said loud enough for him to hear.
Logan flipped him off, then put the truck in gear and moved out into the street, telling himself that stealth was paramount.
“You didn’t need to antagonize him,” Brandon said. “He’s a good kid.”
“I had this friend named Noah,” Logan said, driving through the streets looking for other trucks like theirs. “He always messed with the guys he liked. If he was a dog, for him, it was like sniffing a bunch of butts to find your friends. That’s all I was doing. I like the kid.”
“What happened to him?” Brandon asked. “Your friend.”
“He went out like a Boss,” Logan said. Turning to him, he said, “That’s how I’m gonna do it. That’s how I’ll punch my own ticket.”
“You’ve got a screw loose,” the big guy with even bigger knuckles said. “Hey, right there!”
There was a gathering of about five men in front of two parked SAA trucks. It would have been smart to go in search of a single vehicle, but they were seen, so Logan drove straight for them at an easy speed.
“There are two trucks worth of them,” Ryker warned. “We only need one guy.”
“Tighten your panties,” Logan said when they were twenty feet away. The SAA guys looked up, saw the vehicle, went back to jaw jacking. “Hang on!”
Right then, Logan stomped on the gas and slammed into the clot of men before they could even dodge out. The bodies piled up in front of the truck, four of them getting smashed between their trucks and Logan’s beast. Two of the men were slumped over, one was screaming and trying to push himself off the grill, and the fourth was just looking at him, dazed, a spray of blood up t
he front of his shirt where he’d been gored. No one saw the fifth man.
“Out!” Logan screamed.
Everyone piled out, Ryker cursing Logan like a sailor. Brandon jumped out of the truck, shot all four of the bumper bait in the heads, then moved around the back as seven or eight SAA soldiers poured out of the nearest building.
Logan dropped down, opened fire, took out two. Several shots pinged off the trucks around them, but the team put the rest down fairly quickly. Turning around, looking down, Logan aimed his pistol at the fifth man who’d been hit by the truck. He got bumped in the thigh as he tried to escape and now something was wrong with his leg. Logan jammed the weapon into his head and said, “Can you walk?” in Spanish. The man turned his eyes up at him and nodded. “Because if you can’t walk, I’m going to smoke your ass right now.”
“I can walk,” he said in Spanish.
“English?” Logan asked.
He shook his head to which Logan said, “No matter.” He stood up, then said, “Up,” to the man. He stood, favoring the leg. “Show me you can walk. Take three steps away from me, then turn around and take two steps back. Do anything different and I’m going to show your brains the light of day.”
The man did exactly as told. Ryker then walked him around the back of the truck, hustled him in with Clay who seemed pleased by his kills.
“Are you happy now?” Logan said.
“Immensely,” Clay replied.
To Brandon, Logan turned and said, “I’m going to back up off these Muppets and you get the weapons and the trucks.”
“Roger that,” Brandon said, picking up their lingo quickly. For a leader, Logan was happy with the way the man was taking direction.
They made it back in record time, but instead of Edwin at the gate, Longwei was there to greet them. He pulled open the gate, saw them coming in with two new vehicles and smiled. Logan was glad to see Longwei had made it back from whatever mental hiatus he’d been on.
Heading to a separate room on the second floor, they walked the SAA prisoner toward all of his dead buddies and all their blasted out body parts. It looked like a blood bomb went of in the bottom of the stairwell. Logan watched the man get two shades lighter. He sniffed the air, smelled blown up concrete and blood. To Logan, this was better than breakfast.
