The Siege (9 page)

     “It’s just a harmless crush. Don’t burst his bubble.”

     “Are you sure? He’s watched this movie a hundred times. And every single time he seems to love her more.”

     “I’m sure. He’ll have crushes on a hundred other girls by the time he’s grown. We could tell him she’s probably dead, or at least way too old for him. But it would break his heart and serve no real purpose. He’s too young to understand the realities of what the world has become.

     “Let’s let him be a boy a little bit longer.”

     “Okay. I hope you’re right.”

     “I’m always right.”

     “Um… sure. What did John say?”

     “We’re going tonight. I’m going to go to bed early, and set my alarm for just before midnight. We’ll be back before you wake up.”

     “Promise me you’ll be careful. Markie and I would be lost without you.”

     “Honey, Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’ll be around to serve you breakfast in bed on your seventy fifth birthday. That’s a promise.”

Chapter 1
8

     The situation in the compound had rapidly descended into chaos after Martinez and Douglas were shot. Hance suddenly had a near-riot on his hands. Davis refused to go outside at all. Bennett only went out to care for the livestock and produce at the point of a gun. And the promise that Hance would beat him to death if he didn’t.

     The bodies of
Martinez and Douglas were left where they fell, four days earlier. They were starting to rot, and the smell began to be pulled into the building through the ventilation system’s air intakes.

     Since there were only
four of them now, security had became a major problem. And it would prove to be their downfall, eventually.

     Smarter men would have abandoned their mission and left. They could have snuck back to
Eden and tried to regroup and make new plans.

     But finding new reinforcements wasn’t an option. Most of the convicts in
Eden lit out for other places when the temperatures finally warmed. There were rumors that federal troops were going to come around and round them up, so they could put them behind prison walls again.

     Hance figured they were
false rumors, started by the citizenry of Eden in the hopes it would scare the cons away. And if that was the intent, it worked to some degree. Most of them were gone now.

     The ones that were left couldn’t be trusted. Hance was a hated man in the joint, because he took no crap from anybody. In fact, he was regarded as a bully, and one
who would kill even his friends if they betrayed him.

     The problem with being a
tough guy is that somebody is always wanting to take you down to enhance their own reputation.

     So sending someone for reinforcements wasn’t an option.

     Neither was abandoning the compound. Now that Hance had a taste for what was there, he wasn’t giving it up. Not even if it cost him his life.

     Since
Davis refused to go outside, Hance posted him at the corridor door on the east side of the building. He could see the gate through the door’s window, and was far less likely to be taken out by sniper fire.

     “You’ll work night shift. You’ll also bunk in the first room, right there at that same end of the hallway, so you’ll be close by if they charge the gate during the day
.”

     He turned to Bennett.

     “You’ll man this door during the daytime. I still want you to go out twice a day to feed the livestock and water the plants in the greenhouse. Whenever you’re out doing that stuff I’ll see you. And while you’re away from this side of the building I’ll hang out directly above us. I can see the gate from the roof, and will try to cover the gate and the rest of the compound until you return. Don’t worry about cooking everybody grub anymore. We’ll fix our own and eat when we’re off duty. Any questions?”

     “What if they don’t come through the gate? What if they shoot us from the fence, like before?”

     “They won’t shoot you, Bennett. For one, you’re a waste of a bullet. For two, I’m guessing they’re smart enough to know that you’re the only thing keeping their chickens and livestock from dying. Davis, you’re indoors now where they can’t see you. If they come after anybody it’ll be me. But it’s a lot harder shooting from fence level upwards, toward a three story building’s roof, than shooting directly across the compound. Besides, I can see the fence line from the center of the roof. I’ll stay away from the edges, so they can’t have a full body shot. The only part of me they’ll see is my head. And they’d better be a hell of a shot if they’re gonna hit my head at a hundred fifty yards or more.”

    
Hance wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. He thought that being atop a three story building would give him the advantage of the high ground.

     He was also wrong about the size of the target he’d be presenting to his adversaries.

Chapter 19

     This time they left the Gator behind, and instead made their way by foot through the woods. They moved slowly. It was just after one a.m. and time was on their side. They had several hours of darkness ahead of them and only one shot to make. Two if the opportunity presented itself. So there was plenty of time to do it right.

     This time it was the brothers, Mark and Bryan.
Bryan because he was the best shot in the group, and Mark because it was his turn to go. He’d wanted to go on the previous mission. He felt his was his duty to protect his family and the rest of the group. After all, setting up the compound was his idea, and he oversaw the construction. It was, in a way, his baby. He felt it only fair that he should help in getting it back.

     The only reason he hadn’t gone on the first mission was because John also
insisted on going. And because Mark lost the coin toss.

     This was a different type of mission entirely. They only had one target this time: the man on the roof. And to get him, they’d have to take the high ground. Even higher than the three story roof which Hance thought gave him the advantage.

     First, they had to visit the west side of the compound to retrieve one of the ladders they’d left behind on the previous mission. It had made no sense to drag it back. It would have slowed their getaway. Plus, they thought that the ladders might come in handy for future missions.

     Like this one, for example.

     Both men wore night vision goggles, which enabled them to see through an eerie green glow. But at least they could see. It was almost pitch black outside, and Hance was reduced to watching for signs of movement in the darkness.

     Bryan and Mark
were also equipped with radios and ear pieces. But they wouldn’t do any talking. Talking on such a still and quiet night might give them away.

     They reached the ladder on the west side of the wall and gingerly picked it up. Then they skirted the wall with it, all the way around the compound and to its opposite side,
on the east, not far from the damaged gate.

     They could easily smell the putrid and decaying bodies of the two men they’d shot on their previous mission. The bodies were still heaped on the inside of the fence, covered with maggots and beetles. It almost turned Mark’s stomach.

     Slowly, carefully, they leaned the ladder against the wall, just twenty feet or so from the gate. When he climbed atop the ladder, Mark would command a view of the east side of the big house, where they knew a man would be standing guard.

     Once the ladder was up, the two paused to catch their breath.

     Mark reached for his radio and placed his thumb on the microphone. Then he pressed it two times in quick succession.

     Two keys of the mike. Two brief bursts of static coming across the previously silent airway. And everyone on the team, both inside and outside the mine, knew what it meant.

     “They’re at the wall,” John muttered to a group of seven people assembled at the control center. “So far, so good.”

     They watched the monitors above their heads, but didn’t see much. The cameras on that side of the compound didn’t have night vision capability. An oversigh
t on Mark’s part, and one he planned to correct someday soon after they got their home back.

     In the absence of something to see on the monitors, the group in the mine
focused instead on the radio console to keep them informed of the progress of the mission.

    
Bryan left Mark at the ladder and slowly made his way to the base Salt Mountain. Salt Mountain was a misnomer, of course. It was given that name by a geological survey team with a sense of humor. It wasn’t a mountain at all, at only three hundred ten feet high. It was more a significant hill.

     But it was high enough.

     It was slow going. He knew he had the cover of darkness on his side, but he also knew that this side of the mountain was covered with loose rock. And if he knocked too much of it down, it might attract the attention of the sentry on the roof.

     He wasn’t worried about getting shot at, necessarily.
He was more worried about the man on the roof getting spooked, knowing that someone was out there who he couldn’t see. If that happened, he might fire blindly in the direction of the falling rock, sure. But the chances of him connecting with a lucky shot weren’t likely.

     No, if he had heard some sound from the mountain to the east, it was more likely he’d go to ground. Hide behind the wall bordering the top of the roof. Or even worse, leave the roof completely.

     If either of those things happened, the mission would be wasted.

     It took
Bryan a full twenty minutes to make his way to a spot where he had a clear view of the roof. Along the way he passed the body of Smitty, the bastard who’d shot Sami in the shoulder, and was in turn shot off the mountain by Mark.

     Smitty’s body was pretty much reduced to bones by now, picked clean by flocks of central Texas turkey buzzards and coyotes who somehow survived the freeze.

     Once Bryan was satisfied his new firing position was stable, he began to prepare himself.

     In the mine, the group watching the monitors for movement still saw absolutely nothing. The third floor hallway camera showed no activity from the stairwell leading to the roof. The sentry was still up
on the roof, but they had no idea what he was doing.

     John wondered if the man had an inkling when he went up on the roof that he might die tonight.

     The man on the roof, Toby Hance, was in fact on the west side of the roof, gazing out over the compound. He squinted his eyes, trying to make out any movement in the darkness. He was growing restless and wanted something to shoot at. Anything.

     He was tired of walking this roof every night, knowing that something was going to happen. But not knowing what or when. That was the thing that irked him the most… the not knowing.

     Finally, Bryan was ready.

     The weapon had already been charged in anticipation of a firefight.
Bryan knew that. But he checked it anyway. Then he used his right thumb to flip the safety selector switch from “safe” to “fire.”

     He reached up to the small Motorola radio that was clipped to the epaulet of the camouflage field jacket he wore, and he keyed the mike three times.

     Three short bursts of static suddenly went over the airwaves of channel five, and everyone knew he was in position and ready to fire.

     On cue, Mark climbed up the ladder and peered over the wall. He knew he couldn’t be seen in the darkness, but he kept a low profile anyway.

     Mark’s role in the mission had nothing to do with the man on the roof. His role was to provide cover fire for Bryan as Bryan climbed back down off the side of the mountain.

     There were only three
other men in the big house now besides the man on the roof. Mark didn’t know their names, of course, or anything about them. But he did know that one was standing guard in the hallway, just inside the east entrance. Mark could see him, behind the glass, leaning nonchalantly against the wall in the hallway.