Grande cite a soldats abandonnee,
On n’y eu mortel tumult si proche:
O qu’elle hideuse mortalite s’approche,
Fors vne offence n’y sera pardonnee.
Great city abandoned to the soldiers,
Never was mortal tumult so close to it:
Oh, what a hideous calamity draws near,
Except one offense nothing will be spared it.
Deja vu.
Once again, I watched my family drive away, though this time they had a considerable entourage. The van was loaded with wounded, as was the Simms’ pickup, which Cindy drove. In addition, Ken had hooked an old flatbed trailer to his backhoe, and it, too, was filled with wounded. Jim drove the backhoe at the front of the convoy, guiding his people like Moses headed for the Promised Land. All others walked.
Though I had never been to the Vogler plant, the others told me it was about fifteen miles north of Rejas. More than three hours at a brisk walk, and not many seemed to be walking all that briskly on this night. I guessed it would probably take closer to four or five, barring unforeseen problems. I didn’t care to speculate on what those problems might be.
Ken and I turned back to our group-twenty men and eleven women, all armed and dressed in dark or camouflaged clothing. Our firearms ranged from deer rifles to Ken’s AR-15 and, while the ammunition supply wasn’t exactly critical, if things got intense, none of us could afford to get trigger-happy. Once more, I wore my old paintball gear, complete with the trusty smoke grenades that had stood me in such great stead before. The faces around me were those of some of my finest students. Seven of them had been part of the Rejas police force.
I looked closely at those faces-Ken, the man who had gone from stranger to brother during the last couple of years; Mark, the quiet, gentle giant who helped me on the forges each morning; Eric Petry, Andrew’s father, who had obvious reasons for being with us; Sarah Graham, Rene, Jenna, James. I wanted to remember each one because odds were, some of us wouldn’t make it through the night.
Ken broke the silence. “I guess this falls into the security category.” He got a couple of half-hearted smiles, but most of us appeared to be too nervous to appreciate his humor. If they felt anything at all like I did, they were rapidly discovering that it was one thing to say you were ready to jump back into the fray, but it was quite another to face the idea after having had time to think about it.
“Security is my department,” he continued, “and that’s why I’m here. If any of you have any second thoughts, leave now and no one will think any less of you. I know it sounds a little cliched, but it’s true. We can use you to help protect the convoy.”
He waited a moment. “All right, then. Line up in single file. I’m point. Leeland, you take the rear. When we get to the edge of town, we split into groups of five. Odd man goes with me.”
Ken continued talking as we shuffled into position. “Our targets are the abandoned fabric store on Bellmont, the concession booth at the football stadium, the storage room at Felix’s Video Rental, the back room at Computer Outlet, and the B amp; S Furniture Warehouse. All of those places are major stashes of food, tools, and weapons that we need to get to the fertilizer plant. We also need to find as many of our people as we can and get them out, if possible. Just don’t take any fights that you can’t win. You can’t help anyone if you’re dead.” He stopped, then opened his mouth as if he wanted to say more. Closing it again, he took a deep breath and shook his head. “Everyone count off. One through five, I’m one.”
Sarah Graham was next in line. “Two!”
“Three!” “Four!” “Five!” “One!”
I finished the count with, “One!” I wondered if Ken had intentionally put me in a position to be in his group.
“Group One will take the fabric store on Bellmont. Group Two takes the football stadium. Group Three takes Felix’s Video Rental. Group Four, the Computer Outlet, and Group Five takes B amp; S Furniture. Everybody know where your targets are?”
We nodded. Once again, Ken looked as if he wanted to say something. Finally, with his lips held in a tight line, he gave another curt nod. He seemed to be reassuring himself that he was doing the right thing. “Okay, people, let’s go get ’em.”
Ken led us at a dogtrot back toward town. I took one last look back at the other, larger group leaving the house for the plant before I turned and followed Ken.
As we began the trek back toward Rejas, we could still hear occasional sounds of fighting, but they were becoming more and more infrequent, as if one side was being worn down. It frightened me to think that it was probably our people on the losing side.
As we jogged through the woods, there were several occasions when I thought I could hear the crackling of twigs breaking in the brush nearby. My imagination played games with me, gifting me with images of people following us. Once, I could have sworn I caught a flash of movement off to our left, deeper in the thicket. Convinced we were being followed, I dropped to one knee and sighted the carbine-dead center on an armadillo.
“Damn!” Sweating with nervousness as much as the warmth of the night, I cursed my panicked reactions and silently thanked Ken for putting me at the end of the line. No one else had seen my momentary agitation. Taking a deep breath, I hurried to catch up to the others while trying to ignore the myriad woodland noises.
We reached the edge of town, and Ken signaled a halt, gathering us together for a final talk. He paused, examining each and every face, much as I had done back at the house, memorizing, knowing better than any of the rest of us just how risky this was. “I can’t stress enough to you people just how important it is that you avoid the fights you can’t win. We estimate that there are probably close to four thousand of our people still in Rejas.”
Some shocked gasps and mutters erupted at the proclamation. Most hadn’t realized how many of us were still in there.
Sarah Graham asked what most were thinking at that point. “You don’t expect us to leave them in there, do you?”
“Yes!” Ken responded vehemently. “Some of them have probably made it out to the forest, and others are already dead.” I could see that his bluntness didn’t set well. “I would guess most of the others have been captured or are hiding. There’s no use getting yourselves captured or killed in a hopeless situation. We have to wait and plan how to get our people out the right way. Otherwise, we’ll just make things worse than they already are.”
Seeing he hadn’t convinced many of them, I offered an observation. “Listen.” When they turned toward me, I shook my head. “Not to me. Just listen. Listen to the town. Do you hear any gunfire? Any more yelling? Anything to indicate that anyone’s still fighting in there?”
It was true. The sounds of battle were gone. Rejas was uncannily silent, considering the sounds of just half an hour ago.
I pointed toward the outskirts of town. “It’s over in there. But, we have more than two thousand people that are safe, for the moment. I don’t like it any more than you do, but they have to be our first priority tonight. They’re depending on us.”
Ken shifted his weight, as if still uncertain of himself. “It’s our job to make sure they stay safe. Our job is to find some way of getting some of the supplies stashed in town out to the fertilizer plant, where they’ll do some good. Then, and only then, can we think about getting out anyone we find in Rejas.” He looked around, pleading with his eyes for everyone to understand. “I’m not saying we leave everyone no matter what. If the circumstances are right, and you can get some of them out without risking the rest of your group, then do it.” That seemed to appease some of them.
“In the meantime, keep your eyes open. If we know what they’ve done with our people, we can plan to get them out later on. Does everyone understand?”
I saw heads nodding as they reluctantly accepted the harshness of our situation.
Ken relaxed visibly. “Good.” He looked away from the group for a moment, staring into the town. Rejas was eerily silhouetted by a few burning buildings. “Leeland, you still have that radio?”
I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten about it. “Got it right here.” I pulled the little transceiver off of my belt and started to hand it to him, but he stopped me with a shake of his head.
“Just turn it on and see if we can tell what’s going on in there.”
As I flipped the switch, an unfamiliar voice was speaking over the static. “… in. We should… ny more trouble…”
“All ri… if you mess th… I’ll hav… for it!” Troutman’s voice was barely recognizable over the static, but he sounded as if he’d had better days.
“… don’t, we can… ill… st ’em… tanks.”
Ken shook his head. “Too far away. This dinky radio isn’t much better than a kid’s walkie-talkie. Might as well save the batteries ’til we get closer.”
I clicked it off. The tiny bits of conversation had been more tantalizing than informative.
“All right, people. Divide into your groups and hit your targets. This has priority. Get as many of those supplies to the plant as quickly as you can.”
All hell broke loose.
The sudden sounds of gunfire had me scrambling frantically for cover. I dove for the shelter of the nearby tree line and saw most of the others scattering in all directions. Behind me, someone stood in the open like an idiot, shooting in the direction of the enemy fire. I couldn’t tell who it was, but he didn’t last long. A line of bloody holes stitched themselves across his chest within a matter of seconds, and he fell to the ground thrashing horribly. From my spot behind a huge Texas pine, I saw that two more had been caught in the attack. Dead. How had they found us?
Many of our group began to return fire, aiming in the general direction of our attackers. I looked, but couldn’t see a thing. The sounds of machine guns firing at us told me about where they were, but I wasn’t confident enough about their location to risk wasting bullets. I put my back to the tree and tried to calm down enough to think.
My heart hammering with instinctive fear, I assessed the situation. Hiding behind a tree at the edge of the forest a half-mile out of Rejas, enemy firing from somewhere between myself and the town, three of my companions down, presumably dead, and the rest of the group scattered, disorganized, wasting bullets on an opponent they couldn’t see-not a very reassuring predicament. Then I caught a glimpse of furtive movement in the trees off to my left. Ken.
Just as I recognized him, he began speeding through the forest, skirting the edge of the tree line; I realized he was attempting to flank our attackers.
It was time to piss or get off the pot, as Jim was fond of saying. “Oh, hell,” I muttered. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing, Ken.” I took off after him, bullets singing their terrifying song through the trees, accompanied by the distinctive scent of cordite wafting through the air.
Running through the trees, leaping over scrub that appeared out of nowhere in the darkness, I wrestled with my fear. I was probably more frightened at that moment than I had ever been in my life, and it took a major effort to get a grip on my emotions. Finally, I convinced my pounding heart that, though the trepidation was natural, I had no time for it. So I continued the insane race through the trees, chasing the elusive ghost that was Ken, and concentrated on clamping down on the cold knot of fear deep within my abdomen. Ultimately, I managed to fan it into a cold, resolute anger. By the time I left the trees, I was furious.
Ken was just ahead, thirty, maybe forty feet at most. With his black BDUs, I could barely make him out by the light of the crescent moon as he ran through waist-high grass, jumping over small scrub bushes, plowing through others, and then, abruptly, he was gone. He just wasn’t there. A moment later, the ground gave way beneath my feet, and I flailed wildly, involuntarily beginning a yell that was choked off as I hit the icy black surface of one of Rejas’s many springs.
“Damn, Leeland!” Ken hissed from the bank. “Shut up and quit all the splashing. You want to get us killed?” He reached forward. “Here, take my hand.”
“What happened?” I asked stupidly, as he helped me out of the water. We were in the bottom of a small ravine that had been carved out over the years by the flow of water from a nearby spring. “How’d they find us?”
“They must have night-scopes or starlight goggles.” He pulled me out of the water, through the slippery mud of the streambed, and over to hug the embankment as he listened to the sounds of the battle raging to our right. “I didn’t think of that, or I would have kept us back in the trees until we were ready to move out.” He cursed under his breath. “I’m the one that’s supposed to know this kind of thing. How many did they get?”
“Three that I saw. I think all the rest of us made it to the trees.”
Ken’s head sagged. “I only saw one before I hit the ground.” Sounds of the ongoing firefight punctuated the night as he sighed. “Jenna… she took one in the neck.” I saw his fist curl in the faint moonlight. “All because I didn’t think of a simple thing like night goggles.” He closed his eyes, leaning his head back to rest against the muddy drop-off. “I might as well have killed them myself.”
I grabbed his arm and shook it to get his attention. “It’s not your fault, Ken. We all made the same choice tonight.”
He didn’t reply, just sat there with his head leaned back against the dirt, eyes and ears closed to the battle above.
“Ken?” No answer. “Ken? Don’t you zone out on me!” I hissed. “I need you here. We all do!”
His eyes opened and locked with mine; for the first time, I could see the age in them. I saw the tired and haunted look of a man who had lived through this, and worse, and had managed to put it behind him to get on with his life. Now war had come calling on him again, and he was forced to answer. He nodded wearily, accepting the responsibility. “Yeah, I hear you.”
Ken turned away for a moment, and I was afraid that I had lost his attention again. Then he jerked his chin downstream. “This bank stays pretty high, and the gully curves around behind the clearing out there, about five hundred yards or more to the south. It ought to hide us well enough to let us get behind whoever is doing all the shooting up there.”
“Sounds good. Any idea how many of them there are?”
“I only hear eight or nine. That doesn’t mean there aren’t more, but there are only a few guns firing right now.”
“Just eight?” The gunfire had sounded like a small army to me. From our protected position in the streambed, though, I could tell that Ken was right. I could hear our people in the trees to the west firing like crazy, but the return fire from downstream was relatively small.
“You got an idea?” I asked “or were you just planning to run up and try to take them from behind?”
“Actually, I’m open to suggestions,” Ken said with a sheepish look. “’Cause that’s pretty much what I had in mind. What are you thinking of?”
I shook my head. “I was hoping that you had some brilliant plan in mind.”
He frowned. “Well, sometimes the best plans are the simplest ones.” He took one last deep breath. “Let’s go.”
Ken’s words didn’t inspire much confidence, but we began our run, splashing and sliding through the mud and water, slowly curving around and drawing constantly nearer to the sound of enemy gunfire. A few minutes later, Ken slowed and held up one hand, signaling me to a stop.
He pointed to his eyes, then to top of the bank. I nodded. He was going to peek over the edge. Picking his footing carefully, straining to keep from sliding, Ken climbed the dozen feet to the top. Slowly, ever so slowly, he raised his head over the grassy crest of the eroded stream embankment. Standing motionless, hanging precariously onto the top, he waved me up next to him. I tried to move as carefully as he had, fearing a misstep might send me sliding back down into the water and possibly give away our position.
When I finally peered over the top, I was stunned. By the dim light of the crescent moon I saw that our group, nearly thirty people strong, were being pinned by fewer than a dozen of Larry’s thugs. They were hidden behind three of the many Humvees that had paraded into Rejas. Was that really just a few hours ago? They were a little over fifty feet away, and I started to bring up the carbine, but Ken grabbed my arm to get my attention. He shook his head and drew me back down to the streambed.
“Wait ’til I can move a little further downstream,” Ken whispered. “The stream curves a little, and I’ll get another angle on them from around the bend.”
I nodded, and he continued, “When I start firing, I should be able to get a few of them before they change position to take cover from me. If things go the way I hope, that will put their backs to you. Then you can open up on them from behind. Between you, me, and the others shooting from the trees, these guys won’t have any place to hide.”
I nodded understanding once more. He was setting up a three-way crossfire. “I’ll wait for you.” He squeezed my arm once and quickly slipped away into the humid Texas night.
It must have taken only a few minutes for him to find his place, for the sounds from above changed abruptly. There was more of the automatic gunfire than there had been, accompanied by a cacophony of screams of agony and outrage. That was my cue. Scrambling to the top of the embankment, I planted my feet and fired at the first target I could see. Ken had gotten two with his first burst, and he had called their response exactly. They had all shifted to take cover from his attack, completely ignoring their backs.
The sound of my carbine was almost totally masked by the clamor of the hundreds of rounds fired by the others. That suited me just fine as I let off one shot after another, getting three of them from behind before they even knew I was there.
One of the guys saw the man next to him go down with my bullet in his back. Realizing what was happening, he spun to face me. It was an eerie sight. His face appeared insectile, eyes covered by an outlandish contraption extending into a monocular three inches past his nose. I realized that those night vision goggles made me so visible that it might as well have been broad daylight, while I could barely make out that he was looking at me. Luckily, I was the one that already had my weapon on target, and he died without getting off a shot.
They were down to four, but they were desperate animals with their backs to the wall. Another of them realized that someone was shooting at them from behind and dove to the other side of a Humvee, only to be cut down by our people in the trees. Three left.
The last three saw number four jump over the hood and turned to find me gunning at them. As one, they spun to fire at me; one raised up to one knee to steady his aim. Just before I dropped below the ridge, I saw the top of his head removed by a quick burst from Ken’s direction.
The last two disintegrated the crest of the bank above me as I slid back to the bottom. If I had stayed there… well, I didn’t care to dwell on that thought. As it was, dirt, rocks, and chunks of grass rained down on me from above. Time to move.
Fearing that the small amount of dirt at the top wouldn’t be enough to stop the bullets, I scrambled along on hands and knees, ignoring the gouging rocks, until I reached my new position about twenty yards back upstream. From the new location, I risked another climb to the top for a quick peek and got off one shot. Missed. Once more, I was forced to drop for cover as the stream bank showered me with debris.
I headed downstream again. I popped up about halfway back to my original position, just in time to see Ken fire a burst from his new site. He missed, too. They were too well protected from his direction and were simply waiting for me to pop my head up again. When I did, they were expecting it, swinging to fire as soon as they saw where I was. Kicking back with my feet, I let gravity drop me down the eroded embankment.
I continued to pop up from various places along the bank four more times, never in the same place, always in about fifteen to twenty second intervals, establishing a pattern. Then on the fifth time, I dug my feet into the ledge before I popped up. They swung their guns toward me and I dropped again as I had before. This time though, I maintained my footing on the crumbling embankment, and as soon as the return fire had stopped I jumped back up in the same place.
The one on the left appeared confused for a moment, aiming first at me, then shifting further upstream, as if he couldn’t believe I was really in the same place. It was a fatal mistake, as he momentarily crossed into his buddy’s line of fire. The other soldier, rather than shoot his only remaining ally, raised his rifle for the second that it took me to take advantage of the confusion. I got off several shots, hitting the confused thug in the chest and head and clipping the other in the shoulder. I dropped again before the wounded man could recover and return fire.
Further upstream, further from Ken than I had yet shifted, I once more jumped up to try for the last soldier, but found only scattered bodies. I couldn’t very well hope the fight had gone out of him and just let him lay there, but neither could I afford to go over the top and search the bodies. That would expose me to those damned night vision goggles. Sticking my head and rifle back up where I could scan the slaughter, I examined the bodies carefully. The gunfire died out as our people slowly realized that they were the only ones doing any shooting, and the smoke from the enemy guns began to thin in the light breeze. There was no sign of movement.
Keeping my eyes and gunsight on the still bodies, I yelled, “Ken? You okay?”
“Yeah, you?” His voice came from exactly where I had expected it. He was still positioned to catch any movement from that side of the bend.
“So far, but there’s one left…”
I could hear movement from downstream in his direction, then more movement from upstream, the rapid clattering of light-soled shoes running through water, gravel, and mud. The noise came toward me quickly and was accompanied by a shouted, “Noooo!” I spun to face the scream, losing my footing as I did so. It was only about five feet back down to the streambed, but I was completely out of control as I slid directly toward this new attacker and landed in a sprawl, the carbine six feet away. Fearing that it was in vain, I struggled to my feet, hoping there might be a chance that I could reach my rifle in time. Looking up, I faced my attacker and knew it was too late. A man dressed in black, face smeared with mud and dirt, ran screaming toward me, pistol already drawn and aimed.
There was no way I would be able to get to my weapon before he got off a shot. In that slow-motion moment before he fired, I scanned wildly for someplace to go, to get out of the way. But there was only the dirt ledge of the bank on one side, and the slick footing of the muddy streambed on the other. I had inadvertently trapped myself. I dropped back to the ground, intent upon getting out of the path of the bullet that had to be coming.
Finally, he fired. Three shots, deafening at such intimate range, and for the next second or two, I waited to feel the agony of a bullet ripping through me. When it didn’t happen, I realized he had somehow missed, and I gathered my legs beneath me and launched myself at him. Diving to the ground in front of him, I tucked and rolled, lashing out with my feet as I spiraled out of it. One foot behind his ankle, the other on his knee, and he dropped to the ground in a heap. I rolled to my feet, relinquishing the hold, and stood on his knee for a second as I leapt for the pistol that had gone flying from his grip. I expected to have to fight him for the gun; the leg-lock I’d used might hurt a bit, but it was far from debilitating. Surprisingly, I got the handgun and spun to face him again without resistance. He just lay there with his hands above his head as I pointed the pistol.
“It’s me, Sensei!” a familiar voice screamed, terrified. “Don’t shoot!”
“Leeland!” Ken’s voice came from behind me.
It was all happening too quickly, and I stood confused for a moment, panting and trying to sort everything out. Eyes wide and frightened, Billy lay on the ground before me. I was stunned, disbelieving. But as I looked closer, there was no doubt. By the faint moonlight, I could just make out his features, even the mud-coated tattoo on his forehead.
“He was going to shoot you,” Billy babbled. “I didn’t have time to warn you! I’m sorry, but I followed you, and… I had to show you I wasn’t like them. I had to show you! I just wanted to help!”
“Leeland!!” Splashing, running footsteps came up from behind as my mind began to comprehend what the boy was telling me; I whirled around to look. The last soldier lay dead in the mud. It hadn’t been Ken I’d heard coming from downstream. Ken was just now rounding the last bend, rifle at the ready, trying to make sense of the scene before him.
“Lee? What’s going on?”
I dropped my aim wearily. “It’s okay.” They were the right words for both Ken and Billy. “Everything’s okay.”
Ken went back up the ravine to regroup our people, while Billy explained how he had followed us to the tree line-I recalled the noises in the trees on the way out-and had seen Ken and me running to the ravine. It had taken him some time, but he’d finally made it to the gully to follow us. The sounds of our battle had kept him cautious, and he repeatedly poked his head above the top, much as Ken and I had, to keep track of what was happening. By the time he got close enough, only two soldiers remained. One of them spotted Billy and started to shoot, but I cut him down before he could fire. Billy had watched as I ducked, and the last soldier scuttled to the edge of the ravine and dropped into it downstream from my position. He realized the danger that Ken and I were in and raced desperately to help, arriving barely in time.
Billy and I searched the soldiers and had an interesting assortment of equipment piled up when Ken returned with the rest of our people. Automatic weapons, ammunition, radios, and several of the strange-looking night goggles. Ken immediately began issuing orders. “Doug, weren’t you a mechanic?”
The man turned. “Yeah.”
“Check out those Humvees. See if any of them are still drivable.” As Doug jogged over to the jeeps, Ken addressed the rest of us. “I want two people per body. Search them for anything we can use. Take two minutes only. We don’t know whether or not they got word to anyone else, so assume the worst.”
When they appeared to hesitate, Ken yelled, “Go!”
Ken didn’t know that Billy and I had already searched the bodies, so I got his attention and waved him over. We showed him the small pile of gear we had gotten, and he examined the night goggles with interest.
“Generation threes,” he declared. “These weren’t around when I was in the service, but I’ve read about them.” He slipped them on, feeling along the right side and muttering, “Should be a switch. There!” He turned and looked around. “Whoa!” Reaching up, he tripped the switch again. “Very nice! Both lowlight amplification and infrared.”
He flipped the switch and removed the goggles. “How many did we get?”
“Looks like ten,” I told him. “We lost a couple to head shots.” My stomach threatened to rebel again at the thought of one particular body, the head above the eyebrows missing as he lay facedown in the brush. That particular sight had caused me to heave the contents of my stomach into the bushes nearby. “We also got three more of the walkie-talkies.”
Ken handed the goggles back to me. “Good, two goggles per group. Pass out the radios, too.” He checked to see what frequency they were set on. “Change the radio settings. Set them all on thirty-seven. That gives us four radios. My group will do without a radio, the rest of you take one per group. Keep each other informed of your progress. If you run into trouble, pull back and yell for help. We can’t afford to lose any more people.”
Everyone nodded. The latest skirmish and the resulting deaths had brought home just how vulnerable we were.
Doug the Mechanic trotted over to Ken. “Two of the Humvees are shot up from hell to breakfast, too damaged to use. The last one has two flat tires and a lot of holes in the chassis, but the engine turns over and seems to run all right with no fluid leaks I can see. I got some people getting tires from the others, and it’ll be ready to go in a minute.”
“Okay.” Ken turned to the rest of the group. His expression somber, he addressed us. We were his to command. We knew it and, finally, he seemed to know it as well. “All right, folks. We lost some people… some good people. But we got some good equipment, transportation,” he paused as he glanced at Billy. “And it looks like we gained us a good man, too.”
Billy looked surprised at the compliment and grinned shyly.
“Let’s get into town and get our supplies,” Ken finished.
As luck would have it, all three of our casualties were from group two, so Ken assigned Billy and me to them in order to help balance the numbers. Then he and his group took the Humvee and headed for the fabric store. They would be the first into town, and I figured that could go either way. It might be that they would be able to get in and out before any of Larry’s boys knew anything was up. If they were spotted, though, they would be the first to be attacked. They would also be far enough ahead of the rest of us that our chances of helping them would be remote, at best.
My new target was the Rejas High School football stadium. I glanced at the faces of my new companions. Sarah Graham, Rene Herrera, Billy Worecski, and a man who had the unlikely name of Gene McQueen. Gene was the only one I didn’t already know.
“Who knows the quickest way to the stadium?” I asked.
“Denley Avenue to the warehouse district,” Sarah piped up, “skip east three blocks to Stadium Drive. That’ll put us right in front of the gate.”
I handed her one of our group’s two sets of PVS-7s, showed her how they worked, and waved her to the point position. “Lead us in.”
She slipped on the goggles, fiddled with the adjustments for a minute, and headed out at a trot. I put on the other pair and took the rear.
We made it to the stadium without further incident, but there, our plan fell apart. “I guess we know where the rest of our people are now,” Sarah whispered dryly. Just as she had promised, we had come out of an alley directly across from the Eagle Stadium. We hid in the dark confines of a large warehouse, staring out at what had been transformed into a makeshift concentration camp. The trashcan fires out front had forced Sarah and me to turn the light amplification on our goggles down to minimum.
“Lord,” I whispered, comparing this crowd to the density of people I had seen back at Amber’s home. A rough estimate placed the majority of Rejas’s citizens in the stadium, either on the football field or in the bleachers. They were well-guarded with a number of Larry’s boys, armed to the teeth, placed around the perimeter.
“Now what?” Rene’s voice came from behind me. I turned and saw her form illuminated in the ghostly green of low light amplification. I reached up and turned off my goggles.
“Hell if I know.” I blinked for a moment against the darkness. “Anyone have any bright ideas?”
“Check with the other groups,” Billy suggested.
I nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Maybe someone else will have a suggestion.”
I pulled out the radio and keyed the transceiver. “Dawcett here… anyone listening?”
A second later, Eric answered, “I’m here, Lee.”
Mark chimed in. “What’ve you got?”
“I’m just across from the stadium,” I responded. “Looks like they’re keeping all our people here. They’re turning the place into a concentration camp. There’s no way we can get to the supplies without creating a stir.”
Ken’s voice surprised me. “Can you get any of our people out without any major risk?”
Just hearing his voice made me feel a little better. I had expected to have to make this decision on my own. “Man, am I glad to hear from you. I thought you didn’t have a radio.”
“I didn’t. We ran across a couple of Larry’s men that won’t be needing theirs any more.”
“Understood.”
“So, can you get anyone out?”
“We could probably get most of them out, if we could get everyone to work together, all at the same time. But we would probably lose a lot of people doing it. There’s about thirty guards scattered around.”
Sarah cursed and whipped off her goggles. She dropped rapidly to a sitting position beneath the window sill and rubbed her eyes. “Better take a look down the street to the west. And turn off your goggles if you don’t want to be blinded.” She looked directly at me, so I could tell she hadn’t suffered any serious eye damage.
“Hang on, Ken. Something’s happening.”
I slipped up to her window and peeked out.
“Um, Ken?”
“What is it, Lee?”
“Things just got a little more complicated.” I watched one of Larry’s M1’s, a single spotlight mounted on front, trundling up the street toward the stadium.
“Where exactly are the supplies?” Sarah whispered excitedly. I could tell that she had thought of something, but I also knew we were about out of time.
I shook my head. “They’re in the storage room behind the concession stand. We’d never make it without being seen.”
I turned my attention back to the radio. “Ken, one of the tanks is on its way here.”
“Damn!” It was silent for a moment. Then he came back on, sounding resigned. “Okay, Leeland, get out of there.”
I hesitated. I knew there was no way for us to get in without a fight and, with that tank coming toward us, there was no way we could win that fight. Still, I racked my brain, trying to think of an alternative.
“We need those supplies, Ken!” But it wasn’t the supplies I was worried about, and we both knew it. I was pleading with him. Come up with something, I thought fiercely at him. Pull that rabbit out of the hat again!
“Not now, Lee. We’ll have to find a way in later.”
“C’mon, Ken, we can’t just leave these people here. There must be something we can do.”
But I knew better. So did Ken. “Leeland, you’ve got to get out of there. You can’t win against that Abrams.” I turned to the four faces around me.
“I know it’s hard,” Ken continued, “but we all knew it could happen.”
They would follow my lead. I could see that.
“You have to leave.” Ken’s voice again.
I didn’t answer right away, thinking through my options.
“Leeland? You hear me?”
If I decided to fight it out, they would stick by me, no questions asked.
“Leeland?”
Ironically, it was that realization that decided me.
“Leeland, you have to abort!”
I couldn’t lead them into a no-win situation.
“Leeland, abort your mission! You made me take command of this thing, now you’d better take my goddamned orders! You hear me?”
I stared at the radio as if it were something foreign.
“Leeland!”
I slowly raised it back up to my mouth and keyed the mike once more. “I hear you, Ken,” I said quietly. “You’re right.”
None of the others questioned me. They knew what was at stake. “We’re aborting.” I felt numb as I released the transmitter.
I noticed my hands shaking and took a deep breath to help steady them, then looked at the rest of the group. “Let’s go home.” One by one, we slipped out of the warehouse.
Sarah, once more taking the point position, was first out the door. Gene followed, then Rene and Billy. I took up the rear again. It wasn’t until we were five blocks away that Gene noticed Sarah had disappeared. He passed the word back down the line, and I got a sudden sinking feeling in my gut, remembering the excitement in her voice when she had asked where the supplies were. I feared I might know what was going through her head.
Flagging the others down, I gathered them around me. “I have to go back and stop Sarah before she does something stupid. The rest of you get out to the fertilizer plant. Try to link up with the other groups if you can.”
I handed Billy the radio. “Wait until you’re out of town and in the trees. Then call for everyone’s status. Find out where the closest group is and try to get to them. Wait a bit, though.” I sighed. “Ken’ll know something’s up when he hears your voice instead of mine, and I don’t want to give him a stroke just yet.”
“You want me to come with you?”
I shook my head. “We started out with five in this group. It’s bad enough that I’m just sending three of you back. I can just imagine what Ken will say when you tell him what’s going on with me and Sarah.”
Billy frowned. “Just when I’d gotten him to think of me as a person.”
I squeezed his shoulder. “That won’t change.” I grinned a little. “What he’ll think of me is another thing altogether.”
Billy smiled a bit.
“Go on, kid.”
He nodded and joined Rene and Gene. Together, the three of them disappeared into the darkness.