In the Woods (33 page)

‘Shit. You tied them. You think you didn't?'

Pete had no idea. Had never tied anyone up before. ‘I'm just saying. What if they get out—'

‘We're gone, dude. They're not going to come after us. At least not until it's too late.'

Pete didn't answer. The radio kept squawking about the perimeter, about checking in. He worried that the men they'd captured were being missed. That someone would come looking for them. Meantime, the distance between the shed and the fence seemed longer than it had when they'd arrived. And the ground was bumpier, full of rocks and weeds and animal burrows. Hard to negotiate in the dark, and they couldn't risk exposing themselves by using flashlights.

Pete moved along, stepping cautiously.

The radio started again. A woman this time. ‘Mavis? Are you going? Respond.'

There was a burst of static. ‘Positive, Annie. We're heading out now.'

‘Did you hear that?' Pete looked behind him, back toward the compound. ‘I think they're going looking for those guys.'

‘Then we better move. Hurry up, would you?' Bob scolded.

‘I'm too sore to hurry. And you need to slow down. If we stumble and that liquid stuff gets shaken up, we're toast.'

‘No, you know when we're toast? When they catch us, that's when.'

Again, Pete looked behind them. Saw somebody emerge from the mound of rocks across from the shed. Not just one somebody. Another, then another.

‘Shit.' He jabbed Bob's arm, pointing.

Bob looked, cursed. Started running.

‘Stop. Don't run.' Pete froze, unsure how sensitive the explosives were. Would the running motion set them off? Would it knock them against the other containers?

‘Come on,' Bob growled. ‘It's dark. They can't see us.'

Pete watched them, thought Bob was wrong: If he could see the group, they also could see him. And he saw them clearly, clumped together like a stampeding herd, coming fast.

The radio crackled. ‘We've spotted two men heading to the gate.'

‘Are they Simon and Dave?'

‘Negative.'

‘Bob.' Pete was short of breath. ‘They've got us.'

‘Hey, you two! Stop!' A shot whizzed past them.

The radio voice said, ‘Try to keep one for questioning.'

Shit. Keep one? They were going to kill the other? Or a bullet might hit a backpack, killing all of them. Pete stopped, raised his arms. Surrendering.

Bob kept going, looked back. ‘Fuckers,' he breathed.

Light beams flashed in Pete's face.

‘Don't stop. Run!' Bob yelled.

Pete thought that was a mistake. ‘No – don't run. Get down,' he called.

But too late. A beam of a light landed on Bob's back, and then the red dot of a laser.

‘Stop!' a woman shouted. ‘I'll shoot your friggin' ass.'

‘Bob.' Pete carefully dropped to the ground. ‘They've got us. Stop—'

Abruptly, Bob stopped, hands in the air. He turned, greeting the several men approaching with raised weapons.

‘We got 'em,' one of them reported into the radio. ‘We're coming in.'

‘Great. See you in a minute.'

‘On the way.'

With their rifles, the men indicated that Bob and Pete should turn around and head back where they'd come from. ‘Move,' a man grunted.

Pete watched Bob, wondered why he didn't threaten to blow up these guys the way he'd threatened the ones in the shed. But Bob obeyed, silently marching toward the mound of stones.

‘What's Josh going to do with them?' one guy asked.

The woman laughed. ‘You mean where will he hang their skin?'

The others laughed too.

‘In the morning, these woods are going to be draped with hides,' somebody else said.

‘First, he's got to find out who sent them. How far the conspiracy's gone. Josh'll probably decide how to dispose of them depending on how they cooperate.'

Pete's mouth was dry. He felt dizzy, as if the ground were swaying. Were these people really talking about killing him and Bob? And, oh God – skinning them? Why had they come here? What did they care about the pipeline or the future of fossil fuels? And why had he let Bob steal those explosives? He thought of his mother. The girl in the snack bar. He didn't want to die.

The woman went ahead, led them around the mound of rocks to a steel door. Unlocked it. ‘Go on.' She opened the door, gestured with her rifle.

Bob nodded, took a breath and started toward the door, but he faked left and full out raced away, heading toward the fence.

‘Stop!' someone shouted.

Pete heard a gunshot.

‘Don't – don't shoot at him!' Pete got down flat, hugged the ground, covered his head. Waited for a blast. But the blast didn't come. More shots went off.

The moonlight gleamed overly bright; the moment seemed unusually long as Pete looked up to see Bob clutching his backpack like a pigskin, running like a wide receiver, gliding through the air, sailing toward the ground. Diving head first to the earth. Whether Bob had been shot or simply tripped, Pete didn't know. And, as the earth shook and a blast of rolling hot orange swallowed him, Pete briefly realized that it didn't matter, either way.

A fish in a barrel, Slader thought. He tried to focus on the light bulb on the ceiling, but his vision kept fading. The light bled into the concrete, became a blurry glow. He squinted, forcing it back into the bulb. But the light resisted, spilling out of the glass, into the air. His pain was spilling, too. Maybe he'd lost too much blood. Maybe his blood had carried his pain with it, removing it from his body, spreading it onto the mattress, the floor. But that didn't matter. What mattered was staying alert. Being conscious when they came for him, exhibiting dignity right to the end. He was going to look straight into their pathetic eyes and shame them for their disloyalty. For following that clown Josh. The Bog Man. Really?

Wait. Where was the light? Slader opened his eyes. Had he been sleeping? He blinked at the halo on the ceiling. Where were the others? There had been others, hadn't there? People who'd been taken with him? He was sure of it. He closed his eyes, wondered when the traitors would come for him. The cowards. Hiram, Mavis, Annie, Ax. Felt a stab, worse than his gunshot. Maybe they'd be too late; maybe he'd deprive them of the opportunity to execute him. He could feel himself sinking. Was this how it felt to die? A gentle tug, an easing of pain? He watched the light, tried to hold onto the image of the bulb. But heaviness pulled at him, the sense of being swallowed. Well, he wasn't going to whine about it. Good leaders might lose sometimes, but they didn't whine, not ever. And as a leader, he needed to set an example, couldn't flinch, even when he'd been betrayed by his own people.

The light faded. Slader waited, listened to the rasp in his chest. Searched for the pain of his wounds. When the ceiling caved in on him, he wasn't thinking about his leadership any more, wasn't wondering what he could have done better. His final thoughts were of Mavis, how he should have married her. Maybe if he'd honored her that way, she wouldn't have abandoned him at the end.

Harper kept asking what time it was, and Hank kept saying it was five minutes or two minutes or four minutes after the last time she'd asked. Harper couldn't sit, couldn't stand, couldn't wait passively. She got up, turned in circles, examined the floor, the ceiling, the walls. She looked at Slader, who was unconscious. At Angela, who drifted, moaning occasionally, no longer talking.

Finally, Harper put her ear to the door, listening. Whatever had been going on in the outer room had stopped. She heard nothing. No one shuffling around or working on taking the door down. No one scuffling to remove bodies. And, if no one was coming down after them, she doubted that the shooters were still positioned at the trap door.

‘I think they're gone.'

Daniels squinted at her.

‘What do you mean “gone”?' Hank asked.

‘I don't know. But it's been quiet. Maybe no one's watching the trap door—'

‘But if they are,' Daniels said, ‘whoever goes out there to look will get his head blown off.'

Harper crossed her arms. ‘True. But if we wait here, we'll definitely get our heads blown off. At least there's a chance.'

Hank got to his feet. ‘You're right. I'll go.'

‘No you won't.' Harper stood between Hank and the door. ‘Your limp makes you too slow—'

‘You limp, too.'

‘But I'm lighter. More agile.'

‘Both of you are civilians.' Daniels stood. ‘I should go.'

Harper shook her head. ‘No. My idea. I go.' She went to Slader, took the key from his pocket. He didn't react.

‘Harper, no.' Hank stood at the door, adamant. ‘I won't let you.'

What? ‘You won't
let
me?'

‘Daniels or I will go—'

‘Why? Because you're men? Hank. I was in combat—'

‘You're not going.'

‘Excuse me? Since when do you tell me what I can or cannot do? I'm going. Step aside.'

‘Harper, I can't.'

Daniels stepped over to them. ‘If we stand here arguing long enough, we'll miss the opportunity. One of us has to go. Now.'

‘Hank, let me. I appreciate that you're worried, but I'll be quick. I'll just step out there and look. If no one's there, you'll come join me.'

Hank didn't move.

‘Dude,' Daniels said. ‘We might be able to get out of here. But we have to go now, while they're busy doing something else. We've got to move before they come back.'

Hank looked at Harper. ‘Don't get shot. I love you.' He stepped aside.

Harper unlocked the door and slowly turned the knob. Opened the door a sliver. Then another. Finally, she pushed it open. The room was untouched. Jim, Ax and Moose lay where they'd fallen, cots upended. The ladder was flat on the concrete.

Harper stepped into the room, looked up at the trapdoor. It was shut tight.

They were locked in.

She motioned for the others to come out, pointed up at the door. Opened her mouth to ask someone to help her raise the ladder so they could investigate the lock, but never got a word out. A deafening bang interrupted, shaking the foundations of the compound. Harper pulled Hank down against the wall, eyed the ceiling. She recognized the sound, the reverberation.

Daniels held onto a wall. ‘What the hell was—?' But the rest of his question was lost in another blast. Chunks of concrete dropped from the ceiling.

‘Get down.' Harper motioned for Daniels to hunker with them by the wall and grabbed a mattress off a cot. Hank and Daniels helped her lift it, used it to cover their heads just before the next explosive crack loosened more chunks of concrete.

In the adjoining room, Angela was screaming.

‘Don't panic,' Daniels shouted. ‘Just keep your head down.'

But Angela's screams continued. Upstairs, people were also screaming, their panicked stampede pounding the ceiling, halted by another fierce blast. Then by a series of smaller pops in rapid succession, like a barrel of uncontrolled firecrackers. Or an onslaught by an entire army platoon, all firing at once. Bang bang bang bang. The vibrations rattled the room, cracked the walls, crumbled the ceiling. Soon, even the mattress wouldn't protect them. The light bulb flickered out. Left them in total darkness. Came back on again. Flickered out again. Chunks of concrete rained onto the mattress. A heavy slab fell beside them, thudded onto Ax's remains.

‘Our Father, who art in Heaven,' Daniels began, but his prayer was drowned out by a resounding chorus of exploding ammunition. Harper knew the sound – hundreds of rounds, firing simultaneously. Sequentially.

Damn. There had to be a thousand men out there. This was no normal ambush. No typical sniper attack. This was a full-out surge by a huge military force. Harper stayed down, barked out orders, telling her patrol to keep down and hold their fire.

‘What are you talking about?' someone asked. ‘Hold our fire?'

‘This isn't a discussion,' she snapped. ‘Just follow orders.'

When the shooting finally stopped, the bunker was a shambles, the air clouded with dust.

‘Everybody okay?' She kept her voice low, in case the enemy was close.

‘Harper, are
you
okay?'

Harper? Really? ‘Call me “Lieutenant”.'

‘Damn. Not again. Do you have your lemon?'

Her what?

The men lowered their mattress. Debris rolled off it.

‘You're having a flashback,' the dark one said. He looked familiar. Like Hank.

Hank?

‘Harper, you're not in Iraq. This isn't the war.'

She backed away from him. Why would he say that? Why did he look like Hank? Had she been injured? Was she imagining the resemblance? She grabbed a machine gun, held it up as she backed away, stepping over a corpse.

Somewhere a woman wailed.

‘Come here, Harper. If you don't have the lemon, bite your lip. Hard.'

What?

There were two of them. She waved the gun. Stepped back.

On to something that moved. A woman screamed, ‘My hand!'

Harper tripped, toppling backward, landing hard, not letting go of her gun. Pain radiated up her back, down her legs. Jolted her back into the moment.

Angela was next to her on her hands and knees, glaring at her, cradling her hand. ‘You crushed my fingers!'

‘Harper?' Hank came to her. ‘You all right?'

She wasn't sure. She blinked, looked around. Got her bearings. Saw the metal cot leg she was clutching like a rifle. Dropped it. Felt her face heat up. Damn. She'd had another flashback? Two in the space of a few hours?

‘Can you stand?'

Harper tried; Hank helped her up.

‘Hey, can somebody stop fussing about Harper? What about me?' Angela was surprisingly alert, covered with dust. Blood trickled down her forehead. ‘I'm the one with a broken ankle, a gunshot wound in my back, and a bashed skull. And now, I've got a crushed hand. You guys left me in there – I was almost killed. I had to crawl out here on my hands and knees like an animal.'