Nightwalker 5 Read online

  “If they go all the way. I am worried that we are counting on them to believe it was a prank and not a setup for an ambush.”

  “They’ve never been challenged, so they don’t know no better,” James replied. “It’s a good plan, and we are as ready as we’ll ever be. This is the best chance we’ve had in more than two years.”

  Two riders on bicycles pedaled around the corner, pumping hard. Steve stood up from the ditch and waved to them, yelling something. They waved back and continued toward the front gate.

  Wolfe stood and moved into the road.

  It was the brother and sister, faces dirty from road dust and muddy sweat.

  “They took the bait!” the young man said, excitement raising his voice more than he intended.

  Wolfe had told them to stay off the main road and to go home. They had ignored his request for a reason. He wanted to know what it was.

  “How many trucks did you see, and how fast were they going?” Wolfe asked.

  “Nine, and they were flying,” the girl exclaimed.

  Wolfe and James shared a look.

  The boy added, “That was at exactly five-fifteen.”

  “They were flying.” James looked concerned. He turned to Wolfe after doing the math in his head. “That shortens the timeline.”

  “Thank you both. Anything else you saw as they drove by?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Go on home, now,” he told them. “You put this in motion, and I cannot thank you enough. I do not want to see you get hurt, so you need to go. Get home. Get inside, and keep your heads down.” He was too young to be drafted by FEDCOM. Extra hands, but if the volunteers lost this fight, the soldiers would execute every single person they found.

  “I know you can, but you served well. You need to go home now. It will not be long before they are back. This fight will be the worst thing you will ever see, so much so that you may never forget it. I cannot be responsible for doing that to you. Go home. Check back after the shooting stops to see who won. If it is us, come back and help clean up. If not, do not show your faces.”

  Wolfe pointed with his rifle.

  The two stood their ground.

  “Go on!” James said in his gruff, old-man voice. They finally gave in to the adults and hopped on their bikes to ride the rest of the way home.

  “I better make sure Bessie and Jennifer can get out of here if things go south.” Wolfe backed away from the main gate area and then walked slowly. He wanted to run, but if anyone in the ditch was watching, they would get the wrong idea and probably panic.

  After he walked through the door, that was when he ran.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “What’s wrong?” Bessie said when Wolfe appeared.

  “In case they get past us, I’ll need you two to run. Escape out the back gate. I will go there now and break the lock for you. Don’t hesitate. Just run.”

  Jennifer was shaking her head, small chin raised in the air defiantly.

  “Promise me!” Wolfe did not have time for being cordial or having a conversation.

  “I promise. I’ll get her out of here,” Bessie stated.

  Wolfe nodded and ran out the back door to the back gate. It had a heavy chain across it without a lock. He pulled the chain away and threw it aside, then pushed the roller gate, a section of fence with razor wire on top, to the side, leaving a gap wide enough for a person to go through. There was a wide paved alley and a small stand of trees beyond it. All they had to do was run a hundred yards and disappear.

  Wolfe sprinted around the building, slowing to a brisk walk when he came within sight of the front gate. He returned, breathing hard, not from his efforts but from worrying that he had missed something.

  James was happy to lean on the barrier as the former guards had. The grenade launcher was behind him, with a clean line of sight down the road. All he had to do was step back, drop, and start firing.

  They settled in to wait. After fifteen minutes, Jennifer arrived with two plates. The men took them but hesitated. She had a bag, too. “For the others,” she said.

  “Make it fast, and stay in the ditch,” Wolfe ordered. She ran down the road and disappeared to the side as soon as she could. The big dog ran after her as if it were a game.

  Twenty minutes later, she returned empty-handed. She waved as she trotted past. Wolfe watched her all the way into the big building.

  “Your daughter is a good one. Raised right. A sparkling gem in this barren world,” James said without turning toward Wolfe, who remained seated behind the barricade.

  An hour went by, and nothing. Seven in the morning came and went, then seven thirty.

  “Something’s wrong,” Wolfe growled, standing and craning his neck to see the bend in the road. While standing, he could hear the engine screaming toward the red line.

  “Here they come,” James confirmed. He took a quick look to make sure nothing had gotten in the barrel of his weapon, then gave Wolfe a thumbs-up. Wolfe knelt behind the barrier and looked over the barrel of his weapon, ready to shoot. The first truck appeared, and then a second. They started to slow.

  The third truck and then the fourth came into view. James waved friendly-like, as he expected the other gate guard would have. He held his ground.

  The fifth truck, and then the sixth. When the first truck slowed, the others started to bunch up.

  Perfect, Wolfe thought.

  The seventh truck, and then the eighth. The first was getting close. It was not more than a hundred yards away.

  “Can’t wait,” James exclaimed. He stepped backward and tripped, falling on his butt. He scrambled back to the Mk19 and fired into the grill of the first truck. He held the trigger down, and grenade after grenade hit and exploded. The truck bounced and bucked violently before flipping sideways, dumping everyone from the back into the road. They were already dead from the violence of the impact.

  James dropped a couple grenades into them for effect. The truck was sideways in the road and blocked their view of the remaining trucks.

  Four seconds had passed since the old vet had fired the first round.

  In the distance, a fifty cal barked and a truck screeched in metal-tearing agony as Ma Deuce made her deadly call. Steve maintained the weapon’s maximum rate of fire, but Wolfe could not see what he was shooting at.

  James fired into and through the first truck, hoping to hit anything behind it, then angled up and fired a series of grenades over the column of trucks. He could not see where they landed.

  He ran a series of grenades along the shoulder on the right side of the road as he looked at it to stop any soldiers from escaping toward the compound.

  Wolfe took off running, staying as close to the fence as he could while James fired sporadically when he thought he could see a target. A second fifty cal opened up, much to Wolfe’s relief, but then the worst sound in the world came to him—small arms fire, and too much of it. The underground volunteers were under attack.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The second truck was on fire, and anyone who had been in the back did not survive the withering attack of grenades fired through the first truck. The third had been stitched by fifty cal but was still mostly intact. The fourth and fifth were getting the full treatment from the ditch. The last three trucks were getting the unbridled attention of the end of the ambush line.

  Where was the ninth truck?

  The soldiers were staggered around the fourth truck, firing toward the ditch. Two lunged forward and disappeared. They had their backs to Wolfe, and he charged.

  Starting at one end, he used the butt of the rifle to break necks. He made it to the third man before they saw him. He rotated the rifle and fired as fast as he could pull the trigger. One soldier panic-fired and another sent rounds into the ground at Wolfe’s feet, but Wolfe kept moving. He finished the men and made to turn toward the ditch, but a fifty cal started pounding on the truck.

  He veered to the right, back toward the fence, and dove to the groun
d. His plan seemed more certain now that the volunteers in the ditch had resumed firing. All trace of small arms fire stopped. The fifty cals kept pounding away until someone started yelling. “Cease fire. Cease fire!”

  It was Steve.

  “Woohoo!” James yelled from the other side.

  “Don’t shoot me!” Wolfe shouted before standing. “Wolfe, coming out!”

  He slung his rifle and held his hands up before he slowly made an appearance on the ditch side of the trucks. Once clear, he hurried toward the ditch, to find the two volunteers positioned where the fourth truck had stopped. They had never gotten their weapon into position to fire. They had died with the machine gun next to their feet in the ditch.

  Wolfe looked up and down the ditch. Four machine guns were positioned on the edge of the ditch. Only two had not been put into action. The barrels of two glowed red from the heat. The fourth radiated slightly. It had probably been the last to start firing. Steve had never used his grenade launcher. He had stuck with the heavy machinegun, delivering death at a cyclic rate of fire.

  “There were only eight trucks,” the old veteran reported.

  “It begs the question, where is number nine?” Wolfe said before beginning the grisly task of looking at the dead bodies to confirm the Alstons were among them. He started with the fourth truck, but had seen those soldiers up close. He went to the fifth truck and checked the back. It should be easy enough since the Alstons were not wearing military uniforms.

  The soldiers in the last three trucks looked too young to be dead, and none of them were the Alstons or the major.

  Wolfe returned to the front of the column, checking the third truck and then the second. The first truck’s passengers were scattered across the ground, many burned and shredded. Wolfe could not tell. He studied the bodies as much as he could stomach.

  The Alstons had been in the first truck on the way out. It made sense to him that they would be in the first truck on the return trip, but his gut told him the truth. The Alstons and the major were in the ninth truck.

  Jennifer appeared. She ran up to him, hitting him with the full force of her twelve-year-old body. She wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tightly. He let her hold him for a while before he squeezed her back. Jennifer was happy he had survived. For the moment, it was the victory they had, but he was afraid for all of them.

  The Alston brothers still lived.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “I’ll put someone down on the corner to watch,” Steve said, gripping Wolfe’s shoulder as a brother in arms. They had fought together, a hard but quick battle. Wolfe nodded.

  Steve moved off to take care of it.

  But it was too late. The sputtering rumble of the ninth truck reached them before they could get anyone in place. It skidded to a stop as soon as it came around the bend and sat for a second before soldiers started to climb out the back.

  “Take cover!” James yelled from near the gate. Steve repeated the order before the sound of small arms fire filled the air. Steve jerked and fell, a red stain spreading across his chest. Wolfe took aim and fired, but he did not hit anything. The fifty cals were across the open area, away from the trucks. Wolfe knew if they were to have a chance, they needed the heavy weapons. The soldiers saw them too.

  Wolfe bolted into the opening and sprinted for all he was worth. Thirty yards away, with bullets zinging by, he dove, tucked, hit the bottom of the ditch, and rolled back to his feet. He rushed back to the berm, rotated the fifty cal toward the soldiers and pressed the butterfly trigger with his thumb. The heavy machinegun started to bounce, and he fought to keep it from falling into the ditch. It appeared that the safest place to be was where Wolfe was aiming. He was spraying bullets high and wide.

  He jumped out of the ditch and sat behind the machinegun so he could control it. Two soldiers were manhandling the machinegun Steve had been firing. Wolfe ripped them apart with the power of the fifty caliber rounds.

  One of the Alston brothers peeked around the back truck and fired an M16. Wolfe lit into the military vehicle and laced it back and forth, and the truck burst into flames. His machine gun jammed and he threw it aside, then jumped back into the ditch to retrieve his rifle and ran in the direction of the bend in the road.

  Wolfe thought he’d seen an Alston running before he was able to accurately fire the machine gun. Looking over the barrel of his rifle, he stood up when he was even with the ninth truck. Over the edge of the ditch, he saw that the machine gun had wrought far more damage than he’d thought it would. Two soldiers were on the far side, confused, walking in circles without their weapons. Two men in civilian clothes were running.

  He scrambled out of the ditch and ran after them. Shooting them in the back was not in his plans. This had become too personal.

  A dog barked nearby. And again.

  Buddy. He had his own beef with the Alstons.

  But if the big dog was there…

  With the rifle in one hand, Wolfe ran, legs pumping. When he cleared the last truck, he saw her—Jennifer racing after the dog. The Alstons saw their opportunity and turned. Wolfe tried to bring the rifle up, but the girl was in the way. The only thing he could do was keep running to try to get to her before the Alstons did.

  The brothers split up, one heading for the girl and one heading wide, slowing down, aiming.

  Wolfe dodged at the same time as the rifle cracked. He kept zigzagging to ruin his enemy’s aim while continuing in the general direction of the girl. The brother was going to reach her first.

  It was a hard decision, but he couldn’t face both brothers at once. Wolfe dove to the ground and, lying there, aimed true and sent three rounds into the second Alston. The man looked surprised. The invincible Alston brothers. He toppled over, eyes open, staring at mortality.

  Wolfe climbed to his feet and started walking, rifle up, aiming at the Alston who had somehow dodged the dog and was using Jennifer as a shield to hold Buddy at bay.

  The Alston tried to shoot around Jennifer, but she was fighting. He could not hold steady. He snapped off a couple rounds, but they weren’t even close. He gave up.

  “Call the dog off and I’ll be on my way,” the brother yelled. “I’ll hang on to her as an insurance policy, but I’ll let her go when I’m out of sight.”

  “Since when does an Alston keep their word?” Wolfe fired back.

  “We said we were coming after you, and here we are!” the brother declared proudly.

  “Yes. Here we are. One lying in a pool of his own blood. The major back there, almost cut in half from being on the wrong end of a machinegun. And here you are, counting down the last seconds of your life.”

  “Big words.” The brother shrugged. “I’m taking her with me, but now I’m not going to let her go. She’s going to birth the next generation of Alstons.”

  Jennifer stomped on his booted foot and jerked to get free but didn’t make it. The brother back-handed her across the head and pulled her against his body, eyes watching her protector.

  Wolfe’s blood ran cold. He would rather see Jennifer dead than suffering at the hands of an Alston the way he had described. He could not believe he was considering it. A hard world called for hard times, but that wasn’t the man Wolfe could ever be. He brought his rifle up and fired a round over Jennifer’s head that parted the Alston brother’s hair without touching his skull.

  Missed!

  The brother flinched and loosened his grip. Jennifer jumped free and grabbed Buddy, swinging the big dog around as she hugged her best friend.

  Wolfe fired again. The round ripped through the brother’s shoulder, and he dropped his rifle and fell to his knees. He held out his good hand for Wolfe to stop.

  “Who died and made you God?” the last remaining Alston brother shouted while wincing in pain.

  “I guess civilization did,” Wolfe replied. “Someone has to keep the peace and respect natural law. You’re a rapist, a murderer, and a thief, and you lied about it all.”

  �
��You’re already worse than me,” the man said from his knees, making no attempt to rise. Wolfe kept the rifle trained on the man’s face.

  “I have to dispute that, but it does not matter. You can contemplate that while you wait for me in the hellfire where your soul is going.”

  “We can cut a deal!” the man begged. Buddy growled from nearby, but Jennifer kept him from getting loose.

  Wolfe pulled the trigger, sending a 5.56mm ball round through the man’s stubble-heavy face. The back of his head exploded and what little brains the last of his line had flew into the greenery beyond. “No. We cannot cut a deal. I have to look at myself in the mirror. And I do not have time to watch my back. Not anymore. I need to get home to Florida, and you have already delayed that far longer than I wanted.”

  Wolfe stepped away from the body. Jennifer was there in a heartbeat, leaning against him to give him support. The big dog sniffed the dead man before lifting his leg and marking him.

  “Come on, let’s go get some breakfast,” Wolfe told Jennifer, keeping his arm around her as they walked slowly toward the main gate.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  There were tears as well as cheers when Wolfe walked through the main gate. Six had died, including one of the old veterans. Wolfe stopped to give his condolences to James, his friend.

  “No need, Mister Wolfe. He died in battle with the enemy. At our age, we never thought we’d get the chance to do that. In the end, we won, and the people of Ashland are now free. It is what he wanted. It’s what we all wanted, and we have you to thank for that.”

  Wolfe shook the old man’s hand, taking care not to crush it.

  “I’ll take care of everything. We’ll gather the weapons that are in good order and burn the bodies. We’ll leave the trucks in the road since we don’t have anything to move them with.”