“Do it quietly if you can, Eric. If you wait for us to start the fireworks, that might set up enough of a distraction for you to get in and out without the bad guys ever knowing about it.”
Eric nodded, obviously ready to get to it. “Group Two, gather ’round me!”
Ken interrupted. “Wait a second, Eric. I got something else to say here.” He paused for a minute, evidently trying to figure out the best way to say all that needed to be said. “Some of you were with us last night. We got caught with our pants down and lost some good people.”
I could see that he still blamed himself, but he didn’t make any excuses. “I didn’t expect it. And this time I’m counting on it being worse. So this is the last chance for you to turn around and go back. No one will think any less of you. I would rather have you leave now if you have any doubts, than to have you hesitate under fire and get yourself or someone else killed.” No one budged. Everyone had known from the beginning what they were getting into.
“Okay, I need twelve volunteers for extra hazardous duty. These twelve will have to go in alone. Not with each other. Totally alone.”
He had everyone’s attention with that one. He held up the hand with the test tube. “I have a dozen explosive charges that need to be carried into town separately. Six go with each group.” Voices muttered in protest.
“Wait a minute!” He raised his voice to cut off the objections. “These aren’t the main charge. They’re just homemade blasting caps.”
Just? I thought, recalling Wayne’s lecture. Just blasting caps?
“They’re mostly stable, and it’s not very likely that they’ll explode from anything less than someone actually dropping them, but there’s still the chance. The thing is, we can’t afford to have all of them together if one does explode, because then we lose all of them. Separately, if someone drops one, we only lose the one.” More murmuring, as people realized exactly what he was saying… or rather, what he wasn’t saying. He neglected to mention that if someone dropped one, we also lost the person carrying it.
“I’ll take one.”
Billy stepped forward and held out his hand. Ken pursed his lips and regarded the boy before him. Then he handed the tube to Billy. “You’re with Group One, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know where the Regency Warehouse is?”
Billy nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“All right. Get there as quickly as you can, but don’t let anyone else see you.” Billy turned and headed out, walking carefully. The crowd parted before him like the Red Sea before Moses.
Ken called after him, “Be careful, boy.”
Billy grinned nervously. “I will.” With that, he turned his full attention back to the delicate task at hand.
“Who else?” The rest of us raised our hands at once, shamed into volunteering by a boy who was a slave, who couldn’t even claim he was fighting for his home.
Ken distributed the packages to twelve individuals. “Get to the warehouse as quickly as you can. Be careful, but be fast.”
He turned to the rest of us. “The rest of you divide up into five-man groups. One group leaves every five minutes. Make sure every group has someone in it that knows where their objective is. I don’t want anyone getting lost and giving us away. I also don’t want anyone seen! Understand?” We all nodded.
“Good. Now, we don’t know when, or even if, our people are going to make a break for it. We have reason to believe that if they do, it will be either tonight or tomorrow night. That means Group One gets into position, and we wait. We wait all day long. You can sleep if you want, or play pinochle for all I care, but nobody leaves cover once we’re set. If nothing happens tonight, we wait until tomorrow night, all day long again. Most of these chests have food and water in them. There should be enough to last two days, easily. After that, if nothing has happened, we’ll slip back out of town and try to figure out something else. But our best guess is that we’ll be plenty busy before that happens.
“Group Two, you wait ’til you hear from us. You don’t make a move until I tell you to. This hit has to be synchronized, or it’s all wasted effort. Do not let yourselves be seen. Some of these guys have night vision goggles so don’t count on hiding in the shadows. Pretend it’s broad daylight, and plan every step accordingly.” He looked us all over again. “Questions?”
When no one piped up, he turned. “Group One with me. Group Two with Eric. We stay in touch by radio.” He looked around one last time. “Okay, folks, let’s go.”
I was in Group One since I’d had the most recent experience with the setup at the stadium and knew the route we’d taken to avoid contact with Larry’s boys. Going in was actually anticlimactic compared to all the excitement I’d had helping Sarah get into the stadium. There was no gunfire, no yelling or screaming. We snuck in like proverbial mice, quiet as….
It took us twice as long to get in, and I felt strange as we passed by the volunteers making their way, step by careful step, into town, but not one of us was spotted, and we all made it without incident.
Chapter 15
Cris, pleurs, larmes viendront auec couteaux,
Semblant fuyr, donront dernier assaut,
L’entour parques planter profonds plateaux,
Vifs repoussez amp; meurdris de plinsaut.
Cries, weeping, tears will come with knives,
Seeming to flee, they will deliver a final attack,
Parks around to set up high platforms,
The living pushed back and murdered instantly.
The Regency Warehouse was two buildings down from where my group had holed up the night before and turned out to have much nicer accommodations, considering the fact that there were plenty of chairs, sofas, and even a few mattresses in stock. We put a half-dozen people on rotating guard duty, and the rest of us, myself included, slept as much as we could.
I awoke slowly to the familiar feel of someone shaking my shoulder. “Leeland, wake up!”
I saw upon opening my eyes that the sun was beginning to set. Ken stood over me smiling. I had slept the day away. Considering how exhausted the last few days’ activities had left me, I wasn’t terribly surprised. Even after all the sleep I had just gotten, I still felt a little groggy.
“Good grief,” I growled. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
“Not when I’m surrounded by bad guys.”
That got my attention. “What’s going on? Is it starting?” I grabbed my gear, scrambling to strap my weapons in place.
“Calm down, Lee. No need to panic. Just thought you ought to know. Billy spotted Sarah.”
“Where?”
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
We headed to the third floor, where Billy and three others knelt just inside one of three windows to watch the activities around the stadium. Ken and I carefully crept over to join them.
Billy handed Ken a small pair of binoculars. “She’s still out there at the front fence.”
Ken peered through the window. A moment later he offered the binoculars to me. “Just at the edge of the chain link near the entrance.”
Sure enough, there was Sarah at the front of a crowd of people. She had worked her way to the edge of the refugees and now stared out through the fence at a tank that barred her escape. She wore a desperate expression. She had no way of knowing we were there. “Anyone signaled her?”
Ken shook his head. “Thought maybe you should do it. She knows you best.”
“Okay, what do I do?”
He handed me a small mirror. “Don’t let anyone else see you. Catch her attention, then we hold up this sign.”
They had managed to cut a piece of plywood to fit inside one of the windows. Painted on it in black lettering, large enough to be easily seen, was the short message: “10:45 — GO TO VOGLER FERT.”