"They found three bodies in the rear lot of the building, too, stacked up in a storage container."
"That might explain why the police haven't found any bodies to back up my experiences. Baktayev's been taking his dead home with him," Declan said from the back seat. "Any clue as to what kind of arms they're carrying?"
Osman shook his head. "They found spent rounds in a few different calibers, but no weapons. Whatever was there, they've got it all with them."
"Could they tell how long they've been gone?" Nazari asked.
"It can't have been that long," Osman said with a grimace. "They found a young man chained up in a bathroom with his tongue cut out. He was still alive so they can't have been gone very long. It looked from the tire tracks in the muddy lot like they left in two fairly large vehicles, possibly vans or SUVs of some kind. There were multiple sets of tracks laid down over the last few days, so it was impossible to tell when they left for sure."
"They were driving dark red Suburbans when they attacked Kafni and Levitt and they had a white cargo van when they attacked Castellano and me," Declan said. "It could be the same vehicles."
Nazari slowed the vehicle as they rounded a bend in the road and came to a stop sign. Without coming to a complete stop, he looked left and continued driving to the right.
"What's that?" Osman asked, as he craned his neck and looked at a collection of green-roofed, concrete buildings behind several tall fences. Search lights passed over the property from tall towers along the fence.
"A prison," Declan said, as the compound passed out of sight. "It's one of the only major employers in the area."
"Remind me not to put Victoria down as a retirement destination," Osman quipped.
A mile down the road the dark fields began to blend into the lots of more impoverished residences. Stately brick homes that looked to have once belonged to wealthier families in the town's industry-oriented past were cramped between mobile homes and hastily constructed single story dwellings, all with overgrown lawns and vandalized automobiles.
"Charming place," Declan said, as they moved onto the town's main street, where businesses sat boarded up on the bottom floor of two and three story brick storefronts. Outside of one small place a street light flickered and people gathered under it, smoking, in front of what appeared to be a bar.
"We're getting close," Nazari said, looking at the GPS suction-cupped to the windshield. "I call the H&K."
Declan turned and reached over the back seat, grabbing the H&K MP-7 machine pistol from underneath a blanket. "The AR's mine," he said, as he pushed a forty-round magazine into the H&K and handed it forward to Osman, who placed it in Nazari's lap.
"That leaves me on shotgun," Osman said.
"We need to take everything we can with us," Declan said. "Once we're in this there isn't going to be any running to the truck for more ammo. If we're out, we're dead." He handed a Mossberg 590 tactical shotgun with a pistol grip and a box of sabot slugs over the seat to Osman.
"Move past it to the second entrance," he continued, as Nazari began to slow down, the school approaching on their right hand side as they cleared the town. "Nice and casual, if they're in there waiting, I want them to think we're just some wee chancers out for a kiss and a cuddle."
Nazari drove the SUV slowly past the first pitted concrete driveway, a darkened single story building looming above them on the steep incline. Clumps of uncut grass stuck up throughout the sloped front yard giving the place an unkempt appearance. Dingy streetlights illuminated broken glass and barred windows, more evidence of the area's intense poverty, on the front of the building as they reached the second entrance and continued on.
"From the looks of that place you'd think it was abandoned," Osman said.
"Aye, rough place to be a kid, I'm betting."
Declan hadn't seen any evidence outside that anyone was in the building or even nearby. Several of the doors that had been visible looked like they might have been pried opened at some point, but it was hard to tell for sure with the amount of vandalism. "Let's find this Twin Cemetery Road," he said. "If we're the first ones here, I don't want any evidence of it. I want Baktayev to think it's smooth sailing."
Nazari drove three quarters of a mile and made a right. The road looped around past several neighborhoods, empty fields and thick patches of trees. After nearly a mile the residences were gone and only field and forest surrounded them. As the road curved back towards the school, the headlights washed over a roughly maintained cemetery that sat on both sides of the two lane road, a narrow dirt lane just past a rusted wrought iron fence on the right. Nazari slowed the vehicle to a stop. "Twin Cemetery Road," he said, looking at the crooked sign on the corner of the street.
"Right then," Declan said, as Nazari pulled the SUV to the side of the road under some overhanging tree limbs and cut the lights off. He pushed a thirty-round magazine into an AR-15, charged the rifle and extended the stock. "I'm on point," he said, as he pushed open the door and stepped out. "Nazari, you're behind me and Osman, on the rear. Ten paces apart until we know we're alone."
Chapter Seventy-Three
Ruslan Baktayev held up a hand signaling the sixteen men behind and around him to stop. He held his head high in the light breeze for a moment as the trees rustled slightly around them. Battle was coming. He could feel it in the air and it energized every fiber of his being. He had lived for this moment and only this moment for a week now. His enemies were dead and even the last attempt, the last gasp of the Americans, had fallen before him with the defeat of the punk kid who had dared to challenge him. Sharpuddin, he thought as he scowled and spat.
With their vehicles well hidden along an old railroad bed, now a hiking trail, that ran through the woods behind the school, everything had gone as planned. They had arrived in Victoria with plenty of time to spare and would be firmly entrenched by the time the faculty began to arrive shortly after dawn. First, they would take each of the teachers and administrators as they arrived, forcing them to conduct business as usual while unloading the school buses that were scheduled to begin arriving at exactly 8:15 a.m. None of the few parents who dropped their children off at the front doors would think anything was out of place as Anzor Kasparov greeted them and ushered the children into the building. He had been doing that same thing as the facility's custodian for years.
Headlights washed over the trees momentarily and Baktayev turned around, focusing as his men each sank to one knee. Three car doors closed quickly but quietly as they watched, Kalashnikov rifles held across their chests and at the ready. Dressed in jungle fatigues and military boots, the men blended into the dense green forest at the edges of the school's property. Even their heads were covered in camouflage dew rags, with the exception of the few, including Baktayev, who had chosen instead to wear their black Islamic taqiyahs. After all, this was a mission of God and they were his soldiers.
Slowly, Baktayev wrapped the shoulder strap of his AK-47 around his hand and brought the rifle up into position as three men approached, each of them obviously armed. Waiting until the men were in the midst of his squad, he stood suddenly and barked an order in his native tongue, his men following his lead and standing with him.