Stealing Second (The Amendments Book One 1) (26 page)

“That makes sense,” I said. “I just wish Ace were here.”

We waited in an uncomfortable silence. Every thirty seconds, Leroy would check his watch and Lisa and I would exchange a glance. I became more confused with each passing minute. The evening was sunny and warm; a slight breeze blew from out of the west, stirring the leaves on the oaks. I stared up at the house and something told me he was still in there, somewhere. “I’m going back inside,” I said, picking up the shotgun from where I had leaned it against the back steps. “Something’s wrong, he has to be in there.”

Lisa
turned around and followed my gaze. “Maybe the bats got him, too?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but
if he took a nature walk, he would’ve been back by now.”

“You have two minutes,” said Leroy. “That’s it.”

I nodded my head. “I’ll be right out,” I said. I then bounded up the concrete steps and in through the open backdoor. The air inside the kitchen felt heavy and forbidding, but I continued into the dining room and didn’t stop until I reached the foot of the staircase. “Ace,” I shouted. “Ace, are you up there?”

The dark house was eerily silent and I began climbing the stairs. “
Ace,” I called, pausing at the first landing. “Ace, goddamn it, we’ve got to go!”

I heard a muffled thud and the sound of running footsteps on the attic stairs. Relief washed over me as I heard a door slam, followed by the creaking of the wooden floor of t
he long hallway. A second later Ace, looking disheveled and bewildered, stood at the top of the stairs. He carried his rifle by the stock, the barrel pointed up at the ceiling. “What the hell is going on?” he asked.

“Come on, man. Leroy is here and we’ve got to get moving. You missed the Colonel. He took Jack and Cathy to join the first wave of the attack. We’re leaving now to meet up with the second wave.”

Ace processed that for a second and nodded. He then thundered down the stairs and followed me into the living room. “I don’t know what happened,” he said. “I was going through those trunks and I must have fallen asleep.”

“What, did you take a flashlight up there?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t need one. That’s why I went back up there.”

“What are you talking about? The last time we checked, it was as black as night up there.”

“Yeah, well it’s not dark up there now.”

Lisa
’s face lit up as we walked out the door and joined them out in the knee-high weeds behind the house. “Where have you been?” she asked. “We were worried about you.”

“I must have drifted off,” said Ace. “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting.”

“You wouldn’t catch me sleeping in there,” said Leroy. “Okay, we’ve got to move out. Follow me and try to be as quiet as possible. No talking, all right?”

Ace mimed
zipping his mouth shut and Lisa giggled. We then followed Leroy deeper into the woods behind the house. Leroy led us along a whisper of a trail that skirted a swamp and crossed a cornfield. A short while later we entered a clearing, beyond that was a Quonset hut style pole building. On the far end of the field, I could see Colonel Hawkins addressing what I assumed was the first wave of attackers. I tried to spot Cathy and Jack, but the group was huddled together and I couldn’t make them out in the crowd. Part of me longed to join them.

Behind the outbuildings inside a fenced area sat a fleet of aging earth-mover machinery.
We passed by some men with rifles and they nodded their heads at Leroy, in approval. Leroy led us inside an open side door. I hadn’t known what to expect, but the mammoth building had been renovated into a horse arena and each side of it was lined with bleachers. The bleachers were nearly full. Overhead, dusty skylights allowed the evening sun to provide a murky light. The arena was warm and the air was sticky, as both of the big doors on each end were closed.

Leroy turned to Lisa
. “Are you planning to fight?”

“I would like to,” she said. “But I have some nurse
’s training.”

“Why didn’t you say so? We’ve only got two doctors and half a dozen nurses. Come on, I’ll go introduce you to them.
Guys, go ahead and find a seat. The Colonel will be up here in a few minutes. Good luck out there.”

“Don’t you guys run off and
get killed,” said Lisa. She then turned and gave both Ace and me a quick hug.

“Don’t worry about us,” said Ace. “We’ll be fine.”

“We’ll be back before you know it,” I said. “I’ll come and find you.”

“You had better,” she said. Then she kissed me on the cheek and d
isappeared off into the crowd.

I could feel the excitement building inside the arena. The
smell of gun oil and horse manure hung thick in the air. Out of habit, I looked around to see if I recognized anyone. There were men and women of all ages in the crowd; plain, everyday people, some dressed in camouflage and others dressed in street clothes, all anxious to get out and bring the fight to our enemy and rescue their loved ones. We stood just inside the service door we had walked through. “Should we go find a seat?” I asked.

Ace stood against the wall, staring up into the crowd. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think we should be good right here,” he said. “I get claustrophobic in places like this.”

I nodded my head. We were out of the way and would be the first ones out the door when it was time to depart. My stomach was full of butterflies and I couldn’t help but smile. Finally, I was going to get the chance to fight. Until that moment, I had simply been reacting to situations as they arose. That was about to change. I thought back on the many times I had played paintball with my friends. I then tried to remember if I had learned anything during those play wars. I did remember that those who survived the longest were those who took advantage of the cover.

I felt someone standing in the doorway and turned to face Colonel Hawkins. He smiled at me. “I’m glad to see you made it,” he said, offering me a salute. “Were you able to find your friend?”

I pointed to Ace. “Ace, this is Colonel Hawkins,” I said.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Ace.

“Thanks,” said Hawkins, he then stepped out into the arena. “Sit tight! He shouted to the group and made a show of checking his watch. “This is going to be a coordinated attack. No one leaves this building until ten o’clock. The first wave should have softened them up by then. Do you understand me? Ten o’clock!” 

I turned back to look at Ace and
was shocked to see that his face had grown pale. He stared at the Colonel as he walked away and then he turned to me. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“He’s lying to us,” whispered Ace. “Oh shit,
this is a setup.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“He’s going to walk out of here in a minute and when he does, the other group is going to be ambushed. I could read that old bastard like a billboard. We’ve got to get the hell out of here. After they’re wiped out, those bastards are coming after us.”

I remembered the church and my mouth suddenly went dry. “We can’t leave these people
here,” I said. “What about Lisa? I can’t go, I couldn’t live with myself.”

Ace shook his head. “We’ve got to move it,” he hissed. “We can’t help them. They won’t believe us, you know they won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Are you kidding me? Come on, Gary. We’ve got to go.”

Chapter 18

I turned, but Ace was already stepping outside. I
reluctantly followed him out. Sixty feet to our right was a flat-roofed cement block building, the size of a single-car garage. Straight ahead, facing away from the arena, were four armed men dressed in camouflage. Ace ran toward the outbuilding and I followed, thinking that at any second we’d be spotted. Miraculously, we weren’t. I followed Ace into an open door and we crouched down in the shadows. The building was filled with horse tack and smelled of damp silage and old leather. We waited a short time in the silence. I turned to Ace. “We’ve got to catch up to the first wave and warn them. We can’t just stay here.”

“How in the hell are we supposed to do that? We don’t even know which way they’re headed.”

“We have to try. They only left a couple of minutes ago, they couldn’t have gone far. Damn it, Ace. I’m not going to sit here and let this happen!”

Ace crawled over to the open door and got to his feet. He peered outside and nodded his head. “Just as I thought,” he said. “Those bastards are running away. Get over here, Gary. Let’s make some noise.”

Before I had even stood up, Ace was cracking off shots with his hunting rifle. The explosions were deafening inside the concrete box. By the time I joined him, his targets were returning fire and people were already streaming out of the arena. As Ace reloaded his rifle, I cupped my hands to my mouth. “It’s a setup!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Get everyone out of there!”

I watched in horror as a line of the f
irst men to leave the arena was cut down by automatic gunfire. Ace raised his rifle and stared into the scope. He then squeezed the trigger. “Got him!” he shouted. Ace fired four more shots and repeated that four times. When Ace dropped his rifle, I knew he had hit the Colonel and the four men protecting him. I had no idea he had actually killed them all. He gave me a satisfied smile and nodded his head. “With any luck, the others will have heard that and they’ll come back to investigate.”

He had no sooner said that when
a middle-aged man, dressed from head to toe in in camouflage, charged up to the door. “What do you mean, this was a setup? How did you find out?”

I pointed to Ace. “He’s a mind-reader,” I said. “He read the Colonel’s mind. He can do it. Trust me, I know.”

The man was square jawed and had a military build. He looked at the two of us as if we were nuts. “He can, huh?” the man asked, taking a step back from the door. “Well, you guys stay right here and I’ll go tell the others.”

Ace leveled his gun at the man’s stomach. “Don’t move another inch. He’s not lying.
Think of your wife!”

“Hey man, I don’t want any trouble.”

“Think of your wife!”

“Settle down, mister. I’ve got a wife and kids. They need me.”

“Shut up. Her name is Mary. No, it’s Marie! And your kids are named Kevin and Leah. Am I right? And you live in Stacy.”

“Holy shit, who the hell told you
that?”

“You did. Go out there and tell the others I overheard them talking,” Ace then turned to me. “Are you out of your goddamned mind? You could’ve gotten us killed,” he then dropped his rifle and returned his attention to the camouflage man. “You father is dead, his name was Clark.”

“Stop it, I believe you! I’ll tell them you overheard the Colonel talking. How in the hell can you do that?”

“Tyler, y
our mother’s name is Charmaine and she’s an alcoholic. Go, we don’t have a second to waste. We’ve got to attack the camp.”

“I’m leaving, you son of a bitch. Stop doing that!”

As the man ran away to join the others, Ace turned to me. “Don’t you ever tell anyone about my gift, do you hear me? Ever! Damn it! What if I couldn’t have read that guy? They would’ve killed us both. Think, damn it. Okay, we need a plan. Find out if anyone knows where the keys to those trucks are. If we could crash a couple inside that compound, we might just have a chance.”

“You’d never get them close enough to the camp,” I said, shaking my head.

“Maybe not, Gary, not if a thousand guns are shooting at them from the woods. If you people could keep them busy, it might work. Besides, we don’t have any other options. There could be soldiers here any second. Either cut bait or fish, man. We need to mount an offensive attack!”

Ace was right and I knew it. I still didn’t see us being able to drive a truck through the gate. I nodded and stepped out the door. A gr
oup of confused-looking men was jogging up to the shed. I pointed at the excavation equipment. “We need to find someone who knows where the keys to those trucks are. And we’ve got to send a group of men after the others. Colonel Hawkins was planning to ambush them and then his men were headed up here to take us out. That’s why he ordered us to stay here until dark.”

One of the men, a burly man with a huge gut
, ran past us into the shed. We followed him back inside. He looked to be in his forties and as if he hadn’t showered in a month. He wore a soiled blue work uniform over black boots. At first I thought he was going to try to get the drop on us, but he reached up to a steel box mounted on the wall and opened it up. The box was filled with numbered keys. “Are you thinking we should try and crash the gate? He asked, excitedly. “That’s what I was thinking, I’ll drive a truck.”

“Right in front of us
,” I said. “Where else would they be?”

“Not the front gate
,” said Ace. “I think we’ll have a better chance crashing through the back. If the others can get there first and create a diversion, we might just have a chance. I’ll drive one of the trucks. Two ought to do it. Do you own them?”