The Battle: Alone: Book 4 (11 page)

     Obviously, they knew the visitor and trusted him.

     The man inside the fence reached over it and dumped a handful of coins into the visitor’s hand. The visitor counted the coins, then passed the parcel over the fence.

     Dave wondered what the men were trading.

     And he wondered how long it would be before the man came back with another delivery.

     As the four men parted ways and left the area, Dave brought the Bushnell binoculars back up to his face and scanned the area. For several minutes he panned back and forth, from one outbuilding to the next, until he finally saw a brief movement at the hay barn.

     On the hay barn’s upper loft, just inside an open door made to stack and remove hay bales from the barn’s mezzanine, he could see someone moving around in the shadows.

     He hadn’t seen it before, even after sitting in the same place for two hours.

     He was already getting sloppy. And his war hadn’t even begun yet.

Chapter 19

     Dave stayed on his recon mission until dusk, covering all four sides of the property.

     It was on the west side he found the perfect place to begin his assault against the thugs who’d taken his family hostage.

     He’d seen the rise from a distance that morning, as he watched the north side of the house. He’d noticed that far to the right, almost out of his view, the pasture along the west fence line rose rather dramatically. So much so that a sentry, seen in the distance atop his horse as he patrolled the fence on the north side of the property, actually disappeared from view behind the rise for several minutes. Then, after he made his turn and headed south along the west fence line, he eventually crested the rise and came back into view.

      Since he’d seen the rider disappear, he started formulating his plan, but first he had to wait until he made it around the property and onto its west side.

     Once there, he confirmed that the rise was high enough to hide his activities from the next rider making his rounds. He also looked at the surveillance cameras on the outside corners of the farmhouse. One was pointing in the other direction. That was good.

     One was pointing directly at the place where Dave would make his assault.

     That was very, very bad.

     But there was nothing he could do about it.

     He couldn’t see the hayloft door on the big red hay barn from this location. That was good. If Dave couldn’t see the barn’s sentry, then the sentry couldn’t see Dave.

     The best thing about his ambush point on the west side of the property were the intermittent shrubs along the outside of the fence line.

     Dave had a lot of respect for his brother-in-law Tommy, both as a man and as a prepper.

     But leaving the shrubs in place along the tree line was a serious mistake.

     If the property were still in the hands of the good guys, the shrubs would have allowed marauders to sneak right up to the property and remain hidden from view.

     Not that Dave could complain much.

     For it would allow him to do the same thing,

     He looked toward the west and saw that the sun was beginning to drop behind the tall pines.

     It was time to go back.

     It was time to get ready.

Chapter 20

     It was dark when Dave made it back to the fiberglass box. He was tired and hungry and his mind was racing a hundred miles an hour.

     He knew he’d have to be at the top of his game in the morning, when he went to war against the men on the farm.

     But he also knew instinctively that he’d have a hard time getting to sleep. In his mind, he’d be going over a thousand different things. The game plan for his one-man guerilla warfare campaign. His hand to hand combat skills. The backup plans that Red convinced him could save his life should something go wrong. And even backup plans to the backup plans.

     He unbolted the thumb screws on the fiberglass box and put his gear inside.

     But he didn’t follow it. He had to unwind, and he knew he couldn’t do it in the tunnel.

     When he was a kid, Dave ran away from home several times when times were tough. He did it when his grandfather died, telling his father, “I just have to get away. But don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

     For two weeks, he camped out in the woods near their home, shooting squirrels with his .22 rifle and catching perch with his bamboo rod. Even at age eight, he was an expert outdoorsman, and although his absence drove his mother crazy, his father was at ease with the idea.

    “He’s having a rough time of it. Let the boy be. If he needed us more than he needed his solitude, he wouldn’t have left. He’ll come back in due time.”

     He did it again his junior year in high school, when the love of his life broke his heart. And a third time two weeks after graduation, when his best friend was struck and killed by a drunk driver.

     For Dave Speer, the forest wasn’t a dark and foreboding place. It was an old and trusted friend. Especially in the night, when a thousand creatures came out to play under the slowly swaying treetops and the stars overhead.

     It was relaxing. It had a calming effect on Dave that nothing else did.  

     Not even laying in his sweet Sarah’s arms, as pleasant as it was, could calm him down as much as lying in a patch of tall grass in a forest clearing, feeling a cool breeze wash over him and watching a squirrel jump from branch to branch.

     After a while he could almost feel the tension leaving his body. The adrenaline that had been coursing through his veins, the almost giddy excitement he’d started to feel because the time for battle was getting ready to begin… they started to subside as well.

     He started to relax.

     Purposely and systematically, he began to go over the actions he needed to take to prepare for the morrow’s activity. Just to make sure he left no I undotted, no T uncrossed.

     He was back on his game, and the sense of confident calm he felt was familiar to him.

     It felt like the days when he was in combat, going out on morning patrols in the desert sands north of Fallujah. Each day he’d brief his fire team. Tell them what to watch out for. What terrorists were rumored to be in the area. How to spot them and what to do when they did. The latest tactics the insurgents were using, and how best to counter them.

     In those days, the lives of his Marines were in his hands. They might live or die based on whether he did his job well.

     Tomorrow his wife and daughters would take the place of those Marines. If he did something half-assed or stupid, or if he got sloppy and careless, his loved ones could pay a terrible price.

     But Dave Speer knew he was up to the task.

     He knew it in two tours in Iraq.

     And he knew it in God-forsaken Kansas.

     He never let his Marines down.

     He wouldn’t let his family down either.

Chapter 21

   
 
After dinner that evening Swain had taken Sarah aside while the others were clearing the table and starting the nightly ritual of washing the dishes and scrubbing the kitchen.

     “Sarah, honey… why don’t you see if you can sweet talk Lindsey into covering for you? I’ve got something I’d like for you to see.”

     Lindsey, passing by, heard the remark and shot her mother a sympathetic glance.

     Lindsey was sixteen now, but wise beyond her years. She’d known that Swain fancied her mother, almost from the beginning. She didn’t know why, at first, until Swain himself had told her how lucky she was.

     “Your mother is beautiful in a way most women strive for and never obtain, Lindsey. Few women have such natural beauty. Most women use makeup to cover up their flaws and hide their imperfections. As such, they are little more than painted clowns, putting on an air of passability simply for the purpose of attracting men and keeping them interested.

     “But your mom is different. And so are you. Your mother’s beauty is such that putting makeup on her face would be a crime. It would cover up what God gave her and deprive the world of seeing her natural beauty. She doesn’t need makeup, for it would merely hide what she already has to show off.

     “Lindsey, you are the same way. You’re young still, so you probably don’t even know it yet. But someday soon the mere sight of you will cause men to turn their heads, stop dead in their tracks, and ask your name. They’ll want to get to know you, even if knowing them is the last thing you’ll want.

     “Trust me, sweet child. It is so obvious to me that you possess the same rare beauty that your mother has. And the day is not far off when you’ll come into your own.

     “I know you wonder why I shower so much attention on your mother. Sure, I’ve seen other beautiful women in my time, and had quite a few of them. But your mother is in a class above them all. Except for my own sweet Sarah, who I lost a long time ago. Your mother is my Sarah’s spitting image. That’s why I fawn over her so. She brings back such powerful memories of what I once was, before my world went to hell and then the rest of the world followed suit.

     “My Sarah, you see, died tragically when she was way too young. Finding your mother has given me a second chance for the love that was cut short so many years ago. That’s why I’ve made her mine. She’s my second chance to get everything right this time.”

     “But she’s not yours. She belongs to my father. And he’ll come for her someday.”

     Even as young Lindsey said the words, she realized she’d gone too far.

     But Swain was in a benevolent mood that day. Or perhaps he didn’t want to upset Sarah and lose whatever ground he’d been making with her. In either event, he chose not to beat Lindsey down, as he’d done so many of the others who’d questioned his authority or talked back to him.

     Then he took credit for his generosity.

     “I’m going to overlook that slight, sweetheart, because I want you to see that I’m your protector as well. Whatever evil the world has become, I will watch over you and make sure it doesn’t come for you. Your father has already died, or he’d have been here by now.

     “I’m terribly sorry that little Beth is gone too. If I could, I’d bring her back. You’ll see her again someday, and you’ll both be in a far better place than this cold and miserable world. But in the meantime, it’s essential for your own well-being that you face the facts of your current situation. It’s just you, me and your mother now. Sure, my men are here to serve us, as is your aunt and your cousins and some of their neighbors. But they’re just bit players, and we’ll rid ourselves of them one day when we no longer need them.

     “And then you’ll see that I’ve been right. That you’ll love me just as much as the father and sister you once had. And your mother will too. I can already sense that her feelings for me are changing.”

     Lindsey shivered as she remembered the conversation, and the chill helped her refocus on the present. From across the kitchen, she could see Swain stand and take her mother’s hand and lead her toward the stairs and to the master bedroom.

     He was wrong on so many levels. Her father
was
alive, and
was
coming for her. She just knew it.

     And she would never love Swain, or even like him. Neither would her mother. They were just biding their time and plotting their escape.