The Battle: Alone: Book 4 (13 page)

     He went to the end of the tunnel and climbed up the concrete steps. He was in the fiberglass box now, and the heat was starting to build. He was amazed at the dramatic change of temperature over the space of just a few yards. It was cool in the tunnel, yet so hot in the box he was already starting to sweat.

     Of course, some of that might be due to tension.

     He peered through the tiny peep holes on all four sides of the box, and once he was confident he wasn’t being watched, unfastened the thumb screws.

     He made his way to the west side of the farm’s property, staying just deep enough inside the forest to prevent anyone from seeing his movement.

     Once he was on the west side, he stopped every fifteen or twenty feet and peered through the trees at the farm to check his progress. He needed to mark the blind spot.

     The spot where he lost sight of the open mezzanine window of the hay barn two hundred yards away.

     Each time he checked his progress, the angle of the barn was sharper and sharper, until finally it was such a sharp angle that he could no longer see the window.

     And that meant the sentry could not see Dave from that point either.

     He looked around for something to mark the narrow roadway which ran just outside the perimeter fence, and found a flat gray rock about the size of his fist. It was something he’d spot easily, because he knew what to look for. But to anyone else happening along, it wouldn’t look out of place. It would look just like thousands of other rocks in the area.

     Then he watched and waited.

     Five minutes. Then ten. Then fifteen.

     He was just starting to get antsy when a rider, a sentry on horseback, came into view to his far left.

     Dave crept back away from the tree line and stayed perfectly still.

     A couple of minutes later, the horse and rider walked slowly past, and then disappeared over the horizon.

     He knew from watching the sentries over the previous few days that he had at least twenty minutes. They were staggered and came along at varying times, but never less than that.

     In any event, twenty minutes was way more time than he needed.

     He broke free from the tree line, made his way to the edge of the roadway, and placed his rock on the roadway’s edge, just a few feet from the forest’s first trees.

     Then he went back into the forest, about ten yards from the tree line, and stashed his sniper rifle beneath a heavy shrub.

     He’d have to move from his first ambush point to his sniper’s nest very quickly, before he was detected and an alarm went up.

     He couldn’t move quickly enough through the forest, so would have to use the roadway instead.

     And the rock would mark the safe point, the point where he’d have to re-enter the forest or find himself in plain view of the sentry in the hay barn.

     It would also enable him to find his sniper rifle quickly so he could execute the second part of the day’s mission.

     Once he was out of the open and back in the forest he could relax a bit. He was in no hurry, and he had to fight the adrenaline and the urge to rush. Guerilla warfare was a game of opportunities. Whether he rushed on this day, or took his time and did it right, he’d get no more than three, maybe four chances to take out his adversaries. Whether he finished his work an hour from now or half a day from now, he’d be no more productive.

     So common sense told him to take his time. To do his work carefully and cautiously and without taking unnecessary risks.

     He worked his way through the forest, following the narrow perimeter road, and creeping to the forest’s edge occasionally to check his progress.

     When he was roughly a hundred yards from his marker, he found what he was looking for. The blind spot he’d seen the day before.

     The place where he’d mount his first attack against the thugs who were holding his family hostage.

     Then, once again, he waited, far enough inside the forest to keep from being seen. But not so far he couldn’t see the rise that the next lucky rider would come over.

     He was the lucky rider because he would be the last one to come over that rise and survive to see another day.

     The two men, possibly three, who followed him would not be able to make the same claim.

     Ten minutes later, a tall rail of a man on a big bay came over the rise and continued along the fence line. He did a better job than the others in watching the forest. But he still didn’t spot the man crouched twelve yards deep wearing camo paint and clothing. He and his bay sauntered on past.

     Dave had at least twenty minutes, and possibly as many as fifty. He waited until the rider was out of sight, then checked the perimeter road to make sure no one was approaching the farm. In all the time he’d reconnoitered the area, he’d only seen one visitor: the mysterious man who’d delivered something in exchange for coins. Still, he could never be too safe.

     He crept to the large shrub just on the outside of the barbed wire fence. It was larger than it looked from a distance. Damn near large enough to park a truck behind.

     Not that he’d be foolish enough to do such a thing.

     It was also thick enough to do a fairly good job of hiding Dave while he waited for his prey.

     He left his crossbow there and went to the fence, about halfway between his shrub and the rise. Once there, he took the wire cutters from his leg pocket and snipped the three strands of barbed wire, letting them fall limply to the ground.

     Then he quickly returned to the shrub and hid himself in its heavy branches.

     And waited once again.

     Exactly eleven minutes later the next rider appeared over the rise.

     Dave expected him to see the cut wires and then to reach for his weapon.

     But the dumbass never even noticed them.

     Not much of a sentry.

     He also didn’t notice Dave Speer, hidden in the shrub he was approaching on his right.

     He was too busy daydreaming.

     And of course, since he never saw Dave, he also never saw the crossbow, or the bolt aiming directly at his chest.

     Not until it was too late.

     He caught a glimpse of the bolt, leaving the shrub, but never knew what it was. Just a flash of light, basically.

     A flash of light which shattered his sternum and then his heart.

     He was dead before he fell from his horse.

     His right foot was stuck in the stirrup, but only for a moment. The horse bolted, but not for long. Once the rider was free she calmed back down.

     Dave took her by the reins and led her quickly into the woods. He tied her to a tree just inside the tree line, then rushed back to drag the body into the shrub behind him.

     When he went back on lookout, for the next rider, he was out of breath.

     He hoped it didn’t throw off his next shot, and fought hard to get his breathing under control again.

     Luckily there was a wider gap before the next rider came along.

     Dave saw the man’s white hat first. Damn him. Only the good guys were supposed to wear white hats.

     He deserved to die just for breaking protocol.

     This one noticed the cut fence immediately.

     He drew his rifle from the sheath, and started to point it skyward to fire shots that would have brought reinforcements running.

     But Dave was faster.

     This time, the bolt actually went through the man, flying lazily onward until it nosedived into the dirt twenty feet behind him.

     This one didn’t get hung up in the saddle as the first one had.

     The horse, a tall Morgan, took everything in stride. As though his riders got shot off his back every day of the week.

     Dave very quickly went over his options. Once again, he had plenty of time. He could take the horse into the woods to join the other one. Then he could drag the second man’s body out of the way, and go back into hiding to wait for a third.

     But if the man on sentry in the barn was paying attention at all, he’d have noticed that it had been an awfully long time since he’d seen a man on horseback riding the fence line. And he might send up an alarm of his own.

     Dave figured he’d been lucky enough. And he wanted to send a message.

     By taking out three riders in the same location, the enemy might assume they were only fighting one man. That might embolden them into thinking they could go looking for him. Overwhelm him with numbers.

     And that wouldn’t play into Dave’s plans. Not yet, anyway.

     By taking out the bad guys in two different locations, using two different types of weapons, they might assume they were coming under assault by a group of men. And they’d be more likely to stay put, where Dave could pick them off a couple at a time.

     He plucked his bolt from the chest of the first dead cowboy and scampered down the road.

     Once adjacent to his rock marker, he made a sharp right turn and ran full steam into the woods, to where he knew the sniper rifle was hidden.

     He didn’t know how much time he had left. He hoped it was enough.

     Tossing his crossbow to one side, he took the long sniper rifle from its hiding place and crept to the edge of the forest and to a tree with a split trunk.

     He placed the end of the barrel into the crook of the tree and spread his feet until his upper body dropped to the same height as the weapon’s stock.

     All the while he was regulating his breathing.

     Deep breath in… deep breath out…

     Suddenly it occurred to him what he’d forgotten to do. He’d cleaned the rifle and familiarized himself with its features. He’d made sure there was a round in the chamber and had released the safety. It was ready to fire, except…

     He’d never sighted it in.

     Still, the weapon was designed to fire accurately up to a thousand meters. His target was just under two hundred meters away. Surely it would be true enough to take out such a relatively close target.

     He hoped.

     In any event, he’d soon find out.

     He lined up the crosshairs on the spot in the shadows where he’d seen the sentry before.

     He was still there. Still in the shadows. Hard to see, except the red glow of his cigarette gave away the exact location of his head.

     Dave raised a fraction of an inch, causing the muzzle to lower a similar amount. The crosshairs were now dead center mass. He couldn’t see the man’s chest, but he knew it was there.

     He drew his next deep breath, then exhaled half of it. With the pad of his forefinger on the trigger, he gently coaxed it back.

     It was an amazing weapon. There was barely a kick at all.

     And the sound he heard, a mere whoosh, wasn’t loud enough to be heard more than a few yards away.

     He’d never know if he’d have made the shot from a thousand meters.

     But he darn sure made it from two hundred.

     The man fell forward, in Dave’s direction.

     Most of his body was still in the shadows. Only his head and shoulders lay in the sun breaking through the hayloft door.

     And even from that distance, Dave could tell the man was dead.

     Dave three. Bad guys zero.

     Dave’s war had begun.

Chapter 24

     Sarah had been called to Swain’s room that morning, just after breakfast. He’d been up for several nights in a row, and his body was starting to rebel.

     Meth junkies love the stuff because it makes them feel invincible. But it affects their body in other ways too.

     Their minds race, and they cannot relax. Their brains convince the body that it does not need to sleep, so it merely doesn’t. Sometimes for six, seven, eight days in a row, the meth addict is wide awake. Eventually he gets so jittery he cannot hold a coffee cup or a set of keys without dropping them. He gets moody and irritable and his body starts twitching uncontrollably.

     Meth junkies tend to get dehydrated because it never occurs to them to drink water. Or to eat food, for that matter. They lose the senses of hunger and thirst, and their taste buds go into hibernation. When their friends or other concerned bystanders force them to eat or drink, they do so with no enjoyment. Everything they eat tastes like cardboard and is hard to swallow, for their mouth is typically too dry to get it down.