The Battle: Alone: Book 4 (20 page)

     And then it started to rain.

Chapter 35

     Inside the house Sarah finally got a chance to talk to Lindsey when one of Karen’s sons relieved her in the insurance room.

     Sarah was waiting for her at the dining room table when she walked in.

     “Hi, Mom. How’s McDonough?”

     “He could go anytime.”

     “Swain?”

     “Still upstairs. We need to talk quickly, before somebody else comes in for coffee or water.

     Lindsey asked, “Did you get a good look at the vehicle that Snyder drove into the yard?”

     “Yes. I know. It looks like your dad’s. But I hope it isn’t.”

     “Why?”

     “Because Snyder had it. And your father wouldn’t just give it to him. I’m terrified that might mean that something has happened to him.”

     “Oh, Mom, don’t say that. I’ve been looking at it another way.”

     “How so?”

     “I think Dad may have given it to Snyder, or maybe bartered it for something he needed, like weapons or ammunition or something. I think he intentionally wanted him to drive it into the compound, so we could see it, and know he was out there. And so we could start preparing ourselves for the rescue. Maybe even start thinking of ways we could help him.”

     Sarah was dumbfounded.

     “Wow! I honestly never thought of that possibility. But it kinda makes sense. If your father is involved in the shootings, he’d want to let us know he was out there. What better way to do that? And I’ve been worried sick, thinking maybe Snyder shot him and took the car from him.”

     Lindsey managed a smile. “If Dad were here with us, you know he’d make fun of you for calling it a car, right? He’d say, ‘It’s not a car, darn it. It’s an SUV.’”

     “I know. I used to call it a car just to egg him on.”

     “Really? I always suspected as much.”

     “Lindsey, honey, you’re a very clever girl. You’ve provided another scenario that I’d never even considered. And you’ve succeeded in keeping my hopes alive.”

     “
One
of us has to be an optimist, Mom. You’ve always been a ‘glass is half empty’ kind of person.”

     “I hope you’re right, honey. But let’s not get our hopes too high, not yet. My scenario is a possibility too, whether we want to accept it or not.”

     “I know, Mom. But I just refuse to believe that Daddy’s dead. He is Super Dad, after all.”

     The door opened and Jessika walked in.

     “McDonough’s dead. I said a prayer over his body. I know he was one of them, but every man deserves God’s mercy, no matter how bad he was.”

     She poured herself a glass of water from a pitcher on the counter.

     “I’m sorry. Am I interrupting?”

     “No. Not at all. We were just talking about Lindsey’s father. We think he might be…”

     But she never finished. The door opened again and Swain stuck his head in.

     “I want to get everybody together in the den for a meeting. Five minutes. Don’t be late.”

     The three women walked out of the kitchen as two men were carrying McDonough’s body out of the den.

     “Where are you taking him?”

     “Right now he’s going in the insurance room, until it’s safe to go outside again.”

     Sarah heard raindrops hitting the roof of the porch outside. She wondered if it was good news or bad for Dave and whoever was out there helping him.

     Swain was pacing back and forth across the den, occasionally making a comment or giving an order. He appeared to be frazzled. His twitching seemed to be worse than it was when he’d gone upstairs, and he looked around constantly at those assembled in the room.

     Sarah had seen him like this many times before, when his paranoia was kicking in. The episodes were typically marked by irrational thinking and the accusations that his men and the hostages were plotting against him.

     “Now that it’s dark, they should be coming in from the field. We’ll see how many the bastards have taken and come up with a plan to attack them on their own turf.”

     Several more minutes ticked by.

     The rain got heavier.

     “Thomas... you and Sanchez go out on the front porch. Yell to the men that it’s safe to come in.”

     The two men looked at each other but didn’t respond.

     “Are you assholes deaf?”

     Sanchez mustered up the courage to say, “But sir, if they were still alive they’d have come into the house by now.”

     Swain looked at him and said, “I’m only going to say this one more time, Sanchez. Get your ass out there on the porch and yell for the men to come into the house. Hell, it’s raining cats and dogs out there. The enemy can’t use their rifles in heavy rain. And it’s dark anyway. Leave the porch light off so they can’t see you and get your ass out there and do what you’re told.”

     Still, the men hesitated.

     “God Damnit, you men are nothing but a couple of cowards. Get the hell out of my way.”

     Swain strutted through the door and out onto the darkened front porch.

     He yelled loud enough to wake the dead.

     “Foley! Johnson! Kolinek! Come in here! They can’t fire their rifles in the rain! Get in here where it’s safe!”

     Swain knew his men, if they were within earshot, would recognize his voice.

     He knew that if they were still alive, they were soaked and cold and hungry. And that they were looking for a way to make it safely into the house.

     And he knew that they wouldn’t dare cross him after he ordered them to make their way in.

     Knowing all that made the next five minutes difficult for him.

     Because nobody came.

     He knew that everyone not already in the house was dead.

     Actually, not all of them. Four of them saw the carnage Dave had wrought and took the opportunity to hop the barbed wire fence and disappear into the woods. They figured that going back on the lam was better than dying. There were other farmhouses out there. Other people they could take hostage. Other places to go.

     Swain went back into the house.

     He took a headcount. He had himself and five men left.

     It never dawned on Swain, perhaps because his mind was altered by the drugs he was on, that his attackers might have night vision scopes. He knew they required batteries, and batteries no longer existed. He assumed, as the others did, that his men died during the daylight hours. That all evening they were thought to be alive and hiding, and instead were dead and starting to stiffen.

     “Thomas. You go on the front porch and keep watch. If you hear or see anybody moving around out there, shoot them. It’s not our guys, or they would have been back in by now. We’ll leave the lights off downstairs so you don’t make a silhouette. Come in just before sunrise. Davis, you take the back porch.”

     Perhaps because Swain himself had gone outside for several minutes and had returned unscathed, there was no hesitation this time.

     “Holliday, you and Sanchez go upstairs and get some rest. At first light you two will relieve Thomas and Davis, but you’ll watch from the windows on the front and back of the house.

     “Garcia, get back in the insurance room. I’ll get some rest and will relieve you at sunrise. If you hear any shooting or scuffling in here, you put a bullet into that boy’s head. Do you understand?”

     “Yes, sir.”

     Karen gasped. The boy Swain was referring to was her eight year old son Tony.

Chapter 36

     Swain was right about one thing. Rifles, and particularly sniper rifles, were worthless in a driving thunderstorm. They would have fired, sure. But Dave couldn’t see more than twenty feet in front of him. Anyone close enough to see could be taken out with a handgun or a knife.

     As the first raindrops fell, Dave made his way back to the green fiberglass box deep in the woods. He stashed his sniper rifle and rested a bit, trying to figure ways to use the rain to his advantage.

     A driving rainstorm hid many things. It hampered not only vision to the point it rendered rifles useless. It also made it very difficult to hear someone sneaking up behind you.

     And it muffled a man’s screams.

     Dave was determined to take advantage of it. As he saw it, the rain was a gift from God. A chance to lean the odds into Dave’s favor. At least for a bit.

     After ten minutes or so, Dave’s breath came back and he’d had his plan in mind. He guzzled two bottles of water and three granola bars. That would sustain him for several hours if he had to take cover and couldn’t make it back for awhile. More importantly, it would enable him to leave his backpack behind and travel a little lighter.

     He crept up the steps at the end of the tunnel and snuck out of the fiberglass box back into the bone-chilling rain.

     He was armed only with his night vision goggles, 9mm handgun and his survival knife.

     And one more thing: an unwavering belief that justice was on his side.

     As Swain had stood on the darkened front porch and called for his men to come in out of the rain, Dave had heard him yelling. He couldn’t quite make out the words, but suspected the man was calling to the sentries and giving them instructions. In Dave’s mind, that meant there were sentries still out there. He hadn’t killed them all.

     Actually, he did, except for the four that deserted. But Dave didn’t know that. He resisted the urge to make his way quickly to the farmhouse, to see who was yelling and what he was saying.

     Instead, he assumed he was in unfriendly territory crawling with bad guys, and moved deliberately and with great caution.

     When the farm house finally came into view through the rain, he was a mere forty yards away from it. He wouldn’t have seen it then, but the upstairs lights stood out like beacons against a darkened sky. He stopped for a moment, trying to assess the situation, when a large bolt of lightning in the distance illuminated the entire house and grounds.

     It was only for a couple of seconds, but it would have been enough for a sentry to spot Dave had he been in the open.

     Luckily he was taking cover behind a farm tractor.

     He cursed under his breath.

     This was getting better and better.

     He waited for the next bolt of lightning to flash, and used the brief light to identify his next cover point. There was a small pump house about twenty yards away. Roughly halfway between the tractor and the house.

     He took a deep breath and ran for it, sliding in behind it like a runner going for home plate, a mere half second before another flash of lightning lit up the whole area again.

     He waited for a couple of minutes for any signs he was spotted.

     There were none.

     He’d assumed that the reason the lights were off in the downstairs windows was because the sentries were now inside, watching from the security that a dark room could provide them. From that vantage point, they could see the yard each time the lighting flashed. But someone in the yard could not see them at all.

     So much for the advantage Dave’s night vision goggles were providing him.

    The lenses were starting to fog anyway, being trapped between his body heat and the cold rain.

     He took them off and hung them from his belt.

     He waited for the lightning to flash three more times. By that time, he figured, anyone who’d spotted him would have had ample time to shoot at the well house when it was lit by the lightning. But no bullets hit the tiny structure. And none came whizzing by.

     As far as Dave was concerned, that was confirmation he hadn’t been seen.

     And was therefore able to progress further.

     The next flash of light brought a ferocious clap of thunder just two seconds behind it.

     The storm was right on top of them. He had no idea how large the storm was, but he’d have to hurry to make use of it, before it rolled over them and disappeared into the distance.

     The flash of light gave him an opportunity to find his next cover. It was the house itself, some twenty yards away.