The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 (35 page)

“What is this cousin’s name?” John
asks.

“Huh? His name? Um, Lowry, Lavery, somethin’
like that. I don’t remember, man,” Dirtbag explains.

“Does he have a family here or is he alone?”
John asks.

“No, man. I think he lives out in
the boonies somewheres,” the man says. “He
do
n’t live in
town
. He’s out in the woods in
his shack or some shit.”

John looks at
her
and Reagan nods with
understanding. She knows
exactly
who this man is talking about.
Her grandfather also knows this cousin of Dirtbag’s friend. He’s a
junky loser who they treated about a week ago. He’d
asked
a lot of
questions about them, about the practice, about
medications
although his small
wound hadn’t required any. Tim Lafferty is the cousin. He’s just
signed his own death warrant. Reagan hopes for his sake that he
cleared out within the last few days because he’s got a bounty from
two Rangers on his head now.

“What else do you want us to know about your
friends?” John inquires.

“Nothing, man. I’m not like them, ok? Just let
me go,” he says. “I’ll never come back here. I swear!”

His eyes are full of dread. His
facial tension and feral behavior
remind
Reagan of a wild animal that’s
been caged.

“Are there any women or children over there?
Old people?” John asks.

“Nah, no old people or kids. A… few women,” he
admits.

“Are they with your group because they want to
be?” John asks through clenched teeth.

“Um…”

“Don’t lie again,” John warns.

Kelly tips his chair just slightly.

“Ok, ok! No! They aren’t there ‘cuz they wanna
be! They’re with some of the others. That’s their women. But we
protect them! We don’t let nothin’ happen to ‘em.”

“Uh huh,” John says with
understanding.

Reagan sees his fist clench.

“Six of your group died today,” her husband
clarifies.

“What?” the turd asks. “What do you mean? There
was only five that got killed.”

John says nothing. He stares at the man for a
moment until it sinks in. Then the begging and pleading starts as
John leads her away.

“You like raping women,
motherfucker?”

These are the last words that she hears from
Kelly as John helps her down from the loading dock behind the feed
mill. Then she hears the distinctive sound of a single .223 round
being stifled with a silencer.

They load into the
SUV
and Grandpa’s
pick-up truck, all of them packed in cozy and tight. She’s sitting
next to John in the front, while Grandpa shares the middle seat
with Sam and Simon, who are still holding hands. Reagan doubts that
he’s let go of her hand since the attack. He’s taken it upon
himself over the last few years to be her guardian. Sam, although
she’s now an adult, still resembles a little China doll. No wonder
Simon feels protective of her.

Paige rides in the rear with her
friend Talia. Her friend had been quite helpful at the clinic, but
from what Reagan overheard, Paige wasn’t too keen on it. In her
defense, it’s not usually a damn war zone at their peaceful clinic.
They
usually
treat minor illnesses or self-inflicted accident wounds, not
gunshot victims.

When they get to the farm, everyone takes
armloads of crates and materials back to the shed. Then they
convene in the dining room, allowing Chet and his brother Wayne,
who has also come over on his four-wheeler, to join
them.

Kelly leads off, “We need a plan,
guys.”

“Agreed,” John says.

Grandpa rubs his hand over his forehead
wearily. Reagan can tell that he isn’t going to be thrilled with
any plans that involve family members being put in
danger.

“What are you talking about, John? What kind of
plan?” her grandfather asks.

“We gotta go over there,” her
husband clarifies. “We can’t allow people like that to live so
close to us. That town’s less than ten miles from your
town
. Too
close.”

“Right,” Kelly agrees. “They gotta
go. If they’re hurting women and robbing people, they
can’t
….
live.”

He almost whispers the last word. He doesn’t
like to upset Hannah, although most days her sister walks around
the big house like a zombie going through the motions.

“Right,” John agrees. “We need to formulate a
strike.”

Her lovely
sister, Sue's face,
turns down
into
a deep
grimace. She clenches at Derek’s sinewy forearm. Her
brother-in-law places his hand
on
top
of Sue’s and nods.

“You’re right,” Derek agrees with the other two
Rangers. “It’s been a while since we’ve had to do this, but we’re
ready.”

“Wait, why can’t we just let them be?” Hannah
asks quickly.

There are dark circles under her
different-colored eyes. She hasn’t slept well lately, not since the
death of Em. Kelly wraps his arm around her shoulders and comforts
her. Many times when Reagan can’t sleep she’s found Hannah sitting
in the music room in the middle of the night.

“No, baby,” he says gently and tucks
an errant strand of pale hair behind her ear. “They could come
here. They could attack the clinic again. More innocent people
could be killed. Or your grandpa or Reagan could be taken for their
medical knowledge. Or the women could be
taken
, not just our women, but
women who come to our clinic could be taken.”

“Right, Hannie,” Reagan says to
quiet her sister’s worries. “They’re real shitbags. I was there
when John and Kelly….questioned one of them. These are
dangerous
men.
They have women captive over there. We have to do
something.”

Hannah nods but is clinging on to her husband
as if she’s afraid to let him go. Even though her sister is blind,
Reagan can still read the fear in her eyes. She’s already lost Em
and Grams. If she lost Kelly, too, Reagan’s not sure she’d recover.
Nevertheless, there’s no way in hell that he’s not joining this
fight. He’d never let John go into something like this without
him.

Reagan’s eyes dart to Sam’s. She feels terrible
for having said the bit about captive women. She knows what Sam has
been through. She sure as hell doesn’t mean to dredge up
nightmarish memories for her. If there’s one thing Reagan
understands, it’s bad memories. The girl doesn’t acknowledge the
comment, but Simon squeezes Sam’s hand on the table reassuringly.
His eyes pinch at the corners as if he, too, is remembering
something horrific. They are still holding hands. She’s not sure if
Sam will let him have his hand back. His sister sits on the other
side of him. She’s quiet, pensive. She’s usually pretty quiet,
though, and Reagan is sure that Paige is just trying to figure out
the family and whether or not she’ll fit in with them, how they
operate and get things done. It must be difficult for her to
acclimate into a new group of strangers.

“What’s our plan?” Simon asks.

Now his sister is looking at him like he’s
insane. She even mouths the word “what” to him, but he ignores her.
Simon shakes his head at her to subdue her questions. Her pale blue
eyes are troubled, and she bites her lower lip with nerves. Paige
is likely questioning everyone’s sanity because they mean to go on
the offensive. Reagan gets the impression from what she’s learned
about Paige and her group that they weren’t the confrontational
types.

He and Cory go on every mission and
have for the last three years. They’d
been
put through every
kind
of military
training the men could put them through other than jumping out of
planes. They are both crack shots, too. Simon isn’t the kind of
person who enjoys killing for any reason, but Cory is a natural
born killer according to John.
He’s
done so many times.
He never comes back
from a mission looking forlorn, not like Simon. Reagan can tell how
heavily his decision to take a life weighs on his mind, but he
never backs down. He takes his responsibility of the family’s
safety just as seriously as the other men. And the fierce look of
determination in his bright blue eyes tonight tells her that he’s
ready again.

“We’ll go
in
tomorrow night,” John says.
“What do you think, Derek?”

“Yeah, let’s not go blasting over there
tonight,” his brother concurs. “They’ll be expecting us. Let’s all
get a good night’s sleep. We’ll work on a plan tomorrow and get it
all laid out.”

“You can count
on us
to help, too,” Wayne
says and gets a nod of ascent from his brother Chet.

“I know, Wayne,” Derek says. “Why
don’t you all
come over
tomorrow evening for dinner, and we’ll go over the
plans. That’ll give us guys a chance to work on it. Bring Bertie
and Sarah, too. We don’t want you to leave them at home if you’re
both coming with us.”

Sarah is Wayne and Bertie’s
two-year-old
daughter. Bertie had miscarried while John and Reagan were in
the city together, but she had conceived again about six months
later and gave birth at home to a lovely baby girl. Reagan had
assisted Grandpa, just as she had with the birth of her
sisters’
babies
. Now Sarah is close to Reagan’s son Jacob’s age, and they
love playing together when the adults gather for meetings and
planning. Even though Jacob is almost five, he still plays with
Sarah. And so does Sue’s
three-year-old
son, Isaac. Reagan smiles
as she thinks of those two toddlers and their silly, make believe
games and their tiny voices when they talk to each other. But her
husband’s deep voice interrupts her thoughts.

“Bring a rifle and a pistol each. Make sure you
have full mags. Also bring your night vision gear,” he says to the
Reynolds brothers. “This is going to be a night raid. It’s the
safest way for us. Gives us the advantage.”

“Sounds good, John,” Chet replies.

There is the added element of surprise and the
advantage of seeing the enemy without them seeing the Rangers when
they go out at night. John and Derek have seen to the extensive
training of some of their closest friends and allies. The Reynolds,
the Johnson family, some of the men in town, as well as, some of
the people at the condo community have been trained.

Chet’s sitting next to Talia, who chirps up.
“I’d like to go, as well. I can contribute to this. I know how to
shoot all right.”

“No, we don’t take any of the women on raids,”
Kelly corrects her.

“Um, ok… what is this, the 1800’s? I can shoot.
I won’t be in your way if that’s what you’re thinking. I want to be
able to help,” Paige’s friend responds as she pushes back a frizzy
black curl from her forehead.

“This really isn’t a democracy,
ma’am,” Derek explains. “No offense, but I’m in charge of security
around here. We don’t take women. It’s just one of our rules. It’s
not a sexist thing. If we can avoid putting
you
women in harm’s way, then we
do. If every one of
us
men is killed, then the enemy could take you.
We’ve seen it before with other creeps. It doesn’t happen on our
watch. I’m not saying that you aren’t competent, but if you don’t
have the proper military training you’ll be a distraction and could
cause us to make an uncalculated mistake.”

John offers more politely, “If you want to go
on supply runs, you’ll need to start with basic training, tactical
maneuvers and everything else that Simon’s been through. We have a
very specific way that we move, a way that we operate as a team. If
you don’t know it, then you’ll just be in the way.”

“Besides,” Reagan adds, “if everyone leaves the
farm, then nobody would be here to protect it in case something
happens.”

Reagan knows they won’t ever take
Talia out on a gunfight, maybe on local runs for supplies but not
into an all-out battle. Supply
runs
are dangerous enough. Hell, she
doesn’t even want her husband to go tomorrow. But she knows that
he’ll never abide by people like the man they’d water-boarded a few
hours ago living so close to them, especially if they are
criminally-minded bastards who attack innocent people waiting for
medical care. Talia nods but still seems disappointed. Reagan
notices that their friend Gavin doesn’t volunteer to go. Perhaps he
doesn’t feel as if he’s adequately trained for a mission. That’s
good. The men don’t need him getting in their way,
either.

When the meeting wraps and
everyone
goes
their own way, the Rangers and Simon reconvene in Grandpa’s
office. Reagan also sits in on it.

John immediately starts
off
the
conversation with, “Tim Lafferty. Do you guys know this man and
where he lives exactly?”