The kid could barely keep his feet, not that Brown could blame him. He'd been hanging by his arms from the rafters for several hours—Matt had lost track of the time. It could have been three hours, or it could have been thirty. Matt hadn't been seen by the authorities in over a day; Father Tall had quite correctly figured out that a congressman's son was worth a lot in terms of long term survival and had taken precautions that the asset wouldn't run away as Matt had threatened to do. Father Tall might be insane, Brown mused grimly, but he wasn't stupid. Brown kept a strong arm underneath Matt's shoulder, helping him through the corridors, bumping into lots of other men in the dark that Gerhardt and Brown could see with their night-goggles and that Matthew couldn't. The cultists had growled at them, but Gerhardt had grumbled back, sounding like one of them, shepherding the pair through toward freedom and the open night air.
"Look out where you're going!"
"Quit bumping into me. You're spoiling my aim!"
"There's nothing to aim at, idiot! We're in the tunnels."
"You heard from Father Tall?"
"I heard he got killed."
"Big explosion, took out the generators. What're we gonna do?"
"Take orders. Brother Curt, Father Tall always said to look to him."
"So where is he?"
"I heard Father Tall got killed, too," Brown put in. Never hurts to add a little more fuel to the fire. "Maybe we all ought'a surrender right now, before anyone else gets themselves killed."
"You crazy? You know what they gonna do to us, boy? They gonna brainwash us, send us out to fight the commies!"
Brown could imagine Gerhardt rolling his eyes. And these idiots are eligible to vote. My little girl could make a better decision. The Cold War is over, geniuses.
"Them commies are running the government."
"Them as ain't Martians," added another.
God help us. God help this country.
Steps, heading upward and out of the tunnels. Gerhardt, in the lead, stubbed his toe, stumbling forward. Depth perception was lacking with the goggles, but he recovered swiftly, putting a hand out to assist his team mate and their charge. Despite the help, Matt fell forward. Brown caught him, the kid stifling a yelp.
"What's going on there?"
"I tripped," Gerhardt snarled. "Damn generators. Where's the flashlight?"
There was a flashlight clipped to his belt. Naturally, under the circumstances, Gerhardt wasn't about to bring that up.
"Somebody bring out the kid? Who's watching him?"
Damn. Time to hustle, before somebody developed a couple of brain cells. There were six steps up through the stairwell to the Great Outdoors in the compound, and Gerhardt made use of them, pushing open the door and leading the other two out.
It was more dangerous out here. Down in the tunnels there had been a lot of cult members, and darkness, and the kid had kept quiet for the most part. They'd slipped through. Here there were bullets flying over head in the moonlight, bullets that could hit both cult members and Unit members. There was a reason that Blane hadn't let the National Guardsmen add to the hail of lead; there were a few friendlies around, Mack Gerhardt being one of them. And they had to get to the rendezvous point.
Gerhardt put his mouth next to Brown's ear. "Try not to shoot. Let's keep a low profile."
"Right." Brown looked around, searching for a path through the mess.
Gerhardt already had it. "This way. Through those trees. Stick close to the kid, and I'll run interference." He slid his bowie out of its sheath, the eight inches of carbon steel glinting in the moonlight. He looked grim. "Low profile," he repeated.
They moved forward, the two soldiers sure-footed in the dark, the fourteen year old tripping over roots with Brown's hand under his arm. The kid was trying to keep up, hadn't uttered another sound since that yelp at the stairs. Brown's opinion of Matt Brideswell swelled. The congressman had a boy to be proud of.
This part of the compound had been left to nature, with trees growing on top of bushes and last autumn's leaves still trying to rub themselves into the ground. They crackled underneath their feet. Other feet echoed around them, cult members armed with guns and suspicion, looking for enemy soldiers, panicking in the face of the explosions not ten minutes ago. Gerhardt restricted himself to hand signals to communicate with Brown, trusting in the other man to keep the boy close.
A group of three; Gerhardt steered them around, putting a large boulder between us and them. Another man, this time a singleton and a little smarter than the rest and with better night vision: one look and he spotted the kid. The singleton opened his mouth to yell. With a look over his shoulder at the kid who was watching as best as he could in the night darkness, Gerhardt reversed the handle of the knife and brought it down hard over that certain spot right between the eyes. The man collapsed as though he'd been shot. Had he been alone, Gerhardt would have used the blade to make certain that they'd have no more trouble from this man. But this kid was still growing up, and he'd already faced more of life's realities than any kid ought to have. Gerhardt was willing to risk a bit to make certain that the worst was over. There'd be time for more nastiness later on in life.
Move ahead, try to go swiftly in the darkness. Shots ringing out in the distance, coming closer. More yelling all around them, men afraid for their lives. Gun shots—Gerhardt recognized Williams' piece, listened for Blane's and found it further on. It was hard to distinguish between the firearms, the cultists' and his own people's, but the distinction was there. The quality of the weapons shone forth to a man who knew how to listen.
A nervous man shot in their direction. "Hey!" Gerhardt yelled, trying to sound like one of their own, ducking. "Shoot them! Not us!"
"Sorry."
"Idiots," Gerhardt muttered under his breath.
"Hey! Who's the short one?"
Crap. Time to cut and run.
It didn't take any words. Both men knew what to do. Brown grabbed Matt by the arm and broke into a flat out sprint. Gerhardt flipped his automatic into a business position and sprayed a round of lead into the oncoming bunch. Most went down. Enough didn't, and more joined that group, that Gerhardt knew that it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. He took off after Brown.
More gunfire. Gerhardt slowed just long enough to answer, then caught up with Brown who had been held back by his charge. "Move!" he hissed. The rendezvous point was still half way across the compound, and at least half a dozen men had finally stumbled onto the fact that their one and only hostage was getting away. Much longer, and the entire camp would be hunting them with desperate determination.
Brown moved, pulling the boy along. The forest was now their enemy as well, slowing them down when they needed to go swiftly, black roots reaching up to grab their feet as they hustled. More gunfire; Brown automatically ducked, shoving the boy ahead of him to shield him from the bullets. He scanned the territory, searching for the optimal route to both escape the lead rain and to arrive at the rendezvous point where he knew that help would be waiting.
Then suddenly he was on the ground. Brown didn't remember falling, didn't remember anything but hustling the kid along and watching for gopher holes to trip them up and cult members to mow them down. But there was a curiously leaden feeling about his arm, one that hadn't been there before, and his legs felt a hell of a lot heavier than before. Matt cried out in fear.
Brown blinked. He'd been shot. Hell, not a good thing to have happened. Not right now. Least it didn't hurt. The adrenalin pushed everything else out.
Gerhardt grabbed his good arm, hoisting Brown to his feet. "Crap!" he snarled. "Can you walk?"
Brown blinked again. "Yeah."
"Gopher hole." Gerhardt pointed to a small, half-size shack sunk into the dirt just beyond the trees. It wasn't much, but it was a hell of a lot better than sitting out in the brush for the cult members to pick off at their leisure. "Gimme three, then bring the kid inside. I'll clean it out. Got it? Got it?" he repeated, giving Brown a little shake.
"Ow! Yeah, I got it." Another couple of minutes, and the pain would kick in, Brown knew. He forced himself to swing his rifle around, fired off a round to keep the cultists back. "I'm good," he said, more to convince himself than anything else.
Gerhardt stared, clearly unsure.
"Go," Brown insisted. "I'm good."
Gerhardt went.
Brown counted, going for the seconds. Three minutes, Gerhardt had said. One hundred and eighty seconds. Brown's pulse was hitting two hundred by now, and the kid's probably was, too.
One hundred seventy seven, seventy eight, seventy nine.
Move.
Brown hoisted himself to his feet, furious that it took two tries and the kid himself helping, equally as annoyed that his vision wavered blackly and that the night goggles didn't help. Sweat poured off of his brow.
Gerhardt met them halfway, shoving the boy into the shack and yanking Brown after them. Brown all but fell onto the floor of the shack, body wanting to curl up into a little ball but forcing himself to grip his gun and crawl to where he could see out. Gerhardt slammed the door shut, the wooden slats only half covering the opening. But it was better shelter than anything in the brush. He peered out.
"They're grouping," he reported curtly. "We've got until they decide that they want us dead more than they want a live hostage."
"How many?"
"Enough." Which meant too many to count. The cult sure as hell had a lot more than the thirty members one genius thought that they had. Typical intelligence: worthless. They'd probably never know if the weapons count had been accurate. Gray had blown up most of it on his first pass. Good for him. At least one member of this team was getting his part right. Gerhardt pulled out his transceiver to talk to the other part that was succeeding at their task. "Dirt Diver to Snake Doctor."
He had to wait more than a moment before Blane could log on. "Snake Doctor here. What's your position, Dirt Diver?"
"The package is gift-wrapped, but one of the batteries developed a leak and we've got some gate-crashers."
"Understood, Dirt Diver. Stand by." Jonas signaled to Williams, the movements clear to the man with the night goggles but incomprehensible to the cultists. Williams, who had been keeping the corridor to the rendezvous clear, abandoned his post to take up a position next to his team leader.
It hadn't worked the last two times, and Jonas was beginning to fear the worst, but he tried any way. "Snake Doctor to Boombox."
Static. Just like the last two times. There wouldn't be any assistance from that arena. Jonas carefully set those concerns aside and moved out toward the other part of his team. He couldn't do anything for Gray, and the priority mission objective was clear: the congressman's son. Alive. Definitely alive.
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Brown hissed as Gerhardt carefully pressed a dressing against the hole in his shoulder, wishing for more adrenalin to shove away the hurt. "Dammit, be careful."
"I am." Gerhardt surveyed his handiwork worriedly. "You gonna be able to handle a gun?"
"I can shoot." I can shoot one handed, if I have to.
Matt spoke up. "Gimme a gun."
Both soldiers looked at the kid. Guts, he had. The boy was pale, bottom lip bitten through with terror, arms sore from hanging tied up for hours, and still willing to do what he could.
"You ever handle a gun?"
"Once. Summer camp. Hit the target pretty good." Matt was trying to match his rescuers' determined attitude.
Gerhardt knew better. "Your mom's out there."
That thought hadn't occurred to the kid. But he steeled his features. "She's not my mom. Not after this."
They needed a half way point, some way to keep the kid occupied and not screaming their position away but not so vital that they couldn't pull him back. Brown spoke. "She's still your mom, Matt. She always will be. She's just sick. She needs help. You man enough to make sure that she gets it?"
Looking at shoe time. Or, rather, at bare feet. The shoes had been lost sometime between now and being hoisted into the air with rope.
Brown looked at Gerhardt, received a barely perceptible nod. He pulled out his handgun, handed it over, butt first. Matt almost dropped it; it was heavier than he had anticipated.
"Don't shoot unless we tell you to. Wait for it," Brown advised. "And aim for the feet." If you hit someone, you won't have to live with the fact that you've just murdered another human being. "These are misguided people, not really bad." Even though they are trying to kill us. "And when we tell you, stop shooting. Our people are coming to get us. Don't want to shoot them by mistake."
"Right." More lip biting. Matt turned away to peer out through the cracks, pushing the barrel of Brown's gun between the slats like he'd seen in the movies.
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It wasn't hard to find Dirt Diver's location. It was the shack sunk into the ground with a mob of cult members huddled nearby, digging in behind a pile of rocks for cover. Blane wondered what was in the shack besides his men and one young boy. If it was explosives, one wrong move would completely ruin the primary mission objective, not to mention a few careers. And a few lives.
Time was the enemy. Time for cult reinforcements to arrive, time for the mob to work up the courage for a frontal attack, facing two men and a boy with minimal weaponry. The fact that Gerhardt hadn't started tossing pineapples suggested that the pair didn't have much left—or that there was too much chance for something inside the shack to go boom.
Time was the enemy. They needed to act now. Jonas held up a fist to Williams: in three.
Nod.
Three.
Two.
One.
As one, they came out blazing, automatic weaponry throwing lead as fast as they could. Men jerked and fell, others simply dove for the ground and huddled behind the boulders on the other side, caught between two pincers. The sensible ones fled. Blane and Williams let them go. They would be gone before the cultists could pull in reinforcements.
Inside, Gerhardt pulled Matt back, pushing the handgun so that it pointed down. "Hold up." He held the kid close, making sure that any stray bullet that made it inside through the cracks didn't find the wrong target, feeling the kid shake with suppressed terror. There was the acrid scent of fear, and Gerhardt refused to ask which body it came from. He simply pulled the boy to his own chest for cover, just in case.
Matt's face asked the question.
"Our people have arrived," Gerhardt answered him in a low voice. "Brown?"
"I see 'em." Brown too rolled back, leaning against the wall of the shack. But he kept his rifle in his hands, trying to be ready to move.
The gunfire died down. There was a polite knock at the door. A deep voice rang out.
"Anybody call for Triple A?"