Breakout (Final Dawn) (25 page)

     As it disappeared from view, Karen said, “I’m sorry to call you all over here on a wild goose chase.”

     “Don’t be silly,” John answered. “You did exactly what you’re supposed to do. You saw something that you thought might be a threat, so you checked it out. Don’t you dare change a thing. You feel free to call me any time you see something suspicious.”

     “I’m just on edge, John. We’ve been through a lot these past few days. And we all know that there’s more ugliness and pain coming at some point. We just don’t know when, and that’s really been getting to me.”

     “I know, dear. We’re all on edge. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and certainly nothing to apologize for. It just is what it is. And you’re doing a great job helping out here on the desk. I mean that. Some of the others might have just watched the truck and never even have called it in. And then if thirty armed man suddenly came streaming out the back of the trailer, we’d have less time to react. So, like I said, you’re doing a great job. Don’t change a thing.”

     Mark said, “You know, John, I’ve been thinking. I agree that our primary threat is a truck being driven at high speed through the front door. I think while we’re waiting for Sami and Bryan to heal, I’m going to take some of that old pipe we have in the back of Bay 18 and use a cutting torch to cut it into sharp spikes. We’ve got two pallets of Sacrete instant concrete back there too. We can spend a couple of days burying the spikes into the ground out front. That should blow the tires of any truck coming up to our door and slowing it down.”

     “Great idea, Mark. I’ll pass the word and see how many volunteers I can find you.”

     Then he turned back to Karen.

     “See, if you hadn’t called us over about that truck, Mark never would have thought about the spikes. It’s working together through all of this that will enable us to survive this thing.”

     She smiled. “Yeah, yeah. If you say so…”

Chapter 49

     Back at the compound, Alvarez was in the feed barn. He’d been surveying his stock of cattle and chicken feed when he noticed something interesting.

     There were several sets of muddy footprints that went ha
lfway across the wooden floor and then disappeared completely. One floor panel was muddy, and the next panel was perfectly clean. And the footprints all pointed in one direction. There was no indication that anyone had turned around and left the barn again.

    
Alvarez wasn’t the smartest guy in the world, by any means. But he wasn’t an idiot either.

     And he remembered that it had rained two days before they attacked the compound.

     He went to the door of the barn and yelled for two of his men who were patrolling the yard.

     “Come here. I want to show you something.”

     He pointed to the muddy footprints and asked them, “What does that tell you?”

     His men weren’t rocket scientists either.

     “I don’t know. You want us to scrape the mud off the floor?”

     “No,
stupid. There’s a secret room or something under that floor.”

     “Oh.”

     Alvarez looked around and found a crowbar hanging on the wall along with some other tools.

     “You guys cover me.”

     He took the crowbar and pried up the floor panel just high enough to see the wooden steps beneath the floor. He could see more muddy footprints on the steps.

     He lowered the panel back into place and said, “So that’s where the bastards went.”

     He went back into the big house to formulate his attack plans. Once finished, he called everyone together, except for the four sentries.

     He told them about the false floor, and the staircase beneath it.

     “I don’t know if it’s a safe room, or a tunnel that leads somewhere else. It may be nothing. It may just be another escape route to the woods. Or it might lead us right to them.

     “Whatever it is, we’re going to find out, and we’re going to do it tonight. That’s when most of them will be sleeping. Six of you will come with me. The other six will stay her
e to keep an eye on things.

     “McMillan, Linkes, Harter… you guys are good fighters. You’re coming with me.
Jason, you and Tony and Johnson, you’re in too. We’ll hit them when they’re most likely to be sleeping. You guys go get some rest. Meet me back here at three a.m., and be loaded for bear. Anybody who’s late will have my bad side to deal with. And that’s something you don’t want to contemplate.”

    
Alvarez tried to get some sleep, so he’d be fresh for his night mission. He lay on Hannah and Mark’s bed for almost an hour, as things kept running through his mind. Finally, he turned on the computer on the desk next to the bed and restarted the video of Hannah playing with the dog. He thought it might relax him and help him fall asleep.

     Instead, it s
tirred something else inside him. The first time he’d watched the video a few nights before, his eyes were focused on the dog. This time, he noticed Hannah’s beauty. It reminded him that he hadn’t been with a woman in a very long time.

     And he found himself hoping that Hannah was one of the women who’d escaped the compound during the attack. He wanted to capture her alive and bring her back to be his personal concubine.

     At three thirty five, Sami called John on the radio.

     “Dad! Dad! Come in!”

     John reached over to the night table and picked up his radio, then turned down the volume.

     “Go ahead, baby. What’s up?”

     “Seven men have left the big house. They’re armed and heading toward the feed barn.”

     “I’m on my way. Hit the panic button now!”

     Mark, Brad and Bryan all heard the initial call and were already on their way.

     The panic button, which was in reality a fire alarm loud enough to wake the dead, woke everyone else up within seconds.

     Everyone knew what to do. They’d been drilled on it many times in previous days. All of the children and elderly adults were evacuated to a hidden part of the mine. Most of the women accompanied them. Sarah, Brad and Bryan took up positions behind a barricade at the main entrance of the mine, in case they were attacked from both positions at the same time.

     David, Mark, Jacob and Joe took up positions at the bunker overlooking t
he mine’s entrance to the tunnel.

     John and Sami manned the Security desk. John would coordinate operations. Sami would keep an eye on the monitors and keep everyone advised of what the enemy was doing.

     In the compound,
Alvarez was briefing his crew.

     “Okay, we’ll go quietly until we start acquiring our targets. They should be mostly asleep.”

     “Shoot all the men on sight. I don’t care if they’re old or not. Even old men can carry guns. Kill all the kids also. I’m not a damn babysitter.

     “The only ones I want to keep alive are the women. If you have to kill them, do it. But try to take them alive so we can look them over and pick the ones we want to keep.

     “McMillan, you take point. We’ll give you a couple of minutes. Then we’ll follow.”

     “What’s point?”

     “You go first. You’re our best shooter.”

     They pried up the false floor and McMillan looked down on the staircase.

     “What if I don’t want to go first? If I’m first in there, I may be the first one shot.”

    
Alvarez put his weapon to McMillan’s chin and growled, “And if you don’t follow orders I’ll shoot you myself.”

     “Okay, okay.”

     McMillan crawled under the raised floor panel and timidly crept down the stairs.

     The assault was beginning.

**********

Thank you for reading
Breakout.
It was a fun book to write. I hope it was equally fun to read. Here’s a preview of the next book in the series, called

FINAL DAWN BOOK 4:

THE SIE
GE

     John and Bryan made their way through the woods on the west side of the compound on a four wheel drive Gator. The Gator was essentially a two seater quad runner on steroids, with a tiny pickup bed in the back for hauling feed, seed, manure, or anything else a farmer might need to haul. It was made by the John Deere Company as an all-terrain utility vehicle for farmers and ranchers.

     And it worked equally well for two men who were determined to get back what was taken from them.

     Strapped to the bed of the Gator were two sixteen foot extension ladders. Collapsed, they were still eight feet in length, and hung over the tailgate a considerable distance. But tie down straps kept them from going anywhere, and they only scraped the ground a couple of times when the machine climbed up the steep grades of the arroyos.

     Both men had their radios
turned on and wore headsets, listening to Mark, who stood in the open doorway of the mine.

     Mark was blind to the goings on inside the compound. In fact, he couldn’t even see the compound from his position, but that was okay. His sole purpose on this mission
was to relay information from Hannah.

     Hannah’s radio wouldn’t penetrate the thick walls of the mine to the outside. But they would reach to the mine’s door, and Mark’s signal would reach to the west side of the compound.

     Hannah kept her eyes on the bank of monitors, and gave a report every thirty seconds. Sometimes more often, if there was any movement.

     “Okay
, two men still at the gate. One on the south side of the roof. One in the dining room, and the others are in their rooms.”

     Mark dutifully passed the information. “Two men at the gate.
One on the south side of the roof. One in the dining room, the rest in their rooms.”

     Thirty seconds passed.

     Hannah reported, “No change.”

     Mark relayed, “No change.”

     Finally, John and Bryan made it to their destination. Directly ahead of them, and about fifty yards away, was the west wall of the compound. They were still in heavy brush, and could just barely make out the wall, and only because the late afternoon sun was at their backs and shone its dying beams upon it.

     John turned the Gator completely around, so that it was pointing back toward the way they’d come. They’d need every second they could to make a fast getaway.

     “Okay, we’re in position.”

     “They’re in position, Hannah.”

     “Okay. No change. Still two on the gate, one on the south side of the roof, one in the dining room, the others in their rooms.”

     Mark relayed the information, then added, “It’s a go whenever you’re ready.”

     John and Bryan waited another five minutes, until they were sure they’d have the setting sun at their backs.

     Then they carried the extension ladders across the clearing to the face of the wall,
extended them, and leaned them against the wall four feet apart.

     They climbed up the
ladders until they could peek over the wall. They knew the sun directly behind them would hide them from anyone looking their way. However, they thought it prudent to maintain a low profile anyway.

 
   From their position, they had an unobstructed view of the two guards a hundred and twenty yards away, on the opposite end of the compound.

    
They took their AR-15 rifles and propped them upon the rungs of their ladders to steady them. Then they sighted in their targets.

     “I’ve got the one on the left.”

     “Okay, I’ve got the right.”

     “Let me know when you’re ready.”

     “I’m ready.”

     “Okay, three… two… one… fire.”

     Both rifle shots went off simultaneously. Both of their targets fell to the ground.