Defiance: A House Divided (The Defending Home Series Book 2) (2 page)

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C
olton and Dannyboy reached the top riser carrying two buckets of ammo apiece. They lowered the heavy containers onto the hardwood floor with a deep thud and a soft metallic jingle. While Walter had been the one to provide the vast majority of the rounds in their arsenal, none of them had taken the time to sort them by caliber. What had seemed little more than a nuisance was fast becoming a major problem.

No sooner had they set the buckets down than another volley of rounds fired from the cartel outside exploded through the walls, filling the air with bits of plaster and wood. Zach waved them forward.

“In here,” he yelled. “And for God’s sake keep your heads down or you’re gonna lose ’em.”

They took a deep breath and did as they were told. To their right was Dale’s bedroom where Shane was crouched behind a row of sandbags, firing out the window. Brooke and Walter were positioned to the rear and side approaches respectively. Colton and Dannyboy were currently on ammo duty and acting as floaters, ready to jump in if someone was wounded or, worse, killed. Meanwhile Ann and Nicole were tasked with sorting rounds and replenishing spent magazines.

Zach handed Colton his AR and watched with pride as his son replaced him at the front window. The volume of fire coming at them from outside ebbed and flowed. Already Zach had two confirmed kills under his belt. And much of that had to do with the cartel’s full-frontal assault, an insane strategy and one they had repulsed with relative ease. The barbed-wire fence and booby traps were also playing their part, helping to funnel the attackers into predesignated kill zones. At least, that was what the old geezer kept shouting whenever one of Ortega’s men stumbled into a pitfall or one of those Apache foot traps. The sight would make Walter holler with joy, press his eye to the scope of his rifle and fire three rounds in quick succession.

“What’d I tell you?”

“Good shooting, old man,” Zach told him. “But this ain’t Korea, you know.”

The wide grin on Walter’s face said otherwise.

Now, with Colton and Dannyboy taking over, the change gave Zach a chance to check on the others. He went from room to room, ensuring everyone had enough ammo. He was heading toward Dale’s room when Shane called out between three-round bursts. “I got a group heading around back,” he shouted. “Five, maybe more. They’re behind the underbrush and I couldn’t get a clear shot.”

Zach got on the walkie. “Dale, you’re about to have some company on your left flank. Keep an eye on your ten o’clock.”

Dale’s staticky response came back a moment later. “Roger that.”

Geez,
Zach thought.
We’re even starting to sound like army grunts.

Still angling for a shot from the window, Shane was muttering. “If Dale had only listened to me, none of this would have happened.”

“That may be so,” Zach shot back. “But you don’t negotiate with corrupt politicians. Stick your hand out and they’re just as likely to bite it off. Believe me, I know.”

Shane fired off two rounds before his AR clicked empty.

“Throw me a mag, will ya?”

Zach reached down, grabbed a full magazine and tossed it to him. A salvo of rounds thudded into the house, blasting out puffs of drywall. Through it all, Zach stood his ground, his eyes locked on Shane. He didn’t like the guy. Didn’t mean he wanted him dead or anything. Shane had just never passed the sniff test.

Crouched behind the sandbags, Shane stared back at him wide-eyed. “You sure have a death wish.”

Zach grinned, crinkling the red rings around his eyes, remnants of surviving a bout of the H3N3. “I’ve been dead once already,” he told Dale’s brother. “Believe me, it’s overrated.”

The next flurry of bullets to impact the house was quickly followed by panicked shouts from the main defensive position, the one where Colton, Dannyboy and Walter were stationed.

“Bring the first-aid kit quick,” a voice yelled over the din. “Someone’s been hit.”

Dale

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D
ale spotted movement out among the sagebrush and juniper trees, fleeting glimpses of men as they ran through the undergrowth, and his body tensed. He had no reason to believe they’d made his position. And he could practically hear the soft quality of Walter’s voice ringing in his head, laying out the enemy’s strategy. Ortega was sending men around back looking for a point of weakness, a loose window board or a blind spot in the house’s defenses. Something they could exploit in order to kill everyone inside.

He was sure Shane chalked up their current situation to Dale’s refusal to share with his neighbors. It was an easy argument to make, especially when his younger brother seemed convinced all they needed to do was hand over a portion of their water and the bad guys would leave them alone. Perhaps that might have worked in the old days when the government, imperfect as it was, had at least been beholden to some form of public pressure and humiliation. But in this new world, devoid of newspapers, where public perception was almost entirely shaped by whether someone had access to a hot meal and something to wash it down with, things were far different.

Dale peered through the scope of his rifle, doing his best to follow the men as they hurried from right to left. Not only that, but the rules themselves had changed. More likely than not, the country had shrunk down into dozens of local, self-governing districts, like the fragmented state Italy had found itself in during the Renaissance. Without the shadow of some kind of centralized umbrella, each of these new independent districts would only be as safe or as productive as the local leaders could manage. A valley with wise and fair leadership might lie less than a handful of miles from a community run by a petty tyrant, eager to expand his sphere of influence at any cost. Unfortunately, Encendido had fallen under the latter, but Dale knew that given enough time and resources, even dictators could be overthrown.

“Are you gonna pull the trigger or not?” Sandy asked, a nervous furrow in her brow.

“Waiting for a clean shot,” he told her. The men had stopped running and were hiding somewhere behind the chicken coop, among the trees and bushes, watching the house. One of them was ordered forward with a shout and soon emerged into the open. Dale settled the crosshairs over the man’s chest and squeezed the trigger.

The rifle kicked back into his shoulder with a loud crack. The target’s legs gave out and he collapsed into a dusty patch of earth. The others behind him began firing wildly, mostly at the house. While he didn’t like putting those inside at risk, it was fine by Dale if these yahoos wanted to waste their ammo.

When the wild firing finally stopped, a handful of the cartel men behind the chicken coop fanned out and began to approach. Without a doubt there were more behind them, ready to spot the source of incoming rounds. Dale would have to be careful. Concealing muzzle flash was a lesson Walter hadn’t taught him yet.

When they drew even with the pumphouse, Dale knew he had to act. A few of them were wearing bulletproof vests, but even that wouldn’t do much to stop a 30-06 round from his Remington 700. A thug with a red bandana peered around the back corner of the pumphouse and Dale aimed the crosshairs for the center of his forehead. Dale steadied his breathing and squeezed the trigger. Another loud boom came as the man’s head snapped back in a red mist.

The cartel members were firing again, but this time nearly all of it was aimed at the barn.

“They’re onto us,” Sandy said, her voice tight.

Duke let out a low growl.

“Easy, boy,” Dale said, working the bolt and firing again at a man who was darting through the open. This time the shot went wide, kicking up a puff of powdery dust. He chambered another, fired and it also went wide. These guys were moving too fast.

Sandy opened up with her pistol, letting off a handful of rounds. Then shots from the treeline thudded into the sandbags, forcing both of them to stay low.

“If they keep us pinned down, we’re as good as dead,” Dale told her.

Sandy looked worried and headed over to the ladder and the hole in the floor.

Dale got on the walkie. “Zach, we got multiple bogeys around the barn. We could use some support back here.”

He waited for a reply, each second feeling like an hour as bullets whizzed over his head. Dale popped up with the Remington, trying to acquire a target. To the right of the chicken coop, lying prone behind a piñon tree, was the exposed left thigh of a cartel member. If he could hit the target, the shot might not kill the man, but it would at least take him out of the fight. Dale squeezed the trigger and watched the man’s jeans ripple, followed by a bellow of pain. From here, it looked like the round had snapped his femur in two.

Behind him, he heard Sandy lay off a half-dozen rounds with her 9mm. She was shooting down through the hole. The cartel members below returned fire, sending bullets bursting through the floorboards, tossing splinters into the air. Sandy shrieked with pain and rolled out of the way. The blood in Dale’s veins froze with terror. He grabbed his shotgun and rushed over to where Sandy had been standing. The cartel men below must have thought she was alone, because one of them was scaling the ladder. Dale aimed the barrel at his face and fired. The weapon let out a deafening roar as the thug was thrown to the ground in a heap. Racking the shotgun again, he let off three more shots, firing through the floor, trying to wound or kill anyone standing beneath him.

Quickly, he then made his way to Sandy. Her face was cut from the flying bits of sharpened wood.

“Are you hit?” he asked, checking her for an entry wound.

“I don’t think so,” she replied, her cloudy eyes looking over his shoulder. Suddenly, she raised her pistol and it clicked empty. Another cartel member had just cleared the second floor and was shifting to raise the pistol in his free hand.

Dale struggled to swing the heavy shotgun around in time. The look of bloodlust in the man’s eyes was clear. He was muscular with a scar on his neck. Dale had killed his friends and now this monster was about to return the favor.

Dale managed to rack the shotgun right as Duke pounced, clamping his powerful jaws around the thug’s wrist, shaking his head violently. The man let out a yelp of agony as he let go of the ladder. Duke lurched forward, struggling to hold onto the weight of the man’s falling body, but it was a tug of war the eighty-five-pound dog was bound to lose. If Duke didn’t release him, Duke would fall too and be at the mercy of any of the others still down there. Duke’s paws were close to the edge, his body drawn back, the muscles in his haunches and neck bunched up like tight cords.

“Release,” Dale shouted and the dog complied, licking his lips as the man fell. Shots from downstairs followed the man’s hard landing, barely missing Duke. The dog recoiled, looking left and right, unsure what was happening.

“Heel,” Dale ordered. That was when he heard the walkie come to life and the sound of fire coming from the house.

Dale went to the sandbags and saw Colton and Dannyboy opening up from the back window on the men in the barn and others scattered around the rear of the property. Zach’s silhouette was between them, surveying the situation and pointing out targets.

“Keep running, you bastards!” Zach shouted over the walkie.

“Appreciate the help,” Dale replied. “Things were a little touch-and-go here for a while. Everyone inside safe?”

There was a delay in Zach’s response and it drew shivers up Dale’s spine. “Zach, is anyone hurt?”

“We’ve all taken a hit in one way or another,” he replied. “Some worse than others.”

Dale swallowed. “Was anyone...” His voice trailed off.

Zach started to respond, but was cut off by a thundering boom.

“The hell was that?” Dale said.

No response.

“Zach, what’s going on over there?” The panic ran through Dale’s body like a virus.

He glared at the walkie, willing it to deliver an explanation. The only response came across the yard from the house itself in the form of muffled automatic gunfire. It sounded as though a gun battle was going on within the house. Then came that sickening feeling as Dale understood. The cartel had found a way inside.

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“W
e have to go and now,” Dale told Sandy, who was sitting on the floor, pistol in hand, keeping an eye on the loft opening.

“Whatever that was, it sounded like a bomb went off,” she said, rising quickly to her feet.

“They’ve breached the lower level,” he told her, leaving the Remington resting against the row of sandbags. “There’s no time to lose.”

But even in his frantic state, Dale knew well enough not to go charging into danger. Just because Colton and Dannyboy had scattered Ortega’s men in the back of the house didn’t mean that the bad guys had gone very far.

“I’ll head down first,” he told her, “and let you know if it’s clear.”

Shouldering his Mossberg, Dale drew his Ruger .45 and quickly descended the ladder, swiveling as soon as he could, to check for threats. He reached the bottom and scanned any hiding places inside the barn, searching behind piles of plywood, spools of chicken wire and barbed wire and a host of useless junk he’d been meaning to get rid of for years.

Satisfied the barn was clear, Dale went back and got Duke, Sandy not far behind.

They exited the barn, Dale and Sandy holding their pistols in the ready position. The sharp report of automatic fire ringing through the open second-story windows made it clear the gun battle going on inside was a fierce one.

Additional shots rang out, but these sounded different. He and Sandy were on the right of the house when bullets thudded into the wood siding. They spun at the same time, each aiming their weapon. Two cartel members had come from behind the barn. One had a rifle, the other a pistol, his right arm mangled and dangling by his side. He must have been the one Duke had bitten on the ladder.

Dale rolled left and opened fire. Sandy dropped to one knee and did the same. Woodchips exploded from the front of the barn as shots failed to hit their mark. Dale emptied his magazines as the cartel members fired back.