Eden's Hammer (14 page)

Seeing the two nod, Matt pushed the igniter button. The cannon instantly roared, shaking the ground under their feet. A huge jet of orange-red flame gouted from the barrel. Blue smoke filled the air downrange, blocking their view of the plywood. The cannon rocked back against its restraints, but remained anchored. Matt did a little jig while smiling from ear to ear. “Wasn’t that beautiful? Huh? Wasn’t that just gorgeous?”

Adrian, a bit surprised by the violence of the cannon blast, was smiling along with Matt. Linda had a stunned look on her face. The reality of what lay ahead had just become much clearer to her.

Matt didn’t wait for the smoke to clear. He took off downrange to look at the plywood panels he’d set up. Linda followed him, suddenly curious and excited. Adrian quickly followed. The damage to the plywood was unbelievable. The chain sections had ripped right through the panels. The holes were the length of the chain sections. Some were horizontal, some were vertical, and most were on an angle. The spread of the chains was forty feet. There were a few gaps between the chain strikes, but overall, if men had been standing shoulder to shoulder across that forty-foot spread, only three or four might have survived.

“Hot damn!” Matt yelled. “Hot damn! That’s serious damage!” Matt almost never cursed; he was pumping with adrenaline and excitement. Linda was astonished at what she saw. Adrian was smiling now from ear to ear. “This is good stuff, Matt!”

Matt said, “I’m off to the shop to make as many of these as I can. See you kids later!” Matt turned and literally jogged back toward his shop.

Lind turned from the plywood and looked at Adrian. She was imagining the damage this would do to humans. “Damn. I don’t know what to say. This is…this is just...I don’t have words for it. I’ll bring the women out here and show this to them right away. It will be one hell of a morale boost for them. I’ll catch up with you later.” Linda took off at a fast walk back toward the village.

Adrian stood there for a long time, looking at the shredded plywood. He was beyond pleased with the cannon’s effectiveness. For the first time, he began to think that the women had more than just a good chance at defending the village. They had an excellent chance if they could get enough cannons set up in the right places and used them at the right time.

March 23, midafternoon

Linda and Clif watched the two scouts that were half a mile in front of the raiders as they came directly toward them. The scouts were walking along bored and half alert, not aware that they were moving directly toward two of their enemies. Clif whispered, “If you still want to take them prisoner, they’ll be here in about three minutes. We’ll have to take them silently, tie their hands, gag and blindfold them, and get the hell out of here. It’s that or kill them. I think we’ll have about two to three hours before they’re missed. Hopefully they’ll be thought to have deserted, but we can’t count on that. That means we’ll have to move fast and not stop for anything until we’re all the way back to the fort.” This was a huge speech for Clif, but he liked Linda and she needed to be instructed.

Linda whispered back, “We’ll take them prisoner; they may have information we can use. I’ll follow your lead on how to make the capture since you’ve done it before and I haven’t.”

Clif replied, “It’s simple enough. When they are right on top of us, we stand up with our weapons cocked and ready. They’ll have three choices: fight, surrender, or run. They’ll know that if they fight, we have them cold and they’ll die, and if they run, they’ll get shot in the back before they can move two steps. The danger is that they’ll react without thinking. So we stand up casually and talk casually, kind of throwing their reaction time off kilter while they try to figure out just what’s happening. Worst case is they go for it, we cut them down, and we don’t get two prisoners. Don’t look at their eyes; watch their hands. Their eyes can’t shoot you—their hands are the thing to watch. But they’ll surrender, all right; we just have to make sure they do it quietly. Here they come—be ready.”

Linda felt her heart pounding in her chest; she was tense all over. She controlled her breathing as she watched the pair of armed men coming closer. Finally, they were almost on top of her. Clif squeezed her arm and whispered, “Now!” and they stood up at the same time with their rifles pointed at the two men, who were now only six feet away. Linda’s finger was on the trigger and she was hyper-alert to their hands, as Clif had warned her to be. The two men’s eyes went wide and they started to bring their rifles to bear in a reflex motion, but froze as Clif said in a calm, matter of fact tone, “Gentlemen, you’re captured or you’re dead—your choice. If you make one tiny little sound, you’re dead. If you twitch, you’re dead.

“I want you to know we treat prisoners decently and eventually let them go. Now, slowly bend down and place your rifles on the ground, and then slowly step over your rifles, with your hands up high.” There was a moment’s pause, and then Clif said, “Now. Slowly bend down and let go of the rifles.” The two men paused for only a millisecond, and then one began bending down. As soon as he did, his partner followed suit. When they stood back up, their eyes shifted from Clif to Linda and back again. Linda eased her finger’s pressure on the trigger a tiny fraction, but she was still tense and ready to fire.

After the two men had stepped over their rifles with their hands up, Clif patted them down and removed their side arms and knives. Clif was careful not to get between Linda’s line of fire and the two men. He had them remove their shirts and quickly tore them into strips. He used the strips to bind their hands behind their backs and gag them. He made blindfolds with small slits in them and placed them over their eyes, tying them off behind their heads. “I want you men to be able to see enough to see where you’re walking. Can you see?” he asked. One nodded and one shook his head no. Clif adjusted his blindfold until he could see to walk.

Clif whispered in Linda’s ear, “The blindfolds are psychological. With limited vision, they are less likely to try to take off running to escape, but if they can’t see at all, they’ll be a constant nuisance, and we have to move fast.” Linda nodded to show that she understood.

Clif then took a piece of parachute chord from his pack and tied a piece of rope from one man’s waist to the other man’s waist, leaving a long lead from the forward man. This was self-evident as a further means of discouraging escape attempts. The men knew they wouldn’t be able to run without getting tangled in brush. Clif said, “Okay, boys, here’s the drill: we’re taking you to our base. I’ll be in front leading you by the rope with you two following me single file. My partner will be behind you. Try anything at all, and she’ll stick a knife up your ass so deep it’ll cut your tonsils. Make too much noise, and you’ll know you made too much noise when you feel the knife. There won’t be any warning; we can travel faster with just one of you, anyway.”

Clif picked up the men’s weapons, the handguns and knives going into his pack and the rifles slung over his shoulder. He policed the area to make sure they had left no clues behind. The ground was hard and dry; no tracks were going to be found. Grabbing the lead end of the rope, he started off at a slow pace to give them time to adjust to walking with their new restrictions, but soon picked up the pace to a fast walk, double timing when conditions warranted it. Linda brought up the rear, her knife in hand and ready to kill quickly if need be.

They traveled the rest of the day and all that night. It was a hard, grueling walk, but stopping was out of the question. The bandits were approaching the point where Adrian would attack them, and there was no time to lose. Walking cross-country at night was difficult and slow, as there was only enough ambient light to make out shadowy shapes. The prisoners stumbled often, but they were exhausted and had shown no inclination of attempting escape. Linda and Clif exchanged places periodically, as each position had its difficulties. It helped a little.

They arrived at Fort Brazos just after dawn, exhausted, filthy, and triumphant. Bringing in prisoners had been a goal since the first scouts had gone out. These were the first ones captured, and they had been brought in undamaged. Linda was hoping that one of them held some key piece of information that Adrian would find useful. She was amazed at herself for being so eager to earn his praise, praise that she thought he had been piling on her only to keep her spirits up, not because she had earned it. Well, she had damned well earned some for these two prisoners. It made her feel good to know that she had earned this.

CHAPTER 14

March 23, evening

R
ex was furious. They’d missed
Adrian several days before. He was sure it was Adrian; the probing of the line had been coldly calculated and carried out professionally. Rex thought,
that had to be Adrian. I lost seven men—seven! All in five minutes, and not one sighting of the attackers. Bastards killed four men and ran like hell, and three more were picked off by the sniper to keep pursuit at bay. Classic, professional, perfectly executed. That was Adrian, no doubt about it. Bastard!

Frank walked up and reported, “Two scouts missing, probably deserted. We didn’t hear any shooting, no signs of bodies or even a blood trail. Probably just lit out.”

Rex yelled at Frank, “YOU IDIOT! Do you really think they deserted? Where to? Why? They’ve been captured, and by now they’re halfway back to Fort Brazos. They’ll tell everything they know, which, I’ll grant you, isn’t much, but every little bit hurts us. Damn them for being stupid. If they come back, bring them to me, but I’m not holding my breath.”

Rex turned in fury and stormed back to his tent, thinking,
if Adrian didn’t know it was me coming before, he’ll know tomorrow. That rat-fucking bastard won’t show up out here again, not without all his men. The easy capture is out, now it’s going to be me and him at some point. He’d better not get himself killed before I can get him, damn it!

Frank said from outside the tent, “Permission to enter, sir?”

“Drag your sorry ass in here.”

“Orders for tomorrow, sir?” Frank asked after ducking through the tent entry.

“Move out as usual, but double the forward scouts. They definitely know we’re coming at them. If they have enough men, they’ll hit us before we get there. Tell the men to expect ambushes, and not to try to encircle them anymore. Any useful information we would get now isn’t worth the trouble—we know as much as we need to. Fire back to kill any ambushers, take no prisoners. Is that clear?”

“Yes sir, clear as can be. I’ll pass the orders on.” Frank left the tent quickly. He could see that Rex was furious, and being near a furious Rex was like hearing ice cracking under your feet.

CHAPTER 15

March 25, early morning

A
drian was alerted to the
incoming scouts and prisoners by a runner. “They’ll be here in twenty minutes, General.”

“Thank you. You’re Lindsey, aren’t you?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good work. I’ve heard good reports on you. I understand that you are one of the fastest and quietest runners we have, and better yet, your accuracy in relaying messages is top notch. We’ll be relying on you heavily when the fighting starts. I want you to know I appreciate what you are doing and how critically important your role is to our success.”

Lindsey’s chest swelled with pride as she said, “Thank you, sir! Any more messages for me to relay?”

Adrian smiled a little and said, “Not now, carry on.”

Lindsey saluted, did a perfect about-face, and took off running, her feet flying over the broken ground.

When Clif and Linda arrived with the two prisoners, Adrian had the two men separated and taken to different rooms in the house. He posted a guard on each man and had their blindfolds replaced with new ones that had no slits. He cautioned the guards to not talk to the prisoner in their charge. Once this was done, he turned to Linda and said, “Report.”

Linda reported on their scouting trip and the position of the raiders. “Not much has changed, other than that they are getting close to the battlefield. They should be there in about two days, three at most.”

Adrian said, “Tell me about the prisoners.”

Linda replied, “We could see them coming from a mile off, and they were moving in a straight line. I thought maybe if we intercepted them, we could bring them back and see if they had any valuable information. Will you torture them? Not that I mind—just curious.”

Clif smiled at the question as Adrian responded, “Torture works, but it can take a long time. With two of them, I’ll play them against each other and not only get better information faster, but I’ll also get corroboration, as well. Unless I miss my guess, by tonight I’ll know everything they know and have it verified. They’re in for a long day, but not much else. At least for now.”

Linda asked, “What do you mean when you say ‘at least for now?’”

Adrian looked her straight in the eye and replied, “It means that when I have all they have to offer, they’ll be killed. They won’t know that, of course. When they are killed, they won’t know it or feel it.”

Seeing the tightening of Linda’s jaw, Adrian said, “It’s harsh, but the reality is that prisoners will weaken us. It takes manpower to take care of them, to guard them. Even then, let’s say we do keep them as prisoners: for how long? What do we do with them, turn them loose? Men who live by killing women and children? Men who rape? Should we turn them loose to continue doing that? Turn them loose on unsuspecting and innocent people? I’ll tell you what, if you can come up with a better plan by morning, I’ll damn sure listen to it.” Adrian truly hated to kill prisoners, yet he knew it was the only valid choice. The fact that it had to be done didn’t make him like it any better. Instead, it created internal conflicts that he knew he could never resolve. That is what made him jump on Linda the way he did. If she could conceive a better method of dealing with prisoners, he truly was ready to listen.