Options Are Good (16 page)

There were no light beams behind him this time when Bandy drove away using the night vision technology. And it was over an hour later, with Bandy already in his sleeping bag, when Colin’s voice broke the squelch on Bandy’s handheld radio.

His voice was a bit more controlled, but he again ranted and raved, demanding to know where his three men were. Bandy had to smile. Apparently the two had approached at least one other of those out on guard duty and convinced him to leave the area with them.

Again Bandy held his peace. Colin, after waiting almost ten minutes for Bandy to respond lost it again and was screaming his threats to Bandy and everyone else.

With his truck alarms set, and the perimeter alarms around his little camp, Bandy slept soundly for a few hours, but was awake in plenty of time to get to a good spot to watch the road leading from the farm the Militia had used.

Sure enough, about ten o’clock in the morning, five vehicles left the farm and turned onto the county line highway, headed further from town. His truck hidden, as always, Bandy watched through his powerful binoculars as the five pickups all came to a halt when one of the drivers radioed that his vehicle was out of gasoline.

Bandy had the VR-1 with him, and probably could have taken Colin out when Colin ran up to one of the trucks and began to rail at the man through the open window of the truck.

He couldn’t hear what was being said, but he did hear the shots from Colin’s gun when Colin emptied his pistol magazine through the sheet metal of the door. It caught Bandy by surprise, with Colin’s men even more surprised.

There were a lot of looks exchanged, but everyone that was outside their vehicle got back in. The four trucks took off. Bandy continued to watch both the shot up truck, and the road into the farm, just in case Colin had left someone behind in ambush.

A few minutes after the other trucks had left; Bandy watched as one man struggled out of the passenger side of the truck, came around the front of it and collapsed onto the road, falling onto one side. Bandy could see the blood on his clothes.

Bandy felt sick, but maintained position. And was glad he had when two men cautiously made their way out of the brush by the junction of the highway and the road into the farm. Both walked over to the truck, looked around for a few minutes, and then obviously got into an argument.

Hearing the shouting, but not able to understand the words, Bandy was not too surprised when both men tried to pull handguns. One was much faster than the other and had fired before the other man’s gun cleared his holster.  Stepping up to the man, as he still struggled to get his gun out, the man still on his feet shot the downed man in the forehead.

Looking around often, the remaining live man began to strip the dead men and the truck of useful items. He did not get much, from what Bandy could see. But when he was finished looking, the man, with one last look down the highway in the direction the other trucks had taken, turned around and took off in a slow trot the other way.

If Bandy had his numbers right, Colin was down to himself and either nine, or at most, eleven other men. Deciding to leave the truck where it was, Bandy slung the VR-1 and made his cautious way down to the highway, staying well away from the gory site in and around the truck. He walked along the edge of the road in toward the farm, his pistol in hand.

The VR-1 was a long range rifle and heavy. Bandy preferred to have the pistol ready for anything up close than try to handle the rifle in point blank shooting.

But neither gun was needed. Bandy breathed a sigh of relief after he had checked the farmhouse out thoroughly. There were no signs that any of the rounds he’d fired into the house had hit anyone.

Heading back to the truck, Bandy hurried. He intended to follow Colin’s short convoy and find out where he was going to hole up next. But one of the typical Oklahoma weather patterns interfered with his plans. The sudden darkness of thick, greenish clouds had Bandy headed for the nearest place he knew he could shelter from any tornado the super cell might drop.

He was glad he did, when he stopped at the high school on the edge of town and parked the truck in the corner formed by two of the masonry walls of the school.

Bandy got ready to dive into the storm shelter the school had put in shortly after the last tornado had torn through, killing three people and barely missing the school building. He stopped at the door and watched the approaching storm. The overhang of the building protected him from the heavy hail and rain.

Then he heard the sound he’d heard twice before, and didn’t wait any longer. He went into the shelter and dogged the door closed, not waiting to try and see the tornado he was sure was close.

It was not long and it was over. Bandy went outside and checked on the truck. It had shifted a couple of inches, with the front bumper now touching one of the school walls. But it was intact. Walking out where he could see all around, Bandy checked the sky. The storm was disappearing quickly.

It took only a moment of internal debate for Bandy to decide to stay where he was. He’d find Colin again, later. Assuming he hadn’t been killed by the tornado. It had come from the direction Colin was headed.

Bandy also decided to break radio silence. He spoke only a few words, and did not respond to Ana-Bella’s immediate response. But he had let everyone know that he was alright and Colin was still on the loose.

After moving a few things into the shelter, throwing a camouflage cover over the truck right where it was, and setting the alarms, Bandy stayed in the school storm shelter for two days as more storms passed through. He didn’t see or hear any more tornadoes, but did see and hear enough lightning and thunder to last him for a while.

In the early morning of the third day Bandy packed up and headed down the highway, intent on finding Colin’s newest hideout. He’d barely gone a mile when the scanner broke squelch.

The reception wasn’t very good. Bandy only heard a snippet here and there, but it was enough to learn that someone had hit a farm just over the county line, outside the next town over.

Bandy gunned the engine and kept going at high speed. He was careful, but the miles passed quickly, as did the time. When he got closer he was able to hear more of the radio discussion by the group that was trying to get to the farm. But they were blocked by some of the tornado damage from the previous days.

Bandy was on the right side of the damage to be able to get to the farm. And he did. But he didn’t go in driving the truck, guns blazing, the way he wanted to. Instead, as always, he cached the truck, prepared himself and headed the rest of the way to the farm.

He nearly lost his breakfast when he saw the carnage in the yard. Two of Colin’s men, cloths around their mouth and nose, were in the process of moving five bodies from where they had been killed. By the looks of it three of them had been lined up and shot from behind.

It made Bandy ill to see that the three that had been shot were just children. But the reason he nearly threw up, and the men were wearing the cloths on their faces, was the fact that the two adults had been hacked and slashed with a machete, which was on the ground by the dead children. Bandy prayed that the two had been dead when they’d been butchered.

Grim, his jaw set, Bandy swung the PTR-91 around from its slung position and stepped out from behind a tree on the edge of the property. He whistled softly.

Both men let go of the body they were moving, and spun around, their hands going to their own slung rifles. Bandy waited what seemed an eternity, but one of them finally got his gun up and pulled the trigger. It was a wild shot, as Bandy was expecting.

Bandy’s two shots weren’t. He shot the first man in the chest, and as that man fell and the other man triggered a burst that went into the ground at his own feet, Bandy shot him. Another heart shot.

Finally moving, quickly, Bandy headed for a secure spot as men began to storm out of the house. But Bandy was already down and ready with the rifle bipod flipped down.

The men began to scatter when Bandy opened up, dropping three more before accurate full auto fire from inside the house came his way. Bandy would not risk a wound at this point and wiggled backwards, dragging the PTR-91 with him. When the firing stopped Bandy got up and began to run. Away from the driveway of the farm.

It took him three hours to get back to his truck. Twice, early on, magazine full long bursts nearly got him as someone chased after him. He was more intent in getting away to fight another day than take on someone that, despite poor fire control, was good enough to get that close to him.

It was the matter of only moments to turn off the defensive systems of the truck, get in, and be gone when he reached it. Bandy stopped after some distance and checked his topo map for a good hiding and camping spot.

But as he headed to what was going to be a marginal location, but the best one close enough to keep an eye on the highway, Bandy spotted a heavily damaged house about a half a mile north of the road. On a hunch, just from the looks of the tornado devastated home, Bandy turned onto the gravel road and headed for it.

He smiled when he got there and investigated the damage. It was a terrible shame that the house was destroyed, but it would work just fine for his current purposes.

The two car garage faced away from the highway, and was only partially destroyed. After checking to see if the thing would stand up, Bandy worked for an hour, but was confident enough of the place to back the pickup inside.

The glass patio doors were shattered, but like the garage, two walls of the family room were still intact, with the roof angled down to the ground on the other side. Bandy again checked for the safety of the place, and for a safe way out the other side. When he was satisfied he could safely set up camp in the partial room, and had two ways in and out, he began to clean things up a little.

By dark, Breathing a bit easier, the shock of the morning encounter behind him, Bandy turned in for a full night’s sleep, comfortable that the sensors he’d set out would warn him of any approach.

Bandy stayed where he was the next day, monitoring the radio. There were repeated calls from Ana-Bella, which Colin seemed delighted to answer with all sorts of dire threats toward her, what he’d already done to Bandy, and what he would do to Ana-Bella’s family and the Longhammer’s.

But it didn’t take long for Ana-Bella to figure out that Colin was lying about Bandy, as Colin began to tell her what he was going to do to Bandy again. When Ana-Bella challenged Colin on it, Colin went ballistic, yet again, screaming curses for a good fifteen minutes before the rant stopped.

From the way the signal faded and then suddenly stopped, Bandy was sure the battery went dead, rather than Colin running out of steam.

But he’d talked plenty long enough for Bandy to triangulate his location once more. Colin had moved, but not far. According to the topo map, there was another farm about a mile away, down the same road that served the first one.

There had been nothing from the people that had been trying to get to the farm from the other town, and Bandy decided not to break radio silence to give them the bad news.

Ana-Bella, with the base antennas at the Sheridan Ranch, had been able to hear them, and had warned them about Colin. So, Bandy supposed, they were keeping a low profile.

Bandy began to think about another attack. He’d eliminated at least four more of Colin’s men. That meant only three to six more. But of the ones left, at least one was very good, and the other probably the best of the original bunch when it came to creating mayhem. So Bandy waited another day, watching the junction of the county road and the highway.

He was caught by surprise when Colin’s four trucks came barreling down the gravel and made sliding turns onto the highway. He heard the rifle fire then. One truck swerved out of control and flipped twice. The driver’s door flew open and the driver went flying. Bandy saw him hit the pavement, his head splitting wide open on contact.

And then Bandy heard the radio break squelch again. “We got them on the run! I’m going after them!”

“Negative! Negative! RTB! RTB! It is too dangerous. Let them over there take care of them. They came from that county, anyway.”