Payload (24 page)

“JD, pull over.” Marv looked at the map. “It would mean doubling back, but we’ve never done that, so it’s time we did. They know we know they’re on our trail-we don’t want to make it seem too easy.” He tapped the paper, thinking hard. “Anybody draw, paint, that sort of thing?”

“I can some,” Chip shrugged.

“Work up a logo for us, something simple you can paint on a wall like graffiti. Make sure its unmistakable.” He turned to Bear. “How many guys are we talking about?”

“A dozen or so.”

“Great, outnumbered, and we’re virgins on non-infected.” The Ranger scowled at the map. “Still, we can do it. Addison, where are you on bomb-making?”

“Five.”

“You have any moral compunctions about blowing up gang members?”

“No.”

“Dyson, how about you?”

The Georgian hesitated. “Look…what are you doing?”

“We hit a relay point, and I bet they know that-we used both the Net and the TV there and at the gravel pit, and they picked us up right away. We used the TV again an hour ago. I want FASA to think we hit this place to resupply, and that we’re having problems.”

“What kind of problems?”

“I don’t know-I’m working on it. I want them to keep thinking they’re on the verge of catching us, and I want to make this personal for the guys following us.”

“And?” JD prompted.

“And then we ambush ‘em.” Marv’s eyes were hard. “Guys running a dummy payload wouldn’t turn on their pursuers, but a team with a high-stakes mission would.”

“OK, Google Earth is out of date, but the structure will be the same,” Dyson pointed at the TV screen. “We’ve got an intersection of a county road and a two-lane state highway, Arkansas Sixty-Three. The highway, as you see, is north-south, while the gravel county road is east-west. At the northeast corner is an old building, looks like it was a gas station, one of those cinderblock ones they built before World War Two. Gravel lot, no pumps, long defunct. Southeast corner is the roadhouse. Southwest corner is about four acres of field. Everything else is trees, mixed oak and hickory.”

“The roadhouse is pretty standard: one story clapboard, set well back from the road with a big parking lot, a double-wide trailer east of it. We’ll be approaching from the east.”

“Actually, Gnomehome is going to stop two miles short,” Marv said. “I’m going to circle around and come up from the south with whomever wants to volunteer. And before anyone volunteers keep in mind that these are uninfected people-pulling a trigger on them will be an entirely different proposition than facing the infected.”

“There is supposed to be a dozen of them,” Bear reminded him. “You really gonna go up against that many?”

“Not all at once. They’ll be spread out, and however badass these chumps are in the hood, this is the boonies, and I bet they’ve got a real good opinion of themselves,” Marv grinned. “This is what I do. This is my gig. A couple guys to watch my flanks and somebody with a medic bag,” he shot a glance at Chip. “And we’re in business.”

“I go,” Brick slapped his AK. “Polish Army.” He pulled out the tool kit he had liberated at the relay point and started rummaging through it.

“I’m in,” Dyson sighed.

“I read half of one manual and did two sections of the interactive course, dude,” Chip shook his head.

“You got a merit badge, right?” the Ranger grinned. “Addison, we’ll need your bombs.”

“I make these,” Brick produced three nylon tubes.

“A sap,” Marv weighed it in his hand. “Good ones.”

“What’s a sap, besides me?” Chip asked.

“In this case, a nylon tube with a steel spring and…ball bearings? Yeah, you use this baby right and its lights out.”

“OK, lets get cammied up, tape up anything reflective, and leave anything that jingles. Where did we put those flex-cuffs we took off the girl at the RV park? JD, how much longer?”

“Ten minutes.”

“OK, I’ll have a CB and so will Chip, I’m Six, he’s One, the RV is Two. We’ll leave ours off unless we need to tell you something. We’ll take all the binoculars. Brick, you have bolt cutters? Great-I’ll need a set of heavy wire cutters, fencing pliers if you happen to have them. Lets get set.”

Brick wasn’t bad in the brush, Marv was pleased to see. Chip wasn’t nearly as bad as he had expected-in fact, he was not really bad at all, just outclassed by the rest of the patrol. They had him trail them by fifty feet, and the main body moved with commendable stealth.

They circled south of the bar, staying a good mile away, and reached Highway Sixty Three. Staying within eyeshot of the roadway, they eased north until they were in a position to see the intersection.

“Roadblock,” Marv whispered, lying prone behind a handy log. “Shit, they have dogs, look like pit bulls, three…maybe four.”

“Where?”

“Left side of the roadblock. That’s OK as long as they’re just there.”

“Wish I had my bow-I have no issues killing a pit bull,” Dyson whispered. He focused the binoculars. “I count four guys.”

“Yeah.” Marv stowed the binoculars. “Chip, check in with JD.” He glanced at his watch. “Fifteen hundred hours. We better get moving-if I had my druthers I would do this after dark, but needs must when the devil drives.”

The double-wide trailer’s door faced away from the bar, opening out onto a broad redwood deck with white metal patio furniture and several half-barrel planters. Somewhere behind the trailer a car stereo was pounding away through a high-end sound system; at their distance it was mostly just bass.

The four Gnomes, sweating through the boot polish and bug spray, lay in the grass and studied the situation. “We need to clear the trailer first,” Marv whispered. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s on guard back here. We’ll go one at a time, rally at the west end of the deck, hard against the trailer wall. Me, Dyson, Brick, Chip. Ready?”

He was sweating hard, and yet the hands that gripped his shotgun were as cold as ice. Chip watched Marv slip to the fence and clip the barbed wire, laying a bandana over the wire before cutting so the noise was reduced. Finished, the Ranger scooted to the side of the trailer and motioned; Dyson set off immediately.

Chip wondered how he had gotten into this. A week ago his main concern was the upcoming expansion to WoW, and now he was crouching in bushes with two shotguns, a pistol, and a pack full of medical gear, boot polish on his face, about to go to war. He wasn’t a soldier-sure, he was a patriot, and supported the veterans and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but this sort of thing…this was crazy.

Brick darted out and headed across the open ground, AK ready, moving confidently. Chip watched his friend go and felt tears in his eyes-this was like your first time on the high board, the last guy to go and everyone watching and waiting for him to fail. 

He decided to stay, to sit this one out, and was surprised to find himself up and staggering forward when Marv waved. Keep low, keep moving, and keep quiet, the Ranger had said. Chip promptly caught his toe on a rock or root and staggered wildly towards his right a half-dozen paces before regarding his balance. Thankfully, he had always been light on his feet, especially given his size.

Although he wasn’t the same size anymore, he thought crazily as he tried to blink away the sweat running into his eyes. A week of lots of stress, not so much sleep, plenty of sweat, no junk food, and smaller meals than he was used to had loosened up the waist of his jeans. He ached all over, as a matter of fact, and really wished he could concentrate.

Too late he saw that he was centered on the steps to the deck, his stumble having sent him much too far east. His abrupt change of course ended in a sprawl as he tripped on the edge of one of the paving stones that made up the walkway, falling flat on his belly, the bottom step digging hard into his ribs.

Above him, the trailer door banged open.

Chapter Ten

Sweating even harder than he had been before, Chip grabbed the bottom step and dragged himself onto his left side, facing the deck in time to see a heavily muscled Hispanic man with a shaved head and copious tattoos step onto the porch. Luckily for the Gnome, the man was looking back as he emerged, focused on the girl he was dragging out the door. He had a Tec-9 machine pistol in his right hand, and two spare magazines stuffed into the rear waistband of his boxers, the latter exposed by his sagging jeans, the slick black metal standing out sharply against his spotless white wife beater tee shirt.

Chip couldn’t see the girl, but he heard her bark a curse in Spanish as she landed on her knees. The man causally swung the door closed and stepped over to lean back against the rail, reaching around to pull the magazines out and setting them down on the top railing. “Get to it,” he snapped the fingers of his free hand, pointing towards his crotch. 

He had said it Spanish, but Chip spoke the language well enough from four years of High School Spanish and growing up in a multi-lingual neighborhood. Raising his head, he saw the girl kneeling on the deck, hands behind her back, a pretty Hispanic girl with smooth walnut skin and long, wavy hair, wearing a bright yellow sun top and jeans faded to near white and clinging like a second skin. Under different circumstances Chip would have envied those jeans.

Grabbing the second step, he pulled himself to a sitting position as the girl shuffled forward on her knees, paused, and then slammed her forehead into the man, who managed to twist and catch the blow on his thigh. He yelped and then laughed, backhanding the girl flat. She hit the deck hard, unable to catch her fall, and Chip found himself looking directly into her eyes. Her face registered her shock but she bit back any outcry at Chip’s frantic head-shake.

“Stupid whore,” the man said irritably and reached down to drag her back up, jumping when he realized there was a very large man half-sitting at the foot of the steps. More impressive was the yawning bore of the shotgun pointed at his face.

“
Manos arriba, vato
,” Chip kept his voice low, trying to sound tough and be unheard by anyone in the trailer at the same time. 

The gang member froze in a crouch, the muzzle of the shotgun gripping his full and undivided attention until the girl rolled onto her back and kicked him squarely in the groin.

As the gangster slumped to the deck Dyson vaulted over the rail, wringing a startled gasp from the girl, and rapped the man over the ear with his sap. He swiftly flex-cuffed the man’s wrists behind his back and then ran a flex-cuff through a rail support and around the man’s right arm.

Marv came up the walkway, staying low, and heaved Chip onto his feet as Dyson searched the gangster. Stepping up onto the porch, he grabbed the girl’s shoulder. “How many more gang members are inside? How many shooters?” he whispered.

“One, in the living room, and four…no, five women captives,” the girl whispered in clear but accented English.

“How many in total? How many dogs?”

“I saw six dogs, a couple gang women, but I don’t know how many men.” She thought for a moment. “More than eight.”

“Take her to the east corner and keep watch,” the Ranger told Chip.

Carefully taking her by her still-bound right arm, Chip helped the girl down the stairs and to the east corner. “Hold still,” he whispered as he dug out his folding knife. “I’ll cut the cuffs off.” He was desperately aware that she was the prettiest girl he had ever touched, and that he was soaked in sweat, with melting shoe polish on a face that was too round to ever be considered handsome, with a pack, bandolier, guns, and camouflage rags tied loosely to his jeans and camo shirt only adding an impression of bulk to his three-hundred-fifty-odd pounds.

“OK.” She turned and leaned forward, offering her wrists.

She was a tall girl, maybe five-eight, he noted absently as he guided the blade under the white plastic strap and began carefully sawing away. A lot of women never noticed that he was six one because of his width.

“I’m Sylvia Santiago,” she whispered over her shoulder.

“Chip Wilson,”

“Are you guys SEALs or something? That was amazing the way you snuck up on that bastard.”

The strap parted, and Chip folded his knife one handed and took a knee at the corner. “I have to keep watch.  No, Marv, that’s the guy you talked to, he’s an Army Airborne Ranger, but the rest of us are sort of volunteers. We call ourselves the Yard Gnome Action Team.” He winced-that sounded so lame.

“That is so cool!” Sylvia whispered. “So you guys just go around being heroes?”

Chip opened his mouth to deny it but an image of fighting their way step-by-step out of a horde of zombies, five rescued civilians in the middle of the group, flashed across his mind, and he closed it. “Just doing what’s necessary, ma’am,” he said. “I’m from Texas-we don’t let things like this stand.”
Take that, John Wayne
, he thought.

“That is so cool,” Sylvia laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m from Miami originally, Little Cuba, but I moved to Little Rock after my parents passed. I’m working as a beautician while I get my teacher’s certificate…”

The gang banger in the trailer was sitting in an easy chair watching porn on a big screen TV with the sound muted, a double-barreled shotgun across his lap. Four women, their hands bound behind them, were crammed on a sofa across the room. He turned towards the door, saying something in a humorous tone of voice, only to catch Marv’s sap across the temple, sending him crashing to the floor.