The Day After Never - Covenant (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 3) (18 page)

A dove cooed from a tree by the river, its call plaintive and sad, and she urged Nugget faster as Tarak’s horse soldiered on with the determination of a bulldozer. The trail had transitioned from hard stone to shale, and her horse was having difficulty with the surface.

“Come on, Nugget. You can do it. Once we’re in Albuquerque, you can take a break. Just a little further,” she coaxed, her voice low.

If Nugget was swayed by her words, she didn’t show it; she maintained her plodding gait, barely above the speed Sierra could manage on foot.

The river curved left and they followed the trail along the gentle bend, where the land turned lush and green. Farmland that some enterprising grower had leveled and plowed had been reclaimed by wild vegetation, and some of the chaotic sprawl of plants stood taller than a man. A branch brushed at her face, and she pushed it aside. Tarak pulled even further away from her as Nugget slowed.

“Tarak, wait up,” she called, and dug her heels into Nugget’s flank. Sierra rounded another, sharper bend, and almost ran headlong into Tarak, who’d stopped in the middle of the trail.

“What is it?” Sierra asked.

Tarak turned his head partially toward her, his eyes remaining on the trail. “No sudden moves.”

“What? What’s wrong?” she asked, and then her words froze in her throat as a mountain of a man covered in tattoos, whose black leather vest and eye of Providence on his forehead announced him as Crew, stepped into view, assault rifle trained on them.

“That’s far enough,” the big man said. “Get off your horses. Now. Reach for your gun and that’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

Two more men emerged from the brush, also covered in prison ink, pointing the menacing snouts of their AKs at Sierra. With a glance over his shoulder at her, Tarak shrugged and dismounted, landing on the bank with the lightness of a cat.

Sierra moved more slowly, calculating her chances of escaping or shooting it out – neither of which were realistic, she concluded by the wary anticipation on the faces of the gunmen. She lowered herself and stood with her hands raised as one of the pair made his way to her and disarmed her.

The big man stepped closer to Tarak and nodded. “Took you long enough.”

“It’s a couple of days away.”

“You map it out?”

“No need. I can give you clear directions. You can easily find it on a map.”

Sierra’s eyes narrowed and she gasped. “You’re working with them!”

Cano moved toward her and backhanded her across the face, knocking her head to the side. She staggered but didn’t go down.

Cano grinned, the effect more chilling than if he’d hit her again. “You’re a regular genius, aren’t you?”

Sierra gaped at Tarak. “How could you? Why?”

Tarak’s face was untroubled. “Orders. This isn’t our fight.”

“They’ll destroy everything.”

“Kind of like the white man did to my people? You’ll get over it.”

“You’re no better than they are,” Sierra spat.

“Whatever.” Tarak shrugged and informed Cano, “They’re up past Los Alamos. In the mountains to the west. Probably about, oh, nine or ten miles up the canyon. I’ll give you directions – it’s a little tricky, but not if you know the way. Oh, and they have snipers guarding it, so you’ll need to deal with them.”

“They paid you to stay silent,” Sierra hissed.

“No, they paid me to guide them through our territory, which is what I did. I don’t decide this – my superiors do, and they worked a deal that’s to their advantage. They told me when I radioed from Los Alamos.”

“Enough with the questions,” Cano snapped.

“What are you going to do to me?” Sierra demanded.

“Anything I want. You’re lucky I like ’em with more meat on their bones.”

“I’d rather die.”

Cano smiled. “That can be arranged. But I think Magnus will want to decide that, not you.”

“Magnus…” she whispered.

“That’s right.” Cano turned to his men. “Take her. Tie her up.” He waited until they’d grabbed her arms before bellowing at the top of his lungs. “Luis!”

Sierra struggled, but a painful squeeze from one of her captors convinced her to think better of it. She licked away a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth and probed her cheek with her tongue, where the flesh was already swelling from the blow. The men led her into a small clearing by the river where four others were waiting, guns at the ready. All focused on her as one of the men approached with a length of yellow nylon cord, smirking at her predicament, his eyes taking in every inch of her with a lascivious intensity that left little to her imagination.

Chapter 31

Arnold pulled the door closed behind him and strode into the room where his six most loyal men were already waiting, troubled expressions mirroring their demeanors. Arnold sat heavily at a round table and poured himself a cup of water from a steel pitcher.

“It’s not good,” he announced.

“Tell me about it,” Toby grumbled.

“What we know so far is nothing. The woman took off after the guide. And this Lucas character left in search of her. At least, that’s what they would have us believe. I’m not so sure.”

“You think it’s a con?” Toby asked.

“Could be. The old woman swears it isn’t, but they could have tricked her, too.”

“I talked to her some. She seems straight,” Ken said.

“She probably is. But the rest of them – who knows?”

“Maybe it’s exactly what it looks like? The woman bolted for unknown reasons. The way she was going at it with Lucas that night, maybe she had second thoughts?”

“No way of knowing. It’s all speculation until he finds her. Assuming he does.”

“None of this makes any sense,” Toby said. “They crossed hell and back to deliver the girl. Why would they do so if they weren’t on the level?”

“To find us,” Arnold said softly.

Ken cleared his throat. “It’s pretty frigging hard to keep the compound safe if the Doc’s bringing in unvetted strangers.”

“I’ll second that,” Toby said.

“I think we have to assume the worst,” Arnold said. “That we’ve been compromised.” He looked around the room. “Which means we either need to prepare for an attack or pack up and move.”

“Be pretty hard to move three hundred people without leaving a trace.”

“True,” Arnold acceded. “That leaves us with defense.”

“Not like we haven’t run scenarios for the last four years. It would be pretty hard to attack us successfully,” Ken said.

“Maybe. Depends on what they throw at us,” Toby said.

“Don’t you think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves? All that’s happened so far is a woman decided she didn’t want to stay. Could be a million reasons. Maybe she didn’t like it here. Or maybe Lucas rubbed her the wrong way.”

The men chuckled, but the sound was like boys laughing hollowly as they passed a graveyard.

“We need to have a meeting with the Doc and Michael,” Toby said. “They have to be brought up to speed.”

“I already spoke with Elliot. He thinks I’m overreacting,” Arnold said.

“He doesn’t have any kind of tactical background, so his opinion’s meaningless when it comes to defense,” Toby countered.

“No, it isn’t. He’ll listen to reason if we have a strong case. It’s Michael I’m more worried about.”

Arnold and Michael had a long-running rivalry. Michael was educated and dismissive of Arnold’s ideas, whereas Arnold viewed him as a suck-up, a yes-man who played to Elliot’s ego. That Elliot often deferred to Michael for operational decisions stuck in Arnold’s craw, but when he’d brought it up, Elliot had assured Arnold that he was in no way playing favorites – that Michael simply had more depth in some things than Arnold by virtue of his scientific background.

By ‘depth,’ Arnold understood the doctor to mean that Michael was smarter. Which might have been true academically, but not operationally, and certainly not tactically. Arnold had lived through combat under the harshest conditions before the collapse and had proven himself time and time again in the ugly new world of anarchy that was their everyday reality. Michael, on the other hand, had spent too much time in the safety of Shangri-La and had forgotten the snake pit that was the world outside the canyon walls.

“What are we going to do?” Toby asked.

Arnold took a long sip of water and stared into space. “Let’s assume a worst-case scenario. I think we have to. I want to review our inventories of ammo, explosives, everything, and put together a trading team to go into Santa Fe in the next twenty-four hours and buy every piece of gear we can get our hands on. If there’s a siege, there will be no such thing as enough ammunition or food.”

“We can do that,” Ken agreed. “But without knowing what we’re defending against, we’re spinning our wheels.”

Arnold nodded as he stood. He finished his drink and set the cup down on the table. “Spinning our wheels is our job. We get paid to be paranoid. We’re the first – and last – line of defense, and it’s up to us to imagine the unthinkable and prepare for it.” Arnold strode to the door. “Toby, have that inventory for me by tonight. Anything that looks borderline needs to be replaced. I want a complete list of all raw material we can commit to bolstering our defenses.”

“I have schematics of some antipersonnel devices we could make in the machine shop if we shunted off all other projects,” Ken volunteered.

“Make a list of what you need, and I’ll meet with the Doc tomorrow and get it approved.”

Toby followed Arnold to the door and stepped outside with him. When they were out of earshot, he murmured to Arnold while looking around to confirm they wouldn’t be overheard. “You really think this is the big one?”

As the force chartered with Shangri-La’s defenses, they’d often discussed their nightmare scenario – a full mobilization of a hostile force against them, rather than opportunistic scavengers. It had been considered by Michael and Elliot as a distant likelihood, given the security safeguards they had in place, which had withstood years of testing with flying colors, but Arnold had always believed they were living on borrowed time.

He met Toby’s stare without blinking. “We’re going to find out. And that should scare the crap out of everyone, because most of these people have never been in an all-out war. I have.” He swallowed away his frustration and lowered his voice. “Pencil out an evacuation scenario, too. I want all options on the table once we know what we’re dealing with.”

Toby nodded. “Hope she was just pissed at him. Lovers’ quarrel or something.”

Arnold looked away. “Hope’s a lousy defense. Get to work.”

Toby returned to the room, leaving Arnold to his thoughts. The security chief made his way toward the lab, a coil of anxiety tightening in his stomach with every step.

Chapter 32

Night had fallen hours earlier, but the temperature was still broiling, and the heat radiating from the hard-packed dirt sapped Lucas of energy with every mile. Tango had performed valiantly, but Lucas had wrung about as much out of the stallion as he dared, and had slowed to a leisurely clip as the sun had crested and begun its steady descent. He estimated he’d covered fifty-five miles, though couldn’t confirm his impression, there being no obvious landmarks.

He was using the night vision monocle as he rode; the light from the stars was dim, a high striation of clouds blurring their glow and making their faint illumination untrustworthy for navigation. By his reckoning, he would come across Sierra and the guide at any moment, and in spite of his fatigue, a buzz of adrenaline coursed through his veins at the thought.

Lucas hadn’t arrived at any monumental conclusions as to how he’d handle Sierra when he found her, but he figured that the likeliest straight answer he would get would be from Tarak, who’d performed as requested at every step of their journey and would have no reason to mislead him. That he couldn’t trust Sierra wore at him, but he was an adult, and in his line of work he’d seen everything, so he was no stranger to dishonesty. That he had to be on the defense against someone for whom he had feelings was immaterial.

A hint of wood smoke wafted on the breeze from the south, and he slowed to a crawl. He sniffed the air like a tracking dog and, when he was sure he hadn’t imagined the odor, drew Tango to a halt and dismounted.

He listened with his head cocked, ears straining for the slightest sound, but could make out nothing but the rush of the river and the occasional low whistle of the faint wind through desiccated branches. After several minutes of standing motionless, he tied Tango to one of the stunted trees and crept along the trail, staying away from the river in the hopes that he could surprise Tarak and Sierra.

When he arrived at a thicket of tall bushes, he blinked at the sight of a small fire flickering near the river. His heart skipped when he spotted a collection of sleeping forms around it – six that he could make out. He swept the area with the monocle and froze at the sight of Sierra, sitting up, back to a log, eyes closed. Lucas squinted through the scope but couldn’t make out enough detail to identify who the men surrounding her were, or why she wasn’t also lying on her bedroll.

He set the monocle down and lifted his M4 to his shoulder, the high-power NV scope on, and peered at Sierra. In its high magnification he could make out the odd angle of her arms and realized that they were tied behind her back. The crosshairs drifted down to her legs, and he spotted rope binding her ankles, confirming his deduction.

Lucas eyed the sleeping forms, noting their weapons lying where they could get to them in an instant. In the scope’s higher resolution he recognized Tarak, his distinctive hat tilted over his face, covering his eyes.

Movement in the periphery of the scope stopped him dead, and he adjusted until he found its source: a gunman with an AK hanging from a shoulder sling, relieving himself near some bushes. Lucas frowned at the logistics he was facing – a total of six hostiles, counting the lookout, heavily armed. His chances of taking them all out before one could return fire were slim no matter how precise his aim.

He watched the sentry return to where he was stationed near a tree. The man took a seat, unslung his rifle, and laid it across his lap, sitting Indian-style. Lucas waited ten minutes to see whether anyone else appeared and, when nobody did, made his careful way back to Tango. He patted the horse and then lifted the leather flap of one of the saddlebags and retrieved the crossbow and quiver, cocking it silently before fitting a quarrel into the firing slot.