The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (64 page)

“My team needs a few minutes more,” Dave
says, regards his watch and turns to Simon and Cory. “Once the
shooting starts, take out the guards first and anyone armed. Annie
and Cory get outta’ the way and lay down some fire for us so we can
get through the gate. Simon and Lucky, get to your positions
now.”

Simon bumps his fist against Cory’s and
sprints away with Lucky. Annie removes her coat, wraps it around
her waist to conceal her hidden handgun. She lets down her blonde
hair, giving it a good shake. She reminds him a little of Evie
Johnson, but a lot harder around the edges and more capable of
killing someone. Evie is just tender and soft, not a trained
killer, not really capable of violence.

One of Dave’s men, who is close in size to
him, hands Cory his coat. He slings Annie’s M4 behind his back and
pulls the coat on to hide it. He hangs his own rifle from his
shoulder. He’s hoping they don’t try to disarm him.

“Team Two, in position,” one of Dave’s team
members says across the headsets. Cory isn’t sure which one it was.
They have only briefly been introduced, which makes it seem strange
to be going into a fight with them. This is a tricky situation,
though. They have to be careful not to get the captive women killed
or accidentally shoot each other.

“Ready?” Dave asks him and Annie.

“Ready, sir,” Annie answers and Cory
nods.

He leads Annie down the street toward
the park where they will need to get in that front gate. Without
having a vehicle to ram through, they had to come up with another
plan. Plus, they need confirmation of what takes place within that
tent village. It may not have been accurately represented by those
creeps that took Sam. Cory tries not to think about that. It makes
him sick thinking of his
little adopted
sister having to stab that bastard.

When they get within thirty yards, a man
shouts from the other side of the gate.

“What do you want? Get the hell outta’ here,
asshole!”

Cory was designated to take on this
role. He’s unshaven, his beard coming in thickly again. He doesn’t
resemble a clean-cut, good guy. He knows it. So did
Dave
the Mechanic. It’s ok with Cory; it
wasn’t an insult.

He yanks Annie’s arm, hauling her forward
with him.

“I said stop, asshole!” the man yells
again.

Cory keeps moving forward but stops when he’s
close enough to see the man through the opening in the door where
he has cracked it just slightly. Dave and the rest of Team One
should be moving stealthily into position. He’s a little on edge
because he couldn’t wear his night-vision gear.

“This the place that takes bitches on trade
for shit?” Cory asks, doing his best to seem like a disreputable
good-for-nothing.

“What’s it to ya’?” the man with the long,
tattered wool coat and beady, dark eyes asks. “Where’d ya’ hear
that?”

His evil eyes keep shifting to his right, and
Cory knows the loser is looking to someone on the other side of the
fence with him, perhaps someone who is in charge.

“I got this bitch I need to unload.
Friends over at the school told me. You want her or what? She ain’t
no good to me no more, so I’m a
figurin’
on tradin’ her for some shit,” Cory slurs
as if he’s slightly drunk.

Furtive
movement
behind the other man skirts past Cory’s line of sight. The man
turns away from Cory to speak with someone.

“We might be interested,” the scumbag
concedes finally.

“Cool, man,” Cory says with a lopsided grin.
“Gotta get rid of her and get me some shit on trade.”

“What kind of shit do you want?” the man
shouts to him after a moment of discussion.

“Whatcha’ got?” Cory asks with a grin.
Annie makes a feigned attempt to free herself, forcing Cory to
snatch her back against him roughly. He’s not too worried about
hurting her, though. Her upper arm is lean and muscular. She
may
be able to kick his ass if she
wanted to. And he’s quite sure she can certainly handle that
Beretta hidden under her waistband. His own rifle is casually
hanging from his shoulder in a non-threatening manner. So far they
haven’t asked him to disarm.

“What do ya’ need?” the man asks.

“Could use some food and ammo. Ain’t had any
ammo for this here rifle in a while,” he lies smoothly.

“We might
can
work somethin’ out. Not much for ammo, but
plenty of food. The girls grow the food in here, so we’ve always
got food. Depending on if the boss wants her, then we might make a
deal,” the man states.

Cory decides to press for further
information, “She ain’t much of a farmer if ya’ know what
I’m
sayin
.’ She ain’t good for
much other than a lay.”

“A sweet little honey like that, she
ain’t gonna be one of the gardeners,” the man says, licks his
lips,
spits
on the ground and
grabs at his crotch.

“Oh yeah? What kinda’ girls you got,
mister?”

“About anything you could want,” the man
confirms. “Cooks, gardeners, sweet ho’s like that one.”

“Cool, man. Cool,” Cory slurs again.

“We could make you a deal for a night
with one of ‘em in trade for that gun you ain’t got no ammo for
any
know
how.”

Cory catches more movement in his peripheral
vision before hearing Dave in his ear say, “Breach that gate. We
need that door open, Cory.”

“Yeah, maybe we could work something out,”
Cory tells the creep living on borrowed time. “This one ain’t much
to my taste, though. I like ‘em a little younger.”

The man
cackles,
pulls open the door a
little
further as if they are going to be great
friends and says, “Yeah, I know what you mean. I like ‘em young,
but I might make an exception for that
fine
piece of ass you’ve got there. We’ve got a few
of those sweet young ones, too. Got some for just about anyone’s
taste.”

Cory walks without hurry closer to the man
and has his right foot in the door when he asks the most important
question, “How many ho’s you got here? This place seems like a
pretty good deal. Maybe I’ll go into the business myself.”

The man ushers them inside where Cory
gets a quick glance around as best as he can. There are tents and
ramshackle sheds everywhere. Men are loitering around. A few are
armed, but some are customers because they are looking over a
line-up of women under close inspection of a kerosene lantern on a
pole. There are maybe a dozen men visible, but Cory is quite sure
that others occupy the tents and shacks. Guards are posted every
thirty feet or so
around
the
fence. It’s certainly not a fortress, but it seems well-fortified
with manpower. There are torches placed every fifty yards down the
fence line, but there are still too many dark, shadowy areas for
his liking.

“I think at last count there were forty-two,”
the pervert says. “Forty-three with you, hotness,” he leers at
Annie.

“Who’s in charge around here?” Cory asks.

“I am,” a man says beside the beady-eyed
creep.

Cory wouldn’t have guessed this man to
be in charge. He’s short and thin, looks like a zero-threat factor.
But his keen, pale eyes belie a savvy intelligence and
a cool
calculated manner. He has a .44
caliber revolver, damn near bigger than him, slung
on
his waist like he’s in some kind of
an old Western. Cory would like to ask him if he’s overcompensating
for something but holds his tongue.

Annie is still standing half inside of the
door and half out. This is not by accident.

“We are in position,” Dave says in his ear.
“Make your move when you’re ready.”

The little creep strolls over to Annie and
begins inspecting her as if she is nothing more than livestock.

“She got any diseases?” the man with the .44
asks. “We don’t have anything to treat any V.D. anymore. I try to
run a classy establishment here.”

Cory would like to laugh or throw up or ram
the butt of his gun into this puke’s face. He’s running a sex slave
businesses and has the balls to call it classy.

“This is Slim,” the pervert guard
explains his skinny, devoid of all
moral
integrity
boss. “He’s in charge. Everyone just calls
him Slim.”

“And you are, my new friend?”
Slim
requests Cory’s name
with a
greasy disposition.

Cory grins and moves his hand slyly to
the grip of his rifle, which is loaded and ready. It starts
ticking
through the back of his mind
that these men remind him of the ones who’d killed his little
sister, that they could’ve been connected in some way. It’s that
same time bomb that ticks every time right before he murders people
like these. It starts out like a methodic, slow tick and gradually
picks up
pace
until it goes off
like a firehouse alarm. They don’t know, but it’s almost at
deafening levels in his head now. It is a countdown to their
doom.

“Well, you see, Slim,” Cory starts with a
smile, “my friends call me Cory. But you’ll only ever know me as my
call sign, the Death Stalker.”

“What the fuck’s that supposed….” Slim states
with anger but is interrupted.

Cory swings on him with the rifle and fires a
single cartridge into the man’s bony chest.

“Hey, you fuckers!” the pervert guard
screams.

Apparently his taunts and insinuations
from a few minutes ago are more than Annie can tolerate because she
whips out her Beretta and
lightning-fast
shoots the creep point blank to the
face.

The fight is on, and all hell breaks loose. A
loud explosion and an orange glow in the sky lets him know that
Dave’s two men near the river have created their diversion.

Cory and Annie jump to the side and dive for
cover behind a rickety building made out of recycled materials. He
throws down the borrowed coat and hands Annie her M4. Dave and the
others push through the gate and begin rapid-fire peppering the
area, taking out quite a few of the men, including prospective
customers. A long-range shot cracks loud and clear through the
night sky. Cory has no doubt that his friend has taken the shot. A
man falls dead in his tracks. Definitely Simon.

It is a magnificent thing to behold, this
battle taking place all around him. He wasn’t with his family when
they raided the Target store, so he missed all the excitement.
Tracer rounds fly overhead, lighting the night sky like red streaks
of angry lightning. The sounds are deafening. This is just like
when he was rescued by his brother and the others in Arkansas.
They’d made it as far as Little Rock when the shit hit. That’s
where they got into a battle in which Cory was sure they’d all die.
It’s also where he was shot for the first time when a bullet
whizzed through his calf muscle. And they’d almost lost Derek. He
remembers lying in the back of the Hummer shooting out the window
as Kelly had instructed him while Em hid on the floor at his feet.
His brother and John had used quite a few grenades just to get them
the hell out of that city. This situation feels the same, only they
aren’t running from danger. They are the danger.

Dave the Mechanic is still near the front
gate. He’s barking orders in his throat mic and yelling them out to
his men that are closer to him. He’s got the knife hand going,
slicing through the air directing his men right and left and
forward. Hand signals are flying. His men are kicking ass and
definitely taking no prisoners.

“Get that motherfucker, Lucky,” Dave says
into the mic to his sniper, which Cory and the rest of the group
can hear. Apparently someone is trying to get away.

He continues on with his
ordering and waving as if he is an invincible man standing there
amidst the chaos as Cory and Annie lay down some suppressive fire
so the rest of the soldiers can breach the front gate.

Annie taps his shoulder and indicates that
she is moving to their right. Cory nods and follows while popping
off some rounds at the guards scattering about. It feels strange
following a woman, but this is the exact same move he would’ve
made. They jog around to the other side of the building with four
other men from Dave’s group and fan out. Cory spots a creep a few
yards away pulling up his pants leaving a tent. He takes quick aim
and disables the jerk. Annie does similarly to another man as he
runs toward them with a shotgun. They split off from the other four
men and work together again.

This time, Cory signals they should move
forward and to their left. This group of tents and sheds in the
next few aisles is their assigned area to clear. Annie nods and
follows him.

A creep jumps out of a tent in one of
the narrow grass
aisles
and
tackles Annie to the ground. Cory runs back and butt strokes him to
the head with his rifle and then finishes him off with one shot to
the chest and one to the head.

She is winded and shaken but is already back
on her feet before saying, “Thanks.”

Cory retrieves her dropped M4 and hands it to
her. She nods before they move out again.

They pass close to a dozen small tents that
are dark within until they come to one that is barely illuminated
with a lantern. Cory pokes his rifle through and takes a fast
glance. A woman is huddled in the corner with another younger
woman. They are frightened and shaking. One of them is partially
nude and trying to hold her hands over her bare breasts. Cory holds
his finger to his lips, and they nod with fear. He and Annie move
forward down the narrow row one aisle over. Long range shots ring
out in quick succession, letting him know that Simon and the other
sniper are still going to work on the camp. Any customers caught
trying to escape through the fence were ordered by Dave to be
sniped. Simon and his new buddy seem to be very busy. Other,
steadier gunfire filters through the air, too.