White Dawn: A Military Romantic Suspense Novel (2 page)

So she hauled herself up onto the floor
that projected out from underneath the door by a few inches. Behind
her, she heard Angelo grunt as he did the same with the other
car.

Machine gun fire ratchetted loudly,
right over her head, causing Carmen to suck in her breath in
surprise and hug the door instinctively. Behind her, she heard the
characteristic bellow of Garrett’s heavy duty .45.

There was a cough from above and Carmen
tightened her grip as a man wearing the mottled gray of the new
Insurrecto uniforms fell past her, almost brushing her shoulder, to
thud onto the rocks. His machine gun followed.

Carmen was a pretty good marksman with a
handgun and getting better all the time, but Garrett was far, far
better. Damn him.

There was another burst of submachine
gun fire right overhead.
Two
guards. What the hell? What did
they have in this thing that justified two guards on the roof like
that? Anyone would think they were afraid the Resistance might try
to hijack the train.

She pulled out her Smith & Wesson
and cocked it, then raised it to point at the roof. Carefully, she
leaned outward, until she could see over the lip of the roof. The
guard was firing toward the back of the train and wasn’t looking at
her. She took her time with the shot and got him in the torso. He
reared back and clutched his side. One of the others on the other
side of the train—Ledo, by the sound of the light shot—took him in
the head. He tumbled backward and disappeared.

Carmen holstered her gun and worked on
the latch of the box car. It was rusty and gave way with a groan.
Then she pulled the door aside and instantly whipped her gun out
once more. There were three more Insurrectos in the car, but they
were crowded up against the back of the car, peering through slits
at the car behind. The sound of the door opening alerted them, but
they were slow to turn. Carmen had all the time in the world.

She shot all of them in the knee, a shot
apiece. They went down clutching their legs and screaming.

A fourth guard lurched into the doorway,
bringing up his rifle to aim at her. Carmen squeaked in surprise.
She swung her gun to point at him, but before she could fire off
the shot, another sounded. It was Garrett’s .45 bellowing again and
she heard the bullet whizz past her like a miniature
thunderclap.

The guard clutched his belly, looking
down at it, surprised. Then he toppled sideways, revealing Garrett
standing inside the other door, the .45 in his hand.

“You didn’t quarter the room, did you?”
he said, his scowl back.

Angelo swung into the car from
above.

“Take care of the driver,” Garrett told
him. “Let’s stop this thing and see what’s going on. There’s
something strange here.”

Carmen agreed that this was very odd.
Six armed guards, only two cars and an unscheduled run?

Angelo nodded and swung out onto the
side of the car. He would work his way along until he reached the
engine, then get the driver to halt the train. Depending on whether
the driver was a Loyalist or not, Angelo would either use force or
just ask nicely.

Garrett was looking at the three guards
rolling on the floor in agony. “You should have gone for the head,”
he said flatly, “and made sure of them.”

“Listen to the doctor,” Carmen mocked.
“I spared them. Sue me.”

The other five members in their team all
swung into the car from either side. None of them was injured.

There was a crack of a rifle, from
outside.

“Guess the driver isn’t a Loyalist,”
Ledo remarked with a grin.

The train’s brakes began to squeal and
the train to slow.

Garrett was moving around the car,
questing like a beast on the hunt. “It’s virtually empty,” he said,
turning on one heel to take the whole car in.

“Except for the rags over here,” Carmen
said. She walked over to the pile of rags pushed up into the
corner. They were musty, stained and ragged. She gave them a kick
and her boot thudded up against something solid beneath them.

She looked at Garrett and raised her
brow. Then she leaned over and picked up the rags and tossed them
away.

A small metal box painted army green was
revealed. There were two padlocks, one per clasp and there was
yellow stenciling on it.

“That is what six guards were watching
over?” Ledo said, as the train came to a shuddering halt.

“Wait,” Garrett said sharply. “First,
move the Insurrectos out of the car. Tie them to trees if they’re
still alive. Carmen, give Ledo your zip ties.”

Carmen pulled the half-dozen plastic
strips she had out of her pocket and handed them over.

“Do the same with the driver and anyone
in the second car,” Garrett ordered as Ledo jumped down to the
ground and the others followed.

Then Garrett moved to stand over the
box, studying it. “The rags were misdirection. If the guards
failed, they hoped the pile of rags would go unnoticed. As if the
guards wouldn’t tip off anyone who tried to get in here, in the
first place.” He looked up. “We take it with us. Search the other
car, take anything worthwhile that isn’t too heavy. Let’s move. I
want to reach the camp in thirty minutes. I don’t want to be
anywhere near this train when the Insurrectos find it.” He bent
over and picked up the handles at either end of the long flat box
and lifted…or tried to. He got one end up, then dropped it. “Well,
that’s interesting.” he murmured to himself.

He looked up as Angelo jumped back onto
the car.

“The driver was an Insurrecto, doc,”
Angelo said. “Uniform and everything.”

“Seven guards,” Garrett muttered.
“Angelo, you and Carmen take the box first. We’ll take turns
carrying it.”

“Sure, doc,” Angelo said and settled his
rifle over his shoulder.

Carmen picked up one of the handles and
Angelo the other. They hoisted the box up.

“Oh, holy crap!” Carmen swore in
English. “This thing is heavy!”

“The workout will do you good,” Garrett
said and jumped down onto the ground.

There was nothing of interest in the
second car except for some tins of soup and a camp stove for
warming the soup upon, plus some boxes and crates. They took the
gas for the stove, which they could use for their own stoves, and
the soup.

Garrett moved quickly through the car,
checking the manifest tags on the cartons and crates. “Company
records. From the mine on
Las Piedras Grandes
,” he said,
almost to himself. “That makes sense.”

“It does?” Carmen asked.

“Let’s move it!” Garrett called to
everyone in the car, ignoring her. She wrinkled her nose at him and
jumped down onto the rocky ground where Angelo was waiting with the
metal box. Mentally, she braced herself. The others in the team
always rolled their eyes when her lack of strength slowed them down
in some way. They didn’t make allowances for her being female,
because Garrett wouldn’t have tolerated it. So she would have to
haul her end of the load for as long and as quickly as Angelo did,
plus keep up with the others.

She lasted nearly quarter of a mile into
the bush, then dropped her end of the box with a crash. “I don’t
care what you think, I’m not carrying it another step. My fingers
are crushed.”

Garrett stepped back along the line,
grinning. “You lasted two hundred yards more than I thought you
would.” He jerked his chin at Archie. “Grab the end, my
friend.”

Archie grinned. He was one of the
strongest in the group. He picked up the other end with a grunt,
his brows raising. Garrett lifted his end with what looked like no
effort at all. “Princess,” he murmured as he passed Carmen.

It began to rain in big, fat stinging
drops. “Perfect,” Carmen said with a sigh, looking up at the bit of
sky she could see through the tree tops. “Just perfect.”

They reached the outer sentries for the
camp with two minutes to spare out of Garrett’s thirty minute
deadline. The rain had become torrential, which cooled things off
slightly, but made walking in the sucking mud difficult. It also
diminished their hearing and they all cocked their weapons without
being ordered to, watched their flanks and kept checking behind,
especially as they got closer to the camp. It wouldn’t do to lead
someone to the camp itself.

When the outer sentries challenged them,
Garrett dropped the box into the mud and straightened, kneading his
fingers, for the metal handle was thin and the weight of the box
made it dig into flesh, squashing it. Carmen’s fingers were still
tingling, so she knew how his felt.

But he picked up the box again, instead
of swapping with someone fresh, surprising her. He wasn’t really
going to carry it all the way into the camp, was he? What was he
trying to prove?

Garrett didn’t look around. He kept his
gaze ahead, the rain dripping from the brim of his hat and strode
ahead. Archie struggled to keep up with him, swapping his hands on
the handle, his breath blowing heavily.

When they reached the camp perimeter, no
one emerged to greet them. The rain was keeping them indoors. The
old monastery still housed a handful of Benedictine monks, even
though most of it was in ruins. Carmen had discovered that it was
part of the monks’ philosophy to stay where they were and remain a
part of the community.

The monks had been manfully trying to
restore the buildings by hand, using local resources and charity.
The war had ended their restoration work and the Insurrectos had
halted their forays across the land to help villages and farmers in
whatever way they could. Like everyone else in Vistaria, the monks
had to have permission to leave their residence and travel
anywhere. Travel permits were not issued easily.

Carmen wondered if the Insurrectos had
any idea that they had made enemies of the Benedictine order.
Although the monks would never pick up a weapon or use force
against the Insurrectos, they found other ways to support the
Loyalists, including letting Garrett’s unit use the ruins for their
camp. In return, the monks enjoyed peace and security and everyone
shared what food they had, including the produce from the monks’
garden plots.

The eight of them moved into the big
refectory. It was partially-roofed at one end. It had no windows,
but the roof and the smooth floor were almost civilized compared to
some of the squats and lean-tos they had used before. It was much,
much better than the tarpaulins stretched between trees that
Garrett had been using when Carmen had first stumbled into the
camp, seven weeks ago.

There was a fire burning at the enclosed
end, which was a cheerful sight after the dismal day outside.
Carmen was soaked to the skin. The idea of standing in front of the
fire, regardless of how warm the day, was appealing.

She shucked off her backpack and put it
on the ground next to her sleeping bag. Sleeping on hard ground was
another thing she never thought she would find herself doing, but
now, her measure of a cozy bed was a sleeping bag for warmth when
she needed it, a mosquito net and something to keep the rain off.
She didn’t have the net yet, but sleeping close to the fire kept
most of the mosquitos away. Bliss was relative.

It wasn’t home, just like everywhere she
had lived for nearly ten years wasn’t home. Even the apartment in
Boston she had rented for over five years while completing her
degree hadn’t really been home. The air had been too cool and
crisp, the sun too weak and the accents she heard all day too
foreign. Too
English
. But, for now, this was her space.

She pulled off her jacket with some
trouble and hung it over a brick projecting out of the wall above
her gear, then untucked her shirt from her jeans and flapped it to
get it to unstick from her body. The fire beckoned.

But before she could get there, Garrett
intercepted her. He’d removed the hat, which made his gray eyes
stand out and the anger in them more evident. “A word,” he said
shortly and headed for the far corner of the ruins. Daylight was
running out fast and the corners were full of shadows. No one
lingered there when the fire was available for all.

Carmen sighed and followed him. “What
have I done now?”

He pulled her into the corner, his
fingers over her wrist. “Keep your voice down.” He’d removed the
poncho. It would have been as sodden as her jacket. The shirt he
wore underneath was a button-through cotton garment that stuck to
his body as much as hers did. The open collar showed the start of
more scars. Carmen always wondered how far the scars went, when she
saw them. But there was no way she was ever going to ask. Garrett
didn’t welcome personal questions.

“Did you check that the electronics
survived the downpour?” he demanded.

She lifted her chin to look him in the
eye. Garrett was taller than her, which made him very tall. “Of
course. They’re fine. The backpack is water proof.”

“Water
resistant
,” he corrected.
“That doesn’t mean moisture can’t leak in.” He tried to push his
hair off his face, but it was soaked and didn’t cooperate. He
dropped his hand with an impatient gesture. “We risked exposing
ourselves in town because you insisted we set up an Internet
connection. I hope you think it was worth it.”

“It will be,” she said defensively. “We
can’t go on shooting random Insurrectos and hijacking trains. It’s
not getting us anywhere. We need a strategy, one that will align
with whatever the Loyalists have planned. For that, we need to talk
to them.”

Garrett shook his head. “The Internet is
the most insecure network in the world. Anyone can use it. IP
addresses can be figured out by a three-year-old.”

“It’s not perfect,” Carmen said. “But it
works and there’s no other alternative.” She raised her brow.
“Unless you’ve got a secure, untraceable satellite phone stashed
somewhere you haven’t told me about.”