Walking in the Rain (Book 4): Dark Sky Thunder (23 page)

“Bulletproof? Seriously?” Andy had exclaimed as he examined the sides of the two SUVs we’d jockeyed around to block the road.

“Didn’t seem to do those much good,” Lee commented, nodding at the two shredded vehicles behind us.

“No, that was the anti-tank mines my dad built,” I replied, staring down the narrow roadway.

“Your dad had anti-tank mines?”

“No, built. Like I said. Shaped charges. He had a few of them and several sets of Claymore mines. Apparently, Mike triggered the big boomers first, and then set off the anti-personnel mines once he had the rest flushed out of the rigs.”

“Holy cow,” Lee whispered. “I never knew.”

“Nobody did, except for Uncle Billy and Mike.” And me, I thought. “Doesn’t do much good to have a secret weapon if everybody knows about it.”

“Think he can make up some more?” Lee asked, ever the pragmatist. But then, of all the Farrell boys, he’d traveled the longest distance out there.

“Once we get him back,” I said, and then I went on to explain the news I had from town.

To their credit, both men volunteered to join the attack against the courthouse in Nacogdoches. Lee wasn’t married, but I knew Andy’s wife would have words with the man for making such a rash decision. Still, I’d take the offer at face value. Not like I was spoiled for choices.

Then we heard the sound of engines approaching, and all conversation stopped. Using my small radio, I clicked the squelch button twice. If Mike was listening, he would get the signal. Two meant something was happening. Three meant the fight was imminent.

Big, throaty engines. Diesels, I gauged. More than one, it sounded like. I shouldered my rifle and aimed down road. Andy and Lee followed suit. We were all gathered under one of the trucks. Not the best tactics, but we were just there to eyeball these guys.

I figured Mike was dispatching Ike and Alex, and anyone else he thought could do the job, to the fighting positions arranged on the flanks of the two houses. Probably armed with the grenade launchers. They weren’t as powerful as the hand-thrown versions, I didn’t think, but they sure had a better range.

The approaching trucks didn’t come all the way, and instead shut down beyond the turn off and out of direct observation. Grandpa had emplaced a video camera down at the turn off for just such an eventuality, but the pulse killed it. We didn’t have another one with sufficient range to cover the turnoff, so now we could only wait.

After what seemed like a lifetime, or five minutes, we could just make out a pair of figures approaching up the road. One was wearing Army camouflage, so that was a good sign, while the other man wore a mishmash of uniform I thought I recognized. Scoping the pair, I felt a surge of something unfamiliar rise up inside, a something that felt strangely like hope.

Lee caught my expression and gave me a look. We were laid out under the SUV, barely three feet between us, so I just shrugged awkwardly.

“One of those guys looks like Deputy Radalak. Tom. The other man, well, I never thought I would see him again.”

“Huh. Well, should we shoot them? I know you said…”

“No. No. Don’t shoot. Unless something terrible has happened, that guy in the uniform actually is a friendly.”

He gave them a wave when they got close enough to see us and I led the two men with me in crawling out from under the SUV. Backing out. No sense in being stupid and exposing ourselves to fire from the front.

“Jesus alive, Luke, it is you!”

Staff Sergeant Barlow looked the same as the last time I saw him, except his uniform looked like it might have been washed a few times since. The deputy, however, looked terrible. He had two black eyes and a huge bruise on one cheek that looked painful as heck.

“Good to see you, Staff Sergeant. And you too, Deputy. Sorry for the reception, but well, you’ve come at a bad time,” I said, but I stuck my hand out to shake with both men.

Deputy Radalak looked down, as if ashamed. “We know, Luke. I was in town when they came through this morning. Your dad had just gotten to the office when a whole mess of those assholes showed up. Over a hundred men. They had these big trucks, too.” Tom seemed to notice the trucks at that point and a slight smile ran across his battered lips.

“Looks like you fucked them up good, boy,” he added with a venomous hiss. Tom was still riled up. Good.

“We held. It cost us, but we held. And I understand there’s more to do, though. Deputy Mark told me the sheriff and my dad were hauled off.” Suddenly I heard my own words and realized I sounded like an old man. Not a kid, and not even a young man. Part of that was the raw edge to my voice, like I’d been breathing a lot of smoke, and the rest was just the exhaustion talking. I realized I was barely functioning from the adrenaline crash.

Tom nodded, and then looked over to Staff Sergeant Barlow. “You were right, sergeant.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Sergeant Barlow and his friends rolled in about an hour after most of those assholes pulled out. His guys took out the guards left behind and pulled us out of the cells. Well, long story short, I told him there was a snatch mission planned for you before the attack. He swore you would sniff it out.”

“Yeah, I knew you would figure out something was wrong right off,” Barlow added.

“Something did seem wrong. They weren’t acting correctly. Part of it I put off to Deputy Mark not liking me, but Jefferson was no officer. He smelled like trouble. I put the houses on alert before I let them take me. Then, when I saw the attacking force come screaming down the road, I acted.”

Tom looked down. “Deputy Holsted wasn’t a great cop, but I’m sorry you had to…”

“Oh, Mark. He’s still alive. I capped the other guy, though. Hope that’s okay?”

Deputy Radalak started laughing then and gave a little sigh. “Sorry. Mark was pissed at you after what happened in town that day, but he’s just green, not a real asshole. That fucker Gordon listened, though, and Geary, the strike team CO, wanted you questioned. Jefferson picked Holsted to go with because he was the one least marked up. He…really didn’t seem to want to fight with these guys, anyway. Not a coward or traitor like Gordon, but he was at least going along when they whipped out the warrants to detain the sheriff and your dad, Luke. Plus, he had the rest of us under guard to guarantee Mark’s good behavior.”

“Okay, he’s alive. Seems a little shook up, though. I guess I was a little rough on him, what with everything. He did tell me about McCorkle, though.”

Barlow nodded and it was his turn to sigh. “I couldn’t believe he is in on this, not at first, but too much points to him. Deputy Gordon said as much when we beat it out of him. And I guess it is time for the rest of my crew to come up for introductions.”

“What did this Geary character say?”

“He didn’t survive the fight retaking the offices.”

“Did you bring some of the guys, Staff Sergeant?” I asked hopefully.

“No, sorry. But all the guys will be glad to hear you made it back safely. They kind of adopted your group, you know. And just before I headed back out on this mission, I got a coded message from my brother. He told me they picked up Tricia from the Armory. He said he owes you, big time.”

I frowned and looked down, embarrassed by the praise at the moment. If I’d been worthy of that praise, my uncle would still be alive. I decided to share the misery and tell Barlow.

“We just lost Connie—Helena and Kevin’s mom. And Scott is blown to shit. Don’t know if he’ll make it. We also lost some other guys. My uncle, for one.”

“Shit!” Tom cursed and looked away. “I knew your uncle. Well, to speak to anyway. Did you know Lucas’s uncle was Ultimate Fighting heavyweight champion? Man retired undefeated. I’m real sorry to hear that, Lucas.”

“Thanks, Tom.” I looked back at Barlow. “So who is with you?”

“Well, I guess you could say RA, but they aren’t really. Regular Army, I mean. Special Forces out of Polk.”

Well, this should be interesting,
I thought. “Seriously? Green Berets?”

“Real deal. They were at Polk doing a training stint when the lights went out. Whole company, man, with 7
^th
Group out of Eglin AFB. Soon as the lights went out, they were going to head for home, back to Florida. That’s when the base CO, who’s no dummy, asked for volunteers, single guys, to stay behind and help stabilize the area. They moved some men around and got three of the six ODAs to stick around for the time being, along with a big chunk of their support teams.”

I just gave Barlow a blank look, so he decided to give me a little more to work with. “Luke, these guys are made for this. Counter-insurgency and training irregular troops to fight. So, these guys were working in northern Louisiana almost from the start, trying to stabilize the area. I heard it got real hairy when all the refugees from Dallas and Houston started pouring into Louisiana, but they held on to the base and the surrounding area. Maybe the captain will tell you some of it, but he’s pretty tight-lipped.”

I held up a hand. “Okay, I guess. So what the heck are you doing here?”

“Well…after what happened at the depot, General McMillan over at Polk got in touch with us. That was some of his boys, you know. They really don’t have any armor elements there, per se, but they had some guys who could fake it. And by contact, I mean we just woke up one morning on the way back to McAlester and found these four strangers sitting by the fire, shooting the shit with Carmichael.”

I remembered Corporal Carmichael. He seemed to be on the ball, but a bit of a joker.

“And?”

“Seems Carmichael went to Ranger school with one of these guys. They shadowed us and ditched their trucks when we settled in for the night. They watched us, and the one that knew Carmichael approached him when he was on duty. Spooky how good these guys are in the woods. Anyway, I reamed the corporal later but shit, they had us in the bag if they’d wanted something bad to happen.”

That made sense, I guess. “So what do they want?”

“Same thing you do, it sounds like. Look, the next morning I got in touch with Captain Bisley using the new code and gave him a sitrep. He was disappointed at not getting the items we discussed, but the idea of working with the RA forces out of Polk made a lot of sense to him. We turned around and went back to the Red River facility, and set up comms with the folks running the depot so General McMillan could talk directly with our top brass.”

“Well, that sounds promising,” I said. And it did, if they could pull together then the Homeland thugs didn’t stand much of a chance in their areas. Unless the rest of the Regular Army forces came in on the other side. Of course, I still didn’t know why they were here, and I was running out of time.

Reading my urge to scream, Barlow jumped back into the story. “Look, after we linked up with the guys at the depot, Captain Marino said he was headed this way to develop some leads they picked up. Captain Bisley wanted to be kept in the loop, so I volunteered to come down with this team. They’ve been polite and were glad to have me along to liaison with the locals, since seeing Oklahoma Army National Guard is not that unusual during tornado season down here. Or vice versa, for that matter.”

That was true. We had a reciprocal agreement with Oklahoma to help as needed. That was one of the most important and least appreciated duties of the Guard.

“Anyway, I was happy to come along since they were headed to the area you said was home. We heard you guys got away clear, but I still felt bad how things went down. You kids, I mean, you guys, could have gotten killed trying to help us.”

“What happened?” Tom asked, and I suddenly remembered we weren’t alone.

“I’ll explain later. But guys,” I turned to the Ferrell brothers, who until now had just been watching with sort of confused expressions. “Ya’ll know Tom. And this is Staff Sergeant Barlow, Oklahoma National Guard. He’s a friend. A good friend. Saved my butt in a ditch one time.”

Barlow waved off my praise but I got the message to these men. They could dial it down a notch.

“Ya’ll gotta know. This kid is a sixteen-year-old wrecking ball. Pure hellion in a fight. Now, can I call in the captain?”

“You say he’s okay? You vouch for him?”

“I do. Straight arrow, but kinda funny. Not creepy funny. Dry sense of humor. All these guys are that way, but I’ll bet you’ll like them. And best of all, they’ve already got a plan in the works.”

“Well, if they can help get my father back, and the sheriff, too, I mean, then bring ’em in. But I have to wonder, why were they looking for me? For us? I thought I managed to cover my trail pretty good coming out this way. No offense, but I didn’t tell anybody where we were heading, exactly.”

“Don’t sweat it. Captain Marino wasn’t looking for you, exactly. We heard things were improving in this area, with food getting into town and without the usual fighting, which he knew would get the Homeland mob next door involved. They are all about controlling the resources, after all.”

“But you know what they are up to? I mean, what is their freaking game plan besides getting as many of us to die off as possible?”

“Just wait. Let the captain tell it once, to everybody. They are trying to get the word out to as many people as possible without spreading it on the radios.”

“Without the radios?”

Barlow looked up. “Drones. It ain’t all bullshit, what the tinfoil hat folk were warning about before. That’s why we waited until we were almost on top of your house to use the FRS radios. The broadcast range is short enough we didn’t have to worry too much about an intercept.”

Shoot. Lovely. Half the morning gone and no closer to getting my dad back. Well, at least we have help coming from an unexpected source.

And that was yet another reason to worry. Yes, I had trust for Staff Sergeant Barlow. He’d proven to be a good man and was one of the reasons we managed to make it back home in one piece after the events in McAlester. Hooking up with his team got us through more than half of Oklahoma and into Texas without so much as a stubbed toe. But for him to show up like this, offering assistance from a freaking Special Forces A-Team, that was just beyond the realm of coincidence.