Breakout (Final Dawn) (21 page)

     Lubbock, Texas didn’t play. Especially when someone killed its little old ladies on their way to church.

     They
’d thrown the book at Alvarez. Gave him forty two years. The judge said he wouldn’t even be eligible for parole until he was forty years old.

     And he fumed. He figured those old ladies were all due to die soon anyway. Yes, he’d made a mistake. But he shouldn’t have to forfeit his whole life because of it.

     He grew sullen and kept to himself. He earned a reputation as a surly bastard with a chip on his shoulder. And it suited him well.

    
Alvarez had no friends in prison. Not one of his current crew even knew his first name. But as a convict, he didn’t really need a first name. Or friends, for that matter. He had something better. He had the respect that one earns in prison by keeping to himself and not taking any crap from others. Every time he clashed with guards or other inmates, his rep as a tough guy grew.

     And now, he was in charge. And no one else was willing to question his authority. They would follow his orders without question or hesitation.

     “Alvarez, what do we do about Marky Mark?”

     “Drag him to the back of the place and set him on fire before he starts to stink.”

     “But, he’s asking for you.”

     “I thought he was dead.”

     “No. I mean, I think he’s close to it. But he’s asking for you. Wants you to find him a doctor.”

     “Shit. I’ve got a better idea.”

     Alvarez went to the broken down gate, where two guards stood with weapons at the ready behind the Humvee. Mark lay on the ground, a dazed look in his eyes, his mouth foaming blood.

    
Alvarez stood over him and said “You should have got out of the way, you fool.”

     Mark struggled mightily to get a single word out.

     “Please…”

    
Alvarez took his handgun and fired a single shot into Marky Mark’s forehead.

     “There. Now you look like a dead rapper, you son of a bitch.”

     He turned to the others and said coldly, “Shoulda moved faster.”

     He noticed that several of the men were following him around, unsure what to do.

     “You two guys, get the Hummer out of the entrance. Put Skully on the same burn pile as Rapper Boy. Go out in the field and get those other two bodies too. Put them all on the pile and find some gasoline to dump on ‘em. Then burn the bastards.”

     The two he pointed at scampered off to fulfill their mission.

     “Did we leave any ladders out front?”
     “No, they’re all here.”

     “Good. I don’t want to make it too easy on them when they come back. You two, get up on the roof of this building. Get on opposite corners so each of you can see in two different directions. Shoot anything that moves out there. Don’t come down until somebody relieves you. And if you fall asleep you die. Got it?”

     “Yes, sir.”

     “Okay, the rest of you, stand that gate back up. Drive the pickup against it to hold it into place. Then report to me for your next assignment.

     “You two guards… you stay here until you’re relieved. You fall asleep on guard duty and I’ll shoot you myself.”

    
Alvarez had taken charge. He considered himself the conquering general. This compound was the spoils of war. They’d captured it fair and square, and now it was theirs. And woe be anyone who tried to take it away from them.

     He took a head count. He had twelve men left. It would
be enough to hold the compound, unless the original owners came back with an army. And even then, he’d have the upper hand. It was much easier defending such a place than it was attacking it.

     Now that each member of his crew was
gainfully employed, Alvarez went to the kitchen, made himself a sandwich, and propped his feet atop one of the dining room tables.

     It was nice being the general.

Chapter 42

    
Alvarez didn’t know his every move was being closely watched.

     In the min
e, Mark, Hannah and John shared space at the security console, and watched Alvarez take a bite from his sandwich. They hated this man for what he and the others had done to them. And they would get even. They didn’t know how yet. But they’d figure something out.

     Mark noticed that in the background, over
Alvarez’ left shoulder, the blacked out monitors at the security desk were visible.

     “I’m glad you turned off the monitors, John. Hopefully it’ll never dawn on them that we’re watching. Did you log off the computer too?”

     “Yes. And I did one better.”

     He took the cable from his pocket and placed it on the desk in front of Mark. It meant nothing at all to Hannah, and she gave John a puzzled look. Mark understood its significance immediately and laughed.

     He told Hannah, “If they try to get the computer back on, they’ll have a hell of a time breaking into it. The password is a mile long. But even if they have a computer guru who’s able to get in, the monitors still won’t work without that cable.

     “And that gives us a distinct advantage. We can see them, but they can’t see us.”

     Before Saris 7 hit the earth, Mark installed surveillance systems for a living. Security was his game, and he was good at it. After he set up the systems in the mine and the compound and wired everything together, he took another step he never told anyone about.

     And it was such a minor detail, no one ever noticed.

     Hannah asked him, “What if the notice the cameras and break them, or put bags over them or something?”

     “Well, they might. But I doubt it. See, most surveillance cameras have a red light that shines when the power is on. Sometimes they flash, sometimes they’re steady. But it’s like a big neon sign that says, ‘hey, you’re being watched.’

     “But I took the bulbs out of all the cameras in the compound. They’re all actively working, but they look as dead as the monitors. I’m hoping they think the whole system is down.”

     “Wow! So you foresaw this whole thing?”

     “I knew it was a possibility. I didn’t want to alarm anyone. But in the security game, you always take a step back and try to figure out what might happen and then take measures to counter it. That’s the same reason we planted explosives in the tunnel. If they had chased us, we could have collapsed the tunnel right on top of them.”

     John said, “Speaking of security, we need to get everyone together for a meeting. Let’s do it here, at the security desk, after dinner. We should consider ourselves at war now, and we need to take extra precautions.
”

     “Okay. I’ll make an announcement at dinner, for everyone to assemble here after they finish eating.”

     “And something else bothers me too.”

     “What’s that, John?”

     He pointed to the monitor that still showed Alvarez, now enjoying a piece of Helen’s fresh baked zucchini bread.

     Over
Alvarez’ shoulder, on the now vacant security desk at the compound, John pointed out a radio they’d left behind.

     “We need to keep everyone off the radio for the time being. I think that may be the one Sarah dropped and broke last week. But we need to maintain radio silence, at least until we inventory the radios and make sure no more are missing.”

     After dinner the group assembled around the security desk. Debbie briefed everyone on the status of her patients. Sami was sleeping peacefully and would fully recover. Bryan’s ankle was sprained, but not broken. He’d be hobbling around on crutches for a few days, but would be fine after that.

     John said, “I know you’re all worried about what this bunch will do in the future. I want to put your minds at ease to a limited degree. For now, at least, they appear to be happy that they’ve chased us out of the compound, and seem to be making themselves at home over there. They’ve already discovered the cache of wine and whiskey that Mark had stashed in the back of the food storage room, and have sampled both of them.

     “They have posted guards at the gate and on the roof, though. They might think that we’re going to make an attempt to take back what’s ours. And they’re right about that. But we’ll do it on our own time, when we decide to do it. And it won’t be soon. We’ll wait until our wounded heal, and until they get complacent over there.

     “Mark, Hannah, Sarah? Do you have anything to add?”

     Mark took over.

     “Like John said, there are no indications they are going to attack us
again. In fact, they probably don’t have a clue where we are. They’ve probably seen the ladders we posted on the inside of the wall, and they probably assume we’ve scattered into the woods. But since we placed a ladder on all four walls, they won’t know which direction we went. So we want everyone to relax and to consider yourselves safe for now.

     “We need to know who has radios with them. We know we left at least one behind
. We believe it is broken, and of no use to them. But if there are any more missing, we’ll have to stop using the radios until I can reprogram them all. We don’t want them to find a radio and start monitoring it. They probably couldn’t pick up anything on it now, but later on when we go outside to take the compound back we don’t want them hearing what we say.”

     John read off a radio inventory list that was always maintained at the security desk.

     As he called out the names of people who were assigned radios, they affirmed one by one that their radios were still working and still in their possession. None were unaccounted for or missing, except for the broken one left in the compound.

     “Good. That’s one less thing to worry about. For the time being, we should consider ourselves on a wartime footing. You men and women who have been trained on the use of
side arms, we want you to wear them in case they figure out where we are and decide to attack us. We want everyone to stay away from the front entrance. The steel overhead door will not stop bullets. We’re going to fortify it today with several layers of plywood and sandbags that will. We’re also going to post armed guards at the entrance and at the tunnel”

     Mark added, “Right now our best ally is the camera system over there. It’s still working, and we don’t think they realize that they’re being monitored. As long as they don’t figure it out, that gives us a big advantage. We can see them and they can’t see us. So if they do figure out where we are and decide to attack, we should have plenty of warning. We should be able to see them coming in plenty of time to prepare, and that’ll take away their element of surprise.”

     He looked at Hannah and Sarah.

     “You girls got anything to add?”

     Hannah spoke first.

     “Right now we’ve got everything we need to survive over here. The RVs we used to live in are just like we left them. We still have water, and power, and food. And most importantly, we have each other. We were lucky not to have lost anybody. It’ll be tough, but we’ll get through this. This is no worse than our first days in the mine. We made it then, and we’ll make it now.”

     Sarah looked at Mark and shook her head. She didn’t have anything to add.

     John finished up.

     “We’ve never used the panic button, and I’m not going to demonstrate it right now. The kids have been through enough. It sounds like a fire alarm, and it’s activated right here, from the security desk. If it looks like we’ll be coming under attack, we want you women and children to evacuate to the back of Bay 12. There are a lot of stacks of pallets and supplies and stuff back there where you can hide. As soon as it appears they’re going to leave the compound, we will hit the panic button and give you as much time as we can to get to the back of Bay 12. Then our shooting team will don night vision goggles and we’ll kill the lights. If they’re coming in here after us, we want the advantage on our side. Any questions?”

     There were none.

     Sarah elbowed Hannah and nodded toward Rachel and Roxanne, who were holding each other at the corner of the group. They both looked absolutely terrified.

     “What went on today probably brought back memories of the day their dad was killed. I want to spend some time with them to try to comfort and calm them. Let me know if you need me.”

Chapter
43