Endless Flames (Surviving Ashes, Book Four) (27 page)

Mason held up his hand and then used his other to signify something was wrong. Maxie deliberately took her time standing, not wanting the rustle of her clothes to make a sound and yet that was the subtle sound she heard coming from the falling ash.

Someone was out there and they were getting steadily closer.

“W
e’ll radio you
with a time and place for the delivery of the supplies. They will be there when you arrive,” Mav specified as he moved a step forward inside the fisherman’s cabin. Berke wasn’t sure how the roof hadn’t caved in yet, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. This cabin had been built with sturdy logs, but the roof appeared to be put together with commercial struts. They couldn’t last under this kind of load once it got wet. He just hoped like hell it wasn’t in the next five minutes. “You’re lucky to get that after what you’ve done. We don’t expect, nor want, any further contact after that.”

Berke zeroed in on Van, who had bruising on the left side of his face. His lip was busted, his eye was half-swollen shut, and an odd cut on his cheek indicated that they’d used some small round carved metal object to pierce the skin. It didn’t take a genius to deduce it was the white gold NSA ring on Allman’s right hand. It was hell to hold back from exacting justice on the piece of shit standing in front of them.

The man was lean and dressed in appropriate dark, insulated clothing for the elements. That didn’t surprise Berke, seeing as this man had been with Paige long enough to know what he’d need to survive. His blond hair appeared darker due to the ash and his face was smudged with streaks of residue and red from wearing a mask of some sort, though his demeanor was one of a man who had the upper hand. Why?

“I’ve been thinking and I don’t believe three months of provisions is going to work for me,” Allman stated, having too much confidence for Berke’s comfort. He looked at the other two men in the room, noting their gaze was directly on the men negotiating and not their captive. Webb was currently sitting at the table, easing the pain in his leg from the long trip. “I’d like you to radio down to your camp and let them know they’re going to have a few more guests for the duration.”

Berke quickly identified that the men with Allman weren’t of his caliber. Had he sent his own unit with Paige on that fateful day of her death? Were these men in attendance leftover security from the USGS or just the Bravo team that Webb had said served in a support role? The manner in which they held their weapons demonstrated a lack of familiarity. Their builds and bearing left a lot to be desired and they weren’t overseeing the exchange the way trained operators would. So why, then, was Allman thinking he had the upper hand?

Truman hadn’t shown up, but Berke wasn’t surprised. That trip to Fairchild Air Force base was a long distance, even in the Mule. Then to undertake the trip back in time to make this rendezvous with a platoon of Air Force Security Forces personnel wasn’t the most obtainable goal. That meant they were on their own to deal with the fallout, which came a hell of a lot sooner than expected.

Berke didn’t flinch a bit when gunfire exchange could be heard in the distance, even though his only thought was of Maxie. He had every confidence in her ability to protect herself, but he still prayed that she was safe. He’d know if anything had happened, right? They were connected in a way he’d never been to another person. He’d feel it somewhere inside his soul, of that he was certain.

The only movement from Mav came by way of the tilt of his head when he leveled Allman a challenging stare. Van was already getting into position, ready to do what was necessary. Berke didn’t question that he had the strength reserved to do what needed to be done.

“I warned you that it was only to be the two of you,” Allman exclaimed in partial triumph as he shifted his stance. Had he really thought they wouldn’t be ready for something of this magnitude? “I ordered my team to take out those sentries you thought it was wise to bring with you. I’m sure that will make my job easier upon breaching the perimeter of your lodge.”

“Good luck with that, dickhead,” Mav encouraged in that steel tone of his, lifting a hand to motion toward Allman’s radio. The fire exchange had ceased and Berke hoped like hell the outcome was in their favor. “You might want to ask for a roll call. You see, we know you lost a good deal of your elite operators during the first ambush. That leaves you little in the way of reinforcements who have the weapons and skillset to overtake our second line team, not to mention the Marines we now have in place.”

The two men standing on either side of the room shot a glance toward their leader, who continued to stare down Mav as he mulled over his choices. Should he radio his colleagues he’d sent out to terminate those men and women with Mav, Allman took the chance of giving Mav and Berke the upper hand and discounted the percentages that his team had failed. Should he find that his own team was successful, that could very well have Mav and Berke reacting in a manner he didn’t want.

“Paige talked about you,” Allman addressed Berke, prolonging everyone’s uncertainty of finding out who had the privilege of surviving that altercation. He sure as hell didn’t want to talk about the woman who’d screwed him over. “She told me all about your little unit and the hobby your tank commander had undertaken to keep himself busy during his retirement years. A self-sustaining bunker in a silver mine in the great northwest. Who would have thought he’d been on to something, huh? We laughed at the time, obviously at what we thought was the stupidity of an old brain-dead jarhead.”

Berke realized that Maxie’s theory regarding Paige targeting him over a year ago wasn’t true. It should have made him feel somewhat relieved to know he wasn’t so gullible as to be a mark for Allman’s agent, but it didn’t alleviate the remorse he still experienced at her betrayal. It stopped here though. No more damage was going to be done at the hands of these traitors.

“It’s a shame you won’t be seeing the progress we made since those earlier days,” Berke offered up with feigned conviction. He had to believe that Maxie and the others had held their own against their opposition, but he also knew firsthand how easy it was for missions to go sideways. “There’s only one way this is going to end, Allman. We let the three of you walk out of here and keep those who you still have alive around to help you with the provisions we see fit to give you or we finish the fight you started right here, right now.”

“There wasn’t ever a chance in hell of you taking that bunker,” Mav reinforced, pushing as many buttons on the guy as possible. Allman had yet to show a kink in his black armor, but it had to be there somewhere. Having Van on the other side in the line of fire wasn’t helping this situation move along any faster. “All you had to do was reroute Paige’s team to the nearest emergency management site. Any one of those locations would have taken all of you, and yet Paige talked you into coming here. Hell, you had your pick and yet you still chose to believe a geologist had a better plan. Why? What could she have said that turned you into the fuck piece of shit
traitor
you are?”

“Traitor?” And there it was. Berke could see the vein in Allman’s neck protrude as anger replaced composure. “I served this country in more ways than you will ever know. I walked through the depths of hell in order for this country to maintain its freedom and not be wiped out by nuclear weapons. Don’t you stand there and…”

Allman continued to spout his hatred for things he’d done in the name of his country and while Berke could relate to those horrid acts that stole pieces a man’s soul, something had clearly happened to warp his judgment. He was killing innocent people to ensure his own safety, not to protect those same innocents from endangerment. That wasn’t a true serviceman. That was being a selfish, lonesome prick.

“…shelter? There isn’t enough for the ones they have there already and I’ll be damned if I’m left out in the cold to breathe in this shit and suffocate.” Allman wiped the spit from his chapped lips and pointed the barrel of his Walther PPS 9mm in the direction of the lodge. “That place can sustain anyone through the forthcoming decade of our society. I want it. I deserve it.”

“You can’t take that bunker by wishing it to be so, asshole,” Mav taunted, once again waving his hand toward Allman’s radio. “Shouldn’t your men have checked in by now?”

Berke zeroed his gaze in on Van, who should have easily made a move on Allman by now. His little outburst had given Van plenty of time to take control from his vantage point and yet he still stood there silently, as if waiting for something. Whatever it was had to be the reason Allman was so confident things were going to go his way. What was it?

All hell broke loose before Berke could figure it out.

Glass shattered, the ting of a 40mm gas canister bouncing off the log wall came second, and orders were being shouted through the rising, greasy white smoke. The cavalry had arrived in the form of the Kellen Truman and his contacts at the Fairchild Air Force Base. It was time to end this.

Berke advanced forward, utilizing a forward kick into the abdomen of Allman’s nearest flunky, doubling him over. The force upon impact wasn’t enough to loosen the tango’s grip on his weapon, but it was enough to disorient him. Without interrupting the flow of the collision, Berke brought the butt of his weapon around and into the target’s unprotected upturned jaw. It must have hurt enough to stun him, because Berke was then able to grab the suppressor of the tango’s MP5 and jam it backward so that the weapon was aimed at Allman and not one of his teammates.

He twisted the weapon out of his opponent’s grip, yanking it free to beat the guy with his own weapon until Berke finished the job at hand by delivering one more critical blow to the back of his neck. The man dropped where he stood, not standing a chance.

Berke didn’t have time to shake out the pain blossoming in his fist as he immediately donned his gasmask, turning to try and make out what had happened to Van. He wasn’t where he should be and the room was now covered in a thick concentrated vapor of CS gas. In a split second, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face due to the tears in his eyes and the thick, white billowing cloud, so he listened closely for any sound coming from the other side of the cabin. Unfortunately, he couldn’t make anything out over the orders being shouted from the outside. He had no choice but to try and make it to the front door.

“Where’s Van?” Truman called out, grabbing Berke by the shoulder and pulling him through the opening. There were at least a dozen military men and women surrounding the cabin, dressed in their combat utilities as well as gasmasks with hoods. It struck Berke as almost comical that of all the different camouflage patterns the service had come up with, the one most well-adapted for the present circumstances was the Air Force’s blue and grey tiger-striped uniform. No sight of Mav or Van. “Was he in there with you?”

Berke cursed, thinking Van had already made his way outside. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he was still inside, but it was Mav who stumbled out first. Blood slowly dripped down the inside of his mask from what appeared to be a knife cut above his eyebrow. Berke had to give him a break, since the tango he had dealt with had at least fifty additional pounds on him.

“Van is still—”

“Don’t shoot!” Van roared from around the back of the cabin, so all three of them didn’t hesitate to advance in that direction. They had plenty of cover and Berke had to trust that the arriving troops had already taken care of those loose ends Allman had hanging around the area. “Don’t you fucking shoot him!”

Van hadn’t been fully dressed for the weather conditions when Berke and Mav had arrived at the cabin, nor had he had a gasmask in his possession. God only knew what Allman had done with it. It had been apparent that Allman was working him over from the fresh blood that had been smeared across Van’s face. He’d been left in a ripped T-shirt, showing the growing bruise on his ribcage. So there he was now, running toward the man who’d stopped dead cold upon seeing what he was facing.

It didn’t matter. Van broad tackled the man until they were both lying on the ground, volcanic ash falling down around them. He had Allman on his back in record time, delivering a blow to the face that would have knocked most men out cold. Allman wasn’t most men and spit the blood into the ash. Berke was close enough to see the man give another arrogant smile. Fuck. He had to have some sort of leverage that would keep his sorry ass alive if he were taken prisoner.

Berke unclipped the gasmask they’d brought for Van, shoving it in his chest while looking around for Maxie. Where was she? Where was the rest of their team? It was hard to sort through the silhouettes of the men and women Truman had brought with him, but that didn’t stop Berke from trying. The adrenaline in his body started pumping once more at the fact that she wasn’t stepping forward.

“For God’s sake, put this on before you breathe this shit in and die from mud lung,” Berke ordered, looking over his shoulder to see Truman staring at Van like he’d seen a fucking ghost. That’s what he was trying to avoid. “Truman, have you secured the area? Pull it together. Is everyone accounted for? Is Maxie all right?”