The Stones of Angkor (Purge of Babylon, Book 3) (34 page)

He dove off the Triumph and darted between the pumps as two more shots smashed into the machines behind him. A fourth shot buzzed past his right ear and hit the glass door of the Shell. Will made a quick left turn as the gunshots came faster, shattering the gas station windows one by one by one.

He found salvation by lunging behind an ugly green dumpster at the end of the parking lot. It was stained and smelled, but it was also six cubic yards of fourteen gauge steel. Immediately, the sharp
ping-ping!
of bullets peppered the other side of the dumpster, vibrating across the metal and through his body.

Will almost laughed when he realized he had held on to the Hello Kitty the entire time.

God bless you, Hello Kitty.

He stuffed the plush doll back into his pack and unslung the M4A1.

As the last gunshot faded, he waited for more, but there weren’t any.

Silence, as the shooter—or shooters—stopped firing.

Will reached into his pack and pulled out the baton and mirror kit. He snapped the metal rod to its full sixteen inches, then attached the mirror to the end with a solid
click.
Careful not to show himself, he stuck the baton, mirror-first, out the side of the dumpster, keeping it low enough to the ground to avoid detection.

First, he made sure no one was moving in on his position, which was his first worry. If there were more than two, he was in trouble. Two, he could probably handle. More, and they could come at him from multiple angles.

When he was certain a forward charge wasn’t coming, he moved the mirror back to the highway to study the vehicles, in case the shooter was hiding behind one of them. Because the I-49 was flat to the ground, he could easily see the other side.

He glimpsed a row of buildings, including what looked like an auto body shop next to a school. The buildings were all one story, so he concentrated on the roofs because that was where the sniper—or snipers—were likely to be. A high vantage point was always the key to a successful ambush.

He picked up a structure in the distance, jutting up from the ground, and looked like some type of water tower. A lot of small cities like Harvest had their own water towers, and this one was bright white and tall. It would have made for a terrific shooting spot if it wasn’t way back on the other side of the city—more than half a kilometer—and the chances of someone shooting from that distance were dismal.

He spotted another possibility, this one closer to the highway. Not the buildings that were low to the ground, but rising steel struts that went high up. He angled the mirror to get a better view, revealing a giant billboard advertising something called the Sandwhite Wildlife State Park. Cute cartoon animals poked their heads out from behind bushes, and a family of four smiled back at him as they set up camp for a picnic.

He saw a metallic reflection along the length of the billboard scaffolding, about the same time a gunshot interrupted the calmness and a bullet slammed into the concrete floor just three inches from the mirror.

Will quickly pulled the baton back.

He took a moment, gauging the distance between him and the sniper—120 meters, give or take. That meant two possible scenarios—the man was either a really good shot, or he had a nice riflescope on top of what sounded like an M4 doing most of the aiming for him.

Another M4? Same as the guys back at Mercy Hospital…

He moved to the other side of the dumpster and slowly eased the baton out again. He immediately angled it to get a better view of the billboard, and could just make out a figure lying on top of the metal scaffolding. There was only one man up there, but he seemed pretty comfortable. The guy was patient, too, which was another potential problem. He couldn’t make out a whole lot of details on the shooter, but it was easy enough to see the long barrel of the man’s rifle. The sun also glinted off a riflescope resting on top of it.

Just my luck, it’s probably an ACOG.

If the guy did have an ACOG, that meant he didn’t have to be a great shooter. The rifle scope was good for two, maybe 300 meters in the hands of an amateur. A pro like Danny could stretch that out to 800 in optimal conditions. At a distance of a hundred and change, the shooter had the advantage. Even a blind man could hit him from that distance, given enough time and a steady enough target.

Will pulled the mirror back and considered his options.

There was no way around it. He was pinned. There were no places to hide between him and the shooter. No buildings, or raised highway structures, or even a decent natural defilade to shelter behind. He wasn’t getting anywhere near the guy without being picked off first.

Which left him with…what?

There’s always an option. Always…

He glanced down at his watch: 10:13 
a.m.

He had plenty of daylight to come up with something. That was the only good news.

He could make the Shell next door easily, but then what? The Triumph was on the wrong side of the gas pumps and he wouldn’t last more than a few seconds out there trying to climb on top of it, much less start it. And he wasn’t going to hit anything from this distance with the M4A1’s red dot sight. Maybe if he had an ACOG of his own, things would be different.

Yeah, and if wishes were assholes…

*

Ten minutes passed,
and Will was surprised the sniper hadn’t called in reinforcements yet. It made him wonder if Kellerson and the others were too far away, or if the sniper was even a collaborator. He hadn’t seen any signs of a hazmat suit, but then again, the sniper might have taken it off, including the gas mask, to aim better. That made sense. The hazmat suit was essentially a uniform—to distinguish them from other humans and to each other, and of course, to the ghouls. There would be no reason for the sniper to wear it here.

If, that is, the man was even one of Kellerson’s people. For all Will knew, this could be a lone nutter. A survivalist who didn’t like people trespassing through his domain. But that wouldn’t explain why the man would take a shot at him. A survivalist would do all he could to avoid interaction with other people, including sniping at random passersby.

But if the sniper was one of Kellerson’s men, how many of them were out there? Maybe Jones had lied to him about their number. Or maybe Kellerson had already gotten reinforcements.

A lot of possibilities, and none of them did him any good at the moment.

Will slipped the baton outside again, angling it to get another look at the billboard. Almost instantly, he heard the
crack!
of a shot and a bullet chopped into the concrete parking lot a foot from the mirror.

He pulled the baton back quickly.

Will looked over at the Triumph, leaning on its kickstand. Impossible to get to, which further limited his options. He could retreat in the other direction. He could make it to the Shell easily, and from there, the Walmart next door. The sniper couldn’t hit him from that distance. He could gradually move back even farther and look for shelter.

Then what?

Will sat on the ground and took out another strip of Jack Link’s beef jerky. He ate slowly, in no real hurry, breathing through his mouth to keep out the rank stench of the dumpster behind him.

The sniper wasn’t going to attack. Why should he? He had the dominant position and was in total control of the situation. Attacking would be giving up his one major advantage. It was obvious now that it was just one man up there. Harvest, Louisiana, was as dead as you could get, and Will could hear almost everything, including debris scattering along the highway. The crunch of boots rushing him would be like firecrackers in this serenity.

He washed the jerky down with warm water and wished he were back on Song Island, walking on the beaches with Lara.

Lara… If I die now, she’s going to really be pissed.

He was thinking about how best to apologize to her when he heard the sound of a car engine. It was still distant, but approaching fast.

Alarms went off inside his head and he thought the car was reinforcement for the sniper, but he realized it was coming from the
wrong
direction. It wasn’t approaching from the north, where Kellerson would have vanished, but coming up from the south, from Lafayette.

Will scrambled up and inched toward the edge of the dumpster. He didn’t have to lean out completely to see the highway, or the green Volkswagen Beetle doing around forty miles per hour up the road. Out here, it was easy to get careless with speed; the lack of vehicles lulled you into a sense of safety that could be snatched away at any moment by just about anything, like debris, a pileup…or a sniper perched on a billboard.

The Beetle was still over 300 meters away…

Then 250…200 …

…150…

Will glanced toward the billboard. He saw sudden movement as the man shifted his position to pick up the Beetle.

…100 meters now…

At about seventy meters, Will heard the first shot from the M4, then brakes squealing and tires sliding desperately against the smooth highway. He leaned out a bit further and watched the sniper firing at the Beetle in three-round bursts.

The Beetle had come to a complete stop in the middle of the highway about fifty meters away, and Will watched a figure scramble out of the front passenger seat. Then a second later, another figure crawled out the same door, even as the sniper put round after round into the Beetle’s windshield and front hood and sides. The man seemed to be spraying and praying.

Then Will glimpsed a blonde ponytail.

Gaby.

What the hell was she doing here?

He sighed. She was following him, of course. It was the same reason why he had left before she had come back, because he knew she would argue and eventually decide to come with him. She was stubborn that way. It was the same trait that helped her to persevere and overcome.

He slipped out from behind the dumpster and ran across the parking lot. His thigh throbbed, reminding him he wasn’t 100 percent. Not even close.

He got twenty meters and was already crossing the feeder road and moving through the overgrown grass before the sniper remembered he was still around. The man shifted on the scaffolding and began shooting at him.

A bullet came close to putting a hole in his right arm, to match the one already in his left. Thankfully, he was able to find shelter behind a Chevy truck parked on the northbound lane. The windows above him shattered, and he heard the
ping-ping-ping!
of bullets going into the hood and the side of the truck.

He looked down the highway, in the direction of the Beetle.

Gaby was crouched behind the green vehicle, staring back at him. The guy crouched next to her looked familiar, and although Will thought it was Benny at first, he realized it was actually Nate, the twenty-something ROTC college student. The dumbass Mohawk gave it away.

Will caught Gaby’s eyes over the distance and held up his left hand, with all five fingers extended. Then he began to count down.

Four…three…

She nodded back, understanding. She said something to Nate, who then scooted over to the back of the Beetle and stopped next to the back tire.

When he got to
one
, Gaby and Nate stood up in unison and began firing back at the billboard sign. They were close enough that they were hitting the billboard, and Will could hear the bullets that didn’t puncture the big sign ricocheting off the metal struts around the sniper.

He waited, and only dove out from behind the Chevy when he heard the sniper firing back at the Beetle. He kept an eye on the billboard, on the cute creatures and family of four welcoming him to visit Sandwhite Wildlife State Park, as he moved across the flat highway lanes, doing his best to ignore the stabbing pain from his leg. He hit the median about four seconds later and rushed across overgrown grass that looked more like jungles.

By the time the sniper realized he was moving again, Will was on the southbound lane and already too close. He saw the man clinging low to the scaffolding, Gaby and Nate still firing at him, their bullets perforating the billboard. Every time the sniper tried to get up, another bullet came close to taking his head off.

Will stopped and took aim and fired, hitting the metal tubes just under the sniper. The man flinched as sparks flickered at his face. He scrambled up to his knees to get a better view.

Big mistake.

Will fired—and
missed
.

His bullet hit the billboard behind the man’s head, but it must have come pretty close, because the sniper twisted around involuntarily, lost his balance, and fell about fourteen meters to the ground—and landed in a thick bush that hadn’t been pruned in eleven months.

Gaby and Nate stopped shooting as Will jogged across the highway over the southbound feeder road and approached the sniper. He spotted a hand reaching out from the brush, groping for a Beretta M9 in a hip holster.

Will stepped on the arm and the man screamed. He bent down, pulled out the Beretta, and shoved it behind his back.