Under a Tell-Tale Sky: Disruption - Book 1 (39 page)

Julie swallowed hard and bobbed her head once in response.

Laura fought down an urge to sweep both her daughters into her arms and run to the house and hide, but hiding and waiting for the authorities was no longer an option. She brought the .30-.30 up and steadied it on the fence rail, wishing for the hundredth time Jordan had gotten around to fitting the scopes still in their boxes in the gun safe. She crouched a bit and took aim through the iron sights. The SUV turned slightly and she couldn’t see in for the glare, but she focused on the windshield where she knew the driver’s body would be.

“Okay, Julie,” Laura said, her rifle still on the approaching target. “Take a deep breath and calm down. Take your time and let me know when you’re ready.”

She heard what sounded like a deep sigh, then, “Okay, Mom, I’m ready.”

“All right, I’m going to take out the driver of the SUV. Don’t fire until you hear me shoot, but when I do, the pickup may slow or stop. You try to get that driver first. After that, we both just fire at whatever targets we’ve got. Clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Laura refocused, then took a deep breath and exhaled as her target made a slight change of direction and the glare off the windshield dissipated. She took another breath and held it as she slowly squeezed the trigger.

Beside her, Jana screamed, “MOM! DON’T—”

She felt the recoil of the unpadded stock into her shoulder as the gunshot echoed across the pasture.

“IT’S DAD!”

Even at a distance, she heard the crack as her bullet shattered the windshield, and watched horror-stricken as the SUV veered off the dirt track to come to rest in the field. Then tears flooded her eyes and nearly blinded her as she dropped the rifle and fought back great racking sobs, to rush across the pasture, screaming her husband’s name.

Warden’s Office

Federal Correctional Complex

Beaumont, Texas

Day 17, 9:00 a.m.

“Missing? What the hell do you mean missing?” Spike McComb glared at Snaggle as the smaller man squirmed in the chair.

“Missing, that’s all. They went out in their cruiser yesterday and they didn’t come back, and they ain’t answering the radio,” Snaggle said.

“Who was it again?”

“Willard Jukes and Kyle Morgan.”

“Wait a minute? Ain’t those the two assholes doing all the bitching?”

Snaggle nodded. “The same.”

“You don’t think they did a jackrabbit, or maybe decided to go into business for themselves?”

“Well, maybe, but it don’t seem likely. They’d have to know we’d find out, and then they’d be dead either way. Besides, I think they’re both from around here somewhere, so I can’t see no place for ‘em to jackrabbit to. I think it’s more likely they ran into trouble,” Snaggle said.

McComb shook his head. “It don’t matter. Only two things could have happened. Either somebody took ‘em out, or they took off on their own, and we gotta deal with it either way. If someone took ‘em out, we gotta find ‘em and deal with it publicly so everyone knows not to mess with my PO-lice. And if they really did jackrabbit, especially after running their motormouths, we DEFINITELY have to bring ‘em back and make an example of ‘em. We can’t have the rest of these assholes gettin’ ideas.” McComb paused. “Where was they working?”

“Last radio transmission said they was headed west toward the county line.”

“All right, knock half the boys off whatever they’re doin’ and cover that area like a blanket. Find those assholes! And if they turn up dead, make sure people nearby know it ain’t nice to piss off the PO-lice, but leave enough alive to spread the word.”

“What if someone took ‘em out and we can’t figure out who did it?”

McComb released an exasperated sigh and shook his head.

“Jesus H. Christ, Snaggle! Do I have to do all the thinkin’ around here? It don’t MATTER who did it. You think we’re gonna have a trial or something. Besides, why should I care who iced those ungrateful shitheads. This is damage control. Just pick a few people nearby, SAY they did it, and kill ‘em as an example. Got it?”

Snaggle nodded and rose from his chair.

“Wait a minute. You found that ship yet?”

“Not yet. The boys been having trouble getting the boat started, but last report I had said they should be on the river this morning. They’ll find it. It’s kind of hard to hide a ship.”

Chapter Seventeen

Cape Fear River

West of Wilmington, NC

Day 17, 9:00 a.m.

Singletary studied the chart intently, anxious to mask the fact he didn’t have a clue where they were going. It backfired.

“For a guide, you sure got your nose buried in that map. You know where you going?” Jermain Ware asked.

“It’s a chart, not a map, and around this next bend is the intersection with the Brunswick. We pass it by and stay right in this channel and go under the railroad bridge,” Singletary said, hoping he was reading the damn chart right. He was on pins and needles as the boat turned left and it was all he could do to contain a relieved sigh as the railroad bridge and intersection came into view. Instead, he fixed Jermain with a superior look.

“What was that you was sayin’?”

Jermain grunted and guided the powerboat toward the railroad bridge, towing the other two boats, each with two men aboard. Once they were under the railroad bridge and around a bend, Singletary pointed ahead to the right.

“See that break in the bank over there?”

“Yeah, what about it?” Jermain asked.

“That’s a little channel that runs alongside the river. We’ll hide the powerboat there and go the rest of the way on the electrics.”

“They damn slow! How far we got to go?”

“As far as I say, and they may be slow, but they’re quiet. So unless you want to let everyone on the river know we’re comin’, why don’t you do like I say?”

Jermain glared and turned toward the cut. Ten minutes later they had the powerboat anchored out of sight in the side channel and were shifting personnel between boats. Jermain took control of one of the electric-powered boats and indicated Singletary should join him. Singletary nodded and stood, his balance precarious as he held the iron ball.

“Look here,” he said to Jermain and the other gangbanger in his boat. “One of y’all hold this damn steel ball for me so I can get over there.”

Jermain smirked. “Hold it yourself, Mister High and Mighty River Guide.”

“If I drown before y’all even get where y’all going because you gotta play the fool, just how pissed off you reckon Kwintell’s gonna be?”

Jermain stared at Singletary for a long moment, then motioned the other man to take the steel ball. Unencumbered, Singletary transferred vessels easily and took his place at the front of the boat. He motioned Jermain to take off then immediately stopped him with a low cry.

“Hear that?” Singletary asked softly.

Jermain cocked an ear. “Sounds like another outboard coming downriver.”

Singletary nodded. “Move the boat near the mouth, but keep it back out of sight. We’ll be able to see ‘em from behind after they pass. They won’t see us unless they look back, so y’all stay quiet. We don’t need no trouble now.”

Jermain did as instructed, and the sound of the outboard increased. It was relatively quiet as outboards go, but still quite audible on the still river. The boat passed and Singletary could hardly believe his eyes. Levi was driving the boat with two women and two kids aboard, looking ahead and to both sides, but not back the way the boat had passed.

“Well, my, my, my,” Singletary said softly, “don’t that beat all. There goes Levi and his whole damn family. That only leaves the old man.”

“Let’s git ‘em,” Jermain said and turned the boat downstream.

“NO, FOOL!” Singletary hissed, terrified at the thought of getting into a running gunfight on the river with thirty pounds of iron shackled to his leg. He immediately regretted his choice of words as Jermain’s hand flew to his sidearm.

“I mean that’s not a good idea,” Singletary said. “We can’t catch ‘em on the electrics, and if we switch over to the powerboat, we can’t sneak up on ‘em ‘cause they’ll hear the motor. It will take a while to catch ‘em, and all that time, Levi can be layin’ into us with that rifle, and it ain’t like we’ll have any cover.”

Jermain seemed to be unsure, and Singletary pressed the point.

“Besides, they likely got a radio and they might call the Coasties or alert the old man back at their camp, and that would screw everything up. But this is perfect. Let ‘em go about their business, and we just sashay on up the river quiet like and take the old man by surprise and clean out their camp. Then we leave a couple of boys there to wait for them to get back and surprise them and take whatever they bring back from Wilmington. I say we stay right here and let ‘em get well out of sight around the bend, then head upriver just like we planned.”

Jermain scowled and reached for their own radio. “I’m gonna call Kwintell and see what we should do.”

Singletary shook his head. “That’s exactly the wrong thing to do. You’d have to spell it all out in plain English for him to understand, and what do you want to bet them Coasties don’t have a scanner, listenin’ to radio traffic? They hear, they’ll call Levi or the old man at his camp for sure, then we lost the surprise.”

Jermain hesitated, obviously resistant to taking direction from Singletary but unable to deny the logic of his observations. Finally he nodded.

“All right,” he said, and they sat there watching and waiting as Levi’s boat disappeared around the bend. They waited a few minutes longer for the sound of the outboard to fade, then turned upriver, the powerful little trolling motors pushing the boats at a moderate but steady pace.

Singletary’s mind raced. He’d racked his brain for a plan B ever since the ball was clamped on his leg, but now he saw a light at the end of the tunnel. Finding Levi’s camp now offered his very best chance to survive, come what may. He had no doubt Jermain and the rest of the bangers would make short work of the old man, and then pitch in to loot the camp. At that point, he’d be on dry land and out of immediate danger, but the ball would preclude his participation in the looting. He might be able to slip away when they were focused on their task, or failing that, talk Jermain into leaving him as part of the crew to await Levi’s return.

He liked his chances if left alone with only one of the others, who would now be more inclined to trust him, and there would likely be tools about the place he might use to free himself and escape. And even supposing none of those opportunities presented themselves, his success in delivering on his promise would prove his worth to Kwintell. He’d petition to join the gang and look for opportunities to escape when he wasn’t being watched so closely. One way or another, he’d survive.

He bent his head to the chart. From what he’d overheard, he knew the camp was on the Black River, which joined the Cape Fear River some distance upstream. From the chart, the Black would be the larger right branch of the fork, some distance ahead. It didn’t look like he could miss it, but after the fork things got tricky. All he could do was start looking for a stand of willow trees on the bank and hope he could spot it. His task was complicated by his urban roots—he had only a vague idea what a willow tree looked like, though he was pretty sure from the description it was droopy looking. He hoped like hell there weren’t a lot of droopy-looking trees.

“How much farther?” Jermaine asked.

“It’s a ways. We’ll go right at the fork of the Cape Fear and the Black,” Singletary said, with a confidence he didn’t feel.

Time dragged as the little trolling motors powered them upstream at a steady clip, and Singletary began to worry they might run out of battery before they reached their destination. Then he relaxed as they swept around a long bend to the right and came upon the fork in the rivers.

“This is it. Keep to the right,” he said.

“How far after that?” Jermain asked.

“A ways,” Singletary said. “I only been there once, but I’ll recognize it when I see it.”

“Which side of the river?”

Fear shot through Singletary at the unanticipated but obvious question.

“The east bank,” he said, glancing back at Jermain.

He suppressed a smile at the look of confusion on Jermain’s face, and hoped pride would preclude any follow-up questions. Sure enough, the man’s fear of appearing ignorant overcame his curiosity as to which side of the river they were searching, and he just nodded, as if satisfied with the answer. Singletary went back to scanning both sides of the river for droopy-looking trees.

Only belatedly did he realize Jermain’s question presented another problem—he had to pick the right spot, or at least the correct side of the river—the first time. If they inspected an area on the right bank and it wasn’t the entrance, he might be able to pass it off as a mistake and keep on looking. However, he couldn’t then inspect a place on the left bank without revealing he was clueless. Jermain was ignorant, not stupid.

Tension built as they glided upstream, and a likely looking stand of trees grew close to the left bank, but they didn’t quite fit Singletary’s mental image. His forbearance was rewarded moments later as they rounded a bend and he spotted a much more likely prospect on the right bank—a stand of trees right on the water’s edge, long limbs drooping over the river and trailing whiplike tendrils down to brush the water, shrouding the riverbank like a curtain. He hedged his bets with Jermain a bit.

“I believe this is it,” he said quietly to Jermain. “Just nose the boat through them limbs hangin’ down and let’s make sure there’s an inlet. A lot of these places look alike on the river, but it’s either this one or the next.”

Jermain reduced speed, barely moving as he nosed the boat up to the willow curtain at a right angle to the bank. The second gangbanger joined Singletary in the bow and they parted the thick willow curtain with their arms as the boat nudged through it. Sure enough, after working their way through a ten-foot thickness of trailing willow tendrils, the bow of the boat broke into a clear area, and they found themselves floating in a twenty-foot-wide channel, running inland at a right angle to the river between the trunks of two massive willow trees. It was dark and cool beneath the trees and Singletary could see the channel was obscured further on by a similar willow curtain.

He nodded up the little inlet. “You go through that and Levi’s camp is just beyond.”

“How far?”

Singletary had anticipated the question and dropped the last bit of info he’d gleaned from overheard conversation.

“A ways. There’s a little dock, but you can’t see it from the house.”

Jermain nodded and moved to start the trolling motor.

“Wait a minute!” Singletary hissed. “What’s the plan?”

Jermain shrugged. “One old man? I figure we just tie up at this dock and go up quiet like and surprise him. He gives us any trouble, we cap his ass. Why we need a plan?”

“What about me?”

“You stay in the boat. We’ll come back and take care … we’ll come back and get you later.”

Jermain nudged the boat forward to make room for the second boat to move into the clearing near the tree trunks, and it suddenly occurred to Singletary he hadn’t been the only one with a plan. Jermain wasn’t likely to share credit with anyone for a successful raid.

After a hushed exchange with his men in the other boat, Jermain started through the second willow curtain as Singletary began to rapidly recalculate his own odds for survival. His mental exercise was interrupted by an event that changed those odds significantly, and not for the better.

The thick, heavy snake landed across Singletary’s shoulders with a dull thud, surprising the snake perhaps almost as much as Singletary. As Singletary’s terrified scream pierced the air, the equally frightened snake responded in kind, striking Singletary’s right bicep. Singletary leaped to his feet, fighting the willow limbs and shaking his arm in an attempt to sling the snake off. He managed to break free of the snake’s bite, but success was overshadowed as he lost his balance and plunged backward out of the boat, dragging his steel ball with him as five feet of pissed-off snake flew around the bottom of the boat.

Jermain and the other banger were on their feet now, screaming as well as they tried to avoid the snake. Then terror overcame common sense and their response was as dumb as it was inevitable. They drew their weapons and five seconds and twenty rounds later, the bottom of the aluminum boat was like Swiss cheese. As the boat sank, the snake swam away unharmed, perhaps the only participant satisfied with the results of the encounter.

The water was only six feet deep, and Singletary bobbed up and down off the bottom, dragging his leg ball through the mud until he could grab a protruding tree root and pull himself to the bank.

“HE BIT ME!” Singletary wailed. “I NEED A DOCTOR.”

“If you don’t shut up, I’m gonna cap you right here,” Jermain said, hanging onto the side of the second boat.

“What we gonna do, Jermain?” the driver of the second boat asked.

“Pull us aboard and let’s get to that dock. We need to take care of the old man, but it ain’t gonna be no surprise now.”

“What about him,” the driver asked, nodding toward Singletary.

“Leave the fool here. We’ll worry about him later.”

***

Anthony McCoy’s head jerked at the sound of the screams. He dumped the chicken feed on the ground and tossed the bowl aside to wade through the flocking chickens to his shotgun leaning against the house. The sound of rapid gunfire removed any thoughts of rescuing someone in distress. That much firepower this close to the camp could only mean trouble.

The disturbance came from the river, and he headed down the now well-worn path, but quickly thought better of it. He moved into the woods, paralleling the path and out of sight until he understood the situation. Staking out a position in the woods near the dock, he’d hardly settled in to his hideout when a boat pushed through the willow curtain with five heavily armed men aboard.

His first thought was of his family. Had they been caught on the river and attacked? Unlikely. Even if they’d been attacked and succumbed, Levi would have had time to get off a warning, and besides, sound travels far over water and he’d heard no gunfire. No, the camp was clearly the target, and he was both outnumbered and outgunned, and if they spread out, it would be difficult to defend against them. It was best to even the odds a bit while they were all together in the boat, but the shotgun presented problems of range and accuracy. The dock was at least fifty yards away and they were some distance farther.