Rebellion: After It Happened Book 6 Page 15

  “They’re completely safe,” Mitch said, sitting down on the stool with a seemingly cavalier lack of regard for his own life.

  “I need to run enough wire to detonate them on command instead of having something roll over them and get launched,” he explained. Dan, still too horrified to answer, just stared at him so he took it as permission to carry on with the explanation.

  “You see, normally, you’d bury these buggers under the surface and whatever goes over it cops for the shaped charge firing straight up,” he explained with useful sign language indicating a vehicle being launched skywards “but we don’t want our vehicles or any friendlies getting blown up. I want to rig these two at the choke point on the road between the cliffs. I’ll put them vertically, facing towards each other, and pack rocks over them to make the approach even tighter, like one vehicle width.” He paused, waiting for any questions that might have arisen. Seeing Dan still staring, he continued.

  “Anyway, long command wire from both to the gun position above the gate, detonator in each, and whack the ends onto a battery. Boom. One attack seriously fucked up.” He finished with a beaming smile and two raised thumbs.

  Dan still stared at him, half in terror of the destructive power and half in absolute admiration.

  “Genius,” he said, half in caustic jest and yet grateful for Mitch’s untasked activity. Still slightly in shock, he walked away a little faster than normal as he pictured the mess of wires and explosives.

  That evening, before the light failed, he helped Mitch, Neil and a handful of volunteers as they moved rocks and piled them back over the mines carefully after they were wrapped in thick, black plastic. Dan stood watch, weapon ready, whilst Leah held the high ground with her battle rifle from the wall above the gate.

  The long, copper wire, reclaimed from so many telegraph poles and recycled to become part of a weapon, was laid into a trench scraped through the rocky ground and fed up the wall to where it was fixed in place under the wooden gun shelter where the battery required to fire it was kept dry well away from the wires.

  If it worked, and there were many variables which would say it might not work, it would easily devastate anything short of a battle tank coming through that gap.

  It was Christmas Eve, and Dan guessed that counted as wrapping a present of sorts.

  IMPROVISATION

  Mitch wasn’t the only person to be reclaiming parts of innocuous machinery with the intention of weaponising it. Working under a bright bulb which occasionally flickered due to the inconsistent power created by an ageing diesel generator, another grizzled man – another soldier – worked with an array of small tools and wires.

  Using thick glasses to magnify his work, he used a soldering iron to connect a wire to a ball. The ball had previously been the gear lever for a car, and the man smirked to himself as he imagined what the manufacturers would think now he was using their engineering for destruction.

  He connected the loose end of the wire to a small circuit board and depressed the trigger switch which used to be for selecting park, reverse, neutral or drive. Each time he released the switch the small lightbulb on the board lit up faintly.

  Satisfied, he picked up another reclaimed part of the same vehicle, this time the air conditioning button. Connecting it similarly, he tested it on the circuit board again and was rewarded with the dim light when he clicked the switch on. He pressed it again and the light went out.

  So engrossed was he in his work that he did not notice the man stood leaning languidly in the doorway.

  “Damn you, Leo,” he grumbled in French, barely able to disguise his small start. “Must you sneak up on everyone?” he complained.

  “It is a skill,” Leo declared flatly in humourless response. “Is it working?”

  “Yes,” answered the man. “I assume you have the parts I need?”

  In reply, Leo held aloft a small, green canvas bag he had hidden behind his back. Placing it on the desk before him he turned and left.

  “I will prepare the delivery method,” he said ambiguously from the doorway.

  Ignoring the parts of the plan which didn’t directly involve him, the man returned to his work and regarded the bag. It was a satchel in drab military colours, and inside were three shapes not too dissimilar to house bricks.

  The man knew that inside each brick was a shaped charge of high explosive. He knew the destructive power of a single charge having used them to great effect collapsing metal bridges and creating openings in walls without having to knock on the door. Each charge would explode, if executed correctly, with a directed blast capable of some serious carnage. Three, in the design and configuration he had been asked to create, would flip a small tank.

  He had no qualms about what he was asked to do; it simply did not concern him. He was a soldier, he had orders, and he intended to follow them.

  Carefully removing the detonators from each charge and separating them, his deft fingers worked fast to check a dry run of how it would work.

  Activating the circuit by connecting the air conditioning button via its wire to three 9 volt batteries taped together he clicked the button in.

  Holding down the switch of the gear lever in his right hand as he connected that wire to the batteries, he connected the command wire to the bulb on his circuit board. The bulb, in his dry run representing the power to the detonators flashed on as soon as he released the gear lever switch.

  “Boom,” he said to himself quietly, no trace of humour in his voice.

  Removing the wires now that he knew the connections were good, he began stitching the satchel onto a carrying harness.

  ~

  Leo was satisfied with the attrition rate. One of the men he had captured was aggressive from the start, and had proven himself to be capable. That man had to be beaten so badly that he could not pose a threat. The woman’s wits abandoned her quite quickly and there was no point in using violence against her, even though one of his men seemed to take pleasure in hitting her. He had dealt with that man privately and quietly, not out of any sense of propriety but for the fact that he despised emotional responses in soldiers; to feed one’s obsession or fetish is to lose sight of the mission goal.

  These two he had sent to his quarry with the intent to unsettle him. True, others had argued that this gave the people tucked safely behind the high stone walls time to prepare for an attack, but they didn’t know the entire plan. They didn’t know about his back door.

  In sending the two broken people to him, he had sent a message. He had invoked fear and anger, and frightened and angry people did foolish things under pressure. It was the prelude to looking in the man’s eyes as he killed him.

  Now, returning his attention to the remaining two captives, he set in motion the final part of the plan to damage the defenders from the inside.

  Walking into a room as the guard posted outside nodded to him – seemingly what passed for military discipline now, not that he minded as actions and loyalty were always valued over salutes – Leo sat down calmly on the bed next to the man.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked softly, in a barely audible whisper.

  “Dan,” came the weak response after a heartbeat.

  “You’re thinking what he did to you? Why he abandoned you to this fate?” he pressed, his translation adding eloquence to his words.

  “Yes,” came the answer. “I hate him. It’s all his fault.”

  Making soothing noises he patted the knee of the man who was curled up on a thin mattress like a traumatised child.

  “I know,” he said, “I know. Soon you will get your chance to avenge everyone he killed.”

  For the first time the man’s eyes raised from where they stared blankly at the bed.

  “Really?” he asked.

  “Yes, Chris,” answered Leo. “I know I can trust you,” he said, rising slowly to leave the room.

  SO MANY QUESTIONS

  Christmas morning came without the fuss of previous years – before or
after – and Dan smoked as he stood guard over the gate.

  He had been on watch for a little over an hour before a hollering noise penetrated the windswept walkways and reached his ears. It was, although unclear, unmistakably a call for him. He just knew.

  Turning to the inky black archway which led to the spiralling stone step down, he saw Mitch emerge red-faced.

  “Infirmary,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “I’ll take over here.”

  Without a word, Dan strode past him to take the steps as fast as safety allowed. Ash fell behind on the uneven staircase, but easily caught up with him on the straight as he jogged along the corridors.

  Bursting into the room he saw everyone flinch. Everyone included Marie, who was sat at the side of Lexi’s bed holding her hand.

  She was awake, and she seemed to some extent in possession of her faculties.

  Nodding with her eyes, Marie indicated that he should wait at the back of the room and listen. Wordlessly he went and kept his eyes down as though that could minimise his presence, but Ash whined and danced on the spot.

  Lexi responded to his noise, and held out a hand which he shot forward to nuzzle. Placing one giant paw at a time on the bed he tried to haul himself onto her lap with as much success as trying to play golf with a basketball – he just didn’t fit. He did respond to Marie telling him to get down, although made sure he remained in physical contact with Lexi, like he knew she was hurt.

  “Ash,” Lexi croaked with a smile, looking to Marie to check if her memory was correct and not distorted.

  “Yes,” Marie replied. “You remember Ash.”

  Lexi smiled wider and stroked the big dog’s head.

  “Lexi,” Marie said carefully, “tell me again what happened.”

  Lexi’s eyes remained resolutely unfocussed in the direction of the dog as her words began to flow.

  “Steve crashed coming back. Bad,” she said in a small voice. “The twins took over and an army came for us. We escaped and came to find you. Simon found us. The Frenchman caught us.”

  The room remained in total silence disturbed only by Ash yawning. All eyes apart from Lexi’s panned to him, as though he could make sense of her answer.

  It had taken Marie over an hour to reassure Lexi and get her to speak. The broken girl had more questions than answers at first, and it was clear she didn’t trust her own memory of events. Marie would say so, but she had reservations about the accuracy of Lexi’s recollection too; it was clear the girl had become detached from reality at some point and was struggling to reintegrate.

  Filing outside of the door quietly and leaving Ash comforting Lexi, they formed a small circle in the corridor and spoke in hushed voices.

  “So, Steve is badly hurt in a helicopter crash we’re assuming?” Dan began. “Twins took over the prison and an army took everyone away, somehow Simon came with them and they were captured.” He recapped, seeing no disagreement but a worrying amount of discomfort on the other faces around him.

  “It’s got to be that bastard who captured me,” he said, finally voicing what he had been thinking for a few days. “And his only reason for sending them back to us is to screw with our heads or they work for him. I think it’s the former,” he announced, again meeting no disagreement.

  “So what do we do?” asked Marie, seemingly on behalf of everyone.

  “We wait for him to come, then we kill him,” Dan said, seeing mouths open in preparation to protest. “We don’t have the strength to take it to him and leave this place defended,” he said, cutting them off before they started. “So what other choice do we have?”

  Silence.

  “We could try to talk to them?” offered Kate, ever hopeful for an outcome which didn’t involve the risk of injury or death for anyone, but her head dropped and she answered her own thoughts aloud. “But seeing what they’ve done to Lex and Paul I doubt they’re much into talking,” she finished. Silence again.

  “So we end them. We fucking kill them all,” came a quiet voice. Everyone turned to face Polly; the peace-loving, naïve and trusting woman who was the last person anyone would have suspected would suggest violence.

  Maybe that was because she hadn’t seen any yet.

  “Am I the only one who is terrified of these people?” she said in alarm at the faces regarding her.

  “No,” said a voice coming from down the corridor, having heard the discussion as she approached silently. “You’re not. It’s just that I said something similar last time we were attacked and they all looked at me like I was insane too.”

  Without offering any further input, Leah walked straight past the group and into the room where it was obvious from the sounds coming through the open door that Lexi recognized her.

  ~

  Returning to his spot above the gatehouse Dan lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, letting the smoke dissipate instantly in the wind as he blew it out slowly.

  Briefly and succinctly, he filled Mitch in on what they had learned.

  “So,” he said to Dan after he had listened in silence. “We have an unknown force of unknown numbers coming for us. They have hostages – potentially – and we don’t know where they are based, but we do know they are trained.”

  “That’s about it,” Dan said.

  “Another glorious day on the farm,” Mitch said quietly, mimicking a film Dan couldn’t quite place nor did he feel humoured to respond to.

  BOXING DAY

  “Why do you call it that?” Jan asked Steve quietly as they ate breakfast.

  Steve stopped chewing to think.

  “No idea to be honest,” he said.

  “It goes back to the 1700s,” said a voice further down the bench to his left. Both men turned to regard the speaker, and both found themselves looking at Mike. Jan did not recognise the man, having never seen him before, but Steve hid his elation well; if that night went as he had hoped, then he would need men like Mike.

  “It’s something to do with boxing up Christmas gifts,” he finished.

  “We call it the Day of Goodwill back home,” said Jan. “We usually spend it either hungover or getting back on the beers,” he finished with a rueful smile.

  With an imperceptible nod from Steve, both men finished up their food and rose from the table. Steve accentuated his limp as he passed Mike and muttered that it was good to see him.

  The crippled pilot and his once nurse deposited their empty dishes and left the room, swinging by the nearby toilet block. Checking each stall they found it empty and spoke quietly.

  “It’s Boxing Day for you, my friend” Steve said.

  “Is it tonight?” Jan asked Steve excitedly, nervous apprehension twisting his insides. The older man thought for a moment before answering him.

  “Yes,” Steve answered simply.

  ~

  A few hundred metres away from the two men who embraced as brother, two actual brothers spoke quietly.

  “Patience,” warned Benjamin, who grew tired of his younger brother’s eagerness, “in five nights’ time, we get our chance.”

  Will was unhappy at waiting as he had always been, but he had to trust his brother and wait for the right time. They had intentionally rostered the guard duty for New Year’s Eve to be light on guards, and encouraged those not working to organise a party. That way most of them would be drunk, and those that remained alert were committed to the brothers’ cause.

  “Are you planning to fight tonight?” Benjamin asked, having warned his younger brother not to get involved in the underground entertainment and risk injury so close to a crucial time.

  “No,” the younger man replied forlornly. “I’ll just watch and get angry at their incompetence,” he said sulkily.

  “Good,” replied Benjamin, grateful for once that his sibling intended to listen to his advice twice in one day.

  END GAME

  Steve had arrayed his pieces on the board, he had taken losses and he had stuck to his plan meticulously. He knew the biggest risk to the takeover c
ame from the capable and organized section of the guards, but hoped that Jan’s sacrifice – or hopefully not sacrifice – would allow for such a diversion that the threat was minimised.

  He had visited the window in headquarters where Max, who grew increasingly fearful, had accepted his instructions with as much calm as he could muster. Both Max and Jan were putting themselves in mortal danger without the chance of assistance; all for the greater good.

  Now, watching the sun creep downwards in the afternoon sky, he willed the hands on his watch to move faster and bring forward the time for action.

  ~

  Stepping into the familiar arena with its hard-packed earth and ring of baying onlookers perched high on the ring of shipping containers, Jan felt the change in the crowd as they saw him shirtless for the first time.

  He was freezing cold, and his tight skin bristled with goosebumps. He knew he would warm up very soon, however, as the first challenger stepped in opposite him.

  Men cheered, women screeched, and items of worth were wagered on the outcome.

  This was the time he had been looking forward to the most. Fuck them. Fuck all of them who think making people fight for their entertainment was good sport. With a final flex of his muscled neck, left and right, he was rewarded with the sounds of cracking as he stepped up and went to work.

  His opponent, who he vaguely recognised as either a guard or someone who usually worked outside of the camp walls, came at him head-on without testing him.

  Jan waited for the first jab to stab out towards his face and knew from the second the weak punch was thrown that the first fight was already over. Letting the fist come towards his guard he stepped forward and slightly to his right, dropped his body weight, and launched a brutal right-handed punch which connected with the man’s torso directly on his liver.