Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (77 page)

“Fireball calling lightning bolt . . . fireball
calling lightning bolt . . . do you copy?”
The radio sitting on the table shook with life as the hail came across.

“OK Jimmy,” Andy’s steady monotone sounded next to the
big man’s ear, “it’s time for you to shine. I’m going to put the radio in your
hand, and then you’re going to impress me. Do you remember everything we talked
about?”

“Yes sir, I do.”

“And you realize that your performance has the
potential to save a lot of lives, most importantly yours?”

“Yes sir, I understand.”

“Alright then, as they say down in Texas, it’s time to
earn your supper.” The call from the radio repeated, and Andy lifted the device
to the big man’s thick fingered hand. His eyes were still covered with the
heavy canvas bag, but it had been rolled up enough so that his voice wouldn’t
be muffled.

“Ray? . . . Ray, is that you?”

“10-4, we’re holding at the staging point, ready to
roll through at first light. What’s your status? Do you still have eyes on the
targets?”

“Negative . . ., I mean yes, but not right now.
There’s nobody out.”

A brief pause of silence came through, and then Ray
transmitted again.
“Confirm—you’re in the eagle’s nest, but there are no
targets visible. Is that correct?”

“You’re doing fine, Jimmy . . . just tell him what we
went over,” Andy took two steps away from the big man seated at the picnic
table.

“Negative, I am not in the original eagles nest. That
location became compromised the first night. There’s still creeps coming out of
the campground every now and then, and some of them were getting too close to
me, so I moved to an alternate spot.”

“What’s your location now?”
Ray’s voice had a hint of impatience attached.

“I’m on the far side of the marina, about 250 yards
down the highway to the west. There’s a little hummock covered by some brambles,
and I’m right in the thick of it.”

“How’s your view from there?”

“Better than from my original hide. Plus, any creeps
that come from the campground normally get dealt with by the old guy or his
crew.”

“Understood, and good job. Give me a few minutes to
round up my squad leaders, and then you can give us a complete rundown.”

“Yeah, I will . . . Did you remember our arrangement?”

“You know I wouldn’t forget, Jimmy.”

“Where are they?”
The blindfolded fat man talked at the radio with a performance destined
for used car sales.

“There’s a brown bag in the main cab of the fire
truck. It’s got your name on the outside, and on the inside are two ham
sandwiches, extra thick, with cheese and double mustard. But you’ve got to wait
until we take care of our business.”

“I know . . . I know.”

Andy nodded silently to himself as he paced around the
picnic table. One of the subjects that had come up during their interrogation
of the sniper had been the reward offered to the big man upon completion of the
job. Apparently, the food stores at the shelter included very little actual
meat, and aside from a promised place in Ray’s hierarchy, the added “hazard
duty pay” of two slabs of precious ham nestled between slices of bread had been
negotiated. A moment later, Ray’s voice sounded again from the speaker of the
radio.

“Jimmy, I’ve got our squad leaders here and we’re
ready for a briefing on the situation. Just give us a quick rundown, and then
let us ask some questions if we need to, OK?

“OK but I can’t use my notebook to refer to right
now.”

“Why not? I told you to take good notes.”
A wedge of aggravation crept into the voice coming
from the speaker.

“Ray, you may be sitting behind the locked metal doors
of a giant fire truck with a bunch of armed people all around you, but my fat
ass is all alone and hanging in the breeze out here. In case you haven’t
noticed, it’s still dark outside, and if I turn on my flashlight to read my
notes, I’m going to stick out like a sore thumb to anyone, or anything in the
area.”

Andy smiled at the fat man’s answer. So far, so good.

Ray’s attempt at an apologetic voice tone quickly came
to the radio.
“Hey Jimmy, I’m sorry man. You’re right, I just wasn’t
thinking. Just do the best you can, OK?”

“Yeah . . . you ready?”

“We’re all here and listening.”

“OK, the first thing is that you’re not gonna be able
to drive up to the house. The old man has been using his tractor to pile a
bunch of concrete chunks across the narrow part of the driveway by where it
meets with the parking lot at the back of the marina.”

“Can we go around it?”

“No, I don’t think so. It drops off on one side
straight into a bunch of reeds and cattails right next to the lake, and the
other side has a pretty steep drainage ditch that runs until it meets with the
edge of the woods. If you have a four-wheeler or motorcycle, you can squeak by
on that side without too much of a problem . . . but there’s no way a regular
car, much less the fire truck, or even the half track is getting up to the
house right now.”

A different voice combining an odd mix of bass
overtones overlaid with a Canadian accent came across.
“Jimmy . . . if dey
got da road blocked, how’s dey getting’ oot demselves?”

Andy smiled again. This was one of the questions they
had prepared for.

“They’ve got one of those little utility vehicles, a
Kawasaki I think, that they run back and forth in. I’ve also seen another car
moving up and down the driveway carrying people. Other than that, they’ve moved
all of their other cars and trucks down to the marina. Most of them are parked
inside of the big warehouse, but they usually keep one or two outside next to
the barrier across the driveway.”

“What about guards? Are there any changes from what
Diane told us?”
It was Ray’s voice
again.

“Just relax Jimmy,” Andy commented in a friendly
tenor, “you know how to answer this question. You’re doing really good so far,
and it won’t be long before you’re back home safe and sound.”

Triple chins vibrated in conjunction with a deep sigh
from the bagged fat man, and he keyed the transmit button on the radio.
“You’re
going to love this one Ray. There’s hardly anybody left to be a guard.”

“What do you mean?”

“Yesterday morning, most everybody in the group was
down at that gas station and a bunch of creeps came out of the weeds by the
lake. It must’ve taken ‘em by surprise, ‘cause by the time it was over, there
were bodies layin’ everywhere. I can’t tell you the exact numbers, ‘cause a
creep on the ground looks the same as a non-creep from my distance, but I only
saw about eight of them—the people, I mean—getting ferried back to the house on
the utility vehicle.”

“That really good news, Jimmy.”

“Well then you’re going to love this. Yesterday afternoon,
the old man and a few other guys—five of them I think, although it might have
been six—came down and cleaned up the bodies with the loader on the tractor.
They’re dropping them into the metal dumpster across the road. Anyhow, when
they were finished, three of them—all guys—hopped in a green dodge pickup and
headed west.”

“Any idea on where they’re going?”
Ray asked.

“I don’t think they’re coming back.”

“What makes you say that, Jimmy?”

“Well, they ain’t been back yet, but more importantly,
they all shook hands with the old guy before they got in the truck.”

“That’s a good observation. Did you happen to notice
if one of them was a really tall, wiry guy?”

“Nah, I couldn’t really tell for sure.”

There was a pause of dead air before the radio crackled
to life again.
“OK Jimmy, I think our job is going to be really easy, but
what about the guys on the roof?”

“Last night they put a guy up on the roof of the gas
station. I can’t say for certain who it was, though.”

 “Only one guy?”

“That’s all they’ve put there for the past two days.”

“What about in the daytime?”

“Same thing—only one guy. The daytime guard on the
roof has been that black fellow, so I guess that’s his regular shift.

“Will you have a line of sight on him from your new
position?”

Jimmy chuckled into the radio.
“When it gets light
enough to shoot, if I pull the trigger, my bullet is going to hit him just
behind his right ear.”

“OK, we may just have you do that. Is there anything
else we need to know? Guards . . . schedules . . . habits . . . anything at
all?”
This time, the barely
suppressed excitement in Ray’s voice was evident.

“Um . . ., well I guess if it were me leading this
little party, I’d wait until mid-afternoon before I rolled up.”

“Why?”

“Because every afternoon so far—normally about 3:30 PM—a
bunch of them come down to the gas station and go inside. I don’t know what
they’re doing in there, maybe eating or something, but they stay for about an
hour. So if it was me, I’d wait until then and catch ‘em all with their britches
down.”

“Do you think you can hold out that long without a ham
sandwich?”
Ray chuckled.

“I’ve got one packet of food left. Its beef stroganoff
. . . and I hate beef stroganoff. But I’ll choke it down if it means we’ll have
a better chance of surprise.”

“Diane says they have a freezer full of venison up at
the house. How about if I make sure you get first choice?”

“I believe I can hang out here without starving to
death until this afternoon, so I guess you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“10-4. We’ll stay at the staging area until this
afternoon. Keep us informed of any changes that you notice, and give us a heads
up when you see them go into the gas station.”

“I got it. Lightning bolt out.”

“Are we all in position?” Walter asked.

A nod of Andy’s head confirmed the question, and he
pointed at the crude map on top of the picnic table. It had a strong
resemblance to a schoolyard touchdown strategy drawn in the sand of the
playground, and as such the various receivers were marked with bottle caps and
small stones. Little Jimmy sat in the same position as before; his bulk
insuring that the table didn’t suddenly develop anti-gravity properties and float
away towards the ceiling. Situated around his meaty head was a pair of
electronic shooting muffs, and the audio port on the ear protectors were connected
to a four foot mini cable—the end of which was currently plugged in to a tiny
MP3 device. The volume had been cranked up near maximum, and the rotund sniper
was being deafened with a techno-dance mix they had copied from Callie’s
tablet.

“Sam is across the highway and about 120 yards southwest.
He’s got Michelle’s deer rifle and an AR for backup. Thompson is about 80 yards
east with his AR. Scott and Dave are behind the concrete pile with shotguns,
and C.J. and Bucky are across the road by the gravel pile. One of them has a
shotgun, the other one has a rifle.”

“And you’re sure that Mr. Lee knows he might be
drawing a lot of fire toward his position, right?”

“We’ve moved a double layer of sand bags up to the
roof. Unless they’re shooting a .50 caliber with armor piercing rounds, he
should be fine.”

“Speaking of that, what about Mike and Callie?” Walter
asked.

“They’re about over here,” Andy pointed his finger at
a large, rusty bolt near the end of the table, “about 400 yards east. If
Jimmy’s information is correct, that’s gonna put them somewhere in the general
vicinity of where they need to be. They’ll have to adjust to the situation
though.”

“Is everybody up to speed on their fields of fire?”

“Yeah, we drilled that into their heads over and over.
Hopefully we’ll avoid the Polish firing squad syndrome.”

Walter sighed and puffed again on his pipe. “Hopefully
we won’t have to fire at all.”

“I agree, but I’m not holding my breath. Is the PA
ready?”

Walter nodded and picked up a squat transmitter with a
telescopic silver antenna. “It’s wireless, so all I’ve got to do is talk into
this little doohickey.”

“OK, good,” Andy said as he frowned and looked again
at the position of the bottle caps.

Walter followed his gaze and gestured at the map. “Don’t
worry . . . we all know the plan and the code words. Besides, what are the odds
of you getting shot twice in the same week?” A crude smile accompanied the
smoke ring heading towards the rafters.

Andy frowned. “Probably better than average. Wanna
trade?”

“Nah, it wouldn’t be fair . . . to Ray I mean.” Walter
stood and tapped out the embers of his tobacco onto a brick positioned on the
map as the boat warehouse. “Me, I got a whole bunch of vital areas to worry
about. You, on the other hand, are much better suited for the job of ‘target.’
As a matter of fact, ol’ Doc Collins confided in me just the other day that he
believes the real reason you’re still alive is because the bullet got bored
trying to find your brain and just left. I just can’t believe that anybody
coming from shelter Yellow will have the required expertise with a firearm that
would enable them to hit an object as small as that mushy walnut between your
ears.”

Andy chuckled for a moment, and then shook his head
slowly. “I hope you’re right. Our plan is sound, but we’re basing it on several
assumptions. This whole thing can turn into a bloodbath on both sides if
something goes wrong. What time is it?”

“12:50 PM,” Walter looked at his watch and replied.

“OK let’s . . .” Andy’s reply was cut short by
Walter’s radio crackling to life. It was Sam.

“Walter . . . Andy . . . do you copy?”

“Yeah Sam, go ahead,”
Walter replied.

“We may have a problem.”

“What kind of a problem?”
Both Andy and Walter stood.

“Uh . . . hold on a minute,”
Sam replied.

The seconds ticked by, surpassing the requested minute
by a factor of two before Sam’s voice sounded again.

“Hey Andy, there’s a guy here who says you can take
the promotion you gave him and stuff it up your ass.”

The grin on his face was ear to ear as Andy took the
radio from Walter.