Half Past Midnight (31 page)

The second team was to get to the hospital, where we had learned that some of our people had headed the night before. So far, our attackers had left the hospital alone since the doctors and nurses were treating Larry’s wounded along with our own. We couldn’t count on that being the case after we busted three thousand hostages out of the stadium, though. We had to plan on springing our people from both locations at the same time.

For once, I didn’t have to do anything but ride along, at least until we reached the edge of town, so I leaned my head on an ice chest in back and caught up on some much needed sleep.

I awoke when the vehicle pulled to a stop. Looking around, I found myself back in the yard at Amber’s. Ken yelled instructions to everyone.

“Leeland, you and Eric grab that ice chest in the back and bring it with you. Wayne, grab the Astrolite in the back of yours. Come on, people, gather ’round! Let’s move! We have to be in place before sunrise.” I noticed that each Humvee carried a couple of ice chests.

Within a few minutes, everyone circled around Ken, much as we had the night before. This time, though, we met deeper in the woods, safe from any of Larry’s patrols.

Once he saw we were ready, Ken signaled for Eric and me to bring him the ice chest we had carried. The ice chest was quite light, so I waved Eric off, thinking to carry it up to Ken alone.

“Let Eric help you, Lee. We don’t want to take any chances with that stuff.”

I froze as I suddenly realized what I had been carrying so nonchalantly. I hoped no one noticed as I carefully backed away when Ken opened the chest and withdrew an odd-looking contraption consisting of a liquid-filled test tube topped with a black rubber stopper from which two wires gracelessly dangled—Wayne’s homemade blasting caps.

He had shown one of them to me before we left, and explained,. “The Astrolite’s completely stable as long as you keep it away from the accelerator. In fact, I could probably drop a beaker of that stuff on the ground, and the only explosion I would need to worry about would be Ken and Jim blowing up at me for ruining several hours of work.

“But these little babies,” he held the test tube gingerly, “these are the touchy ones. The stoppers have been partially hollowed out, filled with gunpowder, sealed, and placed on the test tubes filled with HMTD.”

“Filled with what?”

“Sorry. I figured you’d know about it, since I found the recipe in one of your books.”

“Well, if I knew everything in my books, I wouldn’t need the books, would I?”

He shook his head. “Guess not. Well, HMTD is one of the less stable soups in your cookbook. Not as bad as nitroglycerine, but still pretty touchy. I run wires to the gunpowder and run a charge through the wires. This causes a spark, which sets off the gunpowder, which sets off the HMTD…”

“Which sets off the Astrolite.” I finished.

He had nodded and gently laid the glass tube down on his makeshift workbench. What I didn’t know at the time was that he had also devised a strange-looking contraption in which to carry those test tubes. It consisted of hundreds of strands of rubber bands that acted as a makeshift suspension system, protecting the caps from any sudden shock. A suspension system inside of an old ice chest, the same chest upon which I had rested my head during the trip out here, and from which Ken now gingerly extracted a single test tube.

Ken turned, giving everyone a chance to see exactly what he held. “Okay, people, it’s last chance time again. We’re splitting up after this. Group One is with me. We hit the stadium and take out the tank that we know is there. Group Two goes with Eric Petry to get our people out of the hospital.

“Do it quietly if you can, Eric. If you wait for us to start the fireworks, that might set up enough of a distraction for you to get in and out without the bad guys ever knowing about it.”

Eric nodded, obviously ready to get to it. “Group Two, gather ’round me!”

Ken interrupted. “Wait a second, Eric. I got something else to say here.” He paused for a minute, evidently trying to figure out the best way to say all that needed to be said. “Some of you were with us last night. We got caught with our pants down and lost some good people.”

I could see that he still blamed himself, but he didn’t make any excuses. “I didn’t expect it. And this time I’m counting on it being worse. So this is the last chance for you to turn around and go back. No one will think any less of you. I would rather have you leave now if you have any doubts, than to have you hesitate under fire and get yourself or someone else killed.” No one budged. Everyone had known from the beginning what they were getting into.

“Okay, I need twelve volunteers for extra hazardous duty. These twelve will have to go in alone. Not with each other. Totally alone.”

He had everyone’s attention with that one. He held up the hand with the test tube. “I have a dozen explosive charges that need to be carried into town separately. Six go with each group.” Voices muttered in protest.

“Wait a minute!” He raised his voice to cut off the objections. “These aren’t the main charge. They’re just homemade blasting caps.”

Just?
I thought, recalling Wayne’s lecture.
Just blasting caps?

“They’re mostly stable, and it’s not very likely that they’ll explode from anything less than someone actually dropping them, but there’s still the chance. The thing is, we can’t afford to have all of them together if one does explode, because then we lose all of them. Separately, if someone drops one, we only lose the one.” More murmuring, as people realized exactly what he was saying… or rather, what he
wasn’t
saying. He neglected to mention that if someone dropped one, we also lost the person carrying it.

“I’ll take one.”

Billy stepped forward and held out his hand. Ken pursed his lips and regarded the boy before him. Then he handed the tube to Billy. “You’re with Group One, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know where the Regency Warehouse is?”

Billy nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“All right. Get there as quickly as you can, but don’t let anyone else see you.” Billy turned and headed out, walking carefully. The crowd parted before him like the Red Sea before Moses.

Ken called after him, “Be careful, boy.”

Billy grinned nervously. “I will.” With that, he turned his full attention back to the delicate task at hand.

“Who else?” The rest of us raised our hands at once, shamed into volunteering by a boy who was a slave, who couldn’t even claim he was fighting for his home.

Ken distributed the packages to twelve individuals. “Get to the warehouse as quickly as you can. Be careful, but be fast.”

He turned to the rest of us. “The rest of you divide up into five-man groups. One group leaves every five minutes. Make sure every group has someone in it that knows where their objective is. I don’t want anyone getting lost and giving us away. I also don’t want anyone seen! Understand?” We all nodded.

“Good. Now, we don’t know when, or even
if,
our people are going to make a break for it. We have reason to believe that if they do, it will be either tonight or tomorrow night. That means Group One gets into position, and we wait. We wait all day long. You can sleep if you want, or play pinochle for all I care, but nobody leaves cover once we’re set. If nothing happens tonight, we wait until tomorrow night, all day long again. Most of these chests have food and water in them. There should be enough to last two days, easily. After that, if nothing has happened, we’ll slip back out of town and try to figure out something else. But our best guess is that we’ll be plenty busy before that happens.

“Group Two, you wait ’til you hear from us. You don’t make a move until I tell you to. This hit has to be synchronized, or it’s all wasted effort. Do
not
let yourselves be seen. Some of these guys have night vision goggles so don’t count on hiding in the shadows. Pretend it’s broad daylight, and plan every step accordingly.” He looked us all over again. “Questions?”

When no one piped up, he turned. “Group One with me. Group Two with Eric. We stay in touch by radio.” He looked around one last time. “Okay, folks, let’s go.”

I was in Group One since I’d had the most recent experience with the setup at the stadium and knew the route we’d taken to avoid contact with Larry’s boys. Going in was actually anticlimactic compared to all the excitement I’d had helping Sarah get into the stadium. There was no gunfire, no yelling or screaming. We snuck in like proverbial mice, quiet as….

It took us twice as long to get in, and I felt strange as we passed by the volunteers making their way, step by careful step, into town, but not one of us was spotted, and we all made it without incident.

Chapter 15
* * August 18 / Sunset * *

Cris, pleurs, larmes viendront auec couteaux,
Semblant fuyr, donront dernier assaut,
L’entour parques planter profonds plateaux,
Vifs repoussez & meurdris de plinsaut.

Cries, weeping, tears will come with knives,
Seeming to flee, they will deliver a final attack,
Parks around to set up high platforms,
The living pushed back and murdered instantly.

Nostradamus –
Century 10, Quatrain 82

The Regency Warehouse was two buildings down from where my group had holed up the night before and turned out to have much nicer accommodations, considering the fact that there were plenty of chairs, sofas, and even a few mattresses in stock. We put a half-dozen people on rotating guard duty, and the rest of us, myself included, slept as much as we could.

I awoke slowly to the familiar feel of someone shaking my shoulder. “Leeland, wake up!”

I saw upon opening my eyes that the sun was beginning to set. Ken stood over me smiling. I had slept the day away. Considering how exhausted the last few days’ activities had left me, I wasn’t terribly surprised. Even after all the sleep I had just gotten, I still felt a little groggy.

“Good grief,” I growled. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

“Not when I’m surrounded by bad guys.”

That got my attention. “What’s going on? Is it starting?” I grabbed my gear, scrambling to strap my weapons in place.

“Calm down, Lee. No need to panic. Just thought you ought to know. Billy spotted Sarah.”

“Where?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.”

We headed to the third floor, where Billy and three others knelt just inside one of three windows to watch the activities around the stadium. Ken and I carefully crept over to join them.

Billy handed Ken a small pair of binoculars. “She’s still out there at the front fence.”

Ken peered through the window. A moment later he offered the binoculars to me. “Just at the edge of the chain link near the entrance.”

Sure enough, there was Sarah at the front of a crowd of people. She had worked her way to the edge of the refugees and now stared out through the fence at a tank that barred her escape. She wore a desperate expression. She had no way of knowing we were there. “Anyone signaled her?”

Ken shook his head. “Thought maybe you should do it. She knows you best.”

“Okay, what do I do?”

He handed me a small mirror. “Don’t let anyone else see you. Catch her attention, then we hold up this sign.”

They had managed to cut a piece of plywood to fit inside one of the windows. Painted on it in black lettering, large enough to be easily seen, was the short message: “10:45 - GO TO VOGLER FERT.”

Ken indicated the setting sun. “You have to get her attention before the sun goes down.” He took back the binoculars. “Get to it.”

Ken turned to watch her through the binoculars while I tried to capture the last rays of the sun in a two-inch square mirror. I played with the angle for a few seconds, shining the reflection on the wall in front of me until I got it right. Then, trying to hold the same angle, I slowly stepped to the opened window and swept the tiny beam of light toward Sarah.

Almost immediately, Ken stopped me. “She sees it. Hold up the sign!” I tucked the mirror in my pocket, while Billy and another man held up the sign.

Abruptly, Ken laughed. “Okay, put down the sign. She got it.”

We dropped back behind the wall. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

“She’s a smart lady.” She saw the sign and signaled back. Two full hands of fingers, followed by four on the right and five on the left. She didn’t want there to be any doubt she’d gotten the message.

“Good,” I responded. “But now we’re on a schedule.” I looked at my watch by the fading sunlight. “We have just over four hours ’til things get crazy here. So how do we get the Astrolite to that tank?”

“I wish I knew. Only thing I can think of is going in through the sewer system and trying to get over to that gutter near the stadium.”

I peeked over the edge again. “That’s still a good ten or fifteen feet away from the tank. We’ve got to get closer than that!”

He sighed. “I know. I’m open for suggestions.”

“Sensei?” Billy sounded tentative.

“What is it, Billy?”

“Um, I think I might have an idea.”

***

Ken briefed us on what to expect from the tank, drawing what knowledge he had of the Abrams from his Gulf War experience. His opening comments were somewhat less than inspiring. “About the only way you’re going to do any damage to that monster is to time it so one of the charges goes off underneath it in the rear. That’s where the armor is lightest. You can forget about doing any damage to the front. I heard about tests where they fired repeated rounds from a one-oh-five millimeter, one after the other at the exact same spot. It took seven shots, one right inside the other, to pierce the armor in front. We just don’t have that kind of firepower. Even if it doesn’t pierce the armor, though, it will likely blow the treads and immobilize it. Once you see it’s incapacitated, get back to us, and we’ll all go home.”

Ivory raised his hand. “’S’cuse me?”

“What is it, Ivory?”

“Well, this might sound dumb, but… well, I saw this cop show on TV a long time ago where some loony got hold of a tank and was driving down the street. He was runnin’ over cars and streetlights and shit like that.”