Indivisible (Overlooked by Liberty) (31 page)

      
Chaos planned to inflict as many casualties as possible.  Mountain Boys shot Federal Troops instantly unless the enemy waved a white cloth.  Rebels gave no overture to surrender.  Even after a Federal soldier hoisted the white cloth, rebels shot them in the knee with a lead bullet and left them without a weapon; they hadn't time to take care of prisoners.

      
Chaos didn't fair so well on the southwest side.  In the initial duel between Armdroid and motor-gun, the Armdroid won.  The distance was too great and the Southerner had trouble holding a stream of shot on target.  The Armdroid took out the remotely fired motor-gun and kept them pinned down in the bunker.  Artillery had already pounded their location.  The tunnel leading up the hill that served as an escape had collapsed, eliminating their means of retreat.

      
Vanessa Larson's scheme to destroy the Abrams squad with a remote-controlled, gasoline truck was preempted by Butch and the Ghost Pack's attempt to take a tank.  She and Max's group had used the same strategy to bomb the peace talks at Balsams Resort.  This time the plan failed when Colebrook's Pack 220 intervened.  Federal troops moved the tanks to an off-road location.  Now, her primary concern was the children: Three boys lay dead, four wounded. 

      
"The boys need medical attention.  Right now!"  Mrs. Larson was livid, forcing the captain against the wall as she screamed in his face.

      
Captain Jacobs shifted to the side to get more space between them.  "God, lady, we're doing what we can.  We can't find the medic.  The last anyone saw him he was in the diner, and people there said he left."  Captain Jacob shook from the incident.  "God, lady.  I'm sorry.  We didn't want to shoot those kids but they took out two of my soldiers and burned another.  We couldn't let them get off with the rif--"

      
Too late.  Larson was off to the diner to see what Harvey and the others did with the captives.  One of them might be the medic.  She stomped through the diner and forced herself between two of the men in the back room.  "Where are they?" she demanded.

      
Harvey stood between her and the door of the walk-in refrigerator, "You're not going to kill them."

      
"No.  I'm not going to kill 'em.  Get out of the way!"  He stepped to the side.  Vanessa opened the locker door and closed it behind her.  She stared with a peripheral gaze at two young men in their twenties who looked back.  "One of you peckers had better tell me you're a medic."

      
After Thad's capture, the Feds commandeered the Philbin home to use as a holding tank to question the boys.  The captain in charge wanted that M-30 Strafer back before it was used on any of his troops.

      
At last, Thad stirred and rolled onto his belly, ending up face to face with Butch on the floor of the Philbin's living room.  The floor puckered the boys' lips to a fish-lipped pose.  Thad raised a hand and poked at his brother's shoulder with his index finger.

      
Butch blinked--and tried to figure out where he was.  Butch could hardly speak, "Your nose?"

      
Thad felt his own face.  His eyes widened on touching his nose.  He had broken it.  Blood covered the bottom half of his face and spread down to his belly.

      
Butch spoke carefully.  "We need the Akela.  She almost saved Barry and he was shot up a lot worse than me.  You can outrun 'em, Thad.  If you get in the woods, they'll never find you."  Butch was unaware of the gauntlet his brother had run trying to evade soldiers the first time.  The delicate-faced boy only stared forward as his older brother spoke.  "You gotta do it.  I don't know if I can make it for very long."

      
Hearing that, Thad got to his feet.  He stood bloodied and bare chested, wearing only shorts and tennis shoes.

      
Tiffany saw him stand from the other side of the room.  She had been in one of the jeeps chasing the boy, so she knew how fast the kid was.  "Hold it right there!"  She turned to the door behind her, "Mark, get in here."  Tiffany needed help covering the exits, "Now don't move, kid!"  Turning back to the door she hollered, "Somebody get their fat ass in here!"

      
Thad sidestepped to the right and looked around the room.  The lady stood at the doorway.  Billy was also in the room because his arms and shoulders had been cut when he had tried to jump through a window during his chase.  He whispered, "The window, Thad."

      
Both the lady and Thad saw it at once.  Thad took three steps toward the window and switched direction to the door.  The woman tried to cut him off at the window, slipped in blood when changing direction, and landed on her side.  "Get him, you idiots!" she shrieked.

      
"Gotcha!"  Thad went limp when a powerful arm caught him as he zipped through the doorway--a short chase this time.  "What's the problem, Tiffany?  You can't handle a few wounded kids?"  The strapping soldier held the boy in midair, "This little bantam ain't going nowhere."

      
Tiffany got up and looked around at the bloodstains on her backside.  "Oh, jeez."  She looked to Mark, now holding Thad, "That boy's got to be locked up.  He can't be in a room open to the outside like this."

      
"There's people all around," Mark answered.

      
"There's people all around, but if that rabbit gets loose and into the woods, we'll never catch him.  I've decided to keep him in the basement.  So put him down."  The man lowered Thad to his feet.

      
She took Thad to the basement and sat him on the same table the Colebrook Covenant met at.  Under the single bulb, she coaxed him to tell the whereabouts of the rifle.  "So you won't say a thing, is that it?"  She got out an electronic notepad, flipped open the screen, and wrote down her name.  "See, I'm Tiffany.  What's yours?"

      
Thad cautiously leaned over and pecked out his name.

      
"Well now, Thad.  That's a start.  What's your mother's name?

      
"MOM'S GONE,"
he typed.

      
"How about your father, or guardian, or something?"

      
"JUST BUTCH AND ME,"
the boy kept it simple.

      
"The other boy you were talking to?" Tiffany asked.  Thad nodded yes.  "So no one watches over you?"

       
Thad pulled the memo pad closer.
"THE AKELA, AND THE GHOST PACK, AND THE MOUNTAIN BOYS WATCH OVER US."

      
Tiffany watched the boy as he typed it out.  "You can't talk at all, can you?"  Thad looked away, not answering.  Tiffany sounded more consoling now.  "Okay, why did you boys attack us?"

      
"YOU SHOT US."

      
"We had to.  You kids blew up two of our guys and were running off with a rifle."

       
Thad started pecking before she finished,
"NO.  BEFORE.  YOU KILLED OFF PACK 220.  AND YOU KILLED MY FRIEND BARRY."
  The boy's soft, brown eyes turned dark.

      
"Are you talking about the smugglers' attack at the Notch?"

      
Thad's finger moved swiftly over the keyboard, "YES.  TALKING ABOUT THE AUTOMAN.  BUTCH AND ME WAS THERE."

      
"You were--"

       
He hadn't stopped typing,
"MY BROTHER AND ME ARE THE LAST OF PACK 220."
  Tiffany watched in stunned silence. 
THE GHOST PACK HAS SWORN TO FIGHT THE FEDS UNTIL THEY GO, OR UNTIL THEY HAVE NO ONE TO RULE."

      
"I'm sorry about your brother."  Tiffany was guilt stricken.  She had heard the rumors, but didn't really believe it.  "I can let you see him if you promise not to bolt."  Thad didn't respond.  Tiffany continued, "Okay, but I'm going to have to keep a hold of you at all times."

      
She took him upstairs and led him to Butch on the other side of the room.  The wounded boy hadn't moved.  Tiffany checked Butch's carotid on his neck.  No pulse.

      
"He's dead," Billy announced glumly from his prone position only  yards away.  "No one helped him."  Speaking to Thad now, "I heard him call your name before he went.  He said he saw Barry, that friend he talked about."

      
Thad dropped his head to his brother's back to listen for a heartbeat.  He straightened up and just watched his lifeless brother.

      
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Tiffany said in tears.

      
Mark came in from the other room.  "What's the problem?"

      
She went over to talk to him, "I think we might be making a big mistake here.  You know those rumors on CB radio about the Army and Dixville?"

      
"Yeah."

      
"I think they're true."

      
"How can you be sure?"  She pulled out her electronic notepad and showed him the comments Thad had pecked out earlier.  "They're brothers," her voice cracked, "and now he's the last one."  Her hand quivered as she showed him the pad.  "This isn't about stopping a bunch of smugglers and tax cheats."  She wiped tears from her eyes.  "Everyone here hates us.  The U.S. military murdered 64 of their children.  We have no business being here."

      
Mark was ready to believe her.  "I heard they're kicking the living shit out of us on the mountain.  Son-of-a-bitch, I overheard the captain say he's never seen so many casualties so fast.  Everything people have said about the combat skills of those Mountain Boys was true.  And they have motor-guns like the ones in Boston, only these cut through armor."

      
"I'm going to the Captain with this," said Tiffany

      
"What about the kid?" asked the soldier.

      
Tiffany looked at Thad.  "Be kind to him, but don't lose him.  He's the last survivor from the Scout Pack that was massacred."

      
After Tiffany left, Mark gently held Thad's arm and led him to the basement stairway.  "I gotta do this kid.  We can't just let you go.  I have my orders.  Were you really at the Dixville Massacre?"  Thad looked away and nodded yes.  "Look, if you promise not to run, I'll let you stay up here with the others."  Thad gave no response.  "Okay, then.   I'll have to keep you down there."  Before closing the door he said, "I'm sorry about your brother."

      
Thad inspected the basement for exits.  The two, eight by sixteen-inch windows had been boarded up solidly by the Philbin's for privacy because of their Covenant meetings.  Light, cast by the single bulb, crept halfway up the stone walls and highlighted the bricked-up exit used to smuggle slaves during the Civil War era.  Below it, a rat scampered along the edge of the wall and stopped to sniff an empty jar before it continued on.  Thad grabbed a hammer from the bench and went to where the rat had stopped.  With a burlap sack over the wall to muffle the sound, he began hammering the brick--the same exit to freedom used by desperate people over a century ago.

Chapter 17

Dixville Mountain, New Hampshire

      
In wonderment, Steve Morrison stopped recording the historic battle from Chaos' underground bunker, "We're going to die!"  Their "back door," as Chaos called it, which tunneled up the mountain, had been severed by penetration bombing.  The attack packs who had scrambled out earlier to take on the Armdroid, had been killed or wounded.  Chaos' left hand had been injured.  Only Chaos, Steve Morrison, and Al remained in the bunker.  Al was a big, likable fellow from Missouri.

      
Optically controlled by a soldier from the rear using a virtual-reality visor and command pad, the automated Armdroid could be shut off at any time.  The potbellied robot sat fifty yards down hill, holding Chaos and Al at bay.  Army Regulars disabled the weapon so companion troops could launch hand-held rockets at the viewing ports.  The blasts left gaping holes in the bunker the enemy could shoot into.

      
Steve Morrison couldn't take it any longer, "God, what if they put another rocket in here?  Shouldn't we give up?"  Chaos had learned to ignore Steve's perpetual whining, but the same thought had crossed his mind.  "Hey!  I'm still here!  Can you hear me, Chief?"  The reporter insisted, as he gnawed on his gum aggressively. 

      
Chaos used a stainless steel mirror to look around the edge of the opening.  "If they had the missile, they would have launched it by now."  Al jerked his head in and out of the opening to get a fix on troop movement; he did it again for another look-see.  "Don't do that," said Chaos, "that thing will trace your heat signature and lo--"  A bullet reeled passed the edge of the opening where Al was looking.  "See what I mean.  If you don't have your mirror, get one off one of the bodies in here."