Read Kingdom of the Seven Online
Authors: Jon Land
Kingdom of the Seven (29 page)
The twins led the approach to the front gate of Sister Barbara’s Oasis. At the fifty-yard mark, they waited for Johnny and Blaine to catch up, while Wayne Denbo hung back at the group’s rear. Inside the Oasis the gunshots continued, though more sporadic and selective. Blaine took that as a bad sign, wondering if Sister Barbara was among the many who had fallen to the hundreds of rounds that had already echoed back their way.
McCracken and Wareagle took the lead in approaching the front gate. Three troop-carrying trucks blocked the street in all directions, squeezed around a single Ford sedan. Johnny moved on ahead to recon the trucks. Finding them all empty, he nodded to Blaine, who waved the rest of the group on for the main gate. Seconds later the five of them were clustered against either side of the stone fence for cover. Blaine was set to lead them in when a low sound made him pause. It sounded like a moan and it was coming from a nearby set of bushes. He signaled the others to hold fast and threaded his way in to find a man
whose suit was dirtied by loam that clung to the bloody areas of his midsection and shoulder.
whose suit was dirtied by loam that clung to the bloody areas of his midsection and shoulder.
“It’s not us,” he said between labored breaths. “I don’t know who they are, but they’re not us.”
Blaine looked back at Wareagle. “Not who?”
“Federal marshals. Our strike force. Dressed just like them, but don’t be fooled. Kill the bastards, you hear me? Kill them!”
“Sounds like an order.”
Warren Thurlow winced in pain. “This is the U.S. government you’re talking to here.”
“Then just keep your head down, Uncle Sam, and leave everything to us.”
McCracken backed away and returned to his original position. When he was certain the immediate coast within was clear, he nodded to Rachel and Jacob. The twins surged past him and slid through the main gate, heading toward the east side of the Oasis where Sister Barbara’s private house was located. A moment later Blaine and Johnny entered with Wayne Denbo, and headed west to where the rides and water attractions of the theme park were centered.
They started forward, sweeping the well-manicured front grounds with their eyes, as the sound of gunshots grew even louder ahead of them.
The minutes spent dodging across the Oasis were agonizing for Sister Barbara, full of brief panicked stops behind whatever cover availed itself when the gunmen drew near. Her original thought had been to seek refuge inside the mansion, but sight of the thick, sprawling flower garden set before it provided a better alternative. Taking cover amidst its mazelike confines seemed the best option available. Making sure none of the attackers could spot her, Sister Barbara waded through a bed of flowers and sank quickly into the thicker foliage toward the garden’s center. For the moment, she stopped beneath the lavish and tangled growth of some giant dahlias, secure from any eyes that might be searching for her.
Blaine, Johnny, and Wayne Denbo came upon the first bodies seventy yards past the front gate: four corpses, two women and two men. All unarmed. Cut down as they were approaching the front gate.
As they advanced cautiously along Hope Avenue in the
center of the Oasis, Blaine and Johnny saw more bodies everywhere. They’d been shot down in cold blood with no chance to defend themselves. It made McCracken feel sick, revealing to him all at once the lengths the Reverend Harlan Frye was prepared to go in order to complete his agenda.
center of the Oasis, Blaine and Johnny saw more bodies everywhere. They’d been shot down in cold blood with no chance to defend themselves. It made McCracken feel sick, revealing to him all at once the lengths the Reverend Harlan Frye was prepared to go in order to complete his agenda.
All the more reason why he had to be stopped. But to do that they needed to find Sister Barbara, alive and unharmed.
A trio of black-clad figures darted out from an aisle separating the slide complex from the wave pool. They saw Blaine and Johnny an instant after Blaine and Johnny saw them. The instant might as well have been an eternity. McCracken and Wareagle’s M16s spit out simultaneous short bursts that dropped the men as they stood before the waist-high chain-link fence.
Two more gunmen emerged from behind a T-shirt shop to check on the source of the commotion and opened fire when they spotted Blaine and Johnny. McCracken dove and rolled in Wareagle’s shadow behind the cover of a concession booth whose position eliminated their own angle of fire.
A rapid burst from a weapon nearby dropped the enemy pair before they could continue their assault. Wayne Denbo had entered the fray. By lingering behind McCracken and Wareagle, he had remained unseen until he chose to reveal himself.
“Thanks,” said a grateful Blaine, now back on his feet with Johnny next to him.
Denbo’s response was a rueful smile, glad he’d had the opportunity to prove his worth. He felt alive again, the fog of the last several days, since his fateful visit to Beaver Falls, cleared away for good.
They pressed on toward the rendezvous point with the twins at Sister Barbara’s mansion.
The first stretch of Jacob and Rachel’s sweep through the Oasis was uneventful. Since they were the only ones
who could recognize Sister Barbara, their role was to track her dowi. while the others dealt with the bulk of gunmen concentrated in the theme park. Still, some of Frye’s soldiers were sure to be searching for Sister Barbara as well, if she was still alive. They had to be neutralized if the twins’ part in the mission was to be successful.
who could recognize Sister Barbara, their role was to track her dowi. while the others dealt with the bulk of gunmen concentrated in the theme park. Still, some of Frye’s soldiers were sure to be searching for Sister Barbara as well, if she was still alive. They had to be neutralized if the twins’ part in the mission was to be successful.
As they reached the outer edge of the lavish garden fronting the mansion, Rachel grasped her brother’s shoulder to get his attention. Turning, Jacob nodded and watched her glide down a narrow aisle between the unbroken reach of the multicolored flowers. She knew her task, just as he knew his. It had been McCracken’s idea, and for that reason alone, Jacob had embraced it. He and his sister had made only some minor refinements in the plan, in order to utilize the layout of this section of the Oasis.
The black jackets and caps labeling them as part of the Federal Marshals Strike Force made those in the opposition easy to spot. But Jacob took no action against those who passed by his temporary hiding place in the garden amidst a series of sprawling lilies on their way to the mansion itself. He could just barely see what was going on by gazing through gaps in the thick flora. Rachel had long passed out of his sight and would just be reaching the structure now. Jacob tensed, readied.
Suddenly a burst of gunfire erupted from within the mansion. Glass shattered. A woman screamed. More gunfire followed.
Jacob ducked lower to make sure he wasn’t seen.
His strategic positioning allowed him to glimpse a concentrated charge toward the mansion on the part of Frye’s soldiers. The sudden bursts, coupled with the screams, had attracted a large bulk of them to the area. Everything was going just as planned.
Jacob pushed through the lilies to obtain view of the mansion’s front steps, waiting for his turn to come.
Wayne Denbo had drawn up even with McCracken and Wareagle, keeping pace with them. They came to a photo booth, and Blaine stopped within its cover.
“Expert marksman, right?” he said to Denbo.
“Hundred feet with a pistol. Up to five hundred yards with a rifle.”
“What about a 16?”
“Not my favorite.”
“Not what I asked you.”
Denbo shrugged, not entirely confident. “From three hundred, yeah.”
“Then we’ll keep the window at two-fifty,” Blaine said, and briefly detailed the rest. “We’ll cover you.”
“No need. Keep moving. I’ll get there on my own.”
Blaine and Johnny watched and waited until Denbo slid out of sight. Then they started on again, the past at once frighteningly close. Neither had seen the likes of this since entering burned-out Vietnamese villages during the war. The Cong were very thorough in their work, as borne out by the number of bodies left compared to the few who managed to survive. The bodies here lay in the same twisted, misshapen heaps of limbs and dead stares. They continued on in search of survivors, hoping to move on Frye’s gunmen before those gunmen could turn their guns on whoever was left.
Up ahead a woman dragging two children of nine or ten emerged from the cover of the merry-go-round and scampered toward the recreational area featuring fields and courts. She gazed back fearfully just as a pair of gunmen sped out from another of the roads bisecting Hope Avenue. They leveled their rifles and took aim.
Blaine and Johnny fired bursts into their backs. The woman kept running, arms like chains attaching herself to her children and keeping them at her pace.
As others watched their escape, they, too, began to emerge, desperate and terrified, into the open. They fled toward the open fields, believing this offered the best hope.
McCracken and Wareagle moved protectively in their wake, clinging to the side of Hope Avenue that featured the amusement rides because of the additional cover they provided. A number of black-clad figures charged onto the fields, trying to close the gap with the fleeing throng before opening fire, not looking back. Their heedlessness enabled the wild-eyed Indian behind them to drop to one knee, draw a bead upon each black suit, and fire his M16 in single-shot fashion. The enemy gunmen began to fall like shooting-gallery ducks that pop up for the next pass.
McCracken hung back and waited for the expected enemy wave to converge on Wareagle. As anticipated, a small force rushed for the field. Their charge brought them straight into Blaine’s line of fire. The first four or five went fast, the others managing to find cover and snap off random bursts at their unseen assailant. Blaine fired back nervously, worried about Johnny being left alone in the fields. It was up to Denbo now to cover him.
Denbo had used a ladder to reach the top of the Oasis’s tallest building, a three-story movie theater 250 yards from the field where the Indian knelt. The highway patrolman had just sighted through the M16’s scope when eight black-jacketed gunmen rushed Wareagle from the west. The Indian swung and fired a burst their way. A pair went down as Johnny ejected a spent clip and dove to reduce himself as a target while he jammed home a fresh one. The remaining six gunmen surged toward him, firing, widening their spread. No way even the Indian could get all of them.
Wayne Denbo centered the first in his crosshairs and fired. The man’s head snapped sideways and he crumpled. Instantly Denbo turned the rifle on the next nearest gunman. Sighted. Aimed. Fired. The man’s arms flapped like a puppet’s before he collapsed.
The other gunmen swung desperately around now, enabling Johnny to lunge to his feet and take three of the remaining assailants out, while Denbo put a bullet into the
skull of the final one. The highway patrolman turned his sight on Wareagle to make sure he was all right.
skull of the final one. The highway patrolman turned his sight on Wareagle to make sure he was all right.
The big Indian gave a little wave and a nod, then hurried on to meet Blaine McCracken, who was waiting warily at the edge of the field. In all, the three of them had cleared an escape route for upward of fifty people.
“Let’s get to the mansion, Indian,” McCracken said when Johnny reached him.
Hidden within the garden, Sister Barbara could hear the bursts of gunfire coming from inside her house. It made no sense. Who could possibly be in there that the enemy was shooting at? There were screams, too, a
woman’s
screams.
woman’s
screams.
Could a few of her followers have managed to take refuge within the mansion? The enemy must have thought so; over a dozen black-clad gunmen had surged by her in the past few minutes. Sister Barbara had just begun to slide out from her position of cover when she saw another figure emerge from another section of the garden, keeping low. She pushed herself back into the thick shrubbery and caught a glimpse of a teenage boy as he passed by her. He wasn’t dressed like the other attackers, nor did he look like one. Sister Barbara watched him stop and bring a strange, thick-barreled weapon down from his shoulder. Then he started on again, closing the gap to the house.
Jacob noted the bursts of gunfire coming from inside the mansion and settled himself between a pair of bushes over a hundred feet away. Rachel’s shotgun blasts were easily discernible from the rest, and the intervals between them indicated her winding journey through the mansion was proceeding just as they’d planned. Jacob would have preferred to draw closer, but the 40mm grenades he was about to fire took thirty-five meters to arm themselves by their rotation through the air.
He broke the M79 launcher’s breech and inserted the first of his shells, then snapped it closed and brought it to his shoulder. Steadying it before him, Jacob aimed and
fired. The grenade thumped out and he had breeched the launcher and reloaded before the explosion sounded.
fired. The grenade thumped out and he had breeched the launcher and reloaded before the explosion sounded.
Sister Barbara heard the ear-rattling blast and instinctively covered her ears. Even so, a second thumping, almost like a pop of air, reached her an instant before the second explosion.
In the next few moments, she counted three more thumps. An explosion followed each one by a few seconds, the sound of exploding glass clear to her now as well. Between the next thump and its accompanying explosion, she slid to a thin enough part of the garden to gain clear view of what was happening.
The mansion was a shambles. Flames flicked out from generous layers of black smoke. Entire windows, along with the areas of walls containing them, were gone, none of the mansion’s three floors spared. After another two explosions rocketed wood and glass into the air, the entire house looked as though it were ready to crumble in concession.
Viewing the destruction of her home only brought Sister Barbara additional confusion. She watched a number of black-jacketed killers stagger from the house and tumble down the front steps. A few crashed through the remnants of windows, their bodies in flames. Others emerged reasonably unscathed and tried to drag their fellows to safety. But the next explosion blew their refuge on the steps apart, turning the meager front lawn into a blood-soaked graveyard.
Sister Barbara couldn’t believe her eyes. Her entire being was besieged by a welter of emotions. Her house, her
home,
was being destroyed. And yet the teenage boy she felt sure was responsible was obviously acting
against
the force that had invaded the Oasis. Did that make him her ally? Should she approach him?
home,
was being destroyed. And yet the teenage boy she felt sure was responsible was obviously acting
against
the force that had invaded the Oasis. Did that make him her ally? Should she approach him?
She moved farther on through the garden’s thinner reaches until the boy was directly before her, his eyes riveted on the ruined mansion. Sister Barbara watched as a
final figure emerged from within it: a girl, her clothes and face soiled by soot, a hand pressed against her mouth. She reached the boy coughing, nearly gagging. The boy cupped an arm around the girl’s shoulder for support, and when they finally turned away from the mansion, Sister Barbara stepped out before them.
final figure emerged from within it: a girl, her clothes and face soiled by soot, a hand pressed against her mouth. She reached the boy coughing, nearly gagging. The boy cupped an arm around the girl’s shoulder for support, and when they finally turned away from the mansion, Sister Barbara stepped out before them.
“Hello, Sister,” the boy said after a brief pause, still bearing the girl’s weight.
The clatter of rapid footsteps made Sister Barbara swing round to see a tall, bearded man hurrying toward her with a large rifle shouldered behind him and a smaller one in hand. Behind him, half watching the rear, advanced a huge Indian who towered over the highest of her plantings.
“Sorry about the mess,” said Blaine McCracken.
Feeling confident now, Wayne Denbo of the Arizona Highway Patrol protectively followed the progress of Wareagle and McCracken across the Oasis complex toward the huge flower garden and mansion beyond it. He was rotating his rifle routinely when the magnified sight caught something wedged against the rear of the dormitory-style building. The rectangular mound’s cream color made it stand out from the red brick. Denbo had never seen this kind of stuff before, not for real anyway, but where pictures left off, his imagination had no trouble picking up.
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