Olympus Device 2: The Olympus Device Book Two (28 page)

The ground around the
Tri-Mat ATVs erupted in geysers of dirt and turf as the belt-fed weapon poured rounds into the guard’s procession. Dusty shook his head, recognizing the rent-a-cop group was grossly outmatched, wondering if a single security man had survived.

The noise boiling up from the
conflict below would ebb to an occasional popping and then build to a crescendo of mayhem. Several of the police vehicles were burning down by the road – there were corpses scattered in every corner of the West Texas landscape. Mitch’s next comment caused Dusty’s stomach to tighten. “The lawmen are losing, brother. They’re getting their asses kicked.”

Before the elder Weathers could reply, the sound of
an engine caused both men to turn. The Boyce pickup approached, bouncing across the uneven sod of the main pasture.

“Now what?” Dusty
grunted as he turned to see why Penny had joined them on the battlefield.

The farm’s owner was pale and out of breath. Both of the girls were lying on the floorboard, their eyes wide with fear. ”When I heard all the explosions and gunfire, I turned on the news. Texas is being invaded from Mexico! Most of the channels are reporting that it
’s a private army that’s coming from Mexico proper. The attackers have captured Laredo and killed a bunch of cops. A few of the commentators believe a drug cartel is behind the whole attack. Nobody can figure out what their angle is.”

Dusty
’s gaze turned toward the sound of the distant battle, an enlightening bolt of clarity flashing through his already overwhelmed mind. “It’s because of me and this… this invention,” he mumbled.

“What are you talking about?” Penny questioned. “What do you mean it’s because of you?”

Dusty began shaking his head as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “The man at the door… during supper the other night. The kidnappers on the Lexington. Somehow, our friends south of the border caught wind of the rail gun. They want it. That’s why so many of them are over that rise, fighting with the cops.”

The big Texan felt a wave of guilt pass through his soul. More people were dying because of his creative mind. More widows and orphans. More destruction.

Then another emotion took over. Dusty felt the taste of satisfaction welling up inside.
They’ve ruined my life,
he thought.
Those government bastards have fucked with me and my friends since this whole nightmare got started. Now they’re on the short end of the stick. Now they’re the ones being hunted like dogs. I wonder how they like it?
 

An ex
ceptionally loud explosion snapped his attention back, a column of flame and smoke filling the sky above the ridge. He turned to Penny and said, “If I were you, I’d take the girls back to the barn and lock yourselves in the gun room. Don’t come out for a while. I don’t know what else to tell you to do.”

Penny nodded, the
proximity of the violence next door making her nervous. She reached out and touched Dusty’s shoulder. “Be careful… and good luck.”

She turned to leave
when Dusty had a thought. “Hold on a second. I want you to take Mitch with you.”

And then he was gone, running back
to their observation point, where he found his brother still mesmerized by the distant conflict. Dusty quickly explained Penny’s news and then voiced his theory.

“Mitch, I want you to go back to the farm with Penny and
the girls,” he announced with a stern voice.

“You what? I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yes, you are. You’ve got a wife and family to think about. Besides, you’re my best hope for eventually clearing up this whole mess. You’ve got to survive… if for no other reason than to clear the Weathers name. Now go, and don’t give me any shit about it.”

“Come back with me.
I have a car, and we can run. I can get you out of here.”

The older brother
wouldn’t hear of it, “There’s only a single road out of here. We’ve got Laredo on one side, the cops on the other. Laredo has fallen into the hands of what I bet is a drug cartel after the rail gun. From what Penny heard on the news, it’s the biggest battle on American soil since the Civil War. There’s no place to run… no way out. Penny has a safe place for you guys to hold up. You can sneak back home after it’s all over.”      

The Professor knew his brother. He’d seen the look of determination in the man’s eye a hundred times and knew it was pointless to argue. “And what are you going to do?”

Dusty really didn’t know. There was a voice inside… a line of reasoning that demanded he do nothing. If the FBI took a serious ass-kicking, it might just allow him to slip through and escape. Maybe they’d think twice about offering him a pardon and dropping all the charges.

Then the patriot’s voice made itself heard. The concept of foreigners invading Texas didn’t sit well with the gunsmith. When
he weighed in the fact that the interlopers were criminals and had probably killed dozens of innocent Americans, a strong urge to fight began to emerge.

Dusty
lifted his gaze from the battle below and then turned to his brother. “I don’t know, Mitch. I really don’t know. One thing is for certain. The confusion of that war down there is my best chance of escape. Now you think about your wife and my nieces and nephews. You think about the name mom and dad made for our family… a reputation you’ve carried to even higher levels of respect. It doesn’t matter if I survive or not – what I want is the world to eventually know that I wasn’t some madman. I want the Weathers name to go forward untarnished. For my kid and your children. Now go.”

Shultz dove behind the storage tank, rolling away as a string of bullets slammed into the earth where his body had been just a moment before. Bits of soil and rock stung his cheeks as the bullets cracked past. He rolled again, coming up prone and aiming the AR15 rifle at the men that were trying to kill him.

He fired three shots, one of the cartel goons falling as the rest
scrambled for cover. The FBI man’s rifle locked back empty. Rolling quickly behind a pipe, Shultz slapped his last magazine into his weapon and then chanced a quick peek around the edge. That last burst had given them something to think about. It would be a few seconds before they tried to rush him again.

He was exhausted, out of breath and now, almost out of ammo. This was all going to be over soon.
He glanced behind him and identified the last six remaining lawmen. Two of them were hurt, one bleeding badly. “Anybody got any ammo?” he shouted.

The look on their
dirty, fatigued faces answered the question.

The
y had been pushed back, again and again, retreating toward the big factory that dominated the landscape. It seemed so odd to the FBI man… that word retreat.

Since he had joined the bureau so many years ago, his side had always been the strongest. When the FBI conducted operations, they were always the overwhelming force. They always had the most guns and men. Today was the first time he’d felt
the bone chilling fear of death and defeat.

In the last 20 minutes, he’d watched comrade after comrade fall. Withering fire, belt-fed
weapons, and the foe’s overwhelming superiority in numbers had made the outcome of the engagement inevitable. Still, the American men had fought hard. They had taken down so many of the invaders… but wave after wave kept coming at them.

Shultz had initially
engaged the cartel army to buy time. He had visions of hundreds of reinforcements marching over the horizon – the cavalry saving the day. When the first helicopter had been destroyed by a ground-to-air missile, that hope had been shaken. When the cartel forces had started firing RPG rockets into the midst of his defenders, any realistic thought of rescue had been lost. Shultz and his men had shotguns and pistols – no match for hand grenades and machine guns.

T
here was no place to go… nothing else to be done. They had fought like cornered animals, and now the end was near.

He took a moment and assessed the situation. The
handful of surviving lawmen was huddled in the midst of pipes, liquid storage tanks and other industrial equipment. Spread around a perimeter of less than 20 yards, they had good cover, but he knew it wouldn’t help much.

There was no way they could withstand the next assault.

Tio strolled through what had been the main battleground just a few moments before. He glanced down at the two dead Americans and grunted with satisfaction when he noticed the bloody initials “DEA” on the back of a dead man’s jacket.

Whiffs of smoke drifted past the cartel boss as
he passed, burning police cars, and the cordite from ammunition creating a surreal fog of death and destruction. He felt at home here, relishing in the atmosphere of violence and carnage.

He was within a mile of the objective. They would mop up the last few remaining Yankees and then roll into the farm where he knew the man with the rail gun was hiding. Already he’d sent men to seal off the road. There was no
way Weathers could escape.

Approaching footfalls brought his attention back, a trusted lieutenant hustling up. “T
he Americans have taken cover by the main building. We are gathering for the final push,” the winded man reported.

“Good,” Tio replied. “Let’s hit them from two sides and be done with this. We are running behind schedule.”

The man nodded and then trotted off, waving for another group of cartel shooters to join him. Tio followed, wanting to make sure this last step was properly executed. None of the Americans were to survive.

Shultz could tell wh
at they were doing. He could spot the occasional enemy soldier running here and there, most of them heading to an area hidden from his sight. They were gathering for the final push.

“I’ve got movement over here,” shouted one of the agents from Corpus. “They’re forming up
on the east side. They’re organizing in order to hit us again - any minute now.”

“I’ve got at l
east thirty more over here,” Shultz replied. “They’re going to rush us from two sides.”

“Where the fuck is the help?” one of the lawmen asked, his voice nea
r panic. “Where the hell’s the Army? The Air Force? We’re dying like dogs out here, and no one is going to fucking help?”

Shultz was surprised it had taken so long
for his men to feel the sting of overwhelming fear. “We’ve got to hang on just a little bit longer,” he reassured. “Remember your training, and let them get close enough so that every shot counts. Help is on the way. Think about it – you know it’s true.”