Stryker: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (7 page)

“We’re making the
plan now,” Stryker answered quietly. “Why don’t you see if you can find clothes
for the girls?”

“They have
clothes.”

“I know, but we may
not have time to pick them up on our way out and I don’t want to embarrass them
any more than they already are. We need a few minutes to plan something,
anyway.” She looked at Stryker and thought it amazing that he displayed any
sensitivity at all. He looked like a wrecking ball.

“So, I’m going,”
she said. Stryker looked at Sarge.

“Yes.” He spoke
through clenched teeth and Stryker couldn’t help but laugh. She left the room.

“Plan?” Stryker
asked.

“Obvious one is to
take them out from the hill.”

“How about the guys
in the bleachers?”

“They might not be
a problem.”

“You’re taking
their candy away and they will be a problem.”

“You want to
infiltrate the building and get them from the rear?” Stryker just nodded.

“So, we’re the
snipers on the hill, and you’re the one taking the risk?”

“It would seem so.
You don’t want to risk her, and you’re not mobile enough to do it.”

“I can’t accept
that.”

“Look, this may be
our last rodeo, so let’s do it right. The right man for the job does the job.”

“It’s not your
fight.”

“It became my fight
when it became yours, brother.” Sarge looked away and turned back to Stryker.

“I don’t seem to be
getting my way much today.”

“Me either, but both
of us can stand on our heads in a bucket of shit for two days if we have to, so
suck it up and focus on the mission.”

“You can’t use
grenades. It’s too close to the stage.”

“Forty-five meter
blast radius.”

“That’s how far
away they’ll be.”

“I know.”

“We can’t deal with
wounds.”

“Well, we could go
in tonight, take out the guards, and bring the girls back here,” Stryker said.

“You can if you
want to leave the rest of those assholes alive,” Erin said, walking to the
table and placing a garbage bag on one end. “That’s not an option. What we do
is go in tonight, get my friends and sister, one of us brings them back here,
and the other two wait for the assholes to return. Brody is back tomorrow and
the raping is going to start. You want to wait for that?” She grabbed her
drawing and added, “This road is the only way in. I saw the goodies and know we
have rocket launchers. We set up on the hill and blow the crap out of them when
they return.”

“I still have to
infiltrate through the second floor.”

“Probably not,” she
replied. “One of the night guards is a chain-smoker and sits in a chair with
the door open while he smokes.”

“Boy, that apple
really
did not fall too far from the tree,” Stryker said, looking at Erin with
admiration. She was smart as hell and obviously started taking note of
everything important from the moment she was captured.

“It solves a lot of
problems,” Sarge allowed.

“What are we
waiting for?” Erin added.

The three sat side
by side in the cab of the pickup. They approached the racetrack at an idle,
with Stryker driving. It was a cloudy night. He wore the NVGs and stared at a
landscape of green and black. He stopped the vehicle 200 meters out and got out
of the truck. He had removed the interior light bulb so the vehicle remained
invisible. They each had an M-4 and sidearm.

Stryker gestured to
Sarge to put his ear bud in and they left the truck with the PRCs hooked on
their tactical vests. Erin followed and they did squelch tests as they moved
toward the building. Faint light seeped out the windows, and one of the guards
gave away his presence by smoking outside the main door that was propped open
by the chair he sat in. The ember flared up and died several times. He went
back inside and the door closed. “How long before he comes out again?” Stryker
whispered to Erin.

“Probably fifteen
to twenty minutes.” He motioned to Sarge, who joined their huddle.

“I’m going to move
up there and stay on the left side of the door. When he comes out again, I take
him out. Then, I get the guard on the inside, and clear the building. You and
Erin move in, get the girls, and bug out of here. I’m going to stay with two
LAWs and move to the top of the hill. Sarge, you and Erin come back after you
drop the girls at the vehicle. Then we do clean up. You two will engage
whatever is left from the LAW strike from the rear, and I’ll take them from the
front. We finish here and we all leave together.” Sarge and Erin looked at each
other and nodded their agreement.

Stryker walked 200
meters in a perpendicular course to the entrance, turned, and approached the
building on cat’s feet. He lowered to the ground and crawled under the window,
then stood on the left side of the door. He screwed his sound suppressor into
the XD and waited.

Stryker was used to
waiting and used the time to review his plan. When the door opened, he would
shoot the first guard through the head, take a long step inside, and shoot the
second guard who faced into the room through the back of his head. He ran the
scenario through his head repeatedly. When the door opened, that is exactly
what happened. The first guard hit the ground and the second sat dead in his
chair, slumped over with a bolt-action .308 on the floor next to him. Stryker
opened the door fully so he was backlit and motioned the other two to the
building. When they arrived, he whispered, “I’m clearing the upper floors. Get
them ready to move.” He handed Sarge the keys to the cells that he had taken
from the second guard and moved away.

He pounded by the
cells and heard the girls gasp in surprise, then charged up the stairs at the
back of the building. He tried the door, but it was locked, so he reared back
and kicked it down. He entered the room with the XD up but saw no movement. He
turned on the light switch. Still no movement.

Stryker glanced
around the room and saw a large desk at the far end with a reading lamp perched
on top. He looked around the room and noted no other doors. It was the upstairs
office of the facility and pictures of horses dotted the walls. He walked over
to the desk and started looking through the drawers. He found a spiral binder
and opened it to a photo of a young woman tied to a bed, face down and naked.
He flipped to the next photo. It was the same woman, still face down but with
her face twisted toward the camera. A large man loomed over her, screwing her
from behind. Her face was etched in pain.

He flipped through
the pages and saw the same sort of scenario in each photo. He got to the last
page and it was a picture of a girl who looked to be 10 years old. Tears streamed
down her face as the man above her grinned at the camera. He fought back the
bile that formed in his throat and took a deep breath as the nausea passed. He
ripped the page out of the binder, stuffed it into his pocket, and walked
downstairs. He found the girls in different states of nakedness and turned
away.

“You can turn
around,” Erin said, after a minute. “They’re dressed.”

“Sarge has the
front door?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, we have a change
in plan. I need to talk to Sarge, so get them moving to the truck.” He walked
by her without even looking at them and stalked to the front door. As he
passed, Erin saw the muscles in his jaws clenching, and turned to her sister
and said, “Haley, can you get them moving to the truck? It’s 200 yards straight
out the main door.” Her sister, still stunned at the turn of events, nodded and
started the group toward the door. She stopped and embraced her grandpa, who
hugged her back, then said, “Get moving. We’ll talk later.”

Erin walked to
where her grandfather stood peering down at what looked to be a photo. His jaw
muscles were also dancing on the side of his face. “What’s going on?” she asked
as she approached.

“Stay away,”
Stryker ordered. He looked at Sarge and said, “We have to kill this guy
eventually. But we have to take him alive and find out where the other girls
are.” Sarge nodded his agreement. She took two steps toward them.

“Stay the hell
away!” Sarge roared, eyes blazing. She took two steps back. “Get the women to
the truck and keep them safe until we get there.”

“But…”

“I said get the
hell away,” he yelled again. Her face blanched, she looked away for a moment,
and moved back to where the women were leaving the building. She took the M-4
off her shoulder and took the last position behind them, scouting the area as
she walked.

“What’s the plan?”
Sarge asked.

“I stay here on the
second floor with the LAWs, not the hilltop, take them out as they approach,
and you engage them from the rear when the women are safe back at the house.
Erin is not in the picture anymore. After seeing the photos up there, no way we
can put any women at risk. We take Brody alive and I get the information I need
about the other women. Then I take him out.”

“There’s no way to
retreat from the building. There’s no cover.”

“Then we stand and
kill them, or they kill us. Either way, I am not leaving one of these assholes
alive.”

Sarge thought it
over for a moment and said. “It’ll take me twenty minutes to get back here.”

“That’s fine.”

The men walked back
to the pickup. Stryker grabbed two LAWs from the truck bed and some additional
magazines for his M-4. He started to walk back toward the building and felt a
pull at his shoulder. He turned and faced Erin, who said, “I want to stay here
with you.”

“Not this time.”

“Why?”

“Because I said
so.”

“That’s not an
explanation.”

“I don’t need to
offer one. I’m really good at what I do, which is killing people. Are you
really good at what you do?”

“Well, I just
applied for medical school. I got my degree in nursing.”

“You want me in a
surgical theatre?”

“Well, no.”

“I don’t want you
assisting me either. So, let’s all just stick to what we do well. Right now,
you need to protect those women, and I need to kill the men who did this to
them. Your grandpa is going to help me do that because he is really good at it,
too. Then we are all going back to my ranch in Texas and figure out what to do
next.” She thought it over for a moment.

“I would never
agree to this if Grandpa hadn’t yelled at me. He’s never done that.”

“I don’t care why
you agreed to it, but I’m glad you did. Keep those women safe.”

“You called them
‘girls’ before.”

“Not anymore.” He
started to turn away and then turned back, “If we don’t make it out of here,
there’s a map in the pickup glove compartment that shows my house in Texas,
marked by a blue dot. The ranch has power and water. There are instruction
manuals for every system in the house in my desk. If you go there, you can live
in comfort and probably peace.” She stood on her tiptoes and pecked his cheek.

“Thank you,” she
said, then turned and walked back to the pickup.

Sarge got into the
driver’s seat, waved, and departed. Stryker walked back to the building with a still-smoldering
rage. He turned and watched the pickup move away. Erin was seated next to her
sister and they were talking. He saw the sister break down in tears, and
concluded that Erin had given her the news about their parents. Haley’s
shoulders moved up and down and she covered her face with her hands. The pickup
moved over a hill and disappeared.

Stryker took up a
position on the second floor, armed the missile launchers, and settled in for a
long night. His earbud crackled when Sarge announced he was in position, and
they settled into what was going to be a long wait. Both of them slept, and as
the horizon started to meet the earth, woke up.

“Guns up,” Sarge
announced into Stryker’s earbud. He had already been up for over an hour,
watching the sun glimpse over the horizon.

“Ready here. Fire
on my launch.”

“Wait one.” A few
second passed, then Sarge announced, “We have another woman in the second
truck.”

“Shit,” Stryker
muttered. He paused to consider the situation, then keyed his mic. “I’m going
to wait for them to start to unass the first truck, and then hit it with the
LAW. I’ll only go for the second one if they try to escape. I know it’s a risk,
but we can’t leave that woman with them. We’ll need to move in fast and
suppress their fire. I’ll go for the woman when we have them down and
defensive.”

“Got it.”

“I’m moving
downstairs to get ready to assault. I’ll fire the LAWs from there.”

“Fire on my
command,” Sarge answered. “I have a clear view of the second truck.”

“Roger,” Stryker
said as he charged down the stairs and set up on the front of the building by
sitting in the chair that propped the door open, launchers propped against the
wall behind him. They wouldn’t see Stryker wasn’t one of them until it was too
late.