“You brought me another friend I had to watch die.”
I remembered an argument with Ken. He had wanted to kill a man, the last surviving member of the group who had killed his neighbors. I’d won that argument, and Billy had lived. And he’d gone on to become a fine person, even a friend. But now I knew firsthand what Ken had felt that day, the deep desire to punish someone, and the frustration of knowing it was not to be.
“All right,” I told them. “Assuming you don’t give us any trouble, and that you survive this trip, you’ll get your damned tattoos.”
I turned back to Sarah. “Tie them and put them in the back of a truck. If they so much as blink wrong, kill them where they stand.”
“Yes, Sensei.”
“There. In the brush to the right, just before the road curves. About twenty feet from the edge of the road.”
I searched closely where Rene indicated and saw nothing. “You sure you saw something?”
“Si. Keep watching.”
I had just about decided that the tension had finally gotten to her when the branches of the juniper swayed, and I finally discerned the camouflaged figure behind it. Once I saw what to watch for, I found several others in the area. “I see them. Looks like about a half dozen or so.”
“More on the other side,” Billy whispered from his perch on the limb above us.
I shifted the binoculars across the road. Sure enough, another group waited there. “Damn.” I sat down with my back against the pine I hid behind and rubbed my eyes. I was so tired I couldn’t see straight. I was tired of driving, tired of sneaking through the woods, but mostly I was tired of the fighting. And just down the road, it looked like Larry’s boys were settling in for one hell of a fight.
Time to review options. “Any ideas?”
Rene thought for a second, then shook her head. “Sorry, Jefe, I got nada.”
I sighed. “Go get Sarah and Megan,” I told her. “Tell them what we’ve got here, and I want all three of you to start thinking of some way around this situation. I want some ideas by the time you get them back here.” She slipped off through the woods to get the others.
“Billy?”
“Yes, Sensei?”
“Think you can get around those jokers and see what else is down there?”
The young man nodded. “Easier done than said.”
“All right. Be back in an hour.”
“Yes, sir.” Billy started to slip away.
“Hey!”
“Yes, sir?”
“Make sure you don’t get your ass shot off.”
He grinned nervously. “That’s my number one priority.”
It was a long hour.
Chapter 21
A L’ennemy, l’ennemy foy promise
Ne se tiendra, les captifs retenus:
Prins preme mort, amp; le reste en chemise.
Damne le reste pour estre soustenus.
To the enemy, the enemy faith promised
Will not be kept, the captives retained:
One near death captured, and the remainder in their shirts,
The remainder damned for being supported.
I jolted awake to the sound of soft scurrying from the trees behind me. “Sensei?”
I lowered my pistol. “Here,” I whispered back to Rene.
A few seconds later, she slipped up beside me, accompanied by Sarah and Megan. Sarah’s head swiveled around curiously. “Where’s Billy?”
“Scouting.”
I noticed her worried demeanor.
She saw me looking at her and immediately lost the expression. “Just curious,” she muttered.
I smiled. “He’ll be back any minute now.”
“Whatever.”
Before I could comment, Billy stepped out from the trees behind us. “Any minute is right.”
I glanced at Sarah and saw definite signs of relief in her face as he sat beside us.
“What’d you find out?” I asked.
“Looks like this is it.”
My heart began to beat faster. “What do you mean?”
Billy cleared the pine needles away and grabbed a stick to draw with in the dirt. “Road curves around to the right up here and, about half a mile further up, they got a little camp set up. Looks like their last Humvee gave up the ghost. They got the hood up, and they’re goin’ apeshit tryin’ to do something to it.”
“Larry’s there?”
Billy nodded. “Down there screamin’ at ‘em to get the thing runnin’ before he shoots them all. The way they’re jumpin’, seems like they believe him, too.”
I was afraid to ask, but I had to know for sure. “What about Zachary?”
“He’s there. The big Chinese dude has him.”
Megan asked what I should have. “How many of them did you see?”
“Just up ahead, there’s about twenty of ‘em waiting to ambush us when we hit the turn in the road. They have one of the Humvees just ahead of that. It’s blocking the road, with two flat tires and a fifty-caliber aimed right where we would come around the bend.
“About half a mile past there, there’s an old highway rest area. That’s where Larry’s having his screamin’ fit. He’s got another dozen or so with him. Including Zach. All together, I’d say they have about thirty to thirty-five people.”
I clapped Billy on the shoulder. “I’d say you’re right then. Looks like this is it.”
Sarah grinned. “Half a mile away. We can finish it.”
Megan tempered Sarah’s enthusiasm with a bitter comment. “About damned time.”
“Yeah.” I turned back to Rene. “How many people you think you’ll need to ambush the ambush?”
“Why fight them at all? We can just go around them and hit Larry.”
I shook my head. “If we do that, we’re likely to end up with Larry in front of us, and the ambush jumping in behind us. Our best bet is to use our numbers to hit them on both fronts at the same time. Keep both groups busy and overwhelm them.”
She thought it over. “All right. Gimme fifty people, and Sarah to take half of them.”