Firepower by John Cutter (ebook reader online .txt) 📕

*

Vince had slept most of the way on the two buses, catnapping at times, other times sinking into the deep sleep of exhaustion.

He was asleep now, dreaming that Chris Destry was asking if he could have his hand back…

“Stonewall, Alabama, folks,” said a man shouting from a Black Hawk helicopter.

The helicopter fired a rocket right at Vince…

And the explosion woke him up. He straightened up in his seat on the bus as it pulled over in Stonewall.

Covering a yawn, he sat up and looked out the window. Watery autumn sunlight of mid-morning. A light rain was falling. People were walking down the sidewalk on errands.

Vince was within five miles of Mac Colls. He was looking forward to seeing Mac again…

He got up and made his way off the bus. There was a Walmart on the edge of town. He would go there, buy some clean clothes, clean up in their bathroom, put the clothes on and get some breakfast at Pat’s.

Then a long walk back to the cabin for the Desert Eagle. And the hike out to the Wolf Base.

Then…

He had to make a decision.

Should he try to take the place down now? Or should he try again to infiltrate — maybe just get Bobby out and run for it. Let Deirdre work with the FBI to take these bastards down. But that would come too late — wouldn’t it?

Still unsure, Vince hurried down the street, wanting to change out of his cammies as quick as he could. He saw Sheriff Woodbridge drive by in his patrol car, staring at him. If Woodbridge chose to take a closer look, he might see the blood splashed on Vince’s clothing. He’d got most of it rinsed off in the bus station bathroom, but there were some stubborn bloodstains a sharp-eyed observer could notice.

But the sheriff kept going and so did Vince.

*

Mid-afternoon now. The rain had ceased, the clouds rolled away, and mist rose, summoned by late-Autumn clouds. Wearing blue jeans, a long black and yellow plaid shirt, and a black vinyl jacket, all fresh from Walmart, Vince was trudging down the access road toward Wolf Base. He had the Desert Eagle under his new jacket and two pocketfuls of ammo. In his left hand was a Walmart bag stuffed with his dirty, blood-splashed paramilitary uniform.

He was operating under the assumption that Mac Colls, who seemed to hate him, had acted on his own. That Gustafson hadn’t known that Colls planned to order Marco to take off. That Colls had taken a shot at him and had simply missed.

But he could be wrong. The General might have realized that Vince was not loyal to him and his cause. If that were the case, then Vince was walking into a wasp nest of enemies.

He had a strong feeling, however, that Gustafson wasn’t in on the decision to leave him to the tender mercies of the local cops. Acting on that feeling was a gamble.

Vince also had a mounting sense that he was about to make a decision that would reshape his life.

Was he here for the right reasons? He did want to find Bobby Destry and set him free. But part of him wanted the fight. He knew that.

He had tried letting it all go — the warrior life, the soldier’s life; the dependency on action and adrenaline to feel like life was worthwhile. Last year, he’d had a girlfriend for six months, up in Washington State.

Sandra June Tarkington. Till some drunk had tried to make a move on her in a bar. Vince told him to back off and the guy took a swing at Vince… who had broken the guy’s wrist, and jaw, in under two seconds. He’d done it with such savagery it scared Sandra away.

She was never comfortable around him after that. She had muttered about soldiers with PTSD and then stopped taking his phone calls.

One way or another, if he kept walking down this road — literally and figuratively — he was going to find himself, in time, in violent confrontation with the Germanic Brethren. If he happened to kill one of them in a public place in self-defense, witnesses would probably clear him of wrongdoing. But it wasn’t likely to play out that way. If he decided to go to war against them, he’d be breaking the law. He could become a wanted vigilante; an outsider, an outlaw in his own country.

Trouble was, he knew too much to back out now. Firepower was coming. He couldn’t be sure Deirdre would be able to mobilize the FBI to stop it. There wasn’t enough direct evidence. But Vince felt certain that innocent people would die if it weren’t stopped. Maybe a lot of people.

That thought made up his mind for him.

Another quarter mile and Vince would come to the checkpoint. He could slip into the woods and go around it. But coming in that way they’d see him on one of their cameras, and some zealot might well take a shot at him. And he needed to look like he belonged here. That was the plan.

He kept striding on. Twenty minutes, and he rounded a curve to see the two guards and the gate blocking his way.

“Hello, Gunny,” said Vince, strolling up to the checkpoint.

CHAPTER TEN

“You were issued a uniform,” Gunny said, glaring at him with his one remaining eye.

“I have it here in the bag,” Vince said. “There’s blood on it. I should have gotten rid of it. But… I figured I might need it so Gustafson would have some kind of proof.”

“Proof of what?” asked the other guard. It was the ex-con with tattoos up his neck, Dale French. Carrying an AR-15.

“That I carried out the mission. You two probably weren’t briefed.”

Gunny shook his head. “No,