Defiance: A House Divided (The Defending Home Series Book 2) Read online

  DEFIANCE:

  A House Divided

  William H. Weber

  Copyright © 2016 William H. Weber

  Cover by Deranged Doctor Design

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. Any material resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  eISBN: 978-1-926456-12-6

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Books by William H. Weber

  Defiance: The Defending Home Series

  Defiance: A House Divided

  Last Stand: Surviving America’s Collapse

  Last Stand: Patriots (Book 2)

  Last Stand: Warlords (Book 3)

  Last Stand: Turning the Tide (Book 4)

  Long Road to Survival (Book 1)

  Long Road to Survival (Book 2)

  Dedication

  First, a heartfelt thank you to Roger Peterson, Darryl Lapidus, Tom Poulin, H. Rossi and LBC for your thoughtful comments on an early draft of the book. I'd also like to thank the ARC team once again for your dedication and your honest reviews. The final note of appreciation goes out to the fans for making all of this possible.

  Book Description

  Dale Hardy thought he had seen the face of evil. But that was before the virus, before the cartel. Now, with his home and family in danger, Dale must look real evil in the eyes. He must choose between sanctuary and defiance and he must unite a house divided.

  Chapter 1

  His hand betraying a slight tremble, Dale pushed aside the burlap curtain that covered the window and watched as the dust cloud drew nearer. No doubt, leading the charge was Edwardo Ortega. After Zach’s men had been ambushed and slaughtered—save for Dannyboy and a biker who had perhaps wisely opted to flee—Ortega’s objective had become as clear as the cloudless blue sky above. He and the Mexican criminals he commanded had been sent to finish what Sheriff Gaines and Mayor Reid had so unjustly started. They wanted Dale’s land, but more than that, they wanted every drop of water that could be pumped from his substantial aquifer.

  “How long until they’re here?” Zach asked, although it sounded far more like a demand. There was a funny look in his brother-in-law’s eye. It wasn’t fear, though. He was yearning for revenge.

  “Not nearly enough,” Dale replied, moving quickly past them and down the hall to his bedroom where he collected the Remington 700 Walter had given him, along with two boxes of 30-06 rounds.

  Brooke, Shane and Colton followed him, terror streaked across each of their faces.

  “So what’s the plan, big brother?” Shane asked, trying to sound calm and collected, but, like most things in his life, failing miserably at it.

  “I’m gonna set up a shooting position from the second story of the barn,” Dale told him.

  “Are you insane?” his daughter Brooke said. “That’s suicide.” Her eyes were filling with tears.

  “It’s not a bad idea,” Walter piped up, although the features of his weathered face wrinkled with concern. “She does have a point though. When things get hairy you may just find yourself cut off.”

  Dale considered this.

  “Cut off,” Sandy said, a hand on the grip of the 9mm pistol on her belt, “but not alone. I’m going with you.”

  She must’ve seen the rebuttal forming on his lips because she cut him off before he could get the words out. “They’ll be here any moment,” she said. “There isn’t time to argue.”

  Dale gritted his teeth. “I forgot how stubborn you are.” He started out of his bedroom―Duke at his heels―and paused by the top landing. “The retractable stairs aren’t ready yet, so we’ll head out through the garage. Colton, close and lock it after us, will you?” He turned to his daughter. “Brooke, run downstairs and grab the set of walkie-talkies from the basement.”

  She didn’t move for a moment, until he ordered her to snap out of it and get moving.

  “The rest of you,” Dale said, “take your positions and conserve your ammo. We don’t know how long this will last.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll get ’em sorted,” Walter assured him.

  Dale laid a hand on the old man’s supple shoulder. “I just hope all this work on our defenses won’t be for nothing.”

  Once downstairs, Dale collected his Mossberg shotgun and an old army-surplus grenade satchel he’d purchased long ago for gardening but had since repurposed into an easy-access bag for his shotgun shells. By the time he pulled up the garage door, he could hear the approaching caravan of vehicles: a sound which sent a surge of nervous jitters up his spine. Brooke arrived and handed him one of the walkies. He kissed her forehead.

  “Take care of her,” he told Colton, who nodded in response. Colton then gave them a final good luck blessing before pulling the garage shut and locking it.

  Dale, Sandy and Duke hurried past the pumphouse and the rows of planted vegetables and made it into the barn. Sandy was the first to climb the ladder into the loft. Dale followed, going up only far enough to hand her his rifle and shotgun before returning to scoop up Duke and repeat the process. His furry companion whined as Dale scaled the dozen rungs to the second level.

  “It’s all right, buddy,” Dale told him. “We’re almost there.”

  Sandy ran back to the opening in the floor and peered down at them in alarm. “You better hurry and get set up.”

  Dale reached the top at about the same time that the shooting started out front. So much of it was overlapping that he couldn’t tell for sure how much was coming from the defenders inside and how much from the people trying to kill them.

  The loft had a large set of doors which he and Sandy swung open. Laid out before the opening was a row of sandbags. It was a shooting position he’d prepared after the first assault by Randy’s hired goons. Being up on the second story gave them the higher ground, which Walter had assured him was always an advantage during a gunfight, but there was something about the position which worried Dale and it was more than the fact that they were on their own. The wooden ladder they had used to reach the second level was built into the structure and couldn’t be removed. Which meant that if any of Ortega’s men made it into the barn the two of t
hem would suddenly be facing a two-front war.

  Sandy’s only weapon was a single 9mm pistol for which she carried half a dozen magazines. For Dale’s part, in addition to his shotgun and Remington hunting rifle, he was also equipped with his Ruger .45 caliber. That way, if Sandy’s weapon ran out of ammo, he could always throw her his own pistol.

  Dale set the barrel of his Remington on the sandbag before him. From here he would have a commanding view over anyone circling around either side of the house. But eyeing the heavy brush beyond the cleared edges of his property suddenly made him concerned. Like the retractable stairs and countless other projects, they simply hadn’t had time to take care of everything.

  “Too little, too late,” he muttered under his breath as he worked the bolt, chambering a round. Just then the sound of gunfire coming from the front of the property grew sharply. Someone was getting hammered hard and Dale hoped to hell it was Ortega and his men.

  •••

  Edwardo Ortega

  The cartel lieutenant watched from behind the engine block of his Escalade as the first wave of ten men assaulted the house. The vehicles were parked sideways and arranged in a loose semi-circle to provide some cover and concealment. When Edwardo had arrived in Encendido he had done so with forty men by his side. He’d suffered a few losses during the biker ambush which had cut his forty down to thirty-four.

  From here, Dale’s property looked formidable, even if Edwardo wasn’t prepared to say so out loud. The plan was simple. He and the others would provide covering fire from behind the barricade of vehicles while an initial group of ten men crossed the front lawn and made their way to the house. From there, they would use sledgehammers and shotguns to breach the walls. The rest of them would follow, overwhelming and killing everyone inside.

  His enforcers were armed with a wide array of high-powered weaponry—HK G36s (5.56), AR-15s (.223), AK-74s (5.45 x 39mm), M4 Carbines (5.56)—more than enough to do what they’d come here for. Edwardo peered through the chaos of battle. Already, two men in the first wave had been wounded. A third was slumped forward on the front lawn, his foot caught in a booby trap, his body riddled with bullets. Rounds from a second-story window thudded into the windshield of the Escalade, forcing Edwardo to take cover.

  Crouched next to him was El Grande, a burly three-hundred-and-fifty-pound enforcer. The two had met as children, El Grande a street kid who’d run messages as a courier for his own father, a lieutenant then in Fernando’s burgeoning drug enterprise. Of course, that was before he’d gained the weight and won himself the name by which he was known today.

  “These guys mean business,” El Grande said, beads of sweat rolling down his obese face. His mouth was open and he was breathing hard like a man who’d been chasing after a frightened pig. “If we had a rocket launcher we could finish this in thirty seconds, I swear.”

  Edwardo didn’t appreciate the suggestion. “Those two gringos said the place needs to be taken intact.” He was referring to Sheriff Gaines and Mayor Reid. “Makes no sense even bothering if we can’t get at the water.”

  Then came the loud impact of more incoming rounds, followed closely by the shriek of pain from a nearby man. To his left, one of the thugs clamped a hand over the side of his neck, blood squirting between his fingers. Edwardo snapped his thumb and index finger, ordering those nearby to attend to his wounds.

  Taking casualties and caring for the wounded was something new for them. Back home, when a man was shot, he was usually left to fend for himself. There was no room in the organization for gimps or cripples. But they weren’t at home anymore, were they? And because of that every man counted, wounded or not.

  “The sheriff said we should drive them off the land,” El Grande said, his eyes fixed on the bleeder a few feet away. “Avoid any unnecessary bloodshed. Sheriff said he’d given his word.”

  “What he promised isn’t my concern,” Edwardo replied. “They want this stubborn bastard off his land, want us to do their dirty work? Fine. But I’ll do it my way.”

  Edwardo rose again, his rifle perched on the hood of the SUV, and rattled off a series of shots at that central window. The men around him came up and followed suit. He hoped to see that his enforcers had breached the wall already and were working their way inside. But the sight before him couldn’t have been more different. Dead bodies sprawled on the lawn, a few still alive, screaming and clawing their way back toward the barricade of vehicles. Others had taken cover behind a row of sagebrush and juniper trees on the right flank, their will to fight melting under the withering fire. The first wave hadn’t just stalled, it had been chewed up and spat out.

  Edwardo motioned for one of his subcommanders, a hardened warrior nicknamed El Ventrílocuo, the ventriloquist, on account of his legendary ability to get his torture victims talking. His muscular arms covered in tattoos, he had a scar running across his neck where someone had tried and failed to strangle him with a garrote.

  “Take some men and circle around back,” Edwardo told him. “There aren’t enough gringos inside to cover every approach at once.”

  El Ventrílocuo grinned before pointing a crooked finger at nine men.

  Edwardo and the others rose to provide covering fire.

  Staying low, El Ventrílocuo’s group moved along the row of sagebrush and gnarled desert trees, pushing toward the rear of the house.

  Part of the problem was the concrete obstructions in the driveway which prevented them from bringing the vehicles closer. Edwardo surveyed the barbed-wire fence surrounding the front of the property. But that didn’t mean there weren’t other options. Edwardo waved over another subcommander and ordered him to take nine men and assault the front of the house while he, El Grande and two brothers stayed back to provide covering fire. If this didn’t work, he had one more idea which was sure to do the trick.

  •••

  Colton and Dannyboy reached the top riser carrying two buckets of ammo apiece. They lowered the heavy containers onto the hardwood floor with a deep thud and a soft metallic jingle. While Walter had been the one to provide the vast majority of the rounds in their arsenal, none of them had taken the time to sort them by caliber. What had seemed little more than a nuisance was fast becoming a major problem.

  No sooner had they set the buckets down than another volley of rounds fired from the cartel outside exploded through the walls, filling the air with bits of plaster and wood. Zach waved them forward.

  “In here,” he yelled. “And for God’s sake keep your heads down or you’re gonna lose ’em.”

  They took a deep breath and did as they were told. To their right was Dale’s bedroom where Shane was crouched behind a row of sandbags, firing out the window. Brooke and Walter were positioned to the rear and side approaches respectively. Colton and Dannyboy were currently on ammo duty and acting as floaters, ready to jump in if someone was wounded or, worse, killed. Meanwhile Ann and Nicole were tasked with sorting rounds and replenishing spent magazines.

  Zach handed Colton his AR and watched with pride as his son replaced him at the front window. The volume of fire coming at them from outside ebbed and flowed. Already Zach had two confirmed kills under his belt. And much of that had to do with the cartel’s full-frontal assault, an insane strategy and one they had repulsed with relative ease. The barbed-wire fence and booby traps were also playing their part, helping to funnel the attackers into predesignated kill zones. At least, that was what the old geezer kept shouting whenever one of Ortega’s men stumbled into a pitfall or one of those Apache foot traps. The sight would make Walter holler with joy, press his eye to the scope of his rifle and fire three rounds in quick succession.

  “What’d I tell you?”

  “Good shooting, old man,” Zach told him. “But this ain’t Korea, you know.”

  The wide grin on Walter’s face said otherwise.

  Now, with Colton and Dannyboy taking over, the change gave Zach a chance to check on the others. He went from room to room, ensuring everyone had enough
ammo. He was heading toward Dale’s room when Shane called out between three-round bursts. “I got a group heading around back,” he shouted. “Five, maybe more. They’re behind the underbrush and I couldn’t get a clear shot.”

  Zach got on the walkie. “Dale, you’re about to have some company on your left flank. Keep an eye on your ten o’clock.”

  Dale’s staticky response came back a moment later. “Roger that.”

  Geez, Zach thought. We’re even starting to sound like army grunts.

  Still angling for a shot from the window, Shane was muttering. “If Dale had only listened to me, none of this would have happened.”

  “That may be so,” Zach shot back. “But you don’t negotiate with corrupt politicians. Stick your hand out and they’re just as likely to bite it off. Believe me, I know.”

  Shane fired off two rounds before his AR clicked empty.

  “Throw me a mag, will ya?”

  Zach reached down, grabbed a full magazine and tossed it to him. A salvo of rounds thudded into the house, blasting out puffs of drywall. Through it all, Zach stood his ground, his eyes locked on Shane. He didn’t like the guy. Didn’t mean he wanted him dead or anything. Shane had just never passed the sniff test.

  Crouched behind the sandbags, Shane stared back at him wide-eyed. “You sure have a death wish.”

  Zach grinned, crinkling the red rings around his eyes, remnants of surviving a bout of the H3N3. “I’ve been dead once already,” he told Dale’s brother. “Believe me, it’s overrated.”

  The next flurry of bullets to impact the house was quickly followed by panicked shouts from the main defensive position, the one where Colton, Dannyboy and Walter were stationed.

  “Bring the first-aid kit quick,” a voice yelled over the din. “Someone’s been hit.”

  Chapter 2

  Dale

  Dale spotted movement out among the sagebrush and juniper trees, fleeting glimpses of men as they ran through the undergrowth, and his body tensed. He had no reason to believe they’d made his position. And he could practically hear the soft quality of Walter’s voice ringing in his head, laying out the enemy’s strategy. Ortega was sending men around back looking for a point of weakness, a loose window board or a blind spot in the house’s defenses. Something they could exploit in order to kill everyone inside.