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

  Chapter 29

  Zach

  Zach, Colton and Dannyboy went out to make sure the booby-traps were still in working order. Zach paused to lean on his shovel and watch the ground in the distance shimmering from the heat.

  “Hey,” Colton said excitedly, not far from him. “Look at this.”

  Glancing over, he watched his son stoop down and pluck a large flat rock from the ground. One of the sides was painted with a green bullseye. Zach recognized it at once as the symbol used by Calvin and his merry band of men for their well-intentioned, but largely inept resistance movement. For a brief second, Zach wondered if this was meant to be some sort of threat or warning. Then Colton turned the rock over and showed him that scrawled underneath was the word: Barn.

  Zach’s AR was leaning against the porch. “You two stay here,” he told Colton and Dannyboy before circling around back. A few moments later, Zach entered the barn.

  “You got guts,” he said aloud to no one in particular. “Sneaking around these parts, a man’s liable to get himself shot.”

  “It’s a risk I was willing to take,” a disembodied voice replied from the shadows. It didn’t sound like Calvin, but maybe he’d sent someone else to do his groveling.

  “Who are you?” Zach asked, leveling the rifle at a patch of shadow.

  “I’m surprised you don’t recognize my voice.” The figure stepped into the light.

  “Travis?”

  The man nodded. He was still wearing the same khaki shorts and green shirt.

  “If Calvin’s got something to say, I suggest he says it himself.”

  “That’s not likely,” Travis said. “Calvin’s dead.”

  The news smacked Zach across the face like a sack filled with bricks. “Wasn’t expecting that.”

  “There was a raid on one of our safehouses and Calvin was killed. Someone tipped them off. At least the gangly bastard went down fighting,” Travis said. “I’ll give him that.”

  “Gangly or not, he should never have been leading your outfit,” Zach said. “I hate to speak ill of the dead, but he barely had one oar in the water, if you know what I mean.”

  “That’s why I’ve come,” Travis said. “We need someone to take over for him. Someone who can inspire the men. Who knows what he’s doing.”

  Zach was brimming with plans and strategies, but more than that, he was bursting with confidence. It didn’t matter that he’d never served in the military or led men into battle, unless you included the time he’d fought his way out of an ambush. He had a sort of magnetism that drew folks toward him, made them pay attention when he spoke and do as he said.

  “This sure isn’t the way I imagined it happening,” Zach said. “But I accept.” Shaking Travis’ hand, he thought about Dale and how his brother-in-law would accuse him of abandoning the farm. “I’ll need a few hours to get some things together.”

  “Of course,” Travis said.

  “And I’ll be bringing some folks with me.” He was thinking of Colton and Dannyboy.

  “That’s fine too. I’m just happy you said yes.”

  Zach started to walk away and then stopped. “That call to the authorities that got Calvin killed, that was you, wasn’t it?”

  Travis’ eyes shone in the dimly lit barn. He never admitted it, but Zach knew all the same. He was about to enter a dark world where the line between friends and enemies was often blurred and always shifting. It was an atmosphere very much like prison. No doubt, the time he’d spent at Florence would serve him well.

  Chapter 30

  Dale

  They ate dinner in silence. When they were done, Ann brought Walter up some soup. He seemed to be improving physically, although neither of Nicole’s parents had recovered from the recent series of events which had taken their daughter’s life.

  Dale couldn’t help but marvel at how Shane and Nicole’s treachery had damaged morale in the house. Zach wasn’t pulling his full weight and was setting a bad example for Colton and Dannyboy, who seemed to follow him around the way Duke followed Dale. The thought of his dog made Dale reach down and stroke the animal’s fur. But their small enclave wasn’t the only thing torn in two. The town was also divided on how to deal with the cartel and the direction Encendido should take if and when they ever managed to expel the drug-dealing thugs from their borders. United we stand, divided we fall. That old saying seemed truer now than ever.

  But not all hope was lost. If Shane managed to end his long streak of failures in life and actually succeed at taking out Edwardo Ortega, then their chances of throwing off the yoke of bondage and oppression were that much greater. Sandy had told him about her meeting with Keith, how he was working for the resistance now—needless to say, news which Dale received with a healthy dose of skepticism—and that the competing resistance movements in town needed to come together before La Brigada showed up to squash any hopes of a successful rebellion.

  Almost on cue, Zach cleared his throat and stood. “I wanted to let you know that I’ll be leaving tonight,” he said, rubbing his hands together against a chill that wasn’t there.

  “This late?” Brooke asked. “When will you be back?” She seemed to think Zach was stepping out to run an errand.

  Dale could tell from his brother-in-law’s voice that something else was going on.

  “Maybe never.”

  “I don’t understand,” Brooke said. “Where are you going?” She turned to Colton, whose eyes were glued to the salt shaker on the table, a guilty flush coloring his cheeks. “Not you too. If this is a joke, I don’t like it one bit.”

  A sad expression clouded Sandy’s face. “Wherever you’re going, it sounds like you already made up your mind.”

  Zach glanced over at Dannyboy and Colton. “You boys have anything you wanna say for yourselves?”

  Colton stood, his eyes still downcast. “Yeah, Dannyboy and I will also be leaving.”

  Tears started to form in Brooke’s eyes. Ann came down the stairs and said she could sense from upstairs that something was going on.

  “This have anything to do with our differences of opinion?” Dale asked, scraping his empty plate with the tip of his dinner knife.

  “Well,” Zach said, “the truth is, we’re joining the resistance.”

  Dale lifted his head. “That right?”

  “Not just joining,” Dannyboy added with pride. “Calvin Pike went and got himself killed and Zach’s taking over.”

  Dale’s heart sank. Losing Zach would be a blow to keeping the house well defended, no doubt. But suddenly Dale’s hopes that the two groups might put aside their differences and come together seemed to be slipping away. “How convenient for you,” was all Dale could say.

  Zach let out a short burst of laughter. “Whacking the competition sounds like something I’d do, no doubt about it. But for once my hands are clean. The organization had a vacancy and apparently I was voted in unanimously. I guess your reputation isn’t the only one that gets around.”

  “Then I don’t need to tell you how important it is that you reach out to Nobel and coordinate your efforts.”

  The look on Zach’s face shifted. Gone was the timid relative delivering a bit of sad news. The arrogant, stubborn side was back and in full force. “There’s a lot that needs to be done. If Vickie wants to meet, she knows where to find me. I think you and everyone else here should join us. We could use the house as a forward operating base to launch attacks and question prisoners.”

  Zach’s eyes were glowing, like a child dreaming about a shiny new toy. In this instance he would be playing soldier, except the pieces would be made of flesh and blood instead of plastic.

  “I think you know where I stand on that,” Dale said.

  Zach scoffed, a gravelly sound which emanated from the back of his throat. “Yeah, I figured as much. The offer will stand in case you change your mind, although knowing you, it may be hard for you to take orders instead of doling them out. But I can assure you, I’ll be a top-notch leader.”

/>   Dale went back to his plate. “I’m sure you will.” His eyes rose to meet the other two. “When do you all leave?”

  “Right away,” Colton said, looking at his dad. “Apparently they’re expecting us.”

  “I’ll be taking the tank, of course, as well as the chopper I stored in your garage.” Zach surveyed the calluses on his hands. “I can say it’ll be nice not to be busting my hump doing manual labor anymore.”

  A few minutes of awkward conversation followed, after which Zach and the others gathered their things and said their goodbyes. Dale and the others stood by the driveway, the cool night air creeping up the sleeves of Dale’s shirt and into his bones. He knew where he needed to go tomorrow morning and who he needed to speak with. Dale felt his mind racing in circles with concerns and possible outcomes, none of which looked good.

  Chapter 31

  The following morning, Dale and Brooke drove to Encendido Community College, west of town. After they pulled off Winrow Avenue and into the parking lot, their truck was approached by two men with AK-74s. It seemed Vickie’s perimeter security had everything but a gate and a vehicle barrier arm.

  “What’s your business here?” one of them asked with a fair amount of hostility and aggression.

  “I need to speak with Nobel,” Dale answered rapidly. He was in a hurry and didn’t have time for chitchat.

  The guard looked past him to Brooke.

  “She’s my daughter.”

  The guard got on a walkie-talkie. “Inform Nobel that Dale is here to see her. Go ahead, sir,” he said, waving them forward.

  Dale rolled ahead, glancing in his rear view only to find that the two security men had melted from view.

  Anyone patrolling the area who didn’t belong would think the college was abandoned, an illusion Nobel apparently went to great lengths to maintain.

  They parked the pickup and entered the main building through a set of large double doors into a long, wide hallway. Discarded papers and bits of trash littered the floor. In a corner lay a bulging knapsack, filled, perhaps, with textbooks and other school supplies. It was as if a stampede of students had rushed from the college for safety, the virus chasing them out the doors and through the streets. And in a way that was exactly what had happened. Except it had followed them all the way home, devastating families, neighborhoods and the country at large. Even Dale didn’t know how far the desolation had spread.

  A set of stairs to their right led down to the lower levels. On the top riser was the image of a circle, the letter V inside. “This way,” he told Brooke who followed him closely, breathing hard. His daughter was scared and Dale couldn’t exactly blame her.

  Down two levels, they found a young man with dirty blond hair awaiting them.

  “Caleb,” Brooke shouted with relief.

  He smiled and led them through a hallway and into a room buzzing with activity. On one wall was a large map of the county. Another showed Encendido. Specific landmarks and buildings were marked—the high school, the sheriff’s office, the Teletech plant and plenty of others.

  Men and women wearing black caps and matching shirts sped by them in every direction. These weren’t the sleepy, unmotivated resistance fighters Dale had expected to find. They seemed organized and motivated and maybe in the middle of preparing for the big operation Keith had told them about.

  Vickie was nearby, speaking with Betty Wilcox, when she spotted them and came over.

  “You must have heard by now,” she said, cutting right to the chase.

  “About Zach?” Dale answered, jumping to the obvious conclusion.

  “No, there have been more executions,” Vickie told him, the anger ringing loudly in her voice.

  “Again?” Brooke said.

  “They won’t stop until we get rid of these monsters.” Vickie made that clear.

  “What was their crime?” Dale asked. “Failing to pay an oxygen tax?”

  Vickie grinned. “Trading with the enemy,” she said.

  Her words sliced into his flesh like a hundred tiny daggers. “Trading?”

  “Pamela Steiger, David Halper and a handful of others.”

  Dale’s heart froze in his chest. “Oh, no. What about Billy Forest?”

  Vickie flipped through pages on a clipboard. “He’s not on the list.”

  Relief flooded Dale’s soul, but even so, that feeling of guilt wasn’t going away.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said, somehow knowing that he had been the enemy they’d been caught trading with.

  “Aren’t we going to move in to free them?” Dale sounded desperate.

  She glared at him. “And risk the operation we’re planning? If we moved in to save every person the cartel did harm to, we’d run out of people and fast.”

  “Those were our neighbors,” Brooke said, grimacing.

  Dale got Caleb’s attention. “Why don’t you show Brooke around?”

  “Sure thing,” Caleb said, taking Brooke by the elbow and easing her away.

  When both of them were gone, Vickie asked him about Zach.

  Dale filled her in on the events from the night before.

  A look of gloom clouded her otherwise attractive features. “Do you expect your brother-in-law to be any more reasonable than Calvin?”

  Shaking his head, Dale said: “Unfortunately, he’s one of the most impulsive, pig-headed people I know.”

  Vickie scrunched her lips. “I’ve never understood how some men can be so blind to the bigger picture. They’d rather hand the entire county to Edwardo and his goons than work with a woman.”

  “Like the old saying goes,” Dale said, “some people will cut off their nose to spite their face.” He looked at her more closely, noticing a small mole on her right cheek. “Do you really think that’s what it is, blindness?”

  “Some days that’s how it feels, especially with men like Calvin and Sheriff Randy. They may have been on opposing sides, but they were largely cut from the same cloth.”

  “That brings up something I was meaning to run by you,” Dale said.

  She eyed him curiously.

  “I wanna set up a meeting, just me and Randy.”

  Vickie’s eyebrows both rose at once. “I don’t see why you’d wanna do that.”

  “Isn’t it obvious? The cartel came in and stole the town right from under his nose. He was once the number two man. Now with Hugh Reid pushing up desert shrubs, he’s fallen way down on the pecking order.”

  She still wasn’t buying it. “I understand all that, but I’m just not seeing the payoff.”

  “Randy’s got an ego the size of Arizona,” Dale told her. “Don’t you think he’s already started weighing his options going forward? If we offered him the right deal, he and all his deputies might desert and join us. With the cartel acting more and more like ISIS every day, he can’t help but be looking for a way out.”

  “And once the dust settles, guess who’ll come out smelling like roses and looking like a hero?”

  Dale had considered that too. “If we stick together, we can contain Randy and his ambitions, maybe even find a way to be done with him altogether. Besides, with the army nowhere in sight, what alternative do we have?”

  “You’re starting to sound like Edwardo,” Vickie said, giving him a look.

  Dale didn’t like that, even if it was only a joke.

  “Listen,” she said, “I’ll talk with Keith and see if he can work something without blowing his cover.”

  “No,” Dale cut in. “He’s got enough on his plate. I’ll take care of it myself. But mainly because there’s something else I need Keith to do.” Dale glanced over Vickie’s shoulder to find Brooke field-stripping an AR with her eyes closed. A young girl, showing off in front of a boy she liked. What a difference from the girls of his generation. “Any chance that stockpile of weapons you got contains a silenced pistol?”

  “It might,” Vickie answered, laying out the words slowly. One of her eyes was half shut, as though she were anticipating what was
coming next.

  He told her about Shane’s unique position on the inside. That the cartel was keeping him around for the day they could use him against Dale. And that he’d offered to assassinate Edwardo. “Keith will need to smuggle it in to him as soon as possible.”

  The idea intrigued her. “You know, it might just work. But if I do this, then you’ve got to do something for me.”

  Dale nodded. Now it was his turn to be worried. “I’m listening.”

  “If Zach’s as much of a hothead as you claim he is, he’s going to get a lot of innocent people killed.”

  “Believe me,” Dale told her, “it’s something of a specialty of his.”

  “If he can’t control himself, he’ll only drive the townspeople right into the arms of the cartel. You need to convince him to come on board and join us.”

  “He’s a glory hog,” Dale countered. “It won’t be easy.”

  “Anything worth doing never is,” she replied. “I know you can do it.”

  She walked away then, leaving Dale to wonder if he shared her faith in him.

  Chapter 32

  Zach

  Zach was awoken by a firm knock on his door.

  “Zero eight hundred hours, sir,” the voice on the other side said. “Time to get up.”

  They had showed up last night to cheers from the men and women of the resistance movement. At last he’d found the devoted followers he always wanted. In a way, throughout Zach’s whole life he’d felt like a preacher in search of a flock. For a long time he’d been lost out in the wilderness, but at long last he was finally home.

  The look of pride on Colton’s face at seeing the respect and hope in people’s eyes was not lost on him. Every son wanted to believe his father was a superhero and now Colton’s own dream was also coming true. And no one asked whether Zach had a criminal history, whether he’d ever killed a man. In the old world, those things would have held him back. Now they were the things you put at the top of your résumé. Street cred, as the kids liked to call it.