The Traveler (Book 2): Canyon Page 2

  Once Pico had the door fully raised, he waved Battle through the opening. Battle let his foot off the brake and accelerated out of the arena and up an incline onto a gravel road that ran along the loading side of the arena.

  “We’ve still got a couple of hours until daylight,” said Battle. He spun the wheel to the left, driving around the southern side of the complex to avoid driving near Highway 36. “I think sunrise is around oh-seven-thirty.”

  “So we’re hitting them before sunrise?” Lola asked.

  “That’s the plan,” said Battle. “We’ll have the advantage.”

  “How so?”

  “They won’t see us coming. It’s always best to initiate a direct action under the relative protection of darkness.”

  “Direct action?”

  “A quick operation in hostile territory.”

  “So this will be quick? We’ll have Sawyer back quick?”

  “I don’t know about that,” Battle admitted. “We don’t know exactly where they have your son.”

  Lola blinked back tears and turned away from him to stare out the window.

  The Humvee, rumbling with its lights off, crossed over a narrow strip of parallel roads and rolled to a stop a few feet from the trio of horses tied to the exterior fence near the airport’s runway.

  The horses grunted against the noise of the Humvee and pulled against their reins. Their discomfort strained the already weakened fence. Battle quickly turned off the engine to calm them and slid out of the vehicle.

  Pico walked across the road and trudged to the horses. “Load everything?”

  “Yep.” Battle loosened the saddlebags on his Appaloosa. “Everything can go in the back.”

  Lola joined the men and began working on her bags. “What do we do with the horses?” asked Lola. “Are we leaving them here?”

  “No,” Battle said. He rubbed his hand along the horse’s mane. It nickered. “We’re letting them go.”

  “What? Why?”

  “We don’t have a need for them,” Battle said, running his fingers through the animal’s coarse black hair. “We don’t know where we’re headed or how long we’ll be gone. We keep them tied up here and they could die.”

  Pico waved his hands in the air. “So we just free ’em?”

  Battle pulled his hand from the horse and swung around to face the dissenters. “Is this going to be a repeated issue?” He pointed at Lola and then moved his aim to Pico. “The two of you?”

  Lola and Pico exchanged glances. Neither answered the question.

  “Because I’m not putting up with it.” Battle’s hands were at his sides. He was flexing his fingers in and out of a tight ball. “Salomon Pico, I know you took a risk riding with me. I appreciate that. You really had no choice. And Lola, I know you’re desperate. You want your son back, I got it. However, you both have to understand that you need me. It’s not the other way around. I’ll survive out here without either of you.”

  Battle released the saddlebags from his horse. He carried one of them over to the Humvee and dropped it into the open bed in the back. “So I’m not having this conversation again. You both do what I say, you live by my rules, you follow my plan. Otherwise we’ll part ways.”

  Lola’s eyes hawked him as he walked back to the horse for the second bag. Pico was looking at the ground, mumbling to himself, kicking at the weeds.

  Battle grabbed the bag and heaved it over his shoulder. “We good?”

  Lola nodded. Pico did the same.

  “I need verbal confirmation,” Battle insisted. “Yes or no?”

  Lola ran her fingers through her hair and rolled her eyes. “Yes.”

  Pico shrugged. “Yes?”

  “That a question, Salomon Pico?”

  “No,” he replied. “It’s a yes. Yes.”

  “All right then,” Battle said. “Let’s load up, let the horses loose, and hit the HQ. We’re running out of time.”

  CHAPTER 3

  JANUARY 3, 2020, 3:44 PM

  SCOURGE -12 YEARS, 9 MONTHS

  ALEPPO, SYRIA

  No fewer than twenty factions controlled varying parts of Aleppo, the most dangerous city in Syria, if not the entirety of the Middle East.

  The one hundred and fifty thousand American soldiers, Marines, and sailors fighting the war were never quite sure who was on their side and who wasn’t. It seemed to change from week to week.

  One of the factions, the Asala wa al-Tanmiya Front, was reportedly in control of Western Aleppo near the university and the hospital. It was one of the largest sections of the city controlled by a singular group. They called for help patrolling the zone between their checkpoint and one controlled by the hardline Syrian Islamic Front, a coalition of smaller factions that kept assimilating like-minded groups to increase its reach and power.

  Battle and his men were the last of three teams tasked with a daylong, triple-shift effort to check weaknesses along the sector’s boundaries. They’d unwittingly found one when the IED exploded under their feet.

  Now, Battle was burdened with carrying the lone surviving member of the patrol more than four miles back to the friendly checkpoint. The wheelbarrow had lasted exactly seven minutes before the front brace collapsed, the axle broke, and the wheel fell off. It was nice while it lasted.

  While Buck wasn’t a small man, Battle wasn’t either. He held Buck over his shoulders like a fireman, one armed draped around the backs of Buck’s thighs and the other around the injured soldier’s back. The slog was slow and Battle took a break every ten minutes, resting in the relative protection of abandoned cars or behind the remnants of decimated structures.

  “We’re exposed,” Buck said in between sips of water from Battle’s canteen. “We run into any opposition, we’re both dead. Every time I see a burka or a kid carrying a backpack, I freak.”

  Battle adjusted a makeshift splint on Buck’s leg that ran from his ankle halfway up his calf. He looked up at the sergeant. “How’s the pain?”

  “Bad. I feel like I’m gonna puke.”

  “I can’t give you more morphine. I’ve got Phenergan. It might help the nausea and amplify the morphine.”

  “Where’d you get it?” Buck accepted the circular orange pill Battle held out and tongued it into his mouth, finishing it off with another swig of water. “The medic kit was obliterated.”

  “I have my own stash,” Battle said. “I like to stay ahead of the game.”

  Buck laughed and then coughed. “It’s a game, is it?”

  “Everything is a game one way or the other, Sergeant.” Battle stood and scanned the surrounding area. “You stay here for a minute. I’m gonna check the path forward.”

  Battle picked up his HK and stepped over a rusting wheel frame, walking north. It was late afternoon, he was drenched in sweat, and they were maybe halfway to the checkpoint. He pulled out a handheld GPS and tried to orient himself. The sun set early in Aleppo; he had maybe forty minutes of sunlight.

  They were near the intersection of Handaseh Street and Kher Eddin Al Asadi. Behind him was what was left of the university’s civil engineering faculty building. A block north was a bank building and the Alrazi Hospital.

  He knew the hospital was on the edge of Asala wa al-Tanmiya Front control. The latest intelligence was a month old. It could have flipped hands. He couldn’t risk showing up there for help and being shot on sight or, worse yet, taken prisoner.

  The checkpoint was between the old Aleppo Railway station and Aziziya Square on the eastern side of the narrow Queiq River near an amusement park. It was about two and a half kilometers. In the best conditions it would take him twenty-five to thirty minutes to walk it. He had two options. He could walk north and skirt a public park. Though it would be faster, it would leave them exposed all the way to the checkpoint.

  He was better off taking a straight line route east along Al Bohtory Street and then jogging north at Saadallah Al Jabri Square. If he took fire, he had places to hide. Either way, it probably was a crapshoot.
>
  Battle turned back south toward Buck when he heard the familiar zip of a semiautomatic rifle coming from the east near the railroad track.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

  A pair of shots whizzed past his head, and he dove behind the corner of a building for cover. He was maybe fifty yards from Buck.

  “Buck! I’ve got incoming. Are you good?”

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

  “I’m good!”

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Battle adjusted his grip on his rifle. His butt was resting on his heels, his weight on the balls of his feet as he leaned against the building in a narrow alleyway leading onto the main street. He couldn’t pinpoint the location of the rifle fire. Another volley zipped past him, a pair of bullets crumbling the clay brick a foot above his head.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Battle backed further into the alley. He knew somebody was spotting him and relaying location information to the shooter. The shots were too accurate for the random sniper fire they encountered.

  Battle stayed low, moving back to Buck’s position. Once he’d disappeared from the alley, the gunfire stopped.

  “We’re pinned?” Buck asked, the color gone from his face. His skin looked almost translucent.

  Battle nodded. “Yeah. And we’re about to lose daylight. I’ve got to find another way out of here.”

  CHAPTER 4

  OCTOBER 15, 2037, 5:09 AM

  SCOURGE + 5 YEARS

  ABILENE, TEXAS

  Cyrus Skinner blinked his eyes open. His leg was dangling off the edge of his bed and his toes were cold. A nightlight he kept plugged into the outlet closest to the bed was dark. The power was out again.

  Skinner slid his leg back under the sheet and rolled onto his back. He stared into the dark at the ceiling and sighed, rolling back onto his stomach. It was more than twenty-four hours since he’d sent Queho southeast to take care of the rancher he knew as Mad Max.

  The reclusive rancher had already killed at least three of his men. He knew that for sure. There was a good chance the posse boss Rudabaugh and his posse were buzzard food. And now, Queho hadn’t come back.

  Skinner grunted and reached over to a nightstand, dragging his lighter and cigarettes into bed with him. He turned onto his back and scooted up on his elbows. With a half-empty feather pillow propped between his back and the headboard, he shook a cigarette free of its package and lit it with a couple of puffs. He drew in a deep breath and held it. The familiar buzz filtered into his bloodstream and he exhaled through his nose. Smoke plumed around him. He sucked in another drag; the bright orange glow hanging from his lips intensified. It was the only light in the room.

  Skinner rubbed his jaw, scratching the three-day-old growth. He had a decision to make.

  Clearly Mad Max, and the woman he was keeping from them, was far more of a problem than he’d anticipated.

  Skinner was an area captain, a job which came with certain privileges and responsibilities. Being a captain meant all of the bosses in his area, which stretched from east of Abilene, west to Midland, and then north to Lubbock and Amarillo, reported to him. It was a triangular territory that had as many roadrunners as people, strategically important to the Cartel’s hold on power.

  In the months after the Scourge, a coalition of previously warring criminal organizations had seen the mutual benefit of joining forces. They’d inflicted heavy casualties on a less-than-inspired US military.

  Rather than engage in a bloody war with its own people during a time when there was no appetite for more death, what was left of the United States military and border patrol had retreated. It had given up control to the coalition of gangs, drug traffickers, and ex-cons, abdicating its claim to roughly two hundred and seventy thousand miles between Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. The Cartel had been quick to establish a wide area of influence, forming a paramilitary hierarchy to control and oppress those who lived within their staked claim.

  The Cartel’s highest levels of leadership, who called themselves generals, chose the nastiest of the nasty to lead four key areas. They were called captains. Those captains then chose their bosses. Bosses recruited grunts. Grunts harassed, robbed, beat, tortured, raped, or killed whoever didn’t submit to their will. Sometimes they did those things regardless.

  Among a mean lot of captains, Skinner was the meanest. He was the least likely to suffer fools. He was the perfect man to tame what his superiors called the Wild West. As long as he kept his bosses in line, his people under his thumb, and made sure the spoils made it to the generals in Dallas and Houston, the leadership left him alone.

  With a rogue killer on land he didn’t control, Skinner was restless. He slid out of bed, his feet slapping on the cold wood floors of his bedroom as the nightlight flickered to life. He crushed the cigarette into a full ashtray and tapped out a replacement from the box.

  He lit it, the paper sizzling, and took another healthy drag. Skinner stretched and walked across his room to a large monitor on the wall opposite his bed.

  He cleared his throat. “Computer on,” he said. The screen blinked to life and the operating system cycled. He squinted against the bright light of the display.

  “Computer, open email.”

  The computer’s home screen gave way to an email program. Though Internet access in the Cartel’s territory was limited and slow, it worked. For most, the filters prevented most communication beyond what the generals approved. The captains, however, had unfettered access.

  “New email message,” said Skinner. “Address to generals. Subject is…” Skinner paused. He didn’t know what to call the message. He didn’t really want to send it.

  “Subject is Wild West,” he decided. The computer entered the email addresses for the generals, filled in the subject line, and presented a flashing cursor at the top line of a blank message.

  Skinner sucked the cigarette. He pinched it between his fingers and pulled it from his lips. “Generals,” he began, “I’ve got a problem here in the Wild West. Long and short of it is a runaway thief wandered into some land we hadn’t secured. We chased her there but didn’t get her. The owner of that land killed some of our men and helped the thief.”

  Skinner looked at what he’d dictated so far. He didn’t like it, and changed course.

  “Computer, open live chat,” he said. “Call generals.”

  The email program closed on the screen and a new application opened. Four windows appeared on the display. In the lower right, Skinner saw a delayed, choppy mirror image of himself, smoke trailing upward from the cigarette dangling from his lips.

  The other boxes flashed the word “connecting” while the computer dialed the extensions for three generals. The first to answer was in Houston. His image appeared in the upper right box.

  “Skinner?” he asked, rubbing his hands over his bald head. “What do you want?”

  Another general answered the call from Dallas. His digitally distorted face filled the box in the upper left corner. “Skinner? Why are you waking me up?”

  “I got a problem I need fixed,” Skinner said to the two of them. The box in the lower right was still dialing. The general on the other end wasn’t answering.

  “You can’t fix it yourself?” asked the bald general. “This isn’t about the problems we keep having up near Amarillo, is it? Those people up there give me fits.”

  “No,” Skinner said. “No problems in Amarillo. No problems with Palo Duro Canyon.”

  “That’s a first,” chimed the second general. The resolution on his call was improving, revealing the general’s leathery face and neck. He was shirtless. “What’s the problem?”

  Skinner took another drag and then thumped the ashes into a tray next to the monitor. “I’ll try to make a long story short.”

  “You do that,” offered the bald general. “Otherwise I’m likely to hang up and go back to sleep.”

  “We had a couple of thieves, a woman and her boy, working for
us here in Abilene,” Skinner explained. “They ran away. We caught the boy. The woman found her way to some land we hadn’t cleared.”

  “We know about the boy,” said the bald general. “General Roof told us about your plan to send him to Lubbock. We didn’t know about the woman. She’s still missing?”

  “Yes,” said Skinner. “She is. I’m calling you because—”

  “Stop there.” The leathery general stroked his unshaven chin. “Why was there uncleared land? Didn’t your bosses clear everything months ago? I thought I remembered you telling us that.”

  “Yeah,” added the bald general. “He told us that. Skinner, you told us you’d acquired all of the outstanding land in your triangle.”

  “I thought we had,” Skinner said. He pushed the cigarette into the ashtray and put it out. “There was this one plot, maybe forty or fifty acres near Rising Star that we ain’t got.”

  The leathery general scratched his head. “So what’s the problem? Go get the land and get the woman.”

  “That’s the thing.” Skinner looked at his reflection. He pulled his shoulders back and lifted his chin. “We done gone there. We sent a posse to get the woman and kill the man who owns the land. He killed ’em.”

  “So send more men,” said the bald general, scratching his scalp.

  “We did.”

  The leathery general picked his front teeth, digging at the space between the center two. “And?”

  “He killed them,” said Skinner. “Well, I think he killed ’em. So I personally sent one of my bosses to clean it up. He took a half dozen or so men. They been gone a day now. I ain’t heard from them. I’m thinking he got them too.”

  The bald general leaned in, staring into his camera. “One man?”

  Skinner nodded.

  “Is that an answer, Skinner?” the bald general asked. “My signal’s choppy. Did you give me an answer?”

  The leathery general chuckled. “He gave you an answer.”

  The bald general tapped on his screen. “Who is this one man?”