The Traveler (Book 2): Canyon Page 22

  Pow!

  Drunk as he was, Emmett couldn’t have hit a barn from three feet. The shot was errant and missed all three men. Battle’s aim was true.

  At the instant the shot was fired, he’d flung the knife, end over end, at the growing target in front of him. It hit Emmett above his heart on the left side of his chest. The blade carved into him to its hilt.

  Emmett dropped his pistol and staggered backward. He looked down at the knife handle protruding from him and gripped it, wrenching it from his body. That was a bad move.

  Blood coursed from the wound, draining faster than Emmett could plug the hole with his fingers. He looked back at his brother, mumbled, and fell over onto the interstate, the knife still in his hand.

  Grat backed away from his dying brother and moved deliberately to the shoulder of the road. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes stayed glued to Emmett struggling and twitching on the asphalt.

  Vermillion raised his hands and jumped from his horse. He dropped his pistol and quickly joined Grat at the edge of the highway.

  Battle advanced quickly and picked up Emmett’s pistol, aiming it at Grat. He tossed the stick to the ground, pulled the knife from Emmett’s hand, and watched the horror envelop Grat’s face as the grunt realized he’d been had by a man armed only with a knife.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” Grat said. He swallowed hard, his eyes drifting to his brother. He looked back at Battle, cursed him and spat in his face. Battle could see the man’s fear morphing into defiant anger.

  “I know who you are,” Grat said through clenched teeth. “You’re that fella from the Jones. Skinner shoulda shot you dead instead of Pico.”

  “Shoulda killed both of you,” Vermillion said. “That’s what I woulda done.”

  Battle wiped the spit from his forehead. “Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Too late now.” He raised the pistol and pressed it against Grat’s forehead.

  Grat squeezed his eyes shut. “Just do it. Get it over with.”

  Battle stood with the weapon at Grat’s head until the grunt opened his eyes. Then he lowered it.

  “C’mon, guys,” he called to Baadal and Charlie. “Get the horses.” He walked backward to the horse Grat had been riding and took the reins with one hand. The other trained the pistol on the grunts. “Mount up.”

  Each of the men heaved themselves into their saddles. Baadal and Charlie started their horses north.

  “Looks like we got some food here,” said Battle. “And a full canteen of water.” He reached into the saddlebag and pulled out Grat’s unopened bottle of vodka. He tossed it to the grunt and spurred the horse north to join the others.

  Grat juggled the bottle, but caught it before it hit the ground. “Wait,” he said. “You gonna leave us here?” Grat snarled. “You kill my brother for nothin’ and then leave us in the middle of nowhere? No food? No water?”

  “We walked here from Lubbock,” said Battle. “No food. No water.”

  Vermillion called out, “You can’t leave us here. We walk back to town, we’re as good as dead.”

  “Better drink up, then, fellas,” Battle said over his shoulder. He slid the pistol onto his hip and controlled the horse with one hand.

  He brought the horse to a canter until he reached Lola. He offered her a hand and pulled her onto the saddle behind him. Sawyer climbed aboard Charlie’s horse. Baadal led the way north.

  “We can be there before sunrise,” he said to the others. He pulled his canteen and drew a long drink before coaxing his horse to a gallop. “We’ll probably reach a scout not long after midnight.”

  Lola wrapped her arms around Battle’s waist, her hands pressed flat against his chest. He turned his head toward hers as his horse picked up speed. “You okay?”

  “For now,” she said. “I’ve got Sawyer. I’ve got you. And we’re going to a place the Cartel can’t touch us.”

  Battle took one of her hands and squeezed. She leaned into his back, resting her head against his neck. It was the most human contact Battle had experienced in five years. It felt alien yet comforting. It took his breath away. He allowed himself to enjoy it.

  Lola was right about two things. She had Sawyer. She had him. He didn’t want to tell her that deep down he believed the Cartel’s arms were long enough to always reach them, even in the canyon.

  CHAPTER 36

  OCTOBER 17, 2037, 1:00 AM

  SCOURGE +5 YEARS

  LUBBOCK, TEXAS

  General Roof stood in front of a panel of large monitors on the wall of the Lubbock HQ office. He was alone. He’d shooed away the grunts and bosses who were hanging around drinking and smoking. He poured himself a cup of coffee. It was black and like mud, but he was tired and needed the jolt of caffeine.

  The power in Lubbock was better than in some of the less populated areas. It was necessary, given Lubbock’s importance to their drug trade, that the electricity be more stable. Roof was thankful for that as he pressed a remote on the desk to activate the office computer.

  “Computer on,” he said. The trio of wide screens flickered to life. “Conference Generals. Live chat.”

  A series of numbers and letters moved across the center screen. It went black and then turned on again. Roof’s mirror image filled the screen. The monitors to either side buzzed to life. A bald man appeared in the screen to the left, and a leathery one was visible on the right.

  “We need to talk,” said Roof. “You have a minute?”

  “It’s late,” said the bald general. General Harvey Logan. Roof could hear a woman in the background. She was complaining about the interruption. Logan ignored her.

  “I’m good,” said the leathery one, Parrott Manuse. “What do you need?”

  “I think I’ve found a way to deal with the Dwellers,” said Roof.

  “We dealt with them two years ago,” said Manuse. “We signed a truce. We told everyone we’d eliminated them. What’s the problem?”

  “It’s only a matter of time before their influence spreads,” said Roof. “We’ve caught their scouts farther and farther away from the canyon. They’re planning something. We need to be proactive.”

  “So what is this proactive approach?” asked Logan. “What have you concocted this time?”

  “You know about the man they called Mad Max.”

  Both generals nodded and acknowledged they knew of him. “What about him?” asked Logan, rubbing his head.

  “He survived the Jones,” said Roof. “He and four others.”

  Logan cursed. “How?”

  “He’s a warrior,” said Roof, looking directly into the camera at the top of the center monitor. “He survived. I let him go.”

  Manuse leaned into his camera, his face growing large and out of focus on the screen. “What? Who gave you that sole authority? We have rules, Roof. We have three generals for a reason.”

  “We had four generals,” said Logan. “Your last plan to end the Dwellers and take the canyon left us with three. You recall that, Roof?”

  “I recall that,” said Roof. “That’s why it’s imperative we take care of them now.”

  Manuse sat back in his chair. His face pulled into focus. “What does Mad Max have to do with the Dwellers?”

  “One of the men traveling with him is a Dweller. He survived too. He’s going to lead Mad Max and a couple of others straight to the canyon. I’ve got teams following them, looking for defense strategy.”

  “That’s not enough,” said Logan. “They shift their defenses constantly. That’s why we can’t defeat them. Surveillance won’t be good for more than a day. It’s a waste.”

  “You better have something else,” said Manuse.

  Roof smiled. “I do.”

  “What is it?” asked Logan. “Stop being coy.”

  “One of the men traveling with Mad Max is one of ours,” said Roof. “A captain from Houston. I brought him with me to Lubbock. I put him in the Jones and told the fighters not to touch him. His name is Charlie Pierce. He’s smart. And he’s going to be
on the inside.”

  Logan nodded. “So the surveillance is a decoy?”

  “Exactly,” said Roof. “It’s a distraction. Mad Max, whose name is Battle by the way, will spot them. He’ll probably kill some of them. Pierce will work hard to gain Battle’s confidence. Pierce is our real weapon. He’ll walk right into the canyon with a friendly escort and a badass warrior at his side.”

  The generals congratulated Roof on his brilliance and they agreed to talk soon. Roof ended the call and shut down the computers.

  He walked over to the desk in the corner of the room and sat on its edge. He picked up the mug of coffee and took a healthy swig, wincing at the bitterness of it. It was cold too, but it was coffee. He finished it and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Roof pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his eyes with his fingers. It would be a long few nights waiting for word from Charlie Pierce. It would be worth it in the end.

  They’d rid themselves of the threat from the Dwellers. They’d truly establish dominion over the two hundred and seventy-thousand square miles they’d fought hard to control in the months after the Scourge.

  The best part of it was that an old friend was unwittingly doing his bidding for him. Marcus Battle, the war hero, was under his command. He laughed thinking about how Battle hadn’t recognized him. Maybe it was the ponytail or the beard. Maybe too many years had passed. It didn’t matter. It was better that Battle was clueless.

  General Roof reached inside his shirt and pulled out a pair of dog tags that hung around his neck on a thin ball chain. He’d worn them every day since his enlistment more than twenty-five years earlier; before earning his E-7 stripes, before Syria, before Landstuhl and Walter Reed, the meth and the heroine, the riches, the Scourge, the Cartel, the depravity, before…

  The chain was long enough that he could read the stamped lettering on the tags. He ran his thumb across it, reminding himself of who he’d once been.

  BUCK

  RUFUS

  000-11-0200

  O NEG

  CHRISTIAN

  EXCERPT FROM WALL:

  BOOK THREE OF THE TRAVELER SERIES

  CHAPTER ONE

  OCTOBER 25, 2037 2:00 AM

  SCOURGE +5 YEARS

  PALO DURO CANYON, TEXAS

  Dragging a fresh corpse across the Canyon’s floor wasn’t part of the plan. Not much that had happened in the week since he’d arrived had gone as Charlie Pierce expected, but there a job to do.

  Regardless of the obstacles or the unforeseen circumstances, Pierce had to deliver. General Roof was relying on his surveillance for the coming assault.

  Pierce was bent over at the waist, slugging backwards on his heels as he pulled the body through brush, over rock, and across dry creek beds. He didn't know how far he’d have to go to find the right spot to dump the man he was forced to execute. He’d know it when we found it.

  Lightning flashed in the sky above, illuminating the steep jagged walls of the Canyon. Thunder followed and reverberated as it traveled the wide valley of Palo Duro. Pierce stopped and dropped the body. He stood erect and put his hands on his hips. He was winded and, despite near freezing temperatures, was sweating through his shirt. He could feel the perspiration chill as it dripped from the nape of his neck down his back.

  Another fork of light jabbed the black sky, pulsing as the thunder cracked and rumbled before the afterglow was gone. The storm was getting closer.

  Pierce wondered if the turn in the weather was a good thing. A heavy rain would wash away the impression of the body from having it pulled it through the dirt.

  He’d snapped the man’s neck during a brief struggle. The man, a sentry for The Dwellers, had asked too many questions. He’d pressed to hard about Pierce’s intentions. Pierce had tried to talk his way out of the predicament. It hadn’t worked.

  Pierce had found a communications bunker on the Canyon’s floor. It was two miles from The Dwellers’ central encampment. The bunker wasn’t much more than a small grotto nature had carved into the mesa walls. There were several two-way radio base stations running on a small gas powered generator. It was the rumble and hum of that generator that had led Pierce to the grotto.

  A thin wire, serving as an antenna extension ran up the steep wall as far as Pierce had been able to see in the dark. The Dwellers’ communication system was a fortunate but critical find for the spy. If he were couldn’t disable the two-way system as the attack occurred, he could, at the very least, relay frequencies to The Cartel so they could monitor The Dwellers’ tactical positions. The sentry had surprised him as he was checking those frequencies.

  “Hey,” the sentry had called out from beyond the bunker’s entrance, his voice echoing inside the small cave. “What are you doing? You’re not supposed to be in there.”

  “I just stumbled in here,” Pierce had lied. “I was out for a walk…”

  The sentry had stepped into the cave, aiming a small pen light at Pierce’s face. It had been otherwise dark save the glowing green and blue lights on the two-way transmitters. “It’s two o’clock in the morning.”

  “Yeah,” Pierce had shrugged before making his deadly move. Now he found himself dragging a body along the canyon floor.

  The canyon was immense in its size. It ran seventy miles long and, at it’s widest, twenty miles across. Its walls stretched skyward close to nine-hundred feet from the floor. Pierce had learned in his brief stay that The Dwellers were experts at navigating it and protecting it. Pierce had done everything he could to soak in as much information as possible. He’d listened to conversations, observed patterns of movement and behavior, and he’d absorbed the bizarre philosophical bent of the bellicose pacifists who gave themselves Hindi names in a freakish ritual that, to Pierce’s limited theological education, bore no resemblance to Hinduism.

  Pierce had done his job invisibly until he’d killed the sentry. He’d performed exactly as the General had instructed.

  “Be a fly on the wall,” General Roof had said the night before he put him in The Jones. “Learn as much as you can about how they work. Then, as we attack, damage whatever defensive systems you can and run.”

  They were broad orders with little assurance of survival. But Pierce gladly accepted the challenge. He had no family. He’d grown tired of his monotonous and sour post-scourge existence. This was an adventure with the promise of greater things to come should he succeed and live.

  Pierce blinked against another flash of lightning and shivered at the first icy drops of rain that smacked against his head and shoulders. The storm was coming.

  He was running out of time to dispose of the body in a way that made the sentry’s death look like an accident. He needed to finish the job and return to the camp before anyone knew he was missing.

  Pierce looked around his surroundings. He couldn’t see much beyond a few feet except when the lightning flashed. He decided this spot was as good as any. The ache in his lower back made the choice as much as his brain.

  He lifted up his shirt and reached into his baggy, sweat and dirt stained pants. Strapped to his leg was a gift General Roof had given him. He flipped it open and pressed a series of numbers before pulling the satellite phone to his ear. It took a couple of minutes for the satellite to acquire his signal. When it did, he heard a series of warbling rings.

  The General answered with a voice more gravelly than usual. “It’s two in the morning,” he said.

  The rain was intensifying. The drops were heavier and just as cold. Pierce wiped the water from his eyes. “I found their communications hub. They’re working with two way radios. I’ve got the frequencies.”

  “Go ahead,” said the General. “Give them to me.”

  “Four sixty seven point fifty eight seventy five,” Pierce answered, “and four sixty two fifty eight seventy five.”

  “Just two frequencies?”

  “That I could tell.”

  “So they’ve got a two mile range.”

  “I don’
t know.”

  “And they’re operational?”

  Pierce squatted, resting his weight on his heels. He shielded his face from the rain and tried to cup the phone tight to his ear. The rain was making it difficult to hear. “What?”

  “They’re operational?”

  “They seem to be,” said Pierce. “They’ve got a generator running it.”

  The signal was beginning to weaken. “Are they on to you?”

  Pierce turned his back to the gusts of wind blowing through the canyon. “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “I had to kill a guy,” Pierce admitted. His body involuntarily trembled from the cold.

  “That changes things.”

  “I’ll be f-f-fine,” Pierce stammered. His jaw was beginning to ache from his chattering teeth. The temperature had dropped what felt like fifteen degrees in a few seconds. The rain was beating down, slapping Pierce’s neck and arms with a cold sting.

  The General’s voice was hollow and digitally distorted. “Hello?”

  “Hello?” Pierce pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the signal. It was almost non-existent. He pressed a button to end the call, wiped the screen with the tail of his shirt, and stood to stuff it back into his pants.

  “Pierce?” A voice called from behind him.

  Pierce spun as thunder shuddered through his shivering body. A flash of lightning revealed a dark figure standing a few feet from him. Pierce couldn’t make out the man’s features, but he knew who it was and saw the gun in his hand.

  “What are you doing, Pierce?” Marcus Battle asked the question as if he already knew the answer.

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  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