“We have three of your people with us!” Hatfield screamed.
“We are aware of this! Please return to your car!”
“Look, I’ll be honest!” He said. “We really need medical help! Desperately! My daughter broke her wrist and—”
“Sir, our medical supplies, like the rest of our resources, are limited. It pains us to say this, but this means we must turn everyone who seeks help down!”
Hatfield scanned their faces, going from gunman to gunman, looking for sympathy. He found nothing. “Please?”
“We’re sorry.”
He turned headed back to the Hummer, then, before getting there, yelled. “My dad would be ashamed of all of you! Every last one of you cowards! If he were alive today, he’d regret the day he built this thing!”
In a softer voice, the gunman answered, “Your father?”
“Yes, my father! This was his dream, his plan! He didn’t live to see it completed—and it’s a good thing he didn’t, because—”
“Your father was Sergeant Hatfield?” he asked.
“First class. I’m his son, Trevor.”
Another gunman asked, “What was your mother’s name?”
Exasperated, Hatfield screamed with all the energy he had left. “My mother’s name was Evelyn, okay! Evelyn Mary Hatfield, maiden name Scott! My father’s full name was Ernest Thomas Hatfield! They met in Casagrande, Arizona in—”
“Do you have any ID?” one of them asked.
Sensing an opening, Hatfield calmed down a little, hurriedly pulled his wallet out of his backpack, handed it over.
The gunmen held it under a flashlight, checking it out. They exchanged some words, then handed him back the ID.
One of them stepped forward, lowered his rifle. He made a gesture with his hand, which prompted the others to lower theirs. “Sir, I don’t think we can persuade our leader to let you remain here permanently, but I’m sure, if nothing else, he’d love to meet you. In the time it takes to do that, I’m sure your guests can be fed and receive any necessary medical treatment.”
Hatfield smiled, his heart now warming. “Great news. And by the way, those aren’t guests. Three of them are my family. The other three are yours.”
“Fine. Your family can eat and receive whatever care they need. The others have been banished. Is this understood?”
He nodded. “Perfectly clear.” He started back to the Hummer, then caught a glance of their faces. As angry as he was at them for concealing the full truth, he couldn’t forget the reason they met in the first place. He turned, headed back to the fence. “Guys, I really must insist on the other three eating as well.”
“What?”
“They helped us out of a tight jam.”
“Mr. Hatfield, those individuals are—”
“Yes, I know. They vacated voluntarily or whatever it is. But, letting them back in is something Dad would have wanted. I’m sure of it.”
The gunman’s face softened. He lifted a hand, then spoke on a walkie-talkie. “Yes, it is confirmed that he’s got some VVs with him. Looks like Donaldson, Tyler, and Wynn. Yes, sir. Ten-four.” He put down the walkie-talkie and addressed Hatfield again. “Okay, you’re all welcome. Come on in.”
With his face glowing, Hatfield turned to the Hummer and waved everybody forward.
12
Nathan and his gang waited outside the hospital, crouched in the bushes. “You sure they got good stuff in here?” he asked Gio.
“I’m telling you, dude! My girlfriend’s mom is a nurse. She tells me they got everything backed up on old diesel generators here—you know, just in case of power outages and whatnot. So they’ll have some stuff, trust me. Food, medical supplies, lots of stuff.”
“Good,” the boss answered, binoculars raised to his face.
“I just hope there’s a way we can take stuff and make sure it’s not stuff that, like, somebody needs.”
Nathan brought his binoculars down, slowly turned to the gang’s former leader, eyes like concrete. “This ain’t the time for compassion.”
“All I’m saying is, you know, I’d feel bad if some kids had to, like, die or something—”
His boss shook his head. “You want to quit this gang and go start a charity organization?”
“No,” he mumbled.
“I’m starting to wonder about you. I don’t see how you could have been the leader before me with that sympathy you were pouring out.”
“Sorry, man.”
“From now on, it’s all about us first, everybody else last,” Nathan said. “You got that?”
Gio gave him a weak, “Yeah.”
“And the rest of you?”
Same answer from the rest, same tone.
“Good. Anybody who’s not ready to shed some blood—man, woman, children’s blood—you can turn around right now and take off. We are better off one man short than having a man we can’t trust because he might be too much of a pussy to pull the trigger when he needs to.”
He turned and redirected his attention to the hospital’s front door. A drowsy guard stood outside it. “Okay, guys,” Nathan whispered. “We know what to do. Let’s execute.”
Gio nodded, then reached for a glass bottle at his knee and tossed it to the front door. The guard sprang forward—just within the view of a rifleman at Nathan’s side. He fired three shots, striking the guard twice in the chest and once in the belly.
Gio scooped up the rifle, and they all charged ahead, yelping like a pack of wild dogs as they moved forward.
A second guard raced toward the danger, but he was too late, got a body full of bullets before he could even raise his rifle. His death meant another weapon was gained as they howled into the hallway, hearing nothing but terrified shrieks.
It didn’t take long for them to gather up a bounty of food and supplies. They grabbed whatever they could get their hands on as frightened nurses, patients, and doctors cowered in the corners, their eyes begging to be spared the nightmare.
Within minutes, they gathered in the hospital’s parking lot, breathless and laughing like teenagers with fake IDs. They’d collected their take in a giant bag. As they waited for the last two to trickle out, they looked inside.
But Nathan’s eyes were elsewhere. He stared at the huge rectangular building on the other side of the river, a mischievous grin slanting his face. He nodded.
“Not a bad day’s take, huh boss?” Gio asked.
“We’re just getting started, guys.”
Gio turned, found the building that held Nathan’s attention. “You know what that place is, don’t you?” he asked.
“I sure do,” his boss answered. “Adamson State Penitentiary.”
“You’re not planning on robbing the place, are you?”
He shook his head. “Nope. That’s the place where we build our army.”
DUCKING in the weeds outside the building, the gang waited patiently, ready to strike at any moment, but knowing it would take time for the moment to get there.
The guards outside wore faces that hung low from worry. They must have known how perilous their power was. Without electricity, without gas, without computers, they were dangerously close to losing their grip on control.
Cigarettes in between their lips and a twitch in their hands, the two guards leaned against the railing on the steps, guns down, but eyes up and ever alert. “How long you suppose this is liable to go on?” one asked the other.
“Another hour or so, I imagine. I hope so anyway. That generator we’re using is gonna run out of juice after not too long.”
“Let’s hope our friends inside don’t know that,” the second one said, jerking his head toward the prison. They shared a nervous laugh, then stomped out their cigarettes and went inside.
Gio leaned over to his boss, whispered. “You think we got a chance of just storming the place?”