She looked over at him and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
He motioned to his radioman. “Ready for a little running?”
“John, I’d prefer not, but I’m game if you are.”
“Damn it, John,” Lee snapped. “You can control things just fine from here.”
John looked at his old friend and smiled. “Okay, everyone, take a deep breath.” He hesitated. The order was indeed so hackneyed in so many bad movies. “Follow me.”
He got up, crouched low, and started to sprint down the Tunnel Road, zigzagging every few seconds, startled a bit when he heard a bullet slap by close to his face. It was a long two-hundred-yard run down to the base of the hill, every gasp for air an absolute agony, until he finally dodged into cover behind a building at the northwest corner of the traffic circle below the courthouse complex.
He looked back. One of his team was down, clutching his leg below the knee, a medic dragging him to cover, shots kicking up around them. He did not need to call for suppressive fire. Several hundred rounds slammed into the three buildings, any window that still had a pane of glass shattering. Whoever had fired on him and wounded one of his team was either dead or cowering.
“Deirdre, you can talk your people out better than I can. You’ve seen how we’ve behaved since taking you prisoner. Do you trust me?”
She looked at him and nodded.
“Try to talk them out and end this before any more people get hurt. I promise you, I will move anyone with the ANR who surrenders to arrange their repatriation back to their homes as quickly as possible.”
At this point, as to the fate of Fredericks and others, he was making no promises after more than four hours of this day’s madness and the weeks leading up to it.
Deirdre took the megaphone and began to appeal to those within the courthouse complex to surrender and end the killing. Her appeal was heartfelt at times that she was in tears, begging those within to just give up and come out with hands up. Then she made a gesture John had not anticipated, and it happened so quickly he did not have time to react. Deirdre suddenly stepped out into the middle of the traffic circle, megaphone still raised.
“Please, all of you. Surrender. I promise you, you’ll be treated fairly. It was those who brought us here who lied.”
A single shot clipped her shoulder, spinning her around and dropping her in the middle of the traffic circle.
John, horrified, sprinted to where she lay writhing in pain and scooped an arm around her, pulling her up as he started to drag her back. One of his security team leaped out, weapon raised to cover the two, and he toppled over backward, shot in the forehead.
Lee reached out, grabbing the two, dragging them the last few feet back into cover, the brick from the corner of the building peppering them with fragments.
Lee grabbed the radio mike. “Leader okay. Now tear the bastards apart!” he cried.
John cradled Deirdre as a medic came up to their side, crouching low. The medic, carrying a standard pack looted from the stockpile in Sears, cut Deirdre’s shirt open. She had been punctured just below the left collarbone, and contrary to all movies, a shoulder wound was not merely a nick with the bundle of blood vessels, nerves, and bones just above the rib cage and heart. The medic slapped on a sterile compress, pumped a morphine vial looted from medical supplies found in the Sears building into the young woman’s upper arm, stuck the empty syringe to her collar to indicate the dose she had received, and called for stretcher-bearers to take her to the rear.
“Sorry, sir,” Deirdre said, looking up at John. “Thought if they saw me they’d lay down their arms.”
“It’s okay, Captain,” he gasped, a wave of pain hitting him from his fractured rib. “You are one helluva brave woman, even if you are foolish.”
He looked back out to the street where the young soldier of his security detail was dead, blood pooling on to the pavement. Yet another kid from one of his classes. It wasn’t Deirdre’s fault; it was war with all its stupidity and random violence that had killed the young man.
Stretcher-bearers came up and lifted Deirdre to carry her off.
“When all this is over,” John said, “I hope you stay on with us. We need soldiers like you.”
She forced a weak smile of thanks. “Nothing to go home to now, anyhow. Thank you.”
The next ten minutes were an explosion of unrelenting fire poured into the courthouses, and he sat silently, staring at the young man lying dead in the middle of the traffic circle. A decent lad caught up in madness who had died trying to do the right thing. And chances were that so many down in the courthouse complex believed they were fighting for the right thing, as well. But they had to be defeated now if his community had any hope of survival.
Finally, after the long, sustained barrage, white flags began to appear in windows in all three buildings, but he let the fusillade continue on. It was time to break them entirely.
“Tell all units to cease fire,” John finally announced.
His radio operator looked over at him. “Billy reports he thinks he sees at least three helicopters coming up from Greenville.”
“Scan the frequencies. See if you can find the one they’re operating on—most likely one of the aviation ones, perhaps the standard 122.9 of uncontrolled air space.”
As the gunfire slacked off, with only an occasional return shot from the county building where it looked like part of the roof had collapsed in, John edged to the corner of his concealment and held the megaphone up, clicking it on. “This is John Matherson of Black Mountain and commander of the forces engaged against you. I am giving all of you five minutes to surrender and come out with hands up. This is my final offer. If you do not comply immediately, we will storm the buildings, and no prisoners will be taken. You have five minutes to surrender unconditionally but with the promise that you will be treated by the Geneva Accords. Otherwise, you damn well better be ready to die for that scum leader of yours.”
In less than a minute, a side door of the county prison burst open, the first few stepping out looking about nervously and then breaking into a run down the street, staying close to the north wall of the building. From the office building next to the courthouse, it was the same, several score pouring out from a south-facing door, out of view of the county building. From the county building, the fugitives dashed out the side door facing Tunnel Road. Several ran from the main entry, and again, a flurry of shots from inside the building dropped some, but the majority were now making it to safety. Return fire tore into the front entry even as those pouring out of the other buildings raced across the potentially fatal open ground. The first of them reached John’s position, having no idea who he was. They were wide eyed and terrified, begging for mercy. He would rather spare them than kill them, but after all that had happened, he gazed at them with disgust and shouted for someone to take charge of the prisoners and get them to the rear.
After ten minutes, no one else emerged. His radio operator announced that someone inside the building was desperately calling for air support from Greenville, the choppers going into a holding position just south of Hendersonville, which was only a few minutes away by air.
It was a moment where Maury, back in Asheville, knew what to do, starting up with spoof radio traffic on the same frequency, announcing he and his assets were up and waiting to take out any approaching aircraft, the frequency jammed up with signals that John prayed was buying them time.
It was a risk John could not tolerate. Fredericks would spin out his account of the disaster in the manner all such stories were spun going back thousands of years, and though John doubted the government Fredericks represented would be willing to drop a neutron bomb on them, two or three fuel-air explosives could nevertheless destroy his beloved valley and all whom he held dear. It had to end now.