And they tried. But the group hadn’t traveled more than a dozen steps before lights appeared down the tunnel and Auger bolts flashed towards them. Capelli fired back, but he could tell that his team was outgunned as two of his men fell. “Grab the wounded and fall back!” Capelli yelled, firing from the hip.
But there weren’t any wounded. Just dead men as Capelli, Shaw, and two others backed out through the shattered door.
“Stand by,” one of the fighters said, readying his V7 Splicer. “I have a surprise for those bastards.”
The man fired and a spinning saw blade sped down the tunnel, sliced through the first defender’s head, and tore into the man directly behind him. Then the whirling blade glanced off a wall and cut a third person down before finally losing its momentum and clattering to the floor.
That offered an opening, and Capelli was about to follow up on it, when a voice he recognized as Sergeant Pasco’s came over the radio. “All units will pull back. Repeat, pull back. Prepare to implement Plan B. Over.”
Capelli swore. Plan B was to regroup, withdraw in an orderly fashion, and try to prevent a follow-up by Ramsey. Something had gone terribly wrong.
In keeping with her promise, Susan was well back from the assault on the north end of the tunnel, lying prone on top of a rise. It was cold, but she was wearing four layers of clothing and a piece of canvas kept her up out of the damp.
Kawecki’s command post was a hundred feet in front of her, behind a jumble of boulders. The sun was starting to rise. The clouds had blown away and a golden glow suffused the area. That allowed her to search for targets.
And despite the fact that the defenders hadn’t rushed out to defend the tunnel the way Kawecki wanted them to, she’d been able to pick off three of the defenders by watching for muzzle flashes, and aiming a hair above them. Her instructors would have been proud.
But with no one to watch her back, Susan knew it was important to take a break occasionally and check what Capelli liked to call her “six.” Meaning the area behind her. And that was how she noticed movement off to the west, realized that Kosmo and his team had been flanked, and shouted a warning.
However, Kawecki was on his radio talking to someone. And precious seconds passed before he understood the true extent of the danger, began to shout orders, and turned to confront the oncoming horsemen. Kawecki fired his carbine as he ran forward to drag a regulator off his horse.
That was when a blast from a shotgun blew half of his face away. Within a matter of seconds the rest of the command party fell too—their bodies jerking spastically as a hail of projectiles tore into them.
War cries were heard when a group of mounted Osage warriors barreled in from the east. Regulators were snatched out of their saddles and a confusing melee ensued as Susan fired at the man on the huge Clydesdale.
But the shot missed, another man fell instead, and Ramsey’s cavalry were forced to withdraw to the west. Heavily armed defenders were pouring out of Tunnel-Through’s carefully concealed entrances, dozens of the alliance’s best fighters lay sprawled on the ground, and Kawecki was dead.
As Susan began to elbow her way back off the rise, she thought about her husband and wondered if he was out there somewhere wounded or dead. She wanted to go and search for him but knew that was impossible. So, like the rest of them, all she could do was run.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CUT AND RUN
Capelli was running. And so were dozens of others, pounding towards the steel bridge, as a mob of angry regulators thundered after them. Bullseye tags stuttered past. One of them hit a woman in the back and drew half a dozen projectiles to her body. She staggered, threw up her arms, and landed facedown. One of their pursuers opened up with a grease gun and a hail of .45-caliber bullets dug divots out of the bridge deck as Capelli waved the survivors forward, shouting, “Stop at the end of the bridge! We’ll hold the bastards there.”
Some of the people who were fortunate enough to make it across the bridge continued to run. But most remained. “Take cover!” Capelli shouted. “Wait until they’re halfway across and let ’em have it.”
Capelli, Shaw, and a half-dozen others took up positions behind the rusting tow truck that was angled across the approach to the bridge. The rest of the fighters crouched to either side of the span, where steel girders and concrete supports would offer some protection. The regulators were on the span by then. They had seen their attackers turn and run, so they were confident of victory.
Ramsey had given his orders, and his followers were eager to obey: “Follow the scum home and annihilate them.”
But the bridge was two lanes wide, which meant only four horsemen could ride abreast. And that made them vulnerable. “Fire!” Capelli ordered from his position behind the tow truck, and what happened next wasn’t pretty. As members of the alliance opened up, the leading horses stumbled. Some tumbled head over heels; others reared up and threw their riders off as hundreds of projectiles ripped into the mass of tightly packed flesh. Horse screams overlaid human screams as a pink blood mist filled the air and the regulators located towards the rear of the column tried to stop.
But it was too late. As their mounts ran into the barrier of dead and dying flesh, the latecomers were caught up in the meat grinder as well. Some managed to dismount and take cover behind the pile of bodies. But it wasn’t enough to save them as Auger fire stuttered through the mound and cut them down. The whole battle lasted less than five minutes. “Cease fire!” Capelli shouted. “Save your ammo. You’ll need it later.”
A heavy silence settled over the scene. The defenders seemed dazed by the way in which their fortunes had been reversed as a man went forward to put wounded horses out of their misery. By the time the gunshots were over, friends had sought friends, relatives had sought relatives, and small groups were beginning to depart.
Capelli tried to hold them by explaining the need to not only defend the bridge, but prepare for a second assault on Tunnel-Through.
“You must be joking,” a man from Junk Yard said. “I lost my brother-in-law and a friend today. Sure, we stopped ’em here, but that won’t put an end to it. Ramsey has more men. Lots of ’em. And they’ll be gunning for us. We can knuckle under or run. And there’s no place to run to. So stay if you want to—but there ain’t no point to it.”
Maybe Mayor Locke or Mr. Potter would have been able to stop the exodus. But Capelli was no orator, and it wasn’t long before he was left with three men from Haven and two Osage warriors. That wasn’t enough to hold the bridge—not in the face of a concerted attack. And there was the town to consider. There were other bridges. And for all Capelli knew, Ramsey’s forces had already crossed one of them. If so, Haven would need every gun it could muster.
After thanking the Osage for participating in the attack, Capelli released them. Then, with his fellow townsmen at his heels, he began to jog. Susan was very much on his mind at that point. Had she escaped the carnage? Fear for his wife’s safety was like a lead weight that rode the pit of his stomach.
It took three hours of running and walking to reach Haven. And when they did, it was to find that the town was on high alert. Kosmo had lookouts posted all around the community, heavy weapons had been deployed to strategic locations, and a fast reaction team was ready to respond at a moment’s notice.
All of which was good, but inadequate, considering the extent of the losses the town had suffered, and the likelihood of reprisals. But before Capelli could worry about that, something more pressing required his attention. So when he saw Terri inspecting a newly created barrier he went over to speak with her. The mayor’s eyes were red with fatigue, her skin looked gray, and Capelli could tell that she was battling to maintain a positive attitude. “Have you seen Susan?”