Chapter 52

As Kurt and Kai entered the bay, Joe led the rest of Kai’s people through the jungle and up over the lava rock to the ridge at the center of the island. Nearing the edge of the foliage, they paused within sight of Vaughn’s great wall. It wasn’t the equivalent of its namesake in China, but it was twelve feet tall, topped with razor wire, and unbroken until it hit a vertical uprising of lava rock a few hundred feet away.

Joe considered using the outcropping of lava to aid them in scaling the wall, but it was steep and crumbling and covered in bands of the razor wire. The wall continued on the other side of the lava rock, running downward and back toward the compound, but there were no gaps as far as the eye could see.

Cameras pivoting here and there topped the barrier every couple hundred feet, but so far they’d heard no drones, or “spiders,” overhead.

“We’re too far back,” Joe said. “They can’t see us.”

Normally that would be a good thing. But not today.

Behind him one group of the men were sawing through the trunks of several tall, thin trees. To the sides, his troops stood ready with bows, spears, and slingshots. The last weapon seemed particularly appropriate, considering they were the proverbial David about to take on Goliath.

“How well can you guys aim those slingshots?” Joe made a stretching motion just in case they called the weapons something else. “Can you hit those cameras?”

“Closer,” one of the men said. “Then I can hit them.”

“Me too,” the other man said.

“You get that one,” Joe said pointing. “And you get the other one. Hit them and then come back here. Move quickly.”

The men split up and then sprinted out into the open ground, where Vaughn’s people had cut the foliage back from the wall. Joe knew they’d be seen the second they stepped out onto the grass. He hoped they wouldn’t be shot.

Both men ran across the open space and then dropped into a launching posture. Fist-sized rocks flew from each sling. The initial salvos missed both cameras, but a second round dented the camera on the right, smashing the lens in the process, while it took three stones for the shooter on the left to knock his target off its mount. It tumbled down behind the wall and both men raced back to where Joe stood.

“Nice shooting,” Joe said. Before they’d even taken cover, a drone could be heard coming their way.

Joe looked back into the forest. “Where are we with the trees?”

With the last few strokes, first one, then a second tree came crashing down. “Go, go, go,” Joe shouted.

Another team of men had been waiting for them to fall. They attacked the trees with machetes and other knives, giving the trees a haircut by cutting the branches off of one side. When that was done, they grabbed the trees and lifted them together, raising them off the ground and lugging them forward like battering rams. But the plan was to go over the wall, not to smash through it.

Nearing the wall, they stuck the sawed-off base of each tree into the soft ground, pushed against the trunks, and stood them up once again. They continued pushing, forcing the trees over, and they slammed down against the wall, with the upper branches acting as something of a shield over the razor wire.

“Boarding ladders in place,” Joe shouted. “Let’s go!”

He ran out across the gap, leading a charge as the buzzing drone closed in. They knew Vaughn had armed drones, but most likely the first one to respond would be a reconnaissance craft that was already in the air.

Joe reached the tree and ran up as nimbly as any pirate in a Hollywood movie. Near the top, things got a little tricky, but he remained on his feet and dropped over the back side of the wall just as the drone made its first pass.

The buzzard crossed overhead, perhaps two hundred feet above. Joe would have given a month’s salary for a shotgun or even a .22 rifle at this point, but all he had were a few archers and tubes of the ONC.

As the men began to join him on Vaughn’s side of the wall, Joe found his archers. With instructions from the Gray Witch, they’d learned to build sturdy bows and hunt game birds and even fish with them. From what Joe had seen, the bows packed a punch. Even their homemade arrows looked first-rate.

Joe pulled out one of the arrows, taped a charge to the shaft, and set a timer for seven seconds. He pointed to the drone, started the timer, and handed the man the arrow.

“Seven…six…five…” he counted calmly.

They’d practiced in the cavern, but this was the real deal. The man crouched, aimed upward, and let the arrow fly. The projectile accelerated directly at the drone before curving off course due to the weight of the charge. It detonated perhaps forty feet away from the drone, but that was close enough.

The shock wave ripped through the drone, tossing it like a broken surfboard caught in a nasty break. Plastic parts and one rotor wing flew off it as it corkscrewed into the ground.

Kai’s men cowered at the sound of the blast, but cheered as the drone crashed nearby.

“Great shot,” Joe said to the archer, whose name was Zech. “There’ll be more spiders coming once they realize that one is gone.”

“We can hit them, too,” Zech said confidently.

Joe hoped so, although he expected the next drones to come in a lot higher and to be toting weapons. Machine guns at least, possibly missiles or grenades.

He looked down the hill. Three wind generators, a large water tank, and a few small Quonset hut–style buildings lay between them and the modern-looking structures at the heart of Vaughn’s compound.

If they were going to draw the Overseer and his dogs out, they needed to press the attack and press it hard. But they had to do so in a way that wouldn’t get Kai’s people massacred.

Joe had an idea. He just hoped Zech wasn’t afraid of heights.

“Spread out and follow me,” he said. “We’re going for the windmills.”