Slaughterhouse - 02 by Stephen Knight

Author:Stephen Knight [Knight, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Thriller
Publisher: The Retreat Series, LLC
Published: 2014-05-02T04:00:00+00:00

TWENTY.

He had to admit, it was a beautiful day for a war.

Harry Lee took a few steps away from the parked Humvee, his M4 in his hands. The field he stood in faced a collection of slab-sided concrete structures almost a half mile away. According to the maps, the place was called the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison that housed Massachusetts’s most violent offenders. While the parking lot was mostly empty, the prison buildings appeared to be secure. Lee had no idea how many criminals were housed there, but for the moment, they did not appear to be a threat.

Lee adjusted his heavy body armor and wiped at the band of sweat beneath the rim of his helmet. The day was hot, sticky, and humid, but he was still alive. He’d take hot and sweaty over cold and dead, any day.

Though being dead was perhaps preferable to becoming a giggling, murderous maniac.

Overhead, helicopters orbited. Behind him, the convoy continued rolling down Route 2, which the road signs called the George W. Stanton Highway. Lee had no idea who Stanton was, but the man probably wouldn’t have been thrilled to know the avenue named in his honor had a great view of a maximum security penitentiary.

Beside him, Staff Sergeant Mike Murphy emerged from the Humvee, accompanied by a pimple-faced soldier named Twohy, their Radio Telephone Operator, or RTO. Both men carried their weapons, and they surveyed the field with cautious eyes.

Foster still manned the M2 machinegun in the Humvee’s cupola.

“Contact,” he said suddenly, bringing the weapon around.

Lee shouldered his M4 and peered through the optical scope mounted to the weapon’s top rail. Stepping out of the trees was a man wearing a blue blazer and boxer shorts. His face was covered in dried blood that had been purposefully applied. He carried what looked to be a spear gun, of all things, and he smiled broadly and waved as he started trotting toward them. Lee could see the man’s shoulders shaking as he laughed.

Lee squeezed off two shots, and the man fell facedown into the field four hundred feet away.

“Good shootin’, sir,” Murphy said casually. “Hope he wasn’t just going to ask for a ride.”

“With a spear gun?” Lee asked.

Murphy shrugged. “True. This being Massachusetts and all, I’m surprised he even had that.” The soldier took a moment to shove a chunk of chaw into his mouth, tucking it behind his lower lip.

A truck rumbled over while a second Humvee pulled past Lee’s vehicle. Both came to a halt. Command Sergeant Major Turner alighted from the Humvee and did a full scan of the area. Several lightfighters jumped out of the truck bed. One of them was considerably larger than the others. Lee sighed. It was the Duke himself—Muldoon.

Murphy did a quick inventory of the new arrivals. “Hey, it’s your old buddy, sir.”

Lee grunted. “Everyone needs a mascot.”

Flanked by two other senior NCOs, Turner walked over to Lee’s position and saluted. Lee returned the gesture.

“Sorry for crashing the party, sir,” Turner said.

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