Page 121 of The 9th Man

“Why not just send a team in? We’ve got them outnumbered,” his man standing next to him said.

He shook his head. “If we commit too soon, he’ll chew us to bits. He has the battlefield.” He paused. “For now.”

He keyed his headset. “Bravo Two, how’s your fuel?”

“We’re good.”

“Then come get us.”

***

LUKE DECIDED THE FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS WAS TO CHOOSE THEIRlast-stand ground. The bunkhouse and its thick walls seemed in the best shape. If they could barricade the front door the millhouse walkway was the only available approach. This would be the fatal funnel into which Talley’s men would have to step.

And that would be their opportunity.

He followed their flashlight beams onto the headframe walkway that led to the millhouse, empty save for a few heaps of ore, then he continued on to a connecting walkway to the bunkhouse. The double-decker beds were still there, twelve of them along each wall, two more against the short walls. He saw a potbelly stove that he rolled onto its side, kicking off a pair of its legs, weak from rust. Jillian wedged those into the front door’s handle.

“They might get through, but not easily,” she said. “What’s next?”

“Those beds. Can you move one by yourself?”

She walked over, grabbed one of the stout wood frames, and dragged it a few feet.

“Easy,” she said.

Together they shoved four of the beds into the mouth of the walkway, then another four oriented both vertically and diagonally until the walkway resembled a tornado-ravaged jungle gym showroom.

He said, “If you have to abandon your main position, retreat here, then shove the rest of the beds against the mouth of the walkway. For Talley’s men to reach you they’ll have to climb through that mess.”

“Fish in a barrel,” she said.

“What’s that on the floor?” he asked, pointing at a black ring.

She leaned down and lifted open a hatch, shining her flashlight into the hole. “Some sort of cellar, is my guess. I can’t see how far back it goes.”

He clicked on his flashlight and dropped into the hole. A tunnel led away from the cellar and exited beneath the bunkhouse’s front porch. The dirt floor was dusted with snow that had seeped through gaps in the façade planking. He pressed his palm against the wood.

Which cracked and bulged outward.

He returned to the cellar and climbed out. “It goes under the porch. Might be a good emergency exit. Come on, let’s secure the other doors.”

They located all of the main building exits and jammed each one shut with lengths of scrap iron. Then they toured the building, choosing hiding places and firing positions. Dilapidated equipment and mine carts formed choke points and blind corners that Talley’s men would have no choice but to negotiate. In the ore building they followed the walkway to the boarded-up mine entrance. Somewhere back there would be a connecting shaft to the processing plant.

Another retreat path.

He mentally filed away that detail.

They returned to the millhouse and surveyed the interior, rehearsing their line of retreat to the bunkhouse when, and if, the time came. Dominating the center of the room was the trommel, a massive rotating cylinder mounted on a slanted scaffold, where soil and gravel were dumped for water sifting. Hanging above it was a chute that surely led to the waterwheel outside.

“Here’s where one of us will set up,” he said. “The only way in here is through the ore building and straight down that walkway. They’ll make easy targets. If they manage to fight their way in, this scaffolding will give them no cover.”

“I’ll take it,” she said. “Let’s see how they like meeting a marine rifleman behind a fixed position.”

He smiled. “I know where I’m putting my bet.”

She had a shotgun and a Beretta. Plenty of firepower.

The millhouse’s remaining space was occupied by steel rail carts, each of which weighed a couple hundred pounds. These they rolled into position around Jillian’s makeshift bunker at the bunkhouse walkway. She’d have solid, layered cover and clear lines of fire. All but two of the carts they left upright. The others they tipped onto their sides and angled to serve as grenade shelters should they be needed. Once Talley’s men realized they couldn’t overrun her position they would try to blast her out.