Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [100]
But that was the funny thing. With all the shooting going on, none of them seemed to notice the sharp cracks of the pistol from the top of the hardware store. Alex pushed her luck, killing half a dozen of the invaders before the truck disappeared down an alley. She stopped shooting then and listened, wincing when she heard the tortured crash of metal against metal.
The engine of Rowdy’s truck continued its distinctive roar, though. Alex knew the sound of it quite well. The pickup might have collided with another vehicle, but it was still going. The sound of it, along with the shots, gradually died away.
Alex started to breathe again. Maybe Jack was all right after all. Maybe he had survived that foolhardy stunt.
When she saw him again, she was going to have a long talk with him about taking such stupid chances….
After her heartbeat settled down, she turned and knelt at the low wall around the roof, surveying what she could see of the town. Nobody was moving around now. Home appeared to still be asleep in the morning sun, as if no one’s alarm clock had gone off today.
That so-called general, Garaldo, had sent his thugs out all over town to frighten the citizens and seize control. For now, he appeared to have succeeded. Quiet gripped the community.
But it was an uneasy quiet, with a brooding sense of something about to happen.
Nearly a hundred years earlier, Alex recalled from her history lessons, Pancho Villa and his followers had crossed the border and raided a town over in New Mexico, bent on plunder and destruction. She had thought the same thing might be going on here, but as time passed, it seemed less and less like these invaders intended to loot Home. They were here for some other reason, she sensed, although Alex had no idea what it might be.
She couldn’t get to the police station. She had seen how many of the gunmen were gathered there now. That was out. The only course of action remaining open to her was to head for the high school and hope that Delgado had been able to find some citizens willing to fight.
They should have fought harder against letting the FPS take their guns away from them, she thought bitterly as she crawled across the hot asphalt toward the ladder. Then they wouldn’t have been defenseless when those damned cartel thugs came in here.
A quick check of the alley told her it was still deserted. She went down the ladder as fast as she could.
Her feet had barely touched the ground when the rear door of the hardware store was kicked open and men with heavy rifles and automatic pistols rushed out into the alley to surround her. She started to reach for her pistol but froze as she realized that if she pulled the gun, she would be riddled with bullets in a matter of seconds.
General Garaldo sauntered out of the store and smirked at her. “Chief Bonner,” he said. “How pleasant to see you again. One of my men thought he saw someone up on the roof, but I did not anticipate that it would be you.”
One of the invaders plucked Alex’s gun from its holster.
“Come,” Garaldo went on. “We will go back to the police station, and you will be my guest for the momentous events transpiring here today.”
And since Alex wanted to know just what those events were going to be—not to mention the fact that she was surrounded and had no choice—she went.
CHAPTER 41
Jack, Rowdy, and Jimmy approached the high school from the back, past the baseball diamond, the soccer pitch, the tennis courts, and the outdoor basketball and volleyball courts the P.E. classes used. They didn’t see anybody moving anywhere as they approached the back of the gym.
The latch on one of the windows into the boys’ locker room had been broken ever since the past school year. A lot of the guys knew about it, but they kept it quiet so they could sneak in and play basketball whenever they wanted to.
That was going to come in handy today,