Chapter 24 The Red Hand

“Tornado in position. No visual.” Rosie made herself comfortable, easily done in her stealth suit and hunter's cloak. She stretched her legs out, tightening the straps that held her steel shin plates. The leather backing kept them quiet, but not if they were loose.

“Maelstrom in position. No visual.” Brandon checked in over the comm. From her clifftop vantage, Rosie could see where Brandon would be, yet the shadowed crevice by the side of the road showed no sign.

“Hurricane in position. Possible visual.” Paul hid in the back of a wrecked bus, giving him the best view along the eight lane blacktop as the sun set. “Reds times four...plus two cargo.” Rosie tensed, hearing what she’d hoped for. She pivoted the antique sniper rifle using the bipod, and through the scope she saw what they’d walked all this way to find. The Red Hand, four of them, and two slaves.

Rosie focused on the ghouls. Well armed with assault rifles, curved magazines taped double. Automatic pistols with wooden handles and long barrels. All covering their so called faces with strips of red cloth, nothing but cold black eyes staring out.

Then Rosie saw the slaves. Beaten and collared, tormented by inhuman cruelty as she had been. There she lay, more than capable of rescuing others, by herself if needed, and she did nothing.

Intel from The Grand told them this would be a pay off. Last week Paul had observed exactly that, quick and clean. Rosie looked at the slaves, a man and woman, maybe mid thirties but she couldn’t be sure. They wore drab clothes, similar dark brown overcoats, empty leather quivers. Hunters maybe, she thought, making things harder. If they’d been like the people in the Vault, resigned to their fate, unquestioning, that would have been one thing. They weren’t, the man and woman looked like fighters.

Squelch broke over the coom, prompting Rosie to assemble the device Paul made. A silver serving dish, the sheen dulled blue with oil, cut into pieces. She attached each curve to the repurposed pan handle, then turned on the crafted microphone that stuck out from the dish. It took a moment to adjust the dials tapped to the handle and aim, then she heard them.

“Sit down and shut up.” Rasped one of the Red Hand. Hearing the ghoul tone they all seemed to share, and the cruelty that went with it, made Rosie’s anger flare. She wanted to get back behind the rifle scope, but knew she had to hold the mic on them.

Rosie tensed, fearful and deeply anxious. Ever since Brandon told her he may have to make a hard call she wondered what it may mean. Rosie knew she could keep from putting bullets through rotting flesh, the Filth would lead her to more. She’d thought little of those left in the Vault, most of them wouldn’t even walk out an open door, yet Rosie could see the eyes of the collared slaves. Smart enough to stay averted when looked at, and frantically searching for an opportunity when not.

The chosen meeting spot seemed fitting, a three sided wooden building west of The Grand. A plastic sign by the entrance read ‘The Not So Grand Motel’. As the slavers waited to profit from misery and pain, they grew restless. They passed the time by tormenting their captives, charging the explosive collars and stopping at the last second. Rosie heard every rapid beep and rasping laugh, each one cutting at her resolve.

“Hurricane, visual on raiders.” Paul spotted the raiders. Rosie tracked the Red Hand with the microphone as they met.

“Feels about right, this time.” The ghoul rasped as he took the sackful of caps the raiders brought.

“Yeah, new management.” The raider spat back, twitching and wired. A snap of bony fingers brought the two slaves forward, being marched at gunpoint.

“Snagged these two on the way here.” Remote detonators were passed forward and handed to the pair of raiders. “Put ‘em on next week’s bill.” The raider took ownership of the people and started walking away.

The masked ghoul made one last attempt to intimidate the woman by threatening her with a backhand. The man stepped forward to protect her and got a rifle butt to the jaw instead. A rasping laugh came through the mic as the Red Hand regrouped and headed north.

“This is Maelstrom. I have the eye. Move out. How copy?” Brandon kept his tone firm.

“Hurricane, solid copy, moving.” Paul didn’t quite manage to keep his voice calm, but followed orders. Rosie knew she had to respond, the lump in her throat stopped the words.

“If they don’t make it back we lose the lead.” Brandon told her what she already knew. The raiders have to make it back, she thought, the raiders. Rosie took a deep breath and hoped.

“I have an idea. I need five minutes.” Rosie could do a lot with five minutes. “Request permission to intervene?”

“Tornado, Maelstrom. Five minutes, how copy?”

“Solid copy.”

Within a minute Rosie had stripped down to her stealth suit, pulled up the hood and slid the visor into place. She ran for the nearest tree, hastily threw a rope around and all but dove over the cliff. Jumping off the rock face only twice on the way down. Rosie didn’t need the parabolic mic to hear them now.

“Please, he just needs a few minutes.” The woman begged as she helped the man.

Stolen story; please report.

“Give ‘em a minute. Fucking Filth probably did it to slow us down anyway.” One of the raiders seemed to show concern, until he stood in the middle of the road and started crushing pills on the flat of his combat knife. The other raider held the detonators, he kicked at the man’s legs once, then followed the sound of snorting.

Rosie picked up a lump of blacktop, hurled it at a distant car, then leapt over the low wall. She landed in the dreamlike state, glancing at the raiders first. One stood in mid snort, the other staring up with pinned pupils. Four steps brought her to the slaves. She saw right away the man looked alert, his injury shrugged off by his chance to escape, as the woman worked free a rock. Rosie stopped dead, forcing herself to be still like the world around her.

With the lightest stroke she could manage, Rosie cut the collar she knew all too well. It felt like performing surgery again, one twitch and she’d kill these people quicker than the explosives on their necks. The leather strap gave as the alloy knife sliced it, drawing a fine mist of blood in its wake. Just a scratch, she told herself, knowing the woman’s collar had been easy to reach.

Rosie turned and knelt, forcing the burning sensation in her limbs from her mind. She held the blade level with the explosive box, watching the racing pulse move it from behind. Her hand slid forward between the beats of a thumping heart, the alloy knife chasing the pulse to cut the leather through.

Free to move again, Rosie span to her feet, hurling the knife into a nearby tree. Time snapped back as the rock she’d thrown dinged off a scrap car and the stealth field enveloped her.

“Run.” Rosie’s words came as collars clattered to the ground. She spoke from behind the would be slaves and slowly melted back into shadow.

The chem induced paranoia drew the raiders for a moment. It took them longer to pull away from chasing a sound. By the time they did, the man and woman had vanished.

“Fuck!” The raiders sprinted right past her, mashing the detonators instead of holding them to charge. Rosie remembered the sound. It held her still in fear, distracting her.

“Stop! Stop! Fucking stop man!” The other raider noticed the collars, snatching the detonators away. “Cut off. Filth didn’t even search ‘em.” One of them began to walk with his sawn off levelled.

“Fuck it. We just gave that Filth a sackful of caps. I ain’t chasing down no one for them. Should give the collars back.” The raider chewed a pill this time. “Then set ‘em off.” He shuddered as the chems took hold, rattling his crude armour.

“Gimme one.” The other raider began to walk away, chewing his pill like it made him cold. “Don’t fucking joke about that shit. No one fucks with the Red Hand, they got that old world revenge shit.”

Rosie pulled her alloy knife out of the tree trunk, retracting the blade and slipping it back into her boot, having already retrieved her gear.

“Tornado, cargo times two free and clear. Raiders headed home. Moving out.”

“Six minutes Tornado.” Brandon had a playful tone.

“Stopped to acquire intel, over.”

“Send it.”

“Apparently ‘no one fucks with the Red Hand’ over.”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say.”

The ghouls set a relentless pace, cutting cross country, moving quietly without stopping once all night. Rosie had the eye, able to see the rear guard, ducking into cover as the figure turned every few paces. Forests turned to ruins, then open spaces, then back to trees. The ground began to climb, and soon after so did the radiation.

“Tornado, Hurricane. I have the eye.” Paul had cut to the right of the winding path and practically climbed up the steep ground. “It actually levels out ahead, for a while anyway.” Rosie, unbothered by the rads, followed the path, sticking to what little shadow and cover remained.

Something didn’t add up about the readings she took. The rads were high, yet trees remained, tufts of grass grew here and there, moss clung to the rocks. As the plant life thinned Rosie saw why, faded yellow drums of toxic waste, punctured and drained. There were more further on, then chunks of graphite beyond that.

A few well calibrated mapping pulses gave her a map with the hotspots overlaid. In the green lines and red circles inside her eyes, Rosie found a pattern. And what the ghouls had sought to keep hidden. Then it didn’t seem important.

“Be advised minefield.” Paul sounded scared. “I’m standing on one.”

“Sit tight, Maelstrom inbound.”

Rosie sprinted up the winding path and off it. She saw Paul standing motionless on a flat patch of dirt and grass at the bottom of a steep rock face. He didn’t move and Rosie didn’t know what to do. Brandon appeared behind her, his eyes peering out of the black fabric mask without fear.

“Cover us.” He handed her the sniper rifle and crouched, probing the soft ground with his own alloy knife, then methodically taking a step and starting over.

“Four pronged trigger, aluminium casing, about the size of a tin can.” Brandon described the first mine he dug free in a whisper over the comm. “No markings, home made...it’s a bouncing betty.” That meant nothing to Rosie, but the fear in Brandon’s voice told her all she needed to know.

“I need to see one.” Rosie set down the sniper rifle and walked along the path Brandon cleared.

“Give me a bullet.” Rosie cleared the chamber of her sidearm, catching the twirling bullet in mid air. She stepped in his footprints and handed it to Brandon. He began carving strips from the soft metal with his alloy knife. Rosie watched as Brandon pushed the sliver of metal through a hole below the four pronged trigger.

“First charge blasts the main one to about waist height, then it explodes.” He pulled out the now disarmed device and placed it beside him. It pulsed green as Rosie looked at it. Within seconds she had a schematic, then a scan that showed the hidden traps around them, and an idea.

Dawn broke by the time Rosie reached Paul. He hadn’t moved an inch for the better part of an hour, knowing more than his life depended on it.

“You trust me right?” Rosie asked, trying to break the tension.

“Do I have a choice?” Paul barely moved his mouth and didn’t turn his head at all.

“Not really.” Rosie slipped round Paul and drew one of her axes. “On my mark. Three,” Rosie lined up her swing. “Two,” Paul flexed and readied his cramping muscles. “One. Go!” Paul dove for the cleared area behind him as Rosie pushed into the dreamlike state harder than she had before.

The instant Paul’s foot left the ground she saw vibrations in his footprint. A small circle grew larger, then the dirt gave way to a shiny tin can, riding the propellant charge up into the air. Rosie brought her axe down to meet it. The honed edge of the carbon steel, combined with the force of her downward strike meeting the upwards motion, cleaved the mine in two.

Time snapped back as the half cylinders hit the ground with a soft thud, spilling ball bearings from the sides. Paul stayed flat for a moment, waiting for an explosion, his hands covering his head. Rosie picked up the two halves, plucked the unexploded blasting cap free, and strode out of the minefield without fear. Easily done now the mines were highlighted in green for her.

Brandon took the severed mine from her and inspected it, shaking his head in stunned amusement.

“Good news is we’re alive. Bad news is we lost them.”

“I know where they’re going.” Rosie traced her finger under the pipboy. A pulse of blue light ran between the hexagonal cells, turning the section over the screen invisible. She brought up a toned down version of her map, suitable for mark one eyeballs. “They tried to cover the route with radioactive material, they wouldn’t do that for no reason.”

“I know why they laid these mines too.” The shaking of Paul’s canteen betrayed his calm tone. He took a few deep gulps, then wet his hand and splashed his face. “That’s an easy climb.” He gestured to a rock face rising from the steep ground behind them.

“You’re up to that?” Brandon asked, keeping his tone impartial.

“No, but you rope her and I’ll spot her.” Paul set down his pack, pulling out binoculars and taking the sniper rifle.

“I’m not going to order—” Rosie cut Brandon off.

“I’m ready.”