Epstein got a compass bearing to the valley, which he and Sam used in conjunction with the GPS to identify the location on topographic and aerial maps. The aerial view of the area showed a couple of rural homesteads back there, probably farms, but not much in the way of detail. Only one paved road in, but... there was an unmarked fire road that dropped into it from the southeast.

They raced to the other end of the fire road in the receding daylight. Progress along it was painfully slow, hoping to minimize their dust trail over the crest until they reached the covering woods at the edge of the valley. There, it became more about noise discipline as they kept the RPMs on the noisy V8s low. Fortunately, the SUVs' soccer mom roots meant they stayed at suburb-friendly volumes below 35 miles per hour. They crawled to a standstill in a thick swath of oak and madrone, some possibly older than their entire party put together.

Patrick and Christine set to covering both vehicles with the camouflage netting again, leaving the doors and rear hatches open for access beneath the draped obscurement. They didn't need to look at the map to identify their target, as the sounds of voices and hand tools echoed faintly to their ears, and the pinpoints of light Rebecca had spotted grew brighter in the approaching evening.

Sam, Rebecca, and the two soldiers crept through thick underbrush to a post-and-board fence line and hunkered down. Rebecca lifted Felicia to her shoulder and panned her aim carefully between the boards, surveying the distant scene while the others passed a pair of binoculars back and forth.

Lights glowed inside two wooden farmhouses and a tall barn, and more were being lit on posts on the surrounding grounds. Rebecca was surprised to see a handful of spotted cows in a paddock off to the side, and several pigs beyond them. Her treasonous stomach betrayed her, sending her brain pangs of hunger at the idea of cheese, steak... maybe both on a nice fresh bread roll, and it took a generous amount of willpower to continue her survey.

Several vehicles were parked up near the farmhouses, some pulled into a shed at the far end of the property. People were moving about, she saw farmhands retreating from the fields in an organized fashion and guards near the front gates and house entrances. Maybe this was some kind of local cooperative, and the unsavories they ran out to on the road were a ruse to capture supplies from passers-by on the road.

No, wait. Some of those guards were looking inwards toward the fields. In fact, a lot of them were, once you factored in the ones by the houses. She zoomed the scope in to its maximum magnification and swept it over the workers exiting the fields... and realized they were in fact being quite organized in their movements, but not voluntarily.

"Shit, they're prisoners," she whispered.

Landry and Epstein were muttering to each other, passing the binoculars back and forth, so Sam tapped Rebecca on the shoulder and nodded at the rifle scope. Rebecca handed it over carefully and Sam took the scene in for herself. "That could have been us."

Rebecca squinted towards the scene, comparing the buildings for now since she'd lost her magnification. "Yeah. That was uncomfortably close in retrospect."

Epstein and Sam swore simultaneously.

Rebecca really wanted the rifle back now. "What?"

Sam passed it back over. "The guards just pistol whipped a guy and are dragging him away."

"Dammit." Rebecca panned around quickly and acquired the scene. "They're going around the barn, we can't see from here."

The party moved quickly along the brush line, keeping low and behind at least one layer of cover between them and the field, until they reached a position they could see past the barn. Rebecca was still getting positioned behind her rifle when Landry swore.

Again she asked, "What?" But, they didn't need to answer, as he quickly handed the binoculars around and Rebecca already saw what bothered him through her scope.

"My god, those are fucking crucifixes." Not the classic Christian T shape, the more expedient beams crossed in an X. She watched in creeping discomfort as two armed men dragged a third to one of those structures and slammed him against it, punching him in the stomach, and callously pulling him upright when he doubled over from the blow. She couldn't see the ropes clearly, but their movements told her they were lashing his arms and legs to the posts.

She heard Landry's voice from her right. "Some of those people aren't moving anymore."

A surge of sympathetic terror rose in Rebecca's chest and she zoomed out slightly for a wider field of view. What she saw was as bad as the worst of the things Ronnie had warned her were happening in D.C. and New York. There were easily eight, ten of the terrible shapes, more than half occupied, and he was right. When he zoomed in, at least one body had a wrongness about it that sent chills up her spine. Something about the way the head lolled or the arms twisted as the torso sagged. Ugh.

That was pretty bad, but then she saw something that made her almost throw up, that turned her blood to ice in her veins. Breathlessly she stammered, "Th... that's a child."

Epstein swore and Sam gasped, and both tried to fit behind the same pair of binoculars as they snatched it away from Landry. Rebecca wasn't sure who won, but zoomed in on the smaller willowy figure bound to one of the center crucifixes. They sagged limply too, blonde hair obscuring their face, a dirty long-sleeve shirt and jeans becoming visible as those bastards out there lit a nearby brazier.

Violence tugged at Rebecca's heartstrings, and she barely realized the selector switch under her finger to move from Safe to Fire until she heard it click. Her forearm tensed, bracing the end of Felicia's handguard against one of the fence rails, and she leaned her weight into her shoulder as the rest of the world fell away from focus. Those guys by the brazier, they'd make good illuminated targets. Then maybe the guys tying the other poor sap to the posts, they were occupied and pretty stationary. Then she could go for...

Landry's hand on her shoulder disrupted her focus, messed up her aim. "Not yet, sister. I'm sure you could get a couple of them from this range with body shots, but even with your reputation, I don't think you can get them all before they get to cover or do some damage."

He was right, but she hated it, letting a seething sigh out through her nose because her lips were pressed too tightly in frustrated anger. "Tell me we're gonna kill these fuckers."

Sam's voice came from above Rebecca and to her right this time. "Oh yeah, that's gonna be a thing."

Landry's restraining hand lifted, but his tone was still precautionary. "Let's be smart about it, get a count, then we can pull back and come up with a plan while we wait for darkness."

Sigh. At least Rebecca got to aim at everyone and think ahead to putting a round through each of them at half a mile per second. Two at the horrible crucifixes, three by the barn that they were marching people into, hopefully just as shitty lodging for the night. Two by the gate, but they seemed to be chaining it up and heading back towards the buildings. Two on the porch of one house, one on the other. Movement in the windows. It was gonna be a busy night.

Fine. She had lots of ammo.

**

"Don't you think we're in a little over our heads?" Chrissie looked at the faces of the others, huddled in a circle between the black SUVs in the light of a single flashlight on its lowest setting. "We should go get help, literally call the Marines."

"We've been in over our heads since that Thanksgiving," Rebecca said. "Also, we can't be sure they can't intercept our comms. Yeah, they're not Black Tusk, but they obviously have surplus gear." She noted that Sam was uncharacteristically quiet as she continued. "Adults aside, there's a fucking kid tied up to a cross out there. Can you live with yourself if we leave, and he or she is dead when we come back?" Rebecca didn't want to voice the possibility they might be already.

Christine's head bowed, and she answered without looking up. "No. Bastards..."

"I get it, Chrissie. I do. On the upside, they seem to have think we rabbited. They're not looking for us, they're being sloppy about security. They really do seem more worried about keeping people in than out. But, I do want us all to talk about this before we make a decision. Landry, Epstein? You're our resident professionals."

Epstein glanced to Landry, who answered. "You both make valid points. But if you press me for an opinion... De oppresso liber, you know? This is literally that."

Rebecca pointedly waited for eye contact from Epstein, and he simply gave her a deferring shrug.

"Sam?"

"You could say I've got some anger issues to work out."

Rebecca figured Sam would likely lean whichever direction she did, but... oof.

Unsolvable worries about Sam aside, Patrick was probably the same way about Chrissie — he'd go wherever she went. She didn't think Christine was afraid — just trying to be practical, keep them from going in half-cocked.

This felt a lot like the time she and Ronnie went in after Patrick and Christine, actually. Whoever these yokels were, they weren't going to be on par with Black Tusk. Sounds like the quantities might be about similar, and even though Ronnie wasn't there, they'd all proven themselves in more than one fight.

And god, talking about numbers... they were just after the two "kids" the first time. By her estimate, there were at least twelve or fifteen captives on that farm from hell. She looked back at Chrissie, realizing the other woman had been watching her, reading her face.

"Chris?"

"I know that look, and I know those people need our help. What's the plan?"