by Jeff Kirkham
Almost immediately, the big rifle across from him boomed and the team reported another hit.
Jeff worked his way along the ridge, looking for a window that would give him a shot at the intruders. He stopped every ten feet and scanned through the tangle of trees with his binoculars, trying to pick out targets. With the last shot from his men, he noticed bad guys scurrying about. Firing straight through the trees, Jeff hammered their positions with the .308.
“This is Crandall. I’ve got two targets down and out on the south-facing hillside at the canyon bottom, over.”
Jeff slid up and down the ridge, firing on even the slightest suggestion of a hoodie or baseball cap. Gun fire popped now and then as his men chipped away at the enemy force.
A short while later, the QRF showed up and joined the shooting. Jeff deployed them down both sides of the canyon. Over the course of two hours, fire slowed. Jeff counted nine reported hits plus the hand gunner who had tried to shoot him earlier, making a total of ten bad guys dead or wounded. Now came the part he hated most: digging supposedly dead enemies out of their holes.
While they had counted their hits, that didn’t mean targets hadn’t been overlooked or were wounded but still fighting. Men didn’t fall down and vanish when shot. They did all kinds of unpredictable shit, and Jeff could hear at least two men moaning down in the forest. Walking around like Roman conquerors would get one of his men shot.
Jeff had a strong suspicion this fight had been a deliberate probe. He couldn’t let bad guys walk away with any information, or their next fight might not be so easy. Jeff picked his way down the ridge, scanning through the trees for new targets. He found a man lying still, some hundred fifty yards away, probably dead. He put two more rounds in him. Jeff found a gap in the forest a quarter mile below the battlefield. He would post up here to see if someone tried to slip out the backdoor.
“Everyone. This is Jeff. I have the canyon bottled up below. Wali, stay on overwatch. Ron, maintain the defensive perimeter. Look for other threats. Crandall, split the QRF and send the teams down the canyon, staying high on the side walls so they have high ground. Shoot anything that looks like a tango, dead or alive. Copy?”
The teams checked in. After ten minutes or so, Jeff could see one of his QRF guys—the one across from his ridge—moving down the side of the canyon.
“QRF, go slower,” Jeff radioed.
The QRFs had been pulled from his best men—former military or men with a lot of firearms training. Jeff had trained and selected most of them himself. The idea was to assign trained hunters to handle the defensive perimeter, like long shooters or expert hunters who could glass an area properly. Then they would fill out those ranks with new trainees.
But, if a battle touched off, Jeff could call in one or more of his three QRFs. These were his most fit and experienced troops, and he felt confident they would clean house against all but the most dedicated military opponents. The QRF guys clearing the forest were doing a hard job and taking considerable risk, but they were also the guys most likely to survive hard-core fighting.
Another hour on the mountain ticked by with periodic shots from his men. When the QRF reached Jeff’s position, they turned around and ran a grid pattern back up, policing up all the dead bodies and their equipment. There were ten enemy, and they were definitely Hispanic street punks.
Given the steep slope, it would take them all night to carry the dead men back up to the ridge where the OHVs could haul the bodies out. Dusk sat on the horizon. Carrying ten bodies up the hill would draw down their defenses for an unacceptably long time.
Jeff gathered the QRF. “We’re not taking any of these assholes out of here. They’re not worth the haul. Drag them down to the barbed wire and lean them up against fence posts. Maybe that’ll send other intruders a message. Gather any equipment and round up all weapons and ammo. Get going. I want to be out of here before dark.”
As gruesome as it was, Jeff would rather leave the dead bodies. If he took them down to the Homestead for a proper burial, it would ignite another shit storm. Half of these dead guys had crapped themselves, and the other half were so full of holes they looked and smelled like road kill.
The good folks down at the Homestead had probably already heard about the battle, but knowing about something and seeing something were two very different experiences, and Jeff didn’t need to borrow trouble.
“Jeff,” one of the guys from the QRF ran up to him holding a radio, “this came off that dead guy over there.” He pointed back over his shoulder.
Jeff looked closely at the hand-held radio. It looked almost exactly like the radios he and his men carried. He didn’t know much about ham radio, but he could tell the difference between a ham radio and the kind of radio you buy at Walmart. This radio definitely wasn’t of the Walmart variety.
“Son of a bitch,” Jeff swore. “This is not good news.”
• • •
Highway 80 (West)
Rawlins, Wyoming
Chad lay in a sand trap in the dark of night, dreaming about golf. Since leaving the SEALs, he had toyed with the idea of spending the rest of his days in pastel polo shirts, with an extra thirty pounds around his middle, driving a golf cart, puttering away at golf.
He looked back at the Rawlins town barricade, a hundred yards from the golf course. As usual, his mind wandered.
He had done the hard-core thing in the Navy and, frankly, he had had his fill. He got the t-shirt and got out. If he never felt cold, wet or uncomfortable again in his life, that would be just fine with him. But then the collapse came and screwed up his plans of sucking off the tit of civilization, playing endless rounds of golf.
After an hour of recon, he had reached the same conclusion he’d reached four other times at four other roadblocks: this was another dumb roadblock with the same ole rednecks. Robbing this roadblock would be like taking candy from a baby. Again.
He and Pacheco were on a roll. They had become a regular Bonnie and Clyde, except Pacheco was a baby-faced Honduran instead of a cigar-smoking hot chick. Chad figured he could easily pass for a handsome Clyde Barrow.
In the last forty-eight hours, they’d heisted four roadblocks and amassed a small fortune in post-Apocalyptic trade goods. He and Pacheco had been able to back-door every barricade, taking the guards by surprise and stealing back everything the roadblock had stolen from other travelers.
Only once had they discovered a roadblock with a rifle overwatch near the town of Saratoga. In that case, they had ambushed the overwatch guy first, tied him up, then knocked over the barricade. It had proved even easier to take a roadblock with overwatch because the guards had been particularly over-confident.
This roadblock beside the golf course didn’t have any high ground for miles, so Chad set Pacheco up in the sand trap, which had the advantage of being comfortable, and Chad had learned never to underestimate comfort when it came to warfighting.
With a sigh, Chad got out of the sand and jogged away from Pacheco, making a big dogleg to get far behind the roadblock before approaching. He didn’t want to give away Pacheco’s position. After running the mile loop, he walked straight up the highway behind the guards.
“Gentlemen,” Chad said, getting bored with his whole coup de grâce routine.
“Who’s that?” The three young men behind the barricade jumped up like someone had stepped on their tails. They jerked around, pointing their rifles at Chad’s chest.
“Go easy, boys. I’ve got a buddy out yonder and he’s got an itchy trigger finger. Damned kid can shoot the dick off a gopher.” Chad treated them to his most dazzling smile. He’d left the NVGs in the car this time. Boredom made him sloppy.
Truth was, they had accumulated more stuff than they could carry in both cars. He would rather do some horse trading with these guys than rob them. Rawlins was a bigger town compared to the one-horse barricades they had been robbing.
“What’re you doing sneaking up on us?” one of the boys asked in a drawl. Then the boy
suddenly decided they had the advantage. “Give me your guns.”
Again, Chad hit them with the smile. “How many?”
“How many what?” the other boy asked.
“How many of my guns do you want?”
The Wyoming boys looked at each other, confused.
“How many you got?”
Chad thought about it. “I’ve got a truckload of guns, plus booze, plus freeze-dried food, plus drugs, plus beer, plus weed, plus a really nice bear rug. What’re you guys trading?”
“Trading?”
“Yeah.” Chad knew he wasn’t dealing with the sharpest knives in the drawer. And, in fairness, he had blindsided them. For whatever reason, the dumbest guards got the night shift.
“Gentlemen, you’re not taking anything from me by force because I don’t have anything on me and because my sniper buddy will shoot you if you try. Instead, how about I make you a great deal on some supplies?”
The young men looked at one another, then sidled closer together so they could confer in private.
“You say you got weed?” one guy asked Chad.
“Yessir.” Chad clapped. “We dealing here or what?”
The guys conferred for another moment. “Tell you what,” the apparent leader stepped forward, “we’ll go get the mayor, and you can make a deal with him. For going and getting him, give us some of that weed.”
Chad wasn’t sure he was following. “You want me to give you some weed for going to get the mayor?”
“Yeah. It’s real late. He’s gonna be pissed.”
Chad laughed out loud. “Okay, boys. I’ll give you one ounce of high-grade Wyoming marijuana for bringing the mayor here right now.”
One of the guys whispered something to the spokesperson, apparently a reminder. The spokesman nodded.
“And you can’t tell the mayor about the weed.”
Chad doubled over laughing. When he got himself under control, he agreed. “Okay, mum’s the word about the Mary Jane. Go get the mayor.”
One of the guys took off toward town on a dirt bike. Chad fished a radio out of his pocket. They had picked up a couple of FRS radios from the last roadblock robbery.
“Pacheco. You still alive?”
“Sí, Chad.”
“Hang tight. They’re getting the mayor to negotiate. Please don’t shoot the mayor, okay?”
“Sí, Chad.”
I might just adopt that boy.
• • •
They had apparently awakened the mayor from a dead sleep, based on the fantail at the back of his head. Even so, he seemed downright jovial.
“Sir!” the mayor climbed down from his giant pickup truck and thrust his hand out to Chad. “I’m Mayor Spears.”
Chad shook his hand, noting how small men always seemed to have the biggest trucks. As a man of “moderate stature” himself, Chad made a mental note never to buy a big truck, no matter how strong the urge. Too predictable.
In the age of firearms and coach airline seating, being a large man offered few advantages. Chad would rather be “moderately sized” and overly badass. At least that’s what he told anyone who brought it up.
Chad was pleased he was about two inches taller than the mayor.
“These boys tell me you have a sniper out yonder, and you’re both military boys who want to trade?”
“Yessir, though I didn’t tell them we were military.” Chad liked to hold back information whenever possible.
“So are you military or not?” It seemed important to the mayor.
“Okay. So what if I’m a Navy SEAL, let’s say?” Chad had no idea where this was going.
“Well, son, if you are a Navy SEAL, I have a proposition for you.”
More curious than anything, Chad decided to proceed. “I am a SEAL and my buddies out there are under my command.” Chad lied about the number of men and lied with the implication that they might be SEALs, too.
“Fantastic.” The mayor rubbed his hands together. “I’d like to offer you a job.”
Chad waited. Usually, people had a hard time believing he was a SEAL, because a person so rarely met a true Navy SEAL. The mayor seemed excited to believe him, which should have set off alarm bells.
After an awkward silence, the mayor went ahead. “Our Walmart distribution center—the one that belongs to us—was overtaken by bandits. We think they’re bandits. Well, they might be Rock Springs police and some bandits. Maybe they’re truck drivers.”
The mayor was rambling. Chad got the idea, though. They had no idea what was going on with the Walmart distribution center other than someone else was there, presumably with guns.
The mayor gathered his thoughts for a second. “We need someone to get it back for us.”
“What’s in it for me?” Chad asked.
“What do you need?”
“I need a lift to Salt Lake City.” Chad had no idea how a podunk town would give him a lift to Salt Lake City, but he might as well negotiate big.
“Perfect!” The mayor slapped his hands together. “It’s a deal. You get our distribution center back, and we’ll fly you to Salt Lake City.”
Chad thought about it for a second. Fly to Salt Lake? That hadn’t occurred to him.
“Four passengers, plus gear?” Chad raised an eyebrow.
“No problem, son. We’ve got a municipal airport, planes, pilots and plenty of gas.” The mayor thrust out his hand to shake on it.
Chad knew how these kinds of deals worked; they grew hair. If he agreed to this, it was going to get weird, guaranteed.
“Why do you want to take control of the distribution center?”
The mayor answered with certainty, his hand hanging in the air. “We have people who’ll die without the medication in that warehouse. Rock Springs has the regional hospital and the folks there refuse to share medicine. The next best source is Walmart, but our local Walmart is running out of pills for our old folks and kids.”
Chad’s B.S. meter was going redline, but he really liked the idea of a flight to Salt Lake City. He was bored with jacking roadblocks, and eventually he or Pacheco would end up killing one of the young idiots guarding them. That would definitely suck the fun out of the whole enterprise.
Assaulting a Walmart distribution center fit his modus operandi perfectly: pull crazy shit that makes for a great story later.
Chad returned the mayor’s handshake. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’m going to need twenty guys, including these three.” He motioned to the barricade guards.
“Done.”
With that handshake, Chad became the ranking military authority of Rawlins, Wyoming.
• • •
The Walmart distribution center sat almost smack dab between Rawlins and Rock Springs, making the mayor’s claim of ownership a bit cloudy. Chad supposed the real claim of ownership went to the town of Wamsutter, if the town had been anything more than a few dozen rusted-out, double-wide trailers. The sparkling new distribution center stood just off the Wamsutter freeway exit.
Other than the Middle East, Chad had never seen a land so desolate. This part of Wyoming gave the desert a bad name. Were it not for the oil and natural gas being pumped out of the ground, Wamsutter’s primary export might be sand.
As the sun came up, Chad started making sense of the mayor’s rambling. He used the pre-dawn darkness to crawl to the top of a small rise in the barren, rolling hills where he could look down on the distribution center with his father-in-law’s crappy binoculars.
Chad had taken one of the barricade boys with him, sending Pacheco back to get Audrey and his little girl. The mayor had agreed to put them up in the Holiday Inn while Chad figured out the assault.
Scattered around the outside of the distribution center, Chad counted thirty semis, five cop cars, fifteen passenger vehicles and at least five hundred semi-trailers. Without a doubt, the place contained a lot of interesting bling. In the zombie Apocalypse, this would be known as a “high value target.”
Chad regretted his request of tw
enty men. He had spoken too soon. He might need a couple of hundred just to cover the size of the place. It was huge. Shaped like a fat letter “L,” the distribution center had almost a million square feet under roof. And who knew what the inside actually looked like? Essentially, Chad thought, it would be like assaulting a small town, except with a roof over the entire thing.
He didn’t spot any defensive positions. He’d only seen one man step through the doors, probably a trucker, to get some fresh air and smoke a cigarette. The trucker hadn’t been armed.
Chad tried to imagine what they were doing inside. There had to be at least five law enforcement guys from Rock Springs in there, since there were five cruisers outside. He thought there was maybe one guy per semi and one guy per passenger vehicle. That added up to about sixty men; maybe eight or ten of those might be women. He didn’t want to make too much of his guess but, based on the smoker not having a rifle, they might not have enough guns to arm all sixty men.
It was a wild guess, Chad reminded himself. Rock Springs, no doubt, had plenty of guns, and they might have packed one of those cop cars with rifles to arm everyone inside. Based on the level of defense, it looked like a light presence, as though Rock Springs was claiming dibsies on the place, but not much more.
Chad turned to the boy from Rawlins lying next to him in the dirt. “Have you guys hit this place yet?”
“Nope. Mayor Spears had words with the mayor of Rock Springs over it, but that’s all.”
“Hang out right here and don’t shoot.” Chad told the boy. “I’m going inside to check things out.”
• • •
As Chad worked his way down to the massive parking lot, he thought about the distribution center from a defensive point of view. It would be nearly impossible to cover all the ways into the building. There had to be two hundred outside doors, not counting the big roll-up cargo bays.
If it had been Chad, he would have put early warning pickets on the roof. That would have made it a lot harder for him to get inside to recon the place.
