The Peacekeepers. Books 1 - 3.

by Ricky Sides

  Cursing, Pete said, “Get the drivers. I want the vehicles moved now, before we lose all the tires. Bill Young ran off to get the drivers. Turning to Jim, Pete said, “I want you to take three women and get into position to offer covering fire for the drivers. As soon as they are clear, you return to the safer area.”

  Jim nodded his head and silently pointed to three of the women who moved to stand behind him. “Give us five minutes to get into position before you send in the drivers,” he said, and then darted away.

  As Jim and the women ran off to take the positions that Jim had in mind, he saw Bill returning and leading a group of about twenty men. He didn’t have the time to count. He was busy dodging bullets.

  As they advanced toward the wire, they had to cross a section of open ground that was in a straight line of sight of the Marauders. Suddenly the ground all around them was dotted with small puffs as the enemy’s bullets flew into the clearing.

  Jim stopped when he reached the safety of the house that had been his objective. Looking behind him, he saw that all three of the women had also made it across the no man’s land that the small clearing had become. He said, “We’re going into this house and up on the roof. From there, we should be able to keep the marauders pinned down long enough to give the drivers a chance to move the vehicles.”

  The women nodded their understanding and followed him into the house. This time, they didn’t have to worry about being shot at by the marauders. They had the house to shield them from the view of the enemy. They still had to hurry, because they were running out of time.

  As he ran up the stairs of the two-story house, Jim wondered why Pete didn’t have a man on this rooftop. When he reached the top floor, a man wearing a camouflage uniform, such as the survivalists all wore, confronted him. The man pointed a pistol at Jim and smiled. Jim thought for a moment that he was a dead man as he saw the tendons in the man’s hand tightening to pull the trigger, but then a knife thudded into his chest. The man dropped the pistol and fell to the floor.

  Jim stared in shock for a moment, but quickly accepted what had happened. Turning to see who had thrown the knife, he saw the woman he had subdued just minutes ago. “Thanks. I owe you,” Jim said.

  The woman nodded her head, and then she said, “I was glad to do it.” Turning to the corpse on the floor, she spat on it and said, “This man was a traitor. Pete suspected that he was the missing man Reggie had in our group.” The woman bent and retrieved her blade. She wiped it semi-clean on the body.

  “Sometime I want to hear all about what’s been going on in Chicago, but right now we need to assume our posts. We’re almost out of time,” Jim said.

  Jim quickly opened doors to the second floor rooms, praying that the traitor had at least gone through the motions and cut a hole in the roof in one of them. If he hadn’t done so, then they would be too late to provide covering fire for the drivers and many would die as a result. In the third room, he found what he was seeking. There was a neat hole cut in the roof. Jim darted to the ladder standing under that hole and scrambled up it.

  On the roof, he assumed the prone position and opened fire in a barrage of firepower known as suppression fire. It was designed more to force the enemy to keep their heads down than to actually kill them. To do this, he was firing one shot at each man he could see and quickly shifting to another target. He was lucky and three of his first ten shots actually hit the targets. Soon, the majority of the attackers were too busy scrambling for cover to accurately fire at the drivers, who were now scrambling for their vehicles.

  A bullet plowed into the roof near him, but he responded by emptying his magazine into a group of Marauders, one of which he suspected had fired the close shot. He was rewarded with the sight of two Marauders slumping in their positions.

  Now the three women were with him and as he reloaded his weapon, the three women laid down such a savage suppression fire that the Marauders were forced to withdraw or die. Jim picked off five as they scrambled to withdraw, and kept the rest busy while the women were reloading.

  One of the women stared at him in awe. She said, “I haven’t seen anyone but Pete shoot like that.”

  Shrugging, Jim said, “Pete taught me the skill years ago. I’ve never seen anyone throw a knife with the skill that you do.” Smiling, he said, “So you see, we all have our share of skills. Yours are just as useful as mine.”

  The woman was about to reply, but the Marauders chose that moment to charge the concertina wire. There must have been a hundred of the men. Most of them were firing at the trucks that had started moving out during the lull in the fighting but several of them were firing at the rooftop position occupied by Jim and the three women.

  The women returned fire at the attackers. Jim noticed that the women were all carrying grenades and he reached to the woman beside him and pulled her grenade free of her web gear. Pulling the pin, he threw the grenade hard. It landed just in front of the advancing Marauder line and detonated. The explosion killed only a few of the men in the front ranks.

  Had the men been experienced soldiers, they may have had the discipline to continue their charge without hesitation. However, they weren’t soldiers. They were Marauders, lacking discipline. They faltered when the grenade exploded near them.

  Jim smiled and held his hand out to the other two women, asking for more grenades. They handed him their grenades just as the Marauders opened fire in mass in their direction. The majority of the shots never came close but the woman on the end pitched forward and rolled off the gently sloping roof.

  In anger, Jim pulled the pin on another grenade and threw it as hard as he could toward the largest concentration of men charging the fence. It landed and exploded right in the middle of the group flinging bodies through the air like rag dolls.

  Jim pulled the pin on the last grenade and threw it at a group of men trying to get around the bodies of those slain by the previous grenade. The grenade had just left his hand when he saw a reflection of light on a rooftop hundreds of yards away. Jim threw his body against the woman next to him who in turn slammed into the woman beside her. All three began to slide down the slope of the roof, and had to scramble to avoid falling to the ground below. They scrambled back up the roof and dropped down through the hole to the floor below.

  Jim had never felt as vulnerable as he did those few seconds that he was providing covering fire while he waited his turn to drop through that hole. He ignored the Marauders who were beginning to fire at him and concentrated his fire on the roof where he had seen the reflection of light. He knew that there was a sniper there. He also knew that as he sat there perched on the roof, he was a beautiful target for the sniper. “Sniper bait” was a term Pete used to describe men in his situation. But Jim was dangerous bait. He raked the rooftop with automatic fire and then he jumped down the hole in the roof.

  When he landed on the floor below, he landed hard. One of the women helped him up and they headed for the street below.

  When they reached the street, they found that Pete and several men were providing covering fire for them. They ran as fast as they could across the open stretch of ground. When they reached the safety of their own lines, Pete said, “You people did a good job.” He noticed that one of the women was missing. Frowning he said, “I see Martha didn’t make it.”

  Jim sadly shook his head and said, “I think a sniper got her. I saw a reflection of light from a rooftop right after she got hit.”

  Pete’s fist clenched in anger then and he said, “It was Reggie then.” He cursed and added, “I’m going to kill him today, or die trying.”

  Jim nodded his head and said, “I’m with you on that. The man must need killing, or you people wouldn’t be so dead set on trying. Now is not the time, Pete. You’ve got to lead your people to safety.”

  Pete’s face hardened in anger and Jim said, “Pete, look around you. All of these people are depending on your leadership to see them through this.” Without waiting for a reply Jim said, “Now let’s get t
he hell out of here. Our situation here is rapidly deteriorating.” Pointing to several gaps in the concertina wire he said, “The wire won’t hold them much longer.”

  Pete’s face flushed red with anger, but he said, “You’re right, Jim. Reggie will have to wait.” Then with a vehemence that spoke volumes about his feelings on the matter, Pete said, “Again!”

  Pete looked to his left to a radio operator and asked, “Are the women and children out yet?”

  The young private nodded and said, “They made it out five minutes ago, Sir.”

  “Good. Now give the order to fall back and board the transports. All drivers are to leave when their vehicles are full and not before,” Pete said, anger at the retreat still very evident in his tones.

  “Have you given any thought to where you’re going?” Jim asked.

  “I’m open to suggestions at this point,” Pete replied.

  “I bought the farm you were interested in buying. Old Bob told me you were interested in it, after we closed the deal. That’s how I knew where to find you.”

  Nodding his head Pete said, “The farm would be better. They’d have to cross two hundred yards of open country to get to us. Give the radio operator directions to the farm, while I see to the withdrawal. Order all our people to head there at their best speed possible.”

  The radio operator nodded his understanding and transmitted the orders as soon as Jim gave him the location and directions.

  Chapter 42

  Reggie sat in a van listening to the radio. He had just heard Pete’s orders for his people to regroup at the farm. He laughed and said, “The old fool even had the directions to the farm given over the radio.” Reggie shook his head in amusement.

  In a corner of the van a huge man with greasy black hair snarled, “What the hell is so funny?” He was the leader of the Marauder group and now he was very angry. Reggie had assured him it would be easy to attack the survival group and take their possessions.

  Reggie stared innocently at the man. He knew that he had better come up with a good plan, or the Marauder leader would kill him and leave. He said, “We know where they are going, Burk. All we have to do is attack them before they get their defenses set up. It will be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

  Burk glared at him and said, “You said the same thing about the last attack, asshole.” He slammed his fist onto the top of an old wooden table that was set up in the van. The force of the impact shattered the table. He yelled, “Now I’ve got fifty-three men dead and twenty-four wounded, and all of this happened because I listened to your last plan!”

  Reggie knew that his next words had to be chosen with care. His life was hanging in the balance. He asked, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “What?” the belligerent Marauder asked.

  “The automatic weapons you wanted for your men and the million dollars for yourself.”

  Burk paused and thought for a moment. Finally, the greed won out over his concern for his men. He said, “Alright, Reggie. We’ll attack the survivalists at the farm.” He paused and drew a Bowie knife from a sheath. Running his thumb lightly over the blade, he drew blood and dripped it all over the blade. Smiling, he looked at Reggie. “Just so you know. If we fail this time I’m holding you personally responsible.”

  Reggie got the message. He had seen what Burk did to men he held personally responsible for failure. He had them tied to a tree and then went to work on them with his knife. Reggie shuddered involuntarily at the thought.

  Burk saw him shudder. He thought Reggie was shuddering in fear, so he laughed. He wouldn’t have laughed if he had known the true reason for the shudder. Reggie had come close to sexual ecstasy when he had remembered Burk’s atrocities with his knife.

  Reggie smiled at Burk and said, “Remember, you’ve got an ace in the hole that Pete can’t possibly expect.”

  Burk smiled, and then he said, “Yeah, I know.” Looking at the radio he said, “Call the tanks. Tell them to change their course so they can soften up the survivalists for us.”

  Reggie nodded and said, “They should be in Athens by now.” Reggie walked over to the radio to send the message to the tanks, but halted when it suddenly occurred to him that Pete’s group might intercept the message in the same manner that they had intercepted his.

  “Well? What are you waiting for?” asked Burk.

  Reggie explained his concern to Burk, but the Marauder leader just laughed and said, “There’s not a damned thing they can do about it if they do intercept your message.” He laughed again as the thoughts of a possible easy victory over their deadly opponents lifted his spirits. He said, “Hell, they may even give up without a fight when they see that they are facing three tanks.”

  Reggie turned to the radio and laughed as he reached for the mike. Burk thought that he was laughing with him. He would have been furious if he had known Reggie was laughing at him.

  Reggie hated Pete Damroyal with a passion, but he respected the man when it came to his ability to deal with the unexpected. He knew that there was no way Pete would give up without a fight. He also knew that Pete had a friend here who was just possibly more dangerous than he was.

  As Reggie was making the call to Burk’s three tanks, he was thinking about what had happened when he had climbed onto the rooftop to kill Jim Wilison and the three members of the Women’s Elite Corps. He once more mentally kicked himself for not shooting Jim first. If he had done so, he could have picked off the three women at his leisure. Reggie knew that if he had succeeded in killing Jim Wilison and the three women, Pete would have been badly demoralized, or he quite possibly would have become so enraged that he made a serious error.

  Reggie wasn’t kidding himself. He had known ever since their last encounter that he had need some sort of edge if he was going to do battle with Pete again. He had almost died because of the bullet that Pete had put in his side during that encounter.

  Reggie forced his thoughts to the present when one of the tanks answered his call. He gave them their new orders and then signed off.”

  ***

  Tim had the ship racing over the highway as fast as he dared. His hands were constantly busy adjusting flight level or direction.

  At the communications console, Patricia was frantically attempting to contact Jim Wilison. She finally looked up at Tim and said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t contact Jim on any frequency.”

  “Try calling Pete then,” said Tim as he pushed the ship to an even higher rate of speed. He knew he was pushing his luck. Even with the computer assisting him with some of the maneuvers, thanks to Patricia’s programming skills, he was coming dangerously close to crashing into several vehicles. He was frustrated because he knew that if he didn’t get to Athens within the next thirty minutes, it probably wouldn’t matter if he got there at all. “No,” he thought. “It matters. If they kill Jim and Pete, I’ll kill every Marauder in the town.”

  “No one is answering when I call Pete either,” Patricia reported from the communications station. Her voice sounded strained. “Oh God, let us get there in time,” she thought. She knew that if they didn’t get there in time to intercept the tanks, then Tim would blame himself for delaying his return to Alabama.

  Tim quickly looked over his shoulder at his wife and then jerked his head back around to face the road. “Make sure you’re fastened in good.” He added, “I’m about to open this baby up.”

  Patricia hurriedly checked her harness to ensure that it was properly adjusted. She tightened it just a bit. She knew that this trip was about to get a whole lot wilder.

  Tim was traveling at one hundred-twenty miles per hour. At that speed, he had only seconds to avoid anything that happened to be in the way. He shoved the throttle all the way forward and watched, amazed, as the landscape blurred past the ship. He watched the road carefully as the ship went from one hundred-twenty miles per hour to one hundred-eighty.

  In her seat, at the communications console, Patricia stared in horror as the ship darted aro
und an old pickup truck. It seemed to her that she had just realized it was there when Tim reacted to its presence and they skimmed past it, missing it by mere inches. Seconds later, Tim raised the flight level ten feet to avoid a station wagon that pulled out onto the highway from a side road.

  If she could have seen the startled faces of the drivers they were passing, she would have laughed. Most of them thought that they’d just seen a UFO whiz past them.

  “How long before we reach Athens at this speed?” she asked.

  “We should be there…” he paused as he swerved around a minivan. “Damn! That was close!” he said, and then he added, “We should be there in another ten minutes at this speed.”

  “That’s good, Tim. We should be there in plenty of time then.”

  She was seriously considering asking him to slow down, but his next words ended any possibility of that. Shaking his head, Tim said, “Once we get to Athens, we still have to get to the farm and that will take another ten minutes, maybe more. We’ll probably have to slow down in that area.”

  For several seconds Tim didn’t say anything else. When he spoke again, he spoke so softly that Patricia didn’t hear him as he said, “Hang on Jim. Little brother’s coming!” Fear wrenched at his soul. He was afraid that when he got there, he would be too late.

  Chapter 43

  Jim walked hastily around the perimeter that Pete’s people were setting up. He saw that they were stacking sandbags as fast as the women and children could fill them. He knew that their efforts were probably futile though. Sandbagged positions were ineffective against tanks that could blow them away with its main gun or simply run over them and save the ammunition. What they needed were some anti tank mines or some LAWS. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any of the mines, nor did they possess any of the Light Anti Tank Weapon Systems.