While working the streets of Jacksonville, Florida, Marie had been in some fearsome scrapes and had always come out on top. Those occurrences had served to boost her confidence in her abilities and stoked her courage. Seeing the bullets striking the ground so close to her motorcycle overrode that courage somewhat. She was a brave girl and had volunteered for the dangerous task she had just completed. Still, the sight of bullets impacting around her was a sobering experience for her.
Realizing that riding in a straight line was asking for the rifleman to get a good bead on her, Marie started zigzagging. She took the bike over rocks and through patches of sand that she suspected the heavier Blazer could not get through. The Yamaha leaned left and right as it hit obstructions and Marie almost lost it three times but was able to regain control. Bullets were still popping up plumes of dirt around her but the bumpy terrain was making accurate aiming impossible for the rifleman in the blazer. A lucky shot was the only thing she had to fear.
Cresting a hill, Marie looked back again and saw the Blazer falling further behind, but the four-wheeler was closing in on her. With its four wheels, it was much more stable than the Yamaha, and it did not need to zigzag like she was doing. It was barreling straight in on her.
The other side of the hill was a friendlier environment for the former cop. It was a long, gently rolling field of short grass. She cranked down on the throttle and felt the bike surge forward. With the Blazer so far behind, she abandoned the evasive actions she had been taking and headed straight for the compound which was now less than a mile away. She had no way of contacting her people there, but the loudly clattering din produced by the two-stage engine of her bike should be audible at long distances. Marie said a prayer that the defenders on the wall had been told to look out for her and her bright blue dirt bike.
The left side mirror on her handlebars shattered and the impact wiggled the bike slightly before Marie brought it under control. She checked the remaining mirror and saw the rider of the four-wheeler steering with one hand while aiming a pistol with the other.
Quickly, Marie resumed her evasive actions, cutting left and right and trying to maneuver herself behind rises in the land. The pistol behind her kept spitting, but nothing touched her. She had her handgun in a holster affixed to her load-bearing vest. She could reach it easily, but she needed her right hand to work the throttle on her bike. She had trained to fire the weapon left-handed, but she knew she wasn’t very good with it that way. If something was close enough and she was on solid ground she could hit her target but bouncing around on a dirt bike would make such a feat impossible. So instead, Marie concentrated on getting herself to the castle as soon as possible. She leaned down as low as she could get and gunned the throttle even more.
The landscape was flashing by around her as she broke over the top of the last big hill before reaching the long approach to Dragon’s Lair. She could see the castle now, it was only three hundred yards away, and she risked inching the throttle forward to its maximum reach. The stretch of land between her and the compound was composed of rolling hills and several large rocks which she easily avoided. Marie picked out a direct route to the main gate and headed for it.
The sound of the four-wheeler cresting the hill behind her was now joined by the engine of the Blazer. Marie didn’t know how the bigger vehicle had gotten so close, and she didn’t have the time to figure it out. A glance at the handlebars showed her a little white button with the icon of a bugle imprinted on it. She thumbed the button, and the high pitched horn sounded. She kept the horn blowing as she got closer and closer to the walls of the stronghold, hoping the people manning the rifles and machineguns there would know it was she who was signaling them.
Once again bullets started impacting the ground around Marie’s bike. Some came pretty close, close enough to compel her to abandon her plan to drive in a straight line until she reached the gate. She was a hundred yards from the walls when her front wheel struck a concealed rock and was jerked to the left, wrenching the handlebars out of her grip. The bike went down, and Marie went airborne. She flew for thirty feet before landing on her left shoulder. Pain laced her body as the former police officer continued to roll forward, her legs and arms thrown away from her torso by the centrifugal force of her spin. Marie felt something give way in her knee and pain from that joint competed for attention with the sensations in her shoulder.
Marie finally came to rest face down on her belly. She tried to right herself, but her left arm would not respond to her attempts to move it. Her knee on that side was already swelling, pressing against the fabric of her jeans. She forced her left leg to straighten out in spite of the pain and wiggled herself around into a sitting position. Glancing back at the stronghold, it seemed impossibly far away now that she was without a vehicle and too injured to walk or even stand.
Marie twisted around to see the man on the four-wheeler closing in on her. His hand was still pointing the pistol in her direction, and he resumed popping off rounds as he drew nearer. A bullet sent up a puff of dust just an inch from her thigh. The whine of the man’s vehicle was the loudest thing out here now that the Yamaha had been silenced. It was throwing dirt up behind it like a dust devil. Marie could see the man’s face now. He wore big dust goggles, but his mouth was twisted into a grin as he bore down on her, convinced she was out of options.
But she wasn’t. Not really.
When Marie joined the police department; she found that her abilities with a handgun were limited. She had fired pistols before, but she was by no means proficient with them. Rather than practicing just enough to pass the quarterly qualification course, Marie had thrown herself at the task. In a year she was earning scores that rivaled those of the department’s top shooters. In her second year, she was invited to join the pistol team.
Nope, Marie had options.
The front sight of the Glock nine millimeter had been painted yellow to maximize its visibility. Marie lined it up until it was directly in the center of the two posts that made up the rear sight. She centered the sight picture on the man’s chest.
A bullet whizzed by Marie’s head close enough to hear the bumblebee-like buzz as it passed. Muscle memory and experience overrode the pain she was feeling as she expertly squeezed the trigger. The gun barked twice in her hand.
She missed. Or so she initially thought. The guy on the four-wheeler showed no reaction to her shots. He continued heading toward her, his pistol still raised but no longer firing. Marie started to shoot again, but then she saw the pistol slip from the man’s hand and fall to the ground. The man’s other hand fell from the handlebars, and the vehicle started to veer off to the left. She put another round into the man’s center mass as he passed by, a mere twenty feet from where she sat. His only reaction was to sag deeper in the seat. The whine of his motor faded to an idle, and the four-wheeler rolled to a stop with its rider still slumped in the saddle.
With the passing of her most immediate danger, Marie cast her eyes around to see the Blazer now closing in on her. It was only fifty yards from her location. She raised her Glock again.
The Blazer’s windshield suddenly exploded in a gush of broken glass and a pink mist of human fluids. The hood was perforated by the heavy rounds of one of Dragon’s Lair’s fifty caliber machineguns firing from the north tower. The Blazer’s front end dissolved under the bombardment and swung so hard to one side that it flipped over, rolling several times before coming to a rest on its roof. Marie heard a ‘poof’ sound and then saw a flame rising from the engine compartment. It took only a minute for the entire vehicle to become completely engulfed.
She tore her eyes from the burning truck and saw that two pickups were now exiting the main gate of Dragon’s Lair and speeding toward her location. Marie reloaded her weapon with a fresh magazine before holstering it. Some habits die hard, and she had never been the type of police officer to carry around a partially loaded pistol.
✽✽✽
On the other side of the final hill bef
ore reaching the approach to the castle, Barrett lay on his belly and examined the scene before him through his binoculars. He was angry. Not at the woman who had attacked his vehicles and killed some of his people. She was, after all, just a soldier doing her job. She might not have been military, but she was definitely a soldier, and this was a war. Her actions served to slow down the planned swift attack on the hilltop compound, and she had done so with considerable risk to her own life. As a professional soldier, Barrett could respect that. He had also watched her as she shot down his soldier who was on the four-wheeler. Again, Barrett did not view her actions as wrong. She had been fighting for her life and prevailed. Nothing malicious about that.
No, Barrett was not angry at her. He had explicitly told his people to stay out of rifle range of the castle when he dispatched them to try to catch or kill her. Barrett’s people had already lost over a dozen people, and the last thing they needed was to lose more. It seemed his soldiers in the Blazer had become overly anxious in the heat of the pursuit and gotten too close, and the fifty-caliber Ma Deuce made quick work of them.
Damn!
Barrett studied the woman who was still sitting out in the open and saw she was hurt. His mind went to the scoped Springfield M-1A that was between the seats in his Jeep just a few feet away. He could retrieve it and take her out right now. That weapon, in the hands of an accomplished sniper like Barrett, was more than capable of delivering a shot to her chest region at this distance. It would be easy.
He wouldn’t do it.
The woman had fought a soldier’s fight and won. To kill her now from afar and with no risk to himself would be cowardly to Barrett’s way of thinking.
Instead, he scooted back from the rim of the hill and got to his feet, making a twirling motion with his index finger as he walked back to his Jeep.
“Start it up,” he ordered his driver. “Let’s get back to carrying out this farce.”
Chapter 28
Pops and Sharon reached Marie first. They waited until the four men in the bed of their truck hopped out and took up covering positions. The second truck pulled up twenty yards away and likewise unloaded heavily armed people who pointed their weapons in the direction of the hill ridgeline.
Sharon opened her door and ran straight to where Marie sat in the grass. Pops went around to the bed of the truck and retrieved a folding stretcher. He put it under his arm and joined the two women.
“How bad is it?”
Sharon gingerly examined her patient as she spoke. “She has a dislocated shoulder and a whole bunch of bruises.”
Marie tensed and squinted her eyes as Sharon’s hands touched her knee.
“And a probably broken knee. Sorry, Sweetie, I know that hurts.” She turned to Pops and indicated he should lock open the stretcher. “Think you can let us get you into the truck, Marie? We’ll be as gentle as possible, but I want to get you back behind walls. We’re too exposed out here.”
“Yes, do whatever you need to do; just get me back to Jimmy.”
Pops called in one of the guards and had him help lift her gently onto the stretcher then carry her back to the truck. They slid her into the bed, slammed shut the tailgate and loaded up their people.
They were coming through the main entrance just a few minutes after I brought my Jeep through the back gate. We’d called in when we started back, and four of our people were waiting along with Tashnizi when we stopped. Dee was still unconscious and was lifted onto a stretcher and quickly carried below. Isaac waved the other stretcher away and limped along behind the others. I could see multiple jagged bite marks on his arms. The sight made me queasy, and I couldn’t imagine him being able to walk on his own. A few minutes after Isaac disappeared down the ramp, Candace Brenner came rushing in from her duty station on the walled compound and followed him down to the clinic.
I jogged over to the wall and stayed to watch Pops and the others out by the two trucks until I saw them start up and head back with Marie.
Returning to my vehicle, I hauled the M-240 out of the Jeep and humped it down the cargo ramp to the armory. I intended to clean and lube my weapon, but a young man from Marcus’ crew sent me off saying he’d take care of the task. At any other time, I would insist on doing my own work, but I was exhausted. The crazy fight at our northern ambush perch, not to mention the hands-on battle with the one-eyed infected man had taken away what little energy I still had in me.
When I got back up topside Pops had already arrived, and he and Sharon were overseeing the actions of the people who had rushed forward to carry Marie down to the clinic. As the group passed by the Major, he held up his hand to halt them. He knelt down so that his face was level with hers.
He picked up one of her hands in his. “Great job, Soldier.”
“You mean ‘Great job, Officer’!” She replied. “Where’s my husband?”
“He’s on his way. It was his shooting of the fifty cal that took out that Blazer.”
The Major stood, and the stretcher bearers headed for the clinic.
Pops saw me limping toward my Jeep and came over. He studied my torn clothes and dirt-smeared face. “Son, can’t I let you go anywhere? Every time you leave this compound you come back looking like you took on Hulk Hogan.”
“I love you, too, Pops. It was a crazy situation out there for a while. How did you guys do to the south?”
He shrugged. “No action at all. We got called back soon after we got there. It seems the bad guys have decided to risk it all with a frontal assault coming right up our driveway.” He noticed the way I was cradling my ribcage with my arm. “Shouldn’t you be at the clinic?”
“I think they have more serious things to occupy them right now. Dee got swarmed…it’s bad, Pops. Isaac came to her aid, and he got seriously injured also.” I nodded back over in the direction of the ramp. “What happened with Marie?”
As he was explaining the situation involving the improvised claymore mines and the damage to the roadway, I saw Jimmy exiting the tower access door and racing down the ramp to be with his wife.
A shout alerted me just in time to steady myself as Pepper jumped into my arms. I’d be lying if I said she didn’t hurt my injuries, both new and old, but the feeling of holding her in my arms washed away much of the pain.
“Okay, easy now, wounded war hero and all that.”
She noticed my new scrapes and scratches and the way I was protecting my side and her eyes went wide. “Oh, Virgil, I’m sorry. Let me help get you to Sharon.”
I waved away her suggestion. “She’s busy right now.” I leaned down to give my lady a quick kiss then turned back to Pops. “So with Marie taking out two truckloads of the enemy and cratering the road, their assault has been stopped?”
He shook his head. “Not stopped, just delayed. The vehicles they are driving are all four-wheel drive capable. They’ll either go off the driveway and get back on a little farther along or just come at us off-road, or both. The main thing is they won’t be coming at us at top speed anymore, they can’t risk that we have another trap waiting for them farther up the line. They will most likely move more cautiously now to avoid further losses.”
Pops looked at Pepper who was still holding on to me, albeit more gently now. His eyes got a look in them that told me he realized she was destined to be a part of our family if we survived this day. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I have to get back to the wall. We probably have an hour or two before things get critical. The Major will send out an alert and call everyone to combat stations.” He looked at Pepper. “Take care of him, sweetheart. Like he said, he’s a war hero.”
Pepper and I went into the mansion, and I grabbed a cold soda from the fridge while she made me a sandwich. After I ate, I had her wait for me while I grabbed a quick shower and brushed my teeth. Finished with my personal hygiene requirements, I joined her again in the recreation room, and we stole ten minutes to kiss and embrace before heading out to take our places on the wall.
We had just ope
ned the front door when the call came over my walkie.
✽✽✽
Arlo was in the Stryker with six other soldiers when the radio call from Barrett reached him. The information about the ambush and destruction of a portion of the paved driveway was unsettling. The leader of the former soldiers had envisioned a quick ascent of the hill and then having his people disperse widely around the eastern face of the defense wall. The vehicles that they outfitted with machineguns would then harass the defenders with automatic fire while the infantry made their way up to and over the defensive barriers.
It all sounded so easy when he was planning it. His eyes cut over to where some of the soldiers were overhearing the report. It wouldn’t do to have them view the ambush as a lapse in foresight on his part, so he tried to shift the blame.
“What the hell happened out there, Barrett? I put you in charge of the assault.”
The voice of the sergeant came back over the walkie with an irritating calmness. “To be accurate, you relieved me of duty and told me to stay behind. I’m up here in violation of your orders so I can help minimize the loss of our people. To answer your question about what happened; these guys were never going to sit idly by while we rolled up on them using the most obvious route. They made plans to derail your fast attack using their road, and it worked, at least temporarily. We’re getting our vehicles around the blockage and will reform shortly.”
The Sergeant’s words stung. There were many others with radios, and they could hear the conversation, so Arlo scrambled to regain the appearance of being in charge. “As soon as you get everyone past the obstacle, put them back on the road and send them ahead at top speed.” The disgraced lieutenant was aware of the fact that the soldiers in the vehicle with him, two women and four men, were able to hear every word Barrett said. He belatedly wished he had taken this radio call outside. He was trying very hard to sound like he was in command of the situation but could feel he was not successful.
Virgil's War- The Diseased World Page 44
