Nick rose up higher, sliding his rifle from where it had rested between the driver’s seat and the car door, and lifted it barrel-first through the sunroof. He took aim, counted two breaths, then at halfway through breathing out, he held his breath and squeezed his trigger with slowly increasing pressure…
The gunner’s head snapped back, but Nick mercifully never had to see what happened to him, as gravity proved it still worked and pulled the staggered gunner over the truck bed’s far edge. Nick knew, though. His shot had been almost perfect, better than any shot he’d taken the last time he had dealt with bandits jeopardizing his family. The crimson spray covering the back window of the enemy’s pickup told him everything he needed to know.
Corey whistled. “Damn, Dad. That was savage.”
Nick smiled, but only for his son’s benefit. “Thanks. Now, we have to get Misty into the city. Keep your eyes peeled for any gap in the lines we could maybe get through.” As he said it, his head swiveled back and forth, noting increasing activity among the attackers’ rear units. They must have heard the gunfire exchange and it would only take a glance to explain what had happened. Nick had no illusions they were safe, yet, by any means…
A rising tone grew in volume, though it took Abram a moment to figure out what this new potential threat was from where he crouched, in the middle of a firefight. The new sound heralded no danger, though—it was merely feedback from a microphone, as someone in town clicked to speak over the PA, the public address system, which had been hastily strung up before the fight began. As he popped up to snap-fire a shot toward the enemy, he wondered what Kent was going to warn them about, what fresh new threat had risen to face them all.
Brooke’s strong voice rang out, echoing across town from a dozen huge speakers at once. His surprise at this nearly ruined his shot—nearly, but not quite—and then he looked over to where she’d been crouched just a few minutes earlier. She was gone, though. Dammit, that was his niece, and she’d run off in the middle of a damn battle with damned bandits to some damned broadcast unit, God only knew where, without telling him first.
“Damn that girl. And damn this. And damn Gary and all these damned—”
Brooke’s amplified voice drowned out his litany of complaints. “Your attention, please. Burnsville, Clarks Crossing…It doesn’t matter. We’re all Black’s victims. And maybe y’all didn’t know this, but it turns out, my daddy, Wyatt, was Black’s first victim…”
Abram barely heard her words, after that. Gary would never suffer her to live, not after revealing the truth like that, if it was the truth. Even less so if it wasn’t…But where had that girl run off to? He shouted, “Hey, get the scouts on this. We have to find her, Dean.”
Beside him, Kent’s security leader, Dean, fired two rounds almost on top of one another. “Stow it, Abram. I know where she is. I helped rig up those speakers.” He tilted his head back and, to the fighters hunkered down behind cover with him and Abram, he shouted, “All units. Give me some damn covering fire! We gotta go save Brooke from herself.”
“Hoo-yah,” someone shouted, and immediately, the air became heavy with the reports from a dozen rifles firing as fast as trigger fingers could pull.
Abram didn’t waste time to argue. What was done was done. Without pause, he broke loose from behind cover and sprinted away from the enemy line. Dean was right in front of him. He had only to follow one man through a warzone to save his niece from herself. Well, there was no way he was going to let her get herself killed before Nick got back with Misty, no matter how hard the young woman tried.
50
Nick scanned the enemy lines. A deep, bassy rumble rolled over him and his companions. The rumbling bounced off nearby rocks, the hill, the town—something big had just happened, Nick felt certain. What, he couldn’t have guessed. “Keep your eyes open, son.”
Corey, however, wasn’t looking Nick in the eyes. Rather, his gaze seemed riveted over his father’s shoulder, and before Nick turned as well, a young woman’s voice echoed across the battlefield. For a moment, father and son both sat in a shared silence, surprised.
That surprise was the one thing they had in common with Black’s bandits attacking the town. Certainly, the enemy’s reactions to Brooke’s words couldn’t have been more different. Where Burnsville’s people seemed to find a strength from her words, and kept up the courage to return fire at a frantic pace all over town, roaring here and there with outraged war cries, the bandits of Clarks Crossing largely had the opposite reaction, in fact, and their tremendous volume of fire pouring into the town’s lines immediately petered out, for the most part.
And as Nick scanned their lines, which for once now stood between him and at least a temporary safety for his son and Abram’s sister both, he gasped. No few of the enemy seemed to be turning away from the Burnsville lines—and they had their weapons, still. Nick squinted to see more clearly, and was met with another surprise—grim determination was written on many of their faces, and they moved like men with a purpose.
But where were they going? If Brooke was in town—and she must have been—then they were moving away from her. At least, many of them were.
“Still not safe,” he muttered, only half aware he’d spoken aloud.
Misty growled at him, “What do you mean? They’re running.”
“No, they aren’t. They’re leaving, not running, and it’s to do something else, something more important to them.”
“They look like they’re running.”
Nick nodded. “Yeah, but do you want to bet her life on it?”
Nick’s questioning and Misty’s response were cut short when Corey said, “Damn, that guy looks just like Gary.”
Nick spun, purely by reflex, eyes darting all over the place. Then, he saw what Corey had been looking at—an SUV, and the guy in the front passenger seat sure as heck did look like Gary. The Jeep bounced as it careened into the town; judging by its course, it had come from the trees a couple hundred yards behind the front lines. And it was driving directly into Burnsville, at a reckless speed.
Misty’s face pinked up, cheeks reddening. “Screw that dude. You told it true, my daughter’s holed up in town. I had my doubts earlier, but not no more. Well, that dude knows she’s in there, now, and he just heard her talkin’ all that smack. What she said sure does ring true, yes? Maybe too true for comfort, for Gary.”
“You think?” Corey cocked his head.
Nick nodded. “Why else would he take that risk, otherwise?”
Misty said, “Nick, hon, did you ever know that Gary fella to be reckless, afore now? Surely not, from what I’ve seen.”
Nick frowned but nodded. “So, we agree, that’s probably where he’s headed?”
From between clenched teeth, she replied, “Hells yeah.” She paused, then added, “Stomp that pedal to the metal, or you get the hell out of my way. I got a daughter to save, but I hope you’ll help.”
“Even if she wasn’t Abram’s niece, my dad would help,” Corey said, eyes lighting up even as his nose turned upward while he thrust his chest out.
Nick felt something new, then. Something he had wished for, but rarely had. Pride. But he had no time to enjoy it, not if he wanted to earn it.
He romped on the gas pedal, and the SUV tires spun for a second before biting into the soil and lurching forward like an iron steed that just got spurred into charging at the enemy. He barely managed to keep the enemy SUV in sight, however—they drove like madmen, but despite all of that and their overwhelmingly superior numbers, the attackers were making no new headway into a revitalized Burnsville battle line. Though the enemy forces kept veering toward the lines, probing and testing for somewhere to break through, they must not have found the weak spot they were looking for, because they ended up getting pushed farther down the Burnsville lines. And then, the defenders pushed them even farther down, to the point where they ended up once again on the northern edge.
And still, Brooke kept going, kept taunting Black and Gary with
the truth as close as anyone could figure it. She placed the blame for her father’s death squarely on Black, and painted Gary as a rabid dog, loyal perhaps, but too stupid to pull off the coup Black had—but he’d known about it. Even knowing the truth, she said, Gary not only had done nothing to avenge the murder of the man who’d given him and Black both a chance at survival, by taking them in and bringing them on the raid that ultimately had cost Wyatt’s life, but as a result, he so idolized Black, Wyatt’s killer, that he gladly did the man’s dirty work for him. Maybe Gary had been the one to murder Danny’s partner and kidnap Danny…She planted that idea, without saying it was true, and she did it so expertly that Nick had almost missed it happening.
The sounds of fury and battle all around them faded even further, as Nick pursued the SUV in which Corey had spotted Gary. The enemy vehicle veered toward the lines once. Twice. A third time. Each time it did so, however, Burnsville fighters poured bullets into the reinforced SUV, driving it back.
When Nick saw it slow ever so slightly, its front wheels beginning to dig into the canyon dirt for another attempt to break through and sending a spray of gravel up to its right, he also spotted something new. An occupant Nick couldn’t identify, at least from that angle and distance, stood up through the sunroof, holding a light machine gun by its butterfly grips. It barked at the Burnsville defenders, and soon overwhelmed the defenders’ front row…
“No,” he said, or rather, shouted. For once, he knew what he had to do, consequences be damned.
“What?” Corey asked, at the same time Misty did.
Nick pressed even harder on the gas pedal. There was no time to explain, or even to drop his son and Abram’s sister off somewhere safer, and they were left to hang on as their ride lunged forward and closed the distance to Gary’s vehicle.
Gary tried to swerve into them.
Nick stomped on the brakes.
Gary’s SUV pulled ahead sharply, never slowing, but when it reached the crest of a low hill, all four tires left the ground as it passed over to the leeward slope. Though Nick once again pressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor, a loaded and armored SUV simply did not regain that kind of lost momentum while going uphill.
Gary’s vehicle vanished, the hill crest standing between the two men, and Nick cursed under his breath while trying to coax a bit more acceleration out of the heavy metal beast.
“Let him in,” Kent barked, and then waited for his aide to bring in the messenger, something to do with the east perimeter. “I don’t got time for this,” he muttered.
When the door opened again, Danny came in. His arm hung in a sling, and the bandage wrapping his upper left arm had blood spots showing through.
Kent blinked, confused. “Where’s the messenger? I’m kind of busy, man.”
Danny replied, “I’m the messenger. You’re right, we don’t have time for this. Post Edward-Four has pulled back to the Quik-Lube—”
“That’s two damn blocks from their post.” Kent growled, his lips flatlining. Something had gone wrong. “What happened?”
“We got hit by two dozen fighters—”
“We?”
Danny shrugged. “I was there. Bullets don’t care who you are, so I figured I should help. The coffee shop got overrun. Four of us survived long enough to escape. One guy with a gut shot stayed back with a submachine gun and a grenade. He bought us time, and made them pay for taking the coffee stand. We pulled back to the Quik-Lube, just as reinforcements got there. Only six reinforcements made it, of ten. So, there’s a full squad at the Lube, but the attackers got fresh people, too. If you don’t send a squad to reinforce us or flank the attackers, we’ll get wiped out.”
Kent growled. That was impossible. But there were just so many attackers, and not enough people defending…It meant that every single defense point was getting hit, and hard. Harder than anyone had expected. He shook his head. Those were dead men. “I don’t know what to tell you. We got no squads left to send.”
Danny frowned. “Kent, listen. If they push through, they’ll pull reserves into town via the new breakthrough. Shortly after that, your main line will get hit from the rear, or the forward supply cache will get seized. What happens then?”
Kent closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. What happens then? Well, then it would be Game Over. “Fine. I’ll give you a squad. Give me five minutes.”
“Better make it three.” Danny wasn’t smiling.
Kent went to the door and stuck his head out. His aide was waiting just outside. Kent said, “Pull a squad off the Smith Plaza company, then rebuild it off them other squads still there. But get that squad here, now. Priority One, you know what I’m saying?”
His aide didn’t waste time saluting or confirming the order. He took one look at Kent’s expression and sprinted away.
Kent turned to Danny. “Hope it helps. Now, I’m busy. Get to stepping.”
Danny nodded once, then turned and left.
Kent turned back to his maps and radios. “Shit’s hard all over,” he muttered. But, oddly, radios began crackling, and from the bits and pieces he could make out from the conversations his radio operators were having, the enemy was easing up on the northwest, where they’d been hitting hardest. Were they gathering to make a push through somewhere else? Like where Danny’s crew was holding out? Crap. He grabbed a passing radio operator by his shirt fabric over the man’s right shoulder. “Hey. Get the word out. We got to be prepared for them to hit us hard somewhere else, and I want to know the second it happens. If we’re lucky, we catch them slipping and find something to take advantage of.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said and rushed over to the bank of radio operators at their stations lining one wall.
Kent turned back to his map. Where were the bastards going to hit next? There was no way to know. But he knew where some were. It was time for a nasty surprise.
Damn, this was not what he’d had in mind when he stepped up to bring some order to the chaos. But there was no one else in position to do his job, so he shoved the self-pity aside. He could feel sorry for himself later. “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”
He picked up the walkie-talkie, set aside for this very moment, and turned it on. Clicking the button, he said into the mic, “Omega, omega, omega. Launch the inferno.”
Setting the unit down on the table, he smiled. Surprise, sonsabitches.
51
Abram ducked low, darting under what was left of a large wooden gate. Ahead lay the skinny, tall building his niece had to be in, originally a silo of some kind. Her voice still rang out around the compound, though now, he could hear gunshots in her broadcast as she revealed all of Black’s darkest secrets—or the ones they’d guessed at. All around him, the sounds of battle still raged, but the tempo had shifted, somehow. Her words were having an effect, it seemed, though it was too early to know what.
Dean, beside him, breathed heavily from their sprint to cover. “I see two.”
Abram said simply, “Check. You take right, I’ll take left.”
He raised his rifle, while Dean did the same. He took a deep breath. “Three. Two. One…”
Bang, bang. Both men fired at the same time. Ahead, the two Clarks Crossing fighters fell where they crouched. Their attention had been on Brooke and the building the Black loyalists had been attempting to storm, but she’d held them off just long enough.
Abram didn’t waste time—he sprinted to one of the fallen men. Dead, he saw immediately, with a large exit wound on the man’s chest. He grabbed the enemy’s rifle and satchel, and ran to the door, where Dean arrived a second later.
Abram shouted at the door, “Brooke, it’s Abram. We got ’em. Let us in.”
He heard the sounds of furniture or boxes being dragged away from the door, and then it swung inward.
Brooke stood in the doorway, eyes wide. She flung her arms around him. “Oh, thank God,” she muttered. Then she jerked back to look him in the face. “I just heard Kent give the order. Infer
no is a go.”
Abram nodded, lips flatlined. No surprise, but he’d hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. Some people were going to die ugly deaths. “Let’s go watch, then.”
She nodded and, after closing the door behind them, they re-blockaded it before heading up the stairs spiraling around the thin building’s inside walls, to the top. There, a single medium-sized room sat atop the silo, where dormers and windows had been fit in. This had been someone’s yoga retreat, before the world had gone to hell, but it made a great radio relay room now. Also, a great vantage point.
He found a window facing north, toward the main enemy forces, and squinted.
Near the window’s left edge, in the distance to the west, half a dozen specks floated in a V-pattern, like geese on the wing, but these geese would be dropping more than just feces, and their targets would be human beings, not freshly washed Volvos.
As they grew closer, the dual wings of biplanes became clear. They banked to their left, then jinked back to the right to continue their easterly path along Burnsville’s north side. They came in fairly low, but high enough that the intervening town buildings didn’t block his view.
Brooke said, “This should be interesting.”
That was one way to put it. Abram shuddered, anticipating the next step.
From the biplanes, once crop dusters, he saw movement at one plane’s rear passenger spot. Too far to see what, but he knew.
Something fell from the planes. Lots of somethings. They tumbled from the sky, down and down toward enemy positions below. When their path intersected the ground, though, the result was easily seen—fireballs rose up in a staccato of orange blossoms and black smoke. The lightbulbs they dropped were full of homemade napalm and alkali metals available on any farm, attached to a sister lightbulb full of water. When the alkali metals and water combined, they ignited—igniting the napalm. Even a person’s sweat was enough to light the napalm-alkali mix—to the doom of those splashed with the gel.
EMP Crisis Series (Book 3): Instant Mayhem Page 38
