“We should split up,” Stan told him, loading his AR with a magazine full of rounds. The other men did the same.
Wyatt agreed. “Stan, you take Weeks and Larson and circle around west. I’ve got Tubbs and Sandoval and we’ll cover east. I’ll work my way up top and see if I can’t take some of these fuckers out.”
“What about me?” Ray Austin asked. The lone greenhorn in the group.
Wyatt grabbed the former college sprinter turned prepper by the collar. “I have a very important mission for you.”
“Whatever you need me to do, I won’t let you down, Wyatt,” the twenty-four-year-old said in a deep, gravelly voice.
Wyatt took the semi-auto rifle from the rookie and gave him a .45 pistol instead, then handed Austin a set of keys, plus five empty magazines and a box of fifty shells.
“As soon as we clear the back, I want you to go to the motor pool and take my truck east. Stay off the main roads and go find my sister. Don’t stop for anything, you hear me? Nothing!”
Austin nodded, but his eyes weren’t sure. “What about the fence?”
“Don’t stop for anything, not even the fence. There’s a map with coordinates in the glove box and a stash of weapons and ammo behind the seat. Tell her what’s happening here and make sure she’s on full alert. If I’m right and this is the Carnegie brothers, they might decide to head to Pandora for some long overdue payback. But most of all, tell her to stay put until I come find her.”
Austin’s eyes pinched, giving a look of confusion. “If the Carnegie brothers are headed her way, shouldn’t she bug out?”
“No, they’d find her. She needs to use her secure underground bunker. Tell her to dig in with the guns you’re bringing and wait for me. Got it?”
The man nodded and seemed content with the mission, which surprised Wyatt. Austin was eager to learn and eager to fight, always asking questions and never satisfied with all that he’d accomplished thus far. He’d only joined the group a few weeks prior and hadn’t had the chance to complete all of their tactical training sessions. Plus his long range accuracy needed work, so Wyatt didn’t want him involved in the skirmish outside. He’d be cannon fodder.
Austin stood back and waited for the rest of the team to load up and head for the rear exit, then he followed behind, exactly as Wyatt wanted him to.
“This is it, boys. Keep your heads down and remember your training, and don’t forget to breathe. Short, controlled bursts and watch your flanks,” Wyatt told everyone in a command whisper as they stood inside the rear exit.
“If it moves, shoot it. Don’t think twice,” Golding added. “Time to get some!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Former sprinter Raymond Austin kept his head down while the thundering echoes of gunfire rang out behind him as he ran into the barn where Jericho’s vehicles were parked. The rest of camp was engaged in a firefight with an unknown amount of insurgents, while his mission was to slip away and take Wyatt’s truck to Pandora.
Wyatt told him not to stop for anything and that’s exactly what he planned to do, as soon as he figured out which vintage Chevy truck in the motor pool was Wyatt’s. The fleet of trucks all looked the same to him and truth be told, he’d never paid attention when they were in use. He thought they were common property and not assigned to specific drivers.
He set the .45 and ammo aside, then took Wyatt’s keys in his trembling hands and tried sticking the largest one into the door lock of the first vehicle. The key went in, telling him it was a truck key, but it wouldn’t turn. He wished these trucks were much newer models with remote keyless entry, then he could press a button and the chirp would tell him which one was Wyatt’s. It took three more attempts, but he finally found Wyatt’s truck.
The paint was peeling across the hood where the red stripes met the white, and passenger seat opposite him was torn down the middle, but the rest looked to be in good shape.
He climbed in and opened the glovebox, finding the map Wyatt had told him about. He unfolded it and found a circled dot with a notation written below it in red ink: Pandora. He traced the route back to Jericho, memorizing the locations of the waypoints for the various trails and dirt roads connecting the two locations.
Austin hopped out of the truck, grabbed the stuff Wyatt had given him and tossed it onto the passenger seat. The seat release lever was down by his right knee. He pulled it up, sending the bench seat forward. Sure enough, there was a stash of three stainless steel handguns plus a dozen boxes of 9mm Hornady Critical Defense ammo—hollow points.
He put the seat back, then hopped into the driver’s seat and put the key into the ignition. The engine fired up on the first try. A second later, the column shifter was in reverse, allowing him to back up until the hood was angled at the back door of the barn.
Wyatt told him to stop for nothing, so he put the transmission into drive and jammed on the gas, sending the historic beast racing for the huge sliding door. The front bumper and grille tore through the gray-colored wood, breaking him free. The eastern fence was only a hundred yards away, but the terrain was uneven along the way, sending him bouncing up and down inside the cab as the truck did its best imitation of an out-of-control slalom racer at the Olympics.
When the fence arrived, he noticed a pile of rocks just beyond its perimeter. His hands gripped the steering wheel and turned it to the right. The truck swerved and smashed through the chain link fence and barely missed the pile of rocks on the other side.
The middle section of the fence and its razor wire was now laying on top of the cab and hanging down along the sides, dragging in the dirt. He was scraping metal across the property, making a horrendous clanking and clinking noise in the process. He thought about getting out and manually removing the fencing, but Wyatt said to stop for nothing, so he ignored the obstruction and kept driving.
The first dirt road was about a thousand yards away, then he’d turn right and drive about ten miles before he’d make the second turn. Austin prayed something along the ground would grab the fencing and rip it from the vehicle; otherwise it would be a noisy, slow trip the rest of the way.
* * *
Wyatt worked his way around the back of the main house with his squad mates Tubbs and Sandoval tight on his six. Each man was armed with an assault rifle and a holstered sidearm, but carried a limited amount of ammo. There wasn’t time to gear up with everything they needed, so they’d quickly snatched what they could before cutting across the back of the compound, making it to the rear of the house.
Gunfire was still echoing across the landscape, but it seemed to be less intense than before. Wyatt wasn’t sure why and truth be told, it didn’t matter. He needed to get himself and his team into position.
“Tubbs, you’ve got point. Work your way around to the kitchen and provide support for the other teams. Sandoval, you cover him. I need you guys to work your way into position like we trained. Remember to slice the pie. Search, identify, clear. There’s only two of you, so it changes your points of domination. You need to adjust and work together.”
Both men nodded, their chests heaving and eyes filled with a mix of fear and excitement. He knew he had their attention, but their unchecked adrenaline was fighting for control.
“On contact, maintain interlocking fields of fire and don’t hesitate,” Wyatt said, making eye contact with each man. “Remember, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Now, go!”
Wyatt waited until they made it around the corner, then it was time for him to move. His destination: the single person observation deck on the third floor. It was stationed adjacent to the front attic space, near the highest peak of the home. It offered a wide angle view of the front of the property—the perfect spot for a determined sniper.
There were two ways to get to the observation deck: from the front of the home using an extension ladder, or through the inside, using a secret passage he and his men had constructed. Since the front of the house was taking fire, he’d never get a ladder in place and make the climb wit
hout being killed. That left only one choice—the secret passage.
He entered the back door with his rifle in a firing position, knowing he couldn’t assume the home was free of threats. He’d have to search and clear each area as he went, moving quickly but safely.
The kitchen was first. He crept along the cabinets on the right, then went past the center island and around it until he was at the sink next to the fridge, each time swinging his weapon in the same direction as his eyes. He didn’t find any contacts.
Up next was the main hallway on the first floor. It ran the full width of the house and split the floor plan in half. To the left was the master bedroom and to the right were the stairs leading to the second floor.
He went right, keeping low while he entered, searched, and cleared both of the first floor bedrooms along his path. Again, no threats identified, so he pressed on, checking his six every few seconds in case someone was closing on him from behind.
He made his way to the staircase and worked his way up to the first landing, keeping the barrel of his AR active and engaged. He swept the landing, then swung his feet around and completed the climb to the second floor. Again, no tangos.
There was a closed door on his right. Wyatt grabbed its knob, turned it, and swung it open.
Just then a phrase entered his mind—the fatal funnel—a term his grandfather had used almost daily during their long training sessions.
He remembered the words well. “Every doorway is a fatal convergence point,” his grandfather would preach, “where most of a threat’s firepower will be directed.”
He stepped back to keep a safe distance from the threshold as his training took over. He turned his feet and hips to slim his profile, then sidestepped slowly to work through the field of view a few degrees at a time. Inch by inch he went, staying in the hallway as he slid over to expose and search more and more of the center-fed room. It only took about thirty seconds to complete the 180-degree tactical maneuver known as Slicing the Pie.
No furniture and no targets were inside the empty bedroom, so he went through the doorway and stepped to the right, heading along the path of least resistance to establish his primary point of domination, just like he’d been trained.
Wyatt kept his weapon high, working his way along the bedroom wall until he came to the sliding closet door. He opened and cleared the closet, then grabbed the hangers and pushed a smattering of old flannel clothes and coveralls out of the way. He pressed his hand along the back wall, releasing a hidden, spring-loaded door from the magnets holding it closed.
The door popped open and he stepped through, crouching low to squeeze through the opening and enter the hidden compartment. He turned and repositioned the clothes on their hangers in the closet, then pulled the hatch closed for concealment.
Wyatt could still hear the occasional burst of gunfire, but it wasn’t nearly as intense as before. He turned sideways in the passageway built into the wall, then inched along in the direction of a walled-off, ten-by-ten-foot storage space known by his men as Rally Point G. Others would have called it Grandma’s attic since that’s technically what it was, but he needed to give it a more tactical sounding name. Something outsiders wouldn’t understand in case they overheard a conversation or picked up some crosstalk.
A year earlier, he and his men had covered up access to the attic space by constructing fake walls to create the hidden area. They needed a secure location within the residence that could be used as both a secret weapons cache and as a designated fallback point in case the home was breeched.
They could’ve made the corridor inside the wall wider, but chose not to since it would’ve taken too much depth away from the bedroom. Someone might have noticed the room was much too shallow in relation to its exterior walls, and would’ve started investigating. In the end, they’d decided that concealment was more important than ease of movement.
He made it to the attic space, passing through the split in the wall that had been left open for access. Half the room was filled with supplies such as candles, matches, water and cans of food, plus there was a stockpile of ammo and guns in the corner. His hands were already full, so he skipped the ammo pile for now and went to the only window in the room—a flip-style, circular attic window. Its diameter was just large enough for a slender person like him to slip through it when it was swung open at the midpoint, and that’s what he planned to do.
A few seconds later, the glass pane was open and he was climbing through it with the help of a wooden chair and his extra long legs.
When his feet landed on the single-person observation deck, he dropped to his belly and crawled to the left, keeping low until he had eyes on the front gate and the area beyond.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Wyatt wasn’t hearing gunfire at the moment and wondered what was happening. He used the Vortex 3x9 optics on his AR-10 to glass the area in front of the house, needing to identify targets and assess the situation.
He counted eleven heavy duty trucks—all of them with chrome push bars across the front grilles. They were dual axle, crew cab Ford F350s and each looked to be sitting without a driver even though their tailpipes were puffing smoke. Their color used to be white, but with the menacing weather, the white was now mostly a pink smear.
They’d been positioned in a semi-circle about thirty yards beyond the front gate, each parked at an angle perpendicular to the front of the property. Some of the trucks had bullet holes in their side panels and doors, indicating Wyatt’s men had sent rounds their way. Yet, at the moment, Jericho’s men weren’t firing, but neither were the men beyond the gate.
Wyatt could see the tops of at least two dozen clean-shaven heads, each keeping low behind the uninvited trucks and dripping with red rain. He didn’t know who these bald men were, but they weren’t the long-haired hillbillies known as the Carnegie brothers.
Out to the right, he saw three empty RPG launch rigs lying in the red mud blanketing the area. He knew about two of the rocket propelled grenades; both had been fired at Jericho’s ham radio tower earlier while he and his men were inside the barn checking the contents of the UPS delivery. He wondered where the other RPG had been sent.
His optics blurred into a runny red glob, making him take his eyes away to wipe off the lens on the far end. He looked through the scope—the view was clear again.
He swung it around and surveyed the property to the left, but didn’t see any signs of damage. He turned the scope out to the right, searching the far property line. His vision found the stand of telephone poles that had been installed by the phone company back in the nineteen-forties. However, five of them were no longer standing erect.
The pole in the middle had been severed into two pieces, leaving a stump rising up from the ground, and the upper section was lying flat on the ground.
The other four poles were intact, but leaning over—one almost touching the ground. Some of their wires were dangling free, obviously pulled loose from the adjacent poles when the middle one was taken out by the RPG.
The facts lined up in his brain. The men outside the gate had taken out communications first, which is what he would’ve done, too. First the ham radio antenna, then the landlines.
Tactically, it was an important first step and usually done prior to an incursion. It would help keep the persons holed up inside from calling for reinforcements or law enforcement. That was true unless, of course, those inside carried handhelds.
However, the range of a portable was limited and since they were dozens of miles from the nearest city, their usefulness was minimal. That’s one of the reasons why Wyatt and his men chose the ham radio setup for communications. Well, that and the fact that none of them wanted to carry cell phones due to GPS tracking by the government and its spies.
The use of a landline was out of the question, too, since all of the country’s copper lines were now under NSA jurisdiction and too easy to monitor, shut down, and control at a moment’s notice.
He didn’t understand why the i
nsurgents were holding position and not attacking. They clearly had overwhelming numbers and should’ve been flanking out in preparation for a multi-vectored attack. But they weren’t.
It was as if they were waiting for something. Or someone. Or perhaps they didn’t know what they were doing. It was possible they rolled up on the scene expecting to overrun Jericho easily with a few RPGs and some firepower. But when his men pushed back, they held to reassess.
He trained the scope’s reticle on one of the bald men who was now moving behind the trucks. Wyatt kept his finger extended near the trigger but not on it as he tracked the man moving from vehicle to vehicle, stopping for about twenty seconds before advancing.
Wyatt thought he may have been the man in charge, working his way through the rest of the hairless, delivering orders.
Had the firefight been active, he would’ve taken a shot by now. However, since the situation was relatively calm, he decided to wait and gather more intel before engaging. He knew he’d only get off one or two shots before they zeroed in on his position and returned fire. So he needed to choose his first target wisely.
Twice during the leader’s movements, Wyatt caught a glimpse of the man’s clothing and weapon—jeans, white dress shirt covered in runny streaks of red from the rain, and an assault rifle with optics. The weapon was nothing out of the ordinary, though given the civilian trucks and the casual dress code, he figured these men were amateurs and not trained operators. If his assumption was true, then he expected to eventually see a few shotguns and hunting rifles in the mix, too.
His conclusions seemed to make sense, and they did explain the current lack of aggression. The men outside may have received their own unexpected UPS shipment of guns, ammo, and RPGs, then decided to take to the streets for whatever reason.
But why attack Jericho?
There had to be easier targets along the way.
Redfall: Fight for Survival (American Prepper Series Book 1) Page 18
