“Hold up here,” Ian said, and the driver stopped.
“This isn’t your command,” Tops threatened.
“I know, I know. I have a suspicion that I want to verify, if you don’t mind.”
“This has just become a war zone, not a lab so you can experiment.”
“Yeah, but what kind of war, Tops?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we have all been trained to operate in combat situations, just like they have set themselves out to do.” Ian indicated the multiple targets who had taken refuge behind vehicles and buildings to protect themselves. “However, none of us has been trained to fight as hordes of infected who want to eat you converge on you from behind.”
They all paused to take this in as they watched the shooting in front of them. The brick facade on the safe house was already getting pockmarked, and some of the brick was crumbling away to show the concrete block underneath.
“We have infected coming up behind us, Tops,” Buckley said.
“Wait,” Ian jumped in. “Everybody stay quiet and still, and they will pass us by for the fire fight up ahead of us.”
Just as Ian said, the infected either ran or lumbered by, drawn by the bangs and bright flashes ahead of them. When the first North Korean was taken down from behind with a scream of terror, the infected became even more excited, and the air filled with the desperate feeding scream that Ian had been running from for almost twenty-four hours now.
“One just got an RPG out of his rig,” Buckley said in a nervous tone.
“Fuck, that will expose the entirety of my group to the infected, and most of our supplies will be lost,” Ian said.
“I got this. Buckley… you start rolling east and I will open up on them,” Tops said and crawled up into the turret. It only took a few moments before the sounds of the machine gun on the turret started to rake through the line of vehicles and any infected still two blocks away. Ian smiled when he saw the surprise and fear of the combatants as they rushed for cover amongst the buildings. But Tops didn’t stop there; he proceeded to shoot the vehicles to the point where it would be fruitless to try to use them for an escape, and the North Koreans knew it. Unfortunately, they also made themselves a target for the infected, who started to swarm toward Ian’s group.
“Take a left here, and we will swoop around and come into the safe house in the back at another angle. I think the Koreans are done here for the day,” Ian said, and Buckley started down the avenue at a breakneck forty miles per hour.
Tops was down in the MRAP with them when they heard the telltale plunks of rounds on metal as they passed through an intersection.
“We’ve got company a block west and trying to get ahead of us,” Johnson said.
“Let them gain their advantage, Buckley,” Tops said. “Johnson, you take the turret and I’ll feed you a new belt. Buckley, keep doing what you’re doing.”
“Roger.”
Buckley slowed right after the next intersection, letting the pursuit outpace them as Johnson prepared his set.
“We got headlights six blocks back.” Buckley was referring to another vehicle that had joined in on the chase, but Tops didn’t hear her, as he was listening to his coms.
“Copy,” was all he said into his mic before turning back to Buckley. “As soon as Johnson clears the way, get us around that corner to the left. There are six vehicles in pursuit as of this moment, one looking to be from the safe house.” He then turned to Ian. “Get your people to stand down and return to the safe house because we’re going to light this town up like it’s New Year’s Eve.”
“Roger. Toby…” Ian said into his mic.
“Nope, Kinsey this time around. Over.”
“Kinsey, shut it down and return to base. I have the major leagues here who want their turn at bat.”
“Ah, that explains the rotary wings. Roger that, Ian… see you soon. Out.”
“The ball’s in your court, Tops.”
“Not my court, Mister McCollister.” He pointed up as the percussions of blades that could be felt more than heard passed overhead. “Two RAH-66 Comanche with full stealth capabilities will be more than enough to take out the other four.” Then he held up his hand to stifle a response as he listened to his coms taking intel from the helicopter pilots.
“The bastards are on to us. Buckley, left at a hundred percent and try and come around behind them.” Tops then shouted up to the turret. “Johnson, you hang tough up there, it’s going to get rough.”
Buckley was moving before Tops even finished the order, the procedure implanted in her head before the situation arrived.
“Roger, Tops!” she shouted back over the wind, in spite of her mic, causing the team leader to wince.
“Comanche setting the anvil due west, looks like we’re the hammer,” Johnson said, acting as observer of the ground situation from the turret.
Buckley took a hard right, trusting the harness to keep Johnson safe, followed by another hard right.
Since the street lights were still functioning, thanks to the nuclear power plant, night vision goggles would be useless, but there was enough light to drive without headlights. Ian didn’t know if the North Koreans saw them; he only knew that they got the drop on them. He could barely make out the ghostly visage of the RAH-66 as it squared up directly in front and above the Koreans, spraying it with M60 fire, forcing them to keep their heads down before peeling off to the south.
“Copy,” Tops said into his mic. “Open fire, Johnson.” Tops said after the helicopter was clear.
Ian felt the recoil vibrating through the MRAP as multiple high-caliber rounds chewed through the armor plating on the foreign APC, decimating everything inside. In seconds it was nothing but a lump of steel, where the only things moving were dust, smoke, and steam.
“Nice work, people. We wait for clean up before moving on; the birds got it from here,” Tops said. said, quite pleased with how smoothly things had gone—until he looked at his crew. They had never seen combat against uninfected, and they weren’t in the office to hear why they took on this battle.
“Johnson and Buckley, I need you two to listen to me very carefully. It has recently come to our attention that the infection that did this to everyone was a deliberate attack upon the United States by North Korea and an unknown ally, suspected to be Iran.”
He paused to let that sink in before continuing.
“Don’t regret what we had to do here today; it is only the tiniest measure of payback. They deserve so much more. If we killed every single person in both countries, it would still be less than what they have done here, in Canada, in Western Europe, as well as in most of Mexico. They got it coming, and we’re going to collect what is owed.”
Remorse left the soldiers’ faces to be replaced with a rage so great they could hardly contain it. “Roger, team leader,” they both replied.
Ian shook his head in shock. But then why would he be surprised that the National Guard had more intel on a global scale than he could get? Canada, Western Europe, and Mexico? If they took those out, it was only safe to assume that they took out Australia and New Zealand too.
There are tears of pain, tears from great loss, as well as tears of utter sorrow… and then there are tears of rage. Retribution would belong to them, or they would die in the process—at this point, they really didn’t care which, and that made them lethal.
Ian noticed that Tops was listening to someone through his coms then heard him say, “Copy.” To his crew, Tops said, “There is one trying to limp home, heading south on North Scottsdale Road. There were six, and the birds are claiming five-and-a-half. It’s up to us to get the other half of six.”
“Roger, team leader,” Buckley said and pulled away from the wreckage.
“Dropping a bridge in front of them. Captain wants prisoners, and ground support is inbound.”
Ian hit his coms. “Kinsey, are you back at base?”
“Negative.”
“You’re followin
g that limper, aren’t you?”
“As much as that eye-in-the-sky will let us.”
“Stick to it. I’ll see if I can get them to free you up some. We need a couple of live ones,” Ian said.
“Copy. They’re not staying with us.”
“No, they aren’t. The National Guard is in the game now, and they are knocking it out of the park. Let the birds do their work, and you clean it up. No injuries.”
“Copy. Nice hearing your voice again, boss. Found some Johnnie Walker Black to celebrate your return.”
“My favorite. I’ll have company, so make sure there is lots of ice.”
“Copy that.”
“Ew, I don’t like scotch,” Johnson said, only to receive a look of contempt from his team leader.
They pulled out on North Scottsdale Drive to see tail lights moving slowly south. The distance was considerable, and Ian didn’t think their MRAP could catch them before they reached the airport, not without help, anyway.
Ian, Ty, and Macy all unintentionally ducked as three Comanches flew over them from behind, so low the bellies of the aircraft should have torn off the machine gun mounted in the turret. Moving as ghostly shadows, they advanced quickly on the fleeing vehicle, overtaking it in matter of seconds. Then the horizon lit up with rocket fire as the three birds destroyed the pavement in front of the armored vehicle, forcing it to stop and begin a three-point turn.
Ian decided Kinsey must have been waiting within the blast, for she instantly brought one of their pilfered military rigs from the safe house up and behind the fugitive vehicle, boxing it in. Having identical marking as the vehicles they were in, the soldiers must have thought their salvation was here. They jumped from their own rig, trying to get to the vehicle they thought was there to rescue them, only to be met with automatic weapons in their faces and shouted orders to stop and drop.
Four men stopped and stared at the truck in surprise, obviously not understanding the language. Jose dropped one, and they shouted the order again. This time the remaining soldiers dropped flat to their bellies with their hands outstretched.
“Friendlies on our right and six, team leader,” Buckley said.
“Copy. Pull up several feet away and give them room to secure the prisoners.”
“Copy.”
“When your people are done, Ian, we will follow them back to your safe house and see what comes next.”
“Copy that, team leader. This was a fun little trip home, I would have to admit.”
“Indeed, it has been, sir. However, I can’t help but feel this was only a tiny taste of what’s coming.”
“It is at that, Tops. Life has suddenly become more interesting than running and hiding from infected,” Ian replied.
“Strangely, I can’t decide if that is good or bad… for now, I am thinking it is a good thing. We have a lot of anger issues to work out.”
“Say, what is up with the whole ‘team leader’ thing? I’ve never heard that rank before.”
“It’s a long story that involves loss of family and an old soldier trying to find a home where he once lived. Maybe I’ll tell it to you over some Johnnie Walker.”
“Copy that, Team Leader Tops. I am sorry for your loss,” Ian said.
“Yes, well, we have all lost a lot in the last month. It is time to get some payback, I would say.”
“Copy that,” everyone in the MRAP said in unison.
Chapter Twelve
Scottsdale Arizona, May 4th
Ian finished relating the story of his escape from the convention center and his subsequent journey through the city. Getting stabbed by a young girl seemed to be a point of comedy more than one of concern, which bothered Ian a little bit, even though he somewhat expected it. Everyone listened to him and had no issues with him being in charge; however, they never took him too seriously and knew from the get-go that he was prone to fuck-ups without others around him. The number-one reason he hired the best and most expensive on the market was because he wasn’t infallible.
His team of four was as good as any combat unit out there; they all knew their job and played no games—except for Toby, that is. Every group needs someone like Toby, bigger and stronger than most with an IQ of over one fifty and zero aspirations to be anything more than he already is.
Ian was pondering his team and the implications of losing Jose. He was the best trained and battle savvy of the lot of them, including Ian, who had spent ten years in the service… the last six as an Airborne Ranger. It was a hard blow, yet the irony struck him. Prior to the world going to shit, Toby had the option to work in his family’s company at any time, and Kinsey had a multitude of other options, due to her skill sets and training. Hell, even Ian had other offers on the table, but Jose really didn’t. He was lost or trapped in another world that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, leave. Most would view it as a type of PTSD but none of the team would. He was trained to be what he was cut out to be, a soldier… a warrior. He was just doing the job that he was meant to do and as long as his body still worked he would do it.
Jose had a hard time slowing down to doing simple security work, but it was enough to keep him relatively sane. Now, with the infected issue and the North Koreans, it had flipped the scene for him. Where everyone’s options disappeared, Jose’s broadened to a point where he was now the most desired commodity on the planet, at least to Ian.
Ian had been back at base for a day and a half when Captain Ricoh showed up at their door. Their group inside the safe house had already grown to almost eighty survivors, some of them healthy, some even strong, but all of them determined. There was a constant guard two blocks out in every direction, clearing out infected as they wandered into what they had begun calling the Zone. The National Guard would patrol for larger groups of infected with drones and night spectrum optics. Twice already, masses of thirty and more had been eliminated or distracted before they ever got past the outer lines of the Zone. And smaller groups were taken out in ground assaults with melee weapons to keep the noise down.
Ian, Kinsey, and Toby had stayed out of the conversation concerning the supply depots. He had turned the list over to people he knew were legitimate United States military, and they were instantly emailing copies to the ragged remains of society after they had converted them to maps. In other words, anyone who had Internet now had access to a list of enemy supply depots. If a renegade group found the map, it was assumed the resources would be better in their hands than an invading force. At least, that was the reasoning of the brass still in charge, who happened to be, from what they could tell, an old semi-retired colonel who had sat behind a desk for fifty years and was very much out of touch with the real world.
Ian and his team weren’t so sure about his reasoning; bad people with heavy guns is a recipe for disaster. He regretted even telling them about the supply depots, but it was too much for him to tackle on his own. There was no way he could keep the NORKs out of even one of these caches, let alone the variety spread around the country. To keep it secret when there is such dire need made no sense. So as it was, every entity they could come up with throughout the North American continent had an email from the Phoenix Air National Guard waiting to be opened and read.
Of course, he did keep one list for himself.
When Captain Ricoh arrived with his typical retinue, carrying maps and other assorted papers in a vintage-style leather satchel. “Ian, if you and your team would be so kind as to join us,” he said, as if Ian had been avoiding all the planning sessions by his own choice. Instead, despite the success of Team Leader Tops and Ian’s collaboration against the North Koreans, they didn’t seem to warm to him or his crew. They viewed Ian’s people more as a mercenary group than security professionals, and he noticed every time they talked situations, his opinions weren’t asked for.
“Of course, Captain,” Ian said, and his team moved to the center of the room.
“We did some recon on the airport and found that they are a skeleton crew of thirty—thirty left af
ter the other night, so we figure it was fifty or so to start. Very few are combat troops. It seems to be more of a construction team, sent here to establish infrastructure.”
“I wonder how many other airports around the country have the identical crews prepping them for invasion,” Ian said.
“O’Hare is the only one we have intel on, via short wave. It is inconceivable that they could occupy each individual airport in one shot, so we have to figure out what their plan is,” Captain Ricoh said.
“I don’t suppose your interrogations have turned anything up?” Ian asked, always having believed that torture never worked.
“Not sure. They didn’t seem reluctant to talk, but that’s because they don’t really know anything about the military end of things, being more like contractors. They are here to build a staging base for the preservation crew. What that means, we don’t know. We do know that there are several scientists and physicists coming our way in the next day or two, and I can’t for the life of me understand why. Why not send in troops and decimate the rest of us?”
“You say they called it a preservation crew or team?” Toby plied and then got an intense look on his face as he pondered the nods.
“What is it, Tobes?” Kinsey asked her teammate.
“Preservation team is what’s wrong. We have always assumed that the NORKS were nothing but a group of barbarians hellbent on taking down Western civilization, and for the most part, that is true… except the barbarian part.”
“What do you mean?” the captain asked.
“I mean that…” Toby searched for the words. “Okay, the very attack to begin with was smart, silent, ruthless, and almost complete. Hell, ninety percent of the populace was gone before we even put together that it was an attack.”
“I am guessing you have a point to make with this line of reflection,” Tops said.
“Absolutely. They want our country, our resources, water, and its ability to produce food. They don’t want to fight armies or work around flaming refineries or deal with nuclear fallout from one of the many facilities we have across the country. Hence, the preservation team.”
For Which We Stand: Ian's road (A Five Roads To Texas Novel Book 3) Page 15
