by Mark Rounds
“Do not let them leave,” said Nergüi. “We will be there shortly.”
June 6th, Saturday, 10:23 am PDT
Airborne West and North of Othello, WA
“Sir, I have the van,” said Sergeant Alred.
“Roger that sir,” said Sergeant Rausch. “The drone is lasing it. Do we have clearance to fire, sir?’
“Negative,” said Andy. “That is the prize. We need to capture them alive continue observation.”
Andy switched channels on the intercom to the cockpit circuit.
“Mission Commander to pilot,” said Andy, “Captain Wallace, what is our ETA to LZ alpha?”
“We are still a bit over five miles out, sir. We will be over the target area in less than two minutes. From this altitude, I can set down within thirty seconds after you tell me where.”
Andy switched over to the general channel.
“We will be on the ground in approximately two minutes,” said Andy. “We need to capture the occupants of the SWAT van you were briefed on. The secondary objective is to ensure the safety of Captain Strickland and his party. See you all on the ground.”
“Sir!” said Sergeant Alred. “The target vehicle has stopped and there are three heat signatures leaving it.”
“Alred, said Andy, “this is when you earn your pay. Track those people. Don’t lose them.”
“Roger that sir,” said Sergeant Alred.
“Rausch!” said Andy, “as soon as the targets clear the van, blow it. I don’t want them having a ride out.”
“Good as gone, sir,” said Sergeant Rausch.
“Colonel, you are not going to like this one,” said Sergeant Alred as he adjusted his display. “There are eight to ten heat signatures off to the west and behind the area around the Stricklands’ car. Behind that there is a group of five or six heat signatures and some are smaller, like kids sir.”
“Damn and blast!” said Andy. “Major Eveleth, we are going to set you down as close to that van as we can. You and your two teams plus Sergeant Alred will have ten seconds to unass this bird and capture those individuals.
“Captain Wallace, then you will get this bird in the air as soon as we have dropped the Special Forces teams and get as close to those children as you can. The rest of us to include me will do our damnedest to protect those kids. Inform your door gunners that they will fire for suppression, not to kill hostiles. We don’t have good enough fire control to keep from killing the targets of this exercise or the Strickland party. Any questions?”
June 6th, Saturday, 10:23 am PDT
North of Othello, WA
Macklin incredulously saw the SWAT van drive around the burning bus and stop not fifty yards from his location. The sniper that had been keeping him pinned down shifted fire and began hitting the van. The armor on the sides of the van was proof against .556 ammo but the heavier slugs that had been fired at him were now burrowing into the armor of the truck. Then a round shattered the windscreen.
Nergüi and his henchmen piled out of the van and took cover in the sagebrush. They were only seconds out of the van before it blew up; another victim of the drone launched missile attacks. As it was armored, the first missile merely caved in one side. Nergüi and his escort low crawled over to where Macklin was hiding. The taller of his guards, Harðnefr, was hit by the sniper that was working him over and proved that the body armor was not proof against rifle fire. The slug hit the ground in front of Harðnefr and ricocheted up into his abdomen.
The stoic Nordic giant merely grunted, but Macklin could see that he was already starting to go into shock. His comrade rolled him over and saw the wound. The armor and the ricochet had taken much of the energy out of the round so it hadn’t penetrated far into his abdomen, but far enough.
The Native American warrior peeled off the plate from the armor in front of the wound and with an impossibly large knife cut away the coverall under the armored vest to expose the entry point. The impact with the hard ground and then the armor plate had flattened the bullet so the entrance wound was easily the size of a quarter. Seeing this, he then stripped a tampon out of its protective wrapper shoved it in the wound. That was followed with an antiseptic spray and a length of duct tape.
Harðnefr remained conscious and began employing his weapon, though his previously demonstrated skills were somewhat impaired.
Meanwhile, Nergüi took the change in direction of the fire and dove into the depression where Macklin was hiding.
“What in the Seven Hells of Tartarus is going on here?!” shouted Nergüi.
“We are under fire by a pretty good sniper,” said Macklin, a little more calmly. “What these druggies and ne’er-do-wells are attempting to do is beyond me. They are all higher than a kite and I can’t control them. Hell, I can’t even talk to them. This is what I was telling you about. Unless I have time to train these losers and develop some small unit leaders, they will continue to kick our asses.”
Just then, a second missile hit the van. This time the fuel tank ruptured and the first explosion was followed by a great gout of flame as the fuel ignited.
“What the hell is that?” said Nergüi, gesturing at the burning van.
“They have air support,” said Macklin. “It seems the government knows more about you than you thought. My best advice is for us to quietly escape to the rear. If they have missiles, they will likely have ground troops here in minutes.”
“Impossible,” said Nergüi. “Where is the girl?”
“Over there somewhere,” said Macklin, pointing to the other side of the road. “There are likely six or at most eight of them firing at us and she is one of them. Take your pick.”
Just then, the sniper got back into his groove and the next round blew dirt and pieces of rock into Nergüi’s face. He was incapacitated for a couple of seconds while he cleared his eyes. Then he fixed his Native American follower with a stare.
“Take out that sniper,” said Nergüi. “If you can find the girl after that, good, but get that sniper so we can move.”
The Karankawa native looked at Nergüi and acted out making a gun out of his hand, spraying across the front.
“I understand,” said Nergüi as he pointed his MP-5 outward. “We will lay down covering fire when you go.”
Macklin took his AR-15 and switched to full automatic. When the Karankawa nodded, both began to fire several short bursts in the general direction of the sniper. The Native American rolled out of the depression and sprinted to the Subaru. Two other shooters began to fire on him as he hid behind the car.
The Karankawa reached into his vest and pulled out a canister style grenade and rolled under the car. Soon, a dense cloud of orange smoke engulfed the area and using the cover the smoke, he moved quickly but silently forward.
June 6th, Saturday, 10:24 am PDT
North of Othello, WA
Connor had been using Chris’s M1 Garand to good effect. He had gone through almost fifty rounds trying to shoot Special Agent Macklin whom he loathed from their interaction in the jail before things all went to hell. Amy was lying next to him feeding him clips for the rifle and gathering as much brass as she could and all the clips that ended up within in her reach. She was still carrying the .45 that Dave had given her, but she was still unsure about shooting it.
Then the smoke blossomed from the Stricklands’ Subaru, and soon the air around them was filled with orange smoke. The firings died away to almost nothing as there were no visible targets.
“Connor, what’s happening?” asked Amy in a whisper.
“Hush,” said Connor, straining at the smoke, trying to see through it.
From out of the smoke, a large man with a face shield and full body armor appeared in front of Connor. Before he could move or even pull the trigger, a big boot kicked the M-1 down the hill and began firing at Connor with his MP5. Two rounds hit the ground next to Connor, but the third and fourth hit him low in the back and in the back of his upper thigh. The firing was abruptly stopped, however, when Amy beg
an firing Dave’s .45.
The first round from her pistol actually hit the MP-5, ripping it out of the Karankawa’s hands, disabling it, and slapping it back hard on the sling. The second round hit his face shield and while the big, slow round did not penetrate the shield, his visibility was almost nil from the spider web of cracks that instantly spread across the shield’s face. Other rounds peppered his body armor. The low velocity .45 caliber rounds did not have the punch to penetrate the armor but the impacts did distract him for a second.
Then the he yanked off the face shield and helmet and grabbed at the .45. Amy fired one more time, actually blowing off one of the Karankawa’s fingers before the rest of the hand closed on the .45 and wrenched the gun violently out of her hand and tossed it into the sagebrush. Whatever else he was going to do was lost when the big Chinook helicopter settled down behind the bus and the rotor wash blew away most of the smoke.
Connor, who was going into shock but still conscious, used the distraction to ram his dad’s survival knife into the Karankawa’s foot. The native warrior let out an involuntary scream as the blade punched through his boot into the hard ground below, but he was already reaching for his sidearm to defend himself. His hand never got to the gun for Mary, who could now see what was happening, began firing.
She fired four times. Most of the pellets from the shotgun embedded themselves in the body armor, knocking him off balance, and since one of his feet was fixed to the ground by the knife, he toppled to the ground. Several of the pellets from Mary’s shotgun had also hit him in the back of the head, dazing him.
Amy took a chance and used the confusion to grab the Indian's side arm, a Colt Delta Elite in 10mm. She cocked it the way Connor had shown her and then she stuck the muzzle into the startled Karankawa’s eye.
“Move! Sneeze! Twitch!” shouted Amy into the astonished face of Nergüi’s henchman, “and I will blow the top of your head off! Just try me!”
Chapter 7
June 6th, Saturday, 10:24 am PDT
North of Othello, WA
Major Eveleth and his teams piled out of the back of the Chinook. Sergeant Alred barely had time to get both feet on the ground before the big helicopter was in the air.
“Where are they, Alred?” shouted Eveleth.
“Sir,” said Alred looking at his laptop, “they are clustered in a depression to the east of the school bus.”
“Captain Lewis!” said Major Eveleth after catching the eye of one of the team commanders. “Take your team and suppress the Infected on our route. You are cleared to use lethal force as the targets are to the west.”
“Airborne sir,” said Capt Lewis with a grin.
However, there were few targets for the Captain’s troops to fire on. The arrival of the air support and the Chinook helicopter had taken most of the fight out of the criminals and ne’er-do-wells Macklin had rounded up. Most were crawling or running away as fast as they could. As they cleared the bus, they saw, for a moment, three armed men in a depression, all wearing body armor. Eveleth knew from the briefing they had received en route that the targets were armored up but the bulk of the other hostiles were poorly armed and no one else had armor. These were clearly their targets.
The view was obscured when two of the targets abruptly popped smoke. Eveleth withheld fire as he was under orders to capture them alive if possible. When the smoke reached them, they found out quickly that it also contained tear gas. Since the Chinook was gone, the smoke and gas lingered, so for twenty two precious seconds, the Special Forces troops took the time to don gas masks. When they got to the depression, only one of the targets was left and he was in no condition to talk to anyone.
June 6th, Saturday, 10:24 am PDT
North of Othello, WA
The Hammer had been following a number of the Infected who had attempted to get around the west side of the ambush the Strickland party had set up. He had fired several times with the Bennelli shotgun that Dave had tossed him. In truth, the Hammer wasn’t a very good shot. He fired the seven rounds that were held in the tube of the Bennelli and all of the 9mm in the pistol that Macklin had given him, killing or wounding four of the Infected on the flank and causing others to lose their nerve and head for parts unknown. A few of the Infected, a big ex-biker named Road Kill and three others, were still intent on getting at the kids in the Stricklands’ party.
Road Kill was an ex-biker because he had been high before the Plague and had crashed his ride into the side of a delivery van. After his stint in the hospital, he didn’t have the funds to purchase a new bike and his personal habits had alienated him from the rest of the biker subculture so no one would stake him to a new ride. He was what they called a ‘chester,’a child molester. He and his three buddies had been accused, but not convicted, of,several charges of sexually abusing various migrant workers’ children.
As they got closer to where the kids were hiding, Heather began firing at them with her 30-30. Heather was a good shot and one of the thugs was dropped with a well-placed shot to the head. But the weapon only held seven rounds and was hard to reload quickly, so as soon as the rifle was emptied, Road Kill and his remaining two friends jumped up and rushed her. Fiona, who still packed Dave’s Browning Hi-Power, opened up as they closed in and hit one of the thugs several times. Unfortunately, the biker was high on Slash and the 9mm was not immediately lethal, so he tackled Heather as she struggled to reload.
The second of them was hit several times by Katy with her .22 pistol. He was not high and took the pistol fire as a hint that he was not wanted and made himself scarce.
Little Ginger saw the man tackle her mom and did what any frightened eight-year-old would do - she took off running. Her twelve year old brother remembered how Connor, his personal hero, had dealt with the burning infected biker back home, took the same baseball bat and swung it with all his might, connecting with the biker's ribs as he went down, breaking at least one. His second blow landed across the back of his shoulders and the biker released Heather and tried to roll away, covering his head with his hands. Jason continued to hit him high and low. What he lacked in sophistication and any real martial arts training, he made up for with enthusiasm.
The combination of the 9mm pistol slugs in his body, Heather’s struggles, and Jason’s aggressive application of the baseball bat was too much for the thug, and he rolled off and tried to crawl away. Jason would have none of that and continued to beat him until he died moments later. However, the distraction had allowed Ginger to run out of sight, too far away, screaming too loudly, and too scared to hear her mom.
Road Kill did hear her and the combination of the drugs in his system, the nearness of the young girl, and the infection’s side effect of reducing cognition and self-control meant that he forgot all about Macklin’s promises. He changed direction to intercept the young girl to fill his dark desires.
Their path ran right in front of where the Hammer was hiding. Road Kill was a big man, over six feet five inches in his stocking feet. He was quite fat, but also strong and known as a barroom brawler. The Hammer was of slight build, perhaps five foot eight and a hundred and forty pounds when food was plentiful. After the Plague had broken out, he was even lighter.
However the Hammer had himself been abused as a child, and he was sure that whatever Road Kill plotted was not good, so he stood up and got between Road Kill and Ginger.
“Get out of my way, Hammer!” said shouted Road Kill as he attempted to side step. Road Kill was not very fast on his feet and so the smaller, lighter Hammer blocked him again.
“You fucktard, I’m gonna skin you!” said Road Kill, as he pulled a big Bowie knife from his waist.
The Hammer was not very good with guns. He was not a boy scout or a hunter and had never fired them much. But he was an amateur blacksmith at the house he had inherited from his mother and had made many of the knives that were so prevalent in the local drug culture, including the one he faced now, in the makeshift blacksmith shop in the shed of his along the alley.
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“I’ll skin you and gut you!” shouted Road Kill, “and then I’ll get that little girl too.”
“It’s through me, you big tub of lard!” shouted Hammer as he reached for the sheath at his hip. Hammer didn’t carry a knife, though he liked them very much. Instead he carried one of the tools of his trade, a twenty four ounce ball peen hammer which he now drew.
“What you gonna do with that?” laughed Road Kill as he came in to cut Hammer. But the Hammer wasn’t there. Years of pounding metal in his makeshift workshop at home had built whipcord muscles in the young man and he was able to stay out of the range of the big man with the knife. Then Road Kill overbalanced and leaned forward and that was all the opening that the Hammer needed.
The Hammer hit Road Kill on the head three times with his tool of choice before he hit the ground. The first blow gave Road Kill a concussion, knocking him out. The second dished in his skull and killed him, and the third drove his now lifeless corpse to the ground.
The Hammer was almost knocked over himself by the rotor wash as the big Chinook helicopter passed scarcely twenty feet over his head. A PJ in full combat gear fast roped out of the cargo door and caught up with Ginger, who was by now disappearing into the sunset. The chopper then settled down behind Heather, who was just getting to her feet. Out of the rear of the helicopter, eight armed men in ABU’s rushed forward to protect Heather and the kids. One of the young PJ’s saw Hammer standing in the field with his name sake and drew down on him with his M-4 thinking it was another Infected. Heather pushed the rifle aside.
“Don’t shoot him,” shouted Heather over the roar of the helicopter. “He’s one of us, they call him the Hammer.”
“I’m good with that,” said the PJ who had watched the Hammer take out the bigger, stronger man with his tool of choice with more than a little admiration.
June 6th, Saturday, 10:24 am PDT
North of Othello, WA
“Colonel,” said Sergeant Rausch, “Alred reports that they have lost visual contact with the target.”
