“We haven’t heard any radio transmission in a while, what do you think that means?” Emma asked from the back seat. With no response from Clark or Dukes, she piped up the question for a second time. “What’s up with the radio transmissions? Do you think you know where they are, or what?”
It took a while, but Dukes finally voiced an answer. “Yeah, I have a feeling where they are.”
“I sure hope you’re not just placating me, so, are you going to tell us, or what?” She was frustrated with this whole military solidarity bullshit! She had had about as much sniper box, tracker scout bullshit as she could take for the day.
Dukes glanced into the review mirror at his passenger before answering. She noted that he swallowed hard and glanced sideways towards Clark before answering.
“I think they’ve crossed the river at a ford that I think was washed out several days ago. So, the options are, they are on the other side of the river, or they drove off into a hole in the river and God only knows. But beyond that it’s only a feeling.”
Emma took that in and then nodded that the information was better than not. “So, how far is the river?”
“About five or six miles if we stay on the fire break road.”
Clark looked up at the ceiling of the SUV as if he was doing some sort of higher math in his head. “But, we were close to bingo fuel before we made it to your place, so they couldn't get that far. Even if they crossed the river,” Clark surmised as he scanned the terrain with a set of binoculars. “If they kept running at this pace, I don't think they would make it another ten or fifteen miles, tops!”
“Okay, but there are dozens and dozens of farms in this area, and most of them have their own diesel storage tanks,” Dukes said, moving the vehicle forward.
“It’s for the tractors,” Sergeant Shaw, the fourth occupant of the SUV, said, leaning left towards Emma. “The diesel fuel I mean.”
“Yeah, I figured,” she said, thinking that Shaw thought she was some sort of idiot. “You know I am a trained ER nurse, and not an idiot, right?” She was having a hard time controlling her emotions, and really didn’t mean to bite the soldier’s head off.
“Ah,” he shuffled in his seat. “Yes, ma’am, I do now. I didn’t mean anything like that,” he said, feeling the blood turn his cheeks red. “I’ve just spent a lot of time in this area, and, and, I just didn’t know if you had. Sorry.”
Emma caught Clark’s head turn around slightly to look at her, and she smiled internally. She wasn’t going for any jealousy angle, but, if it played to her favor, she wasn’t about to let it go without using it. “I understand,” she said flatly with a turn to look out her own window.
With little more than a few seconds of awkward pause, Clark asked Dukes, “If the river was flooded, where do you think they crossed?”
“Penny only knows about the one crossing she mentioned, and that’s at the ford. Besides that, I don't think she knows much about the terrain beyond the river. We’ve hunted deer up this way a few times, but unless she’s been 4-wheeling out here with friends on a camp out or something, I don't think she really knows this area all that well. We’re getting pretty deep into Alabama.”
“Well, since we’re moving north into the state, do you think your buddy in Birmingham, the short-wave radio guy, could give us any help?” Clark asked.
“Bob? I don’t know.” Dukes thought about that for a second. “He has a couple of sons and he’s one hell of a sniper in his own right, so maybe.”
“Can you call him from here?” Emma leaned forward with the question; her tone was very reigned in from her earlier demeanor.
Dukes navigated the red clay potholes on the firebreak road as he tried to push the speed as much as he could. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. I can try, or at least get them to call him from the home station. I’ll try.”
Dukes grabbed the wired microphone connected to the truck’s electrical system. He was proud of the radio in this vehicle, having made his own personal modifications to the communications gear. With a high level of confidence, he was convinced that any signal sent from this truck was as strong and good as military grade. He pushed the microphone, sending his voice out from the fifteen-foot whip antenna bent over the top of the truck. “Bob, this is Dukes, over.”
Silence filled the spaces in the Toyota vehicle as they waited for some sort of response.
“Birmingham Bob, this is Dukes, over.”
“Weren’t you guys just talking with him a few hours ago?” Emma asked.
“Yeah,” Clark answered, adding a nod. “But that was a different system.” “Wait, what’s that?” Dukes held his hand up for silence.
Static triggered on and off on the radio a few times as if someone was keying a microphone and letting it go. Both Dukes and Clark looked at each other like they knew someone was trying to talk to them. Dukes tried one more time.
“Birmingham Bob, this is Dukes, broadcasting remotely, over.”
The radio static stopped and was replaced by a young voice; it wasn’t Birmingham Bob.
“Hello, my name’s Tasha, Birmingham Bob was killed today by a Chinese helicopter raid on his farm. Who are you? Over.”
CHAPTER 21
With the gun now pointed at Cotton, Perez needed to act quickly. With as much power as she could muster, she brought her size nine military issue boots down on the foot of the man holding her. The pain was just enough for him to relax his grip from around her neck, and she ducked to the floor just as Cotton squeezed three rounds into the man’s chest.
“Are you okay?” Sergeant Fields asked, helping her up.
Perez grabbed the dead man’s pistol. “Yes. What the hell is going on?” She shut the door and locked it. She then edged up to the side of the window to look down onto the street. She could see three men, and the body of the policeman lying on the sidewalk. If there were any tenants around the residential building, they were in hiding for their safety.
“There are three more on the street. Check his pockets,” she whispered, still watching the street. “They look like they haven't touched the truck.”
“Good, we need to get to it and get the hell out of here,” he surmised, pulling a radio from the first victim and a spare magazine from the second.
“Do you have any other weapons?” Cotton asked, handing the extra magazine to Perez and taking a look at the street for himself. He swallowed a large bucket of rage at seeing the dead American cop. He knew he needed to check his emotion and think clearly if they wanted to make it out alive.
Perez ducked into one of the bedrooms and emerged with a civilian AR-15 and three magazines of ammunition. “It doesn’t have full auto, but it’ll hold its own in a fire fight.”
Cotton smiled. “Go, Air Force!”
“Aim High, right!”
“What about communications, my only radio is in the truck?”
“That sucks, what about the cell towers, do they work yet,” Perez asked, taking her phone out of her purse and trying to get them moving towards some sort of plan for survival. “Nothing! No bars, nothing! But, I have an idea,” she offered. “If we can get closer to the Pentagon, I bet we can pick up the Pentagon’s secure tower; it was never damaged during the EMP.”
“If we can get to the vehicle, I have a radio,” Cotton countered.
“But, its guarded, we need to shoot for a cell signal.”
“Okay, again, that might work,” he said, nodding at the logic. “Or, we could just fuck the comms, fight our way back to the Humvee and muster back to the Pentagon.”
Perez opened her mouth to respond, when the radio crackled. The voice was low and spoke in Russian.
“What’s he saying? That’s Russian, right?”
She nodded, and then leaned in to listen to the transmission. “He just asked Yuri,” Perez said, motioning to the dead man she took the radio from, “what's taking so long?”
“Good to know you speak Russian,” Cotton acknowledged, looking around. “We need a plan, cause this ain�
��t cutting’ it! I need either a way to fight or a way to evade. I’ll take whatever you suggest.”
“We need to get out of this building, and bust ass back to the Pentagon, or at least acquire the secure tower,” she said after several attempts at moving the phone to different locations in the apartment. “Those are our two options. Damn, it!”
“What about the roof?”
“Yeah, the roof, that might work.”
The Russian radio double clicked.
Cotton stiffened up at the noise. “That means they suspect something’s wrong, and they're coming up,” Cotton informed, moving towards the door.
“No, not the door, they’ll be in the stairwell. Quick, out here,” Perez said, taking his hand and leading him towards another bedroom.
Perez opened a window along the alley wall and looked up and down. “It’s the fire escape, they haven’t seen it yet. Let’s go!” She started climbing up.
"Are you sure we shouldn't go down and evade?"
"No, I need to call this in, and the roof is our best chance," she whispered as loudly as she could.
"Got it," he said, following her out the window. The stairs were rusty and didn't seem very stable. He looked down between the metal slats, mindful that with every step, the entire structure squeaked and rattled. Perez reached the top swiftly and threw her leg over the side of the building and onto the gravel roof. She knelt, covering the rest of the roof with her civilian rifle as Cotton climbed over.
“Let’s get to the next roof,” Cotton whispered, and took point. He moved to a bank of satellite dishes, and then waved her towards the other side of the roof. They could hear voices in the alleyway float up from the fire escape.
Both Cotton and Perez leapt over the firewall separating the two roofs of the connected buildings, and headed towards the rooftop stairway of the second building. They never heard the door open on Perez’s building rooftop stairway.
The first two shots ricocheted off of the brick surrounding the stairwell to the second building, and the third shattered the wooden doorframe just above Cotton’s head. Cotton shot the handle to the door and kicked in the metal passageway as Perez returned fire across the rooftop.
“Get in,” Cotton yelled at her. He took a shot as she dove in, pulling him along with her.
“Clear the stairs, I’m right behind you,” Cotton yelled, squeezing off several more rounds.
Perez moved down the stairs two at a time. She slung her rifle over her shoulder and drew her pistol to arm’s length; letting it lead the way down. Several of the brass casings from Cotton’s rounds pinged their way down the metal stairs past her, and that’s when she heard the voices at the bottom of the stairs.
Cotton fired another burst and then slammed the door closed. “Go!” he yelled, but she didn’t move. She held her hand in a fist to stop him as he pulled up next to her, his rifle at the ready. She put two fingers up and then pointed down the stairs. He nodded and motioned to a door for the third floor. She opened it quietly as he turned to back through, ready to cover their six. Once through the door, he closed it and followed Perez as she tried each of the apartment doors. They were all locked, and she looked back at him, her eyes wide as if to ask, ‘what do we do now?’
“The window at the end,” he motioned. She ran to the end of the hall as the voices in the stairwell increased in volume.
“There’s a fire escape,” she whispered back.
“Go,” he said, turning to run back towards the stairwell.
“Where are you going?”
“Just go,” he ordered from over his shoulder.
Perez stepped through the open window and crouched down, ready to fire on anyone in the hallway. She watched Cotton go to the closest door next to the stairwell and break it open. He ran in and then ten seconds later, he ran back out.
“I left them a cold trail. Go!” he whispered as he climbed through the window.
Perez descended the stairs rapidly, her pistol at the ready the entire time. She reached the ladder and pushed it down the last twelve feet just as the bullets started striking the structure around her.
“They didn’t bite! Com’on!” she yelled to Cotton as she jumped on the ladder.
Cotton watched her descend the ladder and then fired off a long burst before jumping on himself. Perez firing a few rounds, pinning their pursuers as Cotton jumped the last few feet and rolled across the ground, letting the move absorb his weight.
“That way!” he pointed.
Perez fired off one more round and then followed the soldier down the alleyway, towards his Humvee. Seconds later they rounded the corner to the fate of the dead officer lying on the sidewalk in a pool of blood.
“Holy, shit.” Cotton stopped long enough to process the needless murder. “Get in!”
Perez dove head first into the open door of the Humvee. Cotton was right behind her, diving into the driver’s seat. “Take the .50 Cal!” he yelled.
Perez popped up through the gunners opening on the roof, and tried to remember how to operate a mounted machine gun.
“Just pull the trigger back, it’s hot!” Cotton yelled starting the Humvee, and putting it in gear just as their pursuers rounded the corner. “Light 'em up!”
Perez felt the Humvee lurch forward and she fought to keep her balance as she rotated the mounted gun towards her targets. She squeezing the trigger and tried to force the bullets to go where she wanted them to go, but it was too difficult. It was like trying to hold onto the tail of a pissed off cheetah.
Cotton swerved to miss a stalled-out vehicle and then gunned the hummer; bullets bounced off of the green painted steel. Perez ducked for cover.
"Try again," Cotton yelled, as he cut the vehicle to the left, slinging Perez to the right.
"Shit! Okay!"
Perez climbed back up through the hole, grabbing the giant gun by the two handles for support. She swung the gun to the rear and found the sighting and range that she was looking, but again, she missed.
“I missed!” She yelled against the wind and noise of the vehicle. “Just get us back to the Pentagon, A-SAP!”
“Copy, that!” he yelled back.
CHAPTER 22
“We need fuel for the truck,” Penny said for the second time.
The man with the ranch rifle slowly stepped down the wooden boards of the farmhouse’s front steps. Each step creaked with the story that can only be told by a structure that held five generations of the same family.
Lucy felt Weed’s grip loosen from her shoulder, as he needed the hand to work his rifle. He had yet to raise the weapon, and Lucy took the advantage of not being restrained. She edged forward, slowly inching towards Penny.
“I live on the other side of the lake; these guys have taken us as some sort of prisoners. They’ll kill us if we don’t get the fuel, and they might kill you, too.” She wasn’t threatening in her tone, she was more matter of fact. For some reason, she felt very confident in her ability to handle the situation, even with her hands raised.
“They could try,” the man said, now less than fifteen feet from Penny; the rifle still pointed at her head.
Penny looked past the rifle and at the man holding the weapon. He wasn’t so much a man as he was an older teenager, or at least someone in his young twenties. His button-down short sleeved shirt was unbuttoned, hanging open and untucked; he was ripped. She raised her eyebrow at the sight, and thought that this could all play to her chess game of life and death.
“Hey,” it was Jack, he said, sliding out of the back of the vehicle and was closer to Lucy than he was to Penny, which was his plan.
Weed held his hand up to stop the boy from coming any closer, causing Jack to stop in his tracks.
“Aren’t you Dan Maddox?” Jack asked, looking at the guy with the ranch rifle pointed at Penny.
Both Penny and Lucy looked back at Jack. He was nodding and seemed to be throwing caution to the wind as he moved.
Weed said something to Jack that he didn't underst
and, but the tone of the warning was clear.
“Get back,” Joseph ordered in English. He briefly moved to bring his rifle up, but didn’t. He was confused with what was going on; the situation was laced with nuances. He felt culturally blunted, didn’t understand the chatter, and to him, it was spinning out of his control. He needed to get all of the children back into the vehicle, get the fuel and leave. Again, he had let the girl manipulate the situation. He needed to take control.
“The Alabama quarterback,” Jack insisted, disregarding the warnings from both Number Two and Joseph. “You know, national champions and MVP,” he said as if Penny should know what he was saying. “That’s you, isn't it?”
“Okay, how does that help?” Penny asked, shrugging at Jack. She turned back to the man holding the rifle. “Are you who he’s talking about?” Her eyes drifted back down to his six-pack as he flexed, and then she slowly realized that the boy was right.
“Yeah, that’s me, but you’re still not stealing our diesel fuel.”
“Figures,” Penny said, her tone snide. She knew she didn’t have much more time until Joseph or Weed lost it, taking matters into their own hands.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” the quarterback asked.
“Well, my dad played for Georgia back in his day, and he’d find a way to help you if you needed it. That’s how we roll in Georgia,” she said, thinking that this was a weak play. Insulting the guy with the gun, was not strategic, it was desperate.
Penny saw the muscles on Maddox’s cheek seem to relax and his eyebrows moved towards each other as if he had just puzzled the situation out. She also saw the corner of his mouth turn up. She squinted at him, and he winked at her as he lowered the rifle a few inches.
“You can have ten gallons,” he said, waiting on a reaction.
Weed seemed to know enough English to know that ten gallons wasn’t that much. He decided that it was time to take matters into his own hands, and raised his rifle with speed. In his mind, there would be no negotiations.
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