by Justin Bell
***
“That’s the signal, go go go go!” shouted Rebecca, charging forward, lifting her SIG into her shoulder. The 716 battle rifle was a semi-automatic, and as she moved around the corner of the building, her eye glared through the iron sight, centered on the throng of sentries on the west side of the loading dock. The gunshots had startled them but they were commandos and fell back into firing stances, pulling away from each other so as not to make an easy, grouped target. Rebecca homed in on one of the men who drifted back toward the corner of the warehouse, centering the sight and squeezing the trigger twice. Twin cracks kicked the battle rifle in her hands, but she held it steady and watched the shadowed form of a gunman sprawl away, tumbling off the concrete loading dock.
Angel moved up on her right, staying close to the wall, bringing the M4 up, engaged at full auto. A squeeze of the trigger sent a swift barrage of chattering sparks over the paved parking lot and another man shouted, slamming back against one of the corrugated steel garage doors. He left a thick dent in the surface as he tumbled sideways and lay still. On the opposite side of the parking lot, Rhonda swung around the brick encased corner, the ARX assault rifle barking a shot at a time. A third man jumped backwards, going down over a small, concrete stairway, feet over the top in an awkward reverse somersault.
The men near the center of the loading dock rattled off a fury of commands in a foreign language, dispersing and lifting Daewoo K1A submachine guns, rattling off return fire.
“Back back back!” shouted Max, pulling out from the mouth of the alley as bricks and concrete shattered, spraying chunks of shrapnel throughout the empty space between buildings. Tamar and Winnie whirled away, ducking down, and Max fired off another volley of gunshots.
Rhonda adjusted her aim, pushing forward and pulling the trigger, shifting her weight and bringing the weapon around to her right. Three other operatives emerged from one of the garage doors of the loading dock and just as their boots hit the concrete, one of them sprawled back inside under her barrage.
“I’ve got your back!” shouted Julie, coming in on her flank and bringing up her Sig Sauer semi-automatic pistol, squeezing off a tight group of nine-millimeter rounds. A second gunman jerked forward, stumbling off the loading dock, crashing down to the pavement four feet below, landing roughly on his shoulder. Jacques came out from behind Swift, his pistol up and firing as well, the P220 rocking white and yellow light. The third man to come out of the garage door slammed back against the wall and slumped to the ground, leaving the east end of the loading dock cleared.
Phil broke away from Rebecca on the west side, moving toward the front corner of the dock. Only a few scattered gunmen remained, the majority of them taken down in a frantic few seconds, but the ones left were moving in calculated, careful motions, grabbing cover by the corners of the warehouse and strategically returning fire. Phil ducked as he ran, keeping his knees bent and his pistol raised, angling toward the concrete stairway, moving past the guard that lay dead on the ground.
“Don’t be stupid, Phil!” Rebecca called out to him, moving forward across the parking lot, her arms still rigid, gripping the battle rifle with two clasping hands.
Phil ignored her warnings and stomped up the stairs, staying low. Gunfire chattered from the warehouse to his left and he drew back as rooster tails of chunked concrete spat up into the air. Twisting, he fired his pistol, the first three rounds careening high and wide. A pair of swift cracks echoed from his right, and the gunman sprawled backwards as Rebecca moved up toward the dock, already drawing aim at a second man and firing. Phil could see Max starting to venture from the alley as well, his pistol thrashing in his little hands, and even after everything he’d seen, he struggled to rationalize his twelve-year-old son firing a pistol with such expert precision. They were two different worlds that did not fit together.
“Clear!” shouted Rebecca, her voice shrill and sharp.
“Clear!” answered Swift from the other side.
“Clear!” shouted Max as he approached the dock from the south, all of their weapons arcing back and forth, covering the area over and around the loading dock, which was now scattered with fallen bodies.
It had taken a few minutes at the most, maybe two hundred seconds of deafening noise and spastic bursts of light, for the well calculated assault to take down nearly a dozen armed commandos. They’d surprised the guards, which had been lucky for the group, as their opponents were all well-armed and seemed to be well-trained, just not prepared for the multi-faceted ambush.
“Nicely done!” Rhonda shouted as she vaulted up onto the concrete dock, her eyes roaming over the expanse of the platform. Bullet holes were peppered along the surface of the dock and the brick wall of the warehouse, some puckered into the layered metal of the doors. All of the fallen men lay still and no sign of motion could be seen throughout the immediate area.
“Form up on me!” Rebecca shouted, gesturing to everyone and signaling toward herself, and the group pulled together, converging on her location as she ran up onto the dock, following Phil’s progress.
“We’ve got movement, we’ve got movement!” shouted Swift and she darted toward an employee entrance, where the metal door was starting to ease its way open.
“Don’t shoot!” a voice cried out from the other side. “Please don’t shoot!”
Jacques came up around Swift, moving toward the door so she could remain focused on it, her pistol drawn and aimed. The customs agent whipped the door open with one hand, aiming the pistol with the other.
“On the ground!” screamed Swift as an adult man emerged, his palms facing out toward them. “On the ground face down!”
The black-clad man struggled down to one knee, then the other, slowly putting himself on the ground, laying on his stomach, his fingers interlaced behind his head.
“They’re gone! They all left!” he yelled as he got down.
“Where are they going?” Swift demanded, moving in toward him, her pistol still aimed at the back of his head.
Behind her the rest of the group moved forward, all of them with their weapons lifted in preparation, but the man made no motion to get up or fight back, he only remained face down on the rough surface of the dock.
“I don’t know!” the man cried in desperation.
Julie moved around to the man’s right and knelt down, wrenching him up into a kneeling position again, keeping her weapon on him. She fished out a pistol from his shoulder holster and tossed it away as Jacques joined her in clasping the man’s arms behind his back and forcing him up into a bent over standing posture.
“Okay, talk to us,” Rhonda said, approaching him, her intimidating automatic rifle crossed over her chest.
“They left,” he breathed. “Few hours ago.”
“All of them?” Rhonda asked.
“Everyone except these guys you just gunned down,” he replied.
“And you, evidently.”
“My name’s Davidson,” he said. “Francis Davidson.”
“Nice to meet you, Francis,” Max hissed, his pistol centered on the man’s chest.
“So they left… they left for where?” Rebecca asked.
“The Summit,” he replied. “The First National Summit.”
“They’re going to attack it?”
Davidson nodded. “They have a device. A nuclear device.”
“Good Lord,” hissed Winnie.
“Three hours ago?” Rhonda asked, her voice thin with desperation. “What route are they taking? Where is the Summit?” Her heart raced, threatening to crawl up her throat and lodge itself there. They were too late. After all of this, they were still too late.
“Can you come with me?” Davidson asked, jerking his head toward the warehouse.
Rebecca narrowed her eyes at him, her jaw set and firm. “This better not be a trick,” she said.
“No trick,” he replied.
She eyed Swift and nodded softly, and both Julie and Pietro spun him around and pushed him back through t
he employee door. The rest of the group followed close behind, weapons raised and muscles tensed, going step by cautious step down the narrow hallway back into the main building of the warehouse.
“I don’t like this,” whispered Brad.
“I don’t either,” Rhonda replied. “But let’s see what it’s about first.”
Keeping his hands clasped to his head, Davidson navigated the twists and turns of the narrow, dimly lit hallway, the group close behind. Swift and Jacques were careful to keep him firmly in front of them in case this was an ambush waiting to happen. Shortly they exited into a larger room, which branched off to the right, where there was a double metal door closed by a locking clasp.
“In here,” Davidson said.
“What’s in there?” Rhonda asked, gesturing with the barrel of her rifle.
Davidson moved toward the door, which looked like some kind of walk-in freezer, and unlatched the bar lock at the front, joining the two halves together. It popped open and as Swift grabbed his hands and pulled him back, Jacques moved up and slowly pulled the doors open, revealing the entry to what was, indeed, a walk-in freezer. Cool, not cold air escaped, and Rebecca could hear the soft hiss of some kind of fan running inside. Rhonda moved past her, stepping close to the compartment, then halted abruptly, her breath sucking swiftly into her lungs.
“Son of a—” she said, though her words trailed off.
“What is it?” asked Rebecca and moved in beside her. Her eyes widened and her mouth twisted into a lip separating snarl.
Karl Green sat there in the freezer, sitting against the far wall, his chest wrapped in thick layers of white bandages. As the door opened, he looked up, eyes glaring out from beneath his cleanly shaven scalp. His breath came in rough, haggard gasps and he held himself up with one arm, the other one draped over his stomach. He looked like death warmed over.
Rhonda lifted her rifle and tucked it tight to her shoulder. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t finish you off right now.”
“Because,” he coughed, his voice scratched and gravelly. “For the moment, at least, we’re on the same side.”
“I find that very difficult to believe.”
“Alas, it’s true,” he replied softly. He winced as he pushed himself a bit more upright, groaning lightly. “This isn’t what I signed up for,” he continued. “The Koreans… blowin’ up the president? No. That’s where I gotta draw the line.”
“That’s where you draw the line?” Rhonda asked. “There? With the Koreans and the president? What about the other millions of people?”
Green scowled at her, groaning softly again. “I don’t pretend to be perfect, Ms. Fraser. I won’t sit here and tell you that what I did was the right thing to do, though I think it came from the right place.”
“Tell me something I want to hear, or I’m going to put a 5.56-millimeter bullet hole in your head and finish you off. Looks like someone already started the job for me.”
“Yeah. Thank your father for that one,” Karl replied through gritted teeth. “That’s why I’m going to help you. So you can look him in the eye and say ‘this is for Karl Green’.”
Rhonda let the barrel of her weapon drift down slightly.
“He was shot in the chest,” Davidson said. “I’ve been secretly helping him. Keeping him alive. Your father thought he was dead.”
Rhonda looked at him.
“I’m one of the only Ironclad men left,” he continued. “They brought in some guy… guy named Park. Someone from North Korean intelligence. They had a full squad of commandos and they’ve been slowly whittling the Ironclad presence down and replacing us with them. It’s not right. Hundreds of my friends have died for this operation. Maybe thousands. They’re going to use us as cannon fodder then bring the Koreans in? I don’t think so.”
“So you helped your boss when he was shot?” Rebecca asked.
Davidson nodded.
“That’s all well and good,” Rhonda continued, “but now what are you going to do for us?”
Karl Green smiled a thin, weak smile.
“I know where they’re going,” he breathed. “And I know how they’re getting there.”
Chapter Nine
The sound of the trucks bled into a dull, thundering rumble, the tires slamming over uneven asphalt as they cruised down one of the empty back roads leaving Philadelphia. Even months after the nuclear detonation, many of the main thoroughfares between Philadelphia and Washington were clogged with abandoned vehicles or potential choke points for ambush, and to play it safe, they wanted to get as close as humanly possible.
Both unmarked box trucks looked like standard, nondescript delivery vehicles, roaming side-by-side along the two-lane road, moving slow but steady eastward. Rita Kramer’s hatchback followed along near the left shoulder, with the dark green Humvee cruising the right, creating a phalanx of automobiles. In a normal world, these vehicles would look suspicious, triggering an immediate alert from law enforcement personnel, but the world was no longer normal and law enforcement was busy with other things.
Gerard Krueller kept both hands wrapped tight around the leather bound steering wheel of the delivery truck, holding tight as it jerked and jumped on the rough pavement. Jodi sat in the passenger seat with Lydia sitting in a narrow second row just behind them. Headlights cut through the darkness, though the sun was starting its slow, methodical climb up the horizon, stretching its pale glow toward the east.
“We took too long,” Gerard growled as they drove, his incessant complaining unhindered since they’d first begun this long journey toward Washington.
“Everyone needed to eat and we needed our rest,” Jodi replied. “That’s what happens when we take off in the middle of the day, we need to stop for a rest. Everyone needs to be on top of their game.”
Gerard ground his teeth but nodded sheepishly. “I suppose so,” he replied. “I’m just antsy to arrive.”
“And we’re going to the First National Summit?” Lydia asked from the back seat. “Isn’t that right?”
“Indeed it is, dear,” Jodi replied. “We’re going to be a part of history.”
“I can’t believe they invited you,” Lydia said, her voice twinged with a strong hint of awe.
“We’ve made some friends in the right places,” Gerard replied. “We’ve been very fortunate.”
“Do you think I’ll meet the president?”
Jodi and Gerard tossed themselves a quick look, though they wouldn’t let their eyes linger too long.
“Tough to say,” Jodi replied. “There are going to be a lot of people there. A lot of areas to represent.”
“What are we representing?” Lydia asked.
Jodi adjusted herself in her seat, turning around to face her granddaughter. She cleared her throat. “Lydia, I know things have been… strange since we were able to bring you back to the family a couple of months ago.”
Lydia nodded.
“We spent many years preparing you for what might happen. Much to your benefit, I’d imagine. Do you agree?”
Lydia nodded again.
“Our position in this new world is… complicated,” Jodi said. “We represent a grassroots movement you might say.”
Gerard glanced in his rear-view mirror, trying to get a feel for Lydia’s reaction to this speech. They’d worked inordinately hard to keep her separated from the violence since they’d reunited, letting Ironclad run that side of things, and mostly run it away from where they were. But as things got closer to the Summit, and as Stage Three moved farther along, things had tightened up. The Korean commandos had shown up and more frequent conversations pertaining to the specifics of Stage Three had been necessary. Krueller had thought he’d kept those conversations private, but it was difficult to tell.
Lydia’s eyes had narrowed at Jodi’s description of what they represented, and she looked unconvinced. Even worse than unconvinced, she looked concerned.
“You’re part of a militia movement,” she replied simply. “I know this.
I’m not completely ignorant.”
Jodi drew back slightly. “Well, I’m not sure that’s an appropriate description.”
“We’re part of a group,” Gerard interjected, “who believe very strongly in the freedom of the people.”
Lydia nodded, a look of vague understanding on her face.
“As you might imagine,” Gerard continued, looking at Lydia in the mirror, “the government isn’t a big fan of groups like ours. That’s why we’ve been holed up for the past several months, waiting for the heat to cool off.”
“Are there people who hold you responsible for what happened?”
Gerard nodded. “More people than you might think. They don’t seem to realize that being prepared for an incident doesn’t necessarily mean you caused that incident or wished it to happen.”
Jodi looked away, glancing out of the passenger window as they had their conversation. She had no interest in participating in this particular line of questioning, not because she didn’t fully believe in Gerard’s stance, but because she would struggle to lie to her granddaughter so effectively. She trusted her husband and agreed with their lifestyle choice one-hundred-percent, but she’d formed a bond with Lydia over the years, a very strong one, and didn’t want to be put in a position to outright lie. She felt as if eventually the truth would come out, and eventually her granddaughter would accept it, but they weren’t there yet. Not only a few months after the detonation. Not when the wound was still so raw.
“So what’s the point of attending the Summit?” Lydia asked.
“We have a place in this new world,” Gerard replied. “We have as much right to the nation as others, and we need to establish our place. Talk up the benefits of a homegrown army. Who knows, we may help the government replenish their armed forces, they’re going to need all the help they can get.”
“A militia of the people supporting a government made up of those same people,” Lydia said, smiling softly. “Just like how it should be.”
“Exactly how it should be.”
Lydia looked out the window as they passed a green street sign, craning her head to try and read the words. “What did that sign say? Are we close?”
