Raoul had heard about a Prepper community near the ruins of Gold Beach so that was where they were headed, but for how long? Would they spend the rest of their lives trying to stay one step ahead of the King?
Raoul shook his head and his bicycle wobbled. He forced himself to focus. If they spent all their time running they’d never be able to build a transmitter and get the Sunflower control codes to the crew of the ISS.
*
Luna City
Muhammad stowed his slingshot in his tool kit along with a few steel ball bearings. He was inspecting the solar farm for micrometeorite damage today, but he wasn’t the only crew member who’d be out on the surface.
Aeriella was accompanying Linette Laverne, Leila Yoruba and Henri Dupree to the waste management facility and that meant they’d pass close to the solar farm. One ball bearing, tearing through her pressure suit and her death would look like an accident. After all, meteorites struck the moon all the time.
He smiled like a piranha, congratulated himself on being so clever, and prayed to Allah for success.
Two hours later he was in position, waiting.
There! The rover left the main airlock and slowly traversed the terrain toward the array. The trail passed within ten meters of his hiding place--an easy shot. He’d been practicing so the low gee of the moon wouldn’t spoil his aim.
They were close now and they had to be. Inside their pressure suits he couldn’t tell one from the other, but each suit was custom fitted for an astronaut and hers had an Israeli flag patch on the shoulder. He aimed to shoot through the small six inch gap between the panels.
He snugged a bearing into the pocket of his slingshot and drew back, ready to release. Allahu Akbar, he whispered as her Zionist flag appeared. He let fly.
Yes! The tear in her suit caused explosive decompression. Before the others in the rover could even get it turned around to head back inside she was slumped over like a deflated balloon. He’d done it! Allah had blessed him by allowing him the honor of exterminating the Jews. There could be no greater glory, no better--
“Muhammad Rahotep,” his suit radio blared. “Drop your weapon and turn around.”
Startled, he spun so fast he threw himself off balance and fell to one knee. He looked up and found himself facing General Alice Anderson and General Pavel Yurimentov and both held guns pointed at him.
“You are under arrest for the attempted murder of Aeriella Goldstein and her unborn child.
In the heat of the moment he took offense that she assumed he was incompetent. “I attempted nothing. The Jew bitch and the garbage in her womb are dead.”
“Wrong, Muhammad.” He recognized Aeriella’s voice over his radio. “You shot a dummy, you Wahabi moron.”
Exultation drained from him like a flushing toilet. Once again a Jew had tricked an Arab. Heat surged within him, blinding him to reason. He reached into his pouch for another ball bearing and set it in his slingshot’s pouch.
“Drop your weapon!” General Anderson screamed.
As Muhammad raised his slingshot, General Yurimentov pulled the trigger on his Tokarev 9mm and discovered the scientists were right. Pistols work just fine in vacuum.
Muhammad was lucky. Yuri’s bullet took him in his head and he was dead before his lungs were sucked out of his mouth.
Chapter 37: Sniper Duel
Ranger threaded wild geranium branches through his customized ghillie suit, readjusted its fit and settled down to wait. He’d killed dozens of enemy soldiers since the battle began. He didn’t think of them as honkies or buy into Viper’s racist bull. They were simply targets--targets he enjoyed knocking down. He’d learned to like killing in Afghanistan and the itch stayed with him when he came home so he joined up with a mercenary outfit and hired his talents out to private contractors.
In a strange twist of fate he’d been between jobs, relaxing at home near Denver’s City Park when the asteroid hit. The old house like so many built in the 1950’s came with a bomb shelter in the back yard that Ranger kept emergency supplies in and that’s where he rode out the worst of the quakes and fires. When he left the shelter he scouted the metro area and it didn’t take him long to see that Viper had the upper hand. Not one to take up for the underdog, Ranger walked in to Viper’s camp lugging a .50 caliber Barrett M82A1 sniper rifle and volunteered his services. That rifle was destroyed by a grenade during the fight at the Air Force Academy so he was reduced to using a Remington 7mm, the one that cat-quick enemy sniper damaged.
He sighed and shook his head. He missed that Barrett. He’d once executed nine recaptured runaways with a single bullet from that monster rifle by lining them up single file. Though the ninth one required a coup de grace from Darnel Wooley’s machete. Still, sure could use that mutha now. Damned Remington just didn’t have near the range or power.
He placed a dark brown eye against his Starlight scope and scanned the buildings in range for targets of opportunity. The sun would be up in a couple of hours and with the sweat already trickling down his coffee and cream skin it promised to be a scorcher.
The crescent moon was up and through his scope the town looked daylight bright. Distant sparkles and a sound like a string of firecrackers echoed off the ruins. Harassing firefight no doubt, he thought. No sense letting the defenders get any rest.
A man dashed from cover toward a building across the street and Ranger brought him down with a snap shot. A woman with long blonde hair darted from the same building and dragged the wounded man to cover behind a smoldering Bradley before he could cycle the bolt action Remington and line up another shot. Didn’t matter. He had them both trapped.
*
Ellen Whitebear slapped some Betadine and quick clot on Wayne Anderson’s bleeding thigh and asked, “How bad?”
Wayne, a rifleman and medic, squirmed and grunted as he tried to see both the entry and exit wounds. “Through and through. No arteries and no bones,” he gasped. “Gonna hurt like hell, but I’ll be okay if we can get the bleeding stopped.”
Ellen applied some gauze and wrapped duct tape around the leg and both bandages.
Randy McKinley hissed from behind the corner of the nearest building. “Did you spot the sniper?”
“No,” Ellen said and pointed in the direction the shot came from, then asked Wayne, “Can you walk?”
The wounded man shook his head and said, “Too slow. I mean, I could hobble but he’d get me and anyone tried to help me.” He looked at the twenty foot gap between the Bradley and building and said, “Looks like we’re pinned.”
Ellen saw the blood seeping through the bandage and said, “Randy, we need to get Wayne to Doc Lewis.” She tugged off Wayne’s belt and used it as a tourniquet.
“I’ve got Don and Terrell with me,” Randy said. “We can give covering fire.”
Wayne, who had combat experience, groaned and said, “We don’t know where he is so wasting ammo won’t help.” And we don’t have any to spare, he thought.
“We could get some more men and push a couple of wrecks out there for cover; get you both back here that way,” Terrell Johnson said.
Ellen, looking at the blood seeping from the wound in spite of her best efforts said, “I don’t think we have time.”
“I have an idea,” Don Haley said. “Back in a minute.”
It took more like five, but suddenly Ellen heard, “Coming at you,” from the darkness and a mechanics dolly rattled across the pavement to her. Green nylon climbing rope uncoiled as it sailed across the gap.
“Tie Wayne onto the dolly and we’ll snatch him across before the sniper can react,” Don said.
Ellen did as directed and when the three men jerked on the rope the dolly and Wayne flashed three quarters of the way across the gap, paused a split second then practically leaped into cover behind the building. The sniper’s shot missed wide, sparking off the pavement.
*
“Clever little shits,” Ranger muttered as the man disappeared behind the sandstone wall. Well, he’d bee
n caught off guard but he’d be ready next time. He watched as the mechanic’s dolly skittered across the road to the Bradley. Looked like they were going to try the same trick again.
*
As Chad Bailey, Shirley Johnson and Doc Lewis loaded Wayne onto a stretcher Wayne grabbed Don Haley’s arm and said, “Listen, if he’s shooting that good at night he’s using night vision. Do we have any road flares?”
Don smiled so wide his eyes crinkled. “Yeah, man, we do.”
*
From his vantage point next to a charred Ponderosa Pine, Michael Whitebear could see the rear hatch of the command Bradley and most of Viper’s camp. His night scope monocular lay at his side, ready if he needed it, but even the sliver of a moon provided enough light for his eyes. His Blackfoot grandfather had once told him he could see like an owl, and not to let it go to his head. The memory brought a quick grin to his blackened face. He’d rubbed burned wood on his woodland camos and exposed skin before taking up his current position.
From the corner of his eye he caught a flash and then the sound of a single rifle shot echoed from buildings and hillsides.
Sniper, Michael thought. He split his attention between the area of the flash and the Bradley and a few minutes later was rewarded with another shot. Gotcha, he thought, marking the location in his memory.
In the camp below a few men were stirring and in what he assumed was the mess tent, fires were being kindled. It wouldn’t be long now.
*
“Still think we should have retreated?” Viper asked. The confines of a Bradley weren’t exactly luxurious, but a couple of foam pads and a hot plate for brewing coffee made it a four star resort compared to his men’s accommodations.
Marcus, who preferred tea, spooned some Lipton instant into a cup of hot water and stirred while considering his response. Finally he shrugged and said, “We lost almost 400 men in Ute Pass yesterday.”
Viper gave Marcus a heavy lidded stare and said, “No campaign is ever free of mistakes. You, for instance, should have told me the Air Force cadets had an air force.”
“It was an ultralight gyrocopter,” Marcus protested. “And none of my informants knew about it.”
Viper slammed his hand against the metal side of the Bradley. “None of your informants knew they had antitank rockets either, or enough explosives to mine the pass. When you interrogated those idiots who thought they could negotiate with us you should have learned these things.”
Marcus dropped his eyes and studied the floor to avoid Viper’s gaze. If those fools had known about the explosives or rockets they’d have told him. Still, arguing with Viper was a good way to lose your head.
Viper waved his hand and said, “Muster the troops. We attack at dawn.”
“A frontal assault?” Marcus asked.
“No other is possible,” Viper said. “You, yourself, said the barricades they’ve erected across Highway 24 can’t be breached by our Bradley’s and thanks to your faulty intelligence our Abrams and our single decent artillery piece have been lost.”
Marcus hesitated before opening the hatch and Viper said, “Yes?”
“They may be running low on ammo,” Marcus said. “Reports from the front say they aren’t shooting back as much as previously. And if we conserve our remaining Bradley’s, use them only against machine gun nests and only with heavy infantry support, we can exhaust their supplies with feints, maybe use the slaves as human shields, then swarm the barricades and finish them today.”
Viper nodded slowly, thinking it through. He pointed an index finger at Marcus and said, “That’s good thinking. Do it.”
He turned back to studying the Woodland Park and vicinity map and Marcus, knowing he was dismissed, lowered the hatch and stepped out into the night.
*
“Is this what you wanted?” Randy McKinley held up a bundle of four road flares duct taped together.
“Perfect,” Don Haley said. “Get ready on the rope.”
*
Ranger smiled as he saw the rope twitch. This time he was ready. His breathing slowed as he relaxed into his shot. The dolly whipped from behind the Bradley and his bullet took it dead center. He’d just realized it was empty when a small sun flared in his scope and destroyed his night vision.
*
Ellen sprinted to safety the instant the flare bundle ignited. “Wayne okay?” she asked.
“He’s with the Doc,” Randy McKinley said. “You?” He was staring at the hole in the mechanic’s dolly.
She brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear and said, “I’ve been better. Good idea with those flares. Let’s issue some to our roving patrols.” She took a sip from her canteen and asked, “Any word from the ammo train?”
Grim silence greeted her question.
*
Jim Cantrell’s horse snorted and he reined in. Where the hell had all this crap come from?
Broken trees and boulders filled the narrows in the road between Florissant and Divide, spilling from the heights above to the creek below.
The snick-clack of a shotgun being cocked sounds like “Oh, shit” to anyone who spoke gun. He raised his hands and said, “Don’t shoot, dammit.”
“Jim?” the voice floated from the darkness, hesitant, yet familiar, and very feminine.
“Denise?”
“Yeah. Jesus, I almost shot you.” Denise Lachelle slid from behind a boulder and yelled over her shoulder, “It’s okay. It’s Jim Cantrell.”
Jim slid from his horse and gave her a hug. He looked at the landslide and said, “Well, I see what delayed your supply train.”
“It’s worse than it looks,” she said, looking away.
“The ammo?”
“More than half of it is buried under the slide. We’ve been digging for hours, Jim. We lost Janice Elrond and Pete Clovis and half a dozen others.”
“Jacques?” he asked.
She shook her head. “His luck held, but a tree limb broke his left leg.”
“Let’s see how I can help,” he said. He dropped the reins to his packhorse and mount and both horses started nosing for graze.
Thirty minutes later he called a halt to the rescue efforts while the survivors loaded all the ammunition they could onto the remaining horses. Then he and Denise herded the pack train toward Woodland Park while the others resumed digging. Not that they expected to find anyone else alive, but they needed the rest of that ammo.
*
Michael remained calm as the man exited the Bradley. About six foot tall, slender, moved well, but not with the feline grace described by Jim Cantrell. Still, he thought, as other soldiers gathered near the man, who else could it be?
Another shot from the sniper off to his left failed to distract him as he centered the cross hairs on the man’s head and ever so gently squeezed the trigger. His target’s head snapped sharply back and before the stunned group could react Michael dropped another one. He hit a third man low and was targeting a fourth when he remembered the enemy sniper. Fast as the thought hit him he spun and fired at the spot he’d memorized. Rounds were coming at him from the enemy camp but at six hundred yards none came close.
Still, as he pulled back behind the tree a shot from his left sent splinters into his face, narrowly missing his eyes.
He retreated into the blackened stumps behind him, knowing he must now stalk the other sniper who was undoubtedly hunting him.
*
“Damn,” Ranger hissed as he studied the hole in his pant leg. It was just a scratch but how had the man known? One second he was blinking away the sunspot from his right eye, trying to draw a bead and the next a bullet was burning his leg. He’d dropped his rifle and rolled away and the memory brought a flush to his face. It was the same SOB shot his rifle out of his hands earlier. Had to be. They couldn’t have two men who shot like that.
He tugged his Remington into position and sent a round at a slight movement by the burned Ponderosa he’d targeted before. Take that, you bastard.
He fl
inched back deeper into the sheltering rocks as gunfire from the camp below raked the slopes around his hide. It wouldn’t be safe to move until those fools below stopped blasting away at shadows.
*
From high on the slopes above Woodland Park, Michael studied the chaos in the enemy camp through his scope. He saw another man move like quicksilver from the command Bradley and begin rallying the troops and knew he’d missed his chance at Viper. He judged he had two hours before daylight. If he could finish the other sniper quickly enough maybe he could get another crack at Viper. If he moved further up the slope and to the South to keep himself between the coming sunrise and the enemy sniper he’d gain a tactical advantage, but that was what the man would expect him to do.
He pulled a couple of splinters from his face, wiped the blood with his bandanna and tucked it into his pocket. Never do the expected.
*
Ranger knelt over the bloody bandanna he’d found near the charred Ponderosa and smiled. He’d tagged the man and his chest swelled with pride. The SOB was human after all. He stood, his eyes following the spoor, knowing he had the man. He heard a slight sound and as he turned he saw a slashing hand and a sharp knife. He fell onto his back and watched in horror as a dark mass detached itself from the tree and dropped to the ground beside him.
“Guess no one ever taught you to look up,” Michael said, as he wiped his Kabar on the dead sniper’s clothes. He added the man’s ammunition to his own pack and used the man’s Starlight scope, which was better quality than his, to scan the enemy camp. There was too much turmoil for him to pick out Viper, but he saw a few hundred slaves being herded toward the front lines. With a hollow jolt in his stomach he recognized Otha and Dikeme among them and realized Viper intended to use them as human shields. He had to warn Ellen, somehow come up with a counter, but first...
The Dying Time (Book 1): Impact Page 40
