by A. American
Ted sat up and turned in his seat. Dalton’s expression didn’t change and Ted didn’t say anything. He turned back around and looked at Mike, saying, “I think he means it.”
“Oh I mean it,” Dalton called back, his attention returned to the monitor.
“I wish El Corita was open,” Mike said as they passed the small Mexican restaurant on Magnolia Street. “I could use a huge burrito covered in queso and jalapenos.”
“Screw the burrito. I could use about a dozen ice cold Coronas with a bowl of limes.”
“I’ll take both of those and a bottle of Cazadores Blanco!” Dalton shouted.
“Oh man that sounds good,” one of the soldiers riding with them added.
“I try to stay away from that poison,” Ted said with a shiver.
Mike laughed. “What? Why? You still ain’t got over Boys Town yet?”
Ted didn’t look over. He dropped his head and rubbed his temples with one hand while he pointed at Mike with the other. “Don’t say another word. Or I’ll cut one of your ears off!”
Dalton sat back in his chair and looked forward. “Come on, lads! It’s not nice to keep secrets!”
Mike started to laugh. “Oh it was awesome!”
“Shut up!” Ted commanded.
Mike laughed even harder, enjoying Ted’s discomfort. “We were down in Boys Town for four or five days. I can’t remember.” He looked at Ted and asked, “Was it five?”
“It was an eternity.”
Mike laughed and continued. “Five days in Boys Town! That’s right. Anyway. No one needs to be in Boys Town for five days.” He looked over his shoulder at Dalton and added, “No body.” He turned back to the road and continued. “So we’d heard this story about this bar there. The beers were ridiculously expensive. But it’s the only place to see this show.”
“Would you please shut up!” Ted shouted.
Naturally, Mike ignored his pleas. “So we’re shit-faced, right. And we’d said we weren’t going to go to this place. But shit, after three days down there, you forget all about common sense. So we pay our cover at the door and go in. It was expensive is all I remember, and we get a table. This hot little Latina comes out on stage and the place goes crazy. Ted here is getting into it and hops up on his chair for a better look. He was really into it. Then this little dude leads this little donkey out, and—”
“That’s enough!” Dalton shouted as he turned back to his monitor. “Don’t say another word about it or you’ll be listening out of one side of your head for the rest of your life!”
Mike laughed and looked back over his shoulder. “Oh! You’ve seen it!” He turned and howled with laughter.
Ted looked as though he’d be sick. He pointed ahead and said, “Your turn is coming up.”
Mike nodded. “I got it.” Then he looked at Ted and, in an over-exaggerated manner, he brayed like an ass. Ted shook his head and tried to ignore his companion. Dalton, however, took a different approach.
“Left or right?” He called from the back of the truck.
“Huh?” Mike replied.
Ted’s head rolled over to face Mike. With a smile on his face, he said, “I think he’s asking which ear you want to give up.”
The smile faded from Mike’s face as his hand subconsciously went to his ear. Suddenly, it wasn’t so funny. It was Ted’s turn to laugh.
The two Guardsmen had sat silently through all of this. Finally, one of them keyed the mic to his headset and asked, “He wouldn’t really do that would he?”
Dalton spun around to face the man. Leaning in close, he said, “I’d have no problem doing it again,” and spun back around and left him to think that over.
“Did you guys see any people on that drive?” Jamie asked.
“I saw two under a carport just outside Zellwood,” Ian replied.
“I didn’t see anyone and I was looking,” a Guardsman said.
“Where the hell are all the people?” Jamie asked.
“There seems to be a distinct lack of people lately.” Another soldier replied. “We even noticed fewer people in town. Not a big difference. Just some faces missing from the crowd.”
“Did you guys tell anyone?” Ian asked.
“No. Didn’t think much of it at the time.”
Jamie looked back over her shoulder and asked, “Think much about it now?”
The soldier looked back out the window and said, “Maybe. A little.”
The trucks took the ramp up and around onto the 414 connector. It was an elevated roadway with decent views of the surrounding area. The trucks extended the distance between them on the highway to about a hundred meters. The open road provided both the ability to see for great distances, as well as to be seen.
“Alright, guys,” Ted broke radio silence. “Everyone keep your eyes peeled. We do not want to make contact. This is a recon only.” Ted clicked the mic for the internal intercom and said, “Dalton, keep an eye out with that thermal camera.”
“Roger,” came the terse reply.
In the rear truck, Ian spoke over the intercom. “Everyone keep your eyes open for people. Any people.”
Everyone onboard agreed to keep an eye out. The convoy rolled along, passing cookie-cutter housing developments set back off the road. Most of these were obscured by fences or stands of bush, and no people were seen.
The 429 is a toll road. Florida may not have state income taxes, but it does, or did, have toll roads. Being one of the newer tollways in the state, the tollbooths were built off the main road. The driver had to take an exit ramp of sorts to get to them. The best way to pay tolls was to have a small RFID tag in your vehicle that would allow you to remain on the travel lane and be charged your extortion as you passed under the device hung overhead.
As they approached the first tollbooth, Mike asked, “Should we go through the booth and throw something in the basket?”
“Fuck em!” Dalton shouted. “I dare a state trooper to try and pull us over. I got something for his ass! I’d love to wreck one of those black and tan bastards!”
But the ride was uneventful. They saw absolutely no one. Not on the road, not at any of the subdivisions they passed. But it wasn’t only people. There were no cattle in the few pastures they saw. No dogs, cats or anything. It was as if the land were devoid of life.
“You guys feeling like we’re the only ones on the planet right now?” Jamie asked over the radio.
“We haven’t seen shit,” Mike replied.
As the Central Florida Auto Auction was passing them on the left, the upper fly-over that would put you on the Turnpike south began to come into view, as if it were rising out of the road before them. Dalton broke the radio, “Contact front! BMP and BTR sitting on that overpass!”
Mike immediately slowed the truck, and the others did likewise. “See any bodies?” Ted asked.
“Oh yeah. We got bodies. BMP turret is moving. We better move before he gets that hundred-millimeter cannon pointed this way!” Dalton shouted.
“We’re going to cross over to the other side,” Ted said on the radio. “I don’t want to try and back out, staring down the barrel of that thing!”
Jamie immediately began cranking the wheel as she started her turn. They were fortunate that in this section the only thing separating the two sides was a median of very overgrown grass.
“BTR is moving!” Dalton shouted as the road erupted in an explosion thirty meters to the left front of the truck.
Ted pointed to the left side of the road and started swiping his hand at Mike, shouting, “Go! Go! Go!”
“I can’t do shit to those damn things!” Dalton shouted.
The Soviet BTR was a rubber-tired amphibious assault vehicle. Its counterpart, the BMP, had amphibious capability as well, but was tracked. They were also very well armed to deal with infantry and light armor, which the MRAP was. Mounting a one hundred-millimeter cannon on the BMP gave it the ability to fire a conventional shell as well as an ATGM, or Anti-Tank Guided Missile. The BTR was
equipped with a thirty-millimeter cannon. Either of these weapons would penetrate the armor of the MRAP.
The BTR stopped and began to fire. The cannon didn’t fire very fast, but the projectiles were lethal. The explosive rounds began to impact the road seventy-five or so meters away. Blasting chunks of asphalt into the air. The gunner adjusted his fire and they began to land closer as the trucks cut across the median.
As they turned and headed away from the armor pursuing them, the order of trucks was reversed, putting Mike’s rig in the back of the pack. One of the Guardsmen made his way to the rear doors and looked out the window. He was shouting for Mike to hurry as he felt as though he was staring directly down the thirty-millimeter cannon. The trucks swerved back and forth so as not to offer nearly stationary targets driving directly away.
Mike looked back over his shoulder at Dalton and shouted, “Why isn’t the fifty-cal firing?”
“It’s not going to do any fucking good!” Dalton shouted back.
“Like hell!” Mike shouted in return. “I loaded it with SLAP rounds! We don’t have many, so make them count!”
Dalton looked back at the monitor as he shouted his reply, “Why didn’t you fucking say so!” He adjusted the crosshairs on the screen and began firing three round bursts. Since the truck was weaving back and forth none of them hit the target. It did seem to slow the beast down a bit, but had no effect on the gunner. He was still hard at work.
The soldier at the rear door looked forward and shouted at Mike again, “Hurry the fuck up!”
“I’m giving this piece of shit everything I can! This isn’t exactly a high performance vehicle!”
As the wild-eyed soldier turned back to the window, there was a bang and the truck filled with sparks and smoke. Everyone began shouting at once as near panic set in.
“What the fuck was that?” Ted asked as he spun around in his seat, as much as the restraint harness would let him. But he saw for himself what it was. Through a relatively small hole just to the right of the rear door he could daylight. Through the smoke, the light coming in was like a laser. It illuminated the body of the soldier that had been in front of the door. His ACU uniform smoked as he lay motionless on the deck of the truck.
Dalton was holding the side of his head. The other soldier was hanging on with one hand and holding his head with the other. “You alright?” Ted shouted.
Dalton gave himself a quick check. The right side of his face was bleeding as well as his right arm. He rotated his shoulder, working his arm and judged the damage minor and gave Ted a thumbs up.
“What about him?” Ted asked, pointing at the man on the floor. The other soldier seemed dazed and out of it. To get his attention, Ted pulled a magazine from his vest and threw it at the guy. It bounced off him and brought him around. Pointing to the Guardsman on the floor, “He dead?” Ted asked the other Guardsman.
The soldier dropped to the floor and rolled him over. It was immediately obvious he was dead. He’d taken shrapnel to his face and head. Massive hemorrhaging from his head was covering the deck of the truck in blood. The soldier looked back at Ted and shook his head.
“Straighten this fucking thing out for a minute! Let me try and put a couple rounds on those pricks!” Dalton shouted.
“Alright, but you better do it quick!” Mike called back. “On three. One… two… three!”
Mike straightened the truck and Dalton lined the BTR up in his sights and pulled the trigger. The tungsten rounds impacted the road and he adjusted his fire. The second volley of shots saw two strike home. One in the front of the vehicle and one in the turret.
The M903 SLAP, or Saboted Light Armor Penetrator can punch through up to thirty-four millimeters of armor, depending on the range. It’s a tungsten penetrator held by a sacrificial sabot. The BTR’s armor is thirteen millimeters on the front of the hull and only seven on the turret. When the two rounds hit, they left an impression.
The BTR jerked hard to the left before straightening out again. By that time, Mike was back to the swerve. The BTR didn’t fire again though. It rolled along, slowing as it went. Dalton kept sending three round bursts at it, scoring a couple of additional hits. But they were glancing strikes at the side and probably had little effect.
Dalton had been lost in his video battle and hadn’t even heard the radio chatter going on in his headset. Ted was giving the other trucks a SITREP of their condition when the BTR disappeared from his view as they started down a slope in the road.
Dalton heard Ted’s voice. “We’re good, just head for the barn.”
“You sure you don’t want to stop and check on your people?” An unfamiliar voice asked.
“Fuck no! Just drive!” Ted shouted back.
“We aren’t stopping for anything or anyone!” Jamie called back from the now lead truck.
Dalton kept his eyes on the rise in the road. Waiting to see the turret crest it. He didn’t have to wait long. But it wasn’t the BTR. It was its tracked cousin, the BMP. It stopped at the crest of the hill.
“Contact rear! BMP setting up for a shot!” Dalton called out as he let a burst go from the Ma Deuce. The trucks immediately began the feeble evasive maneuvering. It was better than nothing.
As he fired, Dalton’s view of the tank jumped as the big Browning recoiled. Just as he let up on the trigger, he saw a flash from the one-hundred-millimeter barrel. Keying the radio, Dalton called out, “Shot out! Incoming!”
They were nearly three-thousand meters away by now. But the BMP wasn’t firing conventional shells from its main gun. The gunner loosed an AT-10 Stabber anti-tank guided missile. Dalton could see it as it screamed towards them. It would cover the three-thousand meters in nine seconds.
“Hard left!” Dalton shouted into the mic.
The truck jerked left and Ted saw the missile as a flash as it passed just outside his window. Either they were very lucky, or they were not the intended target as the twenty-seven-inch-long rocket slammed into the middle MRAP. The explosion was fierce as both the rear and front doors were blown open. Mike swerved again to avoid running over the flaming body of the driver of the truck as it bounced out onto the road.
“Should I stop?” Mike asked. “We can’t just leave them here!”
“What was that?” Jamie called over the radio.
“Go! Go, go go!” Ted shouted.
Mike looked over, “We cannot fucking leave them here, Ted!”
“They’re dead, Mike! And we will be too if we fucking stay here! Now fucking drive! That gunner is probably loading another one right now!”
As they passed the MRAP that sat in the middle of the road, a burning pyre, Mike saw the front passenger roll out onto the ground. He was fully engulfed in flames and tried to get to his feet.
“Oh my fuck!” Mike screamed as he slammed on the brakes. “He’s alive!”
“What are you doing?” Ted screamed as he looked past Mike out the window. “Go! We can’t do anything for him!”
“He’s fucking alive, Ted. We have to help him,” Mike replied as he reached to unbuckle his harness.
The fifty-cal thundered above them. Mike had his eyes on the flailing man and saw the rounds as they slammed into him and he fell to the road.
“He’s not alive anymore.” It was Dalton’s voice. Very calm and even over the intercom. “Now get moving before all we’re roasted like he is.”
“What’s going on?” Jamie called over the radio. “Do we need to come back?”
“No! Keep going. We’re coming,” Ted replied.
Mike stared out the window. It took Ted hitting him in the shoulder with the butt of his rifle to get him back. Without saying a word, Mike pulled away from the horror. They rode in silence for a long time. They were back on the OBT before Dalton spoke.
“Why didn’t they swerve?” He asked no one in particular.
“What?” Ted asked.
“Why didn’t they swerve. I said to swerve. But they didn’t.”
There was a pause for a momen
t. Then Ted answered him. “You said it over the intercom. Not the radio. They didn’t hear you.”
Dalton looked at the PTT button. I told them to swerve.
CHAPTER 10
The trucks made it back to town without any further incidents. As they came down Bay Street towards the armory, there was a lot of activity near the police department. Many residents of Eustis were gathered there, as well as a large presence from the armory. To include a couple of gun trucks with men manning the turrets.
“What the hell is going on here?” Ted asked. But no one answered him.
They made their way to the armory and parked the trucks. Sarge, Sheffield and Livingston were coming out of the building as they were getting out. Sarge looked at the two trucks and asked the obvious, “Where’s the other one?”
“Burning up on 429.” Ted replied.
“What the hell happened?” Livingston asked.
Mike was standing beside the truck as Ted started to explain what happened. Dalton climbed out of the rear and stepped around. Jamie saw him and said, “You’re bleeding.” She turned back to her truck and called out, “Doc!”
Ronnie came running up and took a look at Dalton. “We’re going to need to get you to the clinic.”
Dalton waved them off and said, “I’m fine.” He started to walk away when Mike stepped in front of him.
“I can’t believe you did that!” Mike shouted. This brought all other conversations to a halt.
“There was nothing we could do for him. Even if we had managed to get him in the truck, he was so badly burned he probably wouldn’t have survived.”
Mike was incensed. “That’s not your fucking decision to make!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Sarge asked.
Mike pointed at Dalton. “He fucking shot one our guys.”
Sarge looked at Dalton and asked, “Why?”
“The guy was fully engulfed in flames.” Ted replied, “There was nothing we could do for him. Not to mention that BMP was still there. If we had stopped, he would probably have gotten us too.”
