The Day After Never - Nemesis (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 9)

by Russell Blake

  “Attractive bunch, huh? Especially the one with the eye patch. Looks like a real charmer.”

  “Let’s see what they want.”

  “And then shoot them.”

  “Play it cool.”

  “I was kidding. Mostly.”

  The riders drew to a halt in front of Lucas and Duke, and the one with the eye patch spoke.

  “My name’s Wink. We’re here to warn you you’re going to be ambushed up the road.”

  Lucas studied Wink’s face. “Ambushed by who?”

  “Cartel. They know you’re coming, and they know why.”

  “That right? And what do you get out of tipping us off?”

  “I used to run Houston for the Crew. You know us?”

  Lucas nodded. “I heard of you.”

  “You’re a long way from home,” Duke said.

  “We rode hard to catch you before you walked into a trap.”

  Lucas spat to the side. “You didn’t answer my question. What’s in it for you?”

  “I know you’re headed to Houston to clear the cartel out. That’s what we want, too. We’re willing to help however we can. I’ve got the scoop on them. Their weaknesses. How they operate. Their supply lines. You name it.”

  “If you know about us, you know the reason we’re here is to free the country of the gangs victimizing it. Seems like we work with you, we’re just swapping the Mexican version with yours.”

  Wink shook his head. “We can run the territory like…legit. Keep the peace. Enforce rules. Someone’s got to do it, and if we don’t, you’ll wind up with worse within weeks. That’s just how it works.”

  “For now,” Duke said. “Doesn’t have to be that way.”

  Wink smirked. “Ha. It always has, always will. Bunch of guys get together, declare they’re the government, and sign a piece of paper that says they have the right to take part of everyone’s income at gunpoint and get to make the rules. What do you call that?”

  “I call it better than having a gang hold a city hostage.”

  “That sounds like a negotiation, not a deal breaker. Someone’s got to run things. You planning on staying in Houston for good and doing that job? Look, my men are the core of the Crew, the toughest and the most loyal, and they’ll do as I say. We have to change the way we operate, then we’ll do it. Simple.”

  Lucas shook his head. “Discussion’s over. Thanks for the warning. We won’t shoot you when you return to your men.”

  “I know the exact location they’re dug in, and how they plan to bushwhack you. It’s nothing you’ll see coming, even if you’re watching for it. And they have big guns. Tanks. The works. If you turn me down, you’ll lose most, or all, of your men. For nothing.”

  Duke tugged on Lucas’s sleeve and eyed Wink. “Give us a minute.”

  Wink nodded and waited as Duke and Lucas rode ten yards away.

  “He’s got a point about keeping order,” Duke said.

  “They’re killers. We aren’t going to deal with them.”

  “If we don’t, it sounds like we won’t make it to Houston, in which case it doesn’t matter whether we did or not.”

  “We start dealing with scum, we’re as bad as they are. Then what’s the point to any of this? They just want the cartel overturned so they can keep raping everyone.”

  “True. But we can dictate terms, and if we stick around Houston long enough, we’ll figure out a way to make things work.”

  “They’ll just wait until we’re gone and it’ll be business as usual.”

  “Not if we have regular contact with the locals by radio, and he knows we’ll come back and finish the job if they don’t stick to the rules.”

  Lucas sighed. “I don’t like it.”

  “You want to lead the men into a meat grinder, or live to fight another day? Pretty simple.”

  “We can’t trust them.”

  “Of course not. But one thing at a time. If we avoid the ambush, we win. What happens from there isn’t written. We should play along until we get what we want, and then decide. You can always change your mind.”

  “They’ll backstab us first chance.”

  “We’ll be ready. Mutually assured destruction can work wonders to keep folks honest.”

  Lucas considered Duke’s words. “We’ll do it your way.”

  “Attaboy.”

  They returned to where Wink and Kelly were waiting. “Let’s say we agree to something,” Lucas said. “How will this work?”

  “We’ll tell you everything we know and help you at the ambush, and we’ll both drive them out of Houston. Once they’re gone, we can do the same in El Paso and their other hubs.” He paused. “There’s only a few hundred of them now in Dallas. We can take them in a day, tops, assuming they stay and fight, which I doubt. Once you eliminate their attack force, that’s their best men. The dregs will run like little girls when they see the plan failed.”

  “And warn Houston.”

  Wink’s face hardened. “We’ll be waiting for them when they try to escape. Nobody will make it past us. That’s one of the ways we’ll help.”

  Lucas looked to Duke. “We will need to hammer out a deal before we move from here. It’ll be dark in four hours.”

  Wink nodded. “I’d sit tight for the night. We’ll camp out where we are, and you and I can figure out how this will work. You’ll have a plan by morning.”

  Lucas considered Wink. “Any trouble from your side and you’ll be the first to go down.”

  “I kinda figured. Don’t worry. We’re not your problem.”

  “Meet at the motel in an hour, then. You and whoever advises you.”

  Wink’s face crinkled with a grin and he inclined his head toward the other rider. “Me and Kelly call the shots. Whatever we say goes. You’re talking to the boss.”

  “Same here. See you in an hour.”

  Wink and Kelly returned to their men, and Lucas did the same. “How do we know they’re not going to attack us tonight? This could have all been a ploy,” Duke suggested.

  “Unlikely. No reason to show themselves. At least that part seems on the level.”

  “We should have Elliot in on this.”

  “Of course.”

  Chapter 49

  Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

  Lucas led several hundred of his most capable fighters on foot through the dark of night, paralleling the highway and moving toward the rises where the cartel was lying in wait. Duke was leading another strike force around the opposing ridge, and Sam had yet another group skirting the highway ahead of Lucas and would attack once the battle was joined.

  After reaching an agreement, Wink had left with his men and was waiting on the outskirts of the city to stop any stragglers who might escape the assault. They’d made a deal both could live with at their meeting three days earlier, and while neither trusted the other, both saw the wisdom in coming up with something they could make work. Now they were allies, and Lucas believed Wink’s group would perform during the battle, if only because their self-interest lay in doing so.

  Lucas and most of the men were equipped with night vision monocles that they’d charged the prior day and which rendered the landscape visible in an eerie green light – an advantage he hoped would be decisive in the first phase of the attack. Wink had said that while the cartel undoubtedly had the gear, they wouldn’t be expecting the army to be on the move in the dead of night and so would likely be dozing, with the force not expected for another three days based on its estimated travel time.

  They’d also charged their two-way radios and were communicating their progress as they crept through the darkness so their assault would occur from all directions simultaneously. Wink had stressed that with its vastly superior firepower dug into the areas adjacent to the freeway, the cartel force needed to be neutralized in the first minutes of the attack, or it would still be able to inflict significant damage. Lucas planned to hit like a lightning strike using teams of guerilla fighters assigned to specific targets. Lucas and two ot
hers had snuck to the ridge the prior night and mapped out the enemy positions, and when they’d reunited with the army that afternoon, they had a rough blueprint of the tank and machine-gun nest locations.

  Lucas’s group reached their staging location and waited until Duke’s and Sam’s were in place, and then confirmed with each squad under their command which targets they were responsible for. When the men moved off in the gloom, Lucas murmured into his radio that they would be ready to hit in five minutes. Duke confirmed that he was deploying his squads as they spoke, and Sam piped in that he was prepared to move whenever Lucas gave the word.

  He checked his Milkor MGL-140 grenade launcher and patted a satchel at his chest containing spare grenades, and then signaled to the four fighters he’d chosen for his squad – Terry, who’d proven himself during the battles for Seattle, Salem, and Provo, and three ex-marines with chiseled faces that radiated competence.

  They set off through a residential neighborhood that before the collapse had been upscale but whose McMansions were now in disrepair, their windows broken out by vandals and their façades brutalized by years of neglect. Lucas had selected for his target one of four M60 tanks that had been positioned overlooking the freeway, his dug in beside a two-story home that concealed its bulk from view. Terry toted his favorite Browning M2 .50-caliber machine gun on his shoulder, the eighty-four pounds a familiar burden he tolerated with ease, and the three marines carried the gun’s tripod and heavy cans with ammo belts, in addition to an FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank launcher equipped with a single missile.

  When they were fifty yards from the tank, they stopped at a neighboring house and sized it up. Lucas indicated the open hatch of the battle tank and whispered to Terry, “We might be able to sneak up on it and drop a grenade down the hole. What do you think?”

  “If nobody’s on watch, sounds like a plan. You see anyone?”

  Lucas scanned the area and grunted. “No. They’re probably fast asleep. Set up your pop gun and be ready to cover me.”

  “Let one of us do it,” Terry said. “No reason to risk your neck.”

  “Just get the Browning ready. If I make it, have a secondary target picked out to keep you busy.”

  Terry nodded. “Your call. But any one of these goons could do it too.”

  “Maybe next time. Give me three minutes, and wait until the blast to start shooting. If something goes wrong, hit it.”

  Terry grinned in the darkness. “From experience I know better, but I almost hope you don’t score on this one. I really want to see one of the Javelins in action.”

  “It makes a big boom. I’m sure you’ll get a chance to use it eventually.”

  “Promises, promises.” Terry sighed. “Good hunting.”

  “Get ready to rock.”

  Lucas took off toward the tank, covering the ground in a crouch as he felt for one of the three hand grenades he’d stowed in his flak jacket. His fingers felt a ribbed edge, and he extracted the orb without slowing as the tank rose in front of him. Ten yards away, he stopped behind a tree and thumbed his two-way live.

  “All right, all squads. Showtime in thirty seconds. On my count – thirty…twenty-nine…”

  He pocketed the tiny radio, his eyes locked on the tank, and was tensing to sprint the final distance when a head poked from the open hatch and a figure crawled from the turret and hopped down onto the tall grass. Lucas’s pulse thudded in his ears while the man unzipped his pants and relieved himself; Lucas’s watch read ten seconds till all hell broke loose when the man climbed back onto the tank and moved back to the hatch.

  Lucas broke into a run back to Terry and the crew. The man on the tank cried out in alarm halfway into his sprint, and Lucas willed himself to greater speed and prayed he wouldn’t get a bullet in his back.

  He was nearly to the neighbor’s house when explosions and muzzle flashes from all along the ridges lit the night, and he practically flew the last few yards as he threw himself down beside the men and barked at them.

  “Hit it with the Javelin,” he ordered. The tank’s turret began turning toward their position with a high-pitched whine, and then one of the marines launched the missile in a burst of orange flame. The projectile streaked toward the tank and exploded in a dazzling fireball that sent chunks of metal wheeling through the air, and Terry let out a whoop.

  “Well, damn! Ain’t that something!” he exclaimed.

  “Can it and pick off that machine-gun nest,” Lucas snapped, pointing at a mound on the far side of the tank that had started shooting at them – a nest he’d missed the prior night.

  Terry’s big Browning roared to life with bursts of fully jacketed rounds, and Lucas raised the Milkor and took aim. Slugs tore fist-sized divots out of the corner of the house beside them, and Lucas squeezed the trigger gently as he exhaled through his nose.

  The first grenade exploded several yards past the nest. Lucas adjusted his aim to compensate for the range as rounds shredded the ground around him, and fired again. This time the projectile detonated nearly on top of the nest with a bright flash, and the enemy machine gun fell silent.

  “Lucky shot,” Terry said. “You’re not leaving us much to do.”

  “There’ll be some that we didn’t get. Patience is a virtue.”

  “Never had much use for virtue.”

  “Shit. Mark’s hit,” one of the marines growled. Lucas and Terry turned to where the third marine lay faceup, his mouth open in a silent scream, lifeless eyes staring at the stars.

  “Watch for movement on our nine,” Terry said, his voice tight. “Anything alive there ain’t one of us.”

  Gunfire punctuated with an occasional grenade blast continued for several minutes, and then the night fell silent, and Lucas’s radio squawked softly. He raised it to his lips, his eyes never ceasing to roam over the ridge.

  “This is Command,” he said. “All units report.”

  Calls came in, and by the time the tally was done, Lucas had lost eleven men; but there were no surviving cartel fighters.

  “Do a grid sweep to confirm no survivors. We don’t want any surprises.”

  Terry met Lucas’s eyes and looked back at the marine’s lifeless body. “Eleven isn’t terrible, considering.”

  Lucas frowned. “Tell the dead men that. It was eleven too many.”

  “The Crew guy said there was over three hundred. I’d say we gave more than we got.”

  “No question. Now get moving and confirm we don’t have any cartel in our quadrant.”

  Chapter 50

  At nine o’clock the following morning, as the army marched into view, Lucas waved from where he was waiting astride Tango, a smudge of grime on his cheek and two days’ growth peppering his jaw. Vultures wheeled overhead as the sun hung low in the sky, and smoke drifted from several of the tanks, all of which had been destroyed by Javelins or grenades.

  Duke directed his horse beside Lucas and coughed. “Funny how quick it was over, but how long it seemed when we were in it, right?”

  Lucas nodded. “It’s always like that.”

  “You’ve been in a lot more of these than I have. I’ll take your word for it.”

  “We need to organize a burial detail. And prepare a welcoming committee in case anyone comes calling from town.”

  Wink had told them that the Crew had ruled over Oklahoma City for years, but once it had dissolved in Houston, the Oklahoma contingent had degraded into infighting, and what was left of the city was run by three different factions, none of them good. He’d estimated their total strength at no more than four hundred Crew, tops, and none with any appetite to take on a well-armed force.

  “Why didn’t the cartel take over Oklahoma, too?” Duke had asked.

  “They’re consolidating Texas. Besides, there isn’t much worth fighting over in Oklahoma, so why bother? They can take the splinter gangs down in a day whenever they want, but what’s the point?”

  “You know any of the local Crew?”

  Wink had shaken his head.
“Not well. But if you’re asking whether I would rely on any of them, the answer’s no. If they were up here, it was because we didn’t want them close to home. That should tell you everything you need to know.”

  Elliot rode point surrounded by mounted gunmen, and when they reached Lucas and Duke, he signaled for a stop.

  “Sorry to hear about the losses,” Elliot said. “It’s never easy.”

  “True enough. But it’s over, and we heard from Wink earlier. He intercepted a couple of cartel that escaped, but that’s it.”

  Elliot looked around. “What’s the plan?”

  “We burn the dead and then keep moving so we’re south of the city by nightfall. Wink said he would meet up with us there, and that he doesn’t expect trouble from the locals if we don’t go looking for it.”

  “You believe him?” Elliot asked.

  “He doesn’t have any reason to lie.”

  “Yet,” Duke said.

  Lucas nodded. “Yet.”

  “You know that time’s coming,” Elliot said.

  “Of course. But for now, we’re both pregnant, so everyone will be on their best behavior.” Lucas wiped his brow with a tired hand and adjusted his hat. “Put together a burial detail and collect all the weapons and ammo you find. They were well-equipped, and if we hadn’t been warned, they could have done some serious damage.”

  Elliot nodded. “Shame we couldn’t salvage any of the tanks.”

  “If that’s our biggest regret, we got off light.”

  Elliot glanced up at the buzzards and grimaced. “True enough. I’ll alert the men.”

  Lucas considered the challenges to come – making it to Houston without being slaughtered, overthrowing the cartel and securing the refinery, installing a functioning government capable of defending itself… If not impossible to pull off, it would certainly test the limits of the army’s endurance and abilities.