They studied the land mine for a minute, and then the tall one gave Lucas and Terry a gap-toothed grin. “Might want to move everyone away from here just in case.”
“In case?” Terry asked.
The tall one nodded. “In case we have a seriously bad day.”
“That’s not pumping me full of confidence,” Clark said.
“How do you think I feel?” the shorter man asked.
“All right. Everybody back,” Lucas hollered. The group edged away until everyone was twenty-five yards from the tracks. “Far enough?” he yelled.
“We’ll know in a few,” the tall man called, and laughed dryly.
“Good thing we’ve got some extra rails with us, isn’t it?” Clark asked Lucas.
“Foresight’s a wonderful thing. Let’s hope we’re not going to–”
The tracks exploded in a flash of orange, and where the pair of joking men had been, now there was nothing but smoke and twisted steel, the car blown completely clear. Debris rained down from the explosion and Terry shook his head. “Looks like we were far enough.”
Lucas sighed at the senseless death and shook his head. “Clark, bring up as many rails as you need. No point in delaying out here all day.”
“Sure thing, skipper,” he said, and went off at a run to the boxcars, where his tools and the spare tracks were stored.
More men returned toting a pair of rails and a toolbox. Others carried sledgehammers and pry bars and burlap sacks filled with spikes. They wrestled the mangled steel out of the way and then set to work laying a new section of track, reusing the spikes where they could.
When they’d finished and had filled in the hole left by the blast, Clark inspected their work before pronouncing the section safe. “It’d better be,” Lucas said. “We’re two hundred miles from anything out here, and men have died in the high desert a lot closer to water.”
“It’ll hold. I was more worried about my trip back. But it looks solid. We’ll just go slow, and I’ll mark the spot so I’m not going thirty when I hit this section.”
“Anyone know those men’s names?” Lucas asked.
Nobody said anything, and he nodded. “We owe them.”
“Damn shame,” Clark agreed. “But we can mourn underway.”
Lucas called to the crew, “Back to the train. We’re rolling in three.”
They carried the tools back and stowed them, and Clark climbed aboard his beloved locomotive and built a sufficient head of steam till the engine lurched forward and inched ahead, rolling so slowly a tumbleweed blowing from the west passed them by on the way to the new section.
And then they were over and slowly accelerating. Lucas checked his watch. By his reckoning, they’d hit Salt Lake in about twelve hours, possibly less, depending on their speed. Clark had warned them that the last section had enough switchbacks and sharp curves to slow their progress considerably, but he expected them to arrive by nightfall – now pushed forward another two hours.
His heart rate increased at the thought of seeing Sierra and the kids again. It seemed like forever since he’d held her in his arms, and he realized it had been. He’d been gone too long, and the prospect of yet more long absences leading the Freedom Army with Art had zero appeal, especially sitting on a cramped train with a hundred other lost souls crammed into the car and a landscape straight out of hell rolling by like an endlessly tedious cartoon backdrop.
Chapter 41
North of Provo, Utah
Lucas sat with the radio operator in the rear of the railway car and listened to the shortwave set he’d placed on the seat, an antenna dangling out the window and a solar battery by his feet. They’d been transmitting for an hour on the Shangri-La channel, but with no result other than static and occasional blares of white noise.
The operator removed his headset and grunted. “Sorry, Lucas. Not getting anything.”
Lucas leaned closer and frowned. “Try sweeping the dial and see if anyone’s on the air. Maybe we can reach someone in Provo who can get a message to them.”
“Sounds like a long shot, but you never know.” The operator redonned his earphones and slowly turned the dial. Halfway through he stopped and tilted his head, and then gave Lucas a thumbs-up before raising the mic to his lips and pressing transmit.
“Sorry to barge in. Are either of you in Provo?” he said into the mic.
Lucas held one of the earphones to his ear to listen in.
“Roger that. Who is this?” a voice answered.
“We’re on an inbound train and want to see if we can get a message to some new arrivals there.”
“A train? You’re shitting me. Ain’t no trains running.”
Lucas motioned to the operator for the mic. He handed it to Lucas, and he depressed the transmit button. “There’s one running, because we’re on it. Can you get a message to someone there? They should have arrived in the last week or so.”
“Oh. Crap. You’re serious.”
“That’s right.”
“Look, I can get a message to them, but don’t approach the city. We’re surrounded by an army. Repeat. Don’t come to Provo. We’re surrounded.”
Lucas frowned. “What army?”
“Some crazies from Denver. There’s a swarm of them. Thousands. And they’re on the warpath. Threatened us with total destruction if we don’t give your friends up.”
“Slow down. Tell me what happened. We’re maybe ten miles out.”
“Then that’s where I’d stay.” The Provo operator spoke for two minutes, detailing what he’d heard about Elijah’s force and his threat of using a bioweapon the next day if they didn’t turn over Lucas’s people. By the time he was done, Lucas was struggling to keep from screaming in frustration.
“Listen. Can you get whoever is in charge on the horn? I’ve got a substantial group of fighters myself, and we’re loaded for bear. We need to coordinate, and we need to do it now.”
“Sure. I can try. Who is this?”
“Name’s Lucas. Anyone from your newcomers can tell you who I am.”
“Okay. Give me a half hour and I’ll see if I can find someone from the council.”
“We’ll stand by. Over and out.”
Lucas tossed the earphones to the operator and stood. “Keep monitoring that channel. I need to talk to my men.”
Twenty minutes later Lucas, Sam, Henry, and Terry were seated in the back of the car with the operator. Lucas was explaining what he knew, and Sam and Terry looked ashen by the time he was done.
“So out of the fire…” Sam began.
“Nobody said this would be all martinis and steak,” Lucas said.
“Yeah, but heading straight for another battle…”
“Maybe. Or maybe we can figure out a way to work with Provo and stop this before it gets that far.”
The operator waved Lucas over, and he hurried to the set, removed his hat, and pulled on the earphones before taking the mic. “This is Lucas. Over.”
“Lucas? Thomas. Head of the Provo council and the militia. My man here says you’re aboard a train outside town? Did he hear right?”
“That’s correct. Nice meeting you, Thomas. We’re maybe eight miles out and stopped until we understand what we’re headed into.”
“Nothing good.” Thomas quickly ran down his exchange with Elijah. “How many men do you have?”
“Three thousand, give or take. Some horses. And two boxcars of mortars, machine guns, grenade launchers, and ammo.”
A long silence ensued. When Thomas spoke again, his tone had changed. “That could come in handy. We’re well outfitted ourselves, and we have more like four thousand fighters here. Between the two of us…”
“That’s what I was thinking. And they have no idea we’re out here. So maybe we can put that to use.”
“I can think of a few ways,” Thomas agreed.
“What’s this about a bioweapon? Your operator said something about one?”
Thomas explained his sentiment that it was a hollow threat.
&n
bsp; Lucas shook his head. “Possibly. But if you’re wrong, this could go sideways quickly.”
“No question. You have any suggestions?”
“Have you gotten a good look at their camp? We’re up north, but do they have any sort of command tent or anything?”
“There’s been a lot of activity at one of the big industrial warehouses on the southern end of town, which is where the main body is hunkered down. Then there’s a big open stretch where they’re camped, but they’ve occupied some of the warehouses, too. They’ve also got men all along the wall and blocking the northern exit, but most of them are on the southern tip.”
“Whether they’re bluffing or not, if the device is in their midst, there’s no way they’re going to detonate it.”
“Probably not. But the second they see us come out of the gate, it’s a different story.”
“Right. Which is why the smart thing to do is hit them tonight while they’re asleep, or at least groggy from stress.”
“We can’t even open the barricade without being spotted. They’ve got most of their men facing us, watching for a move like that. We’d be walking into a chainsaw.”
“But if we move on foot in the dark, there’s a good chance we could slip past their northern presence and hit them from where they’re not looking.”
“It’s mountains along the eastern wall. We built a ten-foot barrier along that side, and to the north and south. There’s not a lot of room to move an army through. Although it’s possible, just tough.”
“What about to the west?”
“The lake.”
“Could we make it along the shore and come up behind them?”
“Again, it’s possible. But a lot would have to go right. And you’re talking about eight miles of tough slog.”
“We’ve crawled through worse than that.”
They discussed possible tactics and terminated with an agreement that Lucas would first try the mountain route, and if that failed, would double back and work his way along the shore. Given how Elijah’s army was situated, though, there was a far greater chance of being discovered emerging from the lake area than appearing out of the mountains, which nobody was watching.
Lucas met with Sam, Terry, and Henry for ten minutes, and then they went in search of the squad leaders while Lucas made for the locomotive to tell Clark what had happened, who listened in silence before asking a single question.
“So you want me to power down and wait for the world to end?”
“Something like that.”
“Better collect my pay before you disappear, then.”
Lucas smiled. “Always the pragmatist.”
“Nothing personal. But this ain’t my fight.”
“No problem. Not asking you to join in. Just to wait to see who wins. If it’s us, you’ve got another round trip coming. If not, get the hell out of here, because you won’t want to mess with these nutcases.” Lucas handed him another three coins. “That makes five, which is one more than we agreed. So stick around. It’ll be worth your while if we aren’t all dead by morning.”
“You do have a way with words. How can I refuse?”
Forty minutes later, Lucas was on foot and leading his men, who were loaded down with mortars and grenade launchers and crates of rounds in addition to their assault rifles and magazines. They only had five hundred NV goggles among three thousand men, but Lucas wasn’t worried – he was planning to use a variation of the strategy they’d put into play in Seattle and Salem, although he couldn’t carpet-bomb the encampment like he’d have preferred because of the bioweapon.
Assuming that wasn’t a hoax, Lucas couldn’t simply lob a few hundred mortar rounds into the camp and target the command building – the risk of detonating the device, or damaging it so that it spread its payload, was too great. Instead, he and the other NV-equipped gunmen would have to do things the hard way and shoot their way to the warehouse before ushering in the second wave of non-NV equipped troops. They could use grenades and launchers to tilt the odds in their favor, but mortars had to be reserved for the periphery of the enemy force and kept well away from its core. Which wasn’t ideal, but was the best Lucas could come up with in the time he had.
It seemed like a solid plan as they marched in silence toward the outline of the mountains, keeping well clear of the wall and the tents pitched along it. The enemy troops were largely asleep or watching the town, not the slopes, and Lucas’s men were able to skirt their encampment to the north and flank them without them ever realizing that a huge force was making its way past to rain death down on their main body from under cover of darkness.
Henry instructed five of the grenade crews to hold up the rear and set up a firing position so once the attack began, they could target the northern enemy force, and left a hundred men with them to defend their nests while they pummeled Elijah’s rear guard.
Then they were working their way along the mountainsides, moving quietly, the only sound other than night birds their breathing and the soft stirring of thousands of boots on the loose dirt along the base of the mountains.
Chapter 42
“What do you think?” Sam murmured to Lucas from a ridge overlooking the enemy camp.
“Let me take another look.”
Lucas’s NV-equipped troops were with him in an advance formation overlooking the encampment and the warehouses. Lucas switched from his NV goggles to his NV M4 scope and scanned the buildings. One had a contingent of guards and men moving in and out of it even at the late hour, which matched what Thomas had described as the warehouse the enemy was using as its command center.
“You still on for rushing them with the advance group and then calling in the rest once you’ve taken the warehouse?”
Lucas didn’t say anything, but continued to study the building. When he lowered the M4, he leaned into Sam and murmured to him, “I’m not so sure that’s the best idea now. Most of the camp’s asleep. Only activity is at the warehouse. It might make more sense to take a small squad and penetrate the building rather than five hundred bulls in a china shop.”
“If something goes wrong, you’d be dead meat.”
“Didn’t say there wasn’t a downside. But if we could make it in without firing a shot…we could verify whether this supposed bioweapon even exists, which would change our tactics. If it’s a bluff, we could just bomb them into the Stone Age and not worry about the fallout. Which would save a lot of our troops.”
“Right. But if they sound the alarm…”
“It isn’t a perfect plan,” Lucas conceded. “But it could work. They’re all focused on the city. We come in from the east…nobody’s watching for a threat from their flank.”
“How big a squad you thinking?”
“Not big. Maybe a dozen of our top men with crossbows.”
Sam nodded. “I see your point. Not nearly as messy as a frontal assault. If you can pull it off.”
“Which is why they pay me the big bucks. Pass the word to your best fighters. I want to leave in ten minutes.”
“Roger that.”
Lucas crept down the mountain with his men, all equipped with crossbows and spare quarrels in addition to their usual assault rifles and hand grenades. The camp glowed in their night vision scopes. Nothing was moving as they neared the first of the tents. In the distance, the warehouse loomed large, and a few heat signatures told them where the guards were stationed – not surprisingly, most at the main entrance, with only a few along the sides and presumably some at the rear.
They took cautious steps as they wended between the tents, their weight on the outside of their feet, crouched low with crossbows in hand. The sky was cloudy, no stars in evidence, which played in their favor; without night vision gear, the guards at the warehouse would be largely blind to their approach until it was too late.
When they neared, Lucas gestured for the men to spread out. Six moved to the right side of the building and the others followed Lucas to the left. Both circled around until they were gather
ed seventy yards from the rear, where only four guards were sitting by a steel rear door, their guns leaning against the wall.
Lucas signaled, and four of his fighters peeled off and crept toward the guards. When they were fifty feet away, two of them fired at the outside guards, and then the other pair did the same with the couple nearest the door. All died silently, the bolts as lethal as they were quiet, and Lucas and the rest rushed to join them. Lucas pointed to the side, and half his men moved to that corner, and he and the rest ran to the other.
Lucas dispatched one of the sentries at the side and his men the other, and then they peered around at the front, where eight gunmen were loitering. The faint glow of lanterns from beneath the heavy front doors lit the NV scopes like neon, and Lucas waited until his men on the far side had time to make it to the front before murmuring to his group, “Make it quick. Overkill. We can take the twenty seconds to reload after they’re down. Don’t try to save arrows.”
The men nodded, and he took a deep breath and rounded the corner with them, crossbows trained on the guards, who didn’t register the fighters until they were nearly on top of them.
A hail of bolts winged toward the guards, and all four fell, several skewered by multiple shafts. The other guards turned at the noise, and Lucas’s second team took them down silently, all of their quarrels finding home.
The reloading took half a minute, and then they were moving on the front entrance. They were nearly to it when a yell from the camp pierced the night, followed by shooting.
Slugs slammed into the cinderblock by Lucas’s head, and he ducked down while simultaneously freeing his M4, the need for quiet now abandoned. One of his men screamed as rounds tore into his hips below his plate carrier, and then Lucas threw the door open and rolled through it, rifle in hand.
A score of startled guards in the warehouse reacted by fumbling with their weapons, but Lucas was already shooting, his three-round bursts loud as a howitzer in the cavernous space. The nearest two collapsed and their rifles clattered against the concrete floor, and Lucas aimed for the lanterns on either side of the warehouse and blew them to pieces.
The Day After Never - Legion (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 8) Page 22