“Was?”
“He was killed when our street was overrun by a group of gangbangers looking to consolidate their territory. Seemed like it wasn’t long after the grid went dark before the whole city was carved up by criminals. They already had the manpower and infrastructure in place, not to mention the weapons. When the police were no longer able to effectively patrol the city, the takeover was inevitable. We held out for as long as we could, but most of those people had never fired a gun in their lives. ’Sides, the majority weren’t armed with anything better than pistols and deer rifles. Maybe it was a lost cause from the start.”
Sullivan’s hand was still out the window, pushing against the air stream. “Nah, man. You guys stood up when most people probably rolled over and took it in the tailpipe. The Alamo was a lost cause, but you didn’t see any of those boys running away.”
Maybe Sullivan had a point. John was still letting the words percolate through his mind when he heard a loud crack like a muffler backfiring. Then came a spray of blood from the passenger seat.
Sullivan shrieked in pain, clutching his right hand, now a bloody mess.
More shots and John swerved, glancing in the rear view to see two pickups and one Jeep Wagoneer. Men with semi-automatic rifles were hanging from the windows firing at them.
A patrol from Oneida perhaps?
There wasn’t time to think about where they’d come from. All he knew was that if he didn’t do something fast they’d both be dead. A rear gunner would have been nice, but they’d been too short on manpower after the casualties they took during the firefight.
The back window shattered, then a round hit Sullivan square in the back of his head. The front windshield turned red and his body slumped forward. It was John’s job to help protect the convoy and so he did the only thing he could under the circumstances. He slammed his brakes and braced himself as the Wagoneer came racing up and smashed into him.
The back end swung around into the pickup filled with men, sending it careening off the road and into the ditch. The third pickup jerked its wheel and fishtailed past him.
John punched the gas and caught the smell of burning tires as he charged ahead. The collision with the Jeep must have damaged his rear axle because it felt like the back wheels weren’t spinning properly.
Men in the back of the pickup took aim and fired. John ducked under the console, taking cover behind the engine. Four rounds tore through the windshield. One of them connected with Sullivan and whipped his limp body back against the seat. If his new friend wasn’t dead before, he was now.
After seeing that the guys in the pickup were reloading, John pulled the S&W from his tactical holster and took aim at the pickup’s back right tire, sending six rounds into it. The back tire exploded, sending strips of rubber flying in all directions. Whatever was left in the magazine he emptied into the men loaded in the bed of the truck, hitting at least three of them.
The pickup swerved, smacking John on the left front tire. The steering wheel jerked in his hands as his own vehicle lost control and crashed into the ditch.
John was thrown forward into the wheel, but his chest rig and AR mags helped to shield him from a crushing blow. Smoke rose from the hood of the GM. Next to him, there was no longer a doubt that Sullivan was dead.
The convoy slipped around the corner and disappeared from view. He’d done his job in preventing further loss and for that he was happy. Perhaps some of the escort vehicles would circle back and lend a hand. But getting those weapons back to base was the top priority, which meant that he might be on his own.
On the other side of the highway, the men from the disabled pickup scrambled out, looking in his direction. A quick glance in his rearview told him the other men he’d crashed into a few hundred yards back were now on foot, heading his way.
John’s AR was still next to him, along with the Mossberg Chainsaw Sullivan had been wielding. A quick check revealed John didn’t have any broken bones. He reached over Sullivan’s body and opened the passenger door. Crawling over his dead companion, John dropped into a row of tall grass.
With still no sign of any Patriots coming to bail him out, John reached back in for the AR and the shotgun. The latter he swung over his shoulder. With the AR in hand, he moved behind the engine block and laid his rifle on the hood, taking aim through his ACOG Scope. Four armed men were heading his way from the east. Six more were coming from the south. Behind John lay the forest. He knew the tall grass would cover his escape into the woods, but first he would need to keep the enemy’s head down while he made a break for it.
All four men to the east had AKs. Normally, the plan of attack called for targeting the man who had the best chance of killing you. Assault rifles were always first. When there wasn’t much of a choice, it came down to who looked like they had the most experience. The one on the far right was in full tactical gear, but the man next to him had a beard and carried himself as though he were ex-military, his weapon at the low ready as he advanced, his finger beside the trigger.
Laying the red dot between his eyes, John squeezed the trigger. The shot was an inch low and to the left, but it was fatal none the less. Seeing their comrade fall, the others scrambled for cover. Perhaps they thought John had been gravely wounded or knocked unconscious in the crash and they were simply coming to finish him off.
Sprinting through the spindly grass, John ran for the forest’s edge, hoping to make it to the relative safety of the treeline before he took a bullet in the back.
Chapter 23
By the time he reached the edge of the forest, hot lead was already pouring in, striking the ground and trees, filling the air with bits of dirt and bark. Laying down more fire would only get him killed, so John kept on running. No more than a few yards into the forest, he was already sucking in deep lungfuls of air. It wasn’t just his tactical vest and ammo that was tiring him out, it was double-timing it with his AR and Mossberg Chainsaw over uneven ground.
His Blackhawk Serpa drop-leg holster proved to be a real blessing. Most flopped around when running, which had the unbalancing effect of slowing one’s movement. The Blackhawk was solid and adjustable, which kept all twenty-six ounces of his S&W from getting in the way. Seemed like such a minor consideration, but any soldier who’d ever needed to dash for cover understood the importance.
Now that he was a hundred feet in, John swung around, rifle perched against a low-hanging branch, scanning the horizon. Movement in the distance caught his eye and he put his eye to the mouth of his scope. Not seeing anything, he decided to keep low and continue moving. With several of their own already dead, the men after him knew he was no pushover. Surely now they would approach with caution, an advantage which would buy him extra time to disappear.
Navigating by the position of the sun and the moss growing on the trunks of trees, John continued moving southeast. He was still a ways from the Patriot camp, although he knew the general direction he needed to head in. At some point he would cross back over the highway or else he would end up in Oneida.
To his mind, helping the Patriots gear up for an assault seemed to offer the greatest chance of success. Shortly before the attack, Rodriguez would send out a coded message to his contact in the city. His contact in turn would advise John’s family along with anyone else the Chairman’s men had imprisoned to keep low when the shooting started.
John stopped again and scanned the forest behind him. A squirrel perched on a nearby tree watched him intently while nibbling a nut. Otherwise, there was no sign of anyone or anything nearby.
They would be tracking him, that was certain, which was why circling back toward the highway would be important. He would be exposed, yes, but with a stretch of straight road, it would be difficult for any vehicle patrols to spot him before he spotted them.
John changed direction and cut east. Within a matter of minutes the edge of Route 27 came into view.
After reaching the treeline, he scanned for any sign of the enemy. Seeing none, he ran across the
open ground as quickly as he could. The lactic acid in his muscles burned his already wobbly legs. With a burst of willpower, he ordered himself to push on.
Once safely across, John made some headway through the dense foliage before stopping briefly to drink some water and eat a power bar. As he took cover behind a birch tree, he became aware of the sting from early blisters forming on the heels of his feet. In a back pouch was a small roll of duct tape. When he’d purchased it all those months ago back at the Home Depot in Knoxville, it had come in a large spool, so John had wrapped some around an old credit card—might as well put the plastic to good use—enabling him to keep a discreet amount in his rear tactical pouch.
He removed his boots and socks and examined the young blisters. They were red and a little puffy, but that characteristic bubble hadn’t yet formed. John tore off strips of duct tape and stuck them anywhere he saw chafing. This wasn’t a permanent solution by any stretch. But with a long walk ahead of him, his feet were likely to be his only source of locomotion and it was important to keep them working properly.
The sun was low in the sky when John found a place to make camp for the night. There’d been no sign of the men who’d ambushed and chased him into the forest. Whether any of the Patriots in the convoy knew they were under attack he wasn’t sure, although it was hard to believe they hadn’t heard the gunfire coming from the rear of the column. If they didn’t know at the time, they would certainly have found out when they arrived back at camp. It was also more than likely they would send someone back to look for him and Sullivan. John had also weighed the chances that the Chairman, upon discovering his convoy had been taken, would send whatever men he could spare to retrieve it. The threat of roving bands of militia had encouraged John to avoid the roads.
Sure, the trek back would take longer, but his bushcraft was more than enough to keep him alive between now and then. All he needed was stay out of sight and if that proved impossible, he needed to be the one to shoot first.
Before starting his shelter, John searched the area for possum burrows. When building snares, he preferred using picture wire since it was cheap and reusable. With the BK9 he sharpened two sticks and drove them into the ground forming an X, then tied them together with a length of paracord. A young, bent-over sapling would act as the engine, snapping the possum into the air once the trigger was sprung. For the noose itself, he used a bowline knot, reciting the mantra he’d learned as a child in Boy Scouts to help him remember the sequence: the rabbit comes out of the hole, around the tree, and back in the hole. With the trap in place over the possum’s burrow, John could then begin building his shelter.
The spot he chose for the night was on elevated ground. This was important to reduce the chances of water saturating his camp site. There was also a tree nearby with a low, but thick branch. This would prove important for the A-frame debris shelter he would build. Most survivalists tended to teach themselves how to build a single shelter type, but more often than not this could get them into trouble. The shelter one chose often depended on the available resources. A lack of thick pine tree bows would make building a lean-to shelter difficult. If that was all someone knew, they’d likely be in a real jam, especially if storm clouds were brewing.
The process for the A-frame shelter wasn’t terribly difficult. John started by searching the forest floor for a five-to six-inch-thick piece to act as the main support. This would need to be taller than he was so John’s entire body would fit inside the shelter. The end of the main support beam would rest against the tree stump and be secured with a length of paracord. Shorter branches would form the sides, overlapping like fingers steepled in prayer. Next he piled up dead leaves against the frame, making sure to start at the bottom and work his way up. A final layer of thin branches on top helped to keep the dead leaves in place. Finally, John collected dead pine needles and more dead leaves to form the bedding inside. He wasn’t expecting the Taj Mahal, but this would do just fine.
Chapter 24
While he was gathering wood and tinder, a whoosh nearby followed by rustling told John that his trap had sprung. Hopping to his feet, he rushed to find a possum hanging off the ground with the picture wire cinched around its neck. He put the creature out of its misery quickly with the BK9 and then skinned and gutted it on the stump of a fallen tree. He took care to do this a few meters away from his camp to avoid attracting scavengers. While most people tossed the entrails into the bush, John kept them to use as bait for fishing and future traps.
A stagnant pond sixty meters to the west of his camp would provide his drinking water. Usually that would be arduous work, building a filtering system and then something to boil the water in. This was where his Lifesaver water bottle would come in handy. John normally liked to keep things as natural as possible—relying on gizmos in a survival situation was all too often a recipe for disaster—but after watching murky, undrinkable water at the Patriot camp go in and clean, safe water come out, he’d been convinced. The other advantage was the ultra-fine fifteen-nanometer filter that kept out all waterborne pathogens. So far as he could tell, the major drawback to the thing was the inability to tell when the water filter was nearly done. Given that it could treat over a thousand gallons and he’d only just started using it, he was confident he had all the water he would need.
After building a small fire and cooking the possum over a spit, John removed the duct tape from the heels of his feet to let them breathe. He was listening to the sounds of the forest, his AR by his side and his shotgun waiting for him in the A-frame shelter.
There was something about the trees here that reminded him of the lush hilly forests in Rwanda. The vast majority of folks might have had difficulty placing the tiny country on a map before the genocide of 1994. That was when the whole world saw horrifying images of gangs of machete-wielding men hacking at anyone they could find. The war had started as a tribal conflict between the majority Hutus and the minority Tutsis. But it wasn’t long before the lust for blood on all sides had turned into a killing free-for-all.
At the end of ’94, John had entered the ravaged country as part of the humanitarian mission, Operation Support Hope, and the sights he’d seen there were nearly beyond description. That was when he’d fully understood how sheltered they were here in the West. For John, however, this wasn’t a reason for condescension. Rather, it was a hallmark of how safe life was in America. At least, the way it used to be.
John recalled searching in the village of Gahini for a local doctor named Mutsinzi. There was a young girl with gallstones who needed treatment and the doctor there was reputed to be the best in the area. When he’d arrived, John had discovered the man had been killed in the final days of the genocide. In the hospital where he worked, he’d treated both tribes without discretion and so in retaliation he was taken one morning by a gang of Hutu extremists, sat in a chair and disemboweled, his guts dragged across the road to form a macabre checkpoint.
The story itself had been shocking enough to John that he’d never forgotten it. These sorts of acts were beyond Western understanding. It wasn’t since the Indian wars in the eighteenth century that Americans had witnessed such barbaric atrocities. But with local warlords springing up, laying claim to first neighborhoods and now entire cities, it was anyone’s guess how long it would be before the nastiest side of human nature would rear its ugly head.
Chapter 25
John came awake, wondering for a moment if he was still in the mountains of Rwanda. The sound of a woodpecker knocking away at the trunk of a dying tree told him otherwise.
He stretched, feeling the stiff muscles in his back ache with pain. The shelter he’d built yesterday had kept him warm, although it certainly hadn’t done wonders for his spine. The mattress he and Diane shared at the cabin had been harder than their king-sized pillowtop back home. That was a transition he’d been fine with. Even dozing off in the front seat of his Blazer, while not ideal, had also been better than his current bed of pine needles and dead leaves. To mak
e matters worse, by the time he woke up, the mound he’d collected had been pushed to the side so that John’s back was digging into the hard forest floor.
Some of the possum was still left over from last night and he ate half of it, washing the tough meat down with a drink of water. He was eager to get a move on. If he kept up the pace, there was a chance he might just reach the Patriot camp by dusk.
After reapplying duct tape to his blisters, John slung the AR and the shotgun over his shoulder and headed out.
Within an hour, he hit Cleamon Strunk Road and crossed to the other side after making sure no one was in sight. Once on the other side and back into the forest, it wasn’t long before moving through the thick brush brought on some serious hunger pangs.
John still had some possum meat left over and intended to keep that for that night’s supper in case he didn’t reach his objective. Reluctance to draw any attention by shooting his rifle or by stopping to build a fire meant that meat was out of the question right now. But there were other options.
Most people spent years trekking through the woods without realizing how many plants were edible. Of course, it was always important to be careful when eating anything that grew in the wild, but with enough practice at differentiating species, living off the land in an emergency situation became so much easier.
Wood sorrel was the first plant he found. It looked a lot like clover and was tough to chew with a slightly sour taste to it. Not too far from that was a patch of wild lettuce. They were easily identified by their long spindly branches. John shoved it in his mouth, wincing from the bitterness. As he walked, he collected what he could. Lambsquarter, chickweed, and whenever he came to an open field, dandelion.
Not long after, he came to another field. This one was larger than the last, but different in one important way. While the open terrain where he’d collected dandelions had been flat, this field had a crop about the height of a man and with thin, pointy leaves. It didn’t take a genius to realize he’d stumbled upon a marijuana farm. Except this one wasn’t a legal operation, like the ones springing up in a handful of other states. Neither Kentucky nor Tennessee had legalized medical marijuana.
Last Stand: Patriots (Book 2) Page 9