by W. J. Lundy
Bill turned, looking at the cluster of men gathered in the clearing. They seemed to be receiving a briefing of some sort. Bill could see Dawson at the edge of the group with her notepad out. She hadn’t come after him, so he decided he would stay away if possible. “A lot of people. But it won’t be enough.”
Earl laughed and pointed to the forestry guys. “We tried telling them. They said they have dog teams headed in. I guess that’s all they are waiting on now.”
“Dog teams?” Bill said.
Shaking his head, one of the forestry workers, a mustached, short, stocky man with his sleeves rolled to the elbow laughed. “Dogs won’t help them. If those boys are in the Gap they didn’t take this road to get in there; the dogs won’t pick up the trail. They should be tracking from the last place they were seen.”
“Did you tell them that?” Bill said.
The forestry man looked at the group of men then eyed the sheriff suspiciously. He stepped closer, and in a low voice said, “Why the hell would I tell them that? I’m sorry about your man, Sheriff, but I hope those boys get away. Homeland had no business shaking them down like that. I heard that old man was killed in cold blood.”
Bill nodded, not wanting to say anything. It was apparent that they didn’t know he was there when the shooting happened, and by the tone, he was glad they didn’t know. “You all are helping with the hunt then?”
Earl shook his head. “No, sir, we politely declined to participate.”
“You can do that?” Bill asked.
“Tracking fugitives isn’t really in our charter. Blocking the road is about as much as it goes for me today.” Earl leaned in closer. “My supervisor said the state police refused their request to get involved as well. They said they would patrol the highway for the suspects’ vehicles, but they turned down the request for a helicopter and boots on the ground to help with the search.
“This is becoming a real shit show in the media. The state doesn’t want anything to do with it.” The man leaned back. “Sort of surprised to see you here, actually. The national forest isn’t in your jurisdiction.”
“City manager loaned me to the Feds,” Bill replied.
“Ahh, that makes sense. All of those D.C. appointed managers are squeezed by Washington.”
The forestry man pointed down the road as a pair of black vans headed their way, kicking up a cloud of dust behind them. “Looks like the dogs are here. Once they get caught up on the situation, they’ll be moving out.”
Chapter Eight
The sounds of the barking grew louder. John knew then that the hunt was on. He’d separated from Bobby by fifteen feet and was tucked into the ground between an overturned log and a large boulder. Bobby was just above him and to the left, in a similar hide. He focused back on the distant road far below. He’d been using his optic to focus on trees and posts that lined the road. Bobby said it was five hundred fifty meters to where the road first appeared, and just under three hundred meters where it ran below them. The red barrel buried in the rockface to his right was an easy shot and even closer.
The pitch of the dogs’ barking changed, and they could now pick up the sounds of voices echoing below. “I’m not killing any dogs, Bobby,” John said with his eyes glued to the sights.
He could hear Bobby laugh. “You don’t have to kill anyone yet. All we want to do is hold them off. Make enough trouble so they call up their vehicles, and then we’ll close the road. They get the hint, and they won’t get hurt.”
John took a deep breath and rested his cheek on the rifle. He blinked his eyes and watched the first of the black-clad men approach, marching side by side in the center of the road and suited up in heavy tactical gear. The man on the left wore a light Kevlar helmet, the man on the right a floppy bush hat. The working dogs appeared ten paces behind the men. Their handlers walked on each side of the gravel road while the dogs worked the vegetation at the shoulder.
John heard Bobby whisper. “If they are looking for our scent, they won’t find it down there.”
John tracked down the road and spotted the glint off the windshield of a black van. “I got a vehicle. Looks like a cargo van,” he whispered.
“Kill it,” Bobby said.
“Now?”
“Shut it down,” Bobby ordered.
Pulling the rifle tighter into his shoulder, John focused over the windshield of the van. He scanned right again and saw the dogs, and then the point men, still walking lazily. He shifted back to the van and centered the crosshair just over the hood. He led it carefully, tracking it with the movement. “Firing,” he whispered before pulling the trigger three times in rapid succession.
The dogs squealed and jumped around excitedly, their handlers pulling them into the woods, looking for cover. The point men jumped for cover at the side of the road just below John’s position. If he was gunning for them, they would be easy targets. John scanned back to the van and could see that the hood was exploding with steam. The van backed up several feet then stopped with a squeal from the engine.
“Stay quiet,” Bobby said. “They didn’t make us.”
The dog handlers were the first to move. They rose and ran back with their dogs the way they had come. John tracked them as they passed the van, not stopping. The driver’s door of the vehicle opened, and a man leaned out with a pistol looking ahead. The man scanned left and right then ran back, following the dogs. John shifted back to the shoulder below him and saw the point men. They were lying close together, aiming their rifles in all directions, searching. Bobby was right; they hadn’t identified where the shots had come from.
The man with the helmet rose to a knee and began firing wildly into the woods. When two shots came from behind John, the man fell into the street, his helmet off and rolling away from him. The man with the floppy hat fired blindly and ran to his downed partner. Lifting him to his feet, they both fled back toward the van, which now had a fire in the engine compartment, flames bursting from the front wheel wells.
John spun to his hip and looked behind him. “What the hell happened to sitting quietly?”
“Changed my mind,” Bobby said. “Don’t worry about it. I hit him center of his plate; he’ll be fine.”
“You don’t even know if he was wearing a plate.”
Bobby sighed. “It’s on him if he wasn’t. Either way, we couldn’t afford leaving them a spotter for when the bigger trucks move up.”
“You don’t know that they have bigger trucks,” John argued.
“They always have bigger trucks,” the man said. “Get focusing on that red barrel. They’ll come up armored next and disperse troops into the woods.”
John swallowed hard and looked back to the front, where a pair of men was running toward the van. One was holding a fire extinguisher, the other armed with a rifle aimed straight ahead. John let them get close to the van and then peppered it with rifle fire. The armed man fired into the road straight ahead as the other dropped the fire extinguisher and ran back the way he’d come. John let the shooter waste his ammo and watched as he turned and ran after the other. “Just ran off a couple more spotters,” he said, turning to Bobby.
“Eyes back on the road,” Bobby said as a black-and-white Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle pulled forward.
The MRAP moved close then pushed the now engulfed van to the shoulder before continuing on and stopping a few feet before the mark for the red barrel, just short of the planned landslide. John focused on the windshield and could see men wearing goggles inside. The vehicle had a hatch, but it was closed tight with no mounted weapon. Moments later, a second vehicle rolled up the road and then a third. The van was burning bright and dirty, roiling black smoke pouring off it and into the trees above.
John looked back at the lead vehicle and saw that the rider in the passenger seat was scanning the terrain with a pair of high-powered binoculars. “They’re looking for us,” John whispered, squeezing himself back into his hide between the logs.
“If he finds us, blow the
wall,” Bobby said. “We can’t let those things into the valley.”
The van burned brighter and the MRAP beside it must have felt the heat, because after beating its horn, the three-vehicle convoy began to slowly move forward, then stopped again. The front end of the lead vehicle was now in the crush zone. That was close enough for John. He prepared to lock his sights on the red barrel, when he heard the clinking of hatches. He ducked back down and looked at the vehicles. Now men with scoped rifles were up in the turrets, scanning. John cursed himself. They were snipers, and he knew they would be looking to the high ground. If they were spotted, they would be pinned. It was go time.
The man in the hatch of the lead vehicle made a full scan and turned away. John rose up, locked on the barrel, and fired a single shot. His vision filled with a bright flash and a roar that pushed him back into his hide. He felt the ground shake, and the wall of the cliff face let go. The ground continued to rumble as the space to his front was filled with smoke and dust, blocking his view of the road.
He pulled back and looked behind him to Bobby. “How much bang did you say was in that barrel?”
The man peered over his rifle with a broad smile. “Enough to compress into a fifty-five-gallon drum.” Bobby pointed back down the hill. “It’s clearing up.”
John strained to see through the clouds to the ground below then pulled back. The three MRAPs were still there. The front vehicle was listing at an angle with dirt and rocks piled against one side. The second had dirt against its side up to the wheels, and the third was clear. All three had hatches closed. The marksmen who were there before were gone, pulled inside and sealed up. “We got a problem; they are still there,” John said.
“Shit. I can see that,” Bobby said.
The third vehicle’s hatch clanked open. John turned and looked at it then focused on the windshield. A man holding binoculars was looking in his direction and pointing directly at him.
“Aww, hell,” he said just as a gunner rose from the hatch and rapid fired on his position.
John ducked down as the rounds smacked all around him. Bobby fired twice then the gunfire fell silent. John looked up and saw the gunner lying over his rifle. The MRAPs fired up, and the lead vehicle’s wheels began spinning, trying to break out of the rock pile. The number-two MRAP drove forward, digging out of its own dirt and slammed into the rear of the lead vehicle, pushing it ahead.
“They are going to get through,” John said.
Bobby couldn’t hear him; he was firing on the lead vehicle’s windshield, trying to blind the driver. The second hatch popped open, and a barrel point up at them. Then the back of the trail vehicle opened, and kitted up men filed out, firing on John’s position, forcing him back into the hillside. Rounds were peppering the ground around him. Bobby was still on his rifle, firing down, but was beginning to take more of the fire.
“Get your ass down before you get hit!” John yelled.
There was a loud crack and explosion from below, then the sounds of a belt-fed weapon. Bobby stopped firing and lay prone on the ground, looking at John with wide eyes. John turned back toward the low ground and lifted to see over the edge. The lead MRAP was smoking from its front, and someone up the road was laying suppressive fire on the dismounted team. There was another crack, then a rocket trailing white smoke impacted the second MRAP. Another crack, and the front end of the third vehicle exploded.
Men began bailing from the vehicles and running back down the road. Bobby raised his weapon to fire, but John waved him off. “They are running, let them go.”
Bobby shook his head no and continued firing. When all the men were gone, he looked down at John. “This is war now. They will only come back with more people next time.”
“You don’t know that,” John shouted back. “Hell, they are still civilians. They see the hate we are raining down, and they might never come back.” He paused then looked down at the smoking armored vehicles. “And who the hell was that?”
Bobby stood and moved toward him, investigating the distance where the rockets had come from. “Has to be Kyle Davis and his cousin Rodney. Those two assholes have been collecting heavy weapons for a decade,” Bobby said. He continued searching, shook his head, then sat back down against the ridge. “We won’t see the cousins unless they want to be seen. Those boys have spider holes all up and down this pass.”
“Where the hell did they come from?” John said.
“I told you, Legion put the word out.” Bobby was reloading his rifle and picking up dropped magazines, storing them in his vest. “You remember, right? We had to hold the road until they got here. Well, they are here.”
The sound of breaking brush came from behind them, and the two men spun together, fixing their sights on the high ground.
John whispered, “They are flanking us.”
Bobby held up a hand, silencing him as two men came over the rise.
“Son of a bitch,” John said.
It was the bearded Gregory, decked out in an old USMC woodland camo uniform, and the second man who had patched Bobby up back at the house. He was tall and lean, wearing a German Army pattern camouflage jacket with a black canvas pack. They moved down the rise with their rifles slung.
Gregory looked down at the smoking MRAPs. “Couldn’t wait for us before you got started, huh?” he said.
Bobby shrugged. “Had to hold the road.”
Gregory nodded. “Let’s get back to the stove. The Davis boys can watch over things for a bit.”
Chapter Nine
The sounds of gunfire echoed from up the road. Bill ducked down into a ditch with the DNR and forestry people.
Earl looked back at him. “Is that us or them?” he shouted. “That’s a lot of damn shooting.”
Shouts and the barking of dogs joined the sporadic pops of firing. Bill got back to his feet and stood behind the vehicle barrier. He could see smoke begin to rise in the distance. Men were shouting to send up the armor. The lot of gathering troops behind him cleared out as they boarded a convoy of black, armored six-wheeled trucks.
The forestry man moved out of the way as the big diesels roared and tore out onto the road. “It won’t be long now, I imagine. I thought they’d never find them but looks like they wanted to be found. Suicide to go up against all of this,” he said.
“What was that?”
Bill spun and saw that Dawson had moved up behind him.
The forestry man shied away. “Was just saying there is a lot of country out there. I’m surprised they found them so quick.”
Dawson nodded. “I see.” She tapped Bill on the shoulder and pointed down the road. “Walk with me.”
Earl shot Bill a sideways glance as the sheriff stepped off after the agent. She had already passed between the two DNR trucks and was quick timing it on the road as the armored vehicles sped ahead.
There was another series of gunshots, and Bill flinched, instinctively ducking. “You sure we should be going up this way?” he said.
“I thought all you cops brag about running toward gunfire. Isn’t that your dogma?” she spat back. “Don’t you want to be there when they make the arrest?”
Bill shrugged and shook his head. “Suit yourself,” he said under his breath.
The road went west up a rise. At the top, they could see that it went down again and then around a bend, edging to the south, following the ridge of the mountain. Off to the right was a walking trail that crossed over the road then continued left and to the south. The armored vehicles were lined up just before the corner. Looking in that way, they could see the black smoke billowing up in the trees.
Dawson stopped and pointed to the trail crossing the road. “Where does it go?”
“It’s the hiking trail—crosses the road then goes down to a creek. There are a few picnic spots, but that’s about it.” Bill pointed back to the east and the rocky terrain. “That’s the Gap. This road follows the ridge all the way around to the opening of the valley then stops down at the creek. There is a smal
l place where people can put canoes in the water.”
Dawson looked down the road and saw men with dogs running toward them. Behind the handlers was another man, then two more in SWAT gear, and two more in black uniforms. The armored trucks groaned and began to move forward around the bend. Dawson took steps on the road, staying to the center with Bill close beside her. Bill could see the fear in the men’s eyes. Whatever had happened around the bend was something they were not ready for and not accustomed to.
The first dog handler grew close and stopped just in front of Bill and Dawson. The man bent at the waist, catching his breath, as his dog sat close to his legs, panting. “They got a damn sniper in there. You don’t need a damn tracker for this,” he gasped.
“There is only two of them,” Dawson snapped back. “Turn around and get back there.”
The handler stood back up as the second handler ran past him. “No thanks, lady. I’m with TSA. I was only doing you all a favor coming out here.” The man shook his head then continued down the road.
Dawson stood in the center as the next man ran past. The men in tactical gear stopped just to her front. One of them had just begun to speak, when there was an earth-shattering explosion. A white-and-brown cloud of earth and debris mushroomed up in the air. Bill crouched and ran to the side of the road, where he knelt low, watching stones and tree limbs fall back to the earth.
The two men in tactical gear who had stopped looked at Dawson. Their mouths fell open to speak but then closed, and they continued their run back to the trailhead. Dawson held her position in the center of the road, speechless as the others ran by.
She looked at Bill. “Are you going to run away as well?”
Bill took in a deep breath then exhaled. He got to his feet and rejoined her in the center of the road. “What was that?” he asked.
She shook her head.
The agent had a radio on her hip, but it had been mostly silent, only announcing the departure of vehicles from the rally point.