Push Back: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (The Disruption Series Book 2)

by R. E. McDermott

  “Copy that,” Hughes said. “You can secure from the bow and stern. Georgia, let’s get a little ballast in her. Just enough where she’s touching good in the mud, but don’t wrinkle the bottom or get her stuck tight. We might get to leave here someday.”

  “Copy that,” came Howell’s reply, and Hughes cradled the mic and walked out to where Torres stood on the starboard bridge wing, looking out over the flat marsh and nodding his head.

  “Happy, Mr. Torres?”

  “As a clam, Captain. We couldn’t really ask for a better defensive position,” Torres said.

  “I sure as hell hope so. I’m not really in the habit of putting my ship aground, even lightly.”

  Torres smiled and nodded, and Hughes looked out over their new position. The anchorage was deep enough to allow him to bring his fully loaded ship over five hundred feet up the southern leg of the oxbow, to where the channel not only got shallower but narrowed. There Hughes had swung Pecos Trader at right angles across the channel, effectively turning it into two bodies of water connected only by two extremely narrow and easily defended passages around either end of the ship.

  Torres pointed up the oxbow channel. “This is perfect. They can only get to us by boat, and the only way they can get a boat to the starboard side is running it directly under our bow or stern or coming the long way around from the upriver entrance to the oxbow. And we’ll see anything coming up that channel at least a half a mile before they get to us. It’ll be a shooting gallery. Alvarez and me up on the flying bridge with the Barretts, can pretty much defend this whole side of the ship. We’ll supplement that with the Cuban machine gun, since we don’t have as much ammo for it. That leaves everybody else to defend the port side.”

  Hughes nodded. “We’ll definitely have a height advantage. Where you gonna place the other machine guns? The port bridge wing?”

  Torres shook his head. “That’s actually TOO high to defend the gaps at either end of the ship. If they run in under the guns, it will be hard to depress the muzzles enough to target the attackers if they manage to get close to the ship. We’ll put our machine guns on the main deck at the bow and stern so they can defend the gaps and have interlocking fields of fire to cover the whole port side. Then we’ll spread the rest of our shooters out along the port side rail. We just need to improvise some cover.”

  “Chief Gowan is already working on that,” Hughes said, and shook his head.

  “What’s the matter, Captain?”

  “I was just thinking of all the rules we had in normal times. No matches or cigarette lighters on deck, all electrical equipment to be certified explosion proof, all tools to be non-sparking, and on and on.” Hughes shook his head again. “And now we’re standing here, calmly planning a frigging war on the main deck of a tanker loaded with diesel and gasoline. Thank God the inert gas system is working.”

  Torres shrugged. “Changing priorities, I guess. The chance of getting blown up by a spark doesn’t even move the threat needle compared to being captured by a bunch of murderous convicts.” He paused. “And about that, I think we got a pretty good shot here, but we need a fallback plan.”

  “I’m listening,” Hughes said.

  “Our whole strategy is based on superior firepower to keep them at bay, but guns jam or run out of ammo or get taken out by a lucky shot or fail for a dozen reasons you never thought possible. If that happens and they get aboard in any numbers, we’re screwed,” Torres said.

  “That seems kind of obvious, Torres. Are you telling me this just to scare the crap out of me, or do you have a plan to get us unscrewed?”

  Torres smiled. “Well, maybe less screwed would be more accurate. We need a fortified fallback position, and we need to prepare it now before things go to hell.”

  Hughes stroked his chin. “A citadel?”

  “Exactly,” Torres said.

  Day 32, 10:40 p.m.

  Hughes stood on the bridge wing in the darkness, exhausted from two days of tension and constant work, looking downstream to where lights hidden from direct sight by the intervening tank farm cast a pale glow in the sky. He could hear the faint strains of country music muted by the distance. What the hell were those assholes doing?

  He turned at a sound at the wheelhouse door.

  “Cap?” called Dan Gowan.

  “I’m here, Dan,” Hughes said, and the beam of a small flashlight illuminated the deck as Gowan made his way over.

  “We all set?” Hughes asked.

  Gowan snorted. “I’ve been all set for a day or more. We’ll have some nasty surprises for them if they get on deck, but I’m hopin’ it won’t come to that.”

  The silence grew until Hughes broke it. “You ready to tell me what’s been eating you? You haven’t been your usual charming and argumentative self.”

  Gowan sighed. “I reckon you know, Jordan. It’s Trixie. I’m so sorry.”

  “She’s just a conniving bitch, Dan. There’s nothing you could do about that.”

  “Yeah, but if I hadn’t been such a dumb ass, Georgia wouldn’t have gone after her. Then maybe Jimmy’s dad would still be alive and Jones and those other boys wouldn’t be shot up. Any way you slice it, that’s on me,” Gowan said.

  “Dan Gowan, you stop that nonsense this minute!”

  Both men turned to the door at the sound of Laura Hughes’ voice and watched the flashlight beam bob toward them in the dark.

  “I mean it,” she said. “You WERE being a dumb ass, but you’re certainly not the first man to act stupid because some bimbo waggled her silicone implants at him. But now it’s time for you to STOP being a dumb ass and put this behind you. Nobody blames you, and I know that for a fact, so knock off the pity party. We all need you at one hundred percent, and we can’t afford to have you moping around. Is that clear?”

  Hughes heard Gowan take a step back in the dark. “I … I guess so. But I still think—”

  “That’s just it, you’re NOT thinking, because otherwise you’d be thinking about those four girls Georgia and the others saved,” Laura said. “Do you think for one minute that Earl Gillespie or Jones or the other guys who were wounded would’ve left those girls in that house if they knew about it, whether Trixie was involved or not?”

  “No, but I—”

  “It was Earl’s decision to stay with Alvarez and delay the cons to protect his family and the others. His decision, Dan. Not yours. I didn’t know the man, but I’m pretty sure from the sons he raised he’d have made that decision ten times out of ten, even if he knew it was going to put him in the ground.” Laura stopped for a breath, then continued before Gowan could protest. “And if you still think you owe a debt to Earl Gillespie, then apply yourself to keeping the rest of his family alive. I’m pretty sure he’d be happy with that program, so if you want to do penance, there it is.”

  She stopped, and the silence grew.

  “Feel better now?” Hughes asked into the darkness.

  “Well, yeah. Actually I do,” Gowan said.

  Hughes laughed. “I was talking to Laura.” He grunted as she threw an elbow into his ribs. “Hey! That hurt!”

  “Serves you right,” she said, and Hughes heard footsteps as his wife moved to hug Dan Gowan.

  “You’re a good man, Dan Gowan, but sometimes you are a dumb ass. That Trixie’s not fit to shine your shoes, so good riddance.”

  Hughes heard soft thumps as Laura patted Gowan’s back, and burst out laughing when he heard Gowan say wistfully, “But she does have spectacular tits.”

  “Ouch! Damn, Laura! I was just kidding.”

  But Hughes’ laughter was infectious, and soon the others joined him. One problem was solved, at least; he only wished they could all be solved as easily.

  The laughter died and Gowan said, his voice cracking slightly. “Thank you, Laura. I really do feel much better,” then more matter-of-factly, “I gotta go see how my napalm is coming along.”

  “Napalm? What the hell are you up to, Dan?” Hughes asked.

 
Gowan’s light flicked on as he moved away. “I’ll explain tomorrow after I test it.”

  “What’s that all about?” Laura asked as they watched Gowan’s light bob away.

  “With Dan you never know, but I guarantee it will be original,” Hughes said.

  “He’s such a nice guy,” Laura said. “He really needs someone, especially given how screwed up everything is. We all need someone to hold on to.”

  “Laura,” Hughes said, warning in his voice.

  “What?” Laura replied, all innocence. “Just thinking out loud, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, and we all know what that can lead to—”

  “Relax, Captain, sir. I have nothing but the good of the crew at heart,” she said, then changed the subject quickly before he had time to object further. “What do you think is going on with the lights and music downriver?”

  “Not a clue,” he said. “But I doubt it’s anything good.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Samson Shipyard

  Neches River

  Port Neches, Texas

  Day 32, 11:05 p.m.

  Spike stood in the glare of the harsh work lights and watched as the workers put the finishing touches on the barges. He glanced upstream as the sound of the revelry in the park next door momentarily crested, allowing it to be heard above the muted roar of the portable generators in the little shipyard. He turned to Snag.

  “You sure the barges are gonna be ready by daylight? I don’t want these assholes next door to peak and crash too soon. I want the good part of the high to be finished and for them to be in the agitated and mean phase; otherwise we’ll have to reschedule. We’ve already given that ship too long to get ready as it is,” Spike said.

  “We’re good,” Snag said. “They’re finishing the last barge now. All four will be ready at daylight, just like you wanted.” He smiled. “And it don’t matter how much time we give the ship, ’cause they ain’t gonna be ready for this. Using their own idea against ’em is genius.”

  “Presuming they ain’t figured it out,” Spike said. “I worry about that radar. Did you do what I told you?”

  Snag nodded. “To the letter. We picked barges that were already close by and moved ’em here a little bit at a time. That’s what took us so long. They’d have to be staring at the radar all the time to catch us moving ’em, and now we’re so close it don’t matter. Besides, even if they see us coming, there ain’t a thing they can do about it now. It’s perfect.”

  Spike grunted, hiding his pleasure at the praise. “If it works. Those machine guns might have armor-piercing stuff.”

  “That’s the beauty of it, Spike. We found plenty of plate in the shipyard, and weight ain’t a problem because the barges are empty anyway. We used a double thickness of three-quarter-inch plate for the shields and stuck two inches of plywood from Home Depot in between.” Snag grinned and shook his head. “Ain’t nothing gonna get through those shields. We can drive right up to the side of that ship and say howdy do.”

  Spike nodded, then jerked his head toward the sounds of revelry upriver. “Those assholes gonna be ready? Shields or not, the first ones out from behind them and up those stairways are gonna be stopping some bullets, and I don’t want it to be our regular guys.”

  “They’ll be ready,” Snag said, and smiled as he shook his head. “I gotta hand it to you there too. When you had us set up meth production right after we busted out, I didn’t know what the hell you were doing, but it was a stroke of genius is what it was.”

  Spike returned the smile. “What’s the final count?”

  “Almost eight hundred, give or take. They’re all over there now havin’ a high ol’ time. I got some of the boys pushing ’em all the meth they can handle, and we threw ’em some of the used-up whores from the cells.” Snag laughed. “It ain’t like they can tell the difference.”

  “How about the second wave?” Spike asked.

  “Relax, Spike,” Snag said. “I done just like you said. I left enough guys scattered through the stations to keep the niggers and the beaners from gettin’ any ideas, and the rest are ready to close in for the kill—almost five hundred of ’em. It’s gonna be epic, man!”

  Spike nodded, satisfied. He looked upriver and stroked his beard. “Okay, you done a good job on this, Snag. But you still got a long night ahead of you. Stay here and make sure they finish up on the barges; then just before sunrise, get on over to the park and whip those idiots up a bit. Give ’em the standard speech about the ship being fulla mud people and race traitors who have food and supplies that rightly belong to us. You know the drill.”

  “Gotcha,” Snag said. “You can count on—”

  “I ain’t done yet,” Spike said. “We need to make sure these morons take out any machine guns. So tell ’em anybody who captures a machine gun can have their pick of the women captives. Hell, tell ’em they get their pick of TWO women captives.”

  Snag nodded. “Will do, Spike. Are you really gonna—”

  “Of course not. We’ll just give ’em some more meth and they’ll forget about it anyway.”

  M/V Pecos Trader

  Sun Lower Anchorage

  Neches River

  Near Nederland, Texas

  Day 33, 5:05 a.m.

  Georgia Howell stood on the port bridge wing, gazing downriver toward the glow of the mysterious lighted area now fading against the predawn sky. The music stopped an hour earlier, replaced by the muted sound of faraway shouts and cheering. That too stopped a few minutes earlier, giving her a strong uneasy feeling. Something was about to happen.

  She moved into the wheelhouse and went straight to the radar, doing a double take as she saw a target separate from the riverbank and proceed upstream toward them at a leisurely pace. She reached for the phone, then thought better of it and sounded the general alarm. Only then did she pick up the phone and call Jordan Hughes.

  ***

  Hughes was sleeping fully clothed and woke instantly at the clanging of the general alarm. He swung his feet over the edge of the bed and was pulling on his boots when he answered the bedside phone to hear Howell’s voice.

  “Captain—”

  “On my way, Georgia,” he said as he hung up and finished lacing his boots.

  Laura was beside him by the time he stood. She wrapped him in a tight hug.

  “Is this it?” she asked into his chest.

  “Probably,” Jordan said, and Laura turned her face up and kissed him.

  “I love you,” Jordan said. “Be careful, and tell the girls I love them.”

  Laura nodded and hugged him tighter.

  “I have to go, love,” he said.

  She released him and busied herself with her own boots as he dashed out the door and up the steps to the bridge. He joined Howell at the radar and heard hurried footsteps clang on the metal stairs to the flying bridge—Torres and Alvarez moving into position with sniper rifles.

  “What ya got, Georgia?” he asked.

  “Looks like a push boat and multiple barge tow,” Howell said. “We won’t have a visual until she makes the next bend; then we should be able to see her across the marsh with the binoculars. But something else bothers me.” She pointed at the screen. “What do you make of that?”

  Following close behind the towboat was a large, amorphous, flickering ghost of a target. Hughes looked at it and shook his head. “I’d say it was a whole lot of fiberglass and wood pleasure boats running close together.”

  Howell nodded. “That was my take.”

  “How long before we have a visual?” Hughes asked.

  “Five minutes, maybe ten. Then another ten before it gets here.”

  Hughes nodded and walked over to kill the clanging general alarm. “We have a lot of nervous folks out there; I better give them an update.” He picked up the PA system mic, and his voice boomed through the deckhouse and across the open deck.

  “We have a target on radar approaching from downriver, with an approximate ETA of twenty minutes. We are a
ssuming it’s hostile until we know otherwise. We will have visual contact in five to ten minutes and I will update you at that time. Please stay vigilant and watch upstream as well as down. If you see anything suspicious, please pass the word to the bridge. Thank you.”

  Hughes hung up the mic and gazed down at the main deck. He watched Laura move to her position on the port side near the center of the defensive line, with their twin daughters Jana and Julie in tow, and silently cursed them all for their stubbornness. Laura had seen through his plan to station her in the infirmary to await casualties and quietly but firmly informed him she would do more good on the firing line. Then she had to reap what she’d sown when their twins insisted on joining her.

  In the end, it had been fifteen-year-old Julie’s logic that carried the argument. “So let me get this straight,” she’d asked innocently. “We’ll be LESS likely to get hurt if the convicts actually DO get aboard?” Even in the stress of the moment, the memory brought a smile. She was destined to be a lawyer, that one, except there weren’t any more lawyers.

  There were fine folks falling in all along that defensive line as he looked down on the main deck. Two Coasties manned the machine gun aft while Jones, despite his injuries, had insisted on handling the gun on the bow. He was assisted by Pete Brown, who hadn’t recovered from finding the massacred families. Gone was Pete’s quick smile and easy laugh, replaced by the weight of perpetual sorrow and suppressed fury even the presence of his family failed to lift. He only seemed comfortable with Jimmy Gillespie, Jones, and the other members of the earlier rescue mission, as if the shared experience had bonded them more closely than family.

  The rest of their new Coastie shipmates not otherwise assigned and those survivors and crewmen with military experience were spread along the firing line to support the inexperienced. Hughes sighed. They were as ready as they’d ever be. He turned back toward the radar, but Howell was gone. He found her on the port bridge wing, peering through binoculars across the flat marsh toward the distant river bend.

  “A little early, aren’t you?”