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

by R. E. McDermott

  She lowered the binoculars and turned to him with a sheepish grin. “Patience isn’t one of my virtues.”

  Hughes laughed. “Believe me, after four years I’ve figured that out.”

  Her smile faded. “Are you as scared as I am, Captain?” she asked quietly.

  “Frigging terrified,” Hughes said. “And if I could move us all out of harm’s way, I’d do it in a heartbeat, but this isn’t exactly a speedboat we’re on.”

  Howell nodded and raised her binoculars again to stare downstream.

  “What do you make of that?” she asked.

  Hughes raised his own glasses.

  He muttered a curse, then called to the Coasties on top of the wheelhouse. “HEY TORRES! DOES THAT DEFENSIVE PLAN OF YOURS HAVE AN OPTION B?”

  ***

  Torres stood on the bridge wing and lowered the binoculars. “They’re shields all right,” he said. “But I doubt they’re armor plate, and I don’t know how thick they are. We might be able to punch through them, but the problem is we don’t know what the target is on the other side. That’s an awful big area just to shoot and hope. We might do better with the wheelhouse on the tugboat. It’s armored too, but I’d say that’s our best shot to keep ’em away.”

  Hughes nodded and looked downstream at the approaching tow. The boat was made fast to the opposite side of the barges, using the bulk of the barges themselves plus the shields atop them to screen the boat. Only the top of the towboat’s wheelhouse peeked over the bulk of the barges, and it was shielded as well. He rubbed his chin, wondering how they intended to push the barges up to the ship without seeing it, then realized they didn’t have to. Pecos Trader was a stationary target; all they had to do was move into position using landmarks on the opposite riverbank, then push the barges straight across the river and up against the ship.

  “Well, we have to try something,” Hughes said. “Can you hit the wheelhouse from here?”

  Torres looked at Hughes as if he found the question insulting and yelled up to the flying bridge. “ALVAREZ! PUT THREE ROUNDS INTO THE WHEELHOUSE ON THAT BOAT.”

  Alvarez responded by firing three shots at short intervals. All produced loud clangs which echoed across the water, but nothing more. The barges continued toward them as if nothing had happened.

  “Well, that sucked,” Georgia Howell said.

  There were nods from the small group on the bridge wing, which now included Dan Gowan.

  “How about the RPG?” Hughes asked.

  Torres shook his head. “Maybe if we could hit the boat, but she’s way out of effective range for an RPG, and nothing else we have will work. We might have a shot with concentrated rifle fire if we could see the rest of the boat, but it’s hidden behind the barges. We need a friggin’ mortar.”

  Gowan nodded and started toward the wheelhouse door. “Be right back,” he said.

  M/V Tilly

  Neches River

  Approaching Pecos Trader

  Same Day, 5:19 a.m.

  Snag almost lost control of his bladder when the first round slammed into the wheelhouse shield. He was cowering on the deck with the ashen-faced towboat captain when the next two rounds impacted scant seconds later. He pulled his Glock and shoved the muzzle against the captain’s head.

  “Get back up there and drive this boat,” Snag said. “Or it ain’t bullets from outside you’ll need to worry about.”

  Trembling, the man did as ordered, and Snag scrambled to his feet as well, thankful none of his underlings had witnessed his momentary weakness. He looked at the shielding and smiled. He’d had a feeling Spike was gonna send him on the boat, and he’d tripled protection here just to be on the safe side. He hadn’t survived as long as he had by being dumb.

  ***

  Hughes watched Dan Gowan rush across the bridge wing to the steps up to the flying bridge, carrying a cardboard box. First Engineer Rich Martin was close behind with another. Hughes and the others fell in behind the engineers as they raced up the steps to their improvised air cannon.

  “Dan,” Hughes said, “I don’t think throwing chunks of concrete at them is gonna do much good.”

  Gowan was shaking his head as he swung the muzzle around toward Rich, out of breath from his recent run down the stairs and back. “Not … concrete,” he said. “Homemade … napalm.”

  Hughes was confused. “What the hell are you talking about—”

  Rich Martin, a little less winded, filled in the blanks as he and Gowan worked. “It was the chief’s idea, Captain. He had Polak go through all the stores and equipment and gather up all the Styrofoam packing material he could find. Then we dissolved it in gasoline, ’cause that’s really all napalm is, jellied gasoline. Anyway, it worked. You set this crap on fire and it’s hard to put out, and what’s more, it sticks pretty good to whatever it touches. We filled up a bunch of aluminum soda cans. If it works like we hope, they’ll split open on impact and spread this stuff all over the place.”

  Gowan was nodding emphatically as they worked and Rich talked.

  Hughes looked downriver. “Can you reach them?”

  “I don’t know,” Gowan said. “But this stuff is a lot lighter than concrete, so we should be able to shoot farther with the same air pressure.” He looked back toward Rich Martin. “You ready, Rich?”

  Rich nodded. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said, with a napalm round started into the muzzle of their makeshift cannon and his broomstick ramrod close at hand.

  “All right,” Gowan said. “Light her up and shove her home, but make sure not to let any of it get on you, because it’s not coming off.”

  Rich finished and Gowan swung the muzzle downstream toward the approaching target. “I got no idea if I can even hit them,” he said. “I’m just going to try to get one somewhere on target; then we’ll fine-tune it from there. Man the firing valve, Rich. I wish we’d had time to work on these sights some more,” Gowan muttered as he looked down the barrel. “Okay, Rich. Ready. Set. Fire!”

  Rich cycled the quick closing valve open and closed, and there was a loud pop as four hundred and fifty pounds of air pressure flung the improvised round into the air, and the group watched it arc toward the target.

  “I think it went out, Chief,” Rich said.

  “And I overshot them,” Gowan said, disappointment in his voice as the round sailed over his target by a wide margin. “I figured it would drop more, and I was trying to compensate.”

  He barely finished speaking when the round impacted a paved road running along the river’s edge. Flame bloomed across the width of the road, a broad circle of fire burning brightly.

  Rich grinned. “I guess it didn’t go out after all.”

  Gowan was already swinging the muzzle down. “Load another. I think I’ve got it now. These are light enough not to drop much at all.”

  The next round impacted one of the shields on the barge, leaving a large circle of flame burning on its surface. Gowan turned his attention to the towboat shield and managed to hit it with the third round, the other two rounds leaving more burning spots on the barge shields.

  “See if you can drop one on the towboat itself,” Torres said.

  Gowan shook his head. “The aimed trajectory is too flat. To hit the boat, I’d have to aim up in the air and try to drop it straight down. And since we can’t see most of the boat, I wouldn’t really know if we were hitting it or not. But if I keep hitting the wheelhouse shields, maybe the burning stuff will drip down on the boat and set it on fire.”

  “Do it,” Hughes said. “It’s not like we have anything else to hit them with.”

  ***

  Snag saw something sail overhead to hit the riverbank and burst into flame.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked aloud, but the terrified towboat captain only shook his head.

  The fire ashore was followed a minute later by dull thuds from the barge, followed by excited shouts. As Snag was trying to work out what was happening, something struck the wheelhouse shield with a reso
unding THUD, followed seconds later by shouts of ‘FIRE ON DECK!’

  Snag felt panic rising. He pulled his gun again and shoved it in the captain’s face. “What the hell is going on?”

  “How would I know? I’ve been right here with you,” the terrified man replied.

  Snag jammed the muzzle of the gun hard into the captain’s cheek. “DO SOMETHING!”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll … I’ll try. But you only left me one man—”

  THUD! Another round hit the shield, and the terrified deckhand burst into the wheelhouse.

  “Whatever that stuff is, it’s burning all over the bow. I used up a fire extinguisher, and that knocked it down, but it came right back,” he said.

  “Start the fire pump and get a hose on it,” the captain yelled, and the man nodded and rushed out of the wheelhouse just as another round impacted the shield.

  ***

  Hughes glanced at his watch and studied the flaming vessels continuing toward Pecos Trader undeterred. “They might be burning, but they’re not stopping,” he said aloud to no one in particular. He turned, his eyebrows raised in a question, as Georgia Howell came out of the wheelhouse.

  “From the radar plot, it looks like they’ll be directly across from us in five minutes, and it won’t take them more than five more to cross the river and jam those barges against our side,” she said.

  Hughes turned at another shout of exultation.

  “I think we’re getting the hang of this,” Gowan yelled as he swiveled the muzzle back toward Rich to load another round. Hughes nodded; by his timing, they were getting off four or five rounds a minute.

  The wheelhouse shield was engulfed in flames now, and Torres pointed to one of the scattered places where the napalm burned on the barge shields. “Look at that white smoke pouring out around the edges of those shields. Something is burning behind them. I bet they got wood reinforcement.”

  Gowan shrugged. “The wheelhouse shields are burning pretty good. We may as well give the others a little attention.”

  He depressed the muzzle a bit to target the barge shields. By the time the barges were almost abreast of Pecos Trader across the river, the shields were burning for their entire length.

  ***

  “I can’t stop it, Captain,” The deckhand said between gasps. “I hit it with water, and the fire just floats on top. Fact is, I spread it; some of the flames floated aft and set that pile of mooring lines on the stern on fire. And the lines to the barges are burning too. If they part, we’ll lose the tow.”

  Snag listened in disbelief and stifled a cough. The thick synthetic mooring lines were impregnated with dirt and grease, and their noxious smoke mingled with the wood smoke from the burning plywood in the barge shields to engulf the wheelhouse in a thick funk. On the barges, he could hear angry shouts, no doubt directed at the ship raining fire on them. At least he didn’t have to worry about the meth heads calming down. He jammed his pistol into the captain’s head again.

  “We lose these barges before they’re jammed up against the side of that ship, and you’re dead.”

  “But I … I can’t control the lines burning—”

  “Then you better make sure we get across the river sooner rather than later,” Snag said.

  The man nodded and rammed the throttles further forward in hopes of coaxing a tiny bit more speed out of his ungainly tow.

  Snag looked aft from the wheelhouse at the flock of boats sheltering around them in the shadow of the barges. Close-packed and hard-pressed to maneuver in the tight space, they nonetheless managed; none of them wanted to become easy targets for a machine gun.

  The boats held the second wave: five hundred hard-core members of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. But on the edges of the swarm were boats full of sacrificial meth heads, armed to the teeth and outfitted with boarding ladders and grappling hooks. To this group Snag had also promised the pick of the women captives to the first man who boarded Pecos Trader. He smiled. Dumb asses, all of them. It never seemed to occur to the meth heads the man or men capturing the machine gun AND the first man aboard from the small boats couldn’t ALL have first pick of the captives. Not that it mattered. Presuming they lived, all they were getting was more meth.

  Snag watched the west bank recede as the boat maneuvered the barges across the river toward the ship, the boats clustered in the shadow of the barges following like so many mechanical ducklings.

  ***

  Hughes stood on the bridge wing as the burning barges crept toward them in a line parallel to the ship. He saw gaps near the tops of the burning shields, each perhaps four to five feet wide. Through the gaps he glimpsed platforms and what he took to be handrails, and then he understood; they’d built shielded stairways up from the decks of the barges to allow the cons to rush aboard the main deck of the Pecos Trader from a dozen sally ports. Hughes looked over to where Torres stood at the rail, well aft of him on the bridge deck, with their single Cuban RPG on his shoulder.

  “Ahh … he’s getting pretty close, Mr. Torres,” Hughes called, just as flame shot out the rear of the tube on Torres’ shoulder, and the grenade flew across the gap toward the shielded wheelhouse of the approaching push boat.

  Things seemed to move in slow motion as the projectile moved straight toward its target, then veered sharply at the last moment to miss the boat by a foot and explode harmlessly in the river two hundred feet beyond the approaching threat. Hughes muttered a curse and looked back to where Torres was lowering the tube from his shoulder, a scowl on his face.

  ***

  Snag flinched as the grenade flew past the wheelhouse of the push boat and exploded in the river beyond. A rocket! They had frigging rockets!

  He jammed his gun into the captain’s cheek again.

  “How much longer, damn you?” he demanded.

  “T-ten minutes! Ma-maybe less,” the terrified man stammered.

  Snag glanced nervously at his watch. “If it’s eleven, you’re a friggin’ dead man.”

  ***

  “Can we pull our people back and set up one of the machine guns to sweep the port side as they try to board?” Hughes asked.

  Torres shook his head. “I’m betting they’re going to try to shoot the gaps on either end of the ship with the small boats and hit us on the starboard side too. We need the machine guns to plug those holes. Besides”—Torres nodded down the deck—”if we hit those shields at an angle, any ricochets might take out the opposite machine gun. There’s just too much of a likelihood of friendly fire.”

  Hughes looked at the barges again and gave a nervous nod. “I guess this is the ‘no plan survives first contact with the enemy’ part, right?”

  Torres nodded. “But we should pull back from the rail to the centerline like you suggested and divide our shooters into groups, each to concentrate fire into one of the barge sally ports. And half of each group should be ready to switch fire to the starboard side as needed. We’ll use the Cuban machine gun as planned to target any boats that make it to the starboard side of the ship, and Alvarez and I will stay up top as overwatch to help deal with anyone who makes it aboard.”

  Hughes nodded, moving toward the stairs. “I’ll get them organized—”

  Georgia Howell moved to cut him off. “That’s my job, Captain.”

  “Negative, Mate. Stay here and warn us if something is developing, and be ready to sound the signal if it looks like we’re about to be overrun—”

  “No, sir! You’re commanding. You need to see—”

  “And I’m commanding from the front and telling YOU to follow orders. Are we clear?”

  “But, Captain … Jordan …”

  “My family’s down there, Georgia. I won’t stand up here and watch them being shot at. It’s just … it’s just too hard. Are we clear?” The question was softer this time.

  “Clear,” Howell said softly.

  Hughes turned toward the door, then hesitated. “What about the kids and noncombatants? That all squared away?”

  How
ell nodded. “Forted up in the steering gear room. Polak and one of his guys are down there with twelve gauges. They’ll shoot anybody coming in who’s not us.”

  Hughes nodded and moved to the central staircase. He glanced to port as soon as he reached the open deck. The barges were less than fifty yards away now, and he could see movement through the gaps of the sally ports. He moved along the defensive line, pulling his people back to the centerline of the vessel to find cover as best they could, and formed them into groups charged with defending the section of railing across from each barge sally point.

  Task done, he found cover behind a pipe support in view not only of his designated sally port, but Laura and the girls in the next group further aft. If they retreated back to the deckhouse, he’d make sure his family didn’t get left behind in the confusion. The barges were ten feet away now, inching closer.

  “I never expected to be here doing this.”

  He turned to see Dan Gowan standing beside him, facing the approaching barges with a Winchester .30-30 in his hand. His cheek bulged from a huge wad of chewing tobacco.

  Hughes nodded and turned back toward the barges. “Me neither. But don’t let me catch you spitting that nasty—”

  His voice was drowned in a maelstrom of noise as the machine guns opened up on the bow and stern, and a savage war cry sounded from hundreds of crazed meth heads on the barges.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  M/V Tilly

  Same Day, 5:40 a.m.

  Snag stood in the wheelhouse window of the towboat and gave the hand signal. Engines roared, and boats peeled off the outside of the swarm into two roughly equal groups to jet at full speed around opposite ends of the barges, bound for the narrow gaps at either end of the ship. He heard the machine guns and seconds later felt a shuddering thud through his feet as the barges impacted the ship’s side.

  “Now you better well hold them there, if you know what’s good for you,” he said to the towboat captain.

  The man looked relieved. “Nothing to it now. As long as I keep the engines going ahead and don’t touch the steering, we’ll stick here like glue.”