“All right, looks like she’s got the action back together. The rest goes back the same as…”
“Duncan?” Lisa’s voice came over the handheld radio loud.
“Yes, dear,” Duncan said smiling and watching grins light the faces of more than a few folks in the class area.
“What exactly goes on a double triple heart attack sandwich?”
The class cracked up, and Duncan shook his head, hiding a wry smile.
3
Blake, Smith’s Farm, Kentucky
Blake had helped many a farmer fix things, but the harvest wasn’t something he’d done by himself before. But he’d had plenty of volunteers and was now putting them to use. Silverman’s mechanics had gotten every older tractor in the area working, and fuel supplies were being consolidated. All Blake had to do now was try to get an idea of the yield they were harvesting out of the corn and soybean fields and report back.
Much of the country was still crippled, but the older diesel locomotives were being located and were replacing the diesel/electric pushers that had taken over the industry. The parts for the old engines were easier to source than the hybrids, and if what Blake was experiencing here worked out, then much of the rest of the country might have a fighting chance of surviving the coming winter, not that there were many people left. He’d seen the figures from the government. 92% mortality already. And, with winter coming on, 8% of approximately 360 million people left less than thirty million people in the country. The United States couldn’t afford to lose any more to starvation or the cold.
If enough people survived the starving times, disease, and the cold of winter, there might be enough people left to actually do something about the New Caliphate. Still, the country had been planted with crops and, with enough people in the know and with a way to transport things, they had a real chance of knocking starvation off the list of worries.
“Hey, Blake,” Sgt. Silverman said. “Big man’s on the horn.”
“Which one?” Blake asked, wary.
“Not the big big man, the governor.”
Blake sighed in relief. He had spoken with the president exactly twice now, and both times had left him feeling like a mouse that had fallen into the shadow of a hawk. He’d been a part of dismantling the local Kentucky government and, even if Boss Hogg being arrested for his misdeeds hadn’t been enough, Blake had found out he was a friend of the president. Watching his wife kick Hogg’s sweaty gluteus maximus up to his triple chin had been pretty amusing, but in the end, he worried every time he talked to the president over the radio.
“Blake here,” Blake said into his earwig after tuning into the right frequency.
“Blake, you ready for some more travel?”
Blake groaned but kept that off key.
“No, I’ve been gone from my place for too long. After I finish the figures here at the Smith’s farm I told you about, I’m going to send in my report. Sgt. Silverman has somebody who can make it look official even.”
“Listen, they really want you to head to Massachusetts.”
“Can’t do that. Besides, I’m stepping down as director in a couple of weeks. Sandra’s getting big, and I need to tend to my own doings at the Homestead.”
“I could compel you not to step down,” the governor said softly.
“Excuse me?” Blake asked, standing bolt upright.
Silverman had his ears in because he shot Blake a look that spoke of disgust and incredulity.
“This is how important your work with these camps is. They need you. The president needs you, the country needs you.”
“It isn’t up for debate. I’ve basically served my sentence already. I’m stepping down in a couple of weeks, and I’m spending this weekend with my family.”
“Blake, like I said— “
“Go ask the former governor what happened last time he tried to compel us to do anything,” Blake shot back, his blood boiling.
The line went silent, and Silverman looked at the quiet man in open shock. What they’d done at the Homestead was self-defense. Even the shelling of the governor could be seen as such, but to outright threaten the same thing again made Silverman cringe. Still, he would follow along with whatever Blake, Sandra, and Duncan cooked up. He owed them his life, time and time again, and the same went for his men.
“Blake, I didn’t mean it to sound like that. They just really need you,” the governor said after a long minute.
“I appreciate you telling me that, Governor, and I really meant what I said to you. This is why the FEMA programs across the country were doomed to fail and ignite a revolution. You were ‘compelling’ people to do what you wanted them to do. People will naturally want to come together and work for a common cause, especially if they and their families are fed and clothed. Forcing them to anything will only make them dig their heels in and lash out. Don’t forget that. What you just said has me digging my heels in. I just want to get back to a quieter life.”
The governor cursed softly over the air, but not directed at Blake. His words spoke of being in an impossible situation with no visible options. When his tirade was done, he spoke to Blake directly again.
“I get that, and I’m sorry. Will you at least be available for consulting, talking over the radio like this?”
“That I don’t mind. In fact, I plan on doing more Rebel Radio broadcasts,” Blake said, not believing for one second they would just let him walk away.
“Good, that’s good. Well, I uh… Listen, if I get a chopper out there Monday, could you make a trip to Mass so I can get the pres off my butt?”
“If you put it in writing that you’re letting me walk when my sentence is up.”
“Deal,” the governor said, “Just be thankful they aren’t asking you to go west.”
“You mean because of the New Caliphate?”
“Yeah, they’re attacking our Air Force installations. Texas through Nebraska and Colorado, so far.”
“Nebraska? What’s there?” Blake asked, looking and the fields of corn around him and imagining Nebraska to be much of the same.
“Strategic assets, apparently. I don’t need to know, according to the higher ups. I just hope your wife’s efforts with the Joint Chief’s plans come to fruition. Otherwise, bacon is going to be banned in America.”
“Now that would be a shame. Listen, I really am sorry for putting you on the spot like I did, but I don’t want to ever be put in that situation again. I don’t know why you thought—”
“Blake, truly. I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated, and right now, you’re the closest thing we’ve got to a celebrity. You could do a lot of really really good things for the country if you stayed with FEMA.”
“I think I can do great things at home too. Being a husband, father, and teacher. But… listen to Rebel Radio, later on tonight. I think maybe you’re going to like our topic for the evening.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?” His voice was mildly amused.
“Working with the government. Blake out,” he said, and turned off his radio.
Silverman listened for a few more moments and then looked up at Blake, a smile running across his face. “You liked to have scared the daylights out of me, threatening the governor over open channels like that.”
“Why’s that?” Blake asked him mildly.
“I mean if word gets out…”
“I don’t know if I heard it in a movie or if it’s Jefferson or what,” Blake said, “but it goes something like this: ‘when the people fear their government, there’s tyranny, and when the government fears their people, there’s freedom.’ Sometimes, it doesn’t hurt to remind them of that fact. Otherwise, they seem to get too big for their britches.”
“You’re crazy,” Silverman said.
“Pretty much. Hey, if I get these figures to you in the next twenty, can one of your men give me a lift back to the Homestead?”
“Sure thing.”
4
Michael & King, Nebraska
“Something e
lse is going on,” Michael said to King, looking through a spotting scope.
King was lying flat on his stomach, a .338 Lapua looking like a toy gun in his meaty arms. He was watching a convoy that had approached the edge of a DHS outpost a few miles from a FEMA camp.
“Wind?” he asked.
“Five miles an hour, coming west to east. My spotter says a thousand meters,” Michael whispered.
King made one adjustment on his scope, the click of the knob louder than the wind rustling the surrounding corn that had been planted all around the machine shop they were now lying on the roof of.
“Can you make out what they are saying?” Michael asked.
“Don’t read lips,” King replied softly.
He took in the slack in the trigger slowly, gently. When the rifle went off, it surprised him slightly, as it should. He’d been slowing his breathing to time the shot between his heartbeats, a low point in the wind and hopefully when Murphy was fast, fast asleep. The bullet hit high and to the right of the target. Instead of the tip of the nose, it entered the left eye of the New Caliphate’s spokesperson. Michael and King saw pink mist and people hitting the deck.
“Hit,” Michael said, as if King hadn’t been watching already.
King grunted and sent more lead down the line. This was another hit, and the third was a bit low, but it hit the terrorist invader under the arm, in the top of the rib and armpit area. Return fire was starting, though none of it was even remotely close.
“Let’s go,” he said, and slid the rifle down to his side.
“Right behind you, big guy.”
Sliding down the tin roof was easy, though it cost them in the form of super-heated skin that made them feel like they were being cooked. Motors fired up in the distance, audible over the gunfire that was starting to ping off the buildings near the small three corner intersection. There wasn’t much out here, but the fact that the DHS and Jihadis were now firing on their position was both a comfort and distressing. It sucked because it somehow looked as if they were working together. It had been the third instance where they had witnessed something like this, but they’d never been fired upon by Americans before.
Hitting the bottom molding, King rolled onto his back and grabbed the .338 in big hands and let his feet dangle over the edge before dropping. He fell four feet before he hit the compressor room roof. It was a shed-like structure that made getting onto the main roof a cinch, especially as they still had the APC they had liberated after Texas.
“Here they come,” Michael said, though both of them could hear the roaring of the engines.
“I got the wheel, you work as a gunner,” King yelled as his next hop landed him on the top of the APC and he dropped in through the hatch.
Michael had seen it a dozen or more times, and every time he expected the big man to get stuck, but it didn’t happen. As far as King’s orders went, they made sense to Michael. King was getting better at driving the APC, but Michael had taken to the entire machine as he was born in one. It didn’t matter that the instructions were in Cyrillic, he’d proven that he could operate it efficiently. He also knew the difference between anti-personnel rounds and HE rounds now, a distinction that made everyone around his first use of the turrets sweat the sweat of the nervous, or the ones who knew they were very close to death.
“Two seconds,” Michael said, folding the small adjustable tripod he’d been using with the spotting scope.
It wasn’t one of the new digital models, but something right out of the Vietnam era, if he had to guess. Actually, Michael thought it was a lot newer, but it worked, and that was what counted. Hopefully.
“Hustle, boy,” King said, smiling in the darkened interior.
“I’m ready,” he said, closing the hatch and checking the load he had in the breach. “Reloading with HE round.”
“Looks like one DHS APC inbound. No turrets. Light armor. Give it one.”
King had gone back to short choppy sentences, but Michael knew the drill King was talking about. They had war-gamed this exact scenario. First would be high explosive, and if it still kept coming, they would send an armor piercing round next. The armor piercing round would be devastating to a small vehicle like the APCs they were in.
“Firing,” Michael said as soon as he got a sight picture and hit the red button he’d learned meant it let it fly.
The gun fired overhead, and Michael was already working to open the breach, and reload in an armor piercing round. King fired up the twin diesels to give the turret more power and a faster response time because he could see the first round hit just in front of the APC, kicking up a big cloud of dust.
“Keep an eye on your windage. You missed.”
“I one!” Michael yelled and hit the button again.
The big gun roared, and the round hit dead square on the American-made APC. Fire shot out from the seams, and it came to a dead stop. Still, the rag tag bunch of trucks and converted technicals raced down the highway towards them. Michael resisted the urge to duck, cringe or hide as the rounds from their light machine guns opened up, turning the inside of their APC into what Michael imagined a tuning fork would sound like if it were turned inside out.
“You won nothing, keep firing,” King said, gunning the diesels and pointing the big slow Russian APC towards the lead vehicle. “It’s a joke, from a battleship. Blake told it a month or so back. He and his kid were playing it, and he mentioned it on Rebel Radio.”
Blake had, in Michael’s mind, become something of a legend. He saw a lot of himself in the solitary man. Somebody who could survive on his wits alone and had. The one difference was the homesteader wasn’t as much of a gun dog as Michael was turning out to be; he had had learned enough skills not to be a liability, whereas Michael wanted to become a weapon. One which he’d use against the people who had taken his father away and killed off much of the country. Lukashenko was directly responsible, but it was the Jihadis and North Koreans who made the situation possible.
“Firing,” Michael said, using an AP round against the civilian vehicles.
“Grab something,” King said, and the APC almost went on three wheels as he banked hard.
The heavy vehicle was designed with six tires, none of which were necessary if it were to cross water, but very necessary to race down the pitted asphalt. As it was, King put it in neutral and let the vehicle start coasting to a stop as he dropped a gun port, stuck the barrel of the .338 out and began firing. The result of both of them pouring the fire on was like adding gasoline to a fire made from pine trees. The Jihadis and DHS marked vehicles turned and tried to flee. For five minutes, Michael kept firing as long as he had a sight picture, knowing how far he could shoot with the turret.
“I think you got ‘em,” King said.
“I hope they won’t be back.” Michael watched their retreat as the two groups split up and headed in different directions.
“Hit the APC with HE,” King told him.
Michael took a deep breath, reloaded and sighted in. At this distance, it was now an easy shot, and when the shockwave hit and lifted the APC up and then down, they both felt the explosion and the impact, despite the vibrations of their own twin diesels.
“Why?” Michael asked after a moment.
“Perceived power. Remember your first day at Talladega?”
Boy, did he ever. How King had introduced himself, his advice on making a mark and never letting somebody perceive you as weak, unless you wanted to be a victim. He’d learned about power, dominance, and a ton of other things that were left unsaid but obvious, nonetheless.
“I do, thanks for the reminder.”
“At least you didn’t have to sleep with one hand over your— “
“Thanks for that mental image, buddy,” Michael interrupted with a laugh that neither of them heard well. Their ears were ringing from both the inbound gunfire and the big gun as it had rained hell on earth down on the incoming vehicles. Still, they were both smiling. They had lived through the attack and spre
ad the spearhead of the New Caliphate to the four corners of the map. More concerning, though, was the fact that they seemed to be meeting up with the DHS. Why?
“We need more intel. Call in what we saw. I’ll be driving up to see if anybody needs triple A.”
“Har har har,” Michael said as he came forward to look out the viewports King had down.
“Anything moving?” Michael asked after a few moments of cruising the blacktop.
“Nope,” King said, pulling to the side of the APC that had been shot up by them.
Michael went up through the hatch and wasn’t surprised to hear the diesels shudder to a stop. King joined him, and they stood next to it, the machine giving off tremendous heat.
“Nobody survived that,” Michael said pointing.
“Nope.”
Walking around it, they could see the devastation their rounds had caused. Michael shielded his eyes and looked further into the distance at the other vehicles they’d disabled. Four mismatched trucks and a technical had come to a halt. The interiors were painted with safety glass and red. Not a pretty sight. Michael pulled his handset after looking at things and headed back into the APC. King stayed outside, walking closer to the DHS vehicle as it cooled. He wrote down the numbers on the side in a dog-eared notebook he’d taken to keeping in his tactical vest, and his scribbles were recorded by a half chewed pencil.
Looking to the distance himself, he made sure he had the old 1911 he favored. He did, plus four spare mags. He considered getting his M4 out, but decided against it and walked along the shoulder of the road. If anybody got cute, he knew Michael would pull the hatch and meet him for an exfil, but it wasn’t a big worry. He could always ghost into the corn and lay low. What he knew the kid had seen, but hadn’t commented on, were the human remains that had been partially sucked out the hole of the armored APC as the round exited the other end. The other vehicles he was walking toward had been hit with high explosives and anti-personnel rounds, basically a huge shotgun shell. It would be worse than what they’d seen here.
Agony Of The World: A Post-Apocalyptic Story (The World Burns Book 9) Page 2