Her world had ended, a part of her had died, and now a part of her was coming back to life. She had kept his memories and him at bay for all these years. Shooting, hunting, camping, they had done it all when she was young. He had taught her how to be a strong, independent woman. The more she cycled, the more she realized just how much he had shaped the woman she had become. A warmth passed through her as tears began to flow for the only other man she had loved and a man who she had never mourned the loss of. She had only ever hated him for what he had done to her and her mother.
***
Nick and Alex walked quickly and soon started to jog. Before they knew it, they were running to reach their vantage point over the militia base before the woman arrived. When Nick stopped to check on her progress and scanned the riverside road, he couldn’t find her. She couldn’t, he thought, have gotten that far ahead. Nick and Alex were fast runners and with her heavy bag, she couldn’t have been cycling so fast that they would have lost her. Other than a few blind spots, where houses and buildings blocked their view, they had a clear view of the road.
“Whoa!” exclaimed Alex loudly, catching Nick’s attention instantly.
“What?” Nick scanned to where Alex was focusing his binoculars. He didn’t need Alex to explain any further. “Holy shit!”
Chapter 39
Kate dropped to the ground as the first explosion rocked the ground beneath her. Her bike wobbled onwards for a few yards before joining her on the ground. She reached for her bag, but it had been caught on the handlebars of her bike and lay out of her reach. She pulled the Walther PPQ from her hip holster, and kneeling for a better view, tracked the area for targets. She was all alone, not a soul within her field of vision. The road was empty ahead and behind. A second explosion shuddered through the tarmac beneath her, and heavy and prolonged gunfire followed. A deep boom, boom; Kate guessed it was a heavy machine gun. The individual booms were quickly joined by others. Somewhere to her east, a battle was underway. She hadn’t been there, but from where the sounds were emanating, it sounded like the militia base was under attack.
***
Nick watched as the rocket-propelled grenades signaled the commencement of the attack. He recognized some of the uniforms as police and the rest, from their military uniformity, looked like National Guardsmen. They definitely weren’t regular US forces. It seemed the people of Boise hadn’t rolled over quite as easily as everyone had thought.
“I count at least two hundred in the attacking force,” said Alex, scanning the area as the attackers launched their offensive against the militia’s stronghold. The attackers’ heads rose as the rockets hit the machine gun nests, and they charged. They had encircled the base, working their way through the undergrowth, and had positioned themselves without being noticed within striking distance, but still a few hundred yards of open ground to cover.
Alex and Nick were over a mile away when the attack had begun. Their bird’s eye view from the hilltop allowed a perfect vista from which to survey the outcome. There was no doubt the militia had been caught off guard. They had clearly believed they had already gained and asserted control to the point that complacency over their security had set in. A mere six days and they believed they had beaten the fight out of a city of over three quarters of a million people. It was either extreme arrogance or stupidity. But to be fair, from what Nick had witnessed, it was a justified arrogance. Whoever had pulled off the surprise attack had obviously worked exceptionally hard over the previous few days. With no communications or transport, getting that size of force together and mounting a counterassault had been no mean feat, particularly as they had managed to keep it under wraps.
***
In the corner of his eye, Bob caught sight of the flash of a high explosive round being fired, He watched almost in disbelief as the subsequent flashes followed, almost instantaneously as the world appeared to slow. His base was being attacked. The hillside above them had come to life. He looked to his outposts stationed above the hill. Explosive shells flashed down from them also. His lookouts had failed, but had no doubt already paid the price.
His machine gun nests took the brunt of the explosive attack, the ground rocking beneath him as each explosive landed, spraying a cloud of sand within its fiery mix. Screams erupted around him as the men manning the posts bore the brunt of the initial assault. With the first phase over, the hillside and the land around came to life, men rose and ran towards the base. Small arms fire led the way. Bullets were pinged and whizzed around him as men dressed in police tactical and army fatigues charged at his base.
***
Colonel Wyatt Gratchik, retired, had barely slept the previous few days. The militia’s quick action on the first day of the outage had taken the city by complete surprise. The news of the militia’s destruction of the local police force had spread slowly but steadily across the city. The setting up of the militia’s base of operations and the scale of its success followed shortly afterwards. On reaching the Colonel, he had immediately reached out to the Mayor and Chief of Police to offer his services and that of the National Guard, or at least what was left of it. A significant number had already been federalized and shipped out to the Middle East to the Iran crisis.
Over the following days, they had tracked down and located as many of the Guard and tactically-trained police officers as they could. It had been a monumental task. With all records stored electronically, they’d had to rely on each of the men knowing where others lived. With no communications, it’d been a slow, laborious process reaching out to each man and coordinating a meeting point, whilst maintaining a level of secrecy from the militia. The power the militia had managed to exert during those first few hours had paved its way to becoming the most powerful force in Boise. And from the Colonel’s perspective, it was a force he had no intention of tackling until he had the men and resources in place to ensure success.
With each day passing, the numbers that arrived at the meeting point had grown. The Colonel assumed command and welcomed the tactically-trained police officers into his fold. By the fifth day, they had over two hundred highly-trained men ready to fight and take back control of the city. The Colonel had, with a couple of his men, surveyed the base and had come up with a plan of attack. With the Mayor and Chief of Police’s approval, he had begun the operation that morning. Their first task was to take out the militia’s hilltop watch points.
From their surveillance, they had ascertained that there were two points in the day when the militia was the most exposed: when darkness, and around four p.m. at the shift change. Darkness was quickly ruled out, for lack of night vision equipment, or even a working flashlight between them. The likelihood of friendly-fire was too big a risk. Darkness was no one’s friend. This left the 4.00 p.m. option. After a long day, it was clear from the previous few days’ observations, that the militia men’s enthusiasm waned as the day progressed. The late afternoon shift change was a downsizing of the guard on duty. The feeling appeared to be that another day was over and a level of complacency and relaxation took over. Food was prepared and the sentries on duty seemed to be exhausted, even before they started. With three hours of light still left, the Colonel was going to take full advantage of that complacency.
His guard was made up of reservists and retirees like himself, a number of whom had served in various branches of the regular military. It was those more experienced men he called upon to take the hilltop sentry points, the most crucial part of the plan. His men had to get in position and strike without alerting the militia below. Over the course of the day, three men had worked their way slowly into position, using camouflaged ghillie suits. A sniper and two Marines had the experience required and offered to undertake the task. They had excelled and as the new shift settled in, they struck. Their silenced weapons took out the four sentries in the two hilltop nests without raising the alarm.
With the hilltop watch points under control, the Colonel was free to move his main force into position. A signal had the force m
oving, crawling through the undergrowth and as near to the base perimeter as they dared, which unfortunately, thanks to Bob’s paranoid planning, meant they were still a few hundred yards from the base. The Colonel knew this was the most crucial part of their attack. The heavy machine guns were his biggest concern. Taking them out was crucial to their success and the commencement of their assault. Unfortunately, their only weapon capable of that task was the older Carl Gustaf M3 anti-tank weapon. The majority of their equipment had, as with everything else within Boise, been fried during the power outage, rendering useless every projectile with electronic guidance. Unfortunately, that equated to everything except for bullets, a handful of grenades, and the very limited resource of old M3 high explosive rounds for the all but defunct launcher, which should have been decommissioned years earlier.
***
Bob remained calm as the last explosive round landed. He looked to his machine gun posts and directed fresh men towards them. Injured and dead militia men were tossed aside as the posts were re-manned. The sandbags had done their job. He had doubled and then trebled the number of bags around them. He knew how important they were to his security. The deep boom of the powerful .50 caliber M2 rounds being expelled began to surround him as his men rushed to take up their pre-arranged posts. Training had been extensive over the previous months for his core militia and intensive for their new intake over the previous few days. Everyone knew exactly what was expected of them without any orders being issued.
Only one of the six M2s that protected the base failed to fire. It appeared the attackers had expended their arsenal of explosives in their initial assault, hoping it would give them the upper hand. The M2 that failed was quickly replaced with two M249 light machine guns, easily replacing the additional power the M2 offered them over their attackers. With his men taking up reinforced positions around the base, the attackers’ assault was already faltering. Yes, they had caught them unawares, had overrun their outer defenses, but they had failed to deliver a killer first blow and for that, they were going to pay. The houses offered exceptional lines of sights from the upstairs windows, and with sandbags lining the inside of each of the houses’ walls, his men easily had the upper hand and protection from which to direct their fire at the defenseless attackers. What could have been a glorious attack soon became a duck shoot as his men picked off the attacking force with ease.
***
Colonel Gratchick looked on in despair. He had taken up a hillside vantage point and wished there were some way he could have called off the attack. The moment they failed to neutralize the M2s, the battle had been lost. But with no means of communication, everything had to be pre-planned and the main force had been directed to attack from the moment the explosives had landed. It was entirely his failure. He had not foreseen the strength of the machine gun nests and simply assumed their high explosive rounds would have done their job.
Over half his men were cut down within the first few minutes while the rest, realizing the futility of the attack, tried in vain to escape the kill zone that encircled the base. It was a complete and total disaster. Of his two hundred men, he looked on as barely a quarter made it out of the kill zone.
The bullets continued to fire, even after the kill zone stopped moving. Corpses flinched as the militia made it clear that no prisoners were going to be taken.
***
The Boise authorities had tried to retake their city. Tried and failed catastrophically. Bob ‘the Duke’ Jackson looked out at the sea of men his militia had repelled. He knew he should have been pleased at how well his men had performed. He wasn’t. He was pissed, seriously pissed. How dare they challenge his authority? It was his Boise, and the city was going to find out exactly what that meant.
Chapter 40
Kate needed to get back to her family. Whatever was happening, it was happening out near the militia base. The gunfire was unrelenting, and unlike anything she had heard since that first day. She looked up the hill towards home, she wasn’t far away. Her target practice had gone better than expected and her return home would be earlier than anticipated. The more she had considered running, the more she realized how futile it was. Winter was around the corner. They had enough food to last them at least a few weeks, thanks to Harry, but running with no transport really wasn’t an option. They’d barely be able to carry a few days’ worth of food and they had nowhere to go in any event.
She had a plan. They’d keep a watch during the day. They’d see them coming and with her rifle, she’d do her best to hold them off while the kids got to safety. After that, her plan sort of fizzled out, but she’d do whatever she had to. That’s what a mother did. If they did the same as before and attacked at night, she had a plan for that too. Ultimately, one man was the problem, Trey. If she could just manage to take him out, she felt sure things would settle back to normal, at least for her and her family
Kate pushed on up the hill towards the estate. She came around the final bend and was horrified to see the three bodies still swinging from the street lights. Those were men that had given their lives for the community. No matter how that had transpired, they had done what they’d thought was best. She cycled on to the first street, but it remained empty. Doors were firmly closed. The next street and every other street she passed on her way to Zach’s house was the same. She may be able to save her family, she thought. The community was a different story. It was an ‘every man for himself’ scenario, and Kate had never in her life felt she couldn’t do at least the same as any man. By the time she reached Zach’s house and collected her family, the shooting had stopped. Silence had once again descended over the city. An eerie uneasy silence that nobody had gotten used to. The hustle and bustle of daily life had created far more noise than any of them had ever realized, until it was gone. With the shooting stopped, Kate had only one thing she wanted to do before it was too late. It was the least they could do. Gary and his men had come to their aid and saved them. Zach and Sophie, fully understanding what the men had done for them, didn’t hesitate to offer their assistance. It was an unpleasant job and Kate couldn’t have been more proud of the two of them understanding just how important it was, and putting their fears and revulsions aside to do what was right.
“What are we going to do with them? It’s almost dark,” asked Sophie as they laid the last of the three men on the sidewalk.
“We’ll just have to get some lanterns or something. We can’t leave them here, the coyotes or bears will take them,” said Kate, casting her eyes towards the fading sunlight.
The three of them had been so engrossed in what they were doing, racing to beat the darkness, that the voice from behind startled them all.
Chapter 41
With two hours left before darkness, Bob had no intention of letting anyone retreat.
“I want every man who can ride, on a horse now!” he commanded. He wanted to hunt down every last man who had dared to attack his base. He wanted to know who had instigated, directed and ultimately led the attack. He wanted revenge and the revenge wasn’t going to be restricted to the soldiers and policemen who had taken part in the assault. He wanted anyone and everyone who had played even the smallest part in the assault.
The defeat had been overwhelming and humiliating for the attackers, but for Bob that wasn’t enough. He wanted to crush thoughts of future attempts. He wanted the people of Boise to understand the power and control he had over them. He wanted to crush thoughts of revolt, before they began to form in people’s minds. To do that, he had to break them, and that meant every person involved would be swinging from street lights throughout the city.
Four posses left the base, each heading in a different direction, each with the same instruction: no prisoners. Bob led the posse that headed into the hillside. It was the best vantage point, a point where anyone leading an attack would want to be. He wanted the leader. More than anyone, he wanted the leader on his knees, begging for a forgiveness Bob would never give.
***
“
Shit!” said Nick as the horses were being led from their corrals. The militia were going on the hunt. “I think maybe we should get out of here.”
Alex swung his binoculars to see what Nick was worried about. He had been watching the assault’s retreat. A tight group was about a mile along the hilltop from Nick and Alex’s current location.
“I think you may be right,” agreed Alex. “What should we do about them?”
Nick looked to where Alex was pointing. He recognized the uniform of a Colonel, a captain, and a lieutenant, accompanied by a sergeant and two corporals.
Nick swung his binoculars back to the base, the horses and riders were already heading out. One set was heading up the hill towards the group.
“You’re the boss,” he said.
“Yeah.” Alex looked at the group heading towards them, unaware of their presence. “Our orders are clear. We cannot and must not compromise our orders. They are far more important than a single colonel, or even this entire city.”
“I agree,” said Nick, supporting Alex’s thought process.
Both packed away their things and slipped back into the undergrowth and on towards the tree line that lay just behind them. Once in there, no one would ever find them unless they wanted them to. Alex and Nick had been very carefully selected for the mission. They were among the best the military had to offer, and it had been made very clear by the President himself, that their mission was one of the single most important undertaken in the history of their country, if not the world.
TRIAL: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Thriller Page 16