by Pete Aldin
Angie said, "We could hit our own people here, too."
"I got thoughts there. I'll talk you all through it. But, yeah, there's a risk. And I hate it. And it's better than the third choice we have."
"Which is let them take our people back to Jericho."
"Exactly."
Spider asked, "Couldn't you get them out after they're there? Like sneak in?"
Elliot's laugh had zero humor in it. "Sneaking in there didn't work too well for me last time."
"I've been telling Mafia," Angie said to Spider. "Entering their territory is basically how we got into this mess."
"Oh."
"Elliot hasn't told you any of that? What have you two been talking about in the truck? Oh, wait, that's right. Elliot doesn't do conversations."
"Time and place," Elliot growled.
Spider cleared his throat. "I think I should mention that she has body armor, and we ... well." He gestured to his own naked torso.
"You could start with shirts," Angie grumbled. She shifted focus to Spider's feet. "And shoes."
"Only the one vest," Elliot said. "I'm as vulnerable as you guys. If we take out more of these assholes today, there'll be plenty of body armor to go around."
"After they've been shooting at us," Spider sighed.
"I'll risk it with or without armor," Mafia said. "But what if this Kyle bloke goes in a different direction. He might take the coast road to go looking for other survivors."
Angie added, "Or he might stay at Settlers Downs for days or weeks while we're freezing our arses off out here."
"I don't think so on either count. This guy wants bodies, but he really loves his walls. He's proud of them. He feels safe behind them with his own mini-army and his little medieval setup. Out here, body armor and trucks notwithstanding, he is vulnerable. And those meds we wanted, they're back at Jericho, so he's not going to stay away any longer than he has to. Especially not when he's been around sick people he wants to treat and wants to avoid getting sick from."
"Sick people?" Spider asked.
Mafia told him, "Some of 'em have the flu or something. That's why him and her went to Jericho to get some top-shelf meds. Which we'll be getting half of—if those trucks have any with 'em. Right?"
"Right," Elliot said.
Angie kicked a stone into the closest drainage ditch. "I don't like it, but okay. Ambush, it is."
Elliot looked to the Vikes.
"As long as I get to shoot some corrupt coppers, and get some good loot, then it's all good for me," said Mafia.
More softly, Spider added, "I think your reasoning is sound."
Angie gave the skinny man a double take, then said to Elliot, "Time to give us your plan, boss man."
"We've got a box of Molotovs in the boot of our car." Mafia was grinning, eager.
Angie gave Elliot a meaningful look, one that said, I just traveled in a car full of bombs? She said, "And I thought the smell was a faulty muffler. Silly me."
"Ya got some free chroming," Mafia chuckled.
"Molotovs are too messy," said Elliot. "We'll just as likely burn our own people to crisps along with the hostiles."
"But—"
"Or it might kill you," he said.
"We've used 'em before," Mafia said. He let it go, but his expression had soured.
Angie asked Elliot, "What then?"
His gaze traced the nearby orchard fence and the barbed wire along the top of it. "Do we have any wire cutters in the back?"
21
Elliot lay in a hollow between two flowering wattle trees on the south side of the highway where it curved around the spur.
His elevated position up on the high shoulder provided a clear view along both sides of the spur. The taser burns on his gut prickled and stung. The wattle pollen was making his face itch and his head ache. He cursed and blew his nose into his hand, wiped it on his pants.
"What the hell is taking so long?" he muttered, though he didn't really want some of the potential answers to that. The chorus to his old regiment's unofficial theme song played on a loop in his mind—The Waiting is the Hardest Part.
The other three were in the positions he'd assigned them, though two of them didn't truly hold Elliot's confidence and trust.
Mafia, in particular: far too casual.
The former kneecapper leaned against a solitary eucalypt over on the grassy verge near the orchard fence. He flashed Elliot a thumbs-up. Then he checked the safety on the MCX that Elliot had loaned him. Elliot could only hope he would lie down as instructed when he heard motors. He'd given the man one of the spare mags, unwilling to give up more ammunition that he might want to use himself.
Once they got through this, if they prevailed here, short ammunition would continue to be a major issue. They could collect more weapons from whatever SERPs they took down, but the BearCat he'd taken had no extra rounds to reload the magazines they had. What if the one they attacked didn't either? That led to other questions. What did the SERPs have left after two or more years of fighting the undead? Was it only what they carried on them? Or was an entire underground floor of that facility chock full of bullets and flashbangs that the rest of them could use against Elliot and his small team?
A fresh thought hit him, so hard and so raw it caused him to flinch physically—he couldn't believe it had never crossed his mind to date. Did Tasmanian cops have an armory before the Collapse? If so, where?
Okay, put a pin in that one, team leader. That's a thought worth coming back to later.
Besides, the SERPs no doubt thought of that one, too ...
For now, they had to work with low ammunition. Once that was gone, it would be a return to the Middle Ages if they couldn't learn to manufacture gunpowder and cartridges fast enough. Mafia and Spider had left their bows and arrows in the Mazda, grinning like kids on Christmas as they'd taken hold of their loaned weapons. Mafia had the MCX and Spider the .22 along with a .40 cal handgun.
With the BearCat parked in bushland five hundred metres east toward The Downs, they'd tucked the hatchback into an old roadside fruit stall to the west. Angie and Spider were out of sight near the small car's hiding spot, a hundred and fifty metres to Elliot's left. Angie had placed herself up on the shoulder like Elliot; the raised position provided a better angle for firing down on the enemy—and a better chance that friendly crossfire wouldn't hit her. Her sling-satchel contained her sawn-off double-barrel. Favoring her Glock and its huge double-drum magazine, she had turned down the offer of an MCX. She would do fine; she would be fine.
She has to be fine.
None of mine are dying this time.
Spider mirrored Mafia's position, situated on the other side of the road from her, but at least he was lying down, doing the right thing. Elliot had put the skinny Vike in the grass behind the orchard's wire fence after thoroughly checking the surrounds for drybones. Of the two Vikes, Elliot trusted Spider more and had allowed Spider to have one of the Molotovs in case escaping SERPs tried to overrun his position or take shelter in the orchards. But he had strict instructions about its use. And Mafia had been unhappy about not getting one of his own, despite the power-discrepancy between his rifle and Spider's. A gap they'd cut in the wire allowed Spider a quick escape if he needed it. It also provided him fast access to the road when the trap sprung.
The trap.
There was no point second guessing it, but he hoped to Christ it would work. The three thick cords of barbed wire traversed the road five metres to Elliot's left where a driver wouldn't see them until they were on them. They were anchored either side of the blacktop by heavy planks of wood, so they didn't curl upon themselves until a set of wheels hit them. It was that simple. And it would work. It had to work.
"I hope," he muttered. He'd been doing a lot of hoping these last two days; so far luck had been a roller coaster.
Across the way, Mafia scratched his back against the tree, yawning. Elliot checked the sky—
Six hours of daylight left, plenty of time, no
need to get antsy.
—thin cloud cover, little chance of rain. The trap was wide enough that even if the second vehicle swerved around the other, there'd be plenty of barbed wire left for it, too. He yawned, growled and shook off a sudden wave of wooziness. Time for sleep later. And what the hell was keeping Kyle? What was he doing?
Keep calm, soldier. Don't waste energy. Conserve your breath. Conserve your focus.
His regiment's favorite chorus reasserted itself in his mind, as if someone had turned up the volume.
Don't know how much more of this I can take, he thought. Maybe Angie's right.
He was running through options—find a fast-moving motorbike and head to the farm to entice Kyle back here; abandon the ambush site and take the fight to them after all—when he heard the rattle of gunfire in the distance. A burst of single rounds, fired by two or more weapons simultaneously. Over as quick as it started. Before he could wonder about that, the buzz of engines came from the east.
The tension in his gut reached up to squeeze his heart, chasing away any tiredness. He shifted position. Mafia had caught the sound, too, crouching, weapon up. Elliot whistled and signaled him to drop onto his belly, to stay cool and not fire yet. Mafia nodded dismissively. The way he got prone seemed reluctant.
Elliot cursed as he took the safety off his SERP rifle. What if the Vikes screwed this up? Whether or not they thought they were helping here, if either one of them looked like harming Elliot's people, he'd put them down without a single qualm. They weren't his people. They weren't his ...
Family?
That's what Claire had called The Settlers.
"Damn it, Claire. We should've found another way to fight that bug."
The engine noise grew louder. Two shapes appeared to the east, dark boxes moving fast. They were a kilometre away but at that speed, they'd be here in under a minute. Moments later, the blocky lead vehicle resolved clearly as another BearCat.
Perfect.
If the vehicles continued at this rate, they wouldn't have a prayer of avoiding that wire. The lead truck was almost at the place where the hill's crest and the road's curve combined. As the Vikes had indicated, a removals truck followed close to the BearCat ... then began to drop back, the driver possibly lacking the confidence in his vehicle's ability to corner at speed.
The armored truck passed Elliot's position at thirty or forty miles an hour. A moment later, its driver locked up the brakes, seeing the wire-trap and unable to avoid it. The wire kicked up as the vehicle hit it, squealing like hell's minions, bunching beneath it and thrashing the sides.
Elliot smacked the earth beside him. "Yes!"
Sparks spattered from under the fuselage. The BearCat slewed to the right, away from Elliot's side of the road. Ten or fifteen metres further on, it hit the drainage ditch, bounced up and over, chewed up sods of earth across the verge, slammed into the farm fence. It came to an abrupt rest with cow catcher down in the dirt and thick grass and fence debris, motor revving, back wheels churning up more clouds of dirt.
A moment later, the slightly longer removals truck came around the curve. Seeing trouble, its driver also braked hard. Elliot tracked it along his rifle barrel and the rush of elation evaporated: the first truck had gathered and taken all the wire with it. The road was clear. The second driver—perhaps on instinct, perhaps following prearranged procedure—released his brake and gave his truck more gas. Elliot raised the MCX, tried a couple of rounds at rear tires and gave it up for fear of a ricochet into the fuel tank or a cargo bay no doubt filled with Settlers.
But although he'd stopped firing, someone else was at it, the sounds ringing out above the growl of truck gears. Mafia.
Elliot shouted "Cease firing!" He shouted it a second time and had his weapon turned toward Mafia before the Vike heard him and stopped—narrowly avoiding death.
Slinging the MCX, Elliot commenced a controlled slide on his heels down the embankment. Up the road, a handgun sputtered a few rounds then stopped. Angie trying for the driver. But the truck was past her position by the time Elliot had his feet on the tarmac.
Goddamnit!
Most of their people would be on that truck.
That's for later. Concentrate. BearCat.
Elliot's shoes pounded asphalt, following the black trail of tire rubber, the scrapes in the road. He had the MCX back in hand. Mafia picked his own way more carefully through the grass on the siding, though he kept up. No movement from the BearCat yet: wire had gathered around the front wheels and up along the sides to the cabin doors. They'd hit that ditch hard, stopped hard: what if everyone on board was dead? What if Lewis was badly injured in that cab or the rear compartment?
Along the road, the back end of the removals truck flashed him like a deer's ass before vanishing around the bend. Spider was on the outside of the fence down there, sprinting hard toward the BearCat. And Angie—
Angie was down from the embankment. But she was running in the other direction. Running after the vanished truck.
He sucked in breath, readying to shout her name. But it was pointless. She wouldn't heed him even if she heard it. And it would slow him down, eroding the advantage he still had. He knew her. She'd be going for the Vike car. She'd chase them. She might just make it.
Or she might get herself killed.
He was over the ditch and in the wet grass of the verge when one of the BearCat's rear compartment doors creaked open a few inches. Elliot caught a glimpse of red hair before the pitch of the vehicle's chassis caused the door to swing back again and slam. A rifle fired. A bullet pinged from that door.
Elliot did slow, turning his rifle Mafia's way. "Wait until you're sure!"
Elliot expected attitude back, but the Vike slowed to a stop, panting. He took one hand off his rifle to signal a curt acknowledgement.
Elliot pointed to a fence post to Mafia's right. "There. Cover the driver's door and don't fire. Unless they're firing at us."
The back door opened a little and a voice called Elliot's name.
"Who's that?" he called back.
"Me. Sturgis. Don't shoot."
Elliot picked his way through the broken fence where the truck had plowed on through. He called, "Hostiles in there with you?"
"No. But we've got injuries."
"Stay there till we come get you. Door shut."
Obediently the door clacked closed. Wondering desperately who else was in there, Elliot moved out wide, rifle trained along the vehicle's left side—the passenger side in Australia. He whistled to Mafia and pointed to the rear right-hand corner of the truck. Mafia nodded, moving forward.
Spider was getting closer, too, but he'd slowed with a hand to his belly as if he had a stitch. His bare feet seemed as tough as boots. The .22 was slung and his Glock bobbed by his thigh as he moved.
An engine revved as Angie speared the Mazda out onto the road, fish-tailing to get it pointed the right way. The small motor screamed as she started working through the gears. By the time Spider was off the asphalt again, across the ditch and onto the verge, the small car had vanished around the bend in the road. And with his own vehicle a half click away, and with the current situation occupying all of his attention, there wasn't one thing Elliot could do to support her.
Concentrate!
Spider had a good view across the waving heads of the grass toward the cabin's side window—a window that began winding down. A pistol muzzle appeared there, so Spider raised his and fired, one-handed. The four rounds sprayed uselessly, wastefully, only one of them even banging off the truck. The hand inside the window returned fire, more steadily. Spider went down into the long grass. Elliot sent a controlled burst along the chassis, scuffing the ballistic glass. The pistol vanished and the window went up fast.
Back of the truck, Mafia shouted something and fired twice. "Got him!" he called. The driver must have tried an escape. Mafia stayed where he was and added, "Shit, he's back inside. But I got the prick."
Which one was Kyle, Elliot wondered: driver or
passenger? Or was he in the escaped truck?
He steadied a shoulder against the warm steel of the chassis and raised his voice. "Yo, the cab! Three choices. One: we get our people out and set a fire under you. Two: you try to fight your way out and die exactly one second later." He sucked air, and finished, "Three, you ease that door open, drop all your weapons out. Then we see your empty hands. Then you slowly follow those hands out of the vehicle, walk three paces away from your weapons and get on your knees with hands behind your heads."
There was silence. The engine had cut out, he realized now. It ticked. Someone moved within the cargo space. He thought he heard a groan in there. How bad were his people's injuries? And had it been the crash that caused them, or the SERPs?
Spider appeared above the grass, limped forward. In thirty seconds the young Vike could evacuate the cargo space while Elliot and Mafia kept the cab covered. Thirty seconds was too long. Elliot's patience was already at an end.
"Time's up! Decide! Fighting or surrendering, do it now."
He tightened his grip on the MCX and hoped Mafia was ready and competent on the other side.
The passenger door parted an inch. A strained male voice came out of it. "Driver's dead. I'm surrendering, mate. All right?"
Gotcha, you roach-hearted sumbitch.
Weapons followed: two .40 cals, two MCXs.
"Your side?" Elliot asked Mafia, but the stocky Vike shook his head no then started forward down his side of the truck.
A man's hands appeared out the passenger door. The SERP shoved the door open with his shoulder and slid out to collapse onto all fours, wheezing. He was blond and stocky and Elliot had never seen him before. For a half-second as the man collapsed, Elliot nearly fired, thinking him going for one of the weapons. But the struggle for breath was genuine. Maybe the seatbelt had snapped some ribs in the crash, despite the vest he wore.
Well, good.
"Hands behind your head," Elliot barked.
Spider asked, "Can I shoot him?"
"No, you goddamned can't shoot him. We need intel. Are you all right?" Elliot added.