“What?”
California glared at Declan. Declan didn’t back down.
“We’re too slow as a team,” California said. “I can move faster and quieter and track better alone.”
“You can’t go out alone,” Johnny said.
“He’s right, it’s too dangerous,” I added.
“I can do it,” California said trying to reassure us.
“I have no doubt,” I said.
“California’s right,” Charlie said, cutting me off.
Charlie’s comment didn’t really stun any of us and as much as I’d hate to admit it, he was right. They both were, but I wasn’t about to let another team member, and friend, take undo risk. We had already lost too much.
“We make too much noise, and like California said, we’re too slow. We send him out there and he can lead us right to them.”
“We all know you can’t wait to get your hands on them, Charlie,” I said.
“I’m leaving,” California said.
“This is bullshit,” Declan said angrily.
“Declan,” I said trying to calm him down before he said something he’d regret.
“We work as a team. You remember the last time we split up? I am not taking someone else home in a body bag.”
“There is no home,” I snapped.
Everyone stood in silence.
“Fuck you,” Declan said quietly.
“Declan,” I said sternly to reinstate my command. He took the hint. “No one knows about loss on this team more than me so do not patronize me.” I turned back to California. “I’m not letting you go. I’m sorry.”
“Captain,” California protested.
“That’s final.”
California stormed off.
“I can’t believe you,” Charlie said.
We made camp at that spot off the highway. The fire we had had burned down to almost nothing. I could still see my men strewn about the fire. Declan was to my left and Johnny to my right. Both men had their heads propped up on their packs. Charlie was sleeping on the hood of the Jeep facing the stars. One of his baseball bats was tucked tightly under his arms. His rifle wasn’t far, lying against the wheel well of the Jeep. I myself was leaning up against a tree.
The night was quiet. Not even the crickets were out. I was looking through the treetops at the stars. Years ago, you couldn’t even see the stars on a clear night there was so much light pollution. Now that there is no one to turn the lights on, the stars were starting to reclaim their proper place in the sky, and it seemed like there were more than ever.
I didn’t even realize I had dozed off when I was shaken awake. California was a smart man. Before I realized who it was, I instinctively tried to bring my rifle to the ready position. It didn’t budge. He knew that if you are going to wake someone out here you better disable his weapon. He had placed his right hand on my rifle, firmly holding it to my chest, while he shook me with his left. He also happened to be a very strong individual. If he had the right mind to slit my throat right then and there, he would have no problem.
“What is it?” I asked him, after I was able to get my bearings again.
“I found them,” he said.
“What?” I was a little confused.
“The scavengers.”
“What do you mean?” I knew what he meant, but I had to ask anyway.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You’re sure?” I asked. I would deal with his insubordination later.
“Yes,” California said. “Bogey’s in the weeds two miles out.”
“You can bring us back there?” Charlie said. I didn’t notice him get up. He probably hadn’t been asleep the whole night, which meant that he knew California had left.
“Yes,” California said.
“Good,” Charlie said, leaning over to grab his rifle off the ground. “Let’s go.” He pulled back the slide, loading the rifle.
“Slow down, Cochise,” I said. “We still don’t know what we’re getting into.”
“Captain, you saw those guys, they’re packing some serious fire power,” Charlie said.
“We have a chance to stop them,” California added.
I looked at them both. I was with them, albeit with apprehension. “You take us there,” I said to California. “Recon only,” I emphasized.
California just nodded.
***
Three of the scavengers sat around their fire. A massive bon fire that any high school teenager would be proud of. The size of the fire told me a few things; they didn’t plan on running into anyone out here and even if they did, they were heavily armed so it would be a sad day for whoever stumbled upon them.
The two armored trucks were parked parallel to each other in the middle of a small valley, the raging fire was in the middle of them. Not exactly the best place to set up a camp, but it was perfect for us.
California had reported seeing thirteen of them. That left ten left spread out between the two trucks.
The trucks posed another problem themselves. They were heavily armored and if the remaining scavengers locked themselves inside, we would have a major situation on our hands. We needed to draw them out of the trucks, and we were running out of night.
We had two pairs of infrared goggles and a pair of infrared flashlights. I sent Johnny in the Jeep with a set across to the other side of their camp. He could cover any sort of escape they may try to make with the fifty-caliber machine gun. I watched him through my infrared goggles until he took his place atop the adjacent hill. I gave him the signal with two clicks of my infrared flashlight. He did the same.
I then sent Charlie to the left of our initial location and Declan to the right. California stayed with me in the front of the camp.
I radioed everyone with the microphone strapped around my neck. “No one moves until all tangos are accounted for.”
“Roger,” they all radioed back.
Now we were all in position, but I still had no plan. We couldn’t wait for them to come out one by one. We also couldn’t move in until they were all out of the trucks. I was also concerned with their skill level. Scavengers normally cruise around in their beat-up pickup trucks and the like with knives, pistols, and rifles, sometimes crudely homemade. These on the other hand, had two heavily armed APC units and an armory to rival most police stations. They could be ex Special Forces for all we knew.
Time ticked by slowly.
I scouted the camp one more time with my goggles when I noticed something to my right.
“What is that underneath the truck?” I asked California.
“Where?”
“To the right.”
California moved his rifle over to the truck. He adjusted the focus ring then studied the object for a moment.
“Propane,” he said finally.
Just as I had thought. This definitely got my gears turning. If we could blow the tank it wouldn’t disable the truck, but the ensuing fire would quickly raise the temperature inside the cabin and any remaining scavengers inside would be forced to vacate or drive away. I was hoping for the former.
That’s something I didn’t take into account. If the scavengers decided to run instead of exiting the truck, we would have an even bigger problem. They would only run with their tails between their legs for so long. Eventually they would regroup and come back. Possibly in higher numbers.
It’s not that I didn’t have faith in my men and faith that we would prevail. I could not, and would not, put them in any unnecessary danger. That left the other truck. No visible propane tank was stashed underneath.
“Any ideas?” I asked California.
He didn’t say anything.
While I was lost in thought working out plans to get the remaining scavengers out of the truck, the three standing around the fire were about to do it for me.
The two to the right were arguing with the one on the left. The one on the left was a young one, he looked about twenty. He was holding some sort of backpack which seemed
to be the source of the argument.
The older ones were pointing at it then to the fire and back again.
“Can you tell what’s in the pack?” I whispered to California.
California adjusted his scope a little. “Negative,” he said. “My guess would be explosives, though.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
I signaled the rest of my team to be cautious around the bag.
“The carrier of the bag goes first,” I commanded over the radio.
A loud bang came from the truck on the left. A tall man with long hair and a beard had opened the back door of the truck and had stepped down onto the ground. He was followed by the other four scavengers, all of which were carrying assault rifles. A quick scan of the inside of the truck before the door closed revealed that it appeared to be empty.
The moment the bearded man had opened the back door the three that were arguing had stopped and turned to his attention. He must be the one in charge.
“Priority one,” I whispered into the microphone. “Repeat. Man with the beard is priority one.”
One of the two who had been arguing was now talking to the man with the beard, possibly trying to explain the situation.
Hoping the second truck would be next I radioed Charlie to be ready. He would be the one to take out the propane tank.
Below, the man who was pleading his case seemed to be growing more desperate. He was emphatically waving his arms. Pointing to the bag, the kid, and the fire, much like he was doing before. His partner, probably suspecting what might be coming, kept quiet.
The bearded man was also quiet. I didn’t even see the pistol in his hand until he fired the shot. Point blank, directly into the pleader’s forehead. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Charlie pulled the trigger before the bullet left the scavengers head. It only took one shot to rupture the propane tank.
The explosion was deafening. If I still had the infrared goggles on, I would have been blinded as well. Hopefully Johnny didn’t have his on.
The massive truck was lifted a little bit off the ground and slammed back down. We felt the truck hit the ground all the way over here, surely the scavengers left inside were jolted too.
One of the leader’s bodyguards had snatched the explosives bag from the kid. There was a quiet click to my right. The head of the scavenger who had snatched the bag exploded from California’s bullet. The bag fell to the ground and no one picked it up as they all scrambled for safety.
Declan was laying down suppressing fire to my right.
The door to the truck on fire opened. The five remaining scavengers had recovered from the explosion and were now coming to the aid of their comrades.
Charlie and I waited for three of the scavengers to pile out then we unloaded on them.
The three were killed and fell to the ground, but the fourth was only struck in the chest and he fell back into the fifth pushing them both back into the truck.
“Shit,” I said.
The fifth scavenger reached out and slammed the door shut placing him exactly where we didn’t want him.
I didn’t have to give the order to Johnny, he immediately started in on the truck with the fifty-caliber. Its massive bullets exploding in the night air were barely denting the thick metal of the armored truck.
Sensing an opportunity one of the scavengers who had been taking cover under the other truck had run for the bag of explosives.
Announcing itself over the gun fire was a sound I had hoped not to hear, the engine on the armored truck starting.
“Johnny, don’t let that truck leave,” I shouted over the radio.
The bullets from the fifty-caliber moved toward the engine block and while thinner than the rest of the metal parts of the truck, it was still designed to stand up to this kind of torture.
There was some grinding of the gears then the truck lurched forward then skidded to a stop. The scavenger obviously wasn’t the driver and wasn’t used to the transmission. The fire had also heated the gears and drive train causing them to start sticking.
“Johnny?” I asked rhetorically. The gunfire from him increased.
If that truck got away, he would surely round up more scavengers. We couldn’t let that happen. Then the gun fire from Johnny suddenly stopped.
“Johnny, where’s that fifty?” I could faintly hear him fighting with the bolt on the gun.
Charlie and Declan were still trying to reach the scavengers huddled underneath the other truck. Bullets hitting the ground and flinging up dirt.
The truck lurched forward again.
“Johnny?” I asked one more time.
The truck lurched forward one last time and slowly inched its way out of the fire.
Although we had all witnessed that the fifty did little damage Charlie, Declan, and I concentrated all of our fire on the truck desperately hoping that our much smaller bullets would do a better job.
The loud diesel engine of the Jeep muscled its way into the clearing over the other sounds of the ensuing chaos. Johnny exploded out of the woods in the Jeep, racing down the embankment toward the armored truck.
In our desperation to stop the armored truck we had removed our attention away from the scavengers under the other truck. The automatic weapons fire sounded like a large Chinese firecracker. We all tried to take cover.
I heard Declan scream to my left. Then a sharp pop and a scream of pain as California was struck by a ricochet after the bullet hit his rifle scope.
I recovered just in time to see a lone scavenger running for the armored truck driving away as Johnny sped down the embankment. The scavenger jumped onto the side of the armored truck trying to hitch a ride out of there.
Johnny hit the back end of the armored truck with enough force to spin them both clockwise about 90 degrees. The armored truck spun then tilted onto its side. Its high center of gravity giving us an advantage.
The scavenger who was clinging onto the side managed to stay on, even after the collision. He had two seconds to regret that decision before the truck completely tipped onto its side with a hollow thud crushing the scavenger underneath it.
An eerie silence descending upon the clearing as both sides ceased fire. It seemed liked hours had gone by while I was surveying the carnage below.
The Jeep was damaged beyond repair. The front was crumpled in like an empty beer can after a college frat party. The radiator was cracked and spewing steam into the air. The drive train had completely severed from the rear axle and was resting on the dirt and leaking fluid everywhere.
Johnny didn’t look as bad as the Jeep, but he wasn’t in great shape either. He was slumped over the steering wheel. From the distance I couldn’t tell the extent of his injuries.
Movement out of the corner of my eye brought me back to reality. One of the scavengers had come out of hiding and was running for the Jeep.
I raised my weapon and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. My magazine had run dry during the barrage.
I noticed what he was running for and knew I had to stop him no matter what. I got to my feet and sprinted toward him just as the scavenger scooped up the bag of explosives.
Without missing a beat, the scavenger continued toward the Jeep and Johnny. Even at a full sprint I would never make it to the scavenger in time.
“John!” I shouted trying to wake him and get him out of there.
The scavenger reached into his bag just feet from the Jeep.
“John!”
His head twitched and I saw his eyes open and turn toward me. The last person he would ever see.
The scavenger dove into the Jeep and detonated the bomb.
Chapter 6
It was hot and humid that day. The sun was directly overhead, bearing down on us. Even without the heavy fire gear we were wearing it was hot.
A police helicopter buzzed around above us keeping the news helicopters a safe distance away. I could see them hovering about a mile away trying to get the best view of the sc
ene below, although, at this moment there wasn’t much to see.
The call came in at about 12:15 P.M. Outbreak. We had trained for it many times, not ever expecting to actually hear the call come over the radio. I don’t know if it was ignorance or arrogance. We arrived on the scene a few minutes later and immediately began evacuations.
St. Joseph’s Medical Plaza featured three six story buildings positioned on a T intersection in the downtown Orange, California area. St. Joseph’s sat on the northeast corner of the intersection with the children’s hospital on the northwest corner and a medical office building on the southwest side.
Initially we had just cordoned off the immediate area. Orange Police and county Sherriff’s officers had blocked the three main roadways leading to and from the medical plaza. St. Joseph’s was the main hospital affected and thus quarantined while the other three were evacuated. By 12:45 we had completely evacuated both neighboring buildings and successfully quarantined St. Joseph’s.
I was standing by our main rig, a massive fire truck with a forty-foot retractable ladder on top, sweating it out in my thirty-pound fire suit. We were currently having trouble keeping people behind the barricades, most likely concerned friends and family members, so I was on the radio with dispatch requesting more backup.
Through the parking lot I could see one of my deputies running toward me. I could barely make out his thin frame under the heavy yellows of fire suit, it was Moyer. He was my deputy fresh out of the academy. He was a good kid, huge heart, but I wasn’t sure he was cut out to be a firefighter.
“Captain, we have a problem,” he said out of breath.
Of course we had problems. This whole day was one big problem.
“What is it, Moyer?” I said.
“One of the nurses,” he paused trying to catch his breath. “One of the nurses said there is a tunnel connecting the main hospital and the children’s hospital.”
I wasn’t concerned at first. There was an enclosed overhead glass walkway that connected the children’s hospital to the medical offices on the south side of the street which didn’t matter because both buildings had been evacuated. But if there was a tunnel connecting St. Joseph’s and the children’s hospital people could easily slip through the cracks, it could also compromise our containment area. We needed to keep watch on everything.
Wanderer (Book 2): Hunters Page 5