STRYKER - OMNIBUS: BOOKS 3-5: A Post Apocalyptic Tale

by Bobby Andrews

“We’re stringing power lines from this transformer to the other parts of the base.”

  “I don’t see any lines on the ground,” Edwards said.

  “We’re using the telephone poles to string the lines,” Craig replied. “It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot faster than trying to get a trencher running and burying the lines. We have too much concrete we would have to break up and repair, so it’ll have to do for now.”

  “So, how was the tour?” Stryker asked when the XO stopped speaking.

  “It’s pretty nice here,” Haley replied. “They have running water and power to the living quarters. And, everyone we met seemed friendly.”

  “Is anyone but me hungry?” Stryker asked.

  “I am,” Edwards replied.

  “Me too,” Erin added.

  “The cafeteria is in that building. Craig pointed to a small, squat brick structure about a block away. “We’re still making bread so you can get a sandwich there.”

  “Thanks,” Stryker replied. “And thanks for giving them a tour of the base.”

  “No problem. Enjoy your lunch.” With that, Craig left and walked to the office building, then disappeared inside.

  As they walked over to the cafeteria, Stryker told them of the downed pilot and his plans to leave in the morning.

  “Why don’t we leave after lunch?” Erin asked.

  “I’m going alone. It’s only a day out and a day back and we just got here. You guys stick around here and get the lay of the land and I’ll be back in a day.”

  “No, I’m going along,” Erin said calmly. “We made a deal and every time something risky comes along, you try to renegotiate it and I’m not having it any more. You stick to the bargain or you’re going to be living with someone who wonders if you’re telling the truth every time you say anything. Is that how you want to live?”

  Stryker blinked several times, and recognized she wasn’t kidding. He expected her to blow up and then calm down, but he could see that she would not get over it or forgive him this time. Her calm demeanor and determined voice signaled this was different.

  “No,” he replied.

  “Good. What’s the plan?”

  “Let’s go get lunch and we can talk about it.”

  The entered the building, stood in line for a short time, and then sat down to eat.

  “So, how about I come along?” Edwards asked.

  “No, you need to stay here and look after the ladies.”

  “They’ll be fine,” he replied.

  “There are a lot of men here and not many women.” Stryker pointed out.

  “There is that,” Edwards replied dryly.

  “Yes, there is.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Erin asked.

  “If he’s alive, he’s somewhere along Interstate 8. If he found a vehicle that worked, he’d be here by now, so we have to presume he’s on foot. He’s had five days to get here, so nothing else makes sense.”

  “Unless he’s dead or injured,” Erin added.

  “That’s a possibility, but they spoke to him when he was on the ground and he was okay. Later, he went black and they couldn’t reach him. But, we don’t know if his batteries ran dry or if something else happened. Either way, it’s pretty straight-forward.”

  “So, we drive to Gila Bend and, if we don’t spot him on the outbound, we do a more thorough search on the way back?” Erin asked.

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Stryker replied.

  They finished eating, sat for a moment, and then Stryker looked at Edwards. “Can you tell the XO that we’re leaving now and get a couple of MREs and some bottled water in the Humvee?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s go gear up,” Stryker said to Erin.

  A half-hour later, they climbed into the Humvee, wearing their tactical vests and side arms, stashed their M-4s between the seats, and waved to Edwards and the ladies. They waved back, and then Stryker started the vehicle and drove through the gate.

  “You gotta love a rescue,” Erin said.

  “Famous last words,” Stryker grumbled back.

  “We’ll find him. He’s out there, and we’re going to bring him back.”

  “Damn straight.” He grinned the lopsided smile she knew so well, and then held out a fist. She bumped his with hers and smiled back.

  STRYKER: BOOK FOUR -REDEMPTION

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHATER TWENTY- FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER ONE

  “I swear to God, these assholes are like cockroaches,” Stryker muttered to Erin.

  They were on a ridge to the east of the ISIS terrorist camp, looking down at around five hundred black-clad terrorists below. The sun rose behind them, so they didn’t have to worry about light reflecting off the binoculars they both used to glass the area below.

  The men and woman beneath them were dressed in identical long black robes and the only way to distinguish one sex from the other was the scarves the women wore.

  The previous day, they drove from San Diego to Gila Bend, Arizona, looking for the downed pilot. They did not see a single person on the trip and spent the night in a hotel above the freeway.

  The plan was to drive non-stop to Gila Bend on Interstate 8, and then do a more thorough search for the pilot on the way back, in the event they were not lucky enough to find him easily on the outbound portion of the trip. They both surmised that the pilot was on foot, since they knew he had parachuted safely and was missing for close to a week. And, Interstate 8 was the most direct route to San Diego, so they presumed they would find him along that route.

  They finished their evening meal as the sun went down and were seated on a patio at the back of the hotel. The sun was setting to the west, and the air around them seemed to be cooling by the minute. Erin watched as a feral dog ran down the street to the west of the hotel and then turned to Stryker.

  “I guess we’re going to have to slow down on the way back and actually search for the guy.”

  “I guess so,” Stryker replied. “But, I don’t get why he would be off the Interstate and I don’t know that looking anywhere but on the highway would do any good. Once you start doing that, we could take months searching for no reason.”

  “You think he’s dead.”

  “I guess that has occurred to me.”

  “Maybe he was just looking for food or water and got off the Interstate to do that and we drove by him,” Erin said with a note of hope.

  “Look, anything is possible, but you would think he would hear us going by and run out to flag us down.”

  “He might be scared and didn’t know who was passing.”

  “Well, I would be cautious too, but it just seems to me that someone out that long would at least give us a look as we passed.”

  The two lapsed into a silence and watched the last dying rays of sunlight fade from the earth in a spectacular display of red that turned pink, and then grey before the light disappeared.

  They walked into the building and back to their room, locked the door and placed the weapons next to the bed. Stryker brushed his teeth with Erin doing hers while trying to hip butt him away from the sink, but she only managed to hit his mid-thigh and gave up. She spit her toothpaste into the tub, and they moved back to the
bedroom and got into bed.

  Stryker lowered the lantern to the lowest setting, closed the drapes and got into bed.

  Erin followed.

  “You think there is something weird about the base,” she whispered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know for sure. It just seems sort of off somehow.”

  “Well, you’ve never lived on a base.”

  “I still haven’t. We were only there overnight.” Erin sighed, and added, “Maybe everything is going to seem weird for a while.”

  “It seems a little odd to me too,” Stryker admitted. “But, it is a Navy base, and that’s a first for me as well. The Navy has its own way of doing things and it is very different from the Marine Corps. I mean we worked together and everything, but our missions were very different and, I would say the Navy is more set in its ways then the Marine Corps was.”

  “I get that with you. You always put down the Navy.”

  “Well, they were always looking down their noses at us, as though we were some sort of inferior species.”

  “But, do you really dislike them?”

  “That’s just inter-service rivalry stuff,” Stryker replied. “The trouble with being a member of an elite force is that you have to believe everyone around you is less elite. So, we all go through the motions of believing that, but the fact is if you talk to any of us, as individuals, we would all tell you that we really don’t feel that way.”

  “You know, if we both think the place is off, and we are coming at it from two different perspectives, we might be right.”

  “If we are, we can leave,” Stryker replied with a shrug.

  Erin assumed a thoughtful look, and then said, “What do you hope for us?”

  “For you and I?”

  “Yes, but for the others too.”

  “Well, I hope we can make the base our home, that you and I can start a family, that all of you find friends, that Haley finds a man, and that we all end up happily-ever-after.”

  “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “No, I mean it. I want this to work out.”

  “Good, I do too.”

  “Do you want a boy first, or a girl?” Stryker asked.

  “A boy.”

  “Why a boy?”

  “So he can beat the crap out of anyone who bothers the girl who follows when they get to school.”

  “Seems like a plan to me. But, we have to get some schools before we worry about who beats the crap out of whom.”

  “How in the hell are we going to raise kids in this world. It is just so different than anything we’ve known?” She stared at Stryker, and her expression demanded a serious answer.

  “Well, the same way the settlers did in the west. They got in wagons, went to the middle of nowhere, cleared land and tilled fields that had never been cultivated before with horse-drawn plows. They raised crops, had children without doctors, and raised them and educated them at home. Somehow it all worked. I don’t know how, but I do know if they did it, we can too.”

  “That seems impossible to me.”

  “Well we both know it is possible because it was done.”

  “Does it worry you?”

  “Of course, I’m not an idiot.”

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  “Well, you have to understand that I come from a place where you pretty much made your own luck; you didn’t rely on other people helping you when things got bad, and you could actually live without having to buy things and live in somebody else’s economy.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Erin asked.

  “The ranch. We had our own power and water, we raised cattle and had a garden and we did buy stuff, but surviving didn’t depend on anybody else.”

  “Well, I guess that is reassuring.”

  “It should be. We’re going to be fine, raise great kids, and die together at age 99 after having great sex.”

  “How did you get to be such an optimist?” Erin asked.

  “I met you.”

  “I’m going to sleep,” she said, turned her back to him and snuggled back until their bodies met. She felt his body looming around her like a huge cocoon, smiled and drifted off to sleep.

  Around three o’clock in the morning, Stryker heard the rumble of diesel engines passing the hotel, got up, and parted the curtains that covered the window to get a peek, and watched the silhouettes of several Humvees roll by, followed by four semi-tractors, each towing flat-bed trailers that carried ISIS fighters.

  He shook Erin awake, and she protested feebly until he clapped a hand over her mouth and made the “stay quiet” motion by placing a finger to his lips.

  She was instantly awake and grabbed her pistol from the night stand and followed Stryker to the window, watched two Humvees at the tail of the formation pass, and looked at Stryker with a confused expression.

  “Not now,” he whispered. “Wait until they are down the road a way.”

  They waited for ten minutes, until satisfied the column was truly gone and there were no other vehicles yet to pass, grabbed their weapons and, with the aid of a flash light, made their way to the back of the hotel, entered a bar, and sat in a storeroom behind the room.

  “How is that even possible? I thought we got all of them.” Erin whispered.

  “I don’t have a clue.” Stryker paused, lost in thought for a moment, and then said, “We never confirmed that the group that headed south actually got on the boats and left. We know Sarge and Haley saw them headed that direction, but we never actually got eyes on them getting on the ships.”

  “There would be no other reason for them to go south,” Erin said.

  “Well, when the facts change, we have to change our minds, so there is obviously was some other reason.”

  “What would that be?”

  “Since they have Humvees with some kind of crew-served weapons, which they definitely didn’t before, I can only guess they went south to get more vehicles and some sort of anti-aircraft weapons, and then turned around and headed west again.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because Camp Stanley was south of their position. Maybe they went to get more vehicles and weapons because of the loss of vehicles and ammo.”

  “What’s Camp Stanley?”

  “It’s an Army Ordinance Depot just north of San Antonio,” Stryker replied, and then continued, “Remember, they didn’t have much transportation after we blew the overpass out from under them. And, remember how they all looked up after the explosions?”

  “Sure.”

  “They thought the attack was from aircraft. That was what they were used to during the wars they fought and, if they didn’t leave, then it’s logical that they wanted some sort of defense against what they thought was an attack by planes. So, they probably went and got the Humvees and some Stingers from the Camp. I know we had both ordinance and vehicles there.”

  “But, how could they know that stuff was there?”

  “Anybody who had internet can find out,” Stryker scoffed. “We had a society that was so open, we actually could find out what was being stored at military bases. I know, because I looked once.”

  “That’s just nuts.”

  “You’re tax dollar at work,” Stryker replied dryly.

  “So, what are we going to do?”

  “Follow them at a distance and call it in to Edwards and Captain Thomas.”

  “When do we leave?”

  “At sunrise; they must be stopping during the day, if they are traveling at night.”

  “If they see us, we’ll be dead.”

  “They won’t see us.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “They will stop in around three to four hours. The column is moving slowly, so my guess is they will lager around 10-12 miles from here. So, we drive until we see smoke from their fires and then walk to the nearest high point and get a look at them,”

  “What if they don’t have fires?”

  “We stop at eight m
iles out, and go on foot from there.”

  “Well, I’m not going to get back to sleep, so I’ll make us some coffee and put together some breakfast.

  “Works for me. I’ll get the lantern and set it up back here. I don’t want any light shining through the windows. Who knows, they may have a drag element behind them.”

  “I really thought we were through with all of this,” Erin sighed heavily.

  “Me too. But, we can’t look backward. We got to deal with what is and we’ve done it before, so don’t’ worry.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Yep, those are defiantly Stingers,” Stryker said to Erin as they continued to glass the ISIS terrorists below them. They were dispersed in an area around the size of two football fields and sat eating and chatting in groups of no larger than six people.

  Occasionally, one person would get up and join a different group. But, the number of people sitting together never grew larger than seven or eight people. As some joined; others would leave.

  It had all the earmarks of an exceptionally disciplined group that was determined to maintain distance discipline in the face of an attack. To remain dispersed so carefully was to ensure no large number could be taken out by an air attack or mortars.

  Stryker was impressed.

  The Humvees circled the group of terrorists, all pointed away from the camp with Stingers on the racks, ready to deploy in an instant. Each Humvee had three men seated on the ground next to the vehicle.

  “What are Stingers?” Erin asked when he lowered his binoculars.

  “They are anti-aircraft missiles. You can shoulder-fire them or mount them on vehicles and use them as a more mobile platform.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “They look like the FIM 92F versions,” he muttered. “That is not good news.”

  “Why not?” Erin replied.

  “Those things travel at Mach 2.4 and a range of 7200 meters. If we don’t have designators, the only way to bomb the terrorists is line-of-sight targeting, and that means the F-18s will have to come in low and slow.”

  “So, they could get shot down?”

  “Yes. That version of the Stinger uses both sensors and infrared technology as guidance systems. It is very accurate against low-flying and slow-moving aircraft.”