“What are you talking about?”
“Think about it. They assume we’ve taken off. Battle’s over. They’re probably scraping their dead off the ground. So we circle around to the opposite ridge on the west side, hammer them hard and fast, and then bail once we’re out of ammunition – not before. If we’re lucky, we can neutralize at least another hundred, which is a hundred less we’ll have to take on in the canyons.” Brett paused. “Plus, it will seriously blow their minds.”
Eric shook his head. “They’re probably tracking us right now.”
“Not at night, with mines. We know there aren’t any here. But they don’t.”
“I don’t know…”
“I do. We’ll get into position and hit them a few hours before dawn. We’ll be gone before they can react.” Brett smiled. “Last hundred rounds will go into the vehicles that are towing the big guns.”
“Why not try to hit the howitzers?”
“The ammo will probably just bounce off. But if they can’t move them…”
“I can always try to take out the trailer tires while you’re hammering them with the Browning,” Eric mused, slowly coming around.
Brett nodded. “Not a bad idea.”
Three hours later they were on the opposite hill, behind a rock formation, watching the Crew encampment through their night vision goggles. The M2 was set up and ready for action, cans of ammo next to it.
Brett nudged Eric and pointed to a large white tent. “Must be something special in there. Maybe we should hit that first?”
“Nah. If there was anyone in it at this hour, it would be lit. It’s dark as your mama’s…”
Motion near one of the trucks drew Brett’s attention and he swiveled his head to see. There, in the heavy shadows, two men darted along one side of a tractor trailer to where a howitzer was connected to the tow bar. He watched as a third man led three horses away from the column of vehicles, moving toward the ravine that cut through the hill where they were positioned.
Eric whispered to Brett, “What the hell’s that all about?”
“Don’t know,” Brett said, watching intently as the pair reached the long gun. One of them unslung a satchel from his shoulder and placed it on the top of the weapon while the other watched, holding an assault rifle. The first man gave the watcher a thumbs-up, and they ran together to the next gun and repeated the process.
“I’ll be damned…” said Eric in wonder. “We have anyone working on the inside?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Looks like we do now.”
A flashlight beam swept the side of the truck, and three guards appeared around the cab, startling the two men, who froze. Another beam joined the first, and then the night erupted with automatic rifle fire as one of the saboteurs shot at the guards while the one who’d placed the satchels ran toward the man with the horses.
“What do we do?” Eric asked, and then Brett was firing the Browning, cutting down four more guards who were coming at a sprint to intercept the shooter by the howitzer.
Under Brett’s covering fire, the two men made it to the horses, and the one with the rifle extracted something from his pocket and held it toward the trailers. Both satchels detonated with loud whumps, and then they were on horseback, riding for all they were worth as Brett emptied the M2 at anything that moved, buying the riders time.
More Crew gunmen emerged from the buses, and Brett loaded a new belt and gunned them down, ignoring the snap of bullets and the whine of ricochets off the rocks near him. When there were no more fighters to shoot, he turned his aim to the trucks and buses, inflicting as much damage as he could with his final rounds, pounding the remaining howitzer’s tow vehicle before the machine gun was empty again.
He was changing the ammo cans and locking the third belt in place when an RPG exploded directly below him, sending a shower of rock skyward and deafening both Brett and Eric. They exchanged a dazed look and struggled to their feet to make for their waiting horses, narrowly avoiding another explosion that would have killed them both had they remained in place. Eric stumbled several times as he staggered to his animal, and when Brett helped him the final yards, his arm came away slick with blood.
Eric climbed into the saddle, his face white from shock, and Brett swung up into his, lips in a tight line.
“I’m hit pretty bad, Brett,” Eric managed in a ragged whisper.
“Just hang on, Eric. Let’s get out of here and we’ll deal with it.”
Brett gave the twisted remains of the Browning a final look over his shoulder as he spurred his horse into the gloom, ignoring the burning pain in his leg from gashes caused by flying rock chips, and offered a silent prayer of gratitude that he’d survived the second pitched battle of the night.
It was only after a few minutes that he realized Eric’s horse was racing after him without a rider. He slowed and considered turning around, but shots from the crest convinced him there was little to be gained, and he ducked down and urged his horse to greater speed, confident he could easily outrun the Crew fighters following on foot and be long gone by the time dawn had broken.
He set off after the trio that had sabotaged the Howitzers, unsure of why they’d acted as they had or who they were, but aware that whoever they were, they had a common enemy, and in the post-collapse world that was as good a basis for cooperation as any.
Chapter 49
It was late morning by the time Brett had led Luis, Duke, and Aaron through the maze of canyons and into the verdant valley hidden from discovery by the ring of peaks at the top of the world. They’d ridden hard through the night and their horses were blown out by the time they arrived; on the final stretch to the compound the animals were on their last legs.
Duke had explained the situation when Brett had caught up to them. After a tense exchange, Brett had agreed to show them to safety. His distrust of Luis was based on his appearance and prison-yard demeanor, but he’d accepted that the former cartel thug was genuine in his hatred of the Crew and his commitment to seeing them defeated, and in this situation, any cooperation against their common enemy had to be considered.
Elliot, Michael, and Lucas were waiting outside the main building when they rode up, the sentries having radioed their arrival so they could be met and interrogated by the leadership. Duke’s face split with a wide grin at the sight of Lucas’s familiar dusting of beard under the straight brim of his ubiquitous beaver-felt hat. Lucas nodded in greeting as the older man lowered himself from the saddle, followed by Aaron, who offered a tight smile.
Lucas’s gaze locked on Luis and his jaw clenched. “Friend of yours?” he asked.
“You could say that. Mutual objectives is more like it. Allies,” Duke explained. “This is Luis. Former head of the Locos. Now on the run from Magnus, who wants his head on a pike.”
Lucas didn’t respond or drop his eyes. “Locos, huh? Lost a bunch, I hear.”
“That’s in the past. Now I’m…a free agent,” Luis said.
Lucas had explained who Duke and Aaron were to Michael and Elliot, but Luis was an unknown. “Or a spy,” Lucas said.
Luis shook his head. “News flash – Magnus knows your location. He knows your strength. The Apache sold you out. There’s nothing to spy on.”
“Why are you here?” Elliot demanded.
“To help,” Luis said simply. “My survival odds are best if you win. So I’m placing my bets on you. I know all about Magnus’s strategy, his force’s size and weak points, his approach, his resources. I bring a lot to the table, so I’m not coming begging.”
Duke nodded agreement. “He blew up two of the remaining three big guns. Took them out of the game. That alone should get him a medal.”
“How?” Lucas asked, his suspicion obvious.
“I’d gotten my hands on a decent amount of explosives in Albuquerque for Magnus. We rigged up a couple of detonators to a wireless receiver, and kaboom,” Duke explained.
“Why were you working for that scum?” Lucas aske
d Duke.
“I figured if I followed him, eventually he’d lead me to you.”
“And why were you in such a rush to find me?”
Duke laughed dryly. “Believe it or not, it started off as a business proposition. Little late now, I suppose. But I’m here, so all’s well that ends well, right?” He looked around. “Nice digs. Brett here told us some about it. Seems like a good situation – except for the Mongol horde that wants to burn the place to the ground.” Duke paused. “How’s the little girl and her mom?”
Lucas managed a small grin. “Her aunt. They’re both good.”
“I never doubted they would be, with you riding herd.”
Lucas wasn’t finished with Luis. “How did you figure an explosion would knock out the guns? They’re designed to take a lot of abuse.”
“Went for the loading and targeting systems. These are computer driven, so destroy those, and they’re inoperable. We were going to detonate the third one as well as the trailer with the shells, but the guards interrupted before we could get to them.”
“He’s got hundreds of shells,” Aaron said. “It’ll be ugly if he gets to put them to use.”
The questioning continued for a good hour as the stable hands took the horses to the barn. The inhabitants were milling about making preparations for the battle. Elliot’s radio crackled and a voice rang from the speaker – the leader of the team that was to blow the bridge.
“They’re on approach. I see…buses and trucks. Over.”
Elliot pressed the transmit button. “Artillery? Over.”
A pause. “One gun being towed at the back of the column.” Another pause. “Estimate they’ll be on the bridge in about two minutes.”
“Any chance you can get them all when it collapses? Over.”
“Negative. Maybe the first few vehicles. It’s a long column. I’m signing off. Over and out.”
The plan was to blow the bridge and attack the force with the Browning, further thinning the ranks and making getting across the river a major obstacle. Days of planning, of setting shaped charges, of checking and rechecking the work, were about to come to fruition – hopefully in a deadly plunge into the Rio Grande.
~ ~ ~
Jude stopped the column as it neared the bridge, the trek that had begun before dawn finally over. According to his reckoning based on an old map, once across, they could be at Los Alamos in an hour or two and be able to make their way through the canyons under cover of darkness – although any advantage they might have had due to surprise had clearly been lost. Still, they had plentiful night vision gear, and Magnus’s plan was to rush the valley after softening it with nonstop shelling while his troops moved into position. Jude wasn’t convinced that would work as well as Magnus believed, but he also knew better than to argue. As it was, Magnus was blaming Jude for failing to prevent the attacks that had wreaked such havoc on the force.
He studied the bridge and the far bank with his binoculars and stiffened when he heard the heavy crunch of boots on gravel behind him. He didn’t need to turn around to know Magnus had come for a look himself – the man exuded a presence that was palpable.
“What are you waiting for?” Magnus asked.
“Checking the bridge.” He swept the area and shook his head as he lowered the spyglasses. “I want to get some men on it to search for mines. I don’t want to take anything for granted. This would be a natural point to block us, at least temporarily.”
“Delaying the inevitable.”
Jude held his tongue. He privately thought that Magnus had overlooked the possibility that the occupants of the valley had fled in advance of his attack, and that they’d wind up having expended all their energy and hundreds of men for nothing. That was what Jude would have done in the face of an overwhelming force headed at him – he’d have launched token attacks and mined the roads to buy everyone time to get to safety. He’d bet that was what Magnus would discover when he finally made it into the valley, but there was no way Jude was going to voice the possibility.
Ten minutes later, the four men he’d sent to examine the understructure of the bridge reported back that from their vantage point on the bank they didn’t see anything suspicious. A sweep of the surface of the road found no mines, and Magnus was pacing by his vehicle when the men returned and pronounced it clear.
Jude scowled as he regarded the river and the smaller wood footbridge downstream. “I don’t like it. Something’s off. Why didn’t they blow the bridge?”
“They probably don’t have enough explosives. Used them up on the mines,” Magnus said.
“Maybe,” Jude said. “I want to have a look myself.”
Magnus watched him descend the steep bank and work his way to the wood structure. Jude crossed, surveying the highway bridge from the lower, smaller one, and then Magnus’s radio crackled as Jude’s voice reported.
“I can’t be sure, but it looks like there’s some suspicious material on the far end. Over.”
“What does that mean?” Magnus growled. “Suspicious material. Be clear. Over.”
“It means there’s a ridge of debris that could be nothing, or could be…something.” Jude paused. “We should get a team across the bridge to take a hard look before we put any vehicles on it. Over.”
Magnus weighed his impatience against the possibility of calling it wrong, and erred on the side of the conservative. “All right. Come back and do what you need to do. Over,” he said, and strode back to his Humvee with a shake of his head.
~ ~ ~
Richard watched the drama at the river play out through his binoculars from his concealed position on one of the hills a half mile west of the bridge, the Browning beside him cocked and loaded, sights set for the longer range.
“Come on, come on. Cross it. Just cross it. It’s safe. Really, it is,” he muttered, and then sucked in a sharp intake of breath when he saw a group of men move onto the bridge and probe the surface for mines. They returned to where several others stood at the front of the long procession of vehicles, and then one of them broke off and made his way down the bank.
“Damn. They’re not going to fall for it,” he said under his breath. His impression was confirmed when the four men who had checked for mines crossed the bridge and began working their way below it. “They’re onto us. We’re going to blow it,” he said, and flipped the cover up on the wireless transmitter that would detonate the numerous charges required to collapse the high-density reinforced span.
The gunner looked at him. “You sure?”
“Open up once it blows. Don’t wait. They’ll spot us sooner than later, so give them everything you’ve got.” Richard eyed the red button and nodded once. “Here goes nothing.”
He depressed the button and the end of the bridge lifted into the air, buckling where it met the shore, and then sagged as a cloud of dust and smoke rose into the air and blew out both sides of the span. The boom of the explosion reached them over two seconds later. Richard peered through the binoculars and cursed.
“Damn. It didn’t completely collapse.”
“Should I start shooting?” the gunner asked.
“Have at it. Make every round count.”
The big gun opened fire and stuttered after ten seconds before falling silent. The gunner fumbled with the cocking lever to clear a jam as Richard watched the reaction at the bridge. His eyes widened behind the glasses as two of the Humvees rolled forward, their identical .50-caliber M2s pointed up the hill at his position, and then they were firing in tandem. The world around him disintegrated as hundreds of high-caliber armor-piercing rounds disintegrated the rocks providing their cover, shredding him and his men to pieces in seconds.
Chapter 50
Michael started at the distant sound of the detonation as the bridge blew, the sound faint in the valley, and exchanged a look with Elliot. “That should slow them down,” he said.
“Wouldn’t make any assumptions,” Lucas said, checking the time. “They’re what, about twenty miles away
now?”
“That’s right. But there’s no way across the river unless they go pretty far north, and that will further delay them.”
“What about the wood bridge Arnold talked about?” Lucas asked.
“We decided to leave that. They can’t get vehicles across it, and we figured it would invite them to try crossing it with horses, which would bring them out in the open for the machine gun to cut down.”
“Arnold approved that?”
“It was actually my idea,” Michael said. “Another trap.”
“Assuming everything works perfectly. What if it doesn’t?”
“So far it has.”
Lucas didn’t want to argue, but he’d never been consulted on leaving the smaller bridge intact. He would never have done so, but his sway with Elliot only went so far, and he couldn’t counter what he didn’t know about.
“See if you can raise Richard on the radio,” Elliot said.
Michael nodded and held his handset to his mouth. After several tries, he lowered it and shook his head. “If they’re shooting, which I assume they are, they probably can’t hear me.”
“That’s one possibility,” Lucas agreed. “I’d get everyone into position just in case. All noncombatants to the caves and the hospital area. Snipers to the outposts. Same for the demo crew.” They’d concealed a number of Bouncing Betties in the canyon in strategic locations, but also had charges set to induce rockslides, which would require men to trigger them at appropriate points in the Crew’s approach.
“You really think that’s necessary? I hate to get everyone into the field if we’re still hours from needing to be on alert,” Michael said. “We want to avoid the fatigue factor, if possible.”
“No matter what happens, this is the beginning of a long process. Could be many days of battle. A few hours one way or another won’t make much difference.”
Michael looked to Elliot, who nodded. “Lucas is probably right. Call an operational meeting for ten minutes from now, and get all the team leaders ready to be there and deploy immediately afterward.” Elliot turned back to Lucas. “I trust you’ll join us?”
The Day After Never - Covenant (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 3) Page 22