The second rocket struck one of the mobile homes and exploded the structure.
Grace screamed as pieces of aluminum flew at them like aerial buzz saws. The blue metal awning of the structure impacted the high roof of the Rover and bounced off. Grace turned to follow the hummer; a burning piece of debris had lodged into the side of the sand colored vehicle.
The helicopter came around again. It was having a hard time finding a firing angle on the two moving targets as they laced their way among the tall pine trees and trailers. Bullets from the chopper chewed along their path, striking indiscriminately.
“Pool!” Ian shouted, and Reed swerved hard right to avoid the gated community amenity.
“Josh, there is a LAW in the back.”
“A what?”
“A LAW! It’s like an RPG! Get the RPG!!” Reed screamed as he drove the hummer like a go-cart on rails. Joshua released the handhold that had been keeping him relatively locked down to the center of the back seat area, and tried to dive into the back.
“There!” Ian pointed to a concrete community center at the entrance of the trailer park.
Bullets streaked across the space between the two vehicles, and Grace hit the brakes long enough for them to pass. She gunned the Rover again, trying to catch up.
“Grace,” Ian yelled into his radio. “We’re going behind that building. Get ready to dive out.”
“Shit!” she didn’t have time to respond. “We’re stopping behind the building. Unbuckle and get the kids down into the floorboard.”
A small propane refilling station, located next to the community center, exploded, sending a fireball hundreds of feet into the air. A piece of shrapnel pierced the windshield and grazed Grace’s shoulder, sending searing pain down her arm. “Awe, Shit!” She gritted her teeth and turned the opposite way as Reed. A bullet clanged off of the back bumper, and Grace swerved again. Another bullet pierced the roof and exited through the floorboard, passing between the two children. Grace pulled the wheel in the opposite direction, sending the Rover around the building.
Amy unbuckled and dove into the back seat. She braced herself with her legs against the floorboard and held onto the car seats. Her children were screaming at the top of their lungs. She tried to look in the back, where
Doctor Cadet was being pummeled by flying prepper equipment and his medical supplies. He was still holding on. She couldn’t see how Mr. Rivers was doing.
Reed spun the hummer around the other side of the explosion and accelerated down the opposite side of the community center from Grace. “Get ready, Josh!” At the back corner, he cut the wheel hard, sending a massive rooster tail of dirt into the air.
“Ready!” Joshua cradled the RPG and was as ready as he could be to dive out. That is when he saw people spilling out of the main doors of the community center. “We have civilians coming out of the front door!” he yelled.
The helicopter buzzed over the building once the vehicles split up. He was going to set up for another rocket attack on the hummer, when he opened fire from his side door. The pilot tilted his head back to see that there were new targets in play. He spun the bird around the back of the building, setting itself up for another pass. Several people were already on the ground, dead or dying.
Grace’s Rover wheeled around the back of the building, just at the helo passed over. The gunner tried to pivot around from shooting at the people to shoot at the Rover, but he was working against the spin of the helicopter and ended up shooting the wall behind the English SUV.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” Ian yelled. “Go Joshua!” Ian jumped out, armed with his 7.62 rifle. He ran past the Rover, casting a quick glance at his daughter and the occupants before putting his shoulder against the corner of the building. Joshua was right behind him.
“Take the shot when he turns towards me,” Ian yelled, and he ran away from the building and into the open.
The helo took the bait and spun towards the new target. The pilot nosed down to accelerate.
“Dad! NO!” Grace yelled and jumped out of the Rover. She pulled her rifle up and started unloading at the side of the beast. She saw the gunner’s head whip around to see the girl shooting at him. He pivoted the machine gun towards her, pulling the trigger as he did. The bullets pierced the ground in a random pattern, clawing their way to where she stood.
Joshua squeezed the trigger, launching the rocket-propelled grenade towards the helicopter.
Grace fired her last round and dove to her left as the bullets from the machine gun grated the spot where she had been standing.
The RPG found the engine compartment of the helicopter in less than two seconds and exploded upon impact.
The last bullet from the helo zinged past Grace’s leg and punctured the front left tire of the Rover.
The helo exploded and tumbled to the ground in the direction of Ian, but he was already moving and dove behind a metal trash dumpster. The fireball washed over the dumpster, igniting the contents.
Grace felt a hand grab her arm to help her up. It was Joshua. He pulled her into a hug. She didn’t resist.
“I thought you were hit,” he whispered into the embrace.
“No, I’m okay.” The wound on her shoulder was nothing to worry about now. She felt another hand on the small of her back. It was her father. He leaned over and kissed her head, lingering there for a second with his eyes closed.
“Nice shooting, son,” Ian slapped Joshua’s back and then looked inside of the Rover. “Amy, are you and the kids alright?”
Amy was teary eyed but nodded that she thought they were unhurt. Grace moved around to help her get the kids out.
Next, Ian popped open the back of the Rover. Blood was all over the bed of the classic vehicle. “Seth?”
Seth was pumping his hands on the old man’s chest. “Help me get him to the ground.”
Both Ian and Joshua reached in to move the man. “One, two, three, now,” Dr. Cadet ordered. The three men gently placed Mr. Rivers’ lifeless body on the ground, and Seth immediately started CPR again. Joshua moved to the man’s head and started blowing on the doctor’s count.
Grace watched from the front of the truck, not wanting to see the last minute of the kind man’s life end at the back of a trailer park.
“Grace!” Reed called from the other side of his hummer. She raised her weapon and moved around the other corner of the building. She stopped. Her knees felt weak, and she turned her head and threw-up behind the corner of the building.
“Oh, God!” she breathed. “Oh, God, no!”
“Grace, get my med kit out of the hummer,” Reed said, he had his hands covering a gunshot wound on a lady. Between where the lady was on the ground and the front door to the community center, there were body parts and fragments of people that had been mowed down by the helicopter’s machine gun. She didn’t know how many people made up the horror scene. She puked again. “Grace, hurry!”
Grace heard him that time and wiped her sleeve across her mouth. She stumbled back to Reed’s vehicle and found the medical kit. “Dad! Dad!” She could see Ian standing beside the Rover. He was looking down at the scene behind the vehicle when he heard her voice. Before he reached her, she knew that he knew what was around the corner. He took the kit from her without saying a word and walked around the corner. She followed but could not make herself walk past the corner.
“How many?” he asked Reed, taking a gauze pad and handing it to him.
There were several people crying and trying to help the wounded that were still alive.
“Five still alive, and…” he shrugged. “Maybe eight killed. I guess they were scared the place would burn when the propane tank exploded?”
“Are you the Army?” an elderly woman asked. She slowly knelt down to help tend to the lady that Reed was working on. “Here, let me,” she said, taking the bandage, and applying pressure.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Reed said. He looked to Ian to answer.
“Some of us are…,” he stumbled for wor
ds, as he studied the shocked faces of the people that were spilling out of the community center. Most of them were elderly. “We’re the good guys,” he said. “We’re a militia.”
CHAPTER 16
Captain Cho listened to the broadcast of his helicopter pilot. They were about to engage an old model Range Rover and a military Humvee after an attack at one of the city’s eastern roadblocks. Cho was certain that Agent Burrows was among the group leading the attack.
Twenty-four hours earlier Cho had personally run the surveillance on the house belonging to Ian Burrows. With very little risk, he was able to determine that Agent Burrows was not in the house and that Governor Payne’s intelligence about him being spotted on the farm was plausible. He needed a way to flush Burrows out into the open, and he knew that the people in the house had a connection. He just needed to find a way to apply pressure to the situation.
Captain Cho was a student of human nature. He had degrees in psychology, sociology, and philosophy, all from esteemed American universities. His government trusted him to know the enemies of the State and to protect his motherland at all costs. As one of the State’s premier counterintelligence officers, it was his job to be able to think like his enemies and ultimately kill his enemies.
Colonel Xu wanted the Governor off of his back while he managed a war, so he gave Cho access to use whatever he needed to accomplish the wish of the new PNA Governor and eliminate Ian Burrows.
However, it wasn’t just Agent Burrows that he wanted to eliminate; it was the entire Burrows family. After studying the files provided by the Governor’s contact in Washington, D.C., Cho learned that Leah Burrows also worked with the intelligence agency. However, what surprised him the most was the discovery of one file in particular. The file, tagged with the Top Secrete moniker, was about their daughter, Grace Burrows.
Captain Cho leaned over the shoulder of the communications officer in the mobile command center. They were watching the erratic video from the cameras mounted on the helicopter and listening to the pilot bark out orders to his gunner. He could clearly see that the vehicles he was pursuing had survived the surprise rocket attack from behind and were fleeing off of the highway. What he wanted to see was the face of his enemy.
To encourage the residents of the house, Cho had sent a propaganda wagon down the Burrows’ street broadcasting the need for everyone to report to the new security camps. As expected, the residents of the house evacuated within hours. He dispatched a drone to track their progress with hopes that they would lead him to the family. With the occupants gone, he walked through the front door of their house.
“Captain Li Cho, entering the house of the State criminal, Ian Burrows,” he said, speaking into a personal camera he held at arms length. He had ordered guards posted at the house with orders to shoot anyone that approached and to leave him alone for at least two hours.
Cho went into the living room first. He set his eyes on the fireplace, as the center point of the room. The stacked stone structure exuded power with the river rocks providing warmth to the room even though there was no fire. His eyes were drawn to family photographs lining the mantel.
Sweeping his camera along the photos, he paused to look at the one in the center. Picking it up, he noticed that the picture frame wasn’t as dusty as the others were and that it looked like other photos had been pushed aside to add this one. He focused his camera on the picture of the blond girl in a blue cap and gown. He then flipped it over; there was an inscription.
Grace Kathryn Burrows, High School Graduation.
Cho breathed in deeply, the CIA documents on the girl showed that she was a remarkable girl and that the Agency was keenly interested in her future development. Her personnel evaluation showed that she was at the top of her class in school, excelled at linguistics, knew martial arts, and participated on the track, archery, and rifle teams. She had received scholarship opportunities at all four universities that she had applied to, and would have attended William and Mary University in Virginia, had his country not have invaded. He placed the picture back in its location and looked around the rest of the main level.
Cho noted that they had a dog, there was a non-working alarm system, and that Leah Burrows had a kitchen full of professional level equipment. She must enjoy cooking.
His curiosity, or rather, his instinct, took him to the door leading down to the basement. He pocketed the camera and drew his weapon before descended the stairs. Within a minute, he had cleared the basement of anyone and found himself standing in a well-hidden room built under the stairs. He flipped on a powerful LED flashlight and looked at what was in front of him.
“How could you be so lazy,” Cho said, looking at the walls detailing maps and plans for the Burrows family incase of disaster or invasion. It was at that second that he thought he heard something coming from the garage.
Cho pointed his pistol towards the garage door and listened. It was a sound that didn’t ebb and flow with distance; it was a sound that was constant and…muffled. Cho opened the door and entered the garage. There was only one vehicle in the garage, a blue luxury SUV. Cho kept his pistol trained on the driver’s side of the vehicle as he approached and opened the door.
The sound was coming from the glove box. He reached across and opened the latch. It was a personal two-way radio, and he could hear people talking.
“Captain!” the communications officer exclaimed as the helicopter swung around the building to finish off the two vehicles.
Cho was right there, watching. The image was a split screen, one side was the gunner’s view, and the other was that of the pilot’s. He wasn’t surprised at what they were watching. Ian Burrows was the man running in the pilot’s point of view, and a girl, Grace Burrows, was crouching next to the Rover. She was firing at the helicopter with a spray of bullets creeping towards her position; she wasn’t moving. That is when he noticed the soldier fire the RPG, and the screen zapped to white static.
“Sir, should we launch another helicopter?” the communications officer asked, noting the failure of the first chopper.
“No,” Cho said, reaching down to reverse the feed back a few frames. He left the screen on a picture on the soldier firing her weapon at the helicopter.
“No, I have another idea.”
CHAPTER 17
Through his radio, Adam heard bits and pieces of the battle with the helicopter, happening down the highway. He fought to ignore the desperate orders and sounds of war echoing through the earpiece. For a few minutes, as he listened to the battle rage, he thought that he might be left alone in the world. With the women taken hostage and his brother in a duel against the enemy, the world looked bleak. It was at that moment that he remembered an important part of the Boy Scout Oath.
‘On my honor, I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country’
“I guess I’ve got to do my best,” he whispered to the Daisy. “Regardless.” She wagged. “Alright,” he said, as they quietly made their way up one side of the grandstands. He wanted a better view of the track, and what was going on inside. “This looks good,” he said, edging closer to the edge of one of the bleacher tunnels.
Adam shouldered his rifle and produced a small pair of binoculars. They were the ones that his father had given him to use when hunting. He stepped back into the shadows to make sure that the sun would not glint off of the glass; something that he had learned from his father. He then peered to the other side of the track. He could see a few guys milling around the race pits, and most of the people had moved away from the infield, leaving the only action to be isolated to the skyboxes directly across from where he was hidden.
Adam had been to several NASCAR races at this track and knew the configuration well. It was that knowledge that allowed him and Daisy to sneak into the stands without being seen, and it was the same knowledge that was going to help him rescue his mother, Anna, and the others.
“I will do my best to do my duty,” he whispered, “to God and my countr
y…and…there they are,” he said, smiling, the binoculars still to his eyes. He looked down to the dog for affirmation, but she was tuned into something else.
Daisy had turned her head and perked her ears; she heard something coming up the ramp. Adam stopped talking and gently pulled her with him around a corner and into an open men’s restroom. It was a typical arena type of restroom with an open entrance at either side. The dog’s claws tic-tacked on the concrete and tile floor when she walked. He held out his hand in front of her face. “Stay.” Daisy stayed on one side of the dark restroom, while Adam edged to the other entrance.
He could hear the voice of a man talking, but he could not hear an answer. He must have a radio, damn!
Adam slung the rifle around his shoulder again and drew his knife. He didn’t want to shoot someone; the noise would give his position away…another thing that he had learned from his father.
“Yeah, I’m going to take a piss,” give me a second. A man said, ducking into the restroom where Adam and Daisy were positioned.
The man walked right past Adam, leaving the footfalls of a second person continuing to walk outside of the restroom. Damn, there are two!
“Adam, this is Josh. Over,” his brother’s voice boomed in his ear. It sounded like a stadium announcement in his earpiece, but the man peeing didn’t seem to hear; the sound of his urine hitting the stainless steel masking the noise.
Adam felt himself holding his breath; the palm of his hand around the knife became slick with sweat.
The second man walked into the other entrance of the dark bathroom and saddled up to the metal troth. Adam’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but thankfully each man was standing in the ray of light afforded by the opening at the doors at each end. He didn’t think they could see him in the shadows. Daisy, please don’t move.
Worst Case Scenario - Book 5: Militia Page 7