Cooper smiled, “OK. You both got me. I’ll shut up now.” Jake’s smile was replaced with a grimace as soon as Julianne began speaking. He moved a few paces closer to Lily. Seeing this, Cooper pursed his lips.
He turned to address the others, “Let’s move.”
**********
Bright sunlight cascaded down from the cloudless sky, which was rare for a late spring morning in Portland. The group formed a loose diamond pattern, crouching and running from one cover point to the next and leapfrogging one another. To an untrained eye, their movement would have looked martial. Cooper saw the many flaws as his group moved: covering distances that were too far from one another, picking up and running before the person had settled into their new firing position, and leaving firing lines uncovered. We’d get wiped out by a trained force while crossing into new terrain. He pushed the negative thought aside. Do your best, that’s all you can ask of anyone, his father’s sage words came back to him. Cooper longed for the familiarity of his own ground and the easier task of defending, rather than attacking.
As he moved, he did his best to model for the others how to do it. Occasionally, he’d bark across the radio to try and correct the most egregious misstep or use it as an educational moment. But, he knew there was no replacement for training and the repetition of drilling.
He was about halfway to their ‘jumping off’ point that would be in full view of the overpass when it struck him. I’ve probably passed at least a half dozen cars with one or more bodies, most of them stinking to high heaven, and I haven’t even noticed. That thought brought a bitter taste to his tongue. His lips curled and he spat to rid himself of the foul taste. Damn, I can’t stop seeing. I can’t lose touch.
Light glinted off the cars as they moved. Dranko was the ‘point’ of the diamond, while Cooper brought up the rear. Calvin, Angela, and Freddie were spread across the middle of their formation. They figured that this formation would give them the best way to control and direct the untrained trio.
Soon, Dranko called them over the open channel, “Form up, on me. The overpass is in view.” The diamond collapsed upon him. When Cooper arrived, Dranko passed him the binoculars without needing to be asked.
Cooper started at the far side and worked his way back. Across the overpass was a wooded hill that was pockmarked with houses that had been cut into the steep hillside. Around the homes, the Evergreens were packed tightly. Damn fine cover for anyone on the other side. Could be in the houses looking out from behind the windows or could be bunkered in the woods. Cooper deliberately scanned this area, looking intently for a reflection off of metal or the glass from a scope. Finding nothing, he passed them to Angela, who spent several minutes looking over the area, too.
“Well, what do you think,” Cooper asked, breaking the tense silence.
“It’s dangerous. They could be in any of those houses, looking out with a scope or binoculars right at us. But, with the windows, we aren’t likely to see inside from here. It’s too far,” Dranko answered.
“I was thinking the same thing. Angela, focus your attention on those houses. Look for any sign of movement. A window that shakes could mean something is pressed against it. A bird that takes to flight could mean a noise startled it. If you see something, take your best guess and just open fire. At the worst, we’ll get an unneeded scare. At best, you’ll hit someone or at least force them to fire before they want to. Make sense?”
Angela nodded, and licked dry lips.
“Calvin, I think it makes sense for you to stay back here with Angela. Scanning the same with the binoculars. Same advice to her. You see anything, tell her just where to fire. You’ll do more good here than running across the overpass. Got it?”
“Sure. Easy enough,” Calvin said, taking the binoculars from Dranko.
Cooper turned to Freddie, whose face had lost all color, and Dranko. “Take a deep breath, Freddie.”
“I can switch roles with Freddie,” Calvin offered, his deep voice an octave higher than normal.
Freddie bent over, placing his hands on his knees, and drew air deep into his lungs. He waved his hands, “I got this. Ain’t gonna be scaredy Freddie!” His forced laughter rang hollow and died of loneliness.
“It is not about that. No one here would call you that,” Calvin continued, his eyes sympathetic.
Freddie looked up, his face pale, “Nah, I know that. But, I’d call myself that. And, that’s what matters. You know, what you call yourself. Besides, in the post-BP world, I gotta be able to deal with the threat of violence. Didn’t you guys read Cosmo this week? Violence is the new black.” His joke elicited a few chuckles from his friends. His own smile was thin.
“Okay, here is what we do. Dranko, you have point again. My .308 has better range, so it’s best at the rear. Freddie, you got middle. Move the shortest distance you can from one cover to the next. Don’t ever pass up cover. You got that, Freddie?”
Freddie nodded and spat dry spittle to the ground. Cooper continued, “Make sure the last man moving is settled and in a good firing position. Believe me, if you are moving and are fired upon, you want everyone able to return fire immediately.”
“OK, mom. You told us all this when we did our briefing this morning,” Freddie exaggerated his whine.
Cooper grabbed him by the shirt collar and pressed his face close, “Yes, I did. And, I saw you violate this basic rule twice just crossing to where we are now. My nagging might save you from getting your ass shot off.”
Freddie stepped back and upraised his hands, “Alright, Coop. I got you. Chill.”
Cooper’s face still flashed red and his lips were tight, “I’ll chill when we are across this ground. Until then, you best be on edge. On your toes. Got it, Freddie?”
“Sure thing, boss,” Freddie answered, irritation creeping in. Always let the other guy save face. It’s the rare man that will forget or forgive a slight. Too many and your best friend can turn your worst enemy. Cooper’s father’s voice rang inside his head.
Cooper softened his face deliberately, “You know. You’re right, Freddie. Thank you for the reminder. Good advice. How about I calm down a bit and you ramp it up a bit? We do need to be on our toes, but not over the edge. Deal?”
“That’s all I was saying,” Freddie offered meekly.
“Yeah, I know. It just took me a minute to hear you.” Freddie perked up and his typical smile replaced the scowl. Glad I fixed that. “We ready, team?” Once more, his father’s advice came to him: build the team every chance you get. A team that trusts each other will kick the butt off one that doesn’t. Cooper surveyed the group standing around him and saw the fear and the confusion in their faces. “C’mon, bring it in,” he barked, while cocking his eyebrows playfully.
“Right, coach,” Freddie joked. The others clustered about him. Cooper put his hand in the middle and waited for the others to join him. “On three, muffled yell of ‘shoot straight’. One…two…three!”
“Shoot straight!” They yelled together softly, so that the noise would not carry very far. Angela was grinning in delight. Calvin had a wry smile on his face. Freddie was chuckling and breathing easily. Dranko was smirking at Cooper. Scared men make bad decisions, his father had told him repeatedly. That’s how you tell a real leader from an imposter. The real ones lessen the fear of those around them, the bad ones stoke it.
“Well then, team. Let’s roll,” Cooper commanded. Despite his efforts, he hadn’t finished the words when he sensed the tension spike all around him. Faces tightened and muscles tensed. Jaws clenched. It was palpable in the air. The corner of Cooper’s mouth curled upward. The best efforts can fail, can’t they? He was thankful that Jake would be safe, remaining in the rear with the vehicles with Julianne and Lily.
**********
Angela and Calvin moved across the roadway to his right so they were aligned with the same side of the road as the houses that they sought to cover on the wooded hill. The trio waited for them to be in position and actively scanning be
fore they moved.
Dranko went first, scurrying at a crouch about ten yards before he came to rest behind a bright yellow Volkswagen bug. Next to him, Freddie rasped a frantic breath before he ran onto the overpass, his feet clattering loudly on the asphalt. In front of him, Dranko had his rifle trained onto the opposite side. When Freddie drew parallel to him, he turned towards Dranko and his eyes were white saucers. He kept running for a few seconds before crashing hard against a black sedan that had careened sideways, blocking the left two lanes.
My turn. Cooper breathed steadily, filling his lungs to capacity. Then, he crouched and began running. His eyes were alert and scanning the ground before him. He didn’t want to trip while crossing ground that might be under enemy observation. Quickly, he reached Dranko and passed him. Then, he was past Freddie and sliding into the spot he’d chosen opposite of him. He was behind a red pickup that had also blocked the right side of the road, just a few yards past the black car that Freddie had sought cover behind.
They continued across the overpass like this. The road was littered with vehicles of all sorts. Some were pristine rather than being dirty. Some had burned, while others had crashed. It would have been barely passable to get one vehicle through at any given point.
They were three-fourths of the way across the overpass when Cooper’s mind clicked. Just enough room for one vehicle to get across? This is too neat. Like it’s been set up this way.
Freddie was rushing at full speed to the next cover point.
Cooper’s eyes flew wide, “Get down,” he screeched.
It was too late.
The shots rang out almost simultaneously, coming from in front and behind him.
His eyes were fixated upon Freddie. He saw it all in slow motion. Freddie was mid-stride, his hair dancing in the wind, his feet churning gravel and broken glass from the road’s surface, when he was hit. The impact ripped his shirt, sending bits of cotton exploding into the air. Freddie took two awkward steps, his legs crashing into themselves, before smashing into the ground, his rifle clattering and bouncing across the pavement.
Dranko was in front of where Freddie had fallen. Before he could react, a tinny voice bellowed from what Cooper guessed was a bullhorn, “Don’t fire! We will negotiate!”
Cooper’s temper flared, “Negotiate? After you shot our guy!” He yelled. Cooper’s eyes were still trained on Freddie, looking for movement. His heart leapt into his throat when all he saw was stillness.
“We got your attention, don’t we? We got you dead to rights.”
Cooper’s mind raced, “What do you want to cross safely?”
“Our terms are fair and the same for all who cross,” the voice’s smug tone grated on Cooper.
“Where the hell are they?” Now, Cooper was frantically scanning the opposite side of the bridge. That they could hear his unamplified voice told him the voice on the bullhorn was close. Then, he saw it: a spot of white waving just above the roof of a red Mini Cooper.
“Half. Half your food. Half your guns. And, half your women.”
Buying time, as he sighted in his rifle to punch through the Mini’s doors at where he thought the bullhorn person was, “OK! Half our food and half our guns. But, we gotta keep our women. They are our wives!” Lowering his voice, he called to Dranko over the hand held radio, “Behind the red Mini. Spray.”
Cooper waited until the tip of the bullhorn rose above the Mini’s roofline once more, he breathed, exhaled and then held his breath. He squeezed the trigger slowly. The rifle barked once. The bullhorn dropped out of view.
Dranko opened fire and the harsh staccato of the M4 on full auto was punctuated by the shells finding home, punching sheet metal, shattering glass, and the sharp thwick-thwick as they tore through plastic and sheet metal on the cars. From behind him, Angela fired again at a target he could not discern.
Cooper instinctively ducked as a fusillade of gunfire splattered the Chevy Malibu that he was hunkered down behind. Above the din, he heard a plaintive groan from Freddie. Quickly, he got onto all fours and scrabbled toward him. The gunfire remained focused on the car, as the other vehicles must have blocked his movement from his adversaries. Ricochets bounced angrily about him, however, and he crawled away as fast he could, his knees rubbing raw in the process.
In front of him, Freddie was clutching at his shoulder and rolling from side to side. He was moaning and his left hand, the injured side, was clawing at the ground. It’s good he’s still feeling pain. It means he’s not in shock yet.
Cooper closed the last few yards with a furious scramble. Freddie’s eyes lit up when he saw him.
“I’m shot,” he muttered, grinding his teeth.
“Yeah, I know. You’ll be fine. I’m going to move you behind cover so I can patch you up. Alright?”
Freddie gave a curt nod. Cooper grabbed him by his shirt collar and began dragging him across the rough pavement, grunting at the effort. Freddie groaned even louder, his jaw muscles clenching to hold back the pain. Cooper kept scooting along the ground, pushing with his legs, and pulling Freddie along. A splinter of concrete stitched across his cheek from a nearby bullet ricochet. He ignored it and kept sliding along the ground. His back bumped into the reassuring steel of the cement truck’s frame and he pivoted to slide Freddie alongside, parallel to it. He stepped over him and knelt beside him.
The bullet had punched Freddie squarely in the shoulder, just below the collarbone. The bleeding wasn’t heavy, as Freddie had kept his hand pressed up against it.
“Keep your hand there,” Cooper said as he gently lifted him up and slid his hand underneath his back. He felt dampness and pulled his hand back to find it stained red.
“You have an exit wound, which is good. The bullet isn’t stuck inside,” Cooper relayed as he pawed open the makeshift first-aid kit that Dranko had given each of them. Using his teeth, he tore open the packaging to a maxi-pad. He used his pocket knife to slice it in half and quickly positioned one on each side of Freddie’s body; covering both the entry and exit wounds. Before he could reach for his own, Freddie handed him a roll of gauze from his pack and Cooper used it to fasten the pads in place, looping around his neck to fix it in place. When finished, he patted Freddie on the opposite shoulder, “You’ll be okay. I’ll be back.”
The gunfire continued in sporadic fits as he was bandaging Freddie. He spotted Dranko swapping mags, still in the same position. He fast crawled to his side.
“Got Freddie patched up. He’ll keep,” Cooper apprised him.
“I got one more. Someone who popped up a little too much for his own good health! I think we got at least six still spread out among those cars at the overpass’ edge and one sniper up in those houses we saw before the jump-off,” Dranko relayed, rapid fire. Cooper’s mind raced. He swapped a fresh mag into his FAL. He slid to the edge of their cover and caught a quick glance at their enemy’s position.
“You still got that grenade?” he asked.
Dranko padded his vest pocket as an answer, a grin growing on his face, “What do you have in mind?”
“Use our one advantage, the magic of suppressing fire against untrained men. Get on the radio and call Calvin up here.”
“He’s already on his way. Angela told me. As soon as the bullets started flying, he was moving our way.”
Cooper’s eyebrows drew together, “Really? Impressive. Takes a lot of cajones for a civvie to move toward gunfire!”
Dranko nodded in exaggerated agreement.
“Hey,” Calvin called to them from behind a beige sedan, waving his arm to be seen.
Cooper motioned him forward and he crawled to where they were.
“Thanks for joining the party,” Cooper exclaimed.
Calvin was out of breath, panting, and sweat cascaded down his bald head, “Came…as…soon…as I…could!”
“Here’s what we are going to do. You and Dranko will put down suppressing fire on the line of vehicles where our friends are hiding and waiting to kill us. Suppressing fi
re means you fire as fast as you can in the general direction of the bad guys. Don’t waste time aiming. We just want their heads down. Got it?”
Calvin nodded, still breathing deeply to refill his winded lungs. “What…are you…”
Cooper saved him the effort, “I’m going to work my way to range where I can use this!” He opened his palm to reveal the olive drab grenade. Calvin’s eyes opened wide in surprise. Slowly, a thin smile crept across his face.
“Calvin, we will fire in tandem. I’ll empty a mag, and while I’m reloading, you fire,” Dranko instructed.
Cooper punched the call button on his walkie talkie, “Angela, I need you to keep the sniper’s head down once you hear Dranko firing again. Read me? Out.”
A moment later, his radio cackled, “Read you. Out.”
Cooper looked at Dranko and Calvin, “Ready?”
Cooper crouched. He breathed deeply several times, filling his lungs as fully as possible. He caught Dranko’s eye; he was positioned at the front of the vehicle they were hidden behind. Cooper raised himself onto his haunches and pivoted so he could run out from behind the vehicle and make his way to the enemy position.
As he turned, time slowed. Dranko’s rifle swung into position toward the enemy. Flame spat from his barrel as he fired at them. Dranko’s face was tight, eyes squinted, jaw clenched, and nostrils flaring. Then, bits of blue flannel erupted from his chest as bullets struck him. His eyes went wide, calling out in shock. Dranko abruptly sat down, thudding into the asphalt. The last thing Cooper saw was Calvin taking Dranko’s position and his rifle coming to bear.
Cooper’s mind cried out to go to his friend’s aid, but he was already in motion. It had all happened too fast. Cooper duck-ran to the nearest car, which was a silver sports car. He heard the rapid fire of Calvin’s M4 raking the enemy’s position. Cooper didn’t hesitate and ran head-long toward a white panel van. He took the risk, knowing that with Dranko down, it would be tougher to keep their opponents under cover long enough for him to get within range.
Brushfire Plague: Reckoning Page 10