Grace Under Fire

by Franklin Horton

  There were 12-volt batteries and a charge controller integrated into an outside solar panel. The batteries powered an inverter and LED lights in the ceiling. There was a variety of lanterns and flashlights, and several PVC pipes penetrating the outside wall provided ventilation. The intakes and outlets were offset to prevent someone from shooting through them. Each contained screening to keep out insects. The Ready Room was also designed to function as a tornado shelter for those rare occasions a tornado or microburst would pop up in the mountains.

  They were startled by a sudden burst of pounding against the heavy door. It could have been a fist or even a foot. Someone was shouting at them but they could not make out what was being said. Teresa gathered the children around her again just as the loud report of a weapon could be heard. The idiot had fired against the door. Even through the layered steel door she could hear the ricochet of the round in the cinderblock room. She hoped they would be smart enough not to try that again. Deciding to revise that wish, she instead hoped that the round ricocheted through both of them and left them dead.

  "Can they get in?" Dylan asked.

  "No, Dylan. Were safe."

  Teresa suddenly felt lightheaded and drained. It was the adrenaline leaving her. "Let's fold out some of these bunks. I need to sit down and rest a second. You two pick out where you want to sleep."

  Dylan and Blake scrambled to get top bunks. Because Teresa was in pain, the boys set the boxes and buckets of food down to clear off their bunks. While they were doing that, Teresa chose the bunk that required the least work to set up. She rolled out the mattress, put the sleeping bag on it, and laid down. It was only when she was stretched out that she realized she was as weak as a kitten. Had the door burst open at that moment and someone came for them, she was not even sure she could get to her feet and defend herself.

  "Blake, honey, can you go to the first-aid kit and get me an ibuprofen? I also need one of those red bottles of Gatorade off the shelf."

  Blake monkeyed down from his bunk and went to the shelf labeled medical supplies. There were several first-aid kits there and Blake chose the one nearest him. After a little fumbling around he pulled out a paper packet of ibuprofen, took a Gatorade from the shelf, and took his mother the medicine and the drink.

  "Are you okay, Mommy?"

  Teresa tore open the paper pouch and took the ibuprofen. She washed it down with some Gatorade and then nodded, collapsing back onto the pillow. She was so tired that her stomach churned with nausea. "All that moving around just wore Mommy out. I'll be okay. I just need to rest for a minute. Make sure Dylan knows that we don't open that door for any reason. Do you understand?"

  Blake nodded. "I'll tell him."

  "Don't just tell him,” Teresa said sharply. “If for some reason he tries, don't let him. If that door opens those people may hurt us."

  "I know, I saw that woman. I know she's bad."

  "How do we go to the bathroom?" Dylan asked from the top bunk.

  "Show him, Blake," Teresa said. "Mommy's going to rest."

  Blake went to the corner of the room where a shower curtain was hanging that walled off the corner for privacy. Blake got a camping toilet from the shelf and set it up. There were several boxes of chemical treatment bags and he installed one on the toilet. When those were gone there were heavy-duty trash compactor bags as backup. Teresa hoped they would not be there long enough for that.

  She closed her eyes. She could hear nothing outside now. She didn't feel like it was particularly a safe moment to take a nap, but at this point it felt like the decision was beyond her control. While the children studied the chemical toilet, she faded into unconsciousness.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Arthur Bridges’ Compound

  There was a chirp from Arthur’s radio pouch. "I have a drone incoming,” came the radio transmission.

  Robert and Sonyea were standing on the porch with Arthur, the doctor, and Kevin Cole. Everyone was still on high alert. Arthur pulled the radio from its pouch.

  "Knock it out of the sky," he said into the radio.

  No sooner had he taken his thumb off the transmit button than a pair of shotgun blasts shook the compound.

  "You get it?" Arthur asked.

  "That’s affirmative. Should we retrieve it?"

  "Use caution. Check it with binoculars first. Try to make sure it doesn't have anything lethal strapped to it."

  "Roger that."

  "It would be good to know if it's civilian or military," Kevin said. “That could tell us a little about who we might be dealing with.”

  "It looks like there's a clear tube attached to it with a piece of paper inside," the guard reported over the radio. "Should we retrieve it?"

  Arthur looked around to see what the others thought.

  "If the purpose is to send us a message, it seems unlikely it would be booby-trapped," Kevin said. “That would defeat the purpose.”

  "Give us your location and we’ll come to you,” Arthur instructed the guard. “Don’t do anything until we get there."

  The group loaded up in Arthur's side-by-side and went to the crash site. Kevin insisted on examining the drone with binoculars before approaching it.

  "That's a civilian drone. Looks like a ninety-nine dollar retail store version if you ask me. It’s the kind you’d send out if you didn’t expect it to come back," Kevin said.

  Arthur approached the drone and examined it closely. Attached to its underside was a lightweight clear plastic tube that looked like the same kind of container realtors attached to their For Sale signs so they could leave flyers inside it. Inside was a sheet of white paper with a message written on it.

  He bent down and unscrewed the red cap from the end of the clear tube, pulled out the rolled message, and studied it. The tube and the message were peppered with holes from the shotgun.

  Arthur read aloud, "To the residents of the compound. Put down your weapons and exit empty-handed through the front gate and you will not be harmed. Otherwise, we take the compound and kill everyone inside."

  "They don't mince words, do they?" Robert said.

  "They sure don't," Arthur said.

  “Did they give a timeframe for our decision?” Sonyea asked.

  "The efficiency of this operation further convinces me that it’s someone who's had their eye on your compound for a while," Kevin said. "This is someone who knows what you have and what your capabilities are. They seem to understand the skill level, and potentially the threat level, of the occupants. That has to indicate they have been gathering intelligence on your operation since before things collapsed."

  "So what do we do?" Sonyea asked.

  Arthur balled up the note and casually threw it to the side. "I ain't giving them shit."

  "Agreed," Kevin said.

  “Robert and Sonyea,” Arthur said, "I know you two want out of here but I would strongly encourage you to wait this thing out and see what happens.”

  “I’m in agreement,” Kevin said. “You got lucky twice. You might not be next time.”

  Arthur turned to the man who had shot the drone down. He had some degree of seniority among the men serving as guards but the organizational structure had never been shared with Robert. “Did your men retrieve the body of the shooter who ambushed Sonyea and Robert?”

  “I sent an ATV down there but they’re not back yet. They’re proceeding cautiously in case there are other shooters or booby-traps,” the man replied.

  Arthur pulled his radio out. “Where you at with that trash pickup?” He held the radio at chest level, waiting for a response.

  In a moment there was a voice, the whine of an ATV engine behind it. “Got it. On my way back. Maybe five minutes.”

  “Deliver it to my house,” Arthur said. “I’ll meet you there.”

  Kevin pointed at the drone. “You might want to totally destroy that thing just in case it has any electronic goodies in it. There could be a camera, microphone, or tracking device intended to gather intelligence about us.�
�

  “Good point,” Arthur said. He turned to his senior man. “Take a hammer to it. Turn it into dust.”

  They loaded back into the ATV and returned to Arthur’s house, where they found a man in another side-by-side waiting for them. In the bed of the vehicle was a green canvas tarp covering what everyone assumed to be the body. Arthur headed straight for it and went to draw back the tarp.

  “Hold up,” the doctor said. He turned to Sonyea. “Are you sure you want to see this?”

  She frowned at him. “I don’t hear you asking anyone else that question.”

  The doctor melted under her glare. “I apologize.”

  “Apology accepted. Go ahead, Arthur.”

  Arthur cast the doctor a disapproving glance then rolled the tarp off the dead man. Beneath it lay a man in a camo uniform and battle gear. He had a camo bandana tied around his head and his face was smudged with camo paint. There was a chest wound that had soaked the man’s gear with drying blood.

  Arthur examined the chest rig. “He’s wearing plates. What did they get him with?”

  “They used the .338 with AP rounds,” the driver replied.

  “We use special .338 Lapua armor-piercing rounds,” Arthur said to Kevin. “The projectile is tungsten carbide.”

  “That’s a devastating round,” Kevin said.

  “Yeah, don’t roll him over,” the driver cautioned, “or you’ll see just how devastating.”

  “What does the body tell us?” Arthur asked the group.

  “I see well-worn gear that looks like Crye Precision to me,” Robert said. “The boots are desert tan though, which makes me think this guy may have been a security contractor in the Middle East.”

  “I agree,” Kevin said. “This is all top-end gear and it’s got a lot of use on it. Everything is frayed and battle-worn. Did you retrieve his weapon?”

  The driver reached inside the cab of the side-by-side and removed a short-barreled rifle. He confirmed that the weapon was clear before handing it to Kevin, who checked it again for himself.

  “H&K 416?” Robert asked.

  “That’s right,” Kevin said. “Eleven-inch barrel and a suppressor. Looks like a government issue weapon.”

  “He’s with the government?” Sonyea asked. “That’s who’s trying to get in here?” She was not comfortable with that thought.

  “Probably not,” Arthur said. “It just means that whoever is trying to get in has access to experienced men and the best gear.”

  “That’s still concerning,” the doctor said.

  “Don’t throw in the hat yet,” Arthur said. “Whoever sent this man is not the only one with access to good men and good gear.”

  “What’s the plan?” Robert asked.

  “Don’t have one,” Arthur admitted. “But I will when we talk again.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Damascus, VA

  When Grace awoke on the floor of Leslie Brown's kitchen she was stiff and uncomfortable. There was nothing worse than overexerting your muscles then sleeping on a hard surface. Despite her physical conditioning, her body felt like it was full of broken glass when she sat up. Everything hurt.

  She stood up, knowing that motion was the best remedy for the pain, despite the initial resistance. It was dark and the moon was up, shining pale light through the kitchen window. She turned from the window to wake Tom but found that her movement had already done the job. He was sitting up, leaned back against the wall.

  "Not the best sleep I've ever had," he said.

  "No kidding. I feel like a garbage bag of broken beer bottles."

  Before they'd stretched out for their nap, they prepared their gear for the trip out of town. They each had headlights on in case they needed them. The only thing that remained to be packed up was the solar charger for Tom's track chair.

  Tom took charge of that, disconnecting the alligator clips from the battery while Grace went outside and rolled up the solar panel. She placed it on the back of the track chair, securing it with bungee cords. The cable that connected the solar panel to the battery was rolled up and stashed in Tom's Go Bag.

  Tom strapped himself into the track chair while Grace helped him with his Go Bag. Since they were leaving under cover of darkness they weren't as concerned about people noticing they were carrying weapons. Tom even went as far as to mount his AK pistols on the two swivel mounts he had fabricated for the track chair. The gimbal mounts would allow him to swivel the two pistols in almost any direction and shoot like he was the tail gunner on an aircraft. Grace put on her own Go Bag, then the single-point sling for her AR pistol.

  Her familiarity with the street layout, combined with the moonlight, made them able to negotiate their way out of the town without resorting to headlamps or night vision. While they had a better idea about what had taken place in town, it was still empty and eerily quiet.

  On their way out of town they didn't see a single light in any of the houses, didn’t hear any whispering, nor saw any indications of life at all in the rest of the houses. Had the people been afraid for their life and fled? Were they just hunkered down like the backpackers in the park, waiting for someone to come in and rescue them?

  The path they followed from Mrs. Brown's took them through an alley, down a little side street, and eventually connected them back with the bicycle path they had been on earlier. It was a rails-to-trails conversion, an old railroad bed in which the tracks had been pulled up to create a multiuse trail. People bicycled by the thousands on the trail in the summer. It was also used in lesser numbers by hikers and equestrians.

  "I've never asked about the specs of your chair,” Grace said, her voice barely above a whisper. “How fast and long can it go?”

  "Up to four miles per hour. Like most battery-operated machines, operating at maximum speed drains the batteries a lot faster. If I throttle it back just a little I get maximum efficiency. At the most efficient pace and on flat terrain it has a range of about ten miles per hour when the batteries are fully charged."

  "How much battery power do you have now?" Grace asked.

  "It’s between ninety-five and hundred percent. I was fully charged when we got off the chopper. The walk into town was slow and didn't discharge the batteries much. Then we got a couple hours of evening sun on the solar charger and that brought them back up. I've never done extended distances on this terrain so it’s not an exact science."

  “I’ve probably bicycled this route hundreds of times and I know it pretty well,” Grace said. "The trail climbs gradually to the Taylor's Valley community. Beyond there you enter national forest. It's beautiful but the incline increases."

  "If we completely discharge the batteries tonight, I may need a full day of sunlight to get them back. I’m not asking you to wait on me. I’m just making you aware of what may be required."

  Grace didn't respond to that. A day ago she didn't know what lay ahead of her. Now she couldn’t help but feel that there might be trouble waiting on her. She didn’t want to jump to conclusions but her gut feeling was that there might be a fight at the end of this trail. If that was the case, she would feel much better going into that fight with Tom at her side. If Tom couldn't travel tomorrow she would have to continue on without him. If her family was in danger she couldn't sit idly by the trail for one more day not knowing what was happening with them.

  Following the trail out of town was made easier by the fact that there was less tree cover and more of the moonlight reaching the ground. It made for easy travelling. Though the shapes of the various buildings around them meant nothing to Tom, Grace recognized several of the shops. They were places she had frequented and she wondered about the people that had run those shops.

  There were a couple of backpacking outfitters, bicycle rental shops, and several shuttle services that would drop bicyclists off at the far end of the Creeper Trail so they could ride the gentle incline back to Damascus. Many of the people that worked at these businesses were people she knew by name.

  Past the edg
e of town, the trail followed along the main highway for nearly a mile. They saw nothing unusual but they were vigilant due to the exposed terrain. They passed two darkened trailer parks that were just as desolate as the town itself. There were no moving cars and no one on foot. In a town of bicyclists it would have been normal to see people on two wheels but there were none of those either.

  Despite the state of her town, Grace felt energized after the small rest. The more she walked, the more the endorphins began pumping, and the more invigorated she felt. Had she been on her own she would have taken off running. She could not have run the entire way but she would have alternated running and walking for as long as she could. In practical terms, she knew she could probably not reach her family’s house under any circumstances tonight. It was too far and too dangerous to run that far in the dark.

  For around three hours they navigated the wide trail by moonlight. A couple of times Grace hit her headlamp to make sure that they did not get too close to a steep bank that would drop them into the river. Her headlamp had a setting that made it project a red light instead of white. The red light would not damage their night sight and cause their eyes to have to readjust after they turned it off.

  While they did not see any people along the way, there was a lot of trash at some of the trailside campsites. She poked through the trash once looking for answers but only came away with more questions.

  After three hours, they reached the community of Taylor's Valley, a small cluster of houses with the trailside restaurant and several good spots to fish for trout. It was at Taylor's Valley they first saw signs of life. Across the creek and off in the distance they could see a bonfire. The murmur of voices told them that men sat the campfire in the dark, likely holding watch over their tiny community.