by Hoag, S. A.
“Go ahead,” Green answered, finally, after a few moments.
“You've got Nomads on your doorstep. Get out of the depot.” Wade knew he'd understand the order. “Evac now, repeat, evac immediately. Do not attempt to engage.” There would be no response. “All teams return to Dillon, Code Seven.” In ten minutes, he'd know if he realized what was happening soon enough.
“Shannon!” Green yelled down the hall. “We have company of the hostile kind. Evac orders.”
She met him in the main lobby. “Evac?”
“He said 'Nomads on your doorstep'. You know how much he doesn't exaggerate.”
“If we run and they just waltz in here, is there anything that can point them to The Vista?” she wondered, concerned about something she'd never thought of before.
“Nothing,” Green said, grabbing a pack. “Not in any of the depots.”
There was the sound of breaking glass and a muffled thump as something broke through the window opposite the fireplace and clattered to the floor, flames spewing out.
“Fire bomb. Basement,” he spun her around and shoved her towards the rear of the depot, knowing the other doors were likely covered by hostiles. The sub-level had been connected to another section of the old hotel that burned years ago. It was a hidden exit, now.
Shan eased the outside door open, 9mm in hand, knowing he was still hurting from his rollover. Green stood to the side, weapon drawn. “Looks clear,” he motioned. They both moved, low and silent, out into the shadows, fifty feet from the drive.
It wasn't as clear as they thought. Several riders on horseback were coming down the main road, less than a quarter mile away. Green pointed to the tree line, just off the driveway across a short open field they cut four times a year as a firebreak. “Do we run for it?” she whispered.
“They're going through the front of the lodge,” Green told her. “As soon as they make that curve, we're out of their direct line-of-sight. Then we run for it.”
They did, too, slipping away. Shan hugged up against a tree, eyes on the intruders, Green right beside her. “I don't think they're alone,” she warned. The Nomads continued to throw fire bombs through the windows at the main doors.
“Shit,” Green spat. “We're going to lose the depot and there's not a damned thing we can do to stop them.”
“What do we do, then?” Shan asked, following his lead.
“We wait for the teams to get here,” he said, not about to go against unknown enemies, in the dark, not if he could avoid it.
“Here,” a rider approaching from the opposite side of the depot shouted, spotting them.
Both had weapons drawn and Green directed, “Hold your fire,” as he double-tapped the rider. “Go,” he told her, heading farther back into the pines. “If we get separated, keep moving. Head north and find the teams on the interstate.”
“We're not going to get separated,” she told him. “Not on accident.”
Green acknowledged with a brief nod. “I forgot how well you do during night maneuvers.”
“Nothing unusual in that,” she decided, keeping up with him.
“That's one opinion,” Green told her. “Not the consensus, but an opinion. It's only been dark a couple hours,” he went on. “We can play hide-and-seek all night out here if we have to. Do you know if Wade is close?”
She could feel it in the air. “He is; a whole lot of officers will be here soon.”
“We should keep close because Security isn't going to sit back and let them burn us out without a fight.”
“Good,” Shan said. “We need to take someone alive so we can find out where the other helicopter is, find out how they learned to fly them.”
Green watched back towards the depot. Flames were beginning to show through the windows, casting bizarre light in the trees. A few of the intruders were moving into the forest, looking for them.
“From the north, too,” she whispered urgently, standing back to back with him. “They've got us cut off from the road.”
“As long as it's dark, they'll never find us in here,” Green told her. Then a pair of Nomads drew Uzis.
“They're going to open fire to flush us out,” Shan warned, looking for an escape route.
“Up,” Green said. “Get up a sturdy tree, now. Quiet, quick, try not to break any branches.”
Holstering her handgun, she looked around and grabbed a low branch, pulling herself up. Green followed her. Ten feet off the ground, he got a hand on her butt and shoved, urging her higher. “Watch it,” she whispered.
“Unless you want to get shot tonight, stop worrying about me grabbing your ass and climb,” he told her. “At least twenty feet, thirty would be better.”
One of the Nomads decided to fire a short burst into the trees, encouraging their upward trek. She stopped when she had to, when the branches started getting too thin to hold them both. They were well over twenty feet up. Green motioned for her to move down to a sturdier limb, putting himself right next to her. He was shielding her and hanging on to the trunk, knowing he might catch hell later for it. She was convinced she could take care of herself.
The trigger-happy Nomad wandered directly under their tree, oblivious. Neither of them dared to move or even breathe. A falling pine cone could end it all. Shan stared straight ahead while Green carefully watched. “Clear,” he finally whispered. “Draw your sidearm. Get ready. There are more on horseback following the game trail.” He armed himself as well. “Do what I say, when I say it.”
“Understood,” she answered, still staring.
“Are you afraid of heights?” he asked, alarmed at the sudden idea.
“No,” Shan said, looking at him. “I was tracking that last one. He's back up on the access road.”
“I believe you,” he said, knowing the difference between 'tracking' and 'watching' when it involved Team Three. His voice dropped even more. “Riders. Where is Wade?”
“Closer than he was. Are you all right?”
He nodded.
“You just climbed a tree with broken ribs,” she pointed out.
“Bruised ribs, probably,” he corrected. “As soon as the teams get here the Nomads will run and we'll get out of this fucking tree.” The main difference between Nomads and Scavengers being that Scavengers were uncoordinated, savage and unpredictable, while Nomads were organized and fairly easy to figure out. At least, until they somehow acquired working helicopters.
“They haven't been running, lately.”
“Point taken,” he conceded. The fire from the depot was clear from their vantage point; the building was engulfed, sending a pillar of smoke a hundred feet into the night sky and lighting up the entire area. “They've set themselves up, parading around the depot like it's a bonfire celebration.”
Shan could see what he meant. Easy pickings for a sniper. Or a group of officers sneaking up on them in the dark. As the wind changed, they could hear gunfire on the far side of the depot, the pop of small arms sounding like toy guns from a distance.
“Ammo in the bunker,” Green thought.
“The wind is starting up and blowing this way,” Shan noted. “We need to get out of the tree and back up to the road, if we have to engage or not.”
“Wade said not to engage and since there are twenty of them and two of us, I have to agree.”
“Did he mention getting caught in a forest fire?” she asked bluntly. Smoldering embers from the depot were beginning to fall around them. They'd both seem massive fires caused by simple lightning strikes and it had been a dry month.
“Point taken,” he repeated. “Don't break cover. We'll have a look.”
“It's dark,” Shan offered, peering out.
“Yeah, thanks for that. I wasn't sure.” Green waited, watching and listening. The depot was a fairly large building, it was going to burn for a while and most of the Nomads' attention was on that. They moved down a branch at a time until they dropped to the ground. Green aimed them north immediately, knowing they'd be safer if they kept m
oving.
It only took a few minutes of fighting the uneven ground and thick growth to wear him out. “Slow down,” he told her. “Don't get too far ahead.” Shannon had been correct; the climbing had taken a toll on him.
Loud music erupted from somewhere close, for a few moments. “That's our cue; that's Vista Security,” Shan was relieved and excited at the same time.
“We're not looking for Security,” Green replied. “Not yet, not until I know we're clear.”
Nomads came out of the shadows. The one closest to Shan swung at her head with a length of PVC pipe and she had enough time to throw her hands up in defense. The brunt of the blow hit her left arm and she went down, trying to roll away from her attacker. She caught a glimpse of Green, disarmed and putting up a fight against two of them. The good news was that he was a hand-to-hand combat trainer; the bad news was that he was already injured.
“This one's a girl,” the Nomad brandishing a pipe at her announced.
“Then don't damage her, you idiot,” one of the pair yelled back.
Shan took the opportunity to draw her sidearm. As the Nomad turned to her, she shot him, a double-tap to the center of the chest. The force flung him back and she came up, drawing on the closest of the other intruders. Green was struggling with him and in her line-of-fire.
Wade stepped out of the trees before she could fire on them and took both Nomads in the space of two heartbeats; head shot, heart shot. “Clear,” he called out.
She checked the Nomad, making sure he was dead. Without a doubt. “Clear,” she said.
“Nomads, due south,” Green warned, getting to his feet.
“My car is a half mile, up on the access road,” Wade motioned back the way he'd come.
“I'm taking point,” Shan volunteered.
“We're not running from them,” Wade said. “We're leading them right out where we can pick them off. Round up a couple and interrogate them.” When Wade said 'interrogate', he meant it. Up until now, he'd kept Shan away from some of the harsher aspects of life in Security. She wasn't stupid, knowing how aggressive intruders and their own felons were dealt with. Tonight, she'd see some of those things first-hand.
When they made it back to the blacktop, Wade pointed out where he wanted them to wait, for a few minutes anyway. Green stopped him, “You saw what happened?”
“We discussed this when she started out on the road and when the Blackout was called. She's Team Three, she'll be fine.”
Green was skeptical. “What if she'd been alone when they caught up? What happens when she's alone, out here, and runs across more people, more men, like these?”
Wade took the time, a precious few moments, to consider what to say. “What I can tell you, is that she's not in as much danger as you think from random Nomads.”
“Convince me,” Green persisted. He'd been more afraid for her than himself, for a few moments before she opened fire.
Rubbing his eyes, it was obvious to Wade his Scout had picked up her second, consciously or not. He'd suspected it earlier and this confirmed it. “You understand what happens when we see ghosts. It's not exactly the same, but it's close. We have a built-in defense mechanism. We can project a thought, an idea, on to others. It's a reflex reaction to a threat.”
“You know she can do this?”
“I do,” Wade said. “We can't do it at will. If she'd have been alone tonight, one of the possibilities is that she'd have killed that first Nomad while the other two thought they were looking at a fireball over Missouri Breaks. Something like that. There's no knowing what exactly. She very well could have taken out the three of them without that particular Gen En reflex involved.”
“It gives her a few extra seconds to defend herself.”
“Yes. The point is, it happens. This is one of those things we don't speak of.”
“Why are you telling me?” Green wondered.
“You're going to be her second. When we don't have a firefight about to blow up all around us, we can get the details of that on the table. Right now, cover her, cover me, try to keep up. I'm tired of having Nomads destroying our posts and shooting at us.”
“Hey,” Shan popped up from the trunk of Wade's car. “We got big guns.” She helped herself to an AK-47 and a pocketful of clips.
Wade just shook his head. “We need at least one of them alive, two or three would be better. Try to remember that when they come through the trees. Kneecaps, Officer Allen, aim for kneecaps.” They moved to defensive positions, Green and Shan both donning helmet and face shields.
True to his prediction, a handful of roughly dressed men came hurrying up the same trail they'd taken. They barely glanced around at their surroundings before rushing onto the blacktop, certain their prey had taken flight. The car sitting there startled them.
Team Three was no one's prey. Wade stood behind the front quarter panel of his car, giving orders. “Drop your weapons; we have you covered by snipers and close-quarters shooters.” He casually held an Uzi.
“Bullshit,” one of the Nomads, a large, unshaven blond man of about forty, carrying a myriad of facial scars, challenged him. He was armed with a small caliber handgun; a weapon nonetheless.
“Go ahead,” Wade told him. “Call me out on this. You'll die surprised.” Even as he spoke the words, he knew that was exactly what they were going to do – fire on his team. He swung the Uzi up.
The Nomads fired, almost at random, shouting wildly. Three went down immediately, including their apparent leader. One ran and two more dropped to their knees, hands up in surrender.
“If there are more, that was a call for help,” Green pointed out.
“Watch them,” Wade directed, bolting after the fleeing Nomad.
“Shoot them both if either even twitches,” Green told Shan. “I'll search them.” He checked the dead first. It took him a couple of minutes, tossing guns and various knives as he found them. As he finished, there was gunfire somewhere up the game trail. Presently, Wade came back, alone.
“I'll make this easy for all of us,” Wade told the remaining pair of Nomads. “Tell me what I want to know. We drive you out to the badlands and let you go and you go east or south.”
“What if we got nothing to tell you?” one of them ventured.
“You've killed at least five of my people. I take it personal, just like you were the one pulling the trigger. Lie to me, refuse to talk, I beat you until you do, because I can do that. Trust me. You wouldn't be the first or even the tenth. That's my job, that's why I'm out here. After you talk, I shoot you in the head and this is all over, for you.” Wade leaned close, intimidating. “I know all about the helicopters. I want to know where you got them and how you managed to fly them around. I want to know where it is, right now. If you have misplaced loyalty to people who've left you here to die . . .” he shrugged. “It's all the same to me. I'll be home in a warm bed in the morning and you'll be in a shallow grave.”
Neither Shan nor Green had anything to say; they kept watch. Wade stepped back for a few words with them.
“Captain,” Green acknowledged, suspicious that Wade wasn't bluffing.
“Officer Allen, I'd prefer if you take my car and go watch the access road for our reinforcements,” Wade told her.
She squinted at the fading fire beyond the trees. “No, Wade, I can't,” Shan told him, quietly enough Green barely heard it.
“Are you sure? One of them will talk. It could get bloody here and I don't want that blood on your hands.”
“It's your call,” she told him. “If I left and more of them showed, that would be my responsibility; leaving you without backup.”
“Never a word, not even to Mac.”
She tilted her head, signaling she understood. “What if he knows anyway?”
“It would be intangible,” Wade reassured her. “If he questions you, send him to me.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“I know you can sleep in a car,” Wade said. “You've got a little more than six hours before first li
ght. Get to one of the pull-offs at Twin Bridges, get some rest. That's an order.”
“Who?” Green asked.
“Both of you. I'll be sending other officers up there as we clear the area. We're taking that last helicopter tomorrow.”
“Where's Mac?” Shan asked, genuinely exhausted. If she had anything to say to him about the events of the night, it would be later, much later.
Wade gestured to a line of vehicles that had converged on the area. “Mac's here. Say 'hello', say 'goodnight' and go,” he told her. “I need you sharp.”
“I want an RPG,” she said, figuring it was worth a try.
“I want a helicopter crew intact, but that's not happening. Neither is the RPG for rookies barely allowed out of the dayroom.”
Shan nodded. “Fair enough. You better shoot first this time.”
Chapter 5
Sept 29, before 6am, near Sheridan
A tapping sound woke her and Shan sat up, wondering where she was. Backseat of her car, apparently, covered in a blanket but not much in the way of comfortable. Mac was standing there, a cup of what she hoped was coffee in each hand. There was barely light along the eastern horizon.
“Are those for me?” she asked, getting out of the car as gracefully as she could manage.
“One of them is,” he offered her a cup. She took it. “Wade told me to wake you up and tell you we're on today.”
“Good,” she decided after a moment and a sip of lukewarm coffee. “I'll be ready in ten minutes.”
“You have thirty. Get breakfast. Someone has a mess tent set up over by the creek. We'll find you soon.”
“So do we have a plan?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Wade? Without a plan? You need more sleep.”
Shan nodded, heading off to find food. Dehydrated rations that might have been eggs and bacon. Cars were parked under trees and tents carefully camouflaged. There was a fresh coating of snow on the nearby peaks.
Officers had already begun gathering and Wade was there with Ballentyne and Jasso. “Let's get moving,” he finally announced. “You've got your assignments. Drive around in the open. Kick up clouds of dirt, be noisy, attract attention. The second you hear or see any Nomad, any sign of that helicopter, you announce it to everyone. If you have a shot at it, take it. If that helicopter swings around to make a run at you, hide. Get in the trees and stay there. Call for help.” Wade knew they trusted him; he wasn't about to betray that trust by missing this opportunity. The Nomads were close and winter was setting in.