Rescue: Book 3 in the After the Fall series

by David Nees

  “Yeah, but it could be a suicide mission. I can’t order anyone to go on it.”

  “No other way to stop it is there?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then I’ll do it.”

  Kevin heaved a sigh. “All right. Let’s get this ready.”

  Rodney laid out the demolition brick and the detonator. “The C-4 is safe. You can push and mold it to get it into the track. It’s stable, won’t go off on you. Try to wedge it between the track and a roller.”

  “Don’t need to do both sides?”

  Rodney shook his head. “One will be enough. More than that and it gets too complicated. You’ll be working in pitch dark under the tank. There’s only about eighteen inches of clearance, so it’ll be hard enough to place one charge.”

  Rodney handed Billy the demolition brick. He turned it over in his hands gingerly, trying to feel it. It looked like a large piece of clay wrapped in plastic. Rodney reached over and pressed his thumb down on the brick, leaving a depression.

  “As I said, it’s safe now. You just jam it in where I told you. Don’t worry if it won’t all go in, just make sure it’s secure and doesn’t fall to the ground.”

  “What makes it blow up?”

  Rodney held up the detonator. This has a small charge that’s triggered by an electric current. The little explosion it produces is enough to detonate the brick. Boom! You get a large explosion.”

  “How do I do that?”

  Rodney showed Billy how to just push the detonator into the brick and attach the wires.

  “After you get the wires attached, you have to crawl away paying out the cable from the reel. It’s two hundred and fifty feet. Use it all and place yourself in a depression so you’re shielded from the blast.”

  “But where’s the electricity come from?”

  Rodney held up a wooden board. It had two D cell batteries taped to it. The batteries were soldered to two posts, connecting the two batteries together by their positive and negative ends.

  “When you get back far enough, wrap one of the wires around the negative post and when you connect to the positive post, all hell will break loose.”

  “Billy,” Kevin said. “This is important. We don’t have a timer or a convenient switch. When you’re ready to connect the positive end, make sure you’re in position. By that I mean, lying down flat on the ground. Have one ear pressed to the ground and use one hand to cover your other ear. Keep your mouth open and then touch the wire to the second post. You won’t have time to cover your ears before the blast goes off. Got it?”

  Billy had a doubtful look on his face. “I think so.”

  Rodney looked up at the sky. The clouds were lifting and the rain seemed to have stopped.

  “It’s not raining. We have time before dark so let’s practice this.”

  Billy gave him a shocked look.

  “Without the detonator. Just practice crawling with the gear and then unspooling the wire. You don’t have to do all of it, just enough to get the feel of how it will go.”

  For the next hour Billy practiced crawling with the explosive brick and wire reel and then reversing himself while paying out the wire. Finally, he said “enough”. He was wet and tired from crawling on the damp ground.

  “You’re going to get wet again when you crawl up to the convoy. The ground won’t have dried out,” Kevin said. “If you make it there and plant the charge, you still have to get out and not have anyone see the wire. Use the median as much as you can. It generally runs below the pavement level and it’s overgrown with grasses and weeds so you can be concealed.”

  Billy nodded. “I know what to do. I’m good at stalking, moving quietly. The wire will be easy to see until it gets into the grass.”

  “Let’s hope the tank is parked out front. It should be there to guard the rest of the convoy. You may not have much pavement to cover,” Rodney said.

  “Go get something to eat and warm up by a fire. We’ve got some hours to wait before you go.”

  “You should go when it’s dark. You’ll probably have to get into the median a mile or more from the convoy. They’ll have sentries out and you could be seen crossing the pavement,” Rodney said.

  “Anyone got a camouflage jacket or cover I can use?” Billy asked.

  Kevin had one of his junior officers go through the camp to find a camouflage netting. When he returned, Billy took it.

  “I’ll weave some grass from the median strip into the it when I get down to the road. I should be hard to see at night with this.”

  “Just have to be silent,” Rodney said. “Your life will depend on it.”

  “I can do that.”

  When night fell, Billy and Rodney carefully assembled the demolition block, batteries, and spool of wire. Billy would have to be able to retrieve and place them by feel more than sight. Rodney admonished him to get the C-4 firmly in place before sticking the detonator in the block.

  “Attach the wires to the detonator before you stick it in the explosive. You can connect the wire better while it’s firmly in your hands. That connection cannot come loose or nothing will happen.” He took Billy by the shoulder. “Make sure the wires are wound tight to the connector.”

  Kevin handed him a belt and holster with a 9mm semi-automatic in it. “You can’t take a rifle, but wear this. If you’re discovered it will give you a chance to get into the woods.”

  As Billy was getting ready to depart, Clayton walked up to him. “You one of us…kin. You do us proud, and come back safe, you hear?”

  “Yes sir,” Billy said.

  Clayton shook his hand and Billy walked into the dark woods, down the slope to the road.

  “Can it be done? Get in and out?” Clayton asked Kevin.

  “It’s a long shot, but yes.”

  “You ain’t sending him to his death, are you?”

  “Not if he’s good.”

  “And lucky,” Rodney said.

  “Always need luck,” Kevin replied.

  Chapter 51

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  B illy moved quietly through the woods. When he got near the road, he walked along the edge of the highway. He was in a ditch, below the shoulder, with the hillside rising up on his right. He would not be silhouetted against the sky and could move more easily than in the median strip. He decided he would cross over when he saw the campfires. He’d be over a half mile away when he had to start crawling.

  The sky was still cloudy. The moon wouldn’t come up for hours and, hopefully, there would still be some cloud cover to limit the light. The moon had been waning for the last week and a half. It was at the waning crescent phase. Billy didn’t really know the proper name for it, but he knew it would come up very late, sometime after 3 am. He knew he needed to be near the camp by midnight and get the explosive placed between 1 am and 2 am. Sentries would be tired and everyone else asleep as soundly as possible in the uncomfortable circumstances.

  After walking for a half hour, he saw the flicker of campfires ahead. He was far enough away that he couldn’t see any vehicles. Billy sat down and began to pull grass and brush out of the ground and weave it into his netting. It took nearly forty-five minutes. When he was done, the netting looked like the surrounding foliage. Under it, he would be nearly invisible, or so he hoped.

  With the cover complete, Billy dug into the ground and smeared dirt over his face and the backs of his hands. He carefully daubed his eyelids as well so they wouldn’t stand out. He was ready now. With his backpack on and the netting over him, Billy crawled up onto the northbound lanes.

  He moved across the pavement on his belly. His body made scraping sounds on the hard surface which sounded all together too loud to his ears. He knew sounds traveled farther at night. Thankfully there was a wind which would disturb the silence. It was from the north so the noise he made, coming from the south, would be diminished.

  The grass in the median grew in uneven patterns, its smooth surface broken by choking weeds and voluntee
r bushes. With no mowing for over two years, the median was slowly turning back into forest. If that grass was too even, I’d leave a trail like a slug after a wet night. The growth was high enough that he couldn’t see the campfires as he lay on the ground. Can’t see them, they can’t see me.

  He began to crawl through the vegetation. The ground was damp with puddles in low spots from the two days of rain. Billy ignored the chill and kept moving forward. His backpack under the netting gave his profile a humped look. Probably look like a lump of debris washed out by the rain. He hoped a casual glance would not trigger any suspicions in a sentry’s mind.

  Every fifty yards, Billy raised his head, still keeping the netting over him. He needed to locate the sentries in order to plan his approach. The ground had a rich, wet smell of springtime to it. He pulled himself along with his elbows, alternately working each one along with his forearm. He was careful to not rock his body too much side to side; that made for more noise and left a wider path. He was also careful to not hunch his back into the air. The ground being wet and soft, while less comfortable, made his going quieter. As he moved along, he kept repeating the word “patience” over and over in his mind. The biggest mistake in stalking was to hurry—to move too fast.

  He hoped the sentries would be concentrating on the outer edges of the highway to guard against any potential intrusion coming from the woods. An enemy crawling up the median might not have occurred to them since they could clearly see the highway lanes. Billy’s approach, from over a half-mile back wouldn’t be expected.

  He had been crawling for two hours when he could finally distinguish the sentries. As he hoped, they were placed towards the sides of the highway. The camp was laid out with the armored vehicles in an arc facing south around the other machines. The tank was set sideways in the center of the median, its turret gun pointed outward, to the south. On each side was an APC with small shooting gaps between the vehicles. Another of the APCs was parked up close. The Humvees were parked behind the more heavily armored machines. An arc curved back from the tank. In between the armored vehicles were the two trucks and the tanker. A dozen campfires were dwindling as those attending them had gone to sleep or run out of wood.

  The sentries stood at the outer shoulders of the interstate, facing the wooded slopes. Some were sitting down, some were standing. Billy could count four, two on each side of the highway. He assumed there were more to the rear, but he couldn’t be sure. He didn’t worry about them. The front-most men would present the greatest danger. They might hear him crawling, might hear him working under the tank, or might hear him leaving when he had to roll out the wire as he tried to crawl away. He took a deep breath. The challenge of the task now seemed overwhelming.

  Billy brought his head down and thought for a moment. He thought about Lori Sue, his first and only love, the girl who opened his eyes to what life could be with someone who loves and affirms you. She had shown unfailing courage to try to free Donna and didn’t shirk from the danger even though it killed her. He thought about how he had gone after Joe Stansky. Fear had been put aside; not taken over by irrationality, but by determination and canniness. He would need that now. Lori Sue saw her duty and did it. He would do his duty now.

  But I can’t fail. The thought gave him the chills. If he wasn’t successful, many people in Hillsboro might die. He forced himself to put those thoughts aside. Do the job. You’re a woodsman. These city boys won’t know you’re here…until the tank explodes. He started crawling again, more slowly this time.

  Billy now stopped every twenty yards to raise his head and check on the sentries. As he got closer, he moved inches at a time. He guessed it was around 11 pm. He had a hundred and fifty yards to go when he came to a raised area that crossed the median. It had been a turn-around for police and emergency vehicles. A culvert pipe ran under the crossover, too small for him to crawl though. Up against the berm he was shielded from being seen by anyone in the camp. He turned over on his back and stretched his cramped body out. He retrieved a water bottle out of his backpack and took a long swig. Rest a moment. From here it gets harder.

  You can do this. Show ‘em you how good you are. Show ‘em… What, Billy wasn’t sure. Maybe this was to show Lori Sue how he could save people.

  He moved to the west side of the median. He’d cross the raised berm out of line with the trail he’d made. Maybe that would make the matted grass look more like water runoff through the culvert, if anyone wondered about it. Billy slid his body over the lip of the berm, now at the road level. Thankfully grass and brush had grown up here as well as in the median. He moved one foot and stopped. Any casual glance would see only a vague lump of vegetation, barely rising above the rest of the brush. Billy’s whole body itched to get off the berm and back down into the swale. But hurrying here would create noise and someone looking his way would see movement. Movement was the giveaway. He had to move a slowly and a little at a time with moments of absolute stillness in between. Nothing could be seen to move; his breathing could not give him away by causing his profile to rise and fall. He began to sweat in spite of the cold and damp.

  Finally, he pulled himself over the far edge of the crossover and moved down into the swale. The danger had not passed. If anything, it would increase as he crept closer. But this was his mission.

  He slowly pulled himself along, stopping to listen every foot. He worked his way around the bushes, thankful for their size to cover him and break up the uniformity of the grass. He was leaving a trail, through the wet median. There was no way to avoid pushing the grass down, and it was slow to rise back up after he passed. The evidence of his passing was only mitigated by the serpentine path he made and the breaks in the grass cover. Still, to an experienced eye, one could see that someone or something had passed through the median.

  One hundred yards out and the tank now loomed large in front of him, ominous and invincible. He could only see the nearest sentries on each side now. That meant fewer eyes to possibly see him. He could smell the smoke from the dying campfires.

  At fifty yards, Billy could hear voices, yet indistinguishable. He looked up and froze. One of the sentries was walking across the median to the other side. He hadn’t seen that before. If they do that later, they’ll find the wire. He thought through the problem. There was no way to bury or hide the wire. The best he could do would be to try to press it into the ground. The problem was he would have to do that at the most dangerous point, when he was in between the two forward sentries. If they heard any noise, they would investigate and he would be discovered.

  He watched as the two guards talked for a few minutes and the man went back to his own side of the road. Hope they don’t do that regularly.

  When Billy got within what he estimated was fifty feet from the tank, there was an increase volume of talking and movement. He didn’t move a muscle as the voices called out and men came out from between the armored vehicles. It was a change in sentries. Once he understood what was happening, he lowered his head, not wanting to have any part of his body raised. He breathed into his sleeve to lower the sound. His adrenalin was pumping causing his respiration rate to increase. His pounding heartbeat seemed too loud in his ears, broadcasting his position. In his hyper-sensitive state, his whole body seemed to be giving away his location.

  After a couple of minutes which seemed like a half hour to Billy, the conversations died out. He risked taking a look and very slowly lifted his head, his eyes straining to see what was going on. The sentries, new ones Billy assumed, were standing at their posts, looking out towards the woods. No one was watching for the enemy to be coming towards the camp through the median strip. His good fortune was still holding.

  Should I let them settle down? Get bored? He decided to move while they were being alert to the direction they had been instructed to watch. Boredom would set in later and their eyes might wander, which could lead them to be looking in Billy’s direction when he was moving. That wouldn’t be good for him.

  He took some d
eeper breaths, still muffled by his sleeve and tried to calm himself. He needed to be as invisible as possible now. He needed to become part of the earth, part of the growth in the median. He began to move his limbs in slow motion. He was like a turtle creeping forward. Crawl one foot; stop. Crawl another foot; stop and wait. He listened for any footsteps, any call out to another sentry. He could hardly force himself to risk taking a look, but he knew he had to do so. Thankfully there were no fires burning near the armored vehicles.

  Now the sentries were on either side of him. He was encouraged to see their backs; they were still watching the woods. Inching forward, he finally reached the tank. As he started under, he realized in a panic, he wouldn’t fit with the backpack on. He now had cover from the sentries being between the tank and an APC, but was partially exposed to those inside the perimeter. He had to stop while still not under the tank, slip off his backpack, and drag it behind him when he crawled forward.

  It took an agonizing five minutes to get the pack off his back. He put it between his legs and wormed his way under the tank, now on his back. The clearance was so tight, he would not be able to turn over once fully under the machine. When he knew his feet had disappeared from view, he lay back and quietly sighed in relief. He had made it.

  Chapter 52

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  B illy allowed himself only a moment to rest. He still had much to do and he needed to be gone before the moon came up. The night sky had cleared before he got under the tank. Stars showed brightly in the clear sky that the high pressure system had brought in behind the retreating low.

  He turned his body so his head and arms were close to the tread. The lower wheels which rested on the tracks were the only place he could plant the charge. He decided to pack it around the second wheel and the tread. If anyone stooped down to look, they would see the lump of explosive sticking out from behind the roller. No one’ll be looking that close in the middle of the night.