Last Stand: Book 3 in the Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series: (The Last City - Book 3)

by Kevin Partner

  Smeagol, on the other hand, wanted to honor the promises he'd made as the city's elected leader. And he desperately wanted to give the middle finger to Crawford. That would be precious.

  Only a few weeks ago, the internal conflict would have been as one-sided as the real-world battle they were about to face. Smeagol might have briefly protested, but Slinker would have easily won the day. He could have been halfway to Springs by now.

  Hickman ground his teeth in frustration. The prospect of becoming the good guy in this particular story filled him with horror. He did what was best for himself and his daughter; that was the start and end of it. Except that he couldn't persuade himself of that anymore. After years of living in Hope without ever really feeling part of the community, he found, when the chips were down, that he inconveniently cared about too many of the bozos to abandon them now that Sam was safe.

  "What's the problem? You look as though you're chewing a nest of termites."

  Hickman grunted. "Well, I sure am sorry that I'm not feelin' the joys of spring right now, Sheriff, what with a horde about to appear over the horizon. I'm beginning to know how Custer felt."

  "Then I think you'd better read your history books again, Paul. 'Cos if this is Little Bighorn, then we're the Indians."

  Hickman pulled the Glock from its holster—a gift from Rusty after he'd bellyached about how heavy it was in his pocket—and flicked the magazine release. For the hundredth time, he checked it was full before pushing it back in place.

  "You know, Martha's got Native American blood," Kaminski said as he gazed over the barricade and along the empty south road. "Her mother was half Shoshone."

  Slipping the gun back into the holster, Hickman pretended not to be surprised or particularly interested. "I guess she does have that look about her, and she sure is stubborn."

  "Yeah, well, you keep your stereotypes to yourself, Paul. I'm headin' back to town. I only came up here to see how you're all doin' and to deliver a couple of packages. First there's this radio in case you need me, then there's somethin' that's likely a little less welcome."

  The sheriff handed him the walkie-talkie and strode over to the squad car. He pulled a figure out of a back seat.

  "What the hell's he doin' here?"

  Ward McAndrew walked unsteadily toward the barricade. The pastor, who had always looked old, now had the air of a man on his last legs. His head was paper-thin skin spread over a skull and he shambled like a recently unwrapped Egyptian mummy.

  The squad car drove off, leaving McAndrew standing in front of Hickman as if waiting for permission to speak.

  "What do you want, Ward? Come to surrender to your masters?"

  McAndrew breathed in deeply, then coughed as he exhaled. "I know you think I'm a traitor, Paul," he said.

  "You are a traitor. You tried to take over the town and sell us out. If you'd had your way, Crawford's people would be in charge already."

  The pastor shook his head. "I only had the good of the townsfolk at heart. If we had let Crawford in, then no blood would have been shed. And what have you achieved other than to anger your enemies?"

  "It's a specialty of mine, Ward, as you well know. But what have we achieved, you ask? Time to get our people away, that's what. Some of them, at least."

  McAndrew seemed to deflate, becoming smaller with each out-breath. "I only wish for you to know that I acted for the best."

  "Why do you care what I think?" Hickman spat back, stabbing a finger.

  "I … I do not expect to live past the next hours. But you … you're a survivor. I needed to tell someone; someone who might remember in the days to come that I tried to save the people of Hope."

  Hickman shrugged and glanced again along the highway. Still nothing. "I don't care, Ward. But if you want me to take you seriously, I suggest you spill the beans on your involvement with the Sons."

  McAndrew sighed and leaned against the rusting VW Beetle that the machine gun was mounted on. "What do you know already?"

  "That you cut the power that night, and that's why Hope survived."

  "Yes. And don't I deserve at least a little credit for that? You would probably be dead if I hadn't done it."

  Hickman gave a perfunctory nod. "Sure. But the only way you could've known was if you were one of the Sons in the first place. And that means you're part of all this. So, forgive me if I don't pat you on the back and call you a good ol' boy."

  Ward McAndrew pulled a cigarette packet out of his pocket and lit one using a lighter with an image of a naked woman on it.

  "Really throwin' caution to the wind, aren't you?" Hick said.

  "D'you want one? Suit yourself. Yes, I was involved in the movement from its beginning, when it had a different name and a different purpose. I'd been in Ghana, you see, working as a missionary. And I saw for myself the problem that out-of-control birth rates were causing there, so I got involved in some research, met some people with similar concerns and it all began."

  Hick, who'd been staring up the road looking for any sign of the approaching army, snapped around to look at the frail old man with his bushy, greasy, gray beard. "So this genocide was your idea?"

  "No! We wanted to find practical ways of reducing the population, but we thought to do it over decades. Education, birth control, emancipating women." McAndrew took another drag on his cigarette and blew smoke into the air. "And the organization grew quickly. Members of all faiths and none, but united in a common goal to restore the natural balance."

  "Let me guess, some of these newcomers weren't prepared to be as patient as you?"

  The pastor nodded. "That's right. Radicals can come from any philosophical background, and as we gained political clout, we certainly attracted our share of people with, shall we say, fundamental ideas. Some claimed to follow Islam and wanted to impose a sort of global sharia. Others were like militant Amish, though those two concepts do not sit well together. Yet others were environmental terrorists with no religious affiliation at all. But month by month, year by year, it was the most extreme of them that gained more and more power."

  "You know what they say rises to the surface?"

  McAndrew ignored him, plowing on with what seemed to be a confession. "And then they began to whisper about what they called a bold plan to accelerate our aims. A single blow to return the planet to a pre-industrial age and an opportunity to begin again."

  "How long ago was this?"

  "Five years. I tried to stop them, tried to mollify them, but I was too weak. I didn't dare resign from the board because then I'd have been shut out of their plans and wouldn't know any more than the rest of the population. I wanted to save one place; to have at least that to weigh against my terrible sins. So, I left them when everything had been set and hired a truck to run down the electric cable."

  Hickman gazed up the road and sighed. "But you must've known they'd catch up with you."

  "Yes. That's why I tried to convince Gil, then you, that we should adopt a simpler life. I thought if they found us applying their doctrine already, they might leave us be."

  "You're an idiot, Ward."

  The pastor didn't respond, and Hick finally turned to see him with head bowed, sobbing silently into his hands.

  He couldn't bring himself to feel sorry for the old man. "So, you've unburdened yourself—whatever good you think it'll do you. Now what?"

  McAndrew wiped his face with the back of his hand and looked over the bridge to the road north into Hope. "I will meet with Crawford when he arrives. I'll try to persuade him to negotiate."

  "There's nothing to negotiate, Ward. He wants to occupy the town, and we're standin' in his way. He ain't gonna let that slide."

  "Nevertheless, I will try."

  Hick wasn't looking at the old man anymore, he was staring along the southward road. He squinted, cursing his aging eyes, not sure whether he really was seeing movement or whether it was his imagination.

  He was beaten to it by someone calling. "They're coming!"

  Hick
watched from the forward barricade as the old man climbed clumsily over the hood of a car and walked toward the enemy. He held a piece of white cloth in his hands that he was waving frantically as he went.

  A dozen Army trucks, Jeeps and cars had blocked the road a half mile away and spilled onto the dirt and sand either side, and Hick could see people jumping out of them and forming up. A truck and a single Jeep drove farther along the road, stopping a hundred yards from the barricade. Two figures got out and walked toward the pastor, one of them with his sidearm raised. Both wore black masks, but it was easy to identify Crawford.

  They were no more than fifty yards away when they met and Hick was tempted to blow Crawford's smug head off, but he would have been too likely to hit McAndrew and, anyway, he'd watched enough war movies to know that it wasn't the done thing during a parley. Though he couldn't explain, even to himself, why he particularly cared.

  The pastor had refused to allow Hickman to go with him, but he raised his voice so the watchers behind the barricade could hear as he halted a few feet from the others.

  "Leader Crawford, I ask that you reconsider your aggression against the people of Hope, and that you enter into negotiation with us."

  Crawford raised his mask. He looked about as comfortable in his fatigues as a gorilla in a dinner jacket, and gazed beyond the preacher to Hick and the others as they watched from behind their barricade. "I offered negotiation when your mayor paid me a visit. He rejected us out of hand, and the time has now passed. We will speak again when Hope is under our control. I call upon the deluded men and women of the town to surrender now and avoid unnecessary bloodshed."

  McAndrew's shoulders slumped as if in final defeat and he dropped his hands, the white cloth falling to the asphalt. Hick gasped as something glinted in the pastor's palm, out of sight of Crawford and his aide.

  "I am sorry," McAndrew said, raising his voice high. "We had good intentions, you and I, but you have become corrupted by power and you live in denial of your crimes."

  Then, with surprising speed, McAndrew threw himself forward, his arm coming up and sweeping down as he collided with Crawford. They collapsed to the ground as Crawford cried out in shock and pain. McAndrew sat up and went to drive his bloody knife down again as Hick watched with his mouth wide open. Crawford's aide grabbed the pastor by the collar and wrenched him back before his blow could land. He calmly withdrew his sidearm, pulled McAndrew to the side of the road and pulled the trigger.

  A spray of blood exploded from the side of McAndrew's head and his body flopped down and rolled into the garbage and scrub beside the road.

  The aide took one look at the people behind the barricade as a dozen soldiers ran toward him along the roadway. Four of them grabbed Crawford and carried him back as the aide continued to stare, before raising an arm and pointing his finger slowly at Hick and the other watchers in unmistakable warning.

  Then a deafening da-da-da-da-da-da from his left and hot metal showered down on Hick as the aide's head disappeared and his body fell back, finger still pointing, to land with a thump on the ground. Beyond, two of the soldiers carrying Crawford dropped him and threw themselves down.

  "Negotiations are over," Gert Bekmann said as he pushed the safety and flipped up the cover of the M-249.

  Chapter 17: Battle for Hope

  Crawford wasn't dead. Hick could see him walking unsteadily among the troops as they formed up. It seemed that Ward McAndrew's final act had been as incompetent as those that had come before it and he'd only winged his target. His body lay where it had fallen, no one daring to venture into the firing line of either side to retrieve it. The leaking corpse of the aide was a few yards farther away.

  "How d'you think they'll attack?" Hick said, as he and Bekmann waited for Crawford to make the first move.

  The Dutchman shrugged. "It depends on what equipment they got, and how experienced their commanders are. Crawford was an idiot for coming so close to us, so I think perhaps they are not the professional fighting force he wants us to believe. But we would be the fools if we assumed that about all of them."

  "I wish I'd paid more attention when I was in their camp," Hick said. "I knew he was puttin' on a show and I didn't want to give him the satisfaction. Seemed to me they had plenty of people and vehicles, and all the soldiers I saw carried what looked like professional weapons, but beyond that I dunno."

  "Well, they're either going to hit us hard, or they'll retreat and come back when they have reinforcements. They've seen what the SAW can do," he gestured at the light machine gun, "so they won't try a frontal assault unless they've got suppressive cover of their own."

  As if to settle the debate, a truck began moving toward them. Hick could just make out the boots of perhaps half a dozen soldiers running behind it.

  Bekmann cursed. "Come with me, Paul. Quickly!"

  Hick felt himself hauled upright and then he followed Bekmann to a car parked at a ninety-degree angle to the barricade and forming one side wall.

  By the time Hick caught up, Bekmann was in the front seat, pushing the passenger door open. "Get in and get your weapon out!"

  Hick didn't have time to protest as the Dutchman started the car up. "What's going on?"

  "They're going to use the truck as cover."

  "For what? It's too tall to shoot over."

  Hick grabbed the handle at the top of the door and groaned as the car accelerated away, wheels spinning on the loose soil.

  "My guess is mortars."

  Pulling his Glock out, Hick rolled down his window and held the weapon two-handed as he fought to keep his butt cheeks glued to the seat while the car bumped and slid its way across the rough ground. Bekmann was driving in a wide arc, but they'd been spotted and Hick felt the phat-phat-phat of rounds hitting the side of the car as the Dutchman accelerated.

  From behind, they heard the heavy da-da-da of the M-249.

  "Whoever's using the SAW, I hope they remember we don't have much ammo," Bekmann shouted over the squealing of the car engine.

  Hick couldn't care less. His focus was on the truck as Bekmann brought the car around and aimed directly at it. He'd been correct. Four soldiers crouched around two mortar setups.

  "I don't understand why they've gotten so close. They look like M252s to me; they could have launched them from another hundred meters away."

  "Enough of the analysis, Spock!" Hick spat as he leaned out of the window and tried to keep his arm steady. The weapon was heavy, and the landscape rutted, so he didn't waste rounds until they were up close and personal.

  A soldier had been stationed at each end of the truck, so one was taking aim as they approached while the other ran around the back to join his comrade. Hick steadied himself as the barrel of a carbine swung in his direction and punched off three shots just as Bekmann yanked the steering wheel and spun the car in a drift right out of a video game that meant Hick didn't have a direct line of fire anymore.

  "Shoot!" Bekmann yelled as he kicked the car door open before crouching down behind it.

  Hick opened his door, wincing at the pat-pat-pat as rounds thunked into the other side. His chest was heaving as he grabbed the Glock in two shaking hands, waiting for a pause in firing so he could take aim.

  Behind him, Bekmann called out something in Dutch and then the car reverberated to the tinny chatter of his M-16, followed by the sound of running feet.

  Hick crept down so he could inch around the side of the door as gunshots punctuated the air. The enemy soldiers were aiming at Bekmann. Instantly, Hick stepped sideways, half-emerging from the shelter of the door, and fired off a volley, felling one of the soldiers guarding the truck.

  He swung his gun around to see another soldier bringing his rifle to bear on the Dutchman, who was weaving toward them firing as he went. It took Hick four shots before he hit the shooter, and then he ran out from cover, heading for the nearest mortar crew. But they were running too. Not back down the road toward their colleagues, but out onto open ground, as if they were tr
ying to reach the mountains. Bekmann stopped firing and swerved toward Hickman, meeting him as he reached the now-abandoned truck.

  "Not worth wasting ammunition on," he said, nodding at the escaping soldiers before pointing down at the mortar tubes. "Come on, we'll take these. Better hurry, they'll be after us any second."

  Ignoring the bodies lying around the truck, Hick heaved one of the mortar tubes over his shoulder and, after holstering his weapon, he picked up the wooden ammunition box. Something was rolling around inside, but he didn't have time to think about it as he ran back toward the car.

  "There's something fishy about this," Bekmann said as they threw their newly won equipment on the back seat and jumped into the car. "There is only one round in each box. It's as if it was a decoy. But why?"

  "Let's get out of here and worry about that later!"

  Then, just as Bekmann was reversing the car, Hick heard over the thrashing of the engine a noise from above. He stared up to see the spinning blade of a helicopter through the sunroof.

  Bekmann swore as he battled with the wildly bucking steering wheel. "It's heading for the barricade?"

  Grabbing hold of the car's frame with both hands to steady himself, Hick looked up into the sky. "No! It's veering off to the right. What the hell are they doing?"

  "Staying out of range of the M-249s. Maybe it was a mistake to have them both here."

  Hick glanced across at the Dutchman as he slammed his foot on the gas and headed back toward the barricade. "Have you heard of the Maginot Line?"

  "What?"

  "Second World War. The French built an impenetrable row of fortresses along their border with Germany. Didn't work."

  The car slid to a halt beside the barricade. "Why not?!”

  "Because the Germans went around it."

  He jumped out. "Come on, Paul. We have to move!"

  "Where are they going?" Hickman followed him back into the barricaded area in front of the bridge, watching the helicopters recede.