by Kyla Stone
His stomach plummeted. “Two vehicles?”
“Confirmed.”
“Could be scouts,” Bishop said.
Liam nodded. The General would keep his main force back while he sent forward observers to scout ahead.
At least it meant they didn’t have drones. If they did, the drones would conduct the reconnaissance.
“This is Echo Two. I saw one soldier up close with my binoculars. They’re National Guard.”
“You’re sure?” Liam asked.
“Yes, sir. I served six years with the 1-125th Infantry Battalion Company B in Saginaw. I’m sure.”
Liam swore. He’d still hoped they were the fake soldier variety, like the Syndicate hooligans he’d faced when freeing the Brooks from the FEMA shelter.
No such luck.
“Well, that’s unfortunate.” Bishop glanced at Liam. “What do you want to do?”
“We can’t let them roll in here. On the other hand, they’re American soldiers operating on orders from their superiors. I have zero desire to cause harm, let alone open fire.”
Bishop ran his free hand through his afro, his expression laced with apprehension. “How do you fight enemies you don’t want to kill?”
“Sounds like a bad joke,” Quinn muttered.
Liam keyed the mic. “Where are they now?”
“I-94 at—” The scout’s voice broke off, the radio full of static.
If the General was coming from Lansing, he could have headed north to avoid the mid-sized cities of Battle Creek and Kalamazoo and then moved southwest, hugging Lake Michigan and coming down through Saugatuck and South Haven.
If they remained on I-94, they’d pass through Benton Harbor and St. Joe before taking exit 15 onto M-139, aka Old 31, which would lead them straight through the center of town from the north.
But if the General’s men took exit 41 to M-140 South, they’d follow it southwest and hit Dean’s Hill Road, entering Fall Creek from the bridge at the south end.
Either path took about the same time.
Urgency crackled through him. He needed to know which direction. And he needed to know twenty minutes ago.
“Which way?” he hollered at the radio.
Static hissed back at him.
He nearly hurled the useless thing at the closest tree. “Damn it! Which way?”
“We can’t cover both,” Bishop said. “We don’t have the manpower.”
Bishop was right. He didn’t have the soldiers or comms or a quick reaction force, the area he needed to defend far too spread out. He wished he could set up a perimeter defense covering 360-degrees like the FOBs—Forward Operating Bases—in Afghanistan.
The radio belched.
Liam shoved it against his ear. “Echo Two, come in! Where the hell are they?”
“…Old 31…just past…Trailer World…”
North. They were headed toward the north blockade.
Liam sprinted toward the four-wheeler, Bishop right behind him, barking orders into his radio. Adrenaline surged through him, icing his veins.
The Humvees were twelve minutes from the north blockade. If they took the ATV full throttle, Liam and Bishop were eight minutes away.
“I want to come!” Quinn shouted after them.
“Start the alarm tree!” Bishop said. “Alert Reynoso.”
There wasn’t room on the two-seater ATV, and she couldn’t bike as fast as they could drive. Disappointment crossed her face, but she lifted her chin and gave a resolute nod.
She’d learned her lesson: follow orders, be part of the team, keep everyone alive. She turned toward her bike, pulling a radio from her pocket with her bandaged hand.
“Done!”
“Find Hannah!” Liam called after her.
He wanted them together. Quinn and Hannah made a formidable force.
Fear pushed his heart into his throat. Fear for Hannah and the children. His worry for Hannah was constant. It had nothing to do with her capabilities. It was innate, a part of him. He thought of her with every breath he took.
With every fiber of his being, he longed to run toward her. To protect her with his life. Instead, he headed in the opposite direction.
Defending the town should safeguard Hannah, too.
He prayed it would be true.
The ATV’s engine growled to life. They shoved on their helmets. As usual, Bishop drove and Liam took the rear, M4 in hand, ready to fire.
The ATV jolted across uneven ground, vibrating Liam’s teeth. Pain shot through his ribs and spine like electric shocks.
The ice-damaged roads were pitted and crumbling. With no workers or equipment to patch the asphalt, they would soon become undrivable.
Another problem for another day.
The four-wheeler roared through town, passing shuttered buildings in a blur. Quinn had sounded the alarm—the townspeople vanished into houses and businesses. Downtown was deserted.
Pulse thudding in his ears, Liam scanned the trees and lawns, windows and rooftops, searching for danger.
They arrived at the blockade with three minutes to spare.
Several vehicles faced each other, positioned across the highway to form the barricade. Behind each vehicle stood a row of large dirt-filled barrels to provide cover.
They’d created concertina wire obstacles after stripping barbed wire fencing. They had dragged felled trees across the road to create a Z so vehicles would have to zigzag through it before reaching the barricade.
The defenses weren’t finished. They needed more able bodies, more supplies, more time.
Four guards crouched behind the barricade itself. Eight of their best shooters took up overwatch positions in the two-story buildings along either side of the road.
The rest hid in fortified sniper hides in nearby buildings or crouched in the four newly-dug foxholes.
Without a word, Bishop sprinted across the street to take up a previously scouted sniper position within a large steel building with a green metal roof. In bold yellow lettering, the awning out front offered “Creative Landscaping.”
Liam turned toward the Add-A-Space mini-storage, situated north of the blockade and facing the highway, set fifty yards off the road.
He entered the building using the rear exit, slipping through a steel door they’d pried open last week. He moved at a halting jog, slower than he wanted.
Teeth clenched, he hastened through the shadowed interior, passing hunched desks and office furniture until he reached the stairwell and jogged to the second floor.
He bypassed the CEO’s corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows and selected the break room next door. Cabinets lined one wall, a teal Keurig on the counter, coffee mugs stacked beside it.
His stomach lurched. The reek of stale coffee grounds mixed with something rancid assaulted his nostrils. Someone’s lunch left in a cabinet to rot for three months.
He slid between a couple of round tables with plastic chairs and hurried to the window.
On his previous visit, he and Bishop had lugged several sandbags up the stairs and shoved them against the wall beneath the waist-high window. A metal shelf provided the perfect height to balance the M4.
Since he didn’t have urban hide sniper netting, a loose window screen material suspended with paracord covered the window. The netting hid the sniper’s location without interfering with their ability to see and shoot.
He’d learned the trick years ago from a Fort Benning instructor at the Army’s advanced course for snipers, which he’d taken with Charlie Hamilton.
Liam shrugged the go-bag from his back and did a weapons check. Thirty 5.56mm rounds in the M4, with several spare magazines in his pack.
He wished he had his Remington 700 30-06 for sniping, but the M4 would have to do.
His Glock 19 held seventeen rounds in the upgraded magazine with one in the chamber. In addition, he carried two frag grenades and three flash bangs.
He hoped he didn’t have to fire a single round. Not against American soldiers.
Liam knelt several feet back from the window, set a small beanbag on the shelf, and
shouldered the carbine, steadying it on the beanbag.
Peering through the scope, he zeroed in on the road. He breathed in, breathed out, forced his heart rate to slow. Pushed out the fear and anxiety and pain. Put it in a box. Focus on the task at hand, nothing else.
That familiar cold calm descended over him, his years of training taking over.
Within a minute, the rumble of engines reached him.
11
Liam
Day One Hundred and Four
Liam tensed.
The lead Humvee rolled to a stop fifty yards from the blockade. The second vehicle halted twenty yards behind the first. Their engines growled loud in the sudden stillness.
On initial approach, the blockade appeared to be a decent civilian-built roadblock helmed by a couple of watchmen, nothing more.
As long as they kept their fortifications hidden, they’d make the first move and take the opposition by surprise.
Jose Reynoso stepped out from behind the barricade and moved into the center of the road to meet the convoy. He wore his uniform, his Glock holstered at his hip, a department-issued shotgun held low in front of him, loaded with slugs to better stop a vehicle in its tracks.
From his position, Liam couldn’t see the other fighting teams, but he could feel their nerves, sense their fear and apprehension.
For some, it was the first time they’d experienced combat.
Most, though, had fought the militia. They’d received Liam’s truncated training.
No one broke rank. They waited, as prepared as possible, armed and ready for whatever happened next. Willing to defend their town and their loved ones with their lives.
Liam’s chest tightened with an unexpected surge of pride. He refocused on the hostiles approaching his town.
The first guardsman stepped out of his vehicle holding an M4 in the high ready position. He was black, in his mid-twenties, with hard nervous eyes and a pencil-thin mustache.
A second soldier, a short Hispanic woman, exited the other side of the vehicle. The third guardsman—male, chubby—remained in the turret.
Behind them, no one exited the second vehicle. Liam scanned the Humvee’s windows through his scope. Four figures with weapons drawn.
Trepidation torqued through him. He loathed aiming at fellow American soldiers. It went against everything he believed in, everything he was.
And yet, for his friends, for his town—he’d do anything.
The first guardsman appeared to be the ranking officer. He strode forward with far too much swagger and spoke first. “Stand down! This town is under state jurisdiction due to suspicion of harboring domestic terrorists.”
The soldier’s uniform revealed the telltale bulge of body armor. Liam zeroed in his weapon on his skull.
“My name is Jose Reynoso, and I am the acting Fall Creek Police Chief,” Reynoso said loud and slow. “There are no domestic terrorists here.”
The female soldier scanned the buildings on either side of them. Liam remained still in the shadows, the barrel of his carbine well inside the window frame. With the makeshift sniper netting, she wouldn’t be able to detect him.
Liam’s M4 seemed like a child’s toy compared to the 50-caliber beast mounted to the lead Humvee’s turret, which was aimed at the barricade—and the townspeople crouched behind it.
The 84-pound M2 Browning machine gun featured a rate of fire of 450-600 rounds per minute, a maximum effective range of 2,000 yards, and a velocity of almost 3000 feet per second. The Ma Deuce could shred a building with its 5.5-inch-long rounds.
He shifted his scope to the vehicles, searching for weaknesses. The frag grenades wouldn’t damage the first vehicle, which was up-armored, but the second one wasn’t armored.
The HMMWV, or Humvee, was designed primarily for personnel and light cargo transport behind the front lines, not as a fighting vehicle.
Pencil-mustache didn’t take his eyes off Reynoso. “Our records show Briggs is the police chief.”
“He’s dead,” Reynoso said flatly. “If you have a record of the police officers, you’ll see my name. And Officer Hayes and our now full-time officer, Samantha Perez.”
“This town is under our jurisdiction under suspicion of harboring domestic terrorists,” Mustache repeated. “Stand down and let us through.”
“I cannot do that,” Reynoso said. “If you have anything to discuss, we can do it outside town limits. We will even send a delegation to the governor’s office in Lansing to explain our case. But here and now, we do not yield.”
Gun up, Mustache took several lunging steps, closing the distance between himself and the police chief.
Liam’s jaw clenched. Cold sweat beaded his forehead. If he neared Reynoso, Liam couldn’t intervene if things went pear-shaped.
He needed the soldiers to remain where they were.
Liam adjusted his aim, applied pressure to the trigger, and squeezed. The loud crack shattered the air.
Chunks of asphalt exploded five feet in front of Mustache. He leapt back with a curse.
Taking his cue from Liam, Bishop fired his own warning shot. Boom! A second round splintered the road several feet from the female guardsman.
Shouted curses erupted from the second Humvee as soldiers ducked for cover.
The woman backed against the first Humvee’s door. Her wild gaze swept the barricade—the concrete barriers, the dirt-filled barrels stacked in rows with strategic gun ports, muzzles glinting in the sunlight.
Her weapon wobbled back and forth, seeking the threat but unable to find it.
Mustache aimed his M4 at Reynoso’s head. He shook with rage, but his finger wasn’t on the trigger. Yet. “Tell your men to stand down or we’ll fire!”
Sweat dribbled down Liam’s forehead and leaked into his left eyebrow. He didn’t blink but remained focused.
He adjusted the scope and placed the target’s forehead in his sights. The next shot wouldn’t bust up asphalt.
Stay calm. Everyone just needed to calm the hell down.
“That was a warning shot,” Reynoso said. “We have no desire to fight, but we won’t be trampled over, either.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t blow your head off!” Mustache growled.
“If you had, my snipers would’ve taken you and your men out—before you’d fired up that Ma Deuce. Say what you need to say and leave.”
“Fall Creek is under the control of General Sinclair by state mandate from Governor Duffield. If you refuse to admit us, that’s tantamount to treason. Consequences will be dire. Let us in!”
Reynoso winced but did not back down. They faced each other, not twenty yards apart. Reynoso with no less than four rifles aimed at his chest. The .50 cal locked and loaded, ready to unleash death and destruction.
Fall Creek aimed dozens of weapons at the guardsmen—some they could see, most they couldn’t.
Tension stretched taut, about to snap.
“Hastings,” the female guardsman hissed.
“I will fire!” Mustache—or Hastings—shouted. His hands shook. His eyes still had that hard nervous look, agitated and edgy, the kind of guy who reacted on a hair’s trigger. Things were about to go sideways fast.
“If you fire, so will our snipers,” Reynoso said. “You can’t see them, but they can see you. Are you sure you want to open fire on American citizens? Are you certain you’ll make it out of here? Because you may have enough firepower to overpower us, but I can guarantee that you three won’t be leaving here alive.”
The female guardsman took a hesitant step backward toward the Humvee’s open passenger door. Her steps were jittery, her weapon quaking.
Neither appeared accustomed to highly charged, potential combat situations.
“Hastings,” she said again, louder. “We should go.”
Hastings glared at Reynoso. He didn’t appear to appreciate the art of compromise.
&n
bsp; “Go,” Liam muttered under his breath. “Come on, just go.”
His nerves raw, every sense on high alert, he waited, praying the hothead would back down. His scope remained zeroed in on Hastings’ skull, his finger on the trigger, the carbine solid and steady in his hands.
One wrong move, and he’d splatter the soldier’s brains across the cracked pavement.
With a curse, Hastings’ posture deflated. He spun and stalked back to the Humvee, his fellow soldiers covering him.
He motioned to the second vehicle before climbing in and slamming the door.
The Humvees backed up, then made a slow, ponderous U-turn before heading north on M-139.
No one moved until the rumble of the engines had faded into silence.
“They’re gone,” Bishop said on the radio. “Crisis averted. For now, anyway.”
Relief flared through Liam. It would be short-lived. If he knew anything in life, he knew Murphy’s Law.
Things were about to get worse.
Liam stood, wincing at the sting in his side. He shouldered his weapon and keyed the mic. “They’ll be back. Next time, they’ll bring their friends with them.”
12
Liam
Day One Hundred and Five
The next morning, Liam stood before four dozen new recruits.
Every day, more able-bodied townspeople volunteered to defend their homes and everything they loved. Fewer and fewer expected others to do it for them.
He’d brought them to the park by the river, where there was an open grassy area not yet used for crops or livestock. He trained them in smaller groups to ensure there were always security teams and sentries on duty.
As Army Special Forces, he had been one of the first to be inserted behind enemy lines. In Afghanistan, he’d done his share of training local populations to be insurgents fighting the Taliban.
Liam cleared his throat. “Today, we’re going to learn shooting and basic infantry tactics—which your lives depend on.”