299 Days VIII: The War (30 page)

Ted had figured out where Grant got the idea. It showed what kind of books Ted read.

(January 1)

As they went slowly—very, very slowly—down Highway 101 toward Olympia for the next
couple of hours, Grant couldn’t stop thinking about the Lake Isabella Boys. There
must be thousands of guys like them who were just waiting for a real military push
to bring them out of the woodwork, guys who had been keeping their heads down and
taking care of their families for months. They had a gun and were willing to risk
it all to make things better. They were enthused and would do anything, including
giving their kids to strangers who promised to use them as decoys in a special operations
mission, to get this horrible nightmare of the Collapse over with. The political significance
of the Lake Isabella Boys was loud and clear: the people were damned sick and tired
of the “legitimate authorities.” Grant had assumed a high level of civilian support
for the march on Olympia, but maybe it would be even higher than he thought, making
it easier than he predicted.

His peaceful thought was rudely interrupted by the loud boom of a rifle shot up ahead.
Even through the windows of Mark’s truck, the shots outside startled him. The noise
was followed by a loud thud and the sound of crunching metal and glass.

Grant and the convoy were idling along at about five miles per hour as the scout car
was up ahead checking out an overpass. The overpass, which Grant knew well from driving
to and from his cabin so many times, was about a half mile ahead. Bobby put on the
brakes and Scotty got on the radio to Nineteen Delta.

There was no response. Oh God, Grant thought, they were experiencing their first combat
casualties. Grant had a horrible feeling about what was around the corner at the overpass.
Grant’s biggest fear was a Lima tank column, as unlikely as that was. Or it could
be one of those Homeland Security MRAP armored cars.

Everyone was silent as they slowly rounded the corner on the highway. They were afraid
of what was on the other side. Grant mentally rehearsed what he’d do if he saw Lima
armor or other superior forces. He quickly assumed he would initially hit them as
hard as possible and then fall back to assess the situation. This was where Ted’s
expertise would come in.

The lights from the highway were shining on a terrible sight.

It was a wrecked car; the scout car.

“Stop,” Grant said to Bobby. “Let’s see what’s ahead.” He wanted to speed up ahead
to see if the scout car needed help, but he didn’t want to dash into an ambush. He
had to fight his urge to rush toward the overpass.

Bobby stopped the truck and Scotty radioed to unit that they were stopping. “Why isn’t
the Clear Out Crew doing this?” Ted radioed back.

“They’re not responding,” Scotty said. He didn’t want to alarm anyone by saying, “I
think they crashed.” But everyone hearing the intra-unit radio needed to know what
was going on.

When they stopped, Pow, Scotty, and Grant got out. As they got out, Ryan yelled from
under the tarp, “What’s up?”

“Something happened to the scout car at the overpass,” Grant said. “Be ready.”

“Roger that,” Ryan said from under the tarp.

Pow, Scotty, and Grant got out and moved quickly, trying to find cover. There wasn’t
much on the side of a highway. Luckily, they stopped the truck in between highway
lights so they weren’t silhouetted. It was dark and damned hard to see them from a
distance.

“Boom!” Another rifle shot. They heard a bullet impact about 100 yards ahead and way
to their left, in the median of the highway. It was at least 600 yards to the overpass.

“Boom!” Another shot that was way short and to their left. Whoever was shooting at
them was doing a shitty job; this made them relax a little bit.

“Boom!”

“I got a muzzle flash on the overpass,” Pow said.

“Sniper on the overpass,” Scotty radioed in. “About 600 to 1,000 yards ahead. Shots
are way short and to our left.”

“Flank checkers out,” Ted said. “Everyone be ready to go. And get me Donnie.” This
was a perfect project for a sniper: to counter another sniper.

Jim Q. radioed on the CB to the chase truck that Donnie needed to get out and go meet
up with the Team.

Hearing that, Donnie jumped out of the chase truck with his hunting rifle. He ran
as fast as he could, which wasn’t as fast at fifty-four, as he had been at eighteen.
He was the oldest guy in the unit. And he was the first one to get to shoot someone.

As he was running, Donnie realized that he would arrive with his pulse racing too
much. The microscopic movement from the normal beating of a heart—especially the added
movement from an increased pulse from running—could actually throw a shot off target.
When the target was several hundred yards away, a tiny fraction of a degree of angle
translated into several feet of deviation.

Donnie tried his hardest to keep his heart rate down, but he was running into combat
and running fast. He knew there was no way to slow down his heart, and that he just
had get there fast without getting shot.

“Looks like a sniper on the overpass,” Pow said to Donnie when he got up to where
the Team was down on the ground. “About 600 to 800 yards,” Pow said. “Not a very good
shooter.”

Donnie was excited. He would finally get to do some work. He wanted to prove that
an old guy like him, with no military experience, could be useful.

“Right there,” Pow said, pointing toward the overpass. “Can you hit him?”

Donnie nodded, although he wasn’t sure if he could. He got down on the ground with
a good angle toward the overpass. He got out his laser range finder. It was 872 yards,
outside his optimal range. “Man-sized target” he thought. That’s pretty big. There
was a lot of room for error, though. The sniper on the overpass would be hunched down
and not a full man-sized target. Odds were, he would miss a couple of times, but then
get closer with each successive shot after he made adjustments. This was unlike the
big-game hunting he’d done where he basically got one shot in before the animal ran
away. This animal on the overpass was sitting in one place.

Donnie was glad that Pow had found them some decent cover. He took off his backpack,
which he used for a rest, just like when he was hunting. He took out his good binoculars
and gave them to Pow.

“Spot me,” Donnie said. Pow took the binos and found a good place to lie down.

“Boom!” Another shot hit. It was still short and to the left, but closer this time.

“This guy sucks,” Pow said. “He has no idea where his shots are hitting. He must not
have a spotter.”

Grant came running up to them, “Let’s go, gentlemen. I’ve got wounded men in that
car up there.”

“Don’t rush us,” Pow said, a little annoyed. “We’re working here.”

Grant realized that he shouldn’t have tried to rush Donnie and Pow. He knew that Pow
knew they needed to hurry up so they could go get the scouts out of the car.

Donnie made a few adjustments on his scope for the 872-yard shot.

“Target,” Donnie said, which meant he had the target in sight. He had a shadowy blob
in his scope. The crosshairs of his scope were jumping around because his heart was
beating so hard.

“Send it,” Pow said, which meant there were no obstructions or friendlies in the way
and it was okay to shoot.

Donnie waited a few seconds until he had the shot. Well, he kind of had the shot.
The crosshairs were still jumping around and he couldn’t tell for sure if the target
was the enemy sniper. But he knew that the shadowy blob with a rifle wasn’t a Girl
Scout, so he didn’t feel bad about taking a shot. Besides, going on the offense by
taking a shot at the sniper would help out the situation because it would cause the
enemy sniper to hide, which would reduce the number of shots he could take at the
17th.

“Boom!” His shot wasn’t faint like the others. It was ear-ringing. A 300 Win. Mag.
is not a quiet gun. It kicked up a spray of pooled rainwater and dirt from the side
of the road where they were lying. That was the first shot from the 17th Irregulars.
This was for real.

“Inconclusive,” Pow said, looking through his binos. “Can’t tell if that’s a hit or
not. Too dark.”

It was quiet, except for their ringing ears.

“Send another,” Grant said. He was feeling desperate to get the scout car rescued.
Those guys could be bleeding to death.

“No target,” Pow said, peering through his binos.

“Send it to the same place,” Grant said. “Keep his head down while we go get the scouts.”

“That’s stupid,” Pow said. “We can’t go running up there until we take this guy out.”

Pow’s tone didn’t bother Grant; everyone on the Team was an equal and the best idea
won, which meant that a person proposing a bad idea would be told so in not-too-gentle
terms. That was fine for when the Team was just the Team, but now Grant was a lieutenant
in combat, and a non-Team member, like Donnie, was hearing this. Grant started to
tell Pow not to talk to a lieutenant that way when Pow interrupted.

“He’s running away!” Pow said, still looking through the binos. “He’s running across
the overpass!”

Donnie tried to follow the dark figure across the overpass, which was hard to do at
night. He fired another round, but knew as he pulled the trigger that he hadn’t led
the target enough.

“Gone!” Pow said. “I lost him.”

There were a few seconds of silence followed by a loud crashing noise. It sounded
like something was falling; rumbling and crashing. Like something heavy was crashing
down onto the road.

“What was that?” Grant yelled, realizing that he needed to keep his voice down because,
for all he knew, they were surrounded by the enemy and about to be ambushed. If this
was an ambush, it sure was effective to have one sniper holding everything up. Even
if the sniper didn’t hit anyone, it was a great way to slow things down and create
opportunities for regular troops to hit you. The military guys had always talked about
how much they hated enemy snipers. Now Grant was seeing why.

“Dunno,” Pow said. “Wait.”

It was silent for another few seconds as Pow looked through the binos.

“What the hell?” Pow said. Everyone was hanging on his every word.

“Logs?” Pow said. “It looks like there is a bunch of logs, or telephone poles, or
something across the highway.”

Of course, Grant thought, the sniper bought some time while others put up an obstacle.
They were now officially trapped on the highway. Sitting ducks. Grant might have led
his men into a giant trap.

“Vehicle leaving,” Pow said after a while. “Car lights.” He could see the tail lights
after they went past the log jam and headed up the highway toward Olympia.

Grant and Donnie could see the lights now.

Donnie took a shot at the car lights. Just trying to get lucky.

“Miss,” Pow said. “They’re taking off.”

“Now we can go get the scout car,” Grant said. He ran over to Scotty to radio in what
had gone on.

Pow got up and headed for Mark’s truck. Donnie looked around, wondering what to do.

Pow yelled, “Jump onto the bumper of our truck and ride it. We’ll get you closer and
you can cover us while we get to the scout car.” Grant radioed Scotty asking him to
yell back to Ryan and Wes under the tarp in the truck bed to expect someone to jump
onto the rear bumper.

Donnie nodded, got up, slung his rifle, and grabbed his backpack. He ran over to Mark’s
truck and jumped on rear bumper and held onto the tailgate.

Grant and Pow got into the rear cab.

“Go to the overpass!” Grant yelled to Bobby, who instantly put the truck into gear
and quickly took off.

“Whoa!” Grant yelled to Bobby. “Donnie’s on the bumper. It’s hard to hold on.”

Bobby slowed down to about ten miles an hour. They were plowing ahead toward the overpass.
The slower speed allowed them to keep their eyes on signs of an ambush.

Grant looked back and there was Donnie, with a rifle and backpack, holding on for
dear life.

“Stop!” Grant said about three hundred yards from the overpass. He could see a crumpled
car that looked like the scout car.

“Pow, Donnie,” Grant yelled, “cover me and Scotty.” Scotty gave Bobby the CB radio
but kept the intra-unit one. This allowed Bobby to have radio contact with the unit
because Jim Q. could relay messages from the intra-unit radio to the CB, and therefore,
to Bobby. The driver had to be in the loop in case he needed to go pick people up.

Pow and Donnie got out and started setting up a quick sniper position to cover Grant
and Scotty. Right behind them came Grant and Scotty, who started finding cover before
running up to the crashed scout car.

Bobby yelled back to Ryan and Wes, “Get ready to jump up and cover Grant and Scotty.
Enemy was last seen on the overpass.”

“Got it,” Wes yelled back.

By now, Grant wasn’t feeling so brave. He was scared. Scared that he had wasted too
much time getting to the scout car and its dead or dying occupants. Because no one
was currently shooting at them, Grant assumed that the enemy had left and that there
was no danger getting to the scout car … unless this was a big ambush.