These Dead Lands: Immolation (9 page)

“Roger that, Six. We’ll have you covered. Over,” Ballantine responded.

“Coming up on it now,” Diana said. “So listen, General, what’s your plan?”

“Pretty easy,” Hastings said. “If they’re what you say they are, then I intend to kill them. If not, I intend to kill you.”

“Awesome.”

*

The big Dodge
approached the roadblock. Off to one side, hidden amongst the trees, was a blue crew-cab GMC pickup with a shell covering its bed. Like the Dodge, it had been lifted so a heavy-duty suspension and big tires could be mounted underneath the frame. Three men stood in plain sight near the roadblock, but the rest were nowhere to be seen.

Hastings got back on the radio. “Ballantine, I’ll need you guys up here pretty quickly. Tharinger, let me know when you’ve established line of sight with the engagement area. Over.”

“Six, I’ve got it,” Tharinger said. “Thing is, those guys are going to be able to see us too. Over.”

“Can’t be helped. Six, out.” He nudged the driver with the rifle again. “Stop here. Put the truck in park and leave the keys in the ignition.”

The guy did as he was told. “Okay, now what?”

“Now you wait for me to tell you what to do. Both hands on the wheel—I lose sight of one, I pull the trigger.”

“Okay. Okay.” The man quickly grabbed the steering wheel.

“Six, we’ve got you covered,” Ballantine said over the radio. “Reader and I are in the woods on either side of the road, and Tharinger has overwatch. Guerra thinks he’s got a good bracket lined up with the grenade launcher if things really go to hell, and we’ll help him walk his fires to target. Over.”

“Roger that. Who’s left, and who’s right? Over.”

“Six, Reader is to your left. I’m to your right and about thirty meters behind you. I can’t tell if there’s anyone in that GMC pickup you passed. I have it under surveillance, and I’ll pop anyone who tries to line up on you. Over.”

“Roger that, sounds good. Okay, we’re getting out of the vehicle. Over.” Hastings eased open the passenger door and stepped out. Keeping his weapon trained on the driver, he reached around and opened the rear door. “Okay, driver, slide out. Diana, move over to this side but stay in the truck.”

“All right.” She slid across the bench seat.

“Do you see any of your party?” Hastings asked.

“No.” She pointed to the left. “But you can see their Explorer there, parked in front of the roadblock.”

“Understood. Ballantine, keep an eye on Diana as well. Over.”

“Roger that, Six.”

The driver slid out of the truck, trying to still keep his hands in sight. As he stepped out, he slid in some mud and fell onto his flabby ass. Hastings shook his head and kept his M4 trained on him while also trying to keep one eye on the three men standing by the roadblock, who were watching him intently. They all held assault rifles, but Hastings couldn’t tell whether they were civilian or military versions. It didn’t really matter. The only difference between the two was that the civilian versions didn’t fire on full automatic, which was a mode of fire professional soldiers rarely invoked. The civilian versions could kill someone just as dead as their military counterparts. All the men wore some manner of camouflage clothing, and they had a backwoods air among them. Hastings wouldn’t have been surprised to discover they were veteran hunters and trappers, as those professions were regularly encountered in that part of the state.

“What do you want me to do?” the driver asked.

“Where’s the family you stopped?”

“I don’t know—”

“Dude, listen to me. Things are starting to look a lot like what Diana described them. You don’t tell me where those people are, then you’re suddenly of no value to me. You just become a human shield. Get it?”

“Mister, I don’t know where Frank put them. Really, sir, I don’t know.”

“Where’s the rest of the men?” one of the bearded men at the roadblock yelled.

“Dead,” Hastings called back. “They elected to try to go to guns on an element of the US Army, and that was it for them. Where is the family you captured?”

The bearded man stared at the driver. “Dale, is that true?”

“They shot first,” the driver said. “Look at the front of my truck. There ought to be bullet holes through the grille!”

“Which one of you is Frank?” Hastings asked.

“That’d be me,” the same man said. “Where’s my brother?”

Hastings saw the family resemblance, but where Jerry had been short and narrow-shouldered, Frank was the size of a linebacker. “With the rest of my men,” Hastings responded. “You hand over the family you captured, and you’ll get him and his ponytail back.”

“What family’s that?” Frank smiled, his bright white teeth gleaming in his brownish beard.

“Not here to fuck around with you, Frank,” Hastings said. “I’ve got you outnumbered and outgunned, so you might want to just comply and live.”

Frank called out, “Dale, is Jerry dead?”

The driver said nothing, which was more damning than anything else he might have said. Frank’s smile died in an instant, and he turned to the side. The stock of his assault rifle was tight against his shoulder, and it didn’t take a genius to tell he was getting ready to use it.

“Boy, you made yourself a mistake there,” Frank said, his voice so low that Hastings could barely hear him.

“Think it over, Frank,” Hastings said.

“Already did, ass wipe.”

From behind him, semiautomatic fire suddenly burst out—two different calibers, one high pitched, the other deeper, throatier. Someone cried out, and there was more popping gunfire—5.56 millimeter, definitely. Ballantine had opened up on someone.

“Two down! Two down!” Ballantine called over the radio.

Frank raised his rifle and fired a full automatic burst toward the truck as he lunged to his right, diving for the ground. Several bullets whacked into the open passenger door, and the rest slammed into the driver. He jerked slightly, let out a slight mewling sound, then sank to one knee. Hastings knelt and fired on the other two men, squeezing off three rounds in rapid succession. He hit one center mass as the man started to bring his rifle around, and a startled expression crossed the man’s face when he realized he’d been shot. The 5.56-millimeter rounds were very small, so they didn’t pack an enormous punch, but they tended to corkscrew through the body cavity, banging up internal organs before they either exited the body or wound up lodged in a bone. The man stumbled to the ground, still trying to bring his rifle to bear. He wound up falling onto his face and staying there.

The driver groaned again and wilted as well, his hands moving across the expanse of his belly, feeling his wounds. The second roadblock man scuttled sideways like a crab, firing into the Dodge’s engine compartment, which sent pieces of metal and plastic flying through the air. Then, the .50 caliber opened up, and the man practically exploded as several of the big rounds slammed through his body, blasting his rifle in two and blowing off one arm and one leg. The man was dead before his mutilated body fell to the road.

Hastings stepped around the truck, M4 raised and ready. He heard another exchange of gunfire from the woods behind him and to the left of the road. He couldn’t see Reader, who was supposed to be providing support fire, or Frank. Just as he spotted a small patch of footprints in the soft ground leading up into the woods, gunfire rang out once again.
Snap!
A bullet whooshed right by his face then buried itself into the Dodge’s fender.

Hastings juked right and returned fire, squeezing off several shots while moving toward the roadblock. Frank was trying to force him back behind the truck, but Hastings planned on advancing instead. He hoped his counterfire was enough to force Frank’s head down. If not, Hastings would be dead pretty soon.

“Target down!” Reader transmitted. “One shooter, down on my side. Over.”

“Reader, was it the same guy who shot at the truck? Over.”

“Negative, Six. Different guy altogether. Over.”

“Make your way toward me, Reader. He’s in the woods on your side. I’m after him. Ballantine, keep the area under surveillance, and direct fires from the fifty if you need them. Over.”

Once both soldiers radioed acknowledgement of his orders, Hastings sprinted across the street and took cover behind the car that had been pushed off the road. The footprints led off into the forest, and it wasn’t just one set but several. Clearly, the boys manning the roadblock had some sort of bunker or living quarters nearby, and that was the path they used to get there. Something moved in the brush, and he looked to the south. Reader was slowly pushing through the undergrowth, and he gave an exaggerated wave so that Hastings would be able to identify him, as if it would be tough to figure out who the man in the multicam Army Combat Uniform and facial armor was. Hastings waved back and pointed at the trail. Reader signaled his acknowledgement. They set off up the trail, each covering one side with weapons raised.

“Six to Guerra. Don’t forget to scan the rear,” Hastings said. “With all this gunfire going off, the reekers are going to be drawn to the area. Over.”

“Roger that, Six. Got it covered. Over,” Guerra said.

“Six, Ballantine.”

“Go ahead, Ballantine. Over.”

“Ah, Six… I just found the body of a man on the other side of the roadblock. Looks like he got shot while stepping out of the Explorer. I did a circuit of the perimeter on the right side of the road, and it looks like we’re alone on that side. The pickup is loaded to bear with supplies and ammunition. I wouldn’t count on finding a long-term hide site in this area. I’d bet these guys relocated elsewhere. Over.”

“Roger that, Ballantine. If we can find our pal Frank, I’ll be sure to ask him for his home address. Stay sharp, he might try to double back for that truck. Over.”

“Six, Ballantine. Roger, that’s what I’m hoping. I’ve got a surprise waiting for him when he does. Over.”

Hastings grinned. He had no doubt Ballantine would have something lined up that would leave Frank a little upset when he stepped into the senior NCO’s sights. Then he remembered the girl in the truck.

“Ballantine, Six. Where’s the woman we picked up? Over.”

“Six, she’s still in the truck. I took the opportunity to restrain her with some zip ties. Over.”

All the soldiers had been issued plastic zip ties when they were deployed to New York so they could restrain citizens in the event of civil disorder. Of course, the disorder had happened so fast that, by the time the unruly citizens made it to the sector Hastings and the rest of the Alpha Gators were assigned to, they were flesh-eating zombies. As a result, the surviving Gators had a surfeit of zip ties.

“Roger that.”

Reader’s body language changed minutely, but Hastings read it immediately. Even before the soldier raised his fist, Hastings sank to his haunches and paid close attention to his lane of fire. Reader stepped back and oriented on Hastings’s lane.

“Check that out, sir. I’ve got your lane,” he said.

Hastings turned to his right. Thirty yards away, a naked woman stood with her back to a tree. Rope was crisscrossed across her body. She’d been beaten badly; her eyes were almost swollen shut, and her lips were split open and bleeding. Scrapes, cuts, and swellings dotted her pale body, and her breasts were almost beet-red, as if someone had savagely twisted them. Hastings saw them slowly rise and fall. So the woman was still alive. But even if she was still conscious, he doubted she would be able to see through the swollen tissue surrounding her eyes.

Hastings scanned the area thoroughly. If Frank had the time to tie up the woman, he would still be in the area, which meant chances were good that he was setting them up for an ambush.

“What’s the plan, sir?” Reader asked softly.

Hastings saw three places that immediately jumped out as potential hiding places: a clump of bushes, several fallen trees, and a slight ridge in the terrain that could provide an attacker with a good view of the engagement area. The bushes offered conceal-only cover. There, Frank would be susceptible to return fire. Hastings moved that one to the back of the list. The trees offered substantially greater protection, but they weren’t very thick. There wasn’t a lot of room for Frank to remain hidden while keeping the area under observation. That left the small ridge.

“Let’s take that ridge,” Hastings said. “I’ll bet the fucker’s hiding up there, waiting for us to move on the woman.”

“Roger that,” Reader said.

“Just the same, keep your eyes open. This guy might be smart enough to play our training against us. If he’s really a jarhead, then he’s got some tactical skills.”

“Hooah,” Reader agreed.

“On me,” Hastings said as he rose to his feet. He hurried toward the closest part of the ridge, which stood less than three feet high.

Reader followed, hopefully turning every few steps to ensure that Frank wasn’t lining up on them from behind. As they closed on the ridge, Hastings slowed. The leaves and soil there were slightly disturbed. The variation was so subtle that he almost missed it, but it signaled that someone had passed that way only a short time ago. He pointed out the disturbance to Reader, who grunted in response. Cautiously, both men climbed the ridge, easing through the tangled brush, aware that every step generated noise that could give away their positions. The only cover noises were the singing birds, the slight breeze rustling through the tree branches, and the trilling song of cicadas.