Last Stand: Patriots (Book 2) (10 page)

More hand signals from the spotter up ahead. Ten trucks were approaching fast. This particular stretch of road was relatively clear of abandoned cars, allowing them to build up speed. In retrospect, placing a single vehicle a hundred yards up across the center line would have allowed the trucks to pass, but slowed them down. Either way, it was too late now. John would keep that bit tucked away for next time.

As the lead vehicle came into view, John noticed something strange. By all outward appearances, the intelligence Rodriguez had gotten via
his contact in Jefferson City had been accurate. These were rigs with trailers on the back marked with UN decals on the front and sides. But even as they approached, John could see something was off.

“Pass me those binoculars,” he
said to Marshall, who was rising onto one knee.

John peered through and focused on that first truck.
The cab had a flat nose with a wide brim at the top, a similar design to the one he’d seen heading into Oneida the other day. It looked European. Then he read the company name across the grill.

“You ever heard of a truck company called Kamaz?” John asked
Marshall, who looked at him strangely.

“Not sure,”
Marshall replied. “Maybe that’s the brand the UN uses.”

After many years spent working overseas in war
-torn countries, John knew that wasn’t the case. Generally the UN preferred Volkswagen trucks and Toyotas for their SUVs.

The
vehicles were almost at the ambush point and Marshall was getting ready to give the signal. The plan was to swarm out as they slowed down and remove the driver from the lead and rear trucks, trapping the rest in between.

But the closer they got, the clearer it became
these guys had no intention of stopping. John heard the lead truck hit the gas and that was when he charged out from cover. The others charged out as well. It was important they disable the first truck before it got through or the whole convoy might escape. Technically, Marshall hadn’t given the order to move out, but they couldn’t afford to wait another second.

The first truck was less than t
en meters from the blockade when its engine roared to life. Men began firing from the edge of the forest. Most were aiming for the driver. John peered through the ACOG scope and fired at the front right tire. The first couple of shots hit the wheel well and then the tire rims. With the next squeeze he saw the tire explode. The truck swerved violently, losing control, and plowed through the blocking vehicles, spinning them like children’s toys. Shards of metal and bits of glass flew into the air. The lead truck veered off the road and into the ditch.

In the front cab, the driver was dead, but he wasn’t alone. A man with a rifle sat shotgun and he struggled to undo his seatbelt. John couldn’t risk allowing him to bring the weapon to bear. He zeroed in and put three more
rounds through the windshield. The man slumped forward and lay still.

Now came the second truck and if they could stop it cold, it might just be enough to block the road.

A handful of men were already racing toward the back of the approaching convoy of trucks. The goal here was to engage the armed escorts in the passenger seat without disabling the trucks themselves. Otherwise they would never get all those supplies back to camp.

Just then, the second truck roared past the shattered cars and over the spike strip. Both front tires blew out
, flinging the strip itself into the air. The device was good for a single use and John just hoped it would be enough.

The ten Patriots south of them emerged and engaged the second truck.
Sparks sprayed from the asphalt as it tried to flee on a pair of twisted rims.

AK fire from the
passenger side of the truck hit two Patriots before the driver and gunman were killed. The vehicle slowed until it came to a stop in the middle of the road, blocking the path.

Running gun battles were raging up and down a fifty
-meter length of Route 27 as Marshall’s men tried to prevent the rear vehicles from turning around and fleeing. This wasn’t going completely to plan, but combat never really did.

The
truth was there was far more resistance than any of them had anticipated.

On John’s left, more Patriots
began to fall. Not that it was a huge surprise. They were using shotguns, deer rifles and a few even had pistols while the men guarding the trucks were armed with AKs. John dropped to the ground and peered through his scope. Three enemies were positioned under one of the trailers, firing on the advancing Patriots.

Under fire
from all sides, the men had taken cover wherever they could. For John, it had only meant they lined up perfectly. He opened up with a short burst. By the time the first two were down, a final volley finished off the last. That was another thing the movies never talked about. A large enough round would slam through the human body and often keep on going into the man next to him.

When the rest of the
drivers and the men guarding them recognized the Patriots could hit them from every direction, they threw down their weapons and surrendered.

Now came the time to gather the prisoners and commandeer the remaining trucks. The first two had been completely disabled
, which created a problem. They could either leave the supplies they were carrying or spend valuable time transferring them to the remaining vehicles.

John advised
Marshall not to get greedy. They would do a quick search through their contents to make sure they weren’t leaving behind any weapons or vital supplies. There were also a number of wounded who would need to be cared for.

After a quick search, they discovered that the contents of the first two trucks consisted mostly of clothing and blankets. C
onfident nothing important was being left behind, they assigned men to drive each of the remaining rigs.

They needed to make it quick before any patrols from
Oneida caught wind of what had happened.

John
climbed into an old GM pickup with Sullivan riding shotgun. They would cover the rear of the column.

The price of the ambush had been costly. Five dead and another six seriously wounded.
John only hoped they would find what they were looking for.

In all, the returning convoy consisted of sixteen vehicles in all
, eight trucks and eight of their own vehicles.

As they
rolled out, a thought came to John that hadn’t occurred to him as he’d watched the row of eighteen-wheelers barreling down on them from the north. Apart from displaying a name he’d never seen before—Kamaz—these UN trucks looked brand new. Certainly they weren’t relics from the 1970’s the way Betsy was, which meant they were likely brought from overseas. John remembered seeing something on the internet years before about fears that the UN would one day show up to confiscate American guns. Was he witnessing the realization of this conspiracy theory? Or was a more sinister plan afoot?

John and Sullivan followed
closely as the convoy headed back toward the Patriot camp. If these trucks contained assault rifles and perhaps even more, then a takeover of Oneida would finally be possible. There was a certain appeal to overthrowing a tyrant and it wasn’t just about saving Diane and the kids. No one deserved to live in the equivalent of a North Korean labor camp.

Beside him, Sullivan rolled down
his window and stuck his hand out, letting the wind push it back and forth. “What did you do before the lights went out?” he asked.

John
’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. The sting hit him whenever he remembered his old life. One he would likely never know again. “General contractor.”

Sullivan laughed. “I never did understand what those guys did.”

“We get ulcers,” John replied. “That’s what we do.” He was looking at the back of the truck driving before them. It was missing a license plate as well as safety stickers.

Caution: Wide right turns

Wherever it was they were made, they were right off the assembly line.

“You get a chance to speak with any of those drivers?” he asked Sullivan.

“Nah, I don’t think they said much of anything. Seemed scared as hell, cowering down like we were gonna execute them. Listen, I don’t have a problem returning fire when I’m attacked, but the thought of killing people who are just trying to make a living in this crazy new world doesn’t sit well with me.”

“Me neither,” John said,
replaying in his mind how the drivers had tried to run the blockade as the guards in the passenger seats sprayed AK fire into the Patriots’ ranks.

Most of those guards had been killed, but the Patriot
s had suffered their own losses.

“What about you
, Sullivan? What did you do before the world went to hell?”

“I taught geography at the local high school.”
Sullivan was nodding his head as though reliving hallways filled with rowdy kids and boisterous laughter.

“A noble profession. One of the residents on Willow
Creek was a gym teacher. Peter Warden. Good man.” John paused. “No, he was a great man.”

“Was?”

“He was killed when our street was overrun by a group of gangbangers looking to consolidate their territory. Seemed like it wasn’t long after the grid went dark before the whole city was carved up by criminals. They already had the manpower and infrastructure in place, not to mention the weapons. When the police were no longer able to effectively patrol the city, the takeover was inevitable. We held out for as long as we could, but most of those people had never fired a gun in their lives. ’Sides, the majority weren’t armed with anything better than pistols and deer rifles. Maybe it was a lost cause from the start.”

Sullivan’s hand was still out the window, pushing against the air stream. “Nah, man. You guys stood up when most people probably rolled over and took it
in the tailpipe. The Alamo was a lost cause, but you didn’t see any of those boys running away.”

Maybe Sullivan had a point. John was still letting the words percolate through his mind when he heard a loud
crack like a muffler backfiring. Then came a spray of blood from the passenger seat.

Sullivan shrieked in pain, clutching his right hand, now a bloody mess.

More shots and John swerved, glancing in the rear view to see two pickups and one Jeep Wagoneer. Men with semi-automatic rifles were hanging from the windows firing at them.

A patrol from
Oneida perhaps?

There wasn’t time to think about where they’d come from.
All he knew was that if he didn’t do something fast they’d both be dead. A rear gunner would have been nice, but they’d been too short on manpower after the casualties they took during the firefight.

T
he back window shattered, then a round hit Sullivan square in the back of his head. The front windshield turned red and his body slumped forward. It was John’s job to help protect the convoy and so he did the only thing he could under the circumstances. He slammed his brakes and braced himself as the Wagoneer came racing up and smashed into him.

The back end swung around into the pickup filled with men, sending it
careening off the road and into the ditch. The third pickup jerked its wheel and fishtailed past him.

John punched the gas
and caught the smell of burning tires as he charged ahead. The collision with the Jeep must have damaged his rear axle because it felt like the back wheels weren’t spinning properly.

Men in the back of the pickup took aim and fired. John ducked under the consol
e, taking cover behind the engine. Four rounds tore through the windshield. One of them connected with Sullivan and whipped his limp body back against the seat. If his new friend wasn’t dead before, he was now.

After seeing that t
he guys in the pickup were reloading, John pulled the S&W from his tactical holster and took aim at the pickup’s back right tire, sending six rounds into it. The back tire exploded, sending strips of rubber flying in all directions. Whatever was left in the magazine he emptied into the men loaded in the bed of the truck, hitting at least three of them.

The pickup swerved, smacking John on the left front tire.
The steering wheel jerked in his hands as his own vehicle lost control and crashed into the ditch.

John was thrown
forward into the wheel, but his chest rig and AR mags helped to shield him from a crushing blow. Smoke rose from the hood of the GM. Next to him, there was no longer a doubt that Sullivan was dead.

T
he convoy slipped around the corner and disappeared from view. He’d done his job in preventing further loss and for that he was happy. Perhaps some of the escort vehicles would circle back and lend a hand. But getting those weapons back to base was the top priority, which meant that he might be on his own.

On the other side of the highway, the men from the disabled pickup
scrambled out, looking in his direction. A quick glance in his rearview told him the other men he’d crashed into a few hundred yards back were now on foot, heading his way.

John’s AR was still next to him, along with the
Mossberg Chainsaw Sullivan had been wielding. A quick check revealed John didn’t have any broken bones. He reached over Sullivan’s body and opened the passenger door. Crawling over his dead companion, John dropped into a row of tall grass.

With still no sign of any Patriots coming to bail him out,
John reached back in for the AR and the shotgun. The latter he swung over his shoulder. With the AR in hand, he moved behind the engine block and laid his rifle on the hood, taking aim through his ACOG Scope. Four armed men were heading his way from the east. Six more were coming from the south. Behind John lay the forest. He knew the tall grass would cover his escape into the woods, but first he would need to keep the enemy’s head down while he made a break for it.

All four men to the east had AKs.
Normally, the plan of attack called for targeting the man who had the best chance of killing you. Assault rifles were always first. When there wasn’t much of a choice, it came down to who looked like they had the most experience. The one on the far right was in full tactical gear, but the man next to him had a beard and carried himself as though he were ex-military, his weapon at the low ready as he advanced, his finger beside the trigger.

Laying the red dot
between his eyes, John squeezed the trigger. The shot was an inch low and to the left, but it was fatal none the less. Seeing their comrade fall, the others scrambled for cover. Perhaps they thought John had been gravely wounded or knocked unconscious in the crash and they were simply coming to finish him off.

Sprinting through the
spindly grass, John ran for the forest’s edge, hoping to make it to the relative safety of the treeline before he took a bullet in the back.