Last Stand: Patriots (Book 2) (19 page)

“Get to the mobile communications vehicle and cut that jamming signal,” John told Rodriguez and the others. “I’ll meet you there.”

All four of them went down the stairs, checking quickly before moving out into the open street.
The others cut left, heading to the comm vehicle, while John went right.

He’d seen Diane being led across the road by two men. They’d travelled swiftly and disappeared into a building on this side of the street.

Sounds of fighting continued to echo in the distance as John pushed ahead, his AR at the low ready position. A door leading to a three-story apartment complex was ajar. The entrances he’d seen while moving this way were either boarded up with biohazard signs or locked. It stood to reason that with the lack of food and sanitation, a healthy percentage of Oneida’s population—the old and infirm in particular—hadn’t made it. Even with a population of five to ten thousand, the loss of up to fifty percent of the local residents would have quickly overwhelmed the town’s ability to dispose of the bodies. And for all John knew, that number could very well be higher.

Leaning against the apartment complex with the open door,
John swung his AR over his back and removed his S&W. Of course, it didn’t quite have the firepower or magazine capacity of the AR, but tight spaces required maximum maneuverability. Swinging the barrel of his rifle from room to room as he cleared them would add precious seconds to his reaction time.

A group of men wearing black cargo pants and carrying AK-47s ran across the street barely thirty yards from his position. John lowered himself. Their focus seemed to be on the battle raging just out of view and he hoped none of them would
turn in his direction. When they were out of sight, he peered into the open doorway and went inside.

Moving
purposefully and listening for voices or footsteps, John analyzed the layout. A narrow hallway with a row of apartments lay on his left. Before him stood a stairwell that circled up all three levels. Following the railing with his eyes allowed him to see all the way to the top floor.

That was when he caught a woman’s voice. She sounded afraid.
Above him, hands gripped the railing along the second floor as the two men pushed Diane forward.

John crept up behind them. The key to freeing her would be to ensure the element of surprise. The stairs were a cheap imitation marble instead of wood. That was good, because it meant his combat boots wouldn’t make nearly as much noise.

By the time he reached the second floor, they were already on the third. He didn’t know what they were doing or where they were bringing her. But the thought of what might be about to happen gave him chills.

H
e would need to kill both men at once or the situation could get ugly. That was why Special Forces teams often stormed a building from multiple entry points. Converge and neutralize before the enemy knew what had hit them.

John wasn’t
a one-man army. He was a father and a former soldier, but mostly he was alone and doing the best he could under the circumstances.

A silent prayer echoed in his mind as he rounded the stairwell
and onto the top floor. Ahead of him the two men were moving briskly down a dimly lit hallway, Diane sandwiched between them. On either side were apartments. At the end of the hallway was a push door that read exit.

“Diane
, get down,” John yelled. The risk of shooting his wife was too great and so he had taken the chance of exposing his position.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Diane dropped to the floor, curling into a ball.

John fired at the man closest to him the minute she moved.

Three shots
rang out. The first two aimed at center mass, the third at his head. All three hit their mark, killing the man instantly.

O
ne down.

John
got off two more shots, both striking the next man in the chest, but with no noticeable effect. A result that could only mean he was wearing body armor.

The other man re
turned fire with a MP-443 Grach.

John felt two blows to his chest that knocked the wind from his lungs. He rolled out of the way toward the stairwell.

Diane screamed when she saw John get hit.

The man
in black fatigues fired off three more rounds. John wasn’t in his line of sight, but the bullets still ricocheted off the stone floor and into the wall nearby.

“We go now,” the man shout
ed in a strange accent.

John
pawed at his chest, looking for an entrance wound. A misshapen pistol round protruded from his vest. That was when he remembered the saw blade armor. It had felt like little more than a hack job when Moss had first handed it to him, but without it he certainly would have been severely wounded or worse.

John
peeked quickly around the corner just in time to see the man raise his pistol for another shot. He ducked his head back as the gun went off and the round passed inches from his face, exploding into the wall behind him.

This was precisely the situation John had dreaded. Now the man could take shots at him and John couldn’t fire back or risk hitting Diane.

A second later he heard a metallic clang, like someone using a push-bar door. Peering down the hall, he saw Diane being dragged into the emergency stairwell.

Rushing down the hall, John followed close behind.

They were heading up a final flight of stairs instead of back down toward the street. The move puzzled him at first, until John realized the gunman would be vulnerable to overhead fire if they’d tried to descend the emergency stairs.

Another door
opening and slamming shut told John they were on the roof. He followed cautiously, not wanting the man to feel too desperate or he might shoot Diane outright. John wanted him to think he still had the upper hand.

Scanning out the tiny rectangular
roof door window let him know the gunman wasn’t in sight. John made his way out, gravel crunching under his boots. That would make it hard to approach quietly, but at this point there was no better option.

The roof was a perfect square, with this opening in the center. That gave him the option of going right or left. With still no sight of them, John chose right. Statistically, since most of the population was right
-handed—the gunman included, John had noticed—the majority of people, when given equal options, tended to head right.

Sure enough, John found both of them near the roof’s edge.
With tears in her eyes, Diane was telling John to get back.

The man in black fatigues had his left hand gripping the back of Diane’s neck and the pistol aimed at the rear of her skull.
In the action movies, they always showed villains nestled up to their victims with the gun to their temple. But this guy knew better. The movie way still gave John a clear shot if he was a skilled enough marksman. By keeping Diane’s body directly between the two men, the man had left John without a shot.

“Set your pistol down and we can all walk away from this,” John told him.

The man didn’t answer.

“I don’t want to hurt a fellow American,” John said,
trying to ease him. The truth was, the minute John had heard the man’s broken English, he’d known he was probably Russian. Perhaps one of the Spetsnaz men Marshall had mentioned. That also meant he was well trained and not to be underestimated.

This row of buildings looked over onto the lake and into the woods
and hills beyond. It was also high enough that he couldn’t jump without risking serious injury or death.

“What do you say we talk about this?” John said, reaching out with his free hand.

“There’s nothing to—” the man started to say when blood sprayed from his wrist.

The pistol fell to the ground as he stared in agony at his mangled hand
. Diane rolled to the side as John fired four rounds, hitting the gunman repeatedly in the face and neck. He fell backwards and tumbled off the roof where he landed with a wet thud.

“How did you do that?” Diane asked, amazed that they were both still alive.

“We had a little help,” John answered, scanning the hill that overlooked Oneida for any sign of Reese’s sniper nest.

They were hugging each other tight when John asked:
“Where are Kay and the kids?”

“
I don’t know,” Diane answered. Her lip was swollen and the sight filled John with the dark desire to kill those two men all over again. “They were going to execute me tomorrow.”

“
I know, honey, that’s why we’re here. For now all we can do is hope they’re hiding somewhere safe. They know enough to keep low and stay away from windows.”

The clatter of weapons fire and the sound of men hollering in agony told them the Patriots were still in the thick of things. Once the jammer was disabled,
Marshall’s forces would retreat to a safe distance and lay siege to the town until the army arrived. With any luck there hadn’t been too many casualties.

John and Diane crossed the roof, heading for the stairway and the street below.

“Thank goodness you stopped that awful message the Chairman kept blaring over the loudspeaker,” Diane told him as they reached the first door. “He practically played it day and night.”

John skidded to a stop.
“You might have just given me an idea.”

“
I did?”

“
Hurry. We need to get to the mobile comm vehicle.”

A minute later they were at street level. John scanned to ensure the immediate area was clear. To the north, men were firing from the rooftops and out of windows, presumably at Marshall’s men. They’d discussed not pushing too far into the city to avoid a potential bloodbath. But even with a carefully laid plan, it was far too easy in heat of battle to lose control of your men.

“
Okay, move,” he told her.

She
tore across the street while he covered her with the AR. If even a single weapon was pointed her way, he’d cut them down before their finger had a chance to kiss the trigger. Next it was his turn and John hustled across to meet her in the recessed doorway of a shoe store.

Cutting behind the building, they headed
next in the direction where they’d spotted the comm truck’s antenna.

A moment later,
the truck came into view, surrounded by a thicket of trees and heavy shrubs. It wouldn’t have been enough to try hiding the vehicle from the locals, but the Chairman knew he wouldn’t need to. After all, as far as anyone was concerned, he was here on behalf of the government. Their only mistake was assuming that government was American.

The bodies of two men in black camo gear lay near the back of the truck. Even as they approached it became clear to John the vehicle was Russian.
In fact it used the same chassis as the Kamaz rigs they’d taken during the ambush. Only the green military paint and module on the back was different. The focus in the Russian military tended to be on practicality, sometimes to the point of ugliness.

A trail of blood led from the men into the rear truck hatch. John pushed Diane behind him and leveled his rifle. For her part, his wife knelt down and grabbed the AK at the dead man
’s feet. She checked the magazine and then pulled the bolt back slowly to make sure a round was chambered.

John gave her a quick wink, thinking about how much he had missed her.

John cut the angle on the doorway to ensure if there were enemies inside he would only expose himself to one of them at a time.

What he saw inside made his heart sink. Moss was sitting in front of a wall of knobs and dials. Sitting
next to him on the floor with his back to the wall was Rodriguez. Blood oozed from a wound in his belly. Hovering over him was Brandon. It appeared he’d already applied yarrow leaves to the wound to stop the bleeding and was trying to bandage the opening.

With a weakened voice, Rodriguez was giving Moss directions on how to cut the jamming signal.

“The third knob on the right that looks like the volume on a stereo,” Rodriguez told him. “Turn it three clicks to the right.”

Moss looked panicked and John understoo
d perfectly. Not only was the radio operator gravely wounded, all the instrumentation in this vehicle was in Russian.

“
Is anyone else hit?” John asked, pulling himself in.

“No, o
nly Rodriguez,” Moss told him.

Brandon
looked up and smiled when he saw John and Diane. Then the look faded.

“
Don’t worry, son. Soon as we finish up here we’ll go look for your mom and sister. But right now we’ve got work to do.”

John moved over to the control panel while Diane and Brandon closed the back hatch and kept watch through the porthole.

A series of green indicator lights filled a readout that went from one to ten.

“
There should be some kind of red switch on your right. That controls the level of electromagnetic interference.”

“
Are you crazy?” Moss shouted. “This stuff is all in Russian. I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

“
There’s a dial here with a red lightning bolt on it,” John said, pointing.

A trail of blood ran from Rodrig
uez’s lips. “Yes, turn that counter-clockwise.”

John did and watched the green lights
descend from ten all the way to one.

“
Is that it?” Moss asked.

Rod
riguez nodded.

Pulling out the walkie
-talkie, John depressed the button. “Eagle Eye, this is Mole One, do you copy? Over.”

A few seconds of static went by before John repeated the message. The voice that
replied was deep and familiar.

“
Mole One, this is Eagle Eye. Reading you loud and clear.”

“
I appreciated your help back there,” John said.

“
I had the shot so I took it. Good job finishing him off.”

“Do you have a visual on
Marshall’s forces?”

“Affirmative. Looks like they
’re moving back, although from here I can’t say whether it’s a tactical withdrawal or a retreat.”

The thought of the latter made
everyone in the comm vehicle bristle with fear.

“Thanks for the update,
” John said.

Moss
leaned over by Rodriguez, tending to his wound.

“
Now you gotta show me how to make a call with this thing,” John said.