Last Stand: Patriots (Book 2) (3 page)

John nudged the car across the road and up int
o the forest on the other side after spotting a space between the trees large enough for him to fit. The tricky part was maneuvering the truck around so he could go in rear first. In the event they needed to escape in a hurry, the last thing he wanted to do was lose time trying to back out of the woods.

Camo netting
that he kept in the trunk would offer an additional level of concealment he intended to supplement with leaves and brush. The goal was that only someone staring directly at the truck would be able to see it was there.

Near the top of a small hill was an outcropping of rock w
hich formed a perfect roof from the wind and rain. For security reasons, it made more sense to sleep in the truck, but that wouldn’t make an ideal place to cook and make camp. This was why John had decided to set them up here, at least for now. Slowly, they unpacked the truck and brought some of their items up to the new location. Having learned from his previous oversight, John decided to keep their food and water supply divided into three separate spots. One remained with Betsy. The second was in camp, sheltered from the sun and protected from predators. The third they buried thirty yards away in a shallow hole John dug in the soft earth.

From the outcropping they could survey anyone approaching from below. It also reduced the chan
ces of being snuck up on from behind. An added level of protection came from setting a series of traps designed to alert them should anyone approach from the rear. An Apache foot trap would work nicely. This was made from digging a hole and lacing the edges with sharpened sticks. The blunt end would be sticking out from the walls, the tips pointing toward the middle. The idea was that once a man’s foot broke through, the spears would tear into his flesh as he tried to pull himself free. A second type of trap was a simple hole in the ground covered with a grate and fallen leaves. The drop wasn’t more than a few feet, but the sound of cracking wood and stumbling would alert them to approaching danger.

They were each sitting on a pile of dead leaves they’d collected from the underbrush to use as padding. Both of them were sweating and tired from the effort it had taken to prep the camp.

John filled a plastic cup he normally kept in the truck with water and took a long draft. Among the items salvaged from their property was a Lifesaver water bottle. It was about the same size as a regular water bottle one might bring on a hike, except this one had a built-in filter. Dunk it into a muddy puddle and the water that came out the other end was clean and safe to drink. At least that was what the instructions said. John had never tested it, although given their present circumstances, it wouldn’t be long now before he got his chance.

“We’re gonna get them back,” he told
Brandon after wiping his mouth dry. The conviction in his voice seemed to soothe the boy’s fears for a moment. Apart from his father, Brandon’s mother, sister and even Emma had been taken from him. John needed to remember that Brandon also felt a deep-seated need to protect Emma. The crushing sense of guilt over not having been there to help them was likely also playing havoc with Brandon’s mind as it was with John’s.

“What do you think they wanted?”
he finally asked.

“They didn’t kill them,” John replied. “At least that gives us hope, but quite frankly I can’t say.” That last part was a lie. John could think of plenty of reasons to kidnap people. Unlike his earlier suspicions when the Applebys
had first disappeared from Willow Creek Drive, this time it wasn’t about ransom money.

The United States EMP Commission
had estimated that six months after an attack, the population loss would exceed fifty million. From everything John had seen so far, not least of which were the throngs of dead along the interstate, that estimate was probably far too conservative. The real figure was likely closer to triple that. One consequence was that human beings would become the next major commodity. Forget gold. Slavery was about to rear its ugly head again in the United States and the problem would only get worse if the commission’s final conclusion came true: one year following an EMP, the population would be reduced by up to ninety percent. It was a staggering figure that was hard to fathom. It made John think of the famous quote that was sometimes erroneously attributed to Joseph Stalin:
A single death is a tragedy. A million is a statistic.

For John it spoke of the difficulty in grasping those kinds of numbers when it came to human life. Fill Yankee Stadium to the rafters over six and a half thousand times and you began to grasp the magnitude. It brought John back to something Brandon had been asking him earlier in the day. What would things be like once the lights came back on?

More importantly, what would be left of
America’s sense of morality when all of this was over?

John took a final gulp of water and let the cup fall on his lap. “First thing in the morning we head out to find out who did this.
So why don’t you head down to the truck and get some sleep. You’re gonna need it.”

John kept watch for another hour,
struggling to contain the dread building up within him. By the time he made his way down to the Blazer and settled in the driver’s seat—the chair pushed back and reclined as far as it would go—he could already feel his eyes beginning to close on him. Sleep was a welcome escape from the day’s tumultuous events. At least, it was supposed to be.

It wasn’t
long after dozing off that John dreamt he was in Iraq again. Camp Stryker. Ten miles from the center of Baghdad and headquarters for the 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team.

First
Sergeant Wright entered the operations center. Tall and gangly, he didn’t have the squat, powerful build of a typical First Sergeant, but he commanded the respect of his men and that was all that really mattered.

“LT,
we have a situation.”

John looked up from his morning briefing.
The date was June sixteenth, 2006 and it was already hot enough outside to sap the moisture from your eyeballs in under a minute. Course, it didn’t help that the 48th was stationed inside the infamous Triangle of Death. John had been waist deep in situations since he’d come awake this morning at 0500 hours, listening to the distant sounds of an Iraqi man in a minaret singing Allah’s praises.

“What is it
, 1SG?”

“Insurgents attacked
one of our checkpoints near Yusufiyah this morning.”

“
Any casualties?”

“
Yes, three dead. Two more wounded.”

Nine times out of ten that meant a suicide bomber had driven up and detonated his
payload as he approached the checkpoint. It was an all too common tactic and one the military was quickly trying to adapt to. John suggested as much, but First Sergeant Wright shook his head.

“This wasn’t a
PBIED,” Wright said. “They came in on pickups dressed as Iraq army grunts and opened fire.”

A PBIED was army slang for p
erson borne improvised explosive device.

John’s jaw clenched.
America had the most powerful armed forces in the world. No one could stand toe to toe with them and live to tell the tale. And yet it was also beginning to look as though that was its greatest vulnerability. The enemy refused to engage them head on. The insurgents’ hit-and-run tactics were designed to sow fear and frustration in U.S. forces. Ever since arriving, John had felt plenty of the latter. Two thousand years earlier, the Romans had faced much the same problem while trying to conquer Britain. Celtic armies often waited for the legions to enter a dense forest where they would be forced to march only a few men abreast. That was when they would attack, denying the Romans the ability to use the awesome power of the legion in full formation.

“There’s more,” Wright said.

“Go on.”

“Two of our boys
are missing. PFC Steven Hutchinson, nineteen years old, out of Luzerne, Michigan and PFC Ryan S. Davis, twenty-two, from Knoxville, Tennessee.”

John put his coffee down and felt a
terrible weight immediately settle on the tops of his shoulders. He couldn’t deny the responsibility he felt to make sure all his men made it home safe and sound. It was one thing to be killed in action, but kidnapped, likely tortured and only God knew what else—the thought was difficult to fathom.

“Are either of them married
?” John asked, not entirely sure he wanted to hear the answer.

“Only
Davis,” Wright said somberly. “His wife’s pregnant, expecting any day now. I was in the MWR room when they were talking on Skype and they both seemed real…”

Happy
. That was what Wright was gonna say before he cut himself off.

“Don’t worry
, 1SG,” John said, mustering every ounce of faith he could under the circumstances. “I promise you we’re gonna find those boys and bring them home safe and sound.”

“Roger that, sir.”
Wright straightened up, turned and left.

John opened a line straight away to
his commander in order to push the CCIR (Commander's Critical Information Requirement) up through the chain of command. There was no telling what his men were being subjected to and he knew time was of the essence.

Within an hour, nearly
eight thousand men from dozens of units were out searching. Tips began rolling in. A number of Stryker teams went house to house, knocking in gates with Humvees and searching suspected insurgent safe houses. The truth was the enemy counted a captured US soldier as a prized trophy, one that could be sold by the local insurgent leader to al-Qaeda. The clock was ticking and with every minute that passed, the chances of finding those men alive diminished exponentially.

John came awake clutching the Blazer’s steering wheel. Beside him,
Brandon was staring at him, worried. It took a minute and a handful of deep breaths for John to catch his bearings.

“You all right
?” the boy asked.

B
eads of sweat rolled down John’s face. “I’m fine.”

“You were talking.”

“Was I?” The camo netting was still draped over the front and sides of the truck, although the doors could be opened if done carefully.

“Who’s
Davis?”

“
Davis?”

“Yeah, you kept saying the name.”

John didn’t want to talk about it. “We should get going.”

“You said he was missing.”

“Did I?” A pause, then: “He was someone I knew from the war.”

“
Vietnam?”

John smiled. “
You watched too many movies. I knew him from Iraq. He and another soldier went missing and I promised I’d find them.”

“Oh.”
Brandon seemed to be contemplating this. “And did you?”

“I did. Listen, we should probably eat something before we head out.” In the back of the truck
, the goose sat in his cage, not making a sound. John threw a thumb over his shoulder. “You know, I forgot he was here.”

The boy laughed. “
Who, George? Me too.”

John frowned.
“I’m not sure naming him is such a great idea. Might not be long before George ends up on a spit over a fire, and it’s so much harder to eat something you’ve named, don’t you think? That was one of the reasons we got rid of the rabbits. Had a pen in the backyard and Emma named each and every one of those little buggers. Whenever we tried to grab the fattest one for dinner she’d raise a real ruckus. You’d think we were trying to cook her best friend.”

The smile on
Brandon’s face betrayed a hint of pain at the mention of Emma’s name. John decided to change the subject.

After losing both cabins and just about all his preps, they’d been reduced to eating from the few cans they had left. There was plenty of game in these woods and Brandon’s aim was good enough to keep them freshly supplied with squirrels, but at the moment there really wasn’t time for all that.

The funny look on
Brandon’s face made John ask what was wrong.

“I’ve gotta go to the bathroom,” the boy said.

John studied him from the corner of his eye. “You don’t need my permission, son. Go on and I’ll have the food heated up by the time you return.”

“The thing is, I don’t need to pee.”

One of John’s eyebrows rose. “I see.” Who would have thought that toilet paper would become such a prized commodity after a societal collapse? The average Joe might have told you gold or silver, maybe even batteries, but surely not toilet paper.

“All right,” John said, nudging the car door open.
“Wait here with George. I’ll be right back.”

The search in the woods took him a little longer than expected, but John returned to the truck
when he found what he was looking for. He handed a number of furry-looking leaves to Brandon who stared on with bewilderment.

“You want me to wipe with leaves?”

John shook his head. “These aren’t regular leaves. They’re mullein. One of the best toilet-paper substitutes you’ll find in the woods. You can thank me later.” John held up another plant that had a series of small white flowers. “I also grabbed some yarrow since I was out there.”

“What’s that do?”

“You apply it to bleeding cuts to promote clotting.”

Talk of bleeding created a
noticeable change in Brandon’s face. “I hope we don’t need it.”

“Me too,” John said. “
Go take care of your business so we can get a move on.”

Brandon
took the leaves and waved them in the air. “This better not be poison ivy or something.”

John wasn’t much of a practical joker,
although he had served with men who would relish any opportunity to pull a prank like that on a fellow soldier. He held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor. Now go.”

After a quick breakfast, John rolled the camo net back up and put it in the trunk. George looked up at him. He didn’t nearly have the fight from when they first met. John reached into his pocket and pushed some soft grasses he’d collected in a nearby field through the spaces in the cage. He knew geese preferred corn and grains, but for now this would have to do. George looked at the offering briefly before starting to eat.

John
reached into his pocket to get some more and came out with Diane’s silver necklace with the sapphire heart.

“Whatchu looking at?”
Brandon asked, returning from the woods.

John shoved it deep into his pocket. “Nothing.”

“You were right,” Brandon said, poking his head in to check on George. “It’s even better than the double-ply stuff from the grocery store.”

Back in the driver’s seat, John started the truck and put it into gear.

“What’s our plan?”
Brandon asked. The crack in his voice made John wonder if he was still thinking about the blood clot remark.

“Plan’s simple,” John said. “First we find
the ones who killed your dad, kidnapped our loved ones and burned down our cabins. Then we make them pay for what they’ve done.”