Last Stand: Patriots (Book 2) (9 page)

Back in the Patriot camp, a team of thirty was being assembled for the ambush on the approaching supply trucks. Very few of the fighters had actual military combat experience, so
Marshall had asked John if he would consider joining them. He agreed on the condition they were going to avoid any unnecessary killing. While John felt zero compunction disobeying laws instituted by a bunch of corrupt bureaucrats, he also worried about the countless innocent souls caught up in the gears of the terrible machine they had set in motion.

The plan,
Marshall assured him, was to force the trucks to stop, remove the drivers and take them back to camp as prisoners along with whatever supplies they were transporting.

They would be leaving soon and John wanted to make sure he took care of something before they left.

He arrived at the command tent to find Rodriguez sitting before the radio.

“Listen, I need you to do something for me,” John
said.

Rodriguez swiveled around in his chair, looking decidedly uncertain. “Conversations that start off that way
usually spell one thing: trouble.”

“That contact you have inside
Oneida. I need you to send him a message.”

“No can do
, John, and it’s not because you’re new around here. You know we’re only allowed a limited number of transmissions each day. We start breaking that rule and—”

“I know, they’ll figure out where we are. I’m not asking to send
something every day. I just need one message.”

Rodriguez
didn’t look like he was going to budge.

“I know food’s
been hard to come by lately,” John said, rubbing his hands together. “What would you say if I gave you a mouth-watering goose?”

“A what?”
Rodriguez sat bolt upright.

“Caught him down by
Stanley Lake yesterday. Been feeding him wild grasses. He’s in the back of my truck. You do this for me and I’ll let you have him.”

The radio operator’s gaze drifted over John’s shoulder for a moment. He seemed to
be considering the offer, maybe even imagining how the bird would taste.

“Looks like you got yourself a deal. So tell me, what
do you wanna send?”

John leaned in. “I need your man on the inside to find my wife and kids, make sure they’re all right. Tell them to stay strong, that I’m coming for them.”

“That’s very touching.”

“There’s nothing worse than losing the ones you love. I hope you never know the feeling.”

Rodriguez’s eyes fell.

John laid down a paper on the desk with the radio. It contained the names of his wife and kids, along with those of the Applebys.

“You’ve got a big family, John.”

John grinned. “I’m a lucky
guy. Just make sure your man looks for them and gives them the message.”

•••

“What do you mean you gave George away?” Brandon was following John toward the back of the Blazer.

“What’s more important,
Brandon, a dumb bird or making sure our families are okay?”

Brandon
became quiet for a second. But it wasn’t that he was weighing the question. John could tell like most teenagers his age, he wanted two contradictory things at the same time. Life was about making choices, often difficult ones that tended to leave long jagged scars. The deepest marks were the toughest to forget. Turning away those poor people at the barricade on Willow Creek Drive, that was a scar still fresh in John’s mind.

But sacrificing George for the greater good hardly qualified.
Sooner or later he was going to end up on someone’s plate. This was the reason John had been so against naming him in the first place. That was also the reason he’d initiated the chat with Brandon. In some ways the kid had proven himself a man, particularly in prepping the cabins, during Cain’s assault and in coming to John’s aid near Oneida. When push came to shove, the kid was there, but it was times like these that John saw the boy in him coming through loud and clear.

John opened the hatch and pulled out his tactical vest.
With the cabins and all of his preps and ammo gone, he only had what he’d brought with him to the lake. He hoped the ambush would help replenish his dwindling supply. For now, he still had four polymer magazines with thirty rounds of green-tipped 5.56 ammo stuffed in the front mag pouches. The ammo box itself was down to two hundred rounds.

On his left hip was the BK9 and
on his right the S&W M&P .40 Pro. As always, he kept his AR-15 with Trijicon ACOG Scope on a two-point sling.

Sure
, there were probably rifles out there as good or better. At the end of the day, John’s choice had more to do with familiarity. Better to have a weapon system you knew like the back of your hand. Especially since clearing a jam on a rifle in the heat of battle could be a life-or-death situation.

Stuffed into
one of his back pouches, John had yarrow for blood clotting as well as a small survival kit that contained wire, his flint and striker as well as some water purification tablets. He would also take his Lifesaver water bottle to provide an easy way to scoop up possibly unsafe water and filter it in seconds.

An eager
-looking Rodriguez appeared just then. “I sent your message,” he told John.

John tightened the straps of his tactical vest, his gaze dropping to the sadness on
Brandon’s face. Reaching into the back of the truck, John pulled the crate with George out onto the tailgate. Rodriguez went to grab the crate and that was when George sprang to life, squawking and snapping at his fingers.

Rodriguez recoiled. “
Your bird’s crazy, John.”

“He also doesn’t taste very good,”
Brandon added.

John snickered while George continued making a racket.

“How would you know how he tastes?”

“The kid thinks the bird’s his pet,” John explained. “But I gave you my word
, so go ahead.”

“That’s right,” Rodriguez said. “You did
give me your word.” He reached for the cage again when John stopped him.

“I didn’t say you could have the cage. I only said you could have the bird.”

Rodriguez froze for a moment.

John opened the
lid and the radio operator barely got within a foot of the cage before George seized one of his fingers with his powerful beak. Rodriguez swore and tore his hand away. “What the hell, John? This is thing is possessed.”

John couldn’t help but laugh. “Believe m
e, I know. How about we do this? We’re gonna need to eat this thing sooner or later. I don’t mind doing all the nasty work, plucking his feathers, gutting him, and giving you half of what I cook.”

That offer seemed so much better to Rodriguez than getting his face pecked off. “Okay, deal. Just shut that thing up before I go deaf.”

John closed the cage and slid George back into the truck. He then reached into his pocket and gave George some more wild grass to eat.

After c
losing the hatch, he caught the smile plastered on Brandon’s face.

That was when it struck John that George was likely
Brandon’s only friend, especially since no one in the Patriots was close to his age.

A
call came just then for everyone to meet at the assembly area. As John got ready to leave, Brandon took him by the arm. “I wanna go with you,” Brandon said. “I’m a good shot with a rifle, you’ve seen me.”

“You are
, Brandon. And we’ll need you when we head into Oneida, but I need you to sit this one out. Besides, who’s gonna feed George while I’m gone? Keep him nice and plump.” John reached into his pocket and handed Brandon what was left of the wild grass. “You know how to find more, right?”

The boy nodded.

“If you need anything, Gary’s there to help.” He paused and laid a hand on Brandon’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, son. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Navigating the eight cars and trucks along with the thirty men
who would participate in the ambush was nerve-racking. As John had recently discovered, the Chairman had checkpoints covering each major road into Oneida. Moreover, after John’s attempt to enter the town and the daring rescue mission which had saved him, the local militia was probably on high alert.

Keeping a safe distance meant
they had to cut a wide circle to the east of the city. Before long, they found Route 27 north and headed into Daniel Boone National Forest. As they crossed the border into Kentucky, mobile homes along the road displayed torn and weathered signs promising state line discounts. The doors on many of them hung ajar, one blown completely off its hinges, likely from looters.

Not far ahead, a
curve in the road offered the ideal place for an ambush. It was important the approaching trucks not see what was waiting for them. Equally important was the need to make sure the heavy vehicles would be able to stop before colliding with the trucks blocking the road. For that reason, two pickups were maneuvered to block the road fifty yards past the curve. A heavy spike strip was also laid across the asphalt in case the lead truck tried to break through.

Marshall
seemed confident that at the slightest show of force, the truckers would stop their rigs and come out with their hands held high.

The remain
ing Patriot vehicles were stashed along the edge of the forest, out of sight.

John had opted to leave his Blazer back at camp. This way, if the operation lasted into the night,
Brandon would have somewhere to sleep. The thought of making a more permanent dwelling in camp had occurred to him and on more than one occasion he had started gathering the material, although the truth of the matter was, he had no intention of staying very long. As soon as Diane and the others were home safe and sound, they would begin the long and arduous task of rebuilding their former bug-out location. And this time they would do everything they could to strengthen it from a similar attack.

With the vehicles in position,
Marshall sent a group of ten men to wait a few hundred yards up the highway. Hunkered down and spread out across both sides of the road, they would help close the trap once the vehicles entered the ambush.

Ten more including Moss,
Marshall and John would remain near the point of contact. The final ten were then divided into two groups and placed fifty yards south of the ambush site. Their job was to act as a stopping force for any rig that tried to burst through the blockade. In addition, this last group would monitor and engage any threats approaching from the rear.

Now came the waiting
game as the men settled down and watched for the convoy. All they could do was hope that the intelligence Rodriguez had gathered was accurate.

Above them, t
he noonday sun looked on from a cloudless sky. Being in the shade helped somewhat, although strapped into full tactical gear with an AR at hand, John could feel his clothes becoming soaked with perspiration. It was important to stay hydrated at times like these and he fetched the canteen off his belt and took a long drink of warm, funny-tasting water.

The water had come from the camp’s filtration system
, a tarp designed to funnel rainwater into a series of fifty-gallon drums. A stream nearby provided the rest. None of it was treated, which meant individuals scooped up what they needed and either boiled it or popped in some bleach or purification tablets. John wasn’t sure if the problem was laziness or lack of time. In large quantities, the iodine in the tablets wasn’t good for you, since they were only intended for emergencies. The same went for the bleach treatment.

It was a health risk for everyone and
an issue John would address with Marshall when they returned. But right now, John had other things on his mind.

Beside him,
Marshall scanned the baking length of asphalt through a set of binoculars. One man had positioned himself far ahead of the curve and was sending hand signals letting them know there was no sign of them yet.

Marshall
sighed. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead and into his right eye. He didn’t seem to notice. His beard looked dirty and matted with leaves and small twigs.

“Waiting around for something to happen,”
Marshall said. “Just like the leadup to Desert Storm.” He turned to John. “You remember that?”

“Wasn’t there,” John answered, offering him some water.

Marshall declined. “Yeah, that’s right, Iraqi Freedom. Did you know we lost less than three hundred men in that entire war and only half of those were in combat?”

“I’d heard something about that.”

“Yessir, my CO was one of them. Part of the second group, that is. He was a fifty-four-year-old lieutenant colonel in the air cav. AH-1F Cobras. Anyway, so early dawn before the air campaign finally got underway, the colonel doesn’t show up for his briefing. They send an airman out to see what the holdup is. You know what he finds?”

John wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Was he dead?”

“Dead as a doornail. Poor guy had a heart attack in his sleep. Fifty-four years old. Heck, that’s my age.”

“Died in his sleep,” John said thoughtfully. “
Not a bad way to go.”

Marshall
fixed John with a cold eye. “I thought the man got cheated, if I’m gonna be frank. Made it all the way out there, fixing for a fight, and bit the big one before he could get a shot off. That’s not how I wanna go out, no, sir. For me it’s guns blazing or nothing.”

Be careful wh
at you wish for,
John thought. In his mind, blazing guns were about defending what was sacred and precious. It was starting to sound as though the leader of this group saw himself as some kind of Viking. A tough warrior, no doubt, but was he also a reckless one? Special Forces and most regular soldiers he’d met prided themselves on completing a mission and then returning home safely to their families. There wasn’t a lot of glitz and glamor and it didn’t always make for exciting movies, but that was part of being a professional.

A hand signal from up ahead told them a group of trucks were approaching from the north.

“Here we go,” John said before making a final check of his weapons.