Push Back: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (The Disruption Series Book 2) (49 page)

“YOU ain’t got shit, Atwood,” said one of the men from the tollbooth. “You know the deal. Whichever watch takes spoils gets first dibs. And that ain’t you.”

“Don’t be an asshole, Hollingsworth. You guys all have the watch until midnight. We’ll just warm these ladies up for you. How about that?”

“How about you go catch your own pussy,” Hollingsworth said. “’Cause these bitches are stayin’ tied up in one of the cars until we get off watch. You guys can have sloppy seconds tomorrow afternoon.”

“All right, if you’re going to be like that about it. They have any other good stuff?”

“We ain’t exactly had time to look, now have we?” Hollingsworth said. “They got a couple of pistols for sure. We’ll sort through the packs together at change of watch, just like always.”

Wiggins saw Atwood nod, and as the excitement of the encounter faded, so did the volume of the conversation. He heard no more. He touched Tex’s arm, and they lowered their heads slowly to avoid attracting attention, cautious despite the distance and their cover. When they were fully concealed behind the fence, Tex spoke first.

“We won’t be negotiating with these assholes,” she said.

Wiggins nodded. “We have to take them out. One good thing is at least we know how many of them there are. I’m thinking they must be holed up in that stone building over there, and that they all turned out at the sound of gunfire. Four guys came from the building, so I figure two watches of four guys each. The fourth guy on each watch is probably—”

“Hiding in a car on the bridge,” Tex finished his sentence, “so he can cut off the escape of anyone coming across the bridge who has second thoughts when they suspect an ambush at the tollbooths. Just like the guy that sneaked up behind the two women on this side.”

Wiggins smiled briefly. “Great minds.”

Same Day, 11:55 p.m.

Wiggins knelt behind a rock in the dark, trying to ignore his stiff muscles. He’d moved into position hours before, and kneeling motionless was taking its toll. The fence had covered his move away from the tollbooth to the west end of the bridge approach, but then things got dicey. Without the fence for cover, he’d waited for the partial darkness of dusk to work his way back through the scattered foliage into a position behind where the backup man hid in the strip of wooded verge bordering the highway. He’d moved cautiously, torn between rushing to take advantage of the fading light, yet terrified a snapped twig or stumble might betray him.

An unnecessary worry, as it turned out. He’d heard the faint sounds of a heavy rock beat as he got close to his target’s position and realized the man was listening to music turned up loud enough to leak around his headphones. Wiggins had breathed a relieved sigh and settled in to wait.

They’d decided to strike after the midnight shift change, on the theory they were all at an equal disadvantage in the dark, and if they were able to get past the toll booth, the man on the bridge would be unsure what was happening until they roared past him. That was the theory, anyhow.

Wiggins tensed as he heard someone approaching from the road, then ducked further behind his rock as he saw a flashlight bobbing closer.

“Who’s there?” asked a voice.

“It’s Baker, numb nut. Were you expecting the friggin’ Easter Bunny? Besides, don’t tell me you broke the night-vision glasses.”

“I didn’t break ’em. The battery is low, that’s all.”

“Didn’t you bring a spare?” Baker asked.

“I forgot it. Don’t you have one?”

“Yeah, I got one,” Baker said. “Just like YOU’RE supposed to—”

“Give it a rest, Baker. Squattin’ out here in the bushes sucks, and I’m not in the mood to take any crap. Just once I’d like to get the bridge side and sit in a nice soft car seat. Who’s got the bridge end for your shift, as if I didn’t know.”

Baker snorted. “Atwood, who else? Rank has its privileges.”

“Yeah, well, I’m getting a little sick of that too. But whatever, I’m hauling ass. I don’t want the party to start without me. You have a great night.”

“Yeah, screw you too, Hardy,” Baker said.

Hardy laughed, and Wiggins heard him moving back toward the road. He flinched, startled, as Baker turned on the red night light of a headlamp and sat on a nearby rock. The man sat facing away from Wiggins with his head bent, apparently changing the battery in the night-vision goggles.

Wiggins fingered the thick, two-foot section of rebar he’d found on the roadside and hesitated only a split second before rising and closing the gap separating him from Baker. He raised the club as he came, and it struck the man’s skull with a crunch of sickening finality. Baker toppled over soundlessly, and Wiggins stood staring down, his heart pounding.

Slowly his heart rate dropped, and Wiggins glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. It was just after midnight, and Tex was due in less than thirty minutes, but their opponents’ night-vision capability changed everything. They’d assumed the sentry on the bridge was out of the equation until they’d taken out the men on the toll booth and started across the bridge. However, if the bridge sentry clearly saw what was happening at the toll booth and engaged too soon, not only could he pin them down, the firing would alert the others off watch. Game over.

Wiggins looked down at the dead man and cursed. He’d seen the opportunity and reacted without thinking it through, but he should have waited. Maybe he could have faded back and cut through the woods to intercept Tex on the road, and they could make a new plan that accounted for their enemy’s NV capabilities. But what if he missed her? She’d be heading into a trap without a clue things weren’t going according to plan.

He muttered another curse. It was too late for second-guessing anyway. If they pulled back now, the dead man would put the marauders on high alert, and he and Tex would have zero chance of surprising them. No, he had to make it work. He’d just have to take out the bridge sentry first, quickly and quietly, then run back to support Tex.

Wiggins stooped and pulled the still-glowing headlamp from Baker’s head and put it on, ignoring the wet stickiness, then scooped up the fallen NV goggles and examined them in the red glow of the headlamp, relieved to find the battery compartment closed. The man had made the battery swap, so Wiggins didn’t have to hunt through the weeds for an errant battery. He doused the headlight and powered up the night-vision goggles. The night became like an eerie green day, almost like an old video game.

He stuck the rebar in his belt and turned to go, then stopped. The dead man was about his size. Wiggins swallowed his distaste and wrestled the camo shirt off the corpse and pulled it on over his own. After a stop at his hiding place to scoop up one of the M4s they’d taken from the FEMA SUV, Wiggins trotted back the way he’d come; he didn’t have time to waste.

The privacy fence shielded him until just past the tollbooths. From the end of the fence, it was a dash across a half-empty parking lot to the pedestrian walkway along the side of the bridge, separated from the roadway by a waist-high concrete wall. If he could make it to the wall without being spotted, he could stay below it and crawl onto the bridge without being spotted.

He peeked around the fence toward the tollbooth and said a silent prayer of thanks for the NV gear. Unlike the daytime operation, the night guards seemed unconcerned about being seen at a distance and leaned side by side against the stone wall of the tollbooth, chatting and smoking. He nodded to himself and planned his route to the shelter of the pedestrian walkway.

He took a zigzag course, from car to scattered car, and five minutes later huddled against the low wall of the walkway, the guards less than thirty feet away on the opposite side. He could hear them plainly and was terrified they might hear his labored breathing.

He checked his watch: fifteen minutes until Tex arrived, and the long crawl coupled with the need to do it silently was going to take time. He set out, the rough antislip coating of the walkway biting into his hands and knees. As he passed the stone building, he heard muffled music through the thick walls, punctuated by what sounded like a scream. He ignored it and crawled. Terrible things were happening in the world, and he couldn’t fix them all.

The next challenge was location; Wiggins had no idea how far out the bridge sentry was or whether he was facing back over the bridge or toward the tollbooth. In the end, Wiggins decided the man wouldn’t be too far out, so he’d crawl until he was sure he was past, then count on Tex’s approach to draw the man’s attention toward the tollbooth.

The plan was for Tex to come in slowly with only her parking lights on, as if she were using the minimal lights necessary to see. She’d quickly kill the lights when she saw the situation at the tollbooth, then stop like she was surprised and evaluating the situation. At that point, she was to play it by ear, doing whatever was necessary to hold the tollbooth guards’ attention while Wiggins took them from the rear. They figured the bridge sentry would know something was going on, but counted on him not being able to see enough to matter until it was too late. They’d been wrong there, but Wiggins now planned to use Tex’s arrival as a distraction.

He crawled cautiously, gauging progress by the vertical stanchions of the handrail to his right. He’d just passed a hundred and fifty feet when he caught a whiff of cigarette smoke from over the low wall. Thank God for bad habits.

He moved another thirty feet to make sure he was past the sentry, then risked a peek over the wall, moving very slowly to keep from attracting attention. He saw the glowing end of a cigarette in the drivers’ side window of an SUV forty feet back toward the tollbooth. He could see the tollbooth guards clearly as well, and a chill shot through him as he realized if either of them took a few steps to the side and looked in his direction, they now had an angle to see him clearly as well. He slowly sank back behind the wall and hoped Tex arrived before one of the guards decided to stretch his legs.

The clock now slowed to a crawl, and Wiggins hugged the low wall and sweated until he saw the dim parking lights of the Honda turn into the entrance ramp. Across the wall and back toward the roadblock, he heard the squeak of an opening car door and pulled himself up cautiously to peep over the wall.

The bridge sentry was standing behind the open door of a late model SUV, watching the toll booth. Wiggins crawled over the waist-high wall silently and moved forward, pulling the rebar from his belt as he approached. He’d closed half the distance when he kicked a pebble. It skittered along the roadway as the bridge sentry turned.

Wiggins dropped the rebar down beside his leg and sped up. He needed to disorient the man before he yelled or got a shot off.

“Atwood! It’s me, Baker,” Wiggins said as the man completed his turn, facing Wiggins ten feet away, looking insect-like in the green glow of Wiggins’ NV goggles. Wiggins knew his NV gear made him look the same to the man and hoped Baker’s voice wasn’t distinctive.

“Baker! What the hell? What are you doing out here? You’re supposed to …”

Atwood connected the dots far too quickly and reached for his sidearm when Wiggins was still five feet away. Wiggins leaped the last few feet, bringing the rebar up as he charged, driving the end into Atwood’s throat with all his weight behind it. The rough rod tore through the carotid artery and punched out the back of the man’s neck. Atwood’s cry died on his lips, and blood sprayed on Wiggins’ stolen camo shirt. The man clutched the open car door and sank to the pavement.

Wiggins disarmed him and threw his pistol over the side of the bridge, then dragged the still-gasping man well away from the vehicle. He looked back toward the tollbooth. Tex had stopped as agreed with her lights off, but the two guards had moved only a short distance toward her and stood staring at the Honda.

He looked back down. Atwood wasn’t dead, but he soon would be and was no longer a threat. Wiggins started for the tollbooth, then thought better of it and came back to collect the rebar. He grasped the end firmly and put a foot on Atwood’s chest, trying to ignore the pitiful sounds as he reclaimed his most effective silent weapon.

Bear Mountain Bridge

Toll Booth

“What do you make of that?” Stanfield asked.

“I think Baker’s screwing off,” Hargraves replied. “He should have that shotgun stuck in the driver’s face by now. I bet the son of a bitch is sacked out again.”

“What should we do?”

“How the hell should I know what we should—”

He was interrupted by the sound of an opening car door as the driver exited the vehicle, followed by a seductive feminine voice.

“Evening, boys. I just want to cross without any trouble. I’m sure I can make it worth your while.”

“You alone?” Stanfield yelled.

“Yep. Just a poor girl trying to get home the best way she can.”

“Step away from the car with your hands in the air, then turn in a full circle, real slow,” Stanfield said.

The men watched as the woman complied.

“She’s a looker, even in these NV glasses. I like the little ones. What do you think, Stanfield?” Hargraves asked quietly.

“I think she seems willing, and we can have a nice little party through the night takin’ turns in one of the cars. Atwood won’t care if we let him go first. We won’t even have to tie her up until she figures out we’re not gonna let her leave.”

“What if it’s a trap or something?”

Stanfield snorted. “Look at her. She’s maybe five feet tall and weighs a hundred and nothing. She’s got no visible weapons, and we won’t let her go back to the car to get any. I say we put her in one of those cars and have ourselves a party. I’m going to go search her. You stay back and keep your eyes open and cover me. Then you keep an eye on the girl and I’ll holler at that dumb ass Baker to get his butt out here and help me make sure there aren’t any unpleasant surprises in the car.”

“Roger that,” Hargrave said, and Stanfield started toward the woman, pistol in hand.

***

Wiggins’ heart pounded as he crouched behind the tollbooth pillar and watched the scene unfold. He’d heard Tex’s shouted inducement and watched as the two men discussed it, too low for him to hear what they were saying. They were only partially turned away from him, and he didn’t think he could close on them before one of them saw him.