Feral Nation - Defiance (Feral Nation Series Book 8) Page 10

  “Hold your fire!” Greg yelled out. “No more shooting unless one of them sticks a head up, because you’re just wasting ammo.”

  “I think we got most of them, other than a couple from the first bunch that got on board the trawler,” Bart said. “But I saw another one go in the water from the second boat, and he could have climbed on board too, from the other side.”

  “So, we have the problem you were worried about, don’t we?” Greg asked. “We know there’s at least two, maybe three, desperate and well-armed individuals aboard our boat, with all the protection of the steel bulwarks and bulkheads. Clearing it is going to be interesting.”

  “I don’t see how we can, at least not until Keith comes back. The only way we have to get any closer is in the John boat or by swimming. I don’t like our odds with either option, especially not in the daytime. We may be in for a bit of a standoff.”

  “This is a job for Eric, to be honest, but there’s no telling when he’ll be back.”

  “Nope, and now we’re stuck. We can’t even leave the cover of these trees to try and round up their boats,” Bart said, as he looked at the two Makos floating towards the other side of the lake, near the cut. “I don’t think either one of them is damaged, and that’s good, because we can probably use them later, if they don’t drift out into the river before we can get to them.” He was just about to tell Greg that he would try and make his way around through the woods to the other side of the lake to try and snag them when suddenly, they heard the grinding of a big starter motor, and the Miss Anita’s diesel engine slowly coughed to life. The cartel men had figured out they couldn’t escape from the trawler without getting shot, yet they were safe on board as long as they stayed out of sight. So now they had decided to make their escape with the Miss Anita!

  “I’ll be damned!” Bart shouted. “If we let them get those anchors up, we won’t be able to stop them from just motoring right out of here!”

  Ten

  KEITH COULD SEE BY the volume of smoke that darkened the sky over St. Martinville that Willis hadn’t exaggerated the number of house fires he’d reported. Keith figured it was more than half a dozen at this point, and he had no idea what they were heading into. He would have gone even if he had to go alone, but Ronnie had insisted on driving and Joe and Willis were in the seat behind him, all of them carrying their favorite rifles. Their presence wasn’t as confidence-inspiring as having Eric, Bart and Greg along for backup, but if these parish citizens wanted to do their part to help their neighbors, Keith wasn’t going to say no. And while taking them along could in some way compromise his mission, he decided the trade-off verses going alone was worth it. Besides, they had all volunteered for the militia training he proposed anyway; it just so happened that lesson number one had turned out to be the real thing.

  At Keith’s direction, Ronnie approached the town via a side road that led through an old warehouse area, south of what had once been the central business district before everything there, including the sheriff’s office, had been boarded up and abandoned. Keith could tell the smoke was coming from a residential area to the north, and he knew all too well from recent experience that approaching it directly could mean running into an ambush. He directed Ronnie to an abandoned alley between two metal lumberyard buildings, and there they parked the truck to continue on foot.

  “Nobody does any shooting unless we get ambushed, or I give the order, is that clear?” Keith reminded them, as they all checked their weapons upon leaving the vehicle. “We’re here to find out what’s going on and to get people to safety if there are any survivors.”

  Keith knew there were very few people remaining in St. Martinville; far fewer than the number of rural parish residents who’d chosen to stay. Most had left not long after the hurricane took out the power and they realized that due to the violence everywhere, it wasn’t going to be restored anytime soon. Living in any town or city in such conditions was untenable for most, and security had been a constant problem ever since the sheriff and so many of the deputies had been murdered. Those residents that remained this long were stubborn and self-sufficient, and many of them had already had to use their firearms to deal with looters and fight off attempted home invasions. The threat they were facing now was out of their league though, and Keith had made the rounds to warn them of it after Eric returned with his bad news. The smoke that filled the air indicated to Keith that some of those who’d doubted him had learned they were wrong today. He knew he was probably too late to help them, but he had to go and find out, and whatever he learned there would be useful intel to share with Eric when he returned.

  Keith led his small team from block-to-block, keeping to the alleys behind buildings and cutting through parking lots and lawns until they were two blocks away from the first burning house. He’d been listening for gunfire and other sounds of conflict since they’d left the truck, but the only sound to indicate anyone was still in the small town at all was the loud revving of a car or truck somewhere in the direction of the smoke.

  “I’m going to slip ahead and have a look,” Keith whispered. “Wait right here and cover me while I see if that next street is clear.”

  Leaving his companions to wait in a narrow side yard between two closely spaced houses that were clearly abandoned, Keith crept to the front corner of the house on his left where he could study the scene across the street from concealment. Three houses on the adjacent block were in flames, all of them so far gone that there was no saving them at this point even if the fire department was still functioning. The sight sickened him as flashbacks of the burnt ashes of his own home he’d built with Lynn momentarily resurfaced. Keith knew for sure one of those three dwellings was still occupied, or had been, a little over a week ago when he’d last been through here. But though the burning houses were the first thing that drew his attention, his focus was now on something else he found far more interesting. A light gray Ford F250 was slowly approaching the intersection three blocks to the west, and Keith could see that there was a man armed with a rifle standing in the bed, leaning forward over the rear of the cab as he looked up and down the street. Putting his scope on the two other men in the front seat, Keith saw that like the one in the back, they were wearing tactical gear, including load-bearing vests that appeared to be rifle plate carriers. Keith knew at first glance that these men were with the mercenaries responsible for what happened here and were surely associated with the six they’d killed in the house ambush the other day.

  He watched to see if the truck was going to turn left and come in his direction or go the other way, but the driver did neither, and instead just sat there at the stop sign with the engine running at idle. It was obvious that the three men were waiting on something, and as he watched them through the scope, Keith saw the one on the passenger side speak into a wired radio mic, and then he noticed the two-way radio antenna mounted on the top of the cab. These men were in contact with someone in their organization and were probably awaiting instructions regarding their next move. From where he was watching, Keith knew he could easily take out any one of the three he selected with the first shot from his rifle. If he picked the driver, it would slow their escape due to the passenger having to move the body out of the way to get behind the wheel. He could target the passenger first and then shoot the driver, but either way it would be difficult to nail all three of them fast enough with the other guy back there where he could quickly bail out of the back. While he knew he might lose the opportunity to take them out if he waited, Keith didn’t want to risk having even one of them get away. Seeing them alone there in that truck had given him an idea, but for it to work, he needed all of them dead at once, and there was a better way to make that happen. He turned and looked back at his three companions, using hand signals to motion for Joe and Ronnie to join him, but for Willie to wait where he was and watch their six.

  Joe had brought along the suppressed .300 Blackout AR that was his current favorite truck gun, and Keith was sure it would do the job
even though noise wouldn’t matter since all three of them would be firing simultaneously. Ronnie was armed with a budget AR-15 in 5.56 and the red dot optic he’d mounted to the rail was a far cry from professional-level equipment, but he had assured Keith that he could get consistent groups with it out to 300 yards. When the two men reached his side at the corner of the house, Keith pointed out the three tangos, still sitting there in the truck, probably thinking they had nothing to fear in the devastated town.

  “Those three are some of the contractors from Texas I told you about. If we work together, we can take all of them out at once, before they ever know what hit them.”

  “Are you sure those are the right guys? They look a lot like soldiers to me,” Ronnie said.

  “They’re soldiers all right, but soldiers for hire that are in the employ of C.R.I. And yeah, they’re probably former U.S. military too, but that doesn’t mean they’re the good guys. You can see what they’ve done here. Do you have a problem taking the shot? If you do, just say so.”

  “No, I just want to be sure. I’ve never shot a dude in cold blood before.”

  “What he means is that he’s never shot a man at all before,” Joe said. “I haven’t either, but there’s been a couple of times I’ve come close since all this crap started.”

  “Well, you can be sure that any one of those three in that truck would do you the same favor if they had the chance instead, if that makes you feel any better.”

  “I don’t have a problem with it,” Joe said, staring at the burning houses across the street. “And after what their buddies did to my wife, and what else they would have done if not for you guys killing them, I say hell yeah, I’m ready to take those assholes out! Those three and every other son of a bitch associated with them!”

  “Good! Then let’s do it before they leave,” Keith said. “Joe, if you can take the radio guy on the passenger side, I’ll take the driver. That leaves the one in the back for you, Ronnie. It’s a wide-open shot. But here’s the thing; they’re probably wearing Level III or better rifle plates in those vests, so we need to do this with head shots to be sure of a quick kill. Do you guys think you can do that?”

  “No question,” Joe said. “That’s easy at this range as long as they’re just sitting still like that.”

  “Yeah, it should be simple enough,” Ronnie agreed.

  “We’ll do it on the count of three then, if both of you are ready,” Keith whispered, after scanning the street again in both directions to make sure no other C.R.I. operatives or witnesses were around. If they could pull this off cleanly, no one would know who killed the three men in the truck, and that was the way Keith wanted it.

  When Keith finished the whispered countdown, he and Joe and Ronnie fired exactly as they were supposed to. Keith knew his own bullet did its job when it struck the driver just in front of the left ear. In the wide field of view of his scope, he also saw the head of Joe’s man erupt in a spray of red mist, confirming he’d also made a good shot. But Ronnie’s was a complete miss. Instead of dropping dead into the back of the truck as he should have, Keith saw Ronnie’s target leap over the side rail with his weapon in hand, evading Ronnie’s wild follow-up shots as cleanly as the first one. Keith knew Ronnie botched the shot because he was nervous, and it was understandable, like a hunter with a case of buck fever missing his first deer. But unlike a deer, this quarry was a dangerous adversary that could and would shoot back if given a chance. He was out of sight for a moment, probably trying to figure out where the unexpected rounds were coming from, but Keith had no intention of giving him time to assess. He poured on the rapid fire, as his two companions did the same, shooting through the sheet metal body and under the chassis until Keith saw the man fall to the ground behind the vehicle. For a split second, before he could roll or crawl away, the unprotected side of his torso was exposed to Keith’s reticle beneath the raised suspension of the Ford, and he sent two 5.56 rounds into the gap between his front and rear plates, finishing what Ronnie had failed to accomplish.

  “Hold your fire!” He ordered, as he did the same while scanning the immediate area for more potential targets. Both men did, and then Ronnie began apologizing for his screw up.

  “There was no excuse for missing such an easy shot. I was a little shaky for some reason. It won’t happen again.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We got all three of them, and that’s what matters.”

  “What now though?” Joe asked. “If any of their buddies heard the shooting, they’re going to come looking, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe, but they won’t know who shot them or from where as long as we don’t hang around. As much as I’d like the opportunity to take out some more of them, I don’t want to get pinned down if they show up with more than we can handle. There are better places to lay an ambush than here, and I’ve already got an idea. Besides, I think this was a quick raid like the one the other day, and that most of them are already gone. The three we shot were probably told to hang back just in case there was a law enforcement response, which they would have expected to arrive by road. They didn’t consider a stealth attack from offensive shooters, but like Eric said, those are exactly the tactics we will need to employ in order to fight them.”

  “So, what now then?” Joe asked.

  “I’m going to make a quick sweep on foot to where the other houses are burning and look for any survivors who may have gotten out. I doubt I’ll find any, but I’ve got to do it because it’s my job. But I don’t want either of you coming with me. I’ll take Willis instead.”

  “Why him?” Joe asked. “Why don’t we all go? You don’t know that you won’t run right into more of those guys.”

  “Because I want the two of you to split up and keep watch over that truck until you see us loop back around to it. It doesn’t look to me like we hit any of the tires when we were shooting at that last guy, so I plan to grab the truck when we make our exit, assuming more of them don’t show up and get it first.”

  “You want to take their truck?” Ronnie asked. “Why?”

  “A couple of reasons. First, it’s got the two-way radio in it that we saw the one guy using. My father, Bart, is a radio man and he can probably figure out what frequency they’re on and whether or not they’re using encrypted signals. They probably are, so it may not do us any good, but it’s worth a shot. The other thing is that I want to make that truck and those bodies disappear. I want that C.R.I. chief to wonder what happened to them and to send a team to look for them. I want to draw them away from the towns and get them out on the backroads where it’ll be easier to pick them off. I know we’re not ready to begin full-on counter-offensive operations just yet, but this is an opportunity we should take advantage of. If nothing else, it’ll make them wonder what they’re up against. First, they lost the six guys they left behind in the house to spring an ambush. Now, with three of their operators and a truck missing in action, they may slow down enough for us to make better preparations.”

  “Or they may sweep in here with everything they’ve got,” Joe said.

  “That’s true, but we’ve got to fight them either way, so we may as well hit them at every opportunity. So, here’s the plan. I’ll take Willis with me for backup, while you two spread out and take up positions behind two different houses where you can watch that truck. If more of the contractors do show up, don’t engage them unless you know you can get them without a two-way exchange of gunfire. These guys are seasoned pros, and you don’t want to get in a firefight with them. They will hunt you down and kill you if you give them any quarter at all. Do you understand?”

  Both men nodded, and Keith continued: “Can Willis really shoot as well as he says?”

  “I think he probably can,” Joe said. “He’s been keeping his folks fed by hunting and fishing ever since the groceries ran out. He’s pretty tough too, from the way I’ve seen him work.”

  “Good. I really only need a second pair of eyes and maybe an extra hand if we find anyone that needs h
elp. I hope we don’t have to do any more shooting here.”

  Keith waved Willis forward to tell him what he had in mind. The young man was bursting at the seams to find out what all the shooting was about, and as Keith expected, he was eager to get in on some of the action. The only weapon he carried was his hunting rifle; a bare-bones lever-action .30-30 Marlin 336 with iron sights, but he assured Keith that he could hit anything that needed killing with it even after Ronnie offered to swap and let him take his AR.

  “I don’t need 30 rounds when I’m shooting these 190-grain Buffalo Bore hog loads! If I hit a son of a bitch inside of 150 yards with one of these, he ain’t getting back up!” Willis held up a cartridge he pulled from his pocket for all to see. I’ve got two pockets full of these and I reload as I go, so I don’t need no bulky plastic magazines. It’s how I’ve always done it when I’m huntin’ and this ain’t no different.”

  “Except these aren’t hogs and they’ll be shooting back at you if you miss,” Joe said.

  “I never miss and even if I did, they can’t shoot at me if they can’t see me! And if they do see me, it’ll be because I’m running, so they better be good at hitting fast moving targets, because I ain’t slow!”