Forgotten Forbidden America:: Patriots Reborn (31 page)

Gerald led them down the stairs to the river’s edge then headed north to the bridges. When they were under the westbound bridge, Gerald turned around. “This is where we say goodbye. I have to go and fight. You need to get across the river and get the hell out of here. Stay away from main roads. Tell the others in the prison area the gate is open, but you need to be quiet so you don’t attract attention. Don’t go anywhere near the troop areas because we will be killing them shortly. Get the others, and hit the woods fast and quiet.”

As he was turning to leave, the first woman he freed grabbed his arm. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“You’re welcome. You don’t have long before the attack starts. You need to hurry. Get the other prisoners, and run,” he said, walking toward the hill Nelson was set up on.

As he walked away, Gerald heard several gasp as the women moved into the river. “Yeah, that water is fucking cold,” he huffed and moved faster toward the hill.

Nelson glanced over his shoulder toward the prison and saw a group emerge from the river. Flipping down his goggles, he saw it was the women and flipped them back up. Glancing at his watch, Nelson saw it was only fifteen minutes until party time.

In the foxhole, Gavin was driving the R/C under the Stryker and set the controller down. Pushing the display glasses up, he grabbed the truck controller. With his finger on the switch, Gavin held up his watch and watched the digital numbers roll, closing in on 1 a.m. When 0100 popped on the watch face, Gavin flipped the switch.

When the signal reached the bomb, a small explosion went off, vaporizing the fifty pounds of liquid fuel followed a thousandth of a second later by a hundred pounds of high explosive. The shock wave radiated out, shoving the bottom floor of the lodge out the back, leaving the upper two floors hovering for a split second as the blast wave folded the front walls in, then gravity took over for a brief second.

The shockwave hit the restaurant, blowing the walls in, but a small flash wave followed, setting off the room filled with natural gas. Half a second after the main explosion, the restaurant detonated, vaporizing the hotel before the two top floors touched the ground.

The bigger shockwave followed the smaller wave out, overtaking it and throwing the Humvees and other vehicles around like a child does with toys.

When the shockwave hit the hill, Nelson thought his eyes were going to pop out, and he was over three hundred yards away. When the sound wave hit, Nelson felt the ground shake as he vibrated across the ground.

In the foxhole, the shockwave blew off the tarp covering the top, and when the sound wave hit, it knocked the leaves off the trees. As Gavin shook his head at what he did, he grabbed the controller for the tank and flipped the switch as leaves rained down on him. The explosion was nothing like the first one, and most didn’t even hear it. Since he was down in the foxhole, Gavin was protected from the shockwaves.

Under the tank, the ten-pound charge turned the copper disk to plasma, which blew through the underside of the tank, igniting ammo and fuel. Then Gavin flipped the switch for the Stryker, blowing it up.

Over two miles away, Ronald jerked when the explosion erupted, and he even felt the ground rumble. His jerk made his finger hit the trigger for the AT4. A loud
pop
sounded, followed a second later by a
whoosh
as the rocket’s motor ignited, sailing the hundred yards to the Humvee that was on lookout.

The five men inside heard the explosion and only had time to give a startled jerk as the warhead punched in the passenger side and detonated. Ronald watched the doors buckle under the explosion.

He dropped the empty tube and lifted his rifle, watching as a fire slowly started to build inside. Not seeing any movement, Ronald moved up to the road and ran back to Josh and Kevin.

Across the river, Matt and Bernard started the FLYERs and sped down the small dirt road to the hill as Nelson shook his head. “What the fuck kind of fuel was that?” Nelson asked out loud, leaning over his rifle. “Thank God for hearing protection.”

The house the troops were using to man the checkpoint was blown off its foundation and leaned sharply. The house looked like it would only take a tap for the roof to collapse in on the structure. Getting ready to press the trigger to send rounds inside, a loud
RRRRRRRR
sounded in the night, and Nelson saw stars shooting at the house in his thermal sight.

Lifting his head up, a line of red was hosing the house from across the river. Looking over, he saw a short burst of red hit the guardhouse back from the prison. Then, two lines of red tracers hosed the area that used to house the camp. What was left of the lodge was an inferno, and the tracers were raking the vehicles around the area.

Getting up, Nelson flipped his goggles down and moved down to Gavin. He saw Gerald stand up from behind a tree. “Old man, what the fuck was that? Unless you use plutonium, you don’t get a bang like that from a hundred and fifty pounds. I don’t care if it is a fuel air bomb,” Nelson said, moving over and seeing the top blown off the foxhole.

Gavin was looking up at him with a big grin. “Wow,” Gavin said. “I didn’t know it was going to be that big.”

“Makes two of us,” Nelson said and turned to the bridge. The two Xes were lying on the ground, but he could see the two people moving. “Gerald, cover,” he said, tossing his M1 over. “Gavin, get our shit ready to go,” Nelson said, moving down the hill. “Gerald, I’m going to cut those two loose.”

Before Gerald could protest, Nelson was gone. When he reached the bottom of the hill, Nancy came over the radio. “You have a Blackhawk chopper coming in from the north at three thousand feet.”

Across the river, Matt and Bernard were loading more ammo. “Shit,” Michelle said, climbing out of the turret.

“We need to leave,” Matt said, loading the ammo can.

“We can’t outrun a helicopter no matter what you’ve seen on TV,” Michelle said, pulling a Stinger off the back of her FLYER. “Always wanted to shoot this damn thing.”

Knocking the ends off, Michelle turned it on, pulling it up to her shoulder as the sound of the helicopter reached her. Looking to the north, she saw a black shape coming toward them rapidly. When it was two miles away, Michelle looked through the sight and found the chopper. She flipped the switch, arming the warhead and making it search for a target. It only took a second, and the Stinger gave a steady tone. Michelle pulled the trigger, and a
pop
sounded as the rocket ejected from the tube.

When the tone sounded, the helicopter banked, and flares started dropping out on both sides. The rocket gave a whoosh, hitting MACH3 in the blink of an eye, screaming across the distance before the helicopter could finish the bank.

The warhead hit the engine with an explosion, and the chopper fell like a rock out of the sky. Michelle dropped the tube and climbed back up on the FLYER. “Ashley, dump your ammo, then we are leaving,” she yelled, climbing behind her gun then froze, hearing, “AAAHHHH AH AH AH AHHHHHHaaaaa,” as a Tarzan yell bellowed out below her.

Dropping his hands after his Tarzan yell, Nelson ran for the bridge. He had heard the Stinger take off streaking north and knew what it was. “Damn it, I wanted to shoot one of those,” he said, running around the cars blocking the end of the bridge.

Running up to the two tied on the X’s, he pulled out his knife and cut their ropes. “We have to hurry. They are really pissed off,” he said, moving to the next one.

“No shit,” he heard the teenaged boy say as he climbed out from under the X. Then Michelle and Ashley bathed the area of the camp again with streams of bullets. “Soldiers coming from the other end!” the boy shouted.

Nelson dropped his knife and lifted his rifle to see three troops running at him. Wondering where the hell they came from, he snapped off shots, hitting two before the other realized the shooting was coming from in front of him. The soldier came to a stop just as Nelson hit him in the face with two bullets.

Scanning around, Nelson didn’t see any more coming. “Fuck that was close,” he said, letting his rifle go, and saw the woman couldn’t climb out from under the X. Then Nelson noticed her X had been made out of railroad ties. He lifted up the frame, and the woman crawled out.

“Can you move?” he asked, dropping the frame.

“I can fucking run,” she said, getting up as Nelson turned and didn’t see the kid.

“Where—” he started but saw the teenage boy pulling stuff off the soldiers he had shot. “Smart fucker,” Nelson mumbled as the teen pulled on a combat vest then a rucksack. Then grabbing the other two vests and all three rifles, he ran toward them.

“Yeah, he’s smart,” the woman said as the two Gatling guns ran dry, and they heard the buggies crank up and leave.

When the teen reached them, the woman took a vest and one of the rifles. “Move it,” Nelson said, running back to the hill. When he reached the end of the bridge, Nelson skidded to a halt. “No fucking way.”

“Sounds like that other lookout is coming back,” Gerald said over the radio.

“How fucking stupid do you have to be! A small nuke blows up your base, Gatling guns roaring, and a chopper blown out of the air. You think five troops in a Humvee are going to make a difference?” Nelson shouted and grabbed the woman, pushing her down in the bushes beside the road.

“Gavin, Humvee coming at us toward the bridge,” Nelson called over the radio.

“I’m ready for them,” Kevin replied.

“On the way, Dad,” Gavin sang out over the radio as Nelson turned to see the dark shape of the Humvee several miles away but barreling toward them.

“Don’t you want to get down?” the teen asked Nelson as he hid behind the bushes.

Before he could reply, Nelson heard the whine of an R/C hauling ass. Looking behind them, he saw the buggy dart in the ditch on the westbound lane and go airborne as it launched off the embankment. The buggy almost cleared both westbound lanes but landed short and darted into the median, throwing up fountains of dirt as the tires chewed the ground.

The buggy ran up the side of the eastbound lanes, going airborne for a few feet then bounced and shot down the road. Looking up, Nelson saw the Humvee hit the other end of the bridge as the small R/C buggy hit this end. The bridge was only four hundred yards long, and the two were closing fast.

In the Humvee, the driver saw the small, dark shape speeding toward them. He didn’t know what it was but knew it couldn’t be good as he yelled out. The gunner aimed his M240 and pressed the trigger.

Before the gunner squeezed the trigger, the little buggy started darting side to side, speeding up and slowing down as the gunner pressed the trigger. Full auto fire erupted as the gunner tried to chase down the darting shadow, sending out a stream of fire and tracers bouncing off the road.

Nelson watched in awe, knowing the gunner didn’t have a chance in hell of hitting the R/C; he couldn’t even follow the damn thing with his eyes, much less a gun. The way Gavin was driving the R/C, Nelson was reminded of the Matrix movie. The Humvee skidded to a halt as the driver slammed it in reverse, wanting to get away from the darting object. Suddenly, the top half of the gunner vanished, and the buggy shot under the Humvee, where it erupted in an explosion.

“Come on,” Nelson said, seeing a figure stumble out of the wreckage, and half his body disappeared. “We need to move,” he said, passing the teen and woman as he ran up the hill.

He reached the foxhole to see Gavin sitting on his rucksack and wearing a smile. “You’re getting a raise in your allowance,” Nelson said, gasping for breath.

“You ready before they send more shit?” Gerald asked, rolling up the sniper blanket as Gavin moved, letting Nelson put on his rucksack.

“Yeah,” Nelson said, grabbing the tube for his hydration bladder then sucked down water. He turned and noticed the woman and teen looking hard at his tube. He passed it to the teen. “Here.”

The teen grabbed it and drank like there wasn’t a tomorrow. “Slow,” the woman said and looked at Nelson as she put on one of the assault vests. “We were caught stealing food, so they put us out there without food or water until we died. We were going to escape.”

Nelson looked from her to the teen. “You don’t look like family.”

“We’re not,” she said as the teen took a breath and started drinking again. “Both of us were separated from our families and decided to stick together and watch out for each other. I’m Malinda Scott; my buddy here is Devin Hawk.”

Devin handed her the drinking tube as he panted and wiped his mouth. “Thank you,” he said.

“You know how to use that stuff?” Nelson asked, pointing to the gear Devin took from the soldiers.

“Yes sir, and what I don’t know, I’ll figure out, I promise.”

When Malinda finished drinking, she handed the tube back. “We are leaving,” Gerald said, almost running up the side of the hill to the top.

“Come,” Nelson said and pointed for Gavin to get behind Gerald. Seeing Gavin leave, Zeus bounded after him. Devin and Malinda trotted beside Nelson until they reached the top, and Gerald came to a stop, looking at the two.

“Malinda, Devin,” Nelson said then pointed down the other side of the hill, “the house down there has a shed behind it. There is a four-wheeler with a full tank and keys. Get on it, and drive down Highway 60 two miles, and on the left-hand side, you will see a dirt road. Follow it for a few miles, and find a house to hole up in for a day or two while they search for us. Then head south to the Free States.”