Push Back: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (The Disruption Series Book 2) (40 page)

Earl shrugged. “Maybe in the short run, but like you said, they’d have come for us sooner or later. Anyway, it ain’t me I’m worried about, it’s the young’uns.”

Beaumont Yacht Club

560 Marina Street

Beaumont, Texas

Day 29, 6:05 p.m.

Alvarez peeked around the thick trunk of the tree next to the clubhouse and cursed. The con standing at the guardrail was an easy shot, but he could see the guy talking to someone behind him, out of sight farther back on the high bridge. His radio double-clicked; Howell requesting an all clear.

“What the hell are we supposed to do?” he hissed. “If I give her an all clear and we can’t take them all out, she’s screwed.”

“Maybe not,” whispered Jones from the next tree. “When those boats crank up, I’m betting it’ll draw all those turkeys to the rail. Then we can have a turkey shoot. We either take ’em down fast, or we don’t, and if we still have an active shooter, you can warn her in plain language before they back out of the docks.” Jones paused. “It is what it is, bro. I don’t think you have much choice.”

Alvarez sighed and keyed the transmit button on the radio twice, and from up the channel to their right, multiple powerful engines rumbled. Alvarez smiled. Just as Jones predicted, the turkeys came to the turkey shoot. There were four of them lining the guardrail.

“I got the two on the left,” Jones said.

“I got the two on the right,” Alvarez confirmed. “On three. ONE. TWO. THREE.”

The M4s barked four times in quick succession, and three of the cons tumbled over the guardrail to splash into the river below. The fourth man, Jones’ second shot, grabbed his left shoulder and hesitated a split second too long before attempting to drop down behind the cover of the guardrail. The Coasties’ guns barked as one, and the con joined his brothers.

Alvarez double-clicked the radio and got an answering signal from Howell before breaking cover to run across the yacht club lawn to the bulkhead at the edge of the channel. Earl Gillespie pulled alongside in the leading screen boat just as they arrived, his boat listing to starboard from the weight of the improvised armor. He barely slowed as the Coasties leaped across the narrow gap and scrambled behind the improvised shooting position.

“Welcome aboard, boys,” Earl yelled. “I hope y’all brought plenty of ammo, because I don’t think there’s gonna be a shortage of targets.”

***

Howell hugged the left bank as she ran downstream at a blistering seven knots behind the screening vessels. As they cleared the bridge, she raised her radio.

“
Pecos Trader
,
Pecos Trader
, this is Howell. Do you copy? Over.”

Jordan Hughes’ voice answered immediately. “We copy loud and clear, Georgia. Over.”

“
Pecos Trader
, we’re at the I-10 bridge southbound, with sixty-seven survivors. We are coming in hot. Repeat, coming in hot. Over.”

“We copy, Georgia. The cavalry is on the way. Repeat. The cavalry is on the way. Over.” She heard the stress in his voice.

“NEGATIVE! Repeat, NEGATIVE! We have intel an attack on your position is imminent. Repeat, attack on your position imminent. You may need all your resources. Over.”

There was a long pause; then the radio squawked again.

“We copy. Do you have details of attack? Over.”

“Negative. Repeat. Negative. Nothing but a possible, repeat, possible time of today or tomorrow. Over.”

The river narrowed ahead and took a sweeping bend to the right, forcing the little convoy closer together and uncomfortably close to the old shipyard in the inner radius. The radio continued to squawk, but Howell ignored it as she conned the lifeboat through the turn.

Earl Gillespie’s lead screening boat had just drawn abreast of the shipyard when all hell broke loose. There was a shooter behind every piece of abandoned equipment and junk pile, all pounding the screening vessels at point-blank range. The radio squawked again, and Howell raised it to her mouth without taking her eyes off the river.

“We’re kind of busy now, Cap. I’ll check in if … when we get clear. Howell out.”

The screening vessels were being pounded, but Earl’s makeshift armor was doing the job, due in part to their attackers’ weaponry. Most cons were diverted from patrol, armed with handguns and tactical shotguns. Accuracy was spotty at best, and though they could easily hit the screening vessels at close range, stopping them was a different story. The engines were low in the boats, and it would take a fantastic stroke of luck to hit the control cables. The boats were hit repeatedly above the waterline, but the operators crouched behind protection and drove on.

After the initial terrifying onslaught, the tables turned. The defenders loosed a deadly accurate fire from M4s and ARs and a variety of long guns far more accurate than the weapons of their attackers. Convicts fell and began to lose their appetite for the fight.

The boats swept around the tight shipyard bend, guns blazing, and the river widened to allow them to move out of the effective range of their attackers’ weapons while maintaining their own accurate fire. Then the river bent left and narrowed again, once more exposing them to fire from convicts scattered along the shore in Riverfront Park. But here too, superior accuracy carried the fight and soon scattered their attackers.

The children were frightened into silence by the violence of the onslaught, but rather than calming their fears, the slackening fire fueled them, and the children all began to cry.

Howell flinched at a loud crack and saw a hole in the fiberglass canopy in front of her just as another round penetrated six inches to the left of the first, missing her completely. All of the kids were screaming now, and several women were praying. She keyed the radio, shouting over the noise.

“Alvarez, do you copy? Over.”

The speaker clicked twice.

“Sniper on the railroad bridge ahead. Over.”

The speaker clicked twice, followed a few heartbeats later by the distinctive sound of multiple three-round bursts from the screening vessel ahead of her.

Alvarez’s voice came over the radio. “Clear.”

They crept under the railroad bridge and past the city docks at their glacial pace, giving better than they got. The river widened a bit more as they neared the Exxon-Mobil refinery, and she hugged the undeveloped east bank as closely as she dared to put as much distance as possible between her little fleet and any shooters.

Then the firing slackened before stopping completely. She could see nothing from behind her screen and she keyed the radio.

“Alvarez, what’s happening? Over.”

“I’m not sure. They seem to be leaving. Over.”

“Roger that. Keep your eyes open. Howell out.”

They were a good ten miles from the
Pecos Trader
; almost two hours at this speed. It seemed unlikely the cons would abandon the attack, especially given what she’d heard on the cop car radio. What the hell were they doing?

Jefferson County Courthouse

1149 Pearl Street

Beaumont, Texas

Day 29, 6:35 p.m.

Spike McComb stood on the small observation deck near the top of the courthouse, fuming as the little convoy crept from under the railroad bridge and made its way downstream. He lowered the binoculars and turned to glare at Snag, who was fidgeting nervously.

“I told you this was gonna happen. These assholes are doing whatever they want right here in our territory. And now they go makin’ a recruiting trip right under your frigging nose, Snag.”

Snag began to protest, but Spike cut him off. “And then, they fall in your lap, and this is the best you can do?”

“Spike, we only had a half hour, and we still got—”

“You got shit for brains, is what you got, Snag,” Spike said. “Now get on the radio and move everybody south, and get some of those boats you been roundin’ up on the water. But call the armory first and make sure they get their butts over to the launching ramps with long guns and ammo.”

“But, Spike, we’re gonna need those boats for the attack—”

Spike’s eyes narrowed as he glared, and Snag shut up. “As I was saying, pick your best marksmen and put a couple in each boat. I want two or three more guys with shotguns in each boat. The riflemen will keep the shooters’ heads down so the boats can get within point-blank shotgun range; then I want the shotguns to unload on the boats right at the waterline. They ain’t nothing but fiberglass, and we can sink ’em right from under ’em.”

“I dunno, Spike, we’re gonna have to get pretty close. Are you sure it’s worth maybe gettin’ a bunch of the boys shot up before—”

“I swear sometimes, Snag, I don’t think there’s one of you sumbitches who can think beyond the end of your dicks. Now just why do you figure the people on the ship would come ashore to gather up MORE people? And they came for Trixie, and she says her ex is on the ship. So just think about that. I mean, they can only carry so much food, and they only got so much room, so why get more crowded and share your food with somebody unless those somebodies are …”

Spike waited expectantly for Snag to make the obvious connection and fill in the blank. Snag screwed his face up a moment, followed by a smile of understanding.

“Pussy?”

Spike’s face purpled. “FAMILIES, YOU MORON! The crew’s families must be on those boats. And if we got the families, we won’t NEED to attack; we’ll have ’em eatin’ out of our hands. Now get going, and have some boats standin’ by to pull survivors out of the river. They won’t do us much good if they’re dead.”

Snag turned and raced for the stairway, but Spike called after him.

“On second thought, maybe we can use the dead ones. Make sure to collect any bodies too, especially kids. We’ll pile ’em in a boat and send ’em to the ship with one of the survivors, just so they get the point about what’s gonna happen to the rest of them if they keep messin’ with us.” Spike grinned. “Ain’t nothin’ says surrender like a buncha dead kids.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Neches River

Approaching Hawkins Slip

Beaumont, Texas

Same Day, 7:05 p.m.

“I knew it was too good to last. We got company,” Alvarez said to Jones.

He turned and was about to yell up to Earl, but saw him already waving to the other boats and moving to tighten the cordon around the lifeboat. Alvarez’s radio squawked.

“Talk to me, Alvarez. What’s up?” Howell asked.

“Six boats of shooters coming out of the slip ahead,” Alvarez said. “Hug the left bank as close as you can, and we’ll pull in tight around you in a semicircle and try to keep them away. Over.”

“Roger that,” Howell said, and Alvarez watched her inch the lifeboat even closer to the east bank.

Jones raised his M4. “Here they come—CRAP!”

Jones ducked behind their sandbags and Alvarez instinctively followed suit as a dozen rounds splatted into their improvised armor. Jones was clutching his right ear; blood flowed between his fingers.

“Son of a bitch got me in the ear,” Jones said. “I think this bunch is a little bit better equipped, and they can sure shoot straighter.”

Alvarez nodded and took off his booney hat to raise it above the sandbags on the muzzle of his rifle. It immediately drew heavy fire, and he pulled it down and stuck his finger through a neat hole.

“They’re serious about keeping us down,” he said, “but we can still screen the lifeboat, so I don’t get it.”

The roar of the outboards on the approaching boats grew louder, almost deafening, but not loud enough to mask the blasts of automatic shotguns seemingly only a few feet away. Their attackers sped by in line, now intent on savaging the second boat in the screen. As they came into view astern, Alvarez and Jones opened fire at the last attack boat in line as it sped away. Two men fell in the boat, including the driver, and the boat veered off to the left at a crazy angle, uncontrolled and out of the fight.

“They ripped us a new one just below the waterline,” Earl yelled down. Alvarez turned back forward to see Earl out from behind his sandbags and leaning over the starboard side, peering down at the hull.

“How bad is it?” Alvarez yelled.

“It ain’t good,” Earl yelled back. “We was already leanin’ right from all these sandbags, so any water coming in is gonna stay on that side, and we’re just going to lean more and more. Like as not we’ll sink, if we don’t flip over first.”

“How long?” Alvarez asked.

“How the hell should I know? I ain’t no sailor. I was in the Army.”

Alvarez watched the remaining attack boats speed upriver and execute a long arcing U-turn to roar back downriver, hugging the far bank. He had no doubt they’d repeat the maneuver downstream and come roaring back on another strafing run. He turned back to Jones.

“How are the other boats?”

Jones shook his head. “We got it worst, but they all took hits. None of them will take much more of this.”

Alvarez nodded. Their own boat was listing noticeably more to starboard now, and moving sluggishly. He looked downriver as their attackers completed the turn.

“Earl, cut speed and fall back against the next boat,” Alvarez yelled. “If we can tie off to her, at least we can protect her hull. They can’t shoot her through us.”

Earl nodded and cut speed, and in seconds they were bumping along the starboard side of the second boat in the screen. They barely had time to get tied off and back behind their sandbags before their attackers returned.

They could do nothing but absorb the blow, then fire on their retreating attackers. Three more screening vessels were badly damaged, one so badly it sank almost immediately, and its three occupants scrambled aboard the next screening vessel in line. The remaining damaged vessels had enough reserve buoyancy to stay afloat, with the more severely damaged quickly roped together and towed as a screen for their two less damaged sisters.