Worst Case Scenario - Book 5: Militia Read online

  Both Reed and Ian responded at the same time. “Tanks.”

  Ian pivoted his field of view left to see several tanks making their way up the highway from the south side of Birmingham. They were still a few miles away from the intersection and headed north. He looked at the other members of his militia; he had a plan. “Okay, we have about ten minutes to make this work.” He divvied out the orders, and everyone took off for their positions.

  Eight minutes later, and very much out of breath, Doctor Seth Cadet and Grace approached the Rover sitting by a creek beneath the underpass. Grace had her rifle up and was sweeping it back and forth looking for targets. Once she got close enough to see someone inside the vehicle, she dropped the weapon, put her finger to her lips, and removed her hat. She needed them to be quiet and to recognize her. The tank sound from the roadway above was growing louder by the second.

  Amy saw the pair approaching the vehicle and almost screamed. It took her a second to recognize the normally fun loving Grace. To her, the ponytail-sporting, gun-toting girl looked much harder than she remembered and needed a good night’s sleep. Amy quietly opened the door to the rover and made her way to the pair.

  “Oh, thank God!” she said at least three times before she wrapped Grace in a motherly hug. “I can’t believe it’s you!” She stood there looking at Grace for a second.

  “Gracie! Gracie!” Toby said joyfully. The boy latched onto her knees as only toddlers know how.

  “Hey, buddy,” she said, wrapping her hand around the boy’s blond head. She had been his babysitter since the day he had been brought home from the hospital. “We have to hurry,” Grace said, turning a serious look at Amy. “Where is Mr. Rivers?”

  Amy pointed to the back of the Rover, where Mr. Rivers was lying down with his feet hanging out over the rear bumper. Seth rushed to his side and immediately started assessing the elderly man. Grace listened to the noise crescendo from the tanks and looked at her watch.

  “Doctor Cadet, we have less than 30 seconds.” She said, checking her watch every few seconds.

  “Got it,” he said. “Okay, sir, we need to get you back into the truck,” he told his elderly gun shot patient.

  “Do you think that he will be okay if we do that?” Amy asked.

  “He needs to be, or we all die,” Grace snapped off. “Would you please buckle in the kids and get in? I’m driving,” Grace ordered in a voice that left no room for question.

  Less than 100 yards away from the two closest bridge guards, Joshua and Reed each had firing positions to take the guards down once the first tank crossed onto the interchange. Ian was in a slightly higher position on a hill that afforded him a shot at the two guards at the apex. But, he had a problem, one of his guards was sitting in the driver seat of his vehicle; he didn’t have a good angle on that one. And, he’s too damn close to a radio.

  “On my command,” Ian spoke into his radio. He watched the first tank roll onto the bridge interchange and then glanced down at where he thought Grace would be. Be safe, Gracie, he prayed. “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

  Joshua and Reed both released two shots, both taking down their targets; the soldiers crumpling where they stood. The tank drivers never noticed the insurgence. The rumble of the tanks masked the sound of the rifles, which left the remaining guards oblivious to the downfall of their comrades.

  Ian’s first shot pierced the chest of the soldier standing at the edge of the overpass. He was looking down at the procession of tanks and fell headlong over the edge once his chest exploded. The second driver jumped out of his vehicle and ran to where his partner had fallen.

  Thank you!

  Ian took his second shot, and it glanced off of the concrete wall, spraying the soldier with chards of white concrete. The soldier stumbled away from the wall, shocked at his injuries and fell back into his vehicle.

  “Damn it!” Ian said. “One of mine is getting away. Grace! Go! Go! Go!” he yelled into his comm.

  Grace gunned the engine of the vintage Rover and plowed through the shallow creek bed. “Hold on, Doc!”

  “Fun! Fun! Fun! Do it again!” Toby squealed from his car seat in the back. His little sister didn’t like the bone jarring motion of driving off road, and began to cry.

  Grace stole a second to look in the review mirror; she could see Doctor Cadet holding onto two straps tied to the roll cage. She hoped that the strap restraining Mr. Rivers would hold.

  Reed watched the guard in the vehicle from the apex try to drive down the overpass. He could see that Ian was peppering the truck, but the guy was still going. Reed lowered his rifle and aimed; the guy was driving right towards him.

  “I hope you didn’t get a chance to use that chink radio of yours to call your little friends,” Reed said, as he unleashed a barrage of armor piercing 7.62 round bullets at the driver’s windshield.

  The driver’s chest exploded from two rounds entering through the shattered windshield, and he swerved sharply, rolling the vehicle multiple times down the fly over. The truck exploded the third time it rolled, blowing a massive hole in the bridge.

  “Guess they had ammunition onboard,” Reed spoke into the open comm.

  “Sucks for them,” Joshua responded.

  “I think we’re going to get along just fine,” Reed responded, sarcastically.

  “Cut the chatter and get back to the Hummer,” Ian’s voice boomed, silencing the lads.

  Thirty seconds later Grace drove the army green Range Rover through some tall brush on the side of the road, and entered the eastern side of the overpass and onto the highway. “Grace, are you clear, over?” Ian asked through the radio.

  “We’re clear, Dad,” she confirmed

  “Doc, how is he?” she yelled to the back. The doctor had thrown a strap across Mr. Rivers’ upper chest in an attempt to hold him down once they started moving.

  “Just get us back, Grace.” Grace checked the review mirror and could see that her best friend’s father was performing some kind of procedure on the man, now that they were stopped.

  Sixty seconds later, her father, Joshua, and Reed appeared out of the woods along the highway and climbed onto the sides of the truck.

  “Go, Gracie!” Ian ordered.

  “Are we clear?” she asked her father out the open driver’s side window.

  “We should expect some company,” his tone full of warning.

  CHAPTER 14

  Daisy’s growl was low, and guttural. She had not moved from her spot next to Leah in the tent, but her eyes followed the man talking to Tabby.

  “I don’t think he likes me very much,” the man said, looking down at the dog. He tried to smile.

  “She is very protective,” Lean corrected.

  The man bent over to hold his hand down for the dog to smell.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Leah warned. He pulled his hand back and turned back to Tabby.

  Leah slowly moved her right hand behind her back and rested it on the pistol tucked into her belt. The other hand, she kept on Daisy’s back. She didn’t like the fact that she was sitting when the guy strode in. She looked around the man and saw that both Raven and Mary had two of his guards standing next to them. They didn’t seem to be threatening, but they were heavily armed.

  “So, my boys told me your husband doctor and the big fella left after you had some company. And, I see that some of them stayed,” the man said, turning back to gaze at Leah and her dog.

  Tabby looked at Leah, past the man’s shoulder, and slowly nodded a ‘no’ to her. Neither lady responded to what the man was saying.

  “So,” he turned back to Tabby, “where did everyone go?”

  For a fleeting second, Leah though she could easily take this guy down, but she didn’t know how many others were outside the tent. This dude was a different sort of freaker but a freaker none-the-less.

  “What’s your story?” she asked, releasing her hand from the pistol and standing up. She held out two fingers, visually commanding Daisy to stay.

 
He turned to look at her and smiled. He had two bands of tattooed barbed wire wrapping that started at the palm of his hand and wrapped around his arm, disappearing up into the sleeve of his shirt.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know, you kind of look former military.”

  “MP for four years.”

  “So, why are you harassing people?”

  The lady that Grace and Joshua had brought in for treatment, Angela, peeked around the makeshift curtain where she had been sleeping. Her eyes went wide when she saw the man, and she put her hand to her mouth to stifle a noise. Tabby caught her eye and slowly shook her head; Tattooed Man never noticed. Angela quietly disappeared back behind the curtain and slipped out of the back of the tent.

  “Look, lady, I’m not harassing people,” Tattooed Man retorted, oblivious to the escape of Angela out the back of the tent.

  “Then, what are you doing, making people pay for food and water?” Leah nodded her head in the direction of the small line of people that were standing at one of the entrances of the track.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, chic, the shit hit the fan, and people are going whacko! So, I asked myself, how can I help people when everyone else has given up on them.”

  “You’re taking advantage of them,” Leah accused, her voice calm. She really didn’t like the way the discussion was going, but this guy was pissing her off with every passing second. He was greasy and self-righteous all at once. She thought that the guy actually believed the shit he was shoveling.

  “I’m just providing a service to help until the cavalry arrives,” he delivered. “The last I checked, this country was a free enterprise economy. I’m filling a niche.” He was about done with talking to these women.

  She thought she would puke on his shoes. Is this guy for real?

  “Listen, I’m retired service, too,” Leah changed tactics, “and she’s a captain, so, maybe the cavalry has already arrived. What’s your name?” Leah stuck her hand out to shake his.

  “It’s Russ, and, I don’t see no cavalry. All I see are five women with a few guns and a lot of supplies.”

  Tabby took a few steps towards Anna, when Russ added her to the count of women. Leah could see that Anna’s rifle was leaning against a cot, well out of reach, and Raven and Violet were occupied outside with the guards. This could get ugly quick.

  “So, in the spirit of asking nicely,” Russ continued with a crooked smile. “I need you to clear out of the tent, this now belongs to me,” Russ ordered, his voice getting slower with each word he spoke.

  “I don’t think that is going to happen,” Leah countered. She really wasn’t in a position to counter, but she had to show some balls, or he would walk all over them…or worse. She whipped her pistol around and pointed at Russ’s head.

  “Chet!” he yelled, with his head hanging towards the door. He never took his eyes off of Leah or the gun.

  A man appeared at the door. He was huge, and dirty. “Yea, boss?” He saw the situation and raised his rifle towards Leah. “Not smart, lady!”

  Leah did not like this situation at all. Tabby held onto Anna, and neither one had reached for a weapon. They were frozen in fear.

  “They don’t want to play ball. Take their guns and bind their hands; these girls will be valuable to someone.”

  In one swift move, Chet turned his rifle, and put it to Anna’s head.

  “No!” Tabby screamed.

  “I think it’s time to cooperate, or cutie pie, there, goes to meet her maker,” Russ threatened.

  Leah thought this through as quickly as she could, and there was no way out. She could see the men outside the tent; they had guns to the women’s heads and had already taken their weapons.

  Russ took a few steps towards Leah’s outstretched arm, his eyes never left hers. With another crooked smile, he slowly put his hand on the pistol she was holding, and wrenched it from her hands.

  With her other hand behind her back, Leah signaled Daisy, and the dog started growling.

  “Oh, that’s got to stop,” Russ said, flipping the pistol around and pointing it at the dog.

  “NO!” Leah stepped in front of the weapon and shoved Russ.

  “Get out of my way!” He reached up to knock her aside, so he could shoot the dog.

  “Daisy, scatter!” Leah yelled, and shoved the man again, preventing him from raising the weapon. The dog took off out of the tent at a full run. Russ backhanded Leah across the face.

  Chet turned away from holding his rifle on Anna and aimed at the dog. Anna kicked his shin, and Tabby jumped on his back from behind. She tried to gouge at his eyes with her nails, but she only managed to scratch his face, drawing blood. With a shift in his weight, he flung her off of his back and onto Leah.

  Leah absorbed the blow and rolled, moving to bring her knife around, but Russ had his pistol pointed directly at her head before she could raise the weapon.

  “Not a good move, ladies.”

  Chet produced came zip ties and roughly bound their hands behind their back.

  “Make sure you search them for weapons,” Russ said, smiling. “And then, let’s take our new guests back to the track.”

  “What if the Army guy and the others come back?” Chet asked, while running his hands all over the women looking for weapons.

  “I guess we need to be prepared for that happening,” Russ mused.

  Seventy yards away Daisy crouched near the only scent that she recognized amongst the dozens of people milling around the grounds outside the track.

  “Good girl,” Adam said, scratching behind the Labrador’s ears. He was watching what was happening at the tent and hated to make the radio transmission he was about to make. “War Dawg 911. Repeat, War Dawg 911. Over.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Reed was leading the convoy of two vehicles east on I-20. Like before, he was using the median, the emergency lane, and the wrong side of the highway to pick the best route back to the racetrack.

  The distress call shot through the group like electricity.

  “What does that mean?” Reed questioned.

  “That was Adam!” Joshua said at the same time of Reed’s question. Both men were cut off by Ian holding up his finger.

  “Acknowledge War Dawg 911, over.” Ian spoke into his microphone. He then dialed in a new frequency on his two-way radio. Joshua did the same; he had to think about what the new frequency was…it was something that had been discussed before leaving the farm. He hoped his brother remembered.

  “Shit!” Grace said and pounded the steering wheel of the Rover.

  “What?” Amy asked, startled by Grace’s spontaneous action.

  “Something’s wrong back at camp. It’s where Mom is,” she added. “Can you change this to channel 39?” She unhooked the radio from her belt and handed the base unit to Amy, leaving the earpiece in her ear.

  Amy handed the radio back. Adam and her father were already talking.

  “I have counted about 15 armed men between the tent and where they took them. Over.”

  “Were they hurt? Over.”

  “Didn’t look like it. Over.”

  “What about the tent and the supplies? Over.”

  “They haven’t touched the tent, but they are hauling out supplies as fast as they can. I’m going to see if I can get closer to where they took them and give you a report. Will Daisy stay with me? Over.”

  “Roger that. Command her, ‘on me’ and she will stay by your side. Get me that intel ASAP. We are fifteen minutes out. Over.”

  “Yes, sir. Over and out.”

  “Gracie, did you catch all of that? Over,” Ian asked her daughter, driving the vehicle behind them.

  “I did. Is Mom okay? Over.”

  “For right now, it sounds like it. How is Mr. Rivers? Over.” He didn’t need her worrying about her mother and loosing sight of driving. He thought texting and driving was dangerous, but it was nothing compared to what she and Reed were doing with the vehicles.

  “Doctor
Cadet, how is he?” Grace yelled to the back of the vehicle.

  The doctor looked up to answer but never got a chance to. The bridge and the abutment they were about to drive under exploded, showering the windshield and hood with concrete fragments.

  Reed yanked his vehicle to the right and smashed along a stalled car under the bridge. Fragments of concrete peppered the hummer like bullets from a machine gun. Bouncing off of the car, he fought to keep the vehicle upright and instead let it cross the concrete and grass median, where he was able to get control and skid to a stop.

  The Humvee had shielded Grace’s Rover from the worst of the explosion. She, too, took the stalled car down the side of the Rover with a metallic scrape and jarring.

  “Shit!!” she yelled, making corrections to the vehicle. The Rover was designed to navigate off road and at slower speeds. It didn’t respond well to choppy maneuvers, asphalt, and highway speeds. Grace could hear her passengers screaming and the tire squealing sound of her vehicle as it danced along the road. “Don’t flip! Don’t flip! Don’t flip!” Grace fought to hold on to the thin English steering wheel. She saw the hummer veer across the median and stop. She tried to nudge her vehicle to do the same thing. Thankfully, the tires held, and they zipped across the grassy median. Once the vehicle found the soft mud and grass, she was able to get total control and pulled up next to the hummer. They were facing different directions. Reed and Grace were only able to exchange a look of ‘holy shit’ before Ian started yelling.

  “GO! GO! GO!”

  A black helicopter zipped over the bridge and right over their position.

  “Tell her to follow me,” Reed yelled. He gunned the diesel engine, spinning the tires and slinging the mud from his treads.

  Grace heard her father relay the order through her earpiece and spun her vehicle around. Her passengers started screaming again as she threw them from side to side in the vehicle.

  “It’s turning!” Joshua yelled. He had his rifle out the window and popped off a few shots before Reed hit the dirt at the side of the road. Joshua pulled his arms and the barrel of his rifle in just as Reed smashed through the DOT fence at the side of the highway, and into a trailer park.