Event Horizon (25 page)

“I’m a little nervous about it too. Ed’s hit the nail on the head,” said Alex.

“About what?”

“Being out of the pressure cooker long enough to think straight. Accepting Grady’s offer sounded pretty damn good with the city falling apart around us and a Boston militia unit chasing me down.”

“You pissed off more than one militia group?”

“Look who’s talking,” he said, drying his face with a towel.

“I guess we need to steer clear of any militia groups from now on,” said Kate, kissing his neck.

Alex turned around and put his hands on Kate’s lower back, pulling her into him while kissing her passionately. They grasped each other tightly, lowering their hands until Kate pulled back.

“There’s a line outside of the door,” she whispered into his ear.

“What?” he hissed. “Are you serious? And here I was thinking this might be the one place we could get some privacy.”

“We kissed privacy goodbye when we invited two families to join us.”

“Maybe they could all stay in the barn. They’d have a wood-burning stove.”

She squeezed his bottom. “Or we’ll just have to make better use of our 22 acres.”

“Not until those crazies are gone,” he said and kissed her. “See you up in our communal bedroom.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“I know.”

Chapter 30

EVENT +71:11

Limerick, Maine

Alex opened his eyes to pitch darkness. He lay on his back next to Kate, which was the extent of his situational awareness. A cool, pine-scented breeze poured over his face, providing the first clue. He gently worked his left hand from under Kate’s head, careful not to wake her up, and checked his watch. 4:11. His alarm had been set for 4:15. It took him a few seconds to figure out why.
Shit.
He could use about eight more hours of sleep—and some real painkillers. The ibuprofen had clearly worn off overnight.

He pushed his torso up with his left hand, finding himself sore along the left side of his body, extending through his abdomen. He felt like he had done a few hundred atomic sit-ups right before retiring for the night. For a moment, he seriously doubted his ability to get out of bed without help. He lay there, considering his next move, when the back of his right thigh cramped, locking him in position on the bed. He extended his leg and fought the muscle spasm for a few minutes, until he was sure it had passed.

Not a good start to the day.

Kate hadn’t moved throughout the ordeal, presenting Alex’s next challenge. How in the hell was he supposed to wake his wife up at 4:00 in the morning? She was a notoriously deep sleeper, barely functional until two cups of dark roast coursed through her system. He’d wait as long as possible before attempting to stir her.

Alex grabbed his flashlight from the nightstand and illuminated the room. Nobody shifted—of course. They had all inherited their mother’s morning gene. He walked around the bed, careful not to step on Emily, who lay in a sleeping bag between the full-size bed and the elevated air mattress supporting Ryan. The room had been reconfigured to accommodate a sandbag position facing the backyard. The bed, normally under the backyard window, had been pushed across the room against the opposite interior walls. They had done the same in all of the rooms, hastily rearranging couches, beds, end tables and chairs to free up space for sheet metal and sandbags. Ed was right. The house had been transformed into the Alamo.

The door cracked; Charlie Thornton poked his face through the opening.

“I couldn’t sleep either,” he said. “Brought some coffee for your wife. Linda said she’d need it.”

Alex stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him, taking the hot mug in his hands. After a long sip, he patted Charlie on the shoulder.

“Thank you, Charlie.”

“It was Linda’s idea,” he said, reaching for the Walkers’ door.

“No,” he said, stopping Charlie. “Thank you for everything. I mean it.”

“That’s what friends do for each other, man.”

“Friends collect your mail while you’re away on vacation. You’ve redefined my concept of the word. It’s not a word I’ll use lightly again. Thank you.”

“Dude, you’re evoking man tears, which means—”

“No. We are not going to—”

“It’s time for that hug,” he said, embracing Alex.

Alex held the coffee mug away and let it happen. Charlie had been angling for this “man hug” since he arrived at the reservation with the battalion’s armed escort, and Alex had deprived him long enough, artfully dodging his outstretched arms.

“When the two of you are done hugging, I’d appreciate it if you started waking people up,” said Linda from the bottom of the stairs.

“He started it,” said Charlie.

“Thanks for the coffee. See you in a few,” said Alex.

Twenty minutes later, everyone was in position, scattered throughout the dark house with coffee. Alex found himself back in his bedroom, facing the forest behind their house. He’d moved Ryan onto the bed and given Emily the air mattress, sliding it against the bed to make room in front of the sandbags for a folding chair. Through the open window, he scanned the length of the tree line with his night vision goggles, catching the occasional flicker of a lightning bug. Linda had a similar view on one of the computer monitors in the dining room, but the surveillance cameras couldn’t penetrate the forest like his generation IV gear. He could detect a smoldering cigarette or the glow of a night vision scope eyepiece deep in the trees.

Kate watched the open expanse of land in front of the house through one of Alex’s old night vision spotting scopes, a Russian knock-off with 2X magnification and an infrared illuminator. With nearly one hundred fifty feet of clearing separating the southern tree line from the house, a diligent watch through the scope could pick up any unusual activity. Their concern with the southern approach extended to the buckwheat and oat fields, which could be used by intruders to close the distance undetected.

The eastern woods extending from the road to the house fell under Charlie’s watch. The Generation III night vision scope attached to his rifle gave him better magnification than Alex’s goggles, along with the best chance of catching headlights if their attackers were foolish enough to use them on Gelder Pond Lane. Tim Fletcher covered the pond and left side of the barn with the second spotting scope while Ed kept Alex’s mother company in the kitchen, waiting to relieve anyone that needed a break. With Linda in the dining room, they had all of the “fighting” adults on station to respond.

Their defense had a few flaws, the most glaring being their inability to effectively shoot at targets in the dark. Only Alex and Charlie had integrated night vision systems, leaving the rest to scan with their devices and shoot in the general direction of movement. Hardly ideal. The motion-activated lights mounted to each side of the house and barn had been fried by the EMP. He’d kept two spare lights in the basement surveillance kit, which Tim chose to install on the unobserved sides of the barn to give them some advance warning if anyone got past the motion sensors.

Later today, Alex would rig trip flares in the yard, fifteen feet from the house, and run the trip wires back to the house. A solid tug on the wire by one of Alex’s lookouts would detonate a 35,000 candle power M49A1 trip flare, illuminating the open ground for a minute and providing silhouetted targets for shooters in the house. With any luck, they could engage attackers in the open at relatively close range. Failing that, the flares served as a powerful deterrent against repeated attempts to reach the house.

Beyond the limitations imposed by a nighttime battle on his motley crew, Alex’s second-biggest concern was the barn. Located less than fifty feet from the house, it blocked their view of a significant portion of the clearing’s northeast corner and represented the closest point of approach to the house. The militia team that scouted the property yesterday afternoon would have seen the barn and recognized the opportunities it presented. If the militia managed to break through one of the unobserved outer walls, they could open the barn door and rush the house. Ideally, they should place a team in the barn to stop this, but nobody besides himself had the training required to pull it off, and he’d be needed inside the house to keep this motley crew from falling apart under fire—if that was even possible.

Like any static defense, their best strategy was to inflict as many casualties as possible within the first few minutes of the attack, forcing a withdrawal. He also planned to put as many guns as possible into the first few salvos to give his attackers the impression that they had a large number of defenders. Marine Corps and army infantry schools teach combat leaders that they need a minimum three to one attacker to defender ratio when assaulting a fortified position. If he could throw enough bullets out of several windows at once, regardless of the caliber used, he might be able to pound some battlefield sense into the rush and stop its momentum.

If not, and they persisted, he wasn’t sure how long he could keep his civilian army in the fight under sustained gunfire. He hoped they were all wrong, and the men scoping out the house decided they had stumbled onto the wrong location. However, he knew that was wishful thinking.

A light flashed deep in the woods. Possibly a lightning bug, possibly not. Alex stared at the spot for a few minutes, not seeing a repeated flash. He considered “lasing” the area for Charlie’s magnified scope, but dismissed the idea. If the militia guys had some form of night vision gear, his IR laser would draw too much attention. He settled in for a long morning.

Chapter 31

EVENT +74:30

Limerick, Maine

Eli Russell waved the three oncoming SUVs onto the path leaving Old Middle Road and followed them past a thick stand of trees after checking the road for observers. He was going to skin these idiots alive. They were an hour late arriving at the rally point and had failed to respond to his radio calls. He’d considered abandoning the attack altogether, fearful that they had been intercepted by the returning convoy. Larry Bertelson jumped out of the SUV and sprinted to Russell, saluting as he arrived.

“Eli, I’m sorry about the delay. One of my guys wanted to grab a different scope from his brother. It was supposed to be on the way, but it turned out to be further than I had thought. Ended up in Limington; then we kind of got lost. Something’s wrong with my radio, too,” he said, keeping his salute raised and his eyes lowered.

Bertelson had definitely been the wrong choice of squad leaders for the attack. Unfortunately, Eli’s pickings were slim beyond Hillebrand’s and Brown’s squads, and he didn’t have time to call in reinforcements. Like one of the head honchos said during the Iraq War, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.” Of course, he’d have to switch things around a bit. There was no way he could trust this turd to co-lead the primary breach team.

“Sergeant Hillebrand! Front and center!”

A lanky man with unruly red hair broke free from a group of nearby men and snapped to attention in front of Eli.

“Hillebrand reporting, sir!”

Eli saw the barely concealed look of contempt on Bertelson’s face and decided if the man survived the attack, he’d turn him into his personal piñata.

“I’m switching your squad with Bertelson’s. You’ll be my right-hand man for the breach. Bertelson’s squad will provide suppressing fire from the northern tree line. Bertelson, you have a crew that can work the thirty-cal?”

“Yes, sir,” said Bertelson, pausing. “I can bring the attack in with you.”

“Negative. Showing up late for beers is one thing; putting me an hour behind schedule on an operation is another. We’ll talk about this later. Brief your troops and transfer the thirty-cal. We step off in five minutes. End of discussion. Oh, Bertelson?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Make sure you get a working radio from one of the guys staying at the rally point, if yours is still broken,” Eli said, frowning.

The two men dashed off to take care of the last minute adjustment, making room for Eli’s executive officer, Kevin McCulver.

“Surprised you didn’t beat him over the head with his rifle.”

“I wanted to, Kevin. I really wanted to, but we need everyone we’ve got for this. Keep a close eye on the road. If the convoy returns, I need an immediate heads-up. You know what to do after that.”

“Roger,” McCulver said, nodding hesitantly. “I wish we had a chance to test it. This is my first ammonium nitrate bomb.”

“And it won’t be your last. Not with Homeland digging its heels into the area. Just make sure the guys jump out far enough away. A fifty pounder will screw you up a long ways out. They need to roll that thing into the military convoy.”

“Copy. We’ll follow them in and set off the explosive as they dismount.”

“Hopefully, it won’t come to that,” said Eli.

McCulver nodded. “I’ll send the rest of the vehicles in when you give me the signal.”

“Primary extract will be at the gate. I’ll march the men up the driveway when we’re finished. Secondary extract is where the two roads split, right where we enter the woods.”

“Roger. Once the pickup vehicles depart, I’ll park the car bomb on the turnoff from Old Middle in case we have late arriving guests.”

“Sorry to sideline you like this, but I need someone I can trust running rear security. If this goes south for any reason, you’re the only one with the tactical awareness to unfuck the situation for me,” said Eli, gripping McCulver’s shoulder.

“I got your back, Eli. I suspect this won’t be our last operation.”

“Not if the federal government plans on imposing martial law on us. Not by a long shot. If you’d do the honor of mustering the troops, I’d like to kick this off before I melt. Gonna be a scorcher today.”

Eli stepped into the shade and repeated the plan in his head. He’d accompany Hillebrand’s squad, followed closely by Bertelson’s, into the forest past Gelder Pond Lane. They’d head slightly southwest until they reached the lake, where they’d turn left and follow the water’s edge until his rangefinder put the dock at about a hundred yards. At this point, he’d lead them away from the shoreline at a forty-five-degree angle until they could see the clearing.