The day after: An apocalyptic morning (156 page)

              "Copy," Christine said. "We'll stay here and keep shooting at them as long as we can. But you need to go, now!"

              "Consider me gone," Mick said. He stowed his radio, fired the remainder of his magazine down at the advancing men, and then scrambled out the back of the trench. Five seconds later he was sliding down the back side of the hill on his butt.

              " Christine, what the hell are you doing?" Skip's voice asked over the VHF. "Get your ass out of there!"

              Christine fired a long burst before she picked up her radio. She keyed it up. "Mick's last group has a wounded man," she told him. "We need to keep them delayed as long as we can so they have a chance to get away!"

              "If you stay there much longer," Skip answered, "you are not going to be able to get away. You'll be in plain view of Mick's trench when you withdraw. If they go after you they'll be able to slip around in front of you."

              "No choice, Skip," Christine said. "We'll move out when Mick is clear."

              "Pull out now, Christine," Skip said. "That's an order!"

              "Just a few more minutes," she said. "Don't worry. We'll be all right."

              She continued to fire, ignoring further hails from him.

              "Goddammit!" Skip yelled. "What the fuck is she doing? This isn't the time for fucking heroics!"

              "She's always been kind of stubborn," Jack offered, watching as the attacking militia closed in on the empty trenches below.

              "Too stubborn for her own good. She's gonna have trouble when she pulls out of there. If she doesn't leave before they get to the top of that hill, there's gonna be no way they won't see her when she leaves."

              "It's her choice," Sherrie said, feeling the need to defend her.

              "Her choice yes," Skip agreed, "but she's risking her squad along with her." He keyed up the radio again. " Christine, get the hell out of there. Now!" No answer, just more flashes from her position. "Shit."

              The fire coming from the hill at their ten o'clock did have one significant effect on Lima's group of twenty-two attackers. It forced them to climb the hill from the right side only instead of attacking the trench from both sides as Stinson's group had done. They combined their two groups into one and made an end-run around that side, scrambling up through the mud and around the trees on the hillside.

              Like Stinson and company had before them they found nothing on the top but a trench full of expended shell casings, empty boxes, blood, and one dead body. But unlike Stinson's group, they had a good view of at least some of their tormentors when they reached the summit.

              Christine waited until the group they were firing at actually went out of sight on the far side of the hill before she ordered a cease-fire.

              "I hope we gave them enough time," she said. She turned to her people. "Let's go. Pull back to trench 46, as fast as our little legs will go."

              There was no dispute with this plan. They climbed out of the trench and started down the hill.

              "Shit on a shingle," Skip said, looking at the figures of Christine and her team moving south from the top of the hill. "I hope those fuckers on Mick's hill are tired of the chase by now. If they're not, there's no way that Christine's gonna get away without shooting it out with them."

              "They're probably tired," Jack said, watching them to see what they would do. They seemed to be checking out the trench at the moment, ignoring the trenches on the adjoining hills where Mick's other squads had been stationed. "And they need to clear all of those hills first, don't they?"

              "They don't have to do anything," Skip said, taking a quick glance at his instruments and then continuing to watch the events unfold far below.

              "Sir, over there!" one of Lima's men yelled, pointing at the downside of a hill about 350 yards away. "The bitches that were shooting at us are moving down that hill!"

              "Shoot at them," Lima said instantly.

              A second later twenty-two guns were firing at the muddy figures that were moving to the south. Lima himself expended an entire clip at them, knowing that the range was quite extreme for these weapons, but also knowing that with that much lead flying there was a better than even chance that at least one slug would find one body. It was a good gamble.

              The unlucky person was Rhonda Bellingham, one of the town's many single women. She had once been part of Jessica's inner circle back in the old days, a blue-blooded lawyer's wife. After the first battle of Garden Hill she had converted to one of the most fervent supporters of Skip's reforms in security and had been one of the first to go through his advanced training class when it was offered. She had fought bravely and well in the second battle of Garden Hill and she had been just starting to think that everything was going to be all right when two bullets slammed into the high part of her back, just to the right of the spine.

              She squealed in pain, feeling a burning spread throughout her chest and suddenly her legs would no longer hold her up. She went down, face-first into the mud. "I'm hit," she yelled. "Oh God, I'm hit!"

              "Shit," Christine barked, stopping in her tracks. She looked down and saw the bright red flowers of blood spreading out on Rhonda's rain gear. She kneeled down next to her and rolled her up, hoping that the wounds weren't fatal. "Rhonda? How bad?" she asked.

              Rhonda's face was a mask of misery and fear. Tears were running down her eyes. "I can go on," she panted. "Just help me to my feet."

              Christine looked at the rest of her troops and saw that they had all stopped with her. They had stopped and bullets from the enemy were still plinking into the ground and whizzing by all around them. "Barb," she yelled at Barbara Hennesy, one of her better soldiers, "help me with her. The rest of you, get the hell out. Keep going as fast as you can!"

              Barb came over to help pull Rhonda to her feet but the rest of her team hesitated, clearly not wanting to abandon anyone.

              "GO!" Christine yelled, reaching down and grabbing Rhonda by the armpit. "Go before you get your asses shot off!"

              They went, most of them giving one last glance behind, but not lingering any longer. Within twenty seconds they were all out of sight behind the next rise.

              "Come on, Rhonda," Christine said, pulling her up. With the assistance of Barbara, they got her to her feet. Before they could turn to run however, another bullet found a mark. There was a wet thud and suddenly Barbara's head rocked violently back. Blood and brains sprayed all over Christine and Rhonda, splattering their faces, stinging their eyes. Barbara slumped ungracefully to the ground.

              "Oh God, Barb!" Christine cried in horror. It was easy to see that there was nothing to be done for her.

              "Barb?" Rhonda squeaked, her breath getting shorter by the moment. "Oh Jesus. Can we help her?"

              "There's nothing to be done," Christine said, feeling tears in her eyes. "Come on. We need to get out of here before they cut us off."

              Without so much as a glance at their fallen companion, Christine and Rhonda started heading for the next set of trenches. Christine was practically dragging the wounded girl and they weren't moving very fast at all.

              The main group of Garden Hill people had already passed beyond the first hill but the two stragglers in the rear, one of them obviously helping a wounded companion, were still in range and visible. As such, Lima's group, encouraged by the downing of one of the others, continued to shoot at them. They staggered onward defiantly, moving at a snail's pace, but somehow, almost miraculously, they weren't being hit by the dozens of bullets that were being fired at them every second. It was only as they passed around the barrier of the first hill and out of sight that Lima realized that a mistake had been made on his part.

              While they had been plunking away at the two women in the rear, they had missed their golden chance to hook around to the front and cut off the main group as they retreated. By now, that group would be well beyond their reach.

              "Shit," Lima said, lowering his weapon and cursing himself for his tunnel vision. He had just blown a chance to make a major ding in the enemy.

              "What now, sarge?" one of his men asked him. "Should we go clear those other trenches?"

              Lima licked his lips a little bit. "First squad can do that," he said, coming to a snap decision. "Second squad, come with me. We're gonna go capture those two bitches that we were just shooting at. Come on, they can't get too far moving as slow as they are."

              For once nobody argued or whined about their assignment. Everyone was up for capturing a few of the enemy. Especially when they were females.

              Lima personally led the group as they scrambled down the far side of the hill and cut to the right to hook around in front of them.

              Skip had watched the entire episode down below from his perch 2000 feet above the action. Though the players in the drama were no more than tiny dots moving on a muddy backdrop, so small that sex could not even be determined, and though he had had no radio communication with his second platoon since his last order for them to pull back, he knew, he simply knew that Christine was the one helping the injured party.

              When he saw ten men from the group that had taken the trenches on the right suddenly peel off and head south around the western hill, he also knew what their intention was. Though they had hesitated too long to catch the main group of second platoon, they would easily be able to sweep around and place themselves directly in Christine's path.

              "This is not good," Skip said, his mind trying to think of a solution.

              "Skip," said Jack, who had also watched the entire thing, and who also knew that it was his sister down there. "What do we do? They're gonna get Christine! They're gonna cut them off!"

              Skip didn't answer. He keyed up his radio, which was still set to the VHF frequency. " Christine!" he barked into it. "Are you there? Christine, they're trying to cut around and get in front of you! Move faster!"

              Christine's voice answered a moment later. It was very out of breath. "We're going as fast as we can," she said. "Rhonda's wounded bad. I need to get her to Paul."

              " Christine, drag her faster!" Skip commanded. "You have to. They're going to cut you off!"

              Christine didn't answer again, perhaps not wanting to expend the energy to do so. What she did manage to do however, was pick up her pace a bit. Skip saw that the tiny dots that were the woman he loved and one of her soldiers started going just a little faster. It was plain to see, by comparing their pace with the other tiny dots that were the militia group, that it still wouldn't be fast enough.

              "Skip, what do we do?" Jack asked. "They'll kill her! Or worse, they'll rape her! Can you land and pick them up?"

              "We can't land," Skip said, shaking his head. "There's too much mud, too many trees, too many hills. No clearance for the blades and no ground firm enough to take our weight. They're gonna have to get out on foot."

              "We have to do something," Jack pleaded. "We can't just let them get taken!"

              Skip took a deep breath and looked at his young friend and protégé, knowing he was right. He could not, would not sit up here in watch while they were captured. "Load up the gun," he told him. "We're going down."

              Jack looked back at him seriously. He had been around long enough to know that venturing too close to armed troops during the daylight hours was a very bad idea - one of the worst. Nevertheless, he nodded and reached into the storage compartment for a magazine of ammunition. "Let's do it," he said.

              "What are we doing?" Sherrie, who was a reluctant passenger in the vehicle, wanted to know. Her voice conveyed the message that she hadn't liked the tone of the conversation a bit.

              " Christine is trying to get a wounded person out of the area," Skip told her. "She's about to be cut off by enemy forces and captured unless we can do something about it."

              "And what are we going to do?" she wanted to know.

              "We're going to dive down on them and put them in the dirt," Skip said. He looked back at her. "It's dangerous. There's a good chance they'll shoot us, maybe even shoot us down. If you have any objections to this, let's hear them. I'll take them under consideration." This was his roundabout way of saying that he would not risk Sherrie's life to save his wife's and another's without her permission.

              Sherrie understood this. She didn't hesitate for a second. "Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked.

              "Just hold on tight to something," he told her. "We're gonna be doing some pretty violent maneuvering."

              She barked a short, nervous laugh. "Consider me hung," she said, grasping the hooks to which her bungee cords were attached.

              Skip gave her a smile and then looked back over to Jack, who had just slammed his magazine into the weapon and loosened up the clamps so that it could be easily turned and twisted. "We ready?" he asked.

              Jack twisted and turned the weapon back and forth a few times, getting the feel of it, making sure it was just right. He nodded in satisfaction. After two weeks of night runs at the controls of the mounted M-16, it felt as familiar in his hands as the PlayStation controller that he'd once obsessively used back in Berkeley before the comet. "Ready to rock," he said, jacking the first round into the chamber.

              "Let's do it then," Skip said, taking another look down at the advancing militia troops. They were approaching the halfway point around the first hill in their path, moving at a run. "You hangin on, Sherrie?"

              "As tight as I can," she confirmed.

              "Hang even tighter," he told her. "In a second it's gonna feel like gravity just up and disappeared on you."

              Before she really had a chance to ponder those words, Skip began the attack maneuver. He spun around to the south, towards the canyon and put on some forward speed. Once they were moving at about fifty knots he basically let them fall out of the sky.

              "Oh my Goddddd!" Sherrie screamed in terror as she felt herself go virtually weightless. Her stomach was suddenly in her throat. It felt a little like an amusement park ride that she had once been on, one in which the passengers were dropped from several hundred feet in the air before their fall was arrested by a curved track at the bottom. It felt like that in an abstract way, but it also felt a hundred times worse. There was no sense of control to this particular ride, no sense that it would be over in a second or to, no sense of security from having a ridiculously large, padded harness over her shoulders. This was a violent freefall in an aircraft with no doors on it, a fall that would only end amid a group of armed men who would be shooting at them. She burped a little and suddenly vomit was spraying from her mouth, splattering over her headset microphone.

              Even Jack, as accustomed and enthusiastic a passenger as he usually was, was scared shitless by the sudden dive. It felt for all the world like they were in a death spiral, that they were a hair's breadth away from smashing to the ground in a violent explosion. He moaned a little, his hands gripping the weapon tightly, his eyes trying to keep track of his targets through the bouncing windshield.

              Skip let them fall until they were less than 600 feet above the ground and then he pulled up sharply, slamming everyone violently back down at nearly 3Gs. The nose came up, the tail went down, and the engine screamed in mechanical protest as the design limitations of the small helicopter were pushed to the very limits and beyond. The moment the chopper was in level flight once again he banked sharply to the right and put on the speed, accelerating up to the maximum that the aircraft was capable of. The hill that the targets were moving around was now directly in front of them, its summit just below them by no more than a hundred feet.

              "Make this count, Jase," Skip said as he cut around the side of the hill, still accelerating. "Put those fuckers on the ground."

              "Just get me in range," Jack answered.

              They passed almost directly over the top of Christine and Rhonda, close enough to see them staring upward at them in surprise, and then Skip banked sharply again, spinning them around the hill and towards their quarry. He sharpened the bank a little, causing Sherrie to upchuck the rest of her breakfast behind them, and then suddenly the figures of ten men spun into view from the right.

              "There they are!" Skip yelled, cutting back to the left and straightening out. "Mow 'em down!"

              Jack began to fire, watching through the windshield instead of the FLIR screen as the tracers shot out. They were moving nearly a hundred nautical miles per hour and the window of opportunity that he had was only a second or two, but it was enough. He adjusted the stream and raked his fire over them, knocking two of the startled militiamen down before the rest managed to dive to the mud in terror.

              "Yes!" he yelled triumphantly as they zoomed over the top of their targets. "Fuck you, motherfuckers! How do like that on your ass?"

              Skip cut sharply to the left the moment he was past them and shot between two hills to the south of them, quickly getting them out of range. He pulled up just a little, cut back to the right to get around another set of hills, and then began a steep bank to spin back around for another pass.

              "Skip," Christine's voice said over the radio. "What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?"

              "No crazier than you are, babe," he told her. "We're keeping them occupied while you get out of there. Keep moving as fast as you can. We're gonna make another run."

              "Skip, they'll shoot you down," she protested.

              "Just go!" he told her. "The sooner you get out of there, the less times we'll have to do this. Now do it!"

              One of the men made a check on the two that had been shot by the helicopter and found that both of them, while still technically alive at the moment, were quite beyond salvation. Both had been peppered by multiple rounds about the torso. Both were gasping out their last. Finch, the private that reached them first, didn't even bother putting bullets into their heads. They were beyond even that.