Society: After It Happened Book 3 (16 page)

WHERE’S JOE?

Lexi’s supply run went smoothly, getting back without incident and with a full lorry.  The supply situation was healthy with fresh meat, salad and vegetables arriving daily.  Neil ventured out with them to fill his tanker, and peeled off to fill the reserve tank on the farm as it was the most commonly used.

Dan had scouted a number of places where stray livestock had survived and could be added to their menagerie, and hadn’t seen a single person since leaving the house that morning.  All the locations were marked on the map, and Ewan could happily spend the next week rounding up more livestock and recovering the few machines they had asked the Rangers to look out for.

Leah was still in a slight mood, but was hiding behind efficiency by taking detailed accounts of the trips; unnecessary really but thoroughness wasn’t to be discouraged.

“What about Joe?” Dan asked her.

“Not back yet” she fired back without looking up from her work.

Dan frowned.  He checked his watch and couldn’t think that Joe would have been out this long as his route was shorter than his own.  He must have found something useful.  He tried to push the feeling of impending doom away, but couldn’t.  He walked to the radio and called into the mic.

No response.

He tried again; louder and with more authority as though that would force the signal out further.

Still nothing.

He checked his watch again, forgetting that less than a minute had elapsed since his last look.  There was still four or five hours left before darkness.

His decision was easily made.  He snatched up his bag and turned to Leah.

“Shotgun?” he asked her.

She looked up at him, quickly figuring out that he wasn’t asking for a shotgun but wanted her to ride with him.  She put down her pen and stood, walking out of the office and back in after a couple of seconds carrying her M4 as she stooped to pick up her bag.

“Let’s go” she said, whistling Ash as she turned.  Ash stopped panting and looked up at Dan.

“Go on then” he said, releasing the dog to lope out after the girl.

They drove north, following roads they had both travelled many times.  They passed the small, and now empty, shop where she had cleared her first building with a loaded weapon.  That seemed like so long ago.

After a few more miles Dan slowed as they headed towards a small cluster of vehicles.  He had personally cleared the way sufficiently to get their lorries through almost a year ago.  He wasn’t sure, but something just didn’t seem right.

“Stay” he said as he opened his door “You too, Ash”

“Hilarious” she said, as she opened the large electric sunroof and stood on the seat to scan with her carbine.

Dan walked slowly forwards, seeing clearly what was wrong.  A small car, once red and now a grimy off pink colour, was facing the wrong way.  There were clear gouge marks in the road surface where the long ago perished tyres had failed to prevent the pitted wheels from leaving fresh scars in the tarmac.

Dan froze, and bent down.

Leah watched on as Ash whined and fidgeted to see his master all of forty metres away without him.  She watched him bend down, then stand abruptly and raise his weapon.  She flicked off her safety and bent to the scope, scanning desperately for the unseen threat. He backed away returning to the Discovery, head turning different ways as he stepped carefully.

Leah kept her eye to the scope, lifting her head intermittently to get the wider picture.  Dan reached the driver’s door and got in.

“What is it?” she asked, still searching.

“Blood” Dan said, selecting reverse and turning his head to look past the curious dog on the back seat.

Leah braced herself and maintained her position until Dan turned a wide half circle, selected drive and accelerated away.  She flicked on the safety catch and held the gun vertically as she slid back down into the passenger seat to stare at him.

“The car had been moved.  It was an ambush” he said, looking straight ahead.

Leah thought for a second, absorbing the news before her logical brain calculated the appropriate response.  She reached for the CB but stopped herself just as Dan opened his mouth to deny her using it.

“They’ve got his Defender, and his radio” she said aloud, figuring it out.

“Yeah” he replied.  Wondering with fear who ‘they’ were.

He drove them fast back to the house, stopping it at the gardens and the farm to summon everyone back to the safety of the house.

The sun was sinking when he called the Rangers and the council members to cram into Ops.  A worried buzz of excitement had spread amongst their group.  Dan stopped that dead in its tracks with his first words.

“Joe’s been captured.  They have his weapons and his vehicle so NO CB RADIO USE AT ALL.” He let that sink in. 

“I don’t know how and I don’t know who, but there was a deliberate blockage on the road – here” he said as he quickly scanned and jabbed his finger at the site on the large map on the wall.  People craned to see the location, like it made a difference to them.

“There was blood on the road” he finished.

“Who took him?” Marie asked over the stunned silence in the small room.

“I don’t know.  Possibly that it’s someone we’ve already encountered are slim; the group who attacked us are all dead, the ones we attacked I highly doubt could have found us and the bikers we met took too much automatic fire to risk this, even if there are any of them left.  This was carefully planned.  Someone targeted us.”

As soon as he said those words aloud he met Marie’s eyes and the flash of understanding between them made him feel cold in his stomach.  She raised an eyebrow in silent question, looking for corroboration of their joint epiphany.

“The Welsh” he said to the group, receiving more silence in return.

“They see it that we attacked them, then they followed us and found our home.  You all know what they wanted with their little farcical visit, and we sent them away with a promise to kill them if they came back.”

Again nobody spoke for a few seconds.  Rich cleared his throat.

“Regardless of who it was, what do we do about it?” he asked.

“We find them and we get Joe back.  We can bargain with them, give them a few weapons if needs be just to get them to leave” said Kate.

“That won’t work” Leah said quietly.  She stood a little taller and raised her voice in volume and confidence.

“It won’t work because they don’t want to force a deal.  Look at what they did; they picked off a single Ranger and now they have weapons and can listen to our radios.  That’s strategic.  They are cutting the head off the snake”

It was Dan’s turn to stare in stunned silence.  Thirteen years old and wiser than most in the room in some ways.  He couldn’t fault her logic, as always.

“I think she’s right” Lexi chimed in “It’s the only way to take over this place; to take out the few fighters and force obedience on the rest.  We’ve proven what happens to anyone attacking in force before” she added, like any of them had forgotten the murderously one-sided battle.

“Options” Dan said, a familiar question to his Rangers but the civilian contingent in the room stuttered as though something profound was expected of them each.

“Make contact on the radio, open a dialogue” said Neil, more subdued than ever.

“Set up OP’s in each direction under darkness” said Rich, suggestion that two of them hide and observe the roads for any sign of the unseen besieging force.

“I’m in favour of negotiating” said Andrew, ever the acquiescent.

“I’m in favour of finding every last one of them and putting them against the wall” spat Jimmy vehemently.  It was unlike him to show anger, which betrayed just how scared he was.

As Dan was considering action over inaction, assault over negotiation, the radio crackled into life.

“Are you listening, boyo?” said the smug voice. 

PAROLE

Steve had to hope that Mitch wouldn’t turn him in.  He only had the Sig on his chest and three magazines, so any kind of gunfight was likely to end quickly with him sporting some very unfashionable holes in his torso.  He had to try and distract the soldiers enough that Emma could slip away in their Defender and get far enough south to hide from them.

Hopefully he could convince Richards that she wasn’t worth pursuing; that he was the prize and he would stay to fly his helicopter as long as they let the girl go.  He considered asking this instead of planning her escape, but the risk of refusal and her imprisonment was too high.

He had slipped through the lines of tents to whisper to Emma through the canvas.  Twice he bumped into people, pretending on impulse that he had been drinking.  It worked, so he kept up the act and looked for the sentry who was trying to casually dog his steps around the camp.

“I want to see Richards.  Take me to him” he invested the instructions with as much officer-like privilege as he could, seeing the ingrained obedience tug at the man.

“The Captain” he said stiffly “is not to be disturbed in the evenings”

“Rubbish, man” he snorted at him “and you will call me Sir” he said as he walked past him brushing his shoulder and striding towards Richards’ office with the sentry scurrying after him.  He didn’t know where the other one was, but hopefully causing a commotion would bring him out to support his fellow soldier.

It worked.  He was effectively blocked at the doors inside the large hangar and was attracting a bit of a crowd.  The soldiers tried the respectful route, calling him Sir and gently asking him to keep his voice down but had to resort to shouting over him as he completely ignored them.  That raised the noise level sufficiently to draw out Richards who demanded to know what all the commotion was.

~

Emma heard the shouting and knew she had to move.  The Land Rover was big and unfamiliar and she didn’t look forward to having to drive it, but it was her only way out and she had no desire whatsoever to stay here.  She stole out of the tent as quietly as she could, keeping to the shadows and making for the car park area.  She reached the car and hit the fob to unlock it, the six orange flashing bulbs which would have lit the area like a muzzle flash thankfully didn’t illuminate due to the fact that all six had been removed to maintain the low profile they enjoyed.  The electrical sound of the locks whirring and the click as the driver’s door opened still sounded impossibly loud to her. 

She climbed in, again in darkness as the interior lights were switched off, and forced herself to relax.  She leaned across the seats and retrieved the gun from the glove compartment, picking up Steve’s machine gun and putting it on the seat next to her.  She had little idea how the handgun worked and had forgotten most of the lessons she had been given.  She had even less of a clue about the big rifle with its bulbous barrel and telescopic sight.  Maybe she would just use it to scare people if she had to.

She started the big diesel engine and cringed at the sudden noise.  She didn’t wait to see if the engine had attracted attention but drove straight for the trees where she remembered coming in and hoping to find the way south.

Luckily the Defender was a big, robust vehicle.  Her driving had not been great as they headed north but now it was worse due to the darkness and the fear.  She glanced off a few trees and took heavy hits from branches as she swerved through the darkness.  After a few hundred metres when the trees closed in she had to resort to turning on the headlights, which meant stopping to find the switch.  The rear lights also had their bulbs removed, so she crept forward with sidelights on at the front and hopefully only the noise of the engine to track her by.

There was no sign of any pursuit, and as she pulled out onto the road her confidence grew.  She put the lights onto full beam and accelerated onto the pitted tarmac as she headed south.  She planned to go for as long as she could before hiding the big car off the road.  Nervously she kept glancing in the rear view mirror, expecting the imagined chasers to bear down on her any minute.  She had no idea how long she drove for; frantically checking forward and aft for danger.  The sun began to rise and the realisation that she had been travelling for hours gave her renewed hope.  It also brought a crippling tiredness, making her look for a place to hide.

~

Steve’s distraction worked perfectly.  The sentry who was lurking in the shadows watching Emma’s tent hadn’t seen him creep to the back and whisper to her, but he had heard the noise of his friend arguing with the pilot.  His friend was clearly losing, and he had to make a decision; he chose to give his mate backup.  Unwittingly, Emma had slipped from the tent no more than five seconds after the soldier had turned away to deal with the valuable pilot.  Richards stopped shouting as soon as he made eye contact with Steve.  He knew his soldiers were being played.

“Where is the girl?” he barked.

Mitch ran in at that point, and Steve’s heart fell at the thought that he had betrayed them and stopped Emma’s escape.

“Sir” he said as he stopped short and threw a hasty salute “Car’s gone.  Don’t know when”

Richards turned to the sentries and fixed them both with a malevolent stare.

“Damn you both.  Get out!” he snarled.

“Sir” they chorused, and fled.

The Captain forced himself to breathe and speak calmly.

“Congratulations” he said with forced formality as he looked hard into the older man’s eyes.

Steve let out a sigh of relief.

“I’ll fly your helicopter and I’ll not try to escape” he said, resigned to his fate.  An idea struck him, which he hoped would appeal to this petulant control freak.  He slowly took his Sig from the holster and turned it to present to Richards.

“You have my parole” he said formally.  Richards stared at him.  Ancient ritual dictated that he should respect the word of a fellow officer and treat him as a gentleman; that he should politely refuse the offer of the surrendered weapon.  He was too angry.  He snatched the gun from him and fought with every muscle in his body not to give in and whip the polished metal hard across his face.  He turned on his heel and stalked away in rage.