Nuclear winter book 4 go.., p.3
Nuclear Winter | Book 4 | Going Home, page 3
part #4 of Nuclear Winter Series
A half hour later Pete's paranoia ratcheted up another level as they came in sight of a line of parked cars on the side of the highway up ahead. He immediately slowed, checking the radio to make sure it was scanning the CB channels.
“That convoy the guard mentioned?” Jack asked, leaning forward.
“If so they've been sitting around for hours only a stone's throw from the border,” Pete replied. He pulled over a few hundred yards behind the rear vehicle and picked up the radio. “Calling the convoy parked on the roadside up ahead. What's the news? Over.”
It took a minute to get a reply, a gravelly voice who sounded more than a little irritated. “Be advised we've received a warning about bandit activity on the road ahead. We've been urged to stop and wait until they give us the all clear.”
Pete frowned. “No offense, but you've got a pretty big convoy. It'd take a serious bandit group to hit you.”
Another pause. “Maybe, although these days you can never tell. Better safe than sorry.” The man cleared his throat. “You're welcome to join up with us if you like.”
In the passenger seat Torm was nodding his approval of that. “Thanks, we'll consider it once we see how the situation develops,” Pete replied. “Over and out.” He set the radio back in its cradle and looked around. “Thoughts?”
“If there are bandits in the area we should stay with this convoy,” Monty suggested. “I mean sure, it looks like it won't be going anywhere for a while, but at least it has a better chance of getting where it's going. Besides, it's kind of our duty to help protect it, isn't it?”
Torm shifted impatiently, moving his weapon to a spot where he could reach it faster. “Actually it's our duty to get this intel to the bigwigs in the US. But all that aside, anyone else think this feels an awful lot like a setup?”
Jack gave the interrogator an incredulous look. “How, exactly?”
“As in first the guards try to steer us onto a less well traveled road. Then we get here and discover the main route has been red flagged, giving us even more reason to find another route.”
Jack shook his head in disbelief. “You think they set all this up to waylay one car and four soldiers?”
“Us and any other single vehicles or small convoys, who they probably also fed that story of a faster route to,” Torm replied.
“A faster route where?” Pete argued. “Just about everyone on this road is headed to San Antonio to trade, and it's the most direct, well maintained road to get there.”
“What if there actually is a “bandit” ambush up ahead?” Monty asked. “If those border guards really are corrupt and have the manpower they could have people on more than one road.”
Pete scowled at the stopped convoy ahead of them. “Okay seriously guys. A handful of crooked guards is one thing, but you're taking a major operation here.”
Torm gave him a challenging glare. “So what, you want to rule out the possibility and pretend it's perfectly safe?”
“No, I'm just saying that even if they are trying to redirect small fish to likely ambush spots, they're not going to try anything on the main road.” Pete started the engine and pulled back onto the highway. “The convoy can sit around here if they want, we're going to keep going to San Antonio.”
Torm settled back in his seat, dark eyes glaring murder at the road ahead. “Just for the record, I strongly disagree with this. There's absolutely no reason not to stick with the convoy.”
Pete had trouble caring what the interrogator thought. They'd already wasted almost two hours and they'd barely gone any distance at all. And that was on top of the pressure on his shoulders from Epsilon Squad being in the doghouse with Renault, all thanks to Chavez and Torm's unsanctioned activities with raider prisoners.
So no, he wasn't in any mood to sit around twiddling his thumbs on one of the safest routes in Mexico, thus landing himself in even worse trouble with the captain.
“Your disagreement is noted,” he said as he floored the gas, speeding them up to 90 again and blasting past the convoy in the left lane.
For the next ten minutes things looked good. The highway ahead was clear of traffic, the radio was clear of any chatter, and a light cloud cover blocked the worst of the sunlight. Ideal for driving. Pete was just about to start relaxing when they topped a hill and passed an abandoned gas station.
From long habit he checked the place over carefully in his rearview mirror, only to catch the flash of a vehicle peeling out as it burst from behind the cover of the ramshackle building.
Pete swore and floored it, veering into the left lane as he adjusted the rearview mirror to keep their ambushers' vehicle in sight. It was a rugged looking open-top jeep with the markings of the Mexican border patrol, four or five people inside wearing uniforms and body armor and holding rifles. Judging by how quickly they took up the pursuit they must've had lookouts watching the road for likely targets and seen the car coming.
Or received advance warning.
Either way, it was traveling at 90 miles an hour that'd saved Pete's team from the ambush. The highway hadn't been blocked off, and as quickly as the ambushing jeep skidded onto the road and accelerated in pursuit the car still had a good lead on it, especially once Pete got them going a dangerous speed of over 100 on the broken, pothole-pocked asphalt.
Jack and Monty both turned around in their seats to peer through the rear window, doing some cursing of their own. Meanwhile Torm, acting much calmer, leaned over to glance out the passenger side mirror. “So much for them not trying anything on the main route. Is it too early to say I told you so?”
Pete was teasing as much speed as he dared out of the car as he veered them all over the road to avoid cracks and potholes in the old asphalt. But for all his effort every glance out the rearview mirror showed the jeep gaining on them; the vehicle was bigger and sturdier, able to bull right over rough spots in the road that Pete had to veer around.
He wasn't the only one who'd come to that realization. “We're not outrunning them in this thing,” Torm said grimly. “Especially on this road.”
Monty glanced at them over his shoulder. “Maybe this is just a routine stop,” he said nervously. “Maybe they didn't like us speeding, or they think we're slavers, or something.”
Considering how carefully planned the ambush seemed, Pete highly doubted that. But even if he was willing to consider the possibility he wasn't stupid enough to slow down to see what their pursuers intended.
Which turned out to be a wise decision, since as the jeep closed the distance some of its occupants stood and rested their rifles on the vehicle's roll bar, taking aim for the car.
Pete swerved frantically as they opened fire. The ambushers were still out of easy rifle range, especially firing from a moving vehicle, but the way his luck was going lately he wouldn't have been surprised to suddenly find himself losing control of the car as his tires were shot out.
“You've got to be kidding me,” Jack muttered, cranking down his window. “I get that the world's gone crazy since the Gulf burned, but I never expected to be in a car chase with corrupt Federales on a highway in what used to be the United States of America.” He leaned out with his rifle, awkwardly returning fire.
“Monty, get your own window down and return fire if you can,” Pete snapped. The young private jolted out of his shocked state and hastily began cranking down his own window as Pete turned to Torm. “Options?”
The interrogator snorted dourly. “Drive faster?”
Pete wasn't a fan of that option. He was already driving at suicidal speeds for this road as it was, and it was taking every ounce of skill he had to avoid a wreck that would kill them all. “Can you shoot out their tires?” he shouted back at his squad mates. “Even under the circumstances I'm not sure I want to start a shootout with Mexican officials.”
Jack, who'd ducked back into the car to swap magazines, gave him an incredulous look. “They're chasing us down to rob us, murder us, and bury us in shallow graves. I'd say avoiding an incident is pretty low on the list of concerns.”
Point. Pete looked at the driver's side mirror, counting in his head to determine how far behind them the jeep was.
“Let me know the next time you reload, Porter,” Torm said, twisting around to kneel on his seat and rolling down his window, rifle in hand. “We can take turns shooting at them.”
“Hold on,” Pete said. “I've got an idea. You a fan of simple arithmetic?”
His squad mate turned to stare at him in disbelief. “What?”
“Okay fine. Have you heard of the two second rule?” Pete veered around a particularly rough patch of road, gritting his teeth as the car jounced beneath him. Torm, still kneeling on his seat, nearly slammed his head on the window, and Jack and Monty both shouted complaints as they were jostled around in their window frames. Once on a slightly better surface Pete stared through his mirror at the passing dotted line and began counting again.
“Of course I've heard of the two second rule, Corp,” Torm snapped. “How is that going to help us?”
Pete fumbled around for the frag grenades Monty had laid out and shoved one towards Torm, who'd finally shifted back around to sit normally. As he did he moved his eyes back to the road ahead, searching.
There. “I'm going to slow down to veer around that pothole in the middle of the road a couple hundred yards in front of us,” he said. “As we pass pull the pin and drop that in there.”
His squad mate slowly accepted the grenade, a slightly manic grin spreading across his face as realization dawned. Then the smile vanished. “They're going to wonder why I opened the door,” he pointed out.
“Don't worry about that,” Jack called. “I'll make sure they're too busy looking at me.”
Pete started to slow and swerved, getting ready to dodge the pothole. He didn't have much attention to spare from the road, but he saw Torm brace himself in his seat and get ready to open the door, clutching the grenade.
He just hoped he'd counted right. It wasn't just as simple as seeing how many seconds back the jeep was, he also had to account for the fact that the border patrol was quickly gaining on them, and time all that to how many seconds it would take for the grenade to detonate.
Still, Mr. Watson had never complained about his math in school.
Torm wasn't an idiot either. He opened his door at the beginning of Pete's swerve, when the back of the car blocked their pursuers' view of him for a moment, just wide enough to drop the grenade into the hole as they passed. Then he quickly slammed it shut again.
“Good job,” Pete said as his squad mate straightened in his seat. Torm shot him a fierce grin.
Pete's reasoning was that the pothole he'd swerved around wasn't really all that big, and the jeep hadn't been dodging much of anything so far. It would probably just drive over it with the wheels to either side, especially since that would also save a bit of time compared to avoiding it.
The pursuers tunnel vision on catching their quarry would make them leap at the chance at the chance to close the distance.
If his timing was right that meant the front of the jeep would be over the pothole at about the time the grenade went off, and conveniently the pothole would direct most of the force of the explosion directly upwards. Just in case the border patrol caught sight of the grenade and managed to avoid it, though, Pete still floored the gas again as he watched through the driver's side mirror.
His count was dead on.
The front of the jeep passed over the hole just as the flash of the explosion came from beneath it, and the results were much better than he could've hoped for. The vehicle flipped sideways and slightly backwards as if slapped by a giant, then skidded on its side for half a second before rolling over onto the bar, which crumpled beneath the weight.
At the speed they'd been going Pete didn't expect anyone to survive such a violent crash, but watching the mangled upside-down jeep grind its way to a halt in his rearview mirror pretty much confirmed it.
His squad mates were leaning out of their windows to watch, still clutching their rifles. Pete had slowed the car down again, giving them all a chance to appreciate the spectacular wreck as they waited for the adrenaline of the moment to fade.
“Should we go back and finish off any survivors that managed to pull themselves out of that wreck?” Torm asked. At Pete's incredulous look he shrugged a bit defensively. “They might call in and report we attacked them. I don't want to spend the rest of our time in Mexico dodging a manhunt.”
Pete shook his head. “They might've done that before they even started chasing us. If they did, stopping to go back would just give their buddies more time to catch us. I say we get out of Mexico as fast as we can.”
His squad mate ducked back into the car, giving him a strange look. “You've got no problem executing slavers with the rest of us, Corp, what's the difference here? These guys tried to kill us first, it's only reasonable to want to return the favor.”
Was Torm really saying that not wanting to kill anyone they didn't have to was a bad thing? “I'd say that's a fairly human response,” Pete snapped. “We don't start out having an easy time killing other people, it's something that has to be trained into us.” Aside from the tiny percentage of the population who have the mental wiring that lets them just do it, he added to himself. It wouldn't surprise him if Torm was part of that group.
“So you don't kill people you should because of weakness?” his squad mate demanded. “You just set them up to come after you later, when you're not expecting it.”
Pete honestly didn't think he had that particular issue. He thought of the slaver who'd taken Mrs. Roy hostage, and how quickly he'd pulled the trigger as soon as the opportunity presented itself. “Death is final, there's no going back from it. Even when it comes to law and justice it's the last and most reluctantly used option. I'll do what I have to do to defend myself and others, but I want to make certain anyone I kill is a legitimate threat, and the problem can't be solved some other way.”
“What about slavers?” Torm asked quietly. Pete could tell he wasn't looking for a soft answer here.
And there wasn't a soft answer to give. Not with them. “They don't leave us with any other way, do they?”
“No, they don't!” Torm snarled. “They take lives, whether they outright kill anyone or just take their freedom. They've forfeited their own right to life.”
There it was again. That hint that Torm wasn't just a psychopath using the CCZ as a justifiable target to unleash himself on. Or at least that if he was, he had a really good reason for it.
Jack had finally pulled himself back into the car and was in the process of rolling up his window. “Hey guys? I like debates about morality as much as the next guy, but don't you think we should get out of here?”
“Yes, yes we should.” Pete hit the gas again, speeding them up to the fastest safe speed possible on the pockmarked road.
Torm also let the issue drop, now that the wrecked jeep was well behind them and they had bigger things to worry about. “So what's the plan? We just floor it on this road until we reach San Antonio and hope we leave all this behind us? If there are more border guards after us this road will be the first place they search.”
“Good point.” Pete pulled out the map and tossed it at Torm. “We'll take the other route. Find us the quickest way to it.”
“The other route as in the one they pointed us to?” Torm demanded incredulously as he unfolded the map. “Are you insane? They'll definitely have people waiting along it.”
Pete glared over at him. “No, I mean the other other route. The one close to the border that's supposedly infested by slavers.”
“Which we were warned about by the guards who proceeded to attack us. And that doesn't seem suspicious?”
“Everything seems suspicious!” Pete snapped, out of patience. “We'll keep our eyes peeled and our weapons ready.” He glanced at Jack's and Monty's tense, worried faces in the rearview mirror. “Besides, that road will put us closest to the border. If they do start a manhunt for us and it turns out to be more heat than we can handle, we might be able to find a place to slip across into the CCZ and make our way back to the Mississippi.”
“Yeah, out of the frying pan into the fire sounds like a fantastic idea,” Torm muttered. “This road trip is going bad in all sorts of fun ways. How did you manage to turn a simple message delivery into this?”
Pete ignored him. “Everyone stay frosty. From now on we should consider ourselves in enemy territory.”
His team reluctantly nodded and got focused. They may not have liked the situation, but at least they had plenty of experience evading vehicular pursuit in the CCZ, and they began following those same protocols now.
Part of that involved stopping the car just below the crest of every hill and sending one of them up with binoculars to scan the road ahead and behind, engine off and ears straining for the sound of other vehicles. They had to move quickly with these precautions, because another rule of evading vehicular pursuit was get away from the scene of contact with the enemy as quickly as possible, the more distance the better.
Pete didn't like having to think of the entire Mexican border guard as potential enemies, possibly the entire government, but they couldn't afford to take any chances.
Under Torm's terse guidance they made for a side road a few miles farther along that went through an abandoned town. Just before reaching it chatter over the radio alerted them to a convoy approaching from the opposite direction, and to be cautious Pete pulled the car out of sight behind a rundown house while they waited for the vehicles to pass.
“Maybe we should join up with them,” Monty suggested, breaking the tense silence as they listened to the sound of approaching engines.
It wasn't the worst idea, but Pete shook his head. “We don't know the situation, and we can't count on them to have our backs in a dispute with corrupt authorities. If we join up with them and things are worse than we think then we'll be stuck the moment we run into a patrol or reach the border checkpoint.”
