Nuclear winter book 4 go.., p.5
Nuclear Winter | Book 4 | Going Home, page 5
part #4 of Nuclear Winter Series
“Yeah, only that time was mostly luck.” Jack sighed. “What I wouldn't give for an RPG.”
“Which we have to assume the border guards will have one or two of,” Pete said grimly. “The most likely possibility is that they radioed for backup, which means we're probably being herded into an ambush.”
“So in other words we deal with this jeep and burn rubber in a different direction?” Jack asked, glancing at the rearview mirror.
Pete nodded. “Let's punish them for keeping their distance. Find us a blind turn where we can stop and set up a quick ambush.” His friend nodded and focused on driving while Pete turned to the others, mostly Monty. “All right, our primary focus is to disable their vehicle. If we can manage that we should be able to make a clean getaway.”
Monty nodded, although he looked more than a little nervous. “Okay. So we target their engine block, right?”
Torm burst out laughing. “With 5.56 rounds?” he demanded incredulously. “Have fun with that.”
Pete ignored him. “Aim for the tires or the windshield. Even if you don't shatter the glass it should still spook the driver and might make him swerve and crash.”
Monty gave him a slightly irritated look. “I'm not exactly a raw recruit, Corp.”
A minute or so later they neared a sharp turn at the top of a gradual incline, leading into a copse of trees. Seeing a good opportunity Jack gunned the engine up the incline, trying for best speed as they approached the spot. Pete glanced out the back window, noting the jeep's slow response in matching speed.
Perfect, that would buy them a bit more time.
They rounded the corner, and even better there was a driveway turning off the road a hundred yards ahead. Jack braked and turned them down it until their car was less visible from the road, and Pete and his squad boiled out their doors, weapons ready.
Pete sprinted across the road and made for a spot where two trees grew against each other, providing cover. Jack pounded along behind him, while Torm and Monty disappeared into the trees a bit down the road from the car. It didn't take Pete long to settle into a spot that gave him a good vantage on the road, and soon the rustle of Jack finding his own place also quieted, so the only noise he heard was the ragged sound of his breathing and the roar of the jeep's engine as it started up the incline.
At that point there was nothing to do but wait, listening to the sound of their pursuit getting closer. Pete lay prone sighting down his rifle, trying to calculate the moment when the jeep would burst around the corner. He wanted to get the most out of the few critical shots he'd be able to take while their pursuers were still caught by surprise.
It was going to be tricky shooting, trying to hit a vehicle moving at least 50 or 60 miles an hour on one of the two tires he'd have line of sight on. He could always hope the surprise of their attack caused the jeep's driver to slam on the breaks or at least swerve, and with any luck might even roll the vehicle and do their job for them.
Unlikely, but a man could dream.
The roar of the engine abruptly grew much louder as the jeep swerved into view, taking the corner at dangerous speeds. Pete immediately opened up on the vehicle's front tire, hoping to make the vehicle flip with a blowout before it had a chance to straighten out again. His shots missed, striking sparks on the asphalt just behind his target. Pete remained undeterred and kept firing, hoping he'd hit the back tire when it passed through the same spot.
Not far from him Jack was firing as well, although Pete couldn't see the results he was getting. He could also hear the bark of gunfire as Torm and Monty added their own shots to the chaos.
Unfortunately there he could see the results of at least one person's shooting, since it looked as though Torm had ignored his orders about the disabling the vehicle and had opted to disable its occupants instead. He was shooting at the unprotected guards inside the open-top jeep to devastating effect.
The pragmatic part of Pete admitted that they were the better target in an ambush, easier to hit and with each one taken out another threat eliminated, especially if Torm managed to take out the driver. But he still regretted the sight.
Unfortunately, however he might have felt about it he couldn't argue with the results: his and Jack's bullets all missed, or possibly the tires were puncture-proof, and Monty's spray of gunfire over the windshield produced only a few spiderwebs of cracks. Nothing that would seriously hinder the vehicle.
Not so with Torm's shooting.
As the guards in the jeep began taking bullets the driver swerved and screeched them to a halt, and the remaining men in the vehicle poured out and hid behind its doors, firing blindly at their ambushers. Which didn't help them much, since Pete's team was spread out on both sides of the road and there was no place the guards could find cover from the incoming barrage.
Pete opted to aim for the jeep around the targets on his side, hoping to intimidate them into surrendering or at least trying to flee. None of their shots were coming anywhere near him or Jack, so he didn't feel too much pressure to neutralize them. Which went against all his training and made years of hard won instincts scream at him in alarm, but he couldn't bring himself to shoot at men who might not be corrupt.
Thankfully it didn't prove necessary, since the remaining guards quickly realized the hopelessness of their situation. One threw his rifle down to clatter on the asphalt and moments later the two others followed suit. Then the three cautiously raised their arms above their heads, shouting in Mexican and broken English that they gave up. They didn't completely come out from cover, but in their positions Pete's team could easily finish them off at any moment.
“Cease fire!” Pete shouted.
The deafening racket of gunfire petered out, and at his side Jack whistled. “I don't believe it, they're actually surrendering.” Not a single shred of sarcasm tinged the frank disbelief in his voice. “They must be seriously desperate.”
His friend had spoken in a conversational tone, and now that it was more quiet their squad mates could evidently hear him from their positions on the other side of the road. “Or maybe they know the reputation of Canadian soldiers and they trust us,” Monty called back.
“Trust us enough to open fire on us without a word of warning,” an unseen Torm shouted, voice sounding strained. “I'm with Porter on this one. Nobody trusts anyone these days unless they're desperate or stupid, and if they act like they do you should look out for a trick.”
Pete shook his head. “Well if they've got a trick in mind they're still weaponless with their hands in the air.” He cautiously emerged from cover, rifle trained on the surrendering guards, and raised his voice to shout instructions in broken Spanish for them to come out and kneel in a line.
To his surprise the surrendering soldiers did. Pete motioned for Jack to search their new prisoners and Monty to check the bodies in the jeep and on the ground on his side for wounded. Last of all he pointed Torm towards the wrecked jeep. “Trash their radio.”
The interrogator glared at the prisoners as he limped towards their vehicle, muttering under his breath. “I suppose since we're going to let them live we should at least do that much, so they don't call all their friends to come kill us.” Slinging his M16 across his back, Torm picked up one of the guards' discarded rifles, ejected the magazine and cleared the chamber, then used it as a club to go wild on the jeep's dashboard.
Pete turned away from the crunch of breaking electronics and made his way over to help Jack bind the prisoners with zip ties. “This one's alive,” Monty called, waving at the downed soldier sprawled across the road. “Wound's not too bad, either.”
Torm abandoned the smashed radio and limped over to the downed guard, tossing aside his makeshift club as he did.
Pete tensed, worried the interrogator was going to simply murder the wounded man, but before he could raise an objection Torm knelt awkwardly next to Monty and checked the guard's wound.
Then he looked up at Pete. “Not bad, but without medical care it might get that way.”
Monty looked a bit distressed. “We should try to do something for him, right?”
Pete grit his teeth. “If we took the time we'd just give the manhunt a chance to come down on us like a ton of bricks. The best we can do is leave him with his friends and hope another vehicle passes by for him soon.”
Torm gave him a look of mock surprise. “What's this, our fearless leader actually talking common sense?”
He straightened to his full height, making his voice stern. “You want to go down that road, Private Torment? I don't recall my orders involving firing on the vehicle's occupants.”
The interrogator just snorted dismissively and started to stand. He'd barely got his feet under him when he suddenly staggered, falling back to one knee with a sharp curse.
Only then did Pete notice that the interrogator's right pant leg starting just above the knee was dark with blood all the way down to his ankle. He cursed himself for not realizing what Torm limping around meant sooner and rushed over to the private, dropping down beside him.
Sure enough, the man's pants had a hole through them from a bullet wound, blood trickling steadily from it.
Pete's curses joined Torm's and he looked down the road in both directions, scowling in helpless fury. A wound like that needed to be looked at right away, but reinforcements for the Federales they'd just fought would be coming soon. He needed to get his team out now, and in fact with the radio smashed and the prisoners bound he'd been just about to order everyone back to the car.
There was no time to look at Torm's leg at the moment. Instead Pete took off his belt and used it to make a tourniquet higher up the wounded leg. “We need to get out of here,” he told Torm and Monty. “We'll see to it when we can, in the car if we have to.”
Torm snorted. “Expecting me to argue? Let's get out of here.”
With Monty's help Pete got the interrogator to the car, while Jack snagged a fuel can from the back of the jeep, a good find considering all the driving they'd had to do and their nonexistent chances of finding a gas station anytime soon. They put Torm in the backseat with Monty looking after him and Pete got behind the wheel, peeling away almost as soon as Jack hopped into the passenger seat with the fuel can between his feet, gas fumes beginning to fill the car until wind from the open windows cleared it out.
Teeth gritted through the pain, Torm pointed at the map tucked between the seats. “Saw a road a few miles farther down this road headed northeast. They last saw us going southeast so they might take longer to check it.”
Pete would've thought northwest would be the least likely route for the guards to check, but he trusted Torm had a handle on this sort of thing. “Roger. We'll look for a hiding place along it where we can check your wound.”
“Take your time, I'm just bleeding to death back here.”
In spite of the man's sarcastic tone Pete still looked back at him in alarm. “Is the tourniquet not tight enough?”
Torm gave him a disgusted look. “It was a figure of speech, Corp. Just drive, I can hold up for a while.”
Pete nodded and gunned the engine, getting them out of there as fast as road conditions allowed without bouncing his wounded squad mate all over the backseat.
✽✽✽
Pete drove for twenty miles down Torm's northeast road before he found a secluded house barely visible through some trees, in a ravine going off a different direction from the road with a winding driveway leading to it.
He drove down the driveway, finding a shed along it before reaching the house itself, and elected to hide the car behind that, figuring the house would be a more obvious target for any pursuers.
As soon as he shut off the engine he and Jack rushed to Torm's side of the car and carefully helped the wounded private out. They carried him around to the back of the vehicle, where Monty already had the trunk open and was spreading out the tarp from his tent on the ground. They wasted no time laying Torm on it.
“Cut his pant leg off, carefully,” Pete snapped as he dove headfirst into the trunk and began rummaging around for the first aid kit.
“Not my first rodeo, dude,” Jack replied, knife already out and slicing lengthwise near the seam with casual precision as Pete dropped to his knees beside him and threw open the kit. His friend kept his weapon sharp, which prevented the cloth from tugging too much as it was cut away, but from the looks of it some of the fibers had been pulled into the entry wound by the bullet's passage. They'd have to be picked out.
Pete began laying medical supplies out on the open lid of the kit, inventorying what they had. There was a bag of saline solution and a bulb syringe to irrigate wounds with, clamps to close wounds, antiseptic spray, even spray-on bandage for less serious cuts and scrapes. Clean cloth bandages and a couple boxes of bandaids, tweezers and scalpels so more competent medics could work inside the wound, and a small spool of suturing thread and some suturing tools.
Beside him Jack finished cutting away the pant leg and breathed a sigh of relief. “Through-and-through,” he said. “Not bleeding bad enough to suggest it hit anything serious, and it looks like it missed the bone.”
That was good news. Pete handed his friend the saline solution and syringe and dug deeper into the kit. He found painkillers, not just over the counter stuff but some strong prescription pills, and even some basic cold and flu medicine and antihistamines. Some insulin and epinephrine injectors; the kit was surprisingly complete. In fact, the only thing it didn't seem to have was . . .
“You've got to be kidding me,” Pete muttered. “No antibiotics.”
Had they been used up and never replaced, or were they just too hard to come by even for the military? Pete had never heard medics complain about that, or at least any more than they griped about the general shortage of medical supplies.
“None at all?” Jack said, looking over with a frown. Pete shook his head, and he sighed. “I guess we'll just have to make sure we clean this sucker out thoroughly then, and keep it clean until we can get him to a hospital.”
Torm snorted derisively through gritted teeth. “Yeah, should be a snap to get me medical care in our current situation.” He glanced over at Pete. “But you got painkillers, right?” Pete handed him a bottle of acetaminophen and his canteen. The interrogator looked at it blankly, then at him. “Seriously? You don't have anything stronger?”
“We might end up fighting again before too long and I need you frosty. Try to tough it out with this, and later on if you really need it I'll give you some prescription stuff.”
He got an incredulous laugh in response. “No, seriously? Have you ever been shot in the leg?”
“Actually I have. Didn't have a nice first aid kit full of goodies to work with then, either.” Pete stood, ignoring the man's further complaints, and stared worriedly towards the road. They needed to hurry up with this and get back on the road, and fast, before their pursuit caught up with them.
Of course that was just a temporary worry, because now that they'd been found the manhunt would be closing in on them from all sides. Finding an unguarded bridge to sneak across the river had just become impossible, and they couldn't keep running like this forever with the net closing in around them. They'd managed to fight off two attacks well enough, but it was only a matter of time, and probably not much time, before they ran into a situation the four of them couldn't handle.
Unless he wanted to wage a doomed war against the entire Mexican military he was going to have to think of another plan, and fast.
Chapter Three: Desperate Measures
“I'll finish up with this,” Pete said, motioning for Jack to move aside so he could take over cleaning and clamping Torm's wound.
His friend gave him an odd look. “No offense, man, but we both know this is more my thing.”
“Maybe, but I need you and Monty to grab your gear and get ready for a hike.”
Jack suddenly looked a bit uncomfortable. “Why, exactly?”
“Because you're going to hike to the river on foot, cross it and make your back up to New Memphis, and find help.”
There was a long pause as his three squad mates stared at him incredulously. “Are you insane?” Monty demanded. “You want us to walk home with the entire Mexican Army searching for us?”
Pete smiled grimly. “This is exactly what we do every time we raid into the CCZ. Staying off the road and without the car as a highly visible target you guys should have no trouble getting back into Canada, and the moment you cross the border your ordeal is over.” He hastily continued before anyone could protest further; Jack was opening his mouth to do just that. “Once you're back in contact with Command let them know what happened, and that we need help. Ideally if they could sort this all out with Mexico so they stop hunting us down, that would be fantastic.”
Jack shook his head doubtfully. “This isn't quite the same as raiding into the CCZ. We've got a whole network of scouts and support equipment along our stretch of the Mississippi to help us do that, and the CCZ is stretched too thin to really secure their border. Mexico only has to worry about their border with the CCZ since the US and Canada don't raid them, so that means they can divert a lot more to hunting us down if they want.”
Those were fair points, Pete had to admit. “They could, but we all know how hard it is to find people on foot who don't want to be found. I can't imagine you'll have too much trouble finding a nice isolated spot on the border near New Memphis to cross.”
“And what're we going to be doing while they're scuttling back to safety?” Torm demanded. “Twiddling our thumbs? Waging a two man war against an entire country?”
“No and definitely no.” Pete paused in irrigating the wound to point at their ride. “We'll take the car the only direction we reasonably can, farther west into Mexico, and try to outrun or outlast the manhunt until help arrives.” He smiled grimly. “Although since we'll be heading that way anyway we'll try to get to the US, where it might be a bit easier to cross the border. After all, we do have a mission to complete.”
