Panting and sweating, they crest the top. The team pauses with their hands on their knees and the others collapse in the dirt, not caring if they die where they fall. At least they will die free.
Greg gets the team in motion again and cajoles the others with the promise that safety lays just a few more steps away. The powder kicked up from their boots seems drier and dustier than before. They are all exhausted — the post-adrenaline let down. The Stryker is parked in the shadow of a sheltering bluff, almost hidden. They scramble aboard and cram into every available space. The boy they rescued the night before is awake and smiles at the soldiers entering. Diane gives a croaking cry and throws her arms around one of the four they brought. The ex-prisoners are given water and fall asleep almost immediately.
Greg turns to Kyle. “Do your magic. Get us out of here. There are numerous vehicles out and about looking for us. Make sure we stay out of sight and keep us heading south.”
Kyle takes over the commander’s position and guides the driver through a myriad of paths. The going is maddeningly slow due to the need to keep their dust trail down. Greg turns to the ones they rescued. Diane is holding a young man in her lap as he sleeps. This is obviously her and Kyle’s brother judging from the tears rolling down her cheeks. Even as they sleep, the others are being ministered to by the soldiers. The freed prisoners are all gaunt with malnourishment and look battered and bruised. However, it seems likely that they’ll survive their ordeal.
Greg is thinking about transportation for them all when he hears Kyle call, “Vehicle ahead, sir. We’ve been spotted.”
Greg quickly exchanges places and is informed that they are proceeding south down the Interstate. Kyle has brought them south of Colorado Springs using his knowledge of the back trails. Greg orders a halt. Not wanting to silhouette himself on top of the Stryker and present a target, he looks through the vehicle’s optics and zooms in.
Ahead, in the other lanes, a dark-colored pickup is parked off to the side of the road. It could be that the other group has scouts parking along major routes to report their position if found. Two people stand on the other side of the truck looking on with binoculars. Whoever they are, it’s evident that the team has been spotted and their position more than likely reported.
“We need to move through this and quick. Driver, floor it,” Greg says. “If they make a move, blink, or otherwise breathe wrongly, I’m lighting ‘em up.”
The only thing keeping him from sending the truck and its riders to the afterlife is the radio call from Jack. At some point, they were to meet a group coming up from the south. The call was terse and he didn’t get a lot of information as Jack was a little busy at the time.
The Stryker launches forward, jostling those within. Some of the ex-captive’s wake and their eyes startle open. They begin flailing in a panic before remembering where they are. The men next to the truck parked ahead don’t move. The Stryker closes the distance. The two don’t respond in a hostile manner — of course, who would with an armored Stryker bearing down on them — but they don’t leave the cover of their enclosed truck either. As they draw closer, Greg sees that it’s an enclosed four-by-four — a Suburban or Tahoe. Both men have long beards and one holds a shotgun at his side.
Greg orders the driver to slow and change lanes. As they pass adjacent, Greg pokes his head out of the hatch.
“Are you the unit Captain Walker told us about?” the larger of the two men shouts.
Greg shouts for a halt and pitches forward as the heavy vehicle slows and stops.
“I’m Jax and this ugly brute is Steven.”
To Greg, the both of them look like they should be riding Harley’s rather than an SUV.
“I was under the impression you were going to radio when you were close. I was pretty close to unleashing some heavy steel your way,” Greg says.
The post-adrenaline drain and knowing he had to leave one person in the hands of those fanatics has left Greg with little patience. Plus, he is just coming down from his fear of having been discovered.
“We didn’t think we’d run into you this far out. And I’m glad you held your trigger finger light. I don’t think we’d have enjoyed that much,” Jax says with a grin.
The large man with shaggy brown hair and a bushy beard then looks north and points. “Is that your handiwork?’
Greg whirls around in the cupola. To the north, several thin streamers of dark smoke rise into the air with the tops bending to the east as they catch the wind.
“No… no it’s not,” Greg replies, shading his face to get a clearer picture.
Shattered Dreams
Gav listens to the supervisor as she watches the central screen stabilize.
“We were doing a recon of the surrounding area, checking on the camp south of us… camp C-US-9. The one that is holding up in those caves.”
Gav gives an impatient nod and the supervisor continues, “Ahem… yes, as I was saying, we were doing a routine surveillance run and we found this.”
With the punch of a button, the screen stabilizes and she sees in magnified image of a Stryker sitting near an open mine on top of a ridgeline.
“Okay, so why am I looking at a Stryker sitting in the middle of nowhere?” she asks.
“That’s about seventy miles southwest of us,” he says, noting a slight raise of her eyebrow. ”But this is where it gets interesting.”
Gav nearly sighs out loud but restricts it to an inward sigh. It’s the same wherever she has gone. The folks want to guide you through their process to show their cleverness. Sometimes that’s necessary to sway others toward a decision, to show that it’s the logical one to take, but here it feels like the supervisor wants her to be impressed and throw him a bone.
Her mood has definitely taken on a black side since the recent failures. She can’t change them, nor can she alter her situation through sheer force of will. It is what it is. There isn’t anything she can do to alter her present position. She understands that, but that doesn’t mean she has to like it. She wishes her staff would understand that she doesn’t need to be taken by the and guided. The sheer fact that they are here shows their expertise and they should just cut to the chase without taking her for a ride. Yeah, her temper has definitely been short lately. And those old men sitting in luxury in the back rooms…she doesn’t even want to get started thinking about that or she’ll scream. She takes a deep breath and pays attention to what the man beside her is saying. This is where things will transpire that will change the way things are…not the delusional wishes of old men.
“Nahmer,” the man says to get her attention back.
“Yes, yes… go ahead,” she replies.
“As I was saying, I did a backward run of the captured video from our satellites. This Stryker and the team with it departed McConnell AFB when Captain Walker was there. That was several days ago. I believe it to be a team from the A camp.”
“Are they onto us?” she asks, worried about a team this close to their command center.
It’s not that a single Stryker is a threat, but if they know about their location, well, that’s a worry. The stalemate between the two groups is still in existence, and the others are bound to find out about their location having captured her shooter, but any one of them this close is an additional anxiety.
“No. they departed before anything happened and we haven’t picked up any communications. We still have the satellites blocked. They can’t know the situation,” the supervisor says.