“Meaning, over?”
“A waste of resources in the dark. We got none, or practically no NVG on those guys running up front. They’ll be picked apart. That fact was just demonstrated. There’s two teams, or at least a rear guard and a sniper backup team running clean in the dark ahead of us. Over.”
“Suggestions?”
“Let me and my men do our job, sir. We’ll get them. Over.”
Staring into the crater near the library building on Brownsville Road, Phoenix snatched the radio from Larry’s hand. Bristling with anger, he launched.
“Luke, give half your team’s night equipment to the next batch of men that arrive. Send them all down the road. Tell them to stop only when they reach Route 51. Am I clear? Do you copy?”
“Yes, sir. I copy.”
“In the meantime, I want you and your men to wait there. You’ve done enough damage for one night. Over.”
Luke studied the men around him. Each stared furious at the radio, but waited for Luke’s response. Looking around, he sensed the men, good trackers all, needed to regroup after the events of the past hour. Fatigue and their supreme efforts at tracking such an elusive prey at night had wore them down to the point that they were, in fact, not up to the caliber of the tangos slipping away ahead of them. Swallowing hard, Luke admitted he was not up to his A-game. Painful to acknowledge, he’d lost this round with an enemy who’d easily decimated his team and slipped away unharmed, despite his best efforts.
“Understood. We’ll wait and regroup, Over.”
“You do that, Luke. Try to at least stay alive so I might kill you myself.”
Luke tossed the radio to the man nearest him and walked toward a dark house with a ripped open front door. On his way, he motioned for all men to follow.
“We’ll rest here. Put some food into you and rest. I’ll hang out here waiting to deal with that asshole when he gets here.”
Without a word, each man eased past and sought a spot within the house, settling in for as long as would be accorded them. They were both surprised and emboldened by the audacity of Luke Killington. Many knew he would make a fine new leader if he was able to survive Phoenix Justice.
CHAPTER 9.17-Bug Out
The Green and Blue Teams arrived at the McDonald’s expending most of their energy in their long sprint. They had moved as fast as possible, covering nearly two miles in under eleven minutes, a monumental task considering the weight of their gear, the uneven terrain, and the fact that their footwear was built for durability and not speed. They were panting hard and unable to speak, but they wiggled out of their packs and found a place to lie down inside the McDonald’s, noisily trying to catch their breath.
“I hate to tell you guys this,” said Captain Daubney, “but we gotta bug outta here in a few minutes.”
None of the men were surprised by this update—on the contrary, they expected it. They had slowed down Phoenix’s advancing army, but they hadn’t come close to stopping it. The inconvenience of a few dead men would only add to Phoenix’s determination to overtake Connor’s unit and wipe it from existence. Every man there knew that Phoenix would stop at nothing to exact his revenge. This was doubly true for the men that spent time in Cleveland. Each man knew that the primary goal was to safely outrun Phoenix and make the secondary rendezvous at the Uniontown Hospital. Preferably, with enough of a safe cushion to avoid directly engaging the massive force that was in pursuit.
Connor had some of his own ideas on the matter he was also considering. “Okay, guys, what you just did was impressive,” said Connor. “Captain Daubney, go outside and make sure everything’s set to go. We’ll leave in three minutes.”
“Mac, give me five,” said Marty between breaths.
“Pussy,” said BB, belching the word between heavy breaths.
“Fuck you, BB,” said Marty.
“You’ll go in three, Surf Boy, if I give you the order to go. Don’t waste your breath arguing. The horses will carry your packs for the time being—I know you won’t give up your weapons, but we’re gonna set a pace that will put us twenty-five miles away from here in five hours or less.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mickey. He forced himself to stand on wobbly legs. “I’m ready to go, colonel.”
“That’s great, Top. Let’s get outside and start loading the horses with your packs.”
When they went outside, Jason and Jude took their packs and loaded them on the horses. The men noted the exact location of their packs. The packs contained additional ammunition for their weapons and they didn’t intend to be very far from the horses.
“Listen up!” yelled Connor. “That pissed off maniac on our asses is probably gonna be a bit more cautious about his pursuit from now on. But that doesn’t mean he’s giving up his pursuit. We have to put some miles between him and us.” Connor made eye contact with each member of his unit to make sure that they all understood the import of his words. “Captain Daubney, I want two men as front guard and four men as rear guard—each two-man team should have a radio. Switch these teams out every hour.”
“Yes, sir. Colonel?”
“Yes, captain?”
“What about using the horses for the rear guard and front guard?”
“No. We’ll walk the horses to keep them as quiet as possible. We don’t want to come up on any surprises or alert any unknowns if we can help it. Okay, let’s move out.”
They were all tired, some more than others, but the action of walking at a quick pace re-energized them. The cadence of the horses’ hooves on the pavement was soothing to the group and there was little talk during their trek.
Route 51 was a wide four-lane road through the South Hills of Pittsburgh, meandering lazily through what had once been suburban neighborhoods mixed with commercial strip malls. Connor’s intent was to continue this brisk pace for five hours through the night, stopping only for five minutes every hour. He projected that this general speed would put them close to the small town of Perryopolis near dawn. If feasible, they would camp for a more significant rest of two or three hours near there before moving on to Uniontown.
Connor knew this road well, having traveled this way many weekends over the past fifteen years. Easily, he pictured what would be around the next bend or over the crest of the next hill and, usually, he was right, though the images in his mind didn’t include the aging and abuse of the scenery due to the neglect of the past five years. Nature had certainly taken the opportunity to reassert itself in the overgrowth and decay. It was sad to see the burn piles and mounds of bones, sometimes five or ten feet high, in parking lots or empty fields—efforts of a surviving population to rid the area of the dead.
This was the way to the cottage; a modest dwelling left to him by his father fifteen years ago and located in Farmington, Pennsylvania, a little town nestled comfortably in the Laurel Mountains. His family had always called it the “cottage”, though there was nothing Hansel-and-Gretel-esque about it. Originally, it was a two-story modified A-frame with two small bedrooms on the top floor and a living room with a fireplace, a bathroom, and a large kitchen on the ground floor. But a few years after his father had died, Connor expanded the ground floor on each side of the house creating two huge additional bedrooms and an elevated porch that wrapped neatly around the perimeter of the house. He hoped that the house was still there. He hoped that his family inhabited it. When these memories threatened to overwhelm him, he suppressed his rising emotion and refused to think about anything other than his current tactical environment.
It was a relatively warm night, the dullness of the full moon indicating the haze of humidity and the portent of an uncomfortably hot day to follow. Connor glanced behind him when he heard one of the horses approaching. John McLeod led his horse with BB and Marty close by, unwilling to allow any greater distance to separate them from their packs.