Edge of Valor: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller(18)
Another problem for another day.
The four-wheeler roared through town, passing shuttered buildings in a blur. Quinn had sounded the alarm—the townspeople vanished into houses and businesses. Downtown was deserted.
Pulse thudding in his ears, Liam scanned the trees and lawns, windows and rooftops, searching for danger.
They arrived at the blockade with three minutes to spare.
Several vehicles faced each other, positioned across the highway to form the barricade. Behind each vehicle stood a row of large dirt-filled barrels to provide cover.
They’d created concertina wire obstacles after stripping barbed wire fencing. They had dragged felled trees across the road to create a Z so vehicles would have to zigzag through it before reaching the barricade.
The defenses weren’t finished. They needed more able bodies, more supplies, more time.
Four guards crouched behind the barricade itself. Eight of their best shooters took up overwatch positions in the two-story buildings along either side of the road.
The rest hid in fortified sniper hides in nearby buildings or crouched in the four newly-dug foxholes.
Without a word, Bishop sprinted across the street to take up a previously scouted sniper position within a large steel building with a green metal roof. In bold yellow lettering, the awning out front offered “Creative Landscaping.”
Liam turned toward the Add-A-Space mini-storage, situated north of the blockade and facing the highway, set fifty yards off the road.
He entered the building using the rear exit, slipping through a steel door they’d pried open last week. He moved at a halting jog, slower than he wanted.
Teeth clenched, he hastened through the shadowed interior, passing hunched desks and office furniture until he reached the stairwell and jogged to the second floor.
He bypassed the CEO’s corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows and selected the break room next door. Cabinets lined one wall, a teal Keurig on the counter, coffee mugs stacked beside it.
His stomach lurched. The reek of stale coffee grounds mixed with something rancid assaulted his nostrils. Someone’s lunch left in a cabinet to rot for three months.
He slid between a couple of round tables with plastic chairs and hurried to the window.
On his previous visit, he and Bishop had lugged several sandbags up the stairs and shoved them against the wall beneath the waist-high window. A metal shelf provided the perfect height to balance the M4.
Since he didn’t have urban hide sniper netting, a loose window screen material suspended with paracord covered the window. The netting hid the sniper’s location without interfering with their ability to see and shoot.
He’d learned the trick years ago from a Fort Benning instructor at the Army’s advanced course for snipers, which he’d taken with Charlie Hamilton.
Liam shrugged the go-bag from his back and did a weapons check. Thirty 5.56mm rounds in the M4, with several spare magazines in his pack.
He wished he had his Remington 700 30-06 for sniping, but the M4 would have to do.
His Glock 19 held seventeen rounds in the upgraded magazine with one in the chamber. In addition, he carried two frag grenades and three flash bangs.
He hoped he didn’t have to fire a single round. Not against American soldiers.
Liam knelt several feet back from the window, set a small beanbag on the shelf, and
shouldered the carbine, steadying it on the beanbag.
Peering through the scope, he zeroed in on the road. He breathed in, breathed out, forced his heart rate to slow. Pushed out the fear and anxiety and pain. Put it in a box. Focus on the task at hand, nothing else.
That familiar cold calm descended over him, his years of training taking over.
Within a minute, the rumble of engines reached him.
11
Liam
Day One Hundred and Four
Liam tensed.
The lead Humvee rolled to a stop fifty yards from the blockade. The second vehicle halted twenty yards behind the first. Their engines growled loud in the sudden stillness.
On initial approach, the blockade appeared to be a decent civilian-built roadblock helmed by a couple of watchmen, nothing more.
As long as they kept their fortifications hidden, they’d make the first move and take the opposition by surprise.
Jose Reynoso stepped out from behind the barricade and moved into the center of the road to meet the convoy. He wore his uniform, his Glock holstered at his hip, a department-issued shotgun held low in front of him, loaded with slugs to better stop a vehicle in its tracks.
From his position, Liam couldn’t see the other fighting teams, but he could feel their nerves, sense their fear and apprehension.
For some, it was the first time they’d experienced combat.
Most, though, had fought the militia. They’d received Liam’s truncated training.
No one broke rank. They waited, as prepared as possible, armed and ready for whatever happened next. Willing to defend their town and their loved ones with their lives.
Liam’s chest tightened with an unexpected surge of pride. He refocused on the hostiles approaching his town.
The first guardsman stepped out of his vehicle holding an M4 in the high ready position. He was black, in his mid-twenties, with hard nervous eyes and a pencil-thin mustache.
A second soldier, a short Hispanic woman, exited the other side of the vehicle. The third guardsman—male, chubby—remained in the turret.