Thunder and Ashes Read online

In the back of the pickup truck, still half-hidden by the barbed wire, Krueger grinned to himself and racked another round into the chamber of his .30–06.

  A moment passed in stunned silence. Then the bandits recovered their senses, and gunshots began to ring out in an accelerating staccato. Sherman, Ron, and Mbutu ducked down and ran around to the back of the utility truck as rounds skittered off the pavement and ricocheted off of the grille of the vehicle, shooting sparks. Thomas fell back into a shooter’s stance and began returning fire with his pistol, presenting as small a target as he could manage.

  Brewster and Denton found themselves hard-pressed at the rear of the convoy, facing down the five bandits who had cut off their escape.

  Brewster fired both shells in his double-barreled shotgun, cracked the weapon to reload, and suddenly found himself the target of a fusillade of rounds. He heard what sounded like a hornet fly past his right ear and realized it had been as near a miss as any he’d ever experienced. Momentarily panicked, he dropped the shotgun and dove for cover behind the rear tires of the pickup.

  Denton fell back, hoping to take cover behind the open passenger door, firing his pistol one-handed as he moved.

  Another loud report sounded from within the back of the pickup, and a bandit at the rear of the convoy screamed out in pain, clutching at his throat and falling out of sight behind his cover. His rifle clattered to the ground. Krueger was in his element, sniping away.

  Beneath the pickup, Brewster recovered his senses, grimaced, and reached out a hand from behind the wheel to retrieve his shotgun. Almost immediately, a bullet ricocheted off the pavement inches from his hand, kicking up tiny bits of asphalt shrapnel that tore into Brewster’s hand. He grunted, pulled his hand back, and gritted his teeth. Blood seeped out from between his fingers.

  “Goddammit,” Brewster growled.

  The soldier was angry now. He shot out his other arm, ignoring the sound of bullets whizzing by, and grabbed his shotgun, pulling it in close and yanking free the two spent shells with his wounded hand. He slammed in a fresh pair, snapped the weapon up, and sent more buckshot downrange. The shot shattered the side window of a bandit vehicle and the raiders firing from behind it reflexively ducked.

  Ron went down with a yell of pain, dropping his pistol and clutching at a bloodied leg as Katie screamed out his name. He crawled backwards, trying to roll behind the utility truck and remove himself from the line of fire. His pistol lay forgotten in the middle of the road.

  In the back of the pickup, Krueger let his crosshairs settle on the face of a moustached bandit wielding a semiautomatic carbine and fired a third time. Through the scope, he saw the man’s head snap back as the round slammed home. His target slumped forward over the bed of his truck.

  “Keep up the fire!” Sherman yelled over the gunfire. “Keep their heads down!”

  Rebecca had been firing slowly, a shot every third or fourth second, trying to take careful aim in the direction of the assailants. At Sherman’s command, however, she picked up the pace, squeezing off rounds with less care as to whether they hit or not.

  Thomas ran his second magazine dry and skipped backwards to where the General was taking cover behind one of the utility truck’s open doors. He knelt beside Sherman, dug a fresh clip free from an ammo pouch on his belt, reloaded, and resumed firing.

  Jack and Mitsui had been in the front of the pickup, still inside, when the shooting had first started. Jack felt woefully under-armed with his small-caliber pistol and Mitsui was still a shaky shot with his hunting rifle, but the two jumped into the fray nonetheless. Mitsui’s shots went wide, skittering off the pavement or flying harmlessly through the air above the bandit’s heads. One of his shots flattened a tire on a bandit truck.

  Under the pickup, Brewster found himself the bandits’ favored target. His shotgun blasts had nearly taken the head off of one of the raiders and had peppered the entire side of one of their vehicles with shot. Three of them focused their fire on Brewster’s position.

  The soldier jumped as rounds flew anew in his direction, spanging off of the pickup’s bumper, popping the tire and digging chunks out of the asphalt all around him. Brewster curled up as small as he could manage and did his best to stay hidden behind the rear wheel.

  “Krueger!” Brewster yelled as another round impacted the road near him. A sliver of street embedded itself in his cheek, and blood tricked down his face. “Krueger! Little help!”

  Directly above Brewster in the bed of the pickup, Krueger heard the cries and spun in a circle, trying to locate the soldier. “Brewster! Where are you?!”

  “Right below you, numbnuts! Come on, put some fire on these trucks behind us! They’re tearing me up down here!”

  Krueger looked in the direction of the trucks and spotted three of the four remaining bandits aiming in Brewster’s direction. He nodded to himself, worked the bolt on his rifle to chamber a fresh round, and took careful aim. He let his breathing calm, waited for the crosshairs to settle, and—

  “Krueger! Krueger! Come on, man!” Brewster’s sudden exclamation caused the crosshairs to jump.

  “Shit,” Krueger muttered, then raised his voice somewhat. “Brewster, don’t interrupt the artist-at-work.”

  Beneath the truck, Brewster grimaced and rolled his eyes. “Leave it to Krueger to go all primadonna in the middle of a firefight.”

  Krueger’s shot rang out a moment later—and missed, his first errant round of the day. It impacted the outer edge of the left-hand truck’s cab, inches from a bandit’s head. Paint chips and metal shards sprayed the side of the bandit’s face, and the man yelled out in pain, dropping his rifle and clutching his cheek.

  The wounded bandit grabbed for his fallen weapon, snatched it up and wavered in place a moment, seemingly undecided as to whether he should press the attack or break and run. Self-preservation won out over profit and the bloodied raider turned on his heels, running full-tilt into the thick underbrush lining the roadside. His fellow bandits yelled after him, one shouting for him to return to the firing line and another cursing him for cowardice.

  The man’s panicked flight coupled with the three men Krueger had already killed seemed to be enough to break the remaining morale of the highway bandits blocking the convoy’s rear, and one by one they backed away from their cover, still firing, then turned and ran full-tilt into the pines, following in the footsteps of the wounded man.

  Only four bandits remained now, and all four were situated at the front of the convoy, behind the vehicles blocking the bridge over the wide creekbed. Thomas managed to wing one of the men in the arm, drawing a shouted curse from the enemy line. Mbutu had run out of ammunition, and knelt behind the utility truck to check on Ron.

  As bullets whizzed around them, Mbutu pried Ron’s white-knuckled grip away from his bleeding leg and looked at the wound. He grimaced at the sight, but nodded to himself. It wasn’t a fatal hit. It could have been if it had hit closer to the center of Ron’s thigh, but the bullet hole was off-center and the blood was not the bright red it would have been if the femoral artery had been hit.

  “You will live,” Mbutu said, slapping Ron on the shoulder.

  “Doesn’t fucking feel like it,” Ron said through gritted teeth. “My whole leg is on fire.”

  “Rebecca will bandage you,” Mbutu assured him. “And give you a shot to dull the pain.”

  “Looking forward to that,” Ron said, managing a half-grin.

  An errant round shattered the left headlight of the utility truck, and Sherman ducked reflexively. “We have to finish this!”

  “Right there with you, sir,” Thomas said. “Wish we had more long arms right about now.

  “Krueger!” Sherman yelled over his shoulder. “Krueger, up front if you’re not pinned!”

  Back in the pickup, Krueger shook his head and sighed as he worked at reloading his rifle. “No rest for the weary. On my way, sir!”

  Denton and Brewster had extricated themselves from the truck and were moving briskly
toward the vehicles the bandits had abandoned, weapons at the ready. They rounded the side of a black Ford and swept left and right. No sign was left of the opposition save for the body of one of the men Krueger had sniped. The soldier’s bullet had torn a hole through the man’s throat, and he lay in a wide pool of his own blood, hand still clutching his death wound. His eyes were wide open and his face wore an expression that spoke of surprise and fear. Near him lay a bolt-action hunting rifle.

  Denton holstered his pistol and scooped up the rifle, checked to make certain there was a round in the chamber, and jogged to catch up with Brewster. The private was standing near the edge of the underbrush, in a half-kneel, squinting into the trees to see if he could spot any of the bandits.

  “See anything?” Denton asked as he moved to stand alongside Brewster.

  “Nada,” Brewster replied. “I guess they really did bug out. I was worried for a second they’d regroup and come back for another go.”

  “Same here. Got some new hardware,” Denton said, hefting the rifle.

  Brewster looked back in the direction of the bridge, where gunshots were still ringing out. “Let’s put it to use.”

  “I’m with you.”

  The pair turned and ran toward the lead utility truck, feet slapping on the pavement. As they passed the pickup, they heard the familiar sound of Krueger’s rifle firing and the now equally familiar sound of a yell of pain from the bandit’s firing line. The soldier had scored another hit, but it hadn’t been a fatal one from the sound of things. The yell of pain had quickly turned into a string of shouted curses.

  Brewster and Denton arrived at the utility truck, sharing Sherman’s cover.

  “The guys that came up behind are taken care of,” Brewster said. “They had enough of Krueger’s sniping and took off into the woods.”

  Thomas grunted, firing another pair of rounds in the direction of the bandits. “First good news all day.”

  Jack and Mitsui had also shifted their attention from the rear of the convoy to the front, but neither was scoring much in the way of hits. Mitsui was quickly running out of ammunition and Jack’s pistol just wasn’t accurate enough at the distance between his targets and himself.

  Sherman spared a moment to look around and take in the situation. Things had started out looking grim for the group; now the tide had turned.

  “Cease fire! Cease fire! Cease fire!” Sherman yelled out, waving his arm in a “cut-off ” motion.

  One by one, the survivors’ weapons fell silent. The raiders continued to send rounds raining down on the convoy for a few more moments, but then they, too, realized that they were not taking anymore fire and slackened off. For the first time in several minutes, silence fell over the miniature battlefield.

  “Hello out there!” Sherman called, still crouched behind the open door of the utility truck. When he got no response, he tried again, raising the volume of his voice. Finally, someone shouted back.

  “What do you want?” came the reply.

  “Look around you,” Sherman yelled. “Your buddies behind us have been run off. Your leader’s dead. You’ve got wounded. We outnumber you now.”

  “What’s your point?” was the terse reply.

  “My point is take your men and get out of here!” Sherman shouted back. “Just turn around and go on your way!”

  “Fuck you, cockbreath!” came the shouted reply, and a renewed volley of bullets rained down on the convoy. Sherman ducked lower as the window above him was shattered out. Thomas cursed as a round skipped off the pavement and grazed his boot.

  “Cease fire, goddammit!” Sherman yelled from behind his cover. One by one, the bandits complied, almost sulking as they laid off their barrage. “Look around! You’re not going anywhere! Your backup’s gone! Your leader’s down! Just take your lives and go!”

  For a long moment, there was only silence. Sherman imagined the bandits were talking it over. Hopefully, they’d take the deal and go on their way.

  “What do you say, guys?” Sherman shouted over his shoulder. There was no response. He waited a moment longer, then repeated his query. Still, nothing.

  Thomas risked raising his head above the level of the door, peering through the shattered window in the direction of the bandits’ roadblock.

  “Sir,” Thomas grumbled, “looks like it worked.”

  “What worked?” Sherman asked.

  “They’re gone, sir,” Thomas said, pointing at the bridge.

  Sherman slowly pulled himself to his feet and surveyed the roadblock. The bandits had indeed used the momentary lapse in combat to turn tail and beat it across the bridge. Sherman could just barely make out a roadside shrub still waving where a bandit must have grazed it in his flight.

  “Jesus.” Sherman breathed a sigh of relief. “That could have gone a lot worse for us.”

  “Went worse for some of us than others,” came a pained interjection. Ron was still laid up behind the utility truck. Rebecca had abandoned her cover and run over to him, and was even now busily cutting away Ron’s pants leg to get a better view of the bullet wound he’d suffered.

  Brewster sat down heavily on the roof of the sedan, nursing his bloodied hand and daubing at the slice on his cheek with an old sock he’d pulled from his rucksack.

  “This is not my best day ever,” Ron groaned, clutching at his leg. Blood oozed from the bullet wound.

  “Relax,” Rebecca said. “It’s not that bad. I’ve got an exit wound here, so the bullet didn’t lodge in your leg anywhere. That’s a good thing. Straight in and straight out. You could probably use a couple of stitches. I’ll get you some antibiotics just in case—want something for the pain?”

  Ron fixed her with a sideways glance. “Hell yes, I want something for the pain. Feels like my entire leg is on fire.”

  Thomas and Sherman came strolling back over from their inspection of the bandit’s line and took in the sight of their wounded comrades. Thomas knelt next to Ron.

  “First time being shot, eh?” Thomas said, quirking a grin.

  “First time,” Ron said, nodding. “Hurts like a bitch.”

  “Doesn’t hurt any less the second and third time, either,” Thomas said, still grinning, then straightened himself out, clasped his hands behind his back, and strolled off to inspect the rest of the convoy.

  “That guy,” Ron said through gritted teeth, “doesn’t have a goddamn idea how to inspire confidence, does he?”

  “He’s just having a bit of fun with you,” Sherman said, arms folded across his chest and a soft smile planted on his face. “It’s his way.”

  Jack and Mitsui had both run to the front of the convoy, where a pair of corpses (courtesy of Krueger) lay. They occupied themselves with grabbing up the weapons left behind by the dead men and searching the raiders’ pockets for anything useful. Jack scored a pocketknife and a box of ammunition, as well as a short-barreled carbine to replace his small-caliber pistol. Mitsui struggled with removing a gear harness from another bandit and grinned as he tried it on, marveling in the plethora of pockets and pouches it afforded him. He grinned and gave Jack a thumbs-up. Jack responded by raising his new carbine and grinning in return.

  Mbutu watched the looting with a carefully neutral expression on his face. He’d barely said a thing during the entire engagement. Sherman had noticed, and ambled over to the tall man, standing by himself on the edge of the road, staring into the trees.

  “What’s on your mind?” Sherman asked, clasping Mbutu’s shoulder.

  “I am thinking of these raiders,” Mbutu said after a moment. “They said they had more men to feed. I wonder where those men are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, General, that they are most likely living nearby,” Mbutu explained. “They would not want to go too far from their home. I worry they will be back, and with greater numbers. We should leave. Now.”

  Sherman grimaced. Mbutu was right, naturally. The man had definitely shown his farsightedness to be useful in the past an
d Sherman was more than willing to trust his opinion.

  “All right, gentlemen and ladies,” Sherman said, spinning on his heel and heading back toward the convoy. “Let’s pack it up and get moving again. Denton, Jack, Mitsui—get those vehicles out of our way. Let’s put some miles between us and these bandits before they decide to come back and try again. And where the hell is Krueger?”

  “Here, sir!” Krueger replied, jumping out of the back of the pickup and shouldering his rifle. Sherman fixed him with a stare.

  “Damn fine shooting, son. You probably saved our asses back there,” Sherman said, nodding.

  “Hoo-ah, sir.”

  Denton and Mitsui were busy trying the ignitions of the trucks left behind as roadblocks. The first truck didn’t even sputter; it flatly refused to start. The second chugged and chugged but refused to catch. The third sputtered, coughed, and caught.

  “Well, all right, looks like we’re up another pickup,” Denton said from the driver’s seat. “Clear behind; I’m going to pull this truck onto the bridge.”

  Jack backed away from the vehicle as Denton spun the wheel and ran the truck forward onto the bridge, pulling it alongside the cement barrier and shifting it into park.

  “What about these other two?” Jack yelled, pointing at the pair of trucks that refused to start.

  “Must’ve damaged them in the firefight,” Denton called back as he slid out of the driver’s side door and jogged back over to what remained of the roadblock. “Shift ’em to neutral. We’ll push ‘em off the road.”

  As Denton, Mitsui and Jack went to work, Rebecca put the finishing touches on Ron’s leg. She’d injected him with a local anesthetic, having run out of the morphine she’d managed to purloin from the USS Ramage months earlier, and closed the wounds with stitches. A clean gauze bandage put the finishing touches on her work. A bit of blood seeped through the white cloth, but other than that, the wound seemed stabilized.

  “Don’t try to walk on it for a little while,” Rebecca said. “You’ll re-open the wound. We’ll have to find you something to use as a crutch in the meantime.”