Cole examined the left side of the gun and the area under the trigger.
“Pull the charging handle back again,” Bertelson said. “Maybe it didn’t chamber right.”
“Liberty Two, this is Actual. What the fuck is the hold up?”
Bertelson leaned on his side to access the radio attached to the front of his chest rig. A wet crack stopped him from pressing the transmit button.
What the hell?
The raspberry bush above the gun barrel snapped and fell on the metal cylinder, immediately followed by a sickening wet splash. He twisted on his back to face Cole.
“Pull the Goddamn—”
The gunner’s head rested against the machine gun’s stock, still facing down the weapon’s sights. Eyes wide open, he looked fine except for the two small holes punched through his forehead. A bright crimson mist settled over Cole’s gore-covered legs. Bertelson felt a deep, driving pain in his upper back, paralyzing him in place as gunfire erupted. He never felt the rounds that ended his life.
Chapter 37
EVENT +75:23
Limerick, Maine
Eli Russell leaned against the barn and waited for Liberty Two to respond. By now, he’d expected to hear the comforting chatter of a thirty-caliber machine gun pouring seven hundred .30-06 rounds per minute into the house. Right now, he’d settle for a few rounds from the dozen AR-15s spread among the trees.
Anything but dead silence!
“Liberty Two, this is Actual. What the fuck is the hold up?” he said, squeezing the handheld radio to the point he felt the plastic start to give.
Two sharp sounds, spaced less than a second apart, reached his ears. Hillebrand backed away from the corner, nearly knocking him over. Before Eli could regain his footing, the morning stillness erupted in a vicious barrage of gunfire. The corner of the barn exploded, spraying Hillebrand and Eli with splinters. Bullets ripped past the barn, forming a virtual wall of steel that caused all of the men to drop to the ground. Screams from the trees rose above the sustained roar of what had to be dozens of guns raking Bertelson’s men.
Short bursts of unexpected automatic fire added to the chaos, driving the men, including Eli, to hug the ground even tighter. Bullets penetrated the siding several feet back from the edge of the barn at waist height, showering them with sharp pieces of broken cedar. The gravity of their situation weighed heavy as Eli fought through the paralyzing fear that glued him to the ground. They couldn’t advance against that much firepower. Not with the thirty-caliber out of action—and he had to assume it was out of action. The first two shots came from a suppressed weapon, likely a sniper targeting the machine-gun crew. He didn’t see much of a choice at this point. They’d have to retreat unless one of Bertelson’s men put the machine gun into action. Judging by the cries of agony rising above the gunfire, he wasn’t hopeful. He reached for his handheld to order a retreat when he noticed that the gunfire had slackened to a few scattered shots emanating from the forest.
“They’re reloading! Fire! Fire!” he screamed, flipping his rifle’s selector switch to automatic and lunging past Hillebrand.
Eli slammed into the ground at the corner, firing into the house without aiming.
Alex sprinted into the kitchen, stopping in front of the safe box. He waited for Samantha to clear his line of sight and fired the rest of his magazine well over Ed’s head at the barn, hoping to penetrate the walls and drop a few of the militia on the other side.
“Nice job, Walkers!” he yelled, nodding at Samantha as she climbed over the sandbags.
His hands automatically reloaded the rifle while he assessed the situation. He didn’t detect any return fire, which confirmed his panicked suspicion that the thirty-caliber machine gun had been the centerpiece of the militia’s attack. Panicked for a reason. If the thirty-caliber had come into play, most of them would be lying in their own blood on the floor. Designed to stop standard .223 projectiles, the sandbag barriers would prove little match for the .30-06 bullet fired by the Browning machine gun. He’d spent more than half of a thirty-round magazine putting the gun out of action, killing its crew and disabling the ammunition box. The gun was still serviceable, but he doubted anyone would heave the bodies out of the way and try to work the gun.
A bullet snapped through the pine cabinet to the right of the kitchen window, knocking the door open and spilling blue ceramic fragments onto the granite counter. Another bullet hit the top of Ed’s protective barricade, spraying dirt over his clumsy attempt to reload the AR. It was taking everyone too long to reload. Ryan’s HK416A5 answered the sporadic crackle of distant small arms with a sustained burst of automatic fire. Alex caught movement beyond Ed, near the corner of the barn.
“Get down!” he screamed, kneeling behind the safe box.
Bullets sliced through the kitchen, shattering the sliding glass door and splintering the kitchen table. He felt the safe box shudder as projectiles hammered through the sheet metal, their energy absorbed by the tightly packed dirt. He dashed across the open area in front of the basement door in an attempt to reach his father, who was firing rapidly at the left side of the barn. He slid into the great room on the hardwood floor, bullets puncturing the wood behind before he reached Tim Fletcher in the corner. A quick glance through one of the western windows showed a figure stumbling into the open, a victim of the .308 bullets that his dad had fired through the barn. A single aimed shot from Tim’s Vietnam-era relic collapsed the man on his stomach.
“Focus on this side!” he yelled and sighted in on the men exposed beyond the right corner of the barn.
The sandbags and windowsill in front of Alex exploded, driving him beneath the top of the barrier. He spit dirt and pieces of wood onto his vest as the fusillade continued. An extended burst of automatic fire from Ryan’s position slowed the rate of incoming fire long enough for him to put his rifle into action. Jamming the vertical fore grip against the sandbags, he canted the rifle and fired rapidly using the forty-five-degree angled iron sights. Under heavy fire, the men disappeared behind the barn; one pulled lifelessly out of sight by his legs.
Tim squeezed beside him, seeking some of the cover provided by the barricade. Bullets snapped and ricocheted through the great room, clanging off the wood-burning stove behind them. Alex glanced around the half wall separating the great room from the kitchen and watched their once beautiful kitchen methodically disintegrate as the rate of fire increased.
Most of the cabinets sat wide open, knocked off their hinges to expose broken plates and glasses. The stainless-steel refrigerator’s door panel was dented in three places around small holes. Water spewed out of the shattered chrome faucet. A bullet burst through the half wall a few inches left of his head, splitting the distance between Alex and his father. Unfazed by the fresh coating of drywall dust, Tim Fletcher kept shooting his M14 at the trees.
The men hidden in the woods were finding their rhythm after the intense fusillade that sent over two hundred rounds of various calibers into the trees without warning. Even if Alex’s crew managed to kill or disable half of the men, six ARs in semi-proficient hands were capable of returning the same number of bullets twice every minute. Alex wiped his yellow-tinted shooting glasses with his sleeve and leaned into his father’s ear.
“Ryan, what’s your status?’
A few nervous seconds passed.
“Busy. They’re finding good cover behind the trees.”