They loaded what they could into the Suburban and continued on their way, threading through the roadblock and on down the road. Jack was again concerned that a call could have gone out and he worried about a quick reaction force (QRF) or airborne reaction force (ARF). Rather than try and outrun any aerial surveillance he headed down the road for a few miles until they spotted what looked like a vacant run-down farm back through the trees.
Jack approached it cautiously in case anyone was in residence, but there was no one around and they pulled the Suburban and trailer into an old barn round the back. It looked like the farm had been looted and then abandoned. Jack had a good look round as a clearance patrol while Andrew stood guard, before they relaxed. They took it in turns to stand watch while they prepared to stay the night.
Shortly after they had taken cover in the barn, they heard the sounds of a helicopter flying down the road towards the roadblock. Andrew went to look out but Jack stopped him. A few minutes later, the helicopter returned, did a circuit over the farm, and continued down the road. Later, they heard the engines of Humvees down on the road as a recovery party drove down to the roadblock.
The derelict farm escaped their notice.
Late that night, Jack was on watch. He was doing a circuit out the back of the barn, getting a bit of fresh air, when it all came crashing in on him. The violence of the last couple of days coupled with the danger to his family, his responsibility to keep them safe and his fear for them.
Images of his combat deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq flashed up, superimposed over the dead of the last days. He tried to fight it, but the tears welled up and he could not fight back the sobs.
He heard a soft noise from the barn as Caitlin quietly slid from her sleeping bag. She came up behind him and put her arms around him; he turned and lowered his head to her neck as he cried it out.
So much for being a tough guy.
But it was not the first time since he had been home that the tears had come unwarranted, triggered by some unknown thing.
They set out early the next morning for the final twenty miles of their journey, Caitlin driving so that Jack could maximize his tactical options and use of his weapon. They did not come across any Regime patrols. It was clear from the response times the day before that the Regime forces in this sector were spread thin. They had to patrol and cover large distances.
Although the Regime had at its disposal what was left of Americas impressive military, with all the technology and equipment that entailed, in Jack’s estimation it would be a mistake to think them all-seeing. True, if the ‘Eye of Mordor’ was turned on to you then you were in trouble, but it was in the cracks, gaps, frictions and inefficiencies that people like the Berengers survived.
Jack thought that they probably concentrated operations in certain key sectors, probably the more urban ones, only occasionally venturing out into the sticks. It was probably a patrol like that which they had encountered yesterday. The urban areas were where most of the violence and gang activity was concentrated anyway, and they had seen evidence of it decreasing as they got further out into the rural areas.
Jack did worry about aerial surveillance the most, from UAV drones, helicopters and even satellites. In particular he worried about thermal imaging (TI) from those assets.
He had seen the damage that attack helicopters could do in Afghanistan and he did not want to be on the receiving end. There were possible counter measures, and he was going to have to seriously think about how to approach the problem.
Chapter Four
As they were rolling along the winding rural back roads that morning, they didn’t see too many refugee camps beside the road. However, at one point they passed a man sat straddling a motorbike, back off the road on a dirt trail.
The man was sitting casually astride the bike and seemed to pay a little too much attention to the Suburban with the trailer as they passed him. Jack turned around in his seat and as the guy was dwindling behind them he saw him take out what looked like a walkie-talkie and speak into it.
“OK, stand-to everyone, I think we’re gonna have some trouble.” said Jack.
Caitlin looked across at him, worried. “What is it?” she asked.
“Guy on the bike that we passed, he paid us too much attention, and I think he radioed ahead.”
As they came around a bend about a mile later, they saw a green pickup pull out behind them from the cover of a side trail and some trees. They had not seen it as they passed, but it was now several hundred meters behind them. Caitlin instinctively sped up but Jack told her to hold it steady, to just keep going at a safe speed.
Andrew was looking back and passed the information that there were at least four armed men in the vehicle, two in the cab and the other two in the back. The pickup started to accelerate towards them. Jack knew that trying to outrun them could well end up in disaster, and maybe there was another vehicle up ahead acting as a cut-off group.
“Ok, round this next bend, slow it down enough so I can get out,” he said. “Andrew, protect the car in case of more trouble ahead, and in case these guys roll through me. Stop round the corner and I will rejoin you there.”
Caitlin nodded and as they curved round the bend, temporarily out of sight of the chasing vehicle, she slowed the car down. Jack opened the door and rolled out onto the verge. As soon as he was gone, she sped up again and continued round the corner, stopping so Andrew could get out and pull security.
Jack rolled into the ditch and came up on one knee with his weapon pointed back down the road. He was barely in a fire position when the pickup accelerated around the corner towards him. He could see the two men in the back holding rifles at the high port, and the passenger had a rifle up and pointed forwards through the windshield.
Jack acquired a sight picture and opened fire rapidly into the windshield of the approaching car, his main target the driver.
The impacts of his rounds left starburst shapes across the windshield as they smashed through it on their way through the pickup, exiting out the back.
The passenger brought his weapon to bear and returned fire towards Jack through the glass. The vehicle was now about seventy five meters away. There was a spray of blood as the driver was hit and the vehicle veered across the road, suddenly without power, coming to a bumping halt in the ditch.
Jack switched fire onto the passenger; they both traded fire before Jack’s rounds hit home, thus killing the two occupants in the front seats.
As the pickup sat half in the ditch, the two guys leapt out of the back of the truck bed: one to Jacks right, taking up a fire position on the vehicle behind the angle of the hood, the other bursting out to the left, sprinting across the road into the opposite ditch.
As the rounds from the guy behind the hood starting to crack past Jack, he dropped from his knee into a prone position, using the ditch for maximum cover. Taking aim through his ACOG, Jack shot the man through the head, watching it snap back as he dropped behind the hood, one arm flailing limply off the hood as he went down.
Jack rapidly switched fire to the other man in the ditch, killing him with several shots to the torso. He wasn’t wearing any armor. Jack scanned back over the scene of the killing, as his weapon sight passed over the downed assailants he fired a couple of extra rounds into each, to make sure they were not coming after him. Then scanning the scene for a moment more, he saw no other threats and sprinted back around the bend to rejoin his family.
“Let’s roll!” he called out as he came round the corner to see the parked vehicle with Andrew standing guard, “let’s move!” He really did not want to continue forward, in case the bandits had any more buddies ahead, but he also did not want to drive back past the scene.