White Wasteland, Jeff Kirkham [ebook reader with highlight function TXT] 📗

The only way this works is with your eyes on the prize,” Jeff replied over the radio.

Evan sighed. “Roger that, Lord Clovenhoof.” He turned to his men, milling about and spoiling for a fight. “Go jack those guys up that are flanking us. Wheaton’s in command. Leave me one Ferret and go.”

Evan wanted to fight on the flank, but he understood Jeff’s order. This plan had to play out like the fucking Nutcracker Suite for them to win. Coordination would be everything. Overwatch would be clutch.

Evan watched his team head to war without him. Tanya stepped out from behind Evan’s Ferret, wearing her own kit now—plate carrier vest, gun belt, sidearm and her own scoped rifle from her pawn shop. She’d left the children at the Lions’ garrison. Tanya insisted she fight.

Evan caught sight of movement along the bench a thousand yards below them.

“Eye In the Sky calling Lord Clovenhoof,” Evan radioed on their private ham frequency.

“Jeff here. Go ahead.”

“You’ve got a company-sized unit of men moving along the bench above and parallel to the troops on the freeway. They’re going to have elevation on your men in about three hundred meters. I’m going to hose them down from here.”

“Roger that. Wait three minutes, then proceed.”

“Good copy. Wait three mics then open fire.” Evan glanced at his wristwatch.

He climbed on top of the Ferret and Tanya climbed up on the back armor to cover him with her rifle.

Evan dropped down and racked the charging handle on the 1919.

“Hey.” Tanya called from outside. “Don’t shoot to kill unless you must. Hear me on this: they’re people. They’re our neighbors. They’re good men with a bad leader. Remember that, okay?”

Evan hesitated, then popped his earmuffs over his ears. He gave her a thumb’s up out the hatch, but he meant that he’d heard her, not that he was going to doing anything with her input. She’d never been to war.

Evan was going to kill the shit out of his enemy, because that’s what it would take to win this goat-rope using Jeff’s rainbows-and-unicorns strategy.

He lowered himself into the turret. He’d parked the Ferret so he’d have a clear shot across the canyon. He couldn’t reach the far side—the Redwood Road side—because it was over two miles from his position. But he could reach out and touch anyone on the I-15 freeway.

The men creeping along the bench, below him and above Jeff, were entirely within his circle of death. Wrapped in a British armored vehicle, armed with a belt-fed machine gun and in company with thousands of rounds of ammo, he could scythe half a damned battalion into fertilizer.

…they’re our neighbors. They’re good men with a bad leader.

Bullshit. They were the enemy and they meant to kill Evan’s friends. End of debate.

He rotated the turret and peered through the sighting mechanism. He placed the crosshairs on the leading edge of the enemy company with high ground over Jeff. Evan elevated his point of aim about six feet to adjust for the thousand meters of drop, then he led them by twenty feet.

He checked his watch. Two minutes and thirty seconds. Then, two minutes and forty-five seconds.

Evan continued the countdown in his head.

Five, four, three, two, one.

Brrrrrrrrrraaaaah…

The gun came alive in his hands, vibrating like a fifty pound coffee grinder. The first string of 30-06 lanced across the chasm—every fifth round a tracer. Evan watched his little birds in flight, out and away, then arcing down in an elegant curve. Half a second later, the ground in front of the enemy frothed and churned with angry steel.

The fundamentalist company threw themselves flat, which gave Evan an even bigger target from his vantage. None of the men seemed to know where the fire had originated. The sound bounced around the canyon and the Ferret was two-thirds of a mile away—a speck on the ridge above them. It’d take a full second for the men to even hear the machine gun.

Evan checked his belt and prepared to fire again. Even from this distance, the confusion of the enemy was obvious. After a full minute of laying on the ground, they picked themselves up a few at a time. One of them led out with a few tentative steps, then the rest followed.

The first belt had been their freebie—the only one they’d get. Evan brought his point of aim to the front edge of the company—corrected for leading them too far the first time—then triggered a short burst.

Brrraaaaaaaah…

The man Evan figured for the point man and the man next to him crumpled to the ground. The rest took cover, but they had nowhere to hide. The whole company was spread out on an exposed bench, with only the spotty sagebrush to hide behind.

A few men pointed at the Ferret, a thousand yards away. To the rest, it must’ve felt like being struck by lightning. The ground had suddenly churned and their point men had dropped.

Most civilians imagined that long distance shooting was the exclusive province of the “sniper.” What most civilians didn’t know was that a lot more men died in war from ultra-long distance machine gun fire than snipers. Especially with large caliber rounds from high ground, a machine gun could decimate troops. Nothing except artillery and air platforms could compare.

But even civilians learned fast when their comrades died. The entire company stopped, flummoxed. Even a fool could see that pushing forward along the bench meant getting chewed up by an untouchable force.

The enemy must’ve had scoped rifles. Five or six rounds pinged off Evan’s armor, then Evan heard the faint fusillade of hunting rifles.

“Are you okay out there, Tanya?” Evan called out.

“Yeah. What was that?”

“They’re shooting at us. Get underneath.”

“Alright.” He heard her climb down and thud to the ground. Another round pinged off the turret. The company of fanatics must’ve figured out where the machine gun fire was coming from and spotted the Ferret in their scopes. Evan levered the belt-fed into position and flicked off the safety.

“Evan! This is Wheaton!” the radio blared.

“This