Firepower, John Cutter [best summer reads .txt] 📗

The short convoy drove four miles south on the tree-lined highway. Then the jeep slowed and turned east onto a gravel road. Vince and the Humvee followed.

After a quarter mile, they stopped at a white-painted steel gate. It slid slowly aside on a rail, and the jeep led Vince deeper into the dense forest.

Three miles on, the wending road took them to another white metal barrier, this one with a gatehouse. Two uniformed guards were standing to either side of the road, both carrying AR-15s.

The jeep pulled up at the checkpoint. Vince stopped the Harley and put a boot on the road. The Humvee stopped so close behind him he could feel the heat from the grill.

Probably stupid of me to come here like this, with armed men in front and behind me, Vince thought. Then he smiled.

One of the guards was a grizzled older man who had lost his left eye; the socket was blocked with scar tissue. Something about him said “retired Marine Corps” to Vince. A jarhead.

The other was a burly man with brown hair and fading blue tattoos covering his neck. He had a teardrop tattoo on his upper right cheek.

Ex-con, Vince thought. Probably schooled in the “Aryan Nation”.

The older guy slung his AR-15 over one shoulder, stepped around the end of the gate and crossed to Vince. He patted him down.

“Knife, sir!” he called to Gustafson.

“I told him he could keep the knife, Gunny,” Gustafson said, over his shoulder.

Gunny frowned and looked Vince in the face. His frown deepened.

Then he gave a faint shrug and returned to the gate, pressed a button on the back of a post.

The guards stepped out of the way as the gate rolled back, and the procession got underway once more.

Another half mile and the road emerged into cleared grassy land at the foot of a ridge. They drove slowly toward the gate of a fenced compound tucked against the slope of the ridge. There was razor wire atop the fence and men watching from a guard tower. Vince could see light flashing from binocular lenses up there.

A flagpole flew an American flag, and beneath it, snapping in the wind, a banner showed an Iron Cross. The gate slid aside for them.

Surrounded by armed men at the approach to a fenced compound, something clicked in Vince and he began to assess the area as possible combat terrain. At the top, the granite ridge rising over the compound was knobbed with two concrete emplacements. He assumed men were stationed in those emplacements, with weapons, watching the area. He could see a little light glinting off a rifle barrel.

About a quarter mile to the south, the ridge slanted down to a canyon, from which emerged a line of trees following a cut in the land that probably contained a creek or small river. Good place for a soldier to stay undercover, heading east or west.

The gate to the compound rolled aside, and the three vehicles drove slowly through.

They were now on a broad tarmac apron outside what looked like the entrance to a concrete bunker fitted snugly into the base of the ridge. To the right and left, within the high fences, were steel outbuildings.

Vince stopped the motorcycle, climbed off, and walked it over to the side of an outbuilding where it would be out of the way. In the distance he could hear gunfire echoing from somewhere west, in the woods. Automatic weapons rattled; carbines clipped out single-shots.

The other vehicles parked and Gustafson strolled over to him, looking pleased with himself. “Welcome to Wolf Base, Mr. Bellator. What do you think of our digs?”

“Impressive. Makes a man wonder, though — is this place supposed to keep people out or keep people in? Looks like a scaled-down penitentiary, Professor.”

Gustafson grunted. “You’ll come to appreciate it, if you stay. There’s far more than you can see from here. This is really just the front door. The ridge you see before you is hollow, in large part. There are three levels of bunker complex inside it. You should call me General, by the way. The men expect it. And the women too.”

“There are women here, General?”

“Certainly. We have no children on the premises, but eventually we hope to have a full, thriving community, spreading out around this organizational center. It’s the beginning of a new nation.”

Mac Colls and two other Brethren strode up, all of them looking very serious, as if on a mission. They had been ordered to keep a close eye on Vincent Bellator, he guessed. They all had guns holstered on their hips. 9mm Glocks.

“Where do we go from here?” Vince asked.

“Orientation,” said Gustafson. “Starting with a short tour. Then — you’ll get an education.”

*

Coming through the metal door into the bunker on the ground floor, Vincent found himself standing in a kind of hallway bisecting an airshaft that rose between three other doors. Above, the shaft led up to the ducts and gratings of central air.

“First floor,” said Gustafson, leading Vince and the three bodyguards, “is comprised of barracks on the left, storage for food and medical goods on the right, armory at the back.” The shiny steel armory door was set at the back of the airshaft, a little out of view of the front door.

“There are three levels in total, except for one small brig down below the first floor,” Gustafson went on. “Stairs lead up to the other levels and to the emplacements overlooking the approaches.”

Vince figured the entrances to the emplacements were the bunker system’s weak point, since they were connected to the heart of the facility. Kill the men manning those upper gun bunkers and take a walk down the stairs…

He wondered what the emplacements were armed with. M60s? Tripod light machine guns? Sniper rifles?

“I’d be curious to