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

.308 FN/FAL battle rifle. Jeff and Evan hoped the matching gear and a stiff show of force would dissuade bandits. On the other hand, their high-value hardware would attract attention. A street gang would probably risk dozens of men to steal the Ferret and the firearms.

“The polygamist assholes who took my sister-in-law and nephews control this area right here,” Tommy spread the map on the hood of the Ferret and pointed to a slice of land south of the Utah border. “It used to be a six hour drive when we had freeways and gas stations. These days,” Tommy shrugged, “maybe it’d take us two weeks to get that far south.”

Jeff took a long look at the map. “Here are my orders: attempt the long range recon to the polygamists only if things are clear sailing, and only if we’re able to maintain comms. I don’t want you out farther than we can reach with our ham radio tower. Recon’s no good if we aren’t getting reports back. Take your time and clear a safe corridor south. We may need to reach Utah Valley for food resupply. Everything from Utah Valley south is agricultural and I’m sure they have more than enough for themselves.”

Evan nodded. “Okay. We’ll give it our best shot. I’m still not sure how we’re going to refuel once we’re out of range of your refineries.” He folded up the map and handed it back to Tommy.

“Don’t over-shoot your fuel reserve for any reason,” Jeff agreed. “We cannot afford a recovery mission if you get out there too far and run out of gas. If you can’t secure fuel, come back while you still have plenty. Am I clear?”

Evan and Jeff were friends before anything else, but Evan didn’t mind taking orders from Jeff. Command was command and both men were professionals.

“Roger that, Mister Jeff.” Evan reached out his hand and pulled Jeff in for a hard embrace. “We’ll stay in touch bro-mano. Keep the home fires burning and the honeys yearning.”

Old Mormon Assembly Hall Roof

Salt Lake City, Utah

A scruffy man dodged around the pillar outside the ZCMI department store, and Vanderlink’s adrenaline shot through the roof. The Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution had been the first department store in the United States, founded by Brigham Young as the Mormons settled the Salt Lake Valley. Now, it was just another Macy’s like dozens of others around America, but Vanderlink and many other Salt Lake Mormons would forever know it as “The ZCMI.”

With any luck, Vanderlink would get his first kill outside the ZCMI.

Looking across North Temple Avenue from behind a spire on the roof of the Assembly Hall, Vanderlink and his spotter surveilled the western and southern streets leading to Temple Square. The white, plaster brick-a-brack finials around the edge of the roof of the old building provided perfect cover for a sniper. Though Vanderlink was the commander of the temple protection team, he couldn’t help himself. Officer or not, he had always been the kind of guy who got his hands dirty; the kind of guy who made sure he got some.

Ten years earlier, he’d volunteered for the Salt Lake police SWAT team, hoping to give his police career a bit more pizazz. Writing reports had become the bulk of police work in the days of badge cams and sensitivity training. Rarely did a police officer actually fight crime before it happened. Mostly, they took reports after the fact. Jack Vanderlink hadn’t paid his dues to his country and his church to be a report-taker for the rest of his life. He’d gotten into it for the action and SWAT gave him more at-bats. But that’d been then, and this was now.

Vanderlink and his young spotter had been tracking the furtive movement of a small group of men coming up West Temple Avenue, and things were about to get real.

Technically, Vanderlink should have been back at Blue Army HQ coordinating defense of Temple Square. Instead, he monitored the situation from the roof of the old Assembly Hall, with his scoped and accurized M14 rifle cocked, locked and ready-to-rock. Those were the benefits of command—you got to call the plays. Today he’d play coach, quarterback and wide receiver.

Two months back, hundreds of criminals had poured into the nearby Avenues neighborhood, threatening Temple Square. The Church moved in with the thrown-together Blue Army, Vanderlink among them, and kicked some holy butt. They’d restored security around the temple, but the Avenues had never recovered. The gangbangers were gone, but so too were most of the residents—dead or forced out of the area. They weren’t about to let that fate befall Temple Square.

With the de-population of the area, the only folks wandering around this part of town were either Blue Army like Vanderlink, or looters. Most everyone else had wandered off to find another place to die.

The guys scurrying up the road were a rare exception. To Vanderlink’s eyes, they looked like homeless people. Then again, everyone looked like homeless people these days. They ducked in and out of cover so it was hard to get an exact count. Vanderlink put them at twelve men.

“Victory to HQ.” Vanderlink keyed his Walmart radio, a little FMRS toy that seemed to be the only radio that still worked. “Victory” had been Vanderlink’s self-applied call sign since the Desert Storm War, where he served as a Lieutenant in the Army. He completed his military service as an O-2, then left to serve a Mormon mission.

“Go ahead, Vanderlink.” For some reason, he had the darnedest time getting the team to use his call sign.

“We have approximately twelve tangos proceeding north up South Temple. Victory standing by to interdict. Over.” Vanderlink clicked off.

He turned to his spotter and asked, “Distance?”

“I’m reading 157 yards to the first guy. They look pretty harmless. I don’t see any guns.”

“Roger. Please give me distance in meters.” Vanderlink corrected his spotter for the third time that week.

“Um. Maybe 200 meters,” the spotter guessed.

Vanderlink sighed. There was only so much