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

Wali, Jeff’s second-in-command, shook Jason by the shoulders.

“What’s an MRAP?” Jason rubbed his face.

“Armored personnel carriers. Two of them are rolling up the hill. Come with me. Jeff sent the Ferret to intercept them. He thinks you might be able to help if we get the chance to talk to them.”

“Holy shit. Hang tight.” Jason Ross ducked into his closet and threw on a pair of Crye multi-cam pants and a combat shirt. He snagged a jacket on the way out the door and swung his heavy battle belt around his waist, pausing in his step to buckle it. He stopped again at the door, stepped back inside, grabbed his ultra-light AR-15 rifle, and slung it around his back. “Where’s Jeff?”

Wali spoke into a Baofeng handheld radio strapped to the shoulder of his vest while Jason struggled to get his coat pulled over the sleeves of his shirt.

“Jeff is posted halfway down Deercrest Drive monitoring the MRAPs. Sounds like they’ve stopped and our teams are maneuvering to engage.”

The two men hustled out the side door of the big house and jumped into Wali’s OHV. “Do we have weapons that will stop an MRAP?” Jason shouted over the roar of the engine.

Wali laughed. “Jeff’s prepared to kill everything except maybe a main battle tank. I’m not sure how he’d kill an armored vehicle, but I bet he’s probably done it before.”

The OHV blasted up the suburban mountain road, flying past mansions buried behind mounting snowbanks. Terrified owners peeked out their windows, drawn by the now-rare sound of a motorized vehicle.

Jason saw Jeff parked in a snowbank, standing up in the cab of his own OHV. He braced his binoculars against the roll cage. “Ross. Come here,” Jeff ordered.

Jason climbed onto the OHV and Jeff passed him the binoculars and pointed to a spot in the road a half mile below. Jason leaned over the roll bar and steadied his breathing.

“What’s that flag on top of the MRAP?” Jeff asked.

“That’s what I was wondering.” Jason focused the binos.

Two MRAPs had planted themselves astride a residential street just off the main parkway. Several men in camouflage milled around outside the armored vehicles.

Jason spoke to Jeff while peering through the binos. “I’m seeing blue flags with a yellow figure on them. To me, it looks like the Angel Moroni.” Jason looked at Jeff, perplexed.

“Okay. Why the Angel Moroni?” Jeff wondered.

“You know as well as I do that it’s a Mormon thing. I have no idea why it’s on an armored vehicle. It’s gotta be Mormon.”

Jeff rubbed his chin. “Two Homestead QRFs are in place to strike. We could add two shiny, new MRAPs to our arsenal, but I don’t know for sure if anyone’s inside. We can burn them out with Molotov Cocktails if necessary, but that’d cook all the wiring and we’d never get them back up and running. Even armored vehicles burn like you wouldn’t believe.”

“What? Slow down. Why are we picking a fight outside the Homestead walls?”

“They ran our roadblock like Grand Theft Auto. I’m surprised my belt-feds down at the Lower Barricade didn’t light ‘em up when they blew through without permission. Our men must’ve been too surprised to fire.” Jeff paused and lifted a finger. “This might actually be a chance to link up with the Mormons and whatever force they’re putting together. This could be a chance to extend power, add to our recon and nail down security for the whole valley.”

Jason handed back the binoculars. “No way. I don’t want to link up with anyone. From what I see, their armored vehicles are bigger than our armored vehicles and we’re begging for trouble if we stick our head up out of our hole. You were only authorized to recruit a few neighborhood Mormons to help man the barricades. The committee didn’t authorize or even discuss exposing us to the galactic problems the Mormon Church must be facing right now. If they know we’re here, they could take what food we have left and redistribute it. No fucking way. The committee won’t go for it and I won’t go for it. Let’s just leave them alone.”

Jeff turned to Ross. “This decision became one hundred percent mine when two MRAPs rolled into our neighborhood. I’m not asking you or the committee for your opinion. My job is security and that,” Jeff pointed his stumpy finger across the neighborhood at the armored personnel carriers, “is a security issue. I can either talk to them or I can kill them. I choose to talk to them. End of story."

Jason leaned against the roll bar of the OHV. This was not the time or the place for a protracted argument about regional strategy. Jeff was going to do what he wanted in any case. The men with the guns took orders from him. Jason wasn’t going to stop this mad leap into the unknown—at least not this morning.

It was always this way with Jeff. He was like an impulsive child on a hunt with his father. Given ten seconds unsupervised, he’d find a knife, sharpen a stick, and go looking for something to kill. He didn’t care that it was a lion hunt and he might get ripped to shreds. He wanted there to be lions outside the camp. He apparently liked the hazard.

The Homestead had exactly seven months and eleven days of food. Jason had done an inventory. So far, they’d been ninety percent unsuccessful growing winter vegetables in the greenhouse. An infestation of aphids had wiped out half the brassica winter vegetables and stunted the rest. The summer vegetables were growing like crazy, but they weren’t flowering for some reason known only to the patron saint of greenhouses.

The livestock had slowed for the winter and wouldn’t start breeding until spring. Rabbits were the exception. They were producing well and they’d have a little fresh meat in two weeks, but rabbits were almost pure protein. Soon, they’d need to figure out a system for sprouting grain to