Max sat smugly in the passenger seat as if they were out for a weekend joy ride through the woods. Ben was sure Ed and Max had enjoyed many such days, but today was not one of them, even though it could have been, if not for the Patriot Hooligans. Ben hated them so much that he was having serious thoughts of staying in this area long enough to put an end to the gang. It would be a service to the greater good: to eliminate the world of these vermin posing as some sort of patriot group. They weren’t patriots, far from it. They were terrorists, thieves, and murderers, among other things.

  Ben’s frustration was getting the better of him. They were supposed to be back at Ed’s a long time ago. Emma should have had the medicine by now, and Ed shouldn’t have been sitting next to them with the duffle bag.

  “Where’d that guy come from?” Ben glanced at the downed bike, then back at Ed.

  “I don’t know. Just appeared behind me out of the dust. I thought it was you guys catching up at first.”

  “No, we’ve been busy here.” Ben raised an eyebrow.

  “I can see that. Saw some of the casualties back there as well,” Ed remarked.

  “How are we going to lose these guys or keep them from following us?” Joel asked.

  “We could stir up a bunch of dust on purpose and use it like a smoke screen to hide our getaway. Like this but more.” Ed held up both hands and looked around at the swirling clouds of dust that hadn’t settled from his near-catastrophic arrival.

  “The Hooligans will find their way through and then it would just be a matter of following the dust trail we left behind,” Ben pointed out. The three of them sat quietly for a bit, waiting for the dust to settle. It had been a strenuous morning, to say the least, and a few minutes of downtime wouldn’t kill them. Ben needed to come up with a plan or, at worst, a better exit strategy.

  That dust trail they were leaving wasn’t something he had considered to be an issue until now. The arid top layer of dirt here more closely resembled talcum powder than soil, especially after it had been run over a few times. Its fine texture gave the dust they stirred up an incredibly long hang time that would easily identify any route they took home. Ben hadn’t gone through all this trouble to be casually followed back to Ed’s by the Hooligans at their leisure.

  There was no solution to their dilemma but one. And although it was risky, Ben saw no other alternative. They’d have to go back and hunt the remaining Hooligans down. At least the ones that were hiding among the stumps and brush on the outskirts of the sawmill. But Ben’s biggest concern wasn’t dealing with the survivors, and he couldn’t shake the thought of finding a replenished army of Patriot Hooligans waiting for them back near the log yard.

  Ben wished he’d gotten more information from Vince before his untimely demise. Then again, there were a few things Ben wished he’d had a chance to tell Vince before he died. The guilt he felt over some of his thoughts about the Major in their final hours together still clung to his conscience like the remaining peanut butter in an MRE pouch.

  All that aside, it would have been helpful to have a better idea of how many Patriot Hooligans called New Haven home on a regular basis. Maybe the ones giving chase were all that were left in the area. Ben doubted their luck was that good, though, and he wasn’t about to let this possibility bolster his confidence.

  As the dust continued to settle, Ben was able to make out the lone rider again. He was sitting off in the distance, still watching and waiting. Ben was tempted to take a shot at the man, but the distance was beyond the Trijicon’s capabilities. The caliber of the AR-15 was an obstacle as well. He might attempt the shot if Jack’s rifle was a .308, but the .223 would tip the odds in the biker’s favor. Ben was still disgusted with himself for not including the M24 in his loadout. It would have been a challenging shot nonetheless, requiring patience and skill, but he could have gotten it done.

  Outside of there being one less Hooligan on a bike to deal with, taking the guy out from here was an insignificant problem. They’d have to go find the remaining survivors from the wrecks they left behind—or confirm that there were no survivors. There would be, though. The visibility this morning sucked, but Ben was able to watch most of the wrecks play out and he knew not all the Hooligans chasing them were dead.

  “We’re gonna have to take the fight to them,” Ben stated.

  “And by that you mean go back toward town? I didn’t see any survivors,” Ed argued. He hadn’t gone that far past Ben and Joel earlier when he was being chased and probably only saw the carnage of the most recently downed bike. There was also the matter of the two ATVs that Ben managed to lose in the maze of brush piles and downed trees. They were still out there somewhere. They had probably circled back to help their friends for now, but he was counting on them joining the party soon.

  “We have to, even if it’s just for the one guy. It isn’t just the one, but we need to hit them while they’re down before more of their friends show up and join the cause,” Ben explained. He was expecting Ed to argue against his plan of going back the way they’d come and putting themselves in harm’s way once again. It was easy to rationalize making a run for it while they were winning. But that wasn’t the case.

  “So how do we do this. Just roll in there, guns blazing?” Ed’s wrinkled brow showed concern.

  “Something like that. While we still have the ammo.” Ben got out of the RZR again and brought the AR-15 and the MP5 with him. “We need a driver and someone to stay behind with the medicine and the other RZR.” Ben was tempted to nominate Joel to stay behind, but he needed him too much. Ed was the best driver, though, and that would be important since they’d be shooting from the RZR while trying to avoid incoming gunfire.

  “Max can do it,” Ed declared.

  “You sure?” Ben was reluctant to leave the medicine Emma needed in the care of Max, but there was little choice in the matter. They couldn’t spare the manpower. It was going to take all three of them working together to pull this off.

  “Positive.” Ed unbuckled his harness and got out with his MP5.

  “Good, because you’re driving us there.” Ben continued organizing the tiny cargo bed in his and Joel’s RZR while Ed walked around to the other side of his vehicle and unclipped Max’s carabiner. “Stay.”

  Ben didn’t have much room to work with thanks to the aftermarket toolbox Ed had added. But while kneeling on top of it, he found a useful position that put him at shoulder height to the roof over the front seats. It also allowed him to wedge his back feet against the rear of the bed, helping stabilize him even further. His final improvement was a spare tie-down strap that he wrapped around his upper body and used to attach himself to the back of the roll cage. Once snugged in, he felt confident that he wouldn’t need his hands to hang on while Ed maneuvered through the mess left behind by the loggers.

  Having both hands free for shooting was a big advantage, and it would make the difference in getting kills. He wasn’t crazy about sticking up above the roofline or the hard plastic toolbox digging into his swollen knee, but if that was the price to pay for being accurate and getting home, so be it.

  “Joel, I want you to stay put and keep doing what you’re doing. Remember, we still have two ATVs out there to contend with as well.”

  “How many altogether, do you think?” Joel asked.

  “Counting the ATVs, I’m figuring five to eight bad guys left between us and going home.” Ben was glad to have Joel gunning from the passenger seat, and although he would encourage Ed to primarily focus on driving the RZR well, Ben wouldn’t discourage the man from shooting, either. They didn’t have a lot of ammunition, but they had enough to make one good pass through the gauntlet that lay ahead. The alternative was getting bogged down in a long, drawn-out firefight at a distance. They lacked the resources for that on all fronts. Ben had long ago passed thirsty and was so parched he would have risked drinking from a mud puddle and worried about dealing with the consequences later. The visible waves of heat rising off the cracked, dry landscape only served to remind him how far from relief they really were.

  “Max, guard.” Ed gave his dog the command while climbing into the driver’s seat of Ben and Joel’s RZR. He positioned his MP5 over the chest harness after he buckled in and looked back at Ben, then Joel. “Ready?”

  “Ready.” Joel worked at filling the magazine tubes on the KSG to replace the shells he’d spent.

  “Ready.” Ben tapped the roof with his leading hand. As the RZR started forward, the biker in the distance revved his engine and performed a dirt-spewing donut, keeping one foot planted on the ground as he taunted them. Ben watched through the Trijicon scope but refrained from having a go at the guy. He wasn’t sure what they’d find up here, but there was one thing he was certain of: things were about to get interesting.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Ben was going to suggest pulling out of the stump- and debris-strewn field they’d been driving through, but Ed steered the RZR out onto the logging road before he could say anything. It made more sense to make a quick approach. Ben was beginning to think he should have borrowed Max’s driving goggles as Ed picked up speed, but they wouldn’t have done anything to keep the grit out of his teeth.

  The lone rider wasn’t expecting a full-speed-ahead assault from the trio and scrambled to find traction in the dirt after his cavalier display. Caught off guard, the lone Hooligan almost lost his balance before the rear wheel caught solid ground, rocketing him forward as he did his best to look back at them and get away at the same time.

  Oh, how Ben wished they’d found a radio. It would’ve been worth its weight in ammunition right now to know the Hooligans’ plans. They almost had one, but Vince blew it to pieces along with one of the Hooligans. And none of the other bodies had one on them. He was sure radios were in short supply, like just about everything else except bad guys and problems. Ben kept the scope fixed on the biker as best as he could over the bumpy ground. They were less than a couple hundred yards away now, and the temptation to squeeze the trigger was growing stronger by the second.

  Ben was thankful for the overpriced suspension now that his knees were the only thing between him and the miniature craters that pockmarked the logging road. It was smoother going than it was on the left or right of the road, but that wouldn’t last. Ed was going to have to venture off-road eventually, back out into the minefield of stumps and unknown hazards. Ben counted themselves lucky for making it through there unscathed once. They saw what a mistake at high speed could do to a person, all too closely for his taste.

  “Joel, you concentrate right.” Ben’s area of responsibility was all the way around them, including Ed’s side. Ed might get a shot off here and there, but Ben wasn’t counting on much help in that department, but not because he didn’t think Ed was capable of making a difference; Ed’s role in all this was to keep the RZR moving in new and unpredictable ways. That would be his best contribution.

  “Joel, ask for help if you need it. I can maneuver a whole lot better than you can.” Ben leaned back as much as the strap would allow and peeked inside the cabin. Joel looked up and nodded.

  “Ed, you’re a driver first and a gunner second. If you see any targets I’m not hitting, let me know about it. Communication is important, guys,” Ben added. It would have mattered less if they had more ammunition, but their shots needed to count. This wasn’t about holding an enemy at bay; this was elimination without bias. Damaging vehicles wasn’t good enough anymore.

  The Hooligans had left them little choice in the matter; they didn’t have to continue the pursuit. The Patriot Hooligans could have counted their losses and let Ben and the others go. But they wanted blood in exchange for something that wasn’t theirs in the first place. They wanted to stand in the way of Ben getting his kids back home to Colorado. How many of them would he have to kill before they grasped the concept that they were playing games with the wrong people? He braced himself behind the rifle and prepared to find out just how hellbent these Hooligans were on payback.

  Ignoring the battered tree stump decorated with blood and the remains of a Hooligan was hard. Ben didn’t have to try tuning it out for long, though. Ed was cruising along at a decent clip now. He was curious how fast, but it wasn’t worth the effort required to look down into the cabin from his position. He also didn’t want to take his eyes off the terrain ahead. There was plenty to watch for. Next up was the area where the first bike went down, the one on which Joel shot out the tire.

  There were two riders on that bike, and although Ben had witnessed the crash, he was equally skeptical and disappointed that it probably wasn’t severe enough to kill either of them.

  “Coming up on the right. Be ready,” Ben called out.

  “Roger that.” Ed slowed his pace as they approached the scene while Ben scanned every nearby stump and log for any signs of movement as fast as he could. He started his search at the crippled bike and its bent front wheel, which was planted firmly in the ground, working his way out from there. But the two riders were nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately, it appeared both bikers had survived the crash. He wasn’t counting on the wreck being fatal for both, but one would have been nice. Maybe the pair decided to retreat to town while they had the chance.

  “Ten o’clock. I don’t have a shot,” Joel shouted.

  Ben turned and saw a woman crouched in a ditch behind a thicket of goldenrod. It was a poor choice of cover, and even though Ben didn’t have a clear shot, he put a few rounds into the bright yellow cluster of weeds she was hiding behind. The woman instantly let out a short-lived scream and fell backward, rolling to the bottom of the ditch. Her lever-action rifle bounced out of her hand and fell back on top of her.

  “Over there… I mean two o’clock,” Ed spat. Ben turned in time to see a man with ripped jeans and a bloody leg pop out from behind a stump with a crossbow. Ed swerved to evade the shot, causing the strap around Ben’s torso to cut into his sore ribs.

  Shoop, thunk. The bolt struck the side of the RZR, embedding itself firmly into Joel’s door panel. From his elevated position, Ben could see that it likely hadn’t sunk in deep enough to reach his son. He turned the AR-15 on the man, but Joel beat him to the punch.

  Boom. The Kel-Tec roared to life, slamming a full load of double-aught buckshot into the man’s chest. At less than twenty yards, the ferocity of the impact sent the archer reeling backward several yards, where he collapsed, sprawled out on the ground.

  Ben leaned back and yelled down to Joel, “You all right?”

  “I’m fine. It didn’t go through,” Joel answered. There had been far too many close calls today for Ben’s liking. And while the crossbow bolt sticking through Joel’s door paled in comparison to the other nearly heart-stopping incidents, it was no less nerve-wracking. Ben had promised to bring Ed back unhurt, but he wasn’t doing so well with Joel. The kid had taken a beating, been shot in the back, and was now almost skewered through the leg by a nasty-looking broadhead.

  The longer they were here, exposing themselves to danger, the more obvious it became that they were skirting the line between brave and foolish. Ben wasn’t as sharp as he had been when they pulled out from Ed’s at zero dark thirty this morning. And he wasn’t getting any better. None of them were.

  With the two bikers down, Ben was sure there were more ahead. If those two survived a wreck like that, the other Hooligans would be ready for a fight as well. There were also the remaining ATVs to contend with. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the whine of a high-strung engine filled the air. It was close, but he didn’t have a visual on it yet.

  “You here that?” Ben leaned back.

  “Yeah,” Ed shouted back. “But I don’t see anything.” He maintained speed and stuck to the logging road as they searched for the source of the noise. It was hard to tell if the ATV was close or not. They were back into a denser section of the logged area now, where there were more stumps and more brush piles that were a hundred yards long and stood well above the RZR’s roof. In addition to the manmade obstacles, the woods here had started to make a comeback, so there was the occasional sapling to contend with as well.

  “There!” Joel blurted out. As one of the longer brush piles ended, a bright orange ATV darted out into the clearing. The driver steered toward them, closing the distance between their vehicles in a matter of seconds. They had been traveling parallel to the RZR on the other side of the debris pile. The four-wheeler matched their speed, and before anyone had time to react, the two vehicles were running side by side less than five feet away from each other. The passenger leveled his shotgun at them, but Ed swerved hard to the right, causing the two vehicles to collide broadside.

  Clack. The sound of metal and plastic being forced together filled the air. The sudden jolt caused by the impact nearly made Ben lose his grip on the AR-15. He wondered why Joel hadn’t taken a shot yet, but he soon found the answer. The driver of the ATV had one hand on the throttle and one hand on Joel’s shotgun. They were battling for control of the weapon, the driver putting most of his effort into making sure the barrel wasn’t pointed directly at him. Ben wanted to help his son, but he had a bigger issue to deal with. The passenger of the ATV had dropped his weapon in the collision and was now attempting to board the RZR.

  Ben couldn’t believe it at first but accepted what was happening wholeheartedly when the man howled, stuck a knife between his teeth, and launched himself at the side of their vehicle. Fortunately, Ben had regained control of the AR-15. Although there wasn’t enough time or space to turn the rifle around and shoot the wannabe pirate, there was enough time to react decisively. With the barrel of the AR-15 facing away from his attacker, it only took a split second and a minor adjustment for Ben to plant the butt of the rifle firmly between the man’s eyes.

 

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