Long Blonde Hair, Sky Blue Eyes Pt. 11

"Hand the grenade launcher and a M16 up to me, give the others what they are best with, and you figure out the XM. It's not complicated, but includes an advanced version of the firing system you've used before."

"Everyone, keep your weapons out of sight as much possible until they are needed, which they hopefully won't be."

Hanna and Annika had been chatting until the traffic stopped moving, and then Annika went to hyperalert status. Cassie was sitting between Johnny and her husband, who announced, "Not to alarm anyone, but there's a car coming up on us driving on the shoulder. Given the Penske truck in front of us and the jammed up cars in the inside lane and on our rear bumper, this looks like one of those training scenarios."

Wayne suddenly turned the wheel sharply to the right and gunned the engine. The front left of the SUV hit the bumper of the truck that had begun backing up, but the Suburban squirted free and onto the shoulder. The car behind them was coming up at a high rate of speed, and a truck up the road pulled out of the lane and parked across the shoulder, blocking it.

Wayne turned off the shoulder and gunned the Z71 up the embankment onto a fire lane along the fence. Once he was on the level ground, he floorboarded the SUV and raced toward the side road ahead. The Audi continued down the shoulder, accelerating and seemingly trying beat them to the side road. "Hang on! I'm about to turn into the brush and look for another road!"

The warning helped, because that's what he had to do when a Toyota pickup emerged on the sideroad and men with guns jumped out. Wayne drove through the barbed wire fence and into the mesquite trees and low brush, angling toward a pasture road he had seen a short distance back.

He made it, but the jacked up 4x4 pickup that had cut off the shoulder came up the embankment, ran through the fence, and pursued them.

Their backup was stuck in the middle lane, but turned onto the median and headed back to the last crossover, in Garfield. The crossover was blocked, but Eddie shouldered through, pushing the nose or rear end of cars out of the way so they could give chase. Men emerged from another vehicle and fired at them, but the armored Suburban ran up the embankment, through the fence, and went after the pickup.

"The glass is bulletproof," Monty yelled, 'but I'm going to open the rear window and let you guys in back fire on the pickup. They're gaining!"

He did, and all three turned, kneeled, and fired bursts from the latest military version of the AR-15 civilian rifle at the pursuing pickup. The pickup slowed, then veered away from the fire, only to encounter fire from the other security force in the trailing Suburban.

Hanna had called 911 and was describing the situation and their moving location to the operator. Wayne suddenly hit the brakes and turned hard right to avoid another pickup planted across the pasture road, and the men firing from behind it.

"Open my window!" Erik yelled, and then he opened fire on the pickup and the men with the XM5 he had chosen. The fire control system and lasers zeroed him in, and the 6.8mm cartridges were taking chunks out of the pickup and devastating the humans. That threat ceased to exist, giving Wayne another option for escape.

He and Eddie were having a harried conversation via radio; they agreed to continue through the field back toward Garfield, brush and gullies be damned. Whether the enemy guessed right and trapped them, or got lucky, when they burst through the brush into an open field north of Garfield, they encountered two vehicles across their escape route. Armed men were behind and beside the vehicles, and one held what appeared to be a grenade launcher.

"Hard right!" Erik screamed, and Wayne complied. He had inserted a new 20-shot magazine after the previous firefight, and he began firing along the line, starting with the biggest threat - the man with the launcher. The second short burst took him down, and Erik moved on to the men on his right.

Johnny was turned sideways on top of the luggage in back, his M16a2 spraying the pickups and the men hiding behind them. KJ turned on his side atop the luggage, torqued so he was able to fire at the targets to their right. His first burst went through a pickup window, his second decapitated the man behind the engine compartment.

But their armored Suburban was being hit too, from multiple directions. They couldn't fire through closed windows, but they had to return fire, and a few enemy bullets were coming through Erik's open window and the open back access.

Suddenly Wayne, who was right in front of Erik, slumped over the wheel. The SUV continued ahead, slowing quickly as it ran over brush, and stopped when it nudged into a large mesquite tree. They bailed out the door away from the fire, took positions behind the armored vehicle in locations Monty ordered, and unleased a fusillade of fire at the men firing at them.

Another man left cover to retrieve the grenade launcher, but he didn't live long enough to pick it up.

The second suburban slid to a stop beside them. Eddie and Danny joined them, checked on Wayne, declared he was alive, and took positions. Erik was stretched out on the floorboard retrieving things from the weapons box. He tossed mags of ammo out; Hanna scooped them up and distributed them to the others. Erik wiggled around, grunted loudly, and pulled out a grenade launcher Monty had dropped in favor of the .

"Eddie! Help me! Grab some grenades!" he yelled, and Eddie scrambled back out the open door holding two grenades.

"I didn't know we had one of these in there! Take one of the grenades and hand me the launcher - I'm an expert with these!"

Erik handed it over, and told the others to prepare to cover Eddie when he stepped out to launch. When given the signal, they unleashed a withering fire at their enemies, who ducked behind their vehicles. Eddie stepped into the open and aimed; they heard the whoosh of the grenade over the rifle fire, and saw the pickup in front explode.

Some enemy combatants were blown up, some were screaming in pain. The rest scattered into the brush and began firing back from the cover of brush and tall grass.

There had been a moment of relief for the good guys when the grenade exploded, but that was followed by enemy fire coming at them from the direction they had been heading.

Danny yelled "Hit the ground!" He then dashed to the second vehicle and pulled it across the front end of their vehicle to create an L-shaped cover for them that prevented direct fire at them from the known enemy positions.

KJ and Johnny had scrambled back over the seats and out the door. KJ took a position where he could fire over the hood. With left-handed Monty firing around the rear, Johnny sprinted over to the other Suburban, where Danny, Hanna, and Erik were established. Danny and Hanna were firing over the hood and Erik was at the rear, so Johnny crawled under and looked for targets crawling toward them through the brush and grass.

The enemy combatants on this side were in a skirmish line, but because they were moving toward them through the brush and tall grass, you had to spot and shoot almost immediately, or they disappeared again.

They were caught in a crossfire by a well-armed enemy with seemingly innumerable troops that had at least one rocket launcher, and God knows what else!

They were more than holding their own, but if someone got in position to fire into the open sides of the L, or someone fired a grenade or rocket at their vehicles, they were up shit creek!

The dot of light on their watches had been flashing red for what seemed like hours, and they had been ducking and dodging around the pasture in the SUVs or exchanging fire from the ground for at least twenty minutes. Eddie and Erik were digging in the Suburbans for more ammo when their nightmare scenario developed: three pickups began crossing the open field behind them, and men standing in back were shooting at them over the cabs.

"Where is all the air cover and firepower you promised, Assholes?" Erik muttered. "Y'all can't be trusted to do any-fuckin-thing right! If I survive this, you're fired!" Eddie picked up their grenade launcher, and Erik handed him a grenade.

Erik had barely finished cussing his single remaining government partner and handing ammo to Eddie when fire began raining from the sky. Men in the pasture ahead broke from cover and ran west. There was a ball of fire, and pieces of one of the pickups that was roaring toward them jumped into the air. The others veered off, and the men in back turned their fire to the sky above.

They could hear automatic rifle fire from both fronts, as men on the ground shot at the UAVs firing on them. The men and women behind the Suburbans kept acquiring targets and firing and the UAV pilots kept strafing those running away, and blowing up vehicles, until there were no more targets to acquire or strafe in their vicinity.

Farther away, they heard a loud explosion, and the sounds of sirens and helicopters approaching. Once the respite seemed assured, they checked on Wayne again. He was alive, still lying on the bench seat behind the armored door, and he had no new wounds. His pulse was faint, though, and Monty said he was going into shock. They covered him with an emergency kit blanket and debated whether to drive him to a hospital or try to summon an air ambulance.

That question was answered when a helicopter with LifeFlight painted on its belly began landing in a nearby clearing. The medical flight crew rushed toward them and loudly asked, "Which vehicle is he in?" They pointed, and the crew went directly to his door.

"How did they know Wayne was hurt?" Cassie asked, and Monty reminded her that once their watches went red, they began broadcasting audio and all kinds of other information, including location and condition of the wearer.

"My question is, why did it take so long to respond?" Monty exclaimed. "The 'umbrella' agreement includes 24/7 monitoring and immediate notification of the police and the military cadre assigned to the project, per Erik's agreement with them. It took much longer than we had been told to expect; in fact, the surveillance drone's report should have had armed UAVs here soon after Wayne broke out of the traffic and ran through the fence."

"That's important to know, and we will find out!" Erik declared. "The bigger question is, who the hell is behind our ambush! This wasn't two vans and a box truck - they were well organized, well-armed, and there were scores of them!

"Hell, even the traffic jam seems suspicious now! I triggered the alarm manually as soon as KJ spotted the trap, but why didn't the surveillance drone spot anything? Our 'dome of protection' broke down over and over, and came very close to getting all of us killed, but we were up against a superior force that carried out a well-organized attack!

"Without KJ seeing the car coming on the shoulder, and Wayne avoiding the truck that was backing toward us, we would definitely be dead or kidnapped. A bunch of them are dead now, but I feel confident that the leadership that pulled this off is still out there!

"We need to find out who they are, and why our defenses failed."

****