Brent rolled down his window. “What’s up?”
“Your bald friend Carter said he’s already spotted a tanker a little way up the road. I think we’ve got our first attack vehicle.” Long threw his thumb back, showing the direction.
“Excellent,” Brent replied. “We’ll need some time to gather our forces. If it comes to it, we’ll drive the trucks over the highway and ignore the rigs going south. The drivers probably won’t give us a second look.”
“Works for me,” Long replied. “So, we’re moving?”
Brent glanced over to Trish. “You ready for this?”
She dropped her legs from the dash. “As ready as I can.”
His mind went back to Vietnam one last time. Back then, he would have never considered going into battle with a pretty, young thing like Trish. Today, fifty years older, among his band of ex-cons, and the new guy Long, she was the only one he really trusted with his life. If this was the modern era of warfare, he’d have to get used to it.
“Let’s go kick some ass,” he exclaimed.
CHAPTER 22
Lamar, CO
Ted put on his happy face as he pulled up to the checkpoint. “You guys see that freaking huge plane?” If they’d missed the football-field wide piece of technology, they were the worst guards on the planet.
The guard came up next to his window. His rifle was on a sling, held in front of him. The guy was youngish, like those he and Emily had killed, but he sported a serious demeanor. “They’ve been landing here and taking off for days. We’re sick of them.” He spoke with an accent on his English, as if Spanish was his native tongue.
“Wow,” Ted replied, sounding impressed.
The kid gave him and Emily a cursory glance. “You’ll get sick of them, too, if you spend any time here in Lamar.” He motioned him to go through the checkpoint.
Ted almost asked if he was really free to go but caught himself. If he’d asked it, the man might have countered with additional questioning. Instead, he waved to the guy, and to the men standing nearby, then got the truck moving again.
A full minute later, he exhaled like he’d won a contest for holding his breath. “Holy shit! I didn’t think asking a stupid question was going to work.”
She half-turned to see behind them. “They aren’t following. I guess it wasn’t an elaborate ruse to capture us inside their…base? Are we in a base?”
There was no fence around the town, at least where they were. It appeared to be one of the dozens of eastern Colorado farm towns they’d been passing through, though it was much larger. As they drove the main road into the populated section, he realized it even had numerous stoplights.
“I think this is a central location, for sure. Look at that.” They passed a Walmart shopping center with live people going in and out. They were dressed in their black jumpsuits, driving civilian cars and trucks, and there were a lot of them.
The traffic on the road was similarly busy once they got into the central business district. They passed fast food joints. Auto repair shops. Tiny office buildings. All of them had a number of enemy workers coming and going. After driving for several minutes, he tried to solve the puzzle.
“I guess they could have come because it sits out here in the plains. Maybe this is where they wanted to start their peacetime activities. It would certainly be good farming. Without us Americans to farm for them, they’re going to need to create their own food supply.”
“Once the canned food runs out,” she added.
He chuckled. “Yeah, they’ll need a full-time crew collecting the cans, and it might last years if they only have a small invasion force, but it will eventually run out. Growing their own will put them in a good position to survive on our land…”
She picked up on his thought. “They’re planning to be here forever, aren’t they? This isn’t a fight-us-and-move-on operation.”
Ted experienced the urge to pull over and ask questions of any of the hundreds of strangers walking around the town of Lamar, but he was done taking risks. His sole focus was playing it cool, then getting out of the town so he and Emily could go underground. They’d find a map and pay more attention to what was ahead. Drive around big towns. Zigzag where necessary to cut down on the chances of interacting with anyone. It was what he should have done from the get-go.
They passed a parking lot filled with drones. It appeared to be a smaller, more compact unloading area than the one he’d seen in Fort Collins. In Lamar, they’d gotten them all off the trucks. A few dozen of each type of drone were waiting for their orders. Most were painted dull tan, like the color of the soil, hinting they’d been outfitted for eastern Colorado.
At the far end of the lot, a train waited with empty flat cars, suggesting some of the drones came in that way. Or were going out. He couldn’t say.
“They are definitely staging things from this central location. It’s a hub.”
“We should blow this place up,” she deadpanned.
They might have some luck hitting the local robot lot, but the town was a flat, sprawling urban area. Based on what he’d seen so far, it was miles wide, with dozens of places where the enemy would congregate.
“Save it for NORAD. They’re our primary target.”
After a few additional blocks of businesses, they went into an area of homes. A few were occupied, but they soon reached the edge of the inhabited part of the town. Foot traffic disappeared and no people were in the houses closest to the outskirts. He didn’t blame the enemy for sticking together inside Lamar.
“We’re almost through.”
When they emerged beyond the last homes, he got a good look at where the giant aircraft had gone. An airport
