Citadel Run

Chapter Twenty-Five

The attack, while it may have been anticipated, came from a completely unexpected source and caught them off guard and unprepared.

The convoy, embracing sixteen transports, one slightly shot-up jeep, and the SEAL, was two days out of the Twin Cities and stopped for an afternoon break at Floyd Lake, just east of Highway 59. The SEAL was parked near the water as Alpha Triad snacked on smoked venison and fresh water.

“I don’t like it,” Blade said to the others between mouthfuls. “We’re making too many stops. We should have been much further by now.”

“What did you expect with all the women and children along?”

Geronimo countered. “Children need potty breaks more often than adults, and water is essential.”

“I know,” Blade acknowledged. “It’s just that I have this uncomfortable feeling between my shoulder blades, like we’re being watched or something is about to happen. I can’t shake it.”

“You’re not the only one,” Hickok disclosed. “I can’t understand why the blasted Army hasn’t hit us yet. They’ve had plenty of opportunity. We didn’t even see one measly soldier in Detroit Lakes, and we know they were using it as a monitoring post once. What’s going on?”

“I wish I knew,” Blade stated. “I’m responsible for the lives of all these people, and I don’t mind telling you that this waiting is making me a bit antsy.”

“We’ve got company,” Geronimo mentioned.

Zahner and Bertha were strolling toward them. Bertha had opted to ride with Zahner.

“How much longer will we stay here?” Zahner inquired as the duo reached the Warriors.

“Until everyone has eaten and gone to the bathroom,” Blade revealed. “I intend to drive as far as we can tonight. The sooner we reach our Home, the safer I’ll feel.”

Bertha leaned against the SEAL and playfully winked at Hickok. The gunman pretended he hadn’t seen it, so she idly watched some white, fluffy clouds float by overhead.

“Any ideas why the Army hasn’t tried to stop us yet?” Zahner questioned them.

“We were just talking about that,” Blade replied. “Your guess is as good as ours.”

“Hey!” Bertha interrupted, pointing skyward. “Look at that!”

They all peered in the direction she was indicating and saw a bright pinpoint of light high in the sky.

“I learned about them when I was in Montana,” Blade detailed. “They’re called satellites and the Civilized Zone utilizes them to spy on other communities and towns. There are a few still up there, orbiting the planet, left over from before the Big Blast. That’s what that thing is. A satellite.”

“Don’t you remember?” Geronimo reminded them.

“We saw one before, on our first run to the Twin Cities. I even heard it.”

Zahner chuckled. “You can’t hear a satellite.”

“What? How do you know?” Blade demanded.

“I don’t know a lot about them,” Zahner readily admitted, “but I can remember talking with my dad, years and years ago, about the technology they had before World War Three. He mentioned satellites. Said they circle the earth way up there. Way, way up there. No way could you hear one.”

Geronimo, perplexed, was watching the spot of light in the blue sky. It was growing larger. “But I can hear that one,” he said disputing Zahner.

“So can I,” Hickok attested.

“I can too,” Zahner confirmed. “Funny, though. I know my dad told me you can’t hear a satellite with the human ear.”

Blade was staring at the growing sphere of light. Was Zahner correct?

Was it impossible to hear satellites? Why, he chided himself, hadn’t he bothered to research satellites in the Family Library after he had returned from Montana?

The light abruptly arced downward, accompanied by a raucous screeching.

At that instant, Blade abruptly recalled a book in the Library dealing with the history of aviation. One photograph, in particular, stood out vividly in his mind, and he knew, then, what it was. He knew it wasn’t a satellite, it wasn’t a harmless contrivance used for high altitude reconnaissance. It was something different, something deadly, a relic from the past sent to deliver a message of destruction from Samuel the Second.

It was a jet.

Specifically, a jet fighter.

The jet streaked in low over Floyd Lake, zooming over the convoy vehicles parked near the southwestern shore. It rolled and banked to the west.

“What the blazes is that thing?” Hickok shouted.

“A jet!” Blade replied, glancing along the shore. With a start he realized how vulnerable they were; the troop transports, jeep, and the SEAL were sitting ducks, right out in the open, and the majority of the people were standing near the lake or, in the case of many of the children and a few of the adults, actually in Floyd Lake, swimming and splashing. Right at the moment, though, everybody was staring at the jet in wonder.

“Here it comes again!” Geronimo yelled.

“Get out of the water!” Blade cried. “Take cover!”

There wasn’t enough time.

The jet swooped down out of the western sky, its guns blazing. Dozens of the refugees were mowed down where they stood. In a twinkling, the jet was gone again, banking for another strafing run.

Screaming in stark panic, the refugees were streaming toward a wooden section close to the lake.

“We’ve got to get the trucks out of here!” Geronimo said.

“Too late!” Zahner declared, pointing.

They all dove for the dirt as the jet angled in. This time the pilot zeroed in on the troop transports, the jet’s guns booming, and as the jet flashed off to the right one of the trucks exploded, showering debris in every direction. Fortunately, none of the other vehicles were close enough to be caught in the blast.

“Follow me!” Blade commanded, and sprinted to the SEAL. He climbed inside, in the driver’s seat, and studied the four toggle switches in the center of the dashboard, the armament switches.

Hickok, Geronimo, Zahner, and Bertha piled in after Blade, with Hickok taking the other bucket seat and Geronimo, Zahner, and Bertha filling the back seat.

“What do you have in mind, pard?” Hickok queried.

Before Blade could respond, the jet was on them again. This time the pilot was aiming at the SEAL, and the five inside could feel the vehicle shake from the onslaught of the jet’s guns. The SEAL’s impervious plastic body, unlike the troop transports, was able to withstand the blistering attack.

Blade was trying to recall everything he could about the second of the four toggle switches, the one controlling the surface-to-air missile. The missile was mounted in the roof above the driver’s seat. If he activated the switch, a panel in the roof would slide aside and the surface-to-air missile, a heat-seeking Stinger, would be launched. The Stinger, so said the instructions, had an effective range of ten miles.

“It’s comin’ again!” Bertha declared.

Blade rested his right hand on the toggle switch. Knowing the details of the Operations Manual was well and good, but the fact still remained that they had never tested the weapon and they had no idea if it would work as designed.

“Go for it!” Hickok urged.

Blade looked out his window and saw the jet bearing down from the west as before, coming out of the sun. Was the jet armed with missiles or rockets, as well as machine guns? If so, the SEAL would not survive a direct hit. There might be time to take cover! He started the engine and gunned it, the SEAL lurching forward as the jet passed overhead. The movement of the SEAL evidently disconcerted the pilot of the aircraft, because the devastating fire failed to materialize.

“Geronimo, keep your eyes on the jet,” Blade ordered. “Cue me when it’s about a mile off.”

“Will do.”

Blade drove the SEAL due north, putting distance between the SEAL and the remainder of the convoy, seeking a suitable spot where they could take cover.

“It’s made a wide turn,” Geronimo reported.

Blade saw a gully to his left, a wide one at the top of a rise, and he drove toward it.

“He’s coming in fast,” Geronimo announced, “about five miles out.”

Blade had the pedal to the metal.

“Four miles.”

The SEAL’s colossal tires churned up the small rise.

“Three miles.”

Blade wheeled the SEAL into the gully and slammed on the brakes.

“Two miles.”

Blade gripped the toggle switch in his right hand.

“One mile,” Geronimo stated.

“Now!” Hickok shouted.

Blade flicked the toggle switch, even as the jet roared overhead, not more than fifty feet above the SEAL. There was a tremendous explosion as something struck the gully above the SEAL. A shower of dirt and stones descended on the vehicle as a cloud of dust choked the air.

So!

The jet did carry more than machine guns!

But what about the surface-to-air missile?

“Nothing happened,” Geronimo said.

That was when the entire SEAL bucked backwards and there was a loud retort from the roof.

Blade leaned over the steering wheel and spotted the small surface-to-air missile, the Stinger, in flight, arching upward into the bright blue sky on the trail of the jet. He threw his door open and jumped to the ground for a better view, followed by the others.

The pilot of the jet apparently knew the Stinger was after him. The jet was climbing as rapidly as the pilot could manage, gaining distance on the pursuing missile.

“The Stinger only has a ten-mile range,” Geronimo noted anxiously. “If the jet can outrun it…” He left the sentence unfinished.

Blade was marveling at the supreme skill the pilot was displaying in his endeavor to avoid the missile.

The jet abruptly banked westward and the Stinger closed in and would have made contact with its target, but at the last possible instant the pilot rolled the jet and the missile passed under the aircraft. The pilot dived in a shrieking whine of the craft’s engines, nosing the jet as steeply as feasible.

What was the pilot up to now?

The Stinger had turned and was soaring after the jet.

With consummate expertise, the pilot pulled the jet out of the dive just when it seemed the aircraft would crash into the ground.

The Stinger, close behind the jet, was slower to respond. Its sensors registered the jet arcing up and away and the guidance system compensated, the missile clearing a stand of pine trees with only feet to spare.

At full throttle, the pilot was fleeing in a vertical ascent. The Stinger was losing ground rapidly.

“He’s doing it!” Geronimo said in alarm.

Blade glanced at the SEAL, wondering how they would escape if the jet returned to finish the job it had started. There was an unusual sound high up in the sky and he gazed up at the dogfight.

The jet was in serious trouble; it was making a coughing noise and depositing a trail of black smoke. It seemed to stall completely and hang in the air for several seconds.

The Stinger was eating up the space between them.

“Look!” Bertha cried.

The canopy of the jet suddenly fell away from the aircraft, and they could see a diminutive figure scrambling from the cockpit.

“Go!” Zahner yelled. “Get the hell out of there!”

Blade found himself doing the same thing, mentally rooting for the pilot to evade his impending fate. The man—or was it a woman?—had put up such a stupendous struggle, he or she deserved to live.

The Stinger, however, being artificial in construction and intelligence, was immune to the emotional pangs of compassion or a salute to bravery; it functioned according to a singular, preprogrammed purpose, and it fulfilled that purpose now.

The tiny form of the pilot was in the act of leaping clear of the jet when the Stinger hit. The blast of the impact utterly destroyed the aircraft in a sparkling, fiery cloud of annihilation.

“Back in the SEAL,” Blade immediately instructed them. He waited until they were inside, watching the wreckage of the jet plummet to the ground perhaps four miles to the west.

“Funny they only sent one jet,” Hickok remarked as Blade climbed behind the wheel.

“Maybe not so funny,” Blade said disagreeing, starting the SEAL and backing from the gully. He headed for the convoy. “I’ve been doing some thinking, and I’ve come to the conclusion that Samuel isn’t as powerful as we give him credit for.”

“What makes you say that?” Geronimo asked.

“Think about it,” Blade said. “Why have they waited one hundred years after World War Three to begin reconquering the United States? Why didn’t they do it five years after the Big Blast instead? Or ten years? Or twenty-five? There’s only one logical reason: they weren’t strong enough.”

“They must think they’re strong enough now,” Hickok noted.

“Oh, sure,” Blade conceded, “Samuel intends to take over the entire country in the coming years, but look at how he’s doing it. A piece at a time. Bit by bit. One group here and another group there. Meanwhile, what does he do? He keeps an eye on anyone living outside the Civilized Zone, but he doesn’t do anything to them unless he decides they’re a threat, like our Family. Even now, when Samuel is trying to prevent us from returning to the Home, what does he do? He sends a jet. One jet. Not two. Not ten. Just one. Why doesn’t he send more? If stopping us is so important to him, why didn’t he send more jets? The answer is obvious.

He only had one to spare. Even the single jet he sent wasn’t in top condition or that pilot would have avoided our missile. It wasn’t the pilot’s fault he failed; the jet itself was to blame. It looked to me like the jet conked out on him.” Blade paused. “No, I don’t believe that the Civilized Zone is all powerful. Samuel the Second and the Doktor can be defeated.

All we have to do is find their Achilles heel. When we get to the Home I’m going to have a long talk with Plato and propose that we carry the fight to them instead of waiting for them to come after us.”

“Sounds great to me,” Hickok said with enthusiasm. “I’ve always said the best defense is a good offense.”

“Haven’t I heard that line somewhere before?” Geronimo asked, grinning.

The SEAL was approaching the convoy. The truck struck by the jet was still ablaze. The refugees had gathered around the troop transports and were ministering to the injured. Joshua ran up to the SEAL as Blade braked and climbed down.

“Report,” Blade told him.

“My initial tally,” Joshua began sadly, “indicates twenty-nine dead and fourteen wounded.”

“So many!” Zahner stated, joining them.

“Seven are in critical condition,” Joshua revealed. “I don’t think they’ll reach the Home.”

“Maybe we should stay put and tend ’em,” Bertha proposed.

Blade became aware that all eyes were on him, awaiting his decision.

He walked to the nearest troop transport and clambered onto the cab.

“Quiet down!” he yelled, waving his arms over his head to attract their attention. “You’ve all just seen how vulnerable we are here. So long as we’re tied to these trucks, whether on the highway or parked on the side, they can hit us whenever they want and wherever they want. They have the advantage. Well, I don’t intend to allow this to happen again! So here’s what we are going to do! Everyone will be loaded into the troop transports, even the injured, and we’re going to take off. If you are hungry, eat now.

I’d advise you to go to the bathroom now. Because we are not stopping again until we reach the Home! That’s right! Unless there is a dire emergency, we’ll drive until we reach our destination! No stopping! We’ll drive all night if we need to, but I can promise you, come morning, we will be at the Home! Within a few days, we’ll have you relocated in the town of your choice, in your new home. Are you with me?”

Zahner led the throng in a chant of “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

“Okay! Let’s get moving!” Blade leaped to the ground.

Hickok was chuckling.

“What’s so funny?” Blade inquired.

“Oh,” Hickok said, grinning, “I was just thinking about how naturally talented a leader you are.”

“Don’t start,” Blade warned him.

“I know how you feel about leading the Family,” Hickok commented.

“You’ve told us dozens of times you don’t want the responsibility, and I’m with you one hundred percent.”

“You are?”

“Of course, pard. Who needs our Family? They’re small potatoes! If we take on the Civilized Zone and whip Sammy’s butt, I say you should run for President!”