There were big Chinese Army trucks, stolen U-Haul vehicles, jeeps, IFVs, and towed laser batteries, the kind used to knock down aircraft and drones.
With a slurping sound, Paul’s boots sank into the mud. It was a struggle each time pulling them back out. The Chinese were crazy to use a pontoon bridge in the dark. They must have laid down a blacktop road to here and forced their soldier boys and supply columns to keep moving. All across the Great Plains, Chinese and Brazilians led the drive against America.
Rain struck Paul’s head and hit him in the face. The water dribbled down to his chin and sometimes his neck. He shivered at the cold. The camouflage slicker made him look like a wet Arab sheik or maybe like one of their women in those black garments that covered them from head to toe. He could never remember what they called that sorry-looking garment.
“You are bitter,” Romo told him.
Paul had almost forgotten his friend was there. Bitter or not, he was hunting tonight. Maybe it was the open grave three days ago. The squawking crows had horrified him. The black-colored birds had been like an angry, squabbling blanket of feathers, feasting on American dead tossed willy-nilly into the hastily-dug pit. Or maybe it had been passing near Dodge City. With his binoculars, he’d seen American corpses hanging by their necks. The worst had been a little girl in red tennis shoes. The rule was simple under the Chinese and Brazilian occupation. If they found an American with a rifle, shotgun or pistol, they hanged the poor sod. Land of the Free—no, Land of the Enslaved.
Paul gripped his rifle. Romo had quoted him a good saying before. “Better to fight on your knees than to surrender, but even better to fight on your feet.”
People had been trying to disarm the American populace for a long time now. Even the U.S. Government had tried it a few times. There was an ancient truth about that. If you lacked weapons, you lacked freedom. In this world of tooth and claw, you had to fight or be willing to fight for what was worth keeping. Once you gave up your guns, you were a slave hoping your master was nice to you.
Paul’s nostrils flared. How could they have run out of smart bombs? He shook his head. Don’t worry about it, son. You have bullets. Use them, eh. Kill some sorry Chinese colonel and this little picnic will have been worth it.
“Look,” Romo said. “Look how they stick to the road like good sheep.”
“These sheep have fangs,” Paul muttered. “Let’s head over there. See it?”
In the darkness, they trudged through the mud to a higher spot—it was more like a pitcher’s mound in height. Paul flopped onto wet grass and made sure his slicker covered him from his head to his boots. Romo did likewise. Once more, Paul took out his night vision binoculars.
The rain had turned into a lighter drizzle and he began to scan back and forth along the line of vehicles. There had to be over one hundred trucks, most of them backed up in two lanes. Chinese soldiers smoked cigarettes. There were hundreds, many several thousand glowing tips. More than a few of them also used flashlights, although the vehicles all had hooded headlights. By the number of soldiers down there, he figured an infantry brigade must be hoofing it or maybe they’d hitched a ride with a supply company. He couldn’t figure why so many men were outside of the cabs soaking up the rain.
He’d been right about one thing. There was a blacktop ribbon snaking away into the distance. It was a new road of sorts. Bulldozers moved across the muddy shore of the river. In places, water surged over the pontoon bridge, washing across it. Only a fool would use it tonight.
Even as he thought that, Paul witnessed the first Chinese Army truck inching toward the gate. The driver took the vehicle onto the bridge and slowly moved across. Waves lapped against its tires, but a few minutes later, the truck reached the other side and climbed the higher bank.
“One bomb in the middle of the bridge…” Paul whispered.
Another big truck started across.
“You stay here,” Paul said. “I’m going—”
“We’ll do this together,” Romo said. “You shoot. I’ll spot.”
“Are you with me then?” Paul asked.
“You have the madness tonight, the rage. You need to strike back. I understand.”
“We’ll crawl the rest of the way there,” Paul said.