The Objective
The camp had barely exhaled in relief at Ryker's report when a taut, electric tension snapped through it.
Matthews and Mike's radio traffic overlapped as they ran the defensive checklist. Night came down fast, and Ryker's squad returned from reconnaissance. Every platoon leader and key figure had packed into my trailer.
"Commander, these are the photos we took at the site."
As Ryker moved to hook his phone to the laptop, Cody stepped in.
"Let me take that. We'll see them better on the big TV."
A moment later the atrocity filled the large screen, and Ryker's report continued.
"The location is a county road off US Route 50 — the same highway we came in on. Not far from Holden."
"They weren't hit on the move. The vehicles were parked in formation. Given the remains of a campfire, it looks like they set up a temporary bivouac to rest and got ambushed."
On the screen, SUVs and caravans riddled with bullet holes like honeycomb confirmed every word.
"Some of the bodies don't even have coats or shoes. Cowards," Bill said quietly, still looking at the photographs.
"It's cowardice if you're on the receiving end. Tactics if you win."
Gunner said it offhand, almost bored. Frank picked up the thread.
"Utah's no different. Figures. This is a world that strips the living and peels the dead."
Mike spoke up.
"Still, this is Mormon country, isn't it?"
Tank added, blunt as ever.
"They were simple farmers in They Call Me Trinity, too."
A spaghetti Western from my childhood flickered through my mind, but it wasn't the Mormon farmers the Trinity brothers had protected that nearly made me laugh — it was the sudden thought that Tank looked a lot like Trinity's brother Bambino.
"Could be people who came up Interstate 15 from Arizona or Las Vegas. Nobody passed a law saying only refugees get to head north."
Ryker nodded at Gunner's words and went on.
"That seems right. Both the victims and the attackers look like outsiders. Every fuel tank that was still intact had been drained completely clean. And... judging by how frozen the bodies are, this happened within the last twenty-four hours."
Gunner, who had been listening, turned to Cody.
"Cody, next photo. No — the one after. Hold it there."
He pointed at the image on the screen: faint tire tracks and footprints left in the sandy ground at the edge of the bivouac.
"It's looting, sure. That's not what matters."
He stared at the screen as he spoke.
"Look. They didn't come from one direction. These tracks here — that's a heavy truck. Those footprints over there are multiple people closing a cordon at the same time."
"They hit from at least three directions at once and completely sealed the retreat. And the bullet scars gouged into the road surface line up with the shots that went for the tires. My bet is a lookout or a sniper was sitting on that hill across the road, running the whole show."
"Then this isn't ordinary highway robbers or scavengers..."
"Right. Means they're moving tactically, and they've got real firepower."
From every angle, a raiding force somewhere close by was a certainty. I looked at Mike.
"What's the camp perimeter looking like? Given that it's night..."
"We've issued ATN monoculars and night-vision to every sector and outpost, and we've had tripwires rigged with illumination flares planted in the weak spots."
"And if they've gotten a look at how we're armed, they won't dare. Assaulting a fixed position at night is suicide any way you slice it. Vehicles would be spotted in seconds, and choosing to crawl in across frozen open ground isn't much better."
"That makes sense. If they try anything, they'd hit the flanks of the column while we're moving."
"Well, true enough — but if they know what they're doing, they'd be even more likely to just let us roll through quiet."
"Understood. The problem is the nine people we left in Fallon, and their families, will have to come through here. That's what worries me."
At that, Dave clenched a fist.
"Then how about we use this chance to find those bastards and wipe them out?"
"Whoa. Our Dave's turned into a real tough guy."
Frank said it with mock admiration, but I shook my head.
"On any other day, maybe. Right now we can't afford to slow the column by even an hour. Hmm..."
"The Secure Board, satellite phones — we throw every channel we've got at this and warn the people still in Fallon: pass the Delta-to-Scipio stretch without bivouacking or stopping. That's the best play."
Dave added,
"Wouldn't it be better to just tell them to detour?"
"There's no other road. A northern detour means Interstate 80 all the way to Salt Lake City. And swinging south is no guarantee of safety either — radiation, for one."
"Yeah, looking at the map that's almost a hundred and fifty extra miles."
Frank tilted his head.
"But Commander, we can use the National Guard military net. Why go the hard way?"
"Frank, our movement right now is unofficial. On paper we're still in Nevada, or we're supposed to be heading back. If word that we left Nevada all at once goes out over the military net, Colonel Gibson could be in serious trouble."
Matthews met my eyes.
"Commander, if we reach the Ely forward-base commander on a personal channel, he'll likely do us the favor. I have his satellite number."
"Hmm. That sounds like the way."
"The Ely National Guard base has a comms link between Carson and Fallon, so we can get word to our people through the Fallon checkpoint."
"Good. Use everything we have to push the information through, and include how to pass the Utah checkpoints clean."
And then, as had become habit, I stole a careful sidelong glance at the radiation meter in my hand.
My eyes met Jed's across from me. His face was just as dark.
"Jed, would you brief us on where we stand?"
"Before that, we'd better hear what Cody pulled off Reddit."
At Jed's words, Cody hooked his laptop to the television and started his report.
"The Phoenix area in Arizona, closest to the plant, has gone dark — no subreddit is updating anymore. Las Vegas... we found one last post."
"In the southwestern metros — Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego — people registered the plant explosion and a flood of posts went up, but it's almost all panic and chaos. Almost nothing you'd call accurate information."
His voice shook a little as he went on.
"And... we're getting word that the area around Bakersfield, where our farm was, has been hit as well."
When Cody finished, Jed stepped forward and pointed at the map. Across it, the frequency of Reddit posts and other community feeds was laid out in color.
"Estimating from this data, the wind is definitely blowing northeast. Where we are now sits right on the edge of the fallout zone. We'll need to at least clear Utah's Pavant Range before we can breathe easy."
"Then where do you figure we'd reach a stable zone — somewhere we could actually stop and rest, even for a little while?"
"A truly safe zone... we'd have to make it as far as the Colorado Rocky Mountains."
"If something that blew in Arizona is reaching Nevada and Utah... does that mean all three reactors went up?"
Jed nodded, heavy.
"It's hard to explain what we're looking at if only one unit blew. We have to assume the worst. By now we ought to figure leakage has started from all three. And there may be other disasters stacked on top that we don't even know about."
At Jed's grim analysis, Dave's voice came out wrecked.
"Good God... I mean, what the hell were the feds and the Arizona people doing while it got this far?"
Mike let out a long breath and picked it up.
"The federal government was buried in the California megaquake and preparing for war with the Southern Confederacy sitting on their doorstep."
"On top of that, Arizona itself — the ones actually on the hook — had split between the Federalist Faction and the southern faction and were too busy fighting each other. Nevada sat it out like they were watching a neighbor's house burn. In the end, everybody looked the other way."
Frank clicked his tongue.
"That's how they let armed raiding gangs overrun the whole of Arizona. Figures. The technicians at the plant all ran to save their own skins, and that's how this mess got made."
Dave added,
"Well, at least those weird militias and the raider gangs all got wiped out, then."
Gunner spat it, cynical.
"No. The ones who walked away from that will have turned into worse demons than before."
While the grim forecast made the rounds, I quietly checked the meter again.
I locked the decision in, looked around at all of them, and spoke.
"We finish what's left on the double. Tomorrow morning we roll at first light. We clear Utah before sundown and make Grand Junction, Colorado."
"In a single day?"
Ryker asked it as if he hadn't heard right.
"That's right."
Bill spoke up, worried.
"Commander, that's too much. That's a brutal mountain haul over the Pavant Range and the Wasatch Plateau. Our trucks, loaded heavy, covering that in one day..."
"It's just the objective."
I cut him off, meeting each pair of eyes in turn as I went on.