"Body armor."

Timothy, the whiny councilman, "Why does he get body armor?"

"He needs to live the longest." Jerry checked his own weapons. Across his chest, he strapped an MP5 he had taken from an abandoned police station. The Colt 1911s were holstered at his waist.

"All right; two in the front and one in the back with me. We're going stop that truck."

THIRTY-THREE.

The noise created by the ma.s.sive semi could be heard for miles. Stealth wasn't a part of its a.r.s.enal. The four trailers rattled incessantly as they each found b.u.mps and debris in the road.

The survivors of Vita Nova and two other towns, Hope Pointe and Point Hope, huddled in the prison car. Starving and broken, they no longer looked through the grates of the former pig trailer or at the landscape pa.s.sing by at forty-five miles an hour.

They also didn't see the blue and white 4x4 launch up the shoulder of the road until it was right beside them.

"Everyone get to the back of the trailer!" Jerry screamed through the grates. He stood in the back of the pick up with one hand on the light bar and the other holding a .45.

A soldier appeared on top of the trailer ahead of the prison car and opened fire on the truck.

Carl swerved as the bullets began to pour down.

Jerry and the sheriff fired back. The soldier took a bullet in the leg and collapsed from the roof of the trailer. He didn't fall far. A safety harness snapped taught, slammed the soldier against the side of the trailer, and turned him upside down. Fighting against momentum and the harness itself, he struggled to right himself. His weapon fell to the highway and bounced underneath the wheel of the truck.

"Get to the back!" Jerry shouted again as the other man in the truck bed began firing at more soldiers that had appeared at the roofline of the trailer.

The prisoners were snapped from their stupor and began to rush to the back of the trailer.

Jerry tapped on the back of Carl's head and the truck sped up. They pulled next to the coupling arm of the prison trailer. Gunshots rang out around him as he holstered the gun and steadied himself to jump.

A right curve in the road caused the rig to veer. The pickup was forced to follow. The sudden turn threw Jerry off balance. He was forced to grab the light bar just to stay in the bed of the truck.

As the rig veered to follow the curve, the gun turret behind the plow caught sight of the pickup. The gunner frantically tried to turn the turret and fire on the 4 x 4. The road straightened before he could fire.

The first guard dangled by his safety harness and was struggling to pull himself between the two trailers and out of harm's way.

Jerry leaned down and yelled to Timothy through the missing window. "Watch that gunner!" Carl hunkered down behind the wheel, trying to hide his round figure behind the bulletproof vest.

Jerry found a rhythm in the sway of the pickup and made his leap. He crashed chest first across the spar that joined the prison car to the trailer in front of it.

His feet dangled and bounced against the pa.s.sing ground. He could feel the texture of the asphalt through the leather of his boots. He struggled to pull himself up, while his allies in the truck continued to fire at the soldiers on the roof.

He turned his body and lay down on the spar. Staring into the sky, he saw two more soldiers leap onto the prison car to a.s.sist in the defense of the rig.

Jerry pulled himself up and unbuckled the blue belt he had grabbed from his armory. He slapped it around the spar and cinched it tight.

He signaled Carl and the nose of the pickup dove as the driver slammed on the brakes. The plan was to draw the guard's attention by taking up position on the far side of the rig. A moment later, Jerry spied the blue and white paint through the gap in the trailers. The diversion would work as long as the guards were forced to keep their heads down.

Jerry yelled back to the prisoners, "Hold on to something!"

The prisoners responded by grabbing the sties and rails of the former livestock hauler. Jerry lit the fuse of the explosive belt and turned to climb the ladder of the command trailer.

There was no ladder. Why wasn't there a ladder? There was no way up. This was a major flaw in the plan.

He had to try to signal Carl. He shouted at the blue and white pickup; his cries were drowned out by the cacophony of gunfire and trailers.

The rig veered left and the nomad was thrown off balance again. A roar of gunfire erupted from the turret before the road straightened. The pickup became visible again; the hood was on fire. The sheriff continued to fire from the truck bed while Carl struggled to maintain control of the burning vehicle.

The fuse hissed at his feet.

He reached down and tried to unlatch the trailer door. He would face the odds of attacking the crew directly.

The latch had been removed.

Jerry banged on the door. He could feel his fists bruise as they struck the heavy gauge steel of the trailer. Panic manifested itself as coldness in his chest. The hissing got faster as the spark approached the point of detonation.

He continued to pound, hoping that some foolish soldier inside would think a comrade needed help. He heard nothing inside the door. He crouched, like a child hiding from a scolding, as the fuse approached the explosive belt.

From the corner of his eye he saw movement. The harnessed guard had finally gotten his hand on the edge of the trailer and was pulling himself around the corner.

Jerry jumped a second ahead of the fuse.

From the side of the trailer, the guard stuck his other hand around the corner. This was the arm that Jerry grabbed.

The trailer door flew open; armed soldiers inside the command trailer prepared to open fire.

The bomb exploded and Jerry swung away from the blast on the arm of another man. Jerry's weight separated the guard's arm from his shoulder, but the appendage held.

The guard screamed and let go of the trailer. The pair swung clear of the blast.

The force of the explosion knocked the soldiers in the back of the command center off their feet. Several were killed instantly as the spar connecting the two trailers turned to shrapnel.

Both trailers were thrown into the air.

Jerry watched as the prison car successfully detached from the rig. Its severed coupling dug a trench into the black asphalt of the former state highway, throwing sparks and chunks of black tar everywhere.

Three guards who had been on the prison trailer were thrown more than fifty feet before they struck the black top and slid to a stop on their faces.

Two soldiers on the command trailer were tossed to the road below as the axle crashed back to the ground.

Jerry pulled himself, hand-over-hand, up the guard's dislocated arm and grabbed the harness. From here he was able to gain the top of the trailer after stepping on the man's head.

Guards on the other trailers were rocked by the blast and were just regaining their footing when Jerry pulled himself on top of the trailer. One of the guards spotted Jerry and shouted to the others.

The nomad gave them no chance to respond. Spraying a full clip from the MP5, he dashed to the front of the trailer and dropped down. He fell ten feet and landed boots first on the turret gunner.

The blow made the gunner woozy; the smash of the submachine gun made him unconscious.

Jerry grabbed the man by the tactical vest and pulled him from the turret. He threw him onto the mesh grate that served as the battle platform's floor.

He dropped into the turret and examined the device. Two foot pedals controlled the rotation left and right. Everything else was aiming and triggers. Jerry mashed the left pedal and swiveled the barrel of the .50 caliber machine to bear on the truck.

Casings dropped from the weapon and piled in the turret as lead plowed into the armor plating of the rig's cab. The truck began to swerve in violent thrusts. Jerry pinned the triggers and swept the gun left and right and back again, shredding the door, the gas tank, and the wheel.

Once the rubber was gone, the rig drooped on its right side like a stroke victim. Moments later it was all over. The large plow that served as the barricade and battering ram dropped into the road and dragged the entire rig to the right.

The trailers jackknifed. The plow prevented a complete fold, but the walls of the trailers buckled and twisted. The people and equipment inside each trailer crashed about as they began to twist and bounce along the road. The trailers rolled off of their wheels.

The soldiers on top of the trailers were thrown clear. Not one of them landed well.

Jerry quickly buckled the turret harness and ducked, trusting the solid form of the plow would protect him from being entangled in the coming twisted wreckage of metal and men.

The rig shot off the side of the road and careened down a steep embankment. It dragged tons of asphalt with it down the side of the hill. Fuel gushed from the tanks and coated the ground with diesel.

Jerry's view of the world shifted as the rig threatened to roll over. Only the span of the plow kept it balanced. The truck finally came to a stop after uprooting several trees.

The trailers had not faired so well. Each had separated and rolled several times, destroying themselves as they went. Equipment and dying men littered the highway and embankment.

Jerry needed only a moment to orient himself. He unbuckled the harness and stood up from the turret.

The wreckage was still-quiet. The smell of diesel grew around him. There was no movement from the cab. No screaming. No pounding. No pleading for help.

Jerry stepped from the wreckage and made his way back up the hill.

The pickup had followed the rig to the shoulder and stopped. Its hood was still engulfed in flames from the machine gun fire. Carl and Sheriff Deatherage beat at the flames with two old blankets that had doubled as post-apocalyptic seat covers on the pickup's bench.

Jerry rushed to help. He grabbed the blanket from Carl and told the short round man to look for a fire extinguisher.

An oil leak fueled the flames. The residue spread to his blanket and Jerry was soon waving flames at the fire. He dropped the blanket to the highway as the fire grew on the worn cloth.

The other volunteer had more luck. He managed to smother the flames with his blanket. Only then did he look to the wreckage of the rig and back to Jerry. He smiled.

"Holy s.h.i.t. You did it." The man panted as he spoke. Life in the town of New Hope had never been so exciting.

"We did it," Jerry agreed and held out his hand.

"I found the extinguisher," Carl yelled from inside the cab.

The sheriff stepped forward to shake his hand. He stumbled backwards as a bullet struck him in the shoulder. The lawman collapsed to the ground.

Jerry looked back to the rig. The man with the white hair was b.l.o.o.d.y and bruised, but he forced his way from the wreckage and fired a large revolver with great accuracy.

"You son of a b.i.t.c.h. I'm going to kill you." The major was injured, one foot dragged behind him as he made his way from the cab. The st.i.tching on his face had ripped open in the wreck. Blood poured from the old wounds and a dozen new ones.

Carl dove into the front seat. Jerry dropped behind the pickup as several shots bore their way past the blue and white paint. The MP5 was empty. He reached for his own .45s. Neither was there. They must have fallen in the wreck. He pulled his knife.

The shots had stopped so he risked a peek over the hood.

The major was out of bullets. The old man stumbled and slipped as he tried to make his way up the hill. He threw away the gun and pulled the ma.s.sive knife from his belt. "You're going to bleed for me, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d." The letter b brought blood from his lungs to his lips.

Jerry took a deep breath. It was cut short by the diesel fumes as they stung at his nose and forced him to wince.

The major was hampered with his injured leg, but Jerry also noticed that the old man struggled to find a dry surface. The oily fuel coated the side of the hill.

Jerry stepped from behind the truck.

"There you are, you coward. Get down here and finish this."

Jerry felt the heft of his knife in his right hand and the warmth of the blanket by his right leg. He looked at the major and saw not only the white-haired butcher, but every maniac the wasteland had produced. He saw the leader of the raid at Eternal Hope.

Jerry kicked the flaming blanket down the side of the hill.

It soared, trailing smoke, and landed only a few feet in front of the maniac.

The major screamed as flames erupted around him. The fire shot quickly down the fuel soaked trail. They engulfed the major. He continued to scream and charged forward swinging the wicked blade wildly at the fire.

Flames rushed towards the tanks of the rig and up the hill towards the 4 x 4.

"Give me the extinguisher." Jerry turned and reached in the cab. Carl tossed the red canister to the nomad. Jerry pulled the plastic ring and released the r.e.t.a.r.dant at the ground. He emptied the extinguisher and stopped the fire from its ascent up the hill.

The flames at the bottom of the hill reached the tanks on the rig.

The explosion knocked Jerry back into the side of the 4 x 4.

The major was thrown to the ground.

The old man did not get up.

THIRTY-FOUR.

The explosion had echoed across the plains and reached the walls of New Hope. The column of black smoke rose as a signal in the distance. The people of the town lined the walls to watch it billow and rise until the column could no longer hold and the black soot dispersed.

They were hesitant to cheer. They didn't know that the truck had been destroyed and their town saved by the man they had discarded as a freeloader. They had grown accustomed to only a.s.suming the worst. So the worst is what they a.s.sumed.

Erica had found an extra pair of binoculars in the motor coach and she took turns with the three boys peering through the lenses. When she handed them off, she stared blankly into the smoke and wondered if the men who had murdered her family and friends, destroyed her home, and displaced her had finally met their end at the hands of the nomad. She replayed her insults in her head as she stroked the fur of that man's dog.

All she could do was wait. She found herself hoping for his return; she hoped he wasn't maimed. Or scarred. At least, not on the face. He was a foolish man, she thought, but he was cute. She smiled at the thought of him.