Home Coming (The Survivalist Book 10) by A. American (best business books of all time .TXT) 📗

the ID and inspected it. Then he smiled broadly and said, “So you changed uniforms, huh? Think that was going to help you out? Or were you afraid the actions you ordered against our little town would come to bite you in the ass?” The man didn’t reply. He just stared directly back at the old man. “Does he speak English?”

“Oh, he does,” Dalton replied. Then he leaned in close to the Colonel and said, “Otvechayte cheloveku, ili ya slomayu vashiyaysta.”

The Colonel gave Dalton a sideways glance, obviously considering what he’d just heard. After a moment, he returned his gaze to the old man. His back straightened, and he replied in perfect English with a Russian accent, “Yes,” he looked Sarge over for an indication of rank, “Sorry, but I do not see any rank insignia.”

“I’m a Colonel too.”

The man smiled, “Colonel, then good. I did change my uniform. Most of your people would not know our insignia at all. But when we were hit by the bombers we knew we were dealing with regular military. Not a bunch of civilian rabble.”

“Civilian rabble like the ones you killed in your Grad attack?” I asked.

The Colonel looked me up and down. His eyes stopped on the star on my chest and he asked, “And you are, cowboy?”

“I’m the county Sheriff.”

The Colonel was confused and looked at Dalton. In reply, Dalton muttered, “Shef politsii.”

The Colonel smiled and nodded. “Ah, yes, you are, how you say, police man?” I nodded. “Well then, I will address the Colonel. This is not for local—,” he stumbled for the correct word and looked over at Dalton and said something I couldn’t hear.

“Bureaucrat,” Dalton replied.

“Yes, bureaucrat.”

“Sorry, Ivan. But you will have to deal with me,” I replied.

He ignored me and looked at Sarge. “Well, Colonel, are you the one in charge of this—” he paused and sought the proper word again, “group?”

“Hey, Ivan.” I said. He ignored me, so I repeated it. When he ignored me the second time, I delivered a vicious slap to his face and shouted, “Suka!” I don’t know much Russian, nor any other language. But I do know how to start a fight in several languages; call it an interesting hobby. This is Russian for bitch and is akin to being called a punk in prison.

The Colonel stared at me. His face was expressionless, though I could imagine just what he was thinking. Sarge interrupted the standoff by stepping between us, “Alright. Enough flirting. We’ve got work to do. Morgan, you and Thad go over there and check out those Ural trucks. See if they run. We’re going to start loading all these weapons and ammo.”

Thad gripped my shoulder, “Come on, Morg. Let’s go.”

As we walked towards a row of trucks, several of which were charred wrecks, I thought about what we were doing. Kicking an indiscernible hunk of steel lying on the ground, I said, “I sincerely hope this is the last of the bullshit.”

“I thought you was going to shoot that Colonel,” Thad replied.

Glancing up at him, I replied. “Yet, Thad. Yet.”

“I think you should leave him to the old man. We’ve got plenty of other tasks that need tending.”

I nodded. “You’re right. Let’s get this crap loaded and get the hell out of here.”

We found two of the trucks that would run. One of them had the Grad launcher mounted on it. The other was for transporting the rockets. We loaded rockets on it until it wouldn’t hold anymore and strapped them down. But there were more, many more rockets. Thad said he was going to look for another truck and I went to find Sarge.

I found him at the two-ton truck. It was mounded up with ammo of all varieties. Rockets, RPGs, ammo for AKs, DShK (the Soviet version of the fifty cal) as well as grenades, both the handheld type and VOGS, like our 203. There was a pile of AKs. PKMs, RPKs and the Soviet sniper rifle, the SVD. There were more weapons here than we’d ever use. But leaving them here, for just anyone to pick up was out of the question.

We loaded every vehicle we could, even managing to find a couple more functioning Russian trucks. Aside from the weapons, there was all the other equipment that a modern military force required. Radios, night vision equipment, rations, medical supplies, batteries, shelters, sleeping bags. Deciding what we’d take and what we’d leave was a monumental process.

We took every bit of the medical gear. It was sorely needed at the gym where all the wounded were being cared for. The food was likewise loaded as a priority. Dalton was piling his personal stash into the Suburban. It included one of just about every variant of rifle and machine gun he found. He even threw an RPG in there and a SPG-9, the Russian recoilless rifle that fired a seventy-three-millimeter projectile. He added in pistols, knives, shelters and pieces of uniforms. He was having a field day.

Everything we couldn’t get loaded onto a truck or trailer was piled up. The ammo was going to be blasted in place. Any weapons we couldn’t take were laid out on the ground and the Stryker was repeatedly run back and forth over them. We left non-lethal items that folks might be able to use. Things like clothes and boots.

I saw Perez off in the distance patting down a prone corpse. He had a dump pouch on his hip overflowing with packs of Russian cigarettes. I imagine he’d checked every single body looking for them. The particular body he was searching startled me when it raised a hand. Perez didn’t flinch however. Instead, he knelt down beside the stricken man.

Curious, I walked over to see exactly what was going on. The soldier was Cuban and mortally wounded. How he’d managed to live this long was a mystery. But Perez knelt beside him and shook a smoke from a pack and lit it. He gently placed the cigarette into the dying man’s