Patriot by M.A. Rothman (summer reading list TXT) 📗

Cross leaned forward, snatched the clipboard off the desk, and ran a finger down the list. He shook his head. “Nothing on the list for this morning.”

“Probably just got turned around,” Hayes said.

Thirteen security cameras and screens showed the truck and trailer from every conceivable angle, all in high-definition. Two of the cameras zoomed in on the truck’s cab, focusing on the driver, taking multiple images that were stitched together for the facial recognition program, which ran automatically, checking against the log of registered drivers. Another program ran the license plate through NCIC; within seconds it would display company information, origination, and current insurance.

Cross leaned forward and tapped the intercom. “Sir, this is a restricted area. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

The driver, a middle-aged white man with close-cropped brown hair, leaned out his window. “Yeah, I’m sorry, I’m here to make a withdrawal.”

Cross and Hayes frowned at each other.

“Damn joker,” Hayes said. He bent toward the mic. “We’re closed, buddy. Take a hike.”

The driver smiled, then pulled out a pistol and shot the camera box. The feed went dark.

“What the hell?” Hayes moved to the window slit and looked out at the exclusion zone, not believing what had just happened.

“Did he just shoot our camera?” Cross said, flipping through the other camera feeds. “Holy crap, he did.”

As Hayes was reaching for the radio on the desk, two pickup trucks came around the lodge building to the south. They skidded to a stop on the wet grass, and two groups of masked figures, dressed in a mixture of black and multicam fatigues, jumped from the beds and rushed forward to the exterior fence.

“What the hell?” Hayes said again, his eyes seeing what was happening but his mind frozen with inaction. It was impossible.

Two of the figures stopped just in front of the first pickup, one helping the other with something on his shoulder.

Hayes had served in the US Air Force for six years before getting out and bouncing around security jobs—banks, armored car services, personal security. His time in Security Forces, the Air Force’s military police, had been spent at FE Warren AFB, working security at the nuclear missile sites in Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska. In other words, he’d never actually been deployed. Never actually seen combat.

But he sure as hell knew what a shoulder-fired RPG looked like.

When the second figure patted the first’s shoulder and moved away, giving him room to fire, Hayes finally shook off his paralysis and punched the alarm. The klaxon sounded just as the RPG fired, the blast rocking the man back. It cut through the exterior fence and drew a line of white smoke across the short expanse before tearing through the interior fence.

“No!” Hayes screamed.

The RPG round slammed into the north guard station, a round protrusion from the corner of the main building next to the entrance. The explosion sent concrete flying, and dust and smoke filled the air. A moment later a second RPG round tore through the hole made by the first. Its explosion sent flame and more concrete spraying out.

Cross jumped to his feet, knocking his chair over in the process. “We’re under attack!”

Tiny pops sounded outside. Hayes eyed the security feeds as he pulled his M4 free. Three men in black BDUs were pressing what looked like a sticky rope along the exterior fence. It took only seconds for the entire length to be applied, then they retreated to the far side of their pickups.

The fence exploded, the sticky rope cutting through the wire as if it hadn’t even been there. An entire section of the barrier was launched forward, and landed in the parking lot several feet away.

A group of men from the second truck advanced through the hole, pressed a similar charge on the interior gate, and blew it as well. One of them jumped into the back of the pickup and pulled the bag off a machine gun. He pulled back the charging handle and swung the machine gun toward the gate.

“Oh, shit!” Hayes shouted.

He couldn’t hear the reports of the automatic weapon, but the whacks against the outside of the gatehouse were plenty audible. He knew the reinforced walls could probably take the abuse, but he flinched anyway. And when a round smacked into one of the small vertical windows, it cracked it.

Dean Smith, the on-duty shift lead, came over the radio. “Control to all security units, we are being attacked! This is not a drill. This is a Condition One threat, engage targets as you see them. This is not a drill.”

On the displays, Hayes watched in horror as another RPG streaked through the air and slammed into one of the two cargo entrances on the front of the building. The black rollup door all but disintegrated as the round exploded, tearing through metal and concrete. A moment later a second RPG hit the next door, turning it into so much twisted metal and rubble.

Holding his M4 in one hand, Hayes snatched the radio off the desk. “Alpha Gate to Control, we’re under attack!”

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” Cross said, grabbing his M4 from the rack. “I can’t believe this. Someone call 911!”

Another bullet slammed into the window, and the crack lengthened. Several camera feeds began to blink out, either turning to static or just disappearing altogether.

“Control to Alpha Gate, what’s your status?” Smith asked.

“What the hell does he think our status is?” Cross asked, flinching as more bullets slammed into the outside of their small, detached building. He pulled a magazine from his tactical vest, hanging on a hook next to the desk, and fumbled with it, trying to force it into his rifle backwards.

Hayes took the magazine from his partner, turned it, and rammed it in, then grabbed one for himself and charged his weapon. “We’re receiving small-arms fire from the north,” he responded. “Two groups of hostiles are through the interior fence now at Section One.”

“Oh crap, they’re through,”