Homefront: The Voice of Freedom (23 page)

The cyclers turned east on Highway 14, which wound through a thicker section of the forest. By this time, a year after the EMP, less abandoned automobiles dotted the roads, allowing a clear, obstructionless passage. Walker considered this was possibly because they were in open country rather than near big cities. And it was beautiful country—Walker had never been in Utah before; it was stunning.

After another night in the forest, the Ragtags turned north on Highway 89 toward Bryce Canyon National Park. Here in the rocky wilderness, Walker could imagine that America had never been invaded, that there was no such thing as electricity for the EMP to snuff out, and that all was well with the world. But his idyllic daydreams were interrupted when they passed through a small deserted town by the name of Hatch. On the road ahead, just outside the village, were a couple of military Humvees and several men carrying weapons. Prescott didn’t like the way the outfit was moving slowly in their direction, as if they were looking for someone or something.

The Ragtags quietly moved their bicycles off the highway and hid in the trees.

“I can’t tell if they’re Korean or not,” Jim whispered.

“We’ll know when they get closer,” Walker replied.

The Humvees drove at ten or fifteen miles per hour.
The men kept moving on and off the road, their weapons pointed into the trees. It wasn’t long, though, before the Ragtags could see that they weren’t Korean. The men were dressed in a patchwork collection of military uniforms—some from the Army, some from the National Guard, some from the Marines. Others wore police uniforms. A few were in civilian clothes. They all carried guns of various types.

“This is a resistance cell, folks,” Walker announced. “I believe these boys are on our side!”

He stood and waved, making his presence known, and the others quickly joined him. The soldiers swung their rifles toward the Ragtags, but Walker called out, “Hey, we’re Americans!” The men lowered their guns, waved, and moved forward. The two parties met in the middle of the road and shook hands. Walker and his team introduced themselves.

A tall and beefy blond soldier dressed in a Marine outfit appeared to be the man in charge. “I’m Weimar,” he said, pronouncing the “W” as a “V.” “Where are you folks headed?”

“We’re looking for you, I think,” Walker answered. “We heard there was a resistance cell operating near Bryce Canyon. Would that be you?”

Weimar smiled. “We’re part of it. We’re on a routine patrol. We had intel that the enemy was close by, placing surveillance equipment along the roads. They’re looking for us, too. So we’ve spent the last two days hunting for it, hoping to take it out before they figure out where our base is located.”

A man coughed loudly from inside one of the Humvees. Walker couldn’t help but look over Weimar’s shoulder. “I know that cough,” he said. “Is that—?”

The Humvee door opened and out stepped—

“Wally!” Walker rushed to him and gave Sergeant Kopple a big bear hug.

“Walker, you son-of-a-gun! You mean you haven’t gotten yourself killed yet?”

“Not on your life, mister! Everything you taught me has paid off so far.”

“I was worried about you when I heard about Vegas.”

“I was there, man.” He turned to his mates. “But we got out okay. We were a few of the lucky ones. Let me introduce you. You remember Kelsie?”

Kopple gave Wilcox a bigger hug and a sloppy kiss. Introductions were made all around, and the other men in the cell came forward to shake hands.

“Weimar,” Kopple said, “let’s take these folks back to the Dome and let them meet Nguyen. I think we’re about done on this road, right?”

The blond nodded.

“We have bikes,” Walker said. “Give us a sec and we’ll go get ’em.”

The Ragtags retrieved their bicycles and joined the unit as they headed up Highway 89 and turned right on Highway 12.

Kopple walked alongside Walker and Wilcox as they cycled slowly. “The Dome is that hardened complex we were talking about back when we met up with you in California,” he said. “We were right. It was a great little resistance cell. A Vietnamese fellow’s in charge. Do you know about the Vietnamese coming over to help us?”

Walker shook his head. “What? No.”

“It’s true. Isn’t that a piece of irony? When Vietnam joined the Korean alliance, a lot of resistance fighters came over here to help the American effort. They arrived last fall and spread out all over the country to join existing cells or organize new ones. Our guy is Nguyen Huu Giap. His great uncle was the famous Viet Cong general, Vo Nguyen Giap, who gave our
American boys a whole lotta shit over there during the Vietnam War.”

“Really?”

“Nguyen is a brilliant tactics guy.” He coughed and spat red and brown phlegm.

“Jesus, Wally, that looks awful.”

“It’s the big C. But I’m still standing.”

Walker noted the sergeant’s QBZ-03. “I see you still have that Chinese gun.”

“It’s done pretty good by me so far.”

“How many guys do you have in the cell?”

Kopple shook his head. “Now only about twelve. Well, seventeen with you guys joining up. We did have thirty! We got into a big firefight with the Koreans last week on this very road. They know we’re around here, but the Dome is well hidden and camouflaged. The bastards won that fight, wiped out more than half our guys, including Captain Hennings. But we’ve been contacted by another cell operating in Montrose, Colorado. We’re about to head out and join up with them.”

When they reached the edge of the forest, before the trees thinned out to rocky, barren land near the national park entrance, the team stopped while two men removed what appeared to be a natural barrier in the trees on the north side of the road. It was a gate fashioned out of branches and foliage that was cleverly tied together. Walker would never have known it was there. Once the way was clear, the Humvees and men turned into the forest and the men replaced the barrier. They traveled another mile on a man-made path and came to the Dome, which was a concrete and steel “bubble” built into the ground and painted with camouflage. A bomb shelter iron door gained entrance to the facility, which was all belowground. As soon as the team arrived, the door swung open
and out climbed a Vietnamese soldier dressed in the fatigues of his home country. Nguyen Huu Giap was in his thirties, was wiry and fit, and displayed a fierce, no-nonsense expression.

“Nguyen, this is my good buddy Ben Walker,” Kopple said. He continued to introduce the rest of the newcomers. Nguyen shook Walker’s hand.

“Thank you for your efforts, sir.”

“You very welcome,” the Vietnamese soldier said without smiling. “We use you. You hungry? Inside is food.”

He gestured to the iron door and started to move toward it when the shriek of an incoming missile pulled everyone’s attention to the tops of the trees. It exploded with significant force on top of the hardened Dome, but did no damage. Nevertheless, the impact knocked everyone to the ground. This was immediately followed by machine gun fire coming from the path through the forest on which the Humvees had just come.

“Fuck!” Kopple shouted. “They found us!”

“Stay down, stay down!” Weimar yelled as a barrage of bullets whipped laterally a couple of feet over their bodies.

Walker squinted at the trees and saw dozens of red and yellow flashes, indicating the resistance cell was outnumbered by a long shot. He reached over and grasped Wilcox’s arm and whispered, “You hit?”

“No!”

But three of Weimar’s men were. Riddled with rounds, the soldiers died instantly and collapsed where they’d been standing. Kopple crawled over to check on one, but shook his head.

One of the Humvees was equipped with an M134 six-barreled machine gun. The soldier inside had the presence of mind to immediately swerve the gun to the trees and fire indiscriminately at the indistinct, but human, shapes. This bought time for Giap to leap to his feet and run to a covered position behind the vehicle. He possessed a superior weapon known as an FN SCAR, an assault rifle used by U.S. Army Rangers. Giap exposed enough of himself to aim across the Humvee’s hood and blast away targets with precision.

As other members of the team moved forward and assumed spots behind trees or the other Humvee, Walker told Wilcox, “Stay down!” He removed his rifle, quickly shoved in a magazine, and crawled to
the enclave’s iron door. He lifted it open and found the hinges were made so that the door remained perpendicular to the ground. Walker used it for cover after climbing in and standing on the top steps that led into the bunker. He fired his weapon at the enemy, who advanced with fortitude into the Americans’ gunfire. The Koreans were brave, Walker had to hand them that.

Three more resistance fighters climbed up the steps from the conclave beneath him—two men and a woman. The top guy said, “Whoever the hell you are, cover us!” Walker nodded and spray-fired in bursts as the three subterraneans emerged from the entrance and ran toward another Humvee that just appeared on the forest path. Crouching behind it when the vehicle halted, they commenced shooting at the Koreans. Walker recognized the new Humvee as the one with the M2 heavy machine gun from the California National Guard unit. None other than Johnson was at the wheel. Someone operated the CROWS within to fire the M2 at the approaching enemy.

“Crawl inside the compound!” Walker shouted at Wilcox and Jim, since they were unarmed.

“Give us some weapons!” cried Prescott. Kopple heard him and gave him a thumbs-up sign. He squat-ran to the nearest Humvee, opened the door, reached inside, and came out with two assault rifles—an M16 and an M4. He tossed them to the two army men, and then stuck his head back inside. He emerged with two extra magazines for each gun and threw them to Prescott and Washington. But as soon as the two men locked and loaded, Washington was hit. Walker winced as the man jolted violently and fell backward, a line of red, bloody holes dotting his chest cavity.

Weimar waved to the two men and one woman
that had come out of the hole. They dashed to the other Humvee as the Koreans’ onslaught intensified. Suddenly, a new and unexpected volley of gunfire erupted from the right side of the forest. Before anyone had realized it, the Koreans had spread out and approached the site from the flank. Weimar and his three companions were down. Giap flung himself to the ground and rolled beneath the Humvee to avoid being hit. From there he lay on his stomach and continued to fire the SCAR at the second enemy offensive. Walker, now without cover, ducked into the entrance as bullets ricocheted off the iron door. Pinned inside, he was unable to help his new compatriots.

“What’s going on?” Wilcox asked. She stood on the steps below him, her eyes wide with fear.

“Doesn’t look good,” Walker spat. “They’ve got us on two sides.”

Then he heard a new sound—a whirr of a machine passed over his head, followed by four bursts of rocket fire and screams in the forest.

What the hell was
that?

A shout of “Hooray!” echoed from above, so he dared to raise his head. Walker’s jaw dropped when he saw what was making mincemeat of the advancing Koreans. He knew such things existed, but to him it was right out of a science fiction movie.

My God, it’s a
robot!

It was a vehicle a little larger than a dune buggy, smaller than a tank, but had the DNA of both. Rolling back and forth on six wheels, the machine seemed to have a mind of its own as a high-powered machine gun on top swatted the KPA away as if they were flies. A four-barreled rocket launcher, which was the arsenal Walker had just heard,
reloaded itself
, and fired again. The explosions off in the trees
were dead-on, obliterating groups of the enemy with uncanny accuracy.

The machine’s internal mechanisms whirred again as if it were listening to new commands—and then it took off and traversed the perimeter of the complex, rolling over the bodies of dead Koreans. The machine gun, similar to an M240G/B, continued to whip out its payload at the remaining enemy force. This allowed the surviving resistance fighters to break cover and take a more offensive role in the fight.

Walker climbed out of the hole to join them and recalled Kopple’s instructions to move with the M4’s scope to his eye. Zeroing in on a group of three Koreans headed his way, he released two bursts of rounds and annihilated the threat. He then swung around and targeted six more men who were closing in on Kopple and others crouching behind a Humvee. Walker eradicated four of them, but the other two veered toward him and fired. He felt the searing hot stream of two bullets—one passing between his legs, dangerously close to his crotch, and the other just over his left shoulder. Walker leapt forward, flattening himself on the ground as Kopple obliterated the two men with his QBZ-03.

Walker’s heart beat furiously and he could barely catch his breath. The excitement of the battle was like nothing he’d ever felt. He felt
exhilarated
. Jumping up for more, eager to exterminate the enemy, he was almost disappointed to find it was all over. His fellow soldiers had already stepped into the forest to mop up. Every now and then a man delivered a blast into a wounded Korean to finish him off; otherwise, there was none of the enemy left alive. Whatever that six-wheeled monster was, it had saved the day.

The bad news was the Resistance had lost eight members, including Washington.

Giap rolled out from under the Humvee and announced, “They know we here. We move on soon as possible.”

Walker approached the robot-vehicle and turned to Kopple. “What is this thing?”

“That’s Goliath,” the sergeant answered after a coughing spell. “Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicle, invented and built by DARPA a few years ago back when the Department of Defense had money to spend on stuff.”

“How does it know what to do?”

“You’ll meet his master in—”

But as Kopple spoke, Walker caught movement out the corner of his eye and spun around to witness an Asian man materialize from the trees.

Another Korean!

Walker shouted, “Hey!” and raised the M4, ready to blow the guy away; but Kopple yelled, “Don’t shoot!” The sergeant swiftly grabbed Walker’s rifle and thrust it into the air. “No! He’s one of us!” Walker’s gun discharged, causing every resistance member to swing guns at him.