Teeth clenched, he hastened through the shadowed interior, passing hunched desks and office furniture until he reached the stairwell and jogged to the second floor.
He bypassed the CEO’s corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows and selected the break room next door. Cabinets lined one wall, a teal Keurig on the counter, coffee mugs stacked beside it.
His stomach lurched. The reek of stale coffee grounds mixed with something rancid assaulted his nostrils. Someone’s lunch left in a cabinet to rot for three months.
He slid between a couple of round tables with plastic chairs and hurried to the window.
On his previous visit, he and Bishop had lugged several sandbags up the stairs and shoved them against the wall beneath the waist-high window. A metal shelf provided the perfect height to balance the M4.
Since he didn’t have urban hide sniper netting, a loose window screen material suspended with paracord covered the window. The netting hid the sniper’s location without interfering with their ability to see and shoot.
He’d learned the trick years ago from a Fort Benning instructor at the Army’s advanced course for snipers, which he’d taken with Charlie Hamilton.
Liam shrugged the go-bag from his back and did a weapons check. Thirty 5.56mm rounds in the M4, with several spare magazines in his pack.
He wished he had his Remington 700 30-06 for sniping, but the M4 would have to do.
His Glock 19 held seventeen rounds in the upgraded magazine with one in the chamber. In addition, he carried two frag grenades and three flash bangs.
He hoped he didn’t have to fire a single round. Not against American soldiers.
Liam knelt several feet back from the window, set a small beanbag on the shelf, and
shouldered the carbine, steadying it on the beanbag.
Peering through the scope, he zeroed in on the road. He breathed in, breathed out, forced his heart rate to slow. Pushed out the fear and anxiety and pain. Put it in a box. Focus on the task at hand, nothing else.
That familiar cold calm descended over him, his years of training taking over.
Within a minute, the rumble of engines reached him.
11
Liam
Day One Hundred and Four
Liam tensed.
The lead Humvee rolled to a stop fifty yards from the blockade. The second vehicle halted twenty yards behind the first. Their engines growled loud in the sudden stillness.
On initial approach, the blockade appeared to be a decent civilian-built roadblock helmed by a couple of watchmen, nothing more.
As long as they kept their fortifications hidden, they’d make the first move and take the opposition by surprise.
Jose Reynoso stepped out from behind the barricade and moved into the center of the road to meet the convoy. He wore his uniform, his Glock holstered at his hip, a department-issued shotgun held low in front of him, loaded with slugs to better stop a vehicle in its tracks.
From his position, Liam couldn’t see the other fighting teams, but he could feel their nerves, sense their fear and apprehension.
For some, it was the first time they’d experienced combat.
Most, though, had fought the militia. They’d received Liam’s truncated training.
No one broke rank. They waited, as prepared as possible, armed and ready for whatever happened next. Willing to defend their town and their loved ones with their lives.
Liam’s chest tightened with an unexpected surge of pride. He refocused on the hostiles approaching his town.
The first guardsman stepped out of his vehicle holding an M4 in the high ready position. He was black, in his mid-twenties, with hard nervous eyes and a pencil-thin mustache.
A second soldier, a short Hispanic woman, exited the other side of the vehicle. The third guardsman—male, chubby—remained in the turret.
Behind them, no one exited the second vehicle. Liam scanned the Humvee’s windows through his scope. Four figures with weapons drawn.
Trepidation torqued through him. He loathed aiming at fellow American soldiers. It went against everything he believed in, everything he was.
And yet, for his friends, for his town—he’d do anything.
The first guardsman appeared to be the ranking officer. He strode forward with far too much swagger and spoke first. “Stand down! This town is under state jurisdiction due to suspicion of harboring domestic terrorists.”
The soldier’s uniform revealed the telltale bulge of body armor. Liam zeroed in his weapon on his skull.
“My name is Jose Reynoso, and I am the acting Fall Creek Police Chief,” Reynoso said loud and slow. “There are no domestic terrorists here.”
The female soldier scanned the buildings on either side of them. Liam remained still in the shadows, the barrel of his carbine well inside the window frame. With the makeshift sniper netting, she wouldn’t be able to detect him.