Invasion (Best Laid Plans Book 3) Read online

  Invasion

  Book Three of

  Best Laid Plans

  by

  Nathan Jones

  Copyright © 2016 Nathan Jones

  All rights reserved.

  The events depicted in this novel are fictional. The characters in this story are also fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is entirely unintentional. While most locations are real some creative license has been taken in describing them, and a few locations are entirely fictional.

  This book is dedicated to my family, for all their support and encouragement. And when I needed it they reminded me that taking a break can be nice, too. It is also dedicated to each and every reader who's given this series their support, whose positive response has been overwhelming.

  Thank you.

  Prologue

  Caution

  Some people had wanted to toss Gutierrez into the cells beneath town hall, but Matt had vehemently argued against that.

  First off the defector had come in good faith and allowed himself to be disarmed and taken prisoner. He'd also willingly shared information about the raiders he'd abandoned. The idea of treating him like a criminal after that, even if there was some merit to that line of thinking considering he'd been with Ferris all winter, didn't sit right with Matt.

  Secondly there was pragmatism to consider. The man was a trained soldier, and if he was willing to help defend the town his aid might save lives. Matt was willing to take some calculated risks and extend a little trust with that possibility in mind.

  There was also the same consideration they'd had with any other prisoner over the winter, that if they kept them locked up they'd also have to give them food that could be going to productive citizens. Matt would rather have a soldier defending the town than a prisoner eating up what little the town had to spare. Which was less and less by the day since their focus had to be on defending themselves from the raiders instead of finding food.

  And the overly cautious and uncharitable option of exiling Gutierrez was equally unacceptable, since the man might be tempted to rejoin his former friends, or turn bitter at the town's lack of trust and set off on his own for a life of living by the sweat of other people's brows.

  No. If Matt decided he couldn't trust Gutierrez after all they'd make the fairest decision they could about the former soldier. But he really, really wanted to get the man on their side if he could. Or at least prove Gutierrez was on their side; the man's behavior and own professed words certainly indicated he already was.

  They'd put the former soldier up in a comfortable but windowless room above the auditorium, with a guard waiting outside “in case he needed anything”. When Matt arrived for his visit he nodded at the man, a refugee he vaguely recognized, and rapped on the door. He heard Gutierrez's voice inviting him in, so he cracked open the door.

  The former soldier was sprawled on the room's modest bed, reading a paperback novel, but as Matt entered he swung his legs to the floor and sat up with a bit of his old military rigidity to his back.

  “Come for my daily pep talk?” he asked. The words were more humorous than bitter; Gutierrez had accepted the situation with good graces.

  “Actually I had something else in mind.” Matt hefted the duffel bag he carried. “Care for a walk?”

  “After three days cooped up in here with only you as a visitor?” Gutierrez hopped up with a grin. “As long as it's not to the gallows I'd go just about anywhere for a change of scenery.”

  Matt led the way out of the room, nodding to the refugee as they passed him. The man didn't seem happy about watching his prisoner walk out, but Gutierrez wasn't technically a prisoner and anyway Matt was in charge.

  With Matt leading the way they headed up Main, and before too long Gutierrez started talking about the usual things they discussed when Matt came to visit: his time with Ferris, his time in the army before that, his past growing up in Santa Rosa, and some of his thoughts about why he'd left the raiders to come help Aspen Hill.

  Matt politely interrupted to change the conversation to basketball. It turned out Gutierrez had never been on any formal team but he'd enjoyed playing pick up games at a court not far from his house, and before too long Matt was telling him about his time on the high school team.

  The conversation served to get them past Roadblock 3 and a fair ways south of town. Finally Gutierrez, looking confused, slowed to a stop. “So what exactly is this? And what's with the duffel bag?”

  They'd probably gone far enough, so Matt stopped as well and gently set the bag on the road between them. Then he crouched to unzip it, revealing the possessions the soldier had had on him when he'd come to Aspen Hill three days ago.

  Gutierrez stared at his combat fatigues, body armor, helmet, M16, and 1911 sidearm for a few seconds, then looked at Matt. “I don't get it.”

  Matt shifted a bit uncomfortably. “Here's the deal, Raul. I trust you and I've vouched for you, but the rest of the town isn't convinced. We have no right to keep you a prisoner, though, so we decided we should offer you a choice.”

  He waited for some response, but the former soldier just waited for him to continue so he did. “The first option is pretty straightforward. If you want to leave you can, and there's all the things you brought with you. I also added enough food to last you for a few days, as thanks for the information you gave us about the raiders.”

  “What if I don't want to leave?” Gutierrez asked, looking a bit disappointed.

  Matt hastened to reassure him. “The town is more than willing to let you stay. You could be a big help to us. But unfortunately the circumstances are a bit awkward, so there have to be some conditions. A probationary period, kind of.”

  “I get it,” the soldier said, sounding resigned. “What did you have in mind?”

  “First, you'll be stationed at the roadblocks to start out, and to get straight to the point the people on shift with you will be watching you as much as the terrain. The Mayor was pretty insistent about that. You'll also have the opportunity to join the hunting parties, assuming we can sneak any past the raiders.

  “Last of all you'll still sleep in that room above the auditorium, but you won't have a guard. There will, however, be guards keeping an eye on all the stuff we moved into the auditorium from the storehouse, as well as protecting Terry and his patients in the new clinic on the stage and in the backstage rooms. They'll sort of keep an eye on you as well.”

  Matt fell silent, waiting, but the other man seemed lost in thought. He shifted uncomfortably. “Listen, I know it's not fair. You've done nothing to make us suspect you. But it should only be for a week or so, until-”

  Gutierrez cut in patiently. “Like I said, I get it. Trust is earned, not given. I'm grateful you guys are offering me this choice at all. Besides, if what you've told me about the town letting in refugees is true then you guys are willing to give people a chance, and that's all I ask.”

  Grinning, Matt clapped the shorter man on the shoulder. “All right, let's get home then.” He dropped to one knee to zip up the duffel as he continued. “To be honest, even with the patrols guarding the perimeter standing in the middle of the road this far from town is making me nervous.”

  “I hear you.” Gutierrez had his own grin as Matt picked up the duffel. His grin faded to a look of surprise as Matt offered the bag to him, then his face cleared as if he understood. “Oh, you carried it out so you want me to carry it back?”

  Matt shook his head. “It's your stuff. We didn't really have the right to confiscate it in the first place.”

  “But I've got my weapons in there,” the former soldier protested.

  “Well yeah, which is why we confiscated it. At least until we w
ere a bit more certain you wouldn't go on a shooting spree.” Matt shook the bag, smile widening. “You're not planning to, are you?”

  “Of course not.” Gutierrez accepted the duffel and started to sling it over his shoulder, then paused with a slight frown. “So I'm on probation but you're giving me weapons?”

  Matt jerked his thumb farther down the road. “There's 45 or so heavily armed, well trained men out there who want to kill us. After your cooperation, and on my recommendation, the Mayor decided that having you armed and able to defend the town at need is worth the risk you might start shooting up the place.”

  “If it makes your people feel better I always strictly follow the rules of firearm safety.” The former soldier patted his duffel. “I won't take these babies out unless absolutely necessary to defend myself or the town, or while hunting. And only an enemy who's given me just cause will find themselves staring down the muzzle of either of my guns.”

  They started back towards town in an easy, relieved silence, a lot of the tension that had plagued their earlier meetings gone. Just as they got in sight of the roadblock Gutierrez abruptly spoke up, voice quite but sincere. “Thank you, Matt.”

  “You're welcome,” Matt replied, giving the polite phrase extra meaning as he once again welcomed the man into Aspen Hill.

  When they reached the roadblock Matt had Gutierrez stay to start a shift there, and to his relief the other defenders weren't nearly as suspicious and hostile as they might have been. Hans Miller even went over to talk to the newcomer. With the former soldier on his way to being accepted into the town, or so Matt hoped, he left him there and went home.

  Home was once again the Larson residence a block away from Tillman's Sporting Goods. The shelter was very defensible against small groups, as long as the patrols were vigilant and competent people like Trev and Lewis were manning the observation post atop the hill to defend it. But against dozens of heavily equipped men with missile launchers, the earth bermed structure with its sturdy door didn't feel quite so secure. Especially not as far away from town as it was.

  Early that morning when it was still mostly dark outside his family and the cousins had begun quietly moving their things back into town. Only the most essential necessities, but that was just about everything since they'd mostly only brought out necessities in the first place, and Trev and Lewis didn't have much more than that anyway. They did bring the solar panels and Lewis's electronics, though, mainly because those were valuable items no one wanted to see destroyed.

  Once the task was done Matt had sent the cousins off on a scouting mission outside of town along with several other of his best townspeople, including Jane and Tom Harding. That left his family and the rest of Jane's group to find a way to get eighteen people settled into a three bedroom house. Matt wasn't about to admit that he'd left to sort out the issue with Gutierrez to avoid that daunting task, but the thought had certainly tickled the back of his mind.

  He entered the yard to find tarps hung over the open-sided shed where they kept their woodpile. The woodpile itself had been repositioned stacked outside the shed along its open front to make a crude fourth wall, turning the structure into a small and, he was sure, uncomfortable room. A few of the women from Jane's group, trailed by their children, were moving things in as he entered the yard.

  Matt frowned. Had that been their idea? Even with the cramped space he couldn't imagine his family forcing anyone out into the cold; with spring finally here it wasn't quite so chilly, but the nights could still be unpleasant. He hurried inside into a bustle of activity.

  Sam met him at the door with a moderately heavy box full of their things, which Matt quickly took from her. At her mild protest he gave her belly, still yet to show signs of her pregnancy, a pointed look, and he thought she went a bit pink.

  “We have your dad's old office,” she said, by way of directing him where the stuff was going. “It's barely big enough to fit the bed and a dresser with room to walk around, but we'll have it to ourselves.”

  “With relatively soundproof walls, right?” Matt said with a grin as he followed her down a smaller flight of stairs into the only finished room in the basement. True to her words there was just a double bed and Matt's dresser with a candle burning atop it filling the small space. “Beats moving out into a shipping container, even if the space would be bigger. What are the other sleeping arrangements looking like?”

  His wife filled him in as he deposited the box in the new room and helped her unpack their stuff into the small dresser. April and Terry and the boys were going to be staying in the master bedroom, his parents would be in Matt's bedroom, and the women and children in Jane's group would share the guest bedroom that had been April's room and the shed outside. The cousins and Tom Harding and his son would share the combined living room and dining area.

  It would be cramped, but on the plus side all the couples would have a bit of privacy. And with everybody busy day and night protecting the town and struggling to survive there would be chances for those packed more tightly together to sleep in shifts.

  Matt frowned as his thoughts led him ultimately back to where they always ended up, the raiders. That first day when Ferris showed up Matt had claimed that the raiders didn't want a drawn out siege, and while his reasoning for the argument was sound unfortunately it was also wrong.

  The six truck convoy had been out there for three days, driving around on scouting runs and showing no signs of going anywhere. Maybe they'd gotten enough supplies from Helper to make a siege possible and weren't willing to pass up the opportunity of raiding another town, even if they used up supplies and the town wouldn't have nearly as much worth looting by the time the siege was over. Or maybe they wanted revenge for Ferris and Turner. Maybe a little of both.

  Either way this fight wasn't going to be quick and dirty, it was going to be long and bloody.

  His family wasn't the only group that had relocated in that time. At the prospect of that sort of protracted conflict they'd had to bring the townspeople back down from Aspen Hill Canyon. Nobody was happy about it, and none of the returning people felt safe, but there was really no other choice.

  The canyon couldn't offer more than temporary shelter, especially not to that many people, and the simple truth was that even with the threat of attack looming over the town they couldn't afford to disrupt the vital tasks that were keeping them all alive.

  Hunting parties needed to go out. The garden plots needed to be tended. People needed comfortable warm beds and decent shelter to be properly rested and keep illness at bay, especially when they were working overtime to also defend the town. So the townspeople returned to their homes and got back to living life as best they could, ears always pricked for the sound of gunfire or of trucks coming to kill them all.

  For the regular townspeople it was brutal, but for the town's defenders it threatened to quickly become impossible. They had all the same needs as anyone else, and minimum eight hour shifts on patrol or manning defensive locations along the town's border was already causing a great deal of strain. Before long that sort of schedule would stretch everyone to their limits.

  Not to mention that the defenders also helped with construction of the new fortifications, the ditches and fences around the town and the crude roadblocks across all the smaller roads, even dirt ones, that opened avenues of attack for enemies from all directions.

  Matt, in charge of the town's defenses, had barely slept at all since the raiders arrived and was practically a walking zombie. He still tried to go out hunting with Jane every day, always having to be wary of possible enemies as they left town, but the rest of the time he spent coordinating and improving the town's defenses. He kept people alert, he thought up tactics, he suggested training people could do to better prepare for the inevitable combat, and he'd barely been back to the shelter to rest while they were still living there.

  Sam was worried sick about him, and sick with worry was not the state an expecting mother wanted to be in. Even now he could se
e her glancing at him out of the corner of her eye as she worked, and he knew she was about to suggest he collapse into their new bed as soon as it was made and catch some sleep.

  Before she could he heard the sound of the front door opening from up the basement stairs, followed by Lewis and Jane's murmured voices. He gave his wife a hurried glance before bolting up the stairs three at a time.

  The two had paused by the door, looking around uncertainly as if not quite sure where to go, when Matt caught sight of them. Jane looked tired, but Lewis looked nearly as ragged as Matt felt, and not just from working overtime to defend the town.

  He had a feeling his friend was still sorting out his issues with taking the shots that had brought Ferris, Turner, and possibly a third raider down that first day. The action had saved the town from immediate attack and deprived their enemies of not only their leaders but the people who knew the town best, but it still meant taking lives.

  Matt knew Lewis tried to be strictly rational and tended to keep his feelings to himself, but he also knew his friend still felt things as strongly as anyone. Thinking back to his own turmoil after Razor's attack last fall and the executions the next day, both of which Matt had been involved with, he could sympathize. Even justified actions placed their burden on the soul.

  He determined to talk to his friend about it when he had the chance, but now wasn't the time. “Well?”

  Lewis shook his head. “A camp about two miles south of town. I almost didn't spot it since we were going southeast. Two trucks, around fifteen men. Probably a third of the raider forces. They're closely guarding the place so I couldn't get too close.”

  “A camp two miles to the north, heavily guarded.” Jane said almost before Lewis finished his report. “I also couldn't get close, but from what I saw it looks about the same. Two trucks, around fifteen men.”

  Matt frowned. “So by the process of elimination that leaves a camp to the east or west.”