Crimson Star by Peter Nealen

Author:Peter Nealen [Nealen, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-01-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

The convoy took a handful of potshots from buildings off the side of the road as they rumbled south, but the shooters had all disappeared as soon as they’d fired, except for one, who was gunned down from Dash Three as he ran, popping more shots off at the helicopter. The potshots seemed to be taken out of either sheer malice or some chaotic nihilism; there was no other reason for such a pinprick attack. None of them were followed up on, either by the Triarii or the enemy. Maybe some were bait, trying to draw the escorts off, but neither Hank nor his Squad Leaders could see that any of the shooters had any backup.

It seemed as if word about the curb-stomping up on I-17 had spread like wildfire. Most of the bad guys didn’t want to tangle with the force escorting the trucks south, no matter how juicy a target those trucks might be.

Wallace had made the call to Thunder Run it down Seventh Street; it was every bit as wide as the southbound lane of I-17, and it was a straight shot toward their destination. That might or might not be an advantage in the long run; a straight-line course is predictable, and it wasn’t as if any of the bad actors in Phoenix hadn’t had time to figure out that Chase Field was the epicenter for relief efforts in the city.

But speed is security all its own, and so far, they’d gotten about halfway down toward downtown without real resistance materializing, other than the pinpricks.

There was little traffic on the streets; most of the population that wasn’t actively trying to rob, murder, or loot their neighbors—which, all things being fair, was a larger part of the population than the troublemakers—had started hunkering down as much as possible, those who hadn’t loaded up their vehicles and fled into the desert, generally heading north or east. A few had gone west, but anyone who had been paying attention lately knew that California was going to be far worse than anything Arizona had to offer, even with the power out and the food and clean water supplies dwindling.

The exodus had jammed the roads out of town for a while, but that had cleared up a couple of days before. Those who were leaving had mostly left, and those who were going to try to stay were staying. It meant more looting; some of those staying had taken full advantage of their neighbors’ flight. But most of them tried to be furtive, which meant staying off main roads.

Main roads tended to be where either the wolves hunted, or the overstretched security forces patrolled, which could cause problems for an otherwise-honest but desperate would-be looter looking to search abandoned homes for food, supplies, or even valuables to trade for food and supplies.

The M1117s were roaring down the street in the center lane, between the double yellow lines, at almost fifty miles per hour. The lead vehicle, crammed full of the

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