Recruited by Thomas Parrott

Author:Thomas Parrott [Parrott, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: military thriller, media tie-in, action and adventure
ISBN: 9781839081170
Publisher: Aconyte
Published: 2022-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

The Cumberland Gap was a war zone.

Maira didn’t know what to expect, exactly, but it wasn’t this. The remainder of the journey southwest had been grueling, if uneventful. Brenda had set a demanding pace. Within ten days they had crossed the Tennessee border. By then, all three of them were worn thin. They had crested the final ridge leading down into the valley and found themselves face to face with carnage.

The opening of a tunnel was carved into the rock of the mountains. From where Maira stood, it was little more than a pair of stone mouths: two roads, each two lanes. The peaks of the Appalachians rose all around. They might have lacked the jagged grandeur of their Rocky Mountain counterparts, but Maira had some personal experience now. Trekking through was no small matter these days.

The area was strewn with automotive wreckage. Most of it was old; the remnants of pandemic-era vehicles had been cleared from the road and sat in great rusting heaps. Newer steel carcasses left from the fighting remained, however. A dozen or more shattered trailer trucks lay in the road. A few were so fresh they were still burning, smoke pillars stretching up into the heavens.

Wrecks were not the only things present. Other semis, still intact, were demolishing each other in a titanic clash. To Maira’s astonishment, the cargo carriers had been mounted with weapons, converted into makeshift fighting vehicles. There was no uniformity; some had machine gun nests added. Others carried small artillery pieces. Each spat fire and death. Blazing streamers of tracers zipped among the battlefield. Figures scrambled around on top, adding small arms fire to the barrage. They swirled in slow chaos near the mouth, guns thundering at each other in a nonstop cacophony.

“What on earth…” said Maira.

“Blockade,” Leo said.

Maira saw that he was right. Half of the trucks were engaged in defense of the tunnel mouth. The other half were trying to punch through. One of them made a push as the Division agents observed. It angled right for the tunnel entrance and accelerated with a roar audible even to where Maira stood.

That rushing semi instantly became the focus of the defenders. A shell detonated just in front of it. The truck tore through the smoke and fire, erupting from the other side. A withering hail from machine guns lashed at it from multiple angles. They swept the cab. It had been crudely up-armored. It wasn’t enough.

The would-be blockade runner skewed suddenly. The driver must have been shot, Maira reasoned. Off target, it careened from the confines of the road and ran into the nearby mountain slopes. There it swiftly tipped and crashed. One of the pursuers fired a shell into the wreck just to be sure. It exploded in a spray of metal, glass, and rubber.

Brenda had a hand to her earpiece. “There’s two channels active. A lot of chatter on both of them.”

“Two factions, then?” Maira asked.

“Seems that way,” Brenda said. “One of them is the Roamers we heard about.

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