Read Run (Book 2): The Crossing for Free Online

vomited on his shoes. A round from Rick’s M4 passed through the side of the dead soldier’s cranium, re-killing him before he could reach the puking SEAL.
    Rick turned on his tactical light and shined it in the open doorway. Benotti looked up wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Thanks.”
    “Don’t mention it. You okay?”
    “No. I’m FUBAR.” He stood up and nodded his chin at the open door. “Let’s go check shit out.”
    Rick looked at Androwski who shrugged, and they both peered into the darkness. Rick went first with his light panning side to side. There was a push-button type light switch, and Rick turned on the overhead florescent lights. They were in a large storage area with a loft above them. The LAV armaments were exactly where McNalley said they were. In addition, there were crates and crates of ammunition and racks of weapons in chained cases on the wall. One area had a dozen or so Pelican cases stacked against the wall, each with a large hammer insignia and THOR in capital letters in a semicircle above the hammer.
    Androwski gave a low whistle. “Mother-fucking-lode.”
    Rick looked at Androwski and half-smiled. “Let’s get the LAVs over here and get the guns mounted.”
    The three men bounded back to the rest of their party. Boone paused in his conversation with McNalley, “Report.”
    “Tons of goodies, sir, we should load up.”
    “Yeah, you should,” shouted down McNalley, “then beat it.”
    “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us? We could find a safer place for you.”
    A comical look came over McNalley’s face, “Safer’n here? This building has two-foot-thick reinforced concrete walls with a two-inch steel plate in the middle. I’m surrounded by natural rock formations to the east, canyons to the north and south, and the gate to the west. I’m gonna blow the rocks near the gate to block that route, I just ain’t got around to it yet. No windows on the lower level, and the door is four-inch steel with a compression wheel-lock. I got MRE’s to last half a hundred years, and chlorinated water for twenty. I was attacked by twenty sumbitches with automatic rifles and I kicked their ass. A safer place don’t exist.”
    “Again, we’re not here to tell you what to do. I have nothing to give you except a radio. You can contact our group on Alcatraz if you wish.”
    “Alcatraz? You the guys sending messages? I might just give them…” He pulled his head inside and was gone for a solid thirty seconds. He reappeared looking concerned. “Damn son, you done brought Hell with you.”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “There’s a sizable force of dead folks making their way up the road by the gate. Be here in an hour, and before you ask, I got video surveillance for two miles in three directions. Saw you comin’ too.”
    “Alright, load up! Get the guns in the back of the LAVs, and—”
    “Won’t take but ten minutes to fix them Bushmasters on the LAVs,” McNalley told Boone. “The coax is harder, but the pivot will go on in a jiffy.”
    “I can do it, sir, it’s easy,” Stark said over the radio.
    “Okay, get the LAVs into the garage and hurry. If this takes longer than twenty mikes, we quit and stuff ‘em in the back. Get moving! Stark, you got point on this one!” The LAVs moved across the parking lot of the facility and into the garage and the team got busy. Boone had Martinez and Androwski climb a small ridge and scan for signs of the approaching menace.
    McNalley was indeed correct when he said that it wouldn’t take long to install the weaponry. They had the pivoting light machine guns attached to pin-swivels in ten minutes, and were working on the Bushmaster belt system for LAV Two when Androwski called Boone on the tactical radio. “Sir, we have far range contact, a mile, maybe mile and a quarter.”
    “How many?”
    “How many people in that town we went through?”
    “Nine thousand.”
    “Then I’m going with nine thousand.”
    “Shit. When the vanguard