The Rule of Three (39 page)

But wait, they were retreating!

“They’re driving away!” I yelled.

“They don’t have much stomach for a real fight,” Herb said. “Let’s finish them. Make the pass.”

They were moving fast, and I had to try to time my pass to make up for their speed. I increased my bank and aimed for a spot ahead where I hoped I could intercept them. In the distance I could see their compound, fire and smoke and light shooting up into the sky.

“I won’t be able to get to them until they’re almost back home,” I said.

“Perfect. They’ll think they’re safe and relax. We’ll show them they’re wrong. I’m going to drop the entire bag, all the remaining grenades and the Molotov cocktails. This is going to be one incredible explosion. I don’t want to miss, so get me in as close as you can,” Herb said.

“The closer I get, the more the chance they’ll see us.”

“I
want
them to see us. They know we have an ultralight. I want them to
know
that it was us that attacked them.”

“If you want I’ll get you in so close that you can hand the bag to somebody.”

“Not that close, but I want to drop it right on the roof of one of the lead vehicles if I can.”

I nodded. I’d do what he wanted even if it was the last thing we did. Then I realized it
might
be the last thing we did. We were going to dive-bomb a convoy of heavily armed men who knew we were up here somewhere, who could be scanning the sky looking for us. I couldn’t think about that. I needed to focus on what I was doing. There were enough ways to kill yourself flying in an ultralight before dawn without worrying about people trying to shoot you down as well.

I was high and to the south of the convoy. They were running dark without headlights, but they were still visible, darker shadows against the dark pavement. I had to think that if they were visible to me, maybe I was visible to them.

I wanted to intercept the first truck, come in from the side at about two o’clock and then pass by, low, and disappear behind the stretch of houses on the north side before they could react and direct accurate fire on us.

“Less than twenty seconds,” I said to Herb.

“I’m ready.” He had the bag in his lap and was holding a grenade in one hand, prepared to pull the pin.

“I’m going to come in slightly from your side to give you a target.”

I took a deep breath. “Here we go.” I pushed back on the stick, and we dove toward the ground and the fast-moving trucks. Was I going to shoot over the road before they arrived or would they zip past before I reached the intercept point? I did a slight adjustment to correct for their speed and— There were muzzle bursts from one of the shadows! I felt the plane buck and realized that we were being hit. I fought the urge to pull back or swerve to the side even as there were more bright bursts from weapons.

“Bombs away!” Herb yelled as he pulled the pin, and in one smooth motion put the grenade back in the bag and dropped the whole thing. We zoomed past the second truck in the convoy and I pulled up hard on the stick, and then there was an explosion. The plane rocked upward and I could feel a wave of heat engulf us. I struggled with both hands to control the tilting, rocking plane. We slid sideways and for a second my hand slipped off the stick. I regained my grip and pulled hard, and then we were flying flat and level, the plane back in my control.

I started to climb. The plane responded, but slowly. It was like everything was heavy when it should have been light. We’d lost a ton of weight with what Herb had dropped over the side.

It didn’t matter; slowly climbing was better than quickly crashing.

“That was the shock wave of the explosion,” Herb said. “You should see what I can see. The middle trucks are gone. Just gone, almost disintegrated by the force.”

“I wish I could have seen it.”

“There are people down there who wish they hadn’t. The people who lived aren’t going to ever forget what they saw. And they’re not going to forget us, forget the ultralight.”

“And that’s good, right?”

“Sometimes you have to poke the tiger with a stick to get him to do what you want him to do. If you can’t avoid a battle, it’s always best to have it happen when and where you want. Especially when your opponent doesn’t know you decided those things. Today we set the direction they’ll follow. But now we have to get home.”

“You don’t need to tell me twice.” I corrected course. “All I want now is to get on the ground in one piece.”

“How is the plane flying?” Herb asked.

That was an unusual question. Why would he ask that? “It’s fine … a little slow. Why?”

“Just curious about how important the tail is to turning and landing.”

“It’s important, but— How bad is it?”

“Some of it’s still there.”

I turned around to see what wasn’t there, but in the dark, blocked by some of the plating, I really couldn’t see it. Besides, I had to focus on flying—especially now.

I leveled off. We didn’t need any more height. I was almost straight over the top of Burnham, and there were long clear stretches of open road not too far ahead. Maybe I should just land it when I could. No—if we were going to crash, it was better to be closer to our clinic and Dr. Morgan.

“Radio in and let them know to light up the walls along Burnham,” I said.

I was sure Danny and Rachel would be waiting for me when we landed. So would Lori. I needed to get home, lie down in my bed, and go to sleep, maybe for a few days. Did we have a few days?

“How long before you think they might attack?”

“It could come as early as tomorrow morning,” Herb said. “We stung them. They’re going to want to sting back. As far as I’m concerned, the sooner the better.”

“Are we ready for an attack?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

In the distance the multicolored Christmas lights appeared. Despite it all I couldn’t help but smile. I pointed at them. “Merry Christmas, Herb.”

He laughed. “Merry Christmas, Adam. I think we’ve already gotten part of the gift we were hoping for.”

43

After a few hours’ sleep, I was back up, thinking about this new day. Would the group from the city be able to organize a counterattack as quickly as Herb thought they might? The feeling throughout the whole neighborhood was electric—we’d all been shot at and missed … and now we were all waiting to be shot at again. Everybody seemed to be talking too fast and asking too many questions, and I just needed to be left alone. That was why I was so grateful to be outside and away.

It was only a five-minute drive from our neighborhood to the bridge. I was happy to have Lori in the passenger seat beside me. I was also happy that I had a rifle in the backseat and just plain grateful for the ground under my tires. The landing after the attack, with only half a tail, had been difficult. No, not difficult, terrifying. It was a classic case of the old saying “Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.” With the nearly missing tail, I’d come in too hard and done some damage to the landing gear. Mr. Nicholas was confident they could repair the damage and have me up in the air again by noon.

Lori reached over and took my hand, and my whole body tingled. I hadn’t told her everything about the attack yet, and she’d been thoughtful enough not to ask. I always needed time to think about how much I should unburden myself to her. Right now she had enough to be worried about without knowing what I’d seen and done and how close those bullets had come to my head.

In some ways we were all just dodging bullets. And rocket-propelled grenades, because that’s what they were going to fire at us. If they came—
when
they came—they were going to come in hard and mean and merciless. There was going to be little time to escape and few places to hide.

About a mile north, Herb had secured a small house—previously abandoned—and sealed up the garage. In it was a working truck, extra ammunition and weapons, some fuel and food. Nobody else knew about it except me and my mother. I hadn’t even told Lori. She didn’t need to know unless we needed to use it. From there, once things had settled down, we’d make our next move, trying to reestablish ourselves out at her family’s old farm.

It wasn’t that we were abandoning the neighborhood. We’d be there to fight to protect it, but if we had to flee, if we were overwhelmed, the first stop was at the secure house. Herb knew that if people were captured it wouldn’t be long until they told everything they knew. The men from the city would want to find our leaders and kill them. They might be particularly interested in finding the pilot of the ultralight. I was a marked young man.

Our people had closed off Burnham at the bridge, blocking it on both sides where it went over the river so that nobody—no cars or people—was allowed on this stretch of road, except for people from the neighborhood.

I slowed down as we came up to the roadblock. There were a dozen vehicles parked to the side and two dozen armed guards manning the makeshift blockade, which was made of half a dozen overturned cars thrown across the lanes of the bridge.

“There’s your mother and Herb,” Lori said.

We got out of the car and joined them.

“I was hoping to see you up there,” Herb said, pointing to the sky.

“They’re still working on the tail. Mr. Nicholas said it might be ready by noon.”

“Personally I like having my son with his feet on the ground,” my mother said.

“I like him right here as well,” Lori agreed as she squeezed my hand.

“Up there is better for everybody. We need to see them coming,” Herb said.

“Do you think it’s possible they won’t come?”

“They’re going to come. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Maybe we inflicted so much damage they’re not able to mount an attack,” I suggested.

“We didn’t disable them. They still have hundreds of men and more than enough vehicles to get them here.”

I knew our own casualties—four killed, two wounded, three missing and presumed dead.

“I guess we should just hope it isn’t today,” Lori said.

Herb shook his head. “The longer they wait, the more potential they have to get stronger. We have to hope that if it isn’t today we can provoke them into attacking tomorrow.”

“How would we provoke them?” I asked. I was almost afraid to ask.

“We’ll put snipers around their base and pick off their men and drop some more bombs on their position. Are you ready for another flyover?”

“I’ll do whatever needs to be done.”

“Shouldn’t we want them
not
to attack us?” Lori said.

“We know they’re going to attack,” I explained. “We want to control the timing and the location. Rather than wait for them to attack our neighborhood when and where they want, we need them to come right along here, right across this bridge, where we’ll be waiting for them.”

“What if they take another way?” she asked.

“There are only three routes. Here, to the north along the 403, and Dundas Street. Three ways, three bridges over the river. We’re prepared whichever way they come, but this is the most direct, and they seem to like direct.”

I looked past the overturned cars on this side of the bridge. All along, the narrow stretch of road was littered with wrecked cars. They had been positioned to slow down anything coming across the bridge. I didn’t see Brett anywhere and wondered if he was over there or out on patrol somewhere. He never did like guard duty even if it wasn’t on the wall.

I’d heard what he’d done last night. He had led his men right into the enemy compound, set fire to a dozen of their vehicles, taken lives, and managed to get his squad out with minimal losses.

“You should probably head back to the neighborhood and see how the plane is—”

There was a crackle on the radio and then an excited voice called out, “They’re on the move! They’re on the move!”

44

Herb, Lori, and I jumped into our vehicle and raced back to my house, where Mr. Nicholas was making final adjustments to the tail. We all leaped out and rushed to the plane, Herb yelling that we had to get up into the air.

I grabbed the tail with both hands and started pulling it to test it. The whole plane moved toward me, the new tail section staying exactly where it should be.

“It’s good?” Herb asked.

“It looks okay, but we really won’t know for sure until we’re up in the air. Maybe it would be better if I went up by myself first.”

“There’s not enough time for a test flight,” Herb said. “Besides, I’ve been up there already when you had only half a tail. How much worse could this be?”

I climbed in and Herb climbed in beside me with a canvas bag that I knew was filled with more grenades and Molotov cocktails. The cocktails could be readily made, but I was surprised at just how many grenades he had in his basement. I wondered how many he had left. Then again, if this didn’t work it didn’t matter.

I started the engine and revved it fully. I wanted to feel the vibrations. There was shaking, of course, but nothing different from what there would have been normally. I had the same feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’d had the first time I’d soloed.

“We have to get up in the air,” Herb said. “We haven’t got long.”

“Where are they?”

“I just got a report that they’ve left their base. It took them a bit to muster up into a convoy.”

Herb had arranged for a series of scouts who used walkie-talkies to be positioned at intervals to relay messages all the way back here.

“We just have to hope they’re coming our way,” Herb said.

That wasn’t what I hoped. I released the brakes and started us forward. There was nobody to watch us take off. Everybody was either out on patrol, on the walls, or at the bridge. Or they had fled for already-designated safe houses—small children, some older folks, people who didn’t have any weapons. The emergency plans had some people believing that we thought we weren’t going to win, but it was more important that they be safe just in case we couldn’t stop the enemy at the bridge. Lori would be leaving shortly, taking Danny and Rachel with her and her mother.