Free Hard Rain Falling (Walking in the Rain Book 3) by William Allen Page A

dislodged Private Grady’s hanging corpse and sent his mortal remains spilling out onto the pavement. I looked away and hunkered down as my new friend’s body impacted the road. I then heard more shots, but the Humvees never slowed.
    I waited for another missile, or rocket, or whatever the hell that was, but nothing. Knowing it was a risk; I slipped my radio free of the pouch on my hip and turned it on to listen to the preselected channel. Unlike the Guard unit, the four of us still carried regular civilian model short range handhelds—a parting gift from our friends at the Keller farm. These units, shielded from the pulse in a Faraday cage, represented a huge sacrifice by the farmers, but Darwin himself had insisted.
    “Luke, Luke, come in,” came Amy’s voice over the speaker. The volume was barely audible, but I could still hear the horror and desperation in her words as she begged, “Please respond.”
    I closed my eyes and tried to control my ragged, panicked breathing. I was lying prone in the dry ditch, my eyes no longer able to even pick out the dust cloud of my fleeing friends. They’d done the right thing, of course. Especially considering the attackers had rockets… or missiles. But now I was left behind and my feelings of fear and panic began to be replaced by the first tinges of loneliness.
    I’d never really felt alone when I was trekking down from Chicago. Feelings were weaknesses at that time, and I had built up a wall trying to block those weak impulses. Then I met Amy, and the walls started to crumble, brick by brick. Now I would have to rebuild that armor, at least for a while.
    Knowing it was a stupid risk, I pressed the radio transmit button twice, paused, and did it again, simply breaking squelch. That was a signal of sorts, to let Amy and the Thompson sisters know I was alive but unable to speak. Hopefully, they would get the message.
    The risk was stupid because so far, no one had seemed to notice me. Judging from the way Jay’s body reacted and coupled with the vulnerable areas in that machine gun cupola, I figured the sniper was across the road. When I exited the Humvee, the bulk of the vehicle had no doubt concealed me from the sniper and his spotter. That was good because the sniper terrified me; although now the men firing the rockets were on this side.  Rockets versus a sniper’s  bullet.  What a choice, but I figured the sniper was a more serious threat to me at the moment.
    I quickly decided this was not the time to think about revenge, no matter how sweet the thought. I was outnumbered, outgunned, and outmaneuvered. My only choice, poor though it was, was to stay low, avoid notice, and maybe slip out of this kill zone under cover of darkness. I knew with certainty that there was nothing random about this ambush. We were out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by gentle hills and fields of wheat wilting in the late summer sun. I was no military genius by any stretch, but the whole setup stank of betrayal.
    The Oklahoma National Guard, despite the crippling effects of the supposed CME and political mismanagement of their assets, still possessed secure military communications. I couldn’t remember the acronym, but I remember reading that the scrambled channels of the newer comms system the various Guard units used was almost impossible to breach without the corresponding units.
    But, somebody had set up an ambush right where Sergeant Halloran was ordered to park and await linkup with the McAlester unit. So, either the boys from McAlester got here first and rat fucked us, or some third party intercepted the message and rat fucked us. Either way, the communication network has been penetrated and now the already short-handed Oklahoma Guard was down at least three troopers and a Humvee. At least the trucks with the Bradley parts both got away.
    To my way of thinking, the ambushers were either rogue Guard personnel or somebody with the tech skills to operate stolen military