Free Ranger (The Bugging Out Series Book 5) by Noah Mann Page B

the move first?”
    “I have no idea,” I answered. “It just became a lead throwing contest, and they were the winner.”
    Schiavo nodded and surveyed the darkening woods to the east.
    “Good.”
    “Captain,” I said, not understanding her appraisal of what had just happened. “How is any of this ‘good’?”
    “Because we know they’re out there now,” she answered. “And they know we know.”

Fourteen
    “W e’re forming a town defense council,” Mayor Allen announced to those he’d gathered in the conference room at the town hall. “I’m asking everyone here to be part of it.”
    The message had come by phone. A simple request early in the morning, when Elaine and I were sitting down to breakfast after a full night’s sleep, which followed a six-hour shift at an eastern checkpoint, together this time. After the engagement I’d been involved in, with Nick Withers at my side, I suspected that Elaine had initiated some contact with either Schiavo or Sergeant Lorenzen, and arranged, through begging or force of logic, that she and I should be paired on any assignment going forward. The latter, a carefully and forcefully presented argument, was the catalyst, I knew. Begging was not in her nature.
    I had to say I was pleased. The incident with Nick, where his presence became more hindrance than help, had driven home the already known reality that we were only as strong as our weakest link. Out there, in the dead woods, he’d been the liability that could have gotten us both killed. If that had been the intent.
    I didn’t believe for a moment that it was.
    “What are we going to defend against?”
    The question I posed seemed to take Schiavo, Martin, Mayor Allen, and even Elaine by surprise.
    “You were out there, Fletch,” Mayor Allen said.
    “I was. And there was a good force in the woods shooting at us.”
    The puzzled gazes zeroed in on me, as if I was speaking from a place where amnesia had robbed me of recollections of recent events.
    “Do you want to clarify your thoughts on this for us?” Schiavo asked,
    I clenched my right hand into a fist atop the table, the contraction forcing an annoying throb to stab at the place where my arm had been violated.
    “This is Bandon,” I said, then tapped with my free hand to points around my fist on three sides. “And we’ve had movement reports from here, here, and here and the exchange in the woods. Multiple contacts over the past few days.”
    “Indicating testing of our defenses,” Schiavo said.
    I nodded. And they waited, not following where I was going. To be honest, I hadn’t even considered the possibility of the conclusion I had come to until Elaine and I were just arriving at the meeting. Outside, Nick Withers stood, pistol on his hip, guarding the entrance to the town hall. Mayor Allen had asked for him to fill that position I knew, not wanting the young man’s failings in the firefight to beat down his morale. As Martin had said, we needed everyone, even those who might not perform at the highest standard. To that end, Nick Withers, mechanic extraordinaire and lackluster soldier, was being given a task through which he could contribute, and feel as though he was contributing to the town’s safety and security.
    Looking at him as we entered, as he smiled and nodded and held the door open for Elaine and me, I thought very plainly that he should not be here. That I should not be here. The both of us should have died in the woods.
    But we didn’t.
    “How many do you think there are out there?” I asked. “Realistically.”
    We’d battled our way up the coast of Alaska against a force of Russians that numbered fewer than two dozen. This was a world where armies, however mighty they once had been, were reduced to units only a fraction of their intended size. We were a town of just over 800, with maybe 100 that could be considered battle worthy at some level, with another 75 or 80 who could take up arms in a reserve capacity if things