Free INVASION USA (Book 2) - The Battle For New York by T I WADE Page A

other.
    “What is your mission here?” the sergeant asked the two police officers.
    “Trying to keep our town as safe as possible, Sergeant,” the first police officer answered. “We have six guys on duty at all three of the major roads onto Main Street—four hours on and eight hours off. We have 18 crewmembers left in the Apex Police and Fire Departments and all are still on duty and trying to keep the crap out of here. We reside in this area and are currently working on getting the people organized to help us with our neighborhood watch program and close every single other road into here permanently. We have several vehicles, which still seem to work and are collecting as much food from the supermarkets around here as possible. Our collection trucks have white stars painted on their side doors and are out collecting food and supplies. I don’t know how we long we are going to need to survive, but we are planning to survive this. I’m sure the electricity will come on sometime, and we currently have enough room and heat for 1,000 people.”
    Three M4s were handed over from the military personnel with a 100 rounds of ammo per carbine. More was promised for the next day, once the okay was given to arm people with Air Force weapons. Preston told them to get all the new lawn tractors they could find from the local stores and find an electrician in the area to convert them into mobile generators. With 30 horsepower, a lawn tractor engine could light and heat a house. They would return tomorrow, once he had spoken to the commander of operations.
    The convoy didn’t need to go through the barricade, as their destination wasn’t down that way. They continued north, and many of the cars in the middle of the road had already been pushed off the asphalt and into the grass. They went down the hill, next to one of Apex’s shopping centers, and saw people scurrying everywhere looting and carrying out handfuls of food, clothing, and blankets. Two vehicles stood in front of the main supermarket and both had white stars painted on their doors.
    They continued north up 55, connected with the 540 Ring Road and got onto the beltline highway that would take them the rest of the way to the airport.
    “What do we do with all these poor people?” Preston asked Joe. “Do we help them or do we let them die?”
    “That sure is a hard question,” replied Joe, pulling onto 540 a couple of miles before the site of their last encounter with the guys in the green truck. Apart from the same dead cars, the road was empty except for a family pushing a shopping trolley down the side they were travelling on. The small group didn’t know what to do and just stood there as the convoy passed. “Someone would have shot them and taken their looted stuff, I suppose,” added Joe. “Hell, we can’t feed the world. There are probably tons—millions of tons, maybe—of food at the military bases, but if we tried to feed 300 million people, it would all be gone in a day or two. I think that we should all sit down with the general. It’s his food now, and we need to discuss what can be done for the civilians. Carlos and that crowd will be back tomorrow, and I’m sure they will know a lot more by then. I’ve been thinking about it, though, and even the modern farm equipment is dead now. How are they going to feed 300 million people with a bunch of old tractors?”
    “Good point,” Preston replied, as they pulled off the highway and onto the feeder road to the airport.
    It was then that they came across a gunfight. Just outside the airport entrance, a blue car was overturned and three men were firing from behind it in the direction off an old U-Haul truck manned by another group in the ditch on the other side of the road. There was a lot of heavy fire being exchanged by the sound of it. As the convoy came out from under an overpass a couple of hundred feet away, both groups saw the newcomers and turned their fire on the convoy. Joe braked hard and