“Can you show me police identification?” Preston asked.

“First, tell me who you are. Those are armored personnel carriers I’ve seen at a show. Are they U.S. military?” the man asked.

David got out of the rear armored car and came up to the roadblock. “I know this man,” he said. “I’ve met him a couple of times. He is an Apex policeman, I can verify that.”

“Yes, and I remember you—you own these babies. What I would give for one of these at the moment!”

Preston shouted to the sergeant in the Saracen to come out, which he did. The policeman was even more relieved to see real U.S. Air Force clothing, and put his shotgun down.

“Do we have an extra carbine and a few boxes of ammo for this man?” Preston asked. The two military men swopped IDs and both verified each 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 did a quick U-turn, and the second tractor driven by one of his sons followed him. The Saracen stopped behind the first armored car and the second one came abreast of the first one. The two tractors retreated under the bridge and stopped in the shadows to watch the fight. There was no reason to get the vehicles damaged.

Preston could hear several bullets ricocheting off the armor as the two ferret .30-caliber machine guns each chose a target and emptied 10 rounds per second into each vehicle. The blue car virtually disintegrated several seconds later and then blew up. The old truck became holy as the machine gunner raked its side. The Saracen then moved in to a clear path and all three vehicles concentrated their fire on the old truck, cutting it to pieces with parts thrown everywhere.

It had taken about a minute and the guns stopped, still smoking from the heavy fire. The ferrets moved forward and there were gun shots still coming from behind the blazing car. All three guns again blew holes into anybody who moved in the vicinity.

Then everything went quiet as the ferrets moved forward to the fires on each side of the road to inspect. Nobody got out, a turret was opened and the tractors were told to come through. They passed through the scene, and Preston’s face went white when he saw nearly a dozen dead and bloody bodies by the burning truck and several more lying around the car, which was now a mass of flames. They were all young boys and there were rifles everywhere. Preston asked Joe to stop so he could get out. So did the soldiers and bodyguards in the other vehicles. Martie, Joe, and his boys stayed away.

It was carnage, with broken bodies everywhere. “I suppose that was necessary?” Preston asked around.

“I believe so,” replied David walking up to him and standing with him. “I was hoping that they wouldn’t shoot, but we would have been pretty dead by the time we opened up with our weapons if we had been in a truck or a car. They aimed straight for where we were sitting, with no warning shots at all. Plus, I reckon several of them were hit before we got here. It looked like they had been going at it for some time. “Why did you get out?”

“These guys are well-armed,” replied Preston. The sergeant and his troops stood guard, making a perimeter. “If we don’t take these with us, then other groups will find them and pick them up and we will have the same shootout somewhere else tomorrow. I can understand Will Smart’s predicament when he had to shoot those kids in California. I assume the rules of engagement have changed and that only the strongest will survive. I think we should pick up all the weapons and ammunition and hand the stuff over to the cops we saw back in Apex. I’m sure they could put it to better use than these guys.”

“They do look like a mean bunch,” stated the sergeant.

“I agree,” added David. “It didn’t take these guys long to go bad. On the way back, and if the vehicles have stopped burning, we should pull what’s left of them across the road. It might deter others coming here, and if they have been moved, it could mean that somebody’s in the airport.”

“Good thinking, David,” replied Preston. “It could also serve as a visible warning if we have to fly in here. I’m hoping to fly back, so you guys do what you need to do and we can see from the air if our placement of these vehicles has been moved.”