Eric Walters - The Rule of Three

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!”

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.

We rolled down the road, rumbling and shaking along the asphalt until the wheels lifted off and we were in flight. Gently I pulled back on the stick, slowly gaining height. Up ahead the dead high-voltage electric towers were looming, the useless wires still strung between them, still a danger to my plane. I stayed low and flew under the wires. I banked, again slowly, turning toward the east.

“How is the plane responding?” Herb asked.

“Good so far. I’m just not going to push it too hard. At least not yet. How many of them are there?”

“Reports are that they have more than thirty vehicles, so it could be five hundred men.”

“It sounds like we didn’t do as much damage as we thought we did,” I said.

“We did a lot. Surprisingly, sometimes people are remarkably easy to kill and in other cases they show remarkable resiliency and are incredibly hard to dispatch. But today we’ll do better.”

What a strange thing to be talking about—how we hoped we’d kill a lot of people today.

I gave it more throttle again, gradually increasing our speed and monitoring the plane’s reaction. If there was more vibration than usual it wasn’t significantly different.

“Can you go faster?” Herb asked. “We need to get to them as soon as possible.”

So much for gradual increases. I gave it full throttle and the plane roared in response.

“And more height would be good. They’re going to be looking for us now and throwing up lots of lead if they see us.”

“I can give you as much height as you want. You just name it.”

“Keep climbing.”

Burnham was below and to the right. This was the best position for Herb and his binoculars. Farther south was Dundas. I could make it out but couldn’t see any movement along it.

“What if they decide to come along the 403 or Dundas instead?” I asked.

“I don’t think they will, but we’re prepared as long as we know what they’re doing.”

“But we really can’t see all three routes from here.”

“We know they started along Burnham, and we know how many vehicles left their compound. I’ll count how many are in their convoy when we sight them.”

“Do you think they might split up?”

“I think they’re going to stay together and come right at us, right along Burnham. So far there’s been nothing subtle about the way they work. They count on overwhelming force, and they wouldn’t want to dilute that force by separating into different columns.”

We were over fifteen hundred feet and still climbing. Burnham was a black line stretching out in front of us.

“I see them!” Herb yelled out.

“Are they all there?”

“I’m counting.” He had his binoculars up. I was only able to pick out a line of vehicles moving west.

“Twenty-six or twenty-seven,” Herb said.

“But weren’t there more than thirty vehicles?” I questioned. “Are some going a different way?”

“They might just be lagging behind. It’s hard to keep that long a convoy together. We need them to be bunched together as close as possible when they hit the bridge. That’s where we come in.”

“Are we going to attack them?”

“That would be suicide. I just want to get their attention and slow them down.”

I started to bank to the right, coming around until Burnham was right underneath us. We were now coming up on them from behind.

“There are the other vehicles,” Herb said. “They’re not far behind the larger part of the convoy. Keep going, stay high, and go right past them. I want to get in front of them.”

We quickly passed the last trucks and started gaining on the major part of the convoy.

“Do you think they see us?” I asked.

“Probably, but believe me, I’ll make sure we get their attention.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“Just keep our height until we’re well ahead of them, and then get down low, fast. I need you to be right above the road.”

We came up on the main convoy. They were far below and tightly bunched together. We quickly passed over each vehicle, far below, until we got in front of the lead truck and kept moving. Satisfied there was now enough separation from them, I started to descend. I pushed down on the yoke and we dropped quickly, the road rushing up at us.

“How low?”

“The lower the better.”

I kept dropping until I reached thirty-five feet and then leveled off.

“And slow down. Speed makes this more challenging,” Herb said.

I eased off the throttle. The road below was littered with abandoned cars.

Herb had already pulled out a couple of Molotov cocktails, which he was balancing on his lap. Using his little homemade windshield he lit the first and dropped it over the side of the plane.