Into the Guns Read Online Free PDF Page A

along the way.
    Some of the buses were yellow and had the words TACOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT painted on their flanks. Others were the property of Pierce County Transit and Greyhound. “Archer-Six to Archer-One,” Hollister said over her headset. “Send some people out to verify that each and every bus has a full tank of diesel. Over.”
    Mac’s estimate of Hollister’s competence went up another notch. “This is One. Roger that, over.”
    Evans had already dispatched a squad to do Hollister’s bidding by the time Mac ducked down into the cargo area and exited through the rear hatch. It took the better part of an hour to check all of the buses, top off tanks, and get the riders settled.
    Meanwhile,
more
people had arrived at the mall, and some of them were pissed. Why weren’t
they
on one of the buses? Hollister tried to explain, but many of the newcomers refused to listen, and the situation had started to get ugly when Mac received orders to move out. “Clear the way,” Hollister told her. “The second will lead the convoy out—and the third will provide security until the last bus is clear.”
    Mac returned to one-two and her position in the front hatch. The ESV led the rest of the platoon out of the parking lot, over I-5, and onto the freeway. That stretch of highway was depressingly similar to what they’d experienced earlier. But things went smoothly until they arrived at the point where an overpass had collapsed onto the freeway, blocking all the northbound lanes.
    Mac radioed a warning to Hollister and ordered her vehicles to execute a U-turn. Even though it took fifteen minutes to reach the last exit, they still arrived before the column did and were able tolead it down a ramp onto a frontage road. It took them north under the portion of the overpass that was still standing.
    After that, the column crept through the maze of stalled cars, RVs, and trucks that littered the highway—until it arrived at the junction with I-90 northbound. Even though the communities on the east side of Lake Washington could lay claim to businesses of their own, Microsoft’s campus in Redmond being a good example, the suburbs north and south of the freeway owed their existence to Seattle. And prior to the impact, many of the people who lived on the east side had been forced to make the difficult commute across one of two floating bridges each day. How many of them had been trapped downtown? Or been killed in the aftermath? Thousands at the very least.
    The population began to thin as they passed through the town of North Bend and entered the foothills beyond. And, because there were fewer wrecks to deal with, there was less work for the ESV’s driver to do. So as Mac’s platoon began to pick up speed, they were able to get out in front of the column, where they were supposed to be.
    Vehicles passed going in the opposite direction every now and then. Traffic consisted of motorcycles for the most part, but there were cars and RVs, too. People who were trying to hook up with their families—or folks who’d been caught on the east side of the mountains when the poop hit the fan. Maybe they’d be happy to return home, and maybe they wouldn’t. Some waved, and Mac waved back. Thickly treed slopes began to press in from the right and left, and snowcapped peaks appeared in the distance. They were tall and stood shoulder to shoulder, as if to bar all further progress, and their flanks were bare where rockslides kept the native evergreens from growing. Mac had been taught to fear such places because ofthe possibility that enemies could fire down on her Strykers. That seemed highly unlikely in this case—but even the remote possibility of such a thing made her feel uncomfortable.
    The road curved back and forth as it crisscrossed the Snoqualmie River and continued to gain altitude. And they were about ten miles east of North Bend when they came to a line of cars