Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [112]
Bud shook his head and looked disgusted. “I’ve always backed you up on most stuff, but you’re wrong here. This is like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Whatever those invaders are up to, it’s got to be something really bad, and somebody has to stop them. Looks like that’s up to us.” He gave Delgado a nod. “I’m with you, pal, if you’ll have me. But … I don’t have a gun or anything. I don’t know what I can do.”
“We’ll have to find something else to fight with, for those who don’t have guns, I guess,” Delgado said.
Jack suggested, “How about baseball bats? There’s a closetful of ’em by the gym. The P.E. classes use them.”
Delgado nodded. “That’s not a bad idea. Get close enough to one of the guys, brain him with a bat, and take his gun.”
“Get shot, that’s what you mean,” Cochrum muttered. “That’s what’s gonna happen.”
“You can stay here, counselor.”
Delgado nodded at Wilma. “So can the lady. We can’t force you to join us.”
Wilma sniffed. “Of course, you can’t. We still have freedom of the press in this country, you know.”
That brought scornful laughter from several of the people gathered in the library. Wilma flushed a deeper shade of red, but didn’t say anything else.
“What about that vote?” Cochrum prodded.
“We don’t need a vote,” Delgado said. “These folks wouldn’t be here unless they were willing to fight. And they know they don’t have to come with us unless they want to.”
Jack asked, “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere, right away. We’re going to wait here for a while and give others a chance to join us. It’s not easy to move around town without being spotted, but we’ve all proven it can be done. They’ve spread themselves a little too thin. Even with guards out and patrols moving around, they can’t watch everywhere at once.”
“What about after that?”
Delgado grinned ruefully. “I’ll tell you, kid, I haven’t figured that out yet. There has to be something we can do that would help.”
Bud said, “I have a suggestion, if you want to hear it.”
“Sure, why not?” Delgado replied with a shrug.
“What you said about an EMP got me to thinking … one pulse strong enough would knock out most, if not all, of the communications devices in town, but they couldn’t count on the fact that they’d all be out for hours. There might be somebody with the know-how and equipment to fix whatever damage they did. “Delgado nodded. “That makes sense. So you think they’re broadcasting a continuous jamming signal.”
“That’s exactly what I think. In order to cover the whole town, it would have to be centrally located.”
“We saw unmarked trucks parked at the police station,” Jack put in.
“Did any of them have unusual antennas on them?”
“I don’t know.” Jack shook his head. “They were sort of, uh, shooting at us at the time, so I didn’t look real close.”
Delgado said, “That’s the most logical place for the jamming equipment to be. We knock it out, we can call for help.”
“Which probably won’t get here in time to save any of you,” Cochrum pointed out. “You’ll still die.”
“Maybe, but those invaders won’t get away with whatever it is they’re trying to do. That may be the best outcome we can hope for.”
Delgado looked around the room and received grim nods in return from everybody except Cochrum and Wilma. “You’re all crazy,” the lawyer told them.
“If that means we don’t think anything like you … I’ll take that as a compliment, counselor,” Delgado said. “Now we just have to wait and see who else shows up to join forces with us.”
If anybody did.
CHAPTER 45
Alex jerked back as slugs flew around her, but she had the presence of mind to grab Garaldo’s collar and haul him with her behind a corner of the nearest building. Eloise pressed herself to the wall behind them.
Ford and Parker had been a few steps ahead, so they had lunged on across the alley and taken cover on that side. “We’ll cover you!” Ford called. “Make a run for it!”
Alex was ready to do so, but Garaldo suddenly twisted and rammed his head into her face. She cried out in pain as the blow