Powerless- America Unplugged

by Diane Matousek Schnabel

  Damn it!

  Abby adjusted the lead and holdover.

  Fired again.

  Another miss.

  Damn it!

  Her third shot nailed the back of his thigh, causing him to slip. Finally, he had stopped moving. The fourth round penetrated between his shoulder blades.

  The other gunman ducked into the tree cover and crested the hill. Was he retreating? Trying to get a line of fire on her? Or worse, sneaking in behind Bradley?

  A fierce sense of helplessness rushed through her. Will had the walkie-talkie. She had no way of warning Bradley.

  Abby darted to the other column and scouted the ridgeline. Would the terrorist be moving when he popped up? What if she couldn’t hit him? What if he shoots Bradley?

  Competition, she told herself, banishing the possibility of failure from her mind.

  She adjusted her scope and surveilled the crest in a life-or-death game of peekaboo amongst the trees.

  Bradley continued to exchange fire with attackers obscured by the contour of the land.

  Peripherally, Abby could see bullet strikes shredding oak leaves thirty feet above him.

  They can’t shoot uphill either.

  She glimpsed motion. The top of the man’s head was protruding above the crest. He was a tiny lump between a window of tree trunks with a black headband encircling his forehead.

  Abby waited, an inexplicable calm overtaking her.

  The gunman crawled forward, attention divided between Abby’s former location and Bradley’s position.

  His rifle inched upward, aligned toward overwatch.

  Abby fired.

  The round struck six inches in front of him, kicking up sand.

  She nudged the barrel higher.

  Squeezed.

  Her second round burrowed through his black headband.

  Relieved, she exhaled audibly, a cross between a sigh and a stifled laugh; then she turned toward Bradley. Fully automatic rounds had migrated down from the treetops, dousing the overwatch with a relentless spray of lead. Bradley was pinned down under suppressing fire, most likely for the benefit of the gunman she had just dispatched.

  Abby sprinted across the driveway to the queen palm beside the garage; and although she couldn’t see the assaulting forces, she knew their location—just beyond the berm, behind the metal electrical box. Conflicting thoughts slammed headlong and spun like a vortex in her mind. If she breached the berm, she would become an easy target; and sneaking in behind them would put her in Bradley’s line of fire.

  Damn it! Abby bowed her head, tapping it against the palm tree. How can I help Bradley?

  90D

  A COCKTAIL OF FRUSTRATION, disgust, and hatred was building inside Ryan.

  Maddie’s teddy bear had been rigged with C-4 and ball bearings, a miniature claymore mine crammed into a stuffed animal. The explosives belonged to the U.S. Army, stolen by traitors within the ranks. A doctor, three nurses, and Maddie had been killed; six others had been mauled in the blast. Every time Ryan closed his eyes, he could see her scared little face.

  How are we supposed to defeat people who are willing to weaponize American children?

  This was a treacherous and heinous enemy. They were nameless, everywhere and nowhere; they could be anybody, a guy standing at attention beside you, or a civilian begging for help. Nothing could be trusted—no vehicles, no meals, no objects.

  Feeling isolated and claustrophobic, Ryan left the containerized housing unit that served as troop barracks. Maybe a little of that overhyped Florida sunshine would help. It was a beautiful February day, seventy degrees with a gleaming, cloudless blue sky. Closing his eyes, Ryan turned toward the sun. Its rays heated his face, and he sucked in a deep breath as if nature’s light and warmth could fill the holes inside him.

  Then a raucous growl quaked the ground beneath his feet, the tremor rumbling upward through his legs.

  Ryan’s eyelids flew open. He wheeled toward the sound.

  A fire-lit cloud of smoke was rising over command quarters, the base’s center of operations.

  Another suicide bomber? Ryan thought, senses jumping to DEFCON one, the most acute state of readiness.

  Sirens wailed. First responders flooded the site—understaffed, overworked, and on edge since the teddy-bear bombing.

  Another blast nearly knocked Ryan off his feet, this one followed by a large fireball.

  The generators and diesel.

  A funnel of dense black smoke confirmed his suspicion. How many more bombers are there?

  Ryan was running toward command quarters to help evacuate wounded Soldiers when he saw it. A hundred feet above, descending in a near-vertical angle—there was a Predator drone in a full-on kamikaze dive.

  Mouth agape, Ryan watched the aircraft impale itself on the flagpole at the center of Camp Sunshine. His body shook, seething with fury as the battered American flag landed irreverently in the dirt.

  They hacked our fucking drones!

  91D

  BRADLEY WAS CROUCHED behind the sand-filled plastic bins, waiting for the gunman to switch magazines, a reprieve that never came. He concluded there had to be at least two gunmen and that they would not be wasting all that ammunition on suppressing fire without purpose. Someone had to be closing on his position.

  Unlike the savages from Fern Ridge, who had shied away from a fight, these guys had some discipline.

  Who are they?

  Bradley peered around the plastic bins. A smattering of sand and pine needles danced a foot from his face—bullet strikes.

  He sprung backward, heart jackhammering.

  Somehow, he had to disrupt the steady downpour of bullets. He switched out his magazine, preparing to send an unaimed, twenty-round volley toward his attackers.

  Then the automatic fire unexpectedly ceased.

  Cautiously, Bradley peeked above the sand-filled bins. Two gunmen were running, abandoning the cover of the electrical box.

  He pounced on the opportunity and shot one man in the chest.

  The second gunman must have tripped. Lying facedown in front of the electrical box, he was an easy target.

  It was over.

  Finally.

  Why did they make such a stupid move? Did they run out of ammunition?

  He descended the hill, squeezing the walkie-talkie, and said, “Gramps, we’re all clear, but we lost Heather and the baby.”

  He was shocked to hear Will’s voice reply, “You what?”

  Bradley grimaced. “I’m sorry, Will. I didn’t want you to find out this way, over the walkie-talkies.”

  Palming his forehead, fingers gripping his temples as if wringing emotion from his mind, his gaze drifted from Heather’s mangled body to Abby. He watched her right the baby carrier, and as tears began to stream down her face, an ache carved through him. She’d already endured losing her mother and now this.

  Will was sprinting toward the street, mouth hanging open.

  “I tried to warn her,” Abby told him. “Heather, she—she just wouldn’t listen.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Bradley draped an arm around her and planted a hand on Will’s shoulder as if he could physically keep them from falling apart. He could hear the sorrow in each ragged breath Abby took; could feel the tremors racking his best friend’s body; and Bradley clenched his eyelids, holding back his emotions. His worst fear had been realized; he hadn’t been able to protect everyone from the savages.

  Without a word, Will abruptly walked away, and Bradley watched him, knowing he had let him down.

  “It’s not your fault, either,” Abby whispered.

  “Yeah ... I know ... Why don’t you go to the Levins’ house and get some sheets to cover them up? Give them a little dignity.”

  After she had gone, Bradley busied himself with rounding up weapons and ammunition. None of the dead men bore identification. All appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent, and he recognized one of them as the teen from the propaganda parade.

  Did I lead
them here?

  He stacked five AK-47s in a pile and headed toward the green electrical box.

  What were you guys thinking? he wondered, noting the placement of the bodies. They had been moving toward the street instead of up the hill toward the cover of trees, an escape route that would have made them more challenging targets.

  Behind the electrical box, pools of blackened-steel shell casings littered the grass—hundreds of them. Bradley stopped midstride. “No fucking way.”

  He moved two yards to his right, toward the base of the hill, and picked up the baseball-sized black hunk of metal—Abby’s grenade. In the chaos of the firefight, the savages assumed it was live. That was why they had scrambled toward the street.

  Pocketing the grenade, he glanced at Abby, admiring her unorthodox problem-solving skills. The breeze tossed her long blonde hair; and with her rifle slung over her shoulder, she was as lethal as she was beautiful. His pulse doubled, pumping something beyond admiration through his veins.

  92D

  KYLE’S MIND BRISTLED with troublesome questions. Who are these gunmen? Why did they attack us? How could they use a child as a weapon? It was incomprehensible. This new world continued to grow more horrific, and a biting question barreled through him.

  Would I have approached the child absent Bradley’s warning?

  That could’ve been me, Kyle decided, staring at Heather’s blood-soaked, shrapnel-pocked body. In a world ruled by survival of the fittest, he felt hopelessly out of shape. Inept.

  All his fears and insecurities had intensified after losing Jessie. For two decades, she had been his rudder, keeping his life upright and on track. How am I going to make it through without her?

  “You okay, Dad?” Abby asked as she jogged toward the Levins’ house.

  “Yeah, just a little shell-shocked, I guess.” He turned away to hide the emotions rampaging through him; then seeing the dead man on the Levins’ lawn, words began howling through his mind.

  I killed him.

  He couldn’t shut it off. Chest aching, heart bludgeoning itself against his rib cage, he felt dizzy. A veil of sweat dampened his face, his back. He staggered around the side of the house—for privacy. Then feeling as if he had inhaled firecrackers, he sunk down onto the grass. His body shook uncontrollably.

  Am I having a heart attack? he wondered. Will Abby survive without me? Or am I so worthless, so powerless as a protector that my absence won’t matter?

  93D

  BRADLEY WALKED TOWARD the Levins’ house. Two more gunmen lay dead in the driveway, a third in the grass.

  “I shot those two.”

  Surprised by Abby’s nonchalant tone, Bradley turned toward her. He wasn’t sure how to feel. Relieved that Abby hadn’t been injured? Impressed that she had dispatched savages? Or devastated that she would have to cope with taking two lives?

  “Quit looking at me like that. I’m fine.”

  “Because it hasn’t sunk in yet.”

  “Bradley, those bastards turned a little boy into a suicide bomber. They got what they deserved.”

  He stared at her, puzzled by her composure. Was she in denial? Having some kind of delayed reaction? With her mother gone and her father struggling to keep himself together, would Abby be forced to deal with it alone?

  “Listen, eventually, it’s gonna hit you. Hard ... And when it does, think about all the Americans these guys would’ve killed in the future. Focus on all the lives you saved.”

  She contemplated his words, expression disturbingly neutral, then asked, “Do you feel any remorse?”

  “For me, remorse is kind of like snow. It accumulates over time.” Bradley offered a sheepish grin and lobbed the grenade to her. “I think you dropped this.”

  Abby caught it with a downward swiping motion. “You’re welcome.” A playful taunt glinted in her blue eyes, then she began walking up the hill. “Did you count the two up here?”

  Bradley trailed after her.

  A man halfway up the hill had been shot twice, through the thigh and the back.

  “Freaking lead,” she muttered. “Took me four shots—triple miss.”

  Bradley liberated an American-made M4 from the dead man’s grasp and cleared the rifle. Unlike the others, this guy was clothed in a U.S. Army battle dress uniform with name and rank insignias identifying him as Sergeant Smith.

  Bradley squatted beside the body and removed a black headband, adorned with a silk-screened white rectangle and a foreign script that looked Middle Eastern. His attention was riveted on the emblems printed on either side; a globe, and in the foreground, a fist grasping an assault rifle.

  He followed Abby to the second body at the top of the ridge. “Sergeant Dias” clutched an M4, and Bradley tracked the barrel to overwatch. A frosty tingle ricocheted inside his skull, whizzed along his spine, and blitzed every nerve ending in his body. He had come within seconds of being shot.

  “He never should’ve made it this far,” Abby was saying, her tone apologetic.

  That’s why she was so pissed about the four shots, he thought. Bradley took a closer look at the man who had nearly killed him. “A head shot? Up here?”

  “That’s all I could see. And it still took me two stinking tries.”

  Their eyes fused in an unspoken conversation, and Bradley knew his were betraying his emotions, exposing feelings he had desperately tried to conceal. Abby was seeing that he adored her; that he wanted her so badly it scared him; but he didn’t care. She already knew. Everybody freaking knew.

  Abby sidestepped to higher ground, eliminating the height difference between them. “You could’ve been killed. And I never would’ve gotten a chance to find out.”

  Find out what? he thought, pulse accelerating as her arms looped around his neck. Then those warm, full lips pressed against his, softly and seductively.

  Bradley’s restraint shattered. His left arm closed around her waist, drawing her body against him; his right hand cupped her face. He returned her kiss, his tongue grazing her lips, gently prodding them apart, and he felt her shiver. Pent-up emotion coursed through him like a tidal wave. Kissing her felt so intoxicating, so natural; Bradley never wanted to stop. Nothing else mattered.

  Not that she was sixteen.

  Not that he would have to report for duty.

  Not even her father ... watching from the street below.

  94D

  “BAD GUY’S DEAD; ABBY’S alive. You did the right thing,” George told Kyle.

  “When’s it going to start feeling that way?”

  “Soon as you lay eyes on your daughter. Come on.”

  They started toward Sugar Lake Road, then George rested a firm hand on Kyle’s shoulder, restraining him. “Don’t, Son.”

  “Look at them, George! Of course, I’m going over there—”

  “As one father to another, I’m asking you to wait. Emotions are running way too high right now. And we don’t need Abby running off again.”

  Kyle winced from the verbal flogging; then indignation morphed into anger. “So there aren’t rules anymore? Moral values go out the window? I just let her do whatever she damned well pleases?”

  “Son, I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just asking you to wait ... until you calm down.”

  95D

  BRADLEY GRABBED A SHOVEL, and as he began digging the grave, it seeped into his consciousness, how close he had come to dying.

  Rattled and disillusioned, it was more than the prospect of dying in a firefight; it was his own obliviousness that haunted him. Abby had snuck up on him the day Will arrived; and today, he had allowed a savage to do the same thing. When it came to situational awareness, Bradley was failing.

  If Abby had missed, he would be dead right now. The thought soured his stomach. He was supposed to be protecting her. Giving a flustered sigh, Bradley wondered which was worse: Being shot by a sixteen-year-old girl? Or being saved by one?

  Or maybe it was French kissing one on a hilltop for all to see?

  His resolv
e had crumbled, he had crossed a boundary, and the damage was irreversible. No kiss had ever stirred him so intensely. Was it just a psychological craving for forbidden fruit? Infatuation? Or something far more frightening?

  Kyle was approaching, shovel in hand, and Bradley grimaced.

  What do I say to him?

  “Are you planning on burying all the savages?”

  “Hell no,” Bradley told him.

  “Feed them to the gators?”

  “Not a good plan if you intend to eat the gators.”

  Both men shoveled in uneasy silence, metal slicing against sand, the slooshing sound ticking off time until Bradley said, “The next couple days will be rough for Abby. We need to keep a close eye on her.”

  “We?” Kyle let out a scornful laugh, a nonverbal accusation. “You never miss an opportunity, do you? First, you have Abby calling you Sexy. Then your best friend’s wife and kid get shredded. Corpses litter our street. And you decide it’s a good time to jam your tongue down my daughter’s throat?”

  Spoken aloud, it sounded even more unseemly, indefensible. Bradley slammed the shovel into the sand, rested both hands atop the wooden handle, and stared down into the hole, wishing he could disappear into it.

  “Sexy is just a retaliatory nickname for me calling her Squirt—”

  “Look, Bradley, I know you’re the reason we’re alive. I get that. And I appreciate it.”

  “But?”

  “But, I’m asking you to back off. Stay away from Abby ...”

  He was surprised how deeply those words cut.

  “... She worships you because you’re a Sniper. You know that, so don’t take advantage of it.”

  Take advantage? Bradley bit the inside of his mouth, attempting to contain his anger. “Understood, sir. And you won’t have to worry about it much longer because I’ll be leaving.”

  “Leaving?” Kyle repeated.

  “I have an obligation to the Marine Corps.”

  Kyle stumbled backward, clumsily taking a seat on the hillside. “Bradley, I don’t want you to leave.”

  “Well, I have to. And I’m done waiting for you to figure shit out. Your training starts tomorrow at 0700 hours.”

  ( ( ( 49% Complete ) ) )