“I’ll do my best. Hitting a moving target while also on the move is one of the most difficult shots to make.” He chuckled. “But the good news is they’ll have the same problem hitting us.”
Ezra made a tight turn around a blue blow-up swimming pool, which had somehow survived the journey from whatever backyard it came from. “I trust you’ll get it done. I’m the humble boat driver. You’re the talented Army sniper.”
They shared some laughter.
The first gunshot kicked off a few seconds later. It sounded distant and muffled due to the hard-driven Suzuki engine behind them, but it was unmistakable. At the same moment, he realized the other boats had a huge advantage over Butch’s return fire. Putting a round in their flesh would be bad enough but hitting the big outboard motor would end the escape equally as fast.
He jerked the wheel, hoping to add some zigging and zagging to their breakneck speed through the flooded river bend. Somewhere ahead was the exit. Beyond that was help from the refugees at Grand Tower.
He looked over to Butch. “Don’t conserve ammo. We’ve got plenty!”
Butch set his rifle on the back of the seat, steadying his aim, and it barked out a round a few seconds later. Ezra was going to commend him, but before he could open his mouth, Butch tumbled backward, which was toward the front of the boat. Ezra briefly wondered if someone had swung a golf club into his chest, before realizing it was the steering wheel.
We’ve hit something.
CHAPTER 10
Billings, MT
When Grace drove them to the top of the hill, she slowed the truck and took a look around. A hundred feet below, stretching out for miles, was the tree-lined expanse of Billings. The cliff ran for miles to her left and right, providing a stark divide between what was below and what was above.
The upper level was a barren landscape of flat rock for as far as she could see. No trees. No houses. No city blocks. The only thing up there was the airport, and it was as expansive and flat as the rest of the countryside.
“It’s the biggest airport I’ve ever seen,” she gushed. Paducah had a rinky-dink runway she’d been to once as part of a class field trip. Thinking back to what she remembered, Grace figured the entire Paducah airport could fit in the parking lot for the one in front of her.
Asher laughed. “Meh, this one’s all right, but you should see the airport in Denver. It makes the Billings airport look like a postage stamp.”
“JFK is pretty big, back in New York,” Felicia added. She sounded like she was in the midst of hyper-ventilating, probably due to the bullet storm they’d survived two minutes earlier. Grace empathized with the woman. The only reason she wasn’t freaking out with her was that she’d been in gunfights before, as odd as it was to keep thinking it.
I can’t wait to see the look on Mom’s face when I tell her what I’ve been up to.
She smiled to herself until remembering she and Mom recently made up. It had become commonplace for her to think about rebelling against Mom and her caution, though she immediately took back her delight at having thought it. In truth, getting shot at wasn’t anything a rational woman would brag about to her mom, or anyone else.
“So, where do we go?” she asked Felicia.
The other woman sat up to be closer to her, as well as look out the front. “BLM has a private plane. It sits in hangar row, which is over that way.” She pointed to the left, away from the giant terminal and flight control tower of the main part of the airport.
“The police said we should all abandon this place and get on the plane.” Grace left it hanging out there, to see if anyone would take the bait.
Felicia seemed to sense the unease in the cabin. “You’re welcome to come. I’m flying to DC to report in, probably because there are a thousand different mining claims on the asteroid debris, filed by a hundred different companies. My bosses realized I can’t work on all that paperwork if I don’t have power and my office is being stripped by looters.”
She didn’t want to go to Washington, but maybe it was safer than being in Billings. It troubled her that Asher hadn’t said anything, but she was also concerned for Logan. The boy had been quiet since he’d hopped in the cargo area, and he hadn’t done more than sit and watch outside after they left the police checkpoint. She doubted it was smart to take the boy from his hometown, no matter if it was safer at the destination. She’d have to solve the sticky situation before she could hop on any flights.
Grace drove the truck for a couple of minutes, winding around the big parking lot and service area, until she came to a fence. There was a guard shack next to an open chain-link gate, but no one was inside to stop traffic. “We’re going in,” she deadpanned.
“Yeah, this is it,” Felicia assured her. “Just up ahead, make a left, then a right. Our hangar is the one with the BLM logo on the front wall.”
“Got it,” she replied. Many cars had been parked alongside the hangars, and most of the wide front doors were left open, suggesting lots of the private jets had already been taken out and flown away. She followed the instructions given to her, going left, and then right. At one junction, she got a look inside one of the structures. A half-dozen men in business suits appeared for a few seconds as she drove across their field of view. They traded gunfire with a similar number of men dressed in regular clothing. All of them were near the steps to a small passenger plane. Two seconds later, they dropped out of sight as her truck moved on, and she wondered if what she’d witnessed had been real.
The Bureau of Land Management facility was three down from the place with the guns. However, before she reached it, she saw a corporate jet inside another hangar. It had been painted navy blue with huge letters stenciled on the side, big enough to almost reach the top and bottom of the fuselage.
“Oh, jeez!” she blurted. “That’s a TKM plane.”
Asher sat up straight, diligently watching the hangar go by. Men and women were on the small stairway leading to the door of the plane, suggesting they were boarding. For some reason she couldn’t explain, she stepped on the brakes, halting the truck the instant before she went past the far edge of the hangar door.
She yelled to the people who were about fifty feet away. “Hey, aren’t you the company who brought the asteroid down on us?”
The people on the stairs whipped their heads over to the truck, apparently frightened by her tone and volume. Most kept going up, but one guy who’d been standing at the bottom faced her directly.
“Oh, God.” All the anxiety and tension of the first day came flooding back. “Not you again.”
Misha smiled. “Is a small world, no? I am sorry, you cannot fly on my plane.” To make his point, the hitman pulled back his coat to reveal his holstered pistol. She was confident of her ability to drive away before he tried shooting her, but it didn’t appear to be his intention.
“I would rather walk than fly with you,” she snarked back.
“You might like where we go. Back to Yellowstone area.”
He’d caught her interest, but there wasn’t time for twenty questions.
“No thanks,” she replied, stepping on the gas. She desperately wanted to know what TKM was doing and where Misha was going, but there was no point in pushing her luck with the guy. He’d cut her a break twice, and she didn’t have credit banked for a third time.
“You know someone at TKM?” Felicia asked with interest. “Look, I guess it doesn’t matter right now. We’re at our plane.” She pointed to it. “If that man needed his gun to get people aboard his plane, there must have been a reason for it. I need the three of you to wait out here. Use your guns to keep people away, if you must. I need to tell the pilot to start the engines and get us the hell out of Billings.”
Felicia jumped out of the truck, then walked quickly toward the plane sitting inside the hangar.
As she waited to be directed in, Grace believed the sounds of the gunfight in the other hangar were somehow getting closer. Or there were other battles happening outside. As she
listened, the concussive booms seemed to resonate from the opposite direction of the battle they’d passed on the way in.
Asher leaned over the center console and spoke quietly. “We should take her up on the offer to leave on the plane. Misha could come over here at any second and shoot us, and TKM is obviously leaving town for a reason. We should do the same.”
The gun battle intensified. A black limousine sped by a few hangars down, chased by two ordinary-looking sedans. A man hung out the side of one of the chase cars, aiming a black rifle or shotgun toward the limo.
“I’ve come to the conclusion my mom had a point,” she said dramatically to Asher and Logan. “The city is, in fact, totally dangerous.”
Near Grand Tower, IL
The engine noise surged louder, reminding Ezra of what it sounded like when a propeller shattered. If the blades were broken off, the motor would have an easier time spinning the leftover nub. He backed off the throttle, convinced they were dead.
“That felt bad,” Butch commented, stating the obvious, as he tried to get back to his gun.
The red boat had closed to within a hundred yards. A man knelt in the curved bow area, aiming a rifle at Susan’s Grace and all aboard. A crack belted out a second later—a shot meant to kill. Other shots came from boats behind the first. Other boats appeared, too.
Ezra recovered in his seat and immediately tested the throttle. At first, it sounded the same, like it was broken, but then it made a bubbly sound, letting out a wet cough. Pieces of Styrofoam exploded to the surface behind the Suzuki. “Crap! We’re good. It looks like we broke whatever it was we hit, and not the other way around.”
It could have been a piece of dock, a buoy, or some random jumble of trash and driftwood. Whatever it was, they’d cut through it, and sent pieces of debris floating behind them.
“Go!” Butch declared.
They’d never come to a complete stop, but they’d slowed way down. As he threw open the throttle again, the boat heaved out of the water, anxious to show its captain how fast it could go. However, they’d lost most of their lead over the red pursuit craft. The gunner on that boat kept aiming and shooting every few seconds. A round pinged off one of the aluminum pontoons, leading him to worry immediately if they were going to sink, though knowing in his rational mind that wasn’t how they worked.
He caught a break when they turned and briefly took cover behind a half-submerged barge. It had come to rest on the bank of the oxbow, though the front half was underwater in the little channel next to it. It had once been filled with coal, though much of it was now gone.
“We’re getting close to the exit of this side channel,” he remarked, not sure if the end was what he really wanted. The townsfolk of Grand Tower would be near, but Ezra would have to travel the open water of the main river to reach them. The red boat was so close now, it would be almost impossible for them to miss every shot for the next couple of miles, even if Butch did manage to return fire.
The big man still struggled to get back into position. Ezra worried his friend had been hurt in the collision, but it seemed he was simply terrible at balancing himself as the boat turned and bounced on the waves.
A few seconds later, he looked up and saw the main channel ahead. It was a quarter of a mile away, but the exit of the oxbow bend wasn’t as wide open as the one they’d used to come in. A long barge had flipped over and come to rest on the north shore of the exit, much as the one filled with coal. It stuck well out into the little channel, but other junk had gotten caught in the bottleneck between it and the south shore. He wouldn’t be able to drive the boat around it.
The exit was closed.
“Butch, we have a big freaking problem coming up. I think I misjudged our chances going this way.” When they’d passed by going downriver with Ellsworth, he’d been certain the channel was open next to the flipped-over barge. Clogged, yes, but there was room to pass through. He gave the boat more gas as he cut the distance to the tipped barge, sure there was a gap he couldn’t yet see. The main river behind it was mercifully empty. The tugboat hadn’t traveled upriver to cut them off.
Butch gripped his seat, finally getting his gun propped on it. When he looked over his shoulder toward the exit, he quickly absorbed what was going to happen. “Yeah, I don’t see any way out. Will your boat do a jump?”
“What?” Ezra replied with surprise.
“You know, like Fonzie. Jump the shark!”
He shook his head with disbelief, not sure what was more incredible: that he’d suggested running Susan’s Grace over the bottom of the angled barge, or that the young guy knew who Fonzie was. Ezra wondered if weird, random thoughts were common when someone was about to die.
There was no way he could envision running his boat on top of the other one. For starters, he’d have to retract the motor, so it was all the way up. It was fine when going through shallow water, but it couldn’t be done with a finger snap. They’d get slower as he brought it up, and they’d probably barely be moving by the time they hit the metal ramp.
It was suicide.
Still, he didn’t slow down. He ignored the guy shooting at him. Ezra desperately watched the blocked-off side of the channel where the angled hull met the water, still sure there was going to be a way through.
“Did you notice my boat doesn’t come with seatbelts?” he deadpanned to his friend.
Denver, CO
“Howard, why is there a PWI truck parked next to my rock?” He held open the tent flap, allowing his executive assistant a clear path to see what he meant.
“What the hell?” Howard replied, clearly shocked.
Over the next few minutes, Petteri and Howard gathered up as many free employees as they could find and surrounded the two PWI workers who didn’t belong there.
“We’ve got the recovery well in hand,” he called out to one of the men holding a piece of the survey equipment nearest the truck. The man’s partner had gone to the far end of the rock, which was precisely 18.4 meters away, as his survey team earlier reported.
The guy barely looked at him. “I have my orders to help you out. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to take some readings.”
Howard got close to the man. “You aren’t hearing what we’re saying. TKM is running the show here. We don’t need your help, nor do we want it.”
The surveyor smiled. “Is that a threat?”
Howard wasn’t the type of person to back down, which was what Petteri paid him for. “It’s a statement of fact. This rock you see here in front of you has already been surveyed and primed for explosives. Your presence here is a danger, mostly to you and your helper.”
Petteri was pleased to see the PWI man take a few steps back, properly cowed by Howard’s warning. However, it was only a temporary movement. When the man had enough distance from Howard, he lifted his loose-fitting button-down shirt to show a pistol snug against his hip. The man laughed in a serious way. “I don’t think I’m the one in any danger. It’s a free country. We’re on property owned by the city of Denver. I have equally as much right to be here as anyone else. If you threaten us again, you’re going to have to back it up.”
Howard made like he was going to reveal his own weapon, but Petteri got in front of him. “Howard. would you please go in your tent and get the mayor’s memorandum? I’d like to show our friend here who really has the authority to be on this street.” He’d paid off the mayor with enough cash to buy a thousand memos.
The ex-officer breathed in and out through his nose, much as a bull facing a bullfighter might do. It took him a few seconds to realize what Petteri had asked, but eventually he calmed down and looked at his boss. When he did, Petteri whispered so only he could hear. “I want two snipers looking at these guys. Now.”
The new orders brought Howard back to the moment. He spoke loud enough for the other men to hear him. “I’ll get the document you want. Give me a few minutes.”
He turned to the construction guy, smiling. “See? We’re reasonable people.”
The man shrugged, then picked up his survey unit once again. Petteri looked at him with disdain, unable to reconcile the idea some commoner could own a weapon which could potentially derail his entire operation in Denver. While Howard was out of his sight and, presumably, preparing a nasty surprise should the man wield his gun again, engine noises came from an adjacent street.
“What now?” he asked aloud.
The man’s eyes drilled into Petteri’s with as much force as any blasting explosives. “Those trucks are with my digging crew. Now we have a real party, don’t we?”
For the first time in a long while, he wasn’t dealing with someone who was afraid of him, or the TKM brand. It was thrilling in some respects, knowing he would have to teach the man a lesson about who was going to walk away with the valuable ore. Even the arrival of more of the man’s friends wouldn’t change the eventual outcome. It was going to be a real party, like the surveyor said, but things were about to go very wrong for those who weren’t invited.
“Indeed we do,” Petteri smirked.
CHAPTER 11
Billings, MT
While waiting for Felicia to get her plane out of the hangar, Grace was wracked with indecision. There was no reason to think the situation was going to improve in the city of Billings. The place had been descending into lawlessness ever since she woke up on the hard church bench. The police were barely holding things together. She and Asher weren’t even supposed to be there. It was only a waypoint, a temporary place of safety while they considered where to go next. As such, they held no loyalty toward the Montana town. If hopping a plane would get them to safety, it might be worth it.
However, they couldn’t hop a plane and leave Logan. She checked the rearview mirror, trying to catch sight of him in the cargo area. He sat right behind one of the seats, apparently looking out the side window. Only his black hair was visible.
Impact (Book 3): Adrift Page 8
