The man stood up when he saw Asher and the others getting close. “Hey, you’ve got prisoners? We aren’t supposed to take prisoners. Not after what they did.”
She tried a disarming smile. “They’re more like guests. They weren’t shooting at us. We’re trying to get them to safety.”
The man picked up his rifle, though he didn’t point it at her people. His glare was legendary, however. “We’re not supposed to leave anyone within one mile of the rock, no exceptions. Most of our force is fighting upstairs, but then we’ll push out again. Major Howard won’t like you ferrying extra bodies around. You’d better have a good reason for breaking protocol.”
Inwardly, she laughed. Major Howard wouldn’t be giving orders to anyone. “They’re injured,” she said aloud, still sounding friendly. Diedre and Asher came out from the line of trucks, so the man could see them. Logan and Shawn followed.
The first security guy tapped the shoulder of his injured partner. “Hey, bud, let’s help them get to where they’re going. They have prisoners.” He put special emphasis on the word prisoners, leading her to suspect his intentions were anything but pure.
“No, we’re fine. We’re only going a couple blocks that way. It should put them outside the one-mile radius.” She motioned for Asher to keep moving, which he did. The men strode over, with rifles at the ready.
“These two look dangerous. What are they, Indians? We’ll protect you, ma’am. Don’t worry about a thing.” He mimicked her gesture, motioning for her to walk ahead of him.
Crap. Crap. Crap.
Her brain searched for lines suitable for the masquerade she was attempting, but all she heard in her mind was static-filled white noise. They’d surprised her by being there, they’d surprised her by offering to walk with them, and she tried to guess what the next surprise might be.
“Sounds good,” she lied, walking with her friends, desperate for a way out.
St. Charles, MO
Butch did the opposite of what Ezra expected. When the armor-piercing round smashed through the disposal bin, he thought hugging the earth was the only reasonable solution. Instead, the military man leaned over the edge and fired back as fast as he could.
“Run that way!” Butch yelled, using his head to indicate where they should go.
Careful to avoid putting his foot in the runny mess on the ground, he leaned around the side of the dumpster and squeezed off three or four shots to help out. There were no blue shirts visible, so he settled for hitting their trucks. Once he pulled back, he closed ranks with Haley. “I’ll follow you!”
“I know,” she said with resolve. “Can you hold Liam? I need to put Victoria on my back. She’s freaking out in her pack.”
He took the leash, unconvinced it was a good idea to worry too much about the animals, but it was easy enough to hold. “Just go!”
Before they got far, Butch cussed. “Oh, shit!”
Another boom resonated from down the street. The crush of metal exploded from the dumpster, signaling another direct strike on their hiding spot. Ezra glanced back only to be sure Butch was going to follow them.
“The man operating that fifty-cal knows what he’s doing, E-Z. We need to put a building between us and them!”
The sniper fired again. Ezra couldn’t be sure they weren’t spotted leaving their cover, but speed was his friend. Haley pulled away as Butch caught up.
“Don’t stop!” Butch yelled, as another thunderclap filled the air.
Ezra heard the bullet cut through the air, or at least he imagined it did. At the same time, he watched as Liam’s little puggle legs carried him in a path leading away from Ezra. At first glance, he thought the leash was getting longer, but logic slapped him in the face. The leash had been sliced.
“No!” he cried out.
The dog looked back, surprised he was suddenly free of his human. He diverted toward Haley for a moment, but zigged and zagged when the next sniper shot barked out. The pup seemed to take it personally. His next zag put him on a path going in the opposite direction as the rest of them.
“Liam!” he shouted. “Come!”
Haley stopped in her tracks when she heard the words. She screamed his name to get him to return. “Liam!”
Butch and Haley stood near the corner of the building, having made it to safety. Ezra was still out in the open, but he was the one who lost the dog. He couldn’t abandoned it, could he? After a moment of indecision, he flung himself behind a parked motorcycle.
Liam ran next to the parked police car. To Ezra’s shock, the closest officer lunged into the street to grab him but missed. The shooters seemed to zero in on the cop, forcing him to retreat behind his door, then scoot to the rear of the car itself. Even a door wouldn’t give much protection against the heavy rifle.
Haley shouted the dog’s name over and over, but Liam had no intention of coming back. The little pup ran close to the man behind the tree. He didn’t make the same lunge as the officer, but he did lean out and fire at the TKM men, providing covering fire for the crazy dog.
That was his cue. He yelled over to Butch. “Fire over Liam’s head!”
Ezra held his breath for the next twenty seconds. Of all the possible places the dog could have run, he went directly for the blue trucks like a slow, brown bullet. The cops fired their shotguns. The man behind the tree yelled at his friends to attack the corporate thugs. Ezra lined up his rifle, using the leather seat of the motorcycle to steady his aim.
He went for the man with the sniper rifle, first. After watching one shot, and praying he was still firing at the police, Ezra confirmed the shooter’s position was inside the van. He repeatedly fired through the front window as if it had no glass. It might have been smart at first, but Ezra used the van’s shell to bracket the guy and pour fire on him.
Most of the other shooters seemed to stand behind the middle pickup truck. He shifted his aim from the sniper to a man who kept popping up in the same spot. It reminded him of the lesson he’d learned back in the oxbow bend. When the man popped up again, he lined up his sights toward Butch…but the guy shifted his aim toward the angry puggle as the pup got closer.
“Not today, my friend.” He gently squeezed the trigger. “Gotcha!”
The man went down with a bloody head wound Ezra didn’t want to ever see up close. He took satisfaction Liam was unscathed, though he was almost at the blue trucks. From there, he’d be on his own.
“Liam! Stop!” Butch screamed at the top of his deep lungs. His commanding voice almost overpowered the gunfire all around.
The puggle slid to a halt.
Ezra had no time to celebrate. A white sedan appeared a few buildings behind the TKM shooters, going at least fifty. It lost some speed when it turned sideways in the grass, but it regained its momentum quickly as it approached.
“What the hell?” he said to himself.
It took a couple of seconds to realize it was a police cruiser. The low-profile red and blue lights were off, and the siren was silent as well. It zeroed in on the Tikkanen goons exactly as the puggle had done, though this time from the other direction.
The four or five men behind the pickup were focused on shooting at him and Butch, or the cops, or the dog, so they didn’t seem to realize the new threat behind them. A bullet slapped against the motorcycle, forcing him to the ground, but he couldn’t look away from what was about to happen.
“He’s really going to do it,” he said dryly.
At the last second, a man standing at the rear door of the van noticed the new threat. Men behind the pickup also heard the approaching car. They craned their necks to see through the bullet-ridden windshield of the van parked behind them. None of them had time to do anything about it.
The car slammed into the back of the cargo van at about sixty or seventy. The grotesque crunch sounded terrible, and the results looked worse. The van compressed like an accordion, but it also moved forward into the pickup truck. The men standing in the gap were instantly crushed.
&nb
sp; A couple of men were also caught behind the second truck. They were smashed as well, though not with the same violence as the others.
“Holy cow,” Ezra said to himself. “He got ’em.”
Haley ran by him before her presence registered. “Liam!” she shouted.
He hopped up, intending to follow her with his rifle at the ready, but Butch was already next to him doing the same. “That dude saved a lot of lives,” he commented.
There were no more shots fired. When he got to the three demolished trucks, he found no one left alive. It was probably a good thing, too, since the men and women in the park seemed to be looking for blood after having their families exposed to reckless gunfire.
By the time he got to the police cruiser at the rear of the pile-up, Haley had her backpack with Victoria over her shoulder and Liam the puggle in her arms. Butch arrived at about the same time.
Haley saw the driver first. “Xander?”
It was her ex-boyfriend. He’d somehow gotten up off the floor of his living room and made it out to his car. Whatever miracle got him there wasn’t going to be enough to get him much farther. He had multiple gunshots on his torso, a huge gash on his head, and seemed tired and disoriented. His airbag had gone off, but it looked useless in the face of all the crushed glass and slanted dashboard.
She sounded broken up. “Why’d you do this? You should have gone to the hospital, not into some gunfight.”
Xander smiled at her with a bloody lip but looked directly at Ezra. “You guys can have your guns back. They’re still in my trunk. All I ask is you give me a few seconds with Haley…” He coughed up more blood.
“Uh, thanks.” Feeling guilty at the man’s state, and how he’d cursed him almost every moment since he took their rifles, Ezra held out the scrap of paper. “Do you want our receipts?”
“Don’t make me change my mind,” the injured man replied with a faint smile.
Butch waited a second before saying something. “Thanks, sir. You saved our bacon.”
“See ya,” Xander whispered.
He flashed a quick salute to the man and walked toward the back. Butch followed at a slower pace, watching to see what Haley was going to do. When they reached the trunk area, Haley leaned into the window, still hugging her little pup.
“What do you think he’s saying to her?” Butch asked immediately.
There was only one thing it could be. “Goodbye.”
Chapter 25
Denver, CO
The walk to the train depot was the most uncomfortable five minutes of Grace’s life. It even beat the time she had to drive home from college freshman year and tell Mom and Dad she’d gotten a D in her first geography class. Mom took it the worst, claiming it was proof she needed to come back home. Today, on her walk, she wished for nothing more than to be back at the family table with Mom.
The two Tikkanen men stuck to themselves, though they constantly looked at Diedre and snickered. She wasn’t one to conjure up the worst thoughts about people, but there was nothing redeeming about their behavior. Whatever they said to each other about it, they were too quiet for her to hear. She figured if she was a real TKM employee, she’d be expected to overlook it.
Shawn’s shirt bulged larger than normal; he carried her and Asher’s uniform shirts inside his own. If anyone looked at him too carefully, they might notice the odd bulges. Grace made sure to keep herself between him and the other two.
“This is us,” she said, a few yards outside the door to the warehouse-like train repair building.
“You’re planning to let them go?” one of the men asked.
“Yes, we’re outside the one-mile limit. I’m sure they’ll be fine.” She tried to scrub the emotion from her voice, though her insides were mush. If they’d go away and mind their own business, her group would be home free.
The man pulled out a black walkie. “Let me check with base to see if the limit is still one mile. I would hate for them to go free if they were still going to be shot, you know?”
She smiled as best she could. Shawn looked like he was going to fall over. His dark skin couldn’t hide the fact he was turning ghost white from losing blood. Logan strained to hold him upright while they waited. Asher had been supporting his sister; he looked worn out, too.
“Checkers base, this is Checkers 45. I need to confirm the secure boundary for a prisoner release. We’re at the one-mile marker, more or less.”
She cringed at the word prisoner. He’d said it with that same flair, like there as a practical joke she had no clue about.
“Checkers 45? Where the hell have you been? We’ve been trying to contact you for fifteen minutes.” The man sounded angry, but the guy holding the radio didn’t seem to mind.
“We’ve been busy,” he replied, not holding the radio button in. He’d said it to Grace, and also used a finger-gun symbol to suggest what they’d been doing. Eventually, he did talk into the radio in a voice full of false regret. “Our radio has been acting weird. Please advise.”
“Checkers 45. Security chief Howard has been killed by terrorists. Some sexy woman in leather hot pants has taken his place and she’s out for blood. If you see two park rangers and an Indian, kill them on sight.”
The man glanced at Shawn, then looked around. She thought their radio protocols were fairly laidback, suggesting no one was overly professional. Calling someone sexy on the NPS radio frequency would have resulted in hours of sexual harassment training for the poor park ranger who dared say it. At TKM, no one seemed to care. The man in the blue shirt keyed the radio. “We don’t have any rangers roaming around. If we see them, we know what to do.”
He laughed before letting the mic go.
The man on the other end also laughed for a moment, before adding, “They might have ditched the uniforms. We found two members of our security team knocked out in a broom closet. Their uniforms had been—”
Grace knew the next words were going to out them. As much as her insides swirled with uncertainty about the two men, she knew there would come a point when they would try to harm her and the others. Her body raised the rifle toward the man on the radio even before her brain registered it as necessary.
The voice on the radio went on. “Their uniforms were stolen. We think the terrorists are now dressed like us.”
The man’s face lost all expression as his eyes drilled into hers. He looked at her dark green pants, which were NPS-issued, making the connection. She remained calm, absolutely sure she’d gotten such a huge drop on the pair of thugs they would appreciate how impossible it was to resist her. At least, she figured those were the thoughts she’d have if their roles were reversed.
The man dropped the radio, distracting her for half a second. He didn’t lift his rifle, but instead grabbed at the pistol tucked loosely into his belt, drawing it out like he was an old west gunslinger. It seemed impossible she fell into the situation, but there was no question what was going to happen next.
Grace fired a round into the man’s stomach, but it didn’t stop him. The pistol continued to rise with almost robotic inevitability. She couldn’t stop.
She fired several more times, blasting one bullet after the other into the man’s chest. He wasn’t more than three feet away, so they all seemed to go in. Each impact sent him reeling a half-step backward until it finally caused him to fall. On his way down, he did somehow managed to pull the trigger of his weapon, but it was aimed in the air, not at her.
He let go of his pistol as he fell to the rocks.
Grace stood over the body, shocked at how easily the bullets ruined his shirt and the bones beneath. Blood gurgled loudly out of his mouth as he tried to suck in a few last breaths, but it was over before she fully appreciated he was dying.
“Oh my God,” she said, slowly realizing what she’d done.
“I surrender,” the other TKM employee said, with his hands high in the air.
Asher had his rifle trained on the guy.
She tore herself from the dead man,
reorienting on the prisoner. “Drop your weapons. All of them. And your radio, if you have one.”
He did as instructed, groaning a bit from his injured elbow when he unslung his rifle. After dropping it and a pistol, he also pulled out a huge knife and tossed it on the rocks. The guy then threw down a small black radio like his friend had used. When he was finished, he tried to touch the clouds again. “I surrender!”
She pointed the rifle at his middle, but then used it to wave him away. “Get the hell out of here. Maybe next time don’t try shooting unarmed miners. Some of us shoot back.”
He sniffled and nodded, exactly as she expected from someone in his position. As he ran back toward the buildings and the dig site, she wondered if she’d done the right thing. If his sideways glances and interest in Diedre were any indication, he’d taken some liberties during the gun battle. Maybe justice would have been served if he’d died along with his friend. Who would ever know?
Asher patted her on the shoulder. “You did good, ranger. The man was going to kill you, sure as that Misha character.”
“Yeah,” she said dreamily. She’d graduated from using flaming bear spray to big-girl firepower, but it didn’t feel like an upgrade. “I guess.”
Logan hurriedly picked up both of the men’s rifles, stuffed two pistols in his jeans, then grabbed the radios and the man’s huge knife. His dad swayed precariously while left unsupported. Even so, he shook his head at what his boy was doing.
“Son, you’re a living, breathing armory. Spread some of that around.”
The kid glanced at everyone in turn, starting with her and Asher. “They already have rifles. She’s injured. You’re injured. I’ll hold on to them for now. Besides, you can never have too much firepower.”
Shawn may have been thinking his son had issues, but he was clearly relieved when his boy helped support him again. The Crow leader pointed into the railroad building. “Looks like they’ve got your truck ready to go.”
Crush: Impact Book 4: (A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller Series) Page 20
