Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6

by Isherwood, E. E.

  “We got away, didn’t we?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid not.” He decided to tell her the truth. “We have four more bridges to go under before we make it to Kansas City. They might be waiting for us at each of them, but I think we can beat them to the next one. We’re going to try, anyway.”

  “And the ones past it?” she pressed.

  He thought about it for a few seconds, legitimately unsure what to say. If they didn’t slow down, they’d burn through their fuel long before they made it to the second and third bridges. If they did slow down, the TKM trucks would easily beat them to the next bridge and they’d be shot at the instant they came over the horizon.

  “Let’s take it one bridge at a time.”

  Chapter 4

  Sidney, NE

  By the time Grace and Asher got their weapons prepared, Robert had driven a truck out from the train shed. He honked and stopped to pick them up. “Come on, we’re going to put out the fire.”

  The pickup truck carried a tank of liquid with an industrial hose attached to it. It made sense a professional repair shop would have an equally professional fire suppression system. She hopped in after Asher, though they had to share the passenger seat.

  Robert drove them on the gravel entry road, passing her truck, which now had a few new holes, and beyond the long line of coal cars. She finally saw some of the waiting diesel engines on the outside track; engineers sat inside or crouched behind their drive wheels. After having a front-row seat for the helicopter raining hellfire onto the train shed, she didn’t blame them for laying low.

  By the time they arrived at the burning truck, the giant fire had died down to a smaller but white-hot inferno consuming the entire vehicle.

  “You guys check for survivors while I unspool the hose and get started.”

  “Got it,” she and Asher replied together.

  He parked about fifty feet from the blaze. Probably a smart way to keep from having his own vehicle catch fire. However, it meant she and Asher needed to jog in a wide semicircle around the fiery wreck to see if the man with the gun was hiding nearby, or dead inside the blast zone. Bullets had created fist-sized divots in the gravel and in the dirt next to the road, making her wonder if fire or machine gun was the quicker way to go.

  The roadway sat a few feet above the fields, requiring them to look down both embankments to see if anyone was hiding. It didn’t take long to determine no one was there.

  “What the hell?” she said, after meeting Asher back on the road. “Where’d he go?”

  Glancing around, they were a quarter mile from the rail yard. She saw for miles in every other direction, over the prairie grasses and farm fields. There were no bushes, trees, or clumps of weeds where a person could hide. Even if there was, they would have seen a man running from the explosion. So would the helicopter.

  “Do you think…” She almost hated to voice the horrible thought. “Do you think that machine gun turned the man into a fine mist?”

  Asher turned up his lip. “God, I hope not.”

  “Well, he isn’t in the truck. There’s nothing left there. He isn’t a pile of goo. And he didn’t run away.” She waved to the windswept fields around them. “So where’d he go?”

  They looked at each other, then she turned to go back down the slope next to the road. Asher did the same on his side.

  She went a few yards closer to the truck, but ran into the divots of the machine gun. It didn’t seem likely the man would have made it through them. If he was avoiding them, he would have gone the other way, so she walked for several yards alongside the road, going away from the rail shed. She paid careful attention to each tuft of tall prairie grass or weedy patch, but none of them were tall enough to hide a person. However, where the weeds and greenery was thickest, she noticed a small drain pipe coming out from under the roadway.

  “Ash! I’ve found something!” She trotted over to the pipe, waving to Asher as he came across the white gravel road.

  By the time he made it to her, she was crouched next to the pipe. It didn’t seem large enough to fit a person, but she checked anyway. “Oh. My. God. Look!”

  She pointed to the bottoms of a pair of boots, toes down, barely inside the hole. They wiggled from side to side, indicating the owner was alive.

  “Hey, mister! We’re here to help you!” She motioned for Asher to grab a shoe. She also waved over to Robert, who was spraying a white mist on the fire. He waved back, acknowledging her efforts.

  The man had somehow shimmied himself into the hole, but he might have stayed in there forever if she hadn’t noticed him. He seemed unable to move backward. He spoke, too, but it was so muffled and quiet it was impossible to hear what he’d said.

  “Pull!” Asher blurted.

  The man’s legs slid out. His voice became louder. He was thanking them over and over.

  When they pulled half his body from the drain, she recognized the navy-blue material of his TKM shirt. They hesitated for a moment, but the man was able to get his arms free, allowing him to pull himself from his predicament.

  She and Asher fell back, reaching for their rifles.

  When the man came out, she could confirm he was with TKM, but it wasn’t only due to the shirt.

  “Misha?” she snorted, pointing her gun at his face.

  He sat in the grass, hands up. “Hello, my friends. I wonder if I—”

  “You aren’t my friend! You want to kill us!” Grace sensed her cheeks burn red with anger. His people had shot up Asher’s sister. Shawn Runs Hard. The whole city of Denver. She’d seen all the death up close.

  “Is true,” he said in his Russian accent. “But I could call your attention to my saving your life. I used big-ass rifle, no?” He pointed back toward the truck.

  It took a few seconds for the words to register. “You saved us from the nutjob in the helicopter?”

  “A woman, yes?” he responded.

  “She was a woman. Black hair. Likes to shoot machine guns.” Grace hated engaging with him, but there was no denying what he’d done.

  “Nerio Torres. Her husband was pilot. They have been sent out here to finish the job I would not do. Kill you two.” He pointed at her and Asher, though it was no surprise.

  She reoriented the rifle on him. “And why the hell are you here?”

  He lowered his hands, as if unafraid of being shot. “Put guns away. I will explain. I am here to save your lives.”

  Boonville, MO

  Even going full throttle didn’t seem fast enough to Ezra. He glanced at the map, estimating they had about ten miles between the two bridges. If the men got in their trucks and intended to meet them, they’d be able to go three or four times as fast as his group traveled on the water. His only hope of beating them was they were going almost fifty miles an hour on a straight shot, while the men had to take a longer route with multiple roads.

  Fifteen minutes later, the bridge appeared in the distance.

  “Are you sure about this?” Butch asked, cradling his rifle.

  Haley had asked about using her new rifle, but she’d never fired it. He thought using it would expose her to needless danger, with very little upside. Wherever the men appeared, they would have the concrete railing of the bridge decking to hide behind. They, on the other hand, would be exposed to the world as they splashed on the water. He wanted her to take cover and reduce her risk as much as possible.

  “I think we beat them. I don’t see any trucks up there.” He hoped it was all worth it. Their fuel was down to a bit over a quarter of a tank. The last ten miles had burned through a full quarter tank by itself. They’d been forced to slow down and speed up twice when they had to get through short stretches of trash-filled water.

  They now faced due west on the wide river, and the concrete span ahead was easily visible since they were on a straightaway. The shifting breeze created a little chop on the water’s surface. It wasn’t glassy as he preferred. Still, it wasn’t enough to slow him down, especially while going in
a straight line. He kept the motor’s RPMs maxed out.

  “Don’t see ’em yet!” Butch yelled. He’d taken up a position at the bow. He crouched behind what was left of a handrail designed to prevent passengers from falling over the sides and front. It would do nothing against bullets, but at least it hid him from view.

  They were about a half mile away when a truck stopped on the bridge. It was easy to spot as there were no trusswork or supports above the roadway. From the side, the span appeared as a flat concrete slab with four pylons pointing into the water. The blue pickup truck drew his eyes to it; there were no other vehicles crossing.

  “We’re going for it,” he declared, unwilling to give up the miles of gas they’d burned through.

  “Give ’em hell!” Butch screamed into the wind.

  As they closed the distance, two more trucks came from the left side and skidded to a stop. Men got out and shuffled around the edge of the bridge, but some of them disappeared almost immediately, as if they had other places to go.

  “What are they doing?” he asked.

  Haley was on the deck again, holding Liam beneath her. Victoria, the orange tabby cat, was in her cage under Butch’s seat.

  Please, Susan, help us get through this mess.

  With the wind and engine noise, he couldn’t hear the gunfire from the men on the bridge, but he figured out they were firing when three-foot spurts of water erupted in his vicinity. At first, the bullet impacts were fifty or even a hundred feet away, but they dialed in on him as he approached. By the time he was a few hundred yards away, the shots were almost on top of them.

  Butch returned fire as the first bullet plinked against the aluminum of one of the pontoons. He fired several shots toward the middle guy, hitting the concrete rail and causing him to duck down. The other two shooters kept firing, though one had to duck down for an unknown purpose.

  A few seconds later, as the shots were hitting the boat all too frequently, the second guy had to drop down.

  “They’re reloading!” Butch yelled.

  The middle shooter popped up and leaned over to shoot almost straight down at them. Butch had already been zeroed in on his location. When the man presented a target, Butch put one into his head, causing the man to slump over and drop his rifle.

  “Nice!” Ezra cheered. He figured they’d make it to the safety under the bridge, but the rifle picked up speed on its fall, and Ezra reacted a fraction of a second too late. The flying object slammed into his replacement canopy, ripping the tarp as it struck the back railing, then bounced into the water. “Holy hell! It almost took my head off!”

  Butch looked at him. “You good?”

  “Not really!” he replied. Ezra ran his fingers through his hair, marveling at how close he’d come to a freak ending. However, when the boat crossed to the far side of the bridge, the missing men appeared above them.

  This time, the men were ready.

  Another hail of bullets came down on the boat.

  Denver, CO

  Aarons came back armed to the teeth. He stood outside Petteri’s office with two other men. As expected, he’d taken the reprimand seriously. Since he didn’t know Nerio’s game, he’d instructed Aarons to let him know the instant the Venezuelan woman reentered the building.

  The sound of gunfire alerted him to trouble out on the streets.

  “Aarons, would you come here for a second?”

  The man came through the door. Petteri didn’t know him personally, but Howard had mentioned him several times over the years, and they’d been in the same room on occasion. The guy was in his forties. He’d done a few tours in sandy wastelands throughout the Middle East. Special forces trained. Aside from the beard, which Petteri couldn’t stop hating, he looked the part of a mercenary. The man’s tall height and stout build reminded him of a high-school linebacker who’d gone off to war and come back a veteran.

  “Sir?”

  “Why is there shooting still going on? It sounds close.”

  Aarons’s eyes darted to the exterior window, then back to him. “We’ve managed to secure a single street leading out of the dig site. Most of our men are guarding it, and we’re getting dump trucks in and out, but it has weakened our lines in other parts of the perimeter.”

  “And the other mining companies keep coming at us? Haven’t they gotten the point?” He only had to look out the window to see the bodies of dozens of non-TKM employees who got the message delivered via high-velocity slugs.

  Craig Aarons stiffened. “We’re losing men…and women. For each one of us who goes down, there are two of the bad guys who stand up. We’re holding our own, mostly because of the big payoff the men have been promised, but…”

  Petteri didn’t like where the conversation was going. “I see. And what can you tell me about the breakout last night? How did Mr. Gagarin get out of his confinement?”

  Aarons didn’t know. He saw it in the operative’s eyes.

  Petteri continued. “He had help, didn’t he?” It wouldn’t have been his new security chief. The man was new to Petteri, but not new to the TKM organization. He’d seen Howard take care of disloyal employees. In the old days, before the rock fall, “taking care” of personnel meant escorting them from TKM property. More recently, taking care of problems had gotten a lot bloodier. The paychecks had also gotten several zeros fatter. There was no way he’d take the risk of crossing Petteri on day one of his promotion.

  “It looks like it, sir. The door was unlocked from the outside. Maybe he got the jump on a guard, and the guard is afraid to come forward…”

  They were Aarons’s guards. Petteri was tempted to chew him out for not knowing the answer to such a basic question. However, if it was someone from the inside, there might be a more logical explanation.

  Petteri had a pistol pointed at Misha the previous night. Nerio licked her lips as if about to watch a prize fighter take down a hated challenger. However, before he could pull the trigger, she’d put out her hand and asked him to spare the hitman. Petteri could have shot anyway, being the boss of the woman, but Nerio’s big green eyes were very persuasive, and he fell prey to her charms. In the end, he’d decided it didn’t matter to him if the guy was alive or dead, as long as Misha was out of play.

  Or so he thought.

  “No, I think it’s a lot more complicated. Keep doing what you’re doing. Please shut the door on your way out. I’ve got to make a phone call.”

  Nerio had released Misha. He was sure of it. Earlier, he’d made the claim the hard-driven woman enjoyed playing with her food. However, what he couldn’t figure out was whether he or Misha was the target of her whims.

  “Dammit, Nerio, I brought you in to clean things up, not make more of a mess.”

  Chapter 5

  Sidney, NE

  “We saved Misha?” Grace could barely utter his name. She was shocked at the sight of the man who’d been dragged out of the drainage pipe. He picked around the edges of his ruined truck, as if everything was normal. The side of his face and neck were still burnt from where she’d torched him with the bear mace, and the rest of his skin looked sooty and red, as if the explosion had taken a toll. Injuries or not, they’d taken his pistol and a knife.

  “He saved us,” Asher replied dryly, swishing the words in his mouth as if they tasted bad.

  Misha paid no heed to their dilemma. “She did number on my truck. Ammo for big-ass gun is gone. Lucky I threw spare magazine in grass, as with rifle.” He pointed to some thick, reedy grass, not far beyond the drainpipe, then hurried over there. A six-foot-long rifle sat where he indicated, but it was unlike anything she’d ever seen. It was oversized to the point of being cartoonish, and it had two legs for a bipod, each of which sat on what appeared to be foot-long sleds.

  “What the hell is that?” she asked.

  “Lahti 20-millimeter anti-tank rifle. It weighs one hundred pounds and, according to book, requires two people to operate. Lucky for you, Misha can do it alone.”

  “Where did yo
u get such a weapon?” Asher prodded.

  Misha picked up the loose magazine box. “Very rare. This model is from World War II, but TKM has endless resources. I simply took it from one of their supply trucks. I knew Nerio was coming here, in TKM-surplus helicopter, and knew this was only weapon guaranteed to stop her.”

  Grace whistled, impressed at what he’d done.

  “If I were back at a full-service TKM depot, I could have gotten a true anti-aircraft weapon; a Russian-built, shoulder-fired Willow would have been een-credible.”

  She had no idea what he was talking about.

  Misha stowed the mag in his belt. “I know what thoughts go through your heads. Why is Misha helping? Why is he shooting big-ass gun at helicopters?” He ran fingers through his buzz cut, then turned to face Grace. “When we spoke at the roadblock in Billings, you wished me luck in finding my family, even if it meant it would put you in danger. Since then, I have been trying to call back to Bryansk to confirm my wife and mother are okay. We all share apartment, you see. Two days ago, I find out from friend there had been a fire in complex. Wife and mother are dead.”

  She sighed heavily, unsure if she should sympathize with the man, but certain it was okay to feel compassion for the dead women.

  Misha studied her. “You are only one who cared about my family. Petteri Tikkanen gave order. He had them killed.”

  “Did he say he did?” Asher replied, clearly drawn into the man’s story.

  The hitman shook his head. “Not in many words, as you say. He threatened, then withdrew his threat. But I know it was not a random fire. I provided very well for my family. They lived in nice, new apartment. It was him. In fact, he called me to Denver, by myself, yesterday. I almost did not go, but I let myself believe he was not the one responsible. When I got there, he nearly killed me for showing up.”