“That won’t work. They’re too close and they’ll take us while we try to transfer. Get your family to the boat, Cap, then worry about us later. Salty Dog One out.”
Hughes started to protest but could only watch in the mirror as Kinsey braked the truck and swung it across the road. The three Coasties leaped out and took defensive positions behind the pickup turned barricade just as three police cruisers bumped across the railroad tracks in rapid succession. Subject to the now accurate fire from the Coasties, the fake cops braked and moved their own cars across the road to form a barricade, and Hughes turned his full attention to the road ahead and accelerated.
A minute later he roared through the dock gate and slowed as he drove up the ramp onto the refinery dock, blowing out a relieved sigh when he saw the Coast Guard boat in the middle of the river. Both the helmsman and gunner were watching the dock and returned his wave as he rolled toward the nearest vertical ladder down to the water. He stopped by the ladder and opened his door, pausing to listen to the distant gunfire. Gunfire was good, because if it stopped, they were all in trouble.
“Okay, Laura, leave everything and let’s get you and the girls safe on the ship,” Hughes said, and his wife nodded and motioned the twins out of the car. They reached the top of the ladder just as the Coast Guard boat settled against it.
“We’ve got company, and a lot of it,” Hughes called down. “Kinsey’s holding them off, but you need to get my family to the ship and then get back here ASAP.”
The helmsman nodded. “Torres is—”
He jerked his head up at the sound of powerful outboards approaching at full throttle, echoing around a bend in the river downstream.
“Christ! What now?” Hughes said.
“I doubt it’s the cavalry. What do you think, Captain?” the helmsman asked.
“I think we don’t have time for this crap, but it’s coming whether we have time or not.” He paused, thinking. “Okay, they haven’t seen us yet and we can’t be sure who it is. Y’all pull out of sight over behind that barge downstream until we find out. That way, you can surprise them if need be.”
The helmsman considered a brief moment then nodded, easing the boat further downstream to shelter behind the barge, out of the sight of anyone approaching from downriver.
Hughes turned to Laura. “Honey, get the girls behind the car and lie flat on the dock. Anyone in a boat on the river won’t be able to see up here on top of the dock.”
“What are you going to do?” Laura asked.
“I’m gonna stand at the edge of the dock. That way they’ll focus on me and likely won’t even notice the patrol boat when they pass it.”
“Jordon Hughes, you’ll do no such thing! What if they just shoot you? You come with us, right now.”
The gunfire increased in intensity, and Hughes shot a worried look back the way they’d come. “Honey, we HAVE to suck them in and deal with them quickly so I can get back and pick up Kinsey.” The outboards were louder now and Hughes glanced downstream to see a boat rounding the bend. “They’re coming. Now get down out of sight.”
Laura wrapped him in a fierce hug and whispered in his ear, “If we survive this, I may very well kill you myself.”
Hughes hugged her back, then smiled down at her.
“You may have to get in line. Now quick, you and the girls get down.”
She moved to comply and Hughes looked downstream. He could see the boat clearly now. It was similar to the Coast Guard boat except the flotation collar was blue instead of orange and JEFFERSON COUNTY SHERIFF was written on the side. Hughes moved to the edge of the dock and waved his arms to attract attention, and the pitch of the outboards changed abruptly as the occupants of the boat saw Hughes and slowed, moving in his direction.
The boat had two occupants, both in sheriff’s department uniforms. As hoped, both focused on him and didn’t spare a backwards glance as they passed the barge where the Coasties were hiding. The boat stopped twenty feet from the dock and one of the men stepped out of the aluminum cabin with an AR-15 and pointed it up at Hughes.
“Put your hands up, then come down that ladder, nice and slow like.”
Hughes raised his hands. “You do realize I can’t do both of those things at once?”
“You know what I meant, smartass, so git your ass down that ladder or I’ll drop you where you stand.”
“Actually, maybe you should put YOUR hands up unless you’d like a fifty-caliber enema,” Hughes said, inclining his head downstream.
The fake deputy glanced aft and found himself looking down the barrel of the machine gun in the Coast Guard boat, not fifty feet away. But rather than laying down his gun, he acted on instinct—a bad one, as it turned out. His attempt to raise the AR to his shoulder was answered by a short burst from the machine gun, shredding his chest and spraying blood through the open cabin door on the helmsman. The helmsman also acted on instinct, jamming the throttles forward in an attempt to escape upriver. The boat had traveled perhaps twenty-five feet when the fifty caliber spoke again, sending rounds through the thin aluminum walls of the cabin like they were tissue paper, three of them catching the helmsman in the back. He slid to the deck, never to rise again, as the boat roared upstream at an angle, to run aground on the opposite bank of the river, the outboards still straining in a futile attempt to push the boat through the riverbank.
Hughes was moving as soon as the boat was no longer a threat, waving the Coasties back to the ladder before turning back to the dock.
“Come on, ladies, your boat’s waiting,” he called as Laura and the twins appeared from behind the SUV.
Less than a minute later, his family was aboard the boat, moving upstream toward the Pecos Trader and safety, and Hughes jumped back in the driver’s seat of the SUV and did a three-point turn to head back to Kinsey’s side.
Refinery Dock Access Road
Nederland, Texas
“There’s too damn many of them, Chief,” Jones said, from where he sheltered beside Kinsey behind the engine block. Kinsey nodded and looked down the length of the pickup to where Bollinger sheltered behind the rear wheel and axle, the left shoulder of his blue coveralls ripped and the cloth around the tear stained darker by blood.
“How’s the shoulder, Bollinger?” Kinsey asked.
“It’s just a graze,” the man replied. “Hurts like hell, but it’s stopped bleeding. I’m okay, Chief.”
His statement was punctuated by gunfire as Jones lifted his M4 above the hood of the truck and fired a three-round burst in the general direction of their attackers, without exposing his head or shoulders. His burst was answered with a sustained fusillade and the body of the pickup rocked as it was hit with round after round.
Jones shook his head. “We must have taken out at least a half dozen of the bastards, but they just keep multiplying. None of ‘em can shoot worth a damn, but if they keep throwing lead at us, they’re bound to get lucky sooner or later. Just throwing three-round bursts in their general direction isn’t likely to work much longer either.”
“I know that, Jones,” Kinsey said, “but what do you suggest? You may have noticed we’re in a flat straight strip of ground between two tall fences. There isn’t crap for cover here, so we can’t fall back. The second we move out from behind this truck, we’re dead meat—”
His response was broken by another sustained round of firing, impacting the entire length of the truck.
“What the hell …” Kinsey dropped flat on the ground and peered under the truck. He saw four men coming toward them at a run, only the lower halves of their bodies visible from under the truck.
“Damn, they’re trying to keep our heads down while they charge. Shoot under the truck—take out their legs.”
He started firing immediately and was joined on the ground by his teammates. They dropped their attackers in seconds, leaving them screaming on the asphalt.
“That should hold ‘em for a—”
Kinsey flinched as a bullet ricocheted off the a
sphalt in front of him and whined by his right ear.
“Damn! Back behind your cover,” he yelled, and the trio scrambled back behind the more substantial cover of the engine block and the rear suspension, just as the area under the truck erupted with ricochets, some bouncing up to strike the undercarriage of the truck while others whined off into the distance behind them.
“Well, I guess THAT defensive move isn’t going to work again,” Kinsey said.
“This ain’t looking too good, Chief,” Bollinger yelled, just as an even more furious round of firing began rocking the truck.
Much more of this, and the damn truck will just be shot apart, thought Kinsey, just as the smell hit him.
“Oh, great, just what we need, gasoline! They must have punctured the gas tank with one of those ricochets,” Jones said. “Instead of being shot, we get to be barbecued.”
Kinsey’s mind raced, and he stuck his finger in his mouth then held the wet finger up. He dropped it and duckwalked back to the door of the truck to reach up and rip the door open. Keeping low, he grabbed one of their discarded plastic water bottles from the floorboard and then fished the roadside emergency kit from the pocket on the open door. He slammed the door just as the movement drew the attention of their attackers, who sent a hail of bullets ricocheting under the truck in his general vicinity. One clipped the heel of his boot and knocked him on his butt, but he got to his knees and scrambled behind the front wheel and engine block before any more connected.
“Bollinger, can you see where the gas is coming out?” Kinsey asked.
Bollinger leaned down and looked around the rear wheel and under the truck.
“Yeah, it’s about a pencil-size stream. I’m gonna be in the puddle pretty soon, by the way,” Bollinger said.
“Can you reach the leak?”
“I guess so, but why?”
Kinsey held up the plastic water bottle. “‘Cause I want you to catch this, then fill it up with gas and toss it back to me. Got it?”
“Ahh … I don’t think plastic bottles work for Molotov cocktails, Chief, and none of us has a good enough arm to hit those assholes anyway,” Jones offered.
“SHUT UP!” Kinsey said. “And make yourself useful. Dig the flares out of that emergency kit.”
Kinsey turned back to Bollinger, who nodded and held out his hand to receive the toss of the empty water bottle. A minute later he tossed it back to Kinsey, capped and three-quarters full.
“Sorry, Chief, the leak was slowing down, so I guess the tank level has dropped down even with the puncture. That’s all I could get.”
“Should be enough,” Kinsey said.
“Enough for WHAT?” Jones asked.
“Enough to get the supplies burning in the bed of the truck and make a smoke screen. There isn’t much wind, but it’s blowing in their direction. Maybe it’ll give us enough cover to haul ass.”
“Will that stuff even burn?” Bollinger asked.
Kinsey shrugged. “Who the hell knows, but I don’t have any better ideas.” He looked at Jones. “How many flares do we have?”
“Four.”
“All right. I’m gonna reach up through the busted-out window and sprinkle a little of this gas on the upholstery in the cab; then I’m gonna go back and slosh the rest of it on the supplies in the bed, and hope the bastards don’t see me and take my hand off or shoot my feet out from under me. Jones, toss a couple of those flares back to Bollinger. When I’m done with the gas, I want you guys to strike the flares and toss them into the truck; Jones’ go in the cab and, Bollinger, I want yours in the supplies. Then we wait a bit for the smoke screen and run like hell for the river.”
“Sooo … what if there isn’t a smoke screen?” Jones asked.
Kinsey sighed. “Then we have to run like hell anyway, because when things get to burning and heat up that half-full gas tank, this thing’s gonna blow.”
Jones and Bollinger both nodded and watched Kinsey duckwalk down the length of the vehicle between them, reaching up one-handed to splash gas through the shot-out passenger window and over the side of the truck into the bed. When the gas was gone, he tossed the empty plastic bottle into the truck bed and nodded, signaling them to strike and deploy their flares.
The synthetic fabric of the upholstery caught first and filled the air with the vile smell of gasoline and burning plastic as a satisfying plume of smoke billowed from the cab to float across the road, obscuring but not totally blocking the view of their attackers. The fire in the bed produced less smoke, but did contribute somewhat to the haze.
“I think that’s about as good as it’s going to get, boys,” Kinsey said. “We gotta haul ass, but don’t bunch up or run in a straight line. Got it?”
The two men nodded.
“We all raise up and unload on them through the haze to get their heads down, then you two take off while I stay back and lay down cover fire. Then I’ll run past you and you return the favor, shooting over the truck and through the haze from some distance back. Then we’ll leapfrog again. If we’re lucky, we might be able to open up the distance before they figure out what we’re doing—then we all run like hell.”
The plan almost worked. The wind shifted to blow at right angles across the road just as Kinsey finished laying down covering fire, sweeping the road clear. Left with no smoke screen, Kinsey had no option but to drop back down behind the now blazing pickup while his men in the open survived solely due to the timely arrival of Hughes, who pulled the SUV across the road to form a defensive position. Forced back by the heat of the now blazing pickup, Kinsey bolted for the cover of the SUV as rounds ricocheted off the asphalt around him.
He ran for all he was worth, expecting a hammer blow between his shoulder blades at any moment. Then he heard the familiar and authoritative bark of a Barrett fifty-caliber sniper rifle, speaking three times in quick succession. By the time he’d reached the shelter of the SUV scant seconds later, incoming fire had all but ceased as the big gun continued to speak. Kinsey turned to watch in amazement as the huge rounds penetrated the cop cars like they were cardboard, and screams of maimed and dying adversaries filled the air. In moments, the few remaining ambulatory survivors leaped into a partially intact cop car behind the barricade and fled back the way they’d come.
Kinsey keyed his mike. “That you, Magician?”
Torres’ distinctive voice came through the speaker. “Abra-fucking-cadabra, boss. Sorry I’m late. I had to find a good spot.”
Kinsey looked around. “Where the hell are you?”
“Look up and to your right.”
Kinsey did and spotted Torres waving at him from the catwalk high atop a massive storage tank three hundred yards away in the neighboring tank farm.
“Outstanding job. Now pack up and get down here. We need to get back to the ship.”
Chapter Eighteen
M/V Pecos Trader
Sun Lower Anchorage
Neches River
Near Nederland, Texas
Day 18, 9:00 a.m.
Hughes set his coffee cup down and leaned back on the sofa, reaching for Laura’s hand as he did so. She gave his fingers a reassuring squeeze and settled back beside him as he looked at the group gathered around the coffee table in his office sitting area. His gaze rested on Kinsey.
“I can’t thank you and your folks enough for helping me get my family here, Matt,” Hughes said.
Kinsey shook his head. “You’d have done the same, and none of us would be here if it wasn’t for you. My only regret is I didn’t think to grab one of those bastards still breathing. We could sure use the intel. I know we’re all frantic to bring the rest of the families in, but we have to know what we’re up against before we leave Pecos Trader shorthanded defense-wise.”
“Well, that sheriff’s boat increases our mobility a bit, anyway,” Gowan said, flashing a smile at Georgia Howell. “Fast thinking, Mate!”
Monitoring the radio traffic the previous evening and hearing of the disabled police boat, Howell
set out with a few volunteers and retrieved the vessel from the bank. It would be a welcome addition to their boat fleet.
Howell flushed at the praise. “Have you had a chance to check it out?”
Gowan nodded. “The First and I went over it this morning. Other than busted windows and bullet holes in the aluminum superstructure, she’s fine. None of the controls were hit at all.”
“Definitely a plus,” Kinsey said. “I planned on taking the patrol boat to Baton Rouge to look for my family anyway, but I was really worried about leaving you here without some cover. Now we can mount the second M240 on the police boat and leave a couple of my guys here to run it and train some of your folks. I’ll feel a lot more secure knowing you have adequate protection.”
Hughes was about to speak when the phone on his desk rang. He excused himself and walked over to his desk.
“Captain speaking.”
“Captain,” said the second mate, “I’ve got Wilmington on the radio and they have a message for Chief Kinsey.”
“What is it? I’ll pass it along,” Hughes said.
“Ahh … they’re still on. I think Chief Kinsey may want to take this one personally.”
“Okay, we’ll be right up.”
Moments later, Hughes followed a puzzled Kinsey across the bridge and over to the radio station.
“Fort Box, this is Pecos Trader . I’m putting Chief Kinsey on. Over,” the second mate said, handing Kinsey the mike.
“We copy, Pecos Trader . Wait one. Over.”
Hughes raised his eyebrows. “Fort Box?”
The second mate shrugged. “Yeah, that’s what they’ve started calling it because—”
“Pecos Trader , this is Fort Box for Chief Kinsey. Over.”
“This is Kinsey. Go ahead Fort Box. Over,” Kinsey said.
There was a pause and then, “Dad? This is Luke. Over.”
Kinsey looked shocked; then his face split into a wide grin and his eyes glistened before he turned away from the others and wiped them with the back of his hand, momentarily speechless as emotion washed over him.
Under a Tell-Tale Sky: Disruption - Book 1 Page 39
