by Eric Vall
“Damn,” Tara said.
“What?” Bailey asked.
“Oh, like you don’t know what,” Anna laughed. “That was awesome.”
“This gun is awesome,” the blonde hippie said. “I just shot straight through the jeep.”
“Maybe next time we should try not to damage working vehicles, though,” Paige pointed out.
“Oh.” Bailey frowned. “Sorry, I guess I got excited.”
“It’s alright,” I laughed. “But Paige is right, you have to watch yourself with that gun or it could be trouble.”
“I will,” the blonde said with a soft smile. “Promise.”
“Let’s check out what the assholes had in their jeep,” Tara said.
“Let’s clean up the bodies and move the jeep,” I corrected.
“That, too,” the platinum blonde agreed.
We dragged the bodies over to the clump of trees we had crouched behind, then we pushed the jeep to the side of the road and hid it as best as we could.
“Well, well, well,” Anna said as she opened the glove box and pulled out a small bag of white crystally stuff. “Looky what we have here.”
“It’s not really a surprise,” Paige laughed.
“Yeah,” Tara said. “I’d be more surprised if there weren't any drugs in here.”
“Whatever,” Anna said. “I’ve just always wanted to have a real reason to say that.”
“You’re so lame,” the platinum blonde chuckled.
“You’re lame,” the redhead said, and she stuck out her tongue at Tara.
“Alright,” I said. “We have all their weapons in the back, if anybody wants to grab anything, now is the time. We need to get going.”
“Nah,” Bailey said. “I’d rather not use an unfamiliar weapon, well, besides this new sniper rifle.”
“Good call,” I said with a grin. “Now, let’s go.”
I led the group down the road toward the refinery. It was a long walk, and the day had already gotten hot, especially with our vests and helmets on. Once we had gone about a mile, I stopped and told the girls to drink plenty of water.
“It’s hot already,” Bailey said as she pulled her water bottle out of her bag.
“It’s unseasonably hot, it seems,” Paige agreed.
“We’ll be alright,” I said. “Just drink plenty of water and let’s try to get this over with quickly.”
As much as I wanted a quick fight to be the case, I didn’t think that was going to be the way this went. With us not being able to shoot into the refinery, it could end up being a lot more difficult than what I hoped. I really didn’t want to have to go to plan B, but I knew there was a chance that we would. If that was the case, then at least I knew my girls were well prepared.
We had just reached the grove of trees when it was almost noon. The walk had taken some time, much longer than it would have on bikes, plus we hadn’t been able to head out until we took out the scouting troop, and they were later that day than they had been the day before.
As we reached the trees, I crouched down and led the girls inside the small grove until we were out of view.
“Okay,” I said. “Everyone knows their positions?”
“Yes,” Anna said with a hard nod.
“Let’s head out,” I said. “Tara, Bailey, we’ll leave you guys here. Give us ten minutes to get into position.”
“Right,” Tara agreed.
Anna, Paige, and I made our way out of the trees and over to the back of the building, and I watched as the girls continued on after I had stopped to take my position.
I held my breath and lined up my shot as the guards passed by, but then the girls ran across the small road to the patch of trees and disappeared out of sight.
I didn’t like to have them in danger, but I felt better that they were in pairs, and I had deliberately put Anna with Paige and Tara with Bailey. Anna and Tara had the strongest knife skills, and I wanted one of them with each of the other girls in case something went wrong.
I hoped nothing did, but there was never any assurances in situations like this that everyone would come out without a scratch. The training was a good indicator, but even highly trained combat soldiers got into trouble from time to time, I knew more than a few who had lost their lives because some shit went down that wasn’t part of the plan.
Hopefully my girls were ready for anything, but if they weren’t, I definitely was, and I was not about to let a damn thing happen to them.
I watched carefully as the guards went around. We had agreed on the second time around. So I waited and watched as the three different pairs made their way around once, and then once I saw the first guys again, I got into my crouched position and moved closer to the road. The first guys were Anna and Paige’s, but the second group was mine.
The first men rounded the corner where Paige and Anna waited for them, and I heard the faintest struggle in the distance, and I smiled to myself because I knew the girls had taken care of business.
My guys rounded the corner then, a squat, orange haired man, and a tall blonde haired guy. They each had a cigarette that they puffed on leisurely as they traded stories about psychedelics. I shook my head at their stupidity and readied my knives.
I had one in each hand, ready to kill two birds with one stone. The girls each had a partner to go ahead with, but I was on my own, so it was important that I try to get the job done swiftly, and with as minimal amount of a struggle as possible. We didn’t want the men inside to hear us, at least not yet. We had to take the captain out first.
The men got right in front of me, and I crouched lower, like a lion ready to take out its kill. I let them take one step.
One more.
Then I pounced on them from behind. I brought one knife to each of their throats and pulled back quickly. The men had no time to react, instead they made gurgling sounds as their blood spilled forward onto my hands and the dirt road.
Both of the men collapsed easily, and I grabbed them by the legs and pulled them into the grass. Then I waited for Paige and Anna.
The two of them arrived a moment later, their vests splattered with blood already.
“What are you doing?” Anna whispered with narrowed eyes. “You were supposed to head over to the trees.”
“We’re headed the same way,” I said with a grin. “Now let’s go, we don’t want to keep Bailey and Tara waiting.”
The girls nodded and followed me as I slowly led us back to the trees. We found Tara and Bailey nestled by where we had left them earlier, along with the two guards they had taken out.
“You guys couldn’t have found a better place to put them?” Anna asked with a raised brow.
“It’s not our fault that our spot was the meeting point,” Tara said, and she put her hand on her hip.
“It’s fine,” I said. “We’re heading out soon anyways. Did anyone have any problems?”
“Nope,” Anna said.
“None here, either,” Bailey said with a smile.
“Alright,” I said. “Let’s head over to the captain’s quarters now. Tara, you know the drill?”
“Yup,” the platinum blonde said, and she pulled out her Ruger.
Since the captain tended to stay in his room all day, I figured we could get him quietly if Tara could get a shot through the window. The men were far enough away in the building that they would never hear, and it would give us an opportunity to check out the building while we waited for shift change, which was at least an hour away.
Once we reached the back of the building, we crouched down and made our way to the same window we had gone to the day before. Once again I could hear the captain talking to himself, but it sounded far more panicked than the day before. I supposed that us taking out his dealer had become a stressor, especially since he was probably the biggest user of them all.
I waited until I heard the distinct sound of a lighter and the man grew quiet, then I boosted Tara up into the window with her Ruger in hand, and she quickly took aim an
d fired a shot from the silenced pistol.
The loudest sound was that of the glass as a crack broke through from the bullet.
“Clear?” I asked.
“Clear,” she assured me.
“Good shot,” Bailey congratulated her.
“Thanks,” the platinum blonde said. “It wasn’t hard, though, he was just sitting on the bed.”
“Now we wait for shift change,” Anna said. “It’ll be at least an hour.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, and I rose up to look in the window. “I want to see what’s in this building while we have time.”
“There’s a door on the other side by the road,” Paige said. “But I don’t know if it’s open.”
“We can check,” I said, but I still stared at the room the captain had been in.
The poor bastard was spread out on the bed, his lifeless body still held the lighter in one hand, but his pipe had fallen to the floor.
I shook my head, then headed around to the side where Paige had said there was a door. I pulled the handle, but found it to be locked.
“Alright,” I said. “We’ll search this place once we clear the area. Right now I want everyone to get a quick drink of water, then we’ll take our positions. If someone decides to come out early, then we’ll be ready.”
It was a hot day, and it had only grown hotter since we had been at the refinery. I could visibly see some beads of sweat on the girls’ foreheads, especially since they wore their vests and helmets, and those things were not light.
Paige pulled out a couple large water bottles from her backpack and passed them around. She was the only one with a backpack that day since she carried our med kit in case of an emergency. I was always hopeful it wouldn’t need to be used, but it was much better to have it ready to go.
The shitty thing about the med kit was that it was virtually useless with a serious wound. If someone was shot in the stomach or anywhere with an organ or a nearby artery, there wasn’t much anyone could do. We didn’t have a surgeon, and it was too risky to try to dig the bullet out. The med kit was great, and Paige made one hell of a combat medic, but if something serious happened, we were SOL. Which is why I was always careful to not put my girls in a situation where they could get injured. Like they say, the best defense is a good offense.
“This is, like, the longest mission we’ve ever been on,” Tara said, and she took the water bottle that was passed to her.
“It just feels like that because we have to wait for the next guards to come out,” Paige said.
“Right,” Anna agreed.
“I know we have to wait,” I said. “But it will be over soon enough, and we can’t risk harming any of the equipment inside.”
“I know,” the platinum blonde sighed, then she looked up at me with a wide grin. “But we always have plan B.”
“We do,” I said with a nod. “But that’s only for if plan A doesn’t work.”
Tara rolled her eyes at me, took a large swig of water, and passed the bottle to Bailey.
“Bailey,” I asked. “How many men are still inside?”
“Eleven,” the blonde answered confidently.
“Good,” I said with a smile.
We finished with our drink of water, then I sent everyone to their posts. We had to wait for the new patrols to come out of the refinery, so I had us all set up in the trees to the right of the front door. That was typically where they came out of, and we had no reason to believe that would change, so we waited patiently for our targets to get into our eye line.
We all had our weapons out and pointed toward the door, ready to shoot, but I looked over to see a small frown on Bailey’s face.
“You alright?” I asked.
“Huh?” the platinum blonde asked, and she lifted her head like she had come out of deep thought. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine.”
“She’s just sad she can’t use her fancy new gun,” Tara said.
“Is that what it is?” I chuckled.
“Kinda,” the blonde admitted with a laugh. “I did get to use it this morning, though.”
“With great power comes great responsibility,” Paige said with a grin.
“What is that, like, Gandhi or something?” Tara asked with an eye roll.
“It’s Spider-Man,” the brunette said.
“Oh,” the platinum blonde said, and she blushed a little. “I used to love those movies.”
“What?” Anna scoffed.
“You liked Spider-Man?” Paige asked, her voice laced with doubt.
“Only the Toby McGuire ones,” Tara said with a nod.
“Yeah, Andrew Garfield sucked,” the brunette agreed. “I liked the first Tom Holland one. I heard they were going to make a second one, but…”
“Fucking EMP,” Tara sighed. “I never saw the Tom Holland one.”
“I liked Andrew Garfield,” Bailey said in a quiet voice. “I liked them all. Spider-Man is super fun.”
“You like everyone,” Anna pointed out.
I let the girls chat about movies a bit while we waited, but I made sure to keep an eye out. We had to wait until all six of the men came out to take over the shift, otherwise the gunshots would give away our presence and nobody else would come out.
I watched carefully, and after a few minutes I saw the door shake just slightly.
“Girls,” I hissed in a low voice, and immediately they all went silent, their attention back on the refinery.
“Fuck that,” one man laughed as he walked out, another guy right behind him.
The first one pulled out a cigarette, then passed one to his buddy, and they both lit up.
“Where’s the rest of them?”Anna asked with narrowed eyes.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
It was possible that it wasn’t quite shift change time, or that these men had come out a few minutes before their shift to get a smoke in. Either way, we had to wait until their buddies came out, otherwise it’d be a standoff and those in the building would definitely have an advantage.
“What if they notice that there’s nobody walking around?” Paige asked.
“Then we’ll take them out,” I said “but for now we wait and see if the other guys come out.”
The two men finished their cigarettes, then one of them pulled out a pipe and took a long hit off of it that made him cough. He was a tall, slender guy with blond hair and a gray jumpsuit on that I was sure belonged to one of the true refinery workers.
His companion took a similarly big hit, and his round, pudgy face went red as he doubled over in an attempt to catch his breath.
“Gross,” Tara sneered, and her face pulled into a grimace.
I smiled at the platinum blonde and shook my head.
“You fuckers out here smoking without us?” a dark haired man asked as he came out of the building with three men behind him.
Bingo.
“Here,” the pudgy guy said, and he passed the dark haired man the pipe.
I waited as the men smoked, but they leaned back against the side of the building, which made a clean shot that much more difficult. I needed them to be a good three feet away at the very least, though I preferred six to ten.
The men smoked their pipe, then lit up more cigarettes as they talked about how to make more of what they were smoking. Based on what we had seen at the meth house, none of them knew what they were talking about, and probably if we waited for them to try then they’d just blow themselves up and save us the trouble.
“Hey,” a short, stocky redheaded man said after a few minutes. “Where’s everyone on shift?”
“Oh, yeah,” the dark-haired guy said. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen anyone walk by.”
“You think they left?” the guy in the gray jumpsuit asked.
“One way to find out,” the dark-haired guy said, and he stepped away from the wall and headed toward the small road that went around the building.
The rest followed suit, and they fanned out to search for the men they were supposed
to replace. They looked paranoid as they scanned the area and leaned forward, as if that would somehow make them sneakier if they needed to be. They were obviously out in the open, but sometimes humans had little habits that couldn’t be shaken.
Once they were far enough away from the refinery, I set my scope on the one in the gray jumpsuit and lined up my shot. The girls had their shots lined up, too, I knew, but they waited for me to make the first move.
The man put another cigarette up to his mouth and paused to lift the lighter to the end of his bad habit.
I narrowed my eyes on the asshole and readied my trigger finger.
Chapter 13
My rifle went off with a crack as I pulled the trigger. The man in the gray jumpsuit went down before he could finish lighting his cigarette, and before I could even blink, the sound of four more rounds cut through the air.
Bailey took down the short, pudgy guy with a shot through the eye that caused him to fall backward. I knew she was sad she had to use her M14 instead of her new .50 cal, but damn that girl was a good shot with anything you put in her hands.
Anna took out the man with the dark hair with a shot to the chest that left him to clutch at his heart as he tumbled first to his knees, and then forward onto his face.
Tara took out a blond guy with a shot to the neck, and he clawed at his throat as he fell to the ground with an audible thud.
And Paige took out a short, redheaded man with a blow to his small chest that looked like it ripped a hole right through him with the way the blood pooled so quickly.
That left one guy. He was a tall, lanky guy with long, greasy blonde hair, and he ran to try to duck behind the small shed the workers had built to smoke in.
After a second, he brought a pistol out from the side and wildly shot into the air.
Bailey beat me to it, and she put a bullet right through his hand that caused him to scream out bloody murder and drop the pistol.
At that point we knew he wasn’t armed, so he wasn’t worth another bullet. I looked at my team and then swiftly led us around to the shed. The man cowered inside and clutched his bloody stump of a hand as the red fluid ran down his arm in long drops.
