by Keta Kendric
His words set my heart to a hammering beat, making me slide down from my spying position on my knees. I sat stiffly in the back seat, biting into my bottom lip. After I took a few deep breaths, I braced myself as the sound of approaching footsteps grew closer.
When the door nearest me creaked open, three sets of inquisitive eyes landed on me, and not even the darkness outside hid their interested roving gazes. They wanted to see the reason why the man they respected so well had been captured. The interior light inside the truck shined on me like a big spotlight, and there wasn’t a thing I could do but sit there and be watched.
The first big hand reached towards me, and I took it. “I’m D. It’s nice to meet you, Megan.”
“You as well, D. Thank you for coming here,” I stated in my normal low tone.
D nodded his head, and a puzzled look crossed his face before another big hand shoved him aside and reached towards me. This time, however, the man leaned into the light, and I saw his face more clearly than I’d seen D’s. I took his hand that was nearly in my lap because his eyes were busy soaking me in.
“I’m Gavin,” he said before his eyebrows shot up and a deep smile creased his handsome face. “Damn, you’re pretty. I can see why—”
Before he could finish his sentence, the third man of the group yanked Gavin back by his shoulder and reached out his hand towards me. “I’m Dax. Nice to meet you, Megan.”
The three men looked like they were auditioning for a photo shoot. Did everyone Aaron knew look like models? Maybe it was that they were ex-military and knew how to keep themselves and their bodies neat and fit. My roving gaze worked its way around the group that stood gazing at me. I was literally surrounded by a bunch of well-built, well-trained, strikingly good-looking killers.
D reached for my hand to help me out of the truck. He seemed to be taking me in as much as I was taking him and his crew in. Ansel stood off to the side, watching the exchange. The one called Gavin didn’t hide the fact that he was thoroughly checking me out.
“Aaron has always had good taste,” Gavin volunteered while looking back at me with a devilish grin. “However, I didn’t know he was into brown—” D popped Gavin playfully in the back of the head, cutting off his words before shaking his head at his friend.
They sat me on one of their armless little camouflaged folding chairs as I watched them prepare for war. The time was nearing three o’clock in the morning and the men wanted to act before they lost the cover of darkness.
They decided to proceed with their plan at 3:45 a.m. due to a few last-minute preparations they needed to make. The five men, consisting of D, Dax, Gavin, Scott, and Marcus dressed in what they explained were ghillie suits. The suits would make it difficult for them to be detected as they approached the ranch, especially in the dark.
It was only after I saw one of the men fully suited that I understood the significance of the suits. It appeared that they were wearing a part of the landscape, which would hide them during their three-mile hike towards the ranch. To me, they looked like they were all dressed as Chewbacca from Star Wars.
Four of the men in the suits were armed with sniper rifles, and two of them had sniper rifles with grenade-launchers attached. Marcus had the 50 Cal machine gun. Ansel and Wade were set to use the dirt bikes to get to the barn after the Chewbacca lookalikes took out the specified targeted areas.
The twins, Jake and Jackson, would stay back and proceed if they were called forward. My instructions were to stay in the truck and stay down. I asked for an earpiece so I could hear what the men heard. Surprisingly, Ansel and the men fitted me with a listening device without resistance.
I was playing my part as the helpless woman, but if they thought I was going to sit by and let DG6 kill Aaron, they had tragically misjudged me. If shit went bad, I was going into that barn even if I had to run through hell to get there.
D, even while in Chewbacca gear, was on a laptop. I was quickly finding out that there wasn’t much the man couldn’t do when he had a digital device under his fingers.
“They’re blind,” D announced. “I temporarily took out their cameras. They are now looking at a recording I made of their surveillance feed over the last fifty minutes.” He glanced around at the men. “We’re about to run out of darkness, so I had to stop recording. That means we are going to have to hustle.”
I didn’t have to be ex-military to know they had to pull off their mission before they lost the darkness and within fifty minutes if they didn’t want to be seen on camera. It meant the ghillie suit wearing snipers had to trek the 2.7 miles they’d specified to the ranch and back, and in between, Wade and Ansel had to ride in on the dirt bikes to rescue Aaron from the barn.
I was doing the math in my head. I could run about a seven and a-half-minute mile. Even if it took these men eighteen to twenty minutes each three-mile way on foot, that only left Wade and Ansel roughly ten minutes to get Aaron out of that barn. They were cutting it close…real close. Maybe I’d missed something while I was eavesdropping on their plans. They had stood back there and planned for hours.
One last time, they went over the plan of what each person needed to do and where they all needed to be. I only understood half of their short-hand method of verbally communicating. They had gear strapped to nearly every vital part of their bodies. When everyone bowed their head for a quiet moment of prayer, I bowed mine too. I prayed for the safe return of Aaron and all the men.
Ansel stepped over to me. “Here, take this. I know you won’t hesitate to use it if you have to.”
“I already have a gun,” I reminded Ansel.
“I know, take this one too. It will give me a little peace of mind.”
I took the extra pistol from him and climbed into the back of the truck when he pulled the door open. Once he closed me in, he stood outside the window and stared at me for a brief moment before rejoining the rest of the men.
My face sat inches from the glass of the window as I took in the dark view outside the truck. Each man conducted a vocal mic check to ensure their communication devices worked. Hearing their voices so clear in my ear made me smile despite our harrowing situation.
The synchronized beeps of watches went off. I didn’t have a watch, but I could hear them beeping in my ear as if I was standing near the men. I remembered them saying the next time those watches went off, it meant they needed to be back at the trucks and heading out.
First, the Chewbaccas stepped into the darkness and disappeared. So, this was where they must have been making up some time, sending them out to march part of the three miles before their official start time. I waited, watching the remaining men watch the darkness. Anxiousness weighted my body and consumed my mind enough that I hadn’t paid attention to how much time had passed. The next thing I heard was D’s heavy breathing in my ear.
“Striker one in place.” About thirty seconds later another voiced announced that striker two was in place until all the Chewbaccas had made it to their points. It was safe to say they hadn’t been spotted by our adversaries, which meant they were out there ready to start a war. A scratch sounded in my ear, alerting me that someone was about to speak.
“Ansel and Wade, get ready,” D ordered sharply.
The next thing I heard were the engines of the dirt bikes coming to life. Then…
Chah! Chah! Chah!
Boom! Boom!
Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap!
The listening device amplified the sound as if I was right in the thick of the action. From my position, nearly three miles away in the truck I could see fire light up the sky. It appeared as if lightning flashes were going off.
“Tower down! Tower down! Ansel. Wade. Go! Go! Go!”
When Ansel and Wade heard their cue, they took off like bats out of hell, scratching up dirt and debris that pelted the side of the truck.
I could hear the roar of the bikes through the earpiece and imagined the rush they must have felt speeding into the heart of a firestorm.
Jackson and
Jake took their positions, aiming into the darkness towards the property. They laid prone on the ground with machine guns at the ready. Night goggles were attached to their faces and back up weapons attached to their legs. I didn’t miss the hot red tip of the joint ignite with each puff as the twins passed it back and forth between each other. Functioning while high had likely become their norm.
My instructions were to stay put inside the vehicle that I’d overheard was armored. How they’d managed to steel armored vehicles was beyond me, but a brilliant idea, considering the situation we were in. All-out war was taking place in front of me as the sky continued to light up and the booms of the powerful weapons seemed to vibrate the ground even at my distance away.
After I slid across the seat to the opposite door away from the twins, I creaked it open and moved quickly away from the truck. I needed to get to the next vehicle where they’d left some of the spare equipment.
Chapter Twenty-two
Ansel
Even with the tower gone, the cameras out, our snipers, and a fucking 50 Cal, these guards were still prepared enough to make our mission hard. They couldn’t see Wade and me well, so they aimed at what they heard. Wade and I were targets because of the noise the dirt bikes made. However, each time they fired at us, our snipers would know where to shoot. With the noise of the bikes clouding our hearing, we could barely make out what else was going on out there with our men.
When Wade veered in the opposite direction from me, I knew we had nearly reached our targeted areas. Wade was to post up behind the shack on the west and be my backup if I needed him. I pushed on and sped towards the wide dark shadow that cast at the back of the barn.
Once I was close enough to the barn, I stopped the bike and laid it against a cluster of bushes. After dropping into a horizontal position, I scanned and low crawled to the barn’s back door. The crackle and pop of gun blast never ceased in my ear. The unmistakable blast of the 50 Cal lit up my earpiece.
Our sniper team had thankfully taken out the barn’s rear guard. I peered down at his crumpled body as I stepped across the man and made my way closer to the back door. With a continuous flow of gunfire erupting, I had no problem shooting the padlock before I repeatedly kicked the huge back door of the barn to get it open.
Once I entered the barn, all manner of rusted and cobwebbed equipment filled my dark view. I brushed stringy webs from my face as I inched towards the only light that shined in a stall near the front of the building.
An angry boom shook the ground under my feet, and the listening device reacted with a loud, elongated scratch. I kept my eye on the lighted room in my front view.
A set of muffled voices sounded as I peeked around the last corner that gave me a view of the stall. Two guards stood near Aaron, who was hanging from the ceiling by thick braided ropes. His head hung low as his chin sat against his chest. His arms were pulled taut, carrying his body weight as the ropes dug into his raw wrists. His black T-shirt was so badly ripped, it barely clung to his limp body.
Near enough to make out their accented words, I listened as I crept closer.
“What kind of people does this he know? It sounds like World War III out there.”
“I don’t know, but it will be over when the backup gets here.”
Backup? These motherfuckers believed in backup. At some point, they must have radioed for more guns. I had to get Aaron the fuck out of there and now. I also had to warn everyone that backup was on the way, but I couldn’t risk speaking and giving up my position.
My brain switched to kill mode, and my body followed. A slug to each head took out the two talkers. I stepped over their jittering bodies to see if Aaron was still breathing. He was out, but that tough bastard was still drawing breath. From the looks of him, they had worked him over real good. The right leg of his jeans had been ripped up to his thigh. If the bone sticking out of his leg above his calf was any indication, I’d say we were going to have a hard time getting back to the dirt bike.
It took great effort and precious time to cut Aaron down without injuring him further. He moved and groaned and attempted to throw a punch at me.
I dodged his whirling blow in the nick of time. “It’s me, goddammit. I’m trying to save your ass.”
“Ansel?” he murmured. Both his eyes were bloodshot, and one was nearly swollen shut. There was no way he was walking on that damn leg. Blood gushed out around the protruding bone every time I moved him. Fuck!
“Bite down on this,” I instructed while shoving an old piece of leather between his teeth. Then, I gripped and tore off the tail end of his bloody shirt and found two broken pieces of discarded piping as stabilizers.
Aaron knew what I was about to do. He pushed the bit of leather deeper between his teeth and took a couple of deep breaths.
I talked loud so that the crew would hear me. “They have backup on the way. We may have to split up to get out of here.”
“Roger that.”
“Tracking,” and more acknowledgments sounded into the earpiece.
With a quick yank, I straightened out Aaron’s leg, causing him to whimper and take in harsh, desperate breaths. After I placed the piping on both sides of the gaping laceration, I tied the top and bottom tight enough that it would at least relieve some of the pressure of Aaron’s movements. Once I got him standing, he hobbled along as I dragged him out of the stall. We were moving too damn slowly.
“I’m going to have to carry you,” I said, unsure if my half-conscious cousin heard me. I shoved my pistol down the front of my pants and handed Aaron my spare handgun before I bent to sling him over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. The bastard was heavier than he looked. Were his fucking bones made of iron?
Winded, harsh breaths burned my lungs by the time we made it to my bike. Our snipers were doing their jobs keeping the ranch guards busy. Thankfully, Aaron and I hadn’t been met with gunfire.
The wail of a revving engine sounded and a large crash somewhere along the front side of the property sounded and urged me to move faster. If that noise was what I pictured it might be, a vehicle had just driven through the fence and was likely preparing to run any one of us down.
Like the scene from a fucking horror film, the bike refused to start. With every kick and turn of the throttle that it didn’t start, I cursed.
As if spurred by the sudden emergence of a bullet zooming by my ear, the engine of the dirt bike rattled to a growling start, and Aaron and I shot off like a rocket, kicking up dirt and grass. Aaron had me around the waist with one hand and had his gun aimed into the last remnants of nightfall with the other.
I sped through the dim light without the aid of night vision. I couldn’t see the sun, but that bastard was lurking somewhere, eating up the darkness we needed. However, the dim light gave us enough illumination to keep us from crashing into anything.
“Everyone, head back. Jake, Jackson, take Megan and go now in one of the trucks.”
The twin’s voices didn’t carry well over the roar of the bike’s screaming engine, but it sounded like one had said they couldn’t find her. Megan had gotten the very last earpiece and it was damaged. She was only linked in to listen, so she couldn’t tell me where the hell she was if the twins had lost her. Were they high? I was going to kick their asses if they’d let someone sneak in behind them and take her.
Chapter Twenty-three
Ansel
The fucking blinding light of a vehicle running behind mine and Aaron’s asses had me pushing the engine on the bike past its breaking point. With the erratic and evasive movements of the bike, I didn’t know how the fuck Aaron was hanging on to me with one hand as he fired off rounds at the bastards chasing us with the other. The vehicle behind us was so close that I could feel the heat from the engine breathing down my neck.
I didn’t have to see it to know that Aaron had shot out one of the headlights. The blinding light behind us had dimmed considerably, and the truck had backed off for a few seconds. Our brief reprieve didn’t last long
. When the bike went jetting forward and flew out of my control, I expected to feel the bone-breaking crash. The vehicle had bumped us from behind, but I’d yanked the wheel just in the nick of time to keep us from meeting the ground at a break-neck speed.
When the engine of the vehicle chasing us revved up to rear end us again, I gave the bike all it had and braced for the impact. One of Aaron’s shots must have hit the driver of the vehicle behind us because the impact I expected never came.
The sound of the vehicle dwindled until only the squealing rattle of our bike could be heard. My eyes remained on the shadowy tree-lined woods that grew closer with every passing second dead ahead of us. We were going to make it.
I didn’t slow the momentum of the bike until we were only feet away from the tree line. I cut the engine before the bike stopped moving. The roaring sound of another bike close behind made me realize that Wade had been right on our tail. It occurred to me that Wade had likely helped to keep that damn vehicle from running Aaron and me down. After his bike came to an abrupt stop, he dropped it and ran over to me to assist me with Aaron.
“Megan!” I yelled as I kept an arm under one of Aaron’s shoulders.
“You brought her here?” Aaron questioned through gritted teeth. I didn’t answer as I spotted another vehicle approaching, its headlights resembled angry eyes as they grew closer, eating up the three miles of distance from the ranch.
“Striker team, where the fuck are you guys? It’s about to get hot in these woods.” I knew they had to hike by feet, so they were at least five maybe even seven minutes behind us. If backup from the ranch had arrived, five to seven minutes could mean our lives.
“Twelve. Fanning out, flanking area,” D growled in the earpiece, but it was broken. “Leave bikes and go.” D must have been getting closer to us because his voice started to become clearer the more he talked. “We’ll hold these bastards back. Go! Go! Go!”
If D thought I was leaving them out there to take on whatever backup DG6 had called in, he could think again.
