With the instincts of an elite college level MVP quarterback, Maddox read the defense and pivoted his rifle to his left; he was quicker than Weed. With less than a second passing, Maddox squeezed the trigger at the threat and cocked the rifle in the time it took him to pivot to put Joseph back in his sights.
Jack was on top of Weed the instant he hit the ground. He wrestled the rifle away from him, but not before pelting the man with two or three punches to the stomach; not that he needed to. Weed was dead within seconds of hitting the ground.
Lucy ran towards her brother, and a bullet ricocheted off the ground in front of Joseph; the shot coming from the upstairs window. He froze with indecision and sudden fear. After seeing what had happened to his comrade, he quickly rethought his position. He needed another hostage.
Another bullet hit the ground in front of Joseph, and instead of making him surrender; it forced him to lunge for Penny.
Penny had been statue still during the five seconds of chaos, but just because she was standing still didn’t mean that she wasn’t processing everything that was happening around her. She sensed Joseph’s desperate lunge towards her, and her own training kicked in. With several years of martial arts at her disposal, she ducked away from his off-balance attack, grabbed his free arm, and tossed him over her back. She never let go of the arm, feeling every tendon in his appendage strain to the point of snapping like rubber bands. Once he hit the ground, she brought her foot up to his neck and applied pressure while still holding the arm high in the air.
She so wanted to say, ‘check and mate,’ but that would have been cheesy.
Maddox kicked the rifle out of Joseph’s hand, and frisked him for any other weapons before looking at the girl that just took the soldier down.
“Thank you,” she said,
“Yeah, I guess I made the right decision? I mean trying to figure out what the hell you all were trying to do, and then shooting him and all.”
“Yup, you did. These are the assholes that invaded our country. Don’t feel bad about it.”
“This one’s dead,” Jack informed, slinging Weed’s rifle over his shoulder. He handed the soldier’s handgun to his sister and picked up Joseph’s rifle. “Here you go,” he said, handing it to Penny. She still had her boot on Joseph’s neck and his arm bent backwards.
“Can I help, or are you just going to pull his arm off?” Maddox asked, not really trying for humor.
Penny looked back down at Joseph. She really wanted to rip his arm off, but relented, and handed the wrist over to Maddox. The quarterback took the arm and wrenched it behind the man, lifted him to his feet. “I think I have some rope with your name on it,” he said, pushing him towards the house.
“Zip ties work better,” Penny said. “Use two on his wrists and two on his ankles.” Maddox stopped walking and looked back at her. “Or, you could just use rope,” she said shrugging and strode towards the Humvee.
“Do you think you can get the radios working?” Penny asked Lucy.
“Oh, yeah. I could have done it the whole time, but, like hell was I going to!”
“Good thinking. Okay, get to it, we need to call my dad.”
“Sure,” Lucy said, “but can I go pee first?”
CHAPTER 23
Cotton floored the Humvee, putting the vehicle through violent turns in an attempt to get himself and Perez further away from the carnage surrounding her apartment, and back to the Pentagon.
“I think you can come back in,” Cotton yelled back to Perez. She was still standing in the roof-mounted gun turret.
“You sure,” she yelled over the rushing wind. She swung the gun towards anything that moved.
“Yeah, get in here.”
Perez secured the large weapon and climbed back into the Humvee, taking the other front seat and securing herself in with the military grade restraining harness.
“Who the hell were those guys, and what did they want with you?”
“I don’t know.” She didn’t have a clue. But, she suspected that it had something to do with the Russian intelligence the Admiral was talking about.
“What do you think they wanted you for?” he asked again.
She looked at him, ready to say something, and was the instant she saw the speeding truck as it T-boned them on the driver’s side.
The impact flipped the Humvee three times, sending the tumbling vehicle onto the opposite sidewalk and slamming into the side of a marble building. Coming to rest on its side, the two of the four wheels hung in the air, their spinning momentum still in motion.
Cotton shook his head back and forth, trying to focus his eyes, but he was having trouble. All he could see was blurry, and his ears rang. He had no idea what was happening. He could feel someone shaking his sleeve, but he didn’t know why.
Perez tugged at Cotton’s right arm, trying to pull him out from under the dashboard. He had not been wearing the driver restraining harness. She had one foot on the steering column of the truck, using it as leverage as she pulled. “Cotton, let’s go!” she looked out of the window and could see men climbing out of the truck that just hit them; they were armed, and spoke in Russian. “Now, soldier!” she ordered through gritted teeth.
Cotton’s vision was returning, and the ringing in his ears was waning. He could hear a woman’s voice, but he still didn’t know who, what or why. He tried to push himself up out the position he was in, and felt the hands on his sleeve help him as he did.
“Oh, Jesus,” Perez breathed. The Russian men were less than ten yards away, approaching cautiously, guns drawn and ready to fire. And that’s when she saw the grenade sitting on the opposite floorboard. She leapt for the explosive and spun around to stick her arm out of the window. She reached for the pin…
“Don’t move!” one of the men said in English, he pointed his AK-47 directly at her head. She lowered her hands below the window line of the Humvee and dropped the grenade into the large pocket of her ACUs pants; and put her hands up. The second Russian swung around to the side of the car and yanked her out. He then pulled the soldier out of the wreckage, standing him up next to Perez. Cotton was having a hard time standing, and he leaned on Perez.
“Who are you?” Perez asked, as her hands were pulled behind her and bound with a zip tie. “What do you want with us?”
The Russian holding the gun on them responded. “We need your access,” the man revealed with a tight smile. “And, I don’t want you both, just you, Senior Airman Perez.” He turned the gun and pointed directly at Cotton’s head.
“No!” she yelled. “He works with me, he has different levels of clearance than I do! Please!”
The Russian seemed to consider the plea, finally saying something in Russian to the second man. The second man then bound Cotton’s arms behind him. “You don’t lie well, but, fine,” he said to Perez in English. “We will take you both. Put them in the truck,” he ordered.
Cotton and Perez were roughly tossed into the back of a waiting panel truck. Perez landed on the hardwood floor and rotated so that she was sitting up. The rear door was rolled closed and an interior light activated. Cotton was in bad shape, and simply stayed on the floor, face down. Perez thought he might be unconscious again.
“Cotton! Cotton,” she whispered. “Cotton!”
The soldier lifted his head, shaking the fog from his brain. He looked at Perez. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know, truck of some sort.”
The truck started moving, and Cotton painfully rolled towards Perez with the first turn the truck took to give him extra momentum. She leaned into him, letting him use her body to pull himself up to a sitting position.
“What hurts?” she asked.
“I think my gear absorbed most of it, except for a sharp blow to the head,” he admitted, blinking a few times. “What about you? Are you hurt?”
She let the corners of her mouth turn up in a feeble attempt at a smile. “I’m fine,” she disclosed, knowing that she would feel every bump, cut and bruise
later. That’s if we live that long, she thought.
“Where do you think they’re taking us?” Cotton whispered.
The truck took another turn and accelerated.
“I don’t know, they said something about needing me for access.”
“Access to what? What do you do, anyway?”
“I work for the JCS.”
“You actually work for the Joint Chiefs of Staff?” Cotton asked, impressed. “That explains why you got an escort home.”
“That might also explain why they want me for access.”
“What do you do for them, the JCS I mean?”
“As part of the DOD’s functional plan, I’m a senior analyst, and handle the line of communications within a region.”
Cotton raised his eyebrows. “That sounds important, and valuable to whoever the hell those guys are. Do you still have your cell phone?”
Perez’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, I think. They didn’t frisk us that well. I can’t tell with my hands tied behind my back, but,” she rotated towards him. “I think it’s in my left breast pocket, see if you can get it?”
“I have a better idea,” he said, not moving to reach for the phone.
“What?”
“I have a lose nail in the floor where I’m sitting.” There was a snap noise, and Cotton brought his hands around to his front. He reached for her breast pocket and pulled out the phone. “Now you,” he said sliding away from the nail so that she could work on the zip ties.
“There’s no signal,” he said trying to get the phone to acquire a cell tower. “We must be moving away from the Pentagon.”
There was another loud snap, and Perez’s hands were free. “Here,” she reached for the phone and thumbed the screen a few times. “I have an app.”
“You have an app for when you are kidnapped by Russians after a nuclear strike on the country?”
“No, just one for emergency communications with the JCS.” She toggled the app and started typing. She finished just as the truck turned, came to a stop and the engine turned off.
“Give me your hands,” Cotton said, producing a set of zip ties from a pocket on his ACUs.
“What?”
“Just do it, we’re out gunned, we need to be smart!” His head was killing him, and he was using everything that he could muster to keep his concentration under pressure.
Perez reluctantly turned around and let Cotton put the plastic strap around her wrist.
“I’m keeping them loose,” he said, quickly fumbling with his own zip tie as the rear door of the truck rolled up.
“Ah, soldier boy is awake, too bad, I thought we killed you,” one of the men said, his Russian accident light on his tongue. “Get them inside,” he ordered.
Two men jumped up into the back of the panel truck and lifted the prisoners up by their bound hands and pushed them to the edge of the truck; where they jumped down.
Cotton took in his surroundings. They seemed to be in an industrial area, and he could smell the river. Factoring in the duration of the ride in the truck, he assumed that they were within a few miles of the Pentagon. He absorbed a tuff shove to the back and moved forward. He looked over at Perez, and she at him. I hope she got the text off, he thought.
I hope we make it out of this alive, she thought.
CHAPTER 24
Tasha sat on the bench next to the old oak tree and cried. The guy on the other end of the radio, Dukes, said he was a friend of Birmingham Bob, and that he could help. She looked at the covered body of Father Jeff, still lying on the ground, and another set of tears rolled over her cheeks.
“Oh, God, I need it. I need help.” She looked up through the shady light cast by the leaves of the oak. She wanted to see God. She wanted comfort from her maker. She wanted help. “Please, please, please make this all stop,” she begged.
A warm gentle breeze swirled around the building, rustling the leaves and cooling her tear stained cheeks. She felt her stomach tighten a little as a nervous kind of laugh snort filled her. She looked up and smiled at the dancing light through the leaves. The breeze blew harder, and she wiped the tears away as the radio crackled. She would take reassurance any way that she could get it.
“Dukes, this is Penny, broadcasting in the blind, over.”
Tasha looked at the radio sitting on the picnic table with anticipation of hearing an answer. But none came.
“Dukes, this is Penny, broadcasting in the blind. We are okay, over.”
Again, she waited, but Dukes never responded. She picked up the radio.
“Penny, my name is Tasha, I just spoke to Dukes a few minutes ago, over.” She released the microphone, not knowing what to expect.
“Tasha, this is Penny, I’m his daughter. Do you know where he is? Over”
“Yeah, well, kind of. He didn’t want to tell me exactly. You couldn’t hear us talking just a minute ago?” She was confused.
“That’s a negative. Where are you? Are you okay? Over.”
Tasha thought about that for a minute before answering. There was a reason that Dukes didn’t want to give his location, and she thought she now understood; anyone could be listening to the radio conversation. Even the enemy.
“I’m at a church at some small area called Wolf Creek. I think it’s somewhere between Birmingham and Talladega. I think. And, yeah, I’m okay, but the guy,” a lump filled her throat, and the pressure of more tears pushed at the rims of her eyes. “The guy, Mr. David, he’s the one I’m traveling with. The helicopters shot him. He’s hurt, oh God, he’s hurt so badly,” she sniffed again. “I just really need someone to help me. Over.” The desperation was thick in her voice, and at this point, she didn’t care who heard her, or who responded. She had reached the end of her rope, and she just needed help; the warm breeze wasn't enough.
There was a long pause before anyone spoke.
“Tasha, this is Dukes, we can hear your side of the conversation with Penny, but we can’t hear her. We will get you help, but first, did she say she was okay? Is everyone on her team okay? Please ask her. Over.” A sense of apprehensive glee was evident in his voice.
With a reservoir of will power and strength to fight past her breaking point, and with the knowledge that Dukes said he would help, Tasha nodded her head to herself, and keyed the microphone.
“Penny, this is Tasha, I am talking with Dukes. He can hear me, but he can’t hear you. He wants to know if everyone in your party is okay? Over.”
“Yes! Yes! Yes! Tell him, yes, we’re okay. Ask him what we should do? Over.” The sense of relief and joy in the girl’s voice was overwhelming.
“Dukes, this is Tasha. They’re all okay, and she wants to know what to do. Over.” She released the microphone, and spoke to the wind. “And so, do I.”
For the first time in hours, Clark relaxed in the passenger seat. He felt Emma’s arms wraparound him and Dukes from the back seat with the good news. They all laughed. Even Shaw smiled at the sense of good news filling the vehicle.
“Tasha, this is Dukes, I’m pretty sure I know where you are, but I don't know Penny’s location, can you ask her? Over.”
Penny waited for a response from Tasha, a smile went from ear to ear as she watched Maddox, the strapping good-looking star quarterback, pump diesel fuel into the Hummer. He caught her looking at him and smiled back. She was caught, but the crackling of the radio saved her, and she turned away so that she could focus.
“Penny, this is Tasha, Dukes is very excited that y’all are okay. He wants to know where you are? Over.”
Penny looked back at Maddox. “Hey, Alabama, where are we, anyway?”
Maddox raised an eyebrow at being called, ‘Alabama.’ He stopped pumping fuel and walked over to Penny.
Penny tucked her smile in and stood up a little bit, apparently it was time to be serious. She repeated her question, this time leaving off the state name title. “So, where are we?”
“This is my family farm, we’re between Sylacauga and Talladega. On the other side o
f that mountain is the highway that connects the two. I can give you an address, but most people just use the mountain as the guide. Our family owns the entire thing.”
“Oh, good to know,” she said with raised eyebrow. She now knew why her father couldn’t hear her; they had traveled a lot further than she thought. She keyed the microphone to the radio, but Maddox interrupted her and she released the button.
“But, don't use my name on the radio, if you don't mind. You know what I mean, right?”
She did know what he meant, in a new world of open communication, where anyone could be listening, including the enemy, it was best to keep a low profile. Besides his name meant something in a state that lives and dies by college football.
“But, where that girl, Tasha, is broadcasting from,” he said. “It’s not that far from here. And, since she’s already…”
“Revealed her position, good thinking, quarterback,” she said, cutting him off and giving him a small smile. “We can all meet there.”
“Tasha, this is Penny. Tell Bob that there is an obstacle in the way, and that’s why we can’t hear each other. Also tell him that you’re close to us, and we’ll meet him at your location. Over.”
Dukes, Clark, Emma, and Shaw listened to Tasha relay the information from Penny.
After Dukes acknowledged the plan, he felt the gentle touch of Emma’s hand on his right shoulder. “Can I use the radio to speak to her?”
“You mean Tasha? Sure,” he said, handing the tethered microphone back to her. She sat back, stretching the thick black spiraling cord straight.
“Tasha, my name is Emma, I’m with Dukes. I’m a nurse, and you told us that someone was hurt, shot actually. I can help you before we get there, but I need you tell me what happened and what’s his condition? Over.” She looked over to Shaw, and raised an eyebrow.
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