The rest of the team on the radio communications was remarkably quiet for the next few seconds after the tearful exchange between father and daughter. It was up to Clark to bring them all back into focus.
“All right team, look sharp; it’s almost time. Over.” He was met with acknowledgments from each of the team members.
Emma, Tasha and Lucy had slowly moved David to the center of the sanctuary; the same makeshift structure that Tasha had retreated to when the helicopters had attacked. Once he was comfortable, both Emma and Tasha donned weapons and waited. Lucy hefted the heavy rifle from one hand to the other, with a slight, ‘uff,” each time she did.
“Are you sure you know how to use that?” Emma asked. She didn’t try to hide the worry on her face.
“Yes,” Lucy responded, and then turned to Tasha with a whisper. “Do you have any other weapons in your truck?”
The other girl looked over at the other with a questionable expression. “Yeah, why?”
“Show me.”
“They are like, almost here,” Tasha whispered.
“Then, show me quickly!” Lucy demanded. Tasha glanced at Mr. David, and then sprang up, with Lucy on her heels.
“Hey! Get back here!” Emma demanded, from inside the protective ring.
“We’ll be right back,” Lucy yelled over her shoulder. “Stay there!” They were out the shattered back door and at the Bronco in less than ten seconds.
“Get what you want, there’s not much left. But, hurry!” Tasha encouraged, with anxious demand. “They’re almost here.”
There was an eerie silence and calm before the faint noise of the clang of several large diesel engines floated above the ambient noise of nature.
Lucy scanned the remains of the weapons, and quickly zeroed in on what she wanted. She leaned in and pulled the weapon towards her.
“You want that?” Tasha asked, as the other girl lifted it out of the back of the Bronco.
“Yup.”
“Okay, great, let’s go!”
“[5]Clark, we have a Warthog on patrol,” Perez said, feeding him information. “He’s ten plus minutes out, but if they overrun you, then he won’t have a firing angle, and…”
“Admiral,” Clark cut Perez off in mid-sentence, knowing the admiral was still on the line. “If we’re overrun, unleash the Warthog and take out as many of those bastards as you can, Sir.” Clark said, his voice steady, but hollow. He looked over at Shaw, who was dug into his position. Shaw could hear Clark’s side of the discussion. He nodded, ever so slightly.
“Lieutenant Clark, that won’t be necessary. We’ve got your six. God’s speed, son,” the Admiral said, using his most encouraging tone.
“Sir,” the Satellite Driver called from his station in the Pit. Admiral Faulk looked at Perez to catch her eye; he nodded, before moving towards the other side of the Pit.
Perez took the nod as one of approval, and she watched him walk towards the Satellite Driver’s workstation. On the other side of the Pit, they were monitoring a Marine landing in New Orleans. It was a critical operation, and she suspected that her satellite time was about to be cut short.
On the big screen in front of the Pit, a satellite image of Wolf Creek was being projected. Sectioned off into four quadrants, the screen showed the former Presidential Humvee moving along a road in one screen. The Chinese convoy was on another scree. The intersection at the church was on a third screen, and the fourth showed a nearby farm with smoldering buildings.
Statistics scrawled under each screen as the seconds ticked away. The three screens that Perez was concerned about each had a countdown timer showing when they would intersect paths. There was less than a minute before engagement.
“Reposition the satellite to support the Marine landing,” Admiral Faulk ordered.
Perez gulped in air, and bit her tongue so that she didn’t react, but that didn’t stop her from whispering under her breath. “Damn it!”
The admiral briefly turned to look at her before speaking.
“Make sure they are supported as best as you can. Understood, Airman?” The admiral did not wait for an answer before turning back to watch the Marines landing at the port of New Orleans.
“Yes, Sir.”
[6]
CHAPTER 36
In the few minutes between when she lost most of her satellite allocation and when the battle was supposed to begin, she scanned dossier on Leah Burrows, but found nothing of significance in the file; the woman had led a model life. After working with Senator Payne in D.C., she married Captain Burrows, who had retired from the Army and became an executive with one of the leading weapons manufacturers. She had yet to see anything that corroborated Victor Poluski’s story about her being a Russian agent, or him working for the CIA.
Perez minimized the dossier screen and then peered up at the multitude of monitors on the Pit’s wall.
“Clark, radio check. Over,” she said into her headpiece. She could clearly hear him on the satellite phone, but just wanted to be sure.
The screens on the Pit wall containing her particular battle of interest were now isolated to thee monitors in the lower left corner. She could see the Presidential Humvee moving on one screen, Clark’s location on another, and three enemy troop transports on a third. She ran some timetable calculations again to confirm that Clark’s location was the predicted meeting point; and it was.
“Copy, Perez. I can just hear their engines in the distance. Over.”
“Copy. Over.” She muted the connection while she got her head clear.
With a click of her mouse, she selected the real-time imagery for Clark’s location and zoomed in. She sighed; the worry for these people had become real for her. Plus, the stress of doing what she was being compelled to do, weighed heavy on her. She breathed in deeply to push back the negative thoughts, and that is when her phone rang.
Perez looked at the blinking button, and then at the countdown clock, there was less than a minute. She waited than three seconds before deciding to punch it, and take the call.
“Airman Perez,” the man said, not trying to hide his Russian accent. “We now have first-hand intelligence that our mutual friend is alive, and is operating in the region of Birmingham, Alabama. Which, as I recall, is your exact assigned area to monitor; and one of the reasons we selected you for this task. Have you been able to precisely locate our friend?”
Perez breathed in deeply for the second time in as many minutes. “I can confirm the same intel, but I have not found a precise location or made contact.”
“That is still good. I believe you are close. Make the contact as we discussed.”
“I will, but what about Sergeant Fields, is he okay? Let me talk to him,” she demanded, realizing that her voice had too much plea in it for it to be taken as a real demand.
“You should expect contact from another one of our friends, soon.” He ignored her demand. “Do as we have instructed, and we will give him back to you,” the Russian said, before terminating the call, and denying her any opportunity to ask a question.
Perez hung up her end of the phone, frustration setting in. She glanced back at the screen and unmuted her connection to Clark.
“Clark, are you still a go? Over.”
Who the hell is this friend that is going to contact me? She thought to herself as this was all coming to a head. And that is when a small widget on her computer started blinking; it was a text message link primarily used by Homeland Security to communicate internally.
“Copy. We are a go. Over.”
She clicked open the message.
The last name of Burrows has been picked up by several short-wave transmissions. Origin is east of Birmingham, Alabama, near the Talladega Super Speedway. Report your findings only via this link.
CHAPTER 37
Penny looked to the man holding the gun next to her, the sound of the trucks was within at least a mile. “So, do you know if you’re good enough to go pro?”
Dan never changed e
xpressions, but pivoted his head away from looking down his rifle, and looked at her. “Not even a doubt.”
Penny thought about that for a second, she checked her rifle again before asking another question. “Are you always that…”
“What’s it like?” he asked, cutting her off.
She didn’t have time to respond before he asked again.
“I mean, what’s it like to kill someone? You said you did that, right?”
The questions stopped Penny in her tracks. Yeah, she had killed. In fact, she had killed a number of men. Men that were trying to kill her. Men that had attacked their home. Men that had taken her hostage. She didn’t like it, but this was the new normal. Wasn’t it?
“It sucks. That’s what it’s like. It sucks, and we just have to live with it.”
They were both silent for a second, while the truck noises grew louder.
“I’ll do it again,” she said, leaning down towards her rifle, and fixing her range to her closest target. “And, so will you, after today.”
****
“Dad, did you think we were dead?” Lucy asked, safely back in the bunker. She flexed the bow to get a feel for it, and knocked an arrow to check her weight and aim.
David nodded, he felt like shit. His leg throbbed, and his head pounded with pain, but he could feel his faculties and strength returning. He wasn’t in a position to truly fight, but that didn’t stop him from holding a fully loaded pistol to his chest.
“Yeah,” his voice broke. He cleared his throat, and shifted the weight of the pistol away from the top of his rib cage, and tried again. “Yeah, I did, and I’m sorry.” A tear rolled over his cheek; he was surprised that he still had enough liquid in him to cry.
She relaxed the bow, keeping the arrow knocked and reached for his hand. “It’s okay, Dad. We, well, I kind of thought you might be dead, too. I didn’t know who or what to believe in.” She stopped talking long enough to register that the sound of the trucks grew louder, and that Clark had started counting backwards on the radio.
“Here they come. 10, 9…”
“You, and your brother, I just don’t even know how to say it. I’m so very proud of you two.”
“5, 4…”
“I know, Dad. I love you,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze, before releasing it and readying the bow.
“2, 1. Go! Go! Go!”
Dukes looked all ways, including back at the church and up and down the road before coping his hands to yell. “Fire in the hole!” Five seconds later a charge connected to a large live oak tree, rooted next to the road, exploded in a shower of splinters. The trunk of the tree cracked under the weight of the centuries old wood, and began to tumble. Within seconds, the tree fell with a glorious crash, blocking the two-lane asphalt road in front of the church. With the main route blocked, the only way to navigate the obstacle was through the small gravel parking lot of the church.
It took a few seconds between the crash of the tree and the rumble of the Chines trucks rolling up to the obstacle. The driver of the first truck applied the brakes as he came around the curve to church. He avoided hitting the tree by inches.
“Are you afraid of dying?” Penny whispered, shocking herself with the question. She then trained her rifle on the head of the driver of the first truck.
Dan was shaking, but remained calm. He sighted one of the soldiers sitting in the cab, next to the driver. “No, and I’m certainly not going to let it happen until I get my sister back.”
As if on key, the Humvee containing his abducted sister stopped on the other side of the downed tree.
CHAPTER 38
Deb was scared; she felt stopping meant there would be more soldiers. She had been told that they were joining others, and she would be taken as a prisoner. These were ideas and thoughts that would have never entered her mind a few days earlier.
Fear was Deb’s driver, as she pressed her face to the partition glass; she was thankful that it was a tree, and not more soldiers. She looked around, in the hopes that the soldier was going to open her door again. To the right was a stand of hard woods, and perhaps a place where she could get away and hide. To her left, a gravel parking lot and a small white church. The sight of the building gave her hope, she had seen this church before; and knew where they were. She allowed the fear to settle, and herself a small smile.
“We’re in Wolf Creek. We’re close to home,” she whispered to herself.
“What did you say?” Joseph shot back.
He turned around to yell at her, but movement from the gravel parking lot caught his attention. Deb saw it, too, and ‘it’ was a large military truck appearing from around the other side of the tree. The green truck turned the corner and stopped in the parking lot once the driver spotted the Humvee. Panic shot up Deb’s spine like hot snake venom. Joseph’s reaction was markedly different, and bordered on elation.
The passenger door of the large military truck opened, and a man climbed out slowly. He aimed his rifle at the Humvee, and used the door of his vehicle to shield his upper body. He yelled something at the Humvee and waggled the tip of his rifle.
Joseph slowly opened his driver’s side door and with deliberately slow movements exited the vehicle with his hands visible, and above his head. He yelled something in Chinese, but the soldier holding the gun was reluctant to lower his rifle. The smile of Joseph’s face faltered.
Dan shifted his sight once the Humvee rolled up to the tree. It was all Penny could do to secure him in place, and not giving away their position.
“You need to wait!” She growled in a low whisper, her fingers turning white, as she fought to hold him down.
“Let go!” He countered in a voice that was much too loud for Penny.
“You have to wait!” She felt her weight giving to the flexing of his muscular frame.
“But, the door is open, I can get her out!”
She dug her nails into his side, hoping that it would convince him to wait for her father to start the shooting.
Dukes was losing his patience. It was taking too long for the other two trucks to pull in behind the first. He looked over at Clark.
Clark held his stare, and slowly shook his head in the negative. He could see the other two trucks from his position, and for the plan to work, they also needed to be in the parking lot. He looked over at the first truck. He could see that someone had exited the passenger side, but the downed tree blocked his view of what was on the other side. He assumed it was the bastard that stole his ride and took the kids. He looked over at Shaw. Shaw was further down the road; he would be the containment in case they tried to retreat.
Shaw saw his commander looking at him, and gave a very slow head nod that he was set and ready for anything. That’s when several soldiers hopped out of the back of the first troop transport; they were armed, and moved around front to support the first soldier. Three more jumped out, and moved off to towards the back of the church.
Just then, the final two troop transports rolled up, crunching gravel as they pulled in behind the first troop transport and stopped. It was show time.
Joseph took a few steps towards his comrades, speaking the entire time. He got within ten feet of the front of the troop transport when the soldier pointing the gun at him seemed to grasp exactly whom he was confronting. He lowered the weapon, and Joseph lowered his hands. With large smiles, they shook hands, and the soldier from the troop transport clapped Joseph on the shoulder as if they were long lost friends. They both began laughing.
Dukes watched it all, but as snipers are trained to do, he waited for exactly the right second to take his shot. With the trucks engines shut off, and soldiers exiting out of the back, he let his breath out, and eased back on the trigger of his 7.62 rifle.
The sound of the gunshot was instantaneously followed by the round striking a small iPad size Army green plastic device strapped to an oak tree located directly behind the small convoy of troop transports.
The claymore is a weapon that has been aro
und for decades, and is typically used to randomly kill anyone within a small radius. Typically detonated by the use of trip wire, Dukes knew that the device could also be a remotely detonated IED.
As this was the last of their two claymores, Dukes needed it to have the most dramatic impact, or bang for the buck; with that in mind, he had turned the device around when planting it on the tree. So, instead of exploding outward towards the convoy, it exploded towards the tree trunk. Just like with the first tree, the second one cracked within seconds of the assault and began to tumble towards the church parking lot.
From Joseph’s angle, he saw what was happening before anyone else seemed to realize the chaos that was about to unfold. The windshield of the troop transport shattered, and the head of the truck driver exploded against the back of the cab. Two of the three soldiers dropped to the ground, their chest’s opening up and spraying him with internals and blood. He never felt the .223 round enter his right shoulder, and exit the other side. He fell to the ground, and didn’t move. He didn’t want his life to end this way.
It took seven seconds from the time of the explosion to when the trunk of the massive tree impacted the three troop transports. The blow crushed the chassis of the second and third vehicle, killing most of the men that were inside. The lead transport narrowly missed being struck by the trunk; but there was still enough damage that the truck was dead in the water.
Collapsing World_Stolen Treasure_Book 3 Page 19
