by Steven Bird
Reaching the end of the hallway, where the bulldozer now rested blade down, after having crashed into the basement, bringing the floor above them crashing down, Jessie looked at T. R. with disappointment and said, “Well, so much for that. Must have been just a myth.”
Disappointed, T. R. said, “Sorry, man.”
As Jessie began to speak, he felt a cold draft flow through the rubble. Looking around, he started to work his way through the debris.
“What?” T. R. asked.
“Don’t you feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“That draft. It’s coming from down here, not from above,” Jessie said as he began to push some of the debris out of the way. Shining his light into the damaged basement foundation, Jessie said, “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“What?” T. R. asked, pushing in close to see.
“We were sitting right on top of the damn thing the whole time. That’s why the dozer came down on us. It collapsed the roof of the tunnel that it was sitting on top of while it was just churning away up there all that time.”
“It looks like they must have bricked over it at some point,” T. R. added.
“Yeah, so whether it’s still open on the other end or not remains to be seen,” said Jessie as he scratched his chin and contemplated their next move.
Looking at the damaged structure, T. R. asked, “Do you think it’s still safe.”
“Safe?” Jessie replied with a chuckle. “That’s a very subjective term at the moment. I say we give it a go.”
~~~~
With Jack and Rosa caught up on the plan, and Jack’s leg stabilized as best they could for their trek through the dark, cramped tunnel, Jack said, “Angela. We’ve got to tell Angela to fall back.”
“I’ll do it,” T. R. said. “Let me have the radio, I’ll work my way up to the next floor where I can get out of this hole and get a signal. I’ll catch up to you guys. Just get moving.”
Handing T. R. his radio, Jack said, “Thanks, man. But you know the risk you’re taking going up there alone, right? Who knows how many of Peronne’s men are in the building by now.”
“I know,” T. R. replied. “I let you down big time when I didn’t quit working for that son-of-a-bitch as soon as I found out what he was really about. I’m not gonna let you or Angela down again.”
With a smile, Jack put the radio down and took T. R.’s hand, shaking it, while looking him in the eye, saying, “It’s not how you played the game in the past that matters. It’s how you play it today that counts. You’re still a true friend in my book. I’m sorry I treated you differently.”
“I’ll always be the one who’s sorry,” said T. R. as he shook Jack’s hand. “Now get going. I’ll see you on the other side.”
Staring at him with a confused expression, Jack started to say something as T. R. corrected himself, saying, “Other side of the tunnel.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Jack said with a laugh.
Chapter Twenty-Four
As a police SUV pulled up in front of the house, Leina watched from the second-floor window of the home where she cared for the woman who had taken her in to protect her. Still unconscious from the severe beating she took from Peronne’s men, Leina’s anger and rage grew inside as she dressed the woman’s wounds as best she could.
Walking up to the other vehicle on scene, one of the officers asked, “Hey, what’s the status?”
The officer that had remained inside the vehicle said, “Wilks and McCarthy went inside a while ago. They must be having fun because I figured they’d be out by now. I told them not to be too rough on the old lady. That sort of thing looks bad.”
As the man on foot chuckled in reply, he said, “Maybe that cute little teenaged granddaughter of hers is in there. That might be what’s taking them so long.”
As he began to smile at the thought of his own statement, the top of his head exploded as a large section of his skull was torn away from the impact of a high-powered rifle bullet, splattering blood and brain matter on the light-colored desert tan vehicle behind him. His now lifeless body dropped to the ground with a sickening thud.
“Shit!” the officer in the vehicle yelled as he floored the SUV and sped away, getting some distance between himself and the home.
Yelling out of the second-floor bedroom window, Leina shouted at the top of her lungs, “Stand up and fight, you cowards!”
Leaning the old .30-06 hunting rifle, which she had retrieved from the hidden compartment in the downstairs bathroom against the wall, Leina quickly slid the bed far away from the window to shield the unconscious woman from any potential returned fire.
Lifting her off the bed, Leina placed her in the corner of the room and covered her with a mattress to protect her from the flying debris that she felt was inevitable at this point. Mumbling under her breath, Leina said, “Come on, damn it. Let’s get this over with.”
Hearing the woman begin to moan, Leina hurried over to her, pulled the mattress slightly out of the way, and said, “Ma’am, are you okay?”
Watching her lips try to make words but hearing no sound, Leina leaned down closer and asked softly, “What? What can I do for you?”
“T... Tommy. They killed my Tommy,” she said, weak and barely able to remain conscious. “He was my youngest son. He was my last living child,” she said as tears began to roll down her cheeks.
Taking her by the hand, Leina said, “I’m so sorry. Those men will never hurt anyone again. None of their kind will, if I can help it.”
Coughing, and clearly in pain, the woman tried to sit up as Leina gently urged her to remain on the floor. “I’m sorry it’s not very comfortable, but it’s not over yet. I need you to stay here where it’s safe. I promise, I’ll take good care of you, as you did for me.”
Grasping Leina’s hand, the woman laid her head back on the pillow Leina had arranged for her on the floor and slipped back out of consciousness. With her grip loosening, Leina gently folded her arm across her chest and pulled the mattress back over her for protection.
Moving over to the window, Leina drew her Glock from its holster, checked that a round was in the chamber, removed the magazine, and checked the capacity. “Sixteen rounds in the mag and one in the pipe for seventeen,” she said aloud as she laid the pistol to the side.
Next, she removed the other two magazines from the magazine pouch, noting that they were loaded to capacity as well. “49 rounds of nine millimeter,” she said as she re-holstered the weapon and snapped the magazine pouch back onto her forcefully procured duty belt.
Picking up the plastic ammunition container she had taken from the underfloor compartment with the rifle, she flipped the latch on the side, swinging the lid open to find a mix of brands and projectile types of .30-06 cartridges. “There’s got to be at least two hundred rounds here. That’s a start.”
Laying the rifle across her lap as she scooted her chair back away from the window, but still close enough to retain her view of the street below, Leina said, “Your move, boys.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Watching T. R. disappear into the darkness of the basement hallway, Jessie turned to Rosa and Jack, saying, “Okay, let’s get a move on. Jack, hand me that pack.”
Removing the sling-style multi-cam pack from over his shoulder, Jack handed it to Jessie, saying, “Here ya go. But what are you gonna do with that?”
Inspecting it for quality of construction and strength, Jessie tugged on it, saying, “This thing is pretty sturdy.”
“I never did buy cheap crap if it was something I wanted to be able to depend on. Those crappy but cheap Chinese-made packs you could get for twenty-nine dollars back in the day would have fallen apart by now.”
“That thinking is paying off big time today,” Jessie replied. Turning to Rosa, he said, “Here,” handing it to her. “With Jack and I back to back, wrap this around us both, then buckle it together.”
“What?” Jack queried.
“This tunnel is too cramped, espe
cially with the collapsed ceiling in this first section, for you to hobble upright. With your busted up leg, you won’t be able to crawl very well. I’ll hunch over and crawl, dragging you along behind.”
“To hell with that!” Jack exclaimed as if he had been insulted. “I can make it just fine.”
“Come on, man. You know as well as I do that crawling with a broken leg stuck out straight in a splint will not be a picnic. Now, just suck it up and you can cover us from the rear as I go,” Jessie said with a grin as he began to chuckle.
“What?” Jack again asked.
“You can be my tail-gunner.”
With a perturbed look on his face, Jack replied, “I knew I should have shot you when I saw you creeping around my home.”
Interrupting in a commanding voice, Rosa said, “Okay you two, no one’s manhood is in question here. Let’s just do what Jessie suggested and get going.”
With a defeated tone in his voice, Jack’s eyes responded in kind as he said, “Yes, ma’am,” reluctantly putting his back up against Jessie’s.
Tugging firmly on the strap, ensuring the fit was secure, Rosa said, “Okay, that’s as good as it’s gonna get.”
Leaning forward and squatting, Jessie said, “I’m sure as hell glad you’re a skinny fellow.”
“There’s not a lot of fat people left, these days. Except for rat bastards like Peronne, of course.”
“Yeah, he’s like the Kim Jong Un of Fort Sumner,” Jessie said as he started to work his way through the rubble, hunching down close to the ground.
“Damn, man. I wish I would have known you when times were good. You must have been a hoot.”
“Trust me. Be glad you’re meeting me now, not long ago. You would have hated me. I didn’t deal with things very well for quite some time.”
“We’ve all been there, my friend. Trust me. We’ve all been there,” Jack said as Jessie carried him over and through the rubble and into the old, long-abandoned tunnel.
~~~~
Working his way up the dark stairwell from the basement, T. R. paused to listen for any activity above. Hearing nothing but silence, he attempted to focus his eyes in the darkness, but to no avail. Avoiding the urge to flip on his weapon-mounted light, he ascended the stairs by feel, with his left hand on the railing while holding the pistol grip of his M4-style AR-15 carbine in his right.
Reaching the top of the staircase, T. R. felt around on the door to find a horizontal, bar-type push lever that spanned the width of the door on both sides. Pushing it slowly, the door began to open, exposing the light shining through the windows at each end of the hallway of the first floor.
Clearing the area as best he could from the stairwell, T. R. slowly worked his way into the hall, slicing the pie around the wall as he went. Standing in the hallway, being exposed from both sides, T. R. quickly moved toward the end of the building where Angela had been providing them with over-watch protection.
Attempting to turn the door handle to the room at the end of the hallway on the right, he thought, Crap, as he found it to be locked. Immediately moving to the other side of the hall, T. R. found the opposing door to be unlocked, quickly moving into the room, closing the door behind him.
With light shining through the half-drawn window shades of the long-abandoned administrative office, dust particles danced about, illuminated by the rays of light. Quickly moving over to the windows on the east-facing end of the building, T. R. looked around outside and was surprised not to see the might of Peronne’s forces surrounding the building.
“Where the hell are they?” he thought aloud as he scanned the area, looking for external threats. “I was confident they would have shown up in force by now.”
Picking up the radio, clicking it on, he pressed the transmit key and simply said, “Hey, Guardian Angel.”
Releasing the transmit key, he listened for a response but heard nothing. Making a second attempt, he said, “Guardian Angel, are you still there?”
Pausing once again to listen, he heard, “Where’s Dad? Is he okay? Who is this?”
Pleased to hear Angela’s voice over the radio, knowing that she was indeed safe and sound, he replied, “He’s fine. It’s me, T. R. He’s hurt, but will be okay. He wanted me to tell you that we are taking an alternate route, and for you to fall back to Bravo Two.”
“What? Uh... okay,” she replied reluctantly, confused by what T. R. had said.
“By the way, what do you see around us? How many threats?” he asked.
“It’s pretty quiet. Two officers circled around the building, and I lost sight of them, but no more units have arrived.”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” T. R. replied. “Well, I’d better get...”
Interrupted by a solid thud to his back, followed by the sonic crack of a high-velocity muzzle report, T. R. fell forward into a desk and chairs, dropping the radio to the ground. Gasping for air as he rolled over to his back, he could barely breathe, feeling as if his lungs had been stolen from him. As panic began to set in, T. R. saw one of Peronne’s men standing in the doorway of the room, holding his patrol rifle.
“Die, you fucking traitor!” the man said as he raised his rifle for a second shot, aiming directly at T. R.’s head.
“No!” a second voice shouted from the hallway as Officer Lynch entered the room. “You don’t get to have all of the fun. I’ve been wanting to kill this little bitch for a long damn time. Heck, I wanted to gut him even before he left his post. He was always the weak one. I knew he would crack.”
Keeping his rifle pointed squarely at T. R., the first man said, “Sure thing, man. Have fun,” as he motioned with his head toward T. R.
“I’m gonna take care of this the old-fashioned way,” Lynch said with a smile on his face as he drew his knife from his belt. “Don’t worry. You won’t feel the burn for long. Actually, on second thought, maybe you will. I don’t want the fun to be over too soon.”
T. R. struggled to speak, but began to feel blood pooling in his lungs. He felt as if he was drowning in his own blood as the small amount of breathing capacity he had left began to be lost to the gurgling of blood in his chest.
As Lynch stood over him with a smile on his face, he held his knife in the light of the window, reflecting it off the shiny blade into T. R.’s eyes as if to taunt him one last time. As he started to kneel, exposing himself to the light, the window above T. R. shattered as Lynch was knocked several feet backward, blood exploding from his back as a bullet from Angela’s rifle ripped directly through his heart.
Raising his rifle toward the window to counter the threat that Angela posed, the other officer took his eyes off T. R. for a split second, allowing T. R. to draw his sidearm, firing two shots directly into the man’s chest, dropping him to the floor, dead on impact.
Being too weak to hold his pistol any longer, T. R. dropped his hand to the floor as he heard Angela’s voice over the radio, “T. R.! Are you hit? Are you hit?”
Unable to speak in reply, he clicked the transmit key twice to acknowledge her in the affirmative.
Hearing her distressed voice once again, she asked, “Do you need help? What can I do?”
Clicking the transmit key once for no, T. R. knew there was nothing she could do to help him. He fully understood that he was down to his final few minutes on Earth, and there was no reason for her to expose her position or risk herself any longer.
Hearing her sobbing voice over the radio, she said, “I’m sorry. I wish I could have gotten a shot off sooner, but I didn’t know what room you were in until I saw the officer’s muzzle flash. I’m so sorry. I’ll tell Daddy you did it. I’ll tell him you went down fighting like a hero,” she said as her sobs overtook her voice.
Holding the radio to his chest, T. R. felt his world fade as he used his last ounce of strength to pull the radio to his face, transmitting his final word through his gurgling chest cavity wound, “G...Go...”
Hearing nothing but silence after that final transition, she waited a
moment and asked, “Are you still there?” but heard nothing. No mic clicks, no sounds of any kind. With tears in her eyes, Angela picked up her rifle and prepared herself to fall back to her father’s pre-planned position as T. R. had relayed.
Transmitting one final time, her soft and gentle voice came over T. R.’s radio, saying, “Godspeed, my friend. Godspeed.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Reaching the end of the tunnel and what appeared to be a dead end, Jessie felt around in the darkness, looking for a way out. “Here,” he said as he began to sit down, “Rosa, help Jack keep his leg stable while I sit. Then, you can undo the pack and cut us loose.”
Doing as he asked, Rosa helped Jack to the ground as he grunted in pain.
“The throbbing is getting worse,” Jack said with concern in his voice. It’s a weird feeling...like something’s not quite right. Even for a broken leg.”
“Is there someone in town that can take a good look at it when this is all over?” Jessie asked.
“When it’s all over? You’re an optimistic fellow, aren’t you,” Jack said in reply to Jessie’s comment.
“It’ll all be over at some point,” Jessie replied. “Whether you’re around to get your leg checked out is what remains in question.”
“Ha, ha, funny man,” Jack replied.
Flipping on his light, Jessie scanned the area, looking for a way out. “I sure as hell hope we didn’t crawl through all of this rat-poop infested muck for nothing.”
Hearing the muffled sounds of gunfire echoing through the tunnel from the courthouse, Jessie’s thoughts were interrupted by his fears of what T. R. might be facing.
“I wonder if he was the one doing the shooting?” Jack wondered aloud.
