by Harper W.
“Yes Boss.” Jack said as he quietly exited the cabin. Alfeo waited for Jack to get out of the cabin until he got up and went to the basket and opened it. He checked it properly and saw there was nothing inside but actually his dinner. Alfeo was not hungry.
Cursing his anxiety and maybe guilt, Alfeo went back to his chair.
Outside, the men were combing the whole forest with their alert eyes. Not because they wanted to protect their boss, but hoping that they will stumble upon their one million dollar lottery ticket. Their fingers were scratching to pull the trigger of their guns.
“Who is there?” one of them asked looking beyond the trees. He was sure he saw something moving there. Two more who heard him, came there instantly. “What did you see?” — “Was it him?” the questions came out. “There, he is running.” one of them pointed towards a shadow that was running. It was definitely a man. The guns opened, lighting up the dark forest momentarily. With a muffled scream and thud the shadow fell down as it took several bullets into its body.
“Got him!” the first one cried with joy. “No you didn’t, it was my bullet that killed him.” the other one pissed on his parade. Meanwhile, the third one who was the first one to see the shadow did the wise thing and ran towards it. Reaching there, he shot a burst of bullets into it before checking it, you know, just to make sure.
As his partners came, along with several others running towards the spot, he turned the body to see it face. His smile vanished as he saw that it was one of their own, with his hands tied and mouth gagged. He was wearing. His legs were tied with a small string that gave him some room to move. But it was something else that was strange on that body — he was wearing a greasy overall, like the ones from the Russian garage. One of the Fersko men noticed it. “Shit!” he said.
“What? Is it him?” another one asked.
“Russians!” the smart man replied as he ran back to his position, “Get back to your positions, Russians are here..” before he could finish his sentence, a shower of bullets was sprayed all over him.
Several Ak47 lit up the whole forest from all directions. It was like a big bonfire.
The Russians had circled the cabin and were now closing in.
Alfeo heard all this from his cabin, “What the fuck!” were the words that came out from his mouth. Jack came in running, “Boss! We are under attack. Its the Russians.”
Alfeo could not believe his ears. “Give me a gun!” he yelled, and Jack handed him his secondary gun while he stood guard along side his employer.
Ron was running as fast as he could in the forest. He could see the Russian men moving in while firing in a rhythm that could put marching bands to shame. As soon as he reached the first guy of the formation who was shooting, he took out his knife and slit his throat from behind. The Russian dropped down without making a noise and Ron ran up to get the other one.
One after another, Ron had killed seven Russians without making them aware of it. Because the Russians were thinking they were losing men as a collateral damage.
Ron’s strategy was working, both parties were losing their men at a steady speed. Soon, the Russians closed in at the cabin and the shooting got intense. One of the Russians, who was big as a bear and even resembled the animal in some sense, yelled at his men in Russian. Listening to him, all the Russians went gung-ho on the Fersko men. In a blood bath, it was the Russian Bear and two more of his men were left standing, everybody else was lying dead on the ground, except for Ron who was watching this from behind.
The Bear and his men stormed the cabin where they were greeted by armed Jack and Alfeo. Jack shot first and killed one of the bear’s man right at the door. Alfeo shot at the bear who got hit in his shoulder. Though he lost his gun, he ran at Alfeo, again yelling in Russian.
Jack tried to stop him, but saw the other Russian pulling his gun at him. Fortunately, the Russian was out of his bullets. But he followed his leader’s strategy and rammed straight into Jack. Alfeo had lost his gun and was being beaten by the Russian animal.
“Prigotov'sya umeret” the Russian Bear said pulling out his big knife before Alfeo’s face. Alfeo did not understand what he meant, but he was certain that he was about to meet his brother. The Bear pulled the knife up, preparing to stab Alfeo in the face, when a bullet pierced his head. The Russian fell over Alfeo crushing him.
Jack and the Russian saw Ron entering the cabin and taking out the Bear. It felt Jack with new wave of energy and he pushed the Russian away. But as Ron tried to pick up his gun, the Russian came back and stabbed him in the neck. Ron saw this while pulling the Bear off Alfeo and now the Russian sidekick had Jack’s gun. Ron pulled the Bear’s body and used it as a shield. Alfeo had recognized Ron and as confused he was in this situation, he grabbed his gun and pinned it in Ron’s back. Three bullets he fired, that went right through Ron, damaging his organs.
The Russian sidekicks aimed his gun at Alfeo, but the old man used just one bullet to shoot him in the skull.
“Fuck!” Alfeo yelled pushing Ron and the Bear away from him. Ron was losing so much blood and could not bear to stand or even move.
“You Asshole!” Alfeo said putting the gun an inch away from Ron’s head, “I am not gonna waste time in giving a monologue of how pathetic I think you are.” Alfeo pulled the hammer of his gun back, “I am just going to shoot you now.”
BANG! the gunshot was loud and with it, Alfeo’s body fell on the floor.
“You idiot!” Dave said standing with a smoking gun while running to Ron who had lost almost all his blood.
“Shit Ronny!” Dave said, taking his head in his arms. “Look..” Ron’s trembling voice pointed to Alfeo who was still breathing.
“Dave, give me the gun.” Ron stretched out his shivering blood covered hand to his friend. Dave looked at Alfeo and handed his gun to Ron.
“Alfeo!” Ron cried with all his strength. The dying old man looked at Ron.
“Fuck off!” Ron fired the gun and his bullet went right through his eyes.
That was the last of strength that Ron had and so he collapsed in the floor.
“Ronny!” Dave called for his friend, but Ron was no more. Teary eyed, Dave looked around the room after staring at his friend for sometime.
“Goodbye brother!” Dave said putting Ron’s head gently to the floor and quickly walked out of the cabin.
Stepping over several dead bodies, Dave walked into the dark forest.
The End
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Ivory Tower iIIussions
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A Death Run
At Bay
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Go ahead and find this series below to check out the other great books I’ve published in Amazon Kindle.
Other Books from “Harper W.”
Ivory Tower iIIussions
Tempting Heist
The Crime Series :
Book1 : Thicker Than Blood
Book2 : A Reunion of Brothers
Book3 : My Best Enemy
Book4 : The Departed<
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Book5 : Payback
Book6 : The Boy Who Cried Wolf
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Rocket Man
Chapter 1
My name is Paul Devereaux, and my partner is Alisha Chavez – but we all call her Kaie. There’s an interesting story behind that unusual nickname. About five years ago, when she was first promoted to detective here at the Dallas Police Department, something really weird happened. She was off duty and happened to be at a local donut shop that a lot of us cops like to frequent (hilarious, I know). Some tweaker decided to rob the place. He was about 6’2” and weighed every bit of 300 pounds. Combine that with some serious drugs, he was going to be a monster to take down. Unless your 5’3”, 115 pound Alisha, that is.
The story goes that he came in and pulled a gun. Alisha was sitting at a table nearby, drinking some coffee. She whips out her badge and pulls her service weapon, identifying herself as a cop and ordering him to put down his weapon. He ignores her. Did I mention the donut shop was crowded, and there were a bunch of kids in there? Yeah, that complicated things a bit, and Alisha hates to see some idiot putting kids in danger.
When Alisha sees that he isn’t going to back down, and that’s he’s liable to start firing any second now, she holsters her service weapon and takes him down from behind. No gun, no tazer … just her. To this day no one knows for sure how a tiny thing like her took down that big guy, but she had him on the floor and handcuffed in less than one minute, and that with no backup.
The store owner was an elderly gentlemen from the Isle of Man, and it seems he loved studying the Celtic language. He gave her the nickname Kaie, which is a Celtic girl’s name that means combat. Word got around about his nickname for her, and it stuck.
Kaie has been with the Dallas PD for about 10 years, and I habe been with them for 15 years. We’ve been partners for eight years. I like working with Kaie – she’s smart, she’s keeps her private life private and leaves me alone about mine, and I know that I can always depend on her to have my back. And I know if anything goes wrong, “Combat” Kaie will not stop until the source of danger is eliminated.
A new case came to us while we were still at work late on Friday night, trying to finish up some reports so we can both head out: I would be heading home to my wife, and Kaie would be heading out to meet her boyfriend Cal. Just as there was a light at the end of our tunnel of never ending paperwork, the phone rang. Kaie picked up, and I could tell by the look on her face it wasn’t good.
It was a patrolmen on the line, and he was so upset he couldn’t even speak plainly. Kaie knew it must be bad, so as she put him on speakerphone for me to hear, too. “Take a moment to collect yourself,” she said. “I have you on speakerphone with Deveraux.” After a few seconds, he gave us the location of the incident and we head out. Kaie calls Cal and tells him she’ll be late (as usual), and I call my wife and tell her I won’t make it in time for dinner (as usual).
The crime scene was located in Casa Linda Estates just off Garland Road, and when we arrived we w why the patrolman could hardly speak. It was one of the nastiest crime scenes either one of us had ever seen – and mind you that this was hardly our first proverbial rodeo.
Here, in this beautiful Dallas suburb, is a sky blue Dodge Ram pickup truck with blood dripping from the hood. Some kind of missile had gone through the windshield of the truck, decapitating the driver. The blood from the hood isn’t from the driver, though. It’s from the poor guy attached to the missile. There was a guy strapped to that missile, and he went headfirst into the windshield of the truck. From the looks of things, the driver was probably killed the instant the missile struck, causing the truck to careen out of control and strike a tree. Fortunately no other vehicles were involved.
I glanced around. The perimeter of the crime scene was, of course, still cordoned off, but we were surrounded by two types of people: reporters, like vultures ready to pounce on the next story that could bring their ratings up, and regular people with stunned looks and slack jaws, cell phones in hand and taking pictures of one of the most gruesome scenes they would see in their lifetime. I wouldn’t be surprised if crime scene photos were on the web before we ever got there.
Putting my focus back on the crime scene, I knew that based on the prolific amount of blood on the hood of the truck, the man on the missile must have been alive when it struck its target. The “missile man” was mostly in one piece, except for the fact that his arms had nearly been torn off when the missile penetrated the windshield. His skull appeared to be partially crushed. It seems he was wearing a polo shirt and a pair of khakis. He also had on argyle socks, and one brown loafer dangled on a foot. The other loafer was nowhere to be seen. Kaie pointed out that he had been strapped with his back to the body of the missile and his head pointing toward the nose. That must have been utterly terrifying.
As I said, the driver’s head was no longer attached. It had fallen behind the body into the back seat, or half cab, of the truck. It was lying there on top of a bag of drying cleaning. The body was dressed in a nice business suit, and had a suitcase on the seat next to him. I noticed the hand on the steering wheel had a thick, gold wedding band.
Not being a missile expert, I couldn’t tell much about the missile but that it was about twenty feet long, about 20 inches in diameter, had a wingspan of about 8.5 feet, and some fins on the sides.
I decided to head over to ask some of the officers on the scene to start canvassing the neighborhood to get witness statements. Kaie was still staring at the scene when I returned. “Thoughts?” I asked.
“Why on earth would someone want to do something like this?” she replied. That was the same thing I was thinking. “Why attach somebody to a missile and launch it? Goodness knows there are far easier ways to kill somebody. This must be some kind of nut job.”
“We are lucky that when the missile hit the truck spun out of control it hit a tree, or we could have an even worse scene,” I commented. The front end of the truck was resting against the trunk of an old pecan tree. The tree was leaning slightly, but seemed to hold up to the impact pretty well. I would find out later from the patrolmen that were canvassing the neighborhood that the residents heard a strange, loud whoosh sound and then a terrific crash.
Just then, the Dallas PD CSI team arrived on the scene. The Crime Lab Chief Examiner, Juan Cortez, is a friend of mine and Kaie’s. He stood there for a moment beside us, staring at the bloody pickup truck. “Well, if that doesn’t take the cake! What kind of a sadist straps some poor sucker to a missile head first and launches him?”
“Well, I suppose it’s a way of killing two birds with one stone,” said a deep voice from behind us. It was Dr. Kurt Hollabaugh, the coroner. He shook his head, and his macabre humor continued. “I remember the old Dodge Rams had a ram’s head for an ornament. I never saw one with a man riding a missile for an ornament.” We ignored him, and he started looking over the crime scene.
I walked over to where Kaie was watching the ME do his thing. “Why does it always seem like the freaks choose the weekends for doing things like this?” I asked her. She shrugged, and then Hollabaugh spoke up. “Guys, they both died on impact. I don’t suppose you need me to elaborate on the rather obvious cause of death,” he spoke as he stepped back from the truck, motioning for his assistants to begin removing the bodies (and any parts of them). Once they got through with that, Cortez and his CSI team will start gathering evidence from the scene and finish up at the lab.
Chapter 2
Kaie was still looking around the crime scene. There wasn’t much more we could do at the moment. The crime scene needed to be processed, the victims identified, and the autopsies performed. We had already had a long day, so I asked Kaie if she needed a lift anywhere. We had taken my car to the crime scene.
She nodded her head. “I was supposed to meet Cal at the Spaghetti Warehouse. He said he’d wait for me. I hope he did.” We got into my car, and started discussing the case. We both concluded it was
one of the bloodiest, most gruesome crime scenes we had ever seen. We knew one thing for certain: there was a crazy man – or woman – at the other end of that missile.
There were still a ton of questions, though. Why would someone use a human missile to kill someone else? I mean, really – why use a missile in a suburban neighborhood in the first place? Was the man behind the wheel of the pick up a target, or just an unlucky, random victim? Was he somehow connected to the man strapped to the missile?
I dropped Kaie off at the restaurant and I headed home. I texted her later just to see if Cal was waiting for her. He was there, reading a book on his iPad and not in the least bit upset. I asked Kaie what he was reading … it was a crime novel. I facetiously told her she was dating a sick, sick man.
The next day Kaie and I met up at headquarters as soon as Dr. Hollabaugh let us know that the victims had been identified, although the autopsy results weren’t finalized yet. The driver was a Mr. Anthony Black, a family man in his mid-thirties who lived in the suburb where was killed. He died instantly, of course. He left behind a wife and a two kids. One red flag stood out to us: he used to work at a factory that built missiles for the Navy. That was the only thing we had that could tie him to the missile that hit his car.
The “missile man,” as we dubbed him, was named Peter Morrison. In his mid-thirties, he lived alone in an apartment in downtown Dallas. Apparently he wasn’t involved in a relationship with anyone. No obvious link had been found between the two men, yet. Cortez was still working on the truck and evidence from the scene. We did find out that the missiles were a type of surface-to-surface missile, similar to a Tomahawk missile.
We spent most of the day going over witness statements and trying to find a link between the victims. After an exhausting day filled with too much stale coffee and too few leads, we heard from Dr. Hollabaugh. He had the final autopsy results in, and we were hoping for some kind of lead. He called Kaie while I was on the other line. When I finished up, we found out we had a new wrinkle in the case.
