“Back from the dead, are you?”
Wolfgang opened his eyes. His head still felt groggy with sleep and pain.
He awoke in a sitting position. Someone had moved him over next to the back of the truck, sitting him up against a tire. He put his hand to his head and felt bandages. His face had been cleaned of blood.
He tried to get up but a hand held him gently in place.
“Woah there tiger. You probably got a concussion. You just take it easy a few minutes. We found some drugs for you. Just give me a sec to dig ‘em out.”
“No drugs,” Wolfgang mumbled in German.
“Oh, it ain’t nothin’ that good. Just some Tylenol for the pain. It’ll help clear your head a bit.”
Wolfgang recognized Tylenol but otherwise couldn’t keep up with the American’s English. Tylenol was okay. He didn’t want anything making him pass out again. He remembered he was worried about an ambush. He wondered how long he’d been unconscious.
“Ambush?” he asked in English. There was a German word for ambush, but like so many other words, Germans used a germanized version of the English word.
“We ain’t seen nothing yet. The Colonel and your girl are checking out the area, but it seems like the bomb was left behind. Pressure activated, or something.”
That didn’t make sense to Wolfgang. Why would a pressure activated bomb be left on a civilian freeway. For all the damage it did to the military truck, it would have shredded a car, killing everyone in it and destroying all the contents. Why would someone want to do that in Switzerland? It had no purpose. Everyone did everything for a purpose.
Wolfgang tried to think, but the clouds in his head were as gray and ugly as the clouds in the sky.
Someone had to be targeting the military truck. He was convinced of that. The soldiers were heading for a rendezvous point and there must have been other trucks. Their attackers must have lain in wait. Maybe they assumed the truck had food and weapons, which it did, and they had spotters out, triggering the bomb when the truck got close.
But if that were the case, why hadn’t anyone attacked yet?
Wlazlo interrupted his thoughts with the pills and a bottle of water. Wolfgang drank gratefully, swallowing the medicine with the warm liquid. Feeling had returned to his arms and he was able to take the plastic bottle from the soldier and drink more himself.
“Now you’re coming back to life.”
The captain turned away from him. Wolfgang could see a rifle slung over his shoulder. A rifle had been placed on the ground next to Wolfgang, along with a full backpack. He stared at the weapon. It looked impossibly complicated.
“We might have to leave soon, so you gotta get your legs under you.”
“How long did I...?” Wolfgang couldn’t remember the word for sleep in English.
“How long you been passed out?” Wlazlo asked over his shoulder. He didn’t wait for a response. “About thirty minutes.”
Thirty minutes. Why hadn’t anyone attacked yet?
Trained soldiers would have attacked immediately. Four injured people in an upside down vehicle would be no match for two or three competent soldiers. Even a couple of hunters could have taken them out. So who would wait?
The only people who would wait, Wolfgang decided, were those who were so unsure of themselves that they wanted overwhelming odds. Perhaps they would want the surviving soldiers to leave so they could loot the truck without danger. Perhaps they were waiting until it was so dark they could surprise them. What they didn’t realize was how deadly these men probably could be. The weapon at Wolfgang’s side looked horribly complicated but horribly lethal at the same time. If their attackers were just some amateurs waiting to ambush them, the soldiers would slaughter them.
“The gun?” he asked in English.
“The MP23?” Wlazlo replied, turning back to face Wolfgang. He continued without waiting for Wolfgang to respond. “Deadliest assault rifle known to man. One man with a fully loaded MP23 with spare magazines is the equivalent of a squad of Gulf War soldiers. It’s the only US rifle in a hundred years that could compete with the AK-47. It’s still only special forces issue.”
Wolfgang tried to follow along but gave up.
“Very dangerous?” he asked.
“You need to learn to speak English, man. Yes. Very. Dangerous. Don’t mess with it.” He spoke clearly and distinctly as if that would help.
Maybe it did. Wolfgang got the message.
“Help me,” he said and tried to stand. Wlazlo put his hand under Wolfgang’s arm and pulled. Wolfgang stood shakily, feeling dizzy, and leaned against the overturned truck. He wanted to throw up.
Wlazlo stayed next to him, his hand on Wolfgang’s arm, steadying him.
“Thank you,” Wolfgang said. “I’m okay.”
“Alright. Let me know before you try wandering around.”
Wolfgang nodded, trying to ignore the pain. Nodding made the nausea grow.
He looked up at the sky and it seemed to be growing dark.
“What time is it?” he asked.
Wlazlo looked at his phone. “Five twenty-seven.”
“We must go soon,” Wolfgang said. “Before dark.”
“I agree. This is giving me the heebie-jeebies.”
Wolfgang had no idea what that word meant, but he got the gist of it. He pushed himself away from the truck and tried to stand on his own. He still felt dizzy and leaned back against the metal frame of the vehicle for support. He held himself straight and looked around. Things were a little clearer. As long as he didn’t make any sudden moves, he would be fine.
He looked at the truck and thought about the force of the blast that had propelled the huge thing off the bridge. It had to be amateurs. Amateurs would use too much explosive. Pros would have just used enough to disable the truck, then would have attacked immediately.
His thoughts turned to the weapons in the back of the truck, the ones they wouldn’t be able to carry away. They shouldn’t let them fall into inexperienced hands. Amateurs would attempt to use them and end up getting themselves killed, hurting a bunch of other people along the way.
“We must blow up guns when we leave.” His English still felt choppy, halting. It hurt his head to try to remember words.
“You want to scuttle the truck?” Wlazlo asked. He held his rifle ready and scanned the area around them.
“Just guns. Food okay.”
“I don’t think we’ll have time for that, Wolfie. It’s all or nothing.”
Wolfgang considered that for less than a second.
“Blow it up.”
“I’m with you on that. I’d hate for anyone to use any of this stuff against our boys.” Wlazlo looked back at him and continued, “You gonna be able to walk soon? Colonel says there’s a town up that hill over there. Oscar, or something.”
Wolfgang looked where the man pointed. He didn’t see any buildings, but a road crisscrossed up the side of a hill. There was a cleft to the left of the hill, and another, steeper hill on the opposite side that led up into the mountains. There were no visible trails that way. That’s the way they should go.
“No,” he said. “We go that way. Enemy not that way.”
Wlazlo hummed, then said, “You might be right, Wolfie. If we go up to Oscar we could be just walking right into a trap. It might be fellas from there that blew us up. Good idea. I knew we brought you along for something.” He looked up in the direction Wolfgang had pointed. “That’s a pretty steep mountain. You up for it?”
Wolfgang looked at the hill. He nodded painfully.
13
Flight Page 5
