KNIGHT'S REPORTS: 3 Book Set

by Gordon Kessler

  * * *

  With the M-4 on full auto, I squeeze the trigger and the first shot takes down one of the men paroling the perimeter. But a second round doesn’t chamber. I jack in another bullet and fire again at a second adversary. This time I miss my target altogether, and again the bolt doesn’t reload the next round. I manually cock and fire again and repeat the process as I advance.

  I am shooting, but the only place bullets are landing is around me.

  The M-4 carbine is a gas-operated gun that utilizes the high pressure created from a fired bullet to chamber another round. “Shit!” I said, realizing the carbine in my hands must be loaded with blank cartridges that create little back pressure. Only the first bullet was real so that upon a quick inspection, I wouldn’t notice the blank cartridges below it. Still, in front of several armed men, I chide myself for not noticing the magazine was a little light, loaded with the less weighty blank cartridges instead of full metal jackets.

  Damn it! What the hell—Rillie?

  I soon discover I was fortunate, however. The guards from the front join the others and the six men approach cautiously, obviously having orders to capture me, as they close in without returning my blank shots.

  “We got Knight,” one of the men who’d come around from the front of the lodge says into a microphone on his weapons belt suspenders. Then he motions with his M-16 and tells me, “Let’s go, asshole.”

  “Strike one,” I tell him. Why call me an asshole? I’m defending my people. He’s attacking and harming them. He’s the asshole.

  “What?”

  I look at the M-4 in my hands. It’s useless as a rifle — and they obviously were in on the knowledge of me having only blank cartridges — but it’s still a weapon. “Strike two,” I answer. I’ve left my pack and ruck sack with assorted weapons back in the tree line. But letting me keep the assault rifle, even for an extra second, is like me giving him a fastball that he watches go straight over the plate.

  One of the armed men behind me reaches over my shoulder and confiscates the KA-BAR knife I have sheathed there. Then he gives me a shove. “He said, let’s go, dumbass!”

  I stumble a step and smile. They’ve let their guard down, thinking I’m unarmed. “Strike three.”

  Curiosity and apprehension comes over the leaders face as I grin at him.

  “I’ll take your weapon, now” he says, his arm extended.

  I tell him, “Gladly.”

  In the next second, my boot is in the groin of the impatient jerk behind me.

  I’ve flipped my M-4 around and the carbine’s butt is in the leader’s surprised face before he has a chance to react. He loses at least three teeth.

  With the carbine flipped back around, the muzzle contacts the heads of three of the four remaining men, all standing to my left, and two go down.

  My sidekick to the guy on my right drops him to the ground holding his broken knee.

  The last man standing was only temporarily stunned by my gun muzzle, so I give it to him again with a forceful jab, just as he’s raising his M-16. Now he’ll have but one good eye for the rest of his very short life, and he easily relinquishes his weapon.

  I flip his M-16 around and shoot all six center of mass as they’re recovering. I don’t wait to see how sure my shots have been, but sprint toward the large center window of the lodge and, shoulder first, dive through. After rolling on the great room’s oak floor, I quickly regain my feet and prepare for a fight.

  No movement — the large cabin is still.

  Remembering John Sites had run into the den the last I’d seen him, I entered that adjoining room cautiously.

  I find Doc’s old friend behind a shot up sofa next to the large fireplace. He’s taken one in the chest, but he is conscious.

  “John,” I say, “hold on. We’ll get you help.”

  “Ethan,” he says, “So glad to see you. Help’s on its way — US Marshals are only ten minutes out. Your dad and Specks?”

  “Found Specks. I think he’ll be all right. He’s with Rillie back at our chopper.”

  John looks blankly for a second, as if he’s trying to make out what I’m saying. He says, “Really?”

  He’s clearly out of it, and a small thing gives me pause — he’d mispronounced Rillie’s name with “eel” instill of “ill”. I tell him, “Looks like Doc hitched a train.”

  He suddenly seems clear-headed again. “Ethan, Doc’s in big trouble. We all are. They’re mercenaries — not just Americans, but … Germans, South Africans, Columbians, French, Russian. The hazmat train…,” he loses his breath.

  I want him to say more, but I don’t want him to kill himself doing it. “Don’t talk, now. Just point to where the kids and Mary are.”

  “… the hazmat train, Ethan, it’s going to … Denver. They’re going to … blow it up in front of Federal Plaza.”

  “Okay. We’ll stop ‘em. Just rest. Where are Mary and the kids? They okay?”

  “I locked them … in the basement … when the choppers came in.” he says and points toward the basement door in the hallway.

  But the door he says he’d locked is open and my fears heighten.

  He grabs my arm. “Take my phone. I ran when they told me … to hand it over. Then you busted in … and they disappeared. I recorded everything I know … on it … in case I didn’t make it.”

  I take his phone.

  He continues, “I’m okay. Posse’s on its way. Go take care of … your kids and Mary.”

  I leave him and edge toward the basement doorway.

  Then he calls out, “E Z, the hazmat train — it’s carrying … yellowcake.”

  It finally jives: Betty Crocker — yellowcake, not yellow cake. When Doc told Specks, “It ain’t Betty Crocker’s” he wasn’t referring to the baking kind of yellow cake, but the highly radioactive uranium ore, separated, grinded and purified into a yellow powder known as yellowcake.

  Over my shoulder, I say low, “I understand,” and pause at the top of the basement steps. The lights are out, but instead of using the tactical flashlight attached to the barrel of the M-16 I’d confiscated from one of my adversaries outside, I decide the darkness might help conceal me.

  I slowly descend the stairs. Remembering the fourth step creaks, I bypass it in favor of the next one down. Wanting to be as clandestine as possible, I inch my way. But, reminding myself that not only Mary and my children’s lives are in jeopardy, but quite possibly half of the population of Denver, Colorado, I pick up the pace.

  At the foot of the basement stairway, I scan the lightless basement that’s hardly bigger than a storm shelter, its primary purpose a cool canning room for Mary. I’m unable to determine any movement or anything out of place in the darkness, so I find I must switch on the tactical light on my carbine and check again.

  Nothing. The children are gone. But I wonder about Mary and the kids getting past John Sites without him seeing them. I go to the wide exterior stairway exit and look up at the slanted, double doors that open to the side of the lodge. The inside latch is undone as if someone had left through the big doors. When I try to shove the large door panels open, I find they’ve been somehow blocked from the outside, probably with the handle of a yard tool or broom.

  A squeak comes from behind, and I realize someone is coming down the stairs. I quickly snap off my light, find the edge of some storage shelving and flatten against it.

  It sounds like one person, possibly two, moving cautiously. Perhaps it’s John, somehow finding the strength to stand and walk. It could be a couple of the jerkoffs in the snow-camo suits coming back to finish the job they started with me. It could be the US Marshals, finally arriving.

  In the next instant, a light shines in my eyes — a tactical light much like the one attached to the assault weapon I’m carrying. I see only the end of the barrel of a gun being aimed at me, the rest of the weapon and gunman hidden in the darkness behind the bright light. I resist the urge to put a bullet in the center of the small flashlight’s LED
s. If it’s one of the snow-camouflaged jerkoffs, I hope he’ll give me an indication before he pulls the trigger.

  “E Z?” a feminine voice says. “Your kids are okay.”

  It’s Rillie, and the relief from what she’s said washes over me like a relaxing, warm bath.

  “Thank God, Rillie. Damn good to see you,” I tell her, lowering my weapon. “Where are they?” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize what had bothered me about Rillie. John Sites calls me Ethan instead of E Z. That’s because he and my father are good friends, and that’s how Doc always refers to me — never E Z. Doc never calls me E Z, yet the woman before me never met me before today, nor has she heard me referenced by anyone but my father, John Sites and possibly Specks, who all only call me Ethan.

  “Put the gun down, E Z,” she says. “I mean it. I actually have used one of these before — many times. And I use them very effectively. I’ll use this one now if you twitch the wrong way.”

  I believe her. She has the drop on me. Why hadn’t I realized before this that she wasn’t who she claimed to be. But what an act — and why? I set the M-16 on the shelf beside me.

  “You know,” Rillie says and flips on the basement light. “I was going to kill you from the start. But they told me I had one option, and they’d pay me an extra $500,000 for it. So now that the taxi ride is over, and I’ve gotten to know you a little, I’ve reconsidered. But it’s up to you.”

  Someone with a white-knit ski mask stands behind her near the stairway back to the living quarters. In the darkness behind Rillie’s light, all I can see of the person is the white knit ski mask.

  “Option?” I say, making sure the guy behind her could hear. “It’d better include you and all your bastard cohorts committing suicide and going straight to Hell.”

  “Now shut-up a minute and think about this. I’ll guarantee you a chance to save your father, ensure your children and Mary’s safety, and you’ll get two million dollars — all for stepping back and playing along.”

  “Screw you!”

  She smiles. “Actually, I was hoping that would be a part of it. We can team up. These people have plenty of work lined up and very deep pockets.” She raises an eyebrow. “You even know a few of the players.”

  “Not anymore, I don’t. And I don’t want any part of it. You’re trading personal wealth for thousands of innocent lives.”

  “I doubt many are innocent. Besides, they’ve done nothing for me. It’s not me killing them, it’s fate. Fate says they die and I get rich. That’s the way of this world; I learned that at a very early age.” She grins, her eyes wide like a child at Christmas. “Come on! I guarantee we’ll have a ball — many of them, in fact!”

  “Like I said before — you can ride the prick behind you straight to Hell!” I tell her, expecting to be ushered up the steps to meet the rest of my adversaries — and maybe have a chance to turn the tables on them and find the children.

  She surprises me again.

  “Too bad,” she says, and before her voice stops, I hear the reciprocating tap of her silenced weapon on full auto, and I feel a dozen high-velocity rounds pepper my torso.

  Chapter 10

  Rude Awakening

  7:00 PM

  I regained consciousness on the cold concrete basement floor with my chest aching like I’d been stomped by a brahma bull. The pain in my left shoulder was a different story — sharp and intense.

  The type 2A ballistic vest I wore was pliable and thin enough to be fairly well concealed and had prevented major damage to everywhere I’d been struck except that exposed shoulder.

  Damn it! The same shoulder I’d been shot in a couple of months back in LA — and it’d just healed up rather nicely, too.

  I knew I’d find about a dozen quarter-size bruises underneath it when I took it off. I plucked off several 9mm lead slugs that were still embedded in the dense fabric of the vest, realizing how lucky I’d been that Rillie’s Mach 10 hadn’t been chambered with full metal jacket or armor-piercing rounds. But I had no time to further assess my injuries. I smelled smoke.

  After staggering to the top of the stairs I found no trace of John Sites. Smoke poured in from the great room and darkened the ceiling of the den. I went to the opposite side of the den and into the long, hall-like mudroom that stretched from the front of the lodge, near its attached four-car garage, all the way to the back door.

  From the hallway’s front door window, I could see one of the Blackhawk helicopters lift off, while the second chopper warmed up. As the copilot of the second whirlybird stepped through the open cargo bay door and closed it, I saw no passengers inside — only the pilot.

  So far, my team wasn’t doing too well. I’d made a couple of base hits with the guards in the back of the house, but the opposing team probably had the kids and Mary on the first helicopter and most likely Doc accosted somewhere on the hazmat train. They might even have John Sites on that first chopper, as well. And the only ally I thought I had just tried to kill me. I decided it was time to make some points.

  Holding a makeshift bandage to my wounded shoulder, I sprinted to the back door and then out toward the tree line where I’d left my gear. As long as I held my hand firmly against the oven mitt I’d snatched from next to the den fireplace and jammed under my light jacket, it made a minimal, but adequate pressure bandage. I was losing blood, but not yet enough to slow me down.

  After throwing open the pack flap, I yanked out a tube a little over two-and-a-half inches in diameter and two-feet long. As the Blackhawk chopper in the front parking lot lifted off, I extended and armed the LAW rocket launcher, placed it above my right shoulder and adjusted the sites. When the helo came into clear view and passed over the trees about 200 yards out, I aligned the sites. The copilot turned in my direction and, although I couldn’t make out his expression from this distance, I’m sure he was flushed with fear. Been there, done that.

  I imagined the radio communication between helicopters as I aimed. Where’d he come from? He’s got a rocket! Evasive maneuver, now!

  Hoping this weapon had not been tampered with as had my M-4’s ammo magazines, I led the chopper only five yards and aimed high, anticipating they’d pull away from me in an attempt to avoid the small, powerful rocket. As I pushed the trigger button, they made that same evasive maneuver I would have, and I was surprised to see the Blackhawk fire off over a dozen countermeasure flares in addition.

  Silly mercs, I thought, flares are for heat-seekers!

  The first time I fired an M72 Light Anti-Armor Weapon rocket in Marine Corps Infantry training twenty years ago, I nearly shot it into the dirt in front of me. In anticipation of the huge bang and fiery tail that accompanies the 66mm finned projectile, I’d pushed the trigger and leaned forward expecting what I imagined would be considerable recoil. But there had been none since the tube was open in the back, allowing for nearly no back pressure. Luckily, that button takes a firm push. After being reprimanded by the really pissed range coach, my second push launched the rocket. The shot went true and had exploded with an incredible boom, dead center of the stationary target 100 meters away. I’d fired an M72 rocket launcher many times since.

  This was a much longer shot, as well as a moving target, but the rocket streaked to its designated bull’s eye and caught the helicopter in the tail boom behind its cargo bay as it turned away. The explosion tore the boom from the fuselage and, without the stabilizing tail rotor, the chopper began a slow spiral into the pines.

  The fiery explosion that ensued made me smile.

  I turned back to the fire-engulfed lodge, and a flashback ruined my brief mental revelry. I remembered a burning house, my wife Jolene and her parents trapped inside. I remembered I was helpless. I remembered they burned to death.

  In the distance, I heard another helicopter and my thoughts were jolted thinking the Jetranger had been taken. But the dithering roar was of two very large engines on this chopper. Then, about an eight of a mile away, a CH-47 Chinook raised above the tree li
ne, tipped its two large rotors to the north and followed the first Blackhawk.

  I recalled what John Sites had told me: “They’re mercenaries — not just Americans, but … Germans, South Africans, Columbians, French, Russian.”

  What the hell have I gotten myself into?

  While watching the big helicopter speed away, Doc’s beautiful lodge exploded, the force of the conflagration throwing me into the trees.

  Chapter 11

  Eggbeaters Away

  7:30 PM

  I tossed my backpack and ruck sack into the JetRanger helicopter and climbed behind the controls.

  “Specks, you okay?” I asked the old railroader in the back seat.

  He was squinting at me. “Yeah, I think. But why’d you let that little bitch bash my head into the door?”

  So that was what the thump had been when I thought Specks had gone into shock. “Sorry,” I told him and fired up our whirlybird. “I thought she was on our side.”

  “That little shit’s been trouble ever since she showed up four months ago.”

  “Four months?”

  “Yeah. Just after Christmas.”

  “Then she never worked with Doc?”

  “Not to my knowledge. She’s mostly been training in the yards. Your daddy and me haven’t done a job apart since he come up here two years ago.”

  With that info, the foggy picture I’d had of what was happening cleared up considerably.

  “Are you good for a trip to Slaughterhouse Yards?”

  Specks looked out his door window. Above the trees, not far away, were two large streams of smoke.

  “Doc’s B & B?”

  “Yeah, the big fire,” I told him. “The other is one of the mercs’ two helicopters. I think the first one is heading for Slaughterhouse. And, by the way, that Betty Crocker reference was about yellowcake. It’s highly radioactive uranium in powder form.”

  “Then Doc was right,” Specks said. “There really are folks wanting to blow up a train in Denver and kill thousands.”

  “And they’re pros. They seem to have their own little army.”