by Franks, JK
He watched as the guards yelled something, and one of them took off at a trot. The girl was crying; he could see her body shaking, racked with the sobs. The baby leaned back and also began to cry. Tremaine wanted to go to the girl, comfort her, but did not. The other guard came back slowly carrying a five-gallon bucket. He could see water sloshing out as the man walked up and set it down heavily in front of the girl.
The guards began to laugh, but Tre was too far away to hear any of the words. They motioned at the baby and then to the bucket. He thought briefly of all the babies he had baptized over the years. Ducking their tiny heads beneath the waters of the Pearl River, so they could be born again unto the Lord. How many of those babies had survived, how many of them might be here in this very camp?
Whatever they wanted the girl to do, she refused. One guard slapped her while another kept her from falling. Another hit seemed to nearly knock her out. The girl was sobbing in agony. Other prisoners were watching from their tiny shelters and tents. This is what the guards wanted, he knew that. This was them delivering a lesson. They were in control, they could do what they wanted. Our lives don’t matter.
The guards grabbed the girl’s arms, her hands still cradling the baby and forced them toward the bucket. Oh, Lord, no. They forced her to submerge the infant under the water. His tiny head disappeared beneath the edge of the bucket. The guards laughed and waited. They knew someone would react, and sure enough, someone did. It wasn’t Tre, even if he wanted, he was too weak to move that far or do any good. An older man off to his right stood and began to run at the men in the black uniforms. He was yelling at them to stop. The shot from the guard tower split the man's head open. Tre could see the man’s one eye go dim before his head hit the mud.
The girl kept looking up, shaking and sobbing. Tre offered what seemed to be a pointless prayer for the mother and child. The guards were still holding her, making her drown her own child. She was so young, so pitiful. He couldn’t watch any longer. It was all so appalling. How could people do this to one another? He passed by tents and heard the coughing from inside. The hollow faces and distant expressions of eyes that could no longer register the pain of what they saw.
Earlier, he’d seen men suspended for days on fenceposts, their bodies twisted into agonizing positions. They were taken down days later, once they were dead. A horn blew in the distance, and all those who could began to silently march toward the east, to the fields or animal pens, wherever their work assignments were, he guessed. All had the look of the condemned, the damned. Many would no doubt be jealous of the old man and the baby, at least they would be free from more of this.
The misting rain had stopped, and the rising sun was attempting to shine through. Off to the south, he caught a tiny bit of movement in the sky. A bird, but no…it didn’t move like a bird. Its movement was too precise; it looked almost like a tiny plane. He soon realized he wasn’t the only one who saw it. He heard the guards yelling something about drones, a few gunshots rang out, but the drone simply stayed on position hovering.
Then, one of the guard towers exploded in a massive fireball. The next fifteen minutes were a surreal mix of confusion. The guards seemed to be fleeing, the prisoners gathered together for some sense of safety. No one seemed to notice the guards who were dragging the large plastic cases out of the commander’s building.
As more explosions rocked the air, Tre could feel the concussive heat; some were so close. Then, the sound of jets flying low echoed across the fields and forest. He had the briefest glimmer of hope before the canisters landed nearby spraying a white fog. Within minutes, the man who had been Tremaine Simpson was no more. While his body still lay there crumpled in the mud, little else of the man remained. His final thought, Thank you, Lord.
Chapter Forty-Five
Bartos could see the trees thinning and an open area up ahead. Finally, he’d made it through the forest. The sounds of jets passing overhead earlier had buoyed his spirits, although he had no idea whose they were, nor where they were headed. What he could now see was an open pasture surrounding a stand of hardwoods. Solo suddenly blocked his path.
“What the fuck, dude. Why not?” he whispered to Solo.
The dog arched his back again, then brushed a paw against its muzzle, it was his unmistakable sign of hidden danger. Trackers behind herding us…into a fucking ambush. He ducked, reaching out to scratch the dog behind the ears. “Thanks, buddy. You already scoped this out, didn’t you?”
It took nearly an hour longer following the dog before they reached a place the dog indicated was safer. Here, too, Solo gave the danger signal but then locked onto a spot in the far tree line. “Just one over there?” Bartos asked. “Ok, Solo, go play,” he gave the signal of two fingers hitting his palm. “Let me know if you need help.” The dog disappeared into the high grass.
Bartos started belly crawling through the grass in the same direction as Solo. It was easily 200 yards to the trees, which is where he assumed a sniper was likely waiting. Why this one was less dangerous than the other, he didn’t know, but he trusted the dog’s threat assessment. He kept bumping his knee, and with a mostly non-functioning arm, the crawling looked more like a short man throwing a temper tantrum. Halfway across, he heard a single bark. That would be a call for help.
Bartos stood, rifle at the ready and began his hobbling run. He saw Solo darting out of cover and a man in black backing away drawing a handgun. The sound of Bartos’ suppressed rifle spat two, then two more shots, and the man went down. Solo did an immediate turn and headed higher up into the small rise of trees. Bartos dropped again just as a bullet whizzed past mere inches overhead. He heard Solo on the attack again. He stood to run, then he heard a strangled gurgle. He knew the sound well, Solo had gotten his man. So, they had stationed multiple snipers—smart.
He quickly searched both bodies, taking the packs and briefly grabbing one of the M40 sniper rifles and ammo. Carrying two rifles proved too difficult in his condition and impractical, so reluctantly, he dropped the heavier M40.
The sniper’s shot had to have been heard, so they wasted no time moving on past the ambush and soon came up to a paved road. Shit, no vehicles. “Looks like we’re still hoofing it, friend.” The bloody dog wagged his tail. “More playtime?” Bartos asked somewhat rhetorically. “Yeah…most likely.” The watch began to buzz as the alarm he’d set earlier went off. He crouched low, raised the radio, set the frequency and pushed the talk switch. “Gopher to BikerBoi, you home?” He had to make this fast. Pick up, Goddamnit.
“About time, Cajun,” was the near-instant response.
Archangel had clearly heard the shot and immediately broke cover and radio silence. “Vincent, I am on the move, reroute birds to cover sector 5. Get that fire team on the radio to find out what they were shooting at.” He was already removing the camo netting and limbs covering the LSV tactical utility vehicle. The Light Strike Force Mark II was an off-road beast designed for the Singapore Army. It was part off-road jeep, part recreational all-terrain vehicle and completely bad-ass. While designed for stealth, the thing bristled with offensive weaponry including a grenade launcher and multiple mounting points for high caliber automatics. Today, it was simply transportation, though…for now.
Vincent’s subdued reply came back in moments. “Angel, no comms reply on fire team Echo. Drone coverage in four.” Vincent paused before continuing, “Something else, Angel, we have been recalled back to the aid camp. It’s under attack. Guess you saw the birds earlier.”
Archangel hit the steering wheel as he started the engine. “Fuck!” The bastard had slipped right by him. “Screw the recall, we are getting this guy.”
“No-can-do, Angel. The NSF guys already got orders to redeploy. They are being picked up now and heading back toward Jackson. Just you and me and Alpha and Charlie fire teams down by you.”
Archangel drove like a man possessed. Tree limbs swatted at him, but he didn’t slow. He knew where the escapee would need to cross, and he wanted to be
at him there.
“Birds on station. Two friendlies down, one appears to have been …holy shit, mauled maybe. No sign of target.”
Fuck, who is this guy? Archangel knew he was being out-played. That was just something that didn’t happen.
“Vincent, take the birds high and south of the road, see if you can get anything on IR.”
“Birds have been orbiting that sector for hours. We were watching the guy on the bike, but he went dark a few hours ago. Ground temp is too high to get much of anything on FLIR right now.”
Something tickled the back of his brain. The guy on the bike, he’d moved farther out? The guy they were hunting was heading in a direction that seemed to be going straight for him. Couldn’t be a coincidence. “Do you have a last known position for the cyclist?”
“Yes, twelve miles south of your current location. By road, though, you are looking at closer to forty. Sending you the coordinates now.”
“Copy that,” Archangel replied.
Ten minutes later, he stood over the remnants of Echo team. One was shot, the other was nearly in pieces. That man’s throat was gone, and a huge patch of skin was torn from his face. Angel knew this wasn’t just from a human predator. While his mission was now two-hours back up the road at the attack on the camp, he just couldn’t let this go. He needed this man, he wanted to know what other member of the Guard was involved and…I really want to kill that dog.
It took Archangel over two and a half hours to get to the location. He’d stopped to pick up one of the members of Charlie team to ride shotgun. Vincent would be picking up Alpha and the lone member of the other fire team when he came through. He slowed and checked the GPS. Four miles ahead looked to be a small school, maybe a daycare center. He flipped a switch, and the heavily modified vehicle’s engine shut off. The propulsion immediately switched to four silent electric motors, each independently driving the wheels of the machine.
They silently approached to within a half mile of the building before pulling far up into the woods and covering the LSV. Both men unloaded gear and packs and began trotting through the woods to a likely spot. “You sure he will come through here?” the other man asked.
Archangel’s withering look silenced the man. “Vincent, on location, any activity?”
From the interference, he could tell Vincent was mobile now, no doubt heading in this direction. “Negative, Angel, we lost coverage for a few minutes when one of the birds went down, but no changes noticed. Cyclist should still be holed up, and the target hasn’t shown.”
“Roger that.” He didn’t like the break in coverage, but it happened. Doing the math, he knew the escapee could have made it the twelve miles by now, but he didn’t think this guy would have been in that good of condition. Unless…unless… Nah. He admittedly was mentally hoping the target wouldn’t be a fellow Praetor. The one thing he wouldn’t do was kill or capture one of his brothers.
He positioned the other man seventy-five yards to the east, so they could have as wide a field of fire as possible. He inserted the magazine into the Remington M40 and worked the bolt action to load the single 7.62mm NATO round. While this was no longer a typical sniper mission, you used the tools you had. Vincent would have additional tactical rifles in the Humvee. Fitting the small earbud in, he did a quick radio check, “Charlie-2, this is Bravo-1, do you copy?”
The crisp reply was instant, “Copy, Bravo-1. Mark DTT at 200 meters.” Distance to target is something a spotter would normally relay along with wind speed and other factors. Today, at this short distance, none of that should matter. He began sweeping the scope over the building's windows looking for the cyclist. Come on, you bastard, show yourself.
Chapter Forty-Six
Archangel was struggling with why this had become so personal for him. The escapee had been good, maybe not Praetor level good. He had been spookily accurate so far, and what about the cyclist down there? At the core, he knew there was another Praetor soldier somehow involved. The trigger switch back at the farmers compound had all but confirmed it.
He settled his thoughts, forced his breathing to slow. This was what he did. He became a weapon just as much as the rifle. He’d sat in trees, on mountains, knee deep in muddy swamps for days watching targets. Waiting for the moment to be right. His mind silently did all the calculations for distance, windage, obstacles. The man he was after might be good, but he was the best.
Forty minutes later, Charlie-2 radioed in a whispered voice, “Contact, single male 200 yards south.”
Archangel watched as a man in bike shorts and a t-shirt crossed in front of one of the windows in the brick building. “There’s our cyclist, now who is he waiting for?” The answer came soon enough.
“Angel, we are in position.”
“Roger that.” Good, Vince has finally arrived. He would be deploying the other men now.
A radio squawk and one word, “Movement,” preceded a gunshot.
The target in the building disappeared. “Who shot?”
He heard Vincent doing a comms check. One member of his team was not responding.
“Angel, be aware…”
Another voice cut in, “Multiple targets converging your twenty.” That was the drone operator. Was he talking to him? Fuck, these NSF guys were fucking amateurs. What the hell, he saw nothing. The man in the window was still out of sight.
“Charlie-2, you got anything?” An animalistic snarl echoed from off to his left. It sent an involuntary ripple of fear through his body. Nothing scared him, and the fact that this did, made him want to kill that fucking beast even more.
“Charlie-2, respond.”
He heard sounds of confusion and chaos both over the radio and echoing through the forest. A sniper’s best advantage was always concealment. That was totally fucking gone, he realized. Movement caught his eye. He saw a bald-headed man in green camos limping across the road below heading toward the brick building. He leveled the MOAR reticle just ahead and slightly above the man’s head. He had wanted to take him alive, but he was out of time and patience. He waited for a clear shot. He didn’t want a twig deflecting the massive round.
Out of the corner of his eye, he felt more than saw a red and white blur coming from the direction of Charlie-2. Shit, the dog. Ignore it, go for the kill. He wanted that dog dead, though. His breathing was erratic. He could clearly hear the dog’s approach. His training and conditioning took over as he again focused on the mission and slowly began to squeeze the trigger.
The forest sounds suddenly stopped. The sudden silence jolted him to risk a quick look. The bloody dog was there to his left, seemingly frozen in place ten feet away. Waiting for….what? The menacing voice to his right froze him the same way.
“Angel, you really don’t want to do that.” The shadow fell across his face. The voice continued, “Please don’t make us kill you.”
Archangel pulled his finger out of the trigger guard, rolled over and looked up into the steely eyes of Skybox.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Scott saw Bartos coming out of the woods and rushed out to meet him. “Damn, Cajun, you look like shit.”
“Nice to see you, too, brother,” he said wearily. “Can you help me inside? I have to sit.”
Scott got him inside the brick building. “Where’s Solo?”
“Playing,” was the man’s only response.
Scott got food, water and some pain pills for his friend. “Sky’s out there somewhere. He radioed that he’d found a military vehicle stashed nearby on his way up.”
Bartos’ bald head nodded. “Yeah, he caught me before I blundered out of the woods. Solo is giving him a hand now. I managed to get one, but I know there were more out there. I expect the threat has been eliminated, since I’m still alive.”
The two men had exchanged two brief radio calls earlier in the day. Right on schedule, Bartos had finally checked in. Scott gave him the location, although Solo apparently had already picked up Scott's scent by then.
Scott helped the m
an out of his pack and guns, noticing the purple bruise and swelling. “Shit, man, shoulder broken, knee and face all swollen up―what else did you screw up?”
“Eh—life is a contact sport my friend, you should play sometime. May also have a concussion…again.” He took a long drink from the water bottle. “By the way, Scott, thanks!”
Scott looked confused, “For…?”
“Giving Solo a strong scent to follow. It smells like you haven’t bathed in weeks. He had no trouble leading me straight to you.” He shook his head. “That dog…damn, I owe him big. I was completely blind after the wreck. Still, don’t know how that dog caught up to that Humvee, but damn glad he did.”
Scott proceeded to tell him about what happened in Yokena and driving Solo as far as he could. “We would have come in after you, but…well, shit. They began to bring in the big guns. We had to pull back.”
Bartos laid a hand on his friend’s knee. “It’s okay, man, you did the right thing. You took a chance, though, riding that thing out here,” he pointed at the bike.
“Guy on a bike is not a threat, remember?”
They both stopped talking as a military Humvee pulled up outside and three guys exited, guns at the ready. Two of them were in black uniforms, the last was an enormous black man in a gray camo t-shirt.
“Oh, fuck,” they said collectively.
