“Directions coming up,” Pam called out as she started punching buttons.
“Make it fast,” Tom ordered. He was driving blindly through the dark streets, not knowing if he was headed in the right direction since there were no longer any signs.
“Up ahead, take a left at the second street, then go a kilometer and turn right. It looks like that will put us on the road to the border. We should be able to make good time. It shows that it’s all paved roads.”
Tom made all the turns as instructed but then brought the SUV to a quick and sudden stop. The road was blocked a half a kilometer further down by the Brigade. It was a huge roadblock manned by dozens of men. As Tom stared at the road, he realized that he had stopped the SUV sideways, with the passenger side facing the roadblock. It was an inviting target, and almost instantly the windows became filled with a lead rain. The team, realizing the danger before Tom had, scrabbled to duck below the window frames and get behind the armored doors. As she dropped, Pam yanked Ashrawl down even further and Tom pulled Ron down with him. The hail of lead shattered what remained of the side windows and spider-webbed the window of the cargo area.
“I need another route!” Tom shouted as he gunned the SUV in a tight circle bringing it around for a charge back up the street they had arrived on. With the SUV being subjected to a barrage of gun fire, Tom was forced to make the maneuver without looking as he had sunk down in the seat as low as possible. When he finally risked a quick glance, Tom was startled by the large car blocking the street he was diving into. He never slowed down, and the two vehicles met a couple of dozen yards up the street. Just before the collision, several men tried to jump from the car but they had waited too long. Tom barely had time to scream, “Brace yourselves,” before the impact.
There was loud screeching sound and a bone-jarring thump as the two vehicles met. They didn’t meet metal on metal, but rather the car impacted the tires of the big SUV. The speed at which the SUV was traveling sent it up and over the top of the car. The weight of the armored SUV overwhelmed the frame of the smaller vehicle, crushing it instantly. There was a sickening crunch of metal mixed with shrill cries of anguish as the car’s roof caved in upon the passengers. The roof was forced down halfway through the passenger compartment, trapping or killing everyone inside. The collision sparked a fire under the car’s hood which rapidly blossomed into roaring flames. The impact tossed everyone inside the SUV about but did not inflict any major additional damage to the vehicle or its passengers.
Tom quickly shook off the impact and reversed the SUV to escape the burning wreckage. Unfortunately, the only place he could go back to was the main road. Instantly, the SUV was lambasted by the defenders of the barricade. Tom swung the SUV around until it was facing the barricade head on, its windscreen taking the brunt of the attack.
“I’m hit,” Alex yelled out as he did his best to slide lower in the seat.
“Get me another route!” Tom shouted as he straightened himself up in his seat.
“There isn’t another route to the border. We have to go straight ahead!” Pam yelled over the noise of the gunfire from her perch on the floor behind Tom’s seat.
“Ashrawl has been hit. Shoulder wound!” Pam called out as she dragged Ashrawl back to the center of the seat and began dressing his wound. Ashrawl wasn’t wearing body armor so she wedged him in between her and Alex in an effort to provide him some protection.
“Where’s our backup?” screamed Mike from the rear as he watched men run up the street towards them.
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” Tom replied.
“Use the machine guns!” Alex called out from the back seat as Pam tried to stem the flow of blood from Ashrawl’s shoulder wound.
Tom started punching buttons on the steering wheel without success as the fire continued from the barricade. As the seconds passed, Tom wondered how long the windshield would hold. The impact from the rain of lead was causing the windshield to spider-web and starburst, making it almost impossible to see through. Tom could swear he could see the glass flex with each round’s impact.
Ron took this opportune moment to regain consciousness and watched Tom randomly punch the buttons on the steering wheel. Finally, he reached over and flicked two switches. The deep staccato of the guns filled the SUV as a steady stream of machine gun fire was directed at the barricade ahead.
“There you go,” Ron stated as he slouched back to the passenger seat.
Tom watched as the machine guns raked back and forth over the barricade dispersing the defenders. Then, suddenly, they went silent. “Shit!” Tom swore.
Pam blurted out the obvious, “That’s not good.”
“We got company coming in the rear door. I recommend we leave and leave now,” Mike yelled from the rear while firing his MP10 at the advancing men.
Tom hesitated. His mind raced as he tried to gauge whether or not they had a chance of surviving a charge through the barricade. He doubted it; but if they didn’t move and move soon, they’d be dead where they sat.
“Get this piece of shit moving! I can’t hold them off,” Mike yelled.
“Go, Tom. Go!” Pam yelled as she leaned out what had been the backseat passenger side window and fired a couple of bursts in support of Mike’s efforts.
Tom finally reacted and jammed the gas pedal to the floor. The SUV leapt forward and they were flying headlong towards the barricade. Tom hoped to God that Ron was right about this thing being as tough as a tank.
Just then, their guardian angel finally arrived and Nate, the pilot, called out glibly over the comlink, “Here, let me open the door for you.” Before Tom could reply, two rockets raced past the SUV and slammed into the barricade. The explosion sent debris and shrapnel in all directions.
The explosion’s shockwave even battered the SUV as it bore down on the barricade with some the debris pinging off of it. A fifty-five gallon drum, which was blown out of the barricade, slammed into the passenger side of their front grill. As advertised, however, the SUV continued charging right through it despite the contents—sand and metal shavings—bursting out all over the SUV.
The team collectively sighed with relief as they slipped past what they had thought was the worst of the danger. Behind them the chopper raked the barricade with machine gun fire, forcing the defenders to keep their heads down and giving the team a few more seconds to get out of range.
A few seconds after the chopper broke off the attack, it had become the new main target just that quickly. Nate broke away swiftly to the right and climbed for altitude escaping the range of the RPGs and small arms. He then swung around and began sweeping the road ahead of the SUV, a practice called ‘plowing the road.’
From his vantage point, five hundred meters in the air just under the radar deck, he could see the lights of the border crossing ahead. The team had maybe five or six kilometers before they reached the Israeli border.
“Man, are we glad to see you!” Tom called out to the chopper pilot. “If you hadn’t shown up when you did, we’d probably be barbecue back there.”
“Glad I could be of service. You’ve got only a few kilometers to go before you reach the border. I can only follow you for a little bit longer. I’ll have to break off and head for the barn before the Israelis spot me,” Nate informed Tom.
“Roger that,” Tom said and then added, “Thanks for all the help, Nate. Godspeed. Next time you’re on the island, the beer is on me.”
“Now, that I won’t miss,” Nate replied.
The SUV continued down the road with Tom having to squint between the spider-webbing on the windshield to see where he was going.
Pam called out directions as she referred to the Internet map. “We need to take this road two kilometers and then take another right. The border crossing should be about four kilometers down that road.”
“Remind me!” Tom hollered out. Tom’s attention was focused on the shaking and rattling noises the SUV was making. He wondered if the beast would make it that far. The en
gine lights hadn’t come on, although he doubted that it was an honest indicator of the engine’s true condition anyway. The tires, although they had obvious holes in the tread as noted by the regular thumps, were still rolling along.
Finally, they made the much anticipated right hand turn onto the border access road. It was a wide, modern roadway made of asphalt with a large number of houses lining it. Thankfully, the SUV was still chugging along as they went into the home stretch.
The terrain here was low rolling hills with a few scattered trees and rocky outcroppings. The vast majority of the nearby homes were set at least a hundred meters back off the roadway into the low hills that ran alongside the road. Tom started to feel they had made it upon seeing the glow of the border crossing in the distance, but the feeling was short-lived. Several white streaks suddenly raced out of the darkness from both sides of the road and met at the SUV.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The SUV rocked violently absorbing the blows from four rocket propelled grenades. Everyone inside the vehicle was battered by the blasts leaving them semi-conscious and disoriented. The two cargo area windows were blown out leaving only the windshield and the cargo hatch window in place.
Pam quickly shook off the effects and assessed the team’s injuries. They were mounting up fast. Tom had smashed his head into the front roof pylon and was still seeing stars. Alex had banged heads with the still-unconscious Ashrawl, opening a large cut over his right eye that was bleeding profusely. Ashrawl, after the collision with Alex, also had a cut on his face as evidenced by the blood soaking through the hood and was now moaning on a regular basis. Mike had been knocked momentarily unconscious, leaving him with blurred vision and a headache. Ron’s head had been slammed hard against the door causing it to begin bleeding again and adding to his concussion. Pam herself had been tossed halfway out of the shattered driver’s side rear seat window. She received several cuts to both of her arms—though none were serious—and a cut above her left eye that was bleeding profusely. The rocket impacts also blew away several large pieces of cowling and all the equipment from the roof of the SUV, but the damage went unnoticed by the team in the chaos.
Dazed by the impact, Tom’s foot had slipped off the gas, and it took several seconds before he realized the SUV was losing speed. Immediately, he stomped on the gas pedal, but the SUV’s engine only coughed and sputtered. Though he was dazed and had blurry vision, Tom noticed there was black smoke and yellow flames flickering out from under the hood. His heart sank.
Examining the hood further, he saw there was a deep depression in the center of the hood. It looked as though some giant had smashed his fist down into it. The cratering in the center of the hood had forced the sides of it upwards making it appear as though the SUV had grown wings.
“Archangel, Archangel! What’s your status?” Nate, the chopper pilot, called out as he strafed the tree line on the right side of the road where two of the rockets had come from.
“What the hell was that?” Tom managed to reply.
“RPGs or small rockets, maybe. I think there were four of them. What’s your status?” Archangel asked.
Tom looked around and replied, “Not very good. We’ve sustained serious damage. The truck is barely running.”
“Push it. You’ve got attackers closing on three sides. I’m strafing all I can, but it’s starting to get a little hairy up here,” Nate stated as the attackers opened up on him with heavy amounts of small arms fire, forcing him to swing away again—but only for a moment. Nate circled back around and began strafing woods on the left side of the road. Then, after several seconds, he circled back to the right and strafed that side again. It seemed to slow the attackers down, but only until he swung away to suppress from the other side of the road.
Tom did his best to coax the wounded SUV on. Pam went to work trying to stop the bleeding from Alex’s latest head wound. Thankfully, Ron remained unconscious and Mike, though dazed, could function on his own.
Tom hoped the SUV would hold out long enough to reach the border or at least get them within a few hundred meters. It was their only hope for keeping the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade from finishing them off.
Ron stirred and asked where they were, while gingerly touching the new knot forming on his forehead. Tom did his best to explain where they were and Ron nodded.
“Why do we seem to be moving in slow motion?” Ron asked.
“I think that last RPG attack did a number on the engine. I’ve got smoke and a small fire under the hood—well, what’s left of the hood—and I can’t get any speed out the beast.”
Ron forced himself to sit up as straight as he could since the shooting had stopped. The lull gave him a chance to take a good look around and to check the gauges and flashing lights on the dashboard and steering wheel. After checking over the warning indicators, he leaned out the window and tried to look under the hood at the small fire.
The hood was bent and twisted with flared sides and a puncture in the center of it. Small flames were dancing along the edges of the hood as black smoke billowed up and out from under it. It was thick enough that it blocked his view of the road ahead. He assumed there was damage to the fuel line and the leaking gas had somehow been ignited.
“Switch to four-wheel drive,” Ron ordered Tom. “The red and black button under the flashing red one on the left side of the wheel—there’s a ‘4W’ on it.”
“What? Haven’t we been in four-wheel drive?” Tom replied as he searched for the button.
“No. We’ve been in automatic four-wheel drive. It allows the computer to decide when the tires are losing grip and then switches to four-wheel drive or not based on—”
Tom held up his hand cutting Ron off, not caring what the reasoning might be. “Okay, okay. I’m switching to four-wheel drive.”
The SUV lunged forward and its speed began slowly increasing. Some of the rattles even seemed to have decreased. The smoke billowing from under the hood was now being blown downward and out the bottom of the engine compartment. The air flow change provided Tom a clearer field of view. Unfortunately, the stronger air flow caused the flames to grow bigger and brighter.
“Now, push the Halon button. It’s on the left dash panel, right next to the vent. It’ll put the fire out,” Ron instructed. Tom complied after taking a moment to locate the switch.
“How’s the team holding up?” Ron asked.
Pam spoke up before Tom could formulate what to say. “Steve’s still unconscious. Alex has several small facial lacerations, a concussion and a GSW to the left shoulder. I’ve got a few cuts and bruises. Mike probably has a concussion and Tom probably does, too. Our prize has several cuts and bruises and a GSW to his left shoulder as well. How are you doing?”
“I’ll live, maybe. How far is it to the border?” Ron inquired as he gingerly touched the goose egg on his forehead again.
“I think about three kilometers, maybe four,” Pam responded.
“Not good,” Ron lamented. “Not good.”
“What do you mean? Not good?” Tom asked, his voice filled with concern.
“About a kilometer from the border there is a series of curves. The Brigade likes to set up barricades and ambushes there. They’ll probably be waiting for us. They’ve used that spot several times to ambush the Israelis,” Ron pointed out.
“So how do we get around it?” Tom asked.
“I think we’ve got company again!” yelled Mike from the rear as several pings and dings could be heard from AK rounds ricocheting off the rear of the SUV.
“Shit! She won’t go any faster!” Tom bellowed.
“Fire the rear Gatling gun!” Ron urged.
Tom started looking for the switch, but it was taking too long. Ron leaned over and punched the two buttons himself. With the auto tracking system engaged, the Gatling gun quickly found the two trucks racing up behind them. In less than ten seconds, the rounds shredded the engine compartments, cabs and gas tanks with its armor piercing rounds.
The tw
o trucks exploded as their gas tanks were punctured, spilling bodies, debris and flames across the roadway. The two trucks trailing them steered around the wreckage and continued the chase. Tom pressed the two buttons on the steering wheel again, but instead of hearing the Gatling gun tat-tat-tat again, there was only silence.
“Shit! We’re out of shells for the rear gun. How about the thirties on the roof?” Ron asked, but no one answered. “Tom, fire the thirties at the bastards!” Ron commanded.
“I’ve got no light for the thirties. In fact, I’ve got no lights for anything on the roof. It all must have been blown off by the RPGs.” Tom blurted out as he weaved to the left and then quickly back to the right, trying to avoid being an easy target.
“Damn it, man. I let you drive for a few minutes and you wreck my ride. I hope you’ve got insurance,” Ron ribbed Tom sarcastically.
“Blow it out your ass! What do I do now? Where do I go?” Tom yelled.
“There isn’t any other way. We have to go straight ahead. Put the pedal to the metal, and just ram your way through. Use the front Gatling,” Ron directed.
Tom found the button and did a quick, short burst. The loud, staccato notes were music to their ears.
The two trucks behind were quickly closing the distance. It fell to Pam, Alex and Mike to try to hold them off with their MP10s. Pam and Alex took turns leaning out the window on the driver’s side and firing short bursts before quickly ducking back inside to avoid being pegged by any return fire. Tom kept weaving sharply, making them hard targets to hit and keeping the number of rounds flying through the interior of the SUV to a minimum. After a couple of minutes and two kilometers, the attackers dropped back.
“They’re dropping back!” Mike called out.
“Here come the series of curves!” Ron called out. “As we round the second curve, Pam and Alex, hold your MP10s out of the windows near the top of the frame and fire in a spray pattern off to the sides. Tom and I will hold ours out low on the sill and point them straight ahead. Keep your heads inside the SUV and duck down low. Make sure you have a full clip in before we get there. When we get close to the barricade, everybody stop firing and duck as low as you can.”
Reprisal!- The Gauntlet Page 18
