Impact | Book 6 | Dig

by Isherwood, E. E.

  “Actually,” Ezra countered, “there are three of us and five of you, but we already have guns pointed at your backs.” He motioned to the end of the box, where Butch and Haley guarded the doors. They were in the light, and still covered with splotches of dried blood, which made them appear like crazed serial killers, giving him a spur of the moment idea. “And the blood on our shirts is from the last bunch of guys who refused our offer.”

  The lead man’s hands went up. “Whoa! Hey. We don’t want any trouble.” Luckily, the other men followed suit. A standoff would have taken time…and he didn’t have time to give.

  Ezra hurriedly went on. “I’m giving you boys a chance to walk out alive. Drop your guns. Jump off the truck. You’ll still technically be in the fight, so you can still get paid. You also avoid the gunfight at the town where lots of people are going to die, so you’re welcome. I have only one demand. DO IT NOW!”

  The men dropped their rifles, then filed out. Butch nodded confirmation when they’d jumped.

  Ezra leaned heavily against the wall of the container, adrenaline draining. “I don’t know what I would have done if they’d refused.”

  “It would have been messy,” Butch agreed.

  He came out of the box, ready for the next task. “We have to get up to the cab of the truck. Any ideas on how to do it safely?” They were moving at about twenty-five miles an hour, as best he could guess. The crack of rifle shots echoed out in the rocky scrub lands, as if some of the men in boxes up ahead were already taking pot shots at the town. A civilian helicopter hovered low, a couple of miles out to their side, perhaps observing or even coordinating the attack. The five men he’d tossed overboard were already making their way in that direction, possibly thinking they’d flag down the aircraft.

  Time continued to get away from him.

  There was no time to overthink it. Ezra moved to the front of the trailer on the driver’s side. “I’m going to go this way. Butch, you go for the passenger door. Haley, you cover us.”

  “Will do,” she said, clenching her rifle. “Don’t forget that bitch is up front. You’ve got to take her out, too.”

  “Solid copy,” Butch replied, planting a kiss on the cheek of his overly fit partner.

  Ezra hurriedly made the easy jump to the back of the red semi’s cab, but getting around the sleeper section appeared daunting. He’d need to grip a handle and swing his way over the cylindrical gas tank, then hold on to the exhaust piping until he could hop to the front step. There was no way to do it while holding a pistol.

  “Crap,” he exclaimed, looking around for options. He could shoot out the tires in about five seconds, but he needed the truck to get to town. Disabling it wasn’t what he wanted. He took a deep breath, tucked his pistol in his belt, and lined up his approach. “Here goes nothing…”

  He jumped.

  Anticline Ranch, WY

  After telling Dorothy and Aarons his plan, they both looked at him with indecision in their eyes. Was his plan exceptionally brilliant, or profoundly dumb? The former, of course. It took their simple minds time to process it.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “Sir, we have fifty engines ready to move the ore out on the train cars. We’ve kept the depot open. The tracks are open…”

  Petteri rejected him with a brush of his hand. “I know all about the engines. I’m glad the depot is still open. It ensures my plan will work, don’t you think?”

  Aarons stood by the map on the table. He eventually pointed to it. “Sir, we’ve noticed it’s very easy to spot vehicle movement on the dusty gravel roads of the anticline. I recommend you send a group of trucks here and here, to confuse the enemy and protect the convoy of ore.” He tapped the map on either side of a hand-drawn X, which marked the location of the asteroid remnant.

  “Ah, brilliant tactical thinking,” he exclaimed, before tempering himself. “I was going to mention the same thing.”

  The security man nodded.

  “Get the trucks moving, Mr. Aarons. All of them. I want every bit of the remaining ore dug up and carried away as they evacuate.” There wasn’t much left on the ground.

  “There are two hundred dump trucks, at least. It will take hours to move them all. What if the depot is gone by the time they arrive?”

  Petteri shrugged. “That’s your problem, not mine. Make sure it doesn’t fall.”

  “You want me to go to the soda ash plant?”

  His plan depended on keeping the enemy from taking over the rail yard at the plant. Loading the hoppers would take time. Rolling the trains out would take even more. As long as those operations were ongoing, the enemy would be the cat chasing his laser pointer. Aarons was the only man he trusted to get the job done. On the other hand, he was also the only man Petteri trusted enough with his personal security. That had to take priority.

  Petteri pretended to really think hard about it, before relenting. “No, I can’t spare you. You’ll travel with me in my mobile RV command center. However, before we go, I want you to get the decoy convoys set up as well as put your best men in charge of the defense of the soda ash plant. Promise to make those men billionaires if they can keep it open until the ore is out of this valley. If it all gets to my refinery in Canada, true wealth will flow like a volcano into the pockets of our trusted team members.” He looked into Mr. Aaron’s eyes. “That includes you.”

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  Craig reached the door before Petteri thought of one more thing he wanted to say. “Mr. Aarons?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve decided your beard isn’t so bad anymore. It’s been hard working with you after Howard, and the beard took some getting used to. However, like I said, it’s not bad.” He didn’t actually like it, but events had pushed him far beyond like and dislike. His compliment was one more brick in his ongoing efforts to cultivate a solid wall of loyalty.

  Aarons gave him a martial salute, executed a curt about-face, then walked out of the ranch house. With the compliment in his pocket, Petteri was positive the man would go out of his way to prove himself worthy of being graced by someone so important.

  All his attention returned to Dorothy. “Things are looking up, dear. Way up!” He was almost giddy looking at the roof and knowing what was in space above them. “What do you have for me from our little side project?”

  She pointed to the land-based laptop screen. “The maintenance drones are on the move. They’re spreading out, heading for their re-entry windows. It won’t be long.”

  It wasn’t much to look at on her screen. Eighteen little green dots flashed at the ends of dashed purple lines. A computerized sphere representing the Earth sat in the background. Small squares pockmarked the middle of a map of the United States like bad acne. Each square represented an impact point of his lost asteroid pieces. There were far more squares than dots, but he and Dorothy had picked out the biggest and best targets.

  “As long as we are on for the fireworks?”

  “We are, sir,” she smirked.

  “Nothing can stop us now,” he said with relief.

  Chapter 19

  Boulder, WY

  “Mr. Runs Hard, what are we going to do?” Grace and Asher followed Shawn and Logan into the convenience store. They went through the stock room and came out in a small patio area with about ten thousand cigarette butts scattered on the gravel nearby.

  “We’re going to use our secret weapon.” He pointed up an aluminum ladder, which had been propped against the back wall.

  “Up there?” she asked with confusion.

  “Yep. I’ll go last, on account of my leg.”

  Logan hopped on. “I’ll go first.”

  “Follow him,” Shawn insisted, the playfulness gone.

  Once on the roof, there wasn’t much time left for planning. The semitrucks were less than a mile away, though they were no longer advancing only along the highway.

  “What the hell?” Asher blurted out, once he’d made it up the ladder.

 
“It looks like they’re spreading out…” Grace replied, not sure what to make of it. The first truck had turned left and driven onto the flat, rocky terrain out there. The next truck had slowed, and was lining up to exit the opposite side of the highway. Ten more eighteen-wheelers were behind those two.

  “This is what I wanted to show you.” Shawn motioned her to the instantly recognizable Lahti anti-tank gun.

  “But there’s no more ammo for it,” she said with disappointment.

  “You have a lot to learn about the resourcefulness of the Crow Nation. We had three days to create the parts we needed to manufacture a hundred rounds of ammunition. We even made several of these fancy magazines to go with them.” He pointed to what looked like a picnic lunch next to the rifle. About ten shiny metal ammo boxes sat on a colorful blanket adorned with native symbols.

  “That’s amazing,” she said in awe.

  “And, to cap it off, we brought a bona fide US Army sniper. My nephew Tom here spent four years in Afghanistan. He has experience with old Russian arms, so this Finnish rifle wasn’t hard for him to master.”

  A young man squatted near the end of the Lahti, surveying the gear on the blanket. He was darker-skinned than his uncle, with short black hair and a tightly-wound leather necklace. It looked like he’d lived his whole life outdoors.

  “This isn’t the most accurate rifle,” Tom replied, without turning around. After peering over the wall a few moments, he cranked a hand-sized wheel on the right side of the huge gun, then picked up a magazine box. He carefully fit it into a matching hole on top of a blocky section of the weapon. She was fascinated by the loading process. Misha had done all that in the back of her truck, where she couldn’t see it. There was a loud click when Tom flicked something near the trigger, then he finally did look back.

  “You might want to cover your ears,” Tom declared.

  The heavy rifle had been set upon the two-foot high brick outer wall protecting the flat roof. Tom lined up his shot using metal barbs which hung over the left side, then squeezed the trigger. The concussion kicked up dust all over the roof.

  “Truck hit!” he cried out.

  A car alarm went off on the parking lot below as a result of the ground-shaking blast. She figured it had to be the one belonging to the store clerk.

  Tom laughed. “I love setting off alarms with this thing!”

  Grace ducked down, sure they would soon become prime targets. Logan and Shawn drew their rifles, anxious to join in. She and Asher needed to do the same, but she hesitated.

  Tom fired again. The force of the gun blew her hair back.

  “Dang,” she said with awe. “It seems even louder than when it went off inside my truck.”

  Tom paused his shooting and glanced over to her. “You fired this from inside a truck? Sweet.”

  She resisted taking the credit. “I didn’t fire it. I was driving.”

  “On the move? Even more badass!” Tom smiled appreciatively, then looked down the sights again. “Firing!”

  The next boom registered out in the field as the exposed gas tank of the third or fourth turning truck exploded. As she watched, the driver threw himself out the door, barely avoiding the plume of fire rushing around the side of his cab.

  The truck rolled to a stop on the rocky ground, though it appeared as if the men in the shipping container weren’t going to leave. Their black rifle barrels stuck out from the side, firing like mad.

  “Aim for the drivers!” Shawn yelled to the people on the roof with him.

  It seemed like a safe thing to say. Grace knew her dad wouldn’t be driving one of the trucks, though she couldn’t say for certain if he was in one of the cabs with the drivers. That prevented her from shooting at all.

  “What’s wrong?” Asher asked, immediately recognizing something was on her mind.

  “Dad said he was coming to me. That means he’s in one of those trucks. If I fire on them, I could kill my own father.” She looked at all the other shooters, realizing there were already a hundred different guns aimed at her dad.

  “Which one are you on?” she asked distantly, as if in a living nightmare.

  Outside Boulder, WY

  Prior to the asteroid disaster, Ezra wouldn’t have considered himself to be in peak condition. He was in his mid-forties, comfortable in his quiet life at the lake, and content to do low-impact activities with Susan. However, the past week had leveled up his fitness, as well as his mental acuity.

  He needed both skills to jump to the handhold, grab it, and not fall off.

  “Oof!” he cried out, despite knowing it might call attention to himself.

  The side mirror for the big rig was huge, so the driver saw him right away. The TKM guy looked out with surprise at first, but then he began yelling. Red hair flashed on the far side of the passenger compartment. It meant Nerio was already aware of his presence.

  Ezra lined up his next acrobatic maneuver. Ignoring the driver, he put his foot on the gas tank, then launched himself forward toward the steps up to the door. If the truck had moved six inches to the right, he’d have gone face-first onto the pavement. At least, that’s what he imagined in the brief moment in the air before he latched on to the door.

  “Pull over!” he yelled.

  He yanked out his pistol with one hand, glad he’d already cycled the round and had the safety off. Doing both with one hand would have been beyond his skillset.

  “I said, PULL OVER!” He tried to use the same tone of voice that worked on the five men in the back, but he was outside, and the diesel engine overpowered most of his authority.

  Looking forward, the trucks in the line ahead of him were splitting apart. Some had turned to the right, out of his view. Others turned into the open ground to the left. It appeared their tactic was to get the containers a couple hundred yards outside of town, then turn them to the side like sailing ships, so they could lay fire onto the enemy fleet. There wasn’t much time before his driver would turn sideways, putting them both closer to the return shots coming from town.

  He aimed the pistol and fired through the window, intending to put the round through the roof of the cab. The shattering glass sprayed all over him, causing him to duck reflexively.

  Screams came from inside the truck. Female screams.

  Ezra hopped to the top step, which allowed him a peek inside. When his eyes met those of the driver, he raised his pistol to the sill of the window.

  “Stop this truck,” he said in a calm voice.

  The guy leered as he yanked the wheel to the right. The door came open at the same time.

  “Shit!” Ezra yelped, dropping his pistol as he latched on to the swinging door being carried outward by momentum.

  The driver had to steady the rig, which flung the door right back toward the cab. It slammed hard, almost making Ezra lose his grip. The driver looked as if he was going to repeat the maneuver, but more loud shots ripped through the cab.

  Butch appeared in the far window, behind Nerio, who was watching Ezra. They’d been together long enough to know each other’s silent signaling. When Butch flicked his head to one side, Ezra ducked.

  More shots exploded inside the cab.

  Nerio screeched in fury.

  Ezra was about to pop his head up when the door flung open again. He was a bit more prepared for it, so he hung tight as it whipped around.

  At the same time, the driver tumbled from the opening and slammed to the ground like a crash test dummy. They weren’t going faster than twenty, so it wasn’t instant death, but Ezra couldn’t miss all the blood on the man from being shot.

  His door was swinging back in when someone shoved it.

  Nerio tumbled through the opening, making a somewhat graceless exit from the moving truck. She carried her sniper rifle with her, and she protected it as she executed an impressive roll onto the shoulder. The redheaded woman rebounded into a crouching position by the time the flatbed trailer rumbled past her. Her black cat suit and gymnastics presentation accentuated
her nine-lives survival skills.

  The woman cursed at him in Spanish, though he didn’t understand a word.

  He flipped her the universal bird as he climbed into the cabin.

  Butch was already inside.

  The truck was theirs.

  Boulder, WY

  The Lahti produced a sound approximately like two hammers striking her temples from opposite sides. Each time it went off, she winced in pain. How Tom could lay there and repeatedly fire the gun was a testament to his skill. For her part, she tried to tune out the war going on around her and instead look for clues where to find her dad. She had Asher on the same task.

  “He’ll give us a sign, I’m sure of it. He’s probably in one of those containers, shooting up the bad guys.”

  Asher answered. “I don’t see anything of—” A bullet zinged by, creating a whir of air that seemed close. They both ducked down. Ten more rounds plinked off the store’s sign near the front of the roof.

  He continued, brushing his curly hair back. “Wow, almost got a free haircut there. I don’t see anyone out there signaling us.”

  “It might not be obvious. We have to keep searching.” She raised her head above the cinder-block wall. Almost immediately, she noticed the red truck at the end of the line swerve on the road, then straighten back up.

  He saw it, too. “Could that be him?”

  They watched as a man hung on the side of the cab, using the door to swing out, then back in. Then the man swung on the door a second time.

  “What the hell?” she blurted.

  A different man fell from the truck. Even from a quarter of a mile away, the impact of the body on pavement sickened her. Still, the first man hung on to the door as it slowly closed again.

  A second person fell out of the truck. She also noticed a man hanging on to the door on the other side of the semi. He’d been there all along, but the truck had been shifting directions, blocking him from her view. “That’s him swinging on the door,” she said, somehow knowing.