Wolfe Trap

by S L Shelton

  Wilson stared for a moment as Mark noted a tug of worry at the corner of the marshal’s mouth. “We’ve got this,” the marshal said before turning away and leaving the back of the vehicle.

  Mark watched as the deputy marshals, eleven in all, gathered around Wilson for instructions.

  “Stay sharp, fellas. It’s a four-hour trip. I want a close sandwich on the transport at all times—no more than twenty meters between vehicles,” he said. “Keep your radios close and call out anything you see that rubs you the wrong way.”

  “Are you expecting trouble from our boy, boss?” one of the men asked.

  Wilson looked over his shoulder at Mark, who was still watching the scene. “Just keep your eyes open. Don’t stop for anything.”

  Mark could tell that put everyone on edge.

  Good, he thought. A little fear keeps a man sharp.

  Two of the deputy marshals climbed into the back of the transport with Mark before the door closed and then latched from the outside. The men took their seats, one on either side and looked at Mark tensely.

  After a moment, the truck lurched forward and they began to move at a quick pace. Mark leaned forward. “Keep your safeties off, fellas,” he said in a low, serious tone. “This could get ugly.”

  The two deputy marshals looked at each other, exchanging worried glances. Gaines leaned back and closed his eyes, listening for anything that could signal trouble.

  An hour and twenty-five minutes into the journey, the truck began to slow, rousing Mark’s attention. When it came to a halt, the two deputy marshals began peering out of their gun ports.

  “I’m coming back,” came the voice of Marshal Wilson over the radios.

  When the door clanked open, Wilson climbed in. “Tim, you go up to the lead vehicle,” Wilson said. “I’ll take over back here.”

  “Yes sir,” the deputy replied and climbed down out of the back before closing the door again.

  “What’s going on, boss?” the remaining man asked.

  “The spillway on a reservoir opened sometime this morning and washed the road out,” he replied. “The road crew says the gully is eight feet deep…no way to cross.”

  “Did you actually see the washout?” Mark asked from within his cage.

  Wilson nodded before continuing. “We’ll have to double back a few miles and connect up on the alternate route.”

  The junior marshal nodded and then after a moment of reflection, asked, “Why’d you come back here?”

  Wilson looked at him with pause.

  “Because when the shit goes down, he’s not sure you guys would unchain me to help in the fight,” Mark volunteered for Wilson.

  Wilson slowly turned his head after seeing the questioning stare on his deputy’s face. “I actually came back to have a little discussion with you,” he said somberly. “I’m not jumping to any conclusions yet.”

  “You can’t turn back anyway. They’d have that covered,” Mark replied dismissively. “For your sake and mine, I hope I’m just being paranoid.”

  Wilson leaned closer. “I hope so too,” he replied in a lowered voice. “But reservoirs don’t usually just open on their own.”

  Mark nodded and leaned back. He realized he had an understanding with the marshal now; he just wished they had come to it before they’d left Norfolk.

  The convoy awkwardly maneuvered around before continuing back the way they had come, turning at the intersection where they picked up the alternate route. Thirty minutes later, Mark heard it before it hit: the sound of a shoulder-fired rocket.

  “Down!” Mark screamed as he got as low as his chains would allow. In front of them, the sound and shock wave of the lead SUV exploding buffeted the walls of the transport. Mark looked up just as the carcass of the vehicle dropped back to the ground, engulfed in flames. There was no possibility of anyone having survived.

  The armored transport slammed on its brakes to avoid crashing into the burning SUV, sending the two marshals and their prisoner tumbling to the front of the prisoner compartment. Wilson was on his radio as soon as Mark called out the warning. “Team one, come in,” he yelled into the mic.

  “They’re done, and the road is blocked!” Mark yelled, peering through the narrow window in the front of cab. “Get us turned around.”

  “Team two, back out of here and cover the transport while we turn around,” Wilson said into the mic as he moved to a gun port to look out of the side.

  “There’s no place to turn around,” came the panicked voice of the transport driver. “We’re boxed in!”

  Mark looked to the side as far as he could through the window and realized the attackers had picked this location for the ambush very carefully.

  “Back out,” Wilson yelled into the mic. “Both vehicles. Now! Go, go, go!”

  The transmission of the armored transport slammed into gear and began to whine as it lurched backward. Out of the back window, he saw the slim, smoky trail of a second rocket, flying only feet above the ground. A split second later, the rear SUV burst into flames as the rocket impacted, effectively cutting off the armored transport’s route.

  Wilson grabbed his hand mic. “Back out. Straight back. NOW!” he yelled to the driver.

  The driver accelerated backward, smashing into the trailing SUV, sending smoke and fire into the air around the transport vehicle. Smoke filled the rear compartment.

  Outside, Mark could hear the impact of small arms on the sides of the big transport as it sped backward. Wilson was peering through the rear portal, calling directions to the driver through his radio.

  “Straighten it up, or you’ll send us over the bank,” he said with a calm command quality.

  The final rocket erupted under the cab, just as the driver had slowed to make his turn. The front of the truck lifted several feet off the ground and slammed straight back down, rupturing a hole in the front of the vehicle between the cab and the prisoner area.

  Mark was stunned. The ringing in his ears was so great, he couldn’t hear his own voice as he called out to Wilson. Another blast and concussion flexed the frame of the truck, snapping the prisoner cage from its welds and sending the cage door off its hinges.

  As he struggled to regain his wits, he saw that Wilson was on the floor, half under the bench, seemingly unconscious. The second marshal was attempting to regain his feet when Gaines pushed forward and half fell, half lurched through the partially open cage. He fell roughly on his elbows, as the chains limited his arms.

  “Keys,” Mark said to the second marshal, who stumbled backward toward him.

  Mark pulled the key off the man’s belt and quickly unlocked the wrist restraints just as he heard the sound of power equipment attacking the back door.

  Dropping down on his shoulder, he reached down to unlock his ankles just a few seconds too late. He froze as the back door burst open and armed men tossed concussion grenades into the back.

  Mark opened his mouth, pressed his hands against his ears and closed his eyes tightly just before they went off. The concussion pressed the breath from his lungs.

  Two men in black military garb and body armor climbed into the back of the truck. Wilson was still dazed, lying in the floor under the bench, as was the second deputy, who was on the opposite side. Mark watched, motionless, as one of the men fired two shots into the top of the other deputy’s head before moving to the back of the compartment. One reached down to check the vital signs on Mark as the other leveled his rifle at Wilson.

  Mark grabbed the pulse checker’s wrist and jumped to his feet, spinning the man around to face Wilson’s would-be assassin. The man with the rifle turned, hearing the commotion, and was about to bring his rifle up when Mark pulled on his hostage’s arm and hooked his finger over the trigger, squeezing off two shots into the attacker.

  He then pushed his human shield’s own handgun up to his neck and fired another two rounds. The look on Wilson’s face was a picture of confusion until the man dropped to the ground in front of him. From his angle, it
must have looked as if the attacker had turned on his own man before committing suicide.

  Mark quickly dropped down to his knees next to Wilson. “Sorry, Marshal. Looks like someone wants me more than Justice does,” he said as he lifted the marshal’s shirt to see a hole in his body armor.

  “Th… thanks for that,” Wilson sputtered, speaking through his own blood.

  Wilson reached down to his belt without looking and grabbed a ring of keys. Handing them to Mark, he gurgled as he spoke. “Are you a good guy or a bad guy?” he asked, his words bubbling in his throat.

  Mark looked at him, pained. “I’m still trying to figure that out,” he said. “But I’m a damn sight better than these bastards.”

  Wilson nodded before releasing the keys. “If you get out of this, make sure you tell them my boys did the best they could with what they had.”

  Mark nodded, admiring the man for thinking of his dead deputies’ reputations before his own life.

  “I’ll make sure the right people know,” Mark replied, patting the man’s arm.

  “I wish I had listened—”

  The marshal’s words hung unfinished as his last rattling breath left him. Although the marshal’s last breath had been a nod to Mark, he felt no comfort.

  The firefight outside brought Mark back to the immediate need of the moment…getting the hell out of the truck.

  As he unlocked the shackles around his ankles, he saw movement outside the back of the truck. The smell of sulfur from the rockets and fresh gunpowder that still permeated the air in the small compartment sent his brain into combat mode. He could almost hear the switch flip in his brain.

  Mark picked up the rifle and handgun that his victims had carried in before stuffing two full magazines into his pocket. Bursting from the door, he drew down on the attackers who were firing at the remaining deputy marshals. The first went down without looking back, but the second whipped himself around toward Mark, realizing there was a new threat. He was still in mid-turn when a round from Mark’s stolen handgun ripped through the man’s body armor, sending a splatter of blood out of the attacker’s mouth.

  Armor piercing, Mark thought. The bastards came outfitted to kill marshals.

  As he dropped to the ground from the back of the truck, one of the remaining marshals must have caught a glimpse of the orange prison scrubs Mark was wearing. A shot impacted on the side of the transport vehicle next to Mark’s head. He spun his head toward the marshal and glared at him, garnering a confused expression from the man. As more shots erupted from the other side of the burning SUV, Mark whipped his pistol around and fired, killing two of the attackers who were targeting the remaining handful of officers.

  “Move to the woods!” Mark yelled at the wounded man and woman at the edge of the road.

  The order brought hostile attention fully on him. As he fired at the oncoming force, he saw the female marshal fall as she made her way to the woods.

  “No, no, no,” Mark muttered as the man went back, attempting to drag her. “She’s done, leave her.”

  Mark squeezed his trigger rapidly, trying to lay down cover fire for the marshals while they attempted to flee, but when the slide on his stolen weapon locked back, empty, the attackers refocused on the survivors before Mark could slap in a fresh magazine. The man fell on top of the woman he had been dragging, just yards away from the wood line.

  After the slide on the stolen weapon clacked forward again, Mark dashed along the edge of the road, keeping the burning wreckage between him and the bulk of the fighting force. He pivoted and fired each time someone came into view. Not wanting to waste ammunition in such a lopsided gunfight, he targeted their heads and fired single rounds rather than his preferred: double tap to the chest with a follow up to the head.

  As the bodies fell, Mark picked up speed, angling toward the woods. Several attackers moved around the wreckage of the transport truck. As they fired, he turned and emptied another magazine in their direction, killing two of them. The punch to his gut confused him at first, as there wasn’t anyone else around. It wasn’t until he entered the forest and felt the squishing in his shoe that he realized he was bleeding badly.

  Shit, he thought. That’s a lot of blood. I’ve got to get clear of these guys fast, or I’ll bleed out.

  He looked down briefly, but then he felt movement to his right. He turned just in time to see another attacker drop a shoulder rocket launcher and rush toward him. As Mark raised the pistol, the attacker kicked it from his hand while reaching for his own. As the gun came forward, Mark used a disarming move on the man’s wrist, flinging the other man’s weapon to the side as well.

  A kick to Mark’s wounded gut sent him sideways to the ground. Mark lurched for the man’s gun, several feet away, but was stopped short as the thug grabbed Mark by the hair and produced a long, military-style blade from behind him.

  With his head pulled back, Mark noticed a pair of black SUVs speeding through the field across the road, heading toward them.

  “Alive,” came a deep, booming voice over the foe’s radio.

  In mid-slash, the attacker stopped and flipped the knife over to strike Mark across the head rather than slice. But the split-second hesitation was the chance Mark needed. As the man’s hand came down, Mark rolled to his side and grabbed the knife by the handle before ripping the blade from the man’s hand.

  The split second of pain in the man’s face as the blade sliced his hand quickly changed to startled realization. Mark winked at the surprised killer as he jabbed the tip of the knife through his chin. Then he shoved the man to the ground, popping the blade through the roof of his mouth and into his brain.

  He looked back over his shoulder once more and saw the two SUVs nearing the road from the field. He pulled the knife from the man’s head before rolling him over and stripping the tactical vest from his twitching body. After picking up the man’s rifle out of the grass next to the rocket launcher, he darted into the woods.

  Strelets rocket launchers, Mark realized. These guys are well-funded.

  The SUVs skidded to a halt near the wreckage as Mark disappeared into the forest a few hundred yards away. He looked back in time to see a towering man of at least seven feet in height step out of the lead SUV.

  After several minutes of running, his speed decreasing by the moment, he looked down at the throbbing wound in his gut. The blood had run so heavily that his shoes were now coming off due to the slippery mess.

  He stopped suddenly, looking around before sitting on a fallen tree to tend to the wound. He spent only a few seconds examining the wound before he pulled a field dressing from the weapons vest he had stolen and placed the thick bandage on his belly.

  He was about to return to his escape when he heard footfalls behind him. He dropped to the ground on the other side of the fallen tree, concealed for the moment. He knew, however, that they would soon see him; they were following his blood trail.

  Nestling himself into the cold ground, he brought his stolen rifle up quietly, aiming it toward the approaching men. He counted five of them as they got closer and realized his odds of outrunning them were nearly zero; he decided to stand his ground.

  When all of them were in range, he fired three shots.

  Pop, pop, pop.

  Two of the five men fell, both with a new hole in their foreheads. But before he could target again, the last three took cover behind the trees nearest them, dropping to the ground and firing blindly in Mark’s general direction. He swept his rifle back and forth, seeking his targets.

  One moved from his hiding spot, seeking better cover, but he wasn’t fast enough; Mark fired a round through his ear just before the attacker disappeared behind a tree. He watched as the dead man flopped forward to the ground on the other side.

  Mark’s breath was labored as the blood loss started to make him dizzy. He rubbed the sweat dripping from his eyes despite the cold, smearing blood from his wound across his eyelid and cheek. He saw movement to his left, but couldn’t get a clear
shot as he tried to focus through his blurring vision.

  They’re moving to flank me, he thought, stiffening his resolve to stay conscious.

  As he listened to them moving around in opposite directions, Mark silently removed the magazine from his rifle to see how much ammo he had left—there was none; all he had was the one round left in the chamber.

  He quickly grabbed the stolen vest and dragged it closer to check for more ammunition, but all that remained were magazines for a .45 cal handgun, which he’d lost before even reaching the forest.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “Rookie move, Mark.”

  He abandoned the vest temporarily, dashing forward but staying below the top of the fallen tree, out of the view of the men who were trying to flank him.

  He broke right after clearing the root ball of the overturned tree and silently crossed the path of one of the remaining men. Mark saw him as he slipped behind a great oak. Unfortunately, the blood in Mark’s shoe made a sucking sound as he pivoted, alerting the man to Mark’s presence. As he spun to fire, Mark launched himself forward, spinning around the tree before the armor-clad brute could get his shot off.

  Mark smashed him to the ground with a thrust of the rifle butt before falling on him, knocking his weapon away. The Colt .45 went clattering across the leaf-covered ground. Before the man could regain his footing, Mark began slashing him with the knife across the major artery groups in highly practiced fashion. It wasn’t until after the man yelled out that Mark pushed his hand down over his mouth. Then he plunged the blade into his neck, just above the body armor.

  Out of the corner of his eye Mark saw the remaining attacker as he tried to reach for the rifle. He was again a split second too late; the bullet ripped through Mark’s body armor at an angle, flashing fresh agony through his chest. As Mark collapsed, the man rushed toward him but failed to see the camouflaged rifle on the ground at Mark’s fingertips.

  Mark pulled the trigger as the man stepped closer, shooting him in the foot. As he fell, screaming, Mark ripped the knife from the neck of the corpse beneath him, and then with two hands, plunged the blade into the base of the man’s skull, killing him instantly.