“Jump out and put it up Isaac, I don’t want to smash through it as it will leave them a clue if they happen to look down here.”
I jumped out and pulled up the boom gate, allowing the truck to drive past before easing it back down, and then followed the ramp down into the darkened garage. I joined Sonny and Luke at the back of the truck as they pulled the door up. We were greeted by a rush of questions and did our best to answer as we ushered our shaken passengers out. Thankfully, Indigo took my hand when I offered it, but we separated without saying anything once she was on her feet.
Luke was surprisingly mobile considering his wound. He had been shot and was still trooping on – it made me ashamed of the groaning I had done over my bruised ribs.
“I left the rocket launcher in the truck,” Luke said. “Sorry, I won’t be able to carry it.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Brooke, weaving her way to Luke.
“I got shot,” he said, the same way he might have said he’d stubbed his toe. He pulled his parka open.
Brooke clapped her hand over her mouth and immediately began fussing over him as the others joined.
“Don’t worry, I don’t think it hit anything vital,” I heard him say as I went to the front of the truck to grab the rocket launcher.
Indigo came up to me and we looked at each other awkwardly as I put its carry strap over my shoulder.
“Are you okay, Isaac?”
“Yeah, I’m good how about you?”
“Yeah, shaken but not stirred,” she said with a small smile, before we headed back to the others.
My people gathered what we could carry from the truck and then headed to the rear of the small parking garage. My people. I think I had finally come to terms with the fact I had a new place to belong. Well, not a place exactly, but a family of sorts. It’s funny how adversity can bring strangers closer than blood.
We talked quickly about heading as fast as we could to the tree line and then made our way up a set of steps into the lane behind the building and began walking. We froze in place just before we emerged from behind the building when we heard the engine of what could only be the second Hummer speeding down the main street. It passed our position speeding along the highway, its occupants assuming correctly that we were headed in that direction, but not realizing we had ditched our transportation.
“They’ll be back before long,” said Sonny. “Once they work out they should have caught us up.”
We continued to follow the road, sticking to the tree line even though the travelling was much harder. We had been trudging for about ten minutes when we heard the rumble of a motor, coming back down the mountain.
“Quick, everyone down,” I yelled.
We all managed to get down to our knees in the scrub and behind trees before the same Humvee that had passed us came back towards Lincoln.
It was travelling much slower this time, the occupants obviously scanning the area as they retraced their path. It seemed to take forever for them to pass and I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath until my lungs began to burn.
I counted out two minutes before I waved everyone to their feet and we set off again. There were a few farmhouses along this part of the highway, but they were few and far between and dwindled away as the road got steeper and gave way to light forest.
Even with our wounded people and loaded up with what we were carrying, the walk up the mountain was not as bad as I thought it would be, but despite the relative ease, I could see Luke’s strength beginning to fade, even as he leant against Brooke.
I moved in beside him and ordered him to put his free arm around my shoulder. He looked like he was going to protest but did as I asked. We walked on and I prayed desperately that the safe haven we had travelled so far for actually existed ... there was no backup plan.
It had to be there.
17
It had begun snowing lightly when we arrived in Lincoln and now, as we trudged through the trees, our shoes crunching through about six inches of snow, it began to fall harder. That was when I heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter coming from the direction of the small city we had left behind.
I shook my head in resignation as we all stopped and looked back down the mountain and over Lincoln. Brooke pointed out the searchlight, which was sweeping from left to right as it followed the highway through the small city.
Luke reached over, wincing at the movement, and tapped the rocket launcher.
“You might need this soon,” he whispered.
I nodded and we set off again, a little more purpose in our steps. I tried not to look back as the noise of the chopper got closer and closer, but eventually the sound changed slightly and I realized it was now taking a more direct route. Straight up the mountain.
We were all puffing hard, both through exertion and fear, when we finally reached a sign that read Drake Mountain Ski Resort. We left the tree line of the highway and hurried across a long concrete bridge. The chopper sounded even closer now and, when I looked back, I could also see the splash of headlights illuminating the trees from road level. The second Hummer.
Goddammit! We were so close!
We rushed across the bridge and around a bend, and there it was. Our supposed ‘safe haven’. The ski lodge sat a couple hundred yards away in a natural depression. Its windows were dark; a lot of them broken. The lodge was clearly abandoned. Brooke began to cry softly and Luke cursed under his breath.
Feeling as hopeless as anyone, I urged them on with Sonny bringing up the rear and shouting words of reassurance. Even if the safe haven didn’t exist, we still needed any protection the abandoned lodge would afford us.
We had just made it through the open gates in the stone fence of the lodge when the chopper’s engine made a high-pitched whine as it picked up speed. They had spotted us.
“Keep going!” I screamed at the others, pushing them ahead as it roared toward us. Luke and I turned to face the enemy. Sonny paused too, but I told him to get the others to shelter.
“Be careful, Isaac!” Indigo called as she passed me. I looked at her, wondering if it was for the last time.
“Help me get this thing loaded, Luke.”
We squatted on the ground and I handed Luke the grenade. Even though clearly suffering, he deftly loaded the weapon and pulled out the sight before falling onto his backside, panting. He pointed at the trigger.
“Don’t pull it too soon, and aim a little above the chopper ... the trajectory ... will drop after the initial ...”
I didn’t hear the rest of his words. I turned as the chopper closed in. The bright circle of light from the spotlight trailed over the uneven ground, heading right toward us.
I placed the rocket launcher against my shoulder. I looked quickly down at Luke in time to see him collapse face down on the ground, a bloom of blood soaking the snow around him.
At the sight of my friend, a sob wrenched my throat and my eyes blurred with tears. I raised the weapon and took aim at the chopper as the distant screech of tires indicated the Hummer had also arrived. I didn’t allow my concentration to waver, even as the Hummer’s headlights illuminated the entire area.
18
I squeezed the trigger and was promptly knocked to my ass by the concussion of the blast. The weapon fell from my hands and sizzled in the snow beside me as I watched the trajectory of the grenade with my ears ringing. It flew at the chopper and… MISSED IT COMPLETELY.
Frustration and anger burned through me as its fiery trail etched a line across the night sky before it arced back to earth and exploded harmlessly in the forest.
The chopper pilot had veered needlessly away from the wayward shot and I was climbing to my feet as he steadied the aircraft; its spotlight found me. I’d had enough. I was done. I pulled the revolver from my pocket and stalked toward the chopper, firing shot after shot until the firing mechanism clicked on empty chambers ... even then, I continued pulling the trigger.
“Come on!” I screamed up at it and waited for h
ot lead to tear me apart.
That’s when the world exploded. Again, I found myself on my backside, staring dumbfounded as the helicopter, now in flames, began plummeting to the ground with all the grace of a brick dropped from a ladder.
I registered the white clad figures running in from all directions, even the fact that one of them was carrying a smoking rocket launcher, but I didn’t pause to look more closely. I scrambled to my feet and ran back to Luke, falling over him just as the chopper hit the ground a hundred yards from us, throwing up debris and snow.
When I felt it was safe, I started to climb off my friend and found myself staring into the muzzle of a machine gun. I looked up, half expecting to see a Chinese face standing over me. It wasn’t. It was a middle-aged American man. The first non-Chinese person over the age of sixteen in more than a month.
“Do not move!” he screamed down at me, as I looked up at him with wide eyes.
Behind him, the enemy Hummer screeched to a stop and soldiers began to pile out. The man standing over me didn’t even flinch and it became obvious why soon enough. The Chinese soldiers weren’t aware of the danger they were in and were cut down mercilessly in a one-sided firefight that lasted all of five seconds. The men in white camouflage immediately secured the area.
“Throw down your weapons and place your hands on your head!” yelled a gruff voice from the direction of the lodge.
I looked over. My people were placing their guns on the ground and putting their hands in the air as the men in white closed in on them.
“Do it, now!”
I could see Sonny still held his semi-automatic and I held my breath, not exhaling until he finally bent over and placed it carefully on the snow-crusted grass in front of him. I snuck a closer look at the man standing over me. He was armed with what looked to me like a U.S. military-issue M16 and also had the telltale haircut of a military man.
These guys were U.S. army. But how could they be? I tried to stop him when he bent over and reached for Luke’s throat. He brushed me away.
“Easy, son.”
He felt for Luke’s pulse and immediately called out.
“We have a casualty over here! I need a medic and a stretcher!”
Two men materialized with a fold-up stretcher and I watched them carefully lift my friend onto it as the man led me over to the rest of my group. As we joined them, still with their hands in the air, the two men carrying Luke jogged past us and through the open door of the lodge.
“Where are they taking him?” Sonny asked.
“He’s in good hands. If he can be saved, the doc will save him,” said the gray-haired man who had ordered the others to put down their weapons. His features looked like they were cut from granite and there was an air of authority about him.
“We came because we heard the Morse code message on the radio,” I called, as I was pushed into the huddle. “We’re looking for sanctuary, not trouble.”
Looking at the men, I reassessed my initial impression. Not all of these men were soldiers, not by any stretch.
“You can’t take them in Randall! They’re spies.” A man with a long, bushy beard and his gut straining against the material of his white uniform pushed forward. “Hell, they led the fuckers right to us! They even brought one of the Chinks with them. We should waste them now!”
“Watch your fucking mouth Leroy, or I’ll waste you,” Randall snapped.
The fat hillbilly was only able to hold the fierce stare of the older man for a few seconds before looking down at his feet.
“We’re going to take them to the Professor,” Randall addressed all his men. “Just like we do for anyone who answers the signal.”
I took a closer look at Randall, impressed by his handling of the loudmouth. He looked fit and hard although he was by far the oldest man in the group, clearly military or ex-military, and obviously the leader.
He looked us over with steel blue eyes.
“Each of you stay right where you are. A couple of my men are going to come and search you. If you make any move at all I consider threatening, you’ll be shot, no questions asked. Do you understand?”
We all nodded. I understood the words, of course, but was struggling to understand why this was happening ... had the message been a trap all along? Or where they just being overly cautious?
As the men stepped forward to search us, I realized they were a real mix. Some white, some black, at least one of them looked Hispanic. There were no Chinese men among them, not even a vaguely Asian-looking person. There were also no women, for that matter.
My brain worked furiously, trying to figure this out. Had these people avoided exposure to the Pyongyang Flu? Or were they somehow immune? Could there be some sort of vaccine against it? I had hoped we might find safety and answers here at Drake Mountain, but so far we had only found danger and more questions.
The men quickly patted us down and checked our bags, confiscating blades and anything else that might be used against them, before collecting our firearms from the floor. Sonny soon had a scattering of knives and shuriken on floor by his feet. Indigo’s revolver was taken away, as well.
While we were being searched, I noticed another group of men cleaning up the mess left by the firefight. I had to admit, they were quick and efficient. Clearly they wanted no trace of the firefight remaining if the Chinese came looking for the missing soldiers and helicopter.
The search was conducted without any hiccups and we were directed through the front entrance of the lodge. Overhead lights were switched on and we shaded our eyes as their leader, Randall, came forward.
“Zip tie their hands and black bag them and we’ll head out.”
“Surely there is no need for that?” Sonny said, taking a half step towards Randall. “We’re on your side ...”
There was a click-fizz sound and suddenly Sonny jerked up straight, his arms locked at his sides before falling to the ground and convulsing spasmodically.
Brooke screamed and the humming sound faded, leaving Sonny a twitching heap on the floor.
It was Leroy. He had a Taser in his hand, the wires running to small prongs in Sonny's back. Enraged, I took a step forward, only to feel the hand of one of my captors grip my shoulder firmly; the guns of the men around us kept everyone else at bay.
“I still say we waste ‘em – or at least the Chink…” began Leroy.
He didn’t get a chance to finish his thought, because Randall stepped forward and grabbed him by the throat.
“We don’t know he is an enemy, Leroy,” Randall grated through gritted teeth. “You have to look deeper than a person’s skin. Do you understand?”
Leroy, his face now a distinct purple shade, dropped the Taser and tried to pry the fingers of the old man away. Randall squeezed harder and shook him a little.
“Do you understand!?”
Leroy nodded desperately and patted the back of Randall’s hand. The old man released him and he fell to his knees, sucking in deep, sobbing gulps of air.
“Good. Now get him up and bound. If he doesn’t reach the professor in one piece I’m going to gut you.”
Randall’s words heartened me a little. At least we were being taken to see someone. Maybe this Professor guy would be more reasonable, but where was he and why were they going to ‘black bag’ us?
The men that had searched us went around to us one by one, starting with me. My hands were pulled behind my back and secured with a plastic zip tie, tight enough to hold them, but not tight enough to cut off circulation.
All around me the rest of my group were being similarly treated. I caught Indigo’s eyes and nodded reassuringly before a black sack was pulled down over her head. I did the same for as many of the others as I could before my own head was covered and the world went dark.
Sightless and surrounded by armed men, of which one, at least, was dangerous, I was as scared as I ever remembered being in my life.
“Now, we’re going to lead you through some tight places,” I heard Randall say
from in front of us. “And it’s going to be a bit of a hike. You’ll be fine as long as you stay on the path and don't do anything stupid.”
A hand grabbed my shoulder and prompted me forward.
“Let’s go, people! Leroy, cut the lights!”
Part Four: Drake Mountain
19
The black sack over my head rendered me blind and helpless, totally reliant on our unseen captors to ensure I was guided safely to wherever they were taking us. The feeling of helplessness bothered me almost as much as not being able to see.
It took five or so minutes to have the confidence to take more than baby steps. During that first phase I could sense that we were still indoors and I heard doors closing behind us every hundred steps or so and felt like we were travelling through hallways and passages towards the rear of the lodge.
We didn’t climb any stairs so we were definitely still on the ground floor as we made our way slowly on our unseen path. Finally, after what seemed like a black eternity I heard a warning given in front that we would be walking down a staircase. The hand that had been gently guiding me took my upper arm more firmly, stopping me in my tracks, but not before I bumped into the person in front of me. They felt soft and I thought it might be one of the girls. Indigo, perhaps?
“Stop here for a moment,” a man’s voice said close to my ear. There was a pause of a few seconds, and then he said, “Okay, we’re going down the stairs now. Just take one step at a time… slowly.”
The mind plays tricks when deprived of sight and my imagination had my foot waving over a bottomless abyss as I gingerly lowered it. When the drop to the first step was deeper than I expected, I trod heavily and overbalanced, before the unseen hand of my guide steadied me.
“Easy son, take your time.”
I thought I recognised the voice of the soldier who had seized me straight after the helicopter had come down. That man had been competent and not unkind during that whole episode.
Fight Like Hell [America Falls Series | Books 1-6] Page 28