Grace’s heart begged her to slow down, get out of danger, jump from the target on wheels, do anything to allow it a breather. The orange tracers swung closer to her truck, forcing her to both swerve right and ignore every inch of her body except the two hands working the wheel. One of the orange fingers of death appeared inches from her window. If the bison hadn’t ripped off her side mirror days ago, the maniacal woman’s bullets would have done it in that second.
She swerved onto the shoulder. The grassy median offered a little extra room, but there was a wire running down the middle. If she got caught up in it, game over.
Misha fired a third shot. Her ears were about to burst from the pressure and the painful thunderclap. He scored another hit, but his voice sounded like he was yelling from far down the roadway.
The orange flares of tracers shut off in an instant. The returning darkness outside seemed absolute. The sudden switch seemed to indicate he’d struck true with his shot. However, he spoke with frantic urgency. “We have to jump out!”
“Out?” she replied, not sure if she heard his muted voice correctly.
Asher reached over. “He’s right!”
She trusted Asher. Grace hit the brakes, feeling lost. Was the helicopter still there? Wouldn’t they be easy targets on the outside? Didn’t Misha have the super gun? He couldn’t carry it with him…
Asher immediately opened his door the second she had the truck parked.
She hopped out of her door, still disoriented.
Someone grabbed her by the arm.
“Misha?”
“In ditch!” he ordered.
She ran with him for about fifty feet until they both fell into the tall grass in the median of the highway. Looking back, out of breath, her watery eyes confused by everything, she saw a small fire in the back of her beloved truck.
Misha got up in her face, as if she couldn’t hear him speak. “Do you hear it?” He pointed up, intentions clear.
She searched the sky for the helicopter.
Admittedly, she wasn’t sure her ears even worked.
Kansas City, MO
Ezra watched as Butch gave Susan’s Grace a huge shove off the bank. He was about to start the motor, but he thought better of it when he observed how quietly they’d departed from shore. “Butch. Be ready with the rifle. We’re going to float out of here.”
The big guy looked at him, not saying anything for several seconds, before replying. “I understand.”
It didn’t take long before the voices came closer to where they’d been. Flashlights bobbed and weaved in the trees, arriving at their camping spot even as the boat drifted out into the current.
“What’s your name?” he whispered to the man they’d picked up.
“Kelly. Kelly Hobson.”
“Well, Kelly, nice to meet you. I’m Ezra. That’s Butch, and the young lady is Haley.” His intention was to keep the guy calm. The guy’s entire body shook violently, as if panic had taken deep root inside him.
Kelly kept talking, a little louder than he was comfortable with. “I hate to ask, but do you guys have any pain meds? I’ve got a bad back…”
Ezra reached over and touched the guy on the shoulder. “Stay quiet, okay? We’re in the middle of a maneuver, here.”
The boat drifted in the night.
The lights became more distant.
Even the voices faded.
“I think we made it,” he finally said.
Kelly spoke as if he’d been waiting his turn. “So, about those meds?”
Ezra looked at him anew. Kelly wrapped his arms around himself as he sat up against the bulkhead by the motor. He was also sweating profusely, constantly removing his glasses to wipe his brow. Something was seriously wrong with him, and it wasn’t the fear of being captured by gangs.
“I’m sorry, Kelly. We don’t have any meds. We can offer you a little food or water, if it would help you or your family.” He’d said he’d come into the woods looking for help for his family.
“Damn. Well, can you take me upriver like you said? I need to get out.”
While the man put his head in his hands, Ezra grabbed his rifle and set it against the side of the boat on his right. He caught Butch’s attention and got him to secure his as well. Haley was near the front of the boat, well outside the reach of the probable addict.
Ezra let the boat drift for five additional minutes. Kelly asked a half-dozen times about meds, where they thought he might find some, and if they knew anyone in the area who might, possibly, just this once, prescribe some for him.
Finally, he started the motor.
“Hold on, Kelly, we’ll get you upriver like you asked. Then you’ll be free of the gangs and able to find what you need.” He felt bad for the guy, but he represented an unnecessary risk to him and his crew. The sooner he could kick him to the shore, the better.
It was impossible to mask the sound of the engine while on water. He and Susan used to sit on their dock watching boats ply across Kentucky Lake. The far shore was almost two miles away, and they could still hear the boats on that side when they were at speed. On the Missouri, they only had maybe two or three hundred yards from one bank to the other. His options were to drive slowly and keep his engine noise to a minimum or go fast and get past the search party in the least amount of time.
“Butch, we’re going to take it slow. Be ready.”
He throttled up enough to get them moving, staying on the opposite side of the river from the group of men, and hoped they wouldn’t be of interest to anyone. He assumed there were other boats on the river, and there was no way the men could reasonably suspect he’d picked up the guy they’d been searching for.
Over the course of those minutes he’d begun to wonder about Kelly’s story. If he was an addict, what were the chances those men were lawful citizens trying to catch someone who’d done them harm? Why did it have to be a crazed group of gangbangers? Of course, the laughter and loud voices of the searchers didn’t seem overly professional…
Ezra kept one eye on the far bank.
And the other on their strange passenger.
Denver, CO
Out of everything happening in his life over the past week, including living under the threat of a rock dropping on his head, Petteri hadn’t come close to being frightened to the point of panic. However, holding the cool metal of the pistol while sitting in absolute, smothering darkness made him appreciate a new bottom on his fear spectrum.
“Sir, are we supposed to sit here and do nothing?” Dorothy asked from close by.
He noted she wasn’t latching on to him, like in a movie where he was the hero. Instead, she sat about five feet away, if he was any judge of voices in the dark. It bothered him on a fundamental level that she seemed so confident while he experienced such fear.
The building shook, as if another bomb went off. It wasn’t his building, so he didn’t care much about the damage being done, but each strike indicated the police were getting closer to his position. Breaching walls, as his man in the lobby had relayed before he cut and ran.
Another item nagging at him.
He gripped the gun firmly. Whatever was heading his way, and however fearful he was inside, Petteri Tikkanen didn’t cower in the darkness and take it. He’d used a gun before. It was time to do it again.
“I’ll protect you,” he said to the young woman.
Dorothy grunted noncommittally, which he tried hard to not hear as her mocking his statement. If there was one thing he was confident about, it was his own confidence. The young lady would be grateful to have him around. All he had to do was show her. He aimed at where he thought the door was.
A burst of gunfire rattled from close by.
Several booming shotgun blasts came from another part of the level. Since he was inside an interior room, the battle seemed to be all around them.
Men shouted.
Petteri’s old heart skipped up to jogging speed. Then a sprint.
The battle raged closer. Gunsh
ots and screaming men mixed into a soundtrack of destruction. How anyone could survive it was beyond his understanding.
An explosion seemed to come from right at the door. An object struck his head in the darkness. Not in a painful way. More like someone slapping him. In reaction, he fired the gun toward where he thought the entrance was located.
Dorothy’s reaction to his gun was to squeal with fright.
“I’ve got you,” he said, mimicking the tone of the action hero he knew he could be.
The room filled with light as the door blew open.
“Breach!” a man shouted.
Petteri’s ears popped with the pressure, and his eyes filled with dust, but he aimed at the dark shapes coming through the doorway.
In seconds, the gunfire seemed to erupt from all over the room. How many of those shooters were searching for him?
Heroes don’t die like this.
CHAPTER 15
Somewhere in Central Wyoming
Grace hopped out of the grass, intending to stop the fire now burning in the rear corner of her truck.
“Wait,” Misha advised. His eyes were on the helicopter.
“My truck—”
“A second, pajaloosta. Please,” Misha implored in mixed Russian and English.
She did take a pause. Asher quickly crawled across the grass to get next to her. Together, they waited for the green light.
“It is going,” Misha assured her.
“I’m good?” she asked.
“You seem fine,” he agreed.
“I mean, can I go to my truck?” she said with exasperation at his English comprehension.
“Da! Go!”
She hopped up and sprinted to her truck. On the way, she made sure Misha was right; the helicopter rotor noise faded into the night. She also tried to triage the truck. The flames didn’t appear to be spreading. They were focused on the rear corner of the driver’s side.
“Help me put it out!” she yelled to Asher, not knowing how to do it. They didn’t have a fire extinguisher or more than a few small bottles of water.
By the time they arrived, he’d unbuttoned his park service shirt and ripped it off. The second she opened the rear gate, he patted the fire with his makeshift blanket.
“Over there. Get it!” She pointed to a secondary fire spreading along the rear wheel well. The carpet had been singed. There was also a large hole in the frame of the truck. She looked straight through to the road below, which was now bathed in light from an arriving vehicle. Before she pulled herself from the smoky cargo area, she took note of the fill pipe leading to the fuel tank. The heavy machine gun shell had narrowly missed it. It also missed the rear tire.
“We got lucky,” she said.
Misha sauntered up to them.
A big rig slowed and stopped beside her truck. The driver, a young woman, rolled her window down. “You folks okay? From back there it looked like a fireworks show had gone wrong. What the heck happened?” She checked out Asher, who was shirtless and panting to catch his breath.
Grace waved in a friendly manner. “It’s nothing. Just a little fire in the rear compartment. We’re good.” The ski-feet of the Lahti sat on the open tailgate. If the driver saw it, she didn’t make a comment. Grace shifted on her feet to try to block it from view.
“Well, do you need anything? Is it out? I have a fire extinguisher on board.”
The woman was about a minute too late to be of use. However, since she was there, Grace figured it was worth asking. “You wouldn’t by chance have any bandages? We have an injured friend in another vehicle.”
The woman smiled. “Yeah, I can scare something up. Let me check in the back.”
While she drove ahead and moved the sleeper cab to the shoulder, Grace jumped in the truck and turned it around, so it faced the proper direction. She put it directly behind the woman’s tractor trailer. Asher, smudged shirt mostly back on, immediately climbed in the front with her.
“Hey, you did good putting out the fire. I wouldn’t have thought to take off my shirt.” She laughed at herself for saying it.
Asher chuckled as well; he was tucking in his soot-stained shirt while they sat there. “If I’m being totally honest, I would have preferred you’d taken yours off.”
She glared at him.
“I meant because I didn’t want to ruin my shirt!”
Grace maintained her focus.
He relented. “Okay, I guess I also wouldn’t have minded seeing you without it.”
She relaxed. “Well, unlike you, I have a tank top underneath, so I wouldn’t mind taking my own shirt off. However, I didn’t think of it. You did. That’s the important thing right now. Thank you for saving my truck.”
He patted the dashboard above the glove box. “She’s taking quite a beating, isn’t she?”
Grace sighed. “I’ve given up worrying about what my bosses are going to say when I bring this back to the depot. I figure I’ll be paying this off for the rest of my life. On a park ranger’s salary, it’s not an exaggeration.”
A couple of cars roared by on the highway, then the woman walked up to Asher’s window. “I don’t have much. I forgot I helped at a motorcycle accident a few weeks back. Haven’t replaced my supply.” She held up a small bundle of gauze bandages.
Asher took them. “Thank you.”
The woman looked across Asher’s spot and directly at Grace. “Are you all right, miss? I’ve been on the road long enough to ask questions when I see a young woman in a wrecked truck with two men,” she turned to Asher. “No offense.”
Grace smiled. “Oh, no. It’s nothing like that.” She stopped to think about it. How would she explain one of the men was previously a hitman sent to kill her? It was best to avoid such thoughts. “These two guys are my friends.”
An orange glow lit up the sky across the highway. The woman stopped looking at her and instead gazed at the attraction. Grace turned left, expecting the helicopter to have returned. However, the orange lance of tracer rounds fell from the sky far out on the nighttime grasslands. At first, it seemed as it if was a waste of bullets, but the zaps of light were aimed at one point.
Misha slammed the rear liftgate, pushing the heavy Lahti inside the truck. “We have to go!” he shouted, while walking around Asher’s side. When he climbed in, he added, “Nerio is using her minigun on the train engine. We have to get out there to shoot her from sky once and for all.”
Grace turned to find the woman standing with her mouth open. They looked at each other for a few seconds, before Grace spoke. “I promise you, I’m fine. These two men are protecting me. It would take too long to explain all that we’re doing, but thank you for the bandages. We might need them now more than ever.”
The trucker stood back from the window. “You’re going toward machine gun fire?”
“We have to,” Grace assured the lady.
Grace put it in gear. Once she was around the big rig, she put the hammer down.
“How bad is it?” she asked.
Misha was glued to the window, looking to the left. “We will not know until we get there, but attack is already over. She is leaving.”
“That can’t be good,” Asher added.
Kansas City, MO
Butch leaned over to talk to Ezra. It was obvious he didn’t want their new passenger, Kelly, to hear what was said. “I don’t think he’s armed, but maybe we should have a policy where we pat down anyone we bring on board.”
Ezra laughed quietly. “I’m with you. I believe what he said about someone following him, but I think there’s more to it. Stay sharp.” Louder, he added, “Please keep an eye on the water. If you see garbage out there, let me know so I can go around it.”
“Aye, aye,” Butch replied, only loud enough for those on the boat to hear.
They inched through the darkness, ever searching the far shore. Ezra was certain he saw flashlights bobbing after they’d gone a few hundred yards, but it could have also been car headlights far in the woods.
/> “Where are we taking you?” he asked Kelly, who remained seated against the rear bulkhead.
The man glanced up. “Not far. Upriver until you see the casino. It’s pretty much the last thing standing in these parts.”
“You said you came from your home. Where is that?”
Kelly sniffled loudly. “I live around. Drop me at the casino and I’ll get there.”
Ezra liked the guy less with each interaction. Was anything he said truthful?
After a short drive, they’d gotten around the searchlights on the far shore. He guessed they’d passed their old campsite and had added another quarter of a mile of river. He was beginning to feel better about their chain of events.
“Hey!” a man shouted from the near bank. A flashlight beam cut through the darkness until it found the boat. “I see you! Can you stop?” The man’s voice was loud and colored by desperation.
Ezra went into full alert mode. He’d gotten them so close to the left bank, someone could probably throw a rock and hit them. Even the darkness couldn’t hide them completely.
“Sorry!” he said forcefully, but not in a loud voice. At the same time, he gave the motor more gas.
“Bastard! Don’t go!” the man seethed. “Are you with TKM?”
Additional flashlights appeared on the near shore. Some were behind them, but many appeared in the trees on the bank ahead. Kelly popped his head up and down, getting more anxious as the number of beams converged on them. “Don’t stop,” he cautioned.
“Are these the gangs?” Ezra asked, wondering if it was the same on both shores of the river.
“All bad,” Kelly whined.
Another man shouted from the trees. “There’s a boat! They’re with TKM!”
Many people rallied to his words.
“We’re not with them,” Ezra replied, still unwilling to shout and attract more attention to himself. He didn’t dare go too fast; Ezra had to keep watch for debris in the water. However, he veered toward the middle of the river, hoping to put some distance between himself and the angry people.
“Butch, what do you see?”
Impact (Book 5): Black Page 12