Breakout

by A P Bateman

“My gun,” the pilot said weakly. “There, in the cubby space.” He pointed. “Anybody who would shoot us down will be coming to finish the job,” he said. “Just like in the ‘Stan…” He winced as Ramsay laid him down on the ground and ducked back in for the gun. He returned with a semi-automatic pistol. “It’s locked and loaded. Ready to go,” the pilot said. “God dammit! It’s one thing getting shot down by the fucking ragheads, but in my home state?” He struggled to get to his feet but fell back on the ground.

  Ramsay could see that both of the man’s legs were broken. He secured him under his armpits and said, “Hold on, this will hurt. But I want to get clear of this thing!” He lifted and dragged him, the screams of pain almost making him stop.

  The pilot panted and wiped his brow with his sleeve. “We’ve got to get out of here. Whoever launched that thing will be here any minute.”

  Ramsay looked out across the plains. No roads, no houses. He couldn’t even see the hangar or the runway. He had no idea which way to head. “How can we get away?”

  “You’ll have to leave me,” the pilot said through gritted teeth. The pain was immense, but he carried on. “That way is East. That’s the reservation. There will be people there who can let you use a phone…”

  “Oh, shit! My phone!” Ramsay tore at his pocket and took out his iPhone. His heart lifted when he saw a two-bar signal. He started to dial.

  “That ain’t no good unless you can call the Marines and get them to send an entire unit.”

  “I’m not calling the Marines,” Ramsay said with renewed confidence. “I’ve got something even better.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  “Well, that takes care of that, then,” said Cole. He was seated in the front seat of the Jeep, his hands cuffed behind his back.

  King, seated behind the steering wheel and dressed in the dead guard’s clothes, had paused to watch the aerobatic display some five-miles distant. The two men had watched the SAM cut swathes of white trails across the sky. The helicopter had dropped below a series of knolls, and the SAM had followed. The explosion had lit up the clear blue sky like lightning, yellow and white, then nothing but white smoke. Within a minute the smoke had dispersed and there was no trace of what had happened. There had been no further sign of the helicopter, but the explosion would have made anybody presume the worse.

  “That chopper will be missed,” King paused. “Within the hour, would be my bet. Look’s like your world is going to come tumbling down.”

  Cole laughed. “Don’t bet on it. There will already be a team dispatched to pick over that mess and Johnson will have it filed as a tragic accident with the FAA before it’s even on the news,” he paused. “Hold that, it probably won’t even get on local radio.”

  “He has that power?”

  “You’re kidding, right? The guys behind this place don’t answer to anyone. But the whole of the United States answers to them. They own the CIA, the FBI… hell, they even have the President in their pockets. How else do you think a secret prison like this can even exist?”

  King put the Jeep back into gear and sped off across the grass. “But it’s not a secret anymore,” he corrected him. “I know about it, and so will the people I work for.”

  Cole scoffed and shook his head. “Well, if you’re going back inside, I don’t think you’ll be taking your secret anywhere in a hurry.”

  “But you’ll be with me,” King said. “And I have a feeling there will be a lot of interest in that downed chopper. And that will mean less boots on the ground.”

  “Perhaps,” said Cole. “But you still need to get inside. And I won’t be helping you.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  King hit the brakes and as the Jeep nosed to a stop, Cole was thrown forwards, when he came back towards his seat, the back of his head butted up against the barrel of the .40 Sig Sauer pistol held tightly in King’s right hand. “Picture your son,” he said. “And your wife. Got them?”

  “Wait!” Cole tilted his head forwards, trying to get away from the cold steel. “Just wait!”

  “I’m not playing games here,” said King. “I couldn’t give a shit about that trailer park piece of trash back there, I couldn’t care less about the two guards this morning. And after what you tried in the hospital, I couldn’t give a crap about you. So, here’s the deal. One time only. Get me back in to finish my job, and I’ll let you live. Deny me that, and I’ll kill you. Plain and simple. And I’ll let you know something before you make your decision, before you think about playing me and double-crossing me. Navy SEAL training, British SAS training, whatever you want to set out as the gold standard of the military elite – it doesn’t even compare to what I’ve learned, perfected and been through. You won’t get the drop on me. You won’t beat me in a fight. I can out-shoot you. And I won’t quit. Not ever. You’ll be thinking about ringing the quitting bell while I’m planning how to use it to beat my enemy’s head in. So, don’t try anything, do as I say, and you’ll see your wife and child again.”

  Cole pressed his head back against the pistol in defiance. “I hear a lot of talk,” he said. “I’ve bled my own and taken my fair share of people’s blood in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria… we went to the same holiday resorts. I’ve served with men far tougher than myself. So, if I help you, it’s because you saved me once, and not because I’m scared of you or your talk.”

  King laughed and tucked the pistol back in the utility belt. The guard’s uniform had been a decent enough fit. “Well, I guess we will just have to wait and see,” he said. “But I had you circling the drain with broken ribs and one hand chained to the bed. So, I guess we both really know who the bigger dog is, and who needs to bark in order to save face.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The bullet skimmed past them with a crack and struck the wreckage of the helicopter behind them. The gunshot roared a full second later. Ramsay ducked down, but too late. He scrambled for the pilot’s pistol and checked the breach like Caroline had shown him. He took aim, sighting on the vehicle and the figure who was taking aim.

  “Forget it, they’re too far away!” the pilot snapped. “Get down!” Ramsay ducked down, and another shot zinged overhead. The gunshot followed a second later. Then half a dozen more shots fired, and clumps of earth flicked up around them. The pilot rolled onto his side and started to crawl, but his horribly broken legs didn’t follow neatly, and he screamed and shouted in agony. “Get out of here!” he shouted, waving a hand at Ramsay. “Stick to the low ground,” he panted. “Try to keep the knolls and depressions between you and these bastards!”

  “I won’t leave you,” Ramsay said, as he crawled over and caught hold of the man’s lapels. He heaved and struggled, and the man screamed, but Ramsay found the strength and got him onto his shoulder. He picked up the gun and squat-pressed himself and the man upright. He wobbled as he ran, gunshots behind him. He tucked the pistol into his pocket and fumbled out his phone. He was panting hard. He looked at the message, then thumb-swiped and opened the compass app. It paused for a moment, then spun and he found East and changed direction.

  “Put me down,” the pilot said weakly. “You’ve got next to no chance on your own, but none at all with me.”

  Ramsay could hear a vehicle behind him. Thankfully, there were no more gunshots, but he had visions of being run down by a huge American truck that would likely carry on without feeling them under the wheels. He checked the compass again, kept on his heading. The ground was undulating, and the truck would have to go around. He deviated and headed for two hills that made a shallow valley between them. They were no more than eighty-feet high, but they would provide them with cover. Another gunshot rang out and a clump of grass channelled out a sizeable divot near Ramsay’s right foot. He dared not look behind him, but the powerful V8 motor was gaining rapidly. Another three gunshots rang out, this time the divots happened in real time to the gunshots and Ramsay knew they were closing in on them. He pressed on, but as he started down the gradient of a wid
e depression, he stumbled and fell. The pilot screamed, and Ramsay sprawled, dropping the phone and the pistol springing from his pocket. He went for the pistol, but a bullet struck near. He turned and saw two men barely thirty-metres from him, both holding automatic weapons. Ramsay went for his phone, but a well-placed shot destroyed it. He was still two-paces from the gun. He hesitated and watched one of the men take aim. The man fired and the pilot’s head split like a watermelon. Ramsay turned and ran, leaving the pistol and zig-zagging towards the vee between the two hills. There were no more shots, but he could hear both men laughing. He sprinted, forgetting to breathe, his eyes welled with tears. The pilot had known what was going to happen. There had been a look of acceptance on his face a split second before the inevitable, and Ramsay felt ashamed that he had experienced a moment of relief that it was not himself who had been shot when the man’s head had puffed a crimson mist into the air. If he lived through this, Ramsay knew he would never forget the man’s expression, the sight of what followed.

  He could feel his heart pounding, kept forgetting to breathe as he fled towards the vee between the two hillocks. The men were fitter than he was, and they did not have the sheer terror of being hunted hampering their efforts. He couldn’t rely on his phone now and had to use dead-reckoning as he headed into the shade afforded by the higher ground. Another gunshot rang out and more earth sprayed up into Ramsay’s legs. One of the men shouted, but his heart thudded so heavily that he could not hear what was being said. It wouldn’t have been good, though and he was almost out of their line of sight.

  Both men stopped and took aim as Ramsay darted into the lee of the first hillock and disappeared from view. They both smiled and looked at each other then followed their quarry into what would become their killing ground, but the smiles would have told any observer that they planned to have some fun with their prey first.

  In the distance a loud V8 rumbled and the vehicle rutted and bounced over uneven terrain. Ramsay ran into the vee of the lower ground, hearing the sound of the vehicle cutting off his escape. There were boulders stacked in piles and he realised they were probably Indian burial monuments. Whatever they were, they would only give him cover if he was armed, and he had dropped the pilot’s pistol. Without a weapon, they were just places for him to wait for his pursuers to catch up with him. Another shot rang out, the sound enhanced by the enclosed sides of the two hills.

  “Stop running!” one of the men shouted. “It’s over!”

  “Put your hands on your head!” the other man shouted.

  Ramsay’s heart sank, and he turned and saw both men in the entrance to the vee. He had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. He stopped, his lungs burning, heart pounding. His legs suddenly felt leaden and he realised he had lost control of them. He doubted he could turn and run and frustratingly, as the men drew near, he knew he wouldn’t. For the first time he understood why so many people went to their deaths with no fight or resistance. The body and mind knows when it is beaten and merely shuts down in order to avoid trauma and pain.

  Both men walked slowly and confidently. One had lowered his assault rifle, the other was aiming at Ramsay, the same way he had just before he shot the pilot. Sunlight hit their faces as the sun edged above the ridge above them. Ramsay could see the sadistic expressions they had, their intentions clear.

  The gunshots came rapidly, but unlike the short, sharp report of the 5.56mm assault rifles the men carried, these sounded like canon-fire. Ramsay ducked down as portions of the men were blown off in chunks the size of oven-ready chickens. Ten shots in all and what was left of both men had fallen and lay twitching in two crumpled and bloody heaps.

  Ramsay was shaking, but he managed to look up the side of the slope nearest him and shielded his eyes against the sun. The figure slid down the grassy slope and as they dropped into the shade, Ramsay saw Rashid, his expression impassive.

  “Thank god for that…” Ramsay said, trying to regain composure, but failing. He was so happy that he realised he didn’t care.

  Rashid looked around the vee and turned his attention back to Ramsay. “A decent killing ground,” he said. “Better if you hadn’t left the gun out there.”

  “You saw that?” Ramsay asked, incredulously.

  “Sure did.”

  “Why didn’t you shoot them then?”

  Rashid held up the shotgun. “Too far away,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Had to wait until they were drawn in.”

  Ramsay sat down on the grass and his shoulders sagged. “I thought that was it, for sure.”

  Rashid said nothing as walked over to the two corpses and picked up both M4 rifles. He slung them over his shoulder on their straps and checked the bodies for spare magazines. Two were damaged from the buckshot and were a twisted, bloody mess. But he managed to pull two more magazines clear and pocketed them. He didn’t bother with the magazines that were excessively bloody; he’d used them before in Syria and Afghanistan, and they clogged up as soon as the blood started to clot. It simply wasn’t worth the trouble. The magazines would need taking apart, and the entire weapon stripped down and cleaned thoroughly. He pulled out the pilot’s pistol from one of the body’s waistband and held it out for Ramsay. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Ramsay followed Rashid up the slope. As he crested the summit, some eighty- feet above the flat plain, he saw Caroline aiming one of the bulky BR99 shotguns at a man on his knees. They were in front of a Dodge Ram pick-up truck, its driver’s door still open and the engine running.

  “I’m so glad you found me,” Ramsay said. “I thought that was it. Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Rashid said, stopping to look at him. “I mean it. We’re a team, it’s what we do.”

  “The crash was frightening enough. Thank god I got hold of you. You can’t get a mobile signal when you go down to Cornwall for the weekend, but out here in the Great Plains with a hundred miles between towns, I’ve got at least two bars.”

  “I wouldn’t mind betting that’s got something to do with the communication tower near that air strip. They must have a thing going with the cell phone companies.”

  “What about the bodies?”

  “Let ‘em rot.”

  “But the pilot!”

  Rashid nodded. “Shit.”

  “The guy was okay, he was a veteran. He flew in Afghanistan.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “But we have to prioritise. We can drop a line to the sheriff or police department later. But right now, getting Zukovsky is the mission.”

  “And King,” Ramsay added.

  “Of course, goes without saying,” he replied. “But Zukovsky is the priority. We want what he knows and right now, we have next to no time before we are compromised. There will be people looking for these guys when they don’t report in. Marnie is contacting the others, we’re going in as soon as we can regroup.”

  They slid their way down the hillside and Rashid strode up to Caroline. “Good work,” he said.

  “And yourself,” she replied, looking at Ramsay. “Hi, Neil.”

  “Hello,” said Ramsay. “You guys got here just in time.”

  Caroline smiled. And turned to Rashid. “What are we going to do with this chap?”

  “Is he clean?”

  “He is now. He was carrying a Beretta, a well-used M9,” she said. “Which is now in my pocket.”

  Rashid nodded. The M9 was designated US military issue, what was sold elsewhere by the Italian manufacturer as a 92FS. Which meant the weapon was US government issue. He looked at the man and said, “If we were to try to get into that prison, would we stand a better chance with you?”

  “What prison?”

  Rashid shrugged. He lunged forwards and jabbed the muzzle of the BR99 into the man’s sternum. He went down and made next to no noise, but that was because he couldn’t breathe. It seemed he never would again, but eventually he managed a lungful of air through gritted teeth. He moaned and rolled on the grass. Rashid looked up to see
a black GMC bouncing towards them over the grass. He looked back at the man on the ground. “My colleagues will be here in a minute. There’ll be no shortage of men willing to slice out your throat for an easier life, especially when they find out you guys killed a veteran pilot.”

  “I didn’t kill anybody!” he growled. “I’m just the driver.”

  Rashid shrugged. “Yes or no. Can you help us inside?”

  “And if I do?”

  “I’ll knock you out and leave you outside while we do what we’ve come here to do.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You’re a big boy, I shouldn’t have to spell it out. Your buddies are in bits.” He turned and walked to the SUV, which had pulled to a stop with Big Dave getting out and striding towards him. He made the massive BR99 shotgun in his hand look like a toy. Rashid felt like a child when the man reached him.

  “Did you see the bloody chopper go down?”

  “No,” said Rashid. “But I guess you can say Neil did…”

  “King’s signal has configured as six-miles Northwest of the prison,” Marnie said, pushing her way between them. She held the laptop out to allow them to see.

  “So, he’s out?” Rashid asked, somewhat incredulously, straining to see the screen clearly in the sunlight.

  “He is, but he’s heading back. He’s less than half a mile from the hangar and travelling at thirty-miles-per-hour.”

  “Do you think he escaped and has been recaptured?” Big Dave asked, frowning at the screen. “That airstrip is about five miles Southwest from here, we’ll never make it before he gets there, not going by the rate of that flashing dot.”

  “We’ve got to go in!” exclaimed Marnie.

  Rashid glared at her. “Thanks for your tactical advice,” he snapped. “But we’re not going in yet.”

  “Too right!” Adams joined them, peeked at the laptop and said, “We can’t go into that place in daylight. There’s no cover from high ground. It’s suicide!”