ENCOUNTER

by Hep Aldridge

I heard the bark of the Barrett, followed quickly by the report of the Remington Magnum. By the time the soldier with the pistol heard the sound, the .50 caliber round had entered his back, exited his chest, and hit the local guy standing behind the kneeling Watcher, center mass. Both went down, dead before they hit the ground, along with one of the three men at the back of the line. The Barrett barked loudly again, and another man at the rear dropped his weapon, fell to the ground, and grabbed his shattered leg, screaming. The rest had scattered and were taking cover as best they could. The last man in the column moved forward past the Watcher, looking in our direction, paying no attention to the old man. There was no one left behind him, and in my mind, I screamed, “Run,” and at the same time heard Jeannie’s command to do the same thing.

  The Watcher took a quick look around and bolted back down the way they had come. No one was paying him the slightest attention as we peppered their position with a fusillade of gunfire. He had obviously been playing the part of old man because, as he got further away, I saw him burst into the fluid loping motion I remember seeing him exhibit at our interview in Tamara’s village. Within minutes, he was out of sight and out of harm’s way.

  Now, the firefight began in earnest as the rest of the mercs found cover and began returning fire. They had not determined our exact location, so their firing was only in our general direction. Surprising them with the ambush and hitting them from above and at ground level had momentarily disoriented them. Still, their return fire soon became more accurate as our firing positions were identified.

  I probably need a point of clarification here. If I gave you the impression that the roadway was open and clear, that was wrong. While there was no undergrowth to speak of, it was littered here and there with rocks and boulders that had fallen from the canyon walls. The mercs were using this cover to their advantage. We had taken out four of them in our initial surprise assault; it was obvious these last six were going to be more difficult. I was trying to locate the guy I had identified as the leader but had lost sight of him when the gunfire erupted. I noticed he had a long gun slung over his back, so I guessed not only was he the leader, but he was probably the sharpshooter of the bunch. We needed to locate him, but he had disappeared.

  “Dimitri, you see the leader?” I asked.

  “No, lost sight of him when the shooting started. Reggie, you got eyes on him?”

  “Nope, he bolted for cover. Lost him in the rocks on your side of the canyon, Dimitri,” she replied.

  “He’s probably their shooter, so stay sharp,” I added somewhat unnecessarily.

  “Roger that,” Dimitri said and continued firing.

  There was continuous gunfire from the team below; they were holding their own. The volume of gunfire had decreased as both sides worked at being more judicious about picking their targets with no real impact on either side. I realized this was going to be a protracted encounter. Without the element of surprise, we had lost our advantage, and the mercs training and experience was causing us to take a more defensive posture. The shift from offense to defense had happened quickly, and we were still outnumbered.

  “Everyone, keep your heads down and make your shots count. These guys are well trained, and we don’t want to give them any easy targets.

  When the gunfire started, Marco had bolted for cover and managed to work his way to the canyon wall undetected. There, he started his slow, methodical climb, looking for a high ground vantage point, all the time watching the firing coming from the rock pile. His experience had helped him visually locate the shooting positions from those on top. His men kept the shooters occupied as he slowly moved into place between two large rocks about forty feet up the canyon wall. He had spotted the sniper’s position that had killed Palo and the defector from the Brotherhood they had picked up. He was of no consequence, but Palo had been his number two and the closest thing he had to a friend. In his line of work, friendship was a luxury that could get you killed and one he could not afford.

  He supported his Heckler & Koch MSG 90 A2 sniper rifle between the two rocks giving him cover. He flipped up the lens cover on the scope and began scanning the area where he thought Palo’s murderer was hidden and waited. As he waited, he wondered how Burnett’s team knew where to set their ambush and how they knew they were being followed. All his team’s actions had been carefully orchestrated, and those who knew of this mission were few. The Cardinal would have to hear about this when he returned. There may be a leak in his organization, but that was for later. Burnett’s group was proving to be more resourceful than he anticipated and better trained. Another breakdown in intelligence. So many things to be addressed, but for now, his focus was eliminating this threat and finding the library and its secrets of longevity. The Cardinal would be pleased with him and reward him well when he accomplished his mission. He smiled as he continued to scan the rock face.

  Dimitri came over the Comms, “I’m moving my position to get a better shooting angle.”

  A moment later, I heard a shot being fired and Reggie’s shaken voice, “Colt, Dimitri’s down; he’s been hit.”

  “What?” I blurted. “Dimitri, Dimitri do you copy?” No response.

  The moment Marco had been waiting for arrived as his target broke cover for only a moment, but it was long enough. He fired and saw him go down. With a brazen satisfied smile, he thought, now for the boy as he turned his rifle and put Eduardo squarely in his sights. Too bad they have to die so young, he thought as he began applying pressure to the trigger.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  At that instant of satisfaction, the lens on the front of his Hensoldt scope shattered as a 7.62 NATO round pierced it, entered his right eye, and exited through the back of his skull. The gun fell from his lifeless hands as he was thrown back, and his weapon clattered to the ground unfired.

  “Take that, you rotten bastard,” Reggie thought as she spoke on her Comm, “Colt, their shooter is neutralized; you’re clear to get to Dimitri.” The sun glinting off the front lens of his scope is what had given his position away, and that’s all she had needed.

  I had heard the shot and knew what had happened. “Roger that,” I replied as I began moving in Dimitri’s direction. However, I immediately drew fire from below and ducked for cover.

  “Joe, need you to do something about those guys down there. I can’t get to Dimitri.”

  “Copy,” he said and turned to Doc. “You were in theater in college, right?”

  “What?” Doc incredulously replied, “yes, but what’s that got to do with anything?”

  “This has got to be your best performance. You only have one line; don’t screw it up.”

  A quick consultation, and he, Doc, and Eduardo opened fire on the mercs and then stopped. The mercs returned fire, and as their last rounds were fired, Joe stood up, grabbed his chest, and fell to the ground in plain view. At that moment, Doc earned his Oscar nomination as he called to Colt above in a loud, terrified voice. “Colt, they got Joe, and we’re out of ammo.”

  There was a pause, and just like the next scene of a play unfolding, the five mercs came charging from behind their cover to finish the unarmed men. They had also clearly heard Doc’s call to Colt. Four were out front, and one held back for some reason. As the four got in range, Joe, from his prone position, squeezed the clackers on the Claymores and unleashed Dimitri’s “Alamo surprise,” a wall of death. It was an ugly sight as the four men were decimated by the hundreds of steel balls penetrating their bodies from multiple directions—instant death.

  Doc’s call had gotten my attention, and I looked out from behind my cover and watched the scene below me unfold. After the blast, my attention was immediately drawn to the only thing moving in the canyon. The fifth man, who had held back, was now running away. I started to shout to Doc when I saw O’Reilly stand up and bring her M-16 to her shoulder, take a deep breath, and fire off two rounds in quick succession. I looked back at the running man, some seventy-five yards away, and watched as the two, .223 round
s, hit their mark and spun him in a slow pirouette; once facing us, two more shots rang out, and he flew back as they finished the job. There was no further movement from any of our attackers.

  Breaking away from the grizzly scene below me, I turned my attention back to Dimitri and said, “Doc, I need you up here; Dimitri’s down.”

  “On my way,” came the reply over the Comm.

  I had put my M-16 down and was scrambling in Dimitri’s direction. I still did not have eyes on him. I crawled over a particularly large rock, and, down below, in between two large boulders, I saw Dimitri’s motionless body. The bloodstain on the front of his vest was large, and my heart sank. You better not be dead, you son of a bitch, I thought as I called his name again, “Dimitri, can you hear me?”

  A low moan came across the Comms, and a weak voice said, “It took you long enough,” then he coughed and said, “what did you do, stop for beers?”

  “He’s alive,” I said, then realized everyone heard his comment as I did on the Commlink.

  I heard Joe’s somewhat labored voice as he was finishing his rope climb to the top, “Hell, no, we didn’t stop; we had to wait for you. Remember? You said you would buy the next round.”

  A chuckle with a sickening gurgle, “I’m afraid that’s gonna have to wait,” Dimitri said, and then silence.

  I heard Doc coming up behind me as I made my way down the last ten feet or so. When I got to Dimitri, he had passed out. Doc pushed his way past me and started unstrapping his tactical vest and pulling his shirt open, revealing the wound. It was a gut shot, and it was bleeding like hell.

  I heard Joe from behind us, “How is he?”

  “Bad,” Doc replied, “we’ve got to get him out of here, but I’m afraid if we move him, it will make things worse.”

  “Well, you’re just going to have to work on him here,” I said as I started to push past him to get to Dimitri’s other side.

  It was then that the air around us started pulsating, and the feeling of static electricity permeated the air. Jeannie’s voice came through clearly, “Please, move back; I will get him to the Citadel.”

  I looked at Doc, who looked just as surprised as me. We both moved back and looked around for Jeannie’s familiar form; none was there. A mist began engulfing Dimitri’s body, and we soon lost sight of him. Seconds later, it disappeared along with Dimitri. Jeannie’s thoughts came to us, “Meet me back in the Citadel, in the building next to our meeting place.”

  Dimitri was gone. I retrieved his Barrett .50 caliber that he had dropped there and started the climb back to the top behind Doc.

  When we got there, the others were standing, staring in the direction of the canyon and crevasse, which were gone. Before us lay a cityscape like none I had ever seen before. The cloak had been lifted, and a vast sprawling silver metropolis lay before us, glistening in the sunlight like a silver beacon—large buildings with jutting spires reaching skyward. Buildings of all shapes randomly mixed together, which somehow created a beautiful symmetry. Our reverie was broken by Jeannie’s urgent words, “Hurry, Dimitri is not doing well.”

  We immediately began carefully scrambling down the steps that we now knew were there to the top of the platform that was clearly visible in its entirety. As we got to the bottom, we were once again struck by the size, beauty, and majesty of what lay before us. As we hurried down the street, Reggie said, “Is he going to be alright?”

  Doc said, “It looked very serious; I only hope Jeannie’s medical advancements are as good as everything else we have seen.”

  We approached the building, and the strange lettering above the door was flashing the blue color. As we entered the outer room, Jeannie’s thoughts came to us, saying, “back here,” and we rushed into the next room.

  Dimitri was lying on a table much like one you would find in our hospitals, but above him was a holographic display, I guessed, of his body with readouts in that strange writing appearing around his different organs. Jeannie was standing next to the table, referring to a large console next to it covered with a digital display and colored buttons, some blinking and flashing, and some staying lit while graphs measured vital signs.

  Jeannie reached into the hologram above Dimitri’s body and actually manipulated some settings and buttons there, and a beam of yellow light came down and encircled the bullet wound in his stomach. Immediately, another image appeared overhead, and we could clearly see the bullet still in place next to his liver.

  Doc had moved forward to stand next to Jeannie and asked, “What can I do to help?”

  Without looking at him, she said, “I can remove the bullet, but he has lost a lot of blood, and I don’t have time to synthesize more.”

  I quickly stepped forward, “No problem. I’m O+, a universal donor; take mine,” and began taking off my tactical gear and removing my shirt.

  I saw Jeannie smile slightly, and she said, “Doc, sit him in that chair, and of course, one appeared as if by magic that he rolled next to the table. I’ve definitely got to learn more about this phase-shifting stuff, I thought. It was almost like one of those chairs in the bloodmobiles but more comfortable. Doc got me situated, and another console appeared on that side of the table. There were two cuffs with a small square box attached to each and a tube running between them.

  “Place the cuffs on their forearms with their palms up,” Jeannie told Doc. They went in place easily and comfortably. “Now, just relax, Colt; the device in the cuff automatically finds the right vein and will connect to it and begin the transfer. Are you ready?” she asked. I nodded, and she reached overhead into the display over Dimitri and manipulated a couple of things. I felt a tingling in my arm, and blood began to flow through the tube.

  I asked, “Do I get a glass of orange juice when we’re done?” trying hard to lighten the intense atmosphere in the room. Maybe it worked a little on the team, but I think the attempt at humor was wasted on Jeannie, who was intently going about the business of saving my best friend’s life, I hoped.

  As I sat there, reclined, I watched her long fingers dance among the images floating in space, changing this, adjusting that, and concentrating intently on the task at hand. I just then realized that the hood of her robe had been pulled back, uncovering her full face and hair, which hung in beautiful long silver and blue waves past her shoulders. As I stared, I thought she was quite beautiful.

  A moment later, a warm and comforting thought entered my head, “Thank you, Colt, now relax. Things are going well.”

  Oh, crap, I momentarily forgot she could see our thoughts and immediately wiped out where I knew my next observation was heading.

  No one had said a word, and Doc finally said, “How is it going? Anything else I can do?”

  “Yes,” Jeannie replied, “come around here and stand next to me.”

  When he moved into place in front of the console, she said, “When I tell you, touch the large green square on your right.”

  He pointed to a lit-up green square, and she said, “Yes, and when I tell you, push the red one next to it.”

  “Got it,” Doc replied.

  “I am going to remove the bullet and then repair the tissue around the wound.”

  Everyone was staring at the image over Dimitri’s body as Jeannie manipulated something within the display. A blue beam of light appeared the size of a pencil and went straight into the wound on Dimitri’s body. It showed up in the display overhead, moving to the visible bullet. When it touched it, the blue beam became purple, and you could see in the display the bullet fragment getting smaller and smaller until it was gone entirely, and the beam turned blue again.

  “There,” she said, “it has been removed.” She manipulated something overhead, and the beam decreased to half its original size, still in place in the wound. “Alright, Doc, the green, please,” she said.

  He pressed the green square, and the beam narrowed even more and began moving ever so slightly back and forth. As we watched, we could see that as it moved, it slowly began retract
ing from the interior of the wound until it was entirely out. It hovered over the hole in Dimitri’s stomach for a few seconds as the skin closed up and sealed itself. Everyone was amazed at what they were seeing.

  Next, she finally said, “Now, the red, please,” to Doc.

  He obliged, and the beam disappeared, leaving a neat circular scar where the bullet hole had been.

  O’Reilly looked closer and said, “Couldn’t you have made the scar disappear as well?”

  “Oh, yes, easily,” she replied, “but he said he wanted to leave it.”

  “He,” O’Reilly asked, “he who?”

  “Dimitri, of course,” Jeannie replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “You were in touch with him while you were removing the bullet?”

  “Yes, the whole time. I had to make sure things were going well and help control his discomfort.”

  “That’s amazing,” Doc said, “but why leave the scar?”

  Jeannie paused before answering, “I’m not really sure. He said something that made no sense, ‘Chicks dig scars’—whatever that means.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jeannie touched another button on the console, and the blood stopped flowing through the tube connecting Dimitri and me.

  She looked at the display in the air over Dimitri and said to Doc, “He has stabilized; you can remove the cuffs from both their arms.”

  When Doc had finished, I checked my arm, and there was only the tiniest red dot on it. Not bad, I don’t even need a Band-Aid, I thought.

  “So, everything went okay? He’s going to recover?” I asked Jeannie.

  “Yes, he will be fine by tomorrow. The projectile missed his vital organs, and I was able to restore the damaged tissue successfully. He will need to stay here for the night but should be fine by morning,” she said as she went about the business of turning things off. The display stayed on over Dimitri’s body, showing vital signs, I guessed. Jeannie reached into it and made an adjustment, and a blue glow covered Dimitri’s body.