Return of Our Country

by David M Burke

  This wasn’t shaping up to be the quick getaway they had planned. Adam quickly processed what was happening. The SAS was closing the parameter on their whereabouts, and if they found him, they’d most likely have a task force dressed up as terrorists to either kidnap him to use him as leverage to get their stolen money and gold back. Then they’d probably just kill him.

  “Where do we go when we get up top?” Adam questioned.

  “Mauricio’s figuring out a way to get you off this rock.” Rock was their term for the island.

  Just then her phone beeped with an incoming text. It read, ‘Meet me at the tower.’

  “Head towards the tower. It’s back up the trail to your right.” The woman added, “Sir… be ready,”

  Adam nodded.

  “Be ready for what?” Gabby asked as she looked at Adam.

  Adam clasped Gabby’s upper arm, directing her to start walking back up the path.

  “Anything,” was all he said.

  As the path curved, Adam looked down the trail. He could see a sharp turn about fifty yards down the path. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

  But looking past that, Adam noticed another bend a few hundred yards further. The men coming up the trail were agile, and they were moving swiftly. They were big. He put one hand on Gabby’s waist and another on her back. He got close and quietly urged Gabby on. “Walk faster.”

  * * *

  Madison was being diligent to ensure the president wasn’t on the line. He stood next to her as she played the middleman. The lines of communication should be secure, but the deep state was everywhere. She was talking with Krieger and Mauricio, because they didn’t want George on any of these emergency communications. If she was compromised, at least the deep state would have nothing on George for the upcoming election.

  At first, it had appeared that Adam’s extraction from Ireland was going to be quick and uneventful. Now, after two changes in the extraction point, Adam was on foot, being hunted. The small SEAL teams had done a good job before. But everyone was hesitant to engage anyone not directly under control of Krieger. For that reason, the president had some of the special forces teams that were heading stateside diverted to secure the vice president and Gabby. The teams would be there very quickly. The question was, would it be quick enough?

  Exhausted from the stress, Madison finally hung up. It was up to the teams now.

  Air Force One was about to descend. They would be at Andrews Air Force Base soon.

  Chapter 73

  Adam had just looked back, and had seen large men running up the path.

  “They see us,” he said. “Run!”

  Adam and Gabby reached the top of the path. There was an area off the shoulder of the road where people could congregate.

  Gabby stopped. She had overheard a young woman tell the man she was with, “It’d be nice to take the ferry, but it’s a little chilly.”

  Gabby walked up to the woman, smiled and said, “Here, why don’t you take my jacket?”

  “What?” the woman replied.

  Adam froze.

  “We’re catching a flight out and our luggage is already at the weight limit. We have our regular coats in the car. It’ll cost us as much to ship these as it would to buy new ones.”

  Gabby took off the coat and held it for the woman saying, “Here, try it on.”

  The woman looked at her boyfriend, smiled and put her arm in. The fit was fairly good.

  Gabby smiled and said, “Turn up the collar. It’ll keep the wind off.”

  The woman did and her eyes lit up as she looked at the man she was with.

  “It’s yours. We’ve got to run and catch a flight,” Gabby said.

  Adam followed her lead. “Here, take mine,” he said. “They’re almost a matching set.”

  The young man reached out and grabbed the jacket. “You sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Recognizing the value, the young man immediately took the coat and swung it over his shoulder like Adam had.

  Gabby pretended to check the time. Looking at the young woman who was almost gleeful, Gabby added, “You know, if you run, you can still make the next ferry tour of the cliffs. If you miss it, you’ll have to wait three hours for the next one.”

  She looked at her man and said, “We can make it, let’s go.” Then she turned to Gabby and said, “Thank you so much.”

  The young man offered his hand to Adam. He made eye contact and the young man froze. He was thinking he was having deja vu.

  Luckily, the woman touched the young man, her signal to get going. He looked at her, then with final ‘thank you’s, they ran off towards to the left to catch the ferry.

  Adam and Gabby turned right. It was over a mile to the tower. Adam noticed a few parked bicycles, rentals he had noticed before. One was a three-wheeler for two. He ran up to it, and Gabby jumped on behind him, and they headed towards the tower. Neither of them looked back.

  When they were fifty yards up the road, the SAS turned left towards the young couple who had taken their jackets.

  * * *

  The President and Madison were on the phone continuously as they drove to the White House.

  Madison had been keeping tabs on Ferraro’s progress through Melissa.

  Melissa was commanding operations in several cities. Ferraro and his team were purging foreigners who were aligned with the globalists. It was a constant blur of activity.

  The president had been in contact with John and the judges, who were allowing searches of key deep state operations.

  Madison had also been in contact with the economic mastermind group. Their spokesperson, Haley, had kept Madison informed. They had their plans drafted and were just getting the presentation together. They’d be ready to present to the President within a day or two.

  George had been working with other world leaders, and he wasn’t the only one wanting to get rid of the globalists. Some leaders were shocked that the entire debt owed to them by the US had been paid off. Other deals with world leaders entailed shipments of gold in exchange for favors.

  All Federal Reserves had been locked down. The private security agencies had been taken out, and the Marines and Army were securing the locations. There was a lockdown. Nothing was going out and nothing was going to go in until the gold arrived.

  The president had deployed his teams of people to visit politicians. Most of the conversations started with the politician wanting to know what George wanted. The team of two would present audio, video and written evidence from the NSA database and other sources showing a variety of major infractions by the politician, including treason, insider trading, conspiring to overthrow the government and much more. The teams would explain that either a military team would enter the building and arrest them and they’d be prosecuted, or they could cooperate one hundred percent and pass bills that were already drafted to become laws. Without change, the president wanted an immediate passage of a surplus amendment to the constitution, funding the border wall, the repealing of the seventeenth amendment, and more. The visits usually ended with the message from the president assuring the politician that they would be able to retain their position and retire immediately after they cooperated fully. A few of the politicians referenced the dead politicians found at Arlington. No one knew anything about that, but it did appear to weigh on these politicians.

  George had received information that a few final arrangements for gold were complete…

  The entire time, Madison kept waiting for more communications on the dynamic situation of the vice president.

  Now it was all coming down to one thing.

  The biggest risk out there was still the safety of Adam. From a personal, political and economic standpoint, George and the country needed Adam to escape.

  * * *

  Adam heard a vehicle screech to a stop that had just
passed them as it headed south. They’d been spotted.

  “Pedal!” he yelled out to Gabby.

  With stone walls on each side of the narrow two-lane road, there was only a small area for bikes on the edge of the road. Adam knew the car would have to back up at least once to navigate the U-turn. He eyed an opening in the stone wall.

  Horns started blaring behind them.

  Adam took a right turn into the Burren Way Trail entrance. The narrow entrance was just wide enough for a car to squeeze through. Up ahead, he could see another opening to a dirt path. A car couldn’t navigate through that. They were so close to the ocean.

  Adam took a left on the narrow dirt trail. He down shifted and they labored up the incline. He stood and pumped the pedals and his hands squeezed the handle bars. He pulled down to exert as much force on the pedals as possible. A sign had said ‘walking trail.’

  It was obvious that was all this trail was suited for. He was in first gear. They’d have been better with a mountain bike.

  Gabby heard a car skid to a stop on the gravel and she looked back. Maybe three hundred yards away, men dressed in plain clothes were getting out. Their plain clothes were so no government would be blamed for Adam’s kidnapping or murder.

  When the first few shots were fired, Adam knew they’d come from a semi-automatic weapon. The sound of lead whizzing by was too close. Just ahead of them was a hill, and Adam pedaled harder than he ever had.

  They disappeared over the crest of the hill. As Adam and Gabby gained speed, the bike bounced around wildly.

  To their right, the majestic cliffs fell off to the sea. There was no way to navigate down those cliffs without rappelling.

  Hills and valleys with rambling fields to their left. Taking the bike off the trail wasn’t an option. The farmers had undoubtedly had their fill of wanderers, that’s why the stone walls.

  Up ahead were remains of stone buildings that looked to be hundreds of years old. Most likely from Neolithic and early Christian periods.

  They headed straight for the shelter the remains of the buildings could provide. They needed to make it there before the team of assassins crested the hill behind them.

  * * *

  Rock fragments burst into the air like shrapnel as Adam and Gabby dove over a three foot high section of rock ruins. The advancing team shot in short bursts of three and four as they crested the hill. That was enough to tell Adam they weren’t amateurs.

  Adam took out the 9mm Krieger had given him. A few shots might slow down the advancing threat, but that was all the few magazines would do. Adam shot twice. From this range he may have not even been close with this pistol, but it did its job. The assailants took cover and started advancing in a cover and shoot pattern. This slowed their progress in half.

  “What do we do?” Gabby asked.

  Adam looked at the hill behind them. He knew they’d never make it to the top. The soldiers would take a knee, get a good bead on them and drop at least one of them. These soldiers were most likely carrying a C7A1 assault rifle, which was a favorite of the UK Special Forces. If not, they had something with similar accuracy.

  “We can’t make it to the crest,” Adam said. “Call the number on that phone.” He reasoned that their cover had been blown, so breaking communication blackout didn’t matter.

  Gabby turned on the phone and dialed. A moment later she said, “It’s not going through.”

  Adam figured they were either being jammed or their connection was just out of service. He wasn’t going to say anything. The soldiers were advancing.

  Then he remembered the military tactic, shoot and move.

  “Get ready to fall back to that wall,” Adam said as he pointing to another wall about thirty yards behind them in the ruins, “and keep your head down.”

  Adam shot twice. They ran to the next wall. They could do this once or twice more, then they would be out of places to fall back to.

  Adam looked up, and another group of men was coming over the crest of the hill now, two hundred yards behind the others. He took a few more shots at the closest group. He and Gabby fell back again.

  He could tell that moving their location had bought them a few more seconds, but that was all.

  Taking two to three shots at a time, Adam had emptied his first magazine. He slapped in another one of the three he had.

  He looked at Gabby and said, “Ready?”

  She nodded.

  He peered over the rock wall, and rested his forearm on it to steady his aim. He took a few more shots.

  They turned and ran as fast as they could, retreating to the next rock wall in the ruins. Jumping over the wall, Adam hit the ground, rolled and grimaced in pain. Gabby flinched at the sound Adam had made. It was telling: he was hit.

  He had come to a stop on the ground behind the rock ruins.

  Adam gasped, then took in a breath. He struggled, got up on all fours and crawled close to the security of the stone wall.

  Gabby was freaking out. “Are you okay? Say something!”

  Adam remained on all fours and inhaled through clenched teeth. “My back.”

  “Okay, okay.” She took a deep breath. “Stay still.”

  Gabby peeled up his shirt and saw it.

  “It’s a piece of rock...”

  He was trying to catch his breath. Before he could say anything, she said, “Hold still.”

  She pulled at the rock. He reeled up in pain, not ready for what she was going to do.

  Her fingers had slipped off.

  “Can you get it?” he asked.

  “It’s sticking out. Just hold still.”

  “Give me a second,” Adam said. “Pull it as fast as you can.”

  Adam took a deep breath. He curled down, face between his knees. He nodded.

  “This is going to hurt.” Gabby gripped a four-inch piece of limestone protruding from just under Adam’s left shoulder blade and pulled as hard and as quickly as she could.

  It moved a little, but her right hand slid off. She looked at her fingers and palms of her right hand. They were scraped from losing her grip.

  “Hold on,” she directed.

  He replaced the air that had expelled from his lungs from her first attempt, then held his breath and nodded again.

  This time she put her left hand on his shoulder blade and pulled with her right hand. It was half way out when her hand slid half way off the rock. Without saying another word, she repositioned her grip and pulled hard and fast.

  The sliver released. From the best she could tell, it had gone in just over an inch. Blood oozed, but it didn’t gush. It hadn’t hit an artery.

  Just then, she heard charging footsteps. She saw the gun a few feet away, picked it up, peeked over the wall and began shooting. Her eyes watered.

  They were being overrun.

  Adam had taken a deep breath. It hurt like hell, but there was some relief. He pulled his shirt back into place.

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out his last magazine. A few seconds later, Gabby was empty and she handed Adam the pistol.

  He ejected the empty magazine, inserted the new one and slapped it into place. He had just handed the pistol back to Gabby when he heard, “Hold it. Put your hands up,” from an accented voice to their left.

  That was it, the soldier had worked their way around the ocean side of the ruins. Adam and Gabby hadn’t seen him.

  The man motioned for Gabby to put the gun down. Gabby hesitated. Defiance was written all over her face. But, seeing the resolve in the man’s eyes, she opened her palm.

  Chapter 74

  The sound of the shot whizzing by was so close, Adam and Gabby could feel the impact of the sound waves cutting through the air. The proximity was frightening.

  The soldier dropped to the ground. Dead.

  Adam and Gabby both spun around. They
saw a large figure flying over the wall. Another figure followed. It hit the ground and rolled.

  “Colonel,” Gabby said with a gasp of relief. “Oh my God.” She was face to face with Krieger.

  “Get down,” Krieger said. He pushed Gabby’s shoulders with well over a hundred pounds of force. She had no choice, she went down.

  The firefight continued.

  “Don, I haven’t been this glad to see anyone since I can remember,” Adam panted, wincing in pain.

  “That’s nice sir, but our time here is short lived.” Krieger looked over the wall and fired a short burst in one direction, then at another angle.

  Suddenly, a soldier dove over the stone wall. He rolled and got on all fours.

  “Sir, all clear for a hundred yards plus, but they’ve got reinforcements coming.” The soldier crawled next to Krieger. “We can’t stay here long; our guys are ten minutes out.”

  That was what Krieger was just about to explain to Adam. “We can pin them down here, but they’ve got the whole rest of the platoon coming, and they’ll be here before our reinforcements.”

  “What are our options?” Adam asked.

  “There’s only one. They’re closing in from the north, south and east, and we’re surrounded. Our only chance is to get you to the tower. Mauricio is going to get you off the rock and down to the sea before they close in.” Krieger was dead serious.

  “How long do we have?” Adam asked.

  He expected something more optimistic besides Krieger’s answer. “Maybe five minutes.”

  “Five minutes?” Gabby said. She looked at Adam. “What are we waiting for?”

  Krieger and Adam both knew there was nothing more to say. “Take the path towards the tower and Mauricio will find you and get you to the sub.”

  Krieger looked at Adam and Gabby. “Ready?”

  When they both nodded, Krieger pushed the end of his throat mike to communicate with his small team.

  “Lay down cover fire for the vice president,” he said. “On my three, two, one.”