Kyla had no way of knowing if the man heard their full discussion, but much like she didn’t volunteer the pistol for Van Nuys, she didn’t mention it to the new guy.
The sailor breathed hard, like he’d run the long way through the woods in order to beat them to the boat. He tipped his camouflaged canvas hat toward them. “Do as you’re asked and you won’t get in any trouble, I promise you that.”
Kyla recognized the man from the helicopter ride. He’d come over with her and the captain. “Hey, I flew over here with you,” Kyla said. “She’s with me. We’re cool.”
He sounded angry. “That’s not how it works. You should have done what we asked you and brought her and your uncle into the lighthouse. Now, you’re a suspect, too.”
“Suspect?” she replied with her own anger. “I’m the one who brought you where you needed to go. How the hell does it make me a suspect?”
Emily spoke with a level voice. “Kyla, take it easy, okay?”
“Screw that!” she replied.
The man held up his hand. “Quiet. I’m going to call this in.” He keyed his radio and it beeped a couple of times, like it was making a call.
She stood next to Emily, trying to stay calm like the other woman. Kyla figured someone like her would be used to high-pressure situations of life and death.
Life or death?
Kyla did have a rifle pointed at her. Her heart got up to a gallop and she immediately imagined they were about to be in big trouble. Maybe even accused of a serious crime. The man’s tone sure sounded like it.
She glanced around, desperate for a way out. They’d emerged from the thickest part of the forest, though they weren’t far from it. If they could take a few steps back, maybe they could escape.
The radio warbled. A man’s voice replied from the speaker, loud enough for her to hear it. “This is Nighthawk, go ahead.”
“Hey, boss, yeah, I found them at the boat, like you said. What do you want me to do with them?”
“You have the vice president, and the young woman?”
“I do.”
The radio was silent for ten seconds, and Kyla felt a black hole spring to life in her stomach. She listened intently as the radio squawked again.
“Kill them.”
Montauk airport, NY
“Drop your weapon, sir.” Meechum took a few steps back but kept her rifle pointed at Ted’s chest, which made him very receptive to laying down his AR and defusing the situation. “And the Sigs.” She motioned to the pistols on his hips.
“There’s been some kind of mistake,” he said as he put the three weapons into a pile. “I’m not lying.”
The Marine wasn’t done. “Sailor, check him for knives and other goodies.”
After getting patted down, Ted was relieved of his backpack as well as the Ruger LCP pistol he always kept in his front pocket. She’d gotten the drop on him so completely that he’d lost all of his weapons in one swoop.
“I saw the other woman,” the Marine replied, not at all worked up. “I know the vice president when I see her. Your niece confirmed my suspicion. My orders are to bring her in to our base at NORAD.”
“NORAD?” Ted asked her with surprise, knowing for a fact the Cheyenne Mountain facility had gone offline with the attack. “Is that your headquarters? You’re with the invasion?” He looked to Van Nuys, sure he was going to give the order to the caught-in-the-middle sailor to secure her weapon, and for a second, it looked like he was going to turn around and do it, but his radio came to life. He gently grabbed the radio from his belt and raised it slowly, as if to show the Marine he wasn’t holding a weapon.
“This is Nighthawk, go ahead.”
A crackling voice came from the speaker. “Hey, boss, yeah, I found them at the boat, like you said. What do you want me to do with them?”
“You have the vice president, and the young woman?” Van Nuys made a point to look into Ted’s eyes, like he was a little pissed but also disappointed he’d been lied to. Ted’s intuition was off kilter after seeing the Marine announce she was playing for the other team, but he wanted to believe the captain was going to stand up to her. If he did, Ted was ready to attack her, too.
“I do,” the man’s voice came back.
Ted toyed with the idea of rushing the Marine alone, but she was at least ten feet behind the captain, as if she knew someone was going to try. Van Nuys took a long time to reply, but Ted realized he’d been working a pistol out of a holster toward the front of his hip. It was out of sight of the Marine. It looked like he was going to fight her, after all.
The captain didn’t pull the pistol all the way out. He stared at Ted. “I know you won’t understand this. You work a lifetime, rise to the top, and still have nothing to show for it. I’m not going out like that. I’ve got dibs on the entire state of Vermont.” He held the radio to his mouth. “Kill them,” the captain deadpanned.
The whip-bang of a rifle discharge jarred Ted out of his decision loop. At that moment, he didn’t care whose side the captain was on; he’d given the order to kill his niece. If the bullet was meant for him, he’d die trying to wrap his fingers around the man’s neck. Ted lunged for the captain as the nearby sailor fell sideways.
She shot him.
He had enough time to appreciate he wasn’t the one getting shot, but Van Nuys almost had his pistol out. There was no doubt who it was intended for. He tucked his head and squared his shoulders as he rammed into the navy man’s ribs.
“Stop him!” the captain yelled.
Ted was willing to die to accomplish his task, so he wasn’t as concerned about the Marine as the captain probably hoped. He had no idea why she shot the sailor, or if she was coming for him next, but blood surged through his veins like Niagara Falls during a thunderstorm. Nothing could stop him from killing the bastard.
The captain wasn’t a pushover. He fell with Ted’s thrust, but he didn’t crumple into a ball. He rolled sideways and forced Ted to roll with him.
“Cancel the order!” Ted shouted, spitting anger all over the other man’s face.
Van Nuys didn’t flinch. “Marine, kill him!”
They rolled again, with Ted getting on top of the captain’s chest. He tried to straddle him, so he could get solid leverage and snare his neck, but Van Nuys pulled up his knees and forced Ted off.
The opening gave the captain another chance to reach for his pistol, but Ted pivoted and thrust himself back into a second tumble. The violent jarring sent the pistol skipping over the pavement and out of reach. Ted tried to land a punch, but they were both off balance.
His vision compressed down to pinpoints as he only saw the enemy’s smug face.
“Marine!” the captain yelled again as he fought to get up on one knee.
Meechum wasn’t far. She stood a few yards away, M27 rifle in hand. However, she seemed to be waiting for the result of the fight before making a move. If he was to be shot, he was taking the captain with him.
He ripped several buttons off the white navy uniform as he yanked the man back onto the concrete. The movement caused the captain’s head to strike the ground, which seemed to temporarily stun him. It provided Ted another chance to fall upon him and grab his neck. A distant voice told him to stop trying to do the same thing over and over, but all he wanted to do was choke the life out of him.
“Kill him!” the captain repeated.
Ted still didn’t look at the Marine, figuring he was dead if he relented or lost contact with the captain. They rolled from side to side, trading clumsy punches and elbow jabs, but Ted finally managed to hold the captain in place. They’d both exerted themselves toward exhaustion, though Ted was younger and in better shape. He had the advantage. “I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch,” he wheezed.
Van Nuys struggled, but the ending was set.
“Hey, guys, someone’s going to get hurt.” Meechum’s casual voice made her seem like a mother breaking up a pair of toddlers.
“I’m going to kill him,” Ted chu
ffed.
“I don’t think your niece would like that.” She held Van Nuys’s radio.
Ted froze at the sight of it, which gave the captain an opening. Like before, he kicked and shoved Ted off his chest. While Ted rolled right, he rolled the other way. As the gap increased, Ted concluded the Marine and the captain were working together. In fact, the captain had rolled his way over to his discarded pistol.
Ted froze in a half-standing crouch. With two threats in front of him and no gun, he had few options. His only defense was to raise his hands, which counted for little in total war.
The captain laughed to himself as he caught his breath. He also raised his pistol and pointed it at Ted, though he had to bend over again to pick up his discarded hat. “Nice try, Major. I’m afraid you lose. David is going to reward me greatly for taking out the last in the line of succession for the presidency.” He positioned his cap on his head, then aimed the pistol at Ted’s midsection.
Ted reflexively covered his face with his arm.
The gunshot blast made his insides recoil.
“Oh shit!” he blurted, thinking he was hit.
A few seconds went by before he chanced a look up. Van Nuys fell sideways onto the tarmac. The pistol skittered out of his hand, though away from Ted. A large exit wound had replaced the salad bar of ribbons over his heart.
The Marine stood over the fallen captain, leaving no doubt who was really in charge. She’d brought down two of the men she’d come with.
Was he next?
Vacaville, CA
Dwight’s headache had been dialed up to icepick-through-the-temple pain as he drove across California. The motorcycle engine and the screaming wind worked together to annoy him, as did Poppy’s endless complaints. However, the real cause of his suffering had nothing to do with the outside; his body desperately missed the usual flood of alcohol in his veins. He’d been dry for almost twenty-four hours.
Poppy still flew alongside him, flapping her wings into colorful green blurs. She’d been quiet for a few miles, which suggested she was ready to listen rather than yell at him.
“Keep your eyes peeled, Pops. I want to lose this guy as soon as I can.” The bird looked down at him, then nodded ahead, like there was something to see. And there was—a large group of bikers had pulled over to the side of the highway, though many walked up a nearby embankment toward an overpass.
Bernard waved him to pull over. For a few seconds, he considered shooting under the bridge and never looking back, but he knew his skills on the bike weren’t any better than passable, especially with his headache and other imbalances in his skull. Poppy was already slowing down.
Fine.
After setting the kickstand and walking up the hill, he and Bernard joined other black-clad bikers. He recognized them from the warehouse. Bernard gave him a nudge when they got close. “Looks like they found some survivors.”
The notion excited Dwight, as they would almost certainly be normal Americans, like him, but when he got into the mix of things, he quickly came to the conclusion they were not like him. They were tied up and made to stand at the edge of the bridge.
“What did they do?” he blurted out.
A fellow rider heard him and replied, “Found ‘em up in the foothills. They’d been inside a cave this whole time. We caught them heading back to San Francisco.”
The crowd clapped for a few seconds, making it hard for Dwight to reply, but then everyone began to chant, including the man who’d answered him.
“Free America. Free America. Free America!”
The chant went on for half a minute—long enough that he figured out he needed to join in. It didn’t make him happy to say it, but Bernard always seemed to watch him. In fact, the guy seemed to keep an eye on everyone in the black jumpsuits.
A concussive roar ripped through the crowd.
“Shee-it!” he shouted reflexively.
Some of the others jumped too, but most broke into cheering and laughter.
Wisps of smoke blew by, and he got a good look at where the captured cavers had been standing. When he didn’t see them, he shuffled through the happy revelers so he could look over the side of the bridge.
The normal Americans, like him, had been shot dead. Their bodies lay broken and bloody on the pavement below. One of his fellow bikers yelled for someone to clean the road of the bodies, which resulted in numerous replies from within the crowd.
“Cleanliness in all things,” they murmured.
The ice pick in his brain suddenly slid all the way through to his spine.
“God, Poppy, what country have you brought me to?”
CHAPTER 11
Montauk, NY
“Kill them,” the voice replied from the radio.
The sailor on the boat glanced up at her and Emily with a “my pleasure” look in his eyes. He leaned over to set the radio on a bench, which briefly pulled him out of her line of sight. It gave her a chance to retrieve the gun tucked in at her right hip.
When the man came back up, he fiddled with his rifle, perhaps flicking the safety off, but his eyes doubled in size when he saw her weapon pointed at him. Kyla didn’t give him a chance to surrender, or to fire at her and the VP. She steadied her aim, pulled the trigger, and braced for the kickback.
The gunshot sounded like a canon. At first, she believed it was her gun making all the noise, but when a second shot shook her teeth, she realized Emily was also firing a pistol. Kyla reoriented on the injured sailor and fired a second shot.
The man never had a chance. Both women landed at least one shot in his chest, even though they fired four or five shots apiece. Others might have been on target, but he fell out of the boat.
“Holy shit,” Kyla wheezed. “You have a second gun, too?”
The VP smiled. “Your uncle insisted on it. Now I know why.”
Kyla’s ears rang like her head was inside a church bell, but it was exhilarating to have taken part in fighting back against someone bent on killing her.
“That was Van Nuys on the radio,” she said flatly.
“The captain?” Emily asked.
She nodded gravely. “We’ve got to warn my uncle. Hell, I’ve got to warn Meechum.” Kyla worried her friend was already dead. If the captain was working for the other side, the last person he’d want around is the friendly neighborhood Marine.
Unless she’s a bad guy, too.
“I’ll get on the radio,” Emily replied as she trotted into the shallow water in front of the black boat.
Kyla reached down to pick up Emily’s discarded rifle as someone shouted “Halt!” from the woods. A new sailor came out of the trees beyond where the boat was parked, his rifle pointed at Emily. She assumed he had a clear view of the injured or dead sailor, who was in the water on the other side. He’d heard the shots, for certain.
The order had been given to kill them, so she continued and picked up the rifle, intending to go down fighting. Time seemed to get stuck in molasses as she brought the black-barreled weapon up to her shoulder. It took forever to click over the safety.
At the same time, the sailor already had his rifle aimed at Emily. She was defenseless in knee-deep water. She didn’t even have the time to grab her pistol, which she’d put back in her waistband.
“I give up!” Emily cried out.
Kyla was no more than twenty feet away from the attacker, though he had a few small trees in front of him. She lined up his profile and gently pulled the trigger back. The metallic clang of the AR-15 was distinct from the smaller pistol, but also somehow quieter. She squeezed off as many shots as she could, while the man also took his shot at the vice president.
Emily dove into the water.
With the foliage in the way, it was hard to see if Kyla had struck the man, so she stopped firing for a few seconds while taking some steps forward. She had to crouch down to see him better. When she did, the guy had his rifle pointed at her.
They fired at the same time. She didn’t have nearly the experience a
s the professional warfighter, but she knew there was no going back. She launched into a frenzy of trigger pulling, doing her best to keep the barrel pointed at the target. The staccato fury amped up as she imagined bullets whizzing back and forth from twenty feet away.
At one point, it seemed like a bee stung the side of her neck, but otherwise she kept up the fire until the man slumped to the ground. After a brief pause to ensure he was no longer firing his weapon, she deliberately shot two more times. She’d seen too many movies where the bad guy got that last shot at the good guys. Emily was nearby in the water.
“Emily?” she asked warily.
“I’m good!” The VP came up out of the water, soaked, but she had a better view of the sailor. “He’s down!”
When Kyla finally lowered her gun, her pulse quickened, and blood coursed through her brain like a levee break had taken place. She fell to one knee, glad to be alive, but a wet liquid ran across her shoulder, as if she’d been hit with a water balloon.
Or a bullet.
She reached for her neck, meeting warm blood.
“Emily…”
Montauk airport, NY
On his knees and panting at a hundred beats per minute, Ted was at the mercy of the grim-faced Marine woman. She’d fired the gun at the captain, which registered as a victory for him, but she still stood there with the gun pointed his way.
He blinked in surprise as she tossed the radio to him. He bobbled it for a second until he got a grip.
“Call her,” Meechum ordered.
Ted glanced down at it, then back to her. “You aren’t going to shoot me?”
She slung the rifle over her shoulder. “I’m on your side, Major. Your niece did the right thing running with you to get away from these guys, but we can talk about that later. Right now, call off the hit on her. Please.”
He didn’t need more encouragement. “Cancel the last order! Do not kill them!”
In terms of radio protocol, he knew it wasn’t going to fool anyone on the other side, but if he could sow a little confusion into their game plan, maybe he could get back to the boat and help them.
Minus America (Book 3): Rebel Cause Page 8