“She looks like she is hitting a pretty good pace,” commented Fiona, who was certainly qualified to judge such a thing.
“Yes,” agreed John, as if that is what he had been studying too, “but I wonder what she is doing all the way out here by herself.”
A few minutes later they pulled up to the south fork bridge and began to unload the truck and make ready. As they did, another half-ton truck heading north came up, pulled over and rolled down the driver’s side window. Inside were a fit looking young couple about the same age as the police team. They all gathered around the truck briefly to exchange greetings. The couple were fascinated by the group’s plan to tackle Little Sulphur Creek in white-water kayaks. The woman explained that she was the plant engineer for the geothermal plant that the group had passed about a half-mile back up the road, and she and her husband were just heading in to check that it was all operating properly.
John queried, “Is there a dark-haired young woman that is part of your operation? We just passed her running on the road about ten minutes ago.”
“Yes, that would have been Lourdes,” responded the woman driver. “She is quite the runner.” John was inclined to agree with that description at several levels, though he did not say so. After a few more minutes of chatting, the couple continued on their way and the kayakers got back to work organizing their departure. They were just completing the final step of securing their sidearms alongside Carlos’s Remington 700 rifle in the truck’s gun locker when they heard the unmistakable report of a nearby high-powered rifle. They all stopped and stood dead still listening for anything further.
John was the first to comment, “I don’t like the sounds of that. We’re not in season for deer or boar, and it seems like it came from near the plant that couple was headed for. I think we better check it out.”
“Do you want to drive back up the road?” asked Carlos.
“No,” said John, “I think a quieter approach might be better since there is gunfire involved.” The four police officers quickly rearmed themselves and Carlos also took his rifle. In minutes they were jogging back up the road, taking less than five minutes to come within sight of the plant gate. At that point they moved off the road to the east side and continued in the shadows of the ditch until they could see into the plant parking area. They could tell immediately that they were looking at serious trouble.
As Lourdes continued to run south on Geysers Road, picking up her pace for the last mile back to the plant, she was relieved that the half-ton truck had not tried to engage her. She didn’t want to take the risk of being grabbed and, even if the occupants were harmless, she didn’t want to break the rhythm of her run to help someone with directions or make small talk. The truck had just disappeared around the next bend when she began to hear another vehicle coming from behind. She was only five minutes from the plant but was pretty sure the second vehicle would catch up to her before she could get there. It was quite unusual for her to encounter any vehicles during her hour-long, eight-mile run, never mind two. She was glad to have the little can of bear spray close at hand.
Peter Poplinski was surprised as he came around the sharp bend in Geysers Road to see a girl sprinting along the side of the road a couple of hundred yards ahead, and he was immediately intrigued. As he closed the gap and came up behind the girl, he was even more intrigued. She was wearing a pair of skimpy running shorts that displayed her slim well-muscled legs from ankle to upper thigh and did little to camouflage a trim, well-rounded little butt, swaying slightly as she strode from leg to leg. He maneuvered his way up on her left-hand side, forcing her to move away from the shoulder toward the middle of the road as he waved his boys up to flank her on the other side and box her in from behind. She increased her pace and the gang leader could see the shape of her nipples moving beneath her tunic and sports bra. He felt his need rising swiftly within him, wild and uncontrollable as always.
After enjoying the show for a minute, Peter was just about to reach out with his right arm and sweep her up onto his bike saddle, which he easily had the power to do, when she caught him off guard with a rapid sprint ahead, crossing in front of him to the left, into a driveway and skirted to the other side of a locked gate.
Peter drove his bike down into the ditch and also skirted the end of the gate, his four followers close behind. He caught up with the girl halfway across a parking lot, headed for a small house. She tried to dodge past him as he dropped the bike and cut her off, but he was quick enough, with a long enough reach to catch her on the way by. He held her tightly to his chest as the other four rode up, his left arm encircling her chest and trapping both of her arms. Her wild struggles and bucking, with her breasts rubbing against his arm and her butt thrusting backwards into his crotch, did nothing to calm the fever burning in his loins.
He told two of his boys to check out the house and find him a bed as he used his right arm to strip Lourdes’s top and bra over her head and off, her bare breasts now squeezed under his left arm, as he called after them, “I am going to give this little filly a ride she won’t ever forget or find the better of.”
He was about to strip her shorts down when a half-ton truck screeched to a stop outside the gate, a man jumped out and quickly unlocked the gate, and the truck roared in and toward him with the man running behind. The truck stopped twenty yards away and another young woman came scrambling out, pulling a rifle from the back of the cab as she did.
Peter was moving before the truck came to a complete stop. His quick reactions had assisted victory in many skirmishes over the years. He tossed the topless girl toward one of his boys and charged the truck as the woman swung the gun in an arc toward him. He was able to knock the barrel up just as she pulled the trigger and cranked another round into the chamber, but by then he was on her, and the gun was ripped from her hands and thrown back to his boys. There would be no second shot.
The massive biker was looking over the latest arrival — young, though not as young as the first one, blond, trim and also very attractive. Just as he was thinking about what a lucky day he was having, her passenger came blasting around the back of the truck and rammed into him at full speed. Peter had a moment to brace before the collision and dropped his shoulder down to take his attacker in the chest. The other man was not small, but he was no match for Peter’s two hundred and fifty pounds. Peter was driven back a step, but the man bounced back several steps and dropped to the ground. Before he could get up Peter stepped forward and delivered a solid kick to his groin and another to his stomach. The man groaned painfully and began to vomit. Next the driver attacked him but he readily restrained her, groping her thoroughly in the process and thinking that this was really getting to be fun.
The heartless gang leader had no scruples about carrying on with his plans for both women and his excitement of anticipation was almost beyond his control. He would happily kill the man if that would serve any purpose, but he didn’t think it would. The man would be incapacitated by his injuries for a good while. There were more eyes here that had seen his face than was a good idea, but he would follow his usual routine of recording their IDs and addresses and threatening extreme retaliation if they went to the police. No one knew where his base was and they would vanish into the countryside long before anyone could raise an alarm. They might have to lay even lower for a while at the base, but all things considered, there was little risk to permitting himself to indulge his needs. He had just concluded this when he noticed yet another man approaching. Where the hell had he come from? If he planned to interfere, he was going to soon be very sorry.
As John and his three teammates surveyed the scene in the parking area, they knew they had to take immediate action. They could see a man on the ground and another holding a rifle while the woman they had chatted with only moments ago struggled to escape the clutches of a large brute of a man. The runner with the dark hair and ponytail was being restrained by a third rough-looking character and two others were standing nearby. From the presence and ma
ke of the five motorcycles and the appearance of the dismounted riders they could tell the type of men they were facing and doubted they would back off without a fight, being willing to absorb injuries and even fatalities to avoid arrest. They also knew they were likely well armed. John issued instructions in clipped sentences. There was no time for consultation or planning, they would have to wing it, as risky as that would be.
Carlos backed down the road a few yards and started to scramble up the small hill flanking the road and from the crest of which he would overlook the parking lot. John sent the two women a little further back to try to work their way around the lot and come in from behind the small house. It would take them longer to get into position, but they could get into effective range with their sidearms without being exposed to rifle fire. John walked toward the confrontation, his mind racing as he thought through how to buy enough time for his teammates to be ready if a gun battle was to ensue.
With one rifle already out and pointed in his general direction, able to knock him down before he could get into range for his sidearm, he elected to leave it stuck in the back of his neoprene wetsuit shorts. As he approached the bikers, they all faced him, waiting for him to make a move. The only motion came from Alyssa as she continued to struggle with the big guy, kicking and swearing, none of which seemed to bother him even a little. John sized him up as the leader of the gang, or at least the most dangerous of them, and decided that was the best place to start.
John spoke to the man, “What kind of a coward are you? Let that girl go. You’re a poor excuse for a man to be taking advantage of someone half your size.” John suspected that this guy was unaccustomed to being challenged and would react emotionally without thinking through any strategy, and he was right on the mark.
Peter Poplinski flushed with anger at being called a coward. He could see that his accuser was a well-proportioned guy, younger, fitter, maybe even quicker, but he was confident that he lacked the power and ruthlessness that Peter himself could bring to bear. He would destroy the guy, leave him with injuries he’d never fully recover from, and then get back to enjoying the two women. He flung the blond toward one of his guys and responded, “We’ll see who the coward is here.”
The two men squared off. John feigned a bit of surprise and consternation at the size of the guy as he closed in, and back-pedaled several steps saying, “Okay, maybe I misspoke a moment ago. Let’s see if we can talk this out.” In fact, John had fought with big men in the past, some as big as this guy, though perhaps not as heavily muscled. His experience was that such brutes usually relied more on their size and strength than on technique. He knew he would need to avoid taking a punch or a kick because one solid connection from this guy would deck nearly anyone, but he had enough full-body contact tournament matches behind him to be ready for this one, even if the stakes were a little higher. The only purpose for his gambit was to gain a few more seconds, and to make sure he was well clear of Carlos’s line of sight to the guy with the rifle. John was pleased to see that of the other four men, two were occupied restraining the girls and the one with the rifle was surely zeroed in on Carlos’s scope, leaving only one other who could easily bring another weapon to bear.
Peter Poplinski responded to John’s peace offering with a sneer. This was more the kind of behavior he was accustomed to from his inferiors. However, he was much too wrought up to even consider a nonviolent resolution to the situation, though in fact nothing had yet actually happened in reality that would make such a result impossible, even if it had already happened in the dark abyss of his mind. He replied, “Too late for that now, big mouth. Nobody talks to me like that and walks away, some can’t even crawl after I’m done. Let’s have your best.”
First things happened fast, then they happened even faster. Peter lowered his head and charged straight at John, building up unstoppable momentum in three quick steps. As he reached John, he raised his arms, intending to grapple him about the upper body as he took him down, and then to pinion him on the ground and punch his lights out. John stepped aside at the last moment, landing a full 360-degree spinning flat-handed chop to the front side of the brute’s neck, over the carotid artery, as he thundered by. The aim was perfect, and the spin, combined with the snap extension of John’s powerful arm, delivered a tremendous blow to one of the most vulnerable spots on the human body, even one as big as this. Peter Poplinski sprawled on the ground, dazed and barely conscious. It was a short but decisive fight.
John sensed movement behind him and turned just as the one with the rifle began to bring it to the aim and then dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes as a .308 175-grain bullet from Carlos’s Remington 700 punched through his sternum. Then the man with the free hands grabbed his gun from out of his jacket pocket, but John drew quicker and nailed him before he could bring it to bear. At the same time Helen and Fiona stepped up behind the remaining two bikers still standing and ordered them assertively to release the women, raise their hands straight up and lie face down.
John turned back to his big opponent, surprised to see him back up on his knees with a small handgun pointed right at John. The guy was tough, that was for sure. Then the rifle on the hill spoke once again, the bullet passing downward through the spine and destroying the heart and lungs with lead and bone splinter shrapnel. That was the end of big Peter Poplinski, the world a better place now by at least a little.
There was a moment of frozen silence, then Alyssa and Lourdes ran to each other and embraced briefly as Alyssa gave Lourdes her jacket, then they both helped Brad up and supported him as he staggered into the house. John borrowed Alyssa’s cell phone and took several pictures of the parking lot from different angles while Fiona tended to the seriously wounded biker as best she could and Helen stood guard over the last two uninjured bikers who were then securely tied and thrown in the back of Alyssa’s half-ton for the time being. Carlos was then waved down from his position and assigned to stand guard over the two in the truck.
John used the landline in the house to make three quick calls. The first was for an immediate ambulance even though he thought that the injured biker was unlikely to live until medical assistance arrived. The second was to the California Highway Patrol detachment in Healdsburg, alerting them to the situation and requesting assistance. The third was to the Santa Rosa Police Department’s tactical team supervising lieutenant asking him to notify the chief and have a good word put in for them with the highway patrol.
The police officers did what they could for the injured biker, but their first aid was insufficient to the task given the extent of damage from the .45 ACP bullet wound, and the man gradually bled out internally. Before the end, and while still lucid though in considerable pain, the man grew remorseful for the life he’d led, apologized and asked forgiveness, and disclosed the location of the Satan’s Wheels base near Lucerne.
Two ambulances and three Highway Patrol cruisers arrived soon thereafter. The two uninjured bikers and all weapons were taken into custody, and the patrolmen asked that everyone come into their base within the next couple of days to make a statement. A truck would be sent out to remove the motorcycles to the pound. Then the patrolmen left and the rest of them gradually began to come down from the horrific and high-stress events of the morning. Alyssa spoke up first, in a quavering voice and thanked the four police officers for coming to their aid, for reacting so quickly and placing their own lives at risk for some people they knew nothing about. The police team accepted the gratitude graciously, the unspoken feeling among them being tremendous satisfaction with having fulfilled their duty to protect people.
Then Lourdes ran forward and threw her arms around John, weeping with relief and stammering out her feelings, “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. I was so terrified of what that monster was going to do to me. I could feel his evil radiating out like the flames of hell, and then I was even more frightened when Alyssa and Brad got caught up in it.”
The young woman’s highly emotional outpouring broke
the dam of restraint and soon everyone was hugging everyone else and crying and laughing at the same time. Some noted without comment that the hugging between John and Lourdes seemed a little more intense than any of the other embraces.
It seemed like a whole day had gone by even though it wasn’t even noon yet. Taking on Little Sulphur Creek this late in the morning was out of the question though, especially given the fatigue beginning to set in after the stress of the battle. The police team agreed to stay on for lunch, no one being eager to end the group bond just yet.
They all prepared to head back to Santa Rosa in the early afternoon. Brad seemed to be mostly recovered from his injuries but Alyssa was anxious to get him fully checked out at the Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. As preparations for departure got underway, it dawned on everyone that they were all leaving except Lourdes. Alyssa suggested that the chickens could get by for a day or two, and Lourdes should just come down and hang out with her and Brad. However, the plucky young lady insisted that it was her job to look after the chickens. She had already done enough harm by attracting the attention of the bikers, and she would be just fine by herself for the rest of the day and overnight, as usual.
Before John’s brain could intercede, before he could consider the fact that this brave and stunningly beautiful young woman was a good deal younger than he was, before the rational part of his mind could point out that the immediate aftermath of a traumatic experience was not a wise time to make a quick personal decision, the words popped out of his mouth, “If Lourdes has to stay, I’d be happy to stick around and help out with the chickens if she’d be comfortable with that.” His mouth slammed shut and his ears burned and cheeks flushed as he registered how patently obvious he must sound.
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