Obstacles

by David Wilson

  Ben looked at Talon like he had suddenly grown horns and asked, “You ok?”

  Talon just gave a slight laugh, “Yea, I’m ok, just feeling like cat shit, and that always brings out the sarcasm. I turned on the water, dig out whatever you want for breakfast and grab Billy and me a bag of biscuits and gravy each. Are you finished in the bathroom?”

  Ben yawned and said, “Yea, I just need to brush my teeth, but I can do that out here.”

  After finishing his morning routine, Talon began to feel almost human but still felt like a tank had run over him. Spotting the coffee cup on the table, he headed over and carefully picked up the cup. “Thanks,” he muttered as he sipped the brew. God that was awful, he thought as he sat down in the chair, leaning back and closing his eyes, then he sipped more of the black liquid. Feeling the caffeine slowly spread through his body, he sighed and relaxed as he waited for the caffeine to do its job.

  Talon cracked one eye open as he heard a soft chuckle coming from Ben. “Go ahead and laugh asshole, remember this day, when you are as old as I am. You won’t be laughing then. I feel like a bus ran over me. I guess I should be counting my blessing that I only came away with a busted grape and a few bruises after you caused that damn horse to dump me.”

  Talon just about spewed his coffee all over the room as Ben responded with a one eyebrow raise that would have made Spock proud, “How was that my fault,” Ben said innocently.

  “That damn cannon you were shooting, hell people heard that thing going off in the next county. Scared a couple of useful years out of the horses. You caught me going for my pistol, and I had already dropped the reins when you ripped off those four shots. I know it got my attention, and obviously, Shadow didn’t like them at all. So yes, your fault as normally my graceful self would never have been dumped from the saddle,” defended Talon with a straight face.

  They both stared at each other for several seconds before both of them began to laugh. It really wasn’t that funny, but both men had tears running down their faces before they both were gasping for air.

  “What’s so funny,” a small sleepy voice said from the top rack.

  Both of the men looked up at Billy and then at each other, and both men began laughing again. Finally, getting it under control, Talon told Billy it was just a stupid joke between Ben and him.

  Still looking at both of the men as if they had lost their mind, Billy asked if it was time to get up. Talon nodded his head as he pulled out a bandana to wipe the tears from his eyes and face. Billy swung down from the bunk and headed over to the bathroom, looking back over his shoulder, attempting to decide if they had all lost their minds.

  Breakfast was ready by the time Billy finished up with the bathroom and got dressed. The three wolfed down their food and cleaned up the safe room. Placing all the trash in a trash bag, Talon swung on his pack and checked his weapons. Turning to check on the other two, he was pleased to see Ben checking out Billy’s gear to make sure everything was in place, and his weapons were safe. His mother might freak out when she saw her little warrior, but the kid needed to be able to protect himself if push came to shove. Nor could they afford to lose the horses at this point. Well, they would just have to deal with Diane when that time came thought Talon.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In the end, they decided to just take Billy with them on the rescue mission. The deciding factor was they had to have the horses to move Diane, and there was nowhere to hide the horses at the condo. They would have to strike out directly for the safe house after they recovered her from the FEMA camp.

  After discussing the operation in detail with Ben, they had rejected plan after plan before finally deciding that the most viable plan was a direct assault on the holding facility. Using their suppressed weapons and night vision, they should be able to take out the four guards at the tennis courts without alerting the entire camp. But they would need a diversion of some sort, something that would make a lot of noise.

  Talon decided that they would use one of the solar batteries from the safe room, along with a brown bean timer, to set off an explosion near the facility. That should make everyone look that way and be loud enough to cover the takedown of the guards. The best part of the plan was Diane had everything they needed to construct an improvised timing device. The small battery-powered Dremel tool was perfect for drilling a small hole into the light bulbs without breaking them. And in the toolbox were several rolls of 14 gauge wire.

  Last but not least, she had stored several rolls of duct tape and electrical tape. Talon had to scavenge a couple of bolts from the table to complete his needed list, but that only took a few minutes to find. As Diane had several five-gallon buckets full of stored brown beans and dozens of jars of canned goods, it was a simple task of putting together a not so accurate timing device. Now all they have to do was find a house or building that had a natural gas line for the stove or fireplace. By the time the brown beans soaked up the water and forced a connection to power up the three light bulbs they had filled with gun powder from a few shotgun shells, the house would have filled with the natural gas providing a suitable explosion for their cause.

  After making sure Ben was clear on where to meet him with the horses, Talon had Ben and Billy head over to get the horses. After they had departed, Talon went over the timing device again to make sure all the connections were solid. Carefully loading the battery, timing device, and light bulbs in one of the empty backpacks, Talon gathered his gear and headed back towards the FEMA compound.

  The compound wasn’t that far from the condo, but the weight of the battery and all of his equipment had him sweating like he was sitting in a sauna. Covering the distance as fast as he could, he finally arrived in the neighborhood directly across the road from the FEMA compound. Cutting off the road into the housing development, Talon was pleased to see they were mostly brick two-story homes. Re-doubling his effort, he dog trotted to the end of a dead-end street and enter a two-story brick home about 700 meters from the compound.

  Dropping his improvised timer and battery by the door, Talon went immediately to the kitchen area. Bingo thought Talon on spotting the natural gas cook stove. Now to check and see if the gas was still flowing. Walking over to the stove, he turned the dial for a burner to the lite position. Hearing the flow of gas immediately, he smiled in satisfaction. Turning the burner back off, he quickly stepped across the room to the patio door and checked to see if the house owner had a propane gas grill or heater outside. Spotting a grill, Talon opened up the bottom panels of the grill and was greeted by a propane tank. Testing the handle, he found the valve shut off and unscrewed the tank from the grill as fast as he could. Pulling the tank out of the grill, he carried it back inside the house.

  Sitting the 12 Volt Deep Cycle Battery by the front door, Talon pulled a small bundle of chemical lights from his pocket and bent the bundle to activate the lights. Shaking the bundle, the lights glowed brightly in the darkness of the house. Talon next pulled out the two rolls of 14 gauge wire and carefully began to unroll the wire. He had already stripped the wire at 15-foot intervals for the connections to the lamp sockets. After he had the wire unrolled, he placed a lamp socket by each of the stripped areas of wire. Pulling a roll of black electrical tape from his pocket, Talon connected the lamp sockets to the power wires. After finishing connecting the three light sockets, Talon returned to the backpack and pulled out the brown bean timer. Double-checking the inner ring of the two-piece lid had the sanded side facing up, he carefully attached the positive wire to one of the three-inch-long screws that he had mounted in a piece of plastic that replaced the inner lid. Next, he attached the positive wire leading to the light socket wire to the second screw. Lying the original metal inner lid on top of the brown beans in the jar, he laid the entire jar lid to the side for the moment.

  Running upstairs to check and see if there was a second natural gas fireplace in the house. Not finding one, Talon entered the master bedroom bathroom and opened a window about two inches. T
his should create enough of a draft to spread the gas. With that finished, he returned downstairs to the kitchen. Opening the cabinet under the oven, he immediately spotted the gas line and made sure it was fully open. Opening the oven door, Talon turned the knob for the oven to broil, listening closely Talon heard the hissing of gas. Turning to the stovetop Talon turned all the knobs to high. Holding his breath, Talon listened again and heard gas escaping from each of the burners. Picking up the gas cylinder from the grill outside, Talon carried the cylinder to the junction of the kitchen and family room before sitting it down and cranking open the cylinder’s valve to wide open.

  Returning to the front door, Talon pulled a water bottle from his side pocket and carefully filled the jar with water to the point where the water was barely covering the brown beans, and the metal inner lid was in contact with the top layer of brown beans. Picking up the outer ring of the lid, Talon screwed the lid onto the jar. Checking twice that the contact points of the screws sticking down were not in contact with the inner lid and were level about a ¼ inch above the inner lid lying on the beans. Picking up the small battery clamps attached to the two lengths of 14 gauge wire, Talon made sure to connect the red one to the positive side of the battery, and then holding his breath, he connected the last lead to the negative post of the battery. The device was live now, and as soon as the beans soaked in the water and expanded to raise the inner lid to the contact screws, the circuit would be complete, and the light bulb filament would light up and set off the gun powder in each of the lights. These small explosions would, in turn, set off the natural and propane gases, hopefully resulting in a huge explosion.

  Grabbing his gear, Talon turned and stepped outside, pulling the front door closed behind him. Running next door, he again checked for any propane bottles on the patio and was lucky enough to find two bottles. One new and the partially used bottle attached to the grill. Taking both inside the house, he turned on the oven and stovetop burners and opened the two propane bottles on his way out. Exiting the second house, Talon headed for the meetup point on the southeast side of the FEMA compound.

  Talon made good time after getting his night vision equipment on and adjusted. Moving as quickly as he could, Talon found the street he was looking for and counted down the houses until he came to the sixth house on the left. Cutting between the houses, he almost ran into Ben as he stepped around the corner. Talon stopped to catch his breath and whispered to Ben, “We should have between fifteen and thirty minutes before that house goes up. Let’s get in place and get the outer wire cut.” Ben just nodded and headed off towards his assigned spot. Talon took a couple of deep breaths and stepped over to Billy. “Hang in there kid, we will be back in just a few minutes with your Mom. Stay right here and try and keep the horses calm. Just talk to them quietly and calmly. Can you do this?” Billy swallowed hard and nodded his head. Talon patted him on the shoulder and headed out to his assigned position.

  Moving as fast as he could through the woods, it still took him several minutes to reach the tree line. Just beyond the edge of the woods were the triple strands of concertina wire. Stopping inside the tree line, Talon sucked in several deep breaths in a vain attempt to get his heart rate down. Feeling better, Talon squatted, and duck walked to the end of the tree line. Dropping to a prone position, Talon low crawled the last couple of yards to the edge of the field. Ben had been right. This location gave him a clear view of the south and east sides of the tennis court holding area and also gave him a clear view of the first guard post to the north.

  Reaching behind his head, he grasped the hood of his ghillie cape and pulled it up over his head. After he was sure the hood and cape were in place, Talon began low crawling towards the rolls of wire to his front. Moving slowly but steadily, Talon was at the wire in just a couple of minutes. Pulling the bolt cutters out of the pouch, he slowly raised himself to a kneeling position and began cutting the wire. When he was down to cutting the last loop of wire, Talon reached into his pocket and pulled out a six-foot piece of 5/50 cord. Tying the cord to one of the coils to his right, making sure it was not hung up on any of the razors, he repeated the tie off on a coil to his left. Picking the cutters back up, he carefully cut the last coil. There was a slight pinging noise, and the coil jumped apart from being under pressure. There was a soft rushing noise as the coils sprang apart, but the 5/50 cord stopped the coils from going very far.

  Crawling forward until he had just cleared the wire, he felt the explosion through the ground before the sound of a thunderous explosion reached him, followed quickly by a second blast that almost knocked the air from his lungs. Glancing in the general direction of the explosion, Talon was greeted by a huge fireball rising several hundred feet into the air. Even in his brief glance, Talon could see pieces of debris rising with the fireball. Well, at least the timer worked, he thought to himself.

  Flipping out his bipod feet on his rifle, Talon snuggled in behind his rifle and looked for the first guard. At almost the same instance, he heard the double click come through his earpiece. Finding the guard in his sights, Talon was relieved that both of the guards had come together on this end of the holding area, apparently checking out the huge fireball climbing into the night sky. Swinging his rifle over to the first guard post to the north, Talon could not see either of the guards at that post. Good, they had been drawn off to see what was going on by the main gate of the compound. Moving back to the pair of guards, Talon clicked his send button on his radio three times. Three clicks came back immediately in his earpiece, and Talon began a slow count down from ten. On reaching zero, Talon finished his squeeze on the trigger, making sure the squeeze was between heartbeats. At less than 60 yards, the M855 green tip round took the soldier between his armor vest and the lower edge of his helmet. Talon shifted to the second man who had turned to his fellow now dead soldier, Talons second round dropped him without a sound as the 5.56 round entered his skull one inch behind and below the unwitting soldier’s ear.

  The second guard barely had time to collapse before Talon was on his feet and charging across the sixty yards to the back of the holding area. Ben beat him by about ten yards, but Talon chalked that up to the shorter distance he had to cover between his tree line and Talons. Sliding to a stop on his knees, he gave thanks in the back of his mind for the knee pads built into Crye combat trousers. Reaching over his shoulder, Talon drew the bolt cutters and began cutting the chain link from waist high working his way down as Ben started at the bottom and worked his way to the top. After about one minute of cutting, Talon leaned back and let Ben finish the cut. Putting his bolt cutters away, Talon pulled himself through the cut as Ben held the cut open for him. Once on the inside, Talon stood and moved towards the tent they had identified earlier. Talon didn’t mess with the canvas door of the tent, drawing the Sharknado from its scabbard Talon made one swipe from head height to the ground with the razor-sharp blade and stepped into the inky darkness of the tent. Flipping on his IR light as he entered the dark tent, he dropped to one knee and swept the tent for any hostiles.

  Sweeping his M4 from the back left corner to the front right, Talon saw nothing but people laying on racks, Talon hissed, “Diane, your Father in Law, Jake sent us to get you, come on we need to move.” When no one answered, Talon continued, “Where is the woman that was beaten earlier today.” Talon moved forward as he saw one of the people point to the rack nearest the front door of the tent. Reaching the rack, Talon could see that Diane was either still asleep or unconscious, and both her hands and feet were handcuffed. Laying the short sword down, Talon again re-drew the bolt cutters and snapped the links on both pairs of handcuffs on her hands and feet.

  Just then, the front flap of the tent opened, and Talon felt a hand on his shoulder. “Didn’t I tell you guys not to give her any food or treatment,” the man’s voice trailed off when he realized it was not one of his people kneeling beside the injured woman, and he began to take a step backward.

  Talon dropped the bolt cutters and snatched
up the short sword. Turning and using his legs to power up towards the man, Talon drove the 19 inches of tempered steel upward at an angle just under the bottom edge of the man’s body armor with every bit of the power Talon’s body could muster. The blade entered the soldier’s body just above the belly button and exited his back halfway up his spine. The man dropped to both knees at Talon’s feet. Placing his foot on the soldier’s chest, Talon ripped the blade from his victim’s body. Seeing the man’s face clearly for the first time, Talon recognized him as the man who had beat Diane earlier. Talon gripped the Sharknado with both hands and attempted to remove the man’s head with one powerful swing of the weapon. For an instant, he wished he had kept the larger sword, but the thought passed as quickly as it came. Talon was slightly disappointed the smaller sword did not cleanly remove the man’s head, finding out the old stories of not being able to cut off a head in one swipe were true, at least with a light blade like the Sharknado.

  Sensing movement behind him, he turned to see Diane on her feet. She looked from Talon to the body on the ground. Stepping around Talon, she spit on the partially decapitated corpse, then turned to Talon and stated, “Let's go.”

  Leading the way through the tent, Diane hesitated at the cut in the tent’s canvas. Turning to Talon, she hesitated, but ducked through the cut when he said, “Go, there is a team member waiting at the fence, GO!”

  Raising his voice, Talon addressed the other individuals in the tent, “Do not exit this tent for five minutes, after that there is a cut in the fence directly behind this tent, and the razor wire is cut beyond that. Anyone who comes out before five minutes will be shot.”

  One of the detainees called out, “We are all handcuffed together.”

  Talon reached into his vest and pulled out a chemical light. Bending it to activate the light, he tossed the light on the ground and dropped the pair of bolt cutters beside it, stating again, “Five minutes.”