by Robert Boren
“See you boys in a few minutes,” Howard said, smiling at them. “We’ll go for another ride later.”
“Okay, Howard,” Kerry said. They on the driveway and skipped to the barn.
Howard drilled the two holes he needed, and lag-bolted the chains onto the wall, cuff’s hanging down.
“That’s a little high, isn’t it?” Scott asked as he came out on the porch.
“Yeah, I want her almost on her tip toes,” Howard said, grinning. “I’ll go get her.”
“Okay, Howie,” Scott said. “Don’t kill her.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, as he descended the steps.
“Hey, Emma, it’s party time!” Howard said, walking towards her.
“A party with you would last about thirty seconds,” she said, cackling at him again. When he got close, she spat at him, hitting the side of his face.
“Seriously?” he said, then hit her with a right cross.
She started back at him and spat again, bloody saliva flying at him. He hit her again, and she was out.
“That was less than thirty seconds,” Howard said, chuckling, as he took her wrists out of the cuffs. He threw her over his shoulder and carried her up the stairs.
“She’s looked better,” Scott said. There was blood coming out of her nose and mouth.
“Yeah, had to hit her twice. She ruined my shirt.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Scott said, laughing. They went out on the porch together, and Scott fastened the cuffs as Howard held her up.
“My, what a pretty picture,” Howard said. “Should we wake her up?”
“Nah, leave her hanging. Perfect height, Howie. You are the master.”
“Should we strip her?”
“As distasteful as that sounds, yeah. At least rip that halter top off, anyway.”
“Okay, Scotty. You can start for the barn if you don’t want to see it.”
“No, I’ll stay,” he said. “Go ahead.”
Howard ripped her halter top, and it hung open, her breasts exposed. Then he ripped her shorts open. “You know, she looks better than I expected, except for all the tattoos. Maybe I should have.”
“Shut up,” Scott said, laughing. Howard shot him a sly grin.
“I was just kidding,” he said.
“Hey, you hear that?” Scott asked.
“Crap, Harleys,” Howard said. “C’mon. Think you can run?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go through the field. Avoid the driveway. They won’t see us right away if we can’t get there fast enough.”
“There a back door on that barn?” Howard asked.
“Hell, we could probably push our way through,” Scott said. They broke out running as the low rumble of the bikes got closer. They got to the side of the barn just as the first bike turned into the driveway.
“Scotty! They’re here already,” Blake cried as they came through a hole in back of the barn.
“Be quiet,” Howard whispered. He rushed over to the coach door and opened it. “Get inside, boys, and get in the bedroom.”
“Okay,” Kerry said. They scampered in, then Howard got behind the wheel, and Scott opened the windows on the driver’s side of the coach.
Scott loaded a rifle and a shot gun as the bikes flowed in. He put those next to the driver’s seat where Howard could reach them and loaded another rifle and shotgun. He was working on a third rifle when Howard started the engine and drove out of the barn, pulling the coach across the driveway. None of the bikers near the house noticed. They were focused on Emma, still unconscious, hanging on the wall. Then there was another rumble coming down the road.
“Crap, stragglers,” Howard cried.
“I’ll get then,” Scott shouted, as he saw two bikes turn into the driveway. They stopped when they saw the coach, eyes getting wide as the shotgun barrel pointed at them. A blast hit the first one in the face. The other tried to turn but was hit with a blast to the chest. The bikes fell with them, shuddering as their engines died.
“That got their attention,” Howard said, laughing, as he saw several of the bikes turn around and start towards the gate.
“Turkey shoot!” Scott said, opening up with the rifle, taking the first two bikes out as they approached.
“I’ll get the ones on the porch,” Howard said. He took aim at the one who was right up next to Emma, hitting him in the back of the head, splattering her with his blood. She woke at that moment and screamed, working herself against the restraints. Howard hit two more as they tried to dive off of the porch. Another one ducked into the house.
“Crap, one got inside,” Howard said. “We should have locked the door.”
“Didn’t have time,” Scott said. “Look, the last two are trying to surrender.”
Two were stopped on their bikes, and held up there hands.
“Sorry, boys, no prisoners,” Howard said. He shot one, and Scott shot the other.
“Any others get away?” Scott asked.
“Nope, just the guy in the house,” Howard said. “Damn, your cousin is in a state. She’s liable to pull her wrists off the end of her arms.”
“Okay, let’s go mop up,” Scott said.
“Wonder if any other stragglers will show up?” Howard asked.
“Doubt it,” Scott said. “Boys!”
Kerry and Blake came out with terrified looks on their faces.
“What, Scotty?” Blake asked, his eyes full of tears.
“We have to go get a bad guy out of the house. We have a special job for you.”
“Okay,” he said, looking nervous. “What?”
“If you hear any other motorcycles coming, you honk the horn, okay?”
“Okay,” Blake said.
“We’ll do it, Scotty,” Kerry said.
“You know how to honk the horn, right?” Howard asked.
“Yeah, it’s the middle part of the steering wheel, right?” Kerry said. “Mom beat me for doing that once.”
Howard slid out of the seat, picking up the rifle and the shotgun. “Show me.”
Kerry walked over and pushed the middle of the steering wheel, and the horn sounded. Both he and Blake got grins on their faces.
“Good. This is an important job, boys,” Scott said. “Only hit the horn if there’s somebody coming, okay?”
“Okay, Scotty,” Blake said.
Howard and Scott each grabbed a shotgun and made sure they were full of shells. They left the coach and went through the opening in the back of the barn.
“You bastards,” Emma shouted from the porch. “I’ll see you in hell.”
“Yeah, you probably will,” Howard shouted. “We’ll have a beer.”
Scott walked into the door, followed by Howard.
“Come out, come out, where ever you are,” Scott sang. Howard cracked up.
“Come on out,” Howard said. “If you follow instructions, you and the woman just might live through this.”
“Don’t believe them, Steve,” Emma shouted. “You idiot.”
There were footsteps upstairs. A small man ran down, and made the turn into the kitchen. There was the sound of drawers opening and closing frantically. Howard and Scott looked at each other and chuckled.
“Wonder if this guy wants to go up against two shotguns with a knife,” Scott whispered.
“Let’s see what he does,” Howard said. “I’m curious.” They ducked behind the couch and listened. Then footsteps ran by them, out to the front door. Scott and Howard leapt up and followed. The man was standing next to Emma, the butcher knife to her throat.
“You get out of here, or I’ll slit her throat,” he cried, trembling.
Scott and Howard looked at each other and laughed so hard they almost fell over.
“Oh, that’s rich,” Howard said.
Emma’s eyes were filled with terror, as she looked at the man, and over at Scott and Howard.
“You think she’s in on this, don’t you?” Scott asked calmly.
“Yeah, I never trusted her,” the man said
. “She’s crazy.”
“What’s your name?” Scott asked.
“Steve,” he said.
“Well, Steve, there is a way you might get out of this alive,” Scott said.
“What do I have to do?” he asked, sweat coming off his forehead.
“Slit her throat,” Scott said. “You do that, and we’ll consider it even.”
He got a shocked look on his face.
“You idiot, I’m not with these guys,” Emma spat. “They’re going to do both of us.”
“Well, Steve, you can believe that if you want to. If you follow her advice, you’re dead. If you do what we ask, you might live. Which is the better deal?”
Steve lowered the knife, looking down, weeping.
“Yeah, I knew you didn’t have it in you,” Emma said. She cackled at him.
“You gonna let her talk to you like that?” Howard asked. “Be a man.”
“That will be the day,” Emma said.
Steve trembled harder and glared at Emma. She got a worried look on her face. He lifted the knife.
“No,” she said softly.
“I’ve taken enough from you,” Steve said, and he slit her throat, causing blood to spurt all over him.
“Thanks,” Scott said. Then he shot him in the torso with the shotgun. He looked over at Scott and Howard, shocked.
“Well, we said might,” Howard said, laughing as Steve slumped to the ground, knife still in his hand.
“That was fun,” Scott said, grinning.
The horn of the coach sounded.
“Shit,” Howard said, looking out towards the coach. “I didn’t hear any bikes.”
The horn honked again, longer this time. Then a police siren sounded.
“Cops,” Scott said, looking at Howard. “Great.”
Chapter 5 – Rush to Battle
The General walked up to the front of the room, where the home team was meeting.
“News?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “There were several passes set up to get into Kansas. The men who set them up have been quietly arrested.”
“Anybody get across?” Hilda asked, looking frightened.
“We don’t know for sure. There’s one group for which we don’t have reliable information,” he said. “We need to scan for enemy chips.”
“Are they close?” Charlie asked
“No, if they came in, it was from the north, mid-state,” he said.
Dobie took his phone out of his pocket and got a concerned look on his face.
“You see icons?” Gabe asked.
“Yeah, but only five. See, right at the tip of the border. They’re on a small road that dead-ends. Not a good way to get down here.”
“Well, it is possible we aren’t the target,” General Hogan said. “Could be completely unrelated.”
“That looks like an area that won’t have cell coverage,” Gabe said. “They might disappear, and then re-appear a whole lot closer.”
“Does Frank’s long-range PC app get around that problem?” the General asked.
“Nope,” Dobie said. “It works the same as the original long-range app, but with a lot finer resolution.”
“Remember, once they get within a few miles, we’ll get an alarm from the peer-to-peer app,” Gabe said.
“That’s true,” Charlie said. “Unless they remove their chips, we’ll see them.”
“What if we lose our cell tower?” the General asked.
“Won’t matter,” Gabe said. “That’s the beauty of the peer-to-peer app. It picks up the chip itself directly, not through the LTE network.”
“Good, then we’ll just have to be watchful.”
“We’ve got our planning done,” Jake said. “Who wants to help me get the Wi-Fi and the cameras up?”
Most of the people raised their hands.
“Good, let’s blitz this. We can get it done before the sun goes down.”
***
The away team was still planning. Private Brown walked in with a case and put it on the table. He opened it.
“Okay, gather around,” he said. “These laser target designators are easy to use. It’ll only take a minute to walk you though it, but we need everybody to know how.” He pulled the unit out of the case, and extended the small tripod legs.
“Wow, they’re smaller than they used to be,” Jerry said.
“It’s really simple,” Private Brown said. “You look through the eyepiece, get the target in your sight, and pull back this trigger. You can lock the trigger and walk away, so if it’s a hot spot, you can stay out of sight.”
“And hope nobody shoots the device,” Jeb said.
“Yeah,” Private Brown said.
“Do we have to call anybody to get their attention before we paint a target?” Jerry asked.
“No,” Private Brown said. “We’ll have several drones in the air, and several fighter planes nearby too. If something gets painted for more than 12 seconds, the missile will lock on. Just make sure not to move it until the missile hits, because if you move the beam, the missile will follow it.”
“I just got access to a satellite over the area,” Frank said, motioning for everybody to gather around the PC.
“Can’t see a lot of people moving around,” Jeb said. “Oh, wait, look there. Lower left hand side of the picture.”
“Yeah, two people walking,” Frank said. “The resolution keeps getting better and better.”
“Seriously,” Jerry said.
“I’ll zoom out a little bit. Maybe there are more pockets that we haven’t seen yet,” Frank said. He zoomed out far enough to see the front gate. “Look at that truck.”
“There’s a tank behind that building,” General Hogan said.
“Yep, looks like they still have that in the same place,” Jerry said. He walked over to Frank’s laptop. “The national park cameras still up?”
“Yeah, Jerry, just click on the browser.”
“Oh, yeah, look at that,” Jerry said. “That’s a troop transport truck.”
“It’s not full of men, though,” Jeb said. “They’re unloading something. What’s in that box, I wonder. They’ve got six men on it.”
General Hogan went over to the laptop and looked. His brow furrowed. “That looks like a bomb to me.”
“Bomb?” Jeb asked.
“Nuclear device,” he said. “Wonder what they’re planning.”
“Why unload it there? This isn’t a target.”
“Good question,” the General said. “Maybe they want to package it into something they can move around more easily.”
“Hey, guys, there’s a semi-truck heading for the gate,” Frank said, looking at the satellite imagery. “It’s around the bend. You’ll be able to see it in a few seconds.”
“Yep, here it comes,” General Hogan said.
The men watched as the long 18-wheeler came through the gate. It parked next to the equipment building. Then the tank moved out from behind that building, and positioned so its big gun was covering the main gate.
“They think it’s been followed,” Jerry said.
“It was followed,” Frank said. “Two cars on the way in. They look like official vehicles.”
“Police?” General Hogan asked.
“Maybe,” Frank said. “You’ll probably see them in the camera in a few seconds.”
“I wish we could warn them,” Jerry said.
“Oh, crap,” Jeb said. “That tank just fired.”
“They missed,” Frank said. “Those cars are turning around!”
“The tank is rolling out further,” Jerry said. “Whoa, another shot!”
“Missed again,” Frank said. “They’re too far away, now.”
“Two pickup trucks just drove out the gate in a hurry,” General Hogan said.
“Yeah, saw them,” Jerry said. “Three cretins in the back of each.”
“Those cop cars turned around faster than they should have,” Frank said. “They knew.”
�
��Yep,” Jerry said.
“I passed along info about Capitol Reef to somebody I trust,” General Hogan said. “They’ve been watching. You know they can sniff out nuclear devices if they get close enough, right?”
“That area is gonna get hot before we can get there, isn’t it?” Jerry asked.
“It might,” General Hogan said. “You know we’ve got them now, right?”
“How so?” Jeb asked.
“This action will finally convince the right people to watch this park. If there’s a mass exodus now, we’ll kill them on the road,” the General said.
“Your friends have the apps?” Frank asked.
“Nope, I just told them to use the satellites. Still too many people we can’t trust.”
“We still have to go forward with our plans,” George said. “And maybe we want to leave a little earlier than mid-morning. They can’t see everybody, but we can. We don’t want Saladin slipping away to a safe place.”
“They’re loading that crate into the semi-truck,” Jerry said. “Look.”
“It’s gonna be a short trip,” Frank said. “Look at this.”
Frank moved back so others could gather around the PC screen.
“Ambush!” Jeb said, grinning. The two cop cars were now with a group of about forty vehicles, hidden on the sides of the road. The two pickup trucks were approaching.
“Bam!” Jerry shouted as the two pickups flew across the road, rolling.
“Okay, they know that they can’t get their package out, and they know they’re bottled up,” George said. “Or they will in a minute. I say we leave right now, camp out nearby while it’s dark, and then roll in there at sunup, before they can flee.”
“You sure?” Kurt asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” George said. “In fact, if there’s enough of a moon, we ought to sneak in there and get this started tonight.”
“George is right,” the General said. “We need to nab them before they scatter.”
“Maybe we should let the army know about the apps, and let them go in there,” Terry said.
“We can’t trust them,” Private Brown said. “Believe me. Somebody will tip off Saladin. They’ll cut their chips out and disappear.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” Malcolm said. “They still might figure that out on their own, you know. If the chips become stationary all of a sudden, look out.”