Asher was back in his seat, buckling up. She was looking over at him to make sure he was safe and snug, when Logan nearly hit her face as he pointed ahead. “Look!”
“Sit in your seat!” she yelled back, sure he was unbuckled.
A row of Humvees sat in her path about a mile away. The last few buildings of Cheyenne were close by, forming the southern border of the town and creating a convenient place to set up a roadblock.
“I see people,” she declared.
“You do?” Asher asked. “Oh, yeah. I see them, too.”
Grace closed the distance, getting a better picture of what was coming. They were Humvees, probably military. At least nine of them, blocking all four lanes. And they sported lots of guns.
Behind, the thieves were close. She only glanced in the rearview mirror but couldn’t miss the arm hanging out one of the car’s passenger side windows. A man pointed and fired a small gun at her. That one did ping off metal, meaning her truck had suffered one more indignity.
She’d been scared sick for three days straight, but she was tired of the worn-out emotion. All the adrenaline had coursed through her blood, changing the fear into a more potent mix of anger and desperation. If she needed to ram into the roadblock to escape the horde of bad men, then so be it.
Her vision became a narrow tunnel.
“Slow down!” someone yelled from the back seat.
“Grace!” Asher called out.
Ahead, men waved their arms to get her attention. She found that a little odd, but it was also strange to see the big machine guns on top of the military trucks swing in her direction.
“We have to stop!” Asher yelled out. “Please, Grace, don’t do it!”
A deep booming rattle came from ahead. The machine gun’s explosive gunfire thrummed in her chest, though the shooter had it pointed up in the sky. However, as she continued toward them, the soldier angled the gun in her direction.
That made her mad, too.
“We’re dead,” Logan said to his father.
“Stay down,” his dad snapped.
So mad.
Through the fog of hostility, she imagined her mom sitting next to her in the passenger seat, teaching her how to drive. They’d gone to the country, of course, rather than some street in Paducah, but Mom sat patiently as she instructed her how to work the mirrors, the air conditioner, and, she joked, how to use the cupholders. Grace being Grace, she only complained about how it was dumb and boring and how Mom’s instructions were beyond obvious.
Mom took it all in stride, but at one stop sign she spoke like she was revealing the secret of life. “Grace, let me give you the only lesson you really need. As long as you keep both hands on the wheel, and both eyes on the road, your chances of getting into an accident go way down. Wherever life takes you in a car, remember: when you’re driving, you’re responsible for the lives of your passengers. Someday, the person sitting here is going to be your boyfriend, or husband, or a daughter you love more than anything…”
Her anger fizzled as the memory played out. Grace stuffed both feet against the brake pedal and pushed down with all her weight. This time the anti-lock brakes had no hope of reining in the screaming tires as they baked rubber onto the cement.
“Don’t fire. Don’t fire. Don’t—”
St. Louis, MO
Ezra raised his hands in surrender as the two criminals pointed black battle rifles in his face. Seconds ago, there’d been a smattering of people on the street and hillside watching Susan’s Grace get dragged up the shore, but most of them had gone running after the police officers went down.
“We don’t want any trouble,” Ezra said in a loud voice. Darius hadn’t stopped pulling the boat. His motor sounded like it didn’t have a muffler, and he also played his stereo at maximum volume, so he might not have heard the gunshots. The thought of dying while his friends were oblivious to his plight was almost comical, but it did make him feel alone.
“You should have thought of that before you killed our friends out on the boats.”
He realized who they were.
“I see you recognize us now,” the guy on the left added. His face was sunburned and covered with stubble. He’d never win a beauty contest; the man had a thick brow and a warped nose from lots of fights. Ezra didn’t recognize him by his face, but he knew he was one of the pirates.
The other man nodded to the orange truck pulling the boat. “That’s a nice solution to get away from us. Good thing our group has access to all kinds of misplaced equipment. We even have a helicopter. Your days of running are over.”
“We didn’t want any trouble,” Ezra remarked, desperate to not sound scared. “If you’d left us alone, we could have gone by without anyone getting hurt.”
Ugly dude got close to him. “You don’t get it, do you? We don’t care what you want. We only care about what you’ve got. Once we put a bullet between your eyes, we’re going to kill your friends for sport, then sink your damned boat to teach you a lesson.”
“If I’m dead, do you think I’ll learn the lesson about the boat?” He sensed his cheeks turn red with anxiety at speaking with maximum sarcasm, but he still refused to let the bullies get the better of him. He was one trigger squeeze away from rejoining Susan. He wasn’t going to go out on his knees.
Ugly’s friend pushed his rifle barrel into Ezra’s stomach. “You killed three of our friends. You messed up another three. Your shooter friends back in that town killed another of my buddies while we were on the Maggy May. The lesson is you don’t screw with us and get away with it.”
Ezra was pleased Francis and his militia friends made an impact on the pirates. He must have smiled at the thought. Ugly reacted immediately.
“You think this is funny? I can assure you, it’s not.”
Ezra was deathly scared of what was in store for him, but he laughed anyway. “Yeah, I was thinking how the world is going to be run by slack-jawed yokels like you two, while me and my honorably discharged Army buddy get knocked off. That’s called irony, in case you weren’t aware.” Both men were suitably angry at his reaction, but he paid special attention to the man poking the cold metal into his gut.
Susan, I’m going to do something stupid.
“You should not—” Ugly began to say. He was cut off when Ezra sidestepped and held on to the barrel of the second man’s rifle. The quick movement surprised the guy, and since they’d been standing so close to each other, he was unable to turn the gun back toward Ezra.
“Hey!” the second man shouted.
Ezra was not a fighter by nature. He’d never taken wrestling or studied karate. However, he had muscles filled with fight-or-flight adrenaline and a will to take down at least one of the killers. While Ugly stepped back in shock, Ezra shoved himself into the body of man number two, keeping the gun sideways between them.
They both tripped and fell to the cobblestones. Ezra didn’t dare let go of the rifle, but he also kept himself wrapped around the other man. Close by, Ugly was undoubtedly thinking about shooting him, though he hoped the idiot wouldn’t risk putting a bullet in his friend.
“Get off him!” Ugly shouted.
He couldn’t do more than grunt as he fought against the pirate. The guy was about the same size as Ezra, but he was at least ten years younger, which seemed to give an immediate edge. Additionally, the flailing man didn’t seem to be desperate. It appeared he was used to fighting.
Ezra held on as long as he could, and despite the superior strength of the other fellow, he managed to maintain a stalemate for twenty hard seconds. However, Ugly huffed and then kicked Ezra in the kidney. The dumb pirate figured out he didn’t need to use his rifle to affect the flow of battle.
I’m toast.
It became a two-on-one a few seconds later, and a fist pounded his back, searching for his spine. Ezra tried to roll to dodge the pummeling, but Ugly switched back to kicks. They were more painful, though they didn’t make contact quite as frequently.
After rolling
again and trying to put his grappling partner between him and Ugly, the fallen man surprised him by using Ezra’s momentum to keep going. It put some separation between them, allowing the guy to punch him in the groin and get free. He scrambled for his rifle, which had skidded five or six feet away.
In less than two seconds, he was isolated on the pavement. Ugly had let his rifle drop to one hand while he tried to help his friend, which made him unprepared to put it in action when Ezra fell free. He struggled to get a grip and pull it up to the firing position.
The second guy shouted, “Shoot him!”
“I’m not learning my lesson,” Ezra snarked, despite not catching his breath. “Sorry.” It was the best he could come up with for his last words.
Ugly finally got his grip. He leaned toward Ezra, aiming at his face. “You will, asshole.”
A gunshot cracked, forcing Ezra to recoil out of instinct. Blood splashed his face, making him wonder what part of his body had been pierced. He didn’t even feel any pain…
Ugly fell over. A huge hole marred the left side of his face. It took Ezra a second to realize it wasn’t him getting shot, it was the pirate. As soon as he made the connection, he glanced over to the man he’d been fighting.
“No!” the man screamed, picking up his fallen rifle.
More gunshots banged out; this time it was clear they’d come from over by his boat. The man had been on all fours, lifting his weapon, but a pair of bullets slammed into the side of his chest, dropping him like a wet napkin onto the stones.
Ezra knelt where he was, in shock, and out of breath. Both men were dead with puddles of blood oozing out where they fell. It was a grisly, horrible sight. He almost lost his lunch when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
“E-Z, you okay?” It was Butch.
He looked up at him, dumbfounded. “They wanted me to learn my lesson.”
Butch relaxed. “I don’t think you did. You must be a piss-poor student.” He held out a hand to lift him off the ground.
When he was on his feet, he pulled Butch in for a bro hug. “Thanks, man. I owe you for that. You’re definitely keeping the rifle when we get going again.”
Darius had never stopped dragging the boat up the cobblestones. Susan’s Grace was a hundred yards up the river from them, making him wonder if the young man planned to keep going. Maybe he didn’t want a gun, he wanted a boat. Ezra gestured toward the orange truck. “That guy doesn’t even know what happened, does he?”
Butch laughed. “He’s single-minded, for sure. The music didn’t help, either. He wouldn’t have heard a bomb go off. It’s why I walked far behind the boat, keeping an eye on it and you. I missed when the pirate dudes shot the cops, but I did hear the shots.” He glanced down at the two dead officers. “But I had to run over to the boat, grab the rifle, then put it to use. You did a good job delaying them.”
Ezra brushed his hair to straighten it out. “Yeah, I delayed them by pissing them off. If they had shot me right away, they would have come for you and Darius next.”
“So, what do we do now?” Butch inquired, again looking at the police. “Should we report this?”
“To whom?” he replied. Lots of people saw what happened, though no one came to help. He thought it was typical of any violent situation. However, the important fact was they’d seen the pirates kill the cops, not him. “I think we should leave this be and get on our way. The spectators can dial 9-1-1.”
“Come on,” Butch coaxed, “Darius is ready for us to slide the boat back into the water.” They observed what the man had done with his orange truck. He’d driven sideways along the waterline with one tire in the river. The boat followed and was already halfway afloat.
“Yeah, let’s see if he has any duct tape. We can seal those leaks before we shove off again.” Ezra trotted toward his boat, anxious to get away from the place where he’d almost died.
“There’s the old E-Z. I won’t even complain when we get back on the water.”
“We’ll see about that,” he laughed.
Denver, CO
Petteri wasn’t one to partake in celebratory drinks with men in his employ, but he made an exception for Howard. With all the success he’d had in Denver and near Yellowstone, he was willing to pour himself a glass of Lagavulin scotch. After giving a second glass to his security chief, he sat down in the media room for a few minutes of down time.
“When we get done here, I want you to arrange a meeting between Dorothy and Mr. Stricker to discuss our dig sites and where we need to enact gun bans. Full security for the young woman, of course, but allow her some alone time with him.”
“Sir?”
“It’s a little game I’m playing. Stricker thinks he’s getting a first date.” He snickered, despite how childish it made him feel.
The look on Howard’s face suggested he didn’t agree to throwing a fellow employee to such a wolf. However, Petteri was of the opinion Dorothy wasn’t a pushover. She was more likely to take a bite out of the homeland secretary than let anything happen to herself. How she handled the encounter would be instructive. He decided to temper expectations. “Keep her safe, of course, but let them both think they’re alone.”
“Understood.”
Petteri took a swig of the peaty scotch. It bathed his tongue in a most satisfying way, and went neatly down his throat, leaving a warm feeling along the route. For a few precious minutes he sat in the plastic chair without a care in the world, but when a familiar face appeared on one of the big screens, he pointed excitedly. “That one! Turn it up.”
A few moments later, he watched as a broad-shouldered Native American stood in front of a green screen showing grasslands. He spoke of his tribe’s unbreakable claim on the piece of asteroid which had fallen on their tribal lands. It was all very serious, and the guy mentioned how he’d turned away the TKM negotiators, but Petteri kept staring at the faces in the background. He put his glass on the table. “Howard, please tell me those two people are not who I think they are.”
The security man got close to the screen.
“Do you recognize them?” Petteri asked impatiently. “It’s not just me, is it?”
“No, sir. It’s Asher Creighton and the girl.”
Petteri whispered, “That’s what I thought.”
The press conference didn’t go on for very long, but the chief, or whoever he was, mentioned Mr. Creighton was instrumental in helping them identify and appraise the piece of fallen rock that had come onto the Crow reservation.
“What happened to our negotiators? This man said he turned them away. How was such a thing possible?” he asked, anger brewing in his stomach.
Howard flung himself at a computer and keyboard at the back of the tent. It took him half a minute to come up with an answer. “We had a two-person team go in this morning. The piece was small; between two and three tons based on Dorothy’s analysis. We—”
He cut him off in anger. “So help me, you better not say three tons of ore isn’t that much money…”
“No! That’s not it at all.”
“Good, because three tons of this asteroid is worth hundreds of millions in our devastated economy!” Spittle came out of his mouth as he talked. “That little rock could pay for the excavation of all the other sites.” His fury made him pick up Howard’s glass and wing it at the flat panel television before adding, “And then some!”
Howard remained perfectly silent.
Petteri glanced back and forth between the television and his second-in-command, chuffing in anger. He’d never had an outburst of such violence. For the first time since he could remember, he’d completely lost control of himself. It wasn’t the usual anger or distaste at having to correct one of his people. He’d lashed out as if he were a frustrated little boy. “I must have drunk more scotch than I thought.”
“Of course,” Howard replied, seeming to tiptoe to the next sentence. “I meant to say that we had to send a less experienced team to this one, based on Dorothy’s size estimates. We depl
oyed more experienced negotiators to recover the giant rocks.”
It was bad enough to be outwitted on national television, but he realized there was an even bigger security problem in his organization. He turned from the shattered screen showing the press conference to the one displaying the Yellowstone dig site. Misha Gagarin wasn’t on the screen at the moment, but he was there. A man who’d promised Petteri he would take out, once and for all, Mr. Creighton and the park ranger assisting him. A man who knew failure would result in the termination of his own family.
On reflection, he realized he couldn’t order the man’s whole family dead. Petteri’s people had already killed one of the women in his household due to a communications error. Did Misha know of the loss? Was it why he disobeyed orders and let the two targets go free? He stared at the screen, marshalling all the hatred he could muster. His team in Russia could easily go back and finish the job, purely out of spite.
“Sir?”
Petteri snapped to attention. “What is it?”
Howard appeared concerned. “You kind of faded out for a minute. I didn’t want to interrupt your thoughts, but I confirmed with the Russian team; they can track down his remaining family if you wish it.”
He waved the man off, then hopped out of his chair. “No, they don’t matter. I don’t need a carrot anymore. I’m done with these lies. Get a cleaner and hunt down Misha at this dig site.” He pointed to the flat panel showing the Yellowstone location.
“Very good.”
“Then, I want another negotiating team sent to this, uh, Crow Agency, to repair the damage done by the inexperienced clowns we sent the first time. I want that chief to sing for us. Change his tune. If others believe there is a legal basis for blocking us from accessing our own asteroid, we’re doomed.”
Howard punched keys on his phone before looking up. “And what do you want to do about Mr. Creighton?”
Petteri’s laughter was hollow. “First, the viral video from Yellowstone, now this. It seems like he has it out for TKM. It’s become a major issue, Howard. What are you going to do about it?”
Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 59