“I’ll be armed,” she said, hoping it conveyed her backup plan well enough.
“As will we,” Candy said with enthusiasm. “We won’t let anything happen to you.”
Grace imagined a spotlight had come out of nowhere and now shined on her. She stepped out of the woods, intending to make herself known to the approaching convoy. Asher came out with her. Then Dad stepped forward. Then Haley and Butch—
“Whoa!” she blurted. “We can’t all go out there. They’ll think we’re an army.”
“We are,” Butch shrugged.
“Please. Just me and Asher for now.” She faced her dad, knowing he would need convincing. “Please.”
Dad put up his hands. “I’ll stay here for now, but you can’t stop me if things get screwy. My only job is to protect you.” He looked at Asher with a wry smile. “And you, I suppose.”
“Thanks, Dad,” she said, “I’ll feel better knowing you’re up here.”
Butch tapped her dad on the shoulder. “You can watch her at the first truck. Haley and I will watch the second. The rangers can spread out and keep an eye on the others behind them. If anyone tries to get the jump on your daughter, we’ll be all over them.”
After a few more decisions, she and Asher stepped out of the woods. They walked the short distance over open ground, reaching the front of the roadblock as the first dump truck closed to within about twenty yards.
She and Asher waved their arms while standing on the shoulder. The huge black tires of the beastly mining truck straddled the two lanes of traffic and rolled down both shoulders. If they wanted to do so, they could easily walk under part of the vehicle without needing to bend down.
“Are you sure about this?” Asher said from the side of his mouth.
The engine’s mechanical whir made it hard to hear him, but she got the gist.
“Yes. We have to stop this here and now.” She waved wildly to get the driver’s attention. Somewhere in that small metal box, a man had to see her standing at the head of the roadblock. How else could he drive forward?
It slowed to a crawl, leading her to think she had the driver’s attention, but it didn’t stop.
The tire rubber made impressions in the soft shoulder of the highway as the giant machine approached. Each lug on the front tire was the size of a wide cinder block.
Her dad yelled from the woods. “Get out of the way!”
She couldn’t believe the driver wasn’t stopping.
Asher nudged her aside.
The giant tire blotted out the road as it went by.
The machine slowed to almost a stop as it ran against her truck; she thought the driver was finally giving up the advance. The game was over. One more dent to her poor little Chevy. Another funny story for her to tell Randy.
“Oh, thank God—” she started to say.
The dump truck motor continued, spinning the tire against the back of her truck, chomping and crushing at it like it was an aluminum can.
She couldn’t watch what happened next.
The Rim, WY
“Butch.” Ezra only had to say his name. By his tone of voice, his friend knew what Ezra planned to do, and his role in helping with that plan. They’d briefly talked about their defensive and offensive options while Grace went out to meet the giants.
The time for action was being forced on them.
Ezra was already out of his hiding spot by the time the front wheel of the yellow hauler spiked its way onto the back of Grace’s truck. The way she hunched over at the sight of it made him think she’d been shot. As he ran toward trouble, he came to understand she wasn’t injured, but she was hurt.
“Sonofabitch!” she yelled at the fifteen-foot-tall tire passing in front of her. “That’s my truck!”
He reached her a second later. “Come on, move back! Shooting is going to start!”
The tire finished with her Suburban and went on to the next. Grace gasped at the sight of her damaged truck; it looked as if the back half had been flattened. But she stumbled backward as he pulled at her elbow.
“We should move,” Asher said, also tugging her in the proper direction.
Once they were back at the trees, Butch opened fire with his AR, pumping rounds into the enormous tire. Haley soon joined him, aiming for the same wheel. However, after about ten or fifteen shots, they stopped to assess. “Are we hitting it? Shooting at the tires isn’t doing anything. What the hell are we supposed to shoot at?”
The yellow dump truck was taking its time climbing over the SUVs blocking the road, as if the driver was being cautious. Since it was loaded with tons of ore, the chassis of the big rig didn’t shake or bounce at all. It rolled over the truck, smashed it completely, then moved on.
When the first dumper was five deep into the park service blockade, the second one started in. In the gap between the two trucks, he noticed the black RV had come up and parked on the far shoulder.
However, Grace was focused elsewhere. “My truck! It’s still there.” She pointed. The back portion had been smashed and dented beyond recognition, but the rear tires were still intact, as was the rest of the truck. It was as if the monster truck had pushed her SUV out of the way, rather than crushing it outright.
Ezra wondered what the RV was doing, but he was distracted by the second dump truck. It turned its mondo wheels to position itself more toward the left side of the road. Instead of following in the tracks of the first one, the second driver wanted to get in on the smashing action.
“Aw, crap,” Grace said, seeing what was coming.
The yellow giant’s tire lined up with the second row of seats in her truck, then it rolled forward, instantly crushing what was left of the Suburban. It was bad enough when the first tire went over, but the driver shifted again as if he was doing a slalom run across the rows of parked vehicles. His rear tire went over the engine bay of her Chevy, ensuring nothing was left but a flat heap of metal.
While he commiserated with Grace’s loss, he needed to find a realistic way to stop the huge machines. They needed bigger vehicles to block them. They perhaps could find a way to shoot the engines from the front, or, God forbid, from underneath. There had to be a way.
As the third industrial giant rolled up to the skid mark of a roadblock, he saw the black RV again. It couldn’t be a random occurrence, it had to be someone in charge.
Grace began shooting her rifle at the lead truck, screaming and yelling as if it had personally attacked her. For a few seconds, he was interested to see if the bullets would sink into the tires, but the tall specialty radials seemed to absorb all her rounds, as they did for Butch and Haley. The rest of her shots zinged off metal or went into the pile of rocks sticking up from the Olympic-pool-sized dumper.
He held her shoulder. “Grace, you can’t hurt them.”
“Dad, we have to stop these trucks. We can’t let TKM get away with this.”
Ezra looked around at Butch and Haley, then at Grace and Asher. He knew far in advance there was no point in assigning anyone to sit out what he was going to suggest, so it was better to tell them all at once.
“Maybe we don’t need to take out the body of the snake. We only need to take out the head.”
Grace looked at him with grim determination, as if the next words out of his mouth were going to make her year.
He tried not to disappoint. While pointing to the black RV, he added, “And there it is.”
Chapter 25
The Rim, WY
Grace watched one more behemoth drive by before joining her dad in a run across the highway in front of the last giant dump truck. It was clear there was no way to knock them out of commission with the tools they had with them, but her dad was right about the head of the snake. The fancy black RV was the exact mode of transport one of the upper guys at TKM would take to oversee the convoy. No one like Petteri or his rich friends would ever be caught dead driving a filthy dump truck.
While they approached, the RV had begun to back away, its reverse warning chime
beeping repeatedly.
“Shoot the tires!” her dad yelled.
She watched to see where the others were aiming, then she shot at the front tire with three quick bangs of the rifle.
Butch and Haley shredded the tires in the back before it got too far away. For a brief time, it looked as if the recreational vehicle was going to make it to safety. However, the air ran out of the front tire she’d shot, and soon all the rubber kicked out from the back wheel well, leaving only a spinning metal hub. It immediately sank into the soft shoulder.
The RV stopped, though the driver revved the engine several times to try to get them mobile again. The wide panoramic window in front made it humorous to watch the driver struggle in there. When her dad pointed his rifle at the man’s face, he sat back in his seat and put up his hands.
“We’ve got them,” her dad said dryly.
She stepped next to him. “Come out with your hands up!” Quieter, she leaned over to her dad. “I always wanted to say that.”
“Don’t let your guard down,” he said seriously. “TKM is a company that has no honor.”
Grace laughed. “You don’t have to tell me. They kidnapped Asher’s sister to get him to cooperate. I’m shocked they didn’t kidnap you, too.”
“I don’t think they knew who I was. Plus, even if they were looking for me specifically, I’ve been on the move since…since your mother died.”
They shared a quiet moment together, until the door of the RV popped open.
“Slowly!” her dad yelled, scooting left to watch the person exit.
She kept an eye on the rolling convoy. The five biggest trucks had already passed. The first one was completely through the roadblock and driving away. Behind those leaders, the other dump trucks approached the crushed steel roadblock with hesitation. Unlike those at the front, the regular earth-haulers didn’t have metal shields around the drivers. Much too late, she realized the whole roadblock-getting-crushed outcome had been unnecessary. They could have let the giants go by and then dealt with the smaller trucks on a more personal level.
To test her theory, she walked out into the highway and held up her hand to stop the first normal-sized dump truck rolling up to her.
It wasn’t even a contest. The driver saw her standing there, so he put on the brakes. She was going to walk around to talk to the man, but she caught sight of the person who’d come out of the RV.
“Mr. Tikkanen?” she blurted.
The middle-aged industrialist wore a gray business suit with a TKM navy-blue tie. His appearance made him seem as if he were on his way to work in New York City, rather than in vacation country in western Wyoming. Unlike her, he acted as if he’d expected her.
“Ms. Anderson. And where is your friend, Mr. Creighton?”
Asher had been standing near the rear of the RV. “I’m here.”
“Ah, very good.” He dropped his chin and seemed to speak into his lapel. “That’s her.”
It was an odd thing to say, and she had a few choice thoughts lined up for him as a reply, but she took notice of a red light reflecting off her shiny ranger badge. When she looked down, it was impossible to miss the thick red light glowing on her uniform shirt.
Someone had her in their crosshairs.
The Rim, WY
Susan had been gifted with a little picture frame when Grace was born. It provided a nice way to celebrate the new arrival, but it came with words of wisdom, too. He couldn’t remember the exact words written on it, but it said something to the effect that their newborn made it so he and Susan would forever have their hearts walking around outside their bodies. As he watched the sniper’s laser dot dance over Grace’s badge, he sensed his worst nightmare coming to pass. His own heart was about to be shot dead.
“Don’t shoot her!” he yelled. “We can negotiate!”
For three or four seconds, the Earth ceased spinning. The trucks meant nothing. The ore meant nothing. Even the fate of cities didn’t merit his attention. He had to save his daughter. Petteri Tikkanen, asshole that he was, seemed to think on it.
“I accept your terms,” the man said in an amused tone, as if he was having fun. “But no one is to move a muscle.” He looked over to Grace. “Except you. Please move out of the road, so my ore can get to where it needs to go.”
She looked over to Ezra, and he motioned for her to do as asked. If he could get her out of the sniper’s field of view, which seemed to come from inside the black recreational vehicle, he’d be free to operate. There wasn’t anyone he wouldn’t murder in the RV if it would save his girl.
Petteri stopped her when she was a few feet out of the lane. The driver waved down, then started moving to catch up to the five dump trucks leading the procession. After being crushed under twenty different tires, the park service trucks had been mushed into the earth. The road was almost smooth again, making it possible for the follow-on dump trucks to sail through.
“What do you want?” he asked the businessman.
Petteri shrugged. “What does anyone want? Three hot meals a day. A comfortable bed. Maybe world peace. I’ve got more refined tastes, however. I also require this ore.” He waved to the trucks rolling by.
Grace looked at him for a few seconds. She didn’t seem scared, which was good.
“What will it take to get your red dot off my daughter?” he pressed.
“Your daughter?” Petteri said with surprise. “Ah, yes. I was told you were coming. My sources say you’ve messed up quite a bit of my operation between here and Paducah, Kentucky.”
Ezra forced a laugh. “My sources say your falling rocks have killed hundreds of thousands of people and leveled several midwestern cities.”
“Touché,” Petteri replied, still not sounding concerned. “But there is only one thing that’s going to happen here. You’re going to move aside and stay there. Since you’ve ruined my comfortable ride, I’ll have to hitch transport with one of these.” He gestured to the dump trucks. “But I have a helicopter waiting for me in Jackson. When I get there, I’ll release your daughter to you again.”
Ezra stepped forward. “Wait a damned minute. You’re not taking her anywhere.”
Petteri’s face hardened. “I don’t know if you didn’t get the memo, but I’m Petteri Tikkanen. I can do whatever the hell I want in the interest of TKM. I’m only being nice to you because mass killing generates a lot of bad PR. I’d like to avoid such a setback, especially when I’m already winning.”
“She is one thing you can’t have. I’ll go with you instead.”
“Dad, no. You’re crazy,” Grace spoke from her assigned spot.
Petteri snarked at him. “Yeah, Dad, that’s not gonna happen, but maybe I should take you both. Hell, maybe I should take you all. I could stack you in the back of one of these trucks. It isn’t far to Jackson. What do you say?”
“No,” he replied. “My daughter isn’t going anywhere with you.”
“You don’t think so, huh?” Petteri replied. “I guarantee I can make it happen. To prove my point, I’ll finally end the chase I started over a week ago.” He then leaned and spoke into his lapel. “Shoot the poodle-haired young man. Through the heart.”
His eyes went to Grace. Her gaze went to Asher. The wild-haired kid still stood near the back of the RV, but smiled at his daughter with nothing but love in his eyes. It was as if he knew he was sacrificing himself for her.
“No!” Ezra screamed.
The Rim, WY
Petteri knew he’d won the game. The civilians surrounding him had no idea of the resources and manpower he had at his disposal. If the sniper didn’t deter them, he could call in a helicopter with a chain gun. If that didn’t work, he could threaten to kill everyone they’d ever met. Money greased the skids, and he had more money than anyone in the solar system.
After giving Aarons the order to shoot Asher, he’d expected an immediate result. It would be messy to see death in such close proximity, but he’d prepared himself for the eventuality. It would be worth a lit
tle blood to finally close the loop on Mr. Creighton. However, as the seconds went by, he became uncomfortable with the delay.
He leaned to his lapel again. “I said shoot him. Shoot Asher Creighton. He’s that one.” Petteri pointed to Asher, on the remote chance Mr. Aarons was having trouble identifying someone with the “poodle-hair” description.
Still the bullet didn’t come.
Dorothy climbed down the steps, holding her hands in front of her. “I’m unarmed.”
“What are you doing here? Please get back inside the truck. We’ll have new transport shortly.”
Dorothy ignored him. Instead she walked over to Grace. “We meet again.”
He tested his lapel microphone. “Aarons! Shoot the boy!”
Craig Aarons came out of the RV without his weapon. “I’m not a murderer, sir. You said these were feral terrorists. All I see are kids, park rangers, and a few old guys. I won’t kill a kid for any amount of money.” The man looked around to the so-called terrorists. “I surrender to you.”
“What the hell are you doing?” he said to his security chief. “We can’t—”
Someone grabbed him from behind by throwing a huge meaty arm around his chest. He struggled for a few seconds before determining the man was built like an ox. Escape was impossible. He had to turn to other means.
“Gentlemen, I’m sure we can come to an arrangement. Each of these dump trucks is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. I wouldn’t look twice if a few of them went missing. Surely that’s worth it to let me go on my merry way?”
“Don’t listen to him,” Dorothy droned. “He’ll only tell you lies to serve his sick empire.”
He struggled to face her. “Dorothy, not you, too. Has everyone gone nuts? Did someone get to you? I can protect you from them, trust me!”
She laughed. “No one got to me, you idiot. I got to you.”
Petteri flinched. “What do you mean?”
Dorothy had chosen to wear her old clothes on the trip to Canada. He thought nothing of it since they were on the road and out of sight. He assumed she’d given up her business suit to be comfortable on the long trip. Plus, if she wanted to dress like a hobo while dropping nukes on his lost rocks, he wasn’t going to be judgmental. She pulled her phone from the pocket of her slacks, then pressed a few buttons.
Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 119