by R. Chauncey
He reached down and patted his right pants pocket. He felt his com-cell snug against his thigh. “If we succeed, Marajo, we just go back to our private lives. We don’t let anyone know what we’ve done.”
She laughed a loud high pitched laugh.
“What’s funny?”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to live a private life without looking over my shoulders every second.”
“You’ll adjust and quickly. I know I will.”
“You think the Society will stop looking for us?”
“They’ll be so busy running and hiding they won’t give a damn about us. That is those that aren’t arrested.”
“I can assure you there will be a lot of arrests, Larson. If what Julian told me about the Society is true, the police forces of the world will be all over them like white on rice.”
“We may start a revolution.”
“Hopefully a revolution for the good of everyone.”
He laughed a short laugh.
“What’s funny?” she asked him.
“The soldiers who are supposed to protect the members are going to be the biggest problem the members are going to have,” he said.
“I don’t get you,” she said.
“I’ll bet those soldiers will make all sorts of deals to avoid death sentences,” he said. “They’re going to sell out every member in order to die of old age in some prison.”
“I could care less what happens to any of them,” she replied.
“We should be about a mile away,” he said, looking at the mileage on the speedometer.
“You ready?” she asked, looking at him.
“Yeah,” he said after taking a deep breath and exhaling.
*
3:22 p.m.
Dodge realized they should have brought night vision goggles with them. But it was too late now. He didn’t even bother looking for them in those three plastic containers of equipment in the back of the Land Rover.
I’m slipping, he thought. My mind’s not working right. I’m tired. I need rest and I need it real bad, too.
Even though the sun was beginning to set the snow on the ground would make the odd colored Highlander stand out almost as clear as day. He just hoped Betty did as he hoped she would do. So he could do what he had to do. She looked like the type of solder who was aggressive and willing to be reckless if the job required it regardless of how tired she was. Or Karl wouldn’t have chosen her for such an important job. She had demonstrated both while they were driving to reach where they were in addition to intelligence. And aggressiveness was just what he wanted in her to enable him to do his job. A job he couldn’t fail doing.
But she was also intelligent. And that worried Dodge.
He looked across the road at her position and saw her. Just as he knew she could see him. He couldn’t see her face, but from the way she was hunched down behind a rock he knew she was ready, tired or not. He looked to his right, and smiled when he saw a vehicle on the road. The vehicle’s headlights were off. That was foolish on Marlene Done’ and her accomplice’s part because it made them obvious. No driver driving in these weather conditions would be driving around with their headlights off. He knew it was the Highlander, and it was heading right for them. Dodge rose up so Betty could see him and waved his left hand to get her attention.
She waved back with her left hand indicating she’d seen him.
He pointed eastward down the road then made the age old military up and down closed fist sign to indicate she should get ready.
She responded by deeply nodding her head up and down to indicate she was ready.
She rose up to a standing position and leaned over the rock, holding her weapon in her left hand, and sighted down the barrel.
Dodge knew she couldn’t be seen by anyone on the road. She was up too high for anyone in a closed vehicle to see her even if they were looking out the windshield for her as he was certain Marlene and her accomplice were doing. They would be foolish to assume the Society wouldn’t attempt to ambush them. But he could clearly see her. But she couldn’t clearly see him unless he moved vigorously. He dropped down to the snow covered ground and crawled to the hidden position he’d chosen hours ago, and looked in Betty’s direction. He could clearly see her, and he knew she couldn’t see him. But he knew that wouldn’t worry her as she waited for Marlene Done and her accomplice to move into her line of fire. They had set up a perfect cross fire ambush. The Highlander would not be able to get pass them. Dodge knew the only thing Betty was thinking of was successfully ambushing that Highlander and killing its two occupants.
Now if those damn fools in the Highlander just continue driving, he thought as he readied himself.
*
3:25 p.m.
Marajo looked out the windshield at the two hills and said, “We’re approaching those hills, Larson.”
“You ready?” Larson asked her as they approached the area they thought would be the ambush spot.
“As ready as can be,” she answered in a trembling, frightened voice.
He glanced at the speedometer.
Forty-five miles an hour.
Fast for a road that had at least four, maybe five, inches of snow on it. But the wide all terrain tires on the Highlander were doing a great job of holding the Highlander steady.
Larson mouth was dry and for the first time in his sixty years he felt a thrill racing through his body he had never felt before. And he felt like a stupid fool for enjoying the thrill. Who but a fool gets a thrill driving toward what might be death? He thought. Me. You Idiot! He answered himself.
He was less than five yards from the two hills when he floored the accelerator, prayed he didn’t lose control of the Highlander and kill both of them in an accident, and swerved sharply to the right.
From the moment Betty saw the car swerve to the right she knew what the driver was trying to do. Get so close to her she wouldn’t be able to see the Highlander to shoot at it, but that wasn’t going to work with her. She was prepared for such a move.
She stood up on her toes and leaned far over the rock she was hiding behind and aimed her weapon directly at the Highlander’s windshield. She didn’t expect to get a direct hit on the occupants of Highlander with her first shot, but if she came close, putting a round through the windshield, she could scare hell out of them and give her time to adjust her aim – a second for her, to put a dozen rounds through the Highlander’s windshield to kill everyone in it.
Dodge calmed himself as the Highlander drew closer. He had to make his first shot count. There was too much riding on him to make a glancing hit or a miss, because if he did it was all over for him. He took careful aim and waited like a predator waiting for its dinner to walk into the trap it had set.
Thank you! Dodge thought as he saw the Highlander swerve to the right. He took careful aim. Took up the slack on the trigger and waited for his shot. Missing was not an option he could afford, and he didn’t intend missing.
*
Larson saw three mounds of snow, at least two and half to three feet high and four to five feet wide and spaced less than three feet apart, and hoped they weren’t snow covered rocks. Because there was no way he could avoid them. If he turned the wheel sharply to the left the Highlander would avoid the rocks, but it would become unstable in spite of its wide axle and wheels, and might flip over on its left side. If that happened both of them would be turned into very convenient trapped targets for the experienced cold blooded killers who wouldn’t even consider showing them mercy.
He’d just have to plow right into the three mounds, they were too close together to avoid all of them, and pray the Highlander
’s two foot ground clearance would take them over the mounds with little or no damage to the under carriage if they were snow covered rocks which he silently prayed with all his might they weren’t.
The Highlander slammed into the three snow mounds.
Somebody in Heaven not only liked them but was looking out for them, because the snow mounds were just that, mounds of snow.
*
Betty aimed and fired knowing she wasn’t going to do any real damage to the
Highlander, but she hoped she’d upset Marlene and her accomplice. Their sudden move to the right indicated they knew this was the ambush spot. How they knew that she didn’t know at the moment or care.
Larson plowed right into the mounds of snow, spraying snow all over the hood and windshield of the Highlander blinding him and Marajo just as an electric volt sliced through the front edge of the left front fender.
“Hold on!” he yelled to Marajo, a bit late, as the right side of the Highlander rose twenty degrees higher than the left side.
“Okay!” she screamed back and gripped the arm rest on the passenger door as if it was part of a shield she was hiding behind.
The Highlander bounced like a rubber ball on its wide oversize tires, but stayed upright with Larson in complete control of it.
“They’re shooting at us,” Larson yelled when he heard the electric volt hit the left fender.
“I know that!” Marajo yelled back. She turned to the left and looked out the window behind the driver’s seat. At first she didn’t see anything except a cloud of snow racing pass and over them. Then she saw a flash come from the hill across the road. “Another one’s on the other hill.”
Larson didn’t reply. He kept his foot on the accelerator, pressing it down half way, while he steered the Highlander back onto the road.
*
Larson’s sudden move up on the side of the hill Betty was on had taken Dodge by surprised. He had not expected such a move. But it was just what he needed for his target to move into clear view.
Dodge didn’t give a damn about the Highlander and the people inside it. He concentrated his aim directly on Betty’s throat just below her chin. A hit there would be a death hit. He concentrated on his target and squeezed the trigger of his electric semi-automatic while he kept his aim rock steady and his mind on his target. The sudden snap of the semi-automatic electric handgun surprised him.
Betty didn’t have the time to be surprised or shocked. The intense burning pain she felt in her throat lasted for a second. Then it ended. The impact of the electric volt into her throat sent six thousand volts of electricity racing into her brain and body. Death was instantaneous. Her body flew backwards slamming into the snow covered ground. The back of her hooded head smash into a rock behind her and cracked her skull like an egg shell.
*
As soon as the Highlander was back on the road with solid snow covered pavement under its wheels, it shot forward at fifty miles an hour and cleared the two hills within thirty seconds.
“What the hell happened back there?” Marajo demanded in a loud voice.
“Who cares,” Larson replied. “We made it.”
“There was another shooter on that other hill,” she said. “Did we get hit?”
Larson gripped the steering wheel and felt the Highlander responding as it always
did. “Don’t think so. Don’t feel anything different. I think the left fender may have taken a hit. Don’t think it’s bad.” He glanced at the dashboard. The dials on it registered normal. “Everything else seems okay.”
Marajo raised herself up on the left arm rest of her seat and looked out the windshield at the front of the left fender. “There’s a hole in it. Not large.”
“Didn’t touch the tire,” he said as he drove on. “Look behind us.”
She turned around and looked through the back window. “Nobody’s following. We’re clear.”
“We should stop a few miles down the road to check and see if any damage was done to the tire. Don’t think so though.”
“We need some food and rest,” she said, turning around to face the front.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “We should stop somewhere safe. Somewhere off this road where we can’t be seen.”
“Why weren’t we hit on the right?” she asked him. “I saw a flash of light on that hill on the left.”
“Damned if I know or care, Marajo. All that’s important is we got pass that damn ambush. We’re still alive, and in good shape.”
She started laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“We got pass. We got pass,” she yelled as she bounced up and down in her seat.
“Right,” he agreed with a serious expression on his face.
“Why so serious?” she asked, smiling at him as she looked at his face..
“Because the next soldiers we meet aren’t going to be so foolish or clumsy as these two were,” he said then asked. “Are you sure you saw a flash on that hill on the left?”
“Yes, I’m positive I saw a flash like someone shooting at us.”
“But we weren’t hit on the left side anywhere,” he said.
“No, but I certainly saw a flash of light,” she said.
“Why didn’t the one on the left hill shoot at us?” he asked her.
“I don’t know.”
“You saw one up there, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I think I saw someone on that other hill. I know I saw a flash of light like those electric guns are supposed to produce when fired, but I don’t know if they shot at us.”
“Apparently they didn’t, but why not?”
“Well who cares, for now, Larson, let’s just be glad we’re still alive.”
Larson didn’t know what happened back there other than the shot fired from the hill on their right had hit the left fender, and he didn’t care. But he knew luck wasn’t going to be with them when they reached the Society’s hidden information center.
“Right,” he said.
*
Dodge changed his position as soon as he saw Betty fall back. He was positive he hit her, but there was no sense in being foolish. Betty was a trained, experienced soldier. She probably knew every trick in the killer’s handbook of killing and surviving. And with someone like her foolishness got you killed. If she was still alive, she’d poured fire into the position he’d fired from as soon as possible. He was positive she had seen him fire at her. He had planned his escape from the Society for years, and he didn’t want to ruin his chance of freedom for his family and himself by being foolish.
He moved to a western spot on the hill he knew Betty would choose to come up after him if she was still alive. The southern side of the hill was the easy way up the hill. He had used it. But he knew Betty wouldn’t use that side to come at him. It was too obvious. If she was only wounded, she’d be mad enough to try the western side of the hill. Thinking he’d expect her, if she was wounded, and he was sure she was, to come at him from the southern side.
One of the things he’d learned in his years of killing for the Society is a smart killer, even if wounded, never chose the easiest way to come at you.
As he waited between two boulders, he’d make a poor target there even for a killer who wasn’t wounded, he looked at his footprints in the snow and wished he could do something about them. But he couldn’t. He looked at his watch. It was three forty-five and there was still a little daylight. But the sun was setting quickly. Within ten or fifteen minutes the sun would be down and darkness would be an asset to him. It would make his tracks hard to see, and he knew if Betty was alive and coming for him looking for his
tracks wouldn’t be her main concern. Killing him would be. So he waited and hoped if she did manage to see them in the darkness she would turn toward him putting herself at a disadvantage. His second shot would be the kill shot.
Ten minutes passed.
If she was wounded was she tending to her wound before coming at him? Or was she dead? Or maybe she was wounded and waiting for him to check on her?
Plan carefully. Have no mercy. Don’t miss with your first shot. Never go to a killer waiting for you. Four rules he’d lived by and hoped to continue living by. All he had to do was fight the impatience he felt and be patient.
Dodge decided to wait. Fighting the exhaustion that demanded he get some sleep. But he couldn’t afford to close his eyes until he was positive Betty was dead.
An hour passed and he’d heard no sound. He wondered if his tired mind was playing tricks with his ears preventing him for hearing Betty coming at him. Time to see if his first shot was true.
He wanted to pull the hood of the parka over his head for warmth, but it would interfere with his hearing and sight. He got up and moved cautiously from his hiding place expecting a shot from Betty with every move. He moved to where he’d fired at her and looked carefully around at the ground. There were no new foot prints in the snow just the tire marks left by the Highlander. And no sound except a mild wind. He went to the southern end of the hill and looked down. Only his footprints, somewhat covered by the light snow that had fallen while he waited for the Highlander, were visible but there were no others.
It’s time to see if I killed her.
As Dodge climbed down the hill he moved slow, stopping and listening every few seconds for any unusual sound. She could be waiting to ambush him. But if she was wounded she’d make a faint sound. Even a Society soldier felt pain when shot. When he reached the bottom of the hill he turned east and walked for a quarter of a mile remaining in the snow covered lower brush before he crossed the road and moved in the direction of the hill Betty had been on.