Q and D snuck into the kitchen, walked past the stainless-steel double ovens, and turned into the dining room.
“Freeze, you fucking cocksuckers!” Q said. One guy raised a pistol, but before he could squeeze off a round, Q shot him and the other two. Then Q made sure they stayed dead, and he and D walked through to the family room and continued around to the office.
“Well, so now what?” asked D.
“Let’s see where this door goes. I have a feeling it’s the basement.”
“After you. Dear.”
“What? You mad?”
“Well, running around trying not to get shot at isn’t my idea of a dream date.”
“I know, honey, but I promise to take you out to the nicest restaurant Washington has to offer once we get there.”
“I can’t wait. Now, git so we can join the others again.”
“Yes, dear.”
Q went very slowly down the stairs as more of the basement came into view. What he could see was a very small portion because it was a finished basement with separate rooms. The open part was the laundry room. The first door they opened on the left was an exercise room. Farther up, there was dim light coming from under the door. It flickered like a candle would.
“Flip up your NVGs so they don’t wash out in the light,” D whispered.
Q complied and then pointed to the wall, which he hoped would provide D the best protection. She nodded and leaned up against it, aiming at the door. Q squatted down on the other side so they would be able to cross fire into the room.
He reached up, quickly turned the knob, and shoved it open. Drywall exploded above his head. As quickly as he could, he fired at the two men standing there. They didn’t realize that Q had squatted down and were still aiming for where his torso should have been. D took out three guys in her line of site before ducking down and crossing the hall, hoping the others would lose sight of her. Q leaned farther into the hall, sweeping his rifle across the room, and shot another guy standing in the back. Then he noticed several people lying on the floor, hog-tied. Q leaned even farther into the doorway until he could see the whole room. D came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder, and they went in, covering both areas of the room they couldn’t see from the hall.
Q walked around and nudged each body with the toe of his boot to make sure they were deceased. Then he shot each in the head before he moved to the next. D squatted down next to the first woman who was tied up and removed the tape from her mouth.
“Oh God. Thank you so much. Are you the RV people?”
“Yes, hun. We sure are. You’re safe now.”
Q and D went around untying people; there were seventeen still alive.
“I’m sorry,” Q said to no one in particular. “These two didn’t make it.”
“I figured they didn’t,” said the man next to him. “That was Jim and Barbra. Yesterday morning, they went up to anther town three hours away. They were looking to see if you guys had passed by that way. When these guys found out and started to torture Barbra, Jim told them everything they wanted to know. Well, they pretty much kicked them to death after that. It was the second-most horrific thing I have ever witnessed.”
“I’m pretty sure I know what the first was,” D replied. “We were at the theater earlier today. I’m really sorry about your friends. We got here as soon as we knew what was going on.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about. You’re here now, and hopefully, we can finally start to live again.”
“Yes, sir, I agree.”
Alex and Jane were creeping along the hallway upstairs, carefully checking each room. Alex was opening the last door at the end when all hell broke loose. Bullets whizzed past his head, and dust filled the hallway from the bullets punching through sheetrock. Alex started shooting at random as he dropped to the floor. Jane pulled the trigger repeatedly, firing into the room at anything that moved. By the time Alex regained his bearings, Jane’s magazine was empty. He stood up and rushed into the room while Jane tried frantically to swap out her magazine. In her panic, she couldn’t get the magazine to seat in the magazine well, and it hit the floor.
Alex found five bodies lying on the floor. As he walked around the bed to make sure no one else popped up from behind it, he heard gunshots in the hall.
Oh, thank God. She got her gun reloaded in time to watch my back, he thought. Then he went to the bathroom and cleared it too. He turned around and saw a flash of movement that was way too large to be Jane. As he focused on the person, he saw a muzzle flash. He squeezed his trigger a few times from the hip as he dove to the side of the bed. He lifted his M4 over the bed and fired two more times randomly. He lifted his head up and didn’t see anyone, so he stood up, swinging the barrel around wildly. Then he walked around the bed and saw a man lying there, holding his stomach as a wet spot grew out from under it. Alex shot him in the head. Then he looked more intently and noticed all the guys they’d just shot were wearing helmets with NVGs too. That was when he started to feel the burn in his left bicep. It felt like someone had cut his arm open with a razor blade and then poured gasoline on it.
“Fucking shit. No wonder they got the drop on us. Jane, did you notice these guys had helmets on?”
He heard someone crying out, so he whipped around.
“Jane? Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Here, lay down,” he said as he ran over to her.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“I don’t want to die. Please help me.”
“Shhhh, that’s crazy talk. You are not going to die. Just hang in there. I’ll get you patched up.”
Alex unzipped her tac vest and then cut open her shirt and saw she had been shot several times. The adrenaline spiked in his system again, and the pain in his left arm temporarily subsided.
“Uh, Q? I need some help on the top floor,” he said into the comms.
“Copy.”
Alex was trying to open the QuickClot he had been given when Q arrived, but his left hand was not cooperating, and the package was slick with blood.
“Holy shit. What happened, bro?”
“These guys have helmets like we do, and they surprised us. She was here when I went into the room, and another guy came from somewhere and got her good.”
“Ok, you keep working. I’m going check the rest of the house.”
By the time Q came back, Alex was just sitting there, staring at the wall.
“She’s gone. I couldn’t get the bleeding to stop.”
“It’s not your fault, man. You did what you could. We don’t have the medical training or the capabilities we used to. Tell you what. You sit tight, and we’ll be back in a little bit.”
“No, I don’t want to be alone with these fuckers running around. Let’s cover her and come back later.”
“Ok, man, you got it.”
Q slipped his knife into her temple to make sure she didn’t surprise them later. Then he grabbed the comforter off the bed and covered her remains.
They went to the basement to check on D.
Bill, Charity, Kathrin, and Shaun were walking out of Vinny’s house when they heard a gunshot a split second after Charity’s head snapped back and she fell over flat like a downed tree. Shaun and Kathrin dropped to the ground, and Bill took off towards the perimeter half-wall half-fence. As he ran, he dropped the magazine out because he had lost count and didn’t want the bolt to lock back at the wrong time.
He skidded to a stop on his knees next to the wall and slammed another magazine home. Next, he raised his rifle over the lower half and fired off a couple of random shots. Then he lifted his head just high enough to see over the wall and sighted down his barrel. He saw a guy duck back behind the garage of the house across the street, and he sent a couple of rounds though the siding of the corner. He scanned to the right and saw another man jogging towards him from the house that Team H4 had blown up. Behind the man, Bill could see several large holes all the way through the house and that the garage had collapsed. He fired two roun
ds into the man’s center of mass and watched a mist erupt from behind the man.
Bill looked back to the garage corner in time to see the guy poke his head around again, and Bill saw the muzzle flash. He aimed for the guy’s head and watched it snap back. He saw a few more guys come out of one of the houses they’d booby trapped earlier. They were shooting at his muzzle flash, and a few shots ricocheted off the wall in front of him. Feeling the anger burn in him once again, he began picking them off methodically.
Shaun grabbed Charity under the arms and dragged her back into the house and around the corner for cover.
“Quick, get her helmet and vest off so we can see how bad it is,” he said as he started to open his backpack.
Cootch and Sasha heard the gunfire outside and ran up to where the front door used to be. Cootch peeked his head around the wall and saw whom he presumed was Phillip and Tanya actively engaged in a firefight with the Kentucky guys.
“Go around to the garage and see if you can pick off a few from that side. If you can’t see them or it’s too dangerous, come back here. I’m going up to one of the pillars outside the door to engage.”
“Ok, be safe,” Sasha said as she took off back to the garage.
Cootch sprinted five steps and then dove behind the pillar. He got up on one knee and leaned to his left until he could see muzzle flashes. He aimed at them and fired from left to right. When he couldn’t see any more flashes, he stood up and leaned out further. After a ten-second count, he took off to the parked vehicles in the empty lot. When he got there, he squatted down next to the front of an APC and scanned the street in front of him. He saw muzzle flashes coming from the driveway of the house Team H1 had entered, but no shots were being fired at him. He looked over to where he’d left his brother, but he was not there. He looked around and then walked around the back of the APC to look for them. He saw a body on the ground and a person hunched over it. He jogged up to see Phillip sprawled out on his back and Tanya giving him CPR.
“What happened?”
“He…ran over here…to try and stop…those guys…from sneaking…in behind…you,” Tanya said as she did chest compressions.
Cootch reached down to check for a pulse and couldn’t find one.
“Tanya, stop. Let me see how bad it is.”
After she plopped back on her butt, Cootch counted three bullet holes through Phillip’s chest and one where his eye was supposed to be. He sat back next to Tanya, put his arm around her shoulders, and pulled her in. Cootch felt something wet, and he lifted his hand off her right shoulder and saw blood. She rested her head against his shoulder and began to weep.
Team H4 set off the claymores and launched four RPGs into the house of their target. Then they fell back to Calloway Boulevard. They could hear gunfire going off like crazy down the block from them. They carefully walked up to the first house that Team H1 had booby trapped.
“What shit?” asked Mike.
“Fuck if I know,” replied Shane.
“H1, this is H4,” Mike said into the comms.
“Go for H1,” replied Bill.
“We’re coming down the street in front of you. I repeat, we’re walking towards you.”
“That’s a good copy. It seems to be clear, but keep your head on a swivel.”
They proceeded and saw several bodies lying here and there. The second house on their right was on fire and also had several large holes in it. When they reached Vinny’s driveway, Bill stood up and startled them.
“Whoa, guys, it’s me, Bill,” he said as he put his hands up.
“Sorry, man. We didn’t see you there,” said Mike.
“It’s all good. I’m just glad you didn’t shoot me. I gotta head back over to the house and check on Charity. Can you guys head up that way and make sure nobody else is alive?” Bill pointed to the right.
“Yea, man. We got you.”
“Thanks.”
Team H4 walked up to the front of the house they had blown up, and now it too was on fire, lighting up the night. They walked to the end of the block, but according to what Alex and Abe had told them, nobody lived up that way. They turned around and walked back to Vinny’s.
Bill walked back, picking up his spent mag along the way, and he swapped mags in his weapon again. He saw Shaun and Kathrin sitting there with weapons pointed in opposite directions.
“How is she?”
“It looks like the helmet saved her life,” said Kathrin. “I don’t see any blood anywhere and she has a pulse. She’s lucky. Unconscious, but I think she will live. She has a nasty bump on her head. The helmet must have bounced the bullet up and just knocked her out.”
“Ok, thank God. We need to start rounding everyone up and get the fuck out of here.”
Bill pressed the push-to-talk button on his helmet.
“Attention all team leads. Can I get a site rep?”
Every team lead reported in and gave a brief synopsis of their situation.
“Fucking shit damn piss. Well, that fucking blows,” Bill said.
“I know, man. At least we saved a bunch of people,” replied Shaun.
“I know. But Phillip and Jane were starting to really become valuable members of the team. FUCK! Now I have to tell the girls their mom died. Goddamnit.” Bill let out a big sigh.
Team H4 walked up and just stood there for a few seconds.
“Come on, Shane. Let’s get Charity up and over to one of the vehicles,” said Mike.
“Which one? Are we going to carry her back to the substation?”
“I don’t know, but we need to find one. I’m sure Tanya and Alex aren’t going to be up for walking either.”
Bill ripped the front door off the frame, since it was only held on by the bottom hinge. The front door was mostly glass, but it had a sturdy frame. He knocked out the rest of the glass and small framework that held it in.
“Shaun, run upstairs and grab a blanket off a bed,” he instructed.
He then picked up the door and slammed the top part of it against the granite countertop of the bar a couple of times until it broke. Then he set it down and kicked off the broken pieces. Finally, he had Mike help him pull the long vertical boards off the kickboard at the bottom. When Shaun returned with the blanket, Bill laid it out flat and then rolled the boards up into the edges until they had a makeshift stretcher.
Everyone helped roll Charity onto the stretcher, because they didn’t know if she had sustained a neck injury. Mike Shane, Shaun, and Bill picked up the stretcher gingerly and walked back towards GM’s house. As the eight of them entered the cul-de-sac, D, Q, Alex, and the local survivors came out of the house next to GM’s. Q was carrying Jane in his arms. They saw Cootch and Tanya walk out from between two vehicles and waved them over.
“Five of us can take the APC to pick up the other two guys and the Humvees,” said Cootch. His voice was barely audible.
“So, has anyone see a giant man anywhere?” Bill looked around as he asked.
Nobody replied.
“Fuck those fucking fuckers! You mean to tell me they got away?”
“Bill, they knew. We knew that going in. What this means is that they are chickenshit little pussies and they left before we got here. They fucking left their douchebag lackeys behind to fight their fight,” said Q.
Off in the distance, Bill could faintly hear a sound that was very familiar to him.
“Shhh. Q, you hear that?”
“FUCK! They’re at the airport. They just started the 130!” said Q.
“Yes. We gotta go before they get too far. We know they can’t take off,” said Bill.
“Let’s take my car,” said Alex as he pointed to his Audi A7.
Bill and Q ran over and hopped in. Alex fired up the engine and already had it in gear before Bill had the back door closed all the way. Alex entered Rimrock Road at fifty-five miles per hour and then punched it. The car hit 135 before the governor kicked in and wouldn’t let him go any faster. They crossed town and were at the turnoff to th
e airport in less than two minutes from when they’d first heard the unmistakable roar of C-130 propellers.
Alex went the wrong way up the off ramp at double the posted speed limit and roared up Montana Highway 3. He drifted the luxury sedan around the traffic circle and then whipped it back the other way, barely making it onto Terminal Drive. He weaved back and forth between gates and buildings until they arrived on the parallel taxiway, where he pulled the car to a stop.
All three men sat there in awe as the gray military transport plane gained speed down the runway, going from their left to right.
“What the fuck, man?” Bill said, completely pissed off. “How in the holy fucking hell did he steer the plane with no hydraulic pressure?”
“I have no clue, man. Either they have been here long enough to refill all the reservoirs or they fucking manhandled the shit out of the steering system,” replied Q.
“Ok, maybe if he was a fucking gargantuan gorilla, but I would have figured the steering cables would have busted. They are not designed for that much force in both directions.”
“Fucking beats m—OH MY GOD!” said Q.
They watched the 130 attempt to take off. The nose tires only lifted a couple of feet into the air before they ran out of runway. The plane sped into the runoff area before it collided with the wreckage of a commercial airliner and exploded with an impressive fireball, shooting flames in several directions.
“GO! GO! GO! Let’s go see if they survived!” shouted Bill.
“Dude, there is no way anyone survived that shit,” said Alex.
“You’d be surprised what people survive. I want to go make sure,” replied Bill.
Alex entered the runway and stopped a good fifty yards away from the wreckage. Bill and Q jumped out before the car had fully settled into its stop, let alone before Alex had it in park. Even at this distance, they could feel the heat from the blazing fire when they exited the car. They jogged up as close as they could get to the fire. They walked all the way around the wreckage, just observing. It was a total loss. Bill concluded that the fire would burn all through the night.
Beginning of the New Beginning Vol 3 Page 12