by Nobody, Joe
Jackson’s old store came into view a short time later, the building’s second story now in sight. “Any time now,” Ketchum broadcasted to his commanders. “Get ready.”
Finally, his men were on alert, their weapons covering every entranceway and access point as they advanced. Adrenaline surged through their bodies in anticipation of the enemy’s ambush. But no attack came.
“These guys aren’t as good as I thought,” Ketchum mumbled, “I would have set up a blocking force here. Are they all holed up in Jackson’s? I don’t get their strategy here. Hiding out in that department store would be an especially dumb move. On the other hand, there are plenty of combat-ready men whose carcasses are pushing up daisies because they weren’t especially smart.”
Still, the ex-Ranger couldn’t help but feel like he was walking into a trap. His instincts, honed through multiple campaigns in Iraq as well as a few other global hotspots, were raising the hairs on the back of his neck. This was too easy… was going to well.
Holding up his hand, Blackjack halted his group and lifted his radio. “Grinder, Spike, proceed with caution. I’m going to hold here just in case. I want your teams to take that building.”
While strategically clever, Ketchum’s change in plans had the opposite effect on his two subordinates. Both Spike and Grinder frowned when the boss’s intent registered. Both wondered if the events at Forest Mist had turned their leader yellow? Blackjack was hanging back to save his own ass , they both thought. He’s using us as cannon fodder!
“I’ll deal with that shit later,” Grinder growled in a low tone. “I didn’t sign up to be a sacrificial lamb for some cowardly bastard.”
Despite his questioning of Blackjack’s courage, Grinder knew he was committed to this initiative. At two blocks from the department store, a shot rang out, the lead man of his column clutching his chest and dropping to the sidewalk. Bedlam erupted in the street.
Bishop didn’t wait to see if his first shot was on target. Flipping his carbine’s selector switch to spray-and-pray, the ex-contractor unleashed an extended burst of fire, spewing pain pills up and down the approaching line of attackers.
Then he rolled five feet to his left, switched to the shotgun, and unleashed two spreads of buckshot from a different window.
By the time the Texan had moved to a third opening, incoming fire was pelting his previous position. With the 12-gauge pressed firmly against his right shoulder, Bishop fired with one hand, the other sending a string of pistol rounds toward the site where Blackjack’s boys were now scrambling for cover.
His shots weren’t meant to be accurate, his cowboy routine intended as a ruse. He had to convince Ketchum’s men that more than one person was firing from inside Jackson’s building. That would make them rush the door in force.
Returning to slam home a fresh magazine, Bishop scanned the street for a target. He noticed nothing but three men lying on the sidewalk, one of them half-crawling, struggling to maneuver behind a pile of rubble and leaving a slick, red trail behind. “How good are you?” the Texan whispered to no one. “How long before you regroup?”
Just to sell the deception, Bishop faced a narrow column of bricks separating two windows. Again, with a pistol in one hand and his carbine in the other, he aimed with both hands and sent several wild shots toward the street below. He had no idea if his rounds were anywhere close to a target, but that wouldn’t matter to the men he was shooting at. They saw muzzle flashes coming from two different places. That equated to two different shooters.
After wasting another dozen rounds, Bishop scrambled again for a new spot. Now, he waited. “Come on out and play,” he whispered.
Three men rushed out of a doorway, running bent at the waist to help a wounded comrade. Bishop’s carbine barked again, knocking one of the rescuers down. The other two Samaritans changed their minds, reversing course and scurrying back for cover.
Now there were two wounded men in the street, one of them wailing in agony and the other moaning that he needed help. Bishop could have killed them both easily but knew that their pleas and suffering would add another layer of stress for their friends. He had been there before -- had to watch helplessly as an injured buddy pleaded while his life’s blood seeped from his body. He knew the sick feeling that was permeating Blackjack’s ranks. The unsettling emotional response would make them stupid or reluctant. Either option was fine with the Texan.
While Grinder was trying to regain control of his team, Spike was approaching from a different direction. Bishop’s element of surprise had been lost, as Spike’s team now knew what to expect.
Keeping a vigilant watch from above, Bishop spotted the second group’s advance when it was only a block away. They were moving with caution, using cover and leapfrogging their way toward the objective.
Still, a wide street stretched in front of Bishop’s second-story perch, the open pavement providing no place to hide. He held his fire, waiting as this new unit gathered their ranks and courage. He didn’t have to wait long.
After a shouted command, ten men sprang up at once and dashed for Jackson’s main door. Bishop assassinated three of them before the breaching party successfully reached the front wall, their tasked lungs heaving from exertion as they leaned against the brick, panting hard. After catching their breath, below Bishop’s line of fire, the remaining seven coiled to rush the entrance.
The lead man kicked the door open, raised an AR15, and fired several rounds into the structure’s interior. His battle cry brimming with the fresh rage of his comrades’ death, he dove through the threshold and didn’t even feel Bishop’s paracord tug on his boot.
In the 4.2 seconds it took the fuse to detonate the grenade, five more of Blackjack’s men stormed the building, guns blazing. The final team member had barely reached the doorway when the frag exploded.
Hot shrapnel sizzled through the air, propelled at over 10,000 feet per second. It tore and ripped into flesh and bone, some of the larger fragments entering one body and exiting with enough force to penetrate a second victim.
Wretched screams of misery and suffering arose a moment after the blast, the area filled with a confusing, blinding cloud of dust, smoke, and fumes.
Above the kill zone, Bishop waited by the stairwell. When the telltale whoop and bang vibrated the floor beneath his boots, he leapt down six treads and let loose with a full mag dump into the few stunned, hapless survivors of his booby trap.
Hurrying back to building’s front, Bishop spied Grinder’s men regrouping, taking special note of the man who rushed among the combatants, pointing and shouting to get his people moving. Bishop now had their commander in his sights; he knew who was giving the orders. That was important information.
With a full mag pushed into his carbine, he centered his red dot on Grinder’s chest and squeezed off three shots. A hazy, red cloud billowed behind the stunned target, his eyes staring directly at the man who had taken the kill shot has he crumpled to the ground.
Seeing his first breaching effort fail badly, Spike decided to storm the building with every man he had left. “Charge!” he yelled, popping to his feet while frantically waving his men forward. “Take that building! Get inside and kill them all!”
A maelstrom of bullets slammed into Jackson’s Department Store, driving Bishop to the floor as lead missiles thumped and whizzed through the interior. He knew they were coming in force now. He prayed Charlie’s timing would be good.
Seeing their buddies rush in force across the street, most of Grinder’s remaining force rose up to join their comrades. Shooting as they ran, they intensified the blizzard of lead peppering Bishop’s position.
A few, however, decided that they were done, and didn’t join the headlong charge into what one man deemed, “A slaughterhouse.”
“This is bullshit,” one biker grumbled to another. “No amount of bootleg whiskey is worth dying for.”
Their reasons for remaining out of the fray varied with each man. From fear of the rising water, to re
membering their buddies that had never returned from Forest Mist. “Blackjack came back by himself,” one man protested, turning to stomp back toward the overpass. “Now he’s doing the same, fucking thing. I don’t see his ass getting shot at.”
“I was with Grinder; he was like my brother,” another naysayer added. “Look at him, laying over there, cut to pieces like a butchered pig.”
Less than a block away, Charlie was watching Bishop’s fight from under a sheet of corroded metal roofing. When it was clear that Spike’s men had charged Jackson’s in force, he turned to his closest rifleman and barked, “Get ready!”
His entire crew was nearby, hiding in piles of cardboard boxes, behind mounds of burned timbers, and hunkering in the shadows. Waiting until Blackjack’s men were massed along Jackson’s front wall, he bounced up and screamed, “Let’s go! Give them hell!” and then he began shooting.
Spike and Grinder’s people were stunned when a barrage of bullets tore into their ranks from the north. As men fell all around them, the hunters suddenly realized they were the hunted.
Into Jackson’s windows and doors they dove, crawled, and jumped, bobby traps be damned. A few stood their ground, tight against the brick exterior and firing back. They soon became condemned men, lined against the wall as the firing squad’s rounds tore into their flesh.
Bishop understood what was happening from his second-floor perch. In the confusion and bedlam, Blackjack’s troops hesitated. Even though they had scampered into the department store for cover, none of them had yet attempted to mount the stairs. Over the muttered curses of terrified men now under attack from Charlie’s shooters, the voice of one man penetrated the din as he issued orders to compel his men to regroup for a defense. “Shoot back!” he was commanding. “Don’t let them get too close! You and you, get up by that window and cut them down!”
Stepping gingerly, the Texan approached the second-floor landing and listened. After a few seconds, he had a pretty good idea where the man who was issuing the orders was located. “Cut off the head of the snake,” he whispered, drawing a deep breath and springing down several stairs.
Again on full auto, Bishop’s carbine sprayed into the mass of Blackjack’s henchmen. Screams and shouts sounded as round after round spewed from his muzzle, sending the men below into a headlong frenzy to avoid his fire.
Dropping the empty mag, Bishop’s hands were a blur as he jammed in a new box of pain pills. With a motion like a striking cobra, he slapped the bolt release, punched the forward assist, and pulled the trigger.
Another thirty rounds ripped and tore into Spike’s crew, men crawling, jumping, and diving over each other in a panicked attempt to save their flesh from spitting, biting death lunging at them from the staircase. They were between the devil and the deep blue sea, Charlie’s team still peppering them from the outside at the same time.
Then the barrage stopped, Bishop having disappeared before his last spent brass was tinkling down the stairs.
“Get that fucker!” somebody yelled, but any response was slow. Spike’s men were shell-shocked, their brains having difficulty controlling their bodies or understanding what was occurring. That state of confusion was deepened by the constant stream of lead coming from Charlie’s team outside.
Back on the landing and out of sight, Bishop reached down and picked up a baseball-sized piece of brick lying on the floor. After waiting a few seconds, he gently lobbed the debris hard enough that it bounced loudly down the steps. “Grenade!” he screamed with all the volume he could muster.
More warning shouts sounded from Blackjack’s dizzied defenders, the rustle of men scrambling for cover alerting Bishop's ears. With a sly grin, the wily Texan was up and moving toward the rear of the building.
For his part, Bishop thought he had pressed his luck enough. They had pinned down the majority of Blackjack’s men inside of the department store. Nick would be moving in any second now to close the kill sack and annihilate any remaining resistance. He had done his job.
Rushing to a small, side room, Bishop darted toward a narrow window at the back of Jackson’s. Quietly, he pushed up on the frame and created a small opening. A moment later, he dropped down onto a pile of cardboard boxes that Charlie had positioned there to cover the retreat.
Landing with an “oomph,” Bishop rolled hard to absorb the impact. After a quick check to make sure his legs hadn’t been injured, the Texan was up and running away.
Nick was just rallying his team to join Charlie’s forces when fate smiled on the Alliance honcho. At that same instant, Blackjack spotted five of his men slinking away from the sounds of the raging battle. “Those cowards,” he instantly assessed. “Those stinking, yellow pieces of shit!”
Bounding from his cover and motioning two of his men to follow, Blackjack headed directly toward the retreating gaggle, his M4 high and ready. “What in the hell are you doing?” he demanded.
One of the five knew he was caught. He also knew what Ketchum would do to any man who violated his orders. His survival instinct now on overdrive, he turned and fired at his former leader.
The miniature skirmish didn’t last long, all five of the runners gunned down in a hailstorm of bullets. The short, but intense exchange also alerted Nick to the presence of Blackjack’s third team.
Only a block away, Nick’s head jerked toward the sound of the shootout, his hand instantly motioning his people to return to their hiding places. Blackjack had divided his people into three groups, not two. The local crime lord was holding back a reserve force. If Ketchum hadn’t confronted his own men, Sister Rose would have had a lot of bodies to bury.
Now warned, Nick ducked back inside the old restaurant he’d been using for cover. “That was close,” he whispered while his eyes tried to ascertain where Ketchum’s people might be hiding. “We damn near walked right into them.”
Caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, Nick listened to the intense battle raging just a few blocks away. He knew Bishop and Charlie couldn’t hold out by themselves. Even if his friend’s plan had gone off without a hitch and Ketchum’s men were pinned inside the old department store, his friends had limited ammunition and numbers. Eventually, the trapped rats would find or shoot their way out and navigate through some escape route. He needed to get his people up there to slam the door closed.
Ketchum’s thorough military training was rearing its ugly head, the ex-operator realized. Bishop had tried to warn him, Nick repeating his friend’s words in his mind. “This guy is smart and has skills. Don’t underestimate him.”
Less than a hundred feet away, Ketchum was fuming. Despite his cool exterior, Blackjack was rattled by the deserters. He knew two of the dead men lying at his feet. He had considered them loyal, competent supporters. Why had they turned? Why were they running away? He was shaken to the core.
Now, all Ketchum wanted was to end this fight. His men weren’t holding up as well as he’d anticipated. He was disappointed, frustrated, and worst of all, worried. He could hear the gunfire still raging at Jackson’s. He wondered why his men hadn’t finished off the turncoats before now. “What the hell is taking them so long?” he spat and cursed.
Throwing caution to the wind, Blackjack turned and waved his men forward. “If you want something done, you have to do it yourself,” he quipped.
After a deep breath to regroup his thoughts, Blackjack turned to his gathering force of riflemen and put on his best face. “Let’s get up there and finish this. We don’t want Grinder and Spike to have all the fun. Let’s move.”
Bishop carefully worked his way around the raging firefight, his objective being to rejoin Charlie’s fighters. Focusing on the tempo of gunfire blasting from the front of the department store, the West Texan knew he had to hurry. Sister Rose’s Christian soldiers were doing a good job, from the sound of things anyway, but their ammunition wouldn’t hold out forever.
As he rounded a corner, Bishop noticed movement around Jackson’s back door. “They found the escape ro
ute,” he realized. “No way Charlie can cover both the front and the back. Where the hell is Nick?”
Not wanting to let the genies out of the department store bottle, Bishop detoured from his intended route. He had to keep Blackjack’s boys pinned up. He had to end this now. They wouldn’t be so cavalier the next time around, and more people would die.
Cutting up an alley, Bishop edged closer to the rear of the store to get a closer look at what was happening. Before they had abandoned the former retail outlet, Charlie’s men had stacked several old clothing racks and other debris to camouflage the rear exit. Now, Bishop was observing three of Ketchum’s henchmen slip out Jackson’s back door, stepping around the crude attempt at camouflage.
Bishop’s rifle came up, several rounds sending the escapees scrambling back inside. “They’ll think the back door is covered,” he grinned. “That will hold them in there for a while.”
Just when he thought he had arrived in time, Bishop spotted a large pair of shoulders rounding the neighboring building. “Shit,” he growled. “One of the pigs got out the barn!”
Hustling, the Texan moved on an intercept course, rushing as fast as his legs would pump. He caught another glimpse just ahead and knew he was gaining ground. Bishop realized at that moment that the guy he was chasing was tall, broad-shouldered, and had a thick mop of dark hair. “Ketchum?” he grunted, drawing deep breaths as he sprinted.
It would be just like that cowardly little bitch to run again , raced through Bishop’s mind. He abandoned his men in Forest Mist, and now he’s leaving them behind to die… protecting his own sorry ass.
Another block passed, this section of New Orleans having suffered several fires was now littered with the collapsed frames of houses and businesses. The Texan pulled up, no longer sure where his target had gone.
Bishop decided his prey would probably be heading south, back to the parking lot where his bug-out wheels would be waiting. Drawing another chest of air, he took off running again.