The Uvalde Raider

by Ben H. English

  His eyes scanned through the cockpit glass above and to the front, they darted to any perceived reflection within his field of vision. It was a typically bright, sunny southwest Texas day, and the sun’s rays made any reflective surface shine and dance about as if it had a life of its own. Ezekiel squinted hard against the magnified brilliance and brought his eye lashes closer together in an attempt to cut some of the glare. He found himself wishing for a pair of Ray Ban Aviators more so than any other time of his life.

  Then he saw it. A reflection in the sky off to the northeast and somewhat higher, and about spot on for altitude. It had to be the Boeing. Ezekiel looked away for a brief moment to rest his eyes and then brought them back on target. Yes, he was sure of it now. He was certain it was The Uvalde Raider, still several miles ahead and off in the distance. The highly polished aluminum surfaces served as a signal fire to her rightful master, beckoning to rid her of the deadly blight now concealed within her airframe.

  Ezekiel eased the control stick ever so slightly to the left and toward him, and the speeding Messerschmitt responded as if it could read his mind. The ‘where’ was beginning to shape up, but the odds involving the ‘how’ was still anyone’s guess.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Micah Templar crouched in the shade of an overhanging mesquite tree, looking through tall pasture grass and eyeing the lay of the land to his front. There was a steep shouldered draw, averaging some eight to ten feet deep, which snaked around to the west and south of the old airstrip. It was this draw, along with the numerous fingers running into it, that Micah decided would make the best area to launch his attack from. For years during deer season the trooper had worked as a hunting guide on the Albright, and he had walked and scouted the surrounding terrain to the point of knowing it as others might know their own back yard.

  From his vantage point he watched the four Hezbollah members disembark from the late model Chevy Suburban. Smelling trouble, the men had stopped the truck well before reaching the airstrip and began moving forward on foot. They were well within the range of the Marlin cradled in the crook of Micah’s left arm, and he had been tempted to start the ball rolling right then and there.

  But the fact was he really needed that Suburban in the worst way. Furthermore, Micah needed it to be in fully operable condition. The former Marine wanted them completely away from the vehicle when the shooting started, and have the terrorists in a position where they could not easily retreat back to it.

  While making his way around to his current location, Micah had idly entertained the thought of just taking off across country on foot and maybe flagging someone down for assistance. But it was a good five miles to the nearest pavement and at least twelve miles back to town from the airstrip. Besides, he was not too keen about walking away from at least four heavily armed killers still running loose and unchallenged. Things were not going according to their plans, which made them that much more dangerous to anyone else whose path they might cross.

  Finally, there was the fact that he didn’t know how far he could travel in his present physical condition. Micah knew he was hurt inside, but wasn’t sure how badly. Better to fight now than try moving fast on foot for miles across country, and perhaps being caught out in the open by a larger and far more mobile pursuing force.

  The highway patrolman began easing sideways again, circling around behind the terrorists as they cautiously made their way toward the landing field. He looked over in the direction of the Suburban and wondered if the driver had been careless enough to leave the keys in the ignition. He decided against that possibility, the men he now faced had as of yet shown no signs of rank stupidity. And again, even if he was able to drive away it still left them free and unfettered to do whatever they wanted. He knew that he couldn’t allow that to happen.

  Climbing through one of the numerous fingers for the draw, Micah grunted in pain as his foot slipped on a loose rock and caused his chest muscles to tense. Any sudden movement that used those muscles triggered a searing wave of fire on the right side of his rib cage. Occasionally the pain was accompanied by the sickening sensation of fractured bone and cartilage rubbing up against one another.

  It was not a good sign, and made the injured Texan even more aware that what was to come would be a fight to the finish. There would be no chance of disengaging and moving away at a rapid pace.

  Staying low and as much as he could in the shadows of the surrounding mesquite, Micah carefully made his way toward an area closer to the road and to the rear of the terrorists. The scattered clumps of tall grass and cedar brush helped conceal him from the scanning eye. As he moved, he checked his background repeatedly, making every effort to blend in with the mesitas to his west. Micah Templar had hunted men before, and knew how the slightest inattention could spin the balance between who was doing the hunting and who was supposed to be the prey.

  The trooper found himself wishing he had thought to check for the Bushnell binoculars inside the Ramcharger’s console. In the haste to get Uncle Zeke armed and airborne, he had forgotten about them. Micah had already noted that one of the four terrorists had some sort of scoped self-loading rifle, possibly a Dragunov SVD. This put him at a disadvantage for any sort of distance shooting, or for long range observation.

  His thoughts wandered back to Ezekiel Templar and how his uncle planned to stop The Uvalde Raider, as well as deal with the deadly cargo emplaced within. Micah did not know much about nerve agents but he had seen the deep concern, along with real fear, in his uncle’s face when Qassam spoke of it earlier.

  What was it called? VX? Yeah, that was it. That was a very important thing to remember once he was able to get the word out. For a moment his inner determination slipped, and for the merest fraction of a second he found himself thinking ‘if I get the word out.’

  Micah immediately shook off that briefest lapse into despondency, mentally castigating himself for losing focus on what lay at hand. He paused again in the splotched and scattered shade, flexing his hands and fingers to keep them from stiffening up so much. He knew he would need to do some fast snap shooting soon enough, and he wanted his hands and fingers as ready as possible. The beating they had taken in the fight with Mustafa had left them swollen, battered and with the sensation of clumsiness.

  He could see the four terrorists intermittently through the undergrowth and brush that he was utilizing in screening his movement. They were still warily walking in the direction of the airfield, as well as the cinder block operations shack where Mustafa was handcuffed to the front railing. The Hezbollah operatives would not be able to see their second in command until they were nearly abreast of the structure, and could see around the corner to the three tiered steel rail.

  Micah could not let them get to that building. The structure would give the terrorists excellent cover, and once finding Max’s body would realize there was most likely only one man they had to contend with. Plus there was the very real chance the unconscious Mustafa might revive and be able to give them more information on what happened. The less they knew, the better it was for Micah.

  Dropping to his elbows, Micah stared through the intervening foliage to his adversaries beyond. He began making mental notes on each one individually, their tactical proficiency and how they were armed. The former Marine took grim satisfaction when he saw how they stayed mostly within the road’s right-of-way and did not spread themselves out further.

  It was natural instinct for humans to bunch together in the face of an unknown danger and even seasoned infantrymen had to guard themselves from doing so. These Hezbollah Lebanese were certainly capable of killing and undoubtedly highly dangerous when in their own element, but they were certainly not well-trained light infantry.

  Micah watched as one of the Hezbollah operatives used hand and arm signals in an attempt to control the movement of the other three. All four were dressed similarly except for this one, who was armed with some sort of submachine gun along the lines of an Uzi and wore a blue t-shirt. His gesturing and
general demeanor left Micah with the opinion that Blue Shirt must be their defacto leader.

  The next man he studied was the one with the scoped rifle the trooper had taken note of earlier. That particular rifle represented the biggest threat that Micah could determine at present. It appeared to be an SVD or like type, and that meant it had far more range and inherent accuracy than Micah’s .30/30. The scope was the real deal breaker, and the terrorist who carried it knew enough to stop from time to time and glass the encompassing area. Whatever else happened, that particular shooter would have to go down first.

  The other two were acting as flankers, slightly off the road on opposite sides forward of their group leader as well as the marksman with the SVD. Both were armed with AK47s, much like the one he had given Uncle Zeke. From prior experience Micah knew that good accuracy was not the AK’s forte, he was relatively safe from their aimed fire at this distance. After sizing up the two AK carriers briefly, the former Marine returned his attention to Blue Shirt and the Lebanese with the SVD. Both were still moving slowly along the confines of the caliche roadway.

  Micah understood that now was the point of no return. The armed group was still some 300 yards away from the building and he was right at 200 yards to their rear. Taking a deep breath, he sat up and took a modified kneeling position, running his left arm through the Marlin’s sling. As he did so, his right thumb eased the rifle’s hammer back to full cock.

  He let out half a breath and mentally forced his body to relax at the prospect of shooting another human being. The .30/30 was set for a 200 yard zero and there was no real crosswind, so Micah placed the front sight square on the marksman’s back and centered the post in the Williams rear aperture. The tip of his right index finger pressed against the trigger, taking up the slack. He paused for a moment, double checked his sight picture and began pressing again.

  The doomed terrorist had stopped and was glassing the area once more when the Marlin boomed. The 150-grain soft tip bullet took him slightly off center as he turned, slamming into his upper right back and driving deep into his vitals. The scoped rifle fell from his hands and he dropped to both knees, then toppled over flat on his face against the surface of the dirt road. The man uttered no sound as he fell, there was only the puff of dust on either side of his upper body as he hit the ground.

  The Hezbollah rifleman was still falling as Micah hurriedly worked the Marlin’s lever, chambering another round while shifting the front sight in search of their leader in the blue t-shirt. In his peripheral vision, he could see the other two scattering like quail, both seeking some sort of cover. He ignored them and picked up the flash of blue heading away from the road, fleeing into a line of scrub and brush.

  As the Muslim terrorist scrambled madly for safe haven, a disparate part of Micah was oddly fascinated at how fast a man can move when consumed with fear. There was no time to fire another aimed round as if he were on a target range, so he tracked the fleeing blue shirt with his rifle’s front sight and gave it a bit of a lead as it entered the brush. This time he gently popped the trigger and rode the recoil back down just in time to see the Hezbollah leader knocked spinning, and then disappear into the scrub.

  Now it was his turn to move quickly. Micah slung the Marlin over his left shoulder and scrambled on his hands and knees back to the finger of the draw he had come out of. As he did so, the stabbing sensations in his right rib cage flared up once more. Yet the angry buzz of projectiles in his general direction hurried him along.

  The other two terrorists with the AKs were returning fire blindly, shooting into the area where he had fired from. Both of their assault weapons were set on full auto, and the gunmen were spraying rounds wildly. He dropped down into the finger and out of the line of direct fire, coming up to his feet while topping off the Marlin’s tube magazine. The firing lessened, and then stopped as Micah eased the rifle’s hammer forward to half cock.

  Remaining still for a moment, he strained his ears and listened intently. Off and away where he had engaged the Hezbollah terrorists, he heard words in Arabic drift in and out. Micah did not know what they meant, however they sounded like some sort of heartfelt cursing muttered on his behalf. The Texas lawman found himself smiling thinly at the prospect. Then there was nothing but the sound of silence.

  Moving as quickly as he dared, Micah began a recon shuffle down the finger and toward the main draw from where he had first come. He knew he had a few moments of respite as the remaining terrorists regrouped, recalculated on their present status and came up with some sort of plan of action.

  The trooper was going to make the most out of that little window of time, and change his location to come at them from a different direction. The Hezbollah terrorists would be very hesitant in attempting to make their way back to the Suburban. Beyond the fact they had been fired upon from the rear, the Lebanese had no real way of knowing exactly where his rounds had come from or how many shooters there were.

  These unknowns in their tactical situation, along with not knowing the terrain around them, would play to his advantage. Most likely they would circle wide and try to continue on to the cinder block building. He would be waiting for them when they did.

  Micah Templar slowed down to a walk, breathing hard while trying to step as lightly as possible. His broken ribs had been protesting in agony each time his right foot touched ground when jogging along, and he was concerned that he might be making enough noise to catch an attentive ear. He turned his thoughts to the two armed and still ambulatory Hezbollah Lebanese out there, and what might be going through their minds. Most likely they would separate now while still keeping each other in sight, probing hesitantly in a circling motion in the direction of the operations shack.

  The former Marine also began to consider the condition of their leader in the blue shirt. Micah did not feel confident that his rushed second shot had anchored Blue Shirt for good. The Texan had seen the man spin away into the brush and nothing more, and he had done more than enough work with a rifle to know when a shot did not feel quite right.

  Bringing it all together, Micah figured he was bracing himself against the two shooters with AKs and a possibly wounded third one carrying that submachine gun. He tried to form the mental picture of that second shot but shook his head in exasperation.

  If he had only gotten his front sight on Blue Shirt a split second earlier, he would be a lot surer of where exactly that bullet went. Then he put it out of his mind, he needed to be thinking ahead and not of what was behind. And he needed to be thinking quickly, while giving his opponents every doubt as to his own strength and capabilities.

  The highway patrolman picked a likely spot against the north wall of the draw and moved up just high enough to peek through some dropseed grass growing along its edge. From here the draw turned south, roughly paralleling the airstrip. Some of the undergrowth had been cut as a rough right-of-way for the nearby landing surface, but there was still enough to fool someone into thinking the terrain was nothing more than flat, undefined ground for hundreds of yards.

  From where he watched he could see the front of the operations shack and the handcuffed Mustafa, still firmly secured to the railing. The body of the Lebanese Shi’a had changed position from the one Micah had left him in. Most likely the badly beaten Arab was not only partially conscious at present, but perhaps even aware as to what was going on. That was something else for the Texas lawman to keep in mind.

  A slight movement in Micah’s peripheral vision diverted his attention. Off to the left, about 150 yards from him and west of the structure, he picked up something unusual in the brush line. Keeping his eyes trained on the spot, Micah gradually made out the form of one of the two Hezbollah gunmen armed with an AK47. The terrorist was studying the operations shack closely, trying to discern whatever secrets that might be concealed within.

  Micah briefly considered trying to get a round off from his present position, but it was at the wrong angle and unsuitable for firing accurately from. If he changed to a
better one, the movement could attract the gunman’s eye. Laying perfectly still he decided to continue observing the Shi’a, looking for any clue the terrorist might inadvertently give in locating the others.

  For his own part the Lebanese continued to scrutinize the area around the cinder block building intently. His body language told Micah that he was thinking about getting closer to the structure, but there was too much open ground to do so safely. After nearly a minute, the gunman began backing away into the brush.

  Suddenly, the shooter stopped and looked toward his north. Micah followed the man’s line of sight and saw the second AK-wielding Hezbollah terrorist, standing atop a limestone boulder and motioning the first one to move forward to the operations shack.

  The two men appeared to be in a silent conflict of wills. The first terrorist was stubbornly shaking his head back and forth, and pointing to the open ground before him. The second man kept motioning him onward. Apparently this impasse had been going on for some time, and in a fit of impatience the second terrorist had stepped on top of the large rock to better illustrate his emphatic gesturing.

  Seeing that both were currently preoccupied with his fellow traveler, Micah inched back down the sharply inclined face of the draw until he was out of sight. From there he moved quickly to a better shooting position some fifty feet to his left. Up to the present none of the Hezbollah gunmen had done anything recklessly stupid. But now they had, and Micah meant to cash in on the offered opportunity.

  Micah came to the spot he had in mind and made his way cautiously up the bank of the creek. Bellying down in the dirt and looking through a cedar shrub, he could see both men still engaged in their muted dispute, their respective hand gestures and body language becoming more insistent in regard to the other.