by Iris Bolling
It was hours later, when he deactivated the sophisticated alarm system, then walked through the door at the back of the building. He couldn’t believe his eyes at the stock pile of weapons of mass destruction. The M2s were only the tip of the iceberg. He sent Ned a message. We have an issue. He sent pictures of semi-automatic rifles, AK-47s, AR-70s, Uzis, AR-15s, MAC 11s, even his favorites, grenade launchers. There were crates and crates stacked almost to the ceiling. He walked through the building and found an office towards the front. He deactivated the alarm on the office door and entered. The office wasn’t large, maybe twelve by twelve. There was a desk with two chairs in front of it, against the wall, a file cabinet on another wall, a glass case with an assortment of rifles displayed. On the fourth wall, there were pictures and that was what caught his attention. Jonas Gray was in each shaking hands with several people he recognized. Two in particular: Vice President of the United States, Jerry McClintock, and Admiral Mark McGary.
“What were they doing in a picture with a man like Gray?” His curiosity was peaked. He looked around. He sifted through the file cabinet, which wasn’t locked. Not much, records of sales mostly. Not what he was looking for. The man mentioned a safe. Using Sally, he activated the sensor. If there was a metal safe, Sally would find it. And she did. It was in the floor under the two chairs and carpet in front of the desk. That’s where he found the papers.
Now, standing with his arms folded over his chest, he knew there was no way he could allow these weapons to move from this location. Not with the destination being the United States. Smiling, he nodded his head. “Why the hell not?”
He took the walk back to his chopper, activated the sleuth mode, then took off in the direction of the building. Using night vision glasses, he flew in the dark. Before emerging from the trees, he saw activity on the ground. Something must have alerted the occupants of the house, for two men were standing outside of the building and another was running back into the house.
“Oh hell, sorry about this guys. I just wanted to get rid of the weapons.”
Just when Joshua was about to fire a missile to destroy the weapons below, the sensor on the chopper panel went off. A missile had locked on to him. “No you did not fire at me.”
He swung the chopper around, dropped the missile, then flew away from the explosion that was about to occur.
He flew in the direction of the Mexico and Texas border, using every evasion maneuver he knew, but the missile had locked on him, he could not shake it. The only thing he could do was find a dense area with no population and go low. He heard the explosion from below, but could not celebrate, for he still had a missile on his tail. He flew towards a mountainous area, headed towards one, then pulled up right before hitting it. The missile nipped the tail end of the chopper sending it into a tail spin, before exploding into the mountain.
The chopper was out of control. Joshua sent a message to Ned. Going down. He was still in Mexico, not far from the first explosion. The monitor on the dashboard of the chopper indicated his location was close to Laredo, Texas, just not close enough. He knew the men on the ground would get to him before anyone from the U.S. could. Just before the chopper crashed, his last thought was, he never gave his mother grandchildren. Sally was going to be pissed.