by James Harden
Parked across from us is a large Mercedes Benz. And to my surprise, I see Jack limping over to us.
I get out of the fire truck to meet him. “Jack? What the hell are you doing here?”
“This is one of our getaway cars,” he says excitedly. “Do you like it? I thought I’d go for something a bit fancy, a bit luxurious.”
“Where is everyone else?”
“Don’t worry. Everything is in place. We’ve set the main road to blow. Almost every one of the parked cars has a full tank of fuel. They’re ready to blow. And trust me, these people won’t know what hit them.”
“What the hell was that explosion before?” Kenji asks.
“That was our fault. We decided to set the hardware store on fire while we waited for you guys. Figured the storage shed was too far away. Figured the hardware store was a good target. I’m not entirely sure what exploded. Could’ve been anything. Sorry, we were getting restless. Plus, we wanted to test the drip torch. See if it would work.”
“Good idea,” Kenji says.
“Yeah, except for the fact that the fire took hold quicker than we were expecting. The explosion took us all by surprise.”
As far as I’m concerned this is good news. We want the fire to take hold quickly. We want it to spread and catch.
“Still not sure what exploded,” Jack says, thinking out loud. “But I hope the drip torch works as well for you guys as it did just then.”
Me too. And he’s right. It could’ve been anything that had exploded.
Cans of lawnmower petrol.
Flammable cleaning products.
Barbeque gas bottles.
Oily rags.
Surely a giant tank of fuel will explode just as quickly and easily.
“Did anyone see you?” Kenji asks.
“Nope. Kim was able to get in and out completely unseen.”
“Is everyone OK?” I ask. “Is anyone hurt?”
“They’re all fine. Luckily we had moved far enough away from the hardware store before it went up. Like I said, I don’t think anyone expected the fire to spread so quickly. But it worked out for the best. It got their attention better than we could’ve hoped for. The street where the fuel tanker is located is practically empty now. Only a few guards remain. These people really are starting to panic.”
“So where is everyone now?”
“Clark and Sarah are in the Merc with me. Kim and Maria are back at the restaurant, ready for action. They’re just waiting for you guys.”
“OK, stay here,” Kenji says. “Stay ready. We’re going to blow their tanker and then we’re getting the hell out of this town.”
“Good luck,” Jack says. “I won’t leave without you.”
Kenji and I sneak our way back to the pizza joint and just as Jack said, Kim and Maria are waiting for us and they are ready for action. More than ready, they’re eager.
So this is our plan…
While Jack and Sarah and Clark wait at the wall with our getaway vehicles, two people, probably Kenji and myself, will sneak as close to the fuel tanker as humanly possible. Kim and Maria will run up and down this road, lighting as many cars on fire as they can.
Hopefully in the confusion and the flames and the explosions, we’ll get a chance to set the fuel tanker on fire.
The only problem with this plan as far as I can see, is we only have one drip torch.
“That’s fine,” Kim says. “You guys take the drip torch. I found a lighter in the kitchen of the restaurant. That’s all we’ll need to set the cars on fire.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Yes. The gasoline soaked table cloths will do the rest of the work.”
“She’s right,” Kenji says. “As soon as the table cloth catches fire, it won’t be long until the car explodes into flames.”
Kim hands Kenji the drip torch. “Good luck. Wait for the signal, wait for the diversion to take effect and then do your worst. Best? Yeah, do your best.”
“We will,” I say.
“Be careful,” Maria adds.
The most dangerous part of this whole plan is that these people, these marauders, are definitely on high alert right now. But this could work to our advantage. Because as soon as all these cars start to go up in flames, it should scare them even more than they already are, it should cause them to panic even more than they already are.
The fuel tanker is parked in the middle of an intersection about two blocks away from the pizza joint, about a block away from the failed barricade.
I wonder if Marko’s car is still out there, on the other side of the barricade.
No time to check.
Chapter 30
Kenji and I take the long way around, moving a couple of streets over so we can approach the fuel tanker unseen.
And now we wait. In the night. In the dark. Although if we wait any longer the sun will rise and our time will run out. This gang of marauders will take their fuel tanker and all their vehicles and retreat to safety.
And then the Desert King will come for our heads.
But it shouldn’t be too much longer now. Everything is in place.
The only thing left to do is to wait for Kim and Maria to start setting fire to an entire street of parked cars. The only thing left to do is to get to the fuel tanker and set it on fire, blow it sky high. We figured the best way to do this was to climb up on to the actual tank, unscrew the caps and feed some table cloths down into the tank, again using the table cloths as a wick. We would then need to get as far away as possible to light the fuse, which Kenji said would need to be a pretty decent trail of gasoline, or lighter fluid. Or both. Luckily, thanks to the drip torch and the supplies that we found in the restaurant kitchen, we had enough of both of these crucial and volatile ingredients.
“Do you see anything?” I ask Kenji.
“No. Not yet.”
“Smell anything? Any smoke?”
“No.”
We had agreed that Kenji and I would wait until Maria and Kim had set fire to the first few cars before we made our move towards the tanker. Kim told us she’d wait ten minutes for us to get into place. And for us to get into place, we had to move over to the next block and approach the tanker from the east. This took longer than we thought, because again, we had no idea if anyone was hiding, ready to ambush. But lucky for us, the diversion, the fire and the explosion over at the hardware store seems to have fully gotten their attention.
At the moment, I can only count four guys standing around the tanker. They are big guys and they are heavily armed. But four guys are better than an army of fifty people. We can handle four guys.
We continue to wait. I start to get anxious. So does Kenji.
“Maybe Kim wants to wait a bit longer,” Kenji says, thinking out loud. “To make sure we’re actually in position before they do anything.”
“Or maybe they ran into trouble,” I say.
“Wait, I see it. Look.” Kenji points back down the road, two blocks away.
And I see the first small fire. A glow in the night.
I know Maria and Kim are somewhere down there, running around, lighting fires, taking cover. Can’t see them though. Which is a good thing, I tell myself. Because if I can’t see them, and I’m actually looking for them, it means no one else should be able to see them either, it means they really are keeping hidden.
The heavily armed guards around the tanker haven’t noticed yet. They’re still gathered around the truck, guns and rifles at the ready.
It is still way too dangerous to make a move yet.
But then suddenly an explosion from down the other end of the street gets everyone’s attention. One of the cars must’ve exploded. It was bigger and louder than I thought it would be. Much louder. I hope Kim and Maria have moved back to a safe distance.
The four men, the guards around the tanker appear to have a quick meeting. And then they finally move out, splitting up. Two of them on one side of the street. Two of them on the other side of the street.
I wonder if Xavier is among them. Clark seemed to think he would be. Seemed to think he wouldn’t let the fuel tanker out of his sight.
“Ready?” Kenji whispers.
The tanker appears to be unguarded. It’s now or never.
“Yeah,” I answer, trying to sound confident. “I think our plan worked.”
“Let’s go.”
As soon as we make our move we hear gunfire, coming from back down the street. My heart stops. The guards have seen Kim and Maria. They’ve opened fire.
Kenji sees me freeze in place. “Come on,” he whispers. “We can’t do anything for them right now. We need to blow this thing.”
I force myself to keep moving.
We approach the rear of the fuel tanker. I hand the gasoline soaked table cloths over to Kenji and he hands me his rifle. “Cover me.”
He climbs the ladder attached to the back of the tanker and moves up on to the roof. And I’m thinking, I’m supposed to cover him. But I can’t even see him now and I can’t see a damn thing. To make matters worse, while he’s on the roof of the tanker he is unbelievably exposed. He’s out in the open for anyone with a half decent aim to take a shot.
I don’t like this at all.
But there’s nothing to do but watch for any signs of danger. So my eyes dart from place to place, shadow to shadow. My head is on a swivel. I feel like I’m spinning in a circle.
Up top, Kenji is unscrewing the lids that are on the roof of the fuel tanker. From there he can place each table cloth partially inside the tank, setting up the wick, the fuse.
He then climbs down, spraying lighter fluid as he does. He sprays it all over the back tires.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Yeah, let’s get the hell out of here.”
Suddenly, there are more explosions coming from back down the street. Lots more. The rest of the cars must be exploding. The explosions are getting louder and closer. I catch myself thinking that I hope these explosions take out the rest of the guards because their deaths would make our lives a hell of a lot easier right now.
Haven’t heard any gunshots in a while, at least a minute or two. Maybe they really are dead. And as I’m thinking about all of this, the driver’s side door of the truck flies open and out jumps a guy with a gun and he’s aiming it right at us. Once again, there’s no time to think. And there’s no time to return fire. I grab Kenji, pull him behind the fuel tanker, using what is essentially a giant bomb as cover. I’m just hoping that what Kenji said earlier about these rifles not being powerful enough to pierce the metal of the tank or cause an explosion is true. But we have sprayed and poured so much extra gasoline and lighter fluid all over the place. Just one stray bullet, one spark could send this whole thing up in smoke and flames.
The man completely unloads with what sounds like an entire magazine of bullets, putting Kenji’s theory to the test.
“Show yourself!” he barks.
Kenji takes the rifle back off me, he rolls on to his stomach and shoots at the driver under the truck, hitting him in the leg, bringing him to the ground.
“Run!” Kenji shouts.
He gets to his feet and picks me up off the ground and together we run for cover. But the driver is not dead and he’s not done with us yet. He reloads and keeps shooting, his aim is desperate and sporadic. He knows if he lets us get away he will be severely punished; he knows he will be made an example of…
So he keeps shooting at us, he pays no attention to the fact that he is shooting at what is essentially a giant bomb. He doesn’t know that we’ve poured gasoline and lighter fluid all over the place.
We run back around the corner, hiding behind a building. A solid brick wall. Kenji grabs the drip torch by its handle. He’s ready to ignite the trail.
But we don’t need it.
Because there’s a stray bullet.
There’s a spark.
Just one.
It is all it takes.
The tanker explodes and even though we’re around the corner, even though we’re protected by a solid brick building, we are thrown completely off our feet. The windows all up and down the street shatter and explode, showering us with broken glass, showering the road and the sidewalk with broken glass.
The heat from the explosion is breathtaking. We’re forced to turn away, forced to curl up into a ball.
This town is a warzone with multiple fronts and multiple enemies.
And now we have made it look the part.
Chapter 31
In what feels like no time at all, we have met back up with the others, piled into the fire truck and the Mercedes Benz and made our escape from Kingswood.
Time slowed down and sped back up and the whole night felt like a dream. Maybe I’ve been shell shocked from the explosion.
I don’t know.
But before I even realize, before I can catch my breath and feel good about what we just did, how our plan actually worked, we’re back out on the open road.
And I can’t believe how nice this is. The sun is rising and this is almost relaxing.
As long as I don’t think about what’s behind us. Or in front. Just need to focus on the now.
The clear desert sky.
The smooth and straight road.
The fact that this fire truck has air conditioning. The fact that we’ve got two full gym bags of food and water, courtesy of the Desert King.
The fact that we’ve still got our heads.
“I can’t believe it,” I say. “I can’t believe we got out of that town alive.”
“I can,” Kenji says. Hands on the massive steering wheel of the fire truck. Eyes fixed on the road.
He then goes on to explain what we did and how we did it and why we were so successful. “We used diversionary tactics, guerilla warfare tactics. We disrupted them, confused them. We made them panic. We used fear as a weapon. And then we were able to use our speed and mobility to our advantage.”
He says we’ll probably need to use these tactics again. He says we better get used to it.
Up ahead, Jack pulls over. He even puts his indicator on even though there is absolutely no reason for him to do this.
Kenji comes to a stop directly behind the Merc.
I roll down the window and stick my head out. “What’s wrong?”
Jack gets out of the Merc and limps over. “Clark thinks there’ll be a check point up ahead. A patrol.”
“How does he know that?” I say, looking around. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“He says it’ll be soon because we haven’t seen one yet. Thinks we should get ready now.”
“OK, what did he have in mind?”
“He wants to drive the Merc. Says it would be suspicious if he wasn’t the one driving it.”
Kim does not like this idea at all. “How do we know he won’t just drive off? Kenji won’t be able to keep up in the fire truck.”
“He’s hurting pretty bad,” Jack says. “I think he’s dying.”
“He can’t die yet,” Kenji says. “We still need him.”
Kenji is right. We need him for his inside knowledge of Xavier and his army and his hide out. We need him because he’s got his own hide site and his own supplies. It’s pretty obvious that at the moment we’re not going to get very far without Clark, so he better not die on us.
“So we let him drive us up to the check point,” Kim says. “And then what? He just hands us over to Xavier’s people?”
“He says he’ll be able to talk his way through,” Jack explains. “He’ll vouch for the fire truck. Tell them Xavier’s looting Kingswood.”
Kenji looks up ahead. Stares at the Merc, stares at the back of Clark’s head. At the moment he’s sitting down in the back seat, slumped over against the window. “We don’t have much of a choice here, Kim.”
“I’m with Kim,” I say. “I don’t like this one bit. And I don’t trust this guy.”
Trusting someone without knowing who they are, without really knowing wh
o they are, is a good and efficient way of getting yourself and everyone you care about killed. But we don’t have a choice. Which means, we need to be prepared for everything to go wrong all at once. We need to be prepared for Clark to betray us.
I say, “Kim and I, we ride with Clark. Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. Kenji, you hang back in the fire truck. Follow from a good distance. If anything goes wrong, you light them up.”
“I’ve only got a few bullets left,” he says.
“Then make them count.”
Jack gets in the fire truck and Kim and I get in the Merc. Clark is already in the driver’s seat.
“That was a bit presumptuous of you,” Kim says.
“This is the only way this works,” he answers, looking up ahead, looking for any signs of a patrol or a scouting party.
We get back on the road and Clark starts driving rather quickly.
“Slow down,” Kim says.
“Sorry. Getting nervous. Won’t be long now.”
“There,” I say, leaning forward between the seats. “What’s that?”
It’s a fuel station on the side of the road. Clark begins slowing down.
“What are you doing?” Kim asks.
He points up ahead. “They’ve got the road spikes out.”
A couple of motorbikes drive out into the middle of the road, appearing from nowhere, from behind the fuel station. One of the men fires a warning shot into the air.
Clark comes to a stop. He puts his jacket on, zips it up half way, concealing his gunshot wound as best as he can. “How do I look?”
“You look great,” I lie.
Because he does not look great, and to be honest, it looks a little weird that he’s wearing a jacket in this heat, and that he’s got it zipped up half way.
Clark wipes some sweat off his brow and clears his throat. He steps out of the car with his hands raised.
One of Xavier’s men approaches. He’s wearing a black bandanna over his mouth, ski goggles over his eyes.
He lowers his gun. “Clark? What the hell are you doing out here? Thought you were with Xavier?”