“Every time you pull that trigger, you’re costing me almost three bucks,” Walter grimaced as Crowbar Mike, a heavy smile evident on his face, ejected another round.
Andy’s voice came through the headphones. “OK, it should be about time . . . send the signal.”
Walter raised the AR-15 in his hands, pointing it at a random bush across the road as he rapidly jerked the trigger. Twenty-nine rounds cascaded into the edge of the headlight’s illumination, every third one an orange tracer. Immediately the crescendo of gunfire ramped upwards, overshadowed even now by the climactic detonations of the big Marlin.
Chapter 54
Easing aside the drooping spruce branch brought the vivid green panorama into view. Everything from the low horseshoe of scrub brush to the ghostly lime and white colored figure of the prone sniper. He was lying fifteen yards away on some type of flat mattress with his eye glued to the rifle scope as the thunder of distant gunfire increased its tempo. Sam studied the narrow walkway between the bushes that led to the hide . . . they were close enough together to provide a mediocre wall of concealment, but not so close that he couldn’t step between them without contact. He’d already passed a crudely rigged alarm, nothing more than a long, narrow stick attached to some empty soda cans—probably filled with a few pebbles to increase their noise potential. His tours in the Middle East with the Marines had hammered the “look before you step” discipline repeatedly into his ears, and he carefully stepped over another of the unsophisticated traps as he approached. Echoing explosions—most representing the 5.56 rifles that made up the bulk of their ruse—were intermingled with the occasional crack of rimfire, or the heavy thump of the larger big game firearms. This deception was costing them a lot of ammo, relatively speaking, and each second it kept up drained the coffers even further. Both Walter and Andy had reassured him that it was a well invested drop in the bucket, but to Sam, each bullet that was fired across the road into an empty field was one that they might need later. With that thought on his mind, he stepped around another growth stunted fir and continued weaving his way toward the sniper—night scope held in his left hand like a mutant unicorn, and his right hand gripping the SIG .45. Halfway to his target the symphony of rifle fire peaked, and Sam cautiously wove his way through the remaining low weeds. His last step before entering the small clearing inside the horseshoe encountered a brief resistance, and with a twang, the little pile of foil bowls stacked off to the side scattered with a noisy, tinny tumble, and the sniper, appearing as much startled by the racket as Sam was, dropped off the rifle and clawed for something on the ground. Sam charged.
The darkness surrounding him was almost complete, with the exception of a few weak stars that managed to penetrate the scattered cloud cover overhead, and Thompson watched as the shadowy form of the trooper disappeared soundlessly into the weeds. The upsurge of gunfire sounded from the marina, and he mumbled a silent prayer that it wouldn’t attract anything leftover from the foray into the campground. Seconds ticked by as the staged firefight ebbed and flowed, and then the brilliant orange-white lines of tracers arced into the field, triggering the scripted “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em” volley of cover fire. With a surge of rapid fire chattering intermixed with thundering bass explosions, the noise peaked and then fell away to sporadic doubles and triples, and in the heartbeat spaces of silence between gunshots at the marina, a pair of rumbling PA-BOOMS detonated from the direction Sam had gone. Thompson mashed the button on his MagLite and ran toward the noise, crashing through the weeds in a beeline until he was forced to dodge around a low evergreen. He shouldered past the tree and flooded the area with light, illuminating a wrestling, grunting tangle of hands and feet. Sam’s green fleece overcoat showed him positioned almost ninety degrees perpendicular across the struggling walrus-sized man in camouflaged coveralls. They were both vying for possession of a blue steel pistol in the big man’s grasp, and Sam was being shaken like a rag doll as his opponent rolled back and forth. A hard knee from the state trooper to the rib cage of the sniper produced a muffled mmmph, but no other obvious result, and Thompson dropped his light and leapt into the fray, adding his strength to the struggle for the gun.
“Grab my . . . in my . . . front pocket!” Sam grimaced with effort to control the gun from the thrashing, huffing behemoth, and with Thompson’s help, they were managing to force the pistol level with the ground.
The rotund sniper kicked up a beefy thigh, narrowly missing Thompson’s groin, but throwing both of his assailants momentarily off of him and into the air. Their grip on the gun hand didn’t break though, and their return impact seemed to momentarily stun the big man.
Sam crashed his muscular shoulder into the chin of his opponent as he twisted the man’s wrists, forcing the gun further into the ground. “Thompson . . . grab it and use it now!”
Keeping one hand in the fight for the gun, Thompson’s other hand reached into the state trooper’s jacket pocket, drawing out the rectangular block inside. His thumb lined up automatically on the side toggle switch, and he jammed the box forward and toward the bare flesh of the sniper, just below the man’s ear. Brilliant lines of crackling electricity arced between the silver probe points of the stun gun before being smothered by the fleshy folds on the man’s neck. The man spasmed and shook, and then went stiff with clenched muscles as Thompson drove the box hard into the side of his neck. In the glow from his dropped flashlight, Thompson watched as Sam pried the pistol out of the snipers grasp, and then after a moment’s hesitation, careened a hard elbow against the obese man’s triple chin. Easing up on the trigger of the stun gun, Thompson helped Sam roll the big man onto his stomach to cuff him, the motion encouraged by several well placed knees to the man’s ample gut. When they wrestled his arms as far back as they would go, they attached a double pair of the nylon riot handcuffs.
“What’s . . . . . . . . . ‘amatter . . . . Sam,” Thompson gasped out, sucking in lung full’s of air in an effort to recover from the short but exhausting battle. “I thought . . . . . . . . you said . . . . . . you . . . . . . . got this.”
Sam was still half leaning against the fat man in handcuffs, and at Thompson’s comment, he flipped him the bird—double barrel—for a long five count. After holstering his fingers, he pushed himself upright and turned on his radio.
“Ceasefire-ceasefire-ceasefire. Marina, do you copy?”
Andy’s voice came back immediately. “Ceasefire acknowledged, what’s your status?”
The gunfire trickled out and then faded entirely as Sam looked back and forth between the enormous handcuffed man and Thompson’s still gasping form. “Mission accomplished, and this one is a keeper. Hell, he might even be a state record,” he prodded the giant prisoner with his boot, eliciting a soft groan, “but we’re going to need something bigger than our canoe to bring him home.”
“Roger that, we’ll send a taxi for ya.’”
Chapter 55
Amy stood in the doorway and looked at the giant of a man roped in a sitting position at the picnic table. He was huge—not immensely tall, but covered in layers of fat. If she had to guess his weight, it would have been in the 370 pound range. The heavy canvas bag was still over his head, and one of his meaty hands was splayed on the table top. She had watched with morbid curiosity as Walter and Andy had drilled dozens of holes in a two foot square section of thick plywood. The man’s hand had then been spread wide like a child’s Thanksgiving turkey stencil, and attached to the plywood with multiple zip ties around his wrist and chubby fingers. The plywood was then screwed to the tabletop. His other hand was secured behind his back to his own thick leather belt through a hole that someone had cut in his camouflage coveralls. A battery powered radio had been brought into the room, and was playing a CD that held a mix of one hit wonders from the 1970’s. Andy tapped her shoulder and curled his finger, and she followed him back down the hall.
When they were in Walter’s office, Mike handed her the partially finished bottle of water that she had left i
n his care moments before. She brought it to her lips and drained the contents.
“Are you happy?” Walters’s whimsical question was directed straight towards her.
“I don’t know. Tell me more about this ‘interrogation procedure’ that you’re planning.”
Andy took a sip of coffee and nodded his head towards her. “Amy, I’ll be happy to tell you, but do me a favor and answer a few questions first.”
She looked up expectantly and waited.
“Would your opinion about how we treat this fellow be different if he had already shot and wounded—or killed—somebody here at the marina?”
“I don’t know . . . maybe . . . probably . . .”
“Well what if you knew for certain that he was planning on shooting us? Would you feel any different about his treatment then?”
She stood and searched the faces around the room, noting a mix of displayed emotions. “Andy, Walter . . . everybody. . . I honestly don’t know what to feel right now. Part of me wants to go in there and punch him in the face myself. Another part of me is so steamed at the thought, the very thought that a human being—no, check that—that the human race could have sunk so far, so fast. I don’t know what’s happening in the world, but when I think of all that we’ve just been through, of all the people that have sacrificed their lives, or put their own life on the line to save somebody else, well, I just can’t believe that instead of working together to fight against those things, we’ve already devolved into preying on each other. Does that make sense?”
“Perfect,” Walter replied.
“I’m kind of mixed on this whole situation as well,” Callie said as she stood and stretched. “I mean, I understand that this guy hasn’t actually shot at us yet, but on the other hand, I wonder what would have happened if Leah hadn’t seen the flash from his scope this morning. He’d still be up there, right?”
“Most probably,” Sam said.
“And that brings us back to now,” Walter focused on Amy as he replied. “Make no mistake everybody, he was up there for a reason. I strongly suspect that our friend in Richland is somehow tied to all of this, but the fact of the matter is that we won’t know anything unless we ask him.”
“That’s my problem,” Amy jumped in, “and it should be everybody’s problem. The way you said ‘ask’ him implies to me that we’re . . . all of us, I mean . . . condoning torture, and I won’t stand for that, no matter what he’s done, or might do.”
“Define torture.”
“What?”
Andy rubbed his eyes and looked at Amy. “Well, what are you thinking about when you picture us ‘asking’ Captain Buffet a few questions?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, “I guess like the things you hear about that are only supposed to happen in other countries.”
“What if I told you—promised you—that I wouldn’t even break his skin. As a matter of fact, when we’re done with him and he’s telling us everything—which he will—he’ll have no more than a few tiny bruises. Would you be OK with that?”
“No broken bones?”
“Nope.”
“No electric shocks or severed tendons?”
Andy chuckled and shook his head. “Old school methods, and not very reliable.”
“Then tell me what you’re going to do to him.”
“We’re going to do very little. But we’re going to make him think about what we might do . . . a lot. And when it comes to the actual physical contact, I’m only going to use four things, all of which are right there on Walter’s desk.” He walked over to the desk, rummaged around the mess on top for a few seconds, and then slid the items to the edge.
Her eyebrows rose, and then reversed course as her brow furrowed in confusion. The seconds ticked by as she tried to mentally construct some form of horrendous interrogation device, but she came up empty. Her eyes met with Andy, and then shifted over to Walter. “OK, but I’m going to be in there.”
Ten minutes later, the big man wasn’t talking. He was singing. And his song brought tears of rage and disgust to Amy’s eyes.
Chapter 56
*click*
Hey, sorry for whispering, but Michelle is still sleeping. I wish that I was, but I’ve been up for the last hour or so. Dawn is still about ninety minutes away, and I’m hoping that the cloud cover keeps retreating and lets the sun warm us up. It was cold last night, even for two people that are used to the North Dakota weather. A lot of our discomfort was due to being on the water. Michelle was able to scavenge almost two dozen life jackets from various compartments. Most of them we keep on hand to give out to families on the lake during the summer tourist season. It’s a goodwill gesture on the state’s part, and the family has the opportunity to avoid a ticket—and the fine that goes along with it—by turning in the life jacket at one of the ranger stations when they get off the lake. Hold on a minute . . .
OK, I’m back. Actually, as you probably know, I didn’t stop recording. It was just a quick pause to stick my finger in the cup of water that’s heating up on my backpack stove. Anyhow, where was I? Oh yeah, cold. Like I said, Michelle gathered up a bunch of life jackets and spread them in a layer between the two bench seats. It made a thick, bumpy mattress, but it was a whole lot better than trying to sleep directly on the deck, and it kept us down below the level of the constant breeze. Even so, the cold radiating through the hull made for a fitful night’s rest. The blankets didn’t help much when we tried to cover both of us at the same time . . . they were just too small . . . so, we ended up splitting the blankets between us and attempting to snuggle together as best we could. At first it seemed to work somewhat, at least until the warmth of the ramen soup wore off. Of course, that was shortly after we fell asleep for the first time. After that, both of us fought against the cold—and the shifting, lumpy mattress—for the rest of the night. I think part of the problem is that we actually got to bed way too early. Anyhow, I kept four of the coast guard blankets, and then piled the rest of mine on Michelle when I got up. My water is just about heated through, and I’m going to have at least two cups of hot tea as I sit here and run the numbers. Back in a minute.
OK, back. I’ll admit it; I’m feeling a little down. It seems like everywhere, I mean everywhere we go is overrun by those things. We literally can’t get a break. I mean, really . . . an out of the way ranger station on an obscure piece of swampy land with only one remote highway as access . . . all of it located in a state that has a total population of less than the city of Columbus, Ohio. And when we get there, at least a dozen infected—and apparently more that we didn’t see—are in the area. Assuming we’re able to find the cabin, anybody that we bring back with us is going to be at risk no matter where we go. Heck, so are we for that matter. I’m trying not to get ahead of myself, but for some reason, that little bridge we went underneath in the bass boat is weighing heavy on my mind. I’m almost positive I don’t want to just motor upstream when we make our return trip. Notice that I’m trying to stay positive, and I didn’t use the words “if we make our return trip.” I wish I felt that confident inside. Oh, I forgot to mention the big news. Well, I guess I classify it as big news. Last night, as Michelle and I were slurping down the last of our soup, several flights of helicopters passed overhead. They were pretty high up, but Michelle was almost positive she counted seven of them in the first wave, and then two more waves came trailing behind the first group. Each of those had maybe four or five birds, and they were all heading almost due west. Well, I’m about ready to fire up my insides with some hot tea, so I’ll update some more later. I hope.
Chapter 57
“I’m almost positive that’s it,” Michelle said we drifted several hundred yards offshore from a series of cabins that lined the bank in front of us. As was typical, most of them had a small dock that jutted out into the lake, and several had boats—usually flat bottom jon boats or canoes—turned upside down on the shoreline near the dock. “We’ll have to move in closer for me to be sure, though.”
>
As she spoke, another burst of gunfire cracked across the lake. It was sporadic and distant enough to not cause me any immediate concern, but it still brought with it a reminder of the barrage we had heard when we passed the town of Devils Lake. Whatever was going on there included a lot of ammunition. It had taken us a little longer than I expected to find a secure place to stash the bass boat, and we ended up pushing it into a marshy finger of reeds that were dotted with several low mounds of muskrat houses. Dried cattails were scattered across it to aid in camouflage, and as a precaution, I removed the sparkplug and tied it to one of the aluminum supports underneath the seat. I left the wrench with the boat, however. We beached the patrol boat a few miles later near an overgrown sandbar, and I hopped out and re-zero’d the reflex sight on the silenced .22. After that we double checked all of our gear, reloading magazines where necessary, and then pulled back into the lake and dropped the hammer. The NauticStar leapt forward, and I guided it on course for about thirty minutes. Thank goodness for the full windscreen or we both would’ve been popsicles. Anyway, I kept it about 400 yards offshore, and we had no issues until we began to pass by the outskirts of the town of Devils Lake. The sound of gunfire—a lot of gunfire—was evident even over the roar of the Yamahas. I cut back the throttle to get a better idea of what was happening while Michelle began to scan with her binoculars. Volleys of explosions—some small, some not—were echoing through the town, and we got maybe a twenty second “look/listen” before the first bullet zinged past us. That was enough for me, and I pushed the throttle to full and zigzagged further out into the lake. It only took us about ten more minutes running full out to get here. The big question is if “here” is the right place.
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