Un-Connected

by Noah Rea

  “Take your pick of anything here, but I have one I picked out for you to use.” Otis slid open a wide drawer with extra-heavy shelf sliders. From the drawer he pulled out a .50 caliber. He asked me if I had ever shot one of those, and I hadn’t. He handed Deb a small box, and he handed me the gun.

  “Let’s go shoot it,” he said.

  When we got out by the truck, he pointed way off in the distance to a sign with a big yellow circle painted on it. He told me it’s what they practiced on. So I put out the bipod legs and dropped the gun gently on the ground.

  Otis took the box from Deb and opened it, revealing about a dozen shells. “There aren’t many bullets in here, but you don’t normally need many with this gun.”

  I took a shell and slid it into the chamber and locked the bolt. I told Otis I was a little afraid of the kick of the gun but felt better about the shock-absorbing butt on the stock. I asked how far away the target was, and where the gun was zeroed.

  Otis smiled. “It’s about three hundred yards, and it’s zeroed at the sign.”

  I settled in to get used to the gun and scope and after a few seconds pulled the trigger. The noise and recoil were enormous.

  Otis read the big yellow circle with his binoculars and laughed out loud. “Great shot. You’re probably about three inches to the right but good on elevation. Our son used to shoot that way. It’s zeroed for Will, but our son would have to aim just a touch to the left as you do.”

  Then Otis asked me if I wanted to shoot it again, and I didn’t.

  “I have a plan,” Otis said. “Let’s all get a good night’s sleep, and my niece will call them in the morning. We’ll tell them you just drove in here and you’re in the bathroom right now. It should make them scoot in here quick as they can, and we’ll be ready for them.”

  I started to protest again.

  He held up his hand in a halt motion. “We want to do this. This isn’t our first dance, and half the guns on the wall will punch holes in body armor.”

  All I could say was, “Please don’t get anyone in your family hurt.”

  “I won’t. Follow me back inside.” He said he’d get some other guns for Deb and me as backup to the “big boy” as he called it.

  “Do you want big boy back inside.”

  “Put it in your truck,” Otis said. “Here’s what I think we should do. My niece will call them back in here like calling a coyote. When they get here, they will probably park somewhere here behind the pumps, and when they jump out to run inside to look for you, then you can pop their engine with big boy. At that point they aren’t leaving with the evil machine. Then you can pop any of the guys you want, but you will have to hurry because we all want a shot at them.”

  I was amazed how he could talk about this as if it was a game.

  “How many will be here?”

  He laughed. “About half those at the wedding.” Then he said, “Just kidding, but there will be enough, and we’ll be ready.”

  I put big boy in the truck and hurried inside to get Deb and me ready. I picked an AR15 in .308 and a .44 magnum Desert Eagle. I got Deb a rifle like mine and a Glock with .357 Sig caliber. We got a bag of ammo and headed to the truck.

  I stopped in the doorway. “Otis, how high does the gun shoot at the distance from the truck to the building.”

  “I’m not sure, but I think it’s about three inches.”

  “What time do you want to start?”

  “We’ll talk over breakfast but probably midmorning.”

  Deb and I settled into the truck for the night, amazed at the events of the last few days. I was a newlywed, and Mrs. Adams and I were about to get into a gunfight. I told her I would not soon forget this day. We tried to watch a movie, but our minds weren’t on it. We tried to read but that was no good either.

  The night was clear, and the stars were bright. When the moon came up, we could see a little to walk around.

  “Why don’t we go for a walk?” Deb asked.

  “Let’s go out to the yellow sign.”

  “OK.”

  I loaded the Desert Eagle and her Glock and away we went. We walked slowly so we didn’t get into any cactus or anything. We could see but not real well. Finding the sign in the dark without a flashlight might be hard, but getting back shouldn’t be since the store was about the only light that bright, and we would just walk straight to it.

  When we got to the sign, there were a number of bullet holes in the back but only one in the front. They used white paper to cover it over without taking the last paper off. The paper on whatever board this was had to be three quarters of an inch thick or so. They must have used the sign somewhat frequently.

  We sat down by it and again just marveled at the day. She kissed me with a forever kiss, and I was a happy man. We sat there holding hands for a long time and then walked back to the truck. I hated to sleep in the top bunk, but this was no ordinary night and we needed to sleep.

  We awakened early, energetic, hopeful, and scared. We rushed in to breakfast, where a lot of family and guns were around. One of the young guys asked how I felt, and nearly everyone had a big laugh.

  Deb and I had seen an old school bus at one back corner of the building with all the windows out. I asked Otis why the bus was there, and he laughed. He told me below the windows on the inside the seats had been taken out, and there were two layers of three-quarter-inch subflooring glued to the walls from the windows to the floor.

  “No one would notice the gun portholes in the side unless they looked real close,” Otis said. “There’d be at least five of us in there with our heads down when they drive in.”

  No weapon they carried would penetrate the wall, so they’d be safe, as I’d asked.

  He paused for a moment. “Do I look a little fatter today?”

  “I have to admit you do.”

  Otis patted his tummy. “I’m wearing some new Class III body armor I got just last month. The counter is lined, so anyone behind it would be pretty safe. It also has gun portholes. Several will be inside with me. He pointed out a ten foot rolling counter that had been rolled to the street side wall and was perpendicular to the doors. That is lined as well and there will be at least three behind it. Everyone will be hidden except me. All you need to do is make the SUV un-drivable so they don’t leave.”

  I just about choked. “So they don’t leave?” I was thinking that these people were really nuts. “Otis, are you really sure this is a good idea?”

  “Yes,” the whole roomful said excitedly.

  So they were in every nutty one of them.

  I prayed really hard for the first time in a long while when they brought our breakfast. I told God I was really sorry I had been so self-reliant and forgot Him. I asked Him to please not let any of us there get hurt and to help Deb and me get some relief from these black SUV people.

  “Amen,” everyone said.

  They left us alone while we ate our breakfast. We didn’t talk much, but I did tell her I loved her and was so glad she was Mrs. Adams. We talked about how amazing Otis and his family were. How it seemed they’d lived for this day. They acted as though it was a family picnic. I told Deb I was still scared and wasn’t sure where I wanted her to be. I wanted her to be safe.

  “I’ll be with you, silly.”

  When we finished, Otis asked us if we were ready or wanted to wait for a bit so our food could settle. I said maybe a little, and he looked at his watch and announced to us all that the niece would call at 9:33 a.m. It would not be an exact time so as not to look suspicious and only God knew what would happen next.

  Deb and I went to the restroom and then the truck. We were as ready as we knew how to be. I had big boy on the ground on the opposite side of the truck where the gun barrel was in front of the tire and under the front bumper. Being in the shade would make it hard to see. That was until I shot the thing. The ball of fire was amazing. Very nervous, we got a drink and settled in, and then 9:33 a.m. came. We didn’t expect anything right away, but everyone wa
s in place early. The bus people were in the bus. The people inside had ridden together, so there would not be many cars there. One of them brought a motor home and parked it at the pumps as if it were ours. It seemed they thought of everything.

  But they didn’t. And neither did we.

  About the time we saw a black SUV top a rise about ten miles away, a black helicopter zoomed in low and fast coming over the mountains. It slowed before it got to the store and started its decent. Thankfully, it came in on the other side of the truck and behind the gas pumps. They apparently didn’t see us. They landed about thirty yards to the left of where Otis thought the SUV would stop.

  My heart was pounding so loud, I thought Deb could hear it. She was flushed and quiet. As soon as it got within about three feet of the ground, two guys jumped out wearing black SWAT-type clothing and headed for the store. The helicopter landed, and a third guy got out walking in the same direction following them. None of them were looking our way or at the old school bus.

  I aimed at the jet engine cowling just below the rotors. I adjusted my aim a click lower and pulled the trigger. The noise of the gun was enormous but nothing like the noise of the engine when the bullet hit. The explosion was loud, and the shrill whine of high-speed metal on metal was deafening. The rotor shaft locked up almost instantly, and the blades snapped off. The three guys were on the ground.

  The closer one got up first, and I picked up my AR15 had my sights on him before he was fully upright. I pulled the trigger and hit him in the spine right between his shoulder blades.

  He leapt forward and expanded as if he was about to explode.

  The other two swung around to engage me while the bus guys opened fire.

  When they did, another guy stepped out of the helicopter with an M50 machine gun. He opened up on the bus. It was too late for the first guys on the ground, and the bus guys ducked.

  My next shot missed the fast-moving last guy as he ran for the store.

  He blew the glass open rather than open the door, but he wasn’t inside far until gunshots dropped him to his knees. Other than putting some holes in the ceiling, he was done.

  “The SUV is here,” someone yelled.

  They pulled up short of the front door and jumped out firing. They didn’t open the glass door either but made doors of their own, taking out most of the front of the store glass.

  One took a shot from behind the counter and went down. Three more ran through the openings they’d made, and one of them got no farther. One more got out of the SUV to follow the first ones, leaving three of them standing.

  Several more of Otis’s family fired from behind the rolling counter perpendicular to the front wall.

  I got one of the guys in my sights and carried him back to the front wall. The other two had some amazing full automatic firepower with the fronts of their guns flaming. They had no good targets with the small holes in the counters and rifle barrels sticking out of those. They were no match for the well-placed shots that penetrated their body armor.

  And it was over.

  Chapter 9

  The Cover Up

  Will and a couple of young bucks began to strip the avionics and telecom from the helicopter. Another one was snapping pictures of everything as fast as he could. He must have taken several hundred pictures.

  Some of the girls were throwing guns into the trunk of an old Fleetwood. Some had belonged to the men in black, while others had been used by Otis’s family in the bus and behind the two counters. They cleaned a number of guns out of gun racks in the helicopter and the SUV. When they were done, there were few guns at the site and no rifles or handguns except Otis’ 9mm and a rifle for each one of the dead men in black. Everyone was leaving except Otis. His story would be that all these guys came in with guns blazing and he killed them all with his 9 mm. The dead guys had empty pistol holders of one type or another. They had old empty AR rifles in their still hands.

  They pulled the extra counter back into the building away from the front counter and put sale items on it. A few drove away in the bus and more took the motor home. They were removing a lot of stuff.

  Otis put big boy up and told me I could keep the other guns. He said if I didn’t want my name in the news and my picture in the paper, I should retire to the truck.

  Otis called the police and told them they would need their crime lab unit. Then he called the local TV station that was always trying to fight it out with the bigger stations in Phoenix. He told them he had a scoop for them, but they’d better hurry.

  When the first police car arrived, all of Otis’s family was gone. The gun racks in the helicopter and the SUV were empty. Otis only had one 9 MM semi auto in his holster.

  We should have gone to a motel. It was crazy around there all day and into the night. Crime-scene tape stretched everywhere. The law enforcement from the local police department, the Phoenix police, Arizona Department of Public Safety, the FBI, and at least half a dozen other law enforcement agencies from other towns had representatives there working or watching.

  Then other government people started showing up. We could tell by all the different jackets they wore with large print on the backs. There were people from ICE, BATF, DEA, Homeland Security and two from the governor’s security detail. There must have been 100 law enforcement people there swarming all over the place talking about what happened. They would stand in one place or another pointing fingers and stepping off different things.

  I called Jim as soon as the shooting stopped to tell him what had happened. First the police and then the AZDPS and then the FBI were swarming all over the place and came to the truck. At least ten times someone different knocked on our truck door to ask us what we saw, and we told them we weren’t there at the time. Most were news people. Other law enforcement didn’t bother us. It was obvious that what one knew most of the rest knew at that point.

  Jim said he would be there as soon as he could. He texted a picture of himself and said don’t talk to anyone but him. He was there when we woke up the next morning.

  I’m glad he sent a picture. But it was unnecessary since I would recognize his voice anywhere. We went with him to breakfast away from the truck stop.

  I asked him if he’d looked around, and he nodded. I asked what kind of helicopter it was, and who owned it.

  “It was a new model the military didn’t have yet, and I have been trying for two hours to find out who owned it but with no luck. You are on the right track asking the right questions. There are a lot of interesting things to find out, but whoever owned the helicopter was high up in the government and outranked the Pentagon. And they won’t be happy about losing that bird!”

  “How many agencies can get a plane the Pentagon can’t get?”

  “There are probably only three. The Secret Service could get one. I think the US State Department and the Department of Homeland Security could get one. But that is new technology, rare and very expensive.”

  “Surely, my own government wasn’t trying to kill me.”

  Jim didn’t answer. That made me even more nervous.

  Then Jim gave me a new phone. “You can call me anytime. And as long as no one is close beside you or hears us, no one else will. You, the Secret Service, and I are the only ones with this type. I had to pull some strings to get these, so don’t lose it.”

  We talked about other things including Seth, who wanted to meet us.

  Jim took Deb’s phone and called Seth’s number, but there was no answer except for the message that the number had been disconnected. Seth had disappeared and was covering his tracks it seemed.

  ”You’ll probably be safe for now,” Jim said. “Whoever was doing this would now be doing damage control. But they’ll regroup and maybe come after you again later.”

  “Deb,” Jim said. “Next time you need to get closer to the camera in the truck stops and look straight into the lens and smile. None of the pictures we got of you do you justice.”

  We all laughed and Deb blushed a little.
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  “She’s a married woman, and you shouldn’t try to cut in on me.”

  “The way she sticks to you and sticks up for you, she would probably hurt me.”

  “I would hope so.” I said.

  “What do they think we’re driving?” Deb asked, obviously trying to change the subject.

  We discussed the truck and motor home question.

  “The people in the SUV probably think of you in a motor home,” Jim said. “The FBI had intercepted a small amount of encrypted communication they thought was from the black SUV guys, and the implication was a motor home.”

  Otis had removed the motor home that had been at the truck stop but told the police and newspaper people the motor home had sat by pump one. So we were pretty sure that information had been ground in real well.

  In retrospect, we wished the truck had been moved, so it could not be in any of the pictures. We discussed it with Jim.

  He pulled a credit card out of his coat pocket and gave it to me. “I’m on a tight budget, but I believe you should get the truck painted. Maybe the trailer too.”

  We told Jim goodbye just before he left. Then we decided the sooner we got out of there, the better. So we said good-bye to Otis and Tilly and everyone around, giving them big hugs. We hit the road. We picked up a load in Phoenix. I drove, and Deb called ahead to our drop area. She got quotes on paint. We got the best quote we could with a two- to three-day turn. Then we called Jim to see if there was enough on the card for that amount and to get his permission.

  “Great, get it done.”

  We made our drop first thing the next morning and had the truck in the paint shop. We cleaned a lot of stuff out of the truck into the loaner car and especially the guns. The shop foreman saw one of them and told us we weren’t supposed to have those in a commercial vehicle.