“There are no laws saying that.”
“True,” Joe said. “But in a world we’re there are very few left, it is not Beginnings place to help take out more. We and New Bowman are not aggressors despite the fact that we have Frank on our side. We’re the good guys, remember?”
“Yeah,” Robbie nodded. “Tomorrow at first light, I’ll scan out to Manitoba. Hopefully the weather will be better for me to lower that radio.”
“Get those people out of there.”
“Or at least try to figure out a way how.” Robbie opened the side door to his chopper. “All right, Dad, I’m out of here. See you in an hour or so.”
“Robert, be careful.” Joe gave him a pat on the back and stepped back.
Stepping inside, Robbie extended out his hand in a wave, shut the door, raised his glasses, and then lifted his chopper . . . . northeast.
^^^^
“Watch you don’t get dirty, Henry,” Mark snickered in the tracking room. He wheeled out of Henry’s way as he worked on a chair.
“Why this was so important I don’t know.”
“Maybe you can say I wanted to see you all dressed up.”
“You have to stop bouncing in your chair.”
“I can’t help it. I’m excited. This is like a puzzle to me trying to find the beeping nest of the killer babies.”
Henry pulled at the tie he wore. “I’m choking.” Squatting before the chair, he brought his screwdriver up. “Just . . .” he grunted with a tightening turn, “want to get this stupid pre-trial meeting over with. What is up with that? Who does this Grace person think she is?”
“Uh . . . the judge.” In the midst of Mark’s laughing at his own joke that Henry found not one bit amusing, the snap of static caught his attention. Drawn immediately to a seriousness, he turned his chair to the screen. “What the hell?”
“Aw,” Henry whined as he stood up. “Please don’t tell me tracking’s screwed up.”
“What the hell is that?” Mark squinted as a single white line, with no noise, twinkled on the screen.
“Static?” Henry guessed. “We’re not expecting a storm. I hope tracking is not . . .” A blip of light came on the screen accompanied by the single, mild warning siren that usually sounded when the computer identified the intruder as a single source. “Quiet that alarm,” Henry whispered.
Mark did. “Is this like the biggest indicator light we have ever seen?”
“Yeah. I wonder what kind of animal it is.”
“I don’t know.” Mark clicked on the keyboard. “It’s big. That’s probably why we had that static.”
“It confused the computer?”
“Possibly. It entered the sector . . . two and a quarter miles from the road to the main gate.”
“A bear again?” Henry asked.
“Computer’s figuring.”
“Still? Why is this taking so long?” Henry grew antsy as they watched the light.
“I don’t know. It’s moving slower than average human speed.”
“That’s good.”
“Shit.”
“What?”
Mark looked at the read out. “This can’t be right. The computer estimates this thing to be twenty-two feet long and forty-seven hundred pounds.”
“Oh my God, it’s something prehistoric.”
“What?” Mark laughed.
“Its sounds like a dinosaur. You never know what George had frozen.” Henry looked at his watch. “Robbie’s in the air.” He grabbed his radio. “Robbie. Robbie, come in.”
“Eagle One, please.”
Henry rolled his eyes. “Hey, we have a dinosaur crawling into the perimeter.”
“A what?”
“Well, check this out,” Henry said. “It’s moving at one mile per hour. It’s also twenty-two feet long, four thousand pounds.”
“Holy shit.”
“Exactly.”
“What the hell is George sending us now?”
“Who knows?” Henry said, “How far are you and how much trouble would it be for you to swing back?”
“Give me three minutes and it will be in my scope.”
“Thanks.” Henry set down his radio. “We’ll find out what . . .”
“Henry-O.” Danny walked into tracking. “I’ve got Trish in the truck. Are you ready?”
“Danny,” Henry spoke with eyes glued to the screen, “what do you make of this?”
Danny walked over and peered at the screen. “What’s the computer saying?”
“An animal,” Mark answered and pointed to the readout screen.
“That can’t be right,” Danny said. “May I?” He asked Mark.
“Sure.” Mark rolled out of the way.
“Nothing is that big.” Danny’s hand moved to the keyboard. “Henry, watch the other monitor with me. I’m going to pull a simulation.”
“Got it.” Henry moved over.
“Look closely.” Danny rolled over to the ‘dummy’ monitor and waited for the simulation to play. The replay of the ‘blip’ came on the screen. “No, something is not right.” Danny shook his head, reached blindly over, and clicked on the keyboard again. “Watch it.” Again, with eyes glued, they waited and saw it. “Shit.” Danny slammed his hand. “Did you see it?”
“I saw it.”
“They almost pulled it off.”
“They joined up too soon.”
“Damn it that was smart.”
“I’ll get Security on it.”
“I’ll get numbers.” Moving completely over to the ‘dummy’ computer, Danny hands move frantically.
Henry lifted his radio and turned to Mark, “Get Frank on the phone.” He called into the radio. “Robbie, Robbie, come in.”
“It’s not three minutes,” Robbie replied.
“We have intruders.”
“What?”
Henry quickly moved across the Tracking Room and grabbed the other radio as he spoke. “They came in separately then joined, but they did it so quickly the tracking didn’t have time to pick it up. They’re moving slowly because they’re moving as a group.” He lifted the other radio. “Joe, Joe, come in. I need you in Tracking,. Tune into Channel Seven. We have a breach.”
“I’m there,” Joe replied.
“Henry!” Robbie spoke over his chopper noise. “I’m almost there. I’ll see if I can take them out.”
“They’re too close to home, Robbie.”
“I have Frank.” Mark held up the phone.
Henry looked at Mark. “Tell him we have a breach.”
“We have . . .” Danny slammed hard on the keys. “Come on.” He played the blip back. “Got it. . . forty two.”
“Shit. Forty-two,” Henry spoke to Robbie. “Robbie, see what you can do. They’re awfully close.”
“Frank’s on his way,” Mark said. “He said if Robbie can’t take them out., ground him and get his ass in Beginnings.”
Henry nodded. “Robbie, if there’s nothing you can do, Frank wants you grounded.”
“I see them, Henry,” Robbie came back. “Savages and they’re nearing the front tunnel gate.”
Danny looked up from the keyboard, “They’re a mile away.”
“Too close?” Henry asked.
Joe blasted into Tracking. “Where are they?”
“One mile from the front gate,” Danny replied.
“Robbie’s on them,” Henry said.
“Frank’s on his way.”
With a nod, Joe lifted his radio. “Tower hit a Code Five.” Joe heard the sirens blare. “Robbie, they’re too close to the front tunnel gate. What’s your scope?”
“Thick in the trees. I’m gonna be shooting blind at them unless I drop fire.”
“Too close. Too close.”’
“They’re picking up speed,” Danny informed, “and separating.” The alarm system began to sound. “They’re moving fast. Now they’re a hundred feet away.”
“Squad team leaders in position. Do not, I repeat, do not go into the tunnel.”
Joe called out, “Robbie, where are you?”
“I’m setting down as soon as I find a spot close enough to the front.
“Seventy-five feet,” Danny notified. “Fifty.”
A crackling came over the all-call channel and then motorcycle noise preluded Frank. “Where we at? I’m in range.”
“Twenty-five feet,” Danny said.
“They’re on us, Frank and nearing the front tunnel entrance,” Joe replied. The noise and alarms in the room were near deafening.
“Dad,” Frank called out. “Do not send my men in there.”
“I gave the order all ready.”
“Ten feet,” Danny spoke up.
“Joe,” Henry called his name.
Joe spun around.
Silence. The alarms stopped.
Joe lifted the radio. “They’re in.”
“Fuck! Tower!” Frank yelled. “Lower the gate. Do not open it. Let the bastards get trapped.
“Tower in. Gate sequence loaded. Two minutes.”
Henry let out a breath. “That’s cutting it close, but they shouldn’t make it.”
“Gas, Frank?” Joe asked.
“Yeah,” Frank came back. “Robbie, meet me at the back gate. We’ll go in the front and let them have it.”
“I’ll get things ready,” Robbie said.
Steve from Tower’s voice interrupted. “Frank, there’s a problem with the gas.”
“We have to blast them. I’m not sending my men into a dark . . .”
“Frank,” Steve interrupted. “A truck is moving toward the tunnel.”
“Fuck!” Frank screamed out. “Scratch the gas. I’m heading in.”
Joe gave his warning, “Frank, do not take that chance.”
“Dad, just make sure they keep that gate down,” Frank’s voice then the rev of the cycle engine seeped over the airwaves. “I’m gonna try to stop them. That’s Ryder and Ellen.”
“Christ.” Joe turned to Henry. “Get her on her phone and . . .”
“I’m already trying,” Henry dialed.
“Tower?” Frank questioned in his ride. “How far are they?”
No response.
“Tower?”
“They just drove inside”
“Hello?” Ellen answered her cell phone in the truck. “Henry?” She looked at Elliott and shook her head. “Henry, I can’t hear you. What? Henry, I’m in the tunnel. Can it wait?” Ellen turned her head oddly to Elliott. “Why does it look like the front gate is closing?”
Elliott saw the light at the end of the tunnel slowly disappearing. “It is.”
“Henry?” Ellen called into the phone. “Are you telling us about the . . .”
Four bangs, loud and echoing in the tunnel, shot out one right after another. The truck dropped as all four tires were blown out. With the screeching rubber on the ground along with Alexandra’s scream, the truck veered out of control toward the wall.
Ellen grabbed on to her daughter. “Elliott.” She closed her eyes.
It took everything he had, but Elliot jerked the wheel of the truck seconds before they hit. Ellen’s side of the truck slammed into the wall with a mighty jolt.
“Mommy,” Alexandra whimpered.
“Shh. It’s all right.” Ellen raised her eyes over to Elliott. “What happened?”
“The tires were blown out.”
Ellen grabbed the phone. “Dead.” She dropped it and looked into the black tunnel. “Elliott?”
Elliott swallowed before he reached for the headlights and flicked them on.
Savages.
With a war call, they charged from near the other end of the tunnel.
“Shit.” Elliott quickly unrolled his window. He edged his body out. “Shut this.”
“Where are you going!” Ellen screamed. “Get back in!”
“I can’t let them near this truck. Lock the doors and windows!”
“Mommy!”
“Elliott!” Ellen screamed as he climbed out. She nervously cradled Alexandra to her chest as she reached over and wound up the window. She heard the clomp of Elliott’s boots on the roof of the truck. Her eyes shifted to the closing in Savages who screamed in their pursuit and Ellen blessed herself. She jolted, bringing Alexandra even tighter, when four gunshots went off.
A loud ‘thump’ caused Ellen to shriek and the body of a Savage rolled over onto the hood of the truck. “Oh God.”
“Mommy.”
“Please. Please. Please.” Ellen closed her eyes. She heard the Savages banging against the truck but there was no more gunfire. “Please. Oh God. Oh God.”
The heavy swing of the sword sent the head of the Savage that came for Elliott flying like a baseball. It sailed down and on to the ground. He kept his stance firm, balancing on the roof of the truck. He knew he had to do his all to keep the Savages from the truck. One break of a window and Ellen and Alexandra were goners. They came for him, no more than two at a time as if it were a game. They knew Elliott was trapped. He couldn’t use his gun because running out of bullets would leave him vulnerable. So they began to occupy him, confusing him, and sailing arrows at him, arrows that Elliott batted away using his sword. From the left, the right, behind, front, Elliott swung, pivoted, and turned.
He grunted hard and his stance weakened when an arrow sailed into his leg. He broke his rhythm in swinging and in that window of opportunity another arrow sailed into his side. Quickly he broke it off and continued in his plight to fight them off. There were so many trapped in the tunnel with Ellen, Alexandra, and him.
‘How many, how many?’ raced through Elliott’s mind as he tried to get a count using the light of the headlights and the other end of the tunnel to see. Where were they coming from?
Elliott’s heart raced when he saw one dive on the hood of the truck.
Ellen screamed and tried to block Alexandra’s view. The savage was close. With his face near the windshield, he held an object and drew back to break the glass. She hunched. Her mind spun with thoughts of what to do. Just as the Savage struck down, he flew back when the boot of Elliott nailed him in the side of the face and sent him flying off the hood.
Ellen saw Elliott leap down on the hood then to the front of the truck. She could only pray as she watched them encircle him, and Elliott, with his back to the truck, fought them off as best as he could, swinging, turning, and swinging his sword again. There were so many and there was only one of him. Then, in the reflection of the side view mirror, Ellen saw the speck of a shadow as it darted through the brightness of the sun at the front entrance. With her eyes peeled to that mirror, she saw the speck grow closer. Ellen’s shoulders dropped in relief . . . Frank
Frank could barely see the truck the Savages were bombarding. He could see them sailing back, some whole bodies and some only heads.
With his heart racing and the rush of tunnel air beating against his ears, Frank, at full speed, whipped around his M-16 as he steered the bike with one hand. Spinning the rifle, he gripped it by the barrel and zoomed forward.
It was the shot that knocked Elliott back. The arrow sailed with such force, it went straight through his shoulder blade. The tip of it clanked against the metal of the truck as it sent Elliott back and the sword dropped from his hand. Elliott hadn’t the chance to even reach for it as four of them dove on him and pinned him against the side of the truck. A fifth raised up his spear and, from across the tunnel, screaming all the way, he charged forth. Inches before Elliott’s chest, a split second before the spear plunged devastatingly into Elliott, an explosion of blood erupted from the attacking Savage when the butt of a M-16 smacked into the side of his head with the force of Frank who rode by.
Ten feet away, Frank slowed the motorcycle down enough to turn it into a spin and jump off before the bike had completely stopped. He charged ahead, lifted his weapon, and aimed. Never missing a beat, never slowing down in his stride, Frank fired his first four shots. With accuracy and precision, the four Savages that held Elliott were his first targets. Down they
dropped, each shot fired without hesitation of the next.
Elliott was freed, injured, but freed. He bent down for his sword, lifted it up; and readied to fight alongside Frank.
Frank’s determination was to get to the truck no matter what the cost. The Savages that charged him fazed him not one bit. The arrows that hit him didn’t make him flinch. He kept his M-16 high and aimed, firing as he moved only pausing in his execution to use the rifle to belt a Savage from his way. He swung out, knocked him over, shot him, and moved on.
“Frank. Frank, come in,” Robbie spoke in the radio just outside the tunnel. He stood with a wall of men.
“I’m a little . . .” A Savage scream seeped through Frank’s head set. “. . . busy right now, little brother.”
Three shots and grunts emerged.
Robbie shook his head. “We’re coming in.”
“Stay back.”
“Fuck that.”
“Robbie!” Frank didn’t need to turn around when he heard it, the shift of a mechanical device soon followed by the rumble of the opening gate at the other end of the tunnel.
Elliott could see it in his fight, the slow lift of the gate, the emergence of sunlight, and the shadows of a long line of Beginnings men that moved forward into the tunnel.
Confusion of whom to fight, the army that ensued in the short distance or the one man radical army in Frank who ensued with ease a few feet from them, was seen on the Savages’ faces. Whoever they chose to battle, they surely were going into a fight they were ill prepared for.
A wave of Savages challenged Beginnings, and it wasn’t long before the Savages . . . lost.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
From her low, huddled position with her body nearly lying over Alexandra, Ellen sprang up when the truck door open.
Frank.
Ellen gasped out and Alexandra jumped from her arms to Frank’s. Her little legs, like a monkey’s, were wrapped as tightly around him as her arms. Frank closed his eyes, laid his lips firmly to Alexandra’s cheek then lowered down to Ellen. He grasped her as she stepped from the truck.
“You guys O.K.?” Frank asked. He felt Alexandra’s nodding head and heard Ellen’s muffled ‘yes’ from his chest. “God, you had me scared.”
The Next Ten: Beginnings Series Books 11 - 20 Page 75