The younger Templar made his way to the large steel desk sitting near the back wall of the office, rummaging frantically through the drawers in search of something to remove the zip ties. The room began vibrating with the deafening roar of the Wright R-1820s revving up outside. The sound changed into a massive bellow as the Flying Fortress began moving, slowly gathering speed as it accelerated down the runway. Micah knew they were running out of those few remaining minutes, and fast.
“Look out, Nephew!” Ezekiel yelled, and the highway patrolman looked up to the see Mustafa looming in the doorway. Their eyes met and the Lebanese grabbed for the Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter in his waistband. Instinctively, Micah charged the terrorist from across the room. Even as he began to move, he knew his effort was futile. He was simply too slow, too far away, and the steel desk partially blocked his angle of attack.
It was as if everything had gone into the slow-motion sequence of a Sam Peckinpah movie as he propelled himself forward. The pistol cleared Mustafa’s waistband, and Micah saw the muzzle coming up and pointing squarely at his face. The barrel spit flame and he heard the first-round crack by his left ear. The long, heavy double action trigger pull, along with the terrorist’s surprise and haste, had caused the jacketed hollow point to miss Micah’s head by scant fractions of an inch.
Still in his perceived slow-motion mode and totally focused on the threat posed by the pistol, somewhere in a detached part of his mind Micah marveled at his ability to clearly see Mustafa’s trigger finger start to move back again for the second shot. The muzzle was now centered on Micah’s chest, and the trooper willed himself forward even faster, mentally bracing for what was to come.
And then the muzzle was no longer there, blocked from view by the back of the black pearl snap western shirt worn by Max Grephardt. The former German Luftwaffe officer, still cuffed with zip ties, had rushed in from the side and interposed himself between Micah and the pistol in Mustafa’s right hand. Neither of the two protagonists had seen him move, having been completely absorbed in the tunnel vision created by the threat of the other.
The sound of the nine-millimeter exploded again in the confines of the room, followed immediately by two more quick, panicky shots as Max’s body slammed into both the terrorist and the pistol he was holding. The two interlocked men hit the open-door frame and bounced back inside together. Micah, still focused on the threat, grabbed at the Smith & Wesson with both hands and forced it up and away as Grephardt crumpled to the floor at their feet.
Recovering from the suddenness of his evolving situation, the terrorist fought savagely to maintain control of the weapon still clenched in his right hand. The muzzle pointed skyward as the two men shoved, grappled, elbowed and swore at each other in a primeval fury driven by desperation. The trooper could hear the Lebanese screaming something unintelligible in Arabic into his ear, and he could feel as well as smell the hot, stinking breath and spittle that accompanied it.
Realizing quickly the longer the fight lasted; the more likely the younger, more physically fit Mustafa would gain ultimate control of the pistol, the highway patrolman shifted his death grip on the Smith & Wesson and pushed the magazine release. The fully loaded magazine fell away from the Model 59 and clattered loudly on the concrete floor, automatically engaging the factory safety that would not allow the weapon to fire again.
As they struggled, the terrorist managed to bring the pistol back down to chest level between the two men. Bracing his back against the retaining wall and with both hands wrapped around the Smith & Wesson itself, Mustafa shoved hard against Micah. The trooper was sent reeling backwards, losing his own grip on the pistol and nearly falling over.
Mustafa took a classic two-handed stance with the Model 59 and smiled grimly at his enemy, pressing the weapon’s trigger as Micah lunged forward again. Through the haze of close combat, Micah gave a quick prayer of thanks when the trigger went to the rear and nothing happened. The terrorist’s face changed to a puzzled look of astonishment, and then changed again as Micah hit him square in the mouth with a hard right fist. Mustafa’s head snapped back from the punch, and blood began flowing between loosened teeth and spread into his mouth.
But if anything else, the Hezbollah terrorist was a seasoned fighter and the taste of his own blood was a familiar one. In return he swung down hard with the pistol in his outstretched right hand. The butt of the Smith & Wesson struck a solid blow to the top of the highway patrolman’s head, sending an erupting shower of crimson into the air and leaving an ugly gash almost to the bone.
The impact stunned Micah to his very core, and he staggered drunkenly backwards as he tried to keep sight of the terrorist through the stars, planets and galaxies bursting in his head and clouding his vision. Fighting to maintain his balance, not to mention his consciousness, he watched as Mustafa nonchalantly cast the pistol aside and assume some sort of martial arts fighting stance. Somewhat disconcertedly he gave Micah that same grim, smug smile, but now with scarlet tinged teeth.
Micah set himself for a moment, breathing with large gulps and feeling the warm flow of his own blood running down the side of his face. With his right forearm, he wiped the red mist away to clear his vision as his legs steadied. Taking his own fighting position while eyeing his opponent, Micah Templar slung his head like a wild Brahma bull and charged forward once more.
But as he tried to close with the terrorist, he found himself attempting to make contact with a ghost. Qassam had not exaggerated about Mustafa’s formidable fighting skills, Micah’s best punches were either deflected or found nothing but empty air. The highway patrolman simply could not put knuckles against the longer reach of the Lebanese. Every move he made was countered by hand strikes and kicks that found their mark much of the time.
Doggedly Micah battled on, trying to find a part of his enemy that he could either grasp or strike in return. An elbow slam came out of no place, hitting Micah hard just above the left eye which began swelling rapidly. A kick caught him high on the right side of his torso, and he felt at least one rib crack from the impact. Another kick caught him full on the left side of his lower thigh, striking the peroneal nerve area and threatening to buckle his leg underneath him. Through the growing murkiness of pain and anguished gasps for air Micah realized that he was in the fight of his life, and that he was losing.
Again, the dazed and bloodied Texan staggered back, every fiber in his being just wanting to lay down and call it a day. He was some twenty years beyond his prime and about the same over his fighting weight, and Micah felt every bit of both like a crushing weight upon his shoulders, trying to force him down to the cold cement floor beneath his boot soles.
The highway patrolman could only see through his right eye now, as the left one had swelled mostly shut. His fists hung loosely at his sides like heavy stones, and he moved his head slowly to the side and spit out a mixture of blood, chipped tooth, and saliva. He was tired, hurt and wore down more than he could ever have imagined being before. He was done. He knew it and Mustafa, still with his smug little smile, knew it too.
Through the enveloping fog of physical injury and mental despair oozing through him, he heard a voice saying something loudly, urgently. It was a voice he had known since childhood, speaking words that had carried down in his family from generation to generation. The voice belonged to Tio Zeke, who was hobbling forward with everything he had left as he attempted to rouse his spent and near defeated kinsman.
“Micah Templar, remember who you are and where you come from!” Ezekiel bellowed. Moving much too fast for his own condition, the wounded leg gave out from under the old colonel. With his hands tied behind and nothing to soften the impact, the elderly man landed hard with his face on the unyielding concrete floor. Ezekiel Templar shrugged off the bone jarring fall and rolled to his side, trying to get a knee underneath and regain his footing.
“Don’t you give up, he’ll kill you” Ezekiel implored in a loud, rasping breath. “You’re the one chance for a lot of innocent people
. We’ve got to stop that plane!”
Ezekiel’s call to arms also carried into the ears of Micah’s tormentor. Mustafa shifted his dark eyes, still glowing with certain victory, over to the old man struggling vainly to get back to his feet. Those eyes narrowed into the focused visage of the near supernatural cruelty seething from within. The Hezbollah terrorist began moving toward Ezekiel Templar with the look and manner of someone preparing to squash an unwanted bug beneath their shoe.
At that precise moment, Micah felt something strange and powerful stirring inside him. Perhaps it was the legacy of a hundred and seventy years of Templars in Texas, coupled with the Marine Corps pride that still coursed through his veins. Perhaps it was the silver badge on his chest that read “Texas Department of Public Safety--Trooper” and everything of worth that carried with it.
Perhaps it was the limitless grace of an all-powerful God who does listen when mortal man calls upon Him for the strength to continue on. Whatever it was, it all came together and took the form of something totally inexplicable to most anybody else, unless they have made that same journey into the stygian breach themselves.
The overwhelming wave of agony and despair began to roll back, along with the physical as well as inner exhaustion accompanying those sensations. Call it a second wind, or the will to survive, or divine inspiration or even darkest desperation. Call it what you will, but Micah Templar was feeling it sweep through both body and spirit like a furiously wild, west Texas thunderstorm that boils and blows and wreaks havoc on whatever lies below.
Down in one’s semi-subconscious where memories met substance Micah not only heard Tio Zeke yelling at him, but also his own father along with the shouting choruses of a thousand other voices from cow camps along the Nueces to Parris Island to the Republic of South Vietnam and back to DPS Recruit School. They were all encouraging him, cajoling him, shaming him to keep pushing forward and through the challenges each had faced themselves, in their own times.
No. Not now, not ever. This was a fight to the finish and if he was going to go down, he was going to go down game and still swinging.
“Hey, Crotalo!” Micah growled through split, swollen lips. “Don’t crawl off now. We ain’t through yet, not by a long shot.”
The animal-like intimation in Micah’s voice halted the terrorist in his tracks. Mustafa did not understand the words themselves so much as he understood the tone, and what it meant. There was still some fight left in this man, this hated Marine. He apparently did not realize how badly outclassed and already defeated he was, at least not yet. The Hezbollah terrorist turned to face Micah again, and to begin the lesson anew.
Micah stood there, battered and bruised but with the glint of unbroken defiance in his grayish-green eyes. The Texan knew he could not stand and go heel-to-toe with Qassam’s second in command, he would be fighting the Shi’a Lebanese to his own liking where he could best use his martial arts skills. What Micah needed was a game changer, something unexpected to even the odds stacked so perilously against him. The trooper set his jaw, ducked his head and charged forward one more time.
As he closed the distance, he picked his mark and concentrated on the waist of the Hezbollah operative. The lawman already carried the bitter experience in just how quick and formidable Mustafa was while on his feet. Micah intended to take him off those feet and knew that no matter how quickly the Arab could move or feint, the man would still be where his waist was. Like any good linebacker who takes a bead on a crazy-legged ball carrier, the key to bringing him down was to focus on the waist.
Boring in, Micah felt the impact of the strikes as he bulled his way through his opponent’s defenses. The younger, more agile terrorist had been expecting the older man to try to throw a punch or pull up short for some sort of kick. He was not expecting the semi-crouched Texan to come at him like some sort of maddened feral hog, smashing his way through high grass and tangled undergrowth as if they were nothing more than small clumps of summer daisies.
At the last moment the terrorist realized what was about to happen, and tried to sidestep the oncoming freight train. As the Lebanese began to shift his body the trooper cut the distance, noticing the movement in Mustafa’s waist and adjusting his angle to make up the difference. Micah’s arms and hands, until now tucked in tight against his head and body to help deflect the blows, opened up and wrapped around as the two men collided. The trooper drove his right shoulder deep into the Arab’s right torso, just below the rib cage. Pumping his legs rapidly with everything he had left, Micah lifted the terrorist off his feet and carried him backwards across the room.
The lawman’s newly found momentum powered both to the opposite end, only dissipating itself when the highway patrolman slammed the Lebanese into the bare cinder block wall. He took heart at the sound of air being knocked from the man’s lungs, as well as a loud thud as the back of Mustafa’s head smacked against the painted surface. Keeping his stunned adversary pinned and unable to move away, Micah began hooking the terrorist in the lower torso with a series of vicious, achingly effective uppercuts and crosses. Powerful elbows and fists rocketed into Mustafa’s lower gut, floating ribs and both kidneys.
Enraged beyond reason or care, Micah continued to pound the Hezbollah terrorist unmercifully. As he felt the man begin to wilt against him, the Texan grabbed one arm and a fistful of blue jeans near the belly button. Using his own strength and weight as leverage he took a step to the side and spun on the balls of both feet, flinging the terrorist across the room and sending him crashing into and over the large steel desk. The highway patrolman promptly followed in pursuit, scrambling over the desk and on top of the sprawled body below him. When Micah came down, he landed with both knees squarely in Mustafa’s chest.
Reaching over and intertwining the fingers of his left hand in the Arab’s long black hair, Micah dallied off and began rapidly striking the man in the face with his right fist. With each punch, he’d give a bit of slack and the back of the terrorist’s head would bounce off the concrete floor. Methodically, Micah would then pull Mustafa’s head back up and hit him again with all the inner fury remaining.
Finally, Micah stopped and untwined his fingers from Mustafa’s hair, letting his head bang against the floor one final time. Dead, dying or simply beat unconscious, the Hezbollah second in command was no longer a threat. Micah braced against the prostate body and staggered unsteadily to his feet, peering through a film of blood with his one good eye at Tio Zeke and the deathly still form of Max Grephardt.
Leaning on trembling legs upon the desk, Micah reached over and fumbled through the top drawer with bruised, shaking fingers that seemed to have a mind of their own. He found an old pair of nail clippers and as quickly as he could, made his way over to Ezekiel. The trooper knelt down and laboriously cut the zip ties from the elder Templar’s swollen, bloody wrists. Immediately the old colonel began half stumbling, half crawling toward the body by the door, calling out Max’s name all the while.
With Micah’s help, the two men rolled the German over and into Ezekiel’s lap. Tio Zeke sat there on the floor, supporting his friend’s upper torso as Micah began examining the ugly nine-millimeter holes in Max’s chest and stomach. The German’s breathing was uneven and punctuated with a sickening, rattling wheeze. Bright red, frothy fluid bubbled out the corner of Grephardt’s mouth each time he exhaled.
The movement brought Max back to a dreamy state of semi-consciousness. He opened his eyes to blurry images above him; talking to him, consoling him, trying to help him. Though they were hard to see through the gathering darkness, he knew who they were. He reached out weakly, haltingly to the one who was holding him. A warm, familiar clasp met his hand more than halfway. He could feel other hands frantically trying to staunch the steady flow of blood, along with the air escaping from his perforated lung.
“Easy Max, just take it easy”, the familiar voice was saying. “You’re going to be all right. Stay with me, Max.”
Another voice was speaking in a lower tone,
worried and obviously flustered. “He’s in really bad shape. I don’t know of anything else to do.”
“I know, nephew.”
“Tio, he saved my life and I can’t help him.”
“I know, Micah. I know.”
The first voice moved closer to his ear. “Hear that, Max? You made the difference, Micah did for the one who shot you and we’ll get the rest. You’ve got my word on that, Max, every last mother’s son of them.”
Yes, he knew that voice. He understood the words and wanted to smile in response, to show them that he was still in the fight. But the blurry figures were growing dimmer and their voices kept fading away. Max tried to concentrate on taking air in and breathing it out, but it was as if a tremendously heavy boulder was sitting on his chest, crushing the life out of him.
As the pale rider came nearer and his mind continued to drift, he was no longer laying on a concrete floor in west Texas, but rather in the late summer grass of Germany back in 1945. He could almost feel the blistering heat from the burning Skymaster, and he was struggling again to breathe with the acrid smoke and sooty debris lodged deep in his lungs.
Max Grephardt could feel fingers upon the small silver cross that had hung around his neck over all the intervening years. That same voice was in his ear again, thanking him. Telling him how much he valued his friendship and for being there for him so many times. The voice was talking about saving other lives today. Then a few words that he heard in clarity.
“Don’t die on me, Max! Please don’t die!”
He tried once more to smile, to reassure his friend that he would be all right. But he couldn’t, he was just too tired. And from the other side of the vanishing veil other loving, long gone hands were reaching out for him. They were lifting him up as if he weighed no more than a feather, and beginning to pull him through that veil to what lay beyond.
The Uvalde Raider: A Templar Family Novel: Book One Page 16