by J. L. Bourne
Her deceased companion had a few packets of electrolyte drink powder in his kit, so I mixed up the recommended ratio for thirty-two ounces and guzzled about a third of it down. I was still feeling a little dizzy, so I decided to tie Maggie securely to the table in case I passed out.
After about an hour, I started feeling a little better, but wanted to hedge my bets here. I continued to take on fluids and eat from the goons’ stash of food to get some strength back. Maggie’s color looked somewhat better by now, but she was still passed out and breathing deeply.
I took this time to reorganize my kit, taking what I needed from Maggie’s and her assassin buddy’s and integrating it into my own.
She’s still asleep as I write this, and if she doesn’t wake up soon, I’m leaving her here.
—————
30 Nov
Maggie woke up after twelve hours of unconsciousness and asked for water.
I mixed up another batch of electrolyte and sugar water and brought it up to her dry lips.
“Thanks,” she said in a raspy voice after taking a few gulps.
“Listen, I know you’re fucking shot, tired, and weak, but I don’t give a fuck. Start talking,” I said.
“No grand tour of Shady Rest?” Maggie replied.
My heart skipped a beat and I felt anger flash across my face; only me, Dad, and Rich knew the name of the cabin.
And Dad was dead.
“What the fuck did you do to him, Maggie?!” I barked.
Maggie took a deep breath and began to speak, “I didn’t do a damn thing to him. They brought him in, and now he’s being held at a multi-agency intel fusion center for questioning.”
“Where is it?” I said, reaching for the map of Arkansas that hung on the wall above the table.
No response.
“Fine, maybe I’ll just do to you what your buddies did to Rich to get him to talk,” I said.
I dug my thumbs into Maggie’s shoulder. Yes, I realized what I was doing, but this was also the person who trained me.
She winced and cried out in agony, but didn’t give up Rich’s location.
“You know that’s not going to work. We’ve both been through the same shit,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Okay, we’ll play it that way. When does your ride return for extract?”
No reply. I resisted the temptation to go any further. I wouldn’t get anything from her no matter what I did to her physically . . . but her mind might be different.
“Maggie. If you ever want a chance at seeing your daughter again, you’ll tell me when that goddamn helicopter comes back.”
—————
01 Dec
Night
The helo touches down in one hour. I’m dressed like goon number one, and he’s dressed like me, only dead. I’ve got Maggie zip-tied to a tree. I plan to cut her loose when I hear rotors. She tries anything, and she knows I’ll fucking blast her and the helo out of the sky without hesitation. With any luck, we’ll fool the pilots into thinking the hit went off without a hitch.
Maggie finally talked. She’s not a stupid person, after all.
—————
My heart raced as the rotor noise got steadily louder. I cut Maggie’s zip cuff, checking for spares in my pocket as I did so.
I waited for an eternity for the rotor wash to knock leaves and dead branches down on the river bank. It was pitch black outside, but I was on my NVD, my retinas bathed in the green light of distant stars. The tips of the helicopter’s rotors glowed, forming a flickering, violent circle of light above my head.
I watched Maggie as she broke an IR chem light and waved it at the pilots before dropping it onto the rocky river bank. It was too late to whisper threats in her ear; she was either going to do what I told her to do, or she wasn’t. Her mouth was taped up under the mask and her injury was in a sling, giving her only one arm to work with. All of her guns and knives were in the bottom of my pack, but I let her sling an empty HK416 over her back for visual effect.
The helicopter hovered a little lower. I approached first with the goon corpse in a fireman carry. The injury from the cat sent a pang up my leg, but I didn’t dare show it.
The green glow of artificial eyes were watching as I loaded the corpse into the open helicopter door. The co-pilot watched me place the body as I tried not to appear that I was keeping an eye on Maggie. I then signaled the pilot to hover even lower. The ground was uneven so he couldn’t set down, but he complied and the copter lurched down a foot, nearly touching skids to the rocky shore.
I nodded for Maggie to get inside and she did so.
I jumped in after her, feeling the thick zip cuff in my cargo pocket to ensure it was still there.
This was about to go down.
I positioned the corpse between Maggie and myself, bolted it into the airframe with a d-ring, and nonchalantly zip-tied the wrist of the dead man to Maggie’s good arm. I then pointed at her and gave the universal signal of a finger across the throat, which in this case meant If you try anything, I’m kicking you and the stiff out the motherfucking door.
She nodded.
The co-pilot shoved a green David Clark headset between the seats at me. I had to think fast.
I signaled to the co-pilot that my ears were shot from gunfire, hoping he’d understand the lie I was trying to convey.
Maggie revealed earlier, before we left the cabin, that the pilots didn’t know the stiff. He was a contract killer.
The co-pilot stared at me for a few awkward seconds before nodding and returning to the helicopter controls.
The helicopter engines increased RPMs. I could barely make out the wet compass above the cockpit glass. We seemed to be headed west. The digital airspeed indicator read triple digits, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred and twenty knots. Calculating that airspeed, I had about an hour until the chopper would be circling to land.
Maggie told me earlier where the makeshift intel fusion center was located. Where they were keeping Rich.
Bentonville, Arkansas.
The feds took over the headquarters for what used to be the largest retail chain in the United States and plugged a bunch of industrial generators into the local grid and somehow got some satcom up and other infrastructure up and running. The massive complex was a regional hub of operations for what was becoming the new post-collapse government.
Here was the rub: I couldn’t just sit and wait for this no-shit-black helicopter to land on the roof of the fusion center with a zip-tied, compromised CIA operative traitor and the wrong dead body onboard.
I pulled Maggie’s NVD off her head, effectively blinding her in the darkness. I then stuffed the device in the top of my pack and latched it to the airframe. Things were about to go one of two conceivable ways.
My heart thumped as I waited for the right time. It had been about forty minutes since we took off, but I could see a pinpoint of artificial light getting brighter on the horizon. The grid was still down, so I had a feeling we were quickly closing the distance to the fusion center. I eased up to the space just behind the cockpit and checked the wet compass.
272.
I tried the direct approach. I tapped the co-pilot on the shoulder and screamed at him over the engine noise.
“Turn left, two three zero!”
Both the co-pilot and pilot cocked their heads simultaneously, like confused dogs. The pilot shook his head and pointed at the light on the horizon. He then pointed at his watch hand and gave me the signal of five minutes.
I tapped the co-pilot on the shoulder again, this time putting the tip of my silenced rifle against his temple.
“Turn left, two three zero!” I screamed again, fighting the noise.
The co-pilot jumped and reached for something on the right side of his seat. Not wanting the pilot to crash, I waited until I saw the MP5K before pulling the trigger on my rifle, blasting the co-pilot through his helmet. I noticed the small hole appear through the windscreen in front
of the co-pilot at about the same time I saw the blood splatter.
The helicopter jerked and lurched left, pinning me against the side. I could see the treetops below getting bigger.
Maggie fell out.
I thought I was going to die. We were moving at over a hundred knots and were probably a couple hundred feet off the ground. There would be no surviving that.
I held on for dear life, trying to keep the muzzle of my rifle pointed in the general direction of the cockpit.
The helicopter leveled out.
The pilot looked back at me and was met with the same view the co-pilot had moments before.
“Two two five, now!” I yelled.
I could hear very faint screams, but dismissed it as the good ole’ PTSD talking.
The helicopter turned to the left and the wet compass heading bug settled on 225.
I hit start on my watch chronometer and waited, gun trained on the pilot. As the aircraft headed in the general direction of Fayetteville, I made final preparations.
I reached forward and took the MP5K from the co-pilot; he wouldn’t be needing it anymore. I grabbed his two spare mags still full of 9mm rounds and stuffed everything in my pack.
Faint screams again.
I leaned outside the helicopter and saw Maggie hanging there, her hand still attached to the corpse, which was also still attached to the helicopter. After strapping myself into the airframe, I pulled her sorry ass back inside and sat her back down in the seat. She immediately tried to deck me, but forgot her good hand was still attached to the corpse. Blood trailed down her wrist from where the zip tie had cut into her skin. Good.
I caught the pilot looking back anxiously and came to the realization that he was talking on the fucking radio.
I jumped back to the cockpit, communicating to him that he better swing that boom mic off his lips or he’d never leave the aircraft alive. He was scared. I could smell urine and didn’t know if it was him or the dead co-pilot. I ordered him to shut down his transponder and all modes and codes as well as his radio, TACAN, and all other navigation. He quickly and efficiently complied. Screens went dark and needles died and disappeared. The fusion center’s artificial light was on the right side of the helicopter and getting smaller. I couldn’t make out the interstate below. Too much overcast, so I was going completely off of airspeed and time.
“Set her down,” I commanded.
The pilot began making engine control, cyclic, and collective adjustments and we began to slow down and descend. Now low enough to see some details, I noticed that we missed a suitable grass field, so I pointed over to a clear spot a few hundred meters away, gesturing the pilot to land there. He was so terrified by now that he’d have probably set it down in the trees if I hadn’t said anything.
As the helo hovered over the field and began to land, I grabbed my loaded-down pack and waited just behind the cockpit. Just as soon as I felt the chopper touch down, I hit the cockpit with a three round burst, destroying the radios and navigation equipment. Sparks flew everywhere and a small electrical fire began to smolder under the dash. I pointed my gun at the pilot and gestured for him to take his NVD off, shut down the aircraft, and get out. I followed him with my muzzle, making sure he wasn’t about to pull an MP5 out of his ass. He stepped out of the portside door onto the thick grassy ground, and then I told him run. He stood there for a moment, probably in shock, so I shot the ground at his feet to help him along. He took off into the darkness.
The rotor began to slow to a point where I began to finally hear myself think. I watched the pilot through my NVD as he stumbled through the weeds off into the distance. Satisfied he wouldn’t be back anytime soon, I then approached Maggie.
“Okay, this is how it’s going to play out. If I ever see your ass again, I’m going to kill you. I’m not going to talk. I’m not going to reason. I’ll just pull the trigger and end you. Do you understand?”
She looked at me and nodded.
“Good. I’m going to cut you loose. Here’s a bottle of water. The helicopter med kit is on the bulkhead near the cockpit. Don’t follow me. Remember what I said.”
I cut her zip tie and disappeared into the tree line moving south and west.
NWA
I moved hours through the fields, forests, and backyards of northwest Arkansas. It took me a good while to figure out where exactly I was. The first thing I did was find a place to recombobulate. I knew it was a mistake not killing Maggie, but now we were even. She saved my life a while back by telling me to head for the hills and stack it deep, so that was my way of paying her back. That’s the way I rationalize it, anyway. My brain was telling me to end her, but my heart was telling me to let her live.
No more of that.
I came across an old tin roof chicken house that seemed abandoned. It was starting to sprinkle and the sky would open up at any moment, so I cautiously approached. Before entering, I covered my nose and mouth with my sleeve to weaken the stench. The smell was overwhelming; I knew what to expect when I found the door and quietly entered.
The place was a chicken tomb. I found a corner with the least amount of dead chickens and started to reorganize my kit. As much as I’d have liked to, I couldn’t carry all the guns captured over the past few days. The HK416 was nice, but it was a heavy bastard, probably a pound or two more than my silenced direct-impingement M4 that I now had strapped to the side of my pack.
I loosened the drawstring on the top of my pack and reached inside, pulling out the co-pilot’s MP5K along with two full mags of 9mm, not including the one in the gun. I tugged on the side folding stock, allowing it to fold out and snap into place. I pulled the bolt back and locked it to the rear. Confirmed that the chamber was empty. No way the co-pilot could have gotten the drop on me without one in the hole. I performed a quick HK slap, sending the bolt home and loading a 9mm round into the chamber. These old roller lock guns were just badass.
I placed it on safe, folded the stock, and slung the single point sling over my chest, allowing it to sit just above my hip. I’d keep the HK on my body for quick response and the M4 strapped to my pack if I needed to reach out a little farther than the 9mm could.
After reorganizing my pack, I made camp in the chicken house, getting used to the smell before catching a little shut-eye to the sounds of cold rain hitting the metal roof. As I drifted off to sleep, I thought about Rich and Jim and hoped to hell they’d be all right.
—————
The morning sun was beaming through the large fan inlet of the chicken house onto my face when I woke. I downed a bottle of water and shoved the empty into a side pocket on my pack. All in all, I only had six bottles of water and about a dozen energy bars that I’d acquired from Maggie and her partner. That was enough to get me to Black Oak, to the buried storm shelter I had there. Hopefully Jim hadn’t eaten everything.
Well, that’s not what I was really hoping. More than anything, who knew if I would find a smoking hole in the ground where one of those drones had dropped a few laser guided five hundred pounders. Easier to think about Jim eating all my food, though. Yeah, I’ll just go with that.
I stood up and adjusted my pack straps and headed out the door toward the road. I walked slow, keeping to cover until I reached it. I was probably about ten miles from the helicopter, well within a search area, so I knew I had to be careful. I also knew that my photo was probably in the possession of every federal law enforcement officer in the region. Thinking of that made me adjust the brim of my ball cap a little lower.
Once I reached the road, I began to feel too exposed. I walked on the side and still felt uneasy from the openness, so I moved to the ditch, eventually deciding to hop back over the barbed wire fence and just stay in the field and follow the road from there. It began to cloud up at about mid-morning, which was a good thing if you worried about drones.
I certainly did.
The MP5K hung under my arm just above my belt. Its weight was comforting, as was my M4 carbine strapped to my pac
k. I thought about this for a moment. Civilian ownership of firearms was made illegal months before. The first hungry civilian that saw the outline of a rifle on my pack would immediately rat me out to the authorities; I’d be targeted and they’d be rewarded.
Cursing, I pulled the rain cover and concealed my entire pack from view. This would make things slower if I needed to go for the M4, but at least the HK would be fast and accessible. I decided to put it under my Carhartt and go concealed-carry with the sub gun, too. Desperate times.
I pulled my binos up to check the sign up ahead that read ELKINS 10.
I’d be there by nightfall if I hurried. I still had most of Wesley to get through before then.
—————
I trekked through dense growth alongside the road for miles, not hearing an engine. It was well past noon and I hadn’t eaten. My belt was already a couple notches smaller since I was tuned up by that mountain lion; my stomach felt as if it was consuming itself. I kept moving.
Rounding the bend on the road to Elkins, I heard voices. Now in familiar territory, I knew that there was a bridge up ahead that was pretty long, considering backwoods standards. I remembered the bridge from years back, but didn’t come out this way often and even when I did, it was in passing at fifty miles per hour in my truck. I decided to cross the road now, as the other side had a hill and denser foliage.
Finally around the corner, I could see the bridge and the checkpoint that was set up on my side. I sat and watched, not wanting to get into another goddamned conflict. I just wanted safe passage.
Making decisions on an empty stomach was bad, so I tore into one of my few remaining energy bars and downed it along with a half bottle of water.