Military Fiction: THE MAC WALKER COLLECTION: A special ops military fiction collection...

by D. W. Ulsterman

  Cooper was again looking up into the quickly darkening sky.

  “Running out of time Imran. I recall it’s slow going across here. You got to be careful not to drive over a thin area of ice, right?”

  Imran’s smile somehow managed to grow even wider.

  “Oh, you don’t know all the work I’ve done out here do you, Cooper? Hours and hours marking the way. I’ve created a road right through this area. I marked the safest route through the ice fields. The thickest areas of ice. I can go as fast as Princess can take us! Have some faith in me cowboy! Faith!”

  Cooper’s eyebrows raised momentarily before giving yet another shrug of his shoulders.

  “Ok then. I’m going back to sleep. Wake me when get there.”

  Imran chuckled and waved to the three men and one dog in the back of his truck.

  “You’ll see. We’re going very fast now. Very fast!”

  Imran returned to his place behind the wheel and pointed through the windshield at a row of orange flags, spaced about twenty yards apart. The row continued across the ice fields, disappearing on the other side.

  “See that? That my friends, is Imran’s road! We simply stay close to those flags on either the left or the right, and we are safe! Who is ready to go fast?”

  Mac glanced over at Imran and then back out to the row of orange flags. Imran caught Mac’s look out of the corner of his eye and turned to the older man.

  “How about you, Mac? You ready to make good time?”

  Imran tapped the top of his truck’s dashboard as he said the words “good time”.

  Mac pointed his right finger toward the ice fields.

  “Warp factor seven, Mr. Sulu.”

  Both Imran and Dublin looked back at Mac with clear confusion.

  Mac sighed and again pointed to the vast ice fields in front of them.

  “Just go, dammit. All of you are too damn young to know about the good stuff.”

  Imran’s smile returned as he put the truck into gear. Soon their speed had increased to nearly fifty miles an hour as the crunching sound of ice and snow beneath the wheels filled the truck cabin. The landscape, at first beautiful, became more monotonous as every mile travelled looked exactly the same as the previous miles – more and more blue tinted ice accompanied by the same outcroppings of darker colored rock.

  An hour passed, and then two. Finally Imran slowed the vehicle down again as they began to descend into what appeared to a very narrow valley. Here there were no rocks but only ice, though the blue tint had been replaced by a clear, almost translucent color. Reaching the bottom of the decline, Imran peered intently in front of him, marking where his orange flags had been placed. Instead of just one row of flags though, there were now two rows, and it was between those rows that Imran slowly drove the transport truck.

  Mac opened his eyes again and leaned forward in the seat.

  “Are we driving over a river?”

  Imran nodded.

  “Yes – large river. In this spot, it is almost always iced over.”

  Mac continued to stare through the windshield.

  “Almost?”

  Imran waved his hand in Mac’s direction, communicating that he thought Mac need not worry.

  “We’ll be fine. I have been very careful where to mark the road across.”

  Mac gave a thin smile as he looked back over at Imran.

  “So if we have nothing to worry about, why are you driving so slowly now?”

  Imran shook a finger at Mac in a way that communicated how silly he thought the question was.

  “I learned a long time ago, Mr. Mac Walker, to never go faster than your angel can follow.”

  Dublin nodded at Imran’s words, and leaned into Mac’s left shoulder.

  “Hey, Mac, that sounds like pretty good advice don’t you think?”

  Mac let his eyes wander back to the truck’s side window, pausing before giving a low voiced response.

  “Don’t believe in any angel watching over the likes of me.”

  The truck suddenly lurched to the right, causing everyone to do the same. Bear’s voice called out from the back.

  “What the hell was that?”

  Imran had already opened his door and was making his way to the back of the truck. Nearly half of the right rear tire had fallen through and was hidden beneath the ice. Kneeling down to get a better look, Imran ran his hands along where the tire had fallen through, and then carefully looked over the entire area surrounding the transport truck. His face openly expressed his concern.

  Cooper, Bear, and Reese were now standing next to Imran trying to figure out what he was looking at. After a few seconds, Cooper pointed to the ice just inside the partially hidden right wheel.

  “There – that whole spot is weakened. If we keep it in four wheel, and spin that back right wheel too much, it could cause more of the ice to break up…enough that the whole back of vehicle could start falling through. But if we don’t keep it in four wheel drive, there’s no power to the front wheels, and we stay stuck.”

  Reese was looking more closely at the area of ice around the right wheel.

  “So what’s that mean? What’s our options?”

  Before Cooper could reply, Imran gave his own somewhat brief and to the point answer to Reese’s question.

  “Apologies for my language, but it means we’re screwed. I stay in four wheel drive and spin that rear wheel, and then create more damage to the ice and we could go from bad to much worse. There is a river of very cold running water right underneath us here.”

  Mac and Dublin joined the others. Mac knelt down on all fours to look over the ice surrounding the half-hidden wheel as the others stood silently watching him. After a minute or so of poking and prodding around the damaged ice, Mac stood back up and nodded in Imran’s direction.

  “He’s right. We’re in a bind here.”

  Bear stepped toward the back right corner of the vehicle and grabbed the rear bumper and pulled up on it a couple of times, then stood silently for a moment, before walking to the front of the truck and then back again to rejoin the others.

  “What if I lift the back wheel here while the other wheels pull it out? The front bumper is big enough for at least a few of you to stand on. That will put more weight on the front tires and give them more traction while the back corner here is being lifted so we don’t damage the ice any more, and you just drive on ahead.”

  Imran looked at Bear and then the truck and shook his head.

  “Too much weight, you can’t lift it. No way. You’re a big man, but you’re not that big.”

  Mac’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Bear, and a slow smile crept across his face.

  “You think you can lift this back corner up enough to keep that tire from digging too much into the broken ice?”

  Bear took a deep breath and then pointed to the front of the truck.

  “Get as many of you on that front bumper and that will help me to lift the back part. I can’t promise I can do it – but I’m sure willing to give a shot. It’s a hell of a lot better than us walking the rest of the way in the dark.”

  Cooper Wyse glanced behind them toward the miles of ice fields they had already travelled that day.

  “I’d agree with Bear on that – whatever those things were in the woods back there…something tells me they ain’t giving up on tracking us down. If we can get this thing moving again, we best do that as quickly as we possible.”

  Imran was still unconvinced of Bear’s plan to free his transport truck from the broken ice.

  “It won’t work. It’s a crazy idea. A waste of time. This truck is too heavy.”

  Bear grew impatient with Imran’s disbelief.

  “Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t. Look, I spent hours as a kid mudding. Got more trucks into and out of trouble than I can remember. Whatever end of the truck is stuck, you counter weight it to allow the other tires to dig you out. That’s all we’re doing here. Sure, this thing is bigger than anything I drove ar
ound in as a kid in Texas, but the principle is just the same, and we’ll have a bunch of you standing on that front bumper. And not to brag, little man, but I might be a whole lot stronger than you realize.”

  Imran was about to comment again, but Mac cut him off.

  “Let’s do it. Get as many of us on that front bumper as we can. Bear, you just let us know when you’re ready. Imran, you wait for Bear to tell you when, and take it slow. We want these tires spinning as little as possible.”

  Imran was shaking his head as he returned to the driver’s seat. Mac and the others walked to the front of the transport truck and looked at the front bumper. Made entirely of steel and nearly a foot wide, it provided more than enough room and stability for several people to safely stand on top of it. Mac was already lifting himself onto the bumper.

  “We can get four of us shoulder to shoulder on this thing, Reese, Cooper, Dublin and me. I want Reese and Coop on the outside. You’re heavier than Dublin and me and we want the most weight around those front tires.”

  The four of them positioned themselves on the top of the truck bumper as Mac had instructed. Reese was on the far left side, Cooper was on the far right, and Dublin and Mac stood in the middle. Mac called out to Bear.

  “Ready up here, Bear – your turn now!”

  Bear stood glowering at the back right corner of the truck bed. Taking very slow, deep breaths, he found himself without thinking of it, reverting to an old weight training routine from his NFL playing days that helped him to fully focus on moving as much weight as his body was capable of. His mind repeated a mantra he had not used in many years – one his father had taught him when Bear was an up and coming high school football star.

  See it. Believe it. Achieve it.

  Bear kept repeating the words in his head as he grasped the corner of the truck bed with both of his hands, bending his knees and digging his boots into the ice and snow to provide as wide and stable a base as possible.

  See it. Believe it. Achieve it.

  It was his father’s voice that spoke the words to Bear at that moment, not his own. The man who had pushed his son to use the physical talents God had blessed him with so that he might achieve to the best of his abilities both on and off the football field. Those were better days between father and son – before the madness of the New United Nations and the eventual killing of his dad and thousands of others by the drone bombings in Texas many years ago.

  See it. Believe it. Achieve it.

  Bear’s jaw clenched down and he tightened his grip on the corner of the truck bed, bending his knees even further. The faces of his wife and two children flashed in his mind, followed by the face of his mother, and again, the voice of his father.

  See it. Believe it. Achieve it.

  Imran placed the truck in gear, waiting to hear Bear’s signal. Mac and the others were peering through the windshield from the front of the truck, barely able to see Bear’s head and shoulders as he continued to prepare himself. Cooper whispered to Mac.

  “You really think he’s strong enough to do this?”

  Keeping his gaze on Bear, and fighting the urge to cough, Mac replied to Cooper.

  “If it can be done, that man there will do it, or rip his arms from his body trying.”

  Dublin was even more direct in her faith regarding Bear’s determination.

  “He’ll do it.”

  Bear dug his boots into the icy ground below his feet one last time, re-gripped the truck bed, and pulled upward. His eyes were shut tight as his lips pulled back from tightly clenched teeth. He let out a low growl as his body strained against the weight of the truck bed. Imran let out the clutch and gently tapped the accelerator. The truck inched forward slightly as the right rear wheel Bear stood next to began to spin within the ice it was buried in, causing more chunks to be broken off under the tire’s motion.

  Sensing the truck was about to settle backwards again, the veins in Bear’s neck and forehead popped out with such force it appeared they would rip through his skin as the big man redoubled his effort to lift the back corner of the vehicle. The muscles in his back and shoulders felt as if they were tearing apart as he let out a scream and for a brief few seconds, Bear feared he was going to pass out. Inhaling as much air as he could, and letting out another scream, Bear pulled upward even further, his legs shaking violently as the truck bed noticeably lifted a few inches.

  See it! Believe it! Achieve it!

  The large tread of the front tires dug into the ice and the vehicle lurched forward several feet. Bear let go of the truck bed, his body hunched over with his hands on his knees to keep himself from falling over. Imran cheered excitedly from the vehicle’s cabin as Dublin looked over at Cooper Wyse with a small smile on her face.

  “Told you.”

  And then Bear disappeared…

  XIX.

  Brando leaped from the truck bed and landed next to the spot Bear had been standing. The Doberman’s head and shoulders disappeared into the ice and then re-emerged as the dog’s four clawed paws frantically dug into the ice attempting to pull itself backward. Reese was the first to reach the dog and grab onto the same coat sleeve that Brando now had firmly clutched between his powerful jaws. Within seconds Cooper and Dublin were also next to Reese and Brando, pulling up on Bear’s arm as well.

  The river’s current below the ice was incredibly strong, grabbing at Bear’s legs, wanting to pull him completely under. Bear knew if those above the ice let go of him, he would be dead, trapped and buried beneath the ice and carried off to whatever larger body of water the river eventually emptied into. Having expended so much energy lifting the truck bed, Bear actually considered simply letting himself go. He was so tired. Used up. And the water, though incredibly cold, offered some strange comfort to him. It would be so easy to simply close his eyes and quite literally…drift away.

  A sharp pain in his left wrist cut through Bear’s quickly receding consciousness, like a life line pulling him back from the beckoning darkness below the ice. He could hear voices shouting from what seemed like a vast distance away, but his mind was telling him they were just above his head and that if he was to see his wife and children again, it was time to once again gather his considerable strength and fight.

  Cooper and Reese were able to each grab a part of Bear’s coat collar and pull his head above the near-freezing water that was rushing past him as Brando continued to keep hold of Bear’s wrist. Mac leaned down and attempted to place a loop of rope under each of Bear’s arms, but the distance was too far.

  “Got to pull him up a little more! Pull goddammit!”

  Reese and Cooper strained to keep hold of Bear’s coat as they yanked upward. It was just enough for Mac to secure the rope around Bear’s chest. Mac noted the big man was barely moving, his skin was an odd grey-blue, and the pupils of his half-open eyes appeared to be nearly fully dilated. Mac had seen enough of human death to know Bear was quickly nearing a threshold he may never come back from.

  Imran and Dublin both grabbed the rope Mac had just secured around Bear’s body and began pulling. Mac, his lungs whistling painfully with each breath he took, quickly grabbed onto the rope as well while Reese and Cooper continued to hold onto Bear’s coat collar.

  Bear’s shoulders and upper body emerged from the ice, and after a few more attempts, the others pulled the rest of him back onto the surface as the sound of the river’s water could be heard rushing past them from the hole he had just moments ago fallen through. The ice appeared to be less than a foot thick in the spot where the truck tire had collapsed into.

  “Imran! Crank up the heat! All the way up! Everyone else, help get him inside the truck. Hurry!”

  Everyone reacted immediately to Mac’s instructions. Reese and Dublin grabbed Bear’s right side while Cooper and Mac held onto his left side and dragged him toward the open passenger door of Imran’s transport vehicle.

  Bear was attempting to move his legs to help the others carry him, but each time his knees would buckle
and his body would collapse back onto their shoulders. Getting him into the truck’s cabin proved almost as difficult as getting him out of the ice, with Cooper and Imran pulling on him from the driver’s side, while Mac and Reese pushed him up from the opposite side. Finally having secured Bear into the seat, Imran tightly wrapped the safety blanket around him.

  Bear’s eyes opened and he looked down at his left wrist, noting several teeth marks that had almost broken the skin.

  “Damn dog finally got around to biting me.”

  Bear attempted a smile but the effort proved too much and he instead simply put his head back and let sleep begin to overtake him. Mac’s hand struck Bear hard across his right cheek, causing him to re-awaken, his eyes flashing with anger as he growled a warning to Mac.