by Scott Blade
I heard the battery from the flipped truck spark again.
I had to move.
I knelt down farther and picked up her body. I left the M4 on the street. I tucked her in close to me. Her head rolled back and hung over my arm.
I ran as fast as I could with her in my arms.
I wanted to get her body away from the vehicle. I knew it was only a matter of time before it caught fire and exploded. All of that spilling gas and the sparking battery. It’d happen. And it did. As I ran with her.
A bright flash of electricity sparked and the truck exploded behind me.
A ball of fire erupted and propelled into the sky like a surface-to-air missile launch.
A giant force of air burst out in all directions from the explosion. It hit me square in the back like a giant’s fist from out of the clouds.
It launched me forward and off my feet.
I dropped Sheldon’s body and rolled just at the tree line.
I hit my head hard on a loose rock when I hit the ground. I rolled some more. And then everything went black.
Chapter 52
I woke up in the dirt and fog. My head pounded like someone had hit me with a baseball.
I had no idea how long I’d been out. It’d been long enough for the rain to slow to a light drizzle again, but not more than 15 minutes.
Sheldon was near me. I touched her hand as I sat up. I looked over at her corpse. Her good eye stared up at me—lifeless.
I had no time to be sad. I had to save Faye. And then there was Oskar Tega. I was going to kill him. That was for sure.
I jumped to my feet. A sudden dizziness struck me like a blow to the head.
I touched the top of my head. Pain seared through my brain.
I shuddered and then I studied my hand. No blood. That was good. But I had hit my head hard. I had no concussion; at least I was fairly confident that I had none. But I was definitely going to be sore for a few days. No doubt about it.
I stood still for a moment and let the pain weaken and then I shook it off.
I looked down at Sheldon for a long moment and then I trekked back to the truck. I wanted to recover the M4 or at least find a working firearm.
The truck burned and the fire rose up and lit the area like a floodlight.
I hunted around and saw no sign of the M4.
The trees around the truck were on fire. The flames had climbed while I was unconscious and now the tops had burst into flames.
I wasn’t going to make it back to the Tahoe. Not through the smoke and flames.
I turned around and stared east.
The rain had slowed and the fog began rolling off toward the lake, but the road was visible.
Tega’s truck was gone. He’d be a couple of miles up the road at the lake house.
I knew that Faye would be unharmed and alive. He needed her that way. She was a valuable commodity. But I worried about Hank. I hoped that I’d make it in time.
I doubted that Tega would leave him behind. That wasn’t a part of his scorched earth policy.
I gave up worrying about my head and started running.
Chapter 54
My head hadn’t reset. My phone was dead. I didn’t know the time. But I guessed that it was somewhere around 4 a.m.
The sky was still grim, but the thunder had stalled and I hadn’t seen a lightning bolt in a long while.
I neared the driveway to the lake house.
The stolen F-150 was parked behind Hank’s fuel truck.
I scrambled behind the loading bed and crouched down.
I gazed around the front yard.
The trees blocked most of the house from view. I saw the garage doors. The house had a three-car garage. One of the doors was wide open.
Tega hadn’t posted any visible sentries.
I had only my bare hands to use as weapons. And that was all that I needed.
I reckoned that if he had no visible sentries posted in the front yard, perhaps the open garage door was a trap. A wide entrance inviting and left unguarded when Tega knew that I was still out there. Ambush. Had to be.
I crept out to the cover of the trees and away from the driveway.
I made it to a good spot along the middle of the yard in line with the front door. I stared through the open garage. I had perfect vision, and even better night vision.
The garage was dimly lit by a utility lantern. The lantern hung near the garage door and left a huge shadow of darkness near the rear. That was where the guard would be. He would be sitting there, staring out toward the yard, and waiting for me.
He’d use the shadows as cover. He knew that I wouldn’t have spotted him until it was too late. Even worse was the fact that these guys had been well-armed. The guy was probably sitting there wearing night-vision goggles.
He’d put bullet holes through my chest before I even knew that he was there.
I studied my other options.
That was when I noticed that the fuel truck had a long hose uncoiled and extending from the rear side of it. Then I heard a motor kick on and the hose thickened fast as it filled with fuel.
The hose stretched out long from the truck, traced along the driveway, and vanished into the open garage. So there was another reason why they had left the door open. They were refueling the seaplane. A very long hose had been used and led through the garage. Possibly it ran through the kitchen and through the backdoor of the house or an open window. Then I wondered if they had even posted a guy in the cone of shadow in the garage. Maybe they just left the door open so that the hose could feed through it.
The front door and the gate on the side would be locked or guarded.
I wondered if I could draw the sentry out of the shadows, if he was even there.
If there was a guy hiding there, he was good, but in the dark I was better.
I got down. Low. I crawled on my elbows and knees through the mud and wet grass until I reached the walkway between the garage and the front door. I crouched and hid near the bushes. No one came out either the front door or the garage. I skulked over to the edge of the garage. I stayed out of the line of sight, stood up straight, and put my back in line with the wall, but didn’t touch it. Then I shimmied along it. I passed the first garage door, then the second.
I made it to the edge of the open one and stayed out of the light. I studied the ground for moving shadows. Nothing. I crouched back down and moved out toward the fuel truck. I got down on the ground and lay flat on my stomach. I moved prone along the concrete until I was underneath the front of the truck and behind the tire. I was hidden in shadow and peeked out from behind the tire. I stayed covered.
I waited. I stared into the garage.
There was a van parked half-covered in shadow. The side of the van had the Eckhart Medical Center logo stretched across it. More proof of Sheldon’s guilt. The back doors of the van had been left open. One swung back and forth slowly, like someone had burst through it only seconds ago.
They must’ve used the van to transport Faye and the others after they set the Eckhart Center on fire. I wondered how many girls were present. They wouldn’t have used a van for only one girl. There must’ve been more.
I smiled because I realized that more than one girl was going home tonight. Then I saw that in the shadows near the driver’s side of the van there was a guy.
He was crouched down and leaning against the back wall. I saw his outline and the outline of his rifle. I couldn’t tell what it was. I assumed that it was an assault rifle or another FN-P90. It was too big to be a smaller submachine gun.
It could’ve been the FN-P90 with a suppressor attachment.
I saw his head. No night-vision gear, which was good.
I squirmed forward. Slowly. I took my time. I wanted to stay unnoticed. One wrong move and he’d shoot me dead.
I made it to the rear of the truck. I shuffled over to the side closer to him. I was about to be in plain sight, but only for a moment. I would pull back after I did what I needed to do.
I rolled over onto my back and reached up and grabbed the bottom side of the truck. Then I leaned out and took my eyes off him. He made no movement. I reached up quickly and grabbed the nozzle from the hose and pulled as hard as I could.
The nozzle ripped off the fuel line and sprayed fuel across the back tire and onto the concrete.
I removed my hand quickly and rolled back into the darkness under the belly of the fuel truck. I kept rolling until I was out and on the other side of the truck, away from his view. I scrambled to my feet and stayed crouched behind the rear passenger side tire.
I waited until I heard his footsteps. He’d taken the bait.
I swiveled and peeked up past the edge of the tank.
The guy had his gun pointed outward, ready to fire. He walked out of the shadows and scanned the area.
I stayed hidden.
He came to the driveway and let out a loud gasp at the sight of the hose leaking fuel like it was a big inconvenience—an accident.
He scanned the area again. The guy wasn’t dumb, not completely. He lowered the weapon. He pushed down on the concrete with the silencer end of a FN-P90.
He knelt down and grabbed the hose. He lifted it like he was going to reseal it onto the open end of the tank.
He never made it that far.
I grabbed his head with my hand. He was small. I could’ve palmed his head in my hand if it were severed from his body.
Interesting idea.
I slammed his head into the side of the fuel truck as hard as I could. I was mad. Once. Twice. Three times.
I reared his head back and saw that where his face had been was a bloody mess of protruding nostril bones and mangled teeth and smashed eyes.
I thought of Matlind. I thought of Grady and then I thought of Sheldon. I pulled his head far back like a bowler cocking back to bowl a strike and I slammed it once more into the side of the truck. I heard his skull crack like a flower pot.
The force of my slam was so powerful that his head bounced off the truck and I lost my grip. He flew backward. His legs twitched one time and only once and then the guy was dead.
Two down.
Three if I counted Sheldon as one of them. But I didn’t.
I picked up the guy’s gun. I left the fuel line on the ground, spewing out fuel.
I entered the garage.
Chapter 55
The interior of the house appeared empty. Plenty of noise came from the backyard. Just to be sure, I checked the downstairs.
I knew that Tega had had at least two guys. I had killed two. There had to be more than that, but not many. He was short two already. I felt good about my odds.
I checked the downstairs living room, the kitchen, the pantry, the bathroom, and the closets. It wasn’t until I got to the back bedroom that I smelled the stench of a dead body.
I hoped that it wasn’t Hank. I liked that old guy. But at this point he would’ve been expendable to Tega.
I pushed open the door and gasped. There was a dead body lying on the floor at the foot of the bed, but it wasn’t Hank.
They had shot Link, the Border collie.
I bit down hard. My teeth crunched together and the bones in my temple tightened.
I liked dogs. Killing the dog made me feel as if they’d killed a kid. It was senseless.
I spun around and headed back down the hall to the kitchen.
As I rounded the corner, the back door swung open and another small Mexican guy stepped in. He had a handgun stuffed into the front waistband of his jeans. He wore a gray t-shirt and baggy blue jeans with white sneakers. He was young, probably my age. He had a gang-look about him like he was newly minted.
Maybe he was some kind of American member of Tega’s outfit, freshly recruited from the streets.
I had no idea. I didn’t care. I gave him those few seconds of thought and nothing more.
I stepped into the kitchen—fast. I walked up to him plain as day and big as a horror movie slasher. Then I reached out with one hand, grabbed his shirt, bunched up his collar, and jerked him off his feet into the kitchen.
He made a low yelp, but no one heard it.
Before he could make a second sound, I raised the FN-P90 one-handed over my head like a club and smashed him square in the face with the hilt.
It was a solid and vicious blow.
His nose cracked under it. He fell and I let go of his shirt.
He grabbed his nose and began to squeal in a low whimper. Before he made another sound or went for his gun, I fired two rounds into his neck and shoulder.
The bullet went straight through his throat and into the floor. A messy through and through shot.
He grappled at the entry hole with both hands. He tried to scream, but he was inaudible.
He writhed around on his back like a snake’s body without a head. I turned back to the door and pointed the gun at it. I was ready for another guy to enter and check on his buddy.
I waited for a whole minute.
Sounds of the guy behind me wriggling around were all I heard and then he fell silent.
I twisted back to check on him. He was dead. There was a pool of blood so big that I could’ve filled a bucket with it.
I whispered, “You shouldn’t have killed the dog.”
Then I walked over to the door. I left it open. I clicked the gun to full auto. I switched off the kitchen lights and peered outside. No one noticed me. I know that because no one shot at me.
The first thing that I looked at, that I stared at, was the flying boat.
It floated in the water at the edge of the dock. It rocked up and down over the waves caused by the storm. It was majestic. It was painted all black with a red-tipped nose.
The number along the side was painted white and stood out from the darkness. The only thing that I could see of the plane was its outline and the white and red paint.
The black color camouflaged it perfectly with the dark lake beyond.
I stopped staring and scanned the people in the backyard.
At that exact moment the twin engines cranked to life. They started dull at first and then revved up to a gentle roar.
A light clicked on in the cargo area. The side door was wide open.
I took the opportunity and scrambled away from the kitchen door and hid behind the cover of a bricked-in grill.
I put my back to the brick side and breathed in and breathed out.
No one had noticed me.
I leaned over and got a better look at the surroundings.
Tega was near the door to the plane. He pushed a girl into the back, while two other girls waited to be shoved in after.
The second one I recognized. She was Ann Gables, alive. I couldn’t believe that she was still here. She moved slowly like a zombie. All three of them did.
They were doped up.
Ann went into the plane and swiveled left; then Tega grabbed the final girl by her arm and pulled her toward the plane.
She turned back to the house as if she wanted to run but was too weak.
It was Faye Matlind. Had to be. She was black, about Chris’s age, and she was stunning.
Even with no makeup and her hair in complete disarray, all three girls were naturally beautiful. That’s why they had been picked, I supposed.
Tega must’ve been considered one of the finest dealers of sex slaves in the world.
Faye got on board the plane and Tega waved at the only other guy that he had left.
Tega said, “Ve por el piloto.”
Get the pilot. That was the best that I could translate.
I glanced over my shoulder back at the kitchen door. The young guy had been their pilot or maybe the guy in the driveway. I wasn’t sure. I was sure that in about ten seconds this guy was going to make it to the kitchen and see the dead gangbanger and I would be made.
I peeked back over the grill and saw the one guy well enough; I could hit him from here. No problem, but Tega was in the doorway of the seaplane. Too far. And with the fog
and rain, I couldn’t be sure about the accuracy.
I decided to take the shot.
I jumped up and aimed.
The guy saw me and reacted fast. He went for a sidearm tucked in a holster that was clipped to his belt, but all he got out was the hilt of what looked like another Beretta Px4.
Just like the one that killed Matlind.
It was that fraction of a second that I took to process that thought that caused everything to go wrong.
I got the first guy with three 5.7×28mm rounds fired through the suppressor.
The muzzle velocity of a 5.7×28mm bullet fired from the FN-P90 was something around 2,500 feet per second. That would be hindered slightly by the suppressor, but I wasn’t worried about that.
The last Mexican guard wasn’t going to run faster than the muzzle velocity of the FN-P90.
I squeezed the trigger and the gun fired fast. The recoil was pretty manageable, one of the perks of the bull-up design.
Five bullets burst into the guy’s center mass. Not one shot missed.
One of the purposeful designs of the FN-P90 was to fire high velocity 5.7×28mm rounds. This was to stop over-penetration of the bullet. Therefore, the gun was designed to promote minimal collateral damage. It was rare that one of these rounds fired all the way through a target or ricocheted.
It was the perfect urban submachine gun. And everything was going perfectly until I moved to kill Tega. Hank Cochran, the old mechanic, stepped out of the back of the plane. He’d been in the cockpit starting the plane. Probably checking the systems before they took off.
Tega hadn’t heard my gunshots, but he saw the explosions of red mist that burst out of his guy’s chest.
He reacted fast. Faster than any of his guys had.
He pulled out the FN Five-seven pistol, a companion pistol to the P90. I wondered if these guys got them all in a package deal.
The Five-seven was a semi-automatic pistol.
In two quick seconds, Tega moved sideways, grabbed Hank, and ducked behind him like a human shield. I lost my aim. I had no clear shot. I would’ve hit Hank and killed him.
I released my finger from the trigger, but kept it in the trigger housing.
Tega fired the Five-seven in my direction.
I ducked behind the bricked-in grill.