Reckoning ~ Indian Hill 2 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (31 page)

The driver reacted instinctually as he slammed on the brakes with both feet. The gunner also did what was instinctual and opened fire. The first few rounds came dangerously close to the front end of the girls’ truck, then the laws of gravity began to take hold. As the nose of the Jeep descended from the inertia of the brakes, so also did the barrel of the M-60 mounted on it.

The gunner’s fingers were completely squeezed on the trigger and, as he held on for his life, he was unable to let go as the barrel fell even more, cutting into the front end of the Jeep. First the radiator popped with an audible swish. Then the fan was next to go as bullets blazed through the blades. The engine block came next as hot lead split the head. Piston parts shot up through the hood almost as hard as the bullets had slammed down.

The gunner most likely would have put a bullet or two through the dashboard if he himself hadn’t been knocked against the gunstock and rendered dazed and confused. Blood trickled from his left ear. The Jeep came to an abrupt stop as the disc brakes and the bullets finally did their job. Hisses and pops were all that could be heard through the ensuing silence as the Jeep’s engine died out.

“Deb, did you plan this!” an excited Beth said as she positioned the barrel of her gun out the window.

“Hell no! I was planning to ram them.” Beth looked over at Deb to see if she was telling the truth or not. It appeared she was, Beth thanked her lucky stars it had turned out this way. Deb brought the truck to a stop not more than two feet from the destroyed grill of the Jeep.

Deb stepped out of the truck and rapidly approached the passenger as she saw him attempting to gain access to something around his shoulder. It had to be a gun, but the still stunned soldier was having a difficult time undoing the snaps. His seatbelt, which restrained him was also restraining the weapon. The precious few seconds he needed to process the information, however, were not his for the taking. Deb ran right up to the passenger side.

“Put your hands on the dashboard now!” she screamed. At first, neither man moved but when Deb cocked the trigger, they both acquiesced. Beth ran out to join her friend, loosely aiming the rifle at the driver.

“Deb, it looks like we’re going to have company soon.” Beth motioned to the roadblock. Two troop transport trucks were now on their way and most likely, filled to the hilt with armed personnel.

“Call them off!” Deb screamed. Neither man moved. Deb put the gun up against the temple of the man closest to her. “Listen, Mister, we might die in the next few minutes, but if you don’t call them off you’re going to die in the next few seconds.” That was more than enough incentive for the lieutenant.

“Sergeant, get on the horn and call those trucks off, now!” he shouted as if he needed to reiterate. The sergeant noted that on his side, the woman had leveled the large bore weapon right on his face. He didn’t need urging from anybody to call the trucks off.

“Blockade One, Blockade One, this is Interceptor Three. I say again, this is Interceptor Three.”

“Go ahead, Interceptor Three, this is Blockade One.”

“Call off the dogs, Blockade One. I say again, call off the dogs.”

“Interceptor Three, dogs one and two are coming to your aid,” the voice crackled over the airwaves.

“Blockade One, if dogs one and two come any closer, they will only have mop-up duty. I say again, call off the dogs!” the sergeant said with some edge to his voice. The trucks were getting dangerously close and the women looked scared. Scared led to unpredictable, and the sergeant wasn’t having anything unpredictable today. The sergeant watched in the rear view mirror as the trucks first slowed and then came to a complete stop, not more than two hundred yards away from them. Men began to pour out of the trucks. Not advancing, but definitely taking an aggressive posture.

“Sergeant O’Bannon,” Deb said as she looked at the sergeant’s nameplate. “Get on the radio and get those trucks out of here!” Deb yelled, panic beginning to rise up in her throat.

“They won’t listen to me. You got them to stop; they won’t retreat,” the sergeant muttered back. He wished, like his best friend, Barry Watson, that he left his unit when their captain said “Any men who want to be with their families in this time of need, will be granted full immunity. And let no man or woman here think any less of that person if they should decide to go.”

Barry was one of three who decided to turn in their gear to be with their respective families. Most of the men had called them cowards and deserters, Barry had been near to tears over leaving this extended family to protect what was left of his immediate family. Barry’s wife Amelia, and daughter, Andrea, had been shopping in downtown Boston for Andrea’s seventeenth birthday, when the first wave of alien attacks had struck. Barry was left with a fourteen-year-old son and a seven-year-old girl who still had not spoken a word since that fateful day.

At the time, he felt that Barry was betraying his country and worse, his unit, by leaving. He knew that Barry had no one to care for his kids but that didn’t make it any easier on him. Now with a weapon pointed at his head, he wondered if he had done the right thing. His family was still intact, but how would they survive if he died today? His boy was only eight and although he was of hardy stock, he was still only eight. His wife, Meg and son were with his mother and father since the invasion had started. He was going to die today and for what? Border patrol? Brilliant!

“Sergeant! Get those men back on the truck!” Deb screamed in near hysterics. The sergeant looked at his captors for the first time with clear eyes. They were only kids themselves, not some desperados. How hard of a journey had they had? Two women alone in the new frontier, and all the way from where? Colorado! He thought as he scanned the license plate on the front of the truck.

“Listen, they are not going to leave and right now you are both being painted by snipers. Get us out of the Jeep and use us as shields.” The sergeant said.

“Sergeant!” the lieutenant nearly shrieked. “I’ll have your stripes for this!”

“You can have them if we get out of here. I’m through,” the sergeant replied, almost casually.

“Get up, lieutenant,” Deb motioned with her gun. The sergeant didn’t need prodding, he got up and walked straight in front of Beth.

***

“Sir, I’ve lost target B. I say again, I’ve lost target B.”

“Sir, target A is still hot, target A is still hot. Should I paint the target sir?”

“No, repeat no, do not fire until both targets are reacquired, then fire at will. If we only take one out, the other will surely waste my men and I won’t let that happen.” The Captain said.

“What about him, Deb?” Beth asked as she pointed back at the gunner who was still lying on the back seat.

“Oh, I don’t think he’ll be too much trouble before this thing is over with.” Deb answered.

“Move, Lieutenant!” Deb yelled as she suddenly felt herself entirely too exposed on the pavement. A chill ran right up the center of her spine along with her grandmother’s voice. “That’s the dead, come to visit dearie.” And that had always scared the bejesus out of Deb from the time she was six.

***

“Sir, they are retreating to the back of the pickup truck,” the sniper’s spotter relayed.

“Do you have a shot?” the captain inquired.

“Sir, target A is still hot. But target B well…”

“What is it, Perkins?”

“Well sir, it’s almost like the sergeant is intentionally getting in the way.”

“Come again?”

“Sir, he has to realize that we have a bead on the assailants, but he has completely cut off any shot.” The captain couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out why the sergeant was protecting his assailants, but he must have had a good reason. The captain got back on the radio.

“Recons One and Two, I want you to stand down from my previous order. Keep the targets acquired but do not, I say again, do not fire unless directly ordered, do you copy?”

“This is Recon One, we copy five by five.”

“This is Recon Two we also copy five by five.” Thank the gods, the spotter thought to himself. He wasn’t even sure if he could shoot a madman threatening babies, much less two young females.

***

“So what now, girls? How long do you think they are going to let you hold us hostage? They’ll just wait until nightfall and put on their night-vision goggles; what then? You won’t even know which way it’s coming from,” the lieutenant sneered. Deb’s 'Rambo' impression was beginning to erode through. She had no idea what they should do now. The sergeant looked over at the lieutenant and just shook his head.

“Boot,” he muttered under his breath.

“Did you say something, Sergeant?” the lieutenant asked as he looked over. “If it weren’t for you, Sergeant O’Bannon, this whole unpleasant mess would already be over.”

“And what, sir? We’d have two dead young women on our hands? Would you be satisfied then? Would that make you a war hero?”

The lieutenant looked like he wanted to say something, he didn’t want to give the sergeant the satisfaction.

“What’s the plan, Deb?” Beth asked cautiously. She was afraid that Deb just might take off screaming into the woods, because she was beginning to get that 'deer in the headlights' stare.

“I…I don’t know, Beth. We can’t all fit in the cab of the truck and if we try to take off without hostages, that tank is sure to open fire.”

“Yeah, and that tank commander is one of the best shooters in the tri-state region,” the lieutenant interjected.

“Give it a rest, lieutenant,” the sergeant said forcefully. “Girls, I’d say to take me hostage and let the lieutenant go, but I’m afraid he’d have them open fire on all of us.”

“Damn right,” the lieutenant snarled.

“That means you’re going to have to take the lieutenant.”

“Wha…what?! You can’t be serious? I’ll have you court-martialed for this!” the lieutenant protested.

“He’s right, Deb. We’ll put our friend, the lieutenant, in between us and we’ll top the hill and drop him off, out of the tank’s range or at least, sight.”

“And I’ll delay any pursuit. I’ll tell the captain that if you saw anybody chasing you, that you were going to kill the lieutenant,” the sergeant said. The lieutenant looked over at the sergeant, pure hatred in his eyes.

“You know, when I get back, my report of the unfolding of events is going to be a lot different from yours, Sergeant.”

“What makes you think you’re coming back?” Beth threw in. The lieutenant couldn’t tell from her tone if she meant it or not and at this point in time, he had no desire to try her.

“Alright, that’s the plan. We’ll take the lieutenant,” Deb said, as she motioned to the cab of the truck with her gun.

***

“Sir, this is Recon One. The lieutenant is getting into the truck. I repeat, the lieutenant is getting into the truck.”

“Crap,” the captain muttered. This was going from a hostage situation to a kidnapping. He couldn’t let them go; what would he tell their families?

“Recons One and Two, do you have a shot?” the captain asked, not really sure which answer he was hoping for.

“Sir, this is Recon One. Target is hot.”

“Sir, Recon Two. Target is a no go; say again, target is a no go.” Just then, four strange and very related things happened almost simultaneously. The captain lost a little of his military bearing and swore while still holding down the talk button on his radio.

“Dammit!” the captain yelled. Recon Force One, spotter Corporal Eddington, already hopped up on adrenaline, thought he heard the order to fire and relayed that to his sniper, Corporal Harris. Corporal Harris had a beautiful shot, dead center chest, just like he was trained to do.

The third event unfolded, the lieutenant, upon opening the door to the truck, had unwittingly sun-blinded the sniper with the truck’s side view mirror just as Corporal Harris was pulling the trigger. His rifle moved only a fraction of an inch, but now his shot went from a confirmed kill to a shoulder wound.

Deb spun from the force of the lead smashing into her shoulder. Her hand was in the throes of a spasm around the grip of her pistol, sending one round through the lieutenant’s left eye.

“Get down, the two of you!” the sergeant shouted as Beth could only look on in horror at where Deb’s bullet had flown. Deb was cussing and screaming from the fire burning in her shoulder. The sergeant scrambled over to her and pulled her down to the ground with her good arm. Blood flowed down her wounded arm in rivulets. Beth sort of slumped down on the front grill, still in shock. Sergeant O’Bannon was busy taking off Deb’s jacket trying to staunch the flow of blood from her arm.

“What happened?!” the captain yelled into the radio.

“Sir, this is Recon One. We have a confirmed hit, say again, confirmed hit!” the corporal said excitedly.

“Listen, you little puissant! I never gave the order to fire!” the captain yelled, sending the corporal’s elation plummeting.

“But... but sir, I heard the order,” the corporal swallowed hard.

“I gave no such order! You had better hope that neither of our men are hurt, Corporal, or I’m going to make you personally responsible. I’m going to make you tell their families that your screw-up cost them their husbands’ and daddies’ lives!”