Pestilence (Jack Randall #2) (11 page)

“Get ready,” the radio squawked.

•      •      •

Jack saw the truck in the alley as they passed and he immediately grabbed for the radio.

“Ambush! Floor it!” He then punched Sullivan in the arm and yelled, “Get off this road!”

The Marine complied immediately, standing on the brakes and spinning the wheel into a right hand turn. Jack grabbed the overhead handle with one hand while he pawed for the M-4 with the other. The deuce tipped up on one set of wheels as it rounded the corner only to slam down hard after impacting a parked car. The car did little to slow the truck down and it bounced back into the road as Sullivan fought to regain control. He worked the clutch and the gears to regain acceleration. Jack grabbed the rifle and the LBE.

“Keep moving and try to circle around!” he ordered.

“Got it!” the Marine replied. He pulled his gaze from the road long enough to see Jack bail out of the passenger side and roll in the dirt. He was lost from sight in the rearview mirror immediately as the dust and darkness swallowed him up. Sullivan gritted his teeth and hunkered down behind the wheel as he heard a crash followed by shooting behind him. Working his way through the gears, he made another right hand turn onto a street with a few lights. He shook his head at his luck. He’d thought he was all done with this ambush crap when he got out of Iraq.

•      •      •

Larry’s eyes widened as he heard Jack’s warning on the radio. His driver hesitated as he saw the nose of the truck emerge from the alley and quickly narrow the opening.

“Go—go—go!” he yelled to the driver. It seemed to happen in slow motion. First his brain said they wouldn’t make it, but then the ambushing truck seemed to slow. The Marine angled for the gap and gunned the engine. Larry planted a foot against the dash as his eyes judged the narrowing gap. Maybe.

Maybe not. The ambushing truck surged and caught the right rear wheel of the deuce and the impact flipped it onto its left side. Larry tumbled into the windshield, spider-webbing its surface and cutting his forehead before falling toward the driver and pinning him to the driver’s side door. The truck continued on its side for a few meters, throwing up a cloud of dust and gravel from the secondary road, before impacting a building.

Larry struggled to untangle himself from the driver, but they appeared to be stuck. Larry managed to turn his head far enough to see his face. It was covered in blood and his nose had an awful twist to it.

“Corporal, can you hear me?” Larry got a moan and some movement for a response, but the soldier was not fully awake. Larry was contemplating his options when the decision was made for him by automatic weapons fire from a few meters behind them. The corporal groaned loudly as Larry twisted his body around and planted both his feet against the shattered windshield. He started kicking.

•      •      •

The driver of the ambush truck had revved the engine and released the hand brake before popping the clutch and holding on. The truck jumped from the alley and out toward the middle of the road just as the first truck passed. He caught sight of the white man in the front seat looking at him with wide eyes before he flashed by and the street was empty. It distracted him for a split second, but that was all it took.

The truck hesitated and took one hop before stalling. He realized he had slammed it into the wrong gear.

“Idiot!” he screamed at himself. He cranked the starter and the engine caught as it continued to coast forward. He chose the lower gear and turned to check on the target. He was horrified to see it coming even faster and angling for the gap he had left in front of him. He mashed the accelerator and the truck lunged forward, clipping the passing deuce in the ass and flipping it over. His own truck continued on before he could stop it, jumping the curb and impacting the building across the street. Again it stalled, coasting backward over the debris left by the impact. He let it go until he had the road sufficiently blocked. Yanking the hand brake, he wiped the sweat and blood from his face before grabbing an AK-47 off the floor and bailing out the driver’s side. The third truck was fast approaching.

•      •      •

The major reacted instantly to the radio call. Scanning ahead, he saw the ambush site and quickly deduced they were committed to entering it. Muzzle flashes winked at them as they approached and the windshield shattered as bullets entered the cab, seeking the driver. The major shifted his considerable bulk down below the dash, but was unable to avoid all the incoming rounds. A bullet creased his forehead, opening a gash that bled freely while another found his shoulder just below his neck. He turned his head in time to see the young Marine at the wheel take several rounds in the chest and face, showering the cab in more blood. He slumped over the wheel and his lifeless foot depressed the accelerator. The truck sped up even more and the major chanced a look through the cracked glass. Seeing the muzzle flashes concentrated on the right side of the road, he reached out and grabbed the steering wheel. With a bloody grin, he drove the truck right at his attackers.

•      •      •

Jack’s lungs were straining as he sprinted down the street. He had twisted an ankle when he dropped out of the cab and automatically performed a PLF, or Parachute Landing/Fall, and had luckily scrambled to his feet without a head injury. The ankle was complaining, but he couldn’t listen to it now. He slowed as he reached the corner and stopped to put on the LBE. As he scanned around the corner, his hands took inventory of what the Marine had included. He felt five full magazines for the M-4. A Ka-bar knife mounted cross draw on the left shoulder. Two combat bandages and the three grenades he had seen earlier. He thumbed off the safety on the M-4 and proceeded around the corner into the dark. He had heard the crash as he was running and now the sound of his approach was covered by the automatic weapon fire from down the street. He looked for the escort Jeep, but it was nowhere to be found.

“Up to you, Jack, don’t get dead,” he whispered to himself.

The roar of a truck engine at full throttle helped cover his boot falls on the packed dirt. The second truck came into view and he slowed to a walk. He could make out movement in the cab and as he got closer he saw Larry smashing both feet against the shattered glass of the windshield. He was about to sprint across the opening when he saw movement at the front of the truck. A man approached, ducking around the still spinning front wheel. The approaching lights silhouetted him for a moment and Jack saw the outline of a large man. Not skinny like the locals. An American? The man raised his weapon and Jack saw the familiar outline of an AK-47. Larry didn’t see him through the cracked glass. The man stepped forward and took aim at Larry.

•      •      •

The Deliveryman with the hired guns was at first pleased with the accuracy of the gunman. He watched as the bullets shattered the glass in front of the driver, thereby improving their chances greatly. This changed to a look of horror as the truck sped up and swerved right at them. He saw no one in the passenger side and the driver was obviously dead at the wheel. But wait, the top of the passenger’s head could be seen in the faint light provided by the muzzle flashes.

“Shoot him, you idiots!” he screamed at them. But like most bandits, they lacked the discipline of trained soldiers and had expelled their first magazines and were now reloading. The truck gained on them quickly and he realized they had nowhere to run. He grabbed the device at his feet by its handle and retreated to the doorway of the building.

“Keep shooting!” he screamed at them before firing a burst from his own weapon. He left them pinned in place, all of them thinking they could stop the big truck if they just pumped enough bullets into it. The Deliveryman knew better and retreated into the concrete structure to escape the coming impact. He took shelter behind a large pillar. He heard the scream of the passenger just before the truck impacted the building, crushing two of the ambushers against it and pinning a third to the wall. As the sound of the impact subsided, it was replaced by the pinned man’s screams. He used the noise to cover his escape out the back and began circling around the building, looking for a way back to the truck that would provide him concealment. The mission had just changed.

•      •      •

Larry felt the frame of the windshield finally give way and he turned his head away from the flying glass as it fell into the street. He was reaching for the frame to pull himself through when he saw movement over him. Looking up, he saw a large man with an equally large rifle pointed at him. Larry opened his mouth to say something, but before he could get the word out the man’s face exploded into a mist and his body fell forward to land in Larry’s lap. He quickly pushed the bloody mess away and scrambled out of the cab, dragging his too large frame to his knees. He saw a large man moving toward him in the dark and automatically reached for where his sidearm usually was.

It was gone.

Larry dropped to his knees and felt blindly in the shattered glass for the Marine’s rifle, cutting his hands repeatedly. He was about to change his decision to retreat when a voice stopped him.

“Larry, it’s Jack. You okay?” the voice hissed.

Larry realized he had been holding his breath, waiting for the bullets. He now let it out and sucked in another. He pulled himself out of the cab and examined the glass stuck in his palms. If it wasn’t for that he’d of put them together and prayed.

“Yeah, I’m okay now,” he answered.

Jack was now standing over him. “Pull that glass out of your hands. This isn’t over yet. Your driver dead?”

Larry looked the man over. “No, breathing okay. I don’t see any holes in him. He’s unconscious, though.”

“Grab his rifle and gear and follow me. Be quiet,” he added. Jack was already moving toward the sound of the screaming man.

Larry found the rifle and combat vest. He put it on, but it was like he was wearing a kid’s lifejacket. He didn’t have time to adjust it so he took one arm out and slung it over his shoulder. The rifle was in the glass, too, and he shook it off as best he could before checking to see if it was loaded. His sidearm was MIA. He quit looking for it and followed Jack, this was his kind of game, and Larry didn’t want to be left behind by himself.

•      •      •

The major woke up on the floor of the truck. The taste of blood in his mouth combined with the acrid smell of smoke pushed the darkness away. While his injured body said rest, his combat trained brain screamed wake up. He forced himself to do a quick self inventory and deduced he had been shot at least twice and there was pain in his head and back also. But everything seemed to work. Pain was better than numbness. He reached for the dash and pulled himself upright in the seat. Wiping the blood from his eyes and face, he also succeeded in pulling several glass fragments from his forehead. The blood now flowed freely down his face. He found his beret laying on the dash and used it to stop the flow long enough for him to clear his eyes and look around.

He was seated in the passenger seat as before, but the view was now one of the destroyed facade of the building seen over the crushed hood of the truck. The engine was on fire and thick smoke churned out from under the buckled hood. The loud noise was coming from the man pinned to the building by the truck’s heavy bumper. He saw an arm and the lifeless torso of two other men sticking out from under the rubble. He couldn’t help but grin and in the process discovered some missing teeth. That was okay, he decided, he had still won. He placed a foot against the crumpled door and pushed twice to get it to open. The screech of bending metal carried across the street and the screaming man paused long enough to see the bloody apparition of a man emerge from the truck. His eyes widened as he recognized him, and he briefly forgot the pain of his crushed legs.

The major stood on wobbly legs, but was soon circling the truck and approaching the trapped man. He drew a knife from his belt as he got closer.

The pinned man resumed screaming.

•      •      •

Jack scanned the street and made a hand gesture to Larry that he didn’t understand. The shooting had stopped at the sound of the second truck crashing, and Jack was moving
toward
it with Larry reluctantly following. Larry thought they should be leaving, but there was the matter of the Marine and the third truck. Where was Jack’s truck? What about the Jeep with the three government bodyguards? Larry had all these questions and more, but he also knew there was a time and a place for them and this wasn’t it. Jack was in his element and Larry knew both his and the wounded Marine’s best chance lay with him. So he followed without question and ignored his aching body. Jack had them down behind an abandoned car while he was in a pushup position looking under it at the burning truck. Larry watched back the way they had come because he figured that was what he should be doing. He pulled out his shirt and wiped the blood off the pistol grip of the M-4 before repeating the process on his hands. He didn’t want to lose his grip on it when the time came, and he had a feeling the time was coming soon.

He glanced at Jack and saw him still in the pushup position—one hand on his rifle and the other a fist in the dirt. Jack angled his body down and to the right to get a better look at whatever it was he was looking for. Larry shook his head. He could not even remember the last time he had done a pushup. He thought hard, but it wouldn’t come. He made a mental note to do some soon.

Jack pushed himself up and rolled to a squat next to Larry.

“The third truck is into the wall and has one of our attackers pinned. He’s screaming his head off, but I think it’s more fear now than pain,” he whispered.

“How’s that?” Larry whispered back.

“Come on, I’ll show you. Just keep looking out behind us, okay?”

“Yeah,” Larry replied. He hadn’t been sure if Jack had noticed.

“Let’s go.”

•      •      •

The Deliveryman paused in the darkness of a doorway and surveyed the scene before him. The flames from the truck lit up the street, and the screams of the pinned man kept the locals from coming out. He had not encountered anyone as he circled the building. Somewhere in the scramble to get out of the way of the truck he had lost the radio. He looked now over the truck and to the window where his fellow Deliveryman sat. He saw no movement, but had no doubt the man was there. He would not give away his position unless he absolutely had to.