Chapter 8
Excerpt taken from OneThreeThirteen
JASPER COLLINS’ old turquoise blue 1978 Chevy long bed truck pulled up in front of the Grinnell-Angelus Agricultural and Community Improvement Center’s fence.
Madison surveyed the area keeping a keen eye out for anything out of the ordinary. Trouble was everything about the last twelve hours had been out of the ordinary. It was broad daylight, around noon, he guessed, and the only vehicle in the area was Jasper’s.
This wasn’t going to be easy, Madison thought, peering through the crisscrossed interlaced bars of the fence. The fence was a good twelve feet high and the corn was planted at least five feet from the fence and the building housing the computer guidance system was even farther, making for a dangerous run across open ground.
Gun pulled, Madison eased himself out of the passenger side door and thought to himself how remarkably quiet and deceptively peaceful the farmland around Angelus, Kansas seemed.
Holding the gun in defense formation Madison moved forward toward the fence. In the distance was the flute like sound of a lone Western Meadowlark. Some inner instinct told him something wasn’t quite right. Madison shifted his eyes to the left and then to the right. There was danger about. He could feel it. Quickly holstering his weapon he reached for the fence. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you young fella,” yelled Jasper.
“Why not?”
“I’ll show yah.”
Jasper reached down for a rock laying by the side of the road, and when he did so, what he mistook as a hornet, stung him on his right earlobe. “Damn hornets!” he yelled and threw the rock at the fence. Bluish silver sparks shot out of the fence where the rock had hit it.
Jasper was just about to say that he knew a better way in when the sniper’s second shot hit him mid back. He slumped forward over the hood of his truck. His eyes and mouth were gaped open. He never knew what hit him.
Madison grabbed Jasper’s corpse by the arm and pulled him around to the other side of the truck hoping that the old man was still alive. Madison’s breath was coming in short shallow spurts. He checked Jasper’s pulse. There was none. Ping! A third bullet took off the truck’s antenna. Madison was instantly sorry that he’d dragged the old man into doing something so dangerous. He blamed himself for the old man’s death. He had violated the first rule of engagement. Never use civilians. He’d learned that in Afghanistan.
Now was not the time for regrets. He pulled Jasper’s lifeless body out of the way. He figured if he couldn’t climb over the fence, he’d use Jasper’s truck as a battering ram now that Jasper no needed it. Ping! The sniper’s fourth bullet took out the driver side mirror.
He searched Jasper’s pocket for the keys to the truck, being careful to keep his head down. Ping! A bullet went through both the driver and passenger side windows. He knew he had only a couple more rounds before the sniper decided to go for the obvious, the fuel tank. He flipped Jasper face down in the Kansas soil and frantically dug his hands in the old man’s back pockets. Still no keys. Jasper must have had them in his left hand when he got hit, which meant they’d have fallen near the front of the truck. He had to time this just right.
So, far the sniper was taking his time, toying with him like one of clay ducks at a carnival game. And the moment he stuck his head up, he’d be a goner.
Right now, the front passenger tire was shielding him from view. If he reached around the tire to get the keys, he’d be seen. He needed a distraction. He sat for a moment, listening to the bullets as they pinged off the body of the truck, not wanting to do the thing he knew he had to do. He had to use Jasper’s body as a shield.
He swallowed hard before pushing Jasper’s body on its side and laying himself parallel to it. Slowly he pushed forward. The first shot took a huge chunk out of Jasper’s skull spraying gray matter, bone, and blood all over Madison’s chest. Good thing, Madison thought, that he hadn’t eaten anything in the last few hours. He pushed the nearly headless body forward a few more inches. The next shot hit Jasper’s shoulder making his arm flap around as though he were hailing a cab. Madison reached his right arm underneath Jasper’s body and felt around on the ground for the keys.
The sniper got lucky. His next bullet tore through Jasper’s thin frame midway between his chest and hip hitting Madison in his left external abdominal oblique muscle. Madison’s hand gripped the keys as he pushed down the urge to yell. Huffing to ease the pain, he scrambled back behind the tire, praying the sniper wouldn’t get off another shot.
Madison took a couple of deep breaths bracing himself for the pain he knew was coming when he hurled himself into the cab of the truck. He had to do it quick; like pulling a bandage off a wound.
Summoning up his courage, Madison reached up with his right hand and opened the passenger side door. A hail of bullets rang out. He knew there’d be a momentary pause when the sniper looked up over his rifle to see if he’d hit his target. “Now!” He thought and threw himself into the truck. A pain the likes he hadn’t felt since Mogadishu tore through his left side. He had the keys in the ignition before the sniper could lower his eye back to the scope. Madison turned the key and pushed the gas pedal down with his hand. He aimed the truck straight ahead.
The old jalopy bounced along the road like a bucking bronco. When he’d gone what he figured was a safe distance Madison took his hand off the gas pedal and dared to raise his head to see where he was. He was at the rear of the facility and one look in the rearview mirror told him he wasn’t going to be alone for long. Three men dressed in camouflage carrying sniper rifles were headed towards him. He hauled his wounded carcass into the driver side seat, and slammed his foot on the gas. He put about ten feet between him and men before turning the truck around and aiming it at fence. He never hesitated. Never flinched.
Two of the snipers dove out of the way of the fast moving truck but one raised his rifle trying to get off a shoot but Madison never lifted his foot off the gas pedal. Ducking beneath the dashboard for cover, Madison felt a big bump as the truck ran over the sniper and kept going into the fence. Bluish silver, red, and black sparks arced over the top and sides of the truck, some stinging Madison’s back as the truck went through the fence.
Jasper’s old truck landed with a thud in the middle of the government’s experimental hybrid cornfield planted to disguise seven long range missile silos.
Madison rolled out of the truck grabbing his left side and hauled ass for the complex. Bullets sailed over his head. He burst through the unlocked doors of the complex and came to a sudden halt.
“Danny?!”
Standing in the darkened hallway of the Black Ops Angelus, Kansas complex with a Makarov semi-automatic pistol to his head was his son, Danny. Behind the man holding the pistol to his son’s head were about a dozen or more soldiers dressed in various uniforms from different countries. Madison recognized a few of them.
“Cornel Madison, stand down.”
https://onethreethirteen.wordpress.com
By
Eliza Ankum
Author of
Flight 404
Ruby Sanders (The Ruby and Jared Saga Book 1)
Jared Anderson (The Ruby and Jared saga Book 2)
Dancing With The Fat Woman
Thou Shalt East Dust
A Woman’s Voice: Book of Poems
STALKED! By Voices
The Hunt For Red November 