June saw Benny’s head peek through the opening in the trailer. He had a jagged gash on his temple that was bleeding profusely, but his eyes were clear when they came to rest on her. “Doctor Phillips? Is that Rob?”
“Yes. He’s hurt.”
Benny climbed out of the trailer and knelt beside his friend. The rain stung his wound as it washed the blood away from his face, quickly staining his khaki uniform red. “Rob? Commander Tyler?”
If Rob heard him, he made no indication of it. He was still clutching at his head, fighting through the pain.
* * * * *
COVINGTON OPENED his eyes. He felt some pain in his shoulder but ignored it. Sitting up, he assessed the situation. The truck had overturned and the trailer was dark. There were people around him resting in grotesque and somewhat comical positions. He felt for his sidearm and found it still holstered on his hip. But when he checked for his backup weapon at the small of his back, it was gone. Next to him he found a female form underneath another motionless body. He checked for a pulse and found none. The lifeless woman wasn't clothed in hospital scrubs, so he quickly deduced that it was Jo Turner. He smiled at his good fortune, reached into the fallen woman's jacket, and withdrew her Sig Sauer along with the two spare clips that she carried. Outside the hatch in the floor of the trailer, he could hear voices over the sound of the rain. He chambered a round in the Sig and started crawling toward the opening. He could take care of the others inside the truck later.
* * * * *
BENNY SURVEYED THE area. To his right, he saw Greg’s SUV parked near the cab, its headlights illuminating the area around him. The driver’s door was open wide. There were no lights up the road in either direction. He stood up and turned back toward the truck just in time to see the grimace on Covington's hooded face, his eyes fixed on Benny's chest.
Benny heard the deafening sound and felt the pain of the first two shots, but not the third, as Covington squeezed off a round in between the captain’s eyes.
June fell away from the sound of the shots, landing on her backside. She felt the warmth on her face but it failed to immediately register that she had been showered with the captain’s blood. Confusion set in as she watched Benny crumple in a heap. “Captain?”
* * * * *
THROUGH HIS STUPOR, Rob heard the shots too and then felt the weight of Benny’s body fall against his back. He glimpsed the Beretta on the ground in front of him. Acting on instinct, he reached for it. And then there was only pain and confusion.
* * * * *
JUNE WATCHED IN stunned amazement as Rob reacted to the shots. In one smooth motion he somersaulted forward and came up kneeling between her and where the shots had come from. With one hand still clutching his head, he fired two shots and then two more so quickly that she only heard him fire twice.
And then, he fell.
* * * * *
DANGER! RUN! GO! ROB felt something familiar, comforting, but nothing he could focus on. His body was moving on instinct, reflexively. Not of his own volition, but with a purpose. There was a deafening sound before him and then another. His hands went numb momentarily and he felt himself gripping something tightly. He was vaguely aware that he was lying on his back when he heard a different voice, a female voice.
“Rob!”
He felt himself being pulled. His head still throbbing, he found himself on his feet again.
In front of him was a small truck. Between him and the vehicle was a woman who was pulling him steadily toward it. There was the sound of gunfire behind him and he spun instinctively and fired the pistol that he was dumbfounded to find in his hand.
* * * * *
JUNE GLANCED BEHIND her and saw a dark form taking cover at the rear of the overturned truck. Turning her attention back to the silver SUV before her, she pulled Rob that much harder, opening the passenger door when they reached it.
“Rob! You have to help me,” she screamed as she shoved him inside and closed the door.
She looked back in terror as the ghostlike figure behind the overturned truck fired again, hitting the windshield of the SUV. Making her way to the driver’s side, she kept as much of the Toyota between herself and the gunman as she could. The driver’s door mirror and window shattered, stopping another bullet as she dove through the open door. The engine was already running, so she threw it in reverse and stomped the accelerator. Gravel, mud, and water showered the cab of the semi where Greg, having heard the gunshots, had taken refuge.
Greg couldn't tell who was driving as he watched his 4 Runner speed backwards up the road and then spin one hundred-eighty degrees, heading west and into the night. Hearing no more gunfire, and with the rain letting up, he rose cautiously. Walking slowly around the overturned tractor, he was startled by the sight of a shadowy form standing over what appeared to be a body, silhouetted by the flashing blue lights of Kelly Mueller's patrol car.
21 Naïveté
THE DRIVER OF THE black van eased his foot off the accelerator as he and its other occupants watched the headlights of the approaching vehicle intently. Windshield wipers pumped hard to clear their view as the heavy rain continued to fall. The approaching vehicle was almost on top of them before they could discern that it was not the lights of a big rig.
“SUV,” one of them said as it passed them by at high rate of speed.
The rain slackened up a bit as they continued toward the blue lights of a sheriff’s patrol car flashing in the distance. Slowing again, they studied the scene. There were caution flairs burning on the road in order to guide drivers safely past the wrecked semi that was lying on its side in the ditch.
“Is that it?” the driver asked as he rolled to a stop just past the truck.
“Dunno,” one of the men whispered from the back.
“There's another guy over by the trailer,” another said.
“Could be the driver,” the first suggested.
“Or another cop,” the second reminded them.
“Can't tell,” still another said.
“More blue lights on the horizon behind us,” the driver informed them.
* * * * *
DEPUTY MUELLER NOTICED the van stop. He assumed they were considering whether they were obligated to render assistance or not. But Kelly had already radioed for assistance and was grateful when the van slowly continued on down the road. There was a lot about this accident scene that needed explanation, and he didn't have time to deal with civilians.
“Thanks anyway,” he said, not loud enough for the occupants to hear, even if they had been listening.
* * * * *
WHEN A VAN CAME to rest beside the Lightning Quik Mart, the rear door opened. A man jumped out and trotted back toward the road. He was Asian, dressed in a black business suit and black gloves, and he carried a black ski mask. The rain had almost passed, making visibility much clearer. He peered up and down the road, confirming that there were no approaching vehicles, and then trotted back.
Four men wearing black fatigues and equipment-laden backpacks exited the van. They were carrying Belgian-made Herstal P90 machine guns and Beretta side arms. Masks similar to the one that the man in the suit slipped over his head covered their faces. They ran two-by-two to the front door, three entering and one remaining at the door as the van wheeled around to the back of the building. The suit joined the man at the door and produced a laminated document from his breast pocket. Unrolling it, he entered the store and flipped the power switch at the top of the doorframe to the “off” position.
* * * * *
STAN AND JACKIE WERE taken completely by surprise. They had paid no attention to the van when it pulled in, too busy discussing Greg’s mad dash just minutes before, followed by Kelly’s untimely visit. When the men stormed in and the two realized the danger they were in, they considered going for the weapons hidden behind the counter. But by then it w
as already too late.
“Don't! We're not here for you,” one of the men hissed as he leveled his weapon at Stan’s chest.
“Storeroom,” one of the others said. The two were ushered through the door.
At the same time, the man in the suit pushed the front doors closed, then pulled a key from his pocket and locked them. The other man produced a roll of clear tape and handed it to the suit, who quickly taped the page to the glass. It read:
Public Notice: By order of the Houston County Probate Court: Business closed and contents sealed pending inventory for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy
* * * * *
THE LONE AIRMAN THAT was left in the security office hadn't noticed the black van either. Moments later, all of his video screens went dark. He verified that they still had power, but the pictures were gone. Thinking it was caused by the storm, he flipped the intercom switch. “Security here. I’ve lost all of my feeds. I’m blind up here. Secure outer doors and be on your toes.” To himself, he nervously said, “What else is gonna go wrong?”
What he couldn’t have known was that the only speaker that carried his announcement was the one inside the security office.
* * * * *
THE SUIT AND HIS PARTNER found the others already inside the major’s office. A bewildered Jackie and Stan were guided down the stairway to the generator room. They were astonished. Neither had any idea what was going on under the store, and couldn't have imagined what they were witnessing. Despite the almost deafening noise of the diesel engines, Jackie’s initial fear was replaced with excitement as she took the scene in, in wide-eyed wonder.
Stan, on the other hand, was a bundle of nerves. He watched two of the masked men kneel beside conduits running down the middle of the floor and into the tunnel. They efficiently went about their work, planting small explosive charges around them. He glanced at Jackie and, once he got her attention, nodded to the tunnel entrance.
The young woman studied the descending passageway and smiled, mouthing the word “Cool.”
They were ushered around an odd-looking platform in the floor with hand rails around three sides and a chain draped across the fourth side, and into a corner of the room as the masked men produced night vision goggles and put them on.
“What the heck is goin' on?” Stan mouthed to Jackie, who smiled like a child at an amusement park and shrugged.
The group gathered tightly together and one of the men shouted, “Prepare for detonation!”
They heard the muffled pop over the steady drone of the engines. A moment later the lights went out. Seconds after that, emergency lights kicked on and the airmen were lead to the tunnel entrance where a pair of carts with flatbeds were parked rather haphazardly. There they were separated, each on a different flatbed.
Jackie grinned from ear to ear as they started their long ride into the darkness of the tunnel, but Stan wasn't nearly as happy about their situation as she seemed to be. In the master sergeant's seventeen years of service, he had never heard a story that started like this one and ended happily.
* * * * *
AFTER A FEW MINUTES passed, the pain in Rob's head was completely gone. But he was still suffering some residual effects of the trauma from what had to be a blow to his head. He felt mostly nausea. His vision and his mind had nearly cleared. He was able to assemble his thoughts into something close to cohesion, but his senses were lying to him. He found himself looking out the windshield of a vehicle, the darkened landscape rapidly passing by down the unfamiliar road. Droplets of rain were hitting the glass and, from the look of the two-lane highway's surface, he could tell that it had recently rained.
Where in God's name am I?
Looking down, he saw he was wearing what appeared to be a soaking wet set of green hospital scrubs that were covered in mud. His left shoulder was aching, so he absently massaged it as he watched what he could see of the landscape as it passed. He noticed that there were tall trees, evergreens it appeared, lining both sides of the road.
This sure doesn't look like any part of Afghanistan I’ve ever heard about.
The only sound, other than the road rushing under the wheels, was that of the driver’s rapid breath. He watched the woman by the light of the instrument panel. She was also dressed in scrubs and covered in mud. Her hair was matted and hanging in strings to her shoulders. He guessed she was in her early thirties, but in the low light, he couldn't make out much detail. She was staring, wide-eyed, straight ahead. She trembled violently, and although she was wet from the storm, he didn’t think she was shaking from cold on this humid summer night.
He turned his attention to the speedometer. Though it was difficult to see from his angle, it appeared that they were traveling over ninety miles an hour. Reflexively, he buckled his seat belt.
“Miss?” He spoke calmly, but there was no indication that she had heard him. “Miss?” He repeated, snapping his fingers. But even that didn’t draw her attention. When he touched her gently on the shoulder, she jumped at the unexpected contact. She snapped her head around and locked eyes with him, jerking the wheel slightly to the left and sending the vehicle over the centerline. Rob glanced at the road ahead. Seeing that they were fast approaching what he hoped was an empty intersection, he gently took hold of the steering wheel and guided the SUV back over into the correct lane.
The woman kept both hands tightly on the wheel and continued to stare at him with unblinking eyes.
“Eyes on the road, Miss,” Rob said, smiling. “We don’t wanna have an accident, do we?”
None of this was making any sense. Minutes before, he and Sack were about to board a helicopter in Afghanistan. A firefight had broken out and Rob saw his observer get shot. One of the choppers crashed and then … he tried to remember what happened next but he couldn’t. He could still smell smoke and gunpowder, and he could hear gunfire and screams mixed with the angry voices of men speaking what sounded like Arabic. He could feel the concussion of explosions and the cold mountain air in his lungs. There were flashes of light and pain. There were faces he didn't recognize, the panicked feeling of drowning, the coolness of rain on his skin, and then … he was in a car, with a stranger staring at him in … what? Confusion? Fear? He couldn't tell, but as she continued to guide the speeding SUV through the darkness, he took some solace in the fact that she appeared to be as out of place as he felt.
Regaining a portion of her composure, June nodded her acknowledgment and turned her attention back to the road.
“Maybe you should pull over,” Rob suggested.
She was in a state of shock. Raising his voice, he spoke more forcefully. “Doll, I need you to slow down.” Looking at the speedometer again, he saw that they had topped one hundred.
June blinked several times and glanced at the instruments. Her eyes grew even wider. She took her foot off the accelerator. Rob now saw her fear, bordering on panic. She was struggling simply to get hold of her emotions as she scanned around for a suitable place to pull over. Finding a large parking lot, she pulled in, drove to a dark area away from the road, and stopped.
Reaching over, Rob expected to find keys dangling from the steering column. When he didn't find any, he noticed a button on the dash that was glowing green and read “ENGINE START STOP. ” He pressed the button and killed the engine.
“Huh,” he said, puzzled at the sight of the button. He shifted position and felt something on the floorboard. He found a pistol and picked it up. The acrid smell of gunpowder told him that it had been recently fired. He ejected the magazine and cleared the chamber. By the weight of it, he estimated that there were no more than six rounds left between the clip and the bullet in his hand. Replacing the cartridge in the magazine, he slid it back into the Beretta. When he looked back at the woman, he found that she was staring at him, not at the weapon, as he would have expected. Her expression changed to confusion, but she just sat there.
In the heat of the moment, she hadn't considered which Rob she
was fleeing with, only that there was a madman with a gun who had just killed the captain, and seemed intent on killing them as well. She had acted on instinct when she dragged him to the SUV that was parked there with the engine running, like a gift from above. Now, she was in a quandary. The man beside her had a gun, which put him in control. And yet he had a strange sense of calm, considering the situation. In his eyes there was no recognition, and yet he seemed to be in complete control of his faculties. He sat there grinning slightly, silent and unmoving.
Is this Rob Tyler or am I running with the clone? The question gnawed at her, and she needed an answer. Settling back in her seat, she made a conscious effort to control her breathing. After a few uncomfortable moments, she cleared her throat and asked, “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, now that we’re stopped.” He smiled disarmingly. Now that she was calm, he felt a strange sense of familiarity with this woman that he didn't know.
It wasn't exactly the answer that she was looking for. “Are you hurt?”
“My shoulder's killin’ me, but—” He paused. His embarrassment was evident. “Do we know each other?”