An Unwelcome Development

great....better than great.....thank you zen

 

Smoking! ;-)

 

“Boss. We have a problem.” The sun was a full hand above the horizon and despite being awake since predawn, I was still in a mental fog, unable to shake the haunting effect the nightmare had on my psyche. Not just on me, I was concerned that the dream was somehow prescient, that I'd planned poorly and putting all these people at severe risk.
“Boss?” Daniels repeated. By force of will I made my way over to him, not just physically but mentally, the latter a much more difficult journey. My hand reached into my pocket unbidden, driven by the ache of my wounds, finding the comforting familiarity or the amber container. A brief flicker of concern that it was a balm for more than just my physical injuries obtruded and was just as quickly forced back down.

“Whatcha got?” I grabbed the proffered screen and squinted at the scene the iPad offered. The take was a live feed from the drone which was hovering near the road just past the apex of the turn where it could see the approach to our ambush.
There were three humvees, two in front, and one in back, following two deuce and a halfs. About what I expected. What I hadn't expected was that they'd be stopped in the middle of the road. In front of the house where we spent much of last night.
A chill went down my back, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and my blood ran cold.

“Looks like they are checking out the tagging you did on the front of the house.” Daniels offered. I'd out smarted myself. In my effort to motivate my troops, I'd left a great big calling card that someone had been there.

A deep breath was a partially successful in keeping panic at bay. “All units, enemy force in sight of the drone. Currently stopped in front of last night's house. Make sure your people are on full alert. Safeties on! No NDs to give us away. Don't initiate unless I give the command. We may need to let them drive through. Standby for further instructions.” If nothing else, my nightmare did make me realize that letting the Guardsmen through the ambush might be the smart move.

God help us if they notice us while part of their forces are outside the box.

Lavell was below, finishing placing the garden sprayer in the proper position, giving it a couple of final pumps for good measure. He stopped to listen when heard my transmission, looking up the hill towards me. When I was finished he climbed up to meet me.

I'd continued to watch the video feed while I'd been on the radio. A handful of the enemy had dismounted and were milling about on the lawn in front of the house. I recognized the lieutenant by his posture and body language. He looked at the house, then all around, including at his own people. He beckoned several closer and pointed at the house, and then the men, jabbing his finger at them vigorously.
Ah! He thought they had done it. I breathed a sigh of relief. Of course he did, who else would have painted the GM tag? This was going to be ok after all.

“Ah no!” escaped my mouth before I shut it.
“Looks like he's going inside” Daniels and Lavell were looking over my shoulder. “What's that mean?” Daniels pondered.
“We don't know. Depends on whether he's aware of what happened there.” Lavell answered.
“What difference does it make?”
“If he knows, then he'll realize that someone has been there and cleaned up, moving the bodies. If he doesn't, he won't have a frame of reference, won't know if things have been changed.”
“But some of his people are sure to.”
“Which only makes this more complicated.” I thought furiously, trying to work out the permutations and their implications. Something that I was horrible at. I gave up after a moment or two and devolved back on my strength, intuitive leaps and taking action before thinking things all the way through.

Pushing the screen back into Daniels' hands, decision made. “Lavell, you take this position here.”
“Where you going?”
“To pretend to be a rabbit.”

I found Sadie, helping a couple of people with the finishing touches on their fighting position. I motioned for her to follow and kept moving down hill toward the road. She caught up to me when I got there.
“What's going on? What are we doing?”
“The Guardsmen are at the horror house. I'm worried it will mess things up.”
“They saw your sign, didn't they?”
“Yup, trying to be clever, I messed up. Or Kharma smacked me upside the head for what I put all those people through.”
“I was worried about that.”
“You didn't say anything.”
“I talked myself out of it. I didn't want to make a big deal of it.”
“I was on a mission, I'm not sure how receptive I would have been.”
“Yeah, I got that. So now what?”
“We force the issue.”
“I don't think I'm going to like the answer. How?”
“By getting them to chase us.”
“Why does it have to be you!?”
“The timing is critical, I have the best chance of pulling it off. We don't have enough time for me to detail someone else and explain it to them, and I'd have trouble asking someone else to do it.”
“What's my job?”
“I could do it by myself, but I didn't think you'd go for it. And I didn't have time to argue about it. Besides,” I reached for her hand, “Besides, who else would I want with me when I'm about to do something utterly foolish and crazy?”
Sadie shook head in long suffering acceptance of her husband's foibles, then reached out to take my hand. “It won't be the first crazy thing we've done together.”
“Yeah! Remember that time coming down Kelly Grade?”

The Jeep had been parked around the bend to the west, out of sight of the box. She fired right up and I got her turned around and snaked through the constriction at the beginning of the road block, then accelerated down the road.
Right towards fifty or so enemy soldiers.

I was counting on the inalienable fact that humans are hunters and can not resist chasing prey. I needed to distract them from the house and become irrestible prey. In order to be exciting, I brought the speed up to almost fifty, running a perfect line through the turn, with a pleasing exit. God I loved driving!

There! The Guardsmen were milling about, some still mounted, many standing, shiftless. Unsurprisingly, a couple of groups had formed up around a shared smoke, hopefully sparking up some chronic.

“Stopping!” We were nearing the two hundred and fifty yard range. Sadie braced, which was my cue. Standing on the brakes I managed to override the ABS, all four tires complaining loudly at their treatment. The Jeep slid to a stop, the over-sized shocks dampening the suspension's oscillations almost immediately. Burning rubber was strong in my nose, my primitive brain keen on clues from every sense.
Our sudden appearance, punctuated by the noisy stop, grabbed everyone's attention. Heads snapped in our direction, several people halting in mid step, their OODA loops totally overloaded.
We stared at each other over the intervening distance. They would only be mesmerized for another second or two.
“Light 'em up!” Sadie's AR went up over the top edge of the windshield as she crouched in the seat awkwardly. The metal frame steadied her, and I waited for her shots. Come on! I yelled silently, willing her to get rounds downrange so we could didi. I knew better than to rush her, it wouldn't help.
The round broke, a Guardman spun and fell. She repeated the process again, with the same result. The secret to Sadie's accuracy is that she abhor's waste. And there's not much more wasteful than a missed shot.
The Guardsmen were scrambling, stirred up ant's nest style. I watched, judging, left hand on the wheel, right on the shifter, left foot on the brake, right poised, ready to mash and go.

Muzzles started to find their way to our direction as I watched rifle barrels get shorter until I was looking at little 'o's from which bright flashes emerged.
Time to go.
“Down!” Sadie dropped so quickly I'd thought she'd been hit. Right hand moved the lever two clicks forward and right foot tried to push it's way through the floor board. Left hand kept the wheel straight as I watched the side mirrors, keeping the corrections small and tight, avoiding the squirrely oscillations you get when backing quickly.

Angry bees flew past accompanied by a couple of 'tings' on the body work. NOW! Left hand turned the wheel a hundred and eighty degrees as right foot came off the gas. The weight of the engine caused the front end to slide, pivoting around the rear wheels. As we slid, bodies straining to stay in our seats while centripetal force tried to cram us to the left, me into the door and Sadie into me, right hand pulled the shifter back two clicks, left hand smoothly unwound the wheel, and as we were now pointing down the road in the opposite direction and right foot found the floor again.

Back around the corner, out of sight of the bad guys, I let up on the gas, slowing down.
“What are you doing?” Sadie was agitated.
“Are you all right?” I'd managed to keep my fear that she'd been hit under control until I'd got us clear.
“Um, yeah. Until those guys catch up to us because you're only doing twenty!”
I couldn't blame her for being excited. I was excited too. I was also trying to work out how fast I should be going. I had enough of a lead that I could probably get down this straight, through the constriction, and around the next turn before the Guardsmen could see us.
But I needed to keep them interested. Teased into following us, blind with lust.
On the other hand, if I went to slow, that would be suspicious. If they came around the corner and I was too close to them, they might wonder why. I wished I could see what they were doing.
“All units!” I keyed the mike, leaving the radio clipped to my carrier. “three humvees, two deuce and and a halfs. Sadie might have made them angry.”
“Me?! What about you?!”
“I didn't shoot them. Besides, it plays better if a girl gave them a bloody nose.”
“She sure did!” Daniels came back on the radio. “Nice shooting Miss Sadie!” We looked at each other and I gave her my best 'see?' look. Her exaspurated eye roll was so out of place for our situation that I had to supress a giggle. Then what Daniels said sunk in.
“You still have eyes on, Delta?”
“Roger that.” I motored on, closing the distance to the constriction at the end of the straight.
“What are they doing?”
“Loading into the vehicles. Bit of a chinese fire drill. There! They're moving. Wait! There's one guy runnng for the deuce and a half. It's not stopping. His buddies trying to pulling him in.” There was a slight pause in the transmission, then he came back, “Ouch! He just fell. Following vehicle ran his ass over!”
“Are they stopping for him?”
“No! And the lead Hummer is just to the curve.”
“Can we go now?” I looked at the love of my life, favoring her with a lopsided grin.
“Yes ma'am. Your wish is my command.” I accelerated slowly up to thirty, then forty, aiming for the constriction, but spending more then half my time looking in the rear view. My pulse quicken as another squirt of adrenlin hit my bloodstream, butt cheeks clenched as if my ass was trying to grab hold of the seat cushion.
The second hummer came into view as men in the first opened fire. They were four or five hundred yards away, shooting out of a moving vehicle. Their rounds didn't even come close.
The first two and a half ton truck came into view. The lead hummer was blocking the following one from getting a shot at us and I was just about to thank whichever gods came to mind for an inept enemy when the lead shifted right, the rear, left, and twice as many poorly aimed guns lit up the country side.
Fingers crossed that my troops wouldn't fall prey to contagious fire and give up the jig, I threaded the Jeep through the constriction. The angry bees returned, the Guardsmen's starting to dial in their fire. A burst finally found us, starting with a hit on the steel target strapped to the back of my seat and ending with two rounds starring the windshield between us.
Startled, we flinched down into our seats, necks contracting, trying to draw our heads down between our shoulders.
The jeep slid down the side of the derelict vehicle shrieking in protest. I chanced a glance at Sadie, to find her glaring at me. “What? I'll steal you a new jeep when this is over.”
The resistance of the contact with the other vehicle disappeared and I sat up a bit, shifting the Jeep into the other lane so the derelict would offer a little cover these last few yards. Just before we made it around the protection of the curve, a glance in the mirror showed the last humvee had followed the others and was almost in the box.
Feeling self satisfied, I pulled my eyes out of the rear view to find a large pick up truck filled with armed men right on top of me. A jerk of the wheel got us past them, but I'd traded a truck for a mahogany tree. I stood on the brakes, bleeding speed, but it wasn't enough. The collision coincided with the opening shots of Velasquez' 240.

 

;-)

 

yes what why yes yes

 

May all of you have much in your lives to be thankful for.
And may you have the grace, wisdom, and acceptance to be thankful for the bad things, the struggles, the challenges in your life, because those are what really form you.

Of my many blessings, I am thankful for you for your comments. They truly are the fuel that keeps this engine running. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have made it past the first ten thousand words.
Coming up on half a million words. I wouldn't have stuck to it without your encouragement and support.
Z

 

An appropriate time to be thankful for a new chapter. Thank you.

 

zen,it has been a GREAT READ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The less lethal canon pointed at my head fired, slamming my poorly positioned arm into my face. I guess the airbag deflated immediately, but I was too stunned to notice. Sadie's and my doors were yanked open and hands grabbed at me roughly.
I scrabbled for my pistol with one hand, having no idea where my rifle was. The other was beating at the people trying to drag me from the Jeep. I fought to open my eyes and got the left one to a squint about the same time the yelling started to make its way past the dazed state my consciousness was in.
“Zed!, Zed!” I cranked my head around, knowing my neck wasn't right and I'd be paying for it in the days to come, until I was able to bring my slit of an eye to bear on the bellower. The concerned face didn't mean much to me other than it probably didn't belong to someone trying to do me harm. Then the ginger braid swung free.
“George?” I managed to croak. Then everything flooded in. “SADIE!” They had me out of the Jeep now that I'd stopped fighting them. They sat me on the ground next to my wife who seemed to be in a better state than me.
A water bottle was shoved in my hand. Some went down my throat the rest over my head, in a partially successful bid to get back in the game. Sounds of firing entered my awareness, causing me to stand. George and one of his people caught me as I started to topple over. Little pin pricks of light covered my vision, the view changing to that of one looking down a tunnel. I fought it, with a little help from my friends and it passed a moment later.
“What are you doing here?”
“We thought you could use some help. Why didn't you ask us?” George seemed hurt.
“Sorry brother, it totally slipped my mind. Not intentional.” I looked at Sadie who was content to just sit. An increase in the rate of fire stirred me to action.
“What do you want us to do?”
I stopped, closed my eyes, willing my mind to clear. “I don't have a reserve to speak of.” I tossed him my radio. “Be ready to back us up if I call. Keep anybody else that shows up in this direction off our back. Keep an eye on Sadie. Cool?”
“You can count on us.” George seemed happy to be included. I'd apologize later. If there was a later.
“I know it.” Someone shoved my rifle in my hands and I stepped off again, bringing my pace up to a jog and then a sprint within a handful of paces. When I started this cockamamie hare and hounds idea, I figured Lavell and I would swap places, so I now ran to the machine gun nest. The firing was furious, driving me on, up the hill, still out of sight. Gaining the proper altitude I ran laterally along the hillside until I reached Velasquez. Petri saw me, eyes wide at the bloody mad man running at him.
“FRIENDLYFRIENDLYFRIENDLY!” Recognition reached his consciousness, overriding the amygdala's frantic pounding of the panic button. Sliding into the hole, jostling Velasquez who got off the trigger for a second until he could get the muzzle back on target.
“Radio!” Petri slapped his into my waiting palm.
Grabbing my breathing with both hands I slowed it, long and deep. A look at the kill zone showed all the vehicles stopped. There were bodies strewn about punctuated with red exclamation marks. A statement of the deadly efficiency of a well executed ambush.
The firing slowed as all the easy targets had been serviced. Despite taking a pounding by our machinegun and Kiko's M1 slinging armor peircing rounds, the right rear door opened from which bolted a guardsman.
Who was the rabbit now?
A bunch of our troops saw him and took him under fire. Unsucessfully. I'm guessing this young dude spent plenty of time playing B-ball. He was fast and ducked and dodged, trying to get through an aggressive defense to make a lay up. Each near miss spurred him on. I got in on the action, trying to keep the Aimpoint's dot on the small of his back. The sear broke just as he shifted. I fired again, but reacting to someone else's close but no cigar shot put him out of the path of mine too. He disappeared around the curve and I swore. I wanted no one to get away. No one to call in reinforcements.
Movement on our side of the hill caught my attention. It had the same effect on some of the guardsmen across the road who started shooting at the three figures sliding down the hill towards the road.
Cursing myself for being behind the curve, I reached around behind me, ripping open the velcro holding the rear most magazine pouch closed. I tugged the magazine free and checked that it had red electrical tape around it, then swapped it with the partial mag in the gun.
Stock back in my shoulder, check on the comb, the red dot jumped into view. I pumped groups of three rounds at the guardsmen shooting at my people sliding and bounding down the hill.

It only took a second or two for the troops to see my tracers designating a target I wanted to receive some special attention. Another second went by and the enemy had a new set of priorities as a couple of dozen riflemen sent rounds their way.
My job done, I looked at the idiots that endangered themselves. Jacob and the twins had made the road and hared off after the rabbit. Garvey took the lead with sister Aitch close behind, Jacob's long legs barely keeping him in the running. Watching the twins I was reminded of why marathons are often won by Kenyans.
I was reminded that tracers work in both directions, my directing fire earning me unwanted attention. Velasquez swore as he slipped further below the lip of the fighting hole, momentarily slacking off his fire. I snuck a peak and was rewarded with a face full of dirt and fragments from a near miss.
The enemy took advantage of our momentarily lapse of fire and half a dozen Guardsmen rushed from their hiding spots, while their compatriots put out suppresive fire to give them some cover.
“Boom! Click snick, snick click. Boom!” Frank worked the silk slick bolt smoothly in the action of the old Winchester M70 and the guardsman furthest out, closest to getting out of the kill zone threw his arms back and stumbled, falling face first. The thirty caliber bullet tore though his chest knocking him forward, off balance.
Frank got fancy on the second shot and I knew we'd be hearing about it for days. Two enemy soldiers bunched up, one in front of the other. The hundred and fifty grain slug transected the rearmost man's throat before continuing on to hit his partner between the second and third ribs, shredding the subclavian artery.
Seeing what happened to those in front, the remaining three went to ground, seeking what little cover that they could.
Both sides were trading desultory fire at this point and the ambush, while well executed, had turned into a static affair. I had no idea if reinforcements were on the way and didn't want to stick around to find out.
The second humvee's driver took a hit early on, while the vehicle was still carrying some speed. His last act was to turn the wheel hard right, away from the threat. It went up on two wheels, hit the shoulder, and went the rest of the way over becoming one of the better pieces of cover in the kill zone.
From the amount of yelling coming from behind and the way the guardsmen kept looking at the hummer, it seemed that's where our luckless leutanant was hiding.
“Put some rounds on that second vehicle!” I yelled at Velasquez then put three, three round sets of tracer into the same area. My troopers took the cue and lit it up. I didn't have much hope that the 5.56mm or even the 7.62 short rounds would punch through, but you never know and a lucky shot might sneak through. But they did have the effect of keeping the guardsman leader too busy to give orders and organize a counterattack.
My designating rounds also put Frank and Kiko into the game. The black tipped armor piercing ammo they were firing would zip through pretty much every part of the humvee that was less than an inch of steel.

While they chewed away at the hummer, I looked to see if conditions were right. The three plastic shopping bags hadn't ended up snagged in the trees by some fluke of a stray breeze. We'd placed them carefully down the length of the ambush site as surreptitious wind flags.
They fluttered in the strong breeze, straight away from me, down the road the way the Guardsmen had come, funneled by the valley.
Time to wrap this up.
“Foxtrot, take the shot.”
Frank answered by putting a round into the bright yellow metal canister. The pressurized contents sprayed forth, caught on the wind, and carried down the far side of the road. The coughing and sputtering started almost immediately with the Guardsmen closest to the garden sprayer. The red pepper flakes had been soaking in the rubbing alcohol since the day Zelda had been murdered. By the effects it seemed the potency was substantial.
Half a handful of the enemy bolted, headed right down the middle of the road, trying to get away from the choking mist. They couldn't see it so they had no way of knowing they were running along the same path my homemade pepper spray was taking.
Not that it mattered much.
The luckiest of the bunch made it fifty yards before he was cut down by the combined fire of Stan's Men at the end of the line. Most of them didn't get anywhere near that far, our training on laterally moving targets paid dividends.
Seeing this one group of guardsmen leapt up as one and did what they should have done in the first few seconds, attack into the ambush. The crossed the road quickly, aimed at the shallowest slope on the hill oposite them, right at the center of Stan's Men section of the line.
The suddeness of the action startled my troops, giving the enemy a precious couple of seconds to cross the road and enter the bush. The angle and covering foliage conspired to protect them, the rest of our line unable to take them under fire.
Stan yelled at them. “AIM!”, “BREATH!” “STAND, STAND, STAND!”
And they did. One by one Guardsmen fell, yet still the remainder came on, having no other option, and, at this point, angry. Angry with fear. Angry at what we'd done to them. They wanted some back.
Five or six made it all the way to the line, aiming down into our holes point blank, ripping off full magazines, three round bursts at a time. I watched, helpless as Stan's rifle went down. I couldn't tell at this distance if it was a malf or empty. The rifle was dropped on its sling, left hand pinning it against his thigh as his right filled itself with Glock, punched forward, putting a pair of rounds into a guardsman's face at three paces.
Stan pivoted right, pumping rounds into other guardsmen, covering a pair of his men that had managed to let both their rifles go dry at the same moment.
Unseen to his left, the sergeant I recognized from the video moved his rifle from the hip, up to his shoulder, fixed on Stan and obviously wanting to be sure of his shot. He recognized a leader when he saw one.
Stan sensed the threat, head whipping to his left to orient but he was way behind the act part of the equation. His shoulders slumped slightly in recognition and acceptance, but he started the turn anyway.
He was losing, the sergeant's face hitting the stock, bringing the sights to bear, finger tightening on the trigger. A blur caught my attention, a body in motion, aimed at Stan with the same intention to hit him as the sergeant. The Guardsman's shot broke just as Stan was hit by the other person, falling to the ground, hard.

 

Most gun fights only last a few seconds…anybody counting? ;-)

 

very, VERY GOOD!!!!

 

Takes a lot longer to write them than fight them.

We've got a battle between a hundred or so people. Even with the advantage of the ambush, it's going to take more than a handful of seconds to play out.

 

So, you don't think this gunfight is taking too long?

 

I've been in a few, and it does take longer to write about them but, most didn't take much time at all…but, then who's counting? ;-)

 

Well, you, for one.

How long would you expect an ambush of this size, manned by amateurs, to take place, from initiation to last shot fired?

 

I won't nay say your 'characters' it's their fight to fight though the concept of 'ethnic cleansing' does come to mind…did I mention that I hate the tropics? ;-)

 

no..................everyone likes short and sweet.............but one does not always get what one wants..........it's not all day yet....it is under 1/2 hour still.....reread it and it sounds like 5-10 Minutes so far............be nice if Stan is ok

 

In an 'ambush' anything and everything can go wrong…it's even more effective to ambush the ambushers. KG, Esq. ;-)

 

When using 'amateurs' use only small numbers of them…lest the whole become expendable! ;-)

(I do take note though that amateurs are ofttimes more interested in a subject than are professionals…who do it all the time!) ;-)

 

I know it's not as fun as the story. but the muse this week turned my head towards more practical and timely writing.
My latest article was just picked up by The Gun Writer Blog. It's survival oriented, so you might find it interesting and useful.

Burlingame: Preparing for the next strike - The Gun Writer