“This bullet should have killed you instantly. It’s a .308 round. Very powerful. “I don’t get it,” she gulped, her eyes darting manically, searching for an answer. “What just happened? Who are you? . . . What are you?”
Headlights swept the motorhome. “Somebody’s coming,” Matt shouted. Cathy flashed to something her father had once said: “There’re times to think and times to do. Don’t think when you need to do. MBAs make lousy fighter pilots. They think too much. It gets them killed. You have to act instinctively.” She started the RV and drove to a concrete block pumping station at the water’s edge. Its dirty coarse gray concrete looked a hundred years old. A tired old trailer was parked in front of the building. Two large pipelines extended from the building up the side of a hill. She hit the trailer, ramming it against the building.
A scruffy, disheveled man rushed out. “Killers are after us. They’ll kill you too. Will you help us?”
“Aw, waa, yeah,” the man replied.
From inside Cathy dashed the trailer’s side window with the flashlight as an SUV with blacked-out windows pulled into the clearing. Two men got out.
Then she smashed the building’s small metal-framed window. An infrared motion detector winked blue as they climbed through. One of the men spoke into his radio.
Meanwhile three hundred miles away Ted Kozacky turned to his wife, “The kids are in trouble. Gotta go.”
Jumping into his NSX he pressed the metallic red start button. Its 500 horsepower engine revved to life. The tach needle flirted with its redline as he raced the snaking backroad through the storm.
Skidding to a stop he dashed from the car. He threw open the hangar doors, flicked on the lights and sprinted to his plane. Sliding under a wing he removed two heavy olive drab ammo boxes from a padlocked locker, climbed onto the wing and popped open the access door to its three machine guns. Razor-sharp magnolia leaves sliced his bare face as he popped open the airtight box and fed a belt of the WW-II armor-piercing incendiary tracer bullets into the feeder slots. Was he wasting his time? Would the ancient ammo even fire? He shut the wing’s access door, fastened it and repeated the procedure on the other wing. Jumping into the cockpit, he started the engine and taxied to the end of the runway. Keying his mic button he activated the runway lights. He pushed the throttle to its stop. Engine straining he released the brakes. The torque of fifteen hundred horses fought his right leg as he pressed hard on the rudder pedal to keep the aircraft centered down the runway. With a flash of light a tree fell across the runway. V1. Abort was no longer an option. A wheel struck the tree, snapping off. The wheel tumbled down the runway as the other retracted slowly into its well as the Mustang roared into the night.
Chapter 22 – LAKE OF NO RETURN
You only live twice. Once when you are born
and once when you look death in the face.
Ian Fleming
The two men returned to their SUV. In the blinding xenon headlamps they seemed to be waiting for something.
“I knew I shouldn’t have come. This is your fault,” Zak whined. Everything was fine ‘til you came. Go back to California.”
“You okay?” asked Matt.
“Yes … no,” Zak fretted.
“Get it together, Zak,” said Chase.
“What do they want?” asked Zak, popping a handful of antacids. The answer arrived in a high-pitched whine as the copter, its searchlight dangling, landed beside the SUV. As its engine spooled down, four men stood gesturing wildly as if trying to decide what to do next.
“Do you have any gasoline?” asked Matt.
The worker pointed to a gas can in a corner. “It doesn’t have much in it.”
“I don’t need much,” Matt replied. He grabbed the can, reached it through the window and poured the contents into the trailer.
“HEY! That’s my trailer!”
“Got a match?”
“NO!” the man replied, a vein popping out in his neck.
Matt plucked the cigarette from the man’s lips and tossed it into the trailer.
“Those are bad for you,” Matt declared as the trailer burst into flames.
“What part of they’re shooting as us do you not understand, dude,” Chase pointed out.
“Maybe they thought you were deer,” the man said.
The copter took off only to return minutes later.
“You may think you’re smart barricading yourselves in,” the loudspeaker blared. “ I just want the ring . . . that fire won’t keep us out forever.”
“How’d they find us?” Chase gulped.
“Does it matter?” Zak cried. “Give ‘em the stupid ring.”
“No,” Matt said.
“They wouldn’t kill kids,” said Chase worriedly. “Would they?”
The men from the SUV were hurrying over with a fire extinguisher.
“In here,” the worker yelled. They scrambled into one of the pipelines. Zak slammed the hatch behind them.
“I can’t see anything,” Matt said, worriedly.
Zak rummaged through his backpack. He snapped a Cyalume stick and gave it a shake casting the damp, malodorous, slick, rusty, algae-encrusted cylinder into a yellow pall as they began an uphll climb.
“Nobody touch Legend. He’s mine,” Father Malvic hissed as red and green lasers combed the pumping station. He removed a straw from a thin 24-karat gold Fabergé cigarette case and inserted it delicately between his teeth. “They’re in the pipe,” he smirked. “Let’s see how they like this,” he said snapping the case shut. Studying a control panel he pressed three green buttons, pumped a large circuit breaker primer handle labeled HIGH VOLTAGE four times per its instruction placard, pressed a green ON button and waited. A beacon flashed and a klaxon blared.
“This’ll flush those rats out,” Malvic sneered, his face flashing yellow.
“What’s that sound,” Cathy said, as the pipeline rumbled.
“Oh, no. Hurry. They turned the pumps on,” the worker gasped as he fumbled with the hatch.
“Faster!” he screamed. Matt helped him turn the wheel.
The hatch flew open. Cool night air filled their lungs. They scrambled out of the pipe one by one until only Zak was left. The rumble grew louder as Zak struggled to free his backpack. A geyser blasted him high into the air, dumping him onto the forest floor. Cathy listened carefully for her father through the splashing torrent.
“Daddy where are you? Where are you daddy? Where are you?”
A bird soared at the center of the lake. A distant train horn echoed through the valley. Cathy’s ears perked at a familiar sound. There - the faint mellow roar of the twelve-cylinder Merlin!
A flashing light! Dots and dashes! …. …. - - - - - - - .... . . - .. . - .. - - -
Cathy was using the Morse code she had learned in Young Marines - SHOOT HELLO DADDY. His little girl was alive! HELLO? “Some men in a helicopter are shooting at us,” she had said. Helo. Must be a typo.
The turbulence from the Mustang’s wingtips caught the helo crew unawares rocking them violently back and forth.
“What the . . . ” the shooter snarled.
“It’s sweetpea’s father,” said the pilot. “Relax. He can’t do anything. It’s not armed. All he can do is watch,” he snickered. “Let’s wrap this up.”
Kozacky switched off his nav lights and swung around for another pass. With the helo at twelve o’clock he rammed his power control lever forward to full military power. Tiny flashes appeared. The plexiglass exploded. A sledgehammer walloped his shoulder. In agony and disbelief he looked at his bloody shirt, yanked hard on the stick with his good arm and banked away. Through the moonlight he glimpsed his target. No uniforms, no law enforcement markings.
His finger over the red protective Bakelite cover protecting the master arm switch, he flicked it up and the switch to ARMED. He yanked hard on the stick and pulled a 360°. The synchronous flashes began anew. Taking careful aim he squeezed the trigger. With a slightly perceptible deceleration from the guns’ recoil a bright red stream of illuminating tracer rounds streaked straight to the target. Parts flew off the copter as it pitched down and began a downward spiral. It exploded in a fireball, sending its tail rotor whizzing through the forest into a tree trunk inches from Cathy’s head.
Fighting to stay conscious Kozacky maneuvered for a final pass to assess damage to the bogey. He rocked his wings back and forth to signal victory. But something was terribly wrong. As the P-51 commenced a climbing turn its engine sputtered. He checked its gauges. No oil pressure. Cathy watched helplessly as the plane disappeared from view trailing a white plume. A crash sounded in the distance.
“You killed daddy!” Cathy screamed. “You killed him! You killed him!”
“What?” Matt responded in a daze.
“Zak’s right. You never should’ve come. Get away.” Cathy pushed him off.
With a frustrated kick Matt sent a smoldering piece of helicopter wreckage flying.
“I t-think I saw a p-parachute.”
“What?” Cathy said softly.
“A parachute. I think I saw one,” Matt repeated.
“You think?”
“Did. I mean . . . I did.”
“You think or you did! Which is it?”
“I did . . . I think.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure isn’t good enough. Did you see one or not?”
“I did! I did! Okay?”
“Now what?” Zak bemoaned.
“I hate to break the news but it’s game over, dude,” Chase railed.
“I didn’t plan on this,” Cathy moaned.
“Me either,” said Zak.
“We can’t give up,” Matt said.
“Give it up dude, said Chase.
“If we give up now, people’ll think ghosts are dead people.”
“Who cares, dude! Dad crashed and all you can think about is ghosts?”
“I think they killed my father,” Matt said.
“Who?” Zak asked.
“Them!” replied Matt angrily, “Alright? . . . THEM!”
“He’s right,” Cathy said. “It’s personal now. It’s on. They’ve messed with the wrong Young Marine.”
“You sound like dad. Everybody in favor of going back raise your hand,” said Zak, his the only hand raised.
“If I know daddy, he got out. We’ll never find him in the dark.
“Boy, are we in trouble,” Chase declared.
“We can’t get into any more trouble than we’re already in. We’re up to our necks. I’ve never given up on anything in my life. I’m not about to start now. Let’s go,” she added. She dialed 911. Nothing.
The only way down the hill was to slide down the pipeline. One by one they slid. Zak fell off, rolling to the bottom screaming, a growing burrito of mud and pine needles.
A figure emerged through the smoke.