Mirrored Man: The Rob Tyler Chronicles Book 1 (31 page)

“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.

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 was 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.