The First End (19 page)

Suddenly, Karen, his girlfriend, popped into his
mind. He had purposely chosen not to think about the redheaded
woman while on the mission. But now, his thoughts roamed to her
full lips, her long, lush hair, and the gentle humor that kept him
smiling from the moment he entered her presence. Since this entire
matter with Wastend had come up, he had seriously neglected Karen.
He regretted that now, and he silently berated himself. She would
probably never know what happened to him. To her, he would be just
an another deadbeat boyfriend who had abandoned her.

He snarled at the idea and Lee’s eyes widened,
mistaking the look. He pulled his gun and brought it up. “Time to
die, Mr. Gardner.”

An explosion rocked the warehouse. Everyone
stumbled, the two guards instinctively turning towards where the
sound had come from. Bill didn’t bother. This was his chance…his
only chance. He moved with purpose and violence.

Lee’s gun was off target when the ex-marine
rushed him and his shot went wide, missing the lawyer by scant
inches. The noise seemed excessively loud in the enclosed
warehouse, deafening Gardner for a moment as he leapt upon his
captor. Bruised and battered he may be, Bill still possessed some
of the most instinctive fighting skills the marines had ever had
the privilege to train.

Smoothly, much like a ballet dancer’s fluid
movements, Bill shoved Lee’s gun arm out wide and spun nearly into
the man’s arms. A crack followed the gun report as the lawyer’s
elbow connected with Lee’s chin. The man’s head snapped back from
the blow, and the only thing that kept the Chinese intelligence
agent from collapsing was the hold Bill retained on the man. Bill
continued his spin, adding the befuddled Lee into the mix. Somehow,
Lee ended up in front of Bill when the first Chinese soldier took a
shot.

The bullet slammed into Lee’s chest, hit a rib,
and deflected out the side of the man’s chest cavity in a mist of
blood. Lee gasped, the shock bringing clarity back to his eyes in
time to see his own gun, now in the hand of his American prisoner,
spit death back towards the two guards. Gardner’s first bullet took
the right soldier high up in the shoulder, spinning him around and
sending him face first to the floor. His second shot struck the
other man in the forehead. He crumpled like a crushed paper
cup.

For a long moment, Bill just stood there, his
mind still trying to grasp what had just happened. The staccato
sounds of automatic weapons, screams, and yells could be heard from
outside. He had no idea what was going on. He glanced around and
noticed that the two workers in the back had disappeared. He and
the wounded soldier were the only ones left alive.

Or soon would be anyway.

He glanced down at Lee, whom he still clung too.
The man still lived, if barely. A bloody froth seeped between
clenched teeth and the man’s breathing sounded liquid. He had only
moments to live.

Gently, Bill put the man down on the cement
floor where he groaned. “Sorry, Mr. Lee,” Bill said sadly. “I
suppose both of us were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Thinking of the children the Chinese had murdered to acquire the
part to begin with, he said, “And it seems both of us now have
innocent blood on our hands. You’re lucky, Mr. Lee. You get to pay
for it now. I have to live with it.”

Lee reached up and grasped Bill’s shirt, leaving
a huge red stain. He tried to say something, but nothing came out
other than a gurgle and the man went limp, his eyes staring into
nothing.

Standing up, he saw the wounded soldier grasping
desperately for his rifle. Realizing he was still in much danger,
Bill hastened over, kicked the rifle out of the man’s reach, and
added another kick to the side of the man’s head, rendering him
unconscious. Looking around, he spotted his backpack full of
explosives. He retrieved it and looked inside. What luck!
Everything was still there. Sticking Lee’s gun into his waistband,
he rummaged through the explosives, pulling out the largest
charge.

Someone was attacking the warehouse. He had no
idea who they could be—Americans, Iranians or dissident Chinese. He
thought of Hu and wondered if the resourceful man was attempting to
stage a rescue. Either way, he now had the opportunity to destroy
the plane. He quickly and efficiently planted explosives around the
cockpit, while the firefight ragged outside. He thanked God for the
attack since it gave him uninterrupted time to plant the
charges.

He stood back and observed his handiwork. The
detonator was a small device that fit into the palm of his hand.
One push of the button and the entire explosives would take out the
plane and the fuel tanks as well. No doubt the entire hanger would
be disintegrated. He needed to get out, preferably in one piece,
before setting off the charge.

With the sounds of the fight from outside, he
suspected his chances were dwindling by the second.

Bill spotted a regular sized door to one side of
the hanger, near the larger bay-like doors. Hurrying over, he
gently opened it and peeked out. Soldiers ran in every direction,
some frantically, some with purpose. A truck carrying a squad of
heavily armed men whizzed by, spitting gunfire at something outside
Bill’s range of sight. He hesitated, trying to see a clear path to
safety. If he could get far enough away, the explosion should
afford him an opportunity to escape unnoticed.
But how to get
through this mess…alive?

He couldn’t chance this direction. It was too
open and too much was happening. Turning around, he looked for
another way out. He searched his memory, trying to determine the
layout of the compound. The hanger was attached on the eastern side
to a group of smaller buildings, probably offices or barracks for
the soldiers. The fence there came no more than a dozen feet from
the edge of those buildings. Taking a deep breath, he set out.

The attack on the compound had to involve taking
down the electric fence. If he could get there, he could find his
way through—hopefully.

Spotting another door along the eastern edge of
the hanger, Bill ran over, passing the wounded soldier on his way.
The man had regained consciousness and was trying to drag himself
towards the same door as Gardner. “Hey buddy,” he said in a
friendly tone as he passed, “I recommend getting out of here,
pronto.” The man probably didn’t understand a word of it.

Bill reached the door and opened it carefully.
This was the way he had been brought. Seeing no one, he hastened
through and made his way along the hall. Two thirds of the way
along, a metal door burst open and three Chinese soldiers spilled
inside amidst a hail of bullets. Two of the soldiers took hits and
sprawled limply onto the hallway floor. The third managed to avoid
anything more than a flesh wound to his upper arm. He twisted
around, putting himself to one side of the door, his pale face a
testimony to the fierce fire fight that raged outside. Whoever was
attacking the compound had a lot of help.

He marched up to the third soldier who never so
much as even glanced his way. “Sorry, buddy,” he said just as he
reached him. The man spun around, only to find Bill’s gun
descending in a brutal arc. The man fell to the floor,
unconscious.

The outside door remained opened and the other
two bodies littered the floor, making a run by the door
problematic—considering an unknown number of automatics were
trained on the doorway. He’d have to jump it. He backed off some
and realized that his head still hurt some, affecting his balance.
Swearing to himself, he shook off the pain and sprinted hard
towards the open door way. He jumped, clearing the bodies, but
landing badly on the other side. He went down, skidding
uncontrollably down the hallway as a wave of bullets splattered
against the doorway and hallway wall. Someone had noticed his
passing.

He finally rolled to a stop, cursing. “Will
everyone just stop shooting at me!” he yelled; irritation, fear,
and exhaustion all vying for dominance. It had been a long time
since he had been in a firefight of this scope. The snapping
bullets, the men yelling, the men dying, all wore away at his
nerves and emotions. He knew that outwardly he looked calm.
Inwardly, he knew this to be the reason he had left a promising
career in the military.

Innocents always seemed to die in fights like
this. Children always seemed to die. Every snap of a bullet brought
back memories, memories of children lying bloody in the streets.
Children’s empty, vacant eyes staring accusingly at the American
soldier standing over them.

He shook the thoughts away and regained his
feet. “Blast it all to Hades anyway,” he muttered. “Fools and
power-mongers ever mix.”

Sporting new bruises and scrapes, Bill continued
on his way. He needed to find an exit and quickly. The garrison
here had been surprised, no doubt, at the level of ferocity and
organization of the attackers, but once reinforcements arrived, the
tide would turn. He needed to be out before that happened.

He finally located an isolated office with a
single small window that looked out at the eastern side of the
compound fence. The razor wire would be a problem, but not as much
a problem as the fence itself would be—if it was still electrified.
Hunting around, he discovered no latch to open the window. Cursing
again, he took his pistol and used it to bust the glass out. The
continued sounds of the battle drowned out any noise he made.

He crawled through, adding to his scrapes. Once
outside, he paused to look around. In the distance, he could see
people running and the flashes of rifles marked the location of at
least some of the combatants. He turned to regard the fence. He
couldn’t tell if it was still electrified or not, but he did
realize something immediately. He couldn’t get through here. He
didn’t have the right tools to cut through both the wire and the
fence.

Cursing again, he put both hands to his head,
trying to drown out the noises of the combat and to think. Then he
remembered the truck in the hanger. Maybe…if he could only….Turning
back to the window, he squeezed back through and made his way back
towards the hanger. His leap back across the open doorway attracted
no attention as the fight had moved elsewhere. He needed to hurry
though. He had few illusions how this would end. Whoever was
attacking the compound had not been able to make enough headway to
actually get close to the hanger—assuming the hanger and the plane
within were the targets.

He returned to the hanger to see that the
wounded soldier almost to the door. He passed by with a weak
salute. “Better move faster than that, buddy!” Bill ran over to the
truck and peered in. The keys were in the ignition—thank God! He
then went to look at the tank gage on the back and discovered the
tank to be empty—thank God! He didn’t want to run a gauntlet of
bullets driving a tank full of highly combustible jet fuel.

Now to get the hanger doors opened. He didn’t
have time to figure it out. The thin aluminum doors would just have
to give way to the more compact and sturdier truck. Jumping into
the driver’s seat, he turned the ignition. The diesel engine
started up quickly and began rumbling eagerly.

Bill smiled. This, at least, would be fun.

Putting the truck in reverse, Bill lined it up
with the hanger doors and punched the gas pedal, popping the
clutch. The big diesel truck lurched backwards like an angry bear
and bore down on the doors with all the finesse of a runaway
freight train.

The truck hit the door in spectacular fashion.
The fuel tank buckled under the impact, but the hardier steel frame
of the truck punched through the doors, collapsing metal panels and
creating a huge dent in the doors that the truck slipped into.
Metal panels rained down around him, one striking the front
windshield, spraying glass in all directions, adding yet more cuts
to his already lacerated body.

Gardner spun the wheel, setting the truck into a
skidding turn that brought it about to face the main entrance. In
the time it took for him to ram the gear shifter into first gear
and start an inexorable charge at the gate, Bill noticed several
things.

First, the gate had already been partially
destroyed. Secondly, a group of men had taken up position there and
were firing at another group of soldiers who had taken refuge
behind some steel girders piled off to one side. Thirdly, both
groups took notice of the truck and began to open fire on him.

“Stop shooting at me!” he yelled again, jamming
down on the gas pedal. “Just stop shooting at me!”

The truck lumbered forward, picking up speed as
bullets pinged all around him. He ducked down as low as he could
and tried to keep the truck in line with the gate. A bullet struck
one of the wheels and the truck suddenly lurched a bit to the left,
creating a drag. Another bullet struck the engine and steam started
to pour out in billowing clouds. Cursing, Bill realized he wasn’t
going to make it.

He had only once chance.

He wrapped his arms through the seatbelt, flung
his body onto the seat and depressed the detonator for all the
explosives still in the hanger not forty yards behind him.

For a second—one that seemed to stretch
forever—nothing happened. He wondered if he had wired things wrong
or if the detonator had been damaged somewhere along the way, but
then something picked the truck up like a ragged doll and flung it
at the gate with terrific force.

Bill screamed as he and the truck hurtled
forward. He screamed as the truck hit the concrete road sideways to
skid like some sort of medieval battle ram towards the gate. Only
the seatbelt kept his body from being flung out the cab, but even
then his body seemed to slam into the seat like a racquetball. He
screamed as a wall of fire washed over the sliding truck, singing
his hair and burning his lungs. He screamed when the truck smashed
into the gate, metal groaning and twisting, poles and wire jabbing
through the empty windshield to poke at him with deadly intent.