The Marine tossed the pistol and pulled another one.
“Geez, how many guns do you have?” Kyla wondered aloud, before remembering she should have been out there helping her partner.
She arrived to find two dead men, each with five or six grisly wounds. While she was proud of hitting the two men herself, Meechum had made sure each of them would never get up again.
Meechum gave her an appraising once-over. “You did the right thing, Dudette. You put rounds on target. Stayed behind hard cover. You didn’t freeze up.”
Kyla pointed. “But you ran out here into the trees by yourself. I should have helped you.”
The woman searched the closest body. “Naw, I used the initiative to run them down before they could tend their wounds. If we’d waited, they might have scrambled to one of those larger tree trunks or called for help. Sometimes speed is its own weapon.”
“I’ll remember it,” Kyla said as if she’d learned a valuable lesson.
“Don’t do anything crazy until you’ve got more training under your belt. Let me take the risks.” Meechum pulled a radio, a cell phone, and a wallet off the dead guy. She also checked out the man’s pistol and rifle but didn’t pick them up.
“Don’t we want more guns?” Kyla asked with surprise.
Meechum picked up the pistol she’d tossed. “Our rifles are better. This is some kind of Chinese shit. You can tell by the messed-up design.”
Kyla didn’t have anything to add to the conversation. The men’s guns were black, with a short barrel and a trigger. It would never be confused with the AR-pattern she recognized, but it was still a rifle. Whether it was better or worse was entirely out of her wheelhouse.
After searching the second man, they took two radios, one of the phones, and none of the weapons. Since they were already in the trees, it was easy to drag them a bit deeper into the dense growth, effectively eliminating the bodies. No one would find them unless they probed the woods foot by foot.
When they got in the truck, Meechum took the driver’s seat. In seconds, she had them speeding back toward the cabin in the woods to gather their remaining food and supplies. The Marine grabbed a drink sitting in the cupholder. “Looks like they stopped at the gas station soda fountain. This thing is a sixty-four-ounce supertanker!” After giving it a once over, Meechum tossed the soda out the window.
Kyla did the same for the companion beverage on her side. She also grabbed some leftover fried chicken and jettisoned it as well. It smelled heavenly, but it was cursed. “I don’t think we want to touch their chicken. It literally got them killed.”
They laughed, easing a little of the tension.
When they returned to the lake house, they jumped out, chucked everything of value into the bed of the truck, then hopped back inside. The truck’s tires kicked rocks all over the cabin’s front porch as Meechum hammered the gas to get them on the road again.
Meechum sped back toward Glendo. “We’ll catch up to them. I promise.”
“I believe it,” she replied.
Minutes later, Kyla noticed a wire attached to the dashboard. The big drinks had been hiding it. Thinking it was the answer to her dead phone, she yanked it and checked the connector. Her excitement was short-lived. “Dang. They have a charger, but it won’t work with my phone.”
Meechum smiled. “You can use the dead man’s phone. He won’t be needing it.”
“Of course,” Kyla replied, before almost choking on her words. She frantically pointed ahead as they neared Glendo. The interstate passed along the far edge of the tiny town, not more than a quarter of a mile away. The roadway had been empty when they arrived, but now it was crowded with cars and trucks. The town was filled with enemy soldiers, too, suggesting the pair they knocked off had been sentries guarding the town’s border.
Men in black stood in front of storefronts. A man here. Two men there.
Meechum slowed but didn’t stop.
“What are you doing?” Kyla asked with surprise, her heart convulsing almost as bad as it did during combat. She was ready for the driver to peel out and go in another direction.
“We’re wearing their uniforms. They think we’re with them. We have to assume your uncle blended in, too.” To prove her point, she waved at one of the men standing on the roadside. He waved back. “We’ll go where they go.”
Kyla dropped her guard a fraction of a percent. “But where is that?”
The cool-headed Marine guided the truck up the ramp and onto the highway. Hundreds of other vehicles drove south, using all four lanes. She pointed where everyone else was going. “This way.”
Fort Collins, CO
Ted hopped out of the SUV with a rifle in his hands. Emily came out with hers still on her back. “Em, hold your rifle like you mean to use it. We have to act as if we’re merks, like you said.”
She shrugged. “How do I know what a merk does?”
He thought about it while she did as asked. “Pretend we’re your secret service detail. They always had their weapons out when you were in dangerous situations, right?” Ted was thinking specifically of the men and women on Air Force Two after the assassination attempt on her life.
“I’m with you.” She kept her blue bandana over most of her face.
The man with the camera came right up to him. “I’m Todd. My partner getting the rest of the sound equipment is Louis. I’ve got to admit, I never thought this day would come, or that we’d be covering it like this.”
Ted acted like he couldn’t think of a way to care less than he already did. After a pregnant pause, he replied. “What are we looking at here? I see a bunch of cranes
