“For once in my life, I wish I owned a cowboy hat like Butch,” he said to the buzzing cloud of bugs.
At first, he followed the path of the wooded shoreline, but he worried the men on the bridge would spot him as he walked closer. He decided to divert into a nearby field, which required him to travel up and over a tall earthen levee. The thirty-foot-tall structure ran for miles on both sides of the river. It was designed to protect the farm fields from all but the worst floodwaters of the river. He soon heard vehicles on the roadway, signaling how close he was to the bridge.
His watch said he had thirty minutes before he needed to fire the first shot. By agreement, he was to be the one who fired the lead-off round, so Butch would be listening for him. As such, he figured he needed to get closer to the bridge, if only to figure out where the targets would be located. He closed in on the two-lane roadway coming off the bridge.
A few cars had used the bridge during his approach, but the remote highway wasn’t well traveled. He halted in hip-high corn stalks while listening for traffic. It took several minutes before he heard a vehicle.
After waiting for the sound of the car to fade, he walked onto the roadway, intent on seeing if the blue trucks were already parked on the span. He had to go up the embankment of the levee to where it met the highway. The intersection was raised about thirty feet over the surrounding fields, giving him a good view of miles of farmland as well as the roadway over the bridge and into town. Not a car was in sight.
However, as he craned his neck toward the bridge to see what the town of Miami was all about, he noticed movement in the field across the roadway. A farm access ramp ran down the side of the levee, allowing farmers to get their combines and plows into the fields. The slope of the gravel road allowed several trucks to hide down in the depression.
“Holy shit!” he whispered, his heart shredding his insides.
All three TKM trucks were there. Five men were out of their vehicles, huddled around what could have been a map. Planning their mission, exactly as he had done with his team.
One of the men caught sight of him—
Ezra already had his rifle out and aimed. He used his 4X scope to dial in on any blue shirt. They were less than fifty yards away. He couldn’t miss.
It’s me or them.
His first shot created a red blotch in a man’s side.
The next one went into the shoulder of a different guy.
The men didn’t have their weapons out, creating a multi-second dilemma for him. Was it wrong to shoot unarmed men, even if you knew they were out to kill you? Whatever the moral situation might have been, the element of surprise created a golden opportunity he wasn’t going to squander. He strode a few paces forward and took a knee, searching for his next target. His heart slammed against his ribs, giving him instant tunnel vision, and leaving him a little dizzy.
The two mercenaries he’d struck fell where they were. One of the men ran away from the trucks, for reasons he would never understand. Ezra lined him up and squeezed out four missed shots before scoring hits with bullets five and six.
He’d counted through fifteen shots.
A man by the trucks had finally retrieved his rifle and returned fire, which woke Ezra from his bloodlust.
“Oh, damn!” He skittered in reverse toward the backside of the levee, realizing he was on top of the blacktop road, presenting a huge silhouette against the blue sky.
He fired three more rounds at the lone shooter as he retreated across the roadway. At the last second, not hearing return shots, he paused, lined the man in his scope, and saw him stick his head up from behind the hood of his truck. Ezra pulled the trigger. When he still didn’t hear incoming rounds, he looked through his glass again. Ezra wanted to retch.
The man stumbled and fell sideways, next to his vehicle. He’d lost half of his face.
An engine started up. The first truck in the line moved forward. Ezra was still out in the open. Behind him a farm field of immature corn gave him no place to run. He couldn’t run on the levee, nor could he run up the bridge toward Butch. The span was half a mile long. In the far recesses of his mind, he realized their attack plan was always destined to fail. Neither he nor Butch would see or hear the other from opposite ends of the long bridge.
The blue truck came out of the dip, tires slinging gravel rocks into the wheel wells. It neared the highway, leading Ezra to figure out his only course of action.
Fighting the fear in his shaking hands, he raised the rifle and aimed on the round shape behind the steering wheel. His first shot was low. It cracked off the front grille of the truck.
The man’s handlebar mustache came into focus. The driver pointed at him and laughed, as if he was going to run him over. Ezra figured he had time for two shots, then he’d have to try jumping to either side. His first went into the glass close to his target, forcing the wild-eyed man lower in his seat.
“Damn!”
Though there was little of the man exposed, round number twenty-one went through the glass low on the windshield, exactly where he wanted. To be sure, he put one more wild shot on target, then flung himself sideways, losing his rifle in
