“You did?” I ask. She merely points to the big green sign by the side of the road which says, ‘Tacoma Narrows Airport, 1? mile’.
“Yeah, I guess that would be a clue,” I say chuckling.
“Do you want me to come up with you on the second bridge?” She asks.
“Nah. Just hang back here and I’ll radio if it’s clear,” I reply.
She nods and rolls up her window. I walk back to my Humvee still rubbing my arms and looking at the gray clouds overhead. They aren’t moving and it seems as if the world is holding its breath. As I climb back in, I hear the radio crackle with Lynn radioing the others.
“We’re going to the top of the bridge and scope out the other side,” I tell the others with me as I pull into the lanes of the bridge on the right.
“Hooah, sir,” Gonzalez says beside me.
“Damn, do you just wait for the opportunity to say that?” I ask, looking over at her. She is staring straight ahead but I see the corners of her mouth crawl up in a smile.
“My day wouldn’t be complete without saying it to you at least once, sir,” she says. “I like to watch you roll your eyes.”
I hear Robert chuckle in the back seat. We pull onto the bridge and begin driving up the curved arch. The waters below are like the roads we’ve encountered — empty. This part of the waterway was always filled with white streaks of boats heading across the waves. Now, it’s almost glass smooth with the occasional ripple.
We climb higher and just crest the topmost part of the bridge. Crack! A spider web of fractured glass appears on the windshield just on my side of the middle post. In my peripheral, I see Gonzalez’s startled response as she ducks. My heart jumps and I crouch as well slamming on the brakes.
“Fuck! Is everyone around hostile?” I say, throwing the Humvee in reverse.
Adrenaline floods my system as I step on the accelerator and reverse quickly back down the slope of the bridge. My mind makes out that I saw a flash of light at the far end of the bridge just before the impact of the bullet on our windshield. I bring the Humvee to a stop when we are no longer visible over the top of the bridge.
“Everyone okay?” I ask quickly.
“Except for needing a new set of fatigues, I’m just fine, sir,” Gonzalez replies.
“I’m good here,” Robert says. “But I’ll second the needing new fatigues.”
“Good here, sir,” I hear McCafferty, manning the M-240, shout from the open hatch.
“Okay, good, wait here,” I say, grabbing a pair of binoculars, open the door, and step out onto the paved surface of the five-lane bridge.
There is a pedestrian walkway to the right side of the bridge and I run over to it making sure I am far below the line of sight from the far side of the bridge. I hop over the railing and slowly crouch up to a point just short of the top. Apparently seeing me back up hastily and run across the bridge, Lynn calls.
“Everything okay, Jack?” I hear her voice in my earpiece.
Hitting the push-to-talk, I answer, “Just peachy. Someone took a shot at us and I want to get eyes on the bastard.”
“Is there another way around?” She asks.
“Not unless you or anyone here knows how to drive a ferry,” I reply.
“African or European?” Lynn asks.
“Awww…. you do care. What about just rolling the Strykers up?”
“We may just do that. Standby,” I answer.
I lie down and crawl the rest of the way on the hard surface. The cold seeps through my sleeves and pant legs as I make my way to the crest. Ready to slide back down the crest in case someone sees me and wants to take a shot, I bring the binoculars up.
Down the curved arched roadway, on the far side of the bridge, I see a line of cars and trucks spanning across the lanes of both bridges. The magnified view brings everything into a sharp focus. Behind the cars blocking the lanes, I count twelve people lined up across the hoods, roofs, and trunks. All of them have rifles of some sort aimed toward where we appeared. Seven are aiming across the vehicles toward the bridge I am on and five have their weapons pointed up the span adjacent to me on the left.
I watch as several more cars enter the highway from a nearby ramp and park. Ten more people exit the vehicles, extract rifles and join the others behind the roadblock. I’m thinking they must have some form of communication and have a fortification somewhere near to be alive with the night runners about. How many more may be there is open to question. However, they’ve shown their intentions and I don’t mean to stick around and jabber with them.
“Lynn, run a scan on the UHF frequencies. Pay particular attention to the four-sixty megahertz range,” I say using my throat mic. “Let me know what you hear.”
“Wilco, standby,” I hear her response.
I’m thinking if they are communicating with radios, they’ll be using the FRS channels common to most two- way radios. I am about to put the binoculars down and inch back when I spot another pickup truck appear from farther up the highway. It comes to a stop behind the blockade. A man exits and walks to the front of the truck. One of the people at the cars sees him and trots over. There’s a lot of hand pointing toward our position and an obvious conversation is taking place. I zoom in closer on the two.
The one who trotted over, holding his rifle casually in one hand, appears to be doing the most talking with more hand gesturing. The driver of the truck shakes his head and, although I can’t tell clearly from this distance, appears to start yelling at the other one. His body language indicates he is not happy. I don’t think I would be either if one of my guys just plinked a round at a military vehicle from behind a flimsy roadblock. The driver pushes the other one toward the line of vehicles. Shaking his head again, he then stomps back to the truck. Swinging the door open, he reaches inside and brings something to his mouth.
“Jack, Lynn, over,” I hear.
“Yeah, I’m here, go ahead,” I respond.
“I just picked something up on four sixty-two dot seventy-one twenty-five,” she says.
“Well, someone named Sam talking to Roger and he didn’t sound too pleased. He told Roger to round up the troops and then get aloft to report what he sees because, and I quote, ‘Numbnuts here just fired on a military vehicle’,” Lynn answers.
“Okay, lock in that freq and monitor it,” I say.
“Will do,” Lynn responds.
Well, that’s enough for me. We don’t have time to play ‘let’s get to know one another’ as we have to get up to Bangor. I also don’t know what type of aircraft they have that they’re sending aloft. I’m guessing some single- engine civilian type but I really don’t want to find out they have an A-10 stashed away or some World War Two fighter that’s armed. I’ll give the communication with them one shot but I’m not dilly-dallying around. If they want to play games, we’ll roll through them and be on our merry way. I take another quick look around to see if they have mines or some IED’s on the ground. I don’t see any and inch backwards out of the line of sight, rise, and trot to the Humvee. Turning the vehicle around, I drive back to the end of the bridge and pull up next to Lynn. I gather the team leaders around detailing what waits for us over the rise of the bridge.
“So, what’s the plan?” Lynn asks, stomping one boot on the ground to shake out the chill.
“Well, let’s try this communication thing once and see if they won’t open the pearly gates for us. If we get ‘entrance denied’, then we’ll roll up and over them,” I answer. I reach in the Humvee and grab the mic.
“Sam, this is Captain Walker on channel seven,” I say. Silence.
“Sam, I know you can hear me and it’s in your best interest to respond,” I say, staring at the empty bridge ahead.
“This is Sam,” I finally hear his words crackle over the speaker in the cab.
“Would you like to explain why I have a broken windshield?” I ask.
“Sorry for firing on you, Captain. The boys are a little trigger happy,” Sam answers.
“Yeah, you might want to get a handle on that,” I say.
“Are you with the military?” He asks.
“Is that a serious question?” I ask in response. “And you shot without provocation.”
