There was no way I would be able to get to my weapon before he got off a shot. In that slow-motion moment before he fired, I scanned wildly for someplace to go, to get out of the way. But there was only the dirt ledge of the bank on one side, and the slick footing of the muddy streambed on the other. I had inadvertently trapped myself. I dropped back to the ground, intent upon getting out of the path of the bullet that had to be coming.
Finally, he fired. Three shots, deafening at such intimate range, and for the next second or two, I waited to feel the agony of a bullet ripping through me. When it didn’t happen, I realized he had somehow missed, and I gathered my legs beneath me and launched myself at him. Diving to the ground in front of him, I tucked and rolled, lashing out with my feet as I spiraled out of it. One foot behind his ankle, the other on his knee, and he dropped to the ground in a heap. I rolled to my feet, relinquishing the hold, and stood on his knee for a second as I leapt for the pistol that had gone flying from his grip. I expected to have to fight him for the gun; the leg-lock I’d used might hurt a bit, but it was far from debilitating. Surprisingly, I got the handgun and spun to face him again without resistance. He just lay there with his hands above his head as I pointed the pistol.
“It’s me, Sensei!” a familiar voice screamed, terrified. “Don’t shoot!”
“Leeland!” Ken’s voice came from behind me.
It was all happening too quickly, and I stood confused for a moment, panting and trying to sort everything out. Eyes wide and frightened, Billy lay on the ground before me. I was stunned, disbelieving. But as I looked closer, there was no doubt. By the faint moonlight, I could just make out his features, even the mud-coated tattoo on his forehead.
“He was going to shoot you,” Billy babbled. “I didn’t have time to warn you! I’m sorry, but I followed you, and… I had to show you I wasn’t like them. I had to show you! I just wanted to help!”
“Leeland!!” Splashing, running footsteps came up from behind as my mind began to comprehend what the boy was telling me; I whirled around to look. The last soldier lay dead in the mud. It hadn’t been Ken I’d heard coming from downstream. Ken was just now rounding the last bend, rifle at the ready, trying to make sense of the scene before him.
“Lee? What’s going on?”
I dropped my aim wearily. “It’s okay.” They were the right words for both Ken and Billy. “Everything’s okay.”
Ken went back up the ravine to regroup our people, while Billy explained how he had followed us to the tree line-I recalled the noises in the trees on the way out-and had seen Ken and me running to the ravine. It had taken him some time, but he’d finally made it to the gully to follow us. The sounds of our battle had kept him cautious, and he repeatedly poked his head above the top, much as Ken and I had, to keep track of what was happening. By the time he got close enough, only two soldiers remained. One of them spotted Billy and started to shoot, but I cut him down before he could fire. Billy had watched as I ducked, and the last soldier scuttled to the edge of the ravine and dropped into it downstream from my position. He realized the danger that Ken and I were in and raced desperately to help, arriving barely in time.
Billy and I searched the soldiers and had an interesting assortment of equipment piled up when Ken returned with the rest of our people. Automatic weapons, ammunition, radios, and several of the strange-looking night goggles. Ken immediately began issuing orders. “Doug, weren’t you a mechanic?”
The man turned. “Yeah.”
“Check out those Humvees. See if any of them are still drivable.” As Doug jogged over to the jeeps, Ken addressed the rest of us. “I want two people per body. Search them for anything we can use. Take two minutes only. We don’t know whether or not they got word to anyone else, so assume the worst.”
When they appeared to hesitate, Ken yelled, “Go!”
Ken didn’t know that Billy and I had already searched the bodies, so I got his attention and waved him over. We showed him the small pile of gear we had gotten, and he examined the night goggles with interest.
“Generation threes,” he declared. “These weren’t around when I was in the service, but I’ve read about them.” He slipped them on, feeling along the right side and muttering, “Should be a switch. There!” He turned and looked around. “Whoa!” Reaching up, he tripped the switch again. “Very nice! Both lowlight amplification and infrared.”
He flipped the switch and removed the goggles. “How many did we get?”
“Looks like ten,” I told him. “We lost a couple to head shots.” My stomach threatened to rebel again at the thought of one particular body, the head above the eyebrows missing as he lay facedown in the brush. That particular sight had caused me to heave the contents of my stomach into the bushes nearby. “We also got three more of the walkie-talkies.”
Ken handed the goggles back to me. “Good, two goggles per group. Pass out the radios, too.” He checked to see what frequency they were set on. “Change the radio settings. Set them all on thirty-seven. That gives us four radios. My group will do without a radio, the rest of you take one per group. Keep each other informed of your progress. If you run into trouble, pull back and yell for help. We can’t afford to lose any more people.”
Everyone nodded. The latest skirmish and the resulting deaths had brought home just how vulnerable we were.
Doug the Mechanic trotted over to Ken. “Two of the Humvees are shot up from hell to breakfast, too damaged to use. The last one has two flat tires and a lot of holes in the chassis, but the engine turns over and seems to run all right with no fluid leaks I can see. I got some people getting tires from the others, and it’ll be ready to go in a minute.”
“Okay.” Ken turned to the rest of the group. His expression somber, he addressed us. We were his to command. We knew it and, finally, he seemed to know it as well. “All right, folks. We lost some people… some good people. But we got some good equipment, transportation,” he paused as he glanced at Billy. “And it looks like we gained us a good man, too.”
Billy looked surprised at the compliment and grinned shyly.
“Let’s get into town and get our supplies,” Ken finished.
As luck would have it, all three of our casualties were from group two, so Ken assigned Billy and me to them in order to help balance the numbers. Then he and his group took the Humvee and headed for the fabric store. They would be the first into town, and I figured that could go either way. It might be that they would be able to get in and out before any of Larry’s boys knew anything was up. If they were spotted, though, they would be the first to be attacked. They would also be far enough ahead of the rest of us that our chances of helping them would be remote, at best.
My new target was the Rejas High School football stadium. I glanced at the faces of my new companions. Sarah Graham, Rene Herrera, Billy Worecski, and a man who had the unlikely name of Gene McQueen. Gene was the only one I didn’t already know.
“Who knows the quickest way to the stadium?” I asked.
“Denley Avenue to the warehouse district,” Sarah piped up, “skip east three blocks to Stadium Drive. That’ll put us right in front of the gate.”
I handed her one of our group’s two sets of PVS-7s, showed her how they worked, and waved her to the point position. “Lead us in.”