The Attack of the Kisgar Page 5

  Thomas watched both the backseat in the rearview mirror and the road ahead. He saw Mochni’s nostrils flare, and motioned a warning for Mochni to calm himself.

  “Now, once we find a place to camp, Abby’ll be our driver and handle the car while we’re away. Guess you could say she’s our getaway driver. And if you’re worried, you shouldn’t be. She drives like Shirley Muldowney!” Alexia and Pediah laughed, as Mochni and Robbie exchanged glances. “Who?”

  “Never mind. The point is, she’s the woman for the job. Now, with Abby at the wheel, Alexia will provide aerial support with her drones. Much the same way as the last time we infiltrated their camp.

  “Now, down to brass tacks. It’s important to note that though the airfield is seemingly abandoned, we don’t know what’s inside the hangar. I can imagine trucks and weapons, but for all I know there’s a twin-engine jet in there, too. Either way, it’s important to get inside quickly, find Ramon, grab him, and run.”

  “You sure make it sound easy, but does anyone else remember Ramon? He’s a Brazilian mercenary, trained to kill on instinct,” commented Pediah as he remembered the consequences of Howard’s bravado so many months before.

  “What can possibly go wrong?” Robbie snarked.

  “Robbie!” snapped Abby.

  “What? It’s true. Sounding easy and being easy are not the same.”

  “We know that, but Pediah also brings up a good point. The man we’re hoping to capture is a trained killer and not exactly the cowardly type.”

  “Abby and Pediah are right,” Alexia confirmed. “Not only is Ramon likely armed, but his men are too. It’s safest for us to go under cover of night. A surprise assault, if you will. The only problem…”

  “Is sneaking past their night patrols,” finished Pediah.

  “I’d rather guns be spread out than being concentrated in a small area,” muttered Robbie. “Seems to me it’s safer, don’t you think?”

  “On the other hand, they are hiding out in a hangar on an abandoned airfield,” Thomas pointed out. “It’s more than likely there’s a plane inside. I doubt they’ll fire. They wouldn’t risk damaging it or hitting the fuel tank and blowing the whole place to hell.”

  “Are we there yet?” Mochni had trouble understanding them when they spoke together. Their voices became a blur and it made his head hurt. He was ready to get to camp and rest before their assault went into motion at nightfall.

  “Not yet, Mochni. But I suspect we’ll be there soon enough. Time for a bite to eat and a chance to rest,” Abby assured him. Mochni nodded, wishing he could stretch his long legs in the truck as it bounced over terrain that was now cracked from the Kisgar movement below them.

  Eleven

  The sun ducked behind the horizon, and the heat of the day began to dissipate. Thomas rolled down the truck’s window, happy to let in the chillier desert night air, as he aimed the vehicle toward a cave he’d spotted. He parked out of sight of any prying eyes, rolled the windows back up, and reached for his jacket, shaking his head that he even needed a jacket in the desert.

  The others had already bundled themselves into warmer clothing; jackets, scarves, and hats. Only Mochni seemed comfortable and at ease in the shocking reversal of the desert’s weather patterns. His thicker skin and heartier bones beneath provided a foundation.

  Alexia reached into the messenger bag at her feet and pulled out a duplicate of her own laptop. She spun the screen from the keyboard and pulled it free, handing it to Pediah. “I’ve customized the software on here to make it easier to use.” She pointed to the image which appeared on the screen and traced her finger down blackish rivulets. “It offers a limited view of the terrain and can help you guide the others to cover as we maneuver toward the airstrip…just there.” She tapped a finger a few inches away and waved her hand in a northwesterly direction.

  As Pediah studied the square bit of plastic in his hand and tried to make sense of it, Alexia reached back into her bag and pulled out her own laptop and a couple of drones small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. With a few quick key strokes, she logged into her laptop and launched the drones.

  “Thanks. Can you give me a quick crash course on this thing so I don’t mess anything up?” Pediah looked sidelong at Alexia and added, “You’re the techie. I’m not.”

  “Sure.” Alexia reached over and took back the screen. “Watch my hands. This is a touch screen. So, all you have to do is lightly put your finger where you want to go, then press down with another finger and draw a line. Kind of like drawing a line on a paper map when you want to plot your course,” she explained as she returned the tablet back to him.

  “Got it, thanks.” With his other hand, Pediah began gathering his pack and tools, then exited the vehicle. Alexia followed behind him. The others stood in a cluster a short distance away. As they drew closer, Alexia could see Abby pull Robbie into a hug and whisper something in his ear. When he pulled back, his mouth was tight.

  “I will,” he answered solemnly, a hint of sadness in his eyes.

  All eyes turned toward Abby. She’d be the only one on her own since, as she was their getaway driver. “All of you be careful,” she said looking at each person in turn. Her eyes rested on Thomas and Alexia, as the younger woman turned to look at Thomas.

  “Thomas, I…” Alexia whispered.

  “I know.” He smiled a lopsided smile, and looked toward their destination.

  Pediah, the last to leave, put a reassuring hand on Abby’s shoulder. “All for one and one for all, Abby. We’ll be careful.” He paused as Abby laid her tiny hand over his huge one and patted it. “You be careful, too. We have no idea if he’s got any patrols outside the airstrip. Just…be on your guard.”

  “I will.”

  He reached into his backpack, pulled out the tablet, and raced to catch up with the others. His long legs carried him swiftly across the short distance. Once he was in front with Thomas, he held the tablet up and pointed to indicate their direction.

  Twelve

  Thomas Knight and his team were silent as they made their way toward the airbase. At some point, Thomas had stepped back, leaving Mochni and Pediah to lead the team to their destination.

  As Alexia had predicted, the night was thick with patrols. Men with night vision goggles and automatic weapons at the ready walked confidently around the perimeter to catch any glimpse of movement. Craned necks and subversive glances gave truth to their military training. The Knight team drew shallow breaths as they approached.

  The dark picture on the tablet against the night sky made it look as though Pediah held only a frame to guide them. Their true light was Mochni, whose eyes, used to the darkness of the world below, helped them move through the night and toward their destination easily. As Pediah watched through the tablet following the location dot, he could see the heat signatures of the troops transmitted from the drones.

  Their movements became something like a dance. The soldiers would move forward to scout the area, and each time, they’d venture a little farther from the base. The team dodged and ducked. Dunes and rocks were their only bastions of hope against the patrolling guards.

  A rumbling beneath their feet grew to crescendo. The tremors shook the earth, and someone cried out. A patrol ventured toward their hiding place. “What’s he doing walking into this?” Robbie mumbled to himself, shaking his head at the fool.

  The soldier ventured only as far as the dune from which they’d just come and stood for a moment, listening. Though he looked in their direction, he gave the area no more than a passing glance and turned back toward the airbase. He shrugged at his crew as he muttered, “Must have been an animal or something scared by the tremors.”

  Another patrol deployed from their station and began their usual rounds. Something about the tremors had given them a confidence and a brashness to venture farther than before. They were unknowingly heading directly for Thomas Knight and his team.

  A slight crackle in their ears and Alexia’s voice whispered
loudly, “There’s a patrol heading right for you.” Her voice was tense and low as if she were afraid someone was listening in.

  Everyone froze and pressed their backs harder against the rock as if it could absorb them. Robbie and Mochni leaned forward, their eyes wide. “What are we going to do?” they asked Thomas, who, swinging his head back from around the rock, was gauging the distance between them, the patrol, and the airbase.

  Thomas didn’t answer. He knew there was no turning back now and any mistakes on their part could be disastrous. With a sigh, he knew they’d have to go ahead with their plan. Ready or not. Here we come!

  A quick glance over his shoulder at his team revealed the concern in everyone’s eyes. He shrugged, then motioned their signal to advance. “It’s time,” he mouthed.

  Collectively, they drew a deep breath, then a quick bob of their heads and they were in place for the assault. Thomas raised a finger to his lips for everyone to be quiet and whispered, “Don’t second guess yourself. Be quick and decisive. Anything else and we’re cooked. Ya got me?”

  Pediah tapped his earpiece twice and Alexia’s voice came through their radios. “The second drone’s ready, as the first one’s low on power. My tablet is matched to Pediah’s. Coordination complete.” They could hear her tapping her screen and the dot on Pediah’s screen began to move.

  Thirteen

  Thomas Knight and his team skirted the airbase perimeter. Though they could see only a few of Ramon’s men on patrol, they inched closer and scouted for cover along its outer edges. They’d need the element of surprise for their plan to work. A lone soldier on patrol walked toward them, his footsteps heavy on the concrete. He was getting closer. As he raised his hand to begin the countdown, Thomas caught sight of Mochni through the corner of his eye. The Woidnuk looked like a coiled cobra ready to spring.

  No, Mochni. He willed the giant youth to look his way, but Mochni’s focus was intent on the men just the other side of the steel wire fencing. He was glad they were hidden partially around a natural bend in the road behind a small dune on the northwest corner of the airbase. Thomas began his countdown….3, 2, and as he reached 1, Mochni uncoiled and sprang over the fence into the airfield. He’d broken rank. The element of surprise had been snatched from their grasp by an ancient giant youth out for blood.

  “Mochni! Get back here. What the…?” Thomas reached for him, but Mochni was too fast. He had already covered ten yards by the time the others had scaled the fence and dropped down the other side.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Robbie shook his head as he followed. There wasn’t much time to think or reassess their plan as the chaos wrought by Mochni’s appearance wrought chaos.

  Has he forgotten the most important part of the mission? Thomas wondered idly.

  Mochni’s bulk and speed tore through the soldiers on the ground as he made his way to the hangar, the others hot on his heels. Though just ahead of them, Mochni had managed to do some damage with a few well-placed kicks, punches, and throw downs.

  “So, I guess this is Plan B?” Robbie had shouted as he and Thomas raced and fought their way across the field toward the hangar.

  “I guess so!” Thomas replied, as he landed a well-placed spinning back kick against a heavily padded soldier. “Except it wasn’t my plan.” Thomas body checked another soldier, slamming him into a concrete pylon.

  As the others joined them, the hangar doors flew open as men spilled out to escape the rabid youth. Just beyond, Thomas Knight and his team could see why.

  Several men, thrown like rag dolls across a playroom, were splayed against the walls. Their bodies were limp and broken. Others remembered their weapons and attempted to draw them in retaliation. But Mochni’s military training from his father Lt. Whipkey was keyed into his fury. He was a blur of scaly skin, blood red eyes, and near talons for fingers and toes. He had charged the hangar doors like a raging bull.

  Robbie brought his capoeira and Jiu Jitsu fighting to bear against another group of armed men. Thomas and Pediah acted as one unit fighting alongside each other as they followed Mochni.

  As he turned in a kick spin against his latest attacker, Thomas saw someone turn tail and run. “Not so fast!” He knocked his arm at the shoulder. In the fray he’d misjudged the distance. The soldier side-stepped his clothesline maneuver and ran toward a side door in the hangar. “Where do you think you’re going?” Thomas glanced at Pediah, then chased the cowardly man.

  Pediah nodded.

  “I’ve got this, Thomas. You go on.” He jutted his chin toward the door as he pulled his own attacker into a choke hold with the man’s own arm.

  Ramon had launched into action at the sight before him, just a few yards from the hangar doors. Barking orders, Ramon took a sly glance over his shoulder at his nearby plane, and calculated how much time he’d need to get to it and get it fired up. A low guttural sound emanated from his throat. He was loyal to no one except his men. He wouldn’t just leave them here. He spat commands into the radio at his shoulder, and the huge hangar doors were closing.

  The young soldier Thomas followed had made it inside just in time. Frustrated, Thomas had to give up the chase.

  Thomas watched as the drone hovered just inside the perimeter. He wondered if Alexia had seen the near catastrophic timing of Mochni’s vengeance. He ran a hand through his hair, which ruffled and stuck in the mixture of dust and sweat. They’d only fought a few small skirmishes in this battle, but he knew there was more to come and Ramon wouldn’t give up his secrets easily. If at all.

  He sighed as additional men called back from other quadrants came into view. As one, the raised and leveled their weapons at Thomas Knight and his team.

  “Why can’t anything go right these days?” he muttered.

  Fourteen

  “Well, that’s not good,” Robbie deadpanned, as he caught sight of the second wave of cavalry coming to assist their first wave of opposition. “What do we do now?” he asked no one in particular.

  “I’m no military strategist,” Pediah confided to the man he now held down with a foot and was pointing his own gun at him. “But I think we might want to retreat and regroup. What do you think, Mochni?” he added offhandedly, all the while laughing inside and repeating, I am a pacifist. Ha!

  “My family’s killers. We must…seize…the moment. This chance.” Sharp teeth, pink with blood and spittle were visible. Mochni wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot.

  “Your father gave his life, for YOU. Not so you would throw it away on revenge, but so you would be here to lead your people,” Thomas admonished. The soldiers didn’t stop coming, now being some twenty yards away and closing fast. As predicted, they were loath to shoot within the hangar. Hand-to-hand it is then, Thomas thought. But don’t forget about knives.

  Mochni hung his head. Thomas ran fingers through his beard to calm himself. Pediah and Robbie began to beat a retreat. Mochni snarled, and the burbling of a roar was cut off as they began to run.

  “Live to fight another day.” Mochni remembered a well-trodden line of his father’s. But as he looked back at the guards giving chase, it wasn’t them he was afraid of, he realized. It was his father’s expectations of him.

  Someone must have hit the ‘door open’ button, Thomas thought, as the giant doors began to move. Not a moment too soon. He and Mochni ran toward the relative safety of the night.

  Shouts and gunfire combined to form a cacophonous soundtrack to their flight. Darkness had become the best cover as the soldiers couldn’t identify who or what moved through the dunes and rocks. They couldn’t get a proper bead on Thomas and his team.

  Rocks and dust exploded in front of and behind them. It took Thomas a minute to make out the whir of small propellers, and realize it was drones causing the explosions.

  “What’s happening?” he asked into his radio.

  “Well…I may have made a few adjustments to the drones that I forgot to mention,” Alexia replied. “Let’s just say I had a feeling about tonight.
Call it a woman’s intuition. It’s keeping the enemy at bay and confusing the hell out of them. What’s your plan now?” He heard an edge of sarcasm in her voice, but there was something else, too.

  Was she worried about him? Them? Thomas shook the thought from his head as his eyes focused on who and what lay before him. He turned to Robbie. “This is going to be a really stupid idea,” he muttered just loudly enough for Robbie to hear. Robbie waved his hands frantically in front of him to say “no. Uh-uh.” Robbie shook his head vehemently. “Whatever crazy idea you’ve got I don’t want to be a part of it.”

  Alexia caught on quickly but couldn’t help getting in a jab. “But what a great video it would make!” she said in a feigned coquettish voice.

  “She’s dangerous, that one.” Robbie pointed to the radio in Thomas Knight’s hand. “Maybe we should have sent her in…something like a…Mata Hari!” Both men chortled at the thought.

  “You might be right. But that’s not my idea.” He punched the button on his radio. “Alexia. Have Abby drive up to our position and tell her to get ready to slide over when she stops. I’m taking the wheel.”

  As Thomas had been speaking, Abby heard the play over her own commlink and was on her way before he’d finished. A cloud of dust surrounded the car like a dust devil. There was a spray of stones and sand as she slammed on the brakes. Abby flung open the door and slid over. “Get in, folks!”

  No one needed to be told twice. Their run-in with the guards had had some unexpected consequences. In the few minutes it took Abby to reach them, the guards had gotten a burst of energy and fought with renewed strength. The desperation of both sides showed in their fighting. But by now, Mochni was tired and the guards got a few good shots in, bringing Mochni back to down to earth from his blood rage.