D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

Albert jammed on the brakes and cut the wheel hard to the left. The truck skidded off the road, bounced over a curb and crashed through a hurricane fence. The corner of the building momentarily blocked them from the line of fire. Seth turned around to tell the panicking Carriers to shut the hell up. The Latino carrier was slumped against the door. The right side of his head was gone. Blood spurted out of the gory wound.

Seth stared at him briefly before he leaned over the seat and opened the door. The body tumbled out of the truck and disappeared outside.

“If you want to live,” he said in an eerily calm voice. “You’ll all shut up so we can get us out of here.”

Horrified faces stared back at him – now speechless.

He turned back around and looked out the window. They were rapidly approaching the runways. Cars were closing in on them from the right and behind.

“Open it up, Albert. This thing’ll go faster.”

Albert pressed the accelerator to the floor. The truck sped forward. The speedometer passed one hundred miles an hour.

Seth pointed the double-odd buck-filled shotgun out the window at the closest pursuer and fired. The car swerved. The passenger leaned out his window and returned Seth’s fire. Seth shot again. This time he hit the driver’s side front tire sending the car into a wild skid. The man who had been shooting at him hung on for his life as the vehicle careened out of control. It zigzagged wildly before flipping up and rolling, crushing the man who was half out of the window – reducing him to a vile skid mark on the side of the tumbling car that rolled half a dozen more times before coming to a stop.

“Everybody get down!” Seth yelled at the Carriers who eagerly fell to the floor.

He fired several more shots out the passenger window, and blasted a few out the rear window at the two cars behind. The pursuers slowed slightly as he shot at them and then they split up. One went to the left and the other to the right. They raced down the runway at one-hundred-twenty miles an hour. The engine roared under the hood.

“Go that way!” Seth said. “We’ll try to get out through the back of the airport.”

Albert nursed the Suburban in that direction.

“How did they know?” Seth said. “It had to be Foster.”

It didn’t make sense though. How would Chris have known about the trip to the airport today? Someone else had turned traitor – someone who knew all of their plans, certainly not Jerry or Mark. He looked at Albert remembering the hesitation as they pulled up to the curb back at the terminal.

“You son of a bitch,” Seth said.

“What?” Albert exclaimed as he tore his gaze from the runway.

“It was you, wasn’t it? You gave us up. You Judas son of a bitch!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

The end of the airport was rapidly approaching, and Seth could see the highway he hoped to get to down a hill on the other side of the runway.

From the backseat one of the Carriers yelled, “Look out!”

“Jesus Christ,” Seth cried. “Watch out for that plane!”

A small plane was landing on another runway that intersected theirs up ahead.

Albert saw the plane and panicked. He cut the wheel to the right too hard for the truck’s suspension. Too late. The landing gear of the small plane clipped the roof of the Suburban, tearing a jagged hole into it as the pilot tried to avoid the speeding truck.

The plane slammed into the ground behind the truck. It flipped twice, losing its wings before one of the pursuing vehicles slammed into it. The plane and car became one as they skidded down the runway.

Albert tried to control the Suburban. The three-ton vehicle had too much speed. Wind howled through the jagged gash in the roof as slowly it tilted up on two wheels, drove on at an ever-increasing angle, and then rolled over.

The sounds of horrified screams, shattering glass and crushing metal filled the van. It tumbled down the steep hill to the highway and burst into flames as it came to rest in a gulley.

The cars that contained Arthur and his men skidded to a stop above the chaotic scene on the highway, and the men ran down the embankment. They stood helpless. All they could do was watch as the Suburban and its occupants were consumed by the fire.

“Jesus Christ,” Arthur muttered as he watched the fire. He needed them alive. “Stay here. Seal the area.”

With that, he climbed the hill and got back to his car. He passed the men in full containment gear who were retrieving the body of the person who had fallen out of the Suburban. They sprayed a chemical on the bloodstains on the pavement.

He wasn’t sure which or how many of his men had been killed, but he didn’t have time to worry about them now.

Chris watched Sarah stand and stare out the large window for the third time in ten minutes. He studied her reflection in the glass as she tugged on her earlobe and made a soft clicking sound with her tongue. The way the bright mid-afternoon sun was hitting her grey eyes made her reflection appear to have empty voids in her eye sockets giving her the appearance of B-movie soulless apparition.

“They should have been back by now,” Sarah said.

“Maybe they ran into traffic or something,” Mike offered.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she said.

Jerry had a laptop setup and was watching a local news feed. The big news was a multi-car accident on some highway. A news copter was circling the scene sending back live shots – classic accident coverage. Chris sat up. The burned-out hulk of a Suburban was lying upside down in the ditch, still smoldering from the fire.

“Look at this,” he said. The others turned just in time to see an aerial shot that had zoomed in on the burnt-out Suburban pan out to show the airport and the wrecked plane and car on the runway above. The recognizable dark blue jackets stenciled with FBI in large yellow letters across the backs dotted the scene.

They stared in silent disbelief. The burned out van had to be the one Seth had taken to the airport. Sarah dropped down into a chair and stared blankly at the television.

Chris replayed his conversation with Arthur Kent. They hadn’t actually discussed what would happen at the airport and Chris had assumed that they would take the Carriers into custody but it would appear that they were cleaning up this situation in the most complete way possible. A fiery accident would certainly ensure that Gen96 hadn’t escaped, wouldn’t it? Actually, if he were in Arthur’s shoes what would he do?

Chris couldn’t help but feel that this whole thing was going sideways. He hadn’t anticipated leaving the other house. The feds were undoubtedly already there, assuming they could figure out where the old McGuire place was or if they had been able to hone in on his cell phone signal. He needed them here. Damn it!

Tears ran down Camilla’s cheeks, her full lips quivered before she blurted, “Albert, Jesus Christ. I talked him into this whole thing. Now he’s dead. Dead!”

Sarah was silent. She didn’t move to Camilla, didn’t offer comfort as the beautiful starlet collapsed against the wall and sobbed. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” she wailed.

Mike finally went to her. “Well, that answers that question,” he said to Sarah as he stroked Camilla’s trembling back.

“What question?” Sarah asked.

“Whether or not they know where we are,” he replied. “That was no accident. The FBI didn’t just happen to be there – no way. They were assassinated. The FBI probably ambushed them.”

“So what are we going to do?” Chris asked.

“Who are you to say we?” Jerry asked, flipping the laptop shut and stepping toward Chris. “For all I know, you’re the reason they’re dead.” Jerry was also on the verge of tears as well, trembling.