Michael Bunker - WICK

Peter spotted a place where there was at least a football field’s distance between campfires, and he pointed out quietly to Lang and Natasha that there were no campfires burning in the woods in the distance across the wide expanse of roadway and greenbelt. “This is where we cross,” he said, as they looked down on the stygian scene.

The plan was to sprint the distance in irregular intervals so that they would not all get caught out in the open at the same time. Looking out across the distance, they determined the shortest route and marked a reference point to run towards, and they decided that Peter would go first. He would carry both his own bag and Natasha’s. “If something happens to me, God forbid, if I stumble or fall, I’ll throw the bags as far from my body toward the opposite side as I can, and you must try to gather them in on a sprint as you make your own way across.” Lang thought of stories that Volkhov had told him of the storming of the beaches at Normandy. The soldiers, when taking heavy fire from the enemy, had tossed their guns up the beach so that, if the worst happened, the soldiers who actually made it farther up the sand would have more firepower ahead of them in their fight.

“Don’t look back, or to the side. Just put your head down and fly,” Peter said as he touched them each on the shoulder. With that, he gathered his breath in and turned to run.

Lang and Natasha watched his burly figure push out across the snow and then gather speed when he reached the road, keeping low to the ground. In a normal circumstance, Peter’s movements would have appeared clumsy and bulky as he sprinted like a bear across the clearing with the two bags heaving on his back. Perhaps from the perspective of anyone who might have seen him, he did appear to be a bear, but in any event, he made it safely across without even raising a protest from the distance, and he disappeared into the woods beyond. Lang was shocked. Maybe this is going to be easier than we thought , he tried to encourage himself.

Once on the other side, Peter made his way into the trees and found a safe place to stow the bags, and, returning to the tree line, he stood poised to watch the others cross, to be ready in case they needed help.

Natasha crossed next, and she did well enough, though one of the parties surrounding a campfire spotted her and a shout of “Hey! Over there!” rang out through the night. Peter was on alert to see if she was going to be chased or followed, but she wasn’t, so before long, panting and out of breath, she joined Peter in the trees on the south side of the highway.

There was a stirring in one of the camps, so Lang waited several more minutes. When no one came out searching, or ventured over near the wire where the two had crossed back into the woods, he decided it was safe to make his own venture across the Rubicon. He thought of old black and white films of East Germans sprinting for freedom before a shot would ring out, and their bodies would tumble headlong into the razor wire. That ought to keep me running , he thought, and he reached down with a stick and cleared the snow from the soles of his boots.

Lang made his start, and, almost from the beginning, Peter could see that the attempt was not going to go well. Lang tripped at the starting gate and fell, sprawling into the snow on the upwards low climb to the main highway, and Peter, from his vantage point, noticed that some men to his left, who had reacted to Natasha’s dash across the roadway, were gathering and pointing toward the shadow he made on the snow. They began to approach the area at the top of the incline where Lang was struggling to regain his footing. Peter watched as Lang regrouped and began his run in earnest.

The men broke into a jog toward him as he crested the low hill, and Peter saw that they had an angle on him, so that they would almost certainly cut him off before he could make it to safety. He watched as the men converged on Lang’s path and anticipated whether he would have to run to his aid.

Feinting to the left, Lang made it past the first defender, before a second man who made it into the middle distance between Lang and the trees cut him off. Angry shouts rang out and someone yelled, “Hey, give me that bag!”

Lang picked up his speed, finding traction now as the adrenaline rush made his body surge forward. Another of the assailants was sprinting toward him trying to stop him in his tracks, but Lang swerved and pivoted in the other direction. He had spent his life fleeing bullies, and now that lifetime of training kicked in. He maneuvered across the field at an angle, determined not to let these untrained hooligans do what the professional bullies he’d faced in Warwick could not.

Sprinting now at full-speed he almost casually and effortlessly detached his backpack’s waist band, and, grabbing the padded arm strap in a single fluid motion, he swung it’s full weight at his nearing attacker, juking to his right again simultaneously. The bag caught the man flush in the side of the head, and the bully tumbled to the ground, yelping in pain. This action caused a cacophonous cry of protest from the other men who were approaching from the rear, slow and lumbering, unable to get any traction in the ice and snow. Lang bent over, scooped up his bag, and ran toward the trees.

In the flickering night, he suddenly sensed a smooth air of calm as he warmed with the excitement and accomplishment of his escape. He noticed his shadow on the ground, running before him, as cast by the moon over his shoulder. He thought it beautiful and sublime, the motion of its lengthening stride, the way its feet met his own as it sprinted toward safety in front of him.

Just as suddenly as he had come to appreciate the pleasure of his own shadow—his own running—he came to question what became of it. In that expanded microsecond he heard a calamitous noise in the distance, and it sounded like an explosion over his shoulder, and he looked down at his shadow and saw the red splotches on its torso. He spun around in a jerking, involuntary motion like someone had run over him with a car, but he turned his head to watch his shadow until the last moment, and then he slammed to the ground whereupon the shadow disappeared.

Now, he was only Vasily Kashporov lying on the cold hard ground in the snow, with a bullet wound in his shoulder.

Lang knew that something had struck him but did not know what it was and he felt no pain. He had to get up, and as he did the thought crossed his mind that he was already free. He didn’t know at the time why that particular thought crossed his mind, but he did know that he was no longer helpless little Vasily, cowering from bullies. He was now a free man, and had tasted freedom, and he liked it. Solzhenitsyn said, “You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power—he’s free again.” Lang had suddenly come face to face with his death, and he determined that he would get up and run, and somehow this made him feel whole again. He liked being free, and he ran like the wind.

Almost instantaneously upon hearing the shot and seeing Lang tumble to the ground, Peter had vaulted out of the trees and, operating on adrenaline of his own, he was sprinting towards Lang like an Olympian with the 9mm pistol readied in his hand. The younger man had regained his feet and was rapidly continuing his progress. Peter met him and grabbed him firmly, hurrying him along, and the two friends made it back into the trees before the men in the distance could decide just what they’d seen.

The assailants stopped, tired and out of shape, and they did not follow their victim into the woods. If they had been asked what stopped their pursuit, they would have sworn up and down that they had just seen a bear run out of the woods to save a man.