Ever Hayes - Emergency Exit

“We come from Montana?” Eddie asked again. The guy’s erratic speech was pissing him off . “Yes.”

“Ah,” the man said, glancing up and down the line. “Okay.”

He turned around to walk away, directing the others to follow him. Eddie rolled his eyes. So much for plan A . The soldier was going to call them in and they’d be forced to go with them to talk to the other officers. Not only would that give the Americans an insurmountable lead, but Eddie and his men would potentially be in some pretty hot water. Eddie raised his pistol and shot two of them in the back of the head. Before the other two could get their guns up, his men took them out. He couldn’t leave them there, so he shouted, “Throw them in a truck. Let’s go!”

His men loaded the four bodies in the back of one of the trucks. Another two of his guys hopped in the other jeep. They were no more than ten miles down the road when the radio on the new jeep crackled, and a voice spoke, “Why is your truck not on radar? Where you go?” The two men in the jeep looked at each other but didn’t respond. They had been instructed to disregard all communication. “Hello! I ask. Why is your truck not on the radar?” Again they shared a look but kept going.

On the other end of the radio, back at the reservoir, the officers were gathered around, trying to get a response from the jeep they’d connected with earlier. One of the officers had watched as they’d driven off the radar grid, even after being told to ignore the passing vehicles. He had let it go at the time, curious about what they’d report back.

But now it had been almost half an hour since the jeep had disappeared, and the lack of response was even more troubling. They radioed another jeep in town and asked if they’d seen anything unusual on their radar. One of the men had noticed a jeep leaving town towards a long line of fourteen dots. He communicated he’d seen the one dot stop, and all but one of the other dots do the same. Then after a few minutes all the dots moved on together.

The senior ranking officer there was a major, and he called the nearest base with a drone in Rapid City. He reported his concerns about a potential American caravan passing through towards Wyoming and that he’d lost contact with some of his men who had intercepted it.

The base commander told him the drones were unfortunately down in Denver for the night. However, he did have two Blackhawk helicopters he could send. The major asked him to send two squads of men out in the Blackhawks southwest of Custer towards Cheyenne, Wyoming and told him to be on the lookout for approximately fifteen vehicles traveling in a group. The base commander asked what he should do if they found them, and he was told to stop them. If they fought back, kill them. The major told the base commander he was on his way with another ninety troops, and he would meet the helicopters wherever they found and stopped the caravan. The base commander agreed, and the helicopters were sent out with two pilots and twenty-four soldiers.

When the driver at the tail end of the caravan spotted the low-flying lights closing in on them, he radioed the captain. They had just turned south onto Highway 85, and Eddie could see the lights approaching out his window as well. Those aren’t drones at night . As they flew overhead and circled, Eddie recognized them as helicopters, American helicopters even. He watched them set down about a mile ahead of them, and he ordered his men to a full stop. This wasn’t good .

The choppers lifted off the ground again and spread out, circling wide around them. Eddie could see a dozen small dots on the radar in front of them approaching their position. As the Blackhawks set down again behind him he watched a dozen more dots spread out from them. Then one helicopter passed overhead again, while the other elevated behind them, and a booming voice ordered him and his men to get out of their vehicles immediately. Definitely not American. If they failed to do so, they would be fired upon.

Eddie knew if he surrendered they were all dead. He didn’t see any way he could talk his way out of this one. He had too much explaining to do, and the people he was working for didn’t care enough to listen. The army had no use for deserters or troops with their own agenda, however valid it may be. Add in that he’d killed the four Qi Jia men back by Hot Springs and there was no other way out of this. Too late to turn back now, Eddie knew his next action would change everything for himself and his men. They were about to go from the hunters to the hunted, from the predators to the prey.

He ordered rockets to be fired at the helicopters. The split second the rockets were fired he wanted his troops out of the trucks. The rocket from the back jeep found its target on the helicopter behind them. That chopper countered with two rockets before it disintegrated into flames, one rocket taking out a truck still full of men, the other taking out a jeep of men. The rocket fired at the front chopper missed its mark, and that helicopter fired eight missiles off before another rocket took it down. The helicopter’s projectiles hit their mark, reducing six jeeps and another truck to scrap metal and flames, but taking much less of a toll on the captain’s men. With two trucks and seven jeeps gone, that left Eddie and his remaining thirty-one men with a single truck and five jeeps.

The ensuing ground combat ended in Eddie’s favor, but cost him eleven more men. Before he died, one of the helicopter troopers was kind enough to tell Eddie a hundred troops were on their way from Hot Springs. Eddie thanked him. Then he shot him.

Eddie, Lazzo, and their last twenty men climbed into the remaining jeeps and raced off as a long trail of distant headlights appeared behind them. It was forty-five miles to Lusk, Wyoming, then another 150 miles to Cheyenne. He had heard over the stolen radio two more Blackhawks were heading their way from Casper to meet up with the troops behind him. The Americans ahead of him were safe for now. He had to worry about his own men.

We had also seen the lights approaching in the sky behind us. The two big red dots had appeared on the radar screen and zoomed in on our location. We figured we were done for. Out here there was nowhere to hide, and it being the first time we’d seen any aircraft at night, we figured the dots were connected to either Eddie or the dots we’d seen in Hot Springs and were definitely coming for us. Danny ordered us all off the road as he and Cameron set themselves up to defend as best they could from the limited cover of a roadside railroad trestle. Then we saw the hovering lights turn back and head the other direction. A few minutes later, we heard a couple of giant explosions. What the heck? Who were they attacking? Were these American helicopters? Were they attacking Eddie and his men? If they were Americans, where did they come from? Did we still have a base somewhere nearby?

No matter who they were, they apparently weren’t here for us, and by the look of things the helicopters hadn’t fared so well in the attack. We never saw them again. Even if they were Americans, it looked like they’d lost. But they had succeeded in buying us a little more time. That was all Danny needed to urge us on. We raced to, and through, Lusk. Figuring whoever was following us would take the interstate, Danny decided to go the slightly longer way down 85.

As we didn’t see anyone on radar or in the sky for the next two hours, Danny was confident he’d wagered correctly. Now, as we approached Cheyenne, Danny didn’t know what he should do. Thus far, we’d dodged every main city, particularly those with large airports or military bases. It made sense to do the same here. He led us in an eastern loop around Cheyenne and, just as we were about to head south on 85, the skies over Cheyenne filled with explosions.