David Robbins - Liberty Run

“Sounds to me like you Packrats are playin’ into the Soviets’ hands,” Bertha mentioned.

“There’s nothing I can do about it,” Cole stated. “It’s been this way since before I came here.”

“How long have you been here?” Bertha asked.

“Three years,” Cole answered. “I wandered into Valley Forge after splitting from Phoenixville.”

“How’d you hook up with the Claws?” Bertha probed.

“They were the first Packrats to find me,” Cole said. “That’s the way it usually works. Strays are taken in by the first group they come across.”

Bertha shook her head. “I’m telling you! You bozos would do a lot better if you got organized. I used to belong to a gang in the Twin Cities, and I know what I’m talkin’ about.”

“You were in a gang?” Libby asked.

“Shhhhh!” Cole abruptly hissed.

Bertha glanced at the windows. Daylight was still an hour or two away, and the forest outside was shrouded in inky gloom.

“What is it?” Libby queried nervously.

Cole turned in his wooden chair and stared at the closed door. “I don’t know. I thought I heard something.”

“Could one of the other gangs, like the Bobcats, be sneakin’ up on you?” Bertha inquired.

Libby shook her head. “No one goes out in the woods at night. It’s too dangerous. The Packrats always hole up after dark.”

“What about the Hunters?” Bertha remarked.

“Sometimes they come after us at night,” Libby revealed. “But not often.”

“Shhhh!” Cole shushed them. He stood and walked to the left window, cautiously standing to the right of the glass and peering out.

“Anything?” Libby asked in a whisper.

“No,” Cole whispered back.

“I’ll go have a look,” Bertha proposed, rising. Her M-16 was propped against her chair. She grabbed it and moved to the doorway.

“If anyone’s going out there, it’ll be me,” Cole said.

“I can take care of myself,” Bertha informed him, her left hand on the doorknob. “You stay put and watch your Packrats.”

“Bertha!” Libby said.

Bertha hesitated. “What?”

“Be careful!” Libby advised. “We can’t afford to lose you! Not now!”

“Nothin’ will happen to me,” Bertha assured her. She opened the door, stepped outside, then closed it.

A strong wind was blowing in from the west, rustling the leaves on the trees. Above the cabin stars were visible.

Bertha faced into the wind, enjoying the cool tingle on her skin. She was feeling fatigued, and was glad dawn was not far off. Cole, Libby, and the rest could go with her to the SEAL. She hoped Blade and Sundance were still there.

A twig snapped.

Bertha was instantly on guard, warily raising the M-16 and searching the woods for an intruder, human or otherwise. She advanced toward the trees, bypassing the re-covered pit near the front door. The light from the cabin windows provided a faint glow to the edge of the trees. Bertha reached the tree line and stopped, crouching.

The wind was whipping the limbs, creating a subdued clatter, mixed with the creaking of branches and the swishing of leaves.

Bertha strained her senses.

An audible scraping arose from the forest directly ahead.

Was it two limbs rubbing together? Bertha craned her neck and tilted her head, believing she could hear better.

Instead, she exposed her neck to the unseen lurker in the woods. A rope suddenly snaked out of the darkness, and a loop settled over her head and neck. Before she could react, Bertha was hauled from her feet and onto her stomach, the loop tightening about her neck, forming a noose, even as whoever was on the other end of the rope gave it a tremendous tug.

Bertha landed with the M-16 underneath her abdomen. She rolled, expecting her assailant to charge, but her attacker had another idea. The rope was yanked taut, and it felt like her head was being wrenched from her neck. Her breath was cut off, and she gagged as she struggled to her knees and released the M-16, clutching at the noose, her fingers urgently striving to pry the rope loose.

A burly man burst from cover, a 15-inch survival knife in his right hand, the rope in his left. He was dressed all in black, and his head was covered with a black mask. The knife extended, he rushed from behind a tree five yards away.

Damn! Bertha knew he had been waiting for her to drop the M-16! She let go of the rope and dived for the M-16, but her foe was already upon her.

The man in black launched his hefty body into a flying tackle, dropping the rope, and his left arm caught Bertha around the neck and drove her back, her desperate fingers inches from the M-16, and slammed her to the ground, onto her back, with him on top of her.

Bertha grunted and jerked her head to the right, and the survival knife plunged into the ground next to her left ear.

The man in black swept the knife up for another blow.

Bertha bucked and heaved, unbalancing her opponent, causing him to teeter to the right. She brought her right fist up and cuffed him on the cheek.

The man in black slashed at her face.

Bertha turned her face aside, but felt the keen edge of the survival knife slice open her right cheek.

The man stabbed at her right eye.

Bertha narrowly evaded the knife. Her left hand clutched his right wrist and held on fast.

He clamped his left hand on her throat.

Bertha was in dire straits. She was tiring, and tiring rapidly. She needed to do something, anything , to gain the advantage, or she was lost.

Her years of street fighting served her in good stead. She jabbed her right hand upward, burying her forefinger in her attacker’s left eye.

The man in black yelped, and his grip on her throat slackened.

Exerting her strength to its limits, Bertha surged her hips and stomach off the ground, tumbling the assassin over her head. She scrambled to her hands and knees, twisting to confront her foe.

He was superbly trained. Even as he landed on the dank earth, the man in black tumbled, coming out of the roll and straightening, whirling toward the woman in green.

The cabin door unexpectedly opened, spilling more light outside, bathing Bertha and the man with the survival knife.

The man in black spun, anticipating a threat from the cabin. For a fleeting moment, his back was to Bertha.

In a twinkling, Bertha struck. She shoved off from the ground, bringing her right foot up and around, executing one of the karate kicks taught to her by Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, the Family’s supreme martial artist. It was a basic roundhouse kick, a Mawashi-geri, and it connected with the man in black between his shoulder blades.

The man in the mask was knocked forward by Bertha’s kick. He tripped and toppled onto the makeshift latticework covering the pit. The limbs and reeds rent with a resounding crash, and the man in black sank into the pit.

Cole ran from the cabin, a lantern in his left hand, an AK-47 in his right. He halted at the pit rim.

Bertha saw the fury on Cole’s features, and she surmised his intent at one glance. “Cole! No!” she shouted.

To no avail.

“Here, bastard!” Cole barked, and squeezed the trigger.

Bertha froze in midstride. She looked down, unable to prevent the inevitable.

The man in black was just scrambling to his feet when the slugs plowed into his chest and flung him against the pit wall. His body twitched and thrashed as more and more rounds were poured into him. A linear pattern of crimson geysers erupted across his torso, then angled higher, stitching a red path from his chin to the top of his head. The firing ceased, and the man in the mask pitched onto his face.

Cole gazed at his handiwork, smirking.

“You didn’t have to do that!” Bertha exclaimed, panting.