Eric Walters - The Rule of Three

“There had to be people wounded in the battle,” I said.

“If they found anybody wounded, they just killed them,” Herb said. “Wounded are inconvenient. Depending on the wound it could have been merciful, although I suspect there is little mercy with the people who did this. It was all very cold-blooded. They didn’t even take their own dead with them. Judging from the uniforms, I’ve counted nine of their dead.”

“Subtract those from the bodies we’ve counted and that means that there should be more survivors. More people must still be hiding or escaped.”

“Or are dead in the burned-out buildings,” Herb said.

“Herb!”

We spun around. It was Brett, running toward us. “We found one of their men. He’s badly wounded, but he’s alive.”

“Take me to him so I can ask some questions.”

“He’s not going to be answering many questions. They left him for dead because he’s almost finished.”

“Then get him into a vehicle and back to the neighborhood. We have to save him.”

“After what these people have done we should be putting a bullet into his head,” Brett snapped.

“We need him to live. Get him back right away. We need information. We need to know about them, and more important, we need to know what they know about us.”

We lifted off straightaway. I felt a wave of relief wash over me as we gained height and put more distance between us and what had happened at Olde Burnham. I didn’t want to even think about it, but I couldn’t shut the images out of my mind. There were bodies and more bodies. The final count was close to two hundred, and of those there were almost two dozen who had obviously been executed. That same pattern, shot in the chest and the back of the head. I knew some of them, either by name or face. I couldn’t help but think about what it would be like to be standing there, hands up to surrender, and then realize that men with guns were going to kill me anyway.

Whoever these people were they were ruthless and uncaring. Human life didn’t mean anything to them.

In the end we had found thirty-five survivors, people who had been hiding in the rubble or in basements or had scrambled away and then come back. They were all being taken to our neighborhood. That left close to fifty people who were still unaccounted for. Had those people escaped, or were they still hiding? Or were they buried in the rubble?

I was flying the most direct route back, right along Burnham. Almost immediately I flew over our trucks and cars going back to the neighborhood, carrying the survivors.

Before I could say anything, Herb reached out and put a hand on my arm. I looked over.

“That doesn’t have to be our fate,” he said.

“Really?”

“There are times I haven’t said everything, but I’ve never lied to you or your mother. This is serious, deadly serious, but we have time. I just hope that man doesn’t die before I can get more information.”

“He deserves to die!” I exclaimed. “Even if he doesn’t die from his wounds, he should be killed, and I think I’d be willing to kill him myself!”

“No you wouldn’t,” Herb said. “And I wouldn’t let you, even if you could. Taking a life takes away part of your soul and—”

I let out a scream. Out of nowhere the Cessna had appeared, right beside us. I dove and banked as it raced past us and in that instant I saw the brilliant flashes of weapons fired toward us from the side window of the plane. I’d turned too quickly, the harness holding me in place as we slid sideways, and the g-forces were practically pulling me out of my seat. I had to think. I had to act quickly.

I pulled the stick up and gave the engine as much gas as I could to power it to counter the spiral and get us upward. I felt the plane buckling beneath me, could sense the wings straining against the body as if the force was going to rip them free, and then it stopped and we leveled off.

“There it is!” Herb said.

The Cessna was well ahead of us, but it was starting to bank. It was moving so much faster than I was that it needed more distance to come back around. I turned much more quickly, putting distance between us. But that wouldn’t last long. I strained my mind, trying to think what to do. My head was practically charged with electricity. I wanted to run away, to hide, to land, but none of those options were possible. I couldn’t go higher or faster or farther, and there was no place to hide in the brilliant blue sky.

“It’s made its turn,” Herb said, looking backward. “It’s coming back toward us.”

I tried to look over my shoulder but couldn’t see it.

“Which side?” I asked.

“My side. It’s coming fast.”

There was no way I could outrun it. I looked over my shoulder again and this time saw it racing toward us, eating up the air between us. It would be right on top of us in less than ten seconds. I put my hand on the throttle to open it up completely, to give it all the gas we had to get all the speed we could—and then thought better of it. I instead closed the throttle, and the engine almost stalled as we slowed down to almost nothing.

The Cessna shot by so fast, but so close, that I could see the people in the cabin—all four of them—and the weapons they were holding, but I figured they weren’t able to fire at us because I’d caught them by surprise.

I banked hard again, almost forgetting to give the plane more gas to counter the drag of the turn. If I hadn’t remembered, we might have stalled out. We picked up speed and executed a complete turn while the Cessna was still banking, trying to come back at us again.

“That was a good move. Do that again,” Herb said.

“He’ll be ready for it this time,” I said. “He’ll probably slow down as he approaches.”

“But he can’t slow down as much, right?”

“His stall speed is almost twice as much as mine.”

“Good, just get me in position to take a shot at it.”

He reached down and pulled up his rifle. If they were the cat and we were the mouse, we were at least a mouse with teeth.

Below us was the river and its valley. I dove down the side of the valley and at the same time opened up the accelerator to gain even more speed. If he was trying to slow down to try to match my speed, I’d open it up enough that he wasn’t able to catch me. My top speed was much more than his stall speed.

I saw him over my right shoulder. Still far away, but he was closing, and not nearly as quickly as before. As I’d expected, he had significantly reduced his speed. That would give him more time beside us to take more than one shot. He wasn’t going to let my slow speed be as much of an advantage. He was still curving, coming at me from about seven o’clock. If he came in from that angle Herb might get a shot, but only after they’d had a good long time to take shots at us first. I didn’t want to trade shots.

“Do something unexpected,” Herb said.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. You’re the pilot. Do whatever he doesn’t expect you to do.”

There was only one thing he completely wouldn’t expect.

I banked hard to the left, as hard as I could to bring the plane right back around, then aimed directly at him. We were going to play chicken. We raced toward each other, and then I pushed back on the stick and he soared over the top, so close that I could see the rivets in the bottom of his cabin.

There was a loud explosion. Herb had taken a shot at the Cessna with his rifle as it passed.

“Did you get it?” I exclaimed.

“Not even close. Everything is too fast, but you certainly surprised him. Did you see the expression on the pilot’s face?”

“I didn’t see anything except the plane.”