William Johnstone - Phoenix Rising

“Are you all right?” Jake called back to Karin.

“Yes,” Karin replied. She looked down at the man who had been holding his gun on her; then she walked up to Jake. “It took me a second to figure out what you were saying.”

“You figured it out quickly enough. You did well.”

“Were they soldiers, do you think?” Karin asked.

“There are no soldiers anymore,” Jake answered.

Karin knew that Jake did not want to think that he had shot two men who may have, just recently, served in the same army with him, so she didn’t press the issue any further.

“I’ll get the truck out of the way,” Jake said. Climbing in behind the wheel, he turned on the key and saw that the gas gauge didn’t even come up to the E mark.

“I hope there’s enough fuel to get it off the road,” he said. He hit the starter and the engine kicked over. He drove it off the road and down into the ditch. Then, exiting the truck, he climbed back up to the road.

“What are we going to do with them?” Karin asked.

“What do you want to do with them?”

“I don’t know. Somehow it doesn’t feel right to just leave them both lying in the middle of the road.”

“All right. I’ll get them out of the road,” Jake promised.

Grabbing one of them by his feet, Jake dragged him down into the ditch and left him by the truck. Then he returned and did the same thing to the other man. He started to go through their pockets to see if they had any identification, but stopped short because he realized that he didn’t want to know who they were.

Returning to his car, he slid in behind the steering wheel and glanced over at Karin. She looked a bit queasy so she reached over to put his hand on hers.

“You did well,” he said again.

“Jake, has it come to this?” Karin asked. “Is it going to be dog-eat-dog?”

“I’m afraid it is,” Jake said. “But dogs run in packs. And we have our pack now.”

Karin smiled, wanly. “Phoenix,” she said.

“Phoenix,” Jake repeated.

Three miles farther on Jake and Karin saw two people lying alongside the road. Jake slowed down enough to get a good look at them. It was an old man and a woman.

“Jake, stop.” Karin said. “I have to check on them.”

Jake stopped and Karin, getting out of the car, hurried over to the couple. She squatted down and felt for a pulse in each of them. “The woman is dead, but the man is alive,” she said.

Both the man and the woman had been shot.

“Sir, what happened?” Jake asked.

“The sons of bitches took my truck,” the old man said, straining to talk. “They took my truck and trailer. Had all our belongin’s on it.”

Jake looked at Karin and she shook her head, to tell him that the man didn’t have long left.

“They shot Suzie,” the man said. “Then they shot me. Dressed like pirates they were, all in black. The sons of bitches.” He coughed a couple of times, then took one last rattling breath.

Karin tried his pulse again.

“He’s dead,” she said.

“Those murdering bastards,” Jake said. “If I was feeling any twinge of regret before, I don’t now.”

“What are we going to do with them?” Karin asked. “We can’t just leave them here like we did the other two. After what the other two did, they can lie out on the road until the buzzards pick them clean as far as I’m concerned. But these folks are innocent. They didn’t do anything to bring this on.”

“I’ve got an entrenching tool in the car,” Jake said. “We sure can’t give them anything like a proper burial, but you’re right. We don’t need to leave them out here, exposed to the elements.”

Forty-five minutes later Jake and Karin stood over a fresh mound. Jake buried them both in the same grave. It kept him from having to dig two graves, but he was fairly certain they would have wanted to be buried together anyway. Before he buried them, he took the old man’s billfold. It had pictures, a driver’s license, but no money. But it didn’t matter that there was no money, since money was worthless anyway. And at least now, he knew who they were.

“Mr. Theodore Fuller, Mrs. Suzie Fuller, I don’t think I’ll be able to find any of your next of kin to let them know what happened to you, but I hope there is some comfort that you didn’t leave this world without someone knowing your names,” Jake said. “I’m sorry your lives ended up like this. On the other hand, you did go out together, and you’ll be together for all eternity now. And truth to tell, with what the rest of us are facing, you may well be the lucky ones.”

Karin reached over and squeezed Jake’s hand.

“You might be right,” she said. “They might be the lucky ones.”

“Come on, the others will be worrying about us. Let’s go see if John and Marcus have found a helicopter we can put back together.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Ozark gate at Fort Rucker was unmanned, but it had been unmanned for several days now. There was, however, still a sign attached to the MP shack that read VISITORS MUST OBTAIN PASS.

After going through the gate they passed several abandoned vehicles, and as they moved farther onto the base, Jake was surprised to see that many of the base housing units were still occupied. But then, as he thought more about it, it wasn’t surprising at all. These houses were home to the married soldiers. Like the houses in Ozark, Enterprise, and Dothan, these houses had no electricity or water, but they did provide shelter. Where else would they go?

One man walking alongside the road saw the blue post sticker on Jake’s windshield indicating that he was an officer and automatically saluted. Just as automatically, Jake returned the man’s salute; then, as he passed, he looked in the mirror as the man continued his long, lonely walk.

“Oh,” Karin said quietly, and glancing toward her, Jake saw a tear sliding down her face. “Where will he go? What will he eat? We are trained to look out for our troops but—oh, Jake, I feel so helpless.”

Jake squeezed her hand again. “We are looking out for six of them,” he said. “That’s a start.”

“They are looking out for us, just as much,” Karin replied.

“That’s true.”

When he turned off Hatch Road onto Hanchey Field Road, Jake felt a sudden twinge of melancholy. So many times over the years of his multiple assignments to “Mother Rucker,” he had made this same turn on the way to log flight time. At first glance Hanchey Field didn’t look too much different from how it always did. More than one hundred helicopters were parked at the huge heliport. However, a closer examination of the helicopters showed that nearly all had been stripped of anything of value. Many were missing rotor blades—others had been stripped clean of sheet metal so that nothing but the skeletal frame remained.

“I don’t know,” Jake said as they drove toward the hangars. “From the looks of things, I’m not sure we can find enough to assemble even one flyable helicopter. Give them a call. We ought to be in range.”

Karin keyed the two-way radio. “Phoenix Base, this is Phoenix One, over.”

There was a moment’s delay; then they heard, “Phoenix One, this is Phoenix Base. Where are you?”

“We’re on the field.”

“Phoenix One, do you remember Dewey Alain and the foam generator?”

Jake smiled, then nodded. “Tell him yes.”

“I remember,” Karin said.

“That’s where we are. Call when you approach. I’ll open the doors and let you in.”

“Phoenix One, out,” Karin said. She looked over at Jake, who was still chuckling. “What is this about the foam generator?”

“We had a hangar fire drill once,” Jake said. “Sergeant Alain was supposed to simulate hitting the big red button that would activate the foam generator and flood the hangar. But he didn’t simulate, he actually did it, and the hangar was filled waist high with foam. It took two days to clean it all up.”