Today’s excerpt is from Billy’s
Rescue, Book #7 of the nine-book Asps series. Things not going too well for Billy, or for
the Asps trying to find him. Enjoy and
have a fantastic day.
m.j.
As Jack ate his MRE, while the others joked,
Billy was trudging his way back toward the cave entrance. He was also planning. When he got back to the cave entrance, he
would be still over an hour from the buggies…if he kept up a swift pace. If he was Bruce, he’d leave one
person—probably Jack—with a buggy, while taking the rest of the team in the
other. If that was the case, it would be easy to get in the buggy with
whomever, then head to the plane. If no
one was left behind, he’d just have to drive himself to the plane. Either way, he needed to reach a buggy. So he put one foot in front of the other as
he kept moving.
·
As Jim’s plane flew over the border between Pakistan Afghanistan
“Yeah, honey. I told Bruce to call me first thing when they
found him. But Billy is his father’s
son. He’ll make out somehow.”
·
By the time Hector Garcia’s son reached the
end of the tunnel, then walked out of the cave, he was getting very tired, but
decided to keep on until he reached the buggy he knew would be waiting for
him. In addition to being tired, his
ribs ached, his fingers hurt, plus his sore leg was getting worse, the further
he walked. Also, he still couldn’t see
out of his left eye, but carry on he did.
After a little more than an hour, he found the buggy. He slumped in the driver’s seat with a sigh
of relief. After another sigh—with a
look around, hoping to see another Asp—he started the buggy, then drove
off.
The vegetation in the area was quite damp,
especially so at night. That—plus the
buggies being virtually silent—Jack, twenty feet from on his makeshift bedroll,
didn’t hear the buggy leave. He thought
he might have heard something, but he was preoccupied with the task at
hand. He had been a total of thirty feet
from the buggy because he didn’t want to defecate near his bedroll. When Jack finished, he cleaned himself,
pulled his pants up, and went back to his bed.
While defecating, he had raised his night vision gear. Now, with it back in place as he headed back
to get some more sleep, he noticed the buggy was gone. He swore as he called Bruce, who was sound
asleep on the C-130. Bruce glanced at
the display panel on his phone before he mumbled, “Sure hope you have good news
for me, Jack.”
“Oh, hell, no—I don’t. I was off in the brush taking a dump when
someone—hopefully Billy—drove off with the buggy.”
In spite of the seriousness of the matter,
Bruce busted out laughing. He laughed so
hard, he woke three of the other Asps.
“Jack, if you’re pulling my leg, I’m gonna kill you.”
“No, I’m not pulling your leg. I’d rather kill myself than have to make this
call—but if I did, then no would be here to make the call.”
“What?
Are you drunk?”
“Oh, shut up, Bruce. I’m damned upset with myself is what I am,
and if I'm not making sense, I repeat—the damned buggy is gone. What do I do?”
“Walk back to our plane, you idiot. Also, from now on, crap on your own time, not
mine or Billy’s.”
“Oh, cute.”
“I’ll send Dusty to pick you up. No sense you spending the night watching the
spot where the buggy once sat.”
“No, the hell with that. I’m staying right here, but will stay awake,
in case it wasn’t Billy. What if he
shows up and there’s no buggy?”
“Who in the hell else do you think it could
have been?”
“I don’t know, Bruce. Just let me do my penance in peace. See you in the morning—hopefully with news
Billy made it back okay.”
“Yeah, okay.
See you in the morning.”
·
Billy would have made it back—except for one
little detail. He was a great tracker, a
fine reader of the stars to determine latitude and longitude, but his sense of
direction was not as keen as Dusty’s—or, for that matter, a number of the other
Asps. He drove the buggy east, as he
should have—but not far enough north. He
missed the plane, about three miles to the south of it. When he realized he had spent more than
enough time driving to have reached the plane, he knew he had gotten himself well
lost. He stopped the buggy to take stock
before his next move. For some reason he
would never be able to properly explain later—either to himself or others—he
decided to go to Kabul , Afghanistan Kabul Kabul
Just why Billy thought it was up to him to
tackle the task was the part he’d never be able to explain, other than in his
sleepless, pain-ridden state, he wasn’t thinking too clearly. His decision made, he did something he was
good at. He consulted the stars to
figure out which way was south. He knew
there was a roadway about twenty miles south of the landing site Wendy had
picked out, so he deduced he had a drive of twenty miles or less to find the
road.
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