Today’s excerpt is from How
‘bout Both, Book #3 of the Bader Trilogy. Terrorists try to kill Helen. Enjoy and have a wonderful day.
m.j.
While those cars
were on their way, Helen was on her way back to her station, with Walt
driving. She briefly told him she had
had a nice chat with Ruth, who she now had even more respect for, but didn’t go
into detail about the conversation. She
really liked Walt a lot and didn’t want to hurt his feelings with the subject
of her feelings for Elmer being brought up.
As they
approached the station, the car with the bomb-laden woman was parked across the
street from the station, half a block down.
It was the normal routine for Walt to let Helen out, then watch her go
inside, before finding a parking spot.
He preferred to park in front of the station, rather than the rear
parking area because the rear lot offered too many prime locations for a sniper
to make a try on Helen. The front of the
building offered much less in the way of sniper sites. Also, there always seemed to be plenty of
parking available. So it was this time
because, even as he stopped in front of the station to let Helen out, he
noticed a car was just pulling out of the first space available, down from a
three-space no parking area in front of the station.
That was not all
he noticed. When Helen started to get
out, Walt touched her arm. “Honey, head
straight on in—then get away from the door.
Make sure no one else is anywhere near it. We may be about to have an incident. Now, hurry along.”
Helen gave him a
funny look as she wondered why she was not being offered the normal kiss he
gave her when she got out of the car…but did as told. Even as the car door shut, the young woman,
who had been told the woman getting out of the car could help her if she
hurried and got to her before she got inside, got out of the car. She hurried toward the front entrance as
Helen was doing so from a much shorter distance.
The woman had
been told Helen’s name. On seeing she
wouldn’t get there in time to be rescued by the woman she had been told was her
only hope of getting away, she yelled out, “Mez Blsoe, Mez Blsoe—help.”
By then Walt was
already easing his car forward. He
recognized the situation for what it was.
He had seen enough suicide vests in Iraq to know what he was looking at
as the serape-covered woman—whose upper body was much too stout for her lower
half—hurried toward Helen. When Walt
slammed on the brakes, put his car in park, then got out, he glanced at Helen,
who had stopped. He shouted, “Helen—get
the hell inside! Get away from the
doorway!”
He turned and
pulled his weapon before he shot the woman in her leg. As he dove for cover behind the car in front
of him, placing himself between it and his car, he snapped off two shots in the
direction of the car the downed woman had gotten out of. His aim was nearly perfect as he hit the
driver—who was in the process of pulling the car out—square in the
forehead. He hit the other man in the
side of the face, even as he depressed the button, setting off the vest.
Being totally
unfamiliar with the vests, the last thing the driver should have been doing was
pulling the car out, until after the blast. A good portion of the blast hit the car. It stopped dead in the middle of the street,
with two nails and a ball bearing from the vest hitting the man who was still alive,
but now unconscious from Walt’s shot.
None of the three projectiles killed him, but all did additional damage
to his face.
Meanwhile, Walt
was hit in the back of his legs and in his back by several of the nails and
ball bearings. The woman was, of course,
killed instantly. Several people outside
storefronts nearby were injured to various degrees but none killed. Helen, who had done as told, managed to avoid
being injured in any way, even though the front doors of the station were
shredded.
After the noise
of the blast subsided, she walked through where the doors had once been, to
look out. She saw Walt trying to stand
up. She shouted back inside for someone
to call the police and 911 to get an ambulance on the way. Then she hurried to Walt and, as he sat on
the ground, she kissed him. “How bad are
you hurt?”
“Bad enough. What in the hell are you doing out here?”
“It’s over. No one is headed this way—everyone is running
away.”
Still between
the two cars, Walt nodded, “What about the car down about forty feet, just
pulling out onto the street?”
“It’s just
sitting there. Looks like both guys in
it are dead. The police and ambulances
should be on the way.”
Walt smile. “Then what are you doing here? Go be a reporter lady.”
Helen burst out
laughing. “Not this time. I’m with you until you get hauled away. We’ve got other reporters.”
“Like hell. Show your face on screen to let the
son-of-a-bitch know he missed again.”
“You sure?”
“Hell, yes. I’ll be okay—nothing a bit of tender loving
care won’t cure.”
“You’ll get
plenty of that, pal.”
No comments:
Post a Comment