Today’s
excerpt is from Baghdad Butcher, Book #1 of the nine-book Janitors Series. Wanting his foes to think he’s dead, Jim
intentionally drives his bullet-proofed car into to a trap. Enjoy and have a great day.
m.j.
“Thanks. Okay, Holly.
Here we go.”
That said, Jim
handed Holly his Flasher and followed the drug dealer’s car past the semi. He was not surprised when it started pulling
out behind him to close off the only exit available. In fast order, the lead car raced forward and
stopped next to the limo. As Jim drove
up, several armed men jumped up and began shooting at his car. Nearing the gunmen, Jim swung his car down
the pier and slumped over in his seat, pressing the horn as he did so. Racing the car while holding the horn down,
he swerved back and forth as he headed for the left side of the pier, where he
could see the small retaining log end was rotted away, as Billy had told him to
expect.
Holly meanwhile
put the headset in a baggie, put the baggie in the mesh bag, tied the
drawstring, then did her best to pretend as though she was trying to grab the
steering wheel from the now “dead” Jim.
When they hit
the rotted beam at the end of the pier, they received quite a jolt. Another sound jolt reached them when the car
struck the water several feet below at a slight angle to the left. Due to the extra speed Jim had put on as they
raced down the pier, the car was only slightly nose down when they hit, and
soon leveled out as they settled toward the bottom.
As the water
started pouring into the car, Holly was surprised at how cold it was and also
how fast the car was filling up. Long
before they hit bottom, she had her facemask on and was fingering her
mouthpiece nervously, forgetting to unhook her seat belt as Jim had told her.
Jim took off his
seat belt, put his facemask on, and grabbed the mesh bag. When the car settled on the bottom, the water
was chin high and Jim nodded. “Okay,
Holly, get ready to put your mouthpiece in.
Remember, breath nice and slow.”
Holly said
nothing, but with growing dread, she slipped the mouthpiece in and started
breathing. When the water was over their
heads, they both opened their doors. Jim
eased out, but Holly, having forgotten to unbuckle her seat belt, started to
panic when she couldn’t move. Frantically
she tugged on the seat belt, losing all sense or reason. The only bit of sanity still left in her told
her to keep the mouthpiece in her mouth and breathe. The more she struggled, the more desperate
she became.
Not seeing Holly
on the other side of the car, Jim looked back inside and saw Holly’s dilemma.
With calm but slightly hurried action, Jim pushed the clasp button on her seat
belt and gently pulled her out his side of the car. Feeling her tenseness, Jim gave her a hug,
rubbed her back a bit, and started swimming toward the pier, with Holly in tow.
When Jim felt
Holly’s muscles loosen a bit, he turned her loose and she started swimming
after him. Holly, still quite nervous,
but back in control, thought to herself, “This is the last time I’m going
into the water in a car….ever! What a
stupid idea! I ought to kill Jim—except,
of course, he just saved my life.”
When they
reached the pier, they made their way over to the ladder and surfaced. Both spit out their mouthpieces and took off
the facemasks. Jim climbed up a few
steps of the ladder and found it quite solid.
He then eased back down to Holly and whispered, “You okay?”
“Yes…now. Thanks to you,” Holy whispered back.
Jim patted her
on the back, winked at her, and reached into the mesh bag, taking out the
baggie with the Flasher. As soon as he
had it on, he said, “Hector. Report,
please.”
“The limo is
gone, Billy is following. Most of the
other cars are pulling out as we speak.
Three guys are at the end of the pier, no doubt looking for air
bubbles.”
“That’s the nice
thing about the re-breathers—no air bubbles.”
“Still a few
coming up from the car. I see you down
by the ladder. If you hold on a sec, all
the rest of the cars will be gone. The
three guys at the end of the pier have their backs to you. As long as air bubbles keep coming up from
the car, they will probably keep looking that way. But when the bubbles end, their attention may
divert. Okay, last of the cars are
gone.”
“Thanks for the
report, Hector. We’ll start up now.”
Jim climbed up a
few steps, stopped to take out the baggie with the silenced Walther, tossed the
baggie, put the gun in his belt, and started up the rest of the ladder. A step from the top he looked down and saw
Holly a few steps below. He then rose up
and saw the three lookouts, with their backs to him. As he eased up onto the pier, he gently set
down the mesh sack and glanced down to Holly.
She had now reached the last step, so he helped her quietly up onto the
pier.
Once she was up,
she found the baggie with her gun and took it out as Jim slowly started walking
toward the three men in front of them.
About twenty feet from them, with Holly about six feet behind and to his
right, Jim said, in Arabic, “Okay, gentlemen.
Don’t move or you’ll die.”
Without a
second’s hesitation, all three men turned and reached for their guns. Jim got off three shots from his gun. The first hit the man on his left squarely in
the chest. Since his bullets were hollow
points, this shot blew the man’s heart to pieces and he died almost
instantly. The second shot took the man
in the middle in the stomach. The third
shot hit the man on the right in his right shoulder. That man’s gun fell to the pier and the man
grabbed his shoulder, where blood was pumping out at a rapid pace.
Still speaking
Arabic as he walked up to the two living men, Jim growled, “I have a helicopter
flying overhead. You can be in a
hospital in about five minutes. If you
aren’t, you’re going to bleed to death.
If you think Allah can wait for you a while longer, tell me what I want
to know, right now, and you may live.
Where is that limo headed?”
The man with the
stomach wound shook his head and glared at Jim.
Jim looked at the other man and hoped he wasn’t quite as brave. As he did, the man with the stomach wound sat
in a growing pool of blood and keeled over, obviously dead.
Jim tilted his
head toward the now second dead man. “Your
time is running out, also. Where’s the
limo headed?”
Before he too
died, the man told Jim what he wanted to know.
Since Jim still had his headset on, Hector, who by now was in his car,
nearing the end of the pier, heard. “Know
the spot, Jim. Hold on while I check
with my pilot on my other communications set and see if the path of the limo is
consistent with what this guy just told you.”
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