Mistaken Identity Chapter I C
Yes, there is more to Chapter I, it isn't done YET!
Chapter I C
The Distration
Continued From Chapter I B
See Prologue for Spoiler and Disclaimer information
"Oh man!"
One of the boys, Daniel Cho didn’t know his name, from the group waved him over. Five of them were crouched down behind one of the concrete benches. “Man, you’re bleeding, man.”
Daniel looked down at his orange jumpsuit and was surprised to see blood splattered across it. “It’s not mine.” He had never been so incredibly afraid in his entire life. “It’s not my blood.” He crouched down with the other boys, “It’s not my mine.” There was gas, people shooting, men beating each other, it was everywhere. The screams were the worst, this wasn’t how it was in his hood. Hell, movies and video games didn’t even get like this. This was fucking war, and he just wanted to go home.
Another boy, a black kid with cornrows and a scar across his cheek looked up, “Christ, look at that!”
Daniel couldn’t even think about looking up and seeing more blood and dead people.
“Those are helicopters! Oh God, they’re like here to rescue us!”
The black kid jumped up and started waving his arms, “WE’RE OVER HERE!”
Daniel didn’t know what the helicopters, two of them, were doing. “Are you sure they’re here for us?” Panic rose up in his throat, if the choppers started shooting, they were all dead.
“Holy crap is that Officer Inman?”
Daniel looked up, hoping against hope that it was the big burly adult. He almost cried tears of joy when he saw that it was.
The Parole Officer was half-carrying one of their group. Daniel knew him, they went to the same school. Kevin was a white boy who sold hard drugs out of his locker at South Vegas High. He was holding a white-gone-yellow tee-shirt to his bleeding side and looked as scared as Daniel felt.
Officer Inman eased Kevin onto the ground, “You kids stay down. We’re gonna be alright, one of those ‘copters is coming from the military base. They’re gonna get this under control and we’re all going to go home.” He looked at the seven of them one by one and settled on Daniel, “Danny Boy, I need you to watch Kevin while I signal our location. Just keep pressure on his shirt here. He’s bleeding pretty bad and needs your help.” Daniel nodded numbly, and did as he was told. He didn’t like Kevin, they ran with different crews. At school or on the street he would have punched him rather then say hello. Now he just didn’t want the other boy to die. Please God, he didn’t want him to die.
Daniel and the other boys crouched on the ground and watched their Parole Officer. The man stood up, and unbuttoned and tore off the black and olive vest that identified him as a corrections officer. Underneath that he’d was wearing a plain white polo shirt with sweat stains underneath the arms. The only jewelry he wore was a St. Christopher’s medal and it gleamed in the sun like a beacon.
Daniel watched in awe as the man climbed up on top of the concrete table. Inman started to wave the clothe above his head, like a flag, in long flowing arcs. It would be impossible not to see the black against the dusty concrete, orange uniforms and red blood.
Daniel could clearly see the helicopters now, two of them, coming their way. Beside him, Kevin let out a shaky breathe, “We’re going to be okay guys.”
Daniel didn’t move his hand away from the bloody tee-shirt, but he squinted at the approaching helicopters. They had to see Inman, they just had to. The copters came close enough for Daniel to feel the wump-wump-wump of the spinning blades reverberate in his chest. One was actually landing, and the other hovered far above and to the side of it. They were safe!
Two men ran to the first helicopter then it took off. The helicopter started rising up in the air and it just left them all there.
“NO!”
He wanted to stand up and scream at them, he wanted to run towards the copter, but he kept his hand firmly over Kevin’s bloody shirt.
“They left us!”
Inman turned, “There’s another one, they’re coming for us, boys. Don’t worry, we’ll get out of this.”
He was right, Daniel assured himself. Of course the other copter was for them.
Another round of the seemingly endless gunfire started and they all ducked behind the table. The shots were close. Bits of concrete cut them as it flew around them. Daniel heard the groan and the thump and smelled the blood. Tears rose up in his eyes and he pressed on Kevin’s shirt even harder. It didn’t matter, Inman was dead, he just knew the man was dead, and they were all going to join him very soon.
He wanted to go home, he wanted his mom, but most of all he didn’t want to die.
The orange-suited man all but leapt into her helicopter. Despite his clumsy and dangerous jump into the cabin, Paula Richards sat in the pilot’s seat, cool and collected, “Are you Scott Shelton?” She hoped he wasn’t, because if the blood on his clothes were any indication the man was dying or had killed recently.
The blood-smeared man nodded, and looked over his shoulder at the mess he’d just fought through. “That’s me, now let’s get out of here, Lady.” A quick string of gunshots punctuated his statement.
She scowled behind her tinted glasses, no one had said anything about gunshots. “We’re waiting for one more.” She and her partner, who had already landed and picked up his package, were maintaining radio silence for this operation but her hand still drifted towards the radio microphone. She didn’t like waiting in a war zone.
“Listen, Doll,” She turned her head to look at her passenger. “We don’t have to wait. We can take your cut from this and get out of here. Just take off and we will head south to freaking Tijuana. Just take off and get us the hell out of here!”
“Strap in!” She never left a man behind, never.
Off to the left there was a knot of men fighting the guards and each other. They were striking anything they could reach as hard as they could with whatever they could lay their hands on. It was a bad situation, and the brawlers were yet another complication that had suddenly cropped up during this supposedly easy job. There had to be fifty men trying to kill each other and they were less then one hundred yards from her craft and person. She didn’t like that at all. She was surprised that they hadn’t rushed the heli yet. Still, Matt had made his run with no problem. She had only been on the ground for ninety seconds and planned to lift off and ninety more.
“Come on!”
Paula bit her dry bottom lip and eyed the wild mob that was coming far too close to them. She had learned a long time ago to never underestimate the power of mob violence. She dropped her right hand to the Desert Eagle strapped to her thigh. The large gun had been a gift from a friend and had gotten her out of several sticky situations. It was perpetually locked, loaded and ready for action. Action was coming closer and closer to her so she popped the strap on her holster.
Where was her other pick-up? She had been told he’d been dressed in civvies. How the hell she wasn’t able to see a business suit in an ocean of orange was beyond her. He had one more minute before she left him. She gripped the stick hard and pushed the guilt down. He wasn’t a prisoner, apparently, and they would sort it all out later. If she kept waiting the whole thing would be blown and then where would this grandiose plan be?
“Um, Lady we got problems, like twenty or thirty of them running at us. GET US IN THE AIR, BITCH!” She snapped her head around and felt her stomach plummet. The mob had switched its attention to her heli.
She froze for a minute, not sure what country and continent she was on.
“HEY!”
She drew her pistol with a rock-steady hand and fired twice, at the closest cons, and knew she’d killed them without looking. The twin explosions of gunfire sounded over the thunder of the turning rotors and she rested the gun on her lap. She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t need it again. The air smelled of cordite, sweat and hydraulic fluid.
Her other rider was out of time, and out of luck.
“Hold on!”
The man she had picked up didn’t waste time, “Gladly!”
The helicopter was a civilian make, a rental used mostly for Grand Canyon tours, and was more nimble then what she was used to. The controls responded to her slightest twitch.
“Lets go!” Scott’s voice cracked like a terrified teenage boy. “Get us out of here!”
They were going up, but she had to take her time because of the nearby buildings and fences.
“They’re not fucking happy out there!”
That much, Paula fumed, was obvious. The shots had further enraged the mob and they were trying to get onto the helicopter by grabbing onto the skids. It was throwing the small craft’s balance off. A bead of sweat slid down her temple underneath the flight helmet. She had to stabilize the craft before going any higher. They were locked in a shaky hover at about ten feet off the ground and the mob didn’t want to let them go. They were climbing on top of each other to reach the heli. It wasn’t looking good.
Now she was officially nervous. Paula clenched her jaw and started to pull up further. She had to shake off the extra weight or they would never get out. She thought about her gun, but even if she fired the entire clip and killed with every shot she doubted it would be enough. She needed altitude more then bullets.
The heli started to rise again, smooth and fast, and for a moment she thought they were in the clear. Then the craft dipped right, and she knew that they still had company. The heli shook and shuddered and she had to fight the stick to keep them airborne.
There were a least five men trying to hitch a ride and the craft was only built for one pilot and three passengers. She had to shake them or they were going down, hard. Men clinging to a ‘copter’s undercarriage worked wonderfully in movies, but in real-life it was putting them all in very serious danger. They were only thirty-five feet in the air, and she couldn’t get them any higher without crashing.
“We’ve got company!”
She looked over her shoulder and watched two hands-worth of fingers appear on the cabin’s deck
“Give me your gun or something!”
She would have handed it to him, but she needed both hands on the stick. She didn’t even have time to tell him that, though. Fingers lead to hands and in seconds there was another person inside the craft, a crazed prisoner with what looked like a homemade knife in his hand.
“Take care of him!” Her voice tore out of her throat and it sounded as desperate as she felt. They were only one error from spinning out of control and dying.
She couldn’t look behind to see what was happening, but the motion transferred well enough to have the craft bobbing and weaving in the air. She didn’t have control, it was all she could do to keep them a few feet above a fiery death.
The two men hit the back of her seat and she was thrown forward against her harness. The nose tilted down dangerously and the tail swung hard and fast to the left. She pulled the craft into a barely controlled one-hundred and eighty degree turn and winced when she heard the copter’s metal skin scrape against the razor wire fence.
“Jesus, stop it you’re going to kill us all!”
This lightweight craft wasn’t built for so much cabin movement and it definitely wasn’t up for a brawl. It was a miracle, and her skills, that they were still in the air. Her heart hammered hard against her chest and her blood roared in her ears, her hands tingled from the pressure of her grip.
When she had them somewhat stable again she grabbed the gun off of her lap, “SIT DOWN!”
The bastard lunged at her, his eyes wide and shining with crazed bloodlust. Battle-craze, she had seen it before and instantly knew she was dead. She squeezed the trigger but it wasn’t fast enough to prevent the two-hundred pound man from tackling her. She registered the hit and the sharp pain in her neck at almost the exact time. Scott pulled him off, but the damage was done. Bright red arterial blood spurted out of her throat and coated the cabin, the windshield and Scott himself. She clasped her free hand to her throat to stop the bleeding, but knew it was a futile effort. Her vision was already fading to gray and her fingers were slipping off the stick.
Her gun hit the deck with the heavy clunk of metal on metal. She could hear the distant sound of someone praying and felt like laughing. Praying wasn’t about to save their asses now.
Time slowed down and she could feel the ‘copter buck and start to spin and roll. She didn’t have enough strength left in her hand to grip the controls. She could see the ground rushing up to meet them through the blood spattered windshield and her narrowing vision.
The last thing she saw was a man running across the dusty concrete in a business suit waving his arms.
Chapter I C
The Distration
Continued From Chapter I B
See Prologue for Spoiler and Disclaimer information
"Oh man!"
One of the boys, Daniel Cho didn’t know his name, from the group waved him over. Five of them were crouched down behind one of the concrete benches. “Man, you’re bleeding, man.”
Daniel looked down at his orange jumpsuit and was surprised to see blood splattered across it. “It’s not mine.” He had never been so incredibly afraid in his entire life. “It’s not my blood.” He crouched down with the other boys, “It’s not my mine.” There was gas, people shooting, men beating each other, it was everywhere. The screams were the worst, this wasn’t how it was in his hood. Hell, movies and video games didn’t even get like this. This was fucking war, and he just wanted to go home.
Another boy, a black kid with cornrows and a scar across his cheek looked up, “Christ, look at that!”
Daniel couldn’t even think about looking up and seeing more blood and dead people.
“Those are helicopters! Oh God, they’re like here to rescue us!”
The black kid jumped up and started waving his arms, “WE’RE OVER HERE!”
Daniel didn’t know what the helicopters, two of them, were doing. “Are you sure they’re here for us?” Panic rose up in his throat, if the choppers started shooting, they were all dead.
“Holy crap is that Officer Inman?”
Daniel looked up, hoping against hope that it was the big burly adult. He almost cried tears of joy when he saw that it was.
The Parole Officer was half-carrying one of their group. Daniel knew him, they went to the same school. Kevin was a white boy who sold hard drugs out of his locker at South Vegas High. He was holding a white-gone-yellow tee-shirt to his bleeding side and looked as scared as Daniel felt.
Officer Inman eased Kevin onto the ground, “You kids stay down. We’re gonna be alright, one of those ‘copters is coming from the military base. They’re gonna get this under control and we’re all going to go home.” He looked at the seven of them one by one and settled on Daniel, “Danny Boy, I need you to watch Kevin while I signal our location. Just keep pressure on his shirt here. He’s bleeding pretty bad and needs your help.” Daniel nodded numbly, and did as he was told. He didn’t like Kevin, they ran with different crews. At school or on the street he would have punched him rather then say hello. Now he just didn’t want the other boy to die. Please God, he didn’t want him to die.
Daniel and the other boys crouched on the ground and watched their Parole Officer. The man stood up, and unbuttoned and tore off the black and olive vest that identified him as a corrections officer. Underneath that he’d was wearing a plain white polo shirt with sweat stains underneath the arms. The only jewelry he wore was a St. Christopher’s medal and it gleamed in the sun like a beacon.
Daniel watched in awe as the man climbed up on top of the concrete table. Inman started to wave the clothe above his head, like a flag, in long flowing arcs. It would be impossible not to see the black against the dusty concrete, orange uniforms and red blood.
Daniel could clearly see the helicopters now, two of them, coming their way. Beside him, Kevin let out a shaky breathe, “We’re going to be okay guys.”
Daniel didn’t move his hand away from the bloody tee-shirt, but he squinted at the approaching helicopters. They had to see Inman, they just had to. The copters came close enough for Daniel to feel the wump-wump-wump of the spinning blades reverberate in his chest. One was actually landing, and the other hovered far above and to the side of it. They were safe!
Two men ran to the first helicopter then it took off. The helicopter started rising up in the air and it just left them all there.
“NO!”
He wanted to stand up and scream at them, he wanted to run towards the copter, but he kept his hand firmly over Kevin’s bloody shirt.
“They left us!”
Inman turned, “There’s another one, they’re coming for us, boys. Don’t worry, we’ll get out of this.”
He was right, Daniel assured himself. Of course the other copter was for them.
Another round of the seemingly endless gunfire started and they all ducked behind the table. The shots were close. Bits of concrete cut them as it flew around them. Daniel heard the groan and the thump and smelled the blood. Tears rose up in his eyes and he pressed on Kevin’s shirt even harder. It didn’t matter, Inman was dead, he just knew the man was dead, and they were all going to join him very soon.
He wanted to go home, he wanted his mom, but most of all he didn’t want to die.
The orange-suited man all but leapt into her helicopter. Despite his clumsy and dangerous jump into the cabin, Paula Richards sat in the pilot’s seat, cool and collected, “Are you Scott Shelton?” She hoped he wasn’t, because if the blood on his clothes were any indication the man was dying or had killed recently.
The blood-smeared man nodded, and looked over his shoulder at the mess he’d just fought through. “That’s me, now let’s get out of here, Lady.” A quick string of gunshots punctuated his statement.
She scowled behind her tinted glasses, no one had said anything about gunshots. “We’re waiting for one more.” She and her partner, who had already landed and picked up his package, were maintaining radio silence for this operation but her hand still drifted towards the radio microphone. She didn’t like waiting in a war zone.
“Listen, Doll,” She turned her head to look at her passenger. “We don’t have to wait. We can take your cut from this and get out of here. Just take off and we will head south to freaking Tijuana. Just take off and get us the hell out of here!”
“Strap in!” She never left a man behind, never.
Off to the left there was a knot of men fighting the guards and each other. They were striking anything they could reach as hard as they could with whatever they could lay their hands on. It was a bad situation, and the brawlers were yet another complication that had suddenly cropped up during this supposedly easy job. There had to be fifty men trying to kill each other and they were less then one hundred yards from her craft and person. She didn’t like that at all. She was surprised that they hadn’t rushed the heli yet. Still, Matt had made his run with no problem. She had only been on the ground for ninety seconds and planned to lift off and ninety more.
“Come on!”
Paula bit her dry bottom lip and eyed the wild mob that was coming far too close to them. She had learned a long time ago to never underestimate the power of mob violence. She dropped her right hand to the Desert Eagle strapped to her thigh. The large gun had been a gift from a friend and had gotten her out of several sticky situations. It was perpetually locked, loaded and ready for action. Action was coming closer and closer to her so she popped the strap on her holster.
Where was her other pick-up? She had been told he’d been dressed in civvies. How the hell she wasn’t able to see a business suit in an ocean of orange was beyond her. He had one more minute before she left him. She gripped the stick hard and pushed the guilt down. He wasn’t a prisoner, apparently, and they would sort it all out later. If she kept waiting the whole thing would be blown and then where would this grandiose plan be?
“Um, Lady we got problems, like twenty or thirty of them running at us. GET US IN THE AIR, BITCH!” She snapped her head around and felt her stomach plummet. The mob had switched its attention to her heli.
She froze for a minute, not sure what country and continent she was on.
“HEY!”
She drew her pistol with a rock-steady hand and fired twice, at the closest cons, and knew she’d killed them without looking. The twin explosions of gunfire sounded over the thunder of the turning rotors and she rested the gun on her lap. She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t need it again. The air smelled of cordite, sweat and hydraulic fluid.
Her other rider was out of time, and out of luck.
“Hold on!”
The man she had picked up didn’t waste time, “Gladly!”
The helicopter was a civilian make, a rental used mostly for Grand Canyon tours, and was more nimble then what she was used to. The controls responded to her slightest twitch.
“Lets go!” Scott’s voice cracked like a terrified teenage boy. “Get us out of here!”
They were going up, but she had to take her time because of the nearby buildings and fences.
“They’re not fucking happy out there!”
That much, Paula fumed, was obvious. The shots had further enraged the mob and they were trying to get onto the helicopter by grabbing onto the skids. It was throwing the small craft’s balance off. A bead of sweat slid down her temple underneath the flight helmet. She had to stabilize the craft before going any higher. They were locked in a shaky hover at about ten feet off the ground and the mob didn’t want to let them go. They were climbing on top of each other to reach the heli. It wasn’t looking good.
Now she was officially nervous. Paula clenched her jaw and started to pull up further. She had to shake off the extra weight or they would never get out. She thought about her gun, but even if she fired the entire clip and killed with every shot she doubted it would be enough. She needed altitude more then bullets.
The heli started to rise again, smooth and fast, and for a moment she thought they were in the clear. Then the craft dipped right, and she knew that they still had company. The heli shook and shuddered and she had to fight the stick to keep them airborne.
There were a least five men trying to hitch a ride and the craft was only built for one pilot and three passengers. She had to shake them or they were going down, hard. Men clinging to a ‘copter’s undercarriage worked wonderfully in movies, but in real-life it was putting them all in very serious danger. They were only thirty-five feet in the air, and she couldn’t get them any higher without crashing.
“We’ve got company!”
She looked over her shoulder and watched two hands-worth of fingers appear on the cabin’s deck
“Give me your gun or something!”
She would have handed it to him, but she needed both hands on the stick. She didn’t even have time to tell him that, though. Fingers lead to hands and in seconds there was another person inside the craft, a crazed prisoner with what looked like a homemade knife in his hand.
“Take care of him!” Her voice tore out of her throat and it sounded as desperate as she felt. They were only one error from spinning out of control and dying.
She couldn’t look behind to see what was happening, but the motion transferred well enough to have the craft bobbing and weaving in the air. She didn’t have control, it was all she could do to keep them a few feet above a fiery death.
The two men hit the back of her seat and she was thrown forward against her harness. The nose tilted down dangerously and the tail swung hard and fast to the left. She pulled the craft into a barely controlled one-hundred and eighty degree turn and winced when she heard the copter’s metal skin scrape against the razor wire fence.
“Jesus, stop it you’re going to kill us all!”
This lightweight craft wasn’t built for so much cabin movement and it definitely wasn’t up for a brawl. It was a miracle, and her skills, that they were still in the air. Her heart hammered hard against her chest and her blood roared in her ears, her hands tingled from the pressure of her grip.
When she had them somewhat stable again she grabbed the gun off of her lap, “SIT DOWN!”
The bastard lunged at her, his eyes wide and shining with crazed bloodlust. Battle-craze, she had seen it before and instantly knew she was dead. She squeezed the trigger but it wasn’t fast enough to prevent the two-hundred pound man from tackling her. She registered the hit and the sharp pain in her neck at almost the exact time. Scott pulled him off, but the damage was done. Bright red arterial blood spurted out of her throat and coated the cabin, the windshield and Scott himself. She clasped her free hand to her throat to stop the bleeding, but knew it was a futile effort. Her vision was already fading to gray and her fingers were slipping off the stick.
Her gun hit the deck with the heavy clunk of metal on metal. She could hear the distant sound of someone praying and felt like laughing. Praying wasn’t about to save their asses now.
Time slowed down and she could feel the ‘copter buck and start to spin and roll. She didn’t have enough strength left in her hand to grip the controls. She could see the ground rushing up to meet them through the blood spattered windshield and her narrowing vision.
The last thing she saw was a man running across the dusty concrete in a business suit waving his arms.