Nuclear Winter Devil Storm by Bobby Akart (great novels txt) 📗

Jimmy. If his friend had already been medevacked out of Homestead, then there was nothing he could do. If he hadn’t, Peter would take every risk to free him of this wrongful imprisonment.

After forty-five minutes, two uniformed National Guardsmen left the gray trailer and climbed into the driver’s seat of two separate Humvees. They quickly turned around and began driving directly for the gate where he was positioned. He scrambled into the corner of the stacked tires that acted as barriers to protect race cars from further damage in case they ran off the track. As the Humvees sped out of the Infield Care Center, they didn’t notice him hiding away. Peter rose slightly to remain unseen. He wanted to follow the Humvees to determine where the exit to the speedway was located. Then he turned his attention back to the buildings.

The remaining two Humvees were sitting off to the side near the roll-up doors to the EMS building. Peter imagined the garage portion of the structure contained the fire trucks used during accidents. A hedgerow of sweet viburnum shrubs lined the administration building around the corner from the roll-up doors. If he could get to them undetected, he’d only be a few feet away from the Humvees, with sufficient cover under the darkened conditions to avoid recapture.

He took a deep breath and raced past the MUSCO controls that managed the lighting system around the racetrack. As he crossed the open pavement, he caught a glimpse of a light going off in the trailer. Peter skidded to a stop and dropped to a knee to look around. Another light turned off in the trailer. They were closing down. He didn’t have time to make it to the row of shrubs, so he scrambled to hide behind a large ice machine like the kind you’d find outside any convenience store. He closed his eyes and tried to steady his nerves. He’d only have one shot at this, and he had to be stealthy about it.

The white door to the trailer flung open and crashed hard against the exterior wall of the building. The wind had picked up to a steady gale. That was when he caught his first glimpse of Jimmy. His arms were pulled behind him, and he appeared to be handcuffed. A soldier stood behind him and half shoved him onto the platform sitting outside the elevated trailer.

Jimmy leaned against the steel railing while the guard struggled to close the door. Suddenly, the wind had become Peter’s ally. Without thinking of the consequences, he rushed from behind the ice box, bounded up the three steps leading to the platform, and crashed hard into the guardsman by driving the crown of his head into the man’s ribs.

The force of Peter’s tackling maneuver slammed the guard’s head into the doorjamb, knocking him out instantly. Peter fell to his knees, slightly dazed from the impact. Jimmy knelt down next to him.

“Are you crazy?” he whispered, looking around the parking lot to determine if they’d been seen.

“Sort of,” replied Peter with a chuckle. “What did they do to you?”

“It wasn’t waterboarding, but it was close. The CIA sucks, man.”

Jimmy didn’t have to say another word. Peter had covered the State Department and the Department of Defense. He’d heard more than rumors. He’d seen firsthand what agency operatives were capable of doing to extract information.

“You didn’t give ’em anything, did you?” asked Peter.

With his face partially covered in bandages, Peter couldn’t see Jimmy wince in pain as he smiled. “Hell nah.”

Peter slapped his friend on the shoulder, drawing another wince, not that Jimmy complained. Both men looked down to the unconscious soldier.

Peter took charge. “Let me drag him inside, and then I’ll get you out of those cuffs.”

Once they were inside, Peter located some surgical scissors and cut through the flex-cuffs binding Jimmy’s wrists. He immediately massaged his arms to alleviate some pain. Then he found a switch to the undercounter lighting at a row of cabinets. This provided sufficient lighting to see without drawing attention from anyone outside.

Jimmy walked to a wall mirror and began to remove his bandages.

Peter abruptly stopped him. “Wait. Not yet.”

“Why? I wanna see what they did to me.”

“I have an idea,” replied Peter. He pointed down to the unconscious soldier. “I’m about the same size as this guy. Let me put on his uniform. I’ll use his identification to get us out of here.”

“What about me?”

“You’ll be in the back seat, pretending to be in cuffs. If they ask, I’ll tell them you’re being evacuated.”

Jimmy looked from Peter to the soldier sprawled out on the vinyl tile floor and back to the mirror. “I think it’ll work. Let’s do it.”

It took several minutes to transform Peter from mild-mannered reporter to National Guardsman with an infirm prisoner. After the man was stripped to his skivvies, they dragged his body to a back office and cuffed him to a bed. It was a disrespectful move, but it provided Jimmy some semblance of revenge for the beating he’d endured.

The guys were ready. Peter took the guard’s sidearm, and Jimmy grabbed a rucksack that he filled with medical supplies to treat his wounds as well as injuries at Driftwood Key. Everything was a valuable resource now.

After they rushed through the blowing rain and got settled in the Humvee, Peter started the motor. The roar of the six-point-two-liter V8 could barely be heard over the howl of the wind. He turned slightly in his seat and looked Jimmy in the face.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Green. Green. Green. As they say.”

Peter became serious. He took a deep breath and exhaled. “Jimmy, I’ve had to shoot people. Kill them, too.”

Jimmy stared at his friend, who’d never shown a violent streak in all the years they’d known one another. He sat up in his seat and pulled his arms behind his back to feign being handcuffed. Then he offered words of support.

“Things have changed, and there don’t appear to be rules anymore. It’s dog eat dog, you know?