Forty-eight
Sheriff Gene Packerson spent the morning on the
Ridge. He napped to catch up on desperately needed sleep, although never
so deeply that he risked missing a call.
The explosion echoing from the valley in the
afternoon brought him fully alert. The rising tendrils of smoke marked
the location of the explosion. John Hartman's cabin had been hit by
artillery far more substantial than a rifle or handgun. The distant throb
of a helicopter warned of the scope of the military operation in progress
against the former mercenary.
Gene reached for his mike to radio his substation.
"I'm going in! Send in all available backup!"
The dispatcher on duty at this hour was a
forty-year-old mother of four. "Gene, be careful, damn you!"
He grabbed his dash-mounted shotgun and climbed out
of the car.
The first bullet skipped on the ground a few yards to
his left. He had no way to pinpoint the origin of the crackling sound of
the gunshot that followed. The second bullet went wild, but when he
glanced back at his car, a neat hole had appeared centered in the
windshield.
"Shit!"
He dropped the shotgun and put his arms out in a
gesture of surrender. A third gunshot whined over his head. He dived
across the front seat and grabbed for the mike.
"I'm taking fire! Everybody stand clear! I'm on my
way down!"
He backed the car from the field, grimly determined
that Orville Kahl would pay for his arrogance. Within the hour, he'd have
the National Guard breathing down Kahl's neck.
He swung the car around and tore back through the
Ridge. A scattering of residents stood outside their homes, pointing
excitedly to the smoldering treeline. Taking the hill down to the road
below a bit too fast, he broad-slid the last dozen yards to the
intersection, then burned rubber toward Eagle Junction.
He grinned when the chopper buzzed his car, thinking
that Special Agent Sheila Davies had returned to lend a hand. The smile
faded when the machine pulled down in front of him and paced him at
seventy miles an hour. It wasn't the same machine, and he suspected a
tube mounted on one landing skid to be a launcher for a grossly illegal
air-launched missile, probably the kind he had heard explode in the
valley.
The CIA would cut Orville Kahl down to size soon
enough, although it occurred to him as the chopper turned sideways, a door
opened, and a rifle barrel targeted him, that he'd have to survive the
next few moments to reap any satisfaction from Kahl's downfall.
The first burst of automatic gunfire punched three
holes in the hood of his car. The engine coughed. Smoke and fire seeped
through the three holes and the hood's seam.
"God damn!"
Bullets popped through the roof of the car,
shattering his dash and instrument panel and stinging his right arm.
Another sharp pain on the inside of his thigh made him jump.
He jerked the wheel and drove into the trees.
Avoiding a sudden obstacle course of Douglas firs, he steered with one
hand and released his seat belt with the other. Switching hands, he threw
his door open and bailed out as the car leaped the crest of a drop-off.
Striking ground heels first, he managed a brutal
slide through a mass of undergrowth and recovered in time to see the car
strike the ground well below his position. Two doors and both the hood
and trunk lid flew open an instant before the vehicle's front end
collapsed against the unyielding trunk of a century-old tree. The
radiator exploded in a gout of steam, putting out the engine fire that had
trailed oily smoke along the car's trajectory from the highway.
Lying among the weeds of dense undergrowth, Packerson
clutching his bleeding thigh with his right hand and his bleeding arm with
his left. He stared at the blood seeping between his fingers in
amazement. For the first time in his thirty year career in law
enforcement, he had been shot.
