Altered Ch. 02

The mercs started hunting in twos for their missing and I saw them sweeping down from the north toward the church. There were about 11 other mercs on the coms so taking them out would be almost impossible in a defensive position, they had a sniper setting up near my grandpa's shack looking downhill toward the courtyard. I ran to the next building to stay out of his line of sight and hid in the cafeteria. I needed to keep the fight close, a ranged battle I wouldn't win since they had the high ground, superior numbers and tactics, and with their body armor and the rounds they were using I would have to get head shots each time.

The cafeteria had two rooms in it, one was a huge eating area with big tables to fit many children at once. It also had a kitchen that had a raised roof for better ventilation, there was also a kind of shelf/loft area over the entryway that separated the kitchen from the dining area, where they stored bags of rice and beans. There were two kitchen doors going outside, one faced uphill and the other led out to the river where the pig pens and chicken coops were. The kitchen was actually an add on to the original structure and the loft was actually part of the eave of the cafeteria's roof. There was a fourth exit in the loft, which was a horizontally long window that went out to the roof, it was used for light and ventilation in the kitchen. So, if I got pinned down in a firefight I could always escape to the roof.

I leapt up into the loft area and hid behind the bags, poking my rifle through the space between two bags. Man, what I wouldn't have done for a grenade right then, but none of the mercs had any on them. My rifle was ready for war and I leaned up with my silenced Glock and prepared. They came in pairs, one would charge in, in order to clear the room and the other would cover him from the doorway providing back up.

The hunting party searched from building to building and time seemed to slow when they finally reached the cafeteria. The first guy that came in the doorway to the kitchen swept back and forth and yelled clear, I followed his head with my gun as he headed toward the passageway to the dining area. I needed to time it just right so that I could kill him right before his partner crossed the kitchen threshold. Time slowed down and I saw the outside man's boot hit the threshold with a second to spare. Pfft, Pfft, two headshots from the ceiling.

There were men walking on the side of the cafeteria in the roadway and others coming out of the living quarters across the road heading for their men. They saw one of them lying outside the church but they had to guard against ambushes so they were meticulous. I crawled out onto the roof. since the kitchen roof was about three feet higher than the dining areas roof, it acted as cover for the sniper on the hill.

I aimed for the man closest to the church since he was the farthest away and I wanted to take out the hardest target first then move to the fish in the barrel below. The merc I had my sights on was used as a lone scout and as he leaned close enough to peer into the church doorway I blew his face off of his head as my bullet penetrated the back of his skull exiting his face.

Three of the mercs started firing towards the church thinking that the gunfire came from the church which just added to the chaos. As I had perfect ambush position and they were left out in the open. I picked off five of them before they got to cover and I rolled off the other side of the building and ran for the riverbed ducking behind a tractor and some old farm equipment on the way. I used the riverbed's bank as cover for my trek north and I ran impossibly fast and popped up behind the goat pen near my grandfather's shack. I had a good idea where the sniper was based on radio chatter and saw him perched behind an old oak stump. Maybe he wasn't a good sniper or he didn't expect me to move that fast but either way it was the last mistake he ever made as his brains were blown out the side of his head before he heard the report of my rifle. I ran to the stump and took his sniper's rifle and two clips of .338 Lapuas and looked for an opportune shot.

The three that were left were hidden and they were trying to flank me so I took the sniping rifle and ran to my grandfather's shack. I snuck over to the side door, leaned the sniper rifle against the side and pulled out my Glock. I pushed the door open and ran past it taking a quick look inside. There was no one in the shack so I walked in quickly and peeked into his trailer and saw him slumped over the table.

"Gramps! You OK?" I inquired, desperately feeling for a pulse.

He had a weak pulse but he was alive and when I pulled him up I could see he had been worked over. His face looked like a black and blue mess. His eyes were like a Rocky film, swollen shut.

"Grandson," he tried saying as if nothing was wrong.

"Gramps! We got to get you out of here!"

I normally wouldn't move him but he needed to get out of there quickly and I couldn't stay. My grandfather was in his late 70's and he was wiry and light maybe 150 lbs. I picked him up and got him out of his home, slung him over my shoulder, picked up my sniper rifle and ran across the highway for the hills.

My grandfather was an avid hiker and he blazed a lot of trails that led up into the hills. They were steep and cactus covered so there wasn't a lot of safe ways up except via his well-used trail. I ran quickly up the trail and I was about 100 yards up the path and about 20 yards higher up than the road when I found a good bolder behind some brush that I used to hide my grandfather. I grabbed an emergency blanket out of my utility belt, which was nothing more than a thin reflective plastic/aluminum combo, and I covered him up mainly to shield him from the hot sun. If I had more time I would come up with a better shelter but I saw a merc coming down the road.

I wasn't familiar with the Timberwolf C14 but I had practiced with some M1A1 sniper rifles and was deadly at 700 meters, so 200 yards would be a piece of cake as long as they didn't have an RPG, mortar, mini gun or something else to counter my sniping nest. I had the advantage. I adjusted my scope and lined up my target.

He seemed to be following along the fence line facing north east looking for me to be within the orphanage. I followed him with my rifle and waited for a second opportune shot to present itself before I took him out as I wanted to kill 2 birds with one stone so to speak. He was about to move under cover of a tree and I was afraid to lose the opportunity so I took him out.

All of the sudden the radio blared, "Come out Anthony, we got your girlfriend here," a sinister female voice blared.

"Nate, please I don't want to die," a desperate sounding Tanya cried.

*******

Nate had been gone for hours and Tanya began to worry.

"You think he'll be alright?" asked Tanya.

"He's a tough son of a bitch, but he's taking on an army of experience mercenaries so I don't know."

Irene was on top of the pool house roof surveilling the area with the range finder. "Guys, I see activity. It looks like a group of children running across a field. I'm going to go check it out, you stay here."

Irene took off crossing the first ranch field, avoiding the river and road as they would more likely be watched and got to the second ranch house right as they arrived.

"Tanya, stay here, I think she'll need my help," George stated. George took off across the fields leaving Tanya angry and feeling useless.

"I'm going to see if I can help," she thought.

She made her way over to the road and headed toward the orphanage. She figured that as long as she didn't get too close maybe she could help somehow, maybe she could create a distraction. As she was midway to the orphanage and had passed the first ranch past the pool, she heard what sounded like gunfire. She was about to turn and run when her body felt stiff, like she was made of concrete. To her horror, out popped a woman in black and a man dressed in full combat fatigues.

******

"Fuck!" I thought and turned off my receiver before they could triangulate me.

"Are any of you there?" I said after turning my walkie on.

"Yeah, we are here, we can't find Tanya anywhere," George replied.

"They got her, they told me over their communications device I have been listening to. I can't reply back to them or they'll kill her. I'm stuck in a catch 22. If I give myself up to them she dies, if I tell them to go to hell she dies. I have to find a way to keep her valuable to them and I think I know how."

"Irene is taking the children to safety, luckily Tanya left her car keys here. Is there anything I can do?"

"Yeah, I need you to get Gramps, he's on his trail behind a bolder can you get him out of there?"

"Won't they kill me when they see me coming down the highway?"

"I'll create a distraction, just get up here, by the time you get here they will be coming for me."

"OK, man, I'm coming."

I ran up the path about a half mile as it followed the curve of the hills upward. It forked and one path led up to the top of the hill and one went north curving back toward the highway about a mile away. I was so agile and fast that it didn't matter how rough the terrain got it hardly slowed me down. I ran the mile in less than two minutes.

A mile up the road from the orphanage was nothing but camp grounds, and there weren't any tents set up anywhere which was unusual for this time of year and there was evidence that someone had a party recently because there was trash littered everywhere, a lot of the trash was food stuff and there were literally six packs of beer still on some of the picnic tables; whomever was here left in a hurry. I had a feeling that the mercs flew in from somewhere so I was looking for a chopper and this was the only spot they could use that was close.

I ran up to the edge of a clearing and saw what I was looking for, two large Huey Helicopters and the pilots off to the sides taking a smoke. I pulled out my sniper's rifle got down on one knee and quickly shot took them out. They had a group of 5 guards about 20 meters behind the copters sitting around the benches of an unused firepit. The guard keeping watch saw me after the fact and returned fire, spraying the trees with bullets. I caught a couple in my armor and it knocked the wind out of me, one grazed my shoulder and one grazed my thigh before I was able to take cover behind a tree.

The superficial wounds were recovered in seconds and if I didn't act quickly I would be boned for sure as the other guards were organizing a flank. I dropped my sniper rifle and I leapt up the tree trunk and was able to climb up the thick trunk in seconds. I pulled out my silenced Glock and got a shot off from the V that the tree made as it split its bulk going left and right. The first guard dropped like a stone and the four others were using the cover of the copter, but they didn't know where I was hiding as the guy shooting at me died too quickly to give a location. It wouldn't take them long though because the trunk I was in was riddled with holes and I wasn't up very high and if they flanked me, eventually they would get at an angle that exposed me.

I pulled the assault rifle that was strapped to my back and analyzed the most effective shooting pattern to take as many of them as I could. I fired a volley wounding two of them, but they responded by lighting up the tree I was in. As I turned my gun to jump back down from the tree a bullet hit the gun bending the clip and the opening for the stock. I wasn't about to deal with a misfire so I dropped the gun as I dropped out the tree. I dropped back to the ground behind the trunk, the sniper rifle wasn't going to do much right now so I pulled out my Glock once again and loaded a new clip. I didn't do enough damage to them to prevent a flank so I looked for an escape route or a distraction and the closest cover behind me was more than 50 yards away, I was fast but not that fast.

Fuck it, time to man up and be a juggernaut. As I saw them spread out, I rushed out toward the left guard impossibly fast and shot him, then dove into a roll with my hyper reactions fully active the world seemed to move slower, and although I could move at what seemed like normal speed, I couldn't fall at normal speed. I twisted my body around in midair and "slowly" aimed at the guy flanking right and took him out. The two guys I injured earlier were still in the middle near cover by the copters and they were doing their best to keep up with me. My body armor took a bunch of hits and my legs sprouted a few new holes when their clips both ran out. Just in time for me to pop back up from my dive and take them out before they could reload. Anyone trying these tactics without my abilities would be dead right now.

I was finally about to declare victory when my mind became enflamed with random images, they assaulted my senses and drove me to my knees as I lost all control. I suddenly felt like a marionette and my head was turned to the south and I saw a woman dressed as if she came out of a spy novel. Her outfit had to be uncomfortable in this heat. She wore a tight fitting black trench coat that went down to her knees, a black skirt peaked out of the edge the coat, black high heeled pumps that had no business being used on the dirt trails she was traversing. She had coal black hair that was pulled back into a tight bun. She wore no makeup and she was terribly pale like she rarely saw the sun. I would have considered her really beautiful if not for the sinister sneer scarring her face.

She was accompanied by two mercs on her flanks, one of whom was pushing a handcuffed and gagged Tanya out in front of her.

"Bind him!" she said.

She had the voice that threatened Tanya earlier, the two mercs must have been what was left of her forces as I saw no indication that they were expecting any backup.

One of the mercs slammed the butt of his rifle into my face breaking my nose and almost making me lose consciousness. He then roughly bound my hands with two plastic handcuff ties and pulled me to my feet. My nose was already almost healed by the time he turned to gloat and had a surprised look on his face.

The woman in black had more of a bemused look. "Impressive, you are the strongest healer of the bunch. I wonder which programs you were subjected to," she said, studying me.

Tanya had a look of anger towards me which seemed to amuse the lady in black.

"My dear, don't worry, he knew that we would kill you either way, he had to make sure that you were still useful to us." she said, looking at Tanya in condescending amusement. I think she was only talking to Tanya to torture her. "He took out our ride home to keep you safe. Now we need you as extra leverage to keep him under control. Who knows? You might last until tomorrow..."