Chapter 24



The only thing that Jake had said when they passed out the heavy weapons from the trunk of Johnson's car was, "I thought I told you to bring the good stuff!"

It was Bob Johnson, as he slipped into his body armor, who laughed and replied, "this is the good stuff." To illustrate his point, he picked up a shotgun and racked it. Then Garcia shook his head in resignation and handed him a box of shells so he could actually, really, load the weapon. Johnson took them and shrugged, "oh yeah. Might need these! Right! Good call!"

Jake tried telling himself that there was very little chance that they would wind up in a real fight anyway. This was not the army. This was now a war zone. His guys had followed a fashion model here, after all. With that being the case, what was it they were likely to find at this place? A shipment of stolen beauty supplies?

The sound of a full scale battle erupted just behind the trees. It started with something that sounded like an artillery barrage and then, after a small war, it sounded like somebody was using a great big cannon, really fast. Jake mumbled to himself, "that's one heavy duty hair dryer in there."

Cal actually understood what Jake had just said and developed a very strange look. He then shook it off and decided he did not want to know.

At this point Johnson looked at their trunk of assorted shotguns, rifles, and a few really small machineguns and said, "um, we might need some more guns here."

Jake actually took a hunting rifle and let Amy and Tony have the two submachine-pistols that he estimated were probably worthless for hitting anything at a distance. He figured they probably couldn't hit any targets anyway so what could it hurt to let them spray and pray? He pointed to them, "base of fire."

Tony nodded in the affirmative and then Amy asked the question on everyone's mind, "gotya boss. Now, um, what's that mean?"

At that time Jake made the command decision that all of his command decisions from this point forward were probably worthless. He closed the trunk of the car and told all of them, "follow me in a line." He kept his commands simple, "I'll be in front and, Hiller, you be in the rear. You do know where the rear is, right?" She nodded that she did so Jake asked, "everybody ready?"

They all checked over there gear and began nodding. Jake could not fault them for enthusiasm at least. He hoped it would not get them something like, dead. With that cheery thought in mind, Jake nodded for them to follow and suddenly Garcia Alvarez broke out with, "wait, wait, wait!"

When all eyes went to Garcia he slapped Johnson on the arm, "did you remember to lock the car door this time?" Johnson just slapped himself on the forehead like, "silly me," and then went and did just that. When he got back in line he nodded to everybody else that he was ready so Jake led them all into the abyss.

They reached the only open roller door of the warehouse loading docks and quickly found out what was making that, 'big cannon' sound. Jake knelt behind the concrete drop off of the dock. Almost everyone else followed suit and, unfortunately, it was just an almost. Tony rolled out of line and ran for the stairs next to Jake. He was obviously going for the door into the warehouse. Jake reached out with one arm and snatched him, over the railing, and back down to the parking lot. The metal door turned into Swiss cheese shortly thereafter.

When Tony saw the ripped up door he gulped and then angrily stated, "that's no fair! Man that's a steel door!"

"And that's a seventy-five caliber in there, genius," Jake told him with even more hostility than earlier. He then looked back at his line of people, all properly scared, and began to tell them to lay down suppressive fire. He checked himself and, instead, Jake just said, "stay here and keep that machinegun busy."

Calvin raised his hand and asked, "preferably by some other means than letting them shoot holes in us, right?"

Jake could not believe he was fielding this question. He just agreed with the man by saying, "that would not be my first choice, no." When none of them got it he told them, "shoot back!" Amy slapped herself on the forehead and said, "duh! Why didn't we think of that?" She gave the man an eat shit look but, it was too late, he had already taken off.

All eyes went to Calvin and he said, "I think…"

They waited, and waited, and then waited a little longer before Calvin finally said, "he's got a good idea. Let's do what the man says!"

After a few nods of agreement they all raised up and opened fire over the top of the loading dock. Less than a moment later, after the return fire, they were all back behind cover and Garcia said what was on all their minds as he picked concrete plaster out of his hair, "that always looked so much easier in the movies."

Amy snapped at them. She figured she was probably as scared as anybody else but, she realized she should not be cowering like this. After all, she'd already been in a gun fight today! She knew she could handle herself! Besides that, Shannon was in there and that poor little girl was probably in need of rescue! Coincidently, Amy also realized she'd rather face the bullets of a giant murderous auto cannon than Barbara, any day of the week.

"What are we doing here people," she growled at them. "Shannon needs us!" They all looked guilty and scared. "Our new boss needs us too," she told them. That got mixed reviews at best and even Amy realized she was grasping there. Garcia even waved his hand from side to side and shrugged that one off.

So Amy had to play the real card, "anybody want to tell Barbara what happened here?" That got them up and moving. They raised up with weapons at the ready, screaming like mad men. Those war cries quickly turned to screams of terror when they realized the enemy had a new weapon. He was driving a truck right at the loading dock door they were hiding behind. Amy yelled out the only sensible military command that she knew, "DUCK!"

The truck flew right over them and everyone was quite thankful that it's roaring engine covered the sounds of their screams. After it hit the pavement and came to a painful sounding halt, probably from it's transmission being smashed, they all pretended like they were still making war cries. Johnson even sprang into action, jumped to his feet, and tried shooting at the truck with his shotgun. He was still looking at his weapon wondering why it would not fire when Garcia walked up behind him, flipped off the safety, and with a very scornful tone he asked, "you've had that on the whole time, haven't you?"

Johnson was quite adamant when told his partner, "yeah well remember when I almost shot my foot at the range? Safety first!"

Calvin quickly joined them and was frantically calling out and pointing at the truck, "hold your fire! That's Norm."

Garcia just flippantly replied while still looking at Bob, "don't worry man. I don't think there's much danger of that. Safety first, right dude?"

Inside the warehouse, Jake was having a hard time of it. He managed the easy part about like he would expect. The fire from the heavy machinegun was enough noise to cover his movements. If there was any problem with that, at all, it was the fact that the machinegun was not firing enough! From the sounds of it, neither were his own people and Jake just kind of figured that might be for the best.

Then something happened and he actually smiled when he realized what it was. The white truck, on the other side of the warehouse, drove off and whoever did that needed a medal. The machinegun guys wasted no time grabbing their assorted gear, abandoning their position, weapon, and then heading for the back door. Jake saw his chance and he took it.

He did not actually need to kill all of these guys and, in fact, he actually needed one alive. He picked the last straggler, stepped out from behind a shipping crate, and put the butt of his rifle right in the guys eyes. The man actually more ran into the weapon than Jake had to swing it. It was good enough because the guy wound up on the floor. By the time the man could see again, Jake already had the other end of the weapon pointed at the same spot he aimed his butt stock.

The man, still lying on the floor, looked terrified. He slowly raised his hands. Then his head exploded and the floor was smeared with what used to be the guys brains and blood. Jake quickly swung around and looked for the source of the shot that he had not even heard. He quickly spotted another one of the men in a white jump suit. The guy was a ways off, standing in the back door of the warehouse. He also had a rifle and it was already pointing at Jake. Now the score was a little more even with Jake's weapon pointed at him.

Jake did not fire. It was a distance but, an easy shot for him with this weapon. What Jake realized was that the same was obviously true for the other guy. There was also the little problem of why this guy had shot his own man instead of Jake? Whatever the answer was, it took off with the guy who did not stick around to see if Jake would actually shoot where he had declined. Jake lowered his weapon when the target was gone. He gritted his teeth and then headed back to his own people. Unfortunately, as he found out, the crisis was not quite over yet.