Impact (Book 5): Black

the woman comes back, I’d rather we have someone who can help defend the train. You’ve seen Shawn. He’s not going to be much use. Logan has heart, but he’s got to keep an eye on his dad. Even you are going to be distracted by Diedre.”
“Where do you think Robert will take us?”
She gave him a funny look. “You don’t think he’ll take us east? I just assumed…” She’d been so focused on her own problems, she’d forgotten Robert had brought along a boxcar full of family and coworkers who’d escaped from Denver. They had as much right, if not more, to decide where they went. Their objectives aligned with the engineer’s while they fled north to get out of Denver, but now?
She sighed as if the whole train was on her back.
Asher reached out and held her hand. “We’ll get through this. All we have to do is explain to Robert why we need to get where you want. If he says no, we still have your truck. It isn’t a big deal.”
Her mood came out of the clouds. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we got stuck transporting Misha in the Chevy he shot up? I’d make him sit in the cargo bed. Behind the partition.” Shawn’s brother had made the nice wooden bulkhead to keep out the wind created by all her broken rear windows. By putting the Russian behind it, he’d effectively be out of sight.
They both glanced toward the rail cars and the shed. From where they stood, the NPS truck was prominent on the flatcar. Diedre, Shawn, and Logan stood close to it, watching her and Asher gawk at the wrecked truck. Asher waved; Diedre waved back.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” she suggested. “Get the train moving. We’ll try to convince Robert to head east…”
Misha’s feet crunched on the gravel, announcing his approach. “You will not care to go east. We have to go to the rock at Yellowstone. I have friends there.” He carried the big rifle with two arms, but he couldn’t fire it without setting it on the ground. It was simply too long.
“Yellowstone?” she groaned. “Why in the hell would we go back? We’ve spent the past week getting away from there.”
Misha chuckled. “I thought I just said you must go to Yellowstone if you want to live through this. Me and my friends are the only ones who can help you.”
Boonsville, MO
“Stay down!” he yelled to Haley.
The men on the deck of the bridge had divided into two groups. Three had lined up along the front to shoot as they approached. The other three crossed the lanes of traffic and waited for them to emerge from underneath. The cracks of three rifles were answered by pings of metal and splitting of wood. They’d hit the boat.
Ezra’s heart seemed to stop inside his chest, and he feared he’d be frozen with panic, unable to move. To counter the grip of doom, he spun the wheel, changing his course violently to the left. It bled off lots of the speed, as he’d anticipated, but it also made them a more difficult target to hit. Splashes erupted off to his side, where the boat was originally headed. He kept going toward the left shore once he was aimed in that direction.
Butch readjusted as fast as possible. More shots came in, some hitting the boat, some splashing into the water, while he aimed upward and in reverse. When he squeezed off his first shot, his rifle was held awkwardly in front of him as he lay on the deck. There was nothing to balance it on.
Haley seemed to curl up into a smaller ball, hugging Liam against her chest.
The engine struggled to build up speed again, but once he heard the familiar roar of maximum RPMs, he cut the wheel to the right, trying to zig and zag. Each second took them farther from the shooters. Each change in direction caused Butch to lose his balance while firing from his back.
Two more shots hit the boat, splitting a seat cushion and puncturing the wooden deck. The back of his head felt huge and exposed. At any second, he could get split open by rifle rounds fired by the bastards in blue shirts. However, he kept his eyes forward, his mind focused, and put all his energy into planning escape maneuvers on the open water.
“Holy crap!” Butch shouted. “I almost hit one of them!”
“Keep it up!” he called back.
Another volley of shots zipped toward the boat. Most of those went into the water, some twenty or thirty feet away.
“We’re getting there,” he said to himself before making another course correction. When he checked over his shoulder, the entire span of the bridge was in his field of view. His swerving propeller wash painted an uneven brown trail back under the deck. Looking up, the two men from the front side arrived to join their mates.
Butch saw the same thing. Instead of carefully aiming his rifle, he put out as many rounds as possible in an effort to get the five men to stay low. His intense attack continued for ten or fifteen seconds until he got through his entire mag. “I’m out!”
They had thousands of rounds of ammo, but there was no time to reload. He reached for his rifle and chucked it toward Butch.
“Thanks!” the big man said, catching it.
A bullet struck the wooden deck in between Butch’s legs.
Ezra jerked left before another one found its target.
Butch rolled sideways with the change in momentum.
They went another few seconds before he yanked the wheel to the right. Soon after, he didn’t hear or see any bullet impacts.
His friend finally got his bearings, lined up the borrowed rifle, but didn’t fire. He studied them through the little 4X scope for a short time.