*****
“I don’t want you to do this, brother,” Lamar Jenkins said to Rusty, tears welling up. “You said yourself the chances of making it back are slim.”
“'Slim to none,' I think is what I said,” Rusty replied smiling, trying to keep his friend from changing his mind. “You and I both know this is our only chance. With a little luck, it will work and I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point.”
“Alright, we’ve trusted each other this far. But let’s skip the luck part and go for a quick prayer.”
The two men joined hands, said a prayer, and embraced. Rusty quickly walked towards the front gate, nodding to the heavily armed young men who swung open the heavy steel plates as he ducked through. Hands up in the air, he approached at a quick pace, announcing his presence as he walked.
“I’m glad you came to your senses. I hope you’ll see that life in America can be safe for everyone once again,” the officer replied curtly. Rusty could see the man glance at his watch. “Thirty-one minutes. You must have been persuasive to your leaders.”
“Yeah, they saw through this pretty quick. The writing was on the blackboard, so to speak,” Rusty said as he took quick inventory of the men surrounding them.
“Hey, good news. We’ve got our own bus to take folks out in. That way we can go ahead and get loaded right away. We’ll get as many on our bus as possible. And then the rest of us will all fit on yours when it gets here. Is that all right?” Rusty tried to be compliant and disarming with the tone of his voice, as though he was giving all authority to the officer.
Clearly surprised by this turn, the young man didn’t answer right away. Finally: “All right, but it comes out empty. And we’ll load it right here in the street. You understand? Any funny business and we’ll light it up.”
“Understood. I figured you’d feel that way, so there’s just a driver in there now. I’m going to give the signal and they’ll open that big door right there and it will pull through. Don’t get alarmed, we had it armored up to be bulletproof. Well, sort of bulletproof,” Rusty informed them cautiously.
The term bulletproof had the effect he was looking for, as every weapon he could see moved away from Rusty and to the metal gates slowly swinging open. The bus crept out, slowly chugging down the ramp toward the street just about two hundred feet away.
The bus just made the parallel street when Rusty quickly grabbed the pistol tucked behind his back. Should’ve frisked me, kid. Too used to scaring people with the big guns and uniforms.
Rusty met the officer's shocked eyes just as the muzzle flash went off twice, putting both bullets into the man’s chest from short range. Before the soldier hit the ground, Rusty emptied his clip into the soldier on top of the nearest Humvee, the one manning the .50 caliber heavy gun that was making the school shake as it raked the walls side to side. Rusty needed to take that gun out or it would rip the armor on the bus apart like tin foil.
He ejected the magazine from his .45, rolling to the ground with a thud that shook his four decades. As he scrambled around the wheel of the command Humvee, he could hear the blast of the two guards firing in his direction. Bullets whined, clanked and screeched as steel met the vehicle and surrounding concrete.
A sharp burning pain struck Rusty’s thigh, causing an unconscious grunt. He instinctively grabbed at the leg, feeling the denim in his jeans already wet with blood.
Well, that didn’t go exactly to plan, Rusty thought ironically.
He could still hear the weapons barking and the flashes light up the night air. But now the guard’s attention was focused somewhere else, and then silence except for some gunfire from blocks away.
“Rusty, let’s go! Get in, the other soldiers are heading our direction! It’s working, your plan is working!”
Rusty, already delirious from pain, tried to cut through the mental fog settling in on him. That sounds like Lamar. He wouldn’t…why would he be here? It was supposed to be one of the younger guys with no family that went with me on this.
“Rusty, let’s go! We don’t know how long we have!”
Definitely Lamar. I’m gonna kill him myself if I can get up.
Rusty tried to struggle to his feet, suddenly feeling a strong arm grab him around the waist, hoisting him up. The two men half-hobbled together to the idling bus. Even Lamar’s strength was tested by Rusty’s large frame, especially now that that frame was wobbly at best.
As Rusty collapsed on the front passenger bench, Lamar jumped into the driver seat, gunning the overweight school bus into motion. The adrenaline shot back into Rusty’s blood, allowing him to glance back and see the headlights of two vehicles closing on the back of the bus. The lights went back and forth, only visible through small firing slits in the armored plates covering the windows. Mustering his strength, Rusty grabbed one of the battle rifles strapped to the back of the seat, moving his way to the back of the swaying bus. Slammed back and forth by Lamar’s evasive maneuvers, Rusty finally stumbled to the floor, sticking his rifle out of one of the small gaps in the armor.
CLICK. Nothing happened as Rusty remembered to chamber a round.
He pulled the trigger again and the weapon leapt backward, slamming into Rusty’s shoulder.
Man I’m too old for this. Everything hurts. Gotta keep going. If they chase us, the others get away.
Rusty kept firing until the rifle clicked again. Rolling on his back, he jammed another magazine into the rifle and began firing again.
How far have we gone? Blocks, miles? Lamar kept changing directions back and forth, always away from the school and the rendezvous point. I should have never told him we weren’t going to go back to meet the others.
When Rusty came up with the plan to create a diversion and lead the soldiers away from the Congregation, he never intended to meet back up with the rest at the rendezvous point. Backtracking would have been too dangerous, giving someone a chance to follow them back and catch the whole group. Rusty just thought the young man who got this job deserved to know what their mission was in the end. And ultimately what that end would be.
Somehow, Lamar figured that part of the plan out. Should’ve known I couldn’t outsmart him.
Hopefully by now the entire group of soldiers was hot on Lamar and Rusty’s trail, trying to avenge the loss of their officer and the embarrassment of being outsmarted by a bunch of civilians. With any luck, the other two buses were loaded with every other member of the congregation, moving further south and west away from the city and towards an uncertain freedom. Rusty prayed that was the case, really truly prayed for the first time in his life.
Please, Lord, give them a chance to live. I mean really live.
Rusty’s prayer was interrupted by a thunderous crash and the groans of strained sheet metal – the loudest noise he had ever heard. Then he was weightless, thrown towards the front of the bus as the vehicle lurched into the air and turned over. Rusty tumbled like a rag doll, somersaulting and cartwheeling before crashing into unforgiving metal.
Can’t feel my legs…at least it doesn’t hurt so bad now…but that piercing headache…
Muffled shouts came from outside of the wrecked bus, and spotlights poked their beams through the crunched sheet metal and bent steel.
“Brother…” Rusty heard Lamar’s voice rasp in the darkness. “Brother… I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”
Tears of appreciation and pain filled Rusty’s eyes as the guns outside the bus began to unload on their torn and smoking vehicle.
“You already did…”