Chapter 1 #2
The officer was quiet a beat too long, one single moment for Noah to realize something was wrong.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the sky and the officer’s face once more.
This time, a chill went through Noah’s body.
He had seen too much. “Look, I didn’t see anything.
You’ve got nothing to worry about from me, okay? ”
He pictured the gun beneath the truck’s bench seat.
If he opened the driver-side door, this guy would have his firearm pointed at Noah’s brain before he had one hand under the seat.
Right at that moment, lightning struck over the officer’s shoulder, catching Noah’s attention.
With a moment’s inspiration, he called, “Look out!”
The officer turned to look behind him and Noah ran behind the truck, opening the passenger-side door and grabbing his weapon from beneath the seat.
The pop of the officer’s gun had Noah instantly in combat mode, experience and memories of wartime fire focusing his senses on the situation at hand.
“What’s the matter?” asked Noah. “I wasn’t supposed to see that? ”
“You should have left when you were told to go.”
He clucked his tongue. “I’m well within my rights to stay.”
“Then you should have minded your own damn business.” He fired again, the tire next to Noah instantly deflating.
Noah considered firing back at the officer, but the implications of such a shot were screaming in his brain. He hesitated. This wasn’t a war. It wasn’t even a HERO Force assignment. It was plain old real life with real-life implications for attacking someone in law enforcement.
He didn’t want to hurt this guy, and he sure as hell didn’t want to kill him. The officer was shooting out his tires, making it so he couldn’t escape. He hadn’t taken a shot directly at Noah.
“Damn shame what happened down in Hilton Head, did you hear?” asked the cop. “Some dumb-ass white tourist pulled a gun on a cop during a routine traffic stop.” He laughed and fired again. A burning took over Noah’s left thigh. He’d been hit.
His third gunshot wound. One in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, now this. A fucking traffic stop in the middle of Hilton Head Island. He wasn’t just trying to keep Noah from escaping.
This cop wanted him dead.
Killing a cop would make him an enemy of the state. One pull of his trigger finger could change his entire life. There’d be no more HERO Force. There would be jail time, or worse. South Carolina had the death penalty and there wasn’t a damn thing at this scene to back Noah up if the cop went down.
Do you want to live, or do you want to die?
Another bullet whizzed by his ear. Running would make him an easy target.
He needed to act, no matter the consequences.
Decision made, he concentrated on aiming his weapon, a careful shot into the other man’s shoulder that would be extremely painful but wasn’t likely to kill.
But the cop moved quickly, coming around the vehicle, firing his weapon, and Noah’s focus shifted to a kill shot.
He pulled the trigger.
The cop fell to the ground like he’d tripped over a wire.
Noah’s breath was coming hard, the sound mixing with the rain pummeling the asphalt. He stood, moving to the cop and checking his neck for a pulse. Nothing.
His eyes raked over the stormy landscape, nothing in sight but that damn same bodega. He was standing in a torrential downpour in fifty-five-mile-per-hour winds, about to go through a hurricane, and now he was a cop killer.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He went back to his truck and grabbed a flashlight, then unbuckled his belt and pulled his pants down to his knees.
A hole in the top of his thigh was bleeding profusely.
He reached around back, finding a matching hole four inches below where his thigh met his ass.
He’d never be able to stitch it himself.
He grabbed a length of paracord from the glove box, tucked neatly between nineteen other carefully chosen items that could be used in a multitude of situations.
He tied it as tightly as he could just above the entry and exit wounds.
It would buy him some time, but not much of it.
He was losing blood quickly and needed his injuries repaired.
He sat in his truck. His eyes closed a beat too long before he pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911. Surely someone was answering emergency calls, even if they couldn’t dispatch someone to his location. He tried not to let himself consider what would happen to him now as he dialed.
Call failed.
He squinted at the bars in the corner of the screen. No service. He threw the phone hard against the dash. “Goddamn it!”
He had no transportation and a bullet wound to his leg. His eyes went to the police cruiser. He could take it, but for how long? The next passerby could come at any moment or not for days, but when they did, whoever was driving that cruiser would be public enemy number one.
How far would he have to go to find an open hospital? Maybe a hundred miles. He’d be dead by then.
He turned his head in the opposite direction, the lights of the bodega standing out against the storm like a beacon.
Someone was inside. Someone who might be able to help instead of him dying alone in the rain.
He considered taking the cruiser to the bodega but dismissed the idea.
He didn’t want the worker at the bodega to go on high alert.
He moved to the back of the truck and grabbed his go bag, slinging it over his shoulder. Inside were the medical supplies that could fix his injury—if only he could reach it—along with everything he needed to survive virtually any situation, at least initially.
It was important to be prepared, but sometimes life threw you curveballs all the preparation in the world couldn’t fix.
He limped off toward the bodega in the rain.