Chapter 28 #2
“As you can see,” Alexei continued. “The concentration of theta is a bit more than double the last determination, which means I can go ahead and do a harvest. It won’t be our biggest yield by a long shot, but it is at least on the positive side of the cutoff.
I’m confident we can even make the dump in the water system tonight, meaning we can be on our way to the border sometime early tomorrow morning. ”
Alexei’s surprise and uneasiness now verged on physiological distress.
Viktor didn’t respond verbally or otherwise but rather just stared back at Alexei with an irritated expression that if anything seemed to be hardening.
With rising alarm Alexei glanced at the other two, but he couldn’t read anything into their expressions either.
“I’m surprised, sir,” Alexei managed with difficulty, his voice faltering. “I thought you’d be pleased at this positive result.”
“Pleased?” Viktor yelled as his face flushed with sudden fury.
“Pleased in the face of such traitorous insubordination. I feared you’d distort the results and meant to have Nikolai verify them.
Never did I suspect you would go to this extent.
This is beyond the pale and calls for much more than a court-martial.
” With that, Viktor lunged for the .44 Magnum, struggling a bit due to its unwieldy weight and the length of the barrel.
Alexei saw Viktor go for the gun and in self-defense and without thinking, he did the same, drawing the Glock out of his pocket with remarkable ease, and as Viktor was bringing up his weapon, Alexei was already holding his gun with both hands, pointing directly at Viktor’s face.
Reacting by reflex more than thought but believing he was about to be shot, Alexei pulled off several rounds.
Alexei’s first shot hit Viktor in the neck while the second slammed into Viktor’s cheek just below his left eye.
Viktor’s head snapped back as a reaction to the dual concussive blows and his arms went limp before his body slid forward in his barstool like a piece of wet spaghetti before dropping out of sight.
While this was happening to Viktor’s body, his gun fell onto the granite and skidded over in front of Nikolai, who snatched it up.
He then raised it and aimed it across the island at Alexei.
Still responding by reflex, Alexei pulled off two more shots into Nikolai’s face, causing the .
44 Magnum to again smash down onto the granite island and now skid toward Dmitry.
As Nikolai’s body disappeared in a fashion mimicking Viktor’s, Alexei’s attention immediately switched to Dmitry, only to see him disappear. In the next fraction of a second the AR-15 disappeared as well, meaning Dmitry had grabbed it and pulled it into himself behind the kitchen island.
“Dmitry!” Alexei called out. But there was no answer.
Instead, Alexei heard the safety being switched off the AR-15 plus another click that suggested its automatic mode had been switched on.
Knowing full well his Glock was no match for an automatic assault rifle with a full magazine, Alexei dropped out of his barstool and without a second’s hesitation ran, bent over, around the edge of the kitchen island, passing the twelve-burner cooktop while he heard a hail of bullets splintering the wall behind where he’d been sitting.
A fraction of a second later, he reached the kitchen island’s far corner, and without a millisecond’s hesitation, he rounded the end, bent over with the Glock held in both hands at the ready.
Directly ahead of him perpendicularly facing away was Dmitry.
He was holding the AR-15 at waist height, still blasting in the direction of Alexei’s vacated seat.
“Dmitry!” Alexei called out again over the din.
Unfortunately, instead of responding verbally, the stunned Dmitry started to turn in Alexei’s direction, swinging his rifle around, which he was still firing and causing absolute mayhem in the kitchen, hitting all the hanging cookware in a cacophony of noise and destruction.
Once again within a split second Alexei responded by self-preservation reflex, shooting Dmitry twice in the chest, causing him to stagger backward several steps from the impact and stop firing.
He then dropped the rifle as he seemed to struggle to retain his balance.
His expression suggested confusion as he looked down at his chest like he had no idea of what had just hit him.
A second later his legs gave out, and he crumbled in a heap on the floor.
“Oh God, no!” Alexei screamed, and with his ears still ringing from the godawful spray of 5.
56mm ammunition all around the kitchen, he tossed the Glock aside, and rushed over to Dmitry.
He grabbed him under the arms and pulled him out straight.
Then he tore open his shirt causing buttons to pop off in all directions.
There in plain sight were two sharply defined entrance wounds.
One was in the right chest, the other dead center.
There was very little blood. Most of that was now coming out his back and spreading out on the floor along the sides of his body.
He was still breathing but barely, and it was raspy.
“Oh God!” Alexei repeated as he stood up.
He knew Dmitry wasn’t long for this world.
“Dmitry! Why, why did you want to shoot me?” Alexei yelled accusatorily down at the dying man.
He then looked over at the bodies of Viktor and Nikolai wedged between their barstools and the kitchen island.
Viktor he thought he understood to a degree thanks to his reputation, and Nikolai’s actions he explained as coming from his being a hopeless sycophant.
But Dmitry’s actions were a total shock.
“What a freaking disaster,” he cried and it was all so unnecessary.
Shaking his head in dismay and disbelief at what had just happened in the last sixty seconds, he stepped over, pulled the two barstools away from the kitchen island, and checked the other two victims. Although Nikolai was still breathing shallowly, it was clear he was dying.
He’d taken two shots through the center of his forehead just above his eyes.
Viktor was already a corpse, clearly dead.
As Alexei straightened up and glanced around at the utter destruction Dmitry’s indiscriminate AR-15 firing had caused, the full reality and implications of what had just transpired and, more important, what it meant for him hit Alexei like a tsunami.
He was somehow alive despite three capable people wanting him dead, but he was now utterly alone in a hostile world.
He was not only homeless but also country-less.
Under these circumstances, there was no way he could return to Mother Russia and explain why only he managed to get out of America while all three of his fellow militiamen, including a general and a renowned scientist, had been killed.
As for America, he knew he’d be relentlessly pursued when the loss of life and destruction at the Bennet Estate was discovered, much less the dumping of infectious prions in a town’s municipal water system.
It was as if a huge, dark, smothering blanket was settling over Alexei, forcing him to look back over at the Glock that he’d tossed aside. It was calling out to him as a rescuer, a savior. With a sudden sense of purpose and direction, Alexei walked over and snatched up the weapon.