53, Shootout

“I’m gonna eat all the ice cream in Russia if we get out of this one alive.”  Pilot Porter was panting as she crawled over fallen tree trunks in the pitch black night.  Her night vision goggles gave her the ability to see all of the obstacles between her and the deep forest.  “At least they won’t be able to drive in here to catch us.  They gotta get us on foot,” she said over heavy breaths.

Agent Death had scraped her arm on a branch but couldn’t tell if the scratch was bleeding.  It burned in the cold night air as she pushed on.  “We have no guns, we have no body armor, and it’s cold as fuck.”  She straddled another fallen tree and slipped over it.  “I won’t bitch, I’ve had worse nights than this.”

“Oh yeah?”  Porter ducked under a tree branch as she kept moving uphill.  “Do tell.”

“Well, I used to date this college guy in Michigan when I was twenty.  His family had a cabin in the woods by a lake, and we got drunk.  He slid off the road and crashed his truck, so we had to walk two miles in deep snow but all I had on were jogging pants and tennis shoes.  I thought I was gonna lose my toes that night.”

“Dang!  What happened?”

“He cried the whole hike and I had to constantly encourage him to keep going.  It was a cold, miserable two hour trek.  That relationship ended the second we got into the cabin.”  Agent Death reached up and grabbed a tree root sticking out of the ground to pull herself up onto a boulder.  “Crying like a bitch is a real turn off, you know?”  She laughed to herself.  “Youth is wasted on the young.”  She fought to catch her breath as she scurried over another large fallen pine.

“Well I’ve camped outside in the winter so I’m fine with the cold.”  Porter could hear her heartbeat over her breath as she kept working her way uphill.  “I’ve never run from Russians in a forest, so this is a first.  At least there’s no snow!”  Porter wanted to chuckle at her own joke but was too out of breath.

“Speaking of…” Death’s voice trailed off.  She reached into her survival backpack and pulled out a pair of night vision binoculars.  “Let’s take a breather.”

“Fine by me.”

Death took her night vision goggles off to lift the binocs to her eyes.  “Let’s see how far we are from them.”  It took a moment to dial in the focus and she gasped.  From her new vantage point, she realized that she and Porter were hiking towards a dirt road above them instead of away from it.  “Shit, Porter, I think we’re climbing right towards the road that they’re driving in on!”

Porter was normally very chipper.  She worked hard, she never complained, and she was always joking with her team to keep them in good spirits.  Currently, the positivity in her voice deflated like a balloon.  “Crap.”

“Yeah.”  Death scoped out the area and looked for somewhere they could run or hide.  Two convoys of vehicles consisting of six or seven jeeps each were driving from opposite directions up the hill towards them.  The convoys were only a mile or so away.  “This fucking sucks.”

“Would it be better to head back down to the chopper?”  The two women had run out of gas in their helicopter and Porter had landed it in a small clearing in the middle of a thickly wooded area, and now that they were this close to the dirt road where the pursuers were driving in on, it seemed that getting back to where they came from might be a good idea.

“I don’t think so, but I might be wrong.”  After a lot of looking, Death made a decision.  “The trees are thickest down there and will give us the most cover.  Follow me.”  

“Lead the way.”  

The two women scrambled downhill much faster than they’d been climbing uphill.  Some downed trees were difficult to get over, but they were able to get behind a hundred yards of timber as the jeeps met up from the dirt road on the hill above them. 

Death whispered loudly, “Get down!  I think we’re far enough away that even infrared binoculars won’t pick up our location if we stay low!”  She grabbed Porter’s shoulder and reiterated, “I think.”

“Fine by me.  I need to catch my breath.”  Porter was a natural pilot and had spent her entire adult life flying any kind of craft that she could get her hands on.  When she wasn’t flying, she was reading about flying, or practicing flying in simulators.  When she wasn’t doing that, she was at airstrips, flirting with plane mechanics and enjoying her love life as a single woman.  Her whole life revolved around flying.  Now that she was on the run, she wished that she’d spent more time in the gym.

Sounds of Russian men yelling at each other filled the night air.  One man with a very low pitched voice was hollering while another man with a higher pitched voice was answering him with equal intensity.  She didn’t know what they were saying but their sentences were short and passionate.  The women could tell that the men were very angry.  

“Listen to how angry they are, Porter.  They sound like they’re blaming each other for something.  Maybe we can use this to our advantage,” Death whispered quietly.

“I don’t know,” Porter whispered back.  “It sounds like they genuinely don’t like each other.”

The still, cool night was windless and their voices carried down the hill clearly.  Death admitted, “I wish I would’ve paid attention to my Russian lessons.  I’d really like to know what they’re saying right now.”

Porter had a strange feeling.  “I don’t get it.  I mean, I understand that Russian men have terrible egos, but if they’re trying to chase us, why would they be yelling and announcing their position to us?  It doesn’t make sense.”

Death thought about it for a second and agreed.  “You’re right.  Are these guys even soldiers?” 

Porter was confused but her logic was processing the sounds she was hearing.  “Are they actually fighting up there?”

More voices started yelling.  The Russian men were clearly angry, but the two American military women couldn’t hear any sounds of pursuit.  Clearly the yelling men weren’t running into the woods to find whomever was flying the helicopter.  Out of nowhere, an entire chorus of men started yelling at each other.  It sounded like men were pushing each other and screaming in each other’s faces.

“I’m not sure, but now would be a good time to put more distance between us and them.  Follow me and let’s get behind those rocks down there.”

With their night vision goggles on, the two women popped up from behind a fallen tree and scrambled another forty yards downhill.  The yelling uphill was at an uproar and it was very clear that there was some kind of fight going on.  It took less than a minute for the agents to get to their destination.  They both slipped behind a large boulder and dropped down.

“Even with infrared detectors, they won’t see us behind this huge thermal mass,” Death said.  “We’re safe as long as they don’t start looking for us.  Stay down and don’t peek at them!  I don’t even want to show the top of our heads to them in case they’re looking.”

Gunfire erupted and the entire hillside reverberated with the booms of gunpowder and bullets.  The screaming quickly ended as the sound of dozens of automatic rifles opened fire.  The two women covered their ears and instinctively dropped as low as they could drop, but their position was safe.  Random bullets ripped into the forest, and the sound of screaming fast metal whizzing through the air reverberated off of the hillsides.

Before the helicopter had landed, Agent Death’s nervous system had been absolutely fried from a very jerky ride.  Porter had dodged rockets shot by a military helicopter that had missed them by inches, and the two helicopters had done an aerial dance that had created massive amounts of air turbulence that had unsettled Death’s nerves.  Upon landing in the very narrow forest clearing, she was just starting to get her senses back.  Now that bullets were flying, all her brain systems came back online.  Combat did something to ignite her from the inside.  

At the height of the gunfire, it sounded like a couple of dozen rifles were shooting.  Now, only sporadic gunfire could be heard from one or two rifles, and only in spurts.  Agent Death uncovered her ears.  “If I had to guess, those aren’t soldiers up there, and they’re not looking for us.”

“That makes sense,” Porter agreed.  “That shootout had nothing to do with our helicopter.”

The two women were waiting for special agent Dale O’Connor to arrive with a fuel tanker to refuel their helicopter.  Until then, the women were at the mercy of whatever shit show was happening on the hill above them.

“There might be survivors running into the woods.  We’re not safe until Doc gets us refueled.”  

In the still night air, the women could hear a handful of voices talking to each other.  The shootout had ended, and the survivors were now discussing something in hushed tones.  The two women now figured it was safe enough to pop up and take a look through their night vision binoculars.  “Death,” Porter whispered, “I can’t see through the trees.  This is a really well hidden spot.”

“I can’t see anything either.”  Agent Death sarcastically added, “and to be honest, I don’t know if I really wanna see the carnage up there.”

“I’ll call Doc and fill him in.”  Porter lifted her wrist watch to her face to make the call but before she could touch her watch, it lit up with a message.  “Von Stryker is texting me!”  

“I got the text too,” Death added.  

The group text from Von Stryker got right to the point.  “Doc forwarded me your current location and I have to warn you that two drug gangs are heading your way to have a crime meeting.  They’re heavily armed and hate each other, so stay out of their way.  Don’t trust them, they are killers.”

It took a few minutes to type out a long reply, but Death responded: “We’re hidden and safe, but close enough that we heard their shootout.  Our guess is there’s only a few survivors, and we have no idea how many are dead.”

Von Stryker’s reply came quickly.  “Damn.  I had contacts in both gangs that were a part of tonight’s meeting.  I should never get attached to the thugs I befriend.”

Death couldn’t help being a smart ass in her reply.  “You befriended us, didn’t you?”

“True.  Don’t get shot tonight.”  A second later she texted, “I’ll get ahold of Doc and let him know what’s up.  We’ll have to get a different plan to get you two out of there.”

It was Porter who responded this time.  “Thanks, Von!”

“Buy me a bottle of good gin and we’ll call it even,” was all she replied.

Porter and Death could hear random voices calling out to each other on the road above them.  It sounded like the survivors were struggling to gather bodies.  A breeze picked up and rolled downhill.  The stationary women could smell gunpowder and blood.  

Porter leaned over to ask Death, “Do you think they’ll leave, just like that?”

“I have no clue, but I’m starting to get cold.  That breeze fuckin blows.”

“Nice pun,” Porter grinned.

“This sucks, but I really think we should stay put behind these boulders for now.”

Fifteen minutes passed and the women didn’t move.  The road with the surviving thugs was a hundred fifty yards away with thick forest and boulders separating the Americans from the Russian bad guys.  The breeze was now a steady wind blowing downhill.  The smell of gunpowder was now replaced with the faint scent of death.  The surviving bad guys were indeed gathering bodies and grunting as they exerted effort to lift the corpses.  

“Once they’re done loading up the bodies, I say we climb up there and investigate,” Porter whispered.

Agent Death looked around.  “I want to get closer but I’m afraid we’ll alert them,” she whispered back.  “I can tell you this, I’m getting cold.  This wind is loud enough now that unless we make a terrible ruckus, we could sneak back to the helicopter and least get shelter from the damn wind.”

Porter’s typical chipper demeanor returned and she whispered, “Ok, that sounds better than seeing a bunch of dead Russians.”

O’Connor texted the women.  “Von Stryker filled me in about the shootout and said you two were fine.  I’ve got the hammer down but sat comm directions tell me I’m still thirty minutes out from y’all.  Text me to tell me how I should proceed.”

Death replied, “Shootout didn’t last long.  Survivors are loading up the bodies.  We’re hiding.  Currently hoping they depart really soon cuz the wind is cold.”  For fun, she added, “I really don’t like Russia.”

A minute later O’Connor replied, “Get a drinking buddy.  This place doesn’t suck as bad.  I’ll text you when I’m fifteen minutes out.”

“What’s that sound?” Porter asked in a frantic whisper.  “It sounds like a jet engine or something!”

“I have no idea, but it really does sound like an engine.”  Death peaked over the boulder and saw flames through the trees.  “Shit!” she whispered loudly.  “They’ve started a bonfire!  With this wind, this is NOT good.”

The smell of charred flesh rolled down the hill and the women both knew instantly that the fire wasn’t burning fallen trees.  Porter was disgusted.  “They’re burning the bodies.”  She covered her nose in an attempt to block the smell. 

“Let’s get back to the bird, now.  I don’t wanna be close to that at all,” Death agreed.

The women started the trek back downhill towards the helicopter when the smell of wood smoke started pouring over them from behind.  They turned around to see large flames in the distance.  “Porter, double time.  Fire doesn’t usually travel down hill but that wind is gonna push the flames our way.”

Porter laughed as a self defense mechanism for her fear.  “Don’t you wish there was snow on the ground like your Michigan story?”

Even while worrying, Death laughed with her friend.  “No, I don’t, and what’s worse is that guy was terrible in bed, so none of my misery and suffering with him was ever worth it.”  She jumped over a tree and repeated, “double time, Porter!”

In the distance, some Russian thugs who’d just survived a big shootout turned off their industrial small jet engine powered flame thrower and stored it away in their vehicle as they took off to head back where they came from while a lightly drunk American demolitions expert drove a five thousand gallon jet fuel tanker through narrow shitty built Russian highways towards the heart of a newly raging forest fire to bail out two of his team members.