Page 18 of Resuscitation
“Fuck!” someone shouted.
Connor screamed in agony.
As Mercer came to his senses, he realized the engine had died, but the headlights remained on, illuminating a cluster of trees along the roadside. They’d spun a one-eighty, now facing back the way they had come, at an angle. Blurred red and blue flashing from more approaching law enforcement vehicles grew brighter through the swirling blizzard. Mercer killed the van lights. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he noticed movement in his door mirror—the second trooper struggling to regain his footing in the deep snow.
Mercer reached for his Glock and slipped out of the vehicle, an icy wind hitting his face like a harsh slap. The trooper had disappeared behind the crashed cruiser where he was probably calling for backup or grabbing more weapons. Either way, he had to die—or else Mercer and the van would be caught in a crossfire when the other cops arrived.
“Dammit.” Mercer banged on the side of the van. “Everyone out except you, Tyson, stay with Connor,” he commanded. “Take positions and keep in radio contact. We got cops, at least two cars coming down the road. Harper, try and get this piece of shit started.”
The rear doors flung open. Four of the men filed out and fanned across the road into concealed positions where the road narrowed from four lanes to two.
“Protect the van,” Mercer ordered. “I’ll get the trooper.”
Tyson stayed with Connor in the back while Harper tried to get the engine going, but as Mercer stalked after the cop, all he heard was the sound of an engine turning but refusing to spark to life.
As he approached the rear of the cruiser in a stoop, Mercer held his weapon in both hands. Even with night vision, he couldn’t see jack-shit in the storm. He moved across the narrow bridge to the end of the barrier wall and stopped, focusing on the location of his last sighting of the cop. Seeing no movement, except the blur of snowfall, he continued past the cruiser and into the tree line along the river bank. He took slow steps, swinging his weapon’s barrel left and right, until he heard a distinct crack and caught sight of a figure moving fast through the brush. Mercer fired twice at the blur, and the figure dropped.
“Gotcha,” he cried, triumphantly. He hurried to the spot, his boots crunching in the thick snow, and looked down at the uniformed State Police officer staring lifelessly up into the sky, two wounds in his chest, including one directly over his heart.
From the bridge, the muffled crack of gunfire from MP5 bursts cut through the howling wind. Mercer hurried back to the van. Two county sheriff cars had come to a halt about twenty yards away. His men were engaging from either side of the road, the deputies taking cover behind their vehicles and returning fire.
Mercer poked his head into the rear of the van.
Harper turned around from the driver’s seat. “Ain’t starting, Alpha. Just won’t go.”
“Shit! Help the others.”
“How the fuck are we getting out of here?” Tyson asked.
“We’ll get out of here,” Mercer replied sternly. Then louder for the sake of Connor, he said, “Hang in there! Ya hear me?”
A faint moan slipped from Connor’s lips.
Mercer looked at Tyson. A hard look that telegraphed exactly what would happen to the man if he didn’t obey. “Stay with him. I’ll be right back.”
He grabbed two new magazines for his rifle and exited the way he had come in, through the back doors. He sprinted in a crouch over to the left tree line and crept through the woods, out of sight from the police vehicles. His heart pounded as his adrenaline picked up, the cracking of gunfire adding to his buzz. He wondered if he should have brought Harper or one of the others with him as support.
Too late. No, he was good. This felt good.
The howling wind and blizzard conditions easily covered his approach. When he reached a spot parallel to the police vehicles and cops firing back at his men, he found himself in a perfect location. Snow-covered bushes provided cover with a clear view of the targets. He assessed the targets through his NGV’s. Four cops, two behind each vehicle.
No, five.
One still inside a county sheriff’s SUV parked farther back, radioing for back-up.
Shit. Need to move fast on this one.
“Alpha to Squad,” he whispered into his radio, “go, go, go!”
As Mercer moved toward the rear vehicle, on his flank he saw Leon burst from cover, sprinting forward in a low crouch, while Brick and Mark laid down suppressing fire.
Leon shouted, “Set!”
From the other side of the road—now in the cops’ blind spot—Brick exploded into motion. “Flash out!”
As the flash popped in an explosion of light, Mercer removed his NVGs, then took aim with his rifle at the cop who was farthest back from the rest. He fired once but missed.
Shit!
