Chapter 9 - Fire on the Perimeter
The western perimeter of Fort Liberty was enveloped in chaos.
Plumes of thick, black smoke rose into the twilight sky near Gate 7.
The gate was normally reserved for heavy logistics transports, flanked by twelve-foot chain-link fences topped with razor wire and automated security checkpoints.
A modified civilian armored SUV had smashed directly through the security barrier, taking down the gate post.
Two base security guards lay groaning on the asphalt, incapacitated by flashbang grenades and heavy rubberized crowd-control munitions.
Automatic gunfire echoed through the trees.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT.
I arrived at the edge of the motor pool just as an unmarked black tactical truck screeched to a halt beside the damaged security gate.
Three men in sterile gray tactical uniforms and ballistic helmets were covering the rear approach with suppressed submachine guns.
From the side entrance of Detention Facility 2, Sergeant Ryan Briggs emerged.
His hands were no longer cuffed.
Someone had used a hydraulic bolt cutter to sever the steel chain.
He was clutching a stolen M4 carbine in his hands, his face bruised and bloody from our fight, his eyes wild with feral rage.
"Move! Get in the vehicle!" one of the gray-clad mercenaries yelled, firing a three-round burst over the heads of the responding MPs.
Briggs ran toward the truck, but then he stopped.
He turned his head toward the motor pool.
Through the drifting smoke and flashing red emergency lights, his eyes locked directly onto mine.
He saw me standing fifty yards away near the fuel depot.
The look on his face wasn't relief that he was escaping.
It was pure, unadulterated venom.
A man who had lost his career, his reputation, his pride, and his freedom in the span of twelve hours.
He had nothing left to lose.
"Mitchell!" Briggs roared, his voice cutting through the wail of the sirens.
Instead of jumping into the idling armored vehicle, Briggs raised his carbine, aimed straight at my chest, and pulled the trigger.
Crack-crack-crack.
Three rounds sparked violently off the steel fuel tank beside my shoulder.
I dropped instantly, rolling behind a concrete barrier as concrete dust sprayed into my hair.
"Ryan, what the hell are you doing?!" the driver of the mercenary truck screamed from the open window.
"The base QRF is two minutes out! Get in the damn car!"
"Shut up!" Briggs screamed back, racking the bolt.
"I'm not leaving this bitch alive!"
He began advancing toward my position, firing controlled pairs into the corner of the concrete barrier, pinning me down.
Crack-crack.
Crack-crack.
I had no rifle.
I had no armor.
I was wearing athletic clothes with only my tactical pocket knife clipped inside my waistband.
I scanned the ground around me.
Ten feet away, near the disabled security booth, lay an abandoned riot shotgun dropped by one of the gate guards.
Beside it was a box of standard 12-gauge beanbag and breaching rounds.
Between me and that shotgun was ten feet of open, uncovered concrete.
Briggs was closing the distance.
Forty yards.
Thirty yards.
"Come out, little girl!" Briggs taunted, his boots crunching on the shattered safety glass.
"Where's your fancy grappling now?"
"Where's your daddy's medals?"
"I'm going to put you in the dirt right here, and nobody will ever remember your name!"
I took a deep breath, counting the rhythm of his shots.
A standard thirty-round magazine.
He had fired three at the barrier, six during his approach.
Twenty-one rounds remaining.
He fired three more into the wood frame above my head.
Eighteen rounds.
"Now," I whispered to myself.
I didn't run toward the shotgun.
I grabbed a heavy steel fire extinguisher mounted on the concrete wall beside me, pulled the safety pin with my teeth, and hurled it violently across the open gap toward the shotgun.
As the heavy red canister rolled into the open, Briggs instinctively snapped his rifle toward the movement and fired four rounds.
CLANG-BANG-BANG.
The high-pressure cylinder ruptured with a deafening blast, spraying a massive, dense cloud of white chemical powder across the entire ten-foot kill zone.
The white cloud blinded Briggs’ line of sight for three critical seconds.
I launched myself through the white smoke like a missile.
I slid across the concrete, scooped up the riot shotgun, pumped the fore-end with a heavy, satisfying CHCK-CHCK, and came up on one knee.
The smoke parted.
Briggs was standing fifteen feet away, his carbine leveled at the empty space where I had just been.
He turned, his eyes widening as he saw the wide black barrel of the 12-gauge pointed dead at his solar plexus.
"Drop it, Briggs," I said, my voice cutting through the ringing in his ears.
Briggs didn't drop it.
He sneered, a desperate, suicidal grin spreading across his bloodied lips.
"Go to hell, Mitchell."
He squeezed his trigger.
I squeezed mine half a second faster.
BOOM.
The heavy tactical breaching slug struck the receiver of Briggs’ M4 carbine with kinetic fury.
The steel receiver shattered into pieces, sending jagged metal fragments into Briggs’ hands and chest.
The impact knocked him off his feet, sending him skidding six feet backward across the wet asphalt.
His broken rifle flew into the darkness.
Briggs lay on his back, clutching his bleeding forearms, gasping for air as the wind was driven completely out of his lungs.
Over by the gate, the driver of the mercenary truck saw the entire incident.
He didn't wait for Briggs.
"Punch it!" the driver yelled.
The armored SUV spun its tires, screeching in reverse, leaving black rubber marks across the gate threshold, and roared out toward the public highway.
They didn't get far.
Two hundred yards down the access road, three heavy armored Humvees from the base Quick Reaction Force slammed into the SUV from both flanks, pinning it against the concrete retaining wall.
Dozens of armed soldiers swarmed the vehicle, dragging the mercenaries out through the shattered windows.
The perimeter was secure.
I walked slowly over to where Briggs lay in the dirt.
I kept the shotgun resting comfortably across my hip, looking down at the man who had spent four days trying to destroy my life.
Briggs looked up at me, coughing up blood, tears of pain and humiliation streaming down his cheeks.
"Kill me," he rasped, his voice trembling.
"Just do it, you psycho."
I looked at him with cold pity.
"Death is too easy for you, Briggs," I said.
"You're going to spend the next thirty years in a federal penitentiary in Leavenworth."
"You're going to wear an orange jumpsuit."
"You're going to eat off plastic trays."
"And every single day, you're going to remember that you were put there by a woman half your size."
Sirens converged on the gate from every direction.
Major Daniel Vance stepped out of the lead command vehicle, flanked by four heavily armed MPs.
Vance looked at the groaning Briggs, then looked at the smoking shotgun in my hands.
He gave me a slow, respectful nod.
"Secure the prisoner," Major Vance ordered his men.
"And make sure the medics use extra heavy restraints this time."
Two MPs hoisted Briggs to his feet, hauling him toward an armored transport van.
May you like
I handed the shotgun to Major Vance, took a deep breath of the cool night air, and watched the red flashing lights illuminate the North Carolina pine trees.
The war was finally over.
