Thorne: Before You Know I’m Gone
by Atonia
Part 3
They followed Highway 10 until they came to the road where the van was found, Marine’s boys had already found a place where they could be dropped off, the transport truck and the jeep Terry was riding in with Marine would be driven back down by two young men he’d paid good money to for their service and to keep their mouth shut. There were eight of them with Marine and his guys. Terry took one last look as the vehicles disappeared from sight and struck out on foot with the rest of the men. They were all heavily armed, Terry wore a kevlar vest under his coat as did Marine. They were silent as they walked and climbed the rest of the way up the side of the mountain.
They’d worked their way up to a rise that gave them a pretty good view of the camp except for the trees. They were looking down and spread out among the rocks, silently they watched and waited. With his binoculars Terry spotted the pole where Dino’s picture had been taken and began scanning out from there. A small pebble tossed on his back had him turning Marine pointed to what looked to be a pile of rocks or some kind of formation, Terry trained his glasses on it and nodded to Marine. There were bars clearly imbeded in the rock. He watched the same spot until his eyes were watering from strain. Looking for any movement at all.
It was cold and getting colder as the sun began stretching toward the west a fleeting thought went through Terry’s mind, at least his love was warm.
Movement began in the camp and each man on the rise began counting bodies, and holding up fingers to the next man by the time it got to Terry there were fifteen, he’d seen twelve including one who took something to the barred rocks. His gut told him Dino was in that prison, they would more than likely have to blast the damn thing open. His adrenalin was pumping he wanted to move, he looked over at Marine and got a thumbs up. Quietly Marine moved down the line…everybody was ready. They each sited their target and at Terry’s signal it began. Five down, six down and still they fired. Marine took his guys down moving around down the rise, Terry reminded himself that these men were professionals, for himself this was the real thing, this was no movie but he found out the talents he thought he had were true. He began making his way down the rise firing his gun as he went at anything that moved or returned fire and they were taking a lot of fire. There were more than fifteen, he’d seen three more go down. They were hunkered down in a building, some of them but Marine and his men took care of that with grenades. Terry’s only thought was to get to that pile of rocks and see what he had to deal with, see whether Dino was in any conditon to help or even walk. He took the opportunity of the grenade blasts to skirt around the building. He had maybe 30 yards to go.
Dino was on his feet at the first shot they left him untied and without a blindfold in his rock prison. He stretched his eyes open trying to see where the firing was coming from and from the position of the gunmen near him it was coming from the rise, it hurt his face to smile. The calvary had arrived at last. He stayed well away from the bars not wanting to stop a bullet this close to home.
He turned when the building went up and it wasn’t long after he saw somebody working their way toward him, he felt helpless there was nothing in the cell for him to use on the locked bars, it would have to be shot off or blown off from the other side. He watched the man working his way over and hurt or not he smiled, Terry by God.
Terry had a little help now, one of his team was giving him cover fire as he ran from tree to rock. When he reached the prison Dino moved to the bars.
"Come back on Thursday." He croaked.
"Fuck you get back." Terry blasted the lock off and grabbed Dino and pulled him along the side of the pile of rocks, stopping a moment to catch his breath he looked at Dino and grinned. "Like old times mate."
"Easy for you to say," Dino managed to get out.
"We got to make it back to the rise, there’s an area there where the helicopter can come in," he panted.
They began to run, Dino dipping down to pick up a gun from somebody that wouldn’t be needing it anymore.
They passed by Marine who signaled his men to head for the rise. "How many left?" Terry called out to him.
"Forty-eleven, keep your ass moving."
Terry and Dino fell down behind some rocks and Terry called in the helicopter. He began looking around to see how many were on the rise, six two missing, "Keep your arse down," he yelled at Dino who was trying to take a shot, "I didn’t climb this bloody mountain for you to get shot on the way out." He called Marine, "two missing."
"Two dead," was his reply.
Terry grimaced, he didn’t want to hear that. The helicopter rose next to the cliff behind them and suddenly exploded, he blinked his eyes, no, no. Where did it come from? He was looking for the rocket launcher, he pulled a grenade and rolled tossing it in the direction he thought it might be.
Marine and his men were still returning fire and tossing grenades. Terry called Tomas. "Copter blown, need assistance, backup."
It seemed like a lifetime but about thirty minutes later another helicopter arrived and set down, everybody running at breakneck speed toward it.
They were still taking fire when Terry bodily threw Dino into the helicopter. Everybody was on board except Terry and Marine, Terry turned to tell Marine to get on and his world turned red then black. Marine picked him up and threw him on board and jumped on himself as they took off.
"Talk to me buddy, talk to me" Marine had him pulled against him trying to see what happened to him.
Dino was on his knees in front of him, "he’s been hit."
"He hit the helicopter I heard it man."
Dino pulled Terry’s knit hat off, "Bullet hit here," he pointed to his forehead. "Oh fuck man we were almost home." He wailed forgetting his broken jaw.
Terry was out cold, he was nowhere, something left him as Marine cradled him against his chest.
Far away on the other side of the world Max Skinner sat up straight then closed his eyes and dropped his head, "Oh God no."
John Biebe dropped his hockey stick and was knocked flat on the ice, "Nooo Terry."
Captain Jack Aubrey paused his coffee cup half way to his lips and closed his eyes, "Oh no my brother."
Toni woke with a start sitting straight up in bed her heart beating so loud she could hear it. "Terry?"
TBC