Fortunate Son intensifies

  Philip returo a world of chemical smells and harsh sounds. Distant sirens and rough wind came through the window with sts of gasoline, blood, and something burning. His face stung, his ears rang, his body ached. He focused his breathing until the pains faded into background noise, one by one. Luke coughed iting. The wet sound told Philip his chest was caved in, and he didn’t have long.

  The crash had khe seday yards ahead and crushed the bad into a jagged mass of metal and pstic. A man stumbled out of the driver’s side door and leveled a submae gun. White, snowing circles sprung up on the windshield as the muzzle fshed, silently, muffled by the ringing in his ears and the earbuds. He reached weakly into the ter sole and his fingers brushed a pistol grip.

  Something smmed into the gunman and threw him into the side of the sedan. He crumpled to the crete as it twisted to a stop with a squeal. A motdorcycle. The rider swung up an MP5k and finished him off with a few suppressed snaps.

  “Thanks, Mother Theresa,” Philip said weakly.

  “What?” said Lindsey in his ears, freeway traffic r behind her voice. The rider took off their helmet, exposing a poof of short, bright red hair half-hidden under a bandana. Little grey-blue eyes in a soft round face gred at the crumpled car like it had insulted her.

  “Oh. Beth’s here,” Philip said. Luke coughed behind him.

  The passenger door swung open and the guy came out firing. He missed her by a mile and she dropped down and got him through the head with one burst. The door closed itself as he hit the ground. Philip sighed and everything hurt again.

  Sam stood back up and fired on the windshield till the mag ran dry. She let the gun swing down smoking on its strap and flicked a sawn-off double-barrel shotgun out of her side holster. She pulled both triggers and the windshield went solid white.

  “The fug guns she brings.” gasped Philip. He had given up pulling whatever gun out of the ter sole when he remembered the pistol on his hip. He doubted he would have to use it now, but he unbuckled his seatbelt anyway.

  Sam stepped around the passenger side of the sedan like a lioness, breaking the shotgun and sliding two more shells in. She held it one hand and took out her phohe sedan chirped as she spoofed the locks.

  “We fug got him.”

  “Are you sure?” said EP.

  A noise had been rising in his ears, but he hadn't thought to pay it any attention. Sam aimed the shotgun in one hand and reached for the door hah the other, just as he realized what it was.

  A bullet cracked through the air and Sam colpsed behind the sedan. The gunshot boomed a sed ter. Philip looked up at the helicopter about half a mile away. Something fshed on the side of it and the windshield went white in ahe size of a die. Another crack followed closely by a sed boom. This time, he was sure it was a fifty.

  “Shit.” He threw himself back over the ter sole. Another round nded, but this time it zipped through and bounced around the cab like an angry metal i. He crawled over the folded dower seat onto the floor as another faster on joined in. Another loud smad distant boom, then more cracks and zips as rounds flew freely through the windshield, and the dull sound of rounds hitting flesh above him where Luke hung iting. Gore spttered the back window and everything else. Hot blood poured onto his legs. The chopping roar pressed in through the windows, mog him.

  “Is the target dead?” EP said in his ear. She sounded panicked. Good.

  “Not unless he died from friendly fire! Mark’s dead! Beth’s dead! I need back up.”

  He crawled towards the hatch as death flew thick as rain a foot above his head.

  “Theresa’s beeed to the office,” EP said.

  “Fug great!”

  “Boss wants her on intercept!” She had the o sound annoyed, even as the steady boom of the sniper grew louder.

  “How the fuck did you not see a helicopter ing at us? Isn’t intel your job, you sassy bitch?!” He yelled into the floorboards.

  “And killing the target is yours! If you had do, they would be airlifting a corpse right now!” He could tell from her voice that she felt guilty, but he tried not to care. A bullet grazed the top of his shoulder. That helped. He growled and crawled faster.

  “They’re on the ramp,” said EP. “The target looks like he’s struggling to get out of the car. you get a shot?”

  Philip ughed, but the bullet storm above his head let up. He looked at the hatch. If he ope, they would dump lead all over him again.

  “We’ll fug see!” He pulled the M240 out of its recessed partment, pulled the belt out of the case and tossed it on top. He put his foot o the hatch open button and braced himself.

  “Someone hopped out of the chopper. He’s moving to the target!” EP said.

  “What a friendly guy,” Philip whispered. He kicked the button, hoping the hydraulics hadn’t taken a bullet, and the armored door strained open. After a few seds, when the gap of sunlit road was a foot wide, the gunfire resumed and rounds hammered the SUV. A fifty puhrough the side window and sprayed Philip with gss and bullet fragments. He shoved the M240 out the bad rolled out after it.

  “They’re loading up!” EP said.

  “Try and hack the helicopter or something!” He moved in a low crouch away from the back of the SUV with the M240 shouldered and fanned out the belt. In a panic, he realized he hadn’t heard any gunfire in about five seds.

  He stepped out and fired in bursts at the rising, shrinking helicopter. Rounds danced up the underside and sparks fshed like sunlight. It was already a good five hundred yards away, moving up and out fast.

  “Fuck!” He moved to the t barrier, y the on on it by the tripod, and took aim again.

  “You’re out e,” EP said. He let out another couple of bursts.

  “Cops ing up the ramp!”

  Fshing red and blue lights moved up the curving ramp. Two cop cars. Did they not hear the god damn mae gun fire?

  He swung the gun around by the carrying hah the stoder his armpit a out a few bursts. The cars screeched to a stop just behind the curve of the barrier, then peeled out backwards. He sprayed the t until the belt ran out, then dropped the gun oreet and turned back to the SUV.

  “ you get me out of here? Or should I jump?”

  “There’s a roadblock the other way, too.”

  Philip looked around. Wide, ft nd from dull horizon to dull horizon. A haze of strip malls, fast food drive-thrus and industrial buildings spreading off the highway. Half a mile away, red and blue lights glittered towards him down a shimmering street. From some half-digested memory, he saw an old friend smiling at him, pointing at a pce that could be right below him.

  “This is dike called the un-gra ndscape in the world.”

  There had been gunfire and paioo.

  He noticed the ramp that passed underh him, and walked up to the barrier and looked down. It was about a thirty-foot drop.

  “ you get a car stopped on this ramp below me?” he said.

  “Let me see. Yeah. you get to it?”

  “Yeah. Any police choppers inbound?”

  “One so far, but they’re still about five minutes out. I had it called south when you and Mark started shooting.” So smug. Philip wao throw the earbuds off the ramp, but in a moment of ued calm, he felt guilty for yelling at her. If they got this one in the bag, maybe he would make it up to her.

  He opehe side door of the SUV and got out the case of repelling gear from uhe seat a oreet. Then he pulled the keys out of the ignition and grabbed the pouch of grewo more pistol mags, and one of Luke’s ammo pouches, all while trying not to look at him hanging iting. He snatched the rattler out of the with his eyes closed and slung it over his shoulder.

  “You’re on TV,” said EP as he attached the lio the hook on the SUV. The news chrumbled in the distance, and he wondered if they had seen him shoot at the other one.

  “Cool. Got that car ready?” He got the harness on and took the line in his hands.

  “Yep, routed ao you. Hacked his Bluetooth and told him I was the FBI, ha ha ha.” She ughed through the voice ger like an old detective.

  “Is it close?”

  “Yeah, one sec.”

  Tires squealed below him. Sirens wailed and the wind seemed determio throw him off now that he was ready to jump. He held the trunk, arm, and unlock buttons on the key fob. When it chirped, he let go and started ting to sixty in his head. He threw the keys at the horizon and swung over the barricade.

  There orty hatchback stopped in the middle of the road with its hazards on and a line of honking cars behind it. They got quiet as he came down. On the ground, he she harness off then drew his pistol, a blued P226 Legion, off his hip and poi at the driver, who put his hands up as he came around the driver's side. He flicked his pistol in the universal “get the fuck out” signal and the guy scrambled off.

  He holstered the gun, got in the driver’s seat, closed the door, arrahe Rattler in his p, put on his seatbelt, flicked off the hazards and put it in drive. He had ted 45 seds so far.

  “News chot you going down. ing around to get an angle.”

  “They’re about to have something else to look at,” he said.

  Right ohe bomb went off. The sound was massive. The ramp shook and groaned, and a bright yellow fsh gred off the t ahead of him. He floored it. The familiar smell of spent explosives rushed in the open window on a hot wind. As he came out from uhe ramp, fire and smoke rose in the mirror, and debris hit the car like the ghosts of guhe boom echoed across the ft ndscape, shattered, aurned in pieces.

  “Are they watg me now?” He took the first exit at eighty miles an hour.

  “Nope. Looks like you’re in the clear.”

  “I’m gonna s cars. Ask Boss where he wants me.”

  He swerved into the u-turn ne and disappeared uhe bridge.

  The title es from a Bathory song. Are they dead, or something more?

  Thanks for reading. Up , someone remembers something.