Holding Their Own IV: The Ascent (34 page)

Nick reassured Bishop that he had learned some neat “tricks
” in Iraq as well as other deployments. Assuming Diana and Terri could watch Kevin tomorrow, Nick agreed to ride with Bishop out to the ranch and study the problem in detail.

“Besides,” noted Nick, “the sooner you get out of this town, the less likely it is those guys are going to come here looking for you.
I’ve got an
earie
feeling they’ll be back.”

The next morning Nick and Bishop were up early
. Bishop was anxious to get back home, and Nick was suffering from cabin fever. Diana and Terri had agreed to take turns sitting with Kevin and assured his worried father that the boy would be pampered.

The drive to the ranch was uneventful. Upon their arrival, Bishop and Nick scouted the general vicinity, making sure they were alone. Both men had commented that they hoped the bad guys had returned and were waiting on them, but the duo experienced no such luck.

Bishop pulled the irrigation equipment from the Bat Cave, and they proceeded to walk the canyon to see if Bishop’s concept would be effective and logistically feasible.

“Nick, if I run that hose along this wall, about 12 feet off the ground, I think the mist will fall to the earth before anyone could get out of there.”

“Gasoline vapor is heavier than air, so I think it would work. How are you going to pump the gas?”

Bishop pointed to the garden sprayer he had picked up at the Home Mart. “You pump that can up with the handle on top. It will handle about
45 pounds per square inch. People use those to spray insecticides on their veggies.”

Nick looked at the device with skepticism, “Do you think
45 P.S.I. is enough pressure?”

“Not sure,” admitted Bishop. “The only way to tell is to test it.”

Using the reel, Bishop unwound 150 feet of high-pressure hose while Nick filled the garden sprayer with water from the spring. Walking off the first 90 feet, Bishop sliced the black tubing and spliced in a brass pressure washer nozzle. He repeated the process every 15 feet until four of the devices were installed in the last 60 feet of the hose.

Attaching the open end of the hose to the garden sprayer took a bit of plum
bing work, but two pipefittings later, the men had the contraption ready for testing.

Bishop pumped the small black handle several times, watching the pressure gauge approach its maximum rated value. “Here goes,” he warned Nick and released the valve.

As the water was pumped from the pressurized container into the black hose, the tubing jerked once and then rested. Both men smiled as they approached the nozzles, each emitting a fine mist of water vapor into the air. Nick stuck his hand in the closest one and then his face. “Feels nice. You should install these around your patio like folks used to do back in the day. Terri would love you for that.”

“I should probably build a patio first, huh?”

After less than a minute, the spray lessened and then stopped. “It doesn’t last long, but I would say ten seconds would be more than enough gasoline to cause a real nice explosion and fire. At minimum, you’ll scare the hell out of anyone in the area. How are you going to light the gas vapor from a safe distance?”

Bishop shook his head, “I was hoping you could help me with that one. I don’t have any tracer rounds.”

“We need to make a spark. Do you have any iron? If you shoot iron it sparks . . . sometimes.”

“I’ve got to be a safe distance away before igniting that cloud
, or I’m going to lose my eyebrows. It needs to be something I can shoot and hit under duress from a distance.”

Nick looked around the desert. “Are any of these rocks flint?”

Bishop laughed, “No, I don’t think so. Besides, I don’t have any steel-headed bullets.”

Nick’s face brightened. “Do you have a 12
-gauge?”

“Yes, of course I have a couple of shotguns.”

“I’ve got some flares in the glove box of my truck. They’re left over from the boat. I bet if you fire one of those into that gas cloud, she’ll light up like the Fourth of July.” Nick announced proudly.

With that problem solved, the next step was for Nick to tour the area and help Bishop design some
booby traps.

“Bishop, the boob
y traps don’t have to be overly effective, they just have to convince anyone who is around that they’ll work. Nobody wants to travel through an area known to be full of snares. Most guys will pick another way in.”

The two men began walking around the perimeter of the canyon, Nick pointing to this or that and occasionally drawing a diagram in the sand. Bishop was amazed at the man’s knowledge and training and started feeling better about his chances of defending the ranch once he had set everything up.

Terri was trying to figure out how to play checkers with Kevin without making the lad sit upright. She had exhausted all conversation in less than an hour and could tell the teenager was bored, neighboring on cab
in fever. His eyes brightened when she proposed a contest, Betty providing the board and pieces from The Manor’s lobby below.

The boy’s wound simply didn’t allow for a good place to set up the game. Terri remembered a taller
nightstand in an adjoining room, and told Kevin she’d be right back. The young man didn’t respond, and Terri glanced to see an expression of sheer terror on his face, his eyes fixated over her shoulder.

Spinni
ng to see what had elicited such a fearful expression, Terri found herself staring into the barrel of a rifle, the doorway of Kevin’s room crowded with men in full combat gear. After inhaling sharply, Terri took a step back and reached for her pistol. The man with the rifle snapped, “Don’t!”

Before she could react, the room was filled with three men. The first barked, “What is your name
?”

Terri started to answer, but Kevin’s voice interrupted with, “You’re the man who shot me.”

Terri’s hand was already on the butt of her pistol. Kevin’s warning told her she was in trouble, and her survival instincts kicked in. As fast as a striking snake, Terri pulled her 9mm and fired; the weapon’s roar filling the small room.

Her first shot struck the closest man in the chest, pushing him backwards against the wall. Her barrel was moving to cover the second man when she felt a small
pinprick on her shoulder and then her legs and arms would no longer answer her commands. As the floor of the room came rushing toward her face, her last conscious thought was of the light reflecting off the two thin wires leading back to a pretty yellow plastic pistol in one of the attackers’ hands. She knew she had been tased.

Kevin tried to sit up, the boy ignoring the pain in his chest and shoulder. A rifle barrel pressed hard against his head
—stopping the effort cold.

Without any words, one of the men pulled the
pitchfork-shaped prong from Terri’s torso and then rolled the semi-conscious woman over. In seconds, her hands and feet were bound. Then she was hoisted over a shoulder, and the men were gone.

Betty heard the shot and was approaching the stairs with her shotgun. She saw the legs of the first attacker coming down the st
eps and yelled, “Who is that? Stop right there!”

A stranger’s head showed over the railing and then ducked back quickly. Betty shouldered the shotgun and flicked off the safety. “Stop
, or I’ll shoot!”

Betty heard a fizzing sound and then watched as a small canister came bouncing down the steps. A
t first, she thought it was a can of hairspray, but the size wasn’t right. White smoke began spraying out of the device, quickly filling the room and blinding the hotel manager. The thick fog burned Betty’s eyes and throat, making her retreat toward the kitchen.

Pete was opening the bar and also heard Terri’s pistol. “Probably Anita scaring off a coyote from her hen house,” he mumbled to himself. After a moment’s thought, he pulled a rifle from behind the bar and strolled off in the general direction of the disturbance.

The smoke rolling out of the open front door of The Manor doubled Pete’s pace, with thoughts of a fire without a fire department driving his legs faster. Betty appeared out of the cloud, waving her hands in front of her face to clear the air. She saw Pete and shouted, “They took Terri! They took her out the back!”

Momentarily puzzled by Betty’s words, Pete
paused for a second before the message sunk in. Another citizen was walking by, curious what all the commotion was about. Pete yelled for the man to follow him and made for the back of The Manor.

Rounding the corner, Pete saw the three men hustling away
, a limp Terri draped over one of the fellow’s shoulders. Pete turned to his comrade and instructed, “Go and get help. I’m going to follow them.” The man nodded with big eyes and hurried away.

Pete’s age and knees didn’t leave him with the option of running after the kidnappers, but he did the best he could and managed to gain a little ground. Six blocks later, on the outskirts of town, the three men cut into the yard of an abandoned home
, scurried behind the structure and out of sight.

Looking over his shoulder, Pete could see four men with rifles running to catch up
—the reinforcements boosting his confidence. As he approached the edge of the property where the men went to ground, he heard the rumbling of motors, quickly followed by three ATVs roaring down the driveway, directly at him. Pete raised his weapon to fire when he saw Terri sitting in front of the lead vehicle’s driver, her head bobbing weakly from side-to-side with eyes closed. Pete lowered his rifle, unable to shoot for fear of hitting the hostage. He watched helplessly as the three men sped past, the last kidnapper flipping Pete a bird and laughing as he went by.

Standing helpless on the street, Pete watched the off-road machines grow smaller and smaller in the distance. “Why didn’t you shoot, Pete?” asked one of the first helpers to arrive.

“They had Terri, and I might have hit her by accident. I never had a clear angle.”

“Do you know who those guys were? Why would they want to take Terri?”

Pete didn’t answer, instead lowering his head, and then slowly walking over to perch on the guardrail bordering the street.

One of the men
stepped over, concern showing on the gent’s face. “Hey, Pete, you okay?”

Pete looked up with sad eyes and mumbled, “I’m not l
ooking forward to telling my friend we let someone kidnap his wife.”