The Independents (9 page)

Bishop was lying prone between two large rock outcroppings.
The small area of hardpan soil between the rocks provided some cushion
,
but
really,
he had picked the spot for concealment and the vantage.
He
had left the camper almost two hours
before
and slowly worked his way to thi
s position. He was overlooking H
ighway 98
,
using a high-powered rifle
scope.
He had found the mystery aircraft and was now spying on it from his perch some 200 feet above and 600 yards
to the west
of its position
.
The sun was past its zenith and behind him, but the day was still hot for this time of year.
The brim of his hat was soaked
,
and h
e had to use his shirtsleeve to keep the sweat from running into his eyes.

It looked as though his initial assumption
had been correct
-
the pilot had attempted to land on the highway.
It hadn’t taken any great knowledge or mystic powers to reach that conclusion -
there was
n’t
another
paved surface for over 50 miles in any direction.
Bishop remembered the sputtering sound that had come from the plane’s engine and guessed it had be
en without
power
during
descent
. While it was difficult to be sure from this distance, it appeared as though the plane had skidded off of the highway and into a small ditch along the side of the road. One wing was sticking up in the air
,
and the other was broken off, lying some 50 feet away.
From this vantage, the plane looked like a plastic toy that had angered a small child and been thrown to the ground in frustration.

He had been watching the crash site for
about ten minutes before he detected
any movement. The low spot
where
the
plane rested
, combined
with the protruding wing obscured
most of his view. He did see someone
moving down there
,
and
suddenly
realized there might be more than one survivor.
I didn’t even think about that.
How many people can a small plane like that hold? Two, four, six? Shit
…
there might be six injured people down there.

After about 20 minutes, the realization set i
n that he had to get closer or
find
a
better
angle to observe the wreckage
.
Bisho
p was torn between
the safety
and survival
of his family versus the feeling that he should some
how help those people on the road
.
I should just walk away. They are no threat to Terri and
me
. Just set a few more tripwires between here and there in case they wander toward the camper. I should leave them to their fate.

After scanning all around, he couldn’t see a better spot.
The terrain just wasn’t going to
cooperate. He
had
decided to pull back
and head home,
when he heard the second unusual noise of the day.
It was
another engine.

Highway 98 ran practically straight nort
h and south through the barren w
est Texas landscape. Starting at the small town of Alpha to the north and ending at Big Bend National Park to the south, it
transverses one
of the most isolated, uninhabited areas of North America. Even before civilizat
ion
collapsed, the roadway was lightly used. Th
ere were no gas stations,
crossroads,
or e
ven utility poles for mile after dusty mile.
It was one of the few state highways in the United States that had no posted speed limit. Drivers were welcome to motor along as fast as they felt comfortable
.
Besides, there wasn’t any place for a police officer to set a speed trap anyway. About the only sign of civilization along the route was the Border Patrol
I
nspection
Station just north of Big Bend. The men assigned to this remote outpost were
often caught napping by the occasional ranch truck passing through. The running joke was that these agents were the best card players in all of Homeland Security given the amount of practice
time they logged.

It took Bishop about 10 seconds to find the source of the new noise. Coming out of the heat wave
s
rising from the blacktop, stil
l two miles to the
south,
a
Hummer
raced
toward the crashed plane. It wasn’t a military vehicle, but a shiny
,
black civilian model with lots of
chrome glistening in the remaining sunlight
.
What the hell?

Not only was it odd to see any car after the collapse, it was very strange to see a clean one. Bishop thought about his truck, safely covered in camouflage nets back at the trailer, and how dirty it was.
Who would waste water in these times to wash a car?

The pristine
black Hummer stopped
right in the middle of the road about 100
meters
away from the plane. Bishop was fascina
ted as he watched the doors fly open and five men exit
. Through the rifle
scope, he could clearly see four of the men were armed with what looked like sub-machine guns or
short-barreled
assault rifles.
Well, so much for my sneaking down there for a joy ride in
that pretty Hummer.

Two of the men walked
slowly toward the plane,
yelling
menacingly
as they got closer. Someone answered them back, but Bishop couldn’t make out any of the conversation.
The exchange lasted for a few minutes. The other three men from the Hummer soon joined their comrades
,
and all of them slowly crept closer to the plane
. There
was talking,
followed by carefully calculated movement
,
as they edged
a few steps closer.
The
n the pattern repeated
itself.
They are working their way toward that plane cautiously. I wonder why they are
n’t
r
ushing up to help the survivors.
As they got closer, their weapons slowly moved to a ready position
,
and the
y
spread out
.
They aren’t stupid;
I’ll give them that.

Bishop jumped when the first shot rang out. It had to have
come
from the airplane because he had been watching the newcomers closely
,
and none of them had raised their weapon
s
.
He expected the
exposed
men on the road to scatter or move, but they just
looked at each other and then to
the guy who was clearly the
ir
leader.
They knew that was just a warning shot. It worked because they aren’t moving any closer.

The leader, unarmed, ventured
forward a few steps with his arms spread wide. Bishop could discern enough of the body language to figure he was trying to talk “nicely” to the plane crash survivors. It didn’t work…another shot rang out, this time causing the men to scatter.

Bishop switched his view to the airplane wreckage and could now see at least one of the passengers was a woman. He couldn’t see her face
clearly
, but estimated she was late middle-age
d
. S
he was holding up a revolver, pointin
g it
in the direction
where the men had been
standing
.
Now hold on a minute, a woman? I didn’t know there was a woman down there. Who are those guys anyway?

Automatic weapon
s fire rattled from the other side of the road causing a
lot of movement around the crash site
. Bishop could no longer see the woman, but now two teenage children came into clear view.
Bishop was sure it was a boy and a girl, and the boy was trying to cover
the girl with his body.
Now just a damned minute…kids? They
’re
shooting at kids?

Now that he knew the color of the woman’s clothing, he picked her out
easily
, hiding u
nder the tail of the aircraft. And t
here was something else. She was bent over someone lying on the ground. Another person was lying under the body of the plane. He couldn’t see the head, but from the dark spot on the
clothing, it
appeared as though
someone
were
injured a
nd ble
eding badly. The picture was finally
becoming clearer to him. At least four people had been in the plane and survived.

The visitors decided at that moment to rush the plane
, and Bishop followed their movement through
the rifle
scope
as best he could
.
H
e watched
,
as
moments later
the two teenagers were forced from their hiding spot with their hands on top of their head
s
. The woman got off one more shot, but missed
. She soon joined the two teens
on her
knees
beside
the road
.

Two of
the men dragged the injured
fellow
out from under the plane
,
and he was dumped in
front of his friends.
What I would give for a little better vantage
point.
S
ure s
eems like an odd rescue. If the victims didn’t want
to be
rescued, why didn’t the Hummer crew
just leave? Why take the chance of being shot
?

Wa
tching from such a distance and limited line of vision
was frustrating. Bishop just couldn’t figure it
out.
How did the Hummer know the plane had crashed there?
It couldn’t have been just a random discovery.
How did the crash victims know the Hummer crew was hostile? Why had they shot at them?
This just didn’t make any sense
. As he watched, the leader lit
a cigar and
sauntered
for
ward, engaging
the injured man on the ground
. The leader
would speak to the man, stop to listen
,
and then
point at the children and woman.

After a few
of these exchanges
, the leader
was
becoming
increasingly frustrated. His gestures came
faster
,
and his voice was louder. Bishop could hear little bit
s
and pieces
now
,
but couldn’t
make out any
word
s
.
Finally, the
boss
gave a commanding gesture to one of his team members,
who walked over
to
the woman, jerked
her up by the hair
,
and marched her around to the front of the captive audience. The guard pushed her
back
down to her knees in front of everyone, produced a pistol from his
belt
,
and held it to the back of her head.
Ohhhh
,
fuck
!

Bishop wasn’t prepared to shoot from this position. He started digging around in his load vest for his notebook that contained all of the ballistics data on this rifle and the ammunition he had loaded. He tried to keep an eye on the action below while at the same time getting out the DOPE he needed to take a shot. The leader was really pissed now and was stomping around on the road.
Don’t do it man. Oh, God, please don’t do it.
 

It was all going downhill on the roadw
ay. The young girl tried to stand
up to help the woman when
one of the goons hit her in the back of the head with the barrel of his rifle
, knocking her to the ground
. Bishop decided
he
had to chance a shot from memory and quickly did the calculations in his head. When he thought he had a solution f
or aiming, he aligned the crosshairs of the big rifle
scope and then froze. Since h
e was higher than the
target,
he was going to have to pull the trigger with the aim point right at the back of the boy’s head. The pl
ane crash family was between Bishop
and the bad guys
,
and he was in
a “hold under” position.
What if his aim were off just a few inches?
He couldn’t do it. He finally
found his pencil and began figuring
the math as quickly as he could.