“Run!” he shouted.
He didn’t know what they were running towards, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do. The copter was far out of reach of their weapons.
“One copter? Why one?”
“They must be worried about attracting too much attention, Hughes. We must be closer to the border than we thought!”
They reached an embankment and before them was a road and sign reading ‘Welcome to Saint-Hubert’. The sign was brand new.
“Saint-Hubert, this place was devastated in the war. It’s still only a small community,” said Mertens.
“It’ll do!” he replied as they kept running.
“How can they help us?”
“That copter won’t keep firing once we’re in the cover of enough civilians.”
“You’d risk that?”
“If it means not dying, yeah!”
The copter was coming back for another pass when they hit a stroke of luck, a school bus with fifteen children aboard. Taylor rushed out in front of the vehicle that brought the driver to a quick halt. He didn’t like doing it, but he knew it was the only thing that would save their lives.
“Get up beside the bus!”
He looked up to see the copter pass without firing, and he could see the German markings clearly now. He’d prayed they wouldn’t open fire, with the potential for collateral damage, but it was as much a gamble as anything else. He rushed to the door of the bus and ripped it open. It tore from the hinges, and he threw it aside into the grass.
“Inside now!”
The children aboard screamed in fear as they stepped inside, but it reached its peak at Jafar climbing in.
“Everyone be quiet!” shouted Taylor.
It did nothing, but he repeated the order and expected it to be followed. Mertens got to her feet and spoke to them, but Taylor didn’t understand a word of it. She finally turned to him.
“Okay?” he asked her.
She nodded in response.
Taylor put his rifle over the driver’s arm. The women looked in an utter panic.
“Keep moving into the town.”
“Please, Sir, we don’t want any trouble.”
Taylor put his hand around her head and turned it, despite her trying to resist.
“You see who that is? That is your President. We’re trying to save her life. Do you want to help, or do you want to be responsible for her death?”
The driver was terrified, but her expression turned to confusion on recognising the President.
“Drive!”
How did it come to this? Hijacking a school bus and on the run from UEN forces? Has the whole World gone mad?
“Where are you taking us?” pleaded the woman.
She was shaking and crying, and that made Taylor feel even crappier than he already did. Mertens stepped up beside her.
“It’ll be fine, but I need you to do this, okay?”
It was the first time he had heard her speak to her compatriots in English, and he knew it was as much for his benefit as for theirs. She turned back to him.
“We can’t keep this up. I will not endanger these children, not for anything.”
“But you would risk our lives? The lives of US personnel who don’t owe you anything? Who have no reason to be here, besides what they think is the right thing to do. Look at us. We owe you nothing, and we have lost many friends today. That was to protect you.”
“I am very thankful for your efforts, Colonel, but don’t expect me to believe you did this out of pure selflessness. You chose the wrong side, and you are looking for a way to redeem yourself, so I tick more boxes than simply making you feel good about yourself.”
Great, another politician with no care in the World for those who serve to protect her!
He knew he shouldn’t be surprised. Although her argument made some sense, he didn’t like hearing it.
“You were a hero to this world, Colonel, and rightly so. But in these past years you have been a shadow of your former self. You have let yourself be paraded around for the entertainment of the lowest common filth in society, but you can be the man you used to be. Be the soldier you used to be.”
“I don’t need any lectures from a politician,” he snapped back, “Where were you when the World needed you?”
Yet again she made some sense, but he’d never admit it to her.
“Do the right thing, Colonel. If we don’t protect the next generation, what was it all ever for?”
“Right, stop the bus!”
The driver slammed the brakes on and froze where she sat. Taylor knelt in close to talk with her.
“Get the kids off the bus and take them back to town. Don’t cover for us. Don’t lie to anyone. We don’t need your protection. We just need the vehicle. Got it?”
She nodded her head in agreement.
“Do it.”
She carefully and slowly got to her feet as if she was suspicious he was actually going to let her leave. He hated having made her feel that way, but there was no time to apologise over it.
“What are you doing?” asked Mertens.
“Okay, we won’t put these kids in any more danger, but we need this bus.”
He pulled open the door and let the driver do the rest before turning back to the few companions he had.
“Hughes, think you can drive this thing?”
“It looks older than my Pop’s, but yeah.”
“Get on it and get us moving.”
He looked around, the sailor was right. It was a rickety old transport that looked as if it had been brought out of military service.
“Come on, Hughes, minute they realise we have ditched the kids, we are fair game.”
“Then why did we ditch ‘em?”
“God knows,” he said, sighing.
Hughes leapt into the driver’s seat and got them moving quickly.
“I can drive this, but I got no idea where we’re going.”
Taylor looked over to the navigation, but like his Mappad, it wasn’t working.
“Take the road to Gedinne. We can cross the border near there,” Mertens said.
“You sure about that?”
“That I know my own country? Yes, I’m sure, Colonel.”
“Do as the President says.”
They could see the signs in front of them and did as she said. Taylor took a seat, relieved that they finally seemed to be on the home run. He sat next to the driver and facing backwards to the rest of the seating. Mertens was sitting nearest him and seemed surprisingly calm with all they had been through.
“What else do you know about all this?” he asked her.
“I’m afraid to say everything else is public information. The last communication I had with anyone was your President. I pleaded with him for the United States to intervene at the prison camps to aid in a peaceful solution.”
“And?”
“And it failed…”
Taylor looked out of the window for some sight of the craft that had stalked them, but it was gone.
“Think they’ve had enough?”
“Not likely, Waters, but we can hope.”
Twenty minutes later Hughes let out a cry of excitement, and Taylor turned to see it was a sign pointing to the border crossing.
“Just two kilometres out!”
“What will you do once we get to France?” the President asked Taylor.
“Push my contacts in the UK and see where I can get to. If I can’t get support back home, that’s my next safe bet. I have friends there.”
“And do what then?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t know. The World’s going to shi… to hell. And this time it isn’t as simple as fighting those in front of me.”
“Welcome to my world.”