"Jim, you're right. The stitches are to fill up the bullet holes left by terrorists. Tabitha is limping on a shot up leg. Johnny Cache shot her. Long story. Do you have any other weapons in the car? I asked.
Jim smiled and popped the trunk. His karate gear and his tournament bag were in there. He rummaged through the gear and dug out two kamas, two escrima sticks, and one set of nunchukas.
"Which do you prefer?" he grinned.
"This will do fine," I brandished the Glock 19 with the pre-Clinton-Reno era clip. "Sixteen shots ought to do. Besides, I ain't in any shape to be fighting. I'll have to keep you covered. Sorry."
The front door to the office had been opened effortlessly. Obviously, the guard's keys came in handy for somebody. We cautiously scoured the entire facility and found no signs of foul play, except that my laptop was missing from the safe, the lab was nearly destroyed, the contents of the offices were strewn about everywhere, and my whiteboard in my office was gone.
"They even ripped the whiteboard right out of the damn wall." Jim exclaimed. We grabbed what equipment we thought would still function and loaded the car.
"I guess they got what they came for," I told Jim and shrugged my shoulders.
"What do we do now?" he asked.
"Call Tabitha and ask her."
Jim tried twice and got Tabitha's voicemail message. "That's odd," he said.
"Well, let's head back to the hospital and keep trying to reach her on the way."
The terrorist effort or war effort, whatever it was, had reached into my everyday life more deeply now. While we were away Johnny's people must have ransacked the lab. It would have been a big operation. The safe had to weigh a ton. It must have taken a forklift to move it. And it happened fast. Something else was bugging me on a more subconscious level, but I couldn't wrap my mind around it just yet. Then I thought to look at the alarm system.
"Jim, check the silent alarm," I pointed to the hidden panel on the wall where the system's keypad was hidden.
Jim slipped back a wall plate and punched in a code on the keypad. The display read today's date about thirty minutes ago.
"We just missed 'em Anson!"
"What?"
"They triggered the alarm just thirty minutes ago!" Jim exclaimed.
Then my subconscious grabbed hold on whatever it was that was bugging me before. "That means it's still going on! What if they had come in when Sara or Al were here? Crap! They might go to their homes, Jim."
"We gotta help them, Doc!" Jim looked frantic.
"Jim, get Sara and Al on the phone and tell them to get out of their houses now. They can meet us at a public place or someplace safe." I told him. I couldn't think of where to send them.
"Tim's place?" Jim asked.
"Perfect."
Jim got Sara at her apartment. He told her to leave this second. Don't change clothes, don't put on makeup, just go. I hope she listened. We were only five miles from Al's house so we headed that way while Jim called. There was no answer on the phone. I also tried Tabitha at the hospital again, but had no luck reaching her either.
We reached Al's house; there were two vehicles in his driveway that we hadn't seen before. There was a truck and a van. Jim pulled up in the neighbor's driveway and we crawled over the fence into Al's backyard. I barely had the strength to get over the four-foot chain link.
Jim and I hugged the back wall of Al's house and eased around the chimney to the back door. The back door flung wide open and Al came flying out the door headfirst and he skidded across the patio into a large ceramic plant pot. The little apple tree in the pot had one small apple clinging from its droopy limb. The impact of Al's head into the pot shook the apple free and it fell on his back. Al was out cold I was pretty sure.
Behind Al stepped a very large individual. I didn't have time to make out any details of his face before Jim had sunk the blade of a Kama into his throat and ripped out the guy's trachea. I rushed in behind Jim as he flew through the door never missing a beat from the Kama strike. There were Kamas swinging and then escrimas. Two more were dead before the gunfire ever started.
The first gunfire Jim was prepared for and he dropped and took out the assailant's kneecap with a low side kick. He pulled the man's wrist downward while kneeing his elbow upward until the man's arm was in two pieces. I managed to bust off a few rounds into the guy covering Jim's present attacker. Jim proceeded to break the guy's neck as I continued the cover fire.
The van parked out front squealed out of the driveway and laid down some suppressing fire from an automatic weapon. Jim and I dove behind the upstairs stairwell for cover. We waited for a few seconds listening for movement.
"Jim, are we clear?"
"Not sure. You ready to cover me."
I changed the clip since the slide on the Glock was open, depressed the lever with my thumb and it closed, chambering a new round. "Ready now. On three and you stay low. One, two, three!"
I rolled out into the open and fired two rounds. Jim came out behind me and zipped across the room behind the couch and took cover again. I rolled across the floor behind him. "Ow shit that hurts!" I held my chest.
"You all right, Doc!"
"Yeah. Just pulled some stitches I think."
"I think we're clear. Let's get Al and get the hell out of here."
Al was coming to by the time we got out the back door. He was concussed and a bit goofy-headed. If you have ever been concussed, you know that "goofy-headed" is a good way to describe it. We dragged him to Jim's car and hit the road fast.
I grabbed Jim's phone and tried Tabitha again.
"Jim, is that you!" Tabitha answered.
"Tab, it's Anson. Listen it is still going on. Jim and I were just in a firefight. You better get some back up and get out of sight fast." I told her.
"Anson, I know! Dr. Reese caught one in the neck before I realized what was going on. Don't worry. We have the situation contained and I think everyone will survive. Are you okay?"
"Jim and I are fine. Al is banged up pretty badly but he'll be okay. I think we need to hide everybody's families. Jim and I will pick up Sara and meet you. Where?"
"Listen Anson, we're already on the move. We'll track Jim's phone and pick you up. You keep moving and stay safe. See you soon." Tabitha disconnected.
We grabbed Sara in record time and before we knew it a helicopter was shadowing us. Then my phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Anson, pull over in the next parking lot," Tabitha told me.
I turned to Jim. "It's Tabitha, Jim. Pull over there!" I pointed to a parking lot by a strip mall where a military helicopter was setting down—Tabitha was waving to us from the open doorway. We loaded into the chopper and were gone. Safe again, I thought.
"Dr. Clemons, you're bleeding." Sara pointed at my back.
"Yeah, I figured I was. It's just a few loose stitches. Nothing to worry about, I think," I reassured her.
Jim spoke to Tabitha through a headset. "Where's Rebecca?"
"Don't worry. She's been moved in a different chopper. We'll rendezvous with her in a few minutes."
The helicopter pilot landed us at the airstrip on the Redstone Arsenal where we loaded into a C-141 Starlifter evac plane. The closest they are based is in Memphis, Tennessee and Jackson, Mississippi but they fly patterns in Huntsville, often. This one must have been close by when Tabitha put in the call. Come to think of it, I never did figure out how she got us a helicopter so fast either—I didn't care. I just wanted to get out of sight fast. As we boarded, Tabitha explained to me that our families were being hidden and that her daughter would meet us at the rendezvous point. Neither of us were sure how far the—whoever they are—would go to get what they wanted. Whatever that was. Were they looking for something or did they just want us out of the picture? And, who were they? I still voted for Chinese.