Free Flight by Bernard Wilkerson Page B

they be forced down an
on-ramp?
    “I think we should turn around,”
she said.
    “We’ll be all right. Just keep
your eyes peeled,” Mark replied.
    The on-ramp became a tight turn
around some weird abstract art sculpture. It offered dozens of
places for a shooter to hide. Eva twisted in her seat to track it,
almost hitting her partner with the barrel of the carbine as she
did so. He ducked out of the way and the jeep swerved a
little.
    “Watch it, Gilliam.”
    “I’m going in the back,” she said
and unbuckled her seat belt. She crawled over the seats, feeling
exposed with her rear end high in the air and unable to watch their
surroundings. She got into the cargo area and felt
better.
    “Right or left?” Mark called back
to her as they approached the intersection at the end of the
on-ramp.
    Eva felt a bump. She was suddenly
flying through the air, part of the weird sculpture filling her
vision. She struck the ground with her knees and arms, trying to
tuck into a roll. The MP23 carbine went flying.
    She tumbled once, hitting the side
of her head on gravel.
    She tried to look up and yell at
her partner for his lousy driving when she heard a distinct whine
and a ping. Dirt puffed up nearby. Someone had fired a small
caliber weapon at her. She scrambled for the nearest cover from the
direction of the shot, part of the concrete barrier that ran
alongside the on-ramp. It had been open where she was thrown from
the jeep, but continued again after that.
    Another shot hit the dirt behind
her, then one hit the concrete.
    She lay behind the barrier,
hugging as close to it as possible, trying to figure out her
options. She didn’t know what had happened to Dornbush or the jeep,
and the MP23 lay twenty feet behind her on the ground.
    She looked up and down the barrier
she hid behind, and there were small cracks between each section.
Maybe she could see Mark through one of those. She crawled to the
nearest one. Two more shots hit the dirt past her. Whoever was
shooting at her knew where she was, but couldn’t hit her.
Fortunately he or she didn’t have any micro grenade shells. Eva’d
be toast if the shooter had an MP23.
    She got to a seam in the barrier,
but it was tight. No way to see through it. She crawled to the next
one. Her MP23 was now thirty feet behind her.
    The barrier bent as the on-ramp
turned, leaving a tiny crack she could just peek through. She saw
the jeep up on its side, having spun ninety degrees. Mark was still
in it, hanging limply from his seat belt. The sniper probably got
him while she was settling into the cargo area. Stupid.
    Another shot hit the dirt about
ten feet behind her and about ten feet back from the barrier. The
shooter had a good view of the barrier but didn’t know exactly
where Eva was now, and didn’t have the angle or the right kind of
ammunition to hit her behind it.
    She had to get to her
MP23.
    Eva crawled slowly along the
barrier, heading back the way she came, trying not to kick up any
dust that would give her location away. Another shot hit the
concrete. Then it dawned on her that the shooter was mostly trying
to keep her head down, which meant a second shooter would try to
outflank her. The second shooter would be able to dispatch her
without breaking a sweat.
    If she could just get to her
carbine first, she’d show them a world of hurt instead.
    But she didn’t feel the confidence
she should have from the words she told herself. She was pretty
sure now that a second shooter existed, and if she didn’t get some
serious firepower soon, she’d be as dead as her partner. All she
had was the Glock.
    She hadn’t been afraid of Shay,
the border guard. He’d been unpleasant, he’d hurt her, but she
hadn’t been afraid of him.
    She was afraid now. Whoever was
behind this ambush wasn’t messing around.
    Eva got to where the barrier
opened up, staying back from the edge in case the shooter had a
little angle on the end.
    She waited for two more shots,
trying to estimate roughly