The Uvalde Raider by Ben English (great books for teens TXT) 📕

Even in the dream, she knew it was time for him to go again. Sue smiled and they had kissed as he held her so very close, soaking up the love and warmth now missing for so long. Wistfully, he turned away and faced his awakening consciousness as the scene around him evaporated like the dew of a late summer night, when exposed to the unsparing sun of morning.

All that was left was the fading, final taste of that same life-giving dew in a still grieving heart, and the reawakening dread of something horrific beyond imagination about to occur. For there would be many other mothers and small sons walking along another river in San Antonio this morning, and they would never see another day unless he somehow stopped Qassam.

Lying there recouping in the semi-darkness, Ezekiel Templar allowed himself a moment to take stock of his present physical condition. The hole in his left leg still throbbed, but nothing like before and nothing that he could not put up with. It occurred to him that he needed a clear head far more than he needed any more of the pain killers, and the old Texan resolved to avoid any more of those if at all possible.

From long habit, Ezekiel did not move until he brought himself out of the fog in which he had awakened. He strained his ears to listen outside of the room in which they were being held, but could not catch more than the occasional low word spoken in Arabic or the muffled sound of someone moving about outside. When he opened his eyes, most of what he could see was limited to the ceiling and the upper part of the opposing wall.

Wanting to take in more of what was around him, he shifted his position slightly. Ezekiel moved with care, not wanting to cause any more trauma to his injured leg, or his bruised and lacerated wrists. The large zip ties had dug deeply into the skin when he writhed around on the sofa, battling to control himself against the searing pain of the bullet. His mouth was dry again and the colonel found himself wishing for some more water from that bladder canteen. He worked his mouth and tongue against each other, trying to get some semblance of moisture going.

Turning his head, he first looked over at Max. His movement had almost been imperceptible, yet the German acknowledged him with a slight nod from among the shadows. Rolling his head the other direction he saw Micah, who had positioned himself best to observe their guard. The previous one had been replaced and another stood just outside the door. The man appeared fresh and alert, his Kalashnikov AK slung at an angle across his chest.

The older Templar pondered on his nephew saying he had a way of getting loose, that he just needed some time away from watchful eyes to do so. But as in most things time was a valuable resource, and they were quickly running out of what was left. As long as that guard was alert and paying attention, Micah could not make whatever move he had planned.

And if Micah could get loose, what then? He would have to overpower the guard, free Ezekiel and Max, obtain weapons and only then could they try to take control of The Uvalde Raider, along with its deadly payload.

Ezekiel Templar had been involved in plenty of dicey situations and knew that such ad-libbed assaults usually had one way only to success, and about a hundred other ways where it could go from really bad to much worse. Really bad in itself meant a failure and there was no way they could allow that. They had to stop the Flying Fortress from completing its mission as a biological incubus.

He racked his brain, trying to remember everything that Qassam had said, along with his own surmising of the viability as well as possible weak points in the terrorist’s plan. The VX nerve agent possessed was reportedly the most potent chemical substance of its type ever put into mass production. It was the kind of rabidly murderous weapon that kept world leaders up at night developing ulcers, and put other men tasked with responding to such into an icy cold sweat.

Bizarrely enough, VX had been developed by British scientists in the mid-1950s, building upon German research conducted during the Third Reich. Ezekiel remembered a decades old conversation with a British MI5 security officer, discussing the then-current Klaus Fuchs affair as well as the attending discovery of the Cambridge Spy Ring. While lamenting over the damage caused by these scandals and the accompanying compromise of state secrets, the MI5 man had gone on to speak of other intelligence concerns that bothered him even more.

These included the possible pilfering of classified information involving other highly sensitive projects, including work done in the development of a new super nerve agent family known as the V-series. Among these laboratory spawned nightmares, VX was the most advanced and potent concoction of them all.

The secrets for developing this devastating killer were later traded to the United States in exchange for thermonuclear technology. From there, the information was somehow leaked to the Soviet Union, just as Ezekiel’s MI5 contact had worryingly predicted.

Following true to form, the nerve agent began appearing in the research facilities of some of the Communist superpower’s client states. These included Cuba, who in the early 1980s was embroiled as a major participant in the Angolan Civil War. Beginning in 1984, regional hospitals reported the existence of patients who had apparently been exposed to a chemical weapon that was ultimately confirmed as VX. Some four years later, a UN commission determined this barbaric act to be part of Cuba’s anti-insurgency activities in the strife torn African country.

Nevertheless, the most publicly identifiable of