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

martial arts fighter and he certainly looked the part. With a broad, hawkish nose that had obviously been broken before, Micah had noted he was appreciably taller than the other Arabs, even more so than himself and with a fine, muscular build.

Everything about the man, from the way he carried himself to the smoldering disdain displayed for his prisoners, exuded an entrenched confidence that pointed to much more than misplaced arrogance.

There was something else also, a special kind of essential cruelty that oozed out of every pore of Mustafa’s body. When he looked at Micah, the terrorist’s eyes smoldered with a hate that went beyond what any semi-sane person could convey. Micah had seen that kind of look before, but never in such heaping portions of undisguised intensity and singleness in purpose. From his experiences as a peace officer as well as a combat veteran, he knew all too well what kind of person their lives were presently balanced upon.

Outside a thin ray of sunshine began peeking through the window facing the airstrip, and one of the Wright Cyclones on The Uvalde Raider began to turn over. The engine rotated slowly, coughing once or twice, and then roared to mechanical life. Looking out of the corner of his eye, Micah saw that neither Max nor Tio Zeke stirred at the sound. Either they were so tired from the drawn out night they had actually dozed off, or they were lost in their own thoughts of how to stop this madness in the critically short time remaining. Whichever it was, Micah’s very being strained ferociously to make the most of those same disappearing minutes.

Lured by the crescendo of throbbing radial engines starting up one by one, Mustafa moved to the large picture window in an attempt to see what was occurring outside. He tried several positions from different angles but none were evidently to his satisfaction. Plainly aggravated, he turned away and for a long moment suspiciously eyed his three prisoners. Micah stilled everything in his body except for his slow, steady breathing as if asleep.

Finally, much like the proverbial cat overcome by his own curiosity, the terrorist turned again and made his way to the door. He placed his hand on the knob, took one more look over his shoulder at the three restrained men, and stepped outside on the porch to watch the old bomber warming up.

This was what Micah had been waiting for, praying for. As Mustafa stepped to the side and away from the open doorway, Micah began fumbling frenetically with the inside of the waistband of his uniform trousers, near the center of his back. The terrorists had searched him thoroughly and removed his pocket knife, wallet, keys, belt, and even the small change in his front pocket. But there was one unusually shaped piece of metal they did not take, because they never found it.

As his fingers groped and clawed at the hidden enclosure securing the key, he glanced around to see both Max and his uncle fully awake and observing him intently. “Watch the door,” he hissed under his breath, as the key came out and into his hand. Working with swollen, half-numbed digits from the lack of blood flow, he strained blindly to find the tiny lock hole in the right cuff face. By sense of touch Micah finally found what he was looking for, inserted the key and twisted it clumsily. The cuff came loose.

Quickly he brought his hands to the front and removed the other handcuff, noiselessly placing the devices on a nearby sofa cushion. Coming up to a crouch, he vigorously rubbed his raw and inflamed wrists to bring some kind of life back into them. At the same time, he divided his attention between the door and looking for something to cut the zip ties on the wrists of Tio Zeke and Max, who had meantime struggled to their feet.

The younger Templar made his way to the large steel desk sitting near the back wall of the office, rummaging frantically through the drawers in search of something to remove the zip ties. The room began vibrating with the deafening roar of the Wright R-1820s revving up outside. The sound changed into a massive bellow as the Flying Fortress began moving, slowly gathering speed as it accelerated down the runway. Micah knew they were running out of those few remaining minutes, and fast.

“Look out, Nephew!”  Ezekiel yelled, and the highway patrolman looked up to the see Mustafa looming in the doorway. Their eyes met and the Lebanese grabbed for the Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter in his waistband. Instinctively, Micah charged the terrorist from across the room. Even as he began to move, he knew his effort was futile. He was simply too slow, too far away, and the steel desk partially blocked his angle of attack.

It was as if everything had gone into the slow-motion sequence of a Sam Peckinpah movie as he propelled himself forward. The pistol cleared Mustafa’s waistband, and Micah saw the muzzle coming up and pointing squarely at his face. The barrel spit flame and he heard the first-round crack by his left ear. The long, heavy double action trigger pull, along with the terrorist’s surprise and haste, had caused the jacketed hollow point to miss Micah’s head by scant fractions of an inch.

Still in his perceived slow-motion mode and totally focused on the threat posed by the pistol, somewhere in a detached part of his mind Micah marveled at his ability to clearly see Mustafa’s trigger finger start to move back again for the second shot. The muzzle was now centered on Micah’s chest, and the trooper willed himself forward even faster, mentally bracing for what was to come.

And then the muzzle was no longer there, blocked from view by the back of the black pearl snap western shirt worn by Max Grephardt. The former German Luftwaffe officer, still cuffed with zip