The Tank

The Tank, Chapter 13

“So what do we do?” asked Maverik, clearly frustrated.

“We give them what they want. And maybe some of what they don’t want.”

That evening, Maverik, Cordite, Tex and Ratchet watched as Hendrix and Gap arrived on two separate technicals. Between them was a third truck, its bed loaded with barrels of ethanol.

They stopped well short of their destination, gunmen in the two trucks covering the Abrams crew with machine guns. “Put down your weapons,” Hendrix demanded.

Cordite and the others did as they were told, placing their M-16’s on the ground before them and then stepping back.

Satisfied, Hendrix leapt out of the truck and started giving orders. “All right, let’s get this over with. Where’s the gas tank on this pig?”

Cordite and the others stepped  forward to instruct Hendrix where and how to refuel the Abrams. While they were working, however, Cordite, Maverik, Ratchet and Tex whispered to each other under their breaths. “We gonna go through with this or what?” Maverik wondered.

“I don’t know,” Cordite admitted.

“Better decide pretty damned quick.”

“We do, Cagney’s dead,” Tex warned.

Ratchet stated what they were all afraid to admit. “She’s probably dead already.”

“We don’t know that,” insisted Cordite.

“Well if she sold us out she deserves what she gets.”

“She didn’t sell us out,” Cordite insisted.

“You don’t know that, either.”

Then Ratchet noticed something out of the corner of her eye. It was Lacey, hiding in the distance, watching and alert. Ratchet surreptitiously kicked Cordite and told him, under her breath: “Visitor, eight o’clock.”

Cordite risked a glance in that direction and also took note of the dog.

“All right, that oughta be enough to get her back to the prison,” interrupted Gap. He threw the empty barrels back in the bed of the pick-up truck as Hendrix started to crawl through the hatch into Bullet Magnet. “Wait a second...where the hell are the machine guns?”

“We dismounted them,” Cordite informed him.

“What do you mean you dismounted them?” asked an incredulous Hendrix.

“We took them off. We also took out all the ammunition.”

“Well put it back!”

“That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“The hell it wasn’t!”

“We’re giving you the tank. That’s all. We’re not giving you any of the tank’s weapons.”

“The weapons are part of the god-damned tank.”

“No.”

“If you don’t re-mount the machine guns, your woman will be dead by tomorrow morning.”

Cordite stared at Hendrix. Then he glanced back over toward Lacey, but the dog was gone. “You want the machine guns?”

“God-damned right I want the machine guns.”

“Fine. Let ‘em have it.”

Suddenly a camouflage blanket was thrown off a hidden trench nearby, and Bullet Magnet’s .50 Caliber machine gun roared to life. Manning the gun were Telly and Carmine. They targetted the technicals first, ripping into the pick up truck beds and eliminating those weapons as a threat.