Quaranteam - North West Ch. 17

"Wait, we're bringing them to CRCI?" one of the Marshalls spoke up, interrupting the Major. "That's a minimum security facility."

"It's what we've got," the Major grimaced. "There hasn't been an outbreak there, and the Corrections folks there have been reinforced with a unit from the Army."

There was some muttering from the other officers in line with us, and I could understand their issue. The division of criminals into degrees of risk was important - lots of people thought it was about the risk of convicts breaking out of prison, but that wasn't true at all. It was about the risk of the convictsto each other, along with to the staff.

"Alright. Stick around out here, we're expecting the results from the tests any time now. Sergeant Major Oscars here will organize the loading. Godspeed, gentlemen." The Major looked like he was about to turn and pace back to the building, but stopped himself and visibly sighed as he slipped the mask back on over his face and then turned and left.

"Well, guess we're going to Portland after all," I said to Kyla, stretching a little.

"We should be bringing them down to Salem," said one of the Salem PD guys through his gas mask next to us. "State still has medium security beds open after their outbreak."

"There was an outbreak down there, too?" I asked.

"Yeah," said the other Salem officer. "Pretty much every prison and jail in the state. These transfers usually go pretty smoothly - most of the time the convicts are just happy to get out of whatever hellhole they were in. Wouldn't be surprised if most of them have PTSD for the rest of their lives."

"How many transfers have you done?" Kyla asked.

"Mmmm, six?" the officer replied. "Three in Salem, helped out with one in Portland, and then a couple of county jails but that was just one guy each time."

"Just make sure you keep a lid on any shit they try and spew," the other one said. "Literally and figuratively."

I nodded. "Noted."

It was about fifteen minutes before the Sergeant Major came out and gave us a quick rundown of the loading operation. Each of the individual cars would have one prisoner, and the remaining four would be loaded into the big Salem PD transport. The first officers in line were waved into the loading area to sign for their prisoner, and it wasn't until the Marshalls were headed in that I clued into the numbers. There were six vehicles total, meaning nine prisoners were being transported. A place the size of Sherian FCI had to hold well over a thousand inmates at least, probably closer to two.

If it was hard to match up my experiences with what the other officers dealt with on a daily basis, I couldn't imagine what being in that prison had been like. And this was just one prison.

When it was our turn, Kyla and I marched into the loading area and I was handed papers pertaining to the transfer, and I signed for the prisoner. His name was Jackie Fallows. Jackie was marched out to us in an orange jumpsuit with wrist and ankle shackles, and I quickly checked they were secure. He was a shaggy guy, his facial hair cut into a rough goatee, and his eyes were a little sunken and darted around nervously. I was easily a head taller than him, and Kyla was nearly as tall as he was, but he was wiry under the bulky jumpsuit as I took him by the arm and led him towards our truck.

"Hey, so, any chance of like... a burger and fries on the way?" Jackie asked once we were out of the loading area. "I swear to Christ I'll be a fucking fly on the wall if you guys could get me some decent chow. I went three days in the hole without food before they found me, and they've been feeding me like shit since then. Not that the food in there was good anyways, it was always shit, just like... more shit."

"Sorry, inmate," I said. "No can do on detours, we're convoying it and I doubt the boys in the big rig can fit through a drive-through."

"Damn," Jackie sighed. And then he just kept talking. Yammering away as we got him up into the back seat of the truck, I didn't think he even stopped talking after we got the door shut and before we got into the front. I quickly got the sense that Jackie Fallows was a nervous talker, and he was nervous as hell.

The Salem PD guys brought out four prisoners chained together and shuffling in line, and it took them five minutes to get them secured in the back of their rig. One of the officers stayed with them back there while the other got in the front seat and nodded down at me. Soon all of the vehicles were humming as their engines turned over, and we were pulling out of the parking lot and rumbling towards the gates. I waved the Salem rig ahead of me, and the officer waved and gave me a little nod in thanks before pulling ahead.

"Why send him first?" Kyla asked me.

"Just instinct," I explained. "Really he should probably be in the middle of the convoy as the biggest vehicle with the most number of prisoners. It doesn't make sense for him to be the tail of the group."

"Hey, you were in the military!" Jackie crowed from his seat in the back. "Where did you serve?"

"All over," I said, trying to keep my voice pleasant but detached.

"Any time in the sandbox? I was in the sandbox, just like my Daddy before me. Different wars, obviously, but man that shit was wild. You ever kill anyone? Me, I never got the chance, which sounds weird considering all the fighting, right? But nope, never did. Nearly got blown up a couple of times, but didn't fire my rifle once. You'd think a guy like me, they'd put me in the action, but-" He just kept talking.

The drive out of Sheridan was short and we were on our way to Portland. I hadn't known what to expect for a prisoner transport, and I still felt a little bit of an edge of vigilance in the back of my mind as we made the drive and Jackie rambled away to himself in the back. I was almost surprised that Kyla didn't snap at the guy, but then she'd probably had training on keeping her cool and patience. I just sort of entered a zen state of letting his voice turn into a meaningless drone as I checked behind us in the mirrors.

"What's wrong?" Kyla asked me, her voice cutting through Jackie's and pulling me back.

"Nothing," I said. "Just thought a car back there was possibly following us, but it turned off."

"How long?" she asked, ducking her head to look into the side mirror, but the road was empty behind us was empty now.

"They showed up just outside of Sheridan, so maybe twenty minutes. Likely just local traffic, it only stood out because the roads are so empty."

I could tell Kyla frowned behind her mask and started checking the mirrors occasionally as well.

The drive was going to take about an hour and a half since Columbia River was located in the northeast of Portland and we were southwest of the city. Usually, we would have needed to run the emergency lights or something for a convoy like the one we were in once we hit the city limits, but we didn't even need that. We passed cars, but they were sparse and avoided our trail of law enforcement vehicles. The fastest route had us passing right through downtown, and again I was struck by how ravaged certain streets looked - we even passed through the area that had been the 'no police zone' or whatever where folks had tried to stage their anti-authority protest in the early months of the year. It was even worse than the rest of the city, but there weren't any roadblocks anymore and the tent city that had started building was nothing but trash.

We did pass by the skyscraper that housed Miriam's operation, and I whimsically wondered if we should call her to see about stopping by when we finished the transport. She'd probably think it was funny that I was doing boring as hell police scut work, and tell me it was my own fault for being too helpful.

"Harri!" Kyla called.

I slammed my brakes at the tone of her voice.

The transport truck hit the back end of the State Trooper car and clipped the front end of the Salem PD rig, sending it careening sideways. The transport had come from our right, blasting through an intersection. I hadn't seen it earlier because of the buildings, and Kyla had only seen it at the last moment.

My whole body was jerking forward from slamming on the breaks, and I heard a dull thud behind me as Jackie rolled forward from the force and smacked his face into the plexiglass between the two rows of seats. I braced my hands on the steering wheel, and Kyla was braced against the dash. The truck skidded and I peeled it to the right, avoiding the end of the Salem PD rig.

It took a hot second for my brain to catch up with my hands. Instincts stick in the muscles longer than the mind, and the advanced driving course I'd taken while I was an MP had taken over. In the split second my mind needed to catch up, things were changing rapidly.

The transport truck had hit and then jackknifed, folding in on itself and blocking my vision of the rest of the convoy and the State Trooper who had gotten hit. The Salam rig wasn't damaged heavily but had careened into a street lamp and had one wheel off the ground as it was propped up on the street lamp base. The most immediate problem, at least in my book, was the black panel van that was screeching to a halt in the wake of the transport truck and the three motorcycles that were rounding the corner a block back from us, heading in our direction.

I'd been in two ambushes while I was deployed as an infantryman. Both of them had been what's called 'far ambush,' where we were getting shot at from a decent distance away. As long as there is no debilitating damage to the vehicles, the best course of action in that situation isn't to engage the enemy but rather to get out of the kill zone that the enemy had picked out.

This wasn't that. This was a 'near ambush,' and it meant things were fucked. There was only one proven way to deal with a near ambush effectively, and it generally required everyone in the convoy to be on the same page - but we hadn't even taken the time to set up a radio connection, let alone trade phone numbers or something.

I had two options, and they boiled down to instinct and adrenaline. Flight, or Fight.

I slammed my foot down on the gas and the truck lept into motion, gunning it straight towards the black panel van. It had stopped and the side door was sliding open at the same time as the driver was starting to hop out. Men, dressed in rough clothes and wearing black balaclavas, were starting to exit. I saw two rifles.

They saw me, or heard, too late. Or maybe they heard the scream of terror from Jackie in the back seat.

The crash bar of my beautiful, brand-new truck smashed into the side of the panel van a millisecond after it hit the much softer obstacle of their bodies.

The impact took less time than it took to suck in a breath. The guy that had been coming out of the side door had gotten blown back inside by the impact, colliding with whoever was following him out. The driver didn't just take the impact of my truck, but also of his own door slamming into him and pinning him to his vehicle. Then the van itself took the brunt of my powerful V8 engine, crumpling around my crash bar and hood as my beast of a vehicle slammed and pushed it across the street and into the curb, tipping it up onto two side wheels but catching the bottom of my crash bar and wedging us in place.

Two seconds, maybe less.

I tried not to look at the man who was currently leaking blood out of... well, probably a lot of places onto my hood, and instead glanced over to Kyla. She was wild-eyed but moving, unclipping her seatbelt.

"Go right and circle around them," I ordered her. "And I love you."

"I love you too," she grunted as she opened her door.

I opened mine as well, stepping out and drawing my sidearm. I wasn't too worried about the men in the panel van at the moment and immediately dropped to one knee pointing the muzzle back down the street in the direction we'd come. My vision was a little fuzzy and I had to angrily blink it straight as the three motorcycles were coming to a stop. Two of them had headed closer to the Salem rig, while another one had stopped a little further back and was already off his bike and bracing some sort of an SMG in both hands. I couldn't tell what it was from the distance, but it looked something like an Uzi. He opened fire at the same time I did.

I emptied my mag, and he probably did too. Again, it took maybe four seconds in total.

The spray of bullets panged as they hit my truck and the street. I saw sparks pop off of his bike. The second half of his shots sprayed wildly into the air as he fell back. I'd hit him at least four times - practice counted for something when you weren't within five yards.

I darted left, heading for the back end of my truck, and felt a stab of pain in my right leg but it didn't give out so I kept moving. That was a good thing because more shots started ringing off the side of my truck from the direction of the other motorcycles. I got around the end and behind the wheel, dropping my empty magazine and slamming home a new one from my belt. Kyla was firing the M4 from somewhere on the other side of the black panel van. I rolled onto my belly on the street and stuck my arms forward in a prone firing stance, looking under my truck at the motorcycles and opening fire again. This time I was slightly more methodical and between myself and Kyla we put down both shooters.

Then there was a metallic bang that sounded different from the other shots and was right next to me. It sounded like a muffled shotgun.

My eyes went wide and I scrambled up from the ground and around to the back of the panel van, but I only made it two steps before a rapid series of shots rang out, this time sounding like my own. As I rounded the van I found Kyla down on her back, her M9 sidearm pointed up at the side of the panel van where she was finishing emptying her mag. There was also a hole in the side of the van about the size of a fist, and the M4 was a mangled mess on the ground.

I emptied the rest of my magazine into the side of the van as well, only maybe four bullets before I was done, and rushed to Kyla and grabbed her by the shoulders of her vest and hauled her backwards. No more shots came from the van, however, and she rolled to stop me from pulling her further than the back.

"Are you OK?" I asked her. "Are you hit?"

"He shot the end off of the rifle," Kyla grunted and held up her hand, showing me it was fine. "I almost lost my hand. Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," I said. Like a liar.

We both reloaded and I peeked around the side of the van before I started side-stepping around it keeping my muzzle trained on the shotgun hole. I made it to the front where one of them was on the ground, his blood pooling under him - I couldn't be sure if the impact from the truck had hit him, or if Kyla had shot him. His door was hanging open though and I checked inside the van - there were four men in the back and none of them were moving. It was possible some were only knocked out from me ramming them and they hit their heads.

I had more pressing concerns though as there were more gunshots from nearby. Kyla had followed me around the van and had gone all the way to the corner of the building and was peeking around. Across the intersection, the driver of the Salem PD rig was out and sitting against the side of his vehicle with the look of a man who'd been shot, but it also looked like he'd gunned down the driver of the transport truck.

Moving to Kyla, I tapped her shoulder and we both circled around the corner of the building and up the sidewalk to the back of the transport. She ducked low and looked under it, then stood and we both moved around.

A shot rang out and punched the metal of the transport trailer right in between Kyla and I, and we both pivoted and my finger twitched, just a half-pound of pressure from pulling the trigger as I stared down my sights at a police officer looking at me with wide eyes as he realized we were friendly.

I still almost shot him in that split second. Between the adrenaline and my rage, I wasthis close to shooting him down knowing he'd almost hit Kyla.

He dropped his gun, cringing away from it. It was the officer from the Sheridan PD.

I put a hand on Kyla's shoulder and we kept moving, but it was over. The Marshalls were taking charge of things on the other side of the transport where another group of the motorcycles had closed in. A couple of the officers were down, and several of the bikers had gotten away. Kyla and I started to rush back around to the other side of the transport to check on the downed Salem PD driver, but my leg wobbled and I staggered, and Kyla saw it. She turned and I saw her eyebrows furrow, but didn't hear what she said.

Then I was on the ground and she was over me, her hands on me. Searching me.

"Leg," I grunted.

Then I lost consciousness.

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Thanks for reading! Votes are appreciated, and comments are even better.

Quaranteam: North West is an ongoing series that will continue to see updates moving forward. If you have enjoyed the series so far, definitely make sure to check out CorruptingPower's main series and other spinoffs. For similar Harem-y themes, you might want to check out my other series currently releasing.

Cheers!

~Break.

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