Final Vector by Allan Leverone Page B

other as if he were not even there.
    Young hesitated, placing his hand on his sidearm but leaving it holstered. There was no way on God's green earth he was going to draw his service revolver on two unarmed civilians, especially two men who didn't pose any kind of threat, at least not to him. His military training had included nothing even remotely resembling instruction on how to deal with the situation he found himself facing now, and he was unsure how to proceed.
    On one hand, this truck and its contents were expected by their superiors at Fort Bliss, Texas, first thing tomorrow morning, and if it was late, there would be hell to pay. The circumstances causing the late arrival would not be given much consideration, if any.
    But on the other hand, getting involved in an altercation between two civilian motorists would likely be viewed as a mistake in hindsight, especially if he were to injure one of them while trying to break up the fight. And what if one or both of them became bel-ligerent and refused to move their damaged vehicles? What then?
    All these considerations ran rapidly through Young's head as he cautiously approached the pair. He thought about calling the base for guidance, but he finally decided the best thing to do would be to take decisive action and get moving again. It was late, he was tired, and he had no desire to get his ass hauled into the woodshed when he got back to Bliss because he couldn't decide how to handle a freaking traffic accident.
    The problem was these two guys were really going at it. The scene looked like something out of an MMA bout on Pay-Per-View. Fists were flying. Now that he was up close, Young could see that the two dudes were pretty good-sized guys. Young reluc-72
    tantly waved Stanley down from the cab to help him subdue the two guys, since it was patently obvious he couldn't take them both himself, at least not without drawing down on them, which he had already decided would be a very bad career move.
    With Stanley's help, though, these two clowns would be disabled in a matter of seconds--his partner was about six foot six and two hundred eighty pounds of sculpted muscle. Young had no idea whether Stanley had actually gotten a scholarship offer from Alabama or not, but he was definitely big enough to have been a football player.
    Scowling, Stanley climbed down from the truck. "Goddamn it, let's get the fuck out of here," he complained. As he strode up next to Young, both of them roughly five feet from the fighting motorists, the two men suddenly stopped trading haymakers and pulled semiautomatic pistols from their pockets, turning in unison and facing the two young Army privates.
    In that instant Young knew he had made a very serious mistake.

Chapter 20
    When the radio call had come in from Dimitrios, telling them that the Army transport truck carrying the Stinger missiles had passed the billboard located two miles west and would arrive at their location in approximately two minutes, Jackie and Joe-Bob started their vehicles simultaneously and pulled them smoothly together nose to nose over the double yellow line separating the opposing lanes of traffic on the sparsely traveled two-lane highway. The cars were positioned perpendicular to the yellow stripe so as to take up as much of the available space in both directions as possible.
    The two men had practiced their upcoming fight scene for hours on end until both were quite confident they could pull it off in their sleep. They shut down their engines and leapt out in unison, Joe-Bob carrying a smoke bomb in his right hand, which he ignited with a Bic lighter and placed in the road between the two front bumpers. Instantly, thick black smoke began billowing into the air, creating the illusion that one or both of the vehicles had sustained serious damage.
    It took no more than a few seconds for the front ends of both cars to be obscured by the heavy black shroud, and as the smoke was accumulating, the two men checked their weapons