A road block

“I impressed.” I tell the two of them. “How did you come up with plan to block road?”

“Well, we’re men.” Hobbs answers. “We have a tendency to come up with hypothetical situations, and then think of how we would deal with them.”

“Yeah. It’s just something we do.” Clarke tells me, and rests his hand on my thigh. “We came up with that one a couple of days ago.”

“What happened back there?” Hobbs asks me, putting his hand on my other thigh. “I heard one hell of a racket.”

“I and Smirnov, we take on whole pack of fascist in truck.” I explain. “I shoot driver and he throw grenade.”

“Sounds about right.” Clarke says. “I heard that sound…. that brrrrttttt!” He imitates the PPSh sound. “Then, the grenade. Didn’t hear any of them shooting back.”

“They didn’t.” I tell him. “The ones we don’t kill run away.”

“Just to think that this all could have been avoided.” Clarke mutters. “We lost a man back there, and it was my fault. This is what I hate about being in charge. Ordering men to their deaths. Why him, and not me? What makes my life more valuable? Rank?”

“Don’t beat yourself up.” Hobbs says. “You didn’t know what would happen. All you can do is try to make the right decision with the information that you have.” He gives my thigh a light squeeze.

“I just feel like I made the wrong decision.”

“Maybe you didn’t. Look. You got us this far. I trust you. I don’t think there’s another man in this world that has the skills you have.”

“Skills? Sure? I’m good at doing things. Better than most, maybe, but I’m not used to making all of the decisions.”

We round a corner.

“I don’t think anybody likes making decisions. I think you’re doing a fine job.”

“I appreciate that, but we’re not out of the woods yet. Look!”

My eyes snap up to see a checkpoint growing closer and closer to us, a small booth with a wooden bar across the road. A guard runs out into the road with an MP40. We start to pick up speed.

“HALT!” I can see him scream, and puts his hand up. Hobbs steps on the gas harder and shifts up. Clarke pulls his handgun.

“HALT!” The guard shouts again, cocks his weapon, and raises it at us.

Clarke leans out the window and starts to fire at him as the engine screams and Hobbs shifts up again. The guard turns and runs, diving out of the way just a second before we tear through the road block.

The sound of gunfire comes from behind us, and a bullet smashes the driver’s side mirror. I hear our own men returning fire from the back of the truck.

“Fuck, that was close.” Clarke says after we outrun them. “Let’s put some distance between us and them, then get rid of this god damn truck. Piece of shit is bad luck.”