Why didn’t someone stop me?

Three days and nights into the mission, I lost all track of time. An over-the-shoulder utility belt attached to another strapped around my waist with bare necessities of nab-crackers and jerky, a knife, a Sig-45 acp, two canteens of water, gauze bandages, tape, and two syringes of ketamine was all I had to keep me alive.

Hiding by day, whenever I could, and running by night. Trying to outrun four J8 LPV Jeeps armed with tail sections housing gun-ring mounts, swing arms, and heavy automatic 50-caliber machine guns.

I was delirious, out of my head. My brain overheated by the desert sun, with a distorted buzz as background to a loud, pounding heartbeat that rocked inside my head.

From out of nowhere, the armored Jeeps surrounded me. At first, stopping a short distance away and then steadily closed in on my position, eliminating all means of escape. Flat, open ground or cliffs for miles in all directions. Trapped it seemed, corralled like a wild animal waiting to be slaughtered.

My suspicions were confirmed when I noticed they weren't carrying any lassos. The massive artillery proved their intentions to kill or probably disintegrate me.

Now was the time, so I bolted in a dead run of successive S patterns, broken up periodically with C’s to keep the gunners from keying in on me; running to where, I had no idea.

The Jeeps’ motors revved, clutches popped, and a quick glance over my shoulder saw spinning tires throwing rooster tails of sand and rock 20 feet into the air. Fishtailing, they accelerated out of the clouds of dust, racing toward me faster than a cheetah speeds to devour a gazelle.

Those 50-calibers cutting trenches in the hard-baked surface as every bullet shook the ground, vibrating up through my feet to jar my teeth. Awesome powered machine guns that can shred human bodies into hamburger quicker than whole-beef cattle through commercial processors.

Straightaway, running as fast as I could—I approached an estimated forty-plus-foot deep arroyo—a dry desert gully. A flat-floored streambed once filled with water, and with any luck, soft bedding to land on. Out of time and choices, figuring I was as good as dead anyway.

I closed my eyes and jumped, flying without wings, most likely into the afterlife. Executing a perfect hit and roll maneuver from my paratrooper days, the landing still knocked the wind out of me. Struggling to breathe, there was no time to rest.

Lucky for me the Jeeps had to stop, but not so encouraging they managed to. The arroyo wall was straight up and down, so the closer I kept, the less chance of them getting a clean shot.

The Jeeps sped off, two to the right and two to the left. Intending to shut down both exit routes from the canyon and trap me.

At the raging aggressors' mercy, and out of ideas, Apache helicopters orchestrated another daring, swoop-in rescue, successfully plucking me right from under enemies' noses.