The Independents by Joe Nobody Page B

road about 100 meters away from the plane. Bishop was fascina ted as he watched the doors fly open and five men exit . Through the rifle scope, he could clearly see four of the men were armed with what looked like sub-machine guns or short-barreled assault rifles. Well, so much for my sneaking down there for a joy ride in that pretty Hummer.
    Two of the men walked slowly toward the plane, yelling menacingly as they got closer. Someone answered them back, but Bishop couldn’t make out any of the conversation. The exchange lasted for a few minutes. The other three men from the Hummer soon joined their comrades , and all of them slowly crept closer to the plane . There was talking, followed by carefully calculated movement , as they edged a few steps closer. The n the pattern repeated itself. They are working their way toward that plane cautiously. I wonder why they are n’t r ushing up to help the survivors. As they got closer, their weapons slowly moved to a ready position , and the y spread out . They aren’t stupid; I’ll give them that.
    Bishop jumped when the first shot rang out. It had to have come from the airplane because he had been watching the newcomers closely , and none of them had raised their weapon s . He expected the exposed men on the road to scatter or move, but they just looked at each other and then to the guy who was clearly the ir leader. They knew that was just a warning shot. It worked because they aren’t moving any closer.
    The leader, unarmed, ventured forward a few steps with his arms spread wide. Bishop could discern enough of the body language to figure he was trying to talk “nicely” to the plane crash survivors. It didn’t work…another shot rang out, this time causing the men to scatter.
    Bishop switched his view to the airplane wreckage and could now see at least one of the passengers was a woman. He couldn’t see her face clearly , but estimated she was late middle-age d . S he was holding up a revolver, pointin g it in the direction where the men had been standing . Now hold on a minute, a woman? I didn’t know there was a woman down there. Who are those guys anyway?
    Automatic weapon s fire rattled from the other side of the road causing a lot of movement around the crash site . Bishop could no longer see the woman, but now two teenage children came into clear view. Bishop was sure it was a boy and a girl, and the boy was trying to cover the girl with his body. Now just a damned minute…kids? They ’re shooting at kids?
    Now that he knew the color of the woman’s clothing, he picked her out easily , hiding u nder the tail of the aircraft. And t here was something else. She was bent over someone lying on the ground. Another person was lying under the body of the plane. He couldn’t see the head, but from the dark spot on the clothing, it appeared as though someone were injured a nd ble eding badly. The picture was finally becoming clearer to him. At least four people had been in the plane and survived.
    The visitors decided at that moment to rush the plane , and Bishop followed their movement through the rifle scope as best he could . H e watched , as moments later the two teenagers were forced from their hiding spot with their hands on top of their head s . The woman got off one more shot, but missed . She soon joined the two teens on her knees beside the road .
    Two of the men dragged the injured fellow out from under the plane , and he was dumped in front of his friends. What I would give for a little better vantage point. S ure s eems like an odd rescue. If the victims didn’t want to be rescued, why didn’t the Hummer crew just leave? Why take the chance of being shot ?
    Wa tching from such a distance and limited line of vision was frustrating. Bishop just couldn’t figure it out. How did the Hummer know the plane had crashed there? It couldn’t have been just a random discovery. How did the crash victims know the Hummer crew was hostile? Why had they shot at them?