CHAPTER 9: NIGHT MISSION

NIGHT MISSION


Ryan put on an all black military uniform, black jungle boots, camouflage kit in breast pocket. He packed all of his gear and weapons into an all black mountain rucksack, after dropping in a Police scanner. He carried the gear out to his truck, and took a last look at the map, rolling it up and placing it into a plastic bag, which he put in his cargo pocket.

He loaded the truck up, pulled out the handheld police scanner, turned it on and placed it on the seat next to him. He drove out of his apartment complex and took a left, going north on State Rd. He turned left and drove west on W. Pleasant Valley Rd. for about five miles, then took a left on Engle Rd. After a mile and a half, he pulled over in a wooded area south of Woodvale Cemetery.

Ryan walked into the woods; away from any visible light from the surrounding area, he sat down in a thicket where he would wait for a half hour to allow his eyes to adjust to the dark, and his ears to adjust to the sounds of his environment. He applied black camouflage in a tiger striped pattern, and pulled out a set of modified AN-PVS 14’s a six power, dual eye night vision scope, with a thermal reader, which he needed because Vampires have no body heat, they read outside temp whereas a Human would read ninety eight degrees plus.

The Sgt. Maj. stood up, re-checked his gear and walked north until he reached a stone wall that outlined the cemetery. He scaled the six-foot wall and dropped to the ground on the other side, he scanned the area to his front, and dropped his backpack so he would be faster; Ryan would use this corner of the cemetery as his base of operations until sunup.

The Sgt. Maj. moved behind a mausoleum; dropping to a knee, he visually swept the area, fanning out, overlapping each sweep as he moved out in distance. He spotted movement, and switched to thermal; the digital readout displayed in green lettering read sixty-two degrees at three hundred meters. Ryan took off at a run, as he clicked the night vision goggles to the up position, as they tend to give one tunnel vision if one looks through them for extended periods of time.

Ryan approached the newly risen vamp; he was brushing off dirt and grass sod from his suit, and took a step backwards as he saw Ryan. The vamp bared its teeth, the canines, about three quarters of an inch longer than a human’s, his blazing yellow eyes, staring under the thick extended brow. The Sgt. Maj. leapt into action; tucked into the forearm of his right hand, he had his stake and in his left hand was a set of brass knuckles; he jabbed the riser twice in the jaw, stunning him as he twisted one hundred and eighty degrees; he spin kicked him across the neck, dropping the riser.

Ryan let him get back to his feet, and as the vamp rose his head Ryan straightened him up with a rear arm uppercut followed by a front snap kick that caught him in the throat. The riser rocked one way and then the other as Ryan stepped forward closing the distance and spun in a clockwise direction using a backfist strike; he buried the stake to the hilt in the vamp’s chest, dusting him.

Ryan made his way across Woodvale cemetery, stopping occasionally to scan his field of view. Ryan took a knee next to a large concrete cross, and slowly scanned his front; he saw some movement down a small glade to a lower part of the cemetery. He approached cautiously, watching the two bikers who had the colors of the Devil’s Seraphim embroidered on the back of their leather jackets, across the shoulders, in yellow and red. Sgt. Maj. switched to thermal as the two bikers pulled a third from the ground.

With the firepower he had, Ryan was confident that he could take out all three, but finding the nest was top priority. Ryan low crawled toward two Harley Davidson’s parked thirty meters from the gravesite. He pulled out a tracker, an eight hundred-megahertz continuous transmitter attached to a powerful magnet, and he activated it by turning the top cover clockwise. He placed it under the chassis, and slowly, quietly faded into the shadows.

Ryan ran at a double-time, retrieved his rucksack, cleared the stonewall, and headed towards the truck to turn on the GPS receiver and find their nest. Ryan opened the door and reached down under the console; he flipped a power switch, plugged the power cable to a laptop into the dash, and plugged a universal serial port cable to a small satellite dish. Ryan stowed his gear while the computer went through its boot up process, and pulled out a container of babywipes to clean the camouflage from his face, a hard thing to explain to the Cleveland City police.

He used the internal mouse to activate the GPS software program; after he punched in the frequency and tracking code, a single bleep was superimposed on a computerized map of Cleveland. He switched on the police scanner and a radar detector, he didn’t need any problems. Ryan drove north on Interstate Seventy-one and got off on the east Interstate four-eighty exit, he followed the bikes into an industrial complex, with rows of abandoned warehouses, shadowed by a high rise apartment complex. Ryan parked his truck on the other side of Hinlkley Ave. in a small abandoned lot, next to some junked cars.