Let the Breeze Blow

Alicia leaned her body over the side and leaned on her mother. She began sobbing with such intensity that she was making her mother shake. It was at that moment that Lucia spotted the grey van coming towards them in the opposite direction and she trembled inside. She instinctively slammed on the brakes to grab the gun but then realized that would be a mistake. She must keep going and try to camouflage herself as a local. But how? If the occupants of the van were part of the gang that had kidnapped them they would recognize her immediately. She must be ready.

“Alicia, move over, honey. Someone is coming.”

Alicia jumped up immediately and cried out in fear.

“Who’s that, Mom? Who are they?”

“Stay down, honey. Stay down.”

At that moment she would have given anything to have Carlos with her. She felt lost without him. True, she was knowledgeable about guns because he had taught her how to handle them. But she had never ever before fired a weapon without him being at her side. She kept the blazer going at very slow speed and then carefully pulled the gun from the edge of the seat. Because of the length of the barrel she had to let go off the wheel momentarily to grab the middle of the weapon and set it at an angle on the edge of the window. Her right hand held it firmly with her finger on the trigger as she held the wheel with her left.

“Mom, what are you doing?”

“Nothing, Alicia. Just stay down honey and don’t come up no matter what you hear.”

Right now, her thoughts went back to her husband. How would he handle this situation? Carlos was quite a marksman and through the years he had developed an attachment to target practice with his 45. Since early in their marriage he had persuaded Lucia to join him at the range and he had taught her how to shoot handguns and rifles through the years. She became knowledgeable in the use of every weapon, even semi automatic ones. She should know as much as he did, he had insisted. But she could never keep his pace. Carlos was disciplined with his weekly practices and was quite diverse in the use of different weapons but always preferring that 45 which he kept it in the room’s closet, never in the car. A woman in Miami, he had joked, needed to know how to use a weapon. Because they were such a close couple, she had followed his pace. She certainly was no expert in the use of an automatic weapon and she had almost fondled her firing back in the house, she thought. What she did not realize was the magnitude of the success she had achieved so far. She had killed three men. For a fraction of a second she looked down at her weapon and she suddenly realized what she was holding. It was an M-16, the standard U. S. Army and Marine Corps primary infantry rifle. She had shot from one many times at the Miami range under Carlos’s watchful eye. Thoughts went through her head and she began to regain her confidence. She looked down again and viewed the fire mode selector on the left side of the weapon. She moved her hand up and placed it on semi automatic, 3 round burst fire. Now, she thought, she was out of her daze and knew what she was doing. She needed to. Her daughter’s life depended on it.

She could see the face of the man sitting behind the van’s wheel. He was wearing a baseball cap and there was a passenger sitting next to him. She could see the driver had his eye on her as he approached closer and closer and so did the passenger. She was trying to decipher their thoughts as they became more visible, realizing that she could not afford to slip for a second. If the men were in fact connected to her kidnappers, they were sure to take some action, and more than likely they would start shooting. She could not take the chance. At the same time she did not want to indiscriminately shoot someone. But clearly the men in the van had the advantage on her. They were in familiar surroundings and probably apt in warfare. What could she do?

She saw the van slow down and the driver lean forward as if to take a better look at her. She pressed the window’s automatic button and put the window down. She pushed the barrel of the rifle forward, jutting it slightly outside. Then she saw the driver make a move as if to reach down for some object. She did not wait. She pressed the M-16’s trigger and the gun wobbled as it spit out three bursts of fire. Then came the shattering sound of the van’s windshield as it smashed into pieces from the bullets than went through it, hitting the driver. As if she was on some kind of automatic pilot, she slid the gun slightly to the left and fired again. Three more bursts of fire and she saw the passenger’s head explode from the impact of the projectiles. She stopped the blazer and waited as the van moved slightly off course, away from the dirt road. It came to a stop almost parallel to her position. She noticed the driver had slumped forward, his head resting grotesquely on the wheel. It was then that she became aware of her daughter’s frantic screams.