From the Pulpit, Chapter 37

Chapter 37

Hogan ended the cell call with Andy Fleiss and was putting the phone back in his pocket when shouts came from between the RV’s where the team had followed Ring. 

“Get out of the RV with your hands up!”

“Move it!”  Shouted another agent.

Lucas Ring moved slowly and deliberately, his hands behind his head and a grin on his face.

“What?”  Ring said snickering.  ‘You ain’t gonna find nothing on me. I ain’t done nothing, and I ain’t got nothing.”

“Shut up.” Said one of the agents as two of the others went into the RV Ring had come out of.

“There’s no one else in here.” Came a shout from inside.

“Search it for drugs or weapons, get the dogs on it!”

Hogan and Farris ran back to the command trailer and got in their car.  The police at the barricades let him out.  As they turned onto Cannon Drive Mike Farris heart leaped into his throat.

“It’s Usein!”  he shouted to Hogan.  “He just got out of that car and is walking away! Let me out here!”

Akbar Usein was a hundred yards away walking towards the stadium.

“Call for back up!”  Hogan replied, “I’ll go to the Picktown site.”

Mike Farris jumped out of the car before Hogan had come to a full stop and ran on foot talking into his radio. 

“Hilde! This is Mike.  Send a team to the northwest parking lot, on Cannon Drive.  Usein is on foot northbound on the west side of the road, I am in pursuit.”

“Wait for backup Mike!”  she replied.  “They’re on the way!”

Hogan sped off towards the freeway as Mike ran towards Usein.

The African walked to a car, not seeing Farris behind him.  He grasped the door handle and started to pull it open.

“Usein!  Freeze!”  Mike shouted from twenty feet away.  Akbar Usein turned to see the retired Marine pointing a pistol at him.

The evil smile that came across his face sent icy shivers of fear through Farris’ body.

“You are too late Captain Farris, or shall I call you Pastor Mike?”

The scar on Usein’s temple was pulsing as he stared hard into Mike’s eyes. 

“Close the door Akbar.”  Mike said calmly, “And put your hands above your head.”

“It makes no difference.” Usein replied as he raised his hands.  “You will all die in a short while anyway, I will go as a martyr though, you will join your pig wife and pig child in hell.”

“Step away from the car.”  Mike said, ignoring Usein’s taunts.

As the African stepped forward several police officers and FBI agents came running towards them from behind Farris.  They were still a hundred yards away when unexpectedly a small child, five or six years old  with shiny blond hair and bright blue eyes, ran giggling out from behind a large SUV.  He was looking behind himself towards his family that was walking calmly somewhere behind him, and he nearly ran into Usein.

The terrorist grabbed the child and swung him up in front of his body like a shield, pulling his own pistol out and pointing it at Mike and shouting back at him.

“Now you put your gun down pig!  Or I will kill the child!”

At those words the little boy let out a whimpering cry.

“Mommy!  Daddy!”

His parents came out from behind the SUV to see their terrified little boy being held roughly by this man with a gun pointed to his head.

The mother screamed.

“Please!”  said the father, “Please don’t hurt my son, please don’t hurt my son!  Just let him go!”

“Put the boy down Usein!”  shouted Mike.

“You will die pig!”  Usein replied, “And so will this child if you do not let me go!”

“Can’t do that Usein!”  Mike answered.  “Put the boy down!”

The other officers encircled the terrorist, weapons pointed at him. 

Mike’s head started to spin, he suddenly saw the house in Bosnia, the mother and child, the little girl as a shield.  He knew he couldn’t let Usein go, but he did not want these parents to see their son die.  He could not let the boy die.

“Put the child down Usein!”  Mike shouted.

A Police sniper was positioning himself a hundred yards away.  Mike could hear the conversation in his radio earpiece.

“I’m in but can’t get a shot.” Said the sniper, “he keeps moving the kid around.”

“Wait for a clean shot.” Came the reply.

“Can’t get one.”

Mike looked hard at Usein.

“Put the kid down and you will live!”

The child’s mother suddenly lunged forward arms towards her baby.

“Please let my baby go!” 

The father caught hold of her just as Usein turned the gun on them and pulled the trigger.

Farris fired a single shot from his forty-five.  The round passed within an inch of the child’s head slamming into the edge of Usein’s left eye socket.  The inertia of the large caliber Hydra-shock round that Farris used in his weapon exploded with such force against Akbar Usein’s skull that his entire head was blown apart, rendering his face unrecognizable.

Usein’s bullet had grazed the mother’s cheek and hit the father in the flesh of his arm, passing through him and shattering the windshield of the SUV behind them.

The child fell to the ground and ran to his mother who grabbed him up in her arms, weeping mightily.

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