Seated behind him, Seichan swung around and raised her assault rifle. Clinging to the bike with her thighs, she aimed across the field and fired a short burst.
The chopper’s course wobbled, but only from surprise.
Still, the distraction allowed them to stretch their lead.
Kowalski pointed to the right, toward a large farmstead. Pinned between the rows of barbed wire, their bikes had no room to maneuver, no way to avoid the coming onslaught. Their best recourse was to reach open country.
Gray agreed. “Go!”
The three bikes cut into the farm. Trundling over a cattle guard, they entered a wide gravel expanse. Rows of milking barns lined one side. On the other, a series of bunkhouses and mechanics shops. Corrals and fields spread out from here. It looked like a major operation.
House lights clicked on, illuminating faces at several windows, likely drawn by the noise. But upon seeing what was coming, they quickly ducked away and pulled their shades.
In his rearview mirror, Gray spotted the lights of the attack helicopter. The chopper dove toward them. It would be on top of them in the next few seconds.
“This way!” he yelled and swerved his bike to the left.
He raced for the open doors to one of the milking barns. They needed cover. Emphasizing this necessity, the rattling roar of a chain-gun erupted, ripping toward them. The pilot must have recognized that his prey was trying to dive into a hole.
Seichan fired back at them, and so did Guan-yin from the back of Zhuang’s bike. Mother and daughter faced the coming barrage without flinching, doing their best to match it, their rifles blazing on full automatic fire.
Then Gray’s bike flew through the barn doors and into its shadowy depths. To his right and left, the other two bikes followed.
The chopper brushed higher, thumping over the top of the barn, sweeping for the other side, where another set of doors stood open.
The barn was long and wide. It had a Soviet industrial feel to it, built for mass production. A long line of automatic milking machines and stations rose to the left. On the other side stretched a long line of pens, each holding four or five cows, their large eyes shining back at them, mooing a complaint at the intrusion.
Gray figured over a hundred head of cattle were housed inside. Beyond the far door, massive corrals flanked to either side, packed nose to tail with more cows. The smell was likely to kill them long before any gun-fire.
He doused his headlamps and slowed to a stop halfway down the length of the barn; the others followed his example. The helicopter circled overhead, thumping ominously, knowing its targets were pinned down, waiting to see which end they might run out.
Unfortunately, Gray knew they would have to make the attempt. They could not stay here. Ground forces were surely en route.
But that was the least of his worries.
He checked his watch. It was almost midnight. If they didn’t reach the coast in the next few minutes, none of this would matter.
“What’s the play here?” Kowalski asked.
Gray explained.
Kowalski went pale.
11:41 P.M.
It’s not like we have much choice, Gray thought as he got everyone ready.
Using a set of binoculars, he searched beyond the empty fields of the farm. A tree line beckoned a quarter mile away. If they could get there, the coastal forest should offer them enough coverage to reach the beach and make their rendezvous.
But that meant abandoning the shelter of the milk barn.
“Let’s do this,” Gray ordered.
He and the others dismounted their bikes and swiftly went about opening the pens, starting from the middle and working their way to either end. With pats on rumps, they got the cows moving into the alleyway in the center. It didn’t take much effort as the cattle were clearly conditioned by their regular milking schedule.
With the central corridor crowded now with large milling bodies, Gray waved everyone back onto their bikes. From the middle of the barn, they kicked their engines into a roar, which got the cows moving away in either direction. To get them going faster, Seichan raised her rifle and fired a spat of rounds into the metal roof. The deafening noise did the job.
Bellowing loudly, the cows fled for both exits, bumping into one another, spreading and heightening the panic.
Gray followed the herd streaming out the back. The other two bikes did the same. They ran dark, headlamps off, tucked amid the stampeding bodies.
Caught off guard by the thundering forms bursting out both ends of the barn, the helicopter buzzed from one side to the other, plainly unsure what was happening.
Lost amid the chaos, the three bikes shot out into the night. For the moment, the helicopter hovered on the far side of the barn. But it was already heading back, its searchlight sweeping toward them.
Once in the open, Gray cut off in one direction, Zhuang the other. In tandem, barely slowing, mother and daughter hopped off the bikes and slid open the gates to the larger corrals on either side.
The panic of the neighboring stampede had already set the crowded pens to mooing, shifting nervously, and stamping their hooves. Growing alarm spread like a match in dry grass through the packed cows.
As the gates opened, the pressure inside released. The closest beasts burst free, drawn in the wake of the others. More followed, slaves to herd mentality.
In seconds, the trickling stampede became a flood.
Kowalski sat on his idling motorcycle to one side, while the women rushed back to their respective bikes. He had his rifle pointed up, steadied on his shoulder.
The thumping of the helicopter became a roar. The rotor wash and noise further panicked the animals—not to mention the blinding glare of its searchlight as it swept over the barn.
Kowalski fired from his position.
Glass exploded above and darkness returned.
The chopper, caught by surprise, shied away.
With Seichan and Guan-yin back on their bikes, the trio set off with the cattle. Staying low, lights off, they raced amid the thundering herd as it stampeded out into the open fields, away from the barns and toward the distant trees.
Gray tried his best to avoid colliding into any of his beefy companions, but the courtesy wasn’t returned. Several times, he got sideswiped or smacked with a tail, but he managed to keep them racing across the cold fields.
The other two bikes kept up.
Behind them, the helicopter still circled near the barn, baffled as to where its quarry had gone. With clear hesitation, the chopper slowly swept out into the fields. By now, the herd had spread out and ran in all directions.
Still, the helicopter refused to admit defeat. Its chain-gun rattled to roaring life as the chopper began sweeping back and forth in a deadly arc, ripping through cattle in its path.