Anita was in the best position to watch the activity at the panel truck. She reported it had no rear plates. Putting plates on the truck would be the final tipoff a departure was imminent. Lights were on in the trailer. Anita was thankful no dogs were in or near the trailer. Dogs were extremely hard to fool, especially when the wind shifted abruptly and you found yourself upwind from the dogs. This evening the area was quiet. She could make out a TV playing in one of the trailers distant from the Carlson trailer. Most of the trailers were dark.
While Anita was watching the panel truck, Jack moved up and took a position at the edge of the palmettos. “As soon as they move inside, ease up and plant one device in the stack of tins and the other under the trailer’s kitchen area. I’ll disable the panel truck as soon as they are inside the trailer. I’ll stay here and clean up. You head back to the car and get ready to move out. If I don’t show up in 15 minutes, go back to the house. I’ll either join you there or call for a pickup. Everyone stay loose. This could get complicated. Understand?”
Kathy answered, “Got it.”
Anita broke in, “They’re heading back to the trailer.”
Jack said, “Give them ten minutes inside then do your thing.”
“Roger.”
Ten minutes later Anita said she was on her way. Jack, moving fast and low, headed toward the panel truck. He quickly looked inside and smelled mixed fertilizer and fuel oil. He made a quick deep cut in the side wall of each front tire. When both tires were flat, he took up a position twenty feet from the truck where he could watch for Anita’s return. Anita stopped in the shadows against the side of the trailer and listened for movement inside. She could hear voices and a TV tuned to what sounded like a sitcom. She decided to put a one ounce charge of C4 among the cans and another three under the trailer. She reached under the tarp and checked the cans. They smelled of kerosene. Some of them felt full.
She concealed her charge in the center of the stack and set a 15-minute detonator. She picked a hole in the broken, flaking, grey-white lattice trailer skirt and, with her combat knife in hand, she crawled through a hole in the rotting lattice work, cursing quietly at the spider webs draping over her face. Her clothing caught on a loose lattice slat causing a loud snap as she moved toward the center of the trailer.
Cursing herself for being careless, Anita cleared her mind and focused on the activity just over her head. She froze as the porch light came on followed by footsteps on the wooden steps. Pulling off her night vision glasses she could clearly see the shadow of a figure carrying a rifle or shotgun walking quietly around the trailer. She eased her .22 out of her holster. Anita was sure the shadow was Stanley. As he neared her entry hole in the lattice, he squatted down and shone his flashlight under the trailer. Anita was tracking him with her silenced handgun and, when the beam swung toward her, she shot him twice in the chest. The flashlight rolled out of his hand and he slumped to the ground.
She watched the downed man for ten seconds before slowly dragging him under the trailer. He still had a faint irregular pulse.
Leaving him to die, Anita was stretching up to place her charge when she felt movement behind and to her right. As she spun around, she felt a sharp grabbing stinging sensation in her right calf. She saw a large snake and slashed at it with her razor edged combat knife. At the same time her knife struck the snake, she felt it strike her leg again. This time she could see it had a viper’s head and the thick body of a cottonmouth. Her knife strike cut the writhing reptile almost in two.
Anita was sure Norma Carlson would hear the thrashing noise. Hurrying now in an almost automatic mode, Anita secured the charge and reset the detonator to go off in five minutes. With a last look around, she hurried through another break in the lattice skirt in the back of the trailer. Anita tried to run, but her leg was numb and getting worse. She kept telling herself to stay cool, otherwise the venom would move much faster through her system. She was 30 feet from the trailer when her leg tightened, and she stumbled and fell. Willing herself to keep moving, she started dragging her leg in a half crawl. Anita called Jack.
When he answered, she said, “I’m in trouble! Can’t run! Fucking cottonmouth snake got me twice in the right leg! Moving fast as I can toward the truck. I need help. Had to shoot the man. The charge is set to blow in five minutes.”
Jack heard Anita’s call for help and ran to help her. He could see her scrabbling along the ground as fast as she could. She was keeping to the dark shadows. Anita was crawling when Jack picked her up. He said, “I’ve got you. Relax.” With Anita over his shoulder Jack raced deep into the pine grove and put Anita on the pine needle-covered ground.
The outside flood lights came on. Anita and Jack were well beyond the arc of light. She was conscious but obviously in pain. Jack spoke softly into his radio and told Kathy what was happening and that he was carrying Anita to the car. She needed medical treatment.
Anita grabbed Jack’s leg and told him the bomb under the trailer should be going off in the next minute. Jack cut Anita’s camouflaged right pant leg open. He saw two sets of puncture wounds one in the back of the calf and the other deeper one in the front of her thigh. Jack fashioned a bandage from his bandana and tied it high on her thigh above the twin fang puncture wound, making sure he could insert a finger under the bandage. Looking at Jack, Anita said, “Sorry, Boss. I never saw the damn snake until it bit me, but I did kill the sorry bastard. That’ll teach him not to mess with a lady Ranger, even if I am retired. I’ve always hated snakes.”
As Jack was finishing the placement of the bandage, an explosion and fireball split the night’s darkness. Jack eased Anita over his shoulder and, making sure he had both weapons and two sets of night vision glasses, he set off for the car. Protecting Anita’s face from the palmetto thorns and being careful to avoid leaving a clear trail, Jack moved through the edge of the marsh.
Kathy had already called the emergency room at Saint Vincent’s hospital on her cell and arranged for immediate medical treatment. Anita was still conscious but verging on shock as Jack put her in the back seat.
He got in the front seat with Kathy, and she moved the car smoothly out on the road. A hundred yards behind her, she could see the first emergency vehicles streaming into Citrus Drive.
Kathy pulled into the emergency entrance of St. Vincent Hospital in Jacksonville. As soon as she stopped the car, a gurney appeared and Anita was lifted on to the gurney and rushed inside. An hour later they were allowed to see her. She had been given the proper antidote but was still quite sick. Her right leg was badly swollen and painful. If all went as expected, she would be discharged in a day or so. A full recovery was expected.
The doctor credited her coolness, the absolute identification of the snake and the rapid move to the emergency room as factors lessening the danger of a double injection from a cottonmouth. The doctor also believed the venom from the first strike went mostly on the fabric of her trousers. The doctor told Kathy pit vipers often mistime the release of their venom. He was a bit curious as to how Anita killed a good-sized cottonmouth with a knife after being bitten not once but twice.
***
Facts and Fictions 