Until June all I did was burn gas and lose money. My customer finally stopped paying me until they saw some tangible results. I hadn't done any work on their program for months so I could only feel shame over this situation. Even when their money was still coming in I was spending more on travel than I was making, and that was with sleeping in my car and cutting travel cost to the bone. As foolish as all of this was, I had a burning need to keep trying to do something to save those nameless babies, even though all I'd done so far was build a database of information on abortion providers. I did manage to acquire a few guns though. Someone I know had stolen them so I bought them from him cheap. They weren't really good guns, but it was all I had. So loaded with guns I would never use all of this came to a head in June when I was broke and far from home. Between my foolish "mission" that I couldn't do anything about and my fragile state of mind I finally did something too stupid to get away with.

The details don't matter, but early in the morning I stole money from a small truck stop, was spotted as I was driving away, only I didn't realize I'd been spotted. I drove about ten miles then stopped at a McDonalds. I'd been so broke that I hadn't eaten for two days so I couldn't resist stopping so soon to get something to eat. I went through the drive through, ordered a breakfast sandwich, coffee, and water. When I got up to the window I paid and the server gave me my coffee and water, but said the sandwich would take a few minutes. There were others in line behind me so I exhaled deeply and offered to pull up and out of the way.

I have to backtrack to explain why I exhaled deeply. I have a pet peeve about fast food drive through and their insisting you pull ahead when your order isn't ready. This steams from having a large family and thus making extra-large orders at the drive through. Over the years I have noticed that once I pull ahead it seems to take an excessively long time for my order to reach me. More times than I can count I have said "No" when they ask me to pull ahead. On a few occasions they have insisted so I simply insisted they return my money if they weren't going to serve me. My friend Bud who traveled with me on business use to beg me not to use the drive through because I had embarrassed him so bad over this issue. I am sure Mary felt the same way. As I say, it's a pet peeve. Not a particularly adult position to take, but it was my thing.

So when this young girl said that my sandwich would take a few minutes I knew their policy was to ask me to pull ahead. As much as I hated doing that, I didn't want to make a scene, so I offered to do so first. When I made this offer the girl said, "No, that's okay. It'll just be a few minutes so you can wait right there."

This was so unusual for something I was so aware of that it made me suspicious. I looked in my mirror and confirmed a long line of morning customers. I looked through the window into the store and it was packed and busy. When I looked at the serving girl she was looking down and I thought I saw her head shake very slightly, like she was telling someone at her feet no.

With my senses shouting DANGER! I tossed my coffee to the floor and hit the gas. I had just started moving when two marked police cars came around the back of the McDonalds from behind me and four more from my blind spot on the opposite side of the McDonalds trying to get in front of me. The only way out of the parking lot was across an eight-inch-high curb, but my car was a four-wheel drive GMC Yukon with a high clearance so I drove straight for the curb. I barely made it across the curb before the two groups of police cars reached me. Had I not reacted before they came into sight they would have had me right then. As it was I cleared the curb and hit the road with the accelerator floored. The police cars were all Ford Crown Victorians lacking the ability to clear the curb so they had to go back to the entrance before they could reach the road and give chase, which gave me a much needed head start.

As I drove away my first thought was that I wished I'd gotten my sandwich first as I was still hungry. In less than a minute I could see a string of cop cars gaining speed behind me. I counted seven of them. The Yukon was a tough vehicle, but it wasn't fast, so I made several turns and began looking for a road more suited to four-wheel drive than Ford Crown Vic's. Through these turns I managed to put some distance between myself and the seven police cars, though I am not sure how. I did manage to find a country road, but as I did I picked up a police car from somewhere. This guy managed to get right on my back bumper, which is bad for me. With the exception of the chase previously mentioned in the big city after driving by the abortion clinic, every time I've out ran cops it was because I managed to prevent them from getting so close. I drove aggressively and made several hard turns but this guy must have been through the same driving school I attended because he stuck with me. I have never been caught in a police chase, but I was beginning to believe I'd met my match with this police officer.

Ahead of me I saw a farm drive way that had an angle I could take without slowing down too much so I went for it. Down the drive way, through a fence then across a cow pasture. Off road but the police car was still right behind me. Experience taught me that if this guy caught me he was going to be displeased with me. I went through two more fences and across a shallow creek before I looked in my mirror and noticed I was alone. I kept going across several pastures before I cut across a rural road. I turned down the road away from the direction I figured the police would be coming from and had driven less than a mile before seeing a train crossing the road ahead. As I slowed down I spotted several police cars through the gap in the train. With no other choice I slowed enough to drop the Yukon into four-wheel drive and drove through another barbwire fence and across another field.

When I reached a small patch of woods I stopped and got out of the Yukon. I had no idea which direction was safest to go so I wanted to take a look around. As soon as I stood up I heard the distant sound of an approaching helicopter. The little woods I was near couldn't hide the Yukon so I had to keep going. I was now sure I was going to be caught, but I never give up, so I would push on. But before I did I had to give my friend a chance to get away. I told him to lie down in those woods and not to come out until after midnight. Then he was to travel only in the woods and keep going. Move only at night like that for three nights, staying hidden in the daylight, then, if he found what he thought was a safe place to come out and hitchhike to do so. But stay hidden for no less than three days. Do that and I would pull them away from him. He agreed, gave me a tearful hug then ran into the woods.

My plan was to pull them away from him to give him the best possible chance to get away, but I also planned to get away myself. I just didn't know how to do that yet. I made it about two miles from where I'd left my friend when I spotted the helicopter. It was an all-black Blackhawk with no markings. A man dressed in tactical gear was sat in the open side door with an M4 machine gun pointed at me. I kept driving. They followed but didn't shoot.

I spotted what looked like a large wooded area ahead of me so I drove towards it. The Yukon had slowed considerably because at least two of the tires were gone and it was running on the rims. About fifty yards' shy of the woods the motor seized up. I'm not sure what caused the engine to fail, but just before it happened the helicopter had been hanging close to the ground in front of me so it is possible the sniper shot the engine, but I never heard a shot or saw a muzzle flash. Still it's a strong possibility as it was rather inconvenient that it would stop before I reached the cover of those woods.

I didn't even think about it when I jumped out of the Yukon and ran towards the woods. To prevent this the helicopter had taken a low hover between the broken Yukon and the woods. As soon as I started running it dropped down to about ten feet above the ground. The open side door pointed at me as was the sniper in tactical gear and his M4. Seeing a military looking guy hanging out the side of a helicopter with a machine gun pointed at you from ten feet above your head is a rather intimidating sight, yet I didn't hesitate. I ran right towards the helicopter. Before I could even process the thought that a bullet could take my life at any second I was under the helicopter and running towards the woods. I heard the rotors change pitch as the helicopter swung around to give the sniper another shot but I didn't waste the time looking back. He'd either shoot me or he wouldn't. Looking at him wasn't going to affect his decision so I didn't bother.

I felt a great deal of relief when I reached the cover of the woods, but more so when the helicopter lifted up and I knew the rifle was no longer pointed at my back. I had been "dying of thirst" and hungry when this all began at the McDonalds ten minutes earlier, but I no longer felt the hunger. Adrenalin had solved that problem. But after a sudden rush of adrenalin everyone experiences thirst. So that earlier feeling of "dying of thirst" had evolved in to a very real need to hydrate my body. I mention this because my body was screaming for fluids and demanding I stop to rest as I pushed forward and ran as hard as I could through the woods.

I knew the woods were far smaller than they looked before I reached the other side because the helicopter was now doing a low hover in the clearing ahead of me. Without letting this deter me I turned ninety degrees to the right and in about two minutes reached another clearing. I could see another patch of woods about a mile across the open pasture and was about to make a wild dash towards it when I spotted a second helicopter dropping out of the sky. It was clear the woods I had found were too small to hide in and with a mile of open field between me and the next cover I was in a bad spot. One helicopter could keep me pinned down. Two would make simple work of it. A smarter fellow would have given up then. Not being that guy I turned back into the woods and ran in the only direction I hadn't tried yet. It took four minutes to reach the end of the woods in that direction. Nothing but open pasture. All grass and cows. From this side I couldn't even see any woods in the distance.

As I walked back towards the center of the woods I realized my only hope was darkness. My watch band had snapped off during the beating I took driving across the rough terrain at high speed, so I didn't know the time, but I did know it was still early morning. Unless there was a serious thunder storm it would be many hours until I had the protection of dark. Hoping for that storm I looked up. Through the canopy of trees, I saw the deep blue sky, but not a single cloud. It's a sky pilot's call "severe clear." At the center of the woods I sat down and listened to the pair of helicopters circle the woods from a higher altitude than they'd been flying. When the wind shifted I heard the sound of police sirens in the distance. A few minutes later I could hear the sirens regardless of the wind direction. I had no idea how far it was to the nearest road, but with the helicopters to guide them it wouldn't take the police cars long to reach me. They would have to drive across the pasture, but the ground had been dry so it could be done as long as they took their time. Which they could do as I wasn't going anywhere.

I sat with my back against a tree and took in the sounds of my approaching adversary. I tried to think of a creative way out of this mess but all I could think about was that cup of coffee I'd tossed on the floor back at the McDonalds. 

* Thanks so much for reading! Don't forget to vote. And if you can't wait till next Friday for the next chapter, you can purchase the full book on Amazon for $2.99. 

~Rebecca