Chapter 4.6 - Simon tries to escape by barging his way out f the back of the van...

The van had been driving for at least twenty minutes now. Simon figured that they had driven out of the city center as the time between stops at traffic lights was getting greater each time. In that time Simon had managed to slid his left shoe off his foot and moving painstakingly slowly he had managed to slide his left leg up and out of the zip tie that loosely bound his ankle. He had tried to force the zip tie that held his wrists, but even after he had pushed and twisted and pulled until he had cut his wrist-skin he was unable to break their bind. He gave up on trying to free his hands. My legs will have to do. He thought to himself. 

Unbeknownst to them, Simon kept his sight fixed on the two men who watched over him in the back of the van. They were arguing over something in their own language. It was a heated exchange that demanded their full attention. Even the driving chimed in every now and then. As far as watching Simon was concerned, their guard was down.

Simon adjusted his sight from the two men to the back doors of the van, in particular he saw that there was no lock from the inside. To open them, all that was required was to push on the cross bar that ran the breadth of both doors. Simon tried to guess how fast the van was travelling. Thirty, maybe forty miles an hour. To try to jump out the doors at that very moment would come with a high percentage possibility of death. But to wait until their final destination was certain death. As Simon tried to make this life altering decision, to jump or not to jump from a van moving at anywhere up to forty miles an hour, his decision was made for him. when the driver hit the brakes and the van came to an idling stop. 

Simon waited one, two, three breaths, watching the two men arguing, oblivious to what was about to happen. Just as the van dropped into gear and started to accelerate away, Simon used this momentum, and twisted himself around in a flash onto his knees. He sprang to his feet and charged into the smaller of the two men. He caught the man completely off guard and with such force that his body pressed the back door release bar and they both toppled out. 

Simon was glad to have the man underneath him when they hit the road. He tumbled off the man and struck his head against the road, tearing the hessian bag off his head. Simon surveyed his surroundings as quickly as he could. To his surprise they were still in a relatively inner city suburb. He expects to see fields of grass, or trees, but instead he was surrounded by industrial warehouses. 

The sudden roar of a plane caught him off guard as it flew no further than a couple hundred feet above his head. Despite having his hands bound behind his back, Simon managed to get to his feet before the startled Asian military man could. He took three quick strides toward the man and kicked him in the head as hard as he could. The connection was perfect, like the winning goal kick in the closing minutes of a super bowl game. He heard the man's nose break at impact and saw a splatter of blood Jackson Pollock the tarmac. The man collapsed, right as Simon looked up and saw the second Asian military man jump out of the back of the van brandishing a hand held gun. 

Simon's mind raced, run or fight, run or fight? To flee would mean getting shot in the back, most certainly, but to stay and fight, with only legs to strike and no arms for balance was a battle lost before it began. Simon decided for a combination of the two. He charged into the man, who evidently was expecting Simon to turn and run, as he managed to barge into him before the man could get the gun into a meaningful position of power. Simon drove all the weight of his authentic frame into the man as hard as he could. Memories of years of football training flashed before him, the hundreds if not thousands of times he had charged at his opponent with as much force as he could muster. 

The military Asian man wasn't expecting to be hit so violently and so suddenly. Perhaps these men were used to easier game. Perhaps their usual victims froze at the sight of a gun, perhaps they wilted at the sight of men dressed in such military garb. Simon had grown up around guns. He had fired his first rifle at the age of six and moved onto gun range practice when he was legally allowed to at the age of eight. His father had taken him hunting over a dozen times, and together they had bagged twenty deer.

Simon hit the ground next to the Asian man. He kept his sight fixed on the gun in the man's hand and lunged at it with his foot. It took only three kicks before he managed to dislodge the weapon from his grip and send it sliding under the van. With no gun to hand the Asian man became a lot less dangerous. Simon rolled over onto his front, to his knees, stood up, and started running. 

Even though Simon had severally hurt his leg sprinting less than thirty minutes earlier, the pain from this injury was now gone. So is the power of adrenaline. When the human body needs to fight or flee, the levels of adrenalin released under such traumatic events is phenomenal. Simon ran as fast as he could, which normally would have been much faster than the average person, but at that very moment he was running without the use of his arms. Simon already knew the importance of arm work at the elite of sprinting. Arms balance your stride, they also add to thrust. Without them Simon's balance was diminished greatly, as was his speed. 

He chanced a glance over his shoulder and saw two of the Asian military men running after him. Even with his hands bound behind his back Simon was out pacing them. Not by much, but enough to keep the distance between them expanding. Simon looked desperately around the derelict city street. No soul in sight. The entire street was lined with industrial goods freight shipping warehouses that were closed for the night. He slowed his pace and tried kicking on the metal door to one warehouse that had a light on inside, hoping to draw the attention of a night security guard, but Simon looked back again and saw that he probably only had a ten second lead on his assailants. No time to linger at a doorway night Gard who may or may not be there. 

Simon turned back to running, and just as he did he heard a crack of a gun from behind him, then almost immediately the sound of a bullet hitting the ground by his feet. What the hell?! They're shooting at me? Simon instinctively ducked, which only through off his balance even more, causing him to slow his running. It was only a second or so later than another shot rang out behind him, this time the bullet hit it's mark, Simon saw the explosion of blood from his thigh before he felt it. 

His right leg went suddenly numb as he crashed to the ground. Unlike earlier when he suffered his running strain on the track and he rolled into a tumble to lessen the damage of the fall, Simon hit the ground hard, face first, with no hands free to protect himself, his jaw bore the brunt of impact. 

It was only a matter of second before the Asian Military men were standing over Simon, shouting at him in what ever their language was. It was Simon's hearing that first started to fade, then his sight slowly started to mist over. It was only a matter of seconds before he passed out completely. The last thing he saw before his vision vanished was that of the van reversing up the road toward him.      

Simon tries to escape - manages to wait until the van comes to a stop at traffic lights - gets his leg free, can't get his arms free, van stops, then he barges out of the van - it's in city traffic streets - the men get him back into the car and the van drives off... they knock him out again.