This is an encounter that I cannot explain. In fact, you could say that I have covered my tracks because there are those out there that live in fear of me revealing what I saw. My family has lived in Florida since late nineteen forties, when my grandfather retired from the Army Air Corps and built a great life for himself. He thrived in this particular area of the state with plenty of fishing and hunting. Now years later, I'm fifty one years
old and I'm a married father to three boys. Like my grandfather, we too enjoy hunting and fishing. I'm a communications worker and I finally got a weekend off to enjoy some rest and relaxation at the family lakehouse. I was traveling east from Tampa Bay in my pickup truck pulling my airboat. I decided to get fuel in Lithia, Lithi Lithia, I was fifty miles away from
my destination. It was a cloud eat during the summertime storm and I took the back roads, which meant I lost only thirty minutes, making it a scenic drive. I felt the right rear tire on my boat trailer go off the shoulder and I soon realized that I had had a blowout. I pulled over near the gate to a state park. Luckily, the lake house was only a few miles away. There was a large black suv with tinted windows
parked nearby, and I couldn't tell if it was occupied or not. As I changed my tire, a large man sporting a pony tail appeared behind my trailer. A second man about my size, a little stocky but with a slight beer belly, emerged from the suv and approached me. With my eye on the man still lurking behind my trailer, I asked if they needed some help. He told me that they had an air boat broken down on the lake's edge and had the parts to repair it, but they could use the
lift. The man offered to pay me, but being a good guid and fellow boater, I refused his money. We were joined by a third man who was carrying twin duffel bags in a plastic toat. He threw everything into my truck and I drove all of us to the nearest boat launch. Once we were in the water, I asked for a GPS location. The man with the beer belly said that he would direct me, adding that he knew the area, but there was a lot of swamp in the way, and
that we'd have to run the slews near private property. We came upon a fence line where the man asked me to idle the boat. Then he asked the location of the pump house. LA pointed behind the tree line. Although it occurred to me if he really knew the area, wouldn't he know where the pump house was, one of the others silently directed me to kill the engine. I began to think my good deed had put me in danger. There was no broke down boat in sight. I was with three men whose
manner suggested drug smuggling. I began to wonder if the Duffel bags and the toat they'd brought aboard held some kind of illegal substance. One of the men pulled what looked like a drone from inside a plastic tote. There was a camera attached, and the man took a minute to adjust the monitor on his iPhone. The others unzipped the Duffel bags and began putting together assault rifles.
After the drone went airborne, they dinned night vision goggles and slid into the shallow water, one at a time, their weapons above their heads as they slushed toward the shore. What the hell's going on, I hissed, trying to keep my voice slow. Is this legal? It's all good, he promised. As soon as you hear me signal, crank up the engine and be ready to gun it out of here. Well, I was starting to panic. A few hours ago. I was just another week end slacker with
nothing but beer and fishing in my plans. Now I was to get away driver for a bunch of wannabe hit man that, for all I knew, were committing murders somewhere out there in the dark near my lake house. Suddenly I heard something, and I looked up into the night sky and saw a fireball ark gracefully over my head and hit the water a few feet from the boat. I flashed my light toward the surface and saw what was left of
a drone before its mangled propellers sank under water. Then there were a series of automatic rifle burst and men yelling, and I heard tall grass rustling and tree branches breaking. Hit the engine, I heard the voice. Two of the men came into view and dove into the water as I cranked the engine. They scrambled onto the boat, but before I could ask about the third I heard his screams coming from mid air as he went flying twenty feet beyond
us and hit the water with a mighty splash. Leave him, said one of the men. Get us out of here now. I pivoted the boat toward the man, who was flailing in the water as if he couldn't swim, and I gripped his right arm to pull him aboard. As he howled in pain, I realized his arm was broken. The others did help me get him into the boat. Something whizzed by my head and landed on the deck. It was an assault rifle. The muzzle bent like a pretzel.
I piloted that boat like a madman until we reached the launch. The others climbed from the boat and they stumbled into the truck while I reloaded my boat onto my trailer. They didn't say a word as I drove them back to their suv. Let me help you wrap your buddy's arm, I offered, We'll take care of him, snapped one of the men from the back seat as he helped his injured companion out of my truck. Into their vehicle.
The last to exit opened the passenger door. What I mentioned earlier, we need to settle up, he said, Look, I don't need anything from you. Bonded, thinking that this guy getting the hell out of my life would be payment enough. And suddenly his hand went from my throat. Not a word of this to anyone, he said. Why. Stared long and heart at his face until he let me go, And he kept his eyes locked with mine as he climbed out of the truck, slamming the door with
enough force to underscore his threat. From my rear view mirror, I watched him collect what was left of their supplies from the boat. He walked up to my back bumper and he looked down and he reeled off a series of numbers. It was my license plate. He winked at me and walked back to the suv, and I watched their tail lights fade into the night. It was unsettling. Instead of the lake house, I drove the ninety five miles back home. I did what I was told, and I didn't tell
a soul about that night. In general, I behaved as if in witness protection. It didn't stop me from thinking about what happened, though, with their beer bellies and ponytails, I suspected the three men were not part of any professional militia. At any rate, a good soldier would not leave a battle buddy to drown with a broken arm. Whatever they tussled with out there in the wilderness, it was savage enough to give them the beating of their lives, but human enough not to kill them,