by Powers, AJ
“I’ve got eyes on the target. Standby,” Wilford said.
As the gentle hums of the approaching convoy soon reached Hagan’s ears, a slow but steady release of adrenaline began to seep into his bloodstream. Hagan glanced at Solomon, who was carefully watching the line of vehicles as they crossed onto the bridge from the other side. He held the clacker in his hand. There was no shake or tremble in his fingers as they hovered over the trigger.
“Just like that munitions depot in Homs,” Hagan said.
Solomon nodded, a sly grin on his face.
The convoy raced past the box truck with the heavily armed squad, and then past the three men tasked with apprehending Price. They were committed now. Whether they realized it or not, Price, and his security detail had just stepped onto the battlefield.
Solomon’s fingers inched closer to the trigger. He muttered something under his breath, then said, “Lights out, gentlemen,” before mashing the trigger repeatedly.
A loud blast rocked the bridge as the large pickup truck launched toward the center of the road, rocketing into the side of the lead Humvee like a 7,500-pound bullet. The Humvee slammed into the barrier on the opposite side of the bridge before screeching back out toward the center of the lanes. The sharp turn caused the Humvee to tip just far enough for two of its wheels to leave the ground, the intense momentum pulling it the rest of the way. Sparks shredded across the asphalt as the military vehicle scraped across the bridge, coming to an abrupt stop as it smashed into a semi cab.
Just as the lead Humvee stopped, Hagan heard the AAMT-12’s thumping launch, a high explosive rocket screaming through the air as it stormed back down toward the rear Humvee. The vehicle skipped off the ground as the explosion from the rocket quickly reached the fuel tank, pushing it through the weakened barrier where the dually once sat, sending it careening over the edge of the bridge.
The driver of the SUV swerved and dodged around the flaming wreckage surrounding them but pressed harder on the gas. Despite the trap being perfectly executed, the SUV managed to clear the barriers formed by the explosions and was now screaming toward Hagan and Solomon.
“Dude must have Mario Andretti for a driver,” Hagan said as he and Solomon rolled out of cover, snapping their rifles up.
Flicking his selector to auto, Hagan squeezed the trigger on his M4 and let loose a torrent of lead on the engine block of the approaching SUV. Solomon’s rifle then belched to life, adding to the flying sparks erupting from the grill. The SUV swerved some more, but there was nothing the driver could do to avoid the onslaught. The SUV’s front driver’s side tire blew, and the vehicle cut hard to the left, slamming into the concrete barrier before steering back out onto the road and rolling to a stop.
Hagan dropped his empty mag, slamming a fresh one home just as the empty one clattered off the asphalt. Three of the doors to the SUV sprang open as Colonel Price’s bodyguards all jumped out, leveling their carbines on Hagan and Solomon. Hagan pivoted to the left and dropped the first man through the window of the front door he was using as cover. The man just behind him returned fire.
“Gahhh!” Solomon growled before his rifle ripped to life like an angry chainsaw, getting revenge on the shooter.
Hagan and Solomon shifted their aim to the driver, who was already bleeding from the head. The man was slow to respond, and the shots he did fire off were landing nowhere near its mark. Hagan took a beat, and when the man exposed himself again, he took the shot.
Silence descended upon the lake once again as Price climbed out of the back of the SUV, his hands held up high over his head.
“You all right?” Hagan asked.
Solomon had blood trickling down his neck. “Yeah. Just a grazer.”
Hagan nodded and turned his eyes back to the bridge. He saw Price stumble away from the wreckage, holding up his hands in surrender. Fury and resolve filled Hagan’s body; his decision was cemented by three little words.
Deo. Patriae. Familia.
Chapter 25
The extraction team juked and dodged around the flaming wreckage of the Humvees and hustled toward their target, but they were more than two hundred yards out. Price’s vehicle breaking through the blockade had worked in Hagan’s favor, putting a much greater distance between him and Aileen’s men.
“Let’s move,” Hagan said to Solomon.
With their optics glued to their eyes, Hagan and Solomon advanced on Price. With instincts and anger overriding his thoughts, Hagan thundered up to Price and slammed the butt of his carbine down on top of the Colonel’s head, setting the tone for the short but heated interrogation that was about to commence.
Price yelped in pain, dropping to a knee.
“Hagan!” Wilford screamed, his voice faint, nearly inaudible as he ran as fast as his aging body would allow.
Without being asked, Solomon put himself between Hagan and the approaching team, his HK rifle raised just enough to convey his point. Aileen’s men immediately took up defensive positions behind the nearest solid objects they could find, propping their rifle barrels on hoods and open car doors.
Hagan looked down at Colonel Price, an old, ragged Vortex patch still attached proudly at the center of his plate carrier. “Man, it’s been forever since I’ve seen Vortex gear that hadn’t been shredded to pieces by patriots,” Hagan remarked. “What are you guys sporting nowadays? Gen four plates? Fives?”
Price kept his eyes forward and his mouth shut, disdain creeping across his features.
“Well, surely it’s good enough to handle this,” Hagan said as he drew his Glock and fired nearly point blank into Price’s chest.”
Rifles from Aileen’s men snapped to attention, all muzzles quickly trained on Hagan. Solomon leveled his own sights back on the freedom fighters, keeping his finger dancing near the trigger as Price writhed in pain on the ground behind him, his body in shock from the 573 foot-pounds of energy delivered from Hagan’s +P ammunition.
“Hagan, what the hell are you doing!?” Wilford screamed; his voice clearly heard now. “We need him alive, dammit!”
“And you will get him alive so long as you keep a leash on your men,” Hagan replied, his pistol still trained on Price. “Tell them to stand down right now or I repave this bridge with his brains.”
“You won’t do that,” Wilford said.
He was right. Hagan wouldn’t. But the truth didn’t matter so long as Wilford believed otherwise. “You sure about that?” Hagan replied, his grave, serious stare piercing deep into Wilford’s eyes. As if he was daring the old Marine to challenge him.
And Wilford blinked.
He slowly stepped in front of his men and cautiously approached Hagan and Solomon. He held up his hand, spreading apart all his fingers. “Stand down everyone,” he said, momentarily defusing the tension.
With Wilford lowering his own weapon first, the rest of the men and women behind him followed suit, allowing Solomon to relax his HK just a little.
Hagan kept his eye on Wilford, who was inching closer yet, keeping a reasonable distance, before returning his focus back to Price. “Listen, Colonel,” Hagan said, picking up Price off the ground and setting him back to his knees, “as you can see, I have some impatient people waiting in line who also want a word with you, so I’m going to get straight to the point. I want to know who put you in charge of Operation Cassandra, and you’re going to tell me.”
Price, wincing from the pain still radiating throughout his chest, remained silent.
“I’ve got eleven more shots in this thing,” Hagan said, holding up his Glock, “Want to take a guess how many licks it takes to get to the center of the Tootsie-Pop?”
“Do what you must,” he said with a defiant sneer.
Hagan pressed the muzzle of the pistol back on Price’s chest and put his finger on the trigger.
“Hagan you son of a bitch! If you pull that trigger my men will open fire!”
Hagan’s finger took the slack out of the trigger, running it right up to the edge before h
e finally let off, the trigger jerking forward. Hagan returned the pistol to its holster, causing Wilford’s shoulders to lower.
Price let out a satisfactory chuckle. “That’s what I thought.”
Hagan grinned at the man. “Just because I can’t kill you doesn’t mean I can’t hit you where it hurts, traitor,” Hagan said, squatting down to be eye-to-eye with the man. “I will kill you—someday, of course. But only after you spill your guts to these fine people over there. But,” Hagan said confidently, “you’re still going to tell me what I want to know. Right now.”
“And why would I do that?” Price asked, a stream of blood now leaking down his wrinkled forehead from Hagan’s initial attack.
“Because I know your wife and daughters live in a nice house just outside Rockwall, Texas. And that, despite being an evil bastard, you care about them very, very much.”
Price’s eyes grew wide, a white-hot fury burning intensely before being doused with fear and worry. “You… You wouldn’t do that,” he said, a genuine tremble in his voice.
“Oh no?” Hagan shot back. “I don’t think I need to remind someone like you that the U.S. Government wasn’t in the business of redacting dossiers on boy scouts. You say that I wouldn’t do that, but what do you have to base that on?” Hagan said, ice in his eyes. “You say that I wouldn’t do that because you hope I wouldn’t do that. Nothing more.”
“My wife and daughters have done nothing wrong. Leave them out of this,” Price said, his strong voice betrayed by his waver.
“Tit for tat, buddy. You took my son from me. It’s only fair.”
“You’re a monster!” Price bellowed.
“Says the kettle,” Hagan remarked.
Price stared into Hagan’s eyes before lowering his head, shaking it slowly. “Anthony Gray,” he muttered under his breath. “He put me in charge of the operation.”
Shock flooded Hagan’s mind with Price’s confession. Hagan knew someone higher up in the regime had to have organized such an undertaking. He just didn’t expect it to go as high as the Chief Defense Secretary. But that also meant that it likely went even higher than that. “And who had Gray issue that command?”
Price grunted out a sardonic laugh. “I learned early on that it’s just best not to ask questions. I get my assignments. I carry them out. I report back with results.”
“And how did that report go? You know, when your men came back empty-handed.”
“Well,” Price said, a grim look on his face, “heads definitely rolled. Fortunately, none of them were mine.”
Hagan looked over at Wilford, who had a growing look of impatience on his face before turning back at Price. “You’re not holding out on me, are you, Colonel?” Hagan said with an unspoken, “because if you are…” in his tone.
“No,” he said, dropping his head lower. “Just please leave my family alone.”
Hagan nodded. “You were right, Colonel. I would never harm an innocent person just to settle a score,” Hagan said, feeling somewhat disgusted with himself for even pretending like he would commit such an atrocity.
Knowing he had been played, Price nodded his head. “Yeah. I figured as much.”
“But you weren’t willing to risk their lives over it, huh?” Hagan said, “Over the chance, no matter how small of a chance it was, that I was the same kind of monster as you.” Hagan turned his attention to Wilford who signaled for the extraction team to move up. “Maybe there’s some hope for you after all, Colonel. I’ll see you again real soon.”
“Yeah. I’m sure you will,” he said, his voice, like his will, broken.
Two men from the extraction team each grabbed an arm, pulling them behind his back. Price grimaced and groaned from their rough handling, his body still aching from the thumping the .45-caliber gave him moments earlier. They stood him to his feet and a third person put on a black hood, cinching it around his neck. The three men promptly led Price off toward the other side of the bridge, guiding him around the remnants of the still smoldering Humvees.
Wilford walked around Solomon and stepped up to Hagan, leaning in close. His jaw was tight, and his nostrils flared as he breathed heavily. “We did not give you that intelligence just so you could use it as a tool in your sadistic interrogation.”
“Then you shouldn’t have given it to me at all,” Hagan shot back, his face just inches away from Wilford’s.
“Oh, believe me, we won’t make that mistake again,” Wilford said with certainty.
Chapter 26
Leaning his back into the wall of the classroom, Hagan rested his right hand on the handle of his M4 hanging across his chest. He could hear voices down the hall. Angry, frustrated voices that attempted to stay hushed, but failed with each escalated word spoken. And though he couldn’t understand the words Aileen was saying, the fury in her voice was unmistakable.
Hagan didn’t blame her.
He couldn’t blame her for being angry. He’d be pissed off, too, if he were in her shoes. Hagan lied to her, and, as a result, nearly compromised the mission. His reckless actions could have easily resulted in Price’s death, taking away the only real advantage her group had over their foes. It was a risky gamble that Hagan played with someone else’s money.
Hagan had spent many years employing unorthodox tactics with the Ground Division. The men assigned to that outfit often operated as if they’d never heard of the Geneva Convention before; the ends justified the means. But this wasn’t just about the tactics he used to extract information from Price. It was about going against direct orders. It was about betraying Aileen’s trust. It was about his integrity, and how it almost certainly meant nothing to her now.
The frustrated voices were soon replaced with boots echoing off the linoleum floor, the sound getting louder as the pair of shuffling feet approached the classroom. Aileen was the first through the door. The smoldering rage in her stare said everything Hagan needed to know, but the woman wouldn’t be content with just letting him off with a deathly glare.
“Who do you think you are, Matthew?” she said, walking over to him with a pointed finger that soon found his chest. Wilford was just a few feet behind her, armed with an MP5k. “Just who the hell do you think you are?” she repeated, “to jeopardize everything we’ve been working for just so you can continue your little crusade…” Her teeth were grinding with ire.
“I delivered Price to you alive. That’s what you asked me to do.”
“No!” she shouted. “I asked you to apprehend him unharmed. Not to shoot him and hope his body armor was up to par,” she replied furiously. “You’re so blinded by vengeance that you don’t even recognize that you have become one of the beasts you’re chasing after.”
Hagan was now the one doing the finger pointing. “Don’t forget who’s been feeding that beast, Aileen,” Hagan retorted, his brows tightening as his eyes narrowed on her in the darkened classroom. “You’ve been treating this list of names like a carrot on a stick since the moment we met. So, don’t act surprised when your hand gets bit,” he said, trying to deflect some of her wrath back at her. But Aileen didn’t take the bait.
“That’s bull crap and you know it, Matthew.” She stepped back from the man that had a good foot of height on her, shaking her head. Betrayal infused through her glistening eyes as she struggled to maintain her composure. “You gave me your word...” she said calmly. Slowly.
Hagan’s gaze remained fixated on Aileen’s soft, broken features, but he could find no words to speak. Guilt invaded his thoughts as he watched her vibrant blue eyes fill with pain. Pain that he was responsible for. But more than that, everything Aileen had just said was true. Hagan had become a monster. A monster so focused on settling the score that he didn’t care about collateral damage so long as he got closer to completing his objective.
“I guess, maybe I am to blame for this,” she said. “I misread you. I thought that, when it came down to it, you would make the right choice. It’s my fault for believing you were a better man.”
/> “Aileen…” Hagan spoke, his voice soft and remorseful. “You don’t know what I’ve been through,” he said, trying to rationalize his actions. As much for himself as the woman standing before him.
“I…?” she scoffed. “I don’t know what you’ve been through?” she said, letting out a grunt of disbelief. “Do you honestly think that Carrick was the first person I cared about that the regime took away from me?”
Hagan felt a pit swelling in his stomach.
“Do you think that I don’t know what it feels like to lose a child?” she said, inching back closer to Hagan as rage and agony swirled around each of the words leaving her lips. “Do you know what it feels like to have to identify your three-year-old’s bullet-riddled body at a morgue while your husband’s on life support just because the two of them happened to be passing by a group of protestors who got a bit too rowdy for the regime’s liking?” she said, sorrow now pouring from her eyes. “’Just the wrong place at the wrong time,’ the regime said before warning me that I would find myself in a similar situation as them if I didn’t stop challenging the ‘heroic actions’ of the CRG’s, as Colonel Price later called them on TV.”
Aileen wiped her eyes with the back of her hand as she attempted to stifle her sobs.
“I’m sorry, Aileen. I—”
“Didn’t know?” she finished his sentence for him. “Yeah. That’s because you’re too consumed by your own retribution,” she said, her words cutting Hagan deep. “So, don’t tell me I don’t know what it’s like, Matthew Hagan, because I damn well do know what it’s like to lose those you care for the most. And trust me, I wanted my vengeance, too. I wanted to stick every one of their heads on a pike under the St. Louis Arch for all the world to see what tyrants deserve. And,” she said, her voice getting stronger, “I still do. But where you and I differ, Matthew, is that I recognize that if I just go and kill those directly responsible—if I just satiate my revenge by killing the men who pulled the trigger on that day—then this world is no better off than it was before. But if I can take that anger and hatred for the regime—if I can use the vengeance burning deep inside my soul to help change the world for the better, even if just a little bit—then my family didn’t die in some random, senseless act of violence. They died so that, maybe someday, others won’t have to feel the same grief that you and I know so well.”
