by Cassie Cole
I leaned my ear against the door. Linda’s door. Music played inside, with the soft murmur of voices. Linda was in her room.
Which means someone else was in ours.
I grabbed Karen’s hand and backtracked until we were out of earshot of our room. “Give me Linda’s key.”
She fished around in her bag and came up with it. “Why?”
“I need you to do something. Count to 60, then knock on your door. Don’t open it. Just knock, then head back to the stairwell to hide. Can you do that for me?”
“I think so,” she said, eyes round with uncertainty. “What are you going to do?”
I cupped her head in both my hands. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do, Logan.”
The affection that came through her eyes filled me with enough courage to storm an enemy fortress.
“Start counting.”
I returned to Linda’s door and used the key, turning the handle slowly so nobody would hear. The music volume rose as I slipped inside and closed the door, then slid along the wall toward the open suite room. I peered around the corner.
Linda and a man were in bed. She was nude and on all fours, bent down with her face in a pillow and her ass in the air. Her hookup was on his knees behind her, hands clutching her hips while he ate her out from behind. She moaned loudly, voice drowned out by the music playing from the nightstand radio.
They were both facing away from me.
In five quick seconds I tip-toed across the room, opened the balcony door, and slipped outside.
My internal clock told me I had about 20 seconds until Karen knocked on the door. I went to the balcony wall, which was connected to Karen’s identical balcony, and swung my legs over to her side. Although the entire wall of her suit was windows, I’d closed the curtains in the bedroom, giving me cover as I approached the door. The lights were off inside. I steadied my breath as I remained behind cover, counting down in my head.
I had no idea what I would face inside. It shouldn’t have been a hotel employee since the lights were off, and since we’d put a do not disturb sign on the door. Linda was in her proper place. The only explanation for the sensor trigger was an intruder.
I pressed my ear against the glass and closed my eyes. Waiting.
Finally came the signal I’d been waiting for: three hard knocks on the door, a dull echo I just barely made out. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. If my timing was poor…
I pulled my gun from my waistband and opened the door.
The darkness inside didn’t bother me since I’d allowed my eyes to adjust on the balcony. Karen’s bed was on the left, and the sitting area and television on the right. My belongings were where I’d left them: suitcase on the coffee table and laptop right on top.
I saw one man.
The man, the intruder, wore black jeans and a dark shirt. He was in the process of walking toward the front door to check on who had knocked. With ghost-like silence I closed the distance to him, praying that there was no one else inside. If someone was in the bathroom or hallway closet I’d be a dead man…
The intruder reached the front door and pressed both hands against it while he leaned in to look through the peep-hole. He had a gun in one hand, and a knife in the other.
He began to turn around just as I reached him.
I swung my pistol like a club, clocking him across the side of the head in a blow that should have incapacitated him. But he ducked down and flashed his hands to fight back. An expert in close-quarters combat, I snatched his wrist and twisted, forcing the gun to drop heavily to the ground. But that allowed the man to swing his other hand. Cool metal ran across my chest, but I felt nothing.
I pinned his knife-hand to the wall and head-butted him. He blinked his dark eyes, then the knife dropped away. Grabbing him by the shoulders, I spun him away from his dropped weapons and into the suite. He fell to the ground and I was on top of him in a flash, aiming my P226 directly at his chest.
“Move and die,” I said. “Mueves, morirás.”
My poor accent notwithstanding, he nodded and put his hands up in the universal signal of surrender.
I kept my gun trained on him as I backpedaled to retrieve the zip-ties from my bag. Only when his hands were tied, and I did a quick search of the rest of the suite for other intruders, did I finally relax.
I opened the front door and looked down the hall. Karen was peering around the edge of the stairwell, a worried look on her face. She sighed with relief and came running when she saw me.
The relief turned to fear again when she saw the man tied up on my floor. “Oh my God!”
“Yep.”
She looked around the room, processing everything. “You came in through the balcony?”
“Left it unlocked in case this exact scenario happened,” I explained. “He had a knife and a gun.”
“What if there were more of them?”
“There aren’t. I checked.”
“But what if there were,” she insisted. “They could have killed you.”
“They could have tried.”
I ignored her protests and crouched in front of the attacker. I held his dagger in front of his face and examined it, turning it over.
“You could’ve done a lot of damage with this thing.”
He responded by spitting at me. I winced as a glob of saliva hit me in the cheek. The man, who looked more like a kid than an adult, sneered.
“Are there more of you?” I asked. “¿Hay otros?”
He started laughing. A full-palm slap across his cheek stopped that real quick.
“¿Hay otros?” Are there others?
“No hay nadie,” he said in a voice hardly above puberty. There is no one. “Solo yo.” Just me.
“¿Por qué?” I asked. Why?
“Porque estoy explorando. Los otros estan ocupados.” I’m a scout. The others are busy.
“Busy with what?” I demanded. When he only laughed harder, I grabbed his shirt and shook him. “¿Ocupado con qué?”
38
Cairo
I stirred my little MRE, a glob of mush that was supposed to be southwest chicken with beans and rice, and tried not to think about the luxurious meals Karen and Logan had been eating at Sofia Garcia’s mansion.
The only easy day was yesterday, I thought.
It was more than just a mantra. It was a way to get through the tough parts. And this wasn’t even close to tough. We were camped out in a barn in the countryside west of Barcelona, but the weather was pleasant. I didn’t even mind the smell of animal manure coming from the horse stalls. Safety was more important than comfort, especially after getting ambushed at our command center.
I shifted the lantern on the box next to me so I could see my food better, then decided that was a bad idea and moved the light back.
Hunter gave a low whistle—a warning signal—before opening the barn door. He hefted a bottle of dusty wine victoriously. “Bro, look what I found in the house!”
“We’re not supposed to take anything from the decoy house,” I said. “For that matter, we’re not supposed to be drinking.”
Bocadillo, the golden retriever stray who had been visiting us on and off for the past two days, slipped inside before Hunter could close the door. He ran over to me with his tongue hanging out, gave me a few sniffs to make sure everything was on the up-and-up, and then laid down next to me.
Hunter sat down across from us with his back against the barn wall. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
I scratched Bocadillo behind his ear. “The mission. What if we’re finally called…”
Hunter laughed bitterly. “This whole mission is fucked. We’ve been sitting around Barcelona two weeks doing what? Nothing. Waiting for the CLF to make their mysterious move so we can scramble after them. I became a SEAL to attack, dude. To be the knife that goes in, cuts out the enemy’s heart, and escapes before he even knows what’s happening. I don’t like sitting around waiting for the fight to
come to me.”
“Those are our orders.”
“Yeah, well it makes me fucking antsy.” Hunter tried to slice open the wine foil with his finger and ended up cutting himself. He winced and sucked on his thumb.
“What do you think she’s doing right now?” I asked. There was no need to explain who I meant. She was the only thing either of us could think about since we’d arrived.
“Probably enjoying a beach barbecue with fruity little drinks. Ignoring the Spanish dudes who keep flirting with her.”
I scoffed. “You think she’d rather have a Spanish guy than us?”
“Naw, bro. But I think they’d try anyways.” He pointed a finger at me. “More important question: what do you think she’s wearing right now?’
I imagined Karen wearing a pink bikini, one which barely contained her perfect breasts. She wore a cover-up shirt too, but it was so thin it barely hid anything. I sighed, and Hunter sighed with me.
“I should ask her for nudes,” Hunter said. “You think she’d send us some?”
“Send her a dick pic and find out,” I chided.
“No way. I learned the hard way girls don’t like that.”
“Karen might,” I said, knowing it wasn’t true, but wanting to see Hunter make a fool of himself nonetheless.
Hunter returned to fiddling with the wine.
“You know,” I mused around another bite of imitation food, “it’s probably for the best we got split up. We’re never going to see her again.”
“We’ll see each other again. This is just until we think it’s safe.”
I shook my head. “We’ll come together when we have our mission, but probably not before. Karen’ll get stashed away at our next safe house while we complete our mission. But then what? She’ll go back to school in Wilmington and we’ll return to the carrier for the debriefing.”
A dark scowl fell over Hunter’s face. “Been trying not to think about it, bro.”
“Well, you ought to before you get hurt.”
Hunter lowered the wine between his legs. It looked like a giant glass prosthetic sticking up between his thighs, but he was in no mood to joke about it now. “I just wanted to enjoy something for a change. Karen’s fucking awesome. It hasn’t lasted long, but we’ve got a good thing going with her.”
“Even though you have to share her?”
“Fuck, because of that!” Hunter replied with a laugh. “Most of the time I’m paranoid about a girl cheating on me. But I don’t have to if she’s fucking you.”
“It’s kind of weird,” I admitted. “Sharing a girl.”
“Right, but it’s a weirdness I can wrap my head around. There are worse kinds of relationships to have.”
Relationships. That’s how he thought of Karen: as a potential relationship. He was going down the road of getting himself hurt.
But then again, so was I.
I wanted things with Karen. I wanted much more than just a hookup we met at the club, and then protected for a few days. I wanted to take her on a real first date, have a candlelight dinner, and then give her a nervous kiss on the cheek when I dropped her off at her house.
And no matter how much I told myself that it was destined to end, I didn’t want it to.
“Ah hah!” Hunter said as he finally tore open the foil on the wine. He unwrapped the remainder and tossed it aside, then paused when he saw the cork.
“You forgot a corkscrew? Didn’t you?”
“No,” he said like a toddler being asked if he’d stolen from the cookie jar. He rose and added, “I’ll be right back.”
He slipped back out in to the night with Bocadillo while I chuckled to myself.
I really missed Karen. She would’ve gotten a kick out of being around us while we teased each other. Hell, if she were here then our barnyard hideaway would have been a lot more tolerable. It sucked that she and Logan went off together. And not just because they got to posh it up in Sofia Garcia’s palace, and then on Mallorca with a bunch of drunk Europeans.
Whether I was there, or here, I didn’t care. So long as I was with Karen, I would’ve been happy.
I pulled out my phone and considered texting her. It was late, but she might still be awake. Or she might still be in the throws of partying. I was struck with the mental image of Logan grumpily watching her shake her booty on the dance floor, like an angry father chaperoning the prom. Karen’s beauty and charm was wasted on our strict LC.
I finally started to text her when Hunter returned. He stood in the doorway, a shocked look on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I need to show you something.”
“What is it?”
“Just come here.”
The tone in his voice made me grab Ariel from where the rifle leaned against the wall.
He led me back into the main house, which was much larger and nicer than the barn. We weren’t supposed to go inside except to grab food and water and use the bathroom. The house was a decoy. A trap for any of the CLF who did find us. They would storm the main house while we counterattacked from the barn, or retreated into the forest.
A small boxy TV sat on the kitchen counter. It showed the local news graphics framing video of something burning. The screen was filled with smoke.
Hunter turned up the volume. I barely knew enough Spanish to translate the broadcaster’s flustered words into English.
“…no one has claimed responsibility for the attack as of yet, but all signs point to Catalan separatists. Again, a truck bomb was driven into the Barcelona residence of Infanta Sofia Garcia, just north of Barcelona.”
I recognized the building now. The central structure with the wings branching off. The gardens and orchards in the back.
The place Logan and Karen had been yesterday.
“Holy shit.”
“Bro, I know.”
“Early reports confirm that Infanta Sofia and two her her children were present at the residence when the attack occurred. There is no word on their safety, but we will update you if we receive…”
My phone rang in my pocket. I answered it without looking. I knew who it was.
“Logan?”
“We’ve got our mission. Be ready to leave at 0900.”
39
Karen
Logan paced back and forth in the cramped confines of our suite while talking quietly on the phone. I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to watch the man who’d broken into our room while not staring directly at him. The man who laid on the floor had eyes that were wide and fanatical. Meeting his gaze made me uncomfortable.
“Okay,” Logan said, shoving his phone in his pocket. He stood close to me and put his mouth next to my ear so the CLF dude couldn’t hear. “We’re leaving in the morning. Need to hunker down here until then.”
“What about him?” I asked. “What if others are coming?”
“I have a plan.”
With his hair still wet from the pool, the buff SEAL bent to our new hostage and added extra zip-ties around his wrists and ankles. Then he shoved half a washcloth in his mouth and zip-tied that around his head. The young Catalan separatist roared his displeasure but it only came out as a muffled groan.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Logan commanded.
We went down to the lobby. Logan greeted the man behind the desk with the bluster and boisterousness of a drunk man.
“Hola! I have a question. Can you answer my question?” Logan wagged a finger at the man. “I think you can!”
“How may I help you, sir?” the employee asked.
“I’ve got friends coming in. Should be here any minute. Was wondering if you could book them a room on our floor.”
“What is your room number?”
“377.”
He squinted at his computer and clicked the mouse. “Let me take a look…”
Logan drummed his fingers on the desk while we waited.
“Room 368 across the hall is available. Will that suffice.”
Logan smacked th
e desk. “Abso-fucking-lutely it suffices! Let me just call my pal…” He paused and stared down the resort employee. “You’ll block it off for me, right?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Hell yeah. You’ve got a five-star review coming your way, I tell you what. Thanks, amigo.”
We left the lobby and started climbing the stairs.
“What was that all about?”
“That’s the plan I told you about.”
“It was?”
We went into our room and Logan grabbed something out of his bag. He gave our hostage a light kick in the ribs in passing, then we went back out into the hallway. He approached room 368, hunched over the door, and fiddled with the knob and keycard access.”
“Ta-da,” he said after a moment as the door swung open. “Hold this open for me?”
While I held the door open, he dragged our hostage across the hall and into the new room. While the young Spaniard wriggled and groaned on the floor Logan went back and retrieved our bags. He dropped them on the ground and nodded in satisfaction.
“There’s no record of us being in this room,” I said. “Smart.”
“Smart would’ve never been letting you come here,” he grumbled while lifting the Spaniard up into a chair.
“Then we would’ve been at Sofia’s palace when the bomb attack happened!”
The Spaniard rumbled with muffled laughter at the mention of the attack. Logan gave him a light slap and told him to shut up.
“The attack at Sofia’s?” Logan said, staring hard at me. “That can’t be a coincidence. I think her palace was attacked because we were there.”
“What!”
Logan finished securing our hostage to the chair. “We’re on full radio silence from this point on. Give me your phone.” He stuck out his hand.
“Seriously?”
“I’m not serious,” he said. “This fucker is. The guy with the knife and gun who was waiting in your room. Give me your phone, Karen.”
