If I Ever

by SE Jakes

Nico helped Prophet out the door without making him feel like an invalid. His eyes hadn’t gotten blurry today, which was a good sign, but fuck, he hurt everywhere.

  “Tom in surgery?” King asked.

  “Yes. It’ll be a couple of hours.” Prophet glanced over all of them. “Where’s Mal?”

  Hook motioned to his left. “Took off right after the women came through. Got a wild hair about something.”

  “Alone?”

  “You ever try to stop him when he wants to do something?” Hook asked. “It’s like trying to stop you. But no, Ren followed him.”

  Prophet frowned. Ten minutes later, his cell phone started beeping. He grabbed it to see incoming texts. “We’ve got service.”

  Twenty minutes later, Mal and Ren came out of the brush, looking triumphant.

  “I’m guessing they’ve got something to do with that,” Nico said.

  “Mal found the jammer,” Ren told them. “It was planted about two miles from here. Definitely done purposely. Because jammers don’t just show up in the middle of nowhere. Not US Military–issued ones, anyway.”

  Mal was carrying it. Need to check this fucker for fingerprints so I know who to kill.

  King came over to stand with them. Prophet glanced around to the men assembled there, Nico and Reggie and Dean, and Prophet’s team. The women from the clinic were assisting in surgery. They had four trucks. Several grenades and a few bombs. Some weapons.

  And God knew how many rebel soldiers headed their way with orders to raze the clinic and take out anyone there. If they ran . . .

  “I’ll stay with Tom—I’ll get them out of here as soon as they’re out of surgery,” Prophet started in again, but King shook his head.

  “Not happening, Proph. Don’t even bother. We’re in this together.” His brogue was heavy but he clapped Prophet on the shoulder. “We keep going until we’re all out of hell, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Prophet echoed. Except that hell? Seemed to be never-ending. “Any brilliant ideas would be appreciated.”

  “I might have something.” King was dialing his phone. “I think the SAS held me around here. Ren, that pothole you avoided? They didn’t. And I heard music playing while they changed a tire.”

  “That’s ten miles from here,” Dean confirmed. “There’s a restaurant—they play music nonstop. It’s basically open twenty-four hours a day—it’s in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Makes sense,” King said, then, “Brock? It’s King. Man, I need some help out here.”

  He walked away to continue his call and Ren crossed his arms and stared at his best friend’s back.

  “Who’s he talking to?” Nico asked.

  “The SAS. Apparently, there’s a merry band of them not too far from here,” Ren said. “Do you know them? Head guy’s named Brock.”

  Nico frowned and walked over to King. Soon the two of them were listening to the person on the other end of the phone and then Nico was talking and nodding.

  “Where’d Mal disappear to now?” Prophet asked.

  “Building bombs,” Hook said, and Ren nodded, like that happened on a daily basis.

  Which really, it did.

  “Don’t keep us in suspense,” Ren said when they began walking back over to the group.

  “They’re trying to get some air support. A drone—but it’ll be close,” Nico said as he came toward them. “We’d have to evac.”

  King added, “They’ll try to get a chopper for Tom, but they can’t guarantee that at all. But if they can get an evac? It’s going to be small and fast, which means the rest of us will need to find our own way out of here.”

  “Just get them out of here and I’ll crawl home,” Prophet told him.

  “And then you’ll owe me,” Nico said, but it was with a smile.

  “Fuck me,” Prophet muttered, and then his phone began to ring. “It’s Cahill.”

  “You guys aren’t all right,” Cahill started. “The rebels are coming in your direction.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “They were called in, Prophet. This wasn’t a coincidence.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. I just don’t know who made the call. I’ve got feelers out to find out who contacted a rebel faction to make a hit,” Cahill confirmed. “Don’t worry though—I’m mitigating your damage. I let another rebel faction know that someone’s trying to invade their territory.”

  “What rebel faction did you call, Cahill?” he asked, his voice rising a little too loud and suddenly everyone was crowding around, listening.

  “I called Boko Haram,” Cahill said calmly.

  “He called Boko Haram,” Nico echoed, his hands in the air in the classic what the fuck position.

  “Of course he did.” King shook his head in disbelief. “Who the fuck is Cahill?”

  I’ll fill you in, Mal signed to him.

  “So you started a rebel war,” Prophet continued with Cahill.

  “You needed a distraction, right? Let them think they’re each trying to kill the other and they’ll forget all about you,” Cahill advised. “Just duck down and stay out of the way. And I’m sending a chopper for your wounded. Give a yell when you’re ready—I need an hour’s notice.”

  “How did you—” Prophet asked, but Cahill had already cut the line. “I don’t fucking believe this.”

  Maybe it was better when they didn’t have any contact with the outside world, because hell, knowing they’d be in the middle of Boko Haram and whatever other group was headed their way?

  Fuck. Just fuck.

  The SAS wasn’t able to send a chopper, but Cahill had one—and a pilot who didn’t mind flying through rebel fire. Pei gave word that Tom would be out within an hour, but that he needed at least another before she felt comfortable moving him.

  “We don’t have that,” Nico said.

  “Any way to know how many men are coming?” Prophet asked.

  King was staring at his laptop. “I almost wish I didn’t know.”

  Prophet decided it was better if he didn’t look. Instead, he pulled King off the computer and together with Ren, Mal, Hook, Nico, and Reggie, they rigged a wide arc of explosives, far enough away from the clinic to keep the rebels out for a while. It kept them busy, although nothing could stop them from thinking about the hordes of angry, heavily armed men headed their way with nothing to lose.

  Or headed Boko Haram’s way, Prophet supposed, if he wanted to put a positive spin on the whole thing. But he had no doubt that the military losses in this region sat squarely in the forefront of all their minds, of men whose bodies were ripped apart, dragged alive through the streets as trophies.

  And here you thought you survived the worst thing you’d ever go through. Fate always found a way to keep things . . . fucked.

  Still, some things were going right. True to her word, Pei had Tom out of surgery in under an hour.

  Prophet popped in to see Tom, who hadn’t woken yet, touched his arm, reassured how warm he was. “How bad was it?”

  “There was a tear. It would’ve just gotten bigger and bigger the more he moved. If he rests, he’ll heal fine and keep his spleen.” Pei looked tired, but pleased, and Prophet had the sudden urge to tell her to get the hell out of this clinic, this continent, and go someplace safe.

  But hell, they both knew there was no such place.

  “All he’s got to do is take a flight on a helo,” Prophet told her. “You too.”

  “It’s risky to move him,” Pei told him. “But it’s even riskier not to, I’m guessing.”

  “Yes. You’ll all go on the chopper together. You don’t have to go far. Just get beyond the rebels,” Prophet told her. “You’ll be in good hands.”

  “And what about the rest of you?” she asked.

  “We’ll be fine. Better men have tried to kill us and failed,” he assured her.

  “Somehow, I don’t doubt that.”

  Before he could ask her if that was a compliment or not, she was waving him away from Tom’
s bed so she could tend to her patient. “He’ll be up by the time the chopper comes.”

  Prophet went outside and sat heavily on the steps, which was probably the biggest mistake he could make. Not only did his body protest ever getting up again, but his mind started to run away, back to that dark place . . .

  Fuck. The irony that he’d gotten rid of the man who’d haunted him for years only to possibly be betrayed by one of three men he’d trusted and die at the hands of random rebel soldiers wasn’t lost on him.

  “None of that,” Nico practically ordered.

  “If I’d killed Karen instead of hiding her . . .” Prophet shook his head.

  “I don’t want to think of a world that didn’t have men like you,” Nico emphasized. “It’s about checks and balances. And the CIA put you in an impossible situation.”

  “I put myself in it too.”

  “There are people on your side. Tom. Me. The team,” Nico reminded him. “Your team.”

  “And we’re all going to die because of it.”

  “You seem surprised that you’re going to die—did you really think you were immortal?” Nico asked.

  “You still make me want to punch you.” But hell, bad blood didn’t matter—not under conditions like this.

  Nico smiled. “Good. Keep that anger. Because as long as you’re still breathing? You’re winning.”

  “That’s SAS crap,” Prophet muttered.

  “No, that’s a plan that’s coming together,” Nico reassured him. “You just make sure Tom gets on that helo. And try not to worry so much.”

  The explosions had started ten minutes earlier, and even though they were a ways off, they still stopped Prophet and the others in their tracks. There was no mistaking the sound of hostile fire, and the imminent attack had the team waiting to run in and fight as opposed to just standing still.

  Thankfully, the helo was right on time, with Jin behind the controls.

  “Get them on board, Proph—and I’ll get them to safety,” his old friend reassured him.

  “I have no doubts,” Prophet told him.

  “If I can, I’ll come back for you guys. But the rebels are all over the goddamned place.”

  Prophet shook his head. “No way. We’ll be riding too close to them for you to risk it.”

  Jin nodded and then Prophet got the doctors and Tom boarded, along with several other staff members.

  Tom was still asleep and Prophet figured that was best. There was no time for a long, drawn-out scene. Instead, Prophet kissed him on the forehead and Mal signed, How sweet. Just like the prince trying to wake Cinderella.

  “I think you’ve got your fairy tales mixed up, asshole,” Prophet shot back, then went to help Dean board. He didn’t know what the fuck to say to comfort him, but it didn’t matter. Dean simply turned to hug him. Hard.

  “Get your ass back safely, dammit,” he growled in Prophet’s ear, and then he was on board and the bird was rising through the air, hovering . . . and then gone.

  They had two vehicles. They decided to split up for part of the journey; that way they had an extra truck, just in case. It would be Mal, Prophet and Nico in one, and Ren, King and Hook in the other.

  “Let’s roll,” Ren said.

  But King was just standing there, staring out into the distance, listening to the bombs going off, the gunfire . . . and they could all only imagine the screams.

  “I won’t go out like that,” King said finally. He was holding a knife and Prophet understood, as those images of military men, beaten and dragged through the streets, burned through his brain again.

  Ren put a hand on his best friend’s shoulder. “We’ll never let that happen.”

  We’ll live to fight another day, Mal signed.

  “How can you be so sure?” King asked.

  Too mean to die. Mal had rigged the entire perimeter of the clinic and Prophet hoped he remembered where all that shit was when they left.

  King nodded. “As long as you all know my plan,” he muttered as Ren got him into the truck. Then he popped back out even as Ren tried to push him back in like a goddamned jack-in-the-box and said, “We all go in one car.”

  Prophet wasn’t surprised to see this happening—it was natural and it was fine, as long as they all didn’t go down that rabbit hole at the same time.

  “You okay with this?” Hook asked.

  “One car,” Prophet repeated. And they all climbed in. Mal was driving and all Prophet could do was sit in the middle seat and try not to have a flashback, which was becoming more and more likely the closer they got to the rebels’ fighting, according to King’s data.

  “Breathe, Proph,” Ren told him.

  Prophet did, then came back from the worst places in his mind to see that he was physically in that worst place too.

  They’d been boxed in from two sides. They couldn’t go west because the river blocked them and there was nothing but jungle the other way—they’d never get out of that.

  Prophet dared to glance at the laptop’s screen, only to see swarms of red heat-seeking blotches that represented the soldiers all around them.

  “They’re ten miles out,” King told them.

  “That’s a million miles in this terrain,” Ren added.

  “Roadblock,” Nico announced as Mal slowed the truck. “SAS.”

  “They know me—that’s Brock.” King got out and showed himself before they were killed on sight.

  “Get the hell out of here,” Brock yelled.

  “We’d fucking like to,” Ren said, without a trace of irony.

  “Get to the bunker.” He rattled off coordinates to Nico. “We’re headed back ourselves—we were just trying to wait it out for you and help some of the locals evac. This shit’s going to go on for days.”

  “Yeah, no doubt,” Ren muttered.

  “Fucking Boko Haram,” Nico said again, almost in wonderment.

  You have to admit, it’s a damned fine plan, Mal signed before he started driving again.

  Prophet just shook his head, and they drove in silence for about five klicks in the direction of the bunker. Finally, they saw the markers, and King showed them where to park the truck to keep it hidden, and led the way down the stairs and into the darkened room.

  It was cool and dry and safe. They put their gear down and sat on the bunks and for several moments, they all just were.

  Because there wasn’t much else to do.

  After they’d rested and eaten, they were still quiet. It didn’t surprise Prophet, and it gave him a chance to assess his team and get a sense of where their heads were at.

  Because that, at least, was a comfortable role for him.

  Nico was in the corner, pen in hand, yellow pad on his lap, writing furiously, and they all knew what he was doing. At one point or another, they’d all written the same type of letter, the kind you hoped no one would ever read, and after several moments, they all went and found paper and pens and got to work.

  It was a tradition on the SEAL teams—and it no doubt extended to most Special Forces teams too. You wrote the letter you hoped no one would ever get the chance to read, because if anyone read it, it meant that the writer was no longer alive.

  If the bunker was bombed, nothing would survive, but that wouldn’t stop the tradition. It wasn’t great to have superstitions, but the letter was something no one fucked with.

  Prophet figured that Doc was the recipient of Nico’s letter, and it made Prophet hate him a little less.

  He thought about what Tom told him about Nico and Doc, and the tension between them during the rescue.

  “I just wanted to tell them to fuck,” Tom had said and Prophet smiled in the middle of that dark, dank bunker, thinking about Tom. Thinking about the emails Tom had written him in an attempt to win him back—and about the way Prophet refused to read them all . . . until he didn’t.

  Prophet’s was, of course, to Tom, and as hard as it would be to write, it would be nothing compared to the one he’d force himself to write to Rem
y. Because the kid deserved that . . . and so much more.

  The recipient of Mal’s letter would be anyone’s guess. Before Cillian pulled his disappearing act, maybe it would’ve been him, but now?

  Hook’s would be to his wife.

  King and Ren? Well hell, they were each other’s. King would probably write to his mom, but Ren?

  His paper was blank.

  King looked up and saw Prophet looking at Ren. “You going to tell them or am I?” King asked Ren, who shrugged. “Ren’s in WITSEC, not me.”

  Which explained the lack of the letter writing.

  “And yet, Prophet doesn’t seem surprised,” Ren said slowly. “Neither does Mal. Nico and Hook at least didn’t know.”

  “Definitely not,” Hook lied.

  “I didn’t for sure,” Nico confirmed.

  “Well, there’s at least one,” Ren muttered.

  “It was just a lucky guess,” Prophet told him.

  Mal shot Ren the finger.

  “Is that some kind of solidarity?” Ren asked, with a shake of his head. “And no, I’m not talking about it. Not now.”

  King nodded and shook his head at Prophet as if to say, Leave it alone.

  Prophet would . . . for now. Because they were stuck down there for the foreseeable future. Hoping not to get discovered.

  If they could fight back, they would. But each man always had a grenade in their possession . . . just in case.

  “This? Is more fun than Yemen,” Ren observed finally.

  “Digs are better,” King agreed.

  “Why do I have a feeling we’re going to owe the SAS—and that they’re going to collect?” Prophet asked.

  Mal was uncharacteristically quiet, which sounded ironic but was the truth. Mal had never needed a voice to speak volumes. Even when he could talk, he’d been a man of few words.

  Now, Prophet got up and went to sit by him. “You’re worried about Cillian.”

  Mal glanced at him, then handed him his phone. Prophet read the message, a chill running through his body. The timestamp was three hours earlier.

  And there was nothing to be done.

  Tom woke at one point briefly, then promptly passed out again, and frankly it was probably better that way. He would’ve been a drugged-up, yelling mess, and Dean didn’t have any news to tell him anyway when he did finally wake up.