by Schow, Ryan
“Take a picture, why don’t you,” she muttered, throwing her hands on her hips.
“It’s not like that and you know it,” he said. “Don’t be like that.”
“So? I’m not joking here, Rider.”
“Fine. On one condition. A soldier knows her chain of command and she never, ever disobeys it.”
“Fine,” she said.
She looked diminutive in her stature, but again, her need to be part of this, to prove herself—or as she said, stop feeling helpless—was a force far greater than her size, her youth or her relatively limited combat experience.
Nodding his head in consideration, like there was still a chance he would recant, he finally gave in. “Okay then, fine.”
“Okay?” The energy around her crackled with life and a smile touched the corners of her lips. “Really?”
“If I have to repeat myself, then you’re not listening, and if you’re not listening, then you’re not ready.”
The start of a smile fell away in favor of a more passive look.
She said, “I just wanted to be sure.”
“Now you know, whatever I say the first time, I’m sure of.”
“Noted.”
“Good, now beat it. Jagger and I have some things we need to discuss. High level, beyond your pay grade stuff.”
When she was gone, Rider said, “You know what we have to do, right?”
“All we need is to do is capture one of theirs.”
“Exactly.”
“We get him, we break him, then we get the entire operation.”
“What’s your level of combat experience?” he said. When Jagger frowned at him, Rider said, “It’s not a dick flexing contest, and I don’t care how much experience you actually have, I just need to know so we don’t bite off more than we can chew.”
“I was a pilot, so not much other than what we’ve dealt with in the last few months.”
“Elizabeth told Sarah you saved her from some bad men. What did she mean?”
“She was being held prisoner when I found her. Bunch of perverts and creeps. They were armed, though. I got her out of there.”
“How many?”
“Six, maybe seven guys.”
“It was just you?”
He nodded.
“How many of them lived?” Rider asked.
“None of them,” Jagger answered.
“Good.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking you, me, Rex and Stanton run these sons of bitches off the face of the earth. It’s what I’m good at. What it seems we’re all good at.”
“What about Stanton?”
“Stanton made his bones in this mess same as you, although he’s a white collar financial type and we’re all ex-military.”
“Is that going to be a problem?” Jagger asked.
“What he lacks in military exercise he makes up for in heart. He’s the kind of guy you want on your six. Trust me.”
Scooping up the last of the broken glass, Jagger said, “Okay, then. We have a four man hit squad. We just need to find out who we’re up against.”
“I’ve got some ideas on how we do that.”
Chapter Seventy-Three
Rider got everyone together, rather everyone who played any kind of a role in forward security. He even invited Atlanta, then he invited Macy. The girls were happy to have seats at the “small table” as Atlanta had called it, and both girls looked like they were prepared to speak only when spoken to, as instructed.
Perfect.
In the War Room, Rider sat at the front of the three conjoined tables. Only half the seats were occupied, but every single one of them had eyes on Rider. He hadn’t taken the leadership role by choice. He never wanted that seat. What he had come to crave most was anonymity. So when they voted Rider to lead the security side of this compound, he told them other guys had more combat experience. They didn’t care. He said he’d never held a position of authority, beyond leading a small team of government sanctioned hit squads into kill zones. Again, no one seemed to hold that against him. It was, after all, a democratically nominated position.
When it appeared they weren’t going to let him shirk his responsibility, he begrudgingly accepted the position. It took him a good month to get used to being in charge. Which was to say, Rider wasn’t terribly thrilled, but a vote was a vote and he’d finally found a way to step into the role. He’d come to see this as his duty to the community given his skillset.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure yet,” Rex said, adding his two cents to the meeting, “but I’m thinking we need to start spending the nights on the streets, because whatever these jackoffs are doing feels like it’s leading up to something big, I just don’t know what.”
A chorus of agreement followed. Except from Atlanta and Macy. The girls were all eyes, all ears and no mouths. Rider was proud of them. The most important thing he learned in his time in the military was that the better you listened, the less questions you had, and if you were competent, good at listening and adept at taking direction, then there was very little to say and things got done right. His CO always appreciated this about him. If he could instill this in the girls, then he might actually have a chance at keeping them alive in the field.
“What are you suggesting?” Jagger asked. Jagger sat before Rider on one side of the table; Rex sat before him on the other side.
They were Rider’s two Generals.
Rider said, “He’s right. We’ll run six teams of two. Three days and two nights of rations. Enough ammo for a fire fight if we encounter one. We cut a perimeter, six points. We sit tight. Catch the bird’s eye view. Eyes up, guns up. Anyone have anything to add?”
Silence prevailed.
“Good,” Rider said. “I’ll take point. Jagger and Rex will be my number two and three. Macy you’ll be with me. Atlanta you’re with Jagger. Indigo you’re with Rex. Everyone else will pair off.”
He listed off the names of the remaining six men and women, then said, “We’ll need snipers on the roof. The usual four in your usual positions.”
“Rules of Engagement?” Stanton asked.
“Save one of theirs. We need intel. We need a direction. Nothing is ever done at the risk of our team though. Zero casualties. Am I clear?”
“Sort of,” Cincinnati said.
“If you see a chance to take one of theirs without using lethal force, then take them,” Rider said to her. “But none of them leave our net.”
He said this with rueful eyes on Cincinnati, who’d let a girl go and nearly got herself killed.
“Basically,” she said, “if only one survives, we’ve done our job?”
“Yes,” Rider said. “If one survives and we can break him or her, then we’re golden.”
“Who handles the interrogation?” Rex asked.
Now Rider cast him a new look. Was there something he didn’t know about Rex? “You want to be that guy?”
“I’m pretty solid in an interrogation room,” Rex said.
Rider nodded, then said, “Alright then.”
After lunch and the final preparations, as the sun burned overhead in a clear blue sky, Rider had the team of twelve huddled around picnic table in the outdoor courtyard. They were looking over a hand drawn map with the six locations they planned to infiltrate and occupy. The six teams were designated as Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo and Foxtrot.
When everyone was clear on where they were stationed and in what order the unit would both clear a building and deposit each team, the twelve of them took to the streets in a single file line. They moved silently along the sides of the buildings as though the enemy was already afoot.
In Rider’s mind, they were.
At this point, they had friendly snipers on their six, but only for so long. Once they dipped out of sight, they were on their own and told by Rider to consider themselves in the kill zone.
“The objective,” Rider continued, as if it were obvious, “is to make it ou
r kill zone, not theirs. We need to be ghosts now. So put your head on a swivel—you’re now weapons free.”
Everyone did as they were told.
Rider got them safely to the first building. Foxtrot’s drop off. Rider decided on this building for Foxtrot because he privately considered Foxtrot their weakest team. Statistically, it was also the building least likely to be hit first. When he, Jagger, Rex and Stanton cleared the building, Foxtrot went inside, took their respective positions and covered the departing unit’s six for as long as they remained in sight.
The team cleared five more buildings, the last of which was his and Macy’s. The two of them cleared the building together, Macy on his heels, following close, watching him work. Other than a few transients and a collection of stray cats, they were met with no resistance.
Rider didn’t know what he would talk with Macy about, but he told her she would take the day shift, and he would take the night shift. If nothing happened, he’d have three days to build her mindset the way he wanted it. Cincinnati said she was a sponge and would appreciate it. He told her that if Macy was to be in the field with them in either Alpha, Bravo or Charlie teams, she’d need to level up big time.
“Do what you need to do with her,” Cincinnati said. “Just make sure she has a safe word.”
“She won’t have a safe word. She’ll have a gun. And responsibilities to the unit and to her team. That’s the point, Sin. If this girl wants this life, I’m going to give it to her.”
“Just make sure you protect her,” Cincinnati said.
“I will do that as best as I can. I make no guarantees, other than she will be properly trained.”
Now the girl stood beside him asking a bunch of questions because he said this was the time. Basically he said, “You can ask me whatever you want for as long as you want.” So for the next hour they talked strategy, potential dangers, what he looked for when he was clearing a building and when he was manning a post, like they were doing now.
He then talked to her about mindset. That was perhaps the most important element he could leave her with.
“It’s hard doing this, but you have to start to see everyone as a threat and a target. It’s not whether or not they make themselves known as an enemy, it’s that everyone you meet is an enemy until they make themselves known as a friend. This is a tough distinction to make and it will leave you feeling lonely and on edge. You have to manage that. You have to manage both.”
“How do you do it?” she asked.
“You kill people for a living inside someone else’s kill zone. You do this because you have to, because it’s been beaten into you over and over and over again. There’s no way to prepare you except for you putting yourself in harm’s way and leaving the battlefield victorious. So prepare to get shot, stabbed, beaten up, tortured and possibly sexually assaulted. It’s ugly and no one wants to face this, but these are the truths of war. There are no negotiations.”
Her eyes went wide as he said this, but he wasn’t kidding. This was how he mentally prepared. This was his process.
“But if you want to avoid all that, statistically, then listen to what I say, do what I say, and then when the smoke clears and the fight is over—if we’re triumphant—we will dissect what happens and find ways to be better next time, more efficient.”
“So what am I supposed to do now?” Macy asked.
“If things get out of hand, just know the fog of war is real. You need only stay by my side. Are you clear?”
“Crystal,” she said. But she wasn’t. She was still a kid and a civilian in a soldier’s world. On one hand, he feared for her, but on another, he appreciated her spirit.
“Good, now get some sleep. You can’t be your most effective self without it.”
For the next three days, they encountered nothing unusual. Every single one of them was on edge, irritated, tired of waiting for these morons to show. Perhaps they realized it wasn’t wise to lob bodies into their camp, or try to blow up nearby buildings to box them in and then just show up again. Perhaps they were emptying more beer bottles, filling their little bellies with alcohol and courage. Cincinnati had changed that, though, didn’t she? One dead girl, three dead guys?
Maybe these fools took them seriously for a change.
At the end of the third day, Rider said, “Pack up, we’re moving out.”
Macy did as she was told, then they went building to building collecting the teams until as one unit they returned to the compound and got some sleep in a real bed in their own rooms. Rider was the last to head to bed. Sarah was there to greet him.
“These savages are messing with us and it’s starting to piss me off,” Rider told her after swallowing her in a hug and damn near assaulting her with kisses. Or maybe it was the other way around. He couldn’t get enough of the good doctor, and he made sure she knew it. They both made sure the other knew. In the comfort of their bed, they pressed themselves against each other to ward off the chill.
“Maybe it’s over,” she said, watching him in the dark, her hands on him, moving slowly over the surface of his body.
“Rex suggested we go hunting,” Rider said.
“Is that such a good idea?”
“It could pay off, or we could come up empty,” he said, holding her hand. “Besides, do you know how much real estate there is to clear in just a four block radius?”
“How many of them do you think there are?” she asked.
“Could be twenty. Could be a hundred. It’s hard to say with little or no information. The girl that Cincinnati killed, she said they were over two hundred, but she could have been bluffing, or exaggerating.”
“What about that catapult thing?” she said.
He’d been thinking about that.
“They obviously have some proficient workers, and the contraption was no joke when we got to it. It must have taken twenty men to move it, which means they wouldn’t move it far. That’s why we’re thinking four blocks, maybe five if we fan out from where we found it.”
“Didn’t you say you saw fifteen or twenty guys at the catapult before you burned it?”
“Yes, we did. Maybe more. But was that all of them? Or was that just a sampling?”
They laid together in relative silence. Rider’s mind was just too amped up to unwind. If he had to go hunting on his own, he would do so happily, but he had more than just himself to think about.
“I missed you,” Sarah said.
“I missed you, too.”
“At least you had Macy to keep you company,” she said.
“We didn’t share a bed,” Rider joked.
She didn’t respond. Then: “Who would you take with you? If you were to scout the area?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
She moved on top of him, her hips adjusting slightly, her pelvis slowly grinding into his. Her mouth was suddenly on him, lips parted, kissing his neck, his cheeks, his lips.
For the first few moments of this welcomed exchange, he couldn’t break free of his thoughts. He was wondering, do we search every building and home in a one mile radius, or do we return to the same posts we just vacated and wait?
And then it happened.
His mind emptied out enough to take in Sarah, only Sarah.
When he woke the next morning, he felt refreshed, reinvigorated, and loved. This was what he missed most. This. Sarah in bed. No wars to fight, no scraping by on the streets, nothing to do but be with his girl.
That only lasted so long.
When he got up, Jagger was waiting for him.
“What did you come up with last night?” Jagger asked as Rider slipped out of his classroom turned bedroom. Sarah was in bed, still asleep, on her belly with her hair fanned out beside her.
“I had more important things to tend to,” Rider said without a grin. “That and I finally got a decent night’s rest.”
“Copy that,” Jagger said.
“Let’s get the unit together in the War Room after breakfast. We need to put
our heads together on this one and see if we can develop a better plan.”
“You don’t have one?”
“It’s sketchy at best, nothing I want to put my name to,” Rider answered. “So start thinking of something and we’ll flesh it out if it makes sense.”
After breakfast, Rider arrived to a War Room full of baggy eyes and semi-alert faces. His outlook immediately soured. He told himself most of them were civilians, that stakeouts took a toll on anyone, even guys like him.
He was ready for more, though. That’s what he realized was different. Rather, Sarah made him realize it. What was normal to him was abnormal for everyone else. He chose to live on the streets. To fight other men’s wars. To assassinate on order without asking why or lamenting either the target or the task.
That wasn’t normal.
“First off, thank you for going out. I’m sorry we didn’t find what we were looking for, but Sarah suggested maybe we were looking for ghosts.”
“Do you think they’re in the wind?” Stanton asked. He seemed more alert than most, ready to prove himself in his unending quest to stand out in the team.
“Maybe. But why lob a few bottles at us then run?”
“After what Cincinnati did,” Indigo said, “maybe they think we’re more than we are. We shot three of their men and Sin went savage on their girl.”
Rider watched Cincinnati’s face turn red.
“It was a good move, Cincinnati,” Rider said. “We know they found the bodies because they’re not there.”
“You told me it was stupid.”
“I might have spoken too soon,” he said.
“So what is our plan B?” Atlanta asked. “Assuming there is one.”
Last night, when Rider and Jagger were alone, Jagger reported that the young blonde had done well, that her confidence came not necessarily from combat experience, but from tenacity and ambition.
Rider had said, “There’s clearly some underlying need to avenge her sister.”
“We haven’t seen her under fire,” Jagger said, “so it’s hard to tell what she’s got. I’ll give her this though. Her anger is a cool flame, rational with the potential to run hot. I don’t think she’ll go off half cocked the way Macy might, or Indigo might.”
