Edge of the Heat Prequel

by Lisa Ladew

  The tablecloth whipped back and forth violently and Vivian looked up, as the table was turned on its end and flung away from her. A dark-skinned man with a bushy black beard smiled viciously down at her, his large rifle pointed right at her face. Vivian felt her body begin to tremble. She looked up at the balcony, then to her left, but the soldiers were gone.

  Chapter 4

  The man with the gun yanked Vivian roughly to her feet. He pulled her close to him and shouted something in a guttural language. The few men she could see spreading out in the room, all wearing dark tunics, cheered but kept their eyes and their guns trained on the balcony. Vivian heard gunfire from somewhere far away. Another part of the embassy maybe, or outside, she wasn’t sure. The man pulled her deeper into the room, his gun aimed at her neck. She couldn’t understand why the soldiers had abandoned her.

  Then she saw him. The soldier with the long hair. He was beneath a table, watching her captor, murder in his slitted eyes, his gun in one hand and his knife in the other. His gaze flicked up to the balcony, then back to her and the man holding her. All at once, the noise level in the room erupted again. Two soldiers had stood up on the balconies and were shooting the men prowling the large room. Vivian shrieked and covered her head with her hands. The soldiers on the balcony weren’t shooting at the man holding her though. The gun pointed at her neck swung away and the hateful man who had ahold of her by her arm pointed it at one of the men on the balcony. Vivian yelled and pushed hard with her feet, trying to knock him off balance so he couldn’t shoot the soldier. Her heels gave way underneath her and she fell, pulling the man down slightly as he fought to keep his grip on her.

  The soldier under the table exploded upwards, and was upon them in an instant. Vivian heard an eardrum-shattering BOOM and then the hand on her arm loosened and fell away. She struggled to her feet and tried to pull forward, but one of her heels was broken. She kicked the shoes off and looked to the soldier for guidance. He was watching behind her, quickly holstering his knife, but keeping his gun out. The men on the balconies continued to pump bullets into the room. The soldier pulled at her arm. “Quickly,” he hissed. “I’ll get you out of here!”

  She followed, but stepped on a large chunk of splintered wood almost immediately. She cried out and lagged behind. He turned to her, ducking to stay under the fire of the men from the balconies. “Sorry,” he muttered, looking almost embarrassed, and pulled her arm away from her body. Before she even knew what he was doing he crouched low and picked her up in a fireman’s carry and ran swiftly out of the room with her, as if she were no heavier than a backpack.

  Vivian looked up in amazement as the room faded quickly behind her. She craned her neck around trying to see where she was being carried. The hallway was long, and the red carpet was littered with broken glass, smashed wood, and chunks of plaster. She heard gunfire behind and ahead of them. At the far end of the hall, a man materialized in a doorway and swung his large gun up. Vivian tensed her whole body but before she could even cry out, her soldier had gotten off a shot with his own gun, then jerked to the left into a doorway, running down a stairwell with Vivian on his back. His footsteps pounded loudly and echoed in the stairwell. Vivian didn’t dare say anything to him. She felt ridiculous, having to be carried like this, and she didn’t want to make him waste his breath answering her questions. She looked down and saw the stairs were free of debris, and hoped he would put her down soon.

  At the next landing, he did put her down. He looked at her solemnly, then held a finger to his lips. A heavy metal door stood in front of them. He pushed it open slowly, his gun in front of them. Above them, a door swung open and heavy feet pounded down the stairs. The soldier grabbed her hand and pulled her out the door, all caution flung aside. They ran blindly down the side of the building, Vivian’s feet squelching in the cool grass. He urged her faster. At first Vivian couldn’t hear anything but the blood pounding in her ears, but when she heard gunfire behind them she put on a burst of speed and passed her soldier. She could be fast when she wanted to be, and he was firing behind them with his gun while trying to run at the same time. They reached the end of the building and rounded the corner. Vivian skidded to a stop and tried to catch her breath. Her soldier was already peeking around the corner, back the way they came. She jumped as he fired one shot.

  With his gun still pointed in that direction, he reached in his cargo pocket and pulled out a radio. “Tango 1, this is Tango 7, I have a civilian in sector zero. Where do I take her?” he said into it quietly. The radio stayed silent in his hand. He tried again, repeating the message. Vivian looked around wildly, expecting more gunmen to round the other corner or flood out of the night towards them.

  She saw nothing but darkness. The embassy building was large and situated by itself, in a grassy field. The closest building she could see seemed too far to try to run to. Besides, would leaving the embassy be safe? Vivian bit her lip. Was staying at the embassy safe? It didn’t seem like it. Although she felt far safer in the wide open with her mysterious soldier by her side than she had while cowering under the table upstairs. Her soldier. Her mind did a funny double take at her possessiveness.

  His radio stayed silent. He took one last look around the corner, then pulled her down the side of the embassy, towards the back. “Come on, we have to double around the back and find my unit.” His voice was a harsh whisper, and it seemed to hurt him to talk.

  Vivian swallowed her terror and nodded, letting him pull her along. He ran quickly and Vivian had to hold her dress up to keep up with him. She was never wearing a dress and heels again. From now on, pants and slacks, no matter if it was her own wedding. Unless her soldier was there to keep her safe, she thought, then chastised herself for having such a stupid thought. She hoped she never needed a soldier to keep her safe again in her life.

  They reached the end of the building and he rounded the corner cautiously. No one was lying in wait of them. Vivian blew out a shaky breath. The embassy loomed hugely above them, with only an emergency exit on the back side of it. Vivian wondered if they were going to try to get back inside. They slowed to a fast walk and traversed the back side of the embassy.

  “I’ll watch behind us, you watch in front of us, squeeze my arm or say something if you see any movement, got it?” he whispered hoarsely.

  “Got it,” Vivian squeaked, dismayed at the tone of her voice. She sounded terrified. She was terrified. For herself, for her father, and for her country. Was this how things were now? Was this the horrible new world they would all have to face every day? Would she even survive to find out?

  Her soldier grunted and stopped short, pulling at Vivian’s arm. They were halfway to the other side, but he had stopped at a door directly under the emergency exit stairs. Vivian stared at it. “Keep your eyes ahead of us,” he told her gruffly, his own eyes swiveling to take in everything around them.

  Vivian snapped her eyes ahead and searched the darkness. She heard a noise at the door but didn’t look to see what it was.

  “This door should be locked.” He leaned down and peered closely at the handle. He grunted again in displeasure and pulled the door open slightly, looking inside. Ahead of them, Vivian saw light flash, then the sound of gunfire reached her ears. She squeezed his arm hard, but he had already jerked upright and was looking that way.

  “In, in,” he said but she couldn’t figure out what he meant. He pushed her in the door, one hand on top of her head, making her duck down underneath the wires and pipes, then pulling the door quietly shut behind them.

  Vivian couldn’t see a thing. She held her hands in front of her, groping blindly, hoping not to run into anything. He produced a light from behind her, but kept his fingers over it, so it only gave off a small amount of light. They were in a tiny corridor, lined with pipes and wires with a ceiling so low they had to crouch. The corridor continued for about eight feet, then abruptly ended. Her soldier shined his light up, down, and to each side, then sucked in a breath and switched his light off q
uickly.

  Vivian crouched in the complete darkness and waited for what would come next.

  She heard him moving slightly, then he spoke. “Tango 1, this is Tango 7. I’ve got a situation.”

  Vivian held her breath. The radio crackled quietly but the voice of the man speaking over it belayed frustration and urgency. Gunshots rang in the background.

  “Tango 7, firefight on the second floor. Your situation will have to wait.”

  “Tango 1, I’ve got a civilian with me. And a bomb in sector 1. It’s counting down with three hours and ten minutes left.”

  Vivian’s eyes flew wide and she looked around, even though she could see nothing.

  The radio sat silent. Her soldier sat silent. Vivian’s heart beat loud enough to give them away. Finally, the radio crackled again. “Tango 7, sit tight. Don’t leave the bomb. You may get company checking on it. Shoot to kill. Tell us if anything changes. We’ll come to you when we clear the building.”

  Bomb? Sit tight? Shoot to kill? Vivian groaned inwardly.

  The light flashed on again, and this time Vivian followed it. She saw the bomb, a small metal suitcase with wires running from it into the ceiling above them, it’s readout showing 03:08:12 and counting down each second. The light moved and her eyes strained to make sense of where they were. The corridor they were in led straight to the door and Vivian couldn’t help but feel like a sitting duck if anyone decided to open it and look inside. She wondered how many bullets her soldier had.

  The light flashed again, just behind them, to a tiny alcove off to one side of the corridor. She could barely see her soldier’s face in the dim light, but she saw him lift his chin towards the alcove. “We’re holing up in there. It will be tight.”

  Vivian looked at it. The nook was actually large, but it housed a large furnace, or maybe air conditioner, which took up all of the room. Again, the ceiling was low enough that they would have to crouch. There was a tiny ledge to the very back of it, behind the air conditioner. But none of that mattered. The two of them couldn’t fit in there together.

  “We won’t fit,” she whispered back.

  “We’ll have to,” he told her. “Can you fit on that ledge up there?”

  “No way,” she said.

  “Try. Climb up there, I’ll help you.”

  Vivian shook her head. This was never going to work. Outside, gunfire burst through the night, sounding far away, but still too close. “OK, I’ll try.” She squeezed into the hole and contorted her body to fit behind the furnace. She slid sideways onto the ledge and with much wiggling, was finally able to pull her legs onto it. Her head was smashed between the furnace and the wall and a tickling in her nose made her think suddenly of spiders. Big ones.

  “That won’t work, at least not long term,” her soldier whispered. “I’m switching off the light. I have to think.”

  Vivian wiggled herself down to the floor and crouched in the tiny hole, feeling the heat of the man next to her. After several moments, he switched the light back on. It was a tiny penlight and Vivian marveled at his resourcefulness. He walked to the door again and shone his light around the tiny space. He pulled randomly at pipes and equipment, then pushed at the door, then finally came back to her, shining the light all around the alcove, even getting down on his knees to look closely at the floor.

  “Look, there’s nothing to brace the door with. If someone does come back to check on this bomb, our best fighting chance is if they can’t see us when they open the door. I don’t know how long we’ll be here either, so we’re going to have to fit in there.” He shone the light in the tiny hole. “I’m going to sit on the floor with my legs under the air conditioner, you’ll have to sit on my lap.”

  He thinks it’s an air conditioner, not a furnace, Vivian thought madly, heat flaring into her cheeks.

  Chapter 5

  Vivian watched as her soldier sat on the hard concrete floor and shifted several times, pulling his legs in and out of the space under the furnace/air conditioner. Finally he settled on a position, then looked up at her expectantly.

  She felt frozen to the spot she was in. “Can’t one of us just sit out here?” she whispered, already knowing why they couldn’t.

  He flashed his light towards the door. “If someone opens that door quickly and with a light, whoever is in plain view will be dead. It’s not safe.” He held out an arm to her and she reluctantly took it. He pulled her over and down, and she sat, trying to tuck her dress underneath her. He flipped off the light as soon as she was down.

  He leaned in close and pulled a lock of her hair out of the way of her ear. Vivian tensed at the touch. “If someone does open the door, I need you to get up in that ledge as quickly and as quietly as possible, without stepping on me. I want you to practice.”

  Vivian tried to process what he meant.

  “Now, I want you to practice now, just turn and pull yourself up, don’t kick or knee the air conditioner. It will make too much noise.”

  “OK.”

  Vivian did as he asked, trying not to think about spiders. When she came back down and lowered herself onto his lap he again reached up in the pitch darkness and moved her hair back from her ear. “That was great,” he whispered, his voice a harsh breath in her hair. “Now do it once more.”

  Vivian did it again, then climbed back down, putting her hand on his shoulder to feel her way down to his lap. He shifted his weight underneath her and Vivian felt the strong muscle of his legs under her bottom. Suddenly she was painfully aware that she’d never been this close to a man who wasn’t her father before. Her high school years had yielded her only two boyfriends, both as shy as she. She liked them that way. They were safe and predictable, and she’d never been pressed to do anything she didn’t want to do. There had been some hand holding and a bit of chaste kissing, but Egan had moved away and Dwight had broken up with her when he went to science camp. She hadn’t minded. The thought of anything more always had made her feel slightly sick and anxious to the point of throwing up. But now? Her mind flashed back to her soldier’s dark eyes when she’d seen him in the light. She hadn’t really been able to tell what his face looked like, but she bet he was wickedly handsome. He was tall, probably just over six feet, and his shoulders were broad and his waist trim. She normally didn’t like a beard, but for some reason, she felt it fit him. She took a deep breath and realized she didn’t feel anxious or sick. She was scared, still terribly scared for her father and herself, but another emotion was trying to take over her body. She couldn’t quite identify it, but as she was thinking, she suddenly realized her hand was still on the soldier’s shoulder. Her other hand crept traitorously towards his other shoulder and she snatched both hands to her lap, her eyes wide and her mind spinning. What had she almost done?

  She imagined he could feel her shame in the darkness and she opened her mouth, trying to get past the moment.

  “Is it safe if we talk?” she asked.

  He leaned forward and moved her hair back again, then whispered directly into the shell of her ear, “Yes, but only if we’re this quiet. Move closer to me so you don’t have to talk so loud.”

  Vivian’s cheeks heated powerfully again and she was glad he couldn’t see her. Her mind raced. She’d forgotten what she was going to say. She leaned towards him slightly and felt him turn his head so she could whisper in his ear. She leaned a bit more and her lips touched his ear. Instantly, her lips flamed as hot as her cheeks. She froze and her head seemed to float off her shoulders in embarrassment. He pressed his body forward and grasped her elbow, waiting for her to speak.

  “Who were those men? How did they get into the embassy?” she finally was able to say, hearing the slight tremor in her voice and hating it.

  Her soldier turned his head slightly, and Vivian did the same. His lips brushed her ear, making her shiver. “Islamic Jihad Movement. They want to stop the talks between the Uzbek government and the United States. My unit just arrived in the middle of this, so we don’t know how they go
t in, but we were sent because we had intelligence that they were going to try. We just didn’t get here in time. We were held up by an ambush two hours away. They knew we were coming. We had to fight our way out.”

  A thousand questions jumped into Vivian’s mind. She finally turned her head, found his ear, and said “What unit? Are you Army? Why do you have a beard and long hair? What’s your name?”

  Her soldier laughed silently and she felt the deep rumble in his chest, which made her realize she was leaning against him. She tensed immediately and sat straight up, using her stomach muscles to hold herself away from him. He turned to her and brushed her hair back again. The movement sent tingles up and down her spine.

  “We’re a special forces unit called Bravo One. Yes, Army. They encourage us to grow long hair and beards in my unit so it’s not so obvious that we are military. Sometimes we need to blend in.” He paused, then with something like regret in his voice, said, “I can’t tell you my name, I’m sorry.”

  Vivian pulled back slightly, her stomach already starting to ache from trying to hold herself upright. So he was a soldier. A thought struck her and she leaned in quickly, forgetting to hold herself up. Her hands snuck to his shoulders by themselves and she pulled him closer to her and whispered fiercely in his ear, “My dad was supposed to speak, I don’t know what happened to him. I have to find him.”

  “Was he at the front, in the room behind the stage?”

  “I think so.”

  “He’s safe then, that’s the first thing we did was evacuate them.” He didn’t speak for a moment. “Wait, does he have short silver hair? And was he wearing a white pocket square?”

  Vivian didn’t know whether to be excited or terrified. This soldier had recognized her father. Her mind barely registered that he knew what to call a pocket square in a tuxedo jacket. That wasn’t something she would expect a special forces soldier to be aware of.