by Jessica Ashe
“Pussy,” Niles says immediately and predictably. To give him credit, he’s probably telling the truth. Niles is one horny motherfucker and I completely believe that he would eat pussy before food. Me? Well, I don’t like to fuck on an empty stomach.
“I’m a pizza guy as well,” I add. “Not too fussy on the type. I go with melted cheese and plenty of meat.”
The lads keep talking about their dream food and create ridiculous concoctions that don’t even sound edible, or at least not without inducing a heart attack afterward. I end up tuning out. Thinking about all the food I miss from back home is a pointless endeavor and just makes my mouth water for no reason. It’s a bit like thinking about sex. I’m not going to get any out here, so there’s not much point in sporting a rock hard boner.
Remi isn’t driving that fast, but on these poor excuses for roads, it sure feels like it. We could go twice as fast, but you never know when you’re going to drive straight into a roadside bomb. Better to drive a little cautiously and get back in one piece.
Our destination is at the foot of a small mountain range. We’re going to have to approach carefully. Those mountains often have caves, and where there are caves, there’s often terrorists.
I grab the binoculars and get a closer look at our destination. The bright sunlight in the desert often leads to mirages and tricks on the eyes. When I’m sniping, I spend most of my time chasing around imaginary glints of light that might be from an enemy sniper. It’s nearly always nothing, but you don’t stay alive without being cautious.
If I were an enemy sniper expecting a convoy coming up this road, I’d be hiding on top of the cliff, between the rocks where I’m almost impossible to spot and even harder to hit. And that’s exactly where I see the gleam of light.
I zoom in with the binoculars, but the truck is bouncing around all over the place and it’s hard to focus. There’s someone there. I’m sure of it. That light has to be the reflection off a sniper scope.
“Slow down,” I tell Remi, as I lower the binoculars to look with my own eyes. I can still see the light from the cliff. Whatever’s there, it’s trained on us.
“What do you see?”
“I’m not….”
I catch the truck behind us flashing its lights furiously, and I can just about make out Felton pointing towards the same cliff. He’s seen it too.
I look through the binoculars again, and this time I can see him clearly. Someone is laying on his front and looking at us, but it’s not a sniper. It’s just a guy with binoculars like me. But I don’t relax. He’s wearing camouflage and is almost impossible to spot.
Are his lips moving? I’m sure they are. He’s talking to someone.
I look around, but by the time I find out who he’s talking to it’s too late.
“Incoming,” I yell at the top of my voice. Remi spots the trail of smoke from the missile as it heads towards us. He yanks the wheel hard to the left and Felton’s vehicle moves to the right. The missile lands in the middle, and even though it doesn’t hit either of our trucks, it does enough to send both flying.
When I open my eyes, I’m upside-down and deaf except for the ringing in my ears. I can see Remi shouting at me, but I can’t hear anything.
Niles is on my right-hand side and he isn’t shouting. He isn’t moving at all. I check for a pulse and feel nothing except the warm blood on his neck.
One man is down, but there are still five lives I can save. It’s callous, but there’ll be time to grieve for Niles later. I kick the door open and run around the other side to free Remi and Wilson. The ringing is starting to subside now, but I still can’t make out what the hell Remi is saying. Felton’s truck is sideways-on to the attackers and should provide better cover. I point in that direction and we all run like hell to the truck.
When we get there, we find Felton and Granger sitting with their backs against the truck holding their guns. Those won’t do much good right now. Whoever hits us is too far away for an assault rifle to do any damage.
“Where’s Simpson?” I yell to Felton.
Felton responds by shaking his head. Two men down. Not just men—SEALs. In the case of Simpson, a SEAL with a wife and kids.
I yank the side mirror off the truck and use it to look behind me towards the cliff. The reflection of the mirror will give our location away, but I’m sure they already know where we are. We were grouped together. One more missile and we’re doomed. The fact that no more missiles have come in gives me some hope. Missiles are expensive, and there’s a chance they only have one.
“What do you see?” Felton asks.
“Nothing I… shit.” As I move the mirror around I spot men emerging from the side of the road nearby. “Six men at least, maybe more. Looks like they’re armed with assault rifles.”
And grenades, apparently. There’s no mistaking the sound of the grenade as it hits the ground and rolls towards us.
Felton is quicker to react to me. “Run,” he yells.
We all stand up and run towards a nearby mound in the terrain that will afford us the absolute bare minimum cover. The grenade explodes with an ear splitting bang, but it’s nothing compared to the scream I hear from Remi behind me. I slide to the ground by the cover and then look back.
Remi is still alive, but he was thrown twenty feet by the grenade and appears to be bleeding heavily.
“Granger, come with me,” I order.
“No, wait,” Felton replies, grabbing hold of me and pulling me back down.
“We have to—”
My words are cut off by the sound of gunfire as a man approaches Remi and fires at least ten rounds into him. I raise my gun and shoot the man dead with one bullet to the head, but it’s too late. Remi has gone silent.
“There’s five left,” Felton says. “And there’s four of us. We’ve survived worse odds than this.”
He’s right. We’re not SEALs because we’re good shots. We’re SEALs because we’re good shots under pressure.
The enemy has had some training, which means they’re not stupid. They’ll be flanking right now and trying to surround us.
I use hand gestures to tell Felton and Granger to cover the right-hand side while Wilson and I take the left. The first enemy appears on my side, and I quickly fire two rounds into his chest. They’re direct hits, but he doesn’t go down like you expect when someone’s been shot. He’s wearing armor. Fuck, where the hell did they get that from? I fire a few more rounds and a bullet finds its way into his neck. That’ll do.
“Fuck,” Wilson yells beside me.
I look around, expecting to see him with a flesh wound, but instead he’s desperately trying to force a new clip into his gun. It’s jammed and isn’t sliding in properly.
“This fucking piece of—”
Those are the last words he speaks. A bullet hits him in the face, sending blood, bone, and God knows what else over me. I turn back to the action and quickly kill the man who just killed Wilson.
Granger sticks his head out over cover to take out another enemy, but his gun jams as well and he gets shot in much the same way as Wilson.
Felton and I push our dead friends out of the way to get as much protection as possible from the meager amount of cover we have.
“There’s only two of them left,” Felton says. “You go left, I go right?”
I nod. We count to three and then jump to our feet. I quickly train my sights on the enemy and pull the trigger. The first bullet hits him square in the chest, but he’s also wearing armor. I go to fire again, but this time it’s my turn for the gun to jam. What the fuck is wrong with these things?
I pull out my sidearm and fire a bullet into the enemy’s head. There’s gunfire to my right, and I look around to see Felton finishing off the last remaining enemy soldier. There’s still two guys in the hills, but we’ll worry about them later.
Felton and I look at each other with a mixture of relief and remorse. It’s impossible not to feel elated just at being alive, but you also feel sick
with guilt that your friends didn’t make it.
“Our truck wasn’t hit,” Felton yells. “It should still work. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Felton and I head towards the truck. We’re so close to safety I can almost taste it. Then I see one of the fallen enemies train his gun on Felton.
I shout his name on instinct, but there’s no point, I’m already diving into him, knocking him to the ground and out of harm’s way.
I lie on the floor and watch as Felton, who caught a bullet in the thigh, grabs his sidearm and finishes off the man who shot us.
Felton isn’t the only one who got hit. I can’t move, I can’t talk, and I can barely keep my eyes open. The only consolation is I don’t feel any pain. I’m aware that I have at least three bullets in my body, but it doesn’t hurt. That sounds like a good thing, but I’m fairly sure it’s not.
“Alec?” Felton yells. He’s a brave guy, but right now his voice is dripping with fear. It must be bad. “Hang in there, Alec.”
He disappears and comes back with a med kit from the truck. I need a lot more than a med kit right now. He lifts me up, but I black out and wake up back on the desert floor.
“I can’t move you,” Felton says. We both know what that means.
“Get out of here,” I mutter. I’m cold. I haven’t been cold since arriving in this desert. It’s a strange feeling.
“We need pressure on those wounds,” Felton says calmly. “The guys at base can fix you up.”
“Too late. Leave.”
“I’m not going back by myself. No fucking way.”
As if it’s my body’s way of convincing him, I suddenly cough up a load of blood. I see the look of acceptance in his eyes.
“Do me a favor.”
“Anything,” Felton replies.
“Check in on my brother. He’s a good kid. Steer him straight.”
Felton nods, but he doesn’t leave. I need him to get out of here. Not much point in me dying to save his life if he dies as well.
“Pleasure serving with you,” I say with my last breath. My eyes shut and become impossible to open. I do my best to relax as I wait for death to take me.
A few moments later, I hear more gunshots from behind us. Felton struggles to his feet and clambers into the truck. Bullets whizz through the air as the truck drives off, spraying dust over me as it does so.
My life doesn’t flash before my eyes, but I have enough time to dwell on it. My parents hate me, and to be honest, I hate them. Other than Daron and Felton, I’m not sure anyone will care about my death. I suppose there are plenty of women who’ll remember me, although I can’t say I remember any of them. Maybe that’s for the best. Fewer people get hurt this way.
I shiver again in the scorching desert heat before letting death consume me.
Chapter Seventeen
Piper
I remember when my mom didn’t have a cell phone. Happy days.
Introducing Alec to my parents might have been a bad idea. In fact, it was definitely a bad idea. Ever since we spent the night there, I’ve been fielding questions from Mom about Alec and our relationship. She’s never been that nosy with any of my previous boyfriends, but Alec has her intrigued.
She’s clearly asking questions on behalf of Dad as well. Mom’s own questions are generally positive, whereas the ones she’s fed by Dad are all about how I should be careful and not trust him. Mom would never say that. Mom trusts my judgment. Dad has always been far too overprotective, and that’s putting it kindly.
Alec thinks the entire thing is hilarious. Apparently, he’s never been anyone’s boyfriend before—not seriously anyway—so this is all novel to him.
It’s new to me as well. It’s not like I’ve brought a lot of boyfriends home to meet my parents. I’ve never worried about it, I’ve just not been all that motivated to do it. My past relationships have been uninspiring, to say the least. I’ve dated a couple of guys for over a year without ever getting serious. They were just there to pass the time. I’ve dated Alec—if that’s what you can call it—for only a couple of weeks and I’m already in deeper than I ever have been.
This relationship’s going to be tough to end, even though I know it has to soon enough. Alec is still frustratingly vague about how long he’s going to be in town, but we both know it won’t be forever. He’s still making no effort to get furniture for his apartment and seems dead set against the idea of putting down roots anywhere. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t even have a debit card. I’ve only ever seen him pay cash. What reputable news organization pays its freelancers in cash?
“You look bored,” Shauna says as she strolls past on her way back from the kitchen.
“I’m not allowed in this meeting,” I reply, with a tone of voice which makes it clear what I think of the situation.
“Ah, yes, Senator Robertson has a lot of meetings like that. Let’s just hope he doesn’t meet with the guy who wants to kill him.”
“I’d have no clue if he did. I’m not investigating whoever’s sending the death threats. We’ve all been assuming it some crazy guy off the street, but you could be right, it could be someone he trusts enough to go into a meeting with alone.”
“How is he receiving the death threats?” Shauna asks.
“By email. We’ve tried tracing them, but no luck so far. I doubt he’s even told us about all of them. He’s so casual about it all. It wouldn’t surprise me if he gets death threats on a daily basis.”
“Why don’t you look through his email?”
“I’d love to, but I don’t have access.”
Shauna smiles. “Follow me.”
“How do you have access to this?” I ask, as I scroll through the senator’s emails on a laptop Shauna has set up for me.
“This is the senator’s old laptop. They gave it to me when I started, but no one thought to wipe the login details.”
“Shouldn’t you have told someone?”
“Probably. But… well… he has access to databases that are really useful for my research so….”
“Guess I shouldn’t complain.”
The senator receives an ungodly number of emails, so I start doing a few searches. The word ‘kill’ brings up three death threats from three different email addresses. The language isn’t exactly sophisticated, and were most likely written by the same person judging by a few common spelling and grammar mistakes.
One email is far longer and more comprehensive. It’s not a death threat; it popped up in the search because of the phrase ‘kill the bill’ near the end of the email. I would have glossed over it, but from the subject of the email, it was clearly about campaign contributions. Something about campaign contributions and requests to ‘kill the bill’ make me feel uncomfortable.
My instincts are right.
I have little understanding of how politics works, but I know a bribe when I see one. The email refers to three payments of $10,000, all of which are described as campaign contributions. However, there’s also a reference to the payments being conditional on the passing of a bill to eliminate regulations relating to the oil industry, and the failure to pass a bill which provides a tax credit to clean energy companies.
The email contains lots of vague language like ‘as discussed when we last spoke.’ Even so, the email makes it clear the senator is up to no good. I take a picture of the email with my phone and search to see if I can find any similar ones.
There are other emails that feel inappropriate, but the senders have been more discrete in the language used. There’s lots of wording like ‘after hearing your ideas for the tax credit, I am increasing my campaign contribution in the hope that it will help us achieve our common goals.’
I take pictures of these emails as well, although I doubt they’ll convince anyone of wrongdoing.
The senator finishes early for the day, so I see him back home by 4:30 and hand over to the other security team. Instead of heading home, I go straight to the police station and show Arlene what I found. I expec
t her to brush me off and tell me to focus on the task at hand, but instead, she sends me over to a woman called Elena in the white-collar crime unit.
I get to Elena just as she’s packing up to leave for the day. I wouldn’t normally feel that guilty for making someone stay ten minutes late, but she’s heavily pregnant and probably wants to get home. I’m about to turn away when she spots me.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
“Arlene sent me. She said you were the person to speak to with evidence about Senator Robertson.”
“I’m not investigating the death threats.”
“This isn’t about death threats. It’s about possible fraud.”
“Oh,” she says excitedly, sitting back down at her desk. “That is in my wheelhouse. Take a seat.”
I sit down at her desk and email her the photos I took.
“I only had fifteen minutes at the computer,” I explain. “I’m sure there’s plenty more where these came from.”
“Almost certainly. I’ve been trying to put together the case on the senator for a year, but it’s been impossible to get a warrant.”
“I might be able to help. I’m serving as his personal bodyguard at the moment. It helps me get close to him although he’s keeping me away from the ‘interesting’ meetings.”
“This is a great start. If we can—” Elena’s phone rings in her purse. “Sorry, better take this.” She turns away and answers the call. “Hey, babe. I’m going to be home a little late. Are you okay looking after Alec? Cool. I’ll see you soon. Love you too.”
“Is Alec your son?”
“Yeah. He’s nearly two years old and is a complete handful already. I’m not looking forward to the day when he can talk back.”
“My boyfriend is called Alec. If your son ends up anything like him then yes, he’s definitely going to be a handful.”
