Until Nothing Remains: A Hybrid Post-Apocalyptic Espionage Adventure (A Gun Play Novel: Volume 1)

by C. A. Rudolph

  By the time I’d finally gotten to her, Natalia had killed all three men, including the one who’d attacked her from behind. She’d relieved them all of their chosen weapons, but the damage had already been done.

  Both the brachial and radial arteries in her arm had been lacerated, and by my panic-laced estimate of vascular fluids puddled on the floor, it looked as though she’d lost roughly two pints of blood. Upon my initial assessment, I’d found her responsive, but very weak. Her skin had been pale and cool to the touch, and her heartbeat was rapid—symptoms of typical vasoconstriction, the body’s own built-in survival response to substantial blood loss. I’d surmised that she’d suffered a class two hemorrhage at that point, and any further loss of blood would necessitate a transfusion. Anything worse…hypovolemic shock and possible death.

  With no time to lose, I’d ripped off my trauma kit and applied a CAT tourniquet as high up on her arm as I could while simultaneously watching over my shoulder for threats as I cinched it down. I’d used every Israeli battle dressing, gauze patch, and bandage I had to cover her lacerations and stop the bleeding, but they hadn’t been enough. I’d ended up ripping off a large section of one of the dead men’s shirts to finish the work, and in doing so, couldn’t help noticing something awfully fucking peculiar. They were all American, all the way down to their Adidas socks and Timberland boots. In fact, now that I thought about it, every person I’d encountered along the way to retrieve Natalia—dead or alive—within the grounds of the Saudi embassy hadn’t been Saudi at all.

  Seeing her lying beside me, and watching her body expand and contract when she breathed, was the only thing keeping me from going crazy right now. This was supposed to be our final contract, our last job, and our way out of this meaningless life. And I’d come within inches of losing her.

  No job in the world, no paycheck in the known universe could replace Natalia, and her getting wounded only further served as reasoning for a final send-off for us. We’d been living for far too long in a borrowed world, on borrowed time. After this, there was no uncertainty left over in my mind. We were through.

  The loss of blood would affect her for a couple of days, but I knew she’d recover. Her arm would need to be watched closely for signs of infection and most likely be scarred for life, requiring a skin graft or cosmetic surgery of some type, but nevertheless, she was alive. She was still here with me. Natalia wasn’t a cat with nine lives. She was human, blessed with only one. And she was my wife, and there was no way I was going to let something like this happen to us again.

  After we made contact with Ammar today and verified our follow-up deposit, I would charter a private jet back to Germany—one way. And there, Natalia and I were going to start planning our retirement and begin our new life.

  Despite the fact I felt utterly spent, my thoughts were racing, and with my mind’s throttle wide open, I knew I’d never fall back to sleep. So I decided to get up and take a hot shower—the kind where the water was almost unbearably hot while, at the same time, it felt remarkable and filled the entire bathroom with steam. I only hoped the Mayflower Hotel’s water heater could keep up with my expectations.

  Ironically enough, I soon found that the presidential suite’s shower system included an Insta-Hot water heater. I silently thanked Jonathon for being so…considerate.

  After one of the most memorable bathing experiences of my life, I threw on a Marriott-logoed bathrobe and stepped into the bedroom while the steam drifted out the door behind me. There, sitting up in bed with the organic cotton sheets wrapped tightly around her, was Natalia. She yawned when she saw me and seemed highly preoccupied with the condition of her arm.

  I glided over to her and sat at her side, then went to reach for her, only to have her pull away. Natalia had always dealt with bouts of tactile oversensitivity in the mornings, though today, it was especially noticeable. I gave her enough time to overcome it, and she soon allowed me to run my fingers gently through her matted hair.

  After a moment, she pulled together a faint, almost counterfeited smile. “I bet I look like shit,” she said matter-of-factly, her voice still raspy from her cries and the environmental variations of the previous evening.

  “No, not really…but you could definitely use a shower,” I joked.

  Natalia nodded and went to rub her nose with her left hand, but did so with her right, sensing her arm’s lack of mobility. “Well, I just assumed I looked how I felt…because I definitely feel like shit.”

  “You had a hell of a night; it’s to be expected. How are you feeling? Are you in a lot of pain?”

  “A little. I’m sore and my arm is throbbing. But nothing excruciating—nothing I can’t handle.”

  “How much do you remember?”

  “Everything, almost,” she said, wide-eyed. “I remember you carrying me, and I remember hearing suppressed gunfire. We fell—at one point, I think…tumbled down a hill? You must’ve lost your footing. And I remember the water. It was frigid. That’s about it. I must’ve blacked out after that.”

  “The river was close, and we didn’t have many options,” I said.

  “It’s okay; we got away,” Natalia said. “I don’t know how, but you got us out of there.” A pause. “How bad was I?”

  You’d lost a lot of blood and were in and out for a while. You were also borderline hypothermic by the time we made the safe house, and were still symptomatic after we got back here.”

  Natalia nodded slightly, a thin smile emerging as she glanced under the sheet. “I guess…that explains the nudity.”

  “I had to warm you back up somehow.”

  Natalia didn’t say anything for a minute while she took turns looking around the room, fiddling with her hair, and poking at her bandages. Then she said, “Q, that op…was a farce. It was fucked from the word go. There weren’t any Saudis inside or outside that compound last night.”

  “I know.”

  “From what I saw, every one of them was American, with the exception of the target.”

  I nodded. “I noticed that too. Mostly ex-military types and mercs. Moreover, they all had American-made weapons.”

  She nodded and rested her forehead in the palm of her hand. “His wife and children weren’t even in the house. They’re true-to-form Muslims…and live separately in the guesthouse next door. He wasn’t using them as shields. And the sentries guarding his room…they were wearing federal IDs from the Department of the Treasury. For the love of God, they were Secret Service.” Natalia lifted her head and turned to look me in the eyes. “What does that mean? Why the hell would Americans be providing security for an Islamic State imam and his entire syndicate?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe they didn’t know who they were guarding. Maybe they were just doing their jobs…doing as they were told and getting paid well enough to keep their mouths shut.”

  “Or maybe Ammar is a fucking liar. And maybe the entire op was a charade.”

  I nodded my lack of disparity. “That’s possible, too. But even so, the contract’s been fulfilled on our end. At this point, what difference would it make?”

  “None, I suppose,” she relented, and went back to being fixated on the damage imposed on her arm. “Shoot me straight, Q. Triage me. How bad?”

  I hesitated, but didn’t spend much time doing so. She’d see right through me after too long of a pause, and she hated actualities being sugarcoated. “It’s not good,” I said. “There’s a lot of lacerated damage. None of the cuts were clean, and the blade you got hit with was nasty. It’s stitched up, and we’ll need to monitor it for signs of infection. You’re…going to have some scars…”

  “Great,” Natalia said, not sounding the least bit enthused. “Just in time for retirement. There goes my modeling career.”

  “It could’ve been a lot worse.”

  She nodded and smiled, then reached for my hand, using the hand appended to her good arm. “I know that.” She paused. “Thank you.”

  I squeezed her hand. “You
don’t have to thank me. I love you, and I only did what any husband would do. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat…if I had to.”

  That smile again—finally.

  “I know you would,” Natalia purred. “You’ve always been my rock. You saved me when we met. And here you are, saving me again.”

  I hung my head a bit and tried shaking off her praise. I’d never been good at accepting it. “No. I was headed down the road to nowhere before we crossed paths. When we met, if anything, we saved each other.”

  “Either way, I owe you my life, Quinn,” Natalia said, her voice glazed with sincerity. “Ich liebe dich…I love you—always know that.” She pulled me into an embrace, and I kissed her on the side of the head before we slid away moments after.

  Damn. I could feel the heat radiating off her body through the sheets. It was captivating, and I could feel it pulling on me. I wanted her. But here I was, yet again, making excuses to not follow my primal instincts. Maybe it was her injury this time.

  “So you want some coffee?” I asked, pushing the errant thoughts from my mind.

  Her eyes perked up. “I’d love some coffee.”

  “Okay. Let me get dressed and I’ll head downstairs and get us some.”

  I went to stand, but she stopped me with a forceful grip on my forearm.

  “No,” Natalia said. “I want to go with you.”

  I sent along a gaze of concern. “You sure? You feel up to it?”

  She nodded a categorical yes. “We’re in the nation’s capital. There has to be a Starbucks or Peet’s somewhere within walking distance, even for a gimp like me with perilously low blood pressure.”

  Natalia moved to the bed’s edge and stood with the sheets still draped around her. She looked a bit wobbly at first, but she found her equilibrium in short order. Giggling at herself, she sent a grin my way while trifling with her hair and looking herself over in a mirror. She was amazing to me, and she looked incredible, even after all the hell she’d just been through. I’d do anything for her—including giving up my own life just to keep her alive.

  Thirteen

  Peet’s Coffee & Tea, 1101 17th St NW, Washington, DC

  Friday, March 28

  Nihayat al’ayam plus 11 hours, 15 minutes

  After the short jaunt to the Peet’s Coffee just around the corner from the hotel, Natalia and I entered and found a small high-top table near the entrance, situated in a location allowing us both to sit with our backs against the wall. While she waited, I went to the bar and ordered us two triple iced espressos, a couple of hard-boiled eggs, a ham sandwich, and a tall orange juice, then stood at the pickup line to wait for our order to come up.

  I’ve always made a habit out of people-watching. In fact, it’s been one of my preferred hobbies for as long as I can remember. Scanning scenes and studying body language can be vastly informative for the situationally aware, the professionally vigilant, or even the occasionally paranoid.

  This morning though, it wasn’t what people were doing that was drawing hard on my attention, it was what they were watching on television. And on their tablets. And on their smartphones. In my weariness, it’d only taken a minute or two for me to cue in on the surrounding peculiarities, but something bearing a distinct level of enormity was going on, and it was being broadcast on every news station, on every channel, and on every television in the coffee shop.

  The television to my right framed a familiar face from CNN, and on the unmistakably bright red ticker below him scrolled these four words:

  AMERICA: NATION UNDER SEIGE.

  The words blew by in an instant, then were repeated. A group of patrons who’d previously received their orders and had gathered around the CNN television were also busily tapping on their smartphones and making calls. I peered over some of their shoulders nonchalantly and could see Facebook newsfeeds, Twitter trends, live YouTube streams, and the like, all displaying some form of corroborating visual intel.

  I scanned the room again. Fox News was being displayed on the flat screen above the coffee bar, and several baristas were focusing on it, no longer being attentive to their customers. Fox’s news ticker read:

  BREAKING NEWS: MULTIPLE TERROR ATTACKS CONFIRMED. PRESIDENT TO ADDRESS THE NATION WITHIN THE HOUR.

  For my own edification, I decided to take a quick walk outside the coffee shop to gauge the pulse of the city. Along the way here, I must’ve missed something. I held up a finger to Natalia, which she acknowledged straightaway, and then stepped outside onto the bustling pedestrian-filled east sidewalk of Seventeenth Street.

  Literally, the face of every foot traveler, bike rider, and car driver was buried in their smartphone or another internet-connected media device. Normally, I’d think nothing of it, being well aware of how mindlessly addicted society had become to internet connectivity in the advent of social media. But, after judging the frazzled looks on their faces, it came together quickly. Something very bad had happened.

  I ambled back inside just in time to hear our order called, and after retrieving our items from the young, very anxious barista, I shuffled over to our table to my now exceedingly pensive German wife.

  “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Natalia asked, gesturing with a head nod to the television before her.

  I acknowledged her and continued surveying the scene while I set our items down and arranged them on the table.

  “There have been at least ten attacks so far since early this morning,” Natalia said in a low whisper. “A plane crashed near some mountaintop government installation early this morning, and there’ve been a handful of other crashes reported across the country since then.” She shot a discreet finger at the screen across the way. “There are reports of active shooters on two military bases—one at Fort Belvoir, the other at Fort Benning. They’re evacuating the Hoover Dam due to a bomb threat, and there’s an unconfirmed hostage situation at Johns Hopkins. The ticker on the television in the back said ISIS is expected to admit responsibility. What the hell is going on, Q?”

  I shrugged while shifting my attention between every TV screen in the room.

  “This all started just after midnight,” Natalia continued. “Tell me this isn’t somehow coincidental.”

  I didn’t answer. I knew she was being rhetorical, but truth was, I didn’t know and genuinely didn’t want to know.

  Natalia was a notorious problem solver and was busy putting this all together in her mind and, for all I knew at this point, had already found a conclusion. To me, it was just a cluster of terror attacks—something not seldom seen in today’s world. It wasn’t something to be taken lightly, but equally, it surely had no relation to what we’d done. It just couldn’t be.

  Natalia and I sat for a moment and managed to get some much-needed sustenance into our stomachs while we surveyed the parade of passersby, each person seemingly consumed in their own way by the day’s events. The more she ate, the better I felt about her overall welfare. There was even a point when I thought we might end up getting away without further incident, until I heard a round of gasps and people crying out.

  Natalia’s eyes grew as wide as I’d seen them in a while. I followed her stare to the television above the coffee bar, where Fox News had now changed its header to:

  BREAKING: UNCONFIRMED MASSIVE EXPLOSION AT MANHATTAN’S MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL.

  The anchor, whose familiar face and occasionally overly dramatized expressions I’d seen countless times before, was in the process of reporting that hundreds were now assumed dead, along with untold numbers injured. Not long into his morbid tirade, the view on the screen changed to a hovering helicopter’s camera angle from above.

  Through the dust and smoke, which rose stories into the air, the devastation could be seen. It was chaotic, to say the least, and the building was in utter ruin—quickly dredging up memories of the Oklahoma City bombing, the World Trade Center on 9/11, and many of the war-torn cities I’d visited in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon.

  Natalia’s face had gone
pale again. “We need to get to a computer.”

  I spoke over the bite of ham sandwich in my mouth. “You want to make contact? Now?”

  “Damn right I do.”

  I nodded. This was about to become an interesting day. Or week. “Okay,” I said. “With whom?”

  “Let’s start with your buddy Jonathon—if he’s not already too loaded for a chat. Then we’ll move up the asset food chain. Someone has to know what the hell is going on.”

  Hurriedly, Natalia and I gobbled down our meals and finished our espressos, then exited the building. We made our way through the thick labyrinth of pedestrians and crossed over Seventeenth Street, heading back to the Mayflower Hotel.

  Along the way, I noticed her having some trouble keeping up, no doubt due to lowered blood pressure and her body struggling to recover after last night’s ordeal. As such, I moved my hip to hers and put my arm around her waist for support. With her eyes locked forward, Natalia gently pushed me away. Either she didn’t want the help, or she was trying not to need it, but I could tell she was in the process of steeling herself.

  We made a brisk entrance into the concierge lounge and to a laptop computer on a freshly cleaned glass-top desk, where the faint odor of ammonia lingered in the air. I took a seat in the leather chair in front of it while Natalia put her back to me and unconcernedly kept watch for anyone who might decide to pay too much attention to what we were doing.

  Jonathon and I had known each other for years. I made his acquaintance at the agency, and he’d been assigned as my case officer when I’d gone non-official cover. During my disreputable stint there, he’d been the sole agent handler who’d ever advocated for me, having done so selflessly on a myriad of occasions while putting his own career on the line. As such, he’d earned my confidence long ago. I didn’t have many friends, but I counted Jon as one of them. As far as I knew, he was no longer a company underling, but I was almost certain he still had contacts there and was himself still utilized as an asset.