by Dale Mayer
“How many?” Gavin asked.
“I see four men.”
“Armed?”
“No. Not a one of them.”
“Well, what are they doing then?”
“Good point,” Lennox said. “They’re just standing around and talking, near the opened double doors, yet inside that machine shop.”
“So, are any weapons anywhere near those guys?” Gavin brought his binoculars around to search the same area.
“Not that I can see.” Lennox shifted his binoculars, studying the next closest building in the area, a temporary shed—one of those metal half-circle-looking things that were put up fast and easy and usually reasonably priced. And they would hold everything from hay to equipment, and some had even been converted to housing when needed. There were rarely any windows on them in the back, like this one, although there was a window in the small rear door. And a window would help, but it was a long way away for Lennox to make a run like that to check if anyone was there. When he found his sister and her team, he planned on getting them out immediately. No return trip needed.
“Ten o’clock,” Gavin whispered.
Lennox shifted to the left, checking out his ten o’clock. One vehicle and one man. And what was different about this one was he had a rifle on the hood of the truck in front of him, while he lit a cigarette. Lennox studied the weapon. “Nice piece of weaponry there,” he murmured.
“Expensive,” Gavin said.
“Absolutely. And in good shape. Not a spot of rust anywhere.” Meaning that guy looked after his weapons, which meant he used them a lot. Lennox watched as the gunman had a smoke, walked around, studying the sky, then the woods around him. He never looked once in their direction. He continued to explore the rest of the area. “He doesn’t appear to be guarding anything,” Lennox said, his gaze zipping back to where the other men stood inside the machine shop. No one appeared in or around the shed.
“No,” Gavin whispered. “But if there’s one gunman …”
Chapter 6
“So when will your brother get here?” John asked. His tone held a sense of overwhelming despair, as if he didn’t believe that Lennox would really come.
Helena looked at Carolina, who was lying with her arm across her eyes. Her knees were bent, relaxed, but Helena doubted her best friend was asleep. And she didn’t bother answering John’s question. So Helena glanced at John and shrugged. “We have no way of knowing if he even knows yet that she’s missing.”
He stared at her in surprise. “Well, didn’t the kidnappers send a ransom note?”
“I don’t know if they did or not,” she said. “I don’t know what they’ve done to alert Lennox to the problem.”
John stared at her, frowning. “And here I was assuming the guy was already on the way,” he said, turning around in the cage, his arms wide. “How long do they expect to keep us in here?” he cried out.
“As long as necessary,” she said, her voice calm as she tried to get him to understand the situation wouldn’t have an immediate resolution.
“This is not where I want to be,” he said, getting more and more agitated. He pivoted and shook the bars. But the cage didn’t even budge.
She saw his body jolt as he tried to force the cage to do something. “John, calm down,” she said cautiously. She hadn’t seen him lose it before, and he was basically calm and even-tempered and had a ready smile for everyone. At least under hospital conditions.
He turned to look at her, and clearly their situation was tearing into him. “I can’t stay calm!” he said. “I want to go home. I want to spend some time with my family,” he cried out. “Why are they doing this to me? I didn’t have anything to do with whatever her brother did.”
“None of us did,” Helena stated. “Including Carolina. It’s about her brother, whether he did something or not. It’s not about her.”
“It’s the same thing,” he roared. He came over to stand beside them. Not sure what his intention was, Helena slowly stood protectively over Carolina. “She’s already been hurt physically by the kidnappers,” she urged John to caution. “Let’s not add any more trauma to her stressed system.”
“She’s stressed?” he said, staring at Helena in disbelief. “What about me? What about Sasha? We didn’t have anything to do with this. You two are always joined at the hip, so it’s fine if the kidnappers keep you. This has nothing to do with us.”
“I don’t think the kidnappers particularly care who is here,” she said coolly, as she stood here, feet planted apart, her hands ready to stop John from attacking Carolina, if that’s what he thought he would do next. “They had a plan, and they didn’t ask us for permission.”
He stared at her for a long while, and then his shoulders sagged. “Look. I get that you’re not responsible,” he said in the most persuasive of voices. “But surely you can ask the guards to release us.” And he motioned at Sasha, who was now looking at them hopefully and then at him. “Once they realize it’s got nothing to do with us, I’m sure they’d let us go.”
“I don’t think they’re gonna let anybody go right now. Not before they get what they ultimately want. After all, having four hostages is an advantage over having just two,” Helena said, raising her palms in John’s direction. “But you can always try asking them yourself, when they come back.”
“When are they coming back?” he asked, running his hands up and down his face, pinking his skin with the effort. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“I don’t know, John. Why don’t you call out and ask one of the guards to come and take you to the restroom,” she said in a reasonable tone, not quite trying to humor him but wanting to keep him a little more balanced than the upset man she saw struggling to get free. “When I called them earlier, they let me out to go to the bathroom.”
He looked at her sideways. “But maybe you’re special.”
“I’m not special at all,” she said, her fatigue obvious in her tone. “Just call out and tell them you need to go to the washroom.”
He looked at her once and then walked up to the gate and called out, “Is anyone there? I need to go to the bathroom.”
Almost immediately one of the guards stepped forward, took one look at John, and nodded. The gunman walked over without a sound, unlocked the door, let John out, keeping one of his guns pointed in his direction, and quickly relocked the door. He led John away to the bathroom.
As soon as they were out of sight, Helena sagged in place.
“You can’t stop him forever,” Carolina murmured.
“I know,” she said, “but I’m hoping I can stop it for a little bit longer.”
“Stop what?” Sasha asked belligerently.
But Helena just stared at her. Because this was precisely what Carolina was talking about. It was a case of not having the others turn against them. And sometimes when people turned against each other, they got a whole lot more violent too.
“We just want everybody to get along, so we can get out of here peacefully,” Helena explained.
“Well, we’re not gonna get along,” Sasha said. “Why would we? Just like John, I know that we don’t belong here. You guys are to blame for this.”
Helena could feel Carolina stiffen at that. “To blame?” Helena repeated curiously, trying to keep her tone still even and low. “Do you believe that?”
Sasha looked momentarily confused, and a whisper of sorrow appeared on her face for what she’d said, but then she immediately stiffened her shoulders and said, “Well, if anybody’s to blame, it’s you guys.”
“We didn’t have anything to do with this,” Helena said. But she knew that her words would fall on deaf ears. Because Sasha wanted to hear absolutely nothing, except that they were being released.
“Maybe,” Sasha said, “but John and I had nothing to do with this. We hardly even know you.”
“I get that,” Helena said. “And I’m sorry you’re caught up in this. Hell, I’m sorry I’m caught up in this. And I know that Carolina is not very impressed eit
her. I’m pretty sure her brother right now is pretty pissed off about the whole damn thing too.”
“Well, good,” Sasha said. “He should be. Whatever he did wrong, he should own up to it and take the punishment.”
“Did wrong?” Helena asked, her hand immediately going out to stop Carolina. She could feel the vibrating tension in Carolina’s frame. “Do you think that her brother did something wrong? And that’s why we’re here?”
“Of course!” Sasha snapped. “It’s only when people do bad things that they get caught up in this shit.”
“Like you and me and John and Carolina? Did we do something bad?”
“Of course not!” Sasha said. “Now you’re twisting my words.”
“Well, I’m not trying to,” Helena said, “but Lennox deals in wars, as do these men. And there’s no use in blaming anyone. We are on opposite sides here with the kidnappers. We want different things. There’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to a war with men on opposite sides. It doesn’t necessarily mean either one of them did something that caused harm to the other.”
“Is that what you think this is about?” Sasha said with a disbelieving laugh. “He made it very clear that Lennox hurt him and someone else. And that Lennox will pay for the damage he did. And I, for one, agree with him. I think he should pay.”
“Well then, since your mind is closed on the issue—without any supporting facts, I might add, just the word of a gunman who had us kidnapped—not a whole lot of point in talking to you anymore, is there?” Helena said coolly. “Maybe you can use all those arguments to talk to the kidnappers instead and get yourself out of here.” She was getting tired of these two. And fast.
Sasha stared at her. “Do you think it would work?” she asked cautiously.
“Well, I know John wants to try a similar tactic,” Helena said, shaking her head wearily. “So talk to him. You and John figure something out for yourselves.”
Helena couldn’t really blame the others for wanting to get the hell out of here; it was a tough situation. It was their damn whiny attitudes and blaming posturing that she found fault with. Yes, it was a stressful scene, more so than some of their surgical theaters, set up in war-torn countries, where a stray bomb or bullet could kill them all. Yet that was fate. This was premeditated. This time, if they died here, it was because one of the gunmen had pointed their rifles at them and pulled the trigger.
So, yes. This situation was amped up, even compared to the normal Red Cross scenarios that they found themselves in. Helena just wished that John and Sasha would grow a pair. Where were their humanitarian instincts right now? Obviously those were just for show to impress doctors and to get paid to do a job. Nothing more than that. Helena let out a long sigh.
Despite all she had seen in her life—both at home and on the work fronts—she was still surprised when she found the likes of these cowards, whether dressed up in scrubs or with a mild-manner demeanor. They were all con artists.
Helena wanted John and Sasha to focus on something a little more than themselves, like the bigger picture here. If just for one hour. But Helena knew that was too much to ask for from these wimps. Without a true backbone, people like them fold at the first high winds that blow through. That’s just the way they were, inside, regardless of what their outsides looked like.
And Helena wondered. If she were given a choice, would she leave Carolina? She could certainly go and get help and bring people back, but leaving Carolina alone would be a challenging thing to do. She shook her head. No way she could leave Carolina here. Not with the likes of these two left to do … whatever to her best friend in retaliation.
In a different situation, where Carolina was hurt, maybe unconscious, without kidnappers and weak-willed ninnies about, yes. Helena would secure Carolina in the best hiding place she could find and would then race to find help. Something neither John nor Sasha would do for each other, much less for Carolina and Helena.
Just then, John was led back to the cage. He was arguing fiercely with the guard. “I can help you,” he said. “I have money.”
“It’s not about money,” the guard said, as he unlocked the door and gave John a hard shove.
“But we don’t have anything to do with this!” John said in disbelief. “Why won’t you listen?”
The guard stared at him, a hard look on his face. “I listened,” he said, “but you said nothing that I care to hear.” And he turned and walked away.
John called out, “You don’t care that we didn’t have anything to do with this?”
The guard shook his head.
“But why? That makes no sense. You say you’re doing this because you want her brother? We have nothing to do with her brother or her. You’re just creating another bad mess because now our families will be angry too.”
The guard turned to look at him. “Do you have any family in the military?”
John frowned and then shook his head. “No.”
“Then I don’t need to worry,” he said and turned and walked out.
Helena wanted to laugh at the look on John’s face at the utter disbelief that somebody would be so unreasonable. He didn’t get it. She understood there was no getting it. There was nothing here to understand. The gunmen didn’t care one little bit about who was here and who wasn’t here. Well, except for Lennox’s absence.
As far as the kidnappers were concerned, it was all about themselves. They had a goal. Get Lennox. Get payback from Lennox. The gunmen didn’t care who got hurt in the process. It didn’t matter that it was a similar attitude to what Lennox would likely have felt when he did whatever wrong that they assumed he did. Maybe he’d been so focused on his goal that he didn’t care about who else got hurt.
But that wasn’t anything like the Lennox she knew.
However, John made a good point because the kidnappers were creating a new problem. Still none of the kidnappers would care. Because the originating event seemed military-related. So the scarred man had a family member who was hurt by Lennox, someone not in the military? Even with Lennox’s secret SEALs ops, no way Lennox would harm a civilian. Of any country. Helena would stake her life on it.
In a way, she already had.
But that wasn’t the way most people thought. It was the way of life too many times where nobody cared. And the sooner that John got a handle on that, the better. Helena had learned that lesson the hard way; so had Carolina. They understood that Lennox cared and that there were probably doctors who cared and nurses who cared, but, given the general state of things, nobody else gave a shit.
You were expected to look after your world, look after everything going on in your life, without involving others. And deal with whatever came at you. If you couldn’t deal with it, well, shut the hell up and go away. Because nobody gave a shit—that was the bottom line.
Helena groaned slightly and sank back against the cage wall.
“This is your fault,” John said, turning on her like a rabid animal.
She opened her eyes to see if he would lunge and attack because that would be a whole different story. “What did I do?” she asked calmly.
“You brought this on us!” he said.
“I’m not so sure about that,” she said. “I can see you want to believe it, but that’s not logical.”
“It is,” he swore. “It seriously is.”
She shrugged. “Maybe, but this is what we have to deal with. The sooner you accept it, the better.”
“There’s no accepting this!” he said, shaking his head, almost vibrating in a fury.
“So what do you want to do about it?” she asked, slowly standing up, stepping closer to John. “You want to hit me? Is that what this is all about? Do you need to lash out at Carolina and me to make you feel better? It doesn’t matter that we didn’t have anything to do with this either. It doesn’t matter to you that we don’t know what’s going on and that we have no involvement in whatever happened in the first place.”
He looked at her. “How is it possibl
e that you can’t know?”
“Because Lennox was in the military—special ops, as a SEAL. Highly covert missions. We don’t know anything about his life while he was in the military,” she said. “You do realize the secrecy involved in the military, don’t you?” She huffed, crossing her arms, a frown on her face.
Seeing John not putting up a fight when first taken by the kidnappers, to turning on her and Carolina so fast, Helena gathered that John had probably failed the physical exam—or the psych test—or maybe never wanted to be in the military in the first place. His ego and his brawn and his brains—more important, his manhood—were again being called into question here, under these adverse conditions.
She knew where he was coming from now. A frightened little boy, putting up the big bully front, hoping she would back down. Wow. Did he ever pick the wrong person for this particular manipulation.
As she continued to assess him, she realized that some of the rigidity had fallen from his back and spine and shoulders and that—maybe, just maybe—it was safe to relax a little bit. “I get that you’re upset,” she said. “Believe me. None of us are thrilled to be here. None of us chose to be here either. But this pseudo-threatening attitude of yours toward Carolina and me won’t change anything a damn bit right now.”
He snorted and walked to where Sasha was, sitting, staring up at him. He looked at Sasha and said, “Sorry, I tried.”
She nodded. “I was trying to figure out what I could do to help. But it’s not like the guards want to be reasonable.”
“The guards are only focused on what they want,” Carolina said. “It doesn’t matter what we want.”
“So how can we fix that?” Sasha asked. “How can we get them to focus on something else?”
“Well, a diversion would be nice,” Helena said, “particularly at the same time when we somehow get the gate unlocked. Maybe then we could escape.”
The two of them looked at her. “Do you think so?”
“I don’t know for sure,” she said. “It’s a work in progress right now. Only a theory. What I do know is that, even if we got out of this cage, I’m sure more men with guns are not very far away,” she said. “Probably eight of them or even more are right outside this building. So the chances of us breaking out of this place will be harder than we think. So we need to take all that into account as we devise any escape plan.”
