by S L Shelton
His eyes strained to pick up the farthest road detail possible, using only the illumination from Avignon to light his way. Ahead, a wide span of pitch-black grew as they neared. When they got closer, it became obvious the dark void was a deep chasm between ridges. A bridge connected the two points about halfway down.
Headlights in the rearview appeared, breaching the crest of the ridge behind them. Wolf downshifted once more and yanked the wheel to the right, sending them bouncing over a small dirt berm and up a runaway truck ramp. He wrestled the wheel against the deep sand and steep incline, trying to hold straight as the speed bled from the SUV.
The rain saturated ground left no lingering dust in the air, no clue as to their impromptu exit.
He yanked up on the parking brake, locking them at the odd, steep angle.
Several moments passed before the car zipped by below them. It was the same sedan that had sped away from them in their earlier pursuit.
As soon as the car had passed around the corner, Wolf released the parking brake and reversed down the hill, bouncing across the dirt berm a second time. When his wheels hit asphalt, he shifted forward and pressed on the accelerator.
“Why? Why not go the other way?” BeauLac asked, pleading.
“They have our scent.”
“Then wait for them to disappear and go back the other way!”
Wolf ignored BeauLac’s pleas and stepped harder on the accelerator.
“Stay down,” he yelled at BeauLac. The older man slouched into his seat.
When he had caught up with the sedan, he turned on the headlights and rammed them.
Gunfire erupted from the car in front them, peppering the windshield with spidery pockmarks. Wolf rammed them again before they accelerated away. As they neared the bridge abutment, Wolf charged them once more, striking the corner of their vehicle and sending them spinning sideways on the slick road.
Without pause, he slammed on his brakes and shoved the shifter into reverse, squealing tires leading them backward into the side of the black sedan.
The tail of the SUV crunched against the car then rode up on the side, lifting the rear tires from the shoulder of the road. As he pushed the shifter into drive, he became light-headed and the lights of Avignon seemed to tilt sideways. “No, no, no,” he muttered, trying to regain his fading consciousness out of sheer will. But darkness began to envelope him.
In desperation, he ran the Outlander forward several meters and stopped, trying to pull his mind from its spiral inward into darkness.
“What are you doing?!” BeauLac screamed from the floor.
As Wolf began to black out, he reached up as if in a dream and shifted into reverse, but held his foot tightly on the brake.
You’ll have to finish these guys off, he thought, then faded into darkness accompanied by a piercing ringing in his ears.
**
I woke to a painful, migraine-like surge of electricity in my head and ears. It was night, and in front of me, a city glowed in the distance, though the sight tilted and twisted as if I were tumbling.
“What are you doing?!” someone yelled beside me.
The world wouldn’t focus, and pain seemed to radiate from every nerve ending, like body-wide pins and needles. Worse, the first conscious thought to mind was Kathrin—Kathrin is dead.
As if years of life had abruptly been stripped away, I remembered my beautiful girl sprawled in the beach sand, our faces only inches apart, and blood running from her nose and mouth, her eyes vacant like once lit pools suddenly extinguished.
A howl of pain reached my ears, a long moan of anguish. It was a moment before I realized the noise came from my own throat.
“What’s wrong?! Do something!” a voice yelled—a man’s voice, nearby, panic-stricken.
But all I could do was sit as wave after wave of pressure and nausea rolled across my gut and chest.
I’m so sorry, Kathrin. This is my fault.
Behind me, a familiar sound erupted; gunfire peppering thin metal and glass. I tried to turn my head, more out of instinct than anything else, but my head wouldn’t move.
As I tried to collect my thoughts, I realized part of the burning sensation in my chest was a lack of oxygen—I hadn’t taken a breath in a while. With that thought, I sucked in a breath and the throbbing in my head began to subside.
Years ago, I remembered, Wolf had come to me and said something about having to breathe. Right. I have to remember to breathe. I took another breath.
Hot tears burned my cheeks as the thought of Kathrin staring at me seared itself into the backs of my eyes. The hollow thud of bullets striking metal greeted my ears again, and again, after trying to turn to see the source, I found my lungs burning once more.
Breathe!
And breath was taken.
Calm down, Scott. Something is happening, and you need to get a grip—Breathe.
I took another breath.
Where am I? I looked down.
I’m in a car…no, an SUV. Hey! My eyes work.
The vibration through the floor and seat told me the engine was running.
Am I driving?
I looked again. My foot rested on the brake, but we weren’t moving. Relief took some of the tension from my chest.
Breathe.
I looked in the rearview mirror and saw in the glow of my reverse lights, a man trying to climb out of the back window firing a small rifle in my direction.
“You’re going to get us killed!” The man next to me yelled.
As the fog of my sleep cleared, I sucked in one more deep breath and tried to take my foot off the brake. It didn’t move.
Hey, foot, move!
It slipped from the brake. As we began to roll backward, I looked in the rearview again as another man kicked at the window from the back of the sedan, trying to escape. Like watching someone escape from a straitjacket, the man climbing through the side door turned himself, only his gun arm extended in front of him.
Hey, foot…step on the gas.
Only a slight twitch. Do it! Press the gas!
One second we were rolling backward slowly, the next, my foot leapt to the gas, slamming the pedal to the floor and launching us backward.
The impact trapped the man trying to climb from the car and stopped the gunfire. The crunching and grinding of metal and the screams of the man I had pinned swirled in my ears, creating confusion—we were still moving.
Forward! I yelled at my body.
Nothing.
You have to be more specific, I realized. Hand…pull the shifter back.
A momentary delay preceded my arm spasming toward me, pulling the gearshift into drive. The SUV lurched forward, tearing metal and kicking roadside gravel as the gears engaged.
As we careened toward the drop-off on the other side of the road, I ordered my foot, Stomp the brake!
There was less of a delay that time, owed I’m certain to the urgency of the command. My foot moved from the gas pedal, almost smoothly, then as ordered, stomped the brake. We skidded to a halt with the rear tires still on the pavement.
Fresh metallic thwacks peppered the back of the SUV. There was no way in hell I would be able to leave the vehicle and attack—I wasn’t even able to turn my head yet.
“Don’t just sit there! Do something!” the man on the floorboard yelled.
I looked down at the shifter as a bullet struck the headrest behind me then exited through the front windshield.
This is going to take some effort, I thought, realizing I’d have to squeeze the button on the shifter to put it in reverse again.
Squeeze.
Nothing.
“Squeeze the fucking knob!” I yelled—the first words I’d spoken.
“What?!” The voice sounded familiar, but I was more interested and distracted by the fact that my hand obeyed.
My fingers squeezed the knob and I ordered my arm forward. Sadly, the shifter slid past reverse and landed in park.
Shit!
I concentrat
ed once more on sliding the shifter into reverse. My fingers still tightly gripped the knob so all I had to do was carefully pull back for reverse. Bullets zipped past my head, opening more holes in the windshield.
Easy, slow, controlled.
My arm moved, and I released the button on the shifter as it notched into reverse. My foot found the gas immediately that time, moving smoothly from the brake to the gas as if muscle memory had taken over.
The SUV lurched backward again, and my eyes flashed to the rearview mirror. A slight tug on the steering wheel as the front tire bumped over the lip of the pavement changed our direction but the back of the car where the man was just freeing himself from the broken glass, remained locked in my sights.
The man in the back whipped sideways as we struck. The first shooter remained draped across the door, dead or dying from the last strike. He disappeared out of sight as the SUV crushed the door and tail once more.
This time, I didn’t let off the gas, instead shoving the sedan backward through the guardrail and over the steep embankment. I wasn’t sure how deep the chasm was, but judging by the mass of the bridge, it was very deep and very steep. In an instant, the resistance ceased.
A moment of panic flashed through my chest as our backward momentum began carrying us over the edge, following the car I had just sent over the precipice.
The man next to me screamed in fear, reaching for the door handle as my foot found the brake.
I grabbed him by the arm. “Hold on,” I snapped, glaring at him.
Oh, look! My neck works.
He nodded hesitantly, and I shifted us into drive, easing us back onto the shoulder of the road as the sound of crunching metal below faded with distance. Yeah…it’s a deep gorge.
Once safely away from the edge, I put the vehicle, a Mitsubishi judging by the logo on the steering wheel, into park.
Breathe!
My lungs filled. “Where are we?”
The man’s confused expression seemed cartoonish in the glow of the dash lights. “What do you mean? You just tried to kill us.”
I recognized the accent…that voice. It took a moment, but then even the memory of his face clicked in my mind. “BeauLac!”
“What?!”
I shook my head to clear the cobwebs, grateful for the ability to move. My eyes flashed over my surroundings trying to get some clue as to what the fuck was going on. “What city is that?” I asked, no longer caring that BeauLac was confused.
“Avignon,” he said, incredulous.
Avignon…that’s in France. “Is there anyone else coming for us?”
His mouth dropped open in genuine, deep confusion.
“Answer me!”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. That was the only sedan that made it out of the vineyards.”
I felt light-headed, then it struck me that I hadn’t taken a breath for a few seconds.
Breathe!
My lungs drew a deep gulp as if breaking the surface of water.
Okay…I’m in a Mitsubishi with Adolphe BeauLac. I looked in the rearview mirror. I apparently just killed a bunch of guys in a sedan, we are near Avignon, and I have to remember to breathe…literally.
“What the fuck, Wolf?!”
“Would you mind getting us out of here?” BeauLac asked, tension still filling his tone.
I looked at him, staring for a moment. “Why are you still alive?” I asked.
He recoiled in fear.
I lifted one eyebrow. Well, apparently that’s not a ridiculous question…good to know.
I shifted us into gear and drove carefully forward, down the mountain, ever mindful that I might have to consciously tell my limbs to react.
Every few seconds, my lungs would start to burn, reminding me to take a breath. The anxiety of that fact would have been paramount in my mind were I not looking at the road through a bullet-riddled windshield.
I tried to remember how I had arrived in the driver’s seat, shoving a sedan full of gunmen into a gorge with BeauLac at my side unrestrained. As if I were recalling a conversation I’d had with someone, I had a vague recollection of rescuing BeauLac. Rescuing? That can’t be right. I’m supposed to kill Combine people.
More memory slipped into my head between hard-fought breaths. I had blown up the mansion and, oddly, it was for some reason important that Combine thought BeauLac was dead.
Dead…Kathrin is dead. Grief rolled over me once more and my limbs stopped obeying my commands.
Slow down!
My foot came off the gas and lightly touched the brake.
“Tell me why you were being held captive,” I said without taking my eyes off the road, and trying to push my grief aside.
BeauLac looked at me and sat up in his seat. “I’m assuming the torture will commence if I am not forthcoming with my answers.”
“It might anyway, but you can try the truth first.”
He shook his head, but it was sorrow on his face then, not fear. “Harp and Collins have betrayed the membership. They saw your theft of our operational funds as an opportunity to grab control of membership wealth…under the guise of emergency refunding of the operational funds.”
Harp, Collins, Adolphe BeauLac, William Spryte, Edward Spryte, Heinrich Braun, I recited silently, listing the names of Combine members I knew, Harp and Collins having just been added.
“Betrayed, huh? Who would have thought members of Combine capable of betrayal?”
A harsh glare from BeauLac revealed he didn’t find the irony amusing. “Think of us as you wish, but for more than sixty years we have been the champions of the free world, fighting to maintain balance and tradition against the Eastern Powers.”
“So, basically you’re the Justice League.”
“What is this ‘Justice League’?”
I shook my head, dismissing the tangent—there’s no way this asshole would get comic book humor. “Collins and Harp betrayed you…who else besides you is being held prisoner?”
“The other Combine board members…perhaps the membership itself by now. It’s been more than a month since I’ve had contact with anyone.”
“These Eastern Powers…where do they come in? Did Harp and Collins flip to their side?”
BeauLac scoffed. “They would be assassinated if their role in the six-decade war was revealed.” He shook his head. “No. This is nothing but pure greed and corruption.”
“Again, the fact you can’t recognize the irony of your disgust is hilarious.”
“We have held the free world in power for years. If not for our intervention, the Russians would have already overrun our governments,” he said, real anger burning in his voice. “As it is, they’ve infected Europe with their socialist taint.”
I nodded, dumbfounded by this jackass’s audacity at trying to claim the high road.
“So, Russia…they’re the ones you’ve been fighting?”
“They and those infected by their philosophies.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Russia isn’t communist anymore.”
BeauLac laughed. It’s sounded like little more than a phlegmy cough, but it was clearly an indication of amusement. “If you think for one second the communists were running the eastern world, then you haven’t done your school work.”
“Homework.”
“What?”
“Never mind. So, it’s Russia, but not the communists.”
“The oligarchs have always been in control.”
So, this is a war of rich sociopaths, with all of humanity caught in the crossfire. I couldn’t be drawn into a political debate. There were more pressing matters.
I turned the SUV into a small town at the base of the mountain and searched for an unlit side street with other vehicles. I parked behind an oldish Volvo sedan and turned off the lights. “The board members being held by Harp and Collins…who are they?”
“Sir Thomas Wead and Jonas Schultz for certain,” he said. “They were present with me when Collins ordere
d us secluded for our own safety.”
“Who does that leave?”
He shook his head. “Only Pietr Loukis. The board never got a chance to vote on replacements for William and Edward Spryte.”
“Well, don’t be hard on yourself…it’s been a busy few months,” I muttered, letting bitterness well up in me again.
He opened his mouth to speak but then closed it when he realized I was mocking him. “What are you going to do with me?”
A snippet of conversation slipped into my mind. Storc, Jo and I had been looking for something important. What was it?
I raised my hand to my face and was surprised to feel no beard there. It was an odd sensation, having lived years with a full beard. Then the information came to my mind. “The accountant.”
“What accountant?”
“The one who manages Combine’s operational funds.”
BeauLac looked at me in confusion. “That’s Collins.”
“Collins sits in front of a desk, rerouting accounts, keeping ledgers on expenditures, and audits the double-blind fund drops?”
“No.” He shook his head. “That would be the Prince-Underthall account manager. I don’t recall his name, but he operates out of the Washington office.”
My head began to throb, and my lungs ached for several seconds before I realized I had not taken a breath in a while.
Breathe!
A long, slow, deep breath through my nose made it seem I was making a decision. I wasn’t, but it put BeauLac on edge, so I kept up the charade and nodded thoughtfully.
“I’ll need to know the locations of each board member,” I said.
“I’ll do my best,” he said, nodding in resignation. “But I’ve been isolated for the better part of a month.”
“That’ll do for now,” I said, then tried to open my door.
My fingers wouldn’t close around the handle. I sat there and stared at my fingers for several seconds, willing them to move. When they finally did, and the door swung open, I swung my legs around, dreading the thought of standing.
“Is something wrong?” BeauLac asked.
I ignored him and reached down beside me, unlocking the seat belt. The sudden lack of support was dizzying.
