by D. J. Molles
Hardly.
Standing at the desk and taking a quick look around, Abe immediately spotted some things of his, piled in the corner, just behind the desk. It was his pack, all the pockets open, the contents spilling out and obviously rifled through. But with the exception of a single black, electronic device, nothing inside that pack was of any import. It was all medical supplies and spare ammunition and food and water and a few changes of underwear and socks and some basic hygiene supplies. Abe had not stuffed himself full of military secrets before leaving the Greeley Green Zone, because he was well aware that something like this might happen. He might fall into the wrong hands. And honestly, everything he needed to know was locked up tight in his mind.
Except the GPS. That was the Achilles’ heel of this whole goddamned thing.
He went to his pack. It was the most obvious place to start. He ripped through the supplies in all the pockets, starting with the one that he’d kept the GPS in, but it wasn’t there. It wasn’t in any of the pockets. He started grabbing the stuff and cramming it back into the pockets, haphazardly. He needed to take this pack with him. His chances of survival out beyond Fort Bragg were slim enough as it was. At least what was inside this pack would give him an extra day, maybe two or three. He had antibiotics in there, so he would be able to stave off the pneumonia, which was good. And food and water…
Don’t put the cart before the horse. You need to get Lucas and get the fuck out of here first.
Well, I need to get the GPS, and then Lucas… if I can.
Abe hated it. He hated how that tasted in his mouth. But the rotten taste of it didn’t stop it from being true. It didn’t matter that he had basically forced Lucas into this situation. Lucas knew the risks. He knew that what they were doing was dangerous. Two men wandering across an unknown and enemy area by themselves? Risky.
But necessary.
And the most important thing was keeping Project Hometown alive. Lucas knew that. Abe would get him if there was any way on God’s green earth that he could, but he hoped that Lucas knew how important it was that the GPS get back in the hands of Lee.
“It’s the right thing,” Abe said to himself. “The right thing.”
He slung the pack onto his back and went for the desk. Only one of the drawers was unlocked, but it contained nothing of immediate interest to Abe. Some documents. Some maps. Some printouts. Maybe if he had time for gathering intel, there might have been something useful there, but there was no time for that now. This was the equivalent of a smash-and-grab, and Abe was the burglar.
Nothing else in the unlocked drawer.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
He yanked hard at the locked drawers, but they weren’t budging. The desk itself shook and groaned at him. He looked around the room for something to pry with, but there didn’t seem to be anything substantial enough to pry open a metal desk. He thought about shooting at the lock, but the results would not necessarily be what he wanted, and could quite possible jam up the desk drawers even worse. It also carried the unintended consequences of wasting valuable ammunition and calling more attention to himself. Just because no one seemed to hear the last bit of gunfire didn’t mean they weren’t going to hear it this time.
“C’mon, c’mon…” Abe searched the desk, the open drawer. He found a paper clip. A pen. That would work. Obviously brute force with a crowbar would be fastest, but it wasn’t the only way to get into a locked drawer.
He straightened out half of the paper clip and slid it into the locking mechanism, using the tip of the pen to apply pressure to the cylinder so the tiny inner pins would stick when he punched them. Then he started working the paper clip. There was the slow and steady, surgical method of lockpicking, where you punched each individual pin until you had them all stuck and then you turned the lock cylinder. And then there was the panicked oh-shit method, which was less reliable but much faster, and entailed shoving the picking device into the lock and jiggling it around furiously while you waited for the cylinder to turn.
Abe had to adjust his sweaty grip on the paper clip three times, but after ten or fifteen seconds of working it, he felt that slight give in the turn of the cylinder. “Ha!” he said, cranking the cylinder all the way around with the tip of the pen. “I got you, you stupid sonofabitch.”
The lock disengaged.
Abe yanked open the first drawer in the desk. Paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork. An old Colt 1911 with pearl grips. It was loaded. It seemed like a personal weapon. Perhaps some sort of heirloom from Carl Gilliard’s family. Abe appropriated it. Nothing else important in the drawer. He slammed it shut and moved on to the next. Lucky for him, this was a desk where the main lock was on top and locked or unlocked all three of the drawers below it.
The next drawer opened.
Abe’s elation was short-lived but euphoric. It blotted out his pain and his sickness. He lunged into the desk drawer and yanked out a Project Hometown GPS device, though it was dangling in several pieces. Repairable pieces, though. Carl hadn’t been dumb enough to destroy it, but he’d been smart enough to dismantle the power unit, because he didn’t want to leave an activated mystery device lurking at the bottom of one of his desk drawers. Abe stared at the little black device and thanked God that it was such an innocuous-looking piece of crap, or Carl might have read more importance into it and locked it away someplace much more secure.
Abe made sure he had all the parts, but he didn’t bother reassembling it then. He slung his pack off, stuffed the GPS securely at the bottom of the main compartment, then zipped up the pack fast and pulled the strap back onto his shoulder.
“All right, Lucas.” Abe headed for the door, pistol in one hand. “I’m comin’, partner.”
Moving out of Carl’s office, Abe could already feel the heaviness of the pack. He opened the door and scanned the hallway quickly before stepping out into it. He was weakened by torture and being cramped in a cell and his body fighting an infection, but he probably still had better conditioning than your average guy. Heavy packs and aching muscles were something he could work with. Even the sickness was retreating as his mind found its way back to thinking on its feet. The adrenaline was pushing everything down into a queasy undertone, and when he took deep breaths he could hear the rattle of the fluid in his lungs.
But I can work with this. You have to work with what you’re given.
He stood at the doorway for a half second, deciding to dig the other pistol out of the back of his pants. He had three pistols total—the two from the guards and the one from Carl’s desk. The guards’ weapons were both Beretta M9s, which shared the same 9mm cartridge. Rather than tote both of them, Abe left one behind after stripping its ammunition and putting the spare magazine in his pants pocket.
He moved quickly to the stairs directly to the left of Carl’s office. He listened for a moment before pushing the door open, but the sounds of the stairwell beyond were empty. He pushed through. The stairwell was cold, as he remembered it being when they’d taken him through it blindfolded. He descended to the ground floor and peeked out.
More abandoned hallways.
No exit signs.
Maybe on the other side.
He jogged down the hall, tightening the straps on the pack as he went so that it wouldn’t flop around so much. At the next end of the hall, he was forced to turn left, and there was the exit, a glowing red sign above it.
Abe moved to it, wetting his dry lips with his tongue. He was getting thirsty again. He wanted the water in his pack, but he didn’t have time for it. Besides, Lucas might need it. He didn’t know what condition he was going to find the other man in.
“Directly across,” Abe mumbled to himself. “That’s what he said.”
Abe wondered if the man was going to bleed out before the alarm was raised and someone got help to him. He wondered if the shattered tibia was ever going to heal properly or whether he’d doomed the man to only one working leg. At the very least, a severe limp.
Better tha
n dead.
He put his shoulder to the heavy, industrial outer door. He scanned all around it to see if the thing was alarmed, or if there were any placards that stated to use the door only for emergencies, but there were none. He pressed against the push-bar gently, until the door cracked open an inch or two.
Beyond, it was gray dawn shot through with the first rays of sunlight.
Abe blinked rapidly, suddenly disoriented. He’d been thinking it was in the dead of night, as quiet as it had seemed around here. But here was clear daylight. He felt suddenly exposed. He would have liked to make an escape at night. Maybe he had been picturing darkness because that’s what he wanted. The light made things more difficult.
Work with what you got.
Out beyond the cracked door he could see gravel. And sandy dirt. A well-traveled drive, but otherwise there wasn’t much else to be seen. The road led off into a rank and file of pines. There was an old pickup truck, painted in OD green. No one was in it. Abe pressed his face to the crack and he smelled the smell of the pines and the dirt and gravel and the frosty smell of a cold morning. He listened, but heard nothing. No voices. No rumble of engines. No crunch of footsteps on gravel.
He pushed the door open a little farther.
From deeper in the building, the guard he’d locked up began to pound on the door. The thumping was noticeable from where Abe was standing, but the yelling was muted and probably wouldn’t be heard outside the building. Abe didn’t have the time to go back and deal with that problem, and “dealing with it” would essentially be killing the man. Abe was on uncertain footing as far as whose allegiances he was toying with at the moment, and he didn’t want to stack bodies on himself. The cleaner the getaway, the less pissed they’d be when they came after him, and maybe that would give him the edge. Maybe they would give up. Cut their losses.
He stepped cautiously out of the door, waiting for the shouts of alarm and gunfire.
Outside of the building it was quiet.
Directly across the long, narrow, gravel parking lot, there was another building that appeared to be of identical construction to the one he was stepping out of. They were both cinderblock, painted the same color as the sandy loam all around them. Green metal roofs about the same color as the surrounding pines. He got the sense that this was an out-of-the-way corner of Fort Bragg. Maybe some new addition. Clearly, from the offices upstairs, it had belonged to some aspect of Delta, but to what purpose Abe couldn’t figure out. It’d been a while since he was among their ranks. He’d been Project Hometown for years. Clearly they were doing things a little differently.
Keep moving.
Abe stepped out of the building. He ran. He figured it didn’t much matter if he looked guilty at this point. His hair was a tangled mess, and his beard was still matted with his own blood. His clothes were torn and filthy and he had a gun in his hand. Walking calmly across the parking lot wasn’t going to fool anyone, if anyone happened to be watching.
The two buildings sitting adjacent to each other were long buildings, as Abe had guessed from running around inside of them. He was facing the broad side of the building now. There were doors on both ends of the broad side, and he was directly across from the one on the far right of the building, close to the pickup truck.
Convenient.
He eyed up the truck, then changed direction and headed for it. Depending on what shape Lucas was in, they might not be able to hoof it out. And if things went bad, he didn’t want to be hotwiring the damn truck while under fire. Best to do it now when things were relatively quiet.
Quiet outside. But inside his chest and head it was a panicked riot. His heart was hammering, his lungs pumping. His mind was trying to grasp all the thoughts that he knew should’ve come easy to him, but were now sluggishly bumbling into each other. He felt weak and unprepared and that he was flying by the seat of his pants, and he hated it to his core.
He gave the truck a quick once-over before looking cautiously around him and then yanking open the door and diving in. No need to hotwire it. The keys were in the ignition. Perfect. He cranked the truck to make sure that it wasn’t just defunct machinery. It took a few turns, but the engine caught and rumbled, horribly loud. He killed the engine and plucked the keys out. He didn’t want the truck magically disappearing while he was in the middle of springing Lucas.
This is good. This is good. You’re thinking clearly. Keep it up.
Leave the backpack in the truck? It would lighten him up. He didn’t know if he had the strength to carry Lucas and the pack together, if necessary. But then again, if they had to abandon the truck, they would lose what little supplies they had. He decided to keep it strapped to him. Hopefully Lucas would be able to walk under his own power.
He was worried about his partner. Worried enough to feel it like lead in his gut.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he whispered to himself, gently easing the truck door shut. “I’m gonna get him out of here and we’re gonna be okay. I got this. All day long.”
Two guards, the Norseman had told him. Two more guards that were sitting outside of Lucas’s cell. Or maybe one was sitting there and the other was roving. Who knew? Certainly not Abe. Once again, he was going to have to just roll in and hope for the best. Momentum. He needed to keep momentum up. Stopping to try and plan things out would only create inertia. And that would be the death of him.
And Lucas, too.
He moved to the door, pistol held firmly in his strong hand, tucked in close to him. He put his left hand on the doorknob. Kill the guards or give them a chance? Killing would be easier and quicker. Giving them a chance might be better in the long run.
He yanked open the door before he’d really come to a decision. He moved through quickly.
A long hallway. Fluorescent lights. Identical to the one he’d just come from.
He scanned right and saw the end of the hallway—abandoned.
He scanned left and saw two men, sitting in chairs, their heads swiveling in his direction.
Curiosity.
Then alarm.
Almost immediately, their hands went to their guns. These were professional warriors. They did not need minutes or even seconds to identify a target. They saw Abe and they saw a threat. There were not going to be any words.
Shoot them shoot them shoot them.
Abe moved laterally as he fired, trying to get off the X where he’d just been standing, but the hallway was narrow. He focused his fire. The first man to move came up with a rifle. The second man had a pistol. The rifle was the bigger threat, and the man holding it was coming out of his chair and sinking into a crouch, making himself as small as possible in the narrow corridor. Abe knew the M9 platform as well as anyone that had ever touched it, and he watched the sights falling and jumping at the right moments—one-two, three-four—a double tap, followed by another double tap.
The man with the rifle got off a short burst before crumpling into a half-split position, his right arm mangled while his left arm grasped the inside of his thigh, close to his crotch, and bright red arterial blood started spurting onto the wall.
Abe’s right shoulder hit the wall hard. It pulled his sights off the man with the rifle, but the rifle had clattered to the ground, the man’s hands instinctively moving to the wound that would most likely bleed him out.
The other man was standing tall in the middle of the hallway, pistol clear of its holster, centered in his chest, and then punched out. The second that Abe hit the wall, the guard with the pistol fired three times and Abe watched them as they lanced the wall in front of his face, right at eye level, each one closer than the last.
Abe dropped.
The fourth shot split the air above Abe’s head as he hit the ground. He would have rolled, but the pack on his back pinned him still. He had made the move without really thinking it through. It was all or nothing now. He’d bought himself a microsecond, and the cost had been his freedom of movement. He needed a good shot…
A little gray puff from
the end of the guard’s pistol.
Abe’s left shoulder exploded.
He fired with his right, but his aim was pulled off.
Something else tugged at his back, but he didn’t hear anything now. Not even his own pistol reports. He forced his eyes to stay open, despite the fact that it felt like every muscle in his body wanted to contract itself around that spot in his shoulder, right at the joint. His eyes stayed open and he put his sights on the man, one-handed, with a scream working its way out of his belly.
Two trigger pulls as the air came out of him.
The last guard fell back.
Abe strained to keep his eyes open as he watched the man hit the ground. He watched long enough to see the pistol fall out of the man’s hands, his hips bucking as he tried to stay alive. His compatriot with the rifle was lying still, eyes open but blank, staring at nothing. Abe realized he must’ve hit the man someplace else, possibly in the chest. It was unlikely that he’d bled out that fast.
Abe began to shake.
The pain hit him hard. His eyes slammed shut and he curled up into a ball, trying to keep himself from screaming. What little air he had in his lungs came out in a thin wheezing sound. When he had regained enough control of himself, he glanced at his right shoulder. There wasn’t much to see but bloody fabric. But Abe could feel the damage. He could feel the shattered bones of his shoulder grinding together. The muscles sheared.
He felt winded. After the last, quiet scream, it seemed he couldn’t draw a full breath.
You need to keep moving!
He rolled off his side, back onto his belly, and began squirming into a sitting position. His left arm was useless for the moment, there only to bring wracking pain into his body that he could feel, like lightning crawling over his skin and through his bone marrow, all the way from his shoulder down to his fingertips and along his spine.
He leaned against the wall for a moment, trying to breathe.
“Oh, fuck…” He stammered. “Oh, fuck… it hurts.”
