Hung

by Holly Hart

The rocky path underneath us is descending into the bowels of the valley now, and I get the sense that if it wasn't for the fact that we're heading downhill, the bike would have already given up. As it is, we aren't moving much faster than a slow jogging pace, and my face lights up, safe in the knowledge that my kidnapper's eyes are fixed straight ahead, navigating the precarious, thin strip of dirt underneath us in the inky blackness of night.

  The engine coughs once, twice, and then thrice – and then, in one loud bark, it kicks out completely. The last vestiges of speed it had been conferring, minor as they had been, fade away completely and we're left creeping down the path with only gravity driving us forward.

  My kidnapper screams into the night, a hair-raising, haunting yell in some unknown language, and beats the dirt bike once more.

  My heart races, and suddenly my senses light up with newfound awareness of the night. I've always been a home girl – this stint in a war zone excepted – and I like my creature comforts. I went camping once as a kid, but it was in the suburbs, so I don't think it really counts.

  This place is different – it's wild and untamed. Now the sound of the engine has died away, I can hear a thousand crickets chirping into the inky blackness, the burbling and gurgling of the stream below us, which seems to be getting closer to us, judging by how clearly I can hear the water crashing against the banks. I can't see it. An undulating outcrop of land must be between us.

  My kidnapper finally falls silent, his rage sufficiently vented. An eerie stillness grows between us, and my head fills with a thousand terrifying scenarios – will he just kill me, now that his plan's so comprehensively falling apart? In my fearful, paranoid state it seems more than possible – indeed, it seems likely. The chirping of the local insect life and the bubbling of the nearby stream is only punctuated by the squeaking sound of the dirt bike's axle continuing to turn, unpowered, as we rolled down the remainder of the path into the bottom of the valley.

  I know that I can't take the fear much longer and finally decide to break the silence, after all – what's the worst that can happen? "What are you going to do with me?" I ask plaintively, my voice cracking and betraying my tightly strung nerves.

  The bike rolls to a halt next to a bank of the stream, and my kidnapper sticks out a leg to stop us from toppling over. But still, he doesn't say anything.

  "What are you going to do with me?" I shout, finally building up the courage to beat my palms against his back now that we're not moving and at risk of falling down a cliff. He spins around so quickly that I barely even register his movement and catches my arm, stopping it in its tracks. He still doesn't say anything, just stares directly in my eyes and squeezes my wrist in an unrelenting vice-like grip. Briefly, I'm reminded of Fred, the malicious but ultimately pliable soldier who works in the pound, and remember the feeling of his hand clamped painfully around my shoulder.

  Somehow, though, I don't think I'm going to be able to talk my way out of this one. Again, quicker than I can react, my kidnapper springs into action, pulling his other hand back and delivering a stinging slap to my cheek.

  "You shit… I’m pregnant!" I shout out – more surprised than hurt, at least now while the blow's still reverberating through my skull.

  "I told you," the man shouts at me in a tone of utter disgust, "to keep quiet. If you don't, you die. I don’t care if you’re with child, infidel."

  Simple, final.

  I feel the shock of my kidnapping returning to me, and suddenly the sound of the crickets’ chirping dies away, and instead of hearing the sounds of the night all around me, all I can hear is the blood rushing in my ears. Instead of feeling the rough, thin leather seat of the dirt bike beneath my thighs, all I feel is the tickling sensation of a droplet of sweat dripping down my nose. It's like the higher functions of my brain are shutting down, and the only sensations it's allowing me to feel are the mundane and the useless.

  Still, perhaps this, too, is my brain protecting me in spite of myself. The kidnapper pushes me off the bike roughly, and instead of resisting, my body is soft and malleable. He pushes me to one side, getting to his knees and studying the chassis of the dirt bike.

  "Fuck," he swears, again in English, thumbing a sharp looking rip in the fuel tank. A bullet hole, I realize, thanking my lucky stars that it didn't spark and kill us both. He closes his eyes, and I watch the whole scene as if in a daze. But I can't keep my eyes off the bullet hole – it's as though I'm drawn to it, fixated upon it.

  But why?

  And then it hits me. If I am to have any chance of surviving this awful, horrendous experience – then I'm going to have to make my own luck. I can tell that something important is floating on the very edge of my consciousness, and I strain to remember it. For a few seconds, it's like trying to hold sand in a sieve, and then it comes to me – Jake.

  What had Mike said about Jake? Something about him being a sniffer dog first and foremost but…

  I watch the terrorist – my kidnapper – pull a cell phone out of his pocket and attempt to dial a number. He punches in the digits and puts it in his ear, but growls in frustration seconds later, and my ear somehow picks up the sound of a beeping dial tone in the silence. No signal.

  … And then it hits me. Jake was a sniffer dog, but first they trained him to do other stuff – tracking, assaulting a building, and everything in between. He was a jack of all trades that just happened to be a master of bombs. And if I know Mike, he'll know that, too. But I have to make my own luck – I have to leave them a clue, but what?

  My eye returns to the bullet hole in the bike's fuel tank, and again I feel like it's being drawn there, like my brain wants me to notice it for some reason. And then, as though a curtain's coming down all around me, falling away from my eyes, I realize why.

  I need to cut myself.

  Chapter Seventeen - Mike

  "Fuck, fuck, fuck," I scream out into the unnerving emptiness of the moonlit night's sky. I repeat it again for good measure. "Fuck!"

  In the darkness, the engine of one of the dirt bikes is chugging away, a slow, repetitive growl that perfectly accents my foul, fearful mood.

  Jake comes up to me, nestling his head against my injured thigh, and even though the gesture provokes an unexpected shot of pain, it's welcome because he snaps and me out of my berserk fugue.

  "Hey, buddy," I say, absentmindedly scratching him behind the ear. There's only one thing on my mind – going after Katie, and I know that every moment that I'm not doing that is time that’s counting against her. Counting against us.

  "How do you feel about a walk?" I ask him, and his ears predictably prick up with excitement. Sometimes, quite often these days, I wish that I could be a dog like Jake. Things would just be easier without human emotions. Like love, and the fear I’m currently feeling that so soon after finding out I’m going to be a father, that, too, might yet be snatched away from me. I didn't even want to think about it, put a label on it, even breathe a hint of it until now – too worried that I wasn't ready, or she wasn't ready, but it was too soon.

  I chuckle bitterly. If playing to other people's rules about how relationships should work costs me the chance of telling Katie I love her, that she's saved my life already, not only by nursing me back to health, but by getting Jake back – then from now on I won't be playing by society's playbook.

  I'm going to have to strike out on my own. Well, with Jake by my side – so not completely alone.

  "What the hell are you doing with that gun, soldier?" a brusque, aggressive voice shouts out of the darkness.

  I turn my head to the source of the sound and notice two military policeman with their emblazoned helmets standing behind me, rifles slung across their chests – one absurdly tall, one miserly short.

  "Good, you're here," I say. "You need to get a team out after her."

  "We don't need to do anything," the MP on the left growls back to me, "and we won't be until we work out what's happened here. You're coming with us."

  "Like hell
I am," I shout back, my fist clutching reflexively around the handgun at the end of my right arm. "We've got a hostage situation – every second counts."

  "And we'll still have a hostage situation when we've got to the bottom of all this," the MP on the right this time replies, to my dismay, "but first, I want to know where you got that gun."

  I jerk my head at the young private who tossed me the weapon. "He gave it to me," I say, "when we were responding to the incursion – the incursion you guys were supposed to prevent. Or am I wrong about that?" I ask, knowing that I've hit the nail on the head. "Tell me you guys aren't supposed to be the ones protecting the base?"

  A long, pregnant pause hangs in the air between the three of us, and the two military policeman look at each other warily, as though silently trying to come up with an excuse.

  "You're in no position to be threatening us," the taller of the pair growls at me. "If that's not your personal weapon, then military regulations state that you can't be firing it…"

  I don't let him finish, interjecting a loud, baffled laugh to make it quite clear how absurd I find what he's just said.

  "Military regulations…" I say, drawing out the words. "That's what you're worried about? You guys are a joke."

  I turn my back on the pair of them, ignoring the sound of their muffled, whispered conversation. I know how these guys operate, I know that they will doubtless try and arrest me – someone's got to get the blame for this attack, and these guys are slimy enough to try and make that person me. God knows how, but they'll find a way – of that I have no doubt. But I don't intend to give them the opportunity.

  I kneel down, pretending to examine the body of one of the fallen insurgents, but really slipping three black AK-47 magazines out of his vest and surreptitiously sliding them into the pocket at the knee of my desert fatigues. I do the same with another body, this time four magazines.

  Two hundred and ten bullets – sounds like a lot, but I've been soldiering long enough to know that in a real fight, I wish I had ten times that. Still, if I need more than that to get Katie back, then this battle's lost already.

  "Hey, what are you doing?" I hear from behind me. I'm pretty sure it's the short MP, but I don't hesitate – he's hardly going to shoot me, so I know I've got some time.

  "Just looking…" I say vaguely, buying myself a few more seconds, and turn my head to face them. It seems to put them slightly at ease, but really I'm just checking that they are far enough away from me that they won't be able to intervene when I make my break for it. Jake's close by.

  "Good boy," I croon under my breath, "come here." He pads over obediently, coming to stand by my side, his head close to my ear as I crouch down next to the bodies. "Ready for a run?" I whisper into his ear, pretending to scratch him. He does that thing that looks like a nod, and I see him almost imperceptibly tense up – his muscles rippling under the surface of his short fur. No outside observer would notice, but I do – after all, it's hard not to implicitly get to know the partner you've spent years training alongside.

  I feel the comforting weight of the Colt in my hand and check my surroundings. I count four dirt bikes left, accounting for the one the kidnapper made his getaway on, and see that the two military policemen are a good ten yards away from me – too far to intervene physically.

  I stand up. "Okay, guys, I'll come with you," I lie, taking a step in their direction – but also the direction of the dirt bike with the chugging engine. They don't seem to notice, don't seem in the slightest bit suspicious of my plan. More fool them. They lower their weapons and seem more at ease.

  "Now, Jake!" I shout, sending him sprinting off in the direction of my pointed finger.

  "What the hell?" I hear one of the MP's shout from behind me.

  "Sorry, guys," I shout without bothering to turn my head to face them, "I don't trust that you guys are going to do what you need to. I’ve got a kid to save. And sorry about the other bikes," I say while swinging my injured leg over the saddle of the one I've chosen, masking the look of pain on my face.

  "What do you –" I hear from behind me, before the meaning of my words becomes abundantly clear. I raise the handgun, aiming it at the furthest bike. I feel the comforting weight of the weapon sitting in my hand, take a deep breath, and as I release it, pull the trigger, sending a bullet speeding into the engine block.

  "Stop!"

  I have no intention of doing that. I swing the weapon in my hand, aiming it at the next bike, breathe out, pull the trigger; swing the gun, breathe out, pull the trigger; pull my legs in tight around the bike and twist the throttle on the handlebar, sending the bike jumping off into the darkness with a loud roar of its powerful engine.

  ***

  At any other time, the feeling of the cool wind whipping through my hair and snapping against my unprotected face would have been a glorious sensation, especially after the inertia that had been enforced upon me after my battle injury. Yet, I can't help but think of how Katie must've felt, taking this journey just a few short minutes before – terrified and fearing for her life.

  Jake's waiting for me by the smoldering remnants of the base's outer fence, as I knew he would be. His tongue is lolling out, and he's breathing heavily. "Come on, boy," I encourage, slowing down as I pass so that we're both travelling at a manageable speed. I take a quick moment to peer over my shoulder, checking that no one's mobilizing to follow me, and I'm proved right. I don't know how to feel about that – the base is in complete disarray, with half dressed soldiers running around like headless chicken, but I can't see any evidence of organization forming amongst the chaos – can't see anyone forming up to be part of a rescue squad.

  "It looks like we're on our own," I call down to Jake over the roar of the engine. For now, anyway.

  I don't know how to feel about that. I'm only one man – and half crippled at that. Can I really hope to save her? And if I don’t, what does that mean for our child?

  I’d feel way more comfortable if I could see a rescue party getting ready, but I can't as the base starts to disappear from my view. As I get further away, I spare fewer and fewer glances over my shoulder, more than aware that I need every bit of my concentration available to pilot the bike across the rocky terrain.

  I slow down to about five miles per hour, a pace that Jake can comfortably keep up with for hour after hour for a while at least, but kick myself for not at least attempting to steal a Humvee on my way out. At this pace, who knows how far ahead of me Katie's kidnapper will end up.

  "Jake, you go ahead," I command, trusting my partner's instincts implicitly. He turns to me for a brief half second, ears quizzically perked up, and just as quickly turns back, lowering his snout to the ground. I slow to a halt, waiting as he traverses the ground in a figure eight pattern – just as he was taught at the academy.

  "Good boy," I mutter under my breath, knowing that now's not the time to interrupt him, but desperate to cheer him on nonetheless. He stops, sniffs the ground, circles a spot, and I wait with bated breath – has he found something?

  He barks once, loudly, and raises his head up high – proudly.

  "What’ve you found, boy?" I call, gently touching the throttle and spurring the bike over towards him. I could have got off and walked, but I know from long experience that sparing every tiny morsel of energy this early in a mission will pay off a hundredfold in a few hours time when I'm dog tired and ready to collapse.

  The bike jumps over, covering the few yards between us in a second, and I bring it to an abrupt halt next to him. He looks up at me proudly, tongue hanging out the left-hand side of his mouth. There's a black oil stain on the ground, and I clench my fist in excitement, feeling my heart quicken inside my chest.

  "Good boy," I say, reaching over and scratching him behind the ear. It's fresh, still glistening in the moonlight, and it can only have come from one source – the kidnapper's damaged dirt bike.

  "Go on, can you find another?" I implore, and Jake immediately stands up – recognizing my urg
ency – and bends his snout to the ground, repeating the same figure eight pattern as before. It's not long before he barks again with excitement about twenty yards away from me, and then again ten yards away from that. I fire up the engine, knowing beyond question that he's found the trail. If it keeps going in a straight line, which I suspect it might, then it leads to a dark, imposing mass of undulating hills and valleys far off into the distance – perhaps fifteen or so miles away. I know that that must be the kidnapper's target – it makes sense; you could hide in those hills for months and evade an entire army. It's the obvious choice.

  "Well done, Jake!" I holler into the darkness, unafraid of anyone or anything who might hear me, because this time we're not playing defense.

  We're coming for you, Katie.

  We're on the hunt.

  Chapter Eighteen - Mike

  "What is it, boy?" I ask, keeping my voice low, not knowing who might be around the next corner. Jake turns around to look at me happily but dumbly, his tongue lolling out of his mouth like he's just had a dentist's appointment. To anyone else, he'd just look like any old German Shepherd – but I can read every expression on his furry face like a book. And right now he's looking like a flashing neon sign – he's got something.