by Harper Steen
The women began to giggle, looked at one another from under half-closed eyelids and swayed in their chairs.
“The first thing I want to know is who you really are,” he demanded.
Liz gave him a giddy look and knit her brow as if she were thinking intently. Then she sat up as well as she could, and began to speak in an exaggerated, stilted tone. “My name is Elizabeth. I am the Queen of England. So kneel down subjects and kiss my feet!” She began to roar with laughter, as if she were out of her mind, and then toppled sideways out of her chair and landed on the ground. Jennifer joined in the laughter and, also unable to stay upright, slid onto the concrete floor too.
Furious that the drug apparently hadn’t had the desired effect, he bellowed, “I’ll make you sing yet. You can count on it!”
“Queen Elizabeth?” trilled Jennifer.
“Yes, subject?”
“He wants to hear us sing.”
“Then we should oblige him.”
In a tone that was completely off-key, Liz struck up the refrain of a drinking song she’d heard at a beer garden while visiting Germany and had not been able to forget. Jennifer laughed as she sang along: “There is no beer on Hawaii, there is no beer. That’s why we’re not going to Hawaii and staying here….”
At first the men looked at them incredulously, completely dumbfounded, and then they stormed out of the room in the face of this taunt, leaving the prisoners lying where they were. They closed the metal door behind them with a loud clatter, and gray plaster fell from the ceiling to the floor.
The women stopped singing and chuckled softly to themselves.
“Liz?”
“Hm?”
“I don’t need aspirin anymore. Right now I feel like I’m on speed. Even my ribs don’t hurt anymore.”
“Same here. I say we enjoy this a little bit longer before we free ourselves.”
“You won’t get an argument from me.”
Quietly, they stretched out.
***
Chris looked in shock at Gray, who was still staring at the monitors and the women lying motionless on the ground.
“Am I the only one who thinks they’re completely insane?”
“The same thought had occurred to me. Several times.” Gray said into the microphone. “Liz? Jennifer? Can you hear me?” He repeated these words until he and Chris heard a sound that almost sounded like a soft growl.
“Leave me alone! I don’t want to get up. Just five more minutes,” Liz said groggily.
“Nothing doing! Get your butts in gear and get out of there.”
“All right already, slave driver!” Slowly she sat up made her way over to her friend. She nudged Jennifer with the tip of her shoe. “Wake up! Our guys are calling.”
“Hm?” With difficulty Jennifer sat up too, shook her head, and blinked several times. She looked at Liz. “Oh man, you look like shit!”
“Thanks. You too! Did they take the small knife?” Liz whispered.
“No. It’s where it always is. These guys aren’t professionals.”
Liz made her way over to Jennifer’s outstretched legs and, with her arms still restrained behind her back, groped for Jennifer’s ankle. She pushed Jennifer’s pant leg up a little and released the small blade from its sheath. Awkwardly she cut through the rope that bound her hands behind her back, then removed Jennifer’s.
“Show me your arm,” Jennifer said. “That bandage doesn’t look like it’s on very tight.”
“Leave it. It’s just a scratch.”
“It doesn’t look like a scratch. Give it here!”
Liz gave in and held out her arm, making a face when Jennifer tightened the bandage. With soft groans, they got up and walked over to the tub of water their captors had left behind. Both dropped to their knees and dunked their heads.
“I needed that,” Jennifer said with a sigh, shaking the water out of her hair.
“Me too!” Liz said in wholehearted agreement.
“Now that you’re both alert again, why don’t you try finally doing what I tell you, how about that?” Gray’s words were dripping with cordiality.
“No problem. You don’t have to be so pushy.” Liz followed Jennifer to where their backpacks had been left. Such unprofessional behavior led Liz to believe that they were dealing with some kind of wannabe mercenaries who didn’t actually have any kind of military training. Their captors’ body odor had been harder to take, in her opinion, than the interrogation and beating they’d delivered. She figured these guys were probably very good at just one thing: consuming any alcohol within their reach.
Liz shook her head. The reality was, it didn’t make any difference whether these guys were professionals or not. Whoever they were, they’d stolen missiles—missiles it was her and Jennifer’s mission to destroy, anyone who tried to stop them would be eliminated.
Resolutely Liz turned her attention to the backpack on the ground and crouched down next to Jennifer. They pulled out their weapons, strapped them on, then shouldered their bags and made their way to the door. Luckily the drugs were still working enough so they barely noticed their injuries.
Cautiously they opened the door, keeping it from squeaking, and attacked the two guards who stood with their backs to them. Despite the battered shape they were in, Liz and Jennifer attacked with both speed and accuracy. Moving in sync, they wrapped their arms around the men’s necks and suffocated them before they could cry out. As they pulled the guards backwards into the room, Liz and Jennifer yanked their heads so hard they broke their necks. Cautiously Liz and Jennifer stepped over the two lifeless bodies and closed the door softly behind them.
“Now you two get the hell out of there! There are at least ten others running around, if not more. We’ll figure out another way to keep them from disappearing with the missiles. This mission’s over for you! You don’t have enough strength left for fighting. If they catch you again, you’ll be dead.” The women could hear the concern in Gray’s voice.
“Ten? That’s nothing. If there were eleven, I’d have to give your proposal serious consideration.” Buoyed by the drugs, Liz chuckled and followed Jennifer down the corridor, deeper into the bunker.
***
Gray slammed his fist down on the table so hard his empty coffee cup bounced. He uttered a string of obscenities. Those two were both driving him crazy! They hadn’t followed a single order. They were a danger to the company and ought to be pulled out of circulation. Townsend came to Gray’s mind. No wonder he’d sounded like he was trying to suppress a laugh over the telephone. He had known exactly what Gray and Chris were about to face.
***
Quickly and quietly Liz and Jennifer moved down the dimly lit narrow corridor, deeper into the bunker, eventually finding themselves at a dark vault whose walls glistened with moisture. When they saw what was crammed inside, Jennifer let out a soft, appreciative whistle. They hadn’t counted on finding such a cache of artillery. Next to the AGM-88D missiles they were looking for stood five more wooden crates of RPG-7 hand grenade launchers and eight crates of M9A1 BAZOOKAS lined up against the wall, some of them in stacks. Liz gave her partner an anxious look. “Think they’re squirreling these away in case we have a hard winter? These should make a nice boom.” Jennifer nodded and then set her backpack on the ground and began to unpack the C4-explosives they’d brought. With a minimum of effort, they affixed the plastic explosives to the missiles’ metal housing and to the wooden crates, then attached electronic timer fuses set at three minutes and got ready to leave the bunker.
The two men who stumbled across their path were unaware of Liz and Jennifer until the moment before the women slit their throats. Even before the men’s bodies had slumped together to the floor, Liz and Jennifer had broken into a run. The exit was just a few yards in front of them when they heard a loud scream behind them, indicating that someone had discovered their disappearance. They ran up the narrow stairs and out the door. Jennifer slammed it behind her and barricaded it with her submachine gu
n so that this time, no one could follow. Together Liz and Jennifer ran into the woods and stopped a safe distance from the exit.
Liz glanced at her watch, raised her other hand and counted down on her fingers, bending down one after the other, at one second intervals: “Five, four, three, two, one, and…” She looked up at the entrance to the bunker. “Boom!”
The first tremendous explosion shook the ground and caused the buildings that were partially built below ground to collapse. A flock of birds flew out of the trees and soared away over Liz and Jennifer’s heads. The second explosion hurled rocks into the air like confetti. A flame several feet high shot out of the ground and burned the cloud of dust in the air. An indescribable heat made the surrounding rocks glow red. The door into the building remained stuck like a shield in the soil and melted slowly, until only a silver pool remained on the charred bedrock.
In the place where a building with an underground bunker had stood moments before, there was now a huge, gaping hole in the ground—a crater with a fire blazing in the middle. Debris and wall fragments lay scattered all around the area. There was nothing to indicate who had hidden something here.
They had accomplished their mission.
Liz turned to Jennifer, grinned broadly and made an elaborate bow. “Working with you is always a pleasure.”
“Thanks. You too.” Jennifer laughed and answered Liz’s bow with an old-fashioned curtsy.
“All right, ladies, start making your way back. You’ve had enough exercise for today,” said Gray. It was clear from the sound of his voice how relieved he was by the outcome of the operation.
“You know, you’re repeating yourself.” Liz followed Jennifer through the dark-green undergrowth and into the woods, toward where they would meet the helicopter.
“Believe me, I’ve already noticed that. You’ll get an earful once you get back here. Prepare yourselves!”
“You can’t be any worse than those guys in the bunker.”
“You are hugely mistaken. Hugely!” he said, then severed the connection. Drained, Gray leaned back in his chair, pulled his headset off, and let it drop to the table. He rubbed a hand over his eyes and then ran both hands though his short dark-brown hair.
Chris kept his eyes on the monitor as he tracked the operatives’ return. “For as long as we’ve been doing this,” he said in a soft voice, “I’ve never seen anything quite like that. Unbelievable! Those two are really good. Better than good!”
“Reckless is more like it. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like it either. I was sure I’d thought through every possible scenario for how this operation could unfold, but I was sorely mistaken.”
“Liz was right about at least one thing,” Chris said.
“What’s that?”
Chris’s face, which had looked serious until this moment, lit up suddenly with an impish smile. Mischief danced in his eyes. “She really can’t carry a tune. Neither one of them can.”
At the thought of the women’s pathetic song, which had resembled nothing so much as the howling of two cats whose tails had been stepped on, neither man could contain himself any longer, and they broke out into loud, relieved laughter.
Chapter 5
“Now can I have a cigarette?” Liz looked at her friend.
“I was waiting for that! Yes, but do you still have any? I crushed the ones you had earlier, did you forget?”
“I always have some cigarettes hidden, in case of an emergency. What are you thinking? A day without cigarettes – me? Don’t even think about such a thing!” Liz shook her head and grinned at Jennifer, grimacing slightly when she felt a sharp pain again. The effect of the drug was slowly wearing off.
“Be my guest! You’ve earned one. Can I have one too?”
“Since when do you smoke? Seriously, leave me the last of my smokes. I don’t even have enough change to get more from the vending machine. Let the boss pour you a glass of cognac later, instead. I like it when you make jokes.”
“Yeah? He’ll probably just offer me a cigar… And anyway, what are you talking about, with me making jokes? I’m very even-tempered, in every situation. Maybe I didn’t completely succeed at that today, but we can blame that on our inhospitable hosts. I stayed friendly, though, didn’t I?” They studied each other from head to toe and then laughed uproariously until they couldn’t laugh anymore because of their pain.
“Today really pushed the limits, don’t you think?” Jennifer asked. Liz just shrugged her shoulders and handed her one of the two slightly crumpled cigarettes she’d fished out of her vest pocket. After she’d lit up her own cigarette, Liz leaned forward and held out a light for her partner.
Jennifer had barely inhaled when she started to wheeze and was rocked by a powerful coughing fit. Disgusted, she threw the smoldering cigarette on the floor of the helicopter, stepped on it and shook her head, as if asking herself why she’d even wanted one. She wiped her face with one hand, lifted her head and looked at Liz, her eyes widening at the sight of the blood-drenched bandage on her friend’s arm. “You’re still losing blood. The bandage is soaked again.”
“They’ll stitch me back together at the hospital. It won’t be the first time. Don’t worry about me. How are you?”
“Perfect. Come on, Liz: which of us got hurt worse? You or me?”
“Stop it already! Those guys were amateurs. Can just anyone call himself a terrorist these days?” She sounded amused.
“They really weren’t very smart,” Jennifer agreed. “But they were still very dangerous.”
“Stupid, lazy and greedy—just like a man! I wondered earlier if someone at an employment agency helped them get this job. Today, terrorists—tomorrow, shoe salesmen.”
“You have a weird imagination, Liz!” Her face distorted with pain, Jennifer held her side and tried to hold back her laughter. She couldn’t quite manage it, though, and her laughter was followed by groans of pain.
“I’m just telling the truth! They left all of our equipment in the room with us and not only did they not find the cameras on us, they didn’t even look for them.”
“You’re right, but look at it this way: if they hadn’t been such idiots, we probably wouldn’t still be alive. That’s the truth, too!”
“Agreed. Would you feel better if I promised never to suggest Plan S again?”
“Well, it was a shitty suggestion, but I’ll admit it was our only chance. From now on, we need to behave ourselves. These guys are going to be watching us more closely now. Blackwood sounded pretty ticked off earlier, and that’s putting it mildly. Royally pissed, mad as hell, or about to explode is more like it.”
“Nah, it’s all just show.” Liz waved her off. “Maybe he used to belong to a Special Forces unit, but now he just sits in front of a computer, punching in figures all day long and playing with satellites. The worst he’s going to give us is an angry look.”
“I’m not so sure about that. I got the impression from him earlier that he’s more than capable of following through. I bet he’d use any means available to keep us in line.” Jennifer sat up, stared at Liz bug-eyed and pointed frantically to the IRCs that were still fastened to their clothing and had recorded everything. It was highly probable that the men had heard their every word.
Liz lowered her head, stared at the floor and after a minute, her shoulders began to shake.
***
“What’s with her?” Chris turned to Gray, who was staring straight ahead balling his hands into fists again and again, as if he wanted to punch something—or better yet, someone. Of course the men had heard everything! “Is she crying?”
“I sincerely doubt it. But when she’s here, I’ll give her something to cry about!” Gray said, sounding furious. Oh yes, when he got his hands on Liz, she’d be in for it, all right!
Then he and Chris heard the woman laughing—softly at first, then more loudly, until she couldn’t stay on the bench anymore and, holding her sides, fell onto the floor in pain. Jennifer removed the cam
era from her clothing, looked into the small lens while giggling and tried to apologize. “Gray, I’m really sorry. It’s the loss of blood. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
Liz laughed even harder, if that was possible. “Of course I meant what I said. Every single word!”
“Dammit! Shut your mouth! I’m trying to salvage the situation,” said Jennifer. “If Townsend hears about your nasty comments about Blackwood, in addition to a report of insubordination, he’s going to give us the lecture of our lives.” Her eyes flashed and she swore. “Crap! Dammit! I forgot again that they can hear us!” She bent over Liz, removed the audio unit behind her ear, then tore the small camera from her clothing with a quick movement and threw both onto the floor. Then she made short work of the tiny devices, sending them into the netherworld with a kick that severed radio contact.
***
Chris tried to keep a serious expression on his face, but he failed miserably. Covering his laugh with a coughing fit behind a cupped hand didn’t work either. When Gray looked at him darkly, he tried to explain himself: “She could be right, you know. Liz really did lose a lot of blood. Just lapses are possible. Plus there are the drugs they were given. You can’t disregard that.”
“Is that right?” Gray’s anger sky rocketed. First his orders were disregarded, and now this. Gray couldn’t stand having his expertise and authority undermined to such an extent. He was used to discipline and respect from his men.
“Yeah, that’s right!”
“You know, it could be arranged for this to be the last day that we work together, Chris, so you might want to stop coming to their defense. If you don’t, I won’t want anything more to do with you! You’re not the one she’s making fun of here, I am!” He stared darkly at the now black monitor and remembered Liz wiping away the tears that had fallen because she was laughing so hard. At him!
