Sweet Dreams

by Aaron Patterson

  Mark studied the Russian’s face. Why would he go against the WJA and turn against his own country?

  His thoughts were interrupted by Johnny’s stern voice. He was going over the details of their mission.

  “We need two teams to go in to take out Karjanski and Maddock. Mark, you and Isis will take care of the hit on the general. Big B and I will take care of Mr. Maddock. Then we’ll rescue Weston.”

  Jamison went over the blueprints and layouts of the building on the coast of Puerto Rico, where they believed the Russians were holding Weston. From the satellite images, the abandoned asylum looked like it was heavily guarded and would be hard to penetrate.

  “We are only there to take out our two targets. Guards will be shot with non-lethal weapons. Our FBI informant has already been tagged and will be brought in alive for questioning. Any questions?”

  They shook their heads.

  Just as Johnny was wrapping up, Solomon walked in, a grim set to his mouth. He took the floor. “I have some new information I think you should know before you go on this mission.” He took off his glasses.

  “We just learned that General Karjanski has kidnapped two other individuals. We learned this information from Agent Seloent, whom we picked up thirty minutes ago.”

  Mark could feel his stomach tighten. Solomon was always calm, never nervous. He took a breath and tried to focus as Solomon went on.

  “The two that were taken are very close to Mark—and to me.” He blinked and looked into Mark’s eyes. “They have K and Sam.”

  The world went white. For a moment, Mark thought he was losing his mind and might never recover. Was this another dream? He tried to speak but couldn’t.

  His mind flooded with a million thoughts of what could be happening to his family. He tried to see the future, maybe force a dream so he could see if they were okay. But he couldn’t.

  Isis put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Mark. We’ll get them back.”

  He looked at Solomon as his training took over and his heart slowed to a normal beat. He had to be strong for his family. He took a breath and nodded for Solomon to go on.

  Solomon clenched his fists. “We believe they are being held in the same building as Detective Weston. Our mission is now one thing, and only one. Top priority is K and Samantha. We are to ensure their safety at any cost.

  “Second is Weston. We need him on our side.” He straightened. “We’re on the clock now, people. This is a rescue operation. If we come in contact with either of the two targets, take them out, but don’t go looking for them.”

  They were dismissed, and everyone headed to the main Taxi room. Ten different locations were accessible from the New York headquarters, as well as fifteen more throughout the city at different safe houses.

  Mark was scared, but he tried not to show it. He couldn’t understand why his family was taken. He wasn’t connected to the Russian or anyone else involved, as far as he knew. Is it a random thing? He didn’t think so. It had to be a direct attack against him.

  Isis smiled at him and tried to show her support as she suited up for the hour-long ride on the Taxi of Death, as she called it, saying if anything went wrong, “you’ll be dead before you know what you hit.”

  Mark was soon suited up. The four looked at each other without saying anything. They all knew their part, and they knew what was at stake. With a nod, Mark climbed inside one of the tubes and soon was on his way to the most important mission of his life.

  He had lost his family once. He was not about to lose them a second time.

  * * *

  BLOOD TRICKLED DOWN KIRK’S face from a large cut above his left eye. The beating was severe, but still he cursed and spit at his attackers. They wouldn’t know how much he was hurting. They wouldn’t break him.

  All he could think about the last few days was the woman and little girl he had helped. Are they okay? Did they make it out? He hoped they had. The only thing that kept him alive was the possibility of escape and making sure they had survived.

  He hadn’t been looked at as a hero in a long time, and the look on the woman’s face when he opened their cell door was worth every beating he’d endured since.

  His captors had cut his feet with razorblades. Both were bloody and swollen, probably infected. One step would be enough to make a strong man pass out from the pain. The Russians mocked him and left the door open, just to see if he had it in him to try to escape. But he knew they were waiting for him just down the hall.

  He stared at the open door and the light in the hall beyond. It looked so easy. Just walk out the door. But it wasn’t so simple. His cell floor was littered with broken glass and metal shavings, as was the hallway. It was a cruel joke. The two masked men who scattered the glass and metal had laughed and had a grand old time, like torturing people was their only entertainment.

  As Kirk sat in the middle of his cold cell stripped naked and bleeding from his hands and feet, he tried to work himself up to make another try for it.

  Come on, man. You never give up. NEVER!

  * * *

  K SAT WITH THE AUTOMATIC weapon across her lap and a bad feeling in her gut. She went over in her mind what she was going to do when the guard awoke. She’d never killed anyone before and wasn’t sure she could do it now.

  Sam turned over and yawned.

  K clamped her teeth together. She couldn’t let her daughter die in this awful place.

  Sam opened her eyes.

  K put her finger over her lips and smiled. Sam knew she was supposed to be quiet. She was such a brave little girl. K was proud of her, loved her sweet little smile.

  Rising to her feet, she picked Sam up and moved her to the back of the little shed. She wanted to hide her, just in case something went wrong.

  She whispered in Sam’s ear. “Stay here until Mommy calls for you, okay?” Sam nodded, leaned back against the wall, and hugged her knees.

  “Good girl.”

  K stepped around one of the grinding, clunking pumps and looked at the gun in her hand. It had a silencer clipped to the side of the barrel. At least that’s what she thought it was from watching CSI Miami with Mark every Thursday night.

  Pulling it free, she threaded it onto the end of the barrel. It was easer then she thought it would be, which made her feel a little better. Sliding the action back, she loaded a round in the chamber with a click that she was sure should have awakened the guard.

  Peering around the corner, she checked to see if he was still sleeping.

  The spot where he had been was empty.

  Looking wildly around, she stepped out from behind the second pump just as one turned back on with a loud whirring sound. The noise made her jump, but not as much as the hand that came around her mouth and pulled her to the ground.

  The shock of the fall made her lose her grip on the gun. It went flying. Before she could turn over, she felt a kick to her side, which shot pain up her spine and knocked the breath from her lungs.

  She flipped onto her back, kicked with both legs and made contact. Her attacker staggered back, hit his head on a metal pipe and fell to the ground with a thud and a grunt.

  She rolled to her knees and scrabbled for the gun. It was three feet away but felt like a hundred miles. When she finally grabbed it, she spun around just in time to hear the growl and see the furious guard jump at her. She closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER 26

  THE GUARD’S HOLLOW EYES stared at K as she pushed him off her body. Breathing hard, she leaned over his body and vomited. She’d never killed anyone or even dreamed it would ever be something she’d have to do.

  Samantha came around the corner. “Mommy?” She looked at the dead man lying on the floor. K tried to cover her innocent child’s eyes, but Sam pointed at the body. “Bad man.”

  K sighed and reached for her daughter. “Yeah, honey, he’s a bad man. But he won’t hurt us anymore.”

  Holding Sam close, she tried to think. It would be dark in a few hours
. They could make a run for the gate or maybe try to get on one of the delivery trucks that came in through the gates in the evenings.

  “I’m hungry.”

  “I know, hon. I’m hungry, too.” She couldn’t remember the last time they’d had anything to eat.

  Avoiding the guard’s unblinking stare, K searched his pockets and found a packet of trail mix plus a canteen of water. They shared the trail mix, morsel by morsel, until every crumb was gone. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  They both jumped when the radio on the dead guard’s belt squawked. The language was German or Russian. K couldn’t tell. But the voice sounded urgent, and she had a feeling what that could mean.

  They would be coming to find their missing guard.

  * * *

  MARK OPENED HIS EYES and tried to see the broken landscape out the window, but all he saw was K’s face. They’d made it to Puerto Rico early that morning. After a long ride in a beat-up, old Jeep Cherokee, then a switch to a station wagon for the final trip through the interior of the island, they were almost to their checkpoint. They would arrive before dark.

  The Taxi had put them on a part of the island farthest from where they wanted to be, but it was still faster than taking a plane and a lot less headache. Guns were frowned upon on airplanes, anyway.

  Isis punched him on the arm and smiled. “How you holding up?”

  “Okay, considering. Any news?”

  “No, just that our FBI informant cracked and told us who else he had working for him.”

  “That’s good news. Anyone I know?”

  “Nope, just a CSI agent. He ended up dead along with his wife. That Geoff character is a hired hit man connected with the Russian Mafia as well as the FBI.”

  Mark remembered the picture of the man. He must have been good to have been able to fool Detective Weston. Judging from his file, Weston was a sharp guy and had solved more cases in the DPD than any other detective on the force. No one cared about his success rate though, due to his nonconformist personality.

  “One thing I don’t get,” Mark said. “Why did they take my family? I’m not connected with them in any way. Do you think they know about my involvement in the WJA?”

  “Not sure. That confuses me, too.” Isis looked up from her tablet. “At this point, I don’t think the reason matters. We just need to get Sam and K out of there. We’ll sort through the whys later.”

  Mark nodded and watched as they passed run-down houses and fields filled with workers picking what he assumed were coffee beans. It looked like a tedious job, and from the looks on the natives’ faces, he was right.

  An hour later, they reached a small building made from old lumber and tin roofing material. A big, dark-skinned, Puerto Rican man smiled and waved as they drove up. He looked like he could be Big B’s brother.

  “Welcome to the island, my friends. You have a good ride, yes?”

  They all nodded as they stretched, trying to work out their cramped muscles before they stepped inside.

  The interior of the shack wasn’t much better than the outside. The floor was dirt, and Mark could see through the holes in the walls. A large wooden crate sat on the floor in the center of the room. He walked over to it and read the label on the top. Bananas.

  “Yes. It’s our equipment, the good stuff!” Big B smiled and tore into the crate. The bananas were, in fact, M249s, Squad automatic weapons and one M2 50cal. sniper rifle. Big B tossed the sniper rifle to Mark, along with a scope and a few clips of ammo.

  After the contents of the box were emptied, Big B loaded his backpack with Claymore mines, hand grenades, and a few biological bombs. Isis had a machine gun and a belt loaded with throwing darts dipped with a tranquilizer.

  Jamison, wearing thermal glasses, threw each person a small earpiece that linked them all together. Jamison’s call sign was lookout. He was in charge of clearing the way and being their eyes and ears.

  Big B was groundkeeper, charged with ensuring they had whatever diversion needed and that their butts were covered in case of a problem.

  Isis and Mark would go in hot. Mark had a long-range rifle. Isis had short-range charges and the knockout power. Mark inspected his weapon. His rifle folded in two parts. In the full lockout position, it was loaded with a plastic bullet filled with a chemical called Liquid Metal.

  Similar to mixing concrete powder with water, Liquid Metal would hit the blood stream and mix with incredible speed. In a matter of seconds, the victim would lose all motor skills and vision. The blood would carry it through the body, which would harden head to toe in less than ten seconds, leaving the victim stiff and dead.

  The best part was that the victim could not scream or cry for help, making it the perfect weapon for this type of mission.

  Mark also carried a sidearm, a fifty-round air gun that could shoot semi-automatic or full auto. The tiny darts were filled with liquid explosives that would penetrate the skin and explode within half a second. The only sound was a puff of air, then a faint pop as the mini-bomb scrambled the victim’s insides.

  Johnny Jamison went over the plan one more time as they assembled their gear. As anxious as they all were, they had to wait one more hour, until it was completely dark. Mark tried to hide his fear. He wasn’t afraid for himself, but for K and Sam. What if his team was too late? He couldn’t bear to think he might fail them again.

  * * *

  KIRK COULD FEEL HIS head swim and the glass dig into his knees and hands as he crawled down the hall, trying to make it to an empty cell.

  All he hoped was that the other cells weren’t covered with glass, too. He made it to the last door, reached up, and turned the doorknob.

  It was open.

  He rolled inside and gritted his teeth as bits of metal and glass, already embedded into his back, dug in deeper. He felt around and discovered the new room was free of shards. He lay on his back, trying to get a second wind. He’d left a blood trail. It wouldn’t take a genius to find him.

  Let them come.

  He was in the mood to tangle with a guard or two. Pain will either break or make a man, and it was making him madder by the minute.

  After he worked the glass from his hands and knees, he found an old pillowcase on the mattress in the corner of the room. He tore it into pieces and wrapped his feet to stop the bleeding. Besides his feet, the busted ribs and miscellaneous cuts and bruises, he could tell he had a broken nose. He limped toward the door and looked out into the hall.

  He needed a weapon. Something—anything. He scanned the floor. Most of the glass was broken into little pieces, but some of the metal chunks were just the right size for a makeshift knife.

  He picked up two long, sharp, four-inch pieces and wrapped them on one end with the last bits of the pillowcase. He made his way through the door at the end of the hall and could hear voices coming from a door off to the left. It was also back the way he had come, over the glass-lined floor. Finding the same crate he had hidden behind earlier, Kirk shook his head. Déjà-vu all over again.

  He spotted an air-duct cover in the ceiling that looked like a return, which meant it would be open to the dead space above. Though the pain was incredible, he crawled onto the crate, stood upright in all his naked glory and reached for the grill. He could barely get a handhold, but with some effort, he pulled himself into the open hole, scraping his bare back. He replaced the grill and peered down.

  He heard footsteps. Two bearded men stopped to talk just a few feet from the vent. They were talking in Russian or some variation of it. One rolled his ski mask to the crown of his head, lit a cigar and moved on, puffing at the stogie as if it was his last meal.

  The other sat on the crate, pulled a flask from his pocket, lifted his mask and unscrewed the top. Kirk saw the man’s boots and coveted them, as well as the gun hanging from a strap on his shoulder. But the shoes had more appeal than the gun at this point.

  He quietly removed the grill and placed it to one side and studied the guard. The big, hairy man outwei
ghed him by a good twenty pounds, but if he surprised him, he might be able to overpower him. He leaned forward. This is going to hurt.

  Jumping from his hiding place naked and bloody, he landed on top of the unsuspecting guard. The guard flopped to the ground without a sound. Kirk rolled to his knees and looked at the shard of glass protruding from of his victim’s neck. It worked. The guy was dead. Apparently, he’d hit an artery.

  Grabbing the huge man by the collar, he dragged his body into an open cell and closed the door. He quickly undressed him, slipped on the clothing and shoes, though they were two sizes too big. He hitched the belt tight, pulled the black ski mask over his head and stepped out of the cell. After checking the machine gun to make sure it was loaded, he trotted down the hall toward the exit.

  * * *

  A CROSSHAIR LINED UP with the head of an unknowing Russian guard making his rounds on the main site. Mark tracked him as he walked behind a small outbuilding, then dropped him with a single round.

  The man hit the ground. Mark could see him stiffen as the fluids in his body turned as hard as steel. Mark scoped out his next target. He was patient—he had to be. The attack had to be done with the utmost care in order not to alert the others or further endanger his wife and daughter.

  Isis lay next to him under the heavy camouflaged netting they shared. They blended into the brush and would be unseen, even if the enemy was right on top of them. She whispered in his earpiece that another guard was taking a leak in the bushes to the left. With a quick swing of his rifle, Mark took him out.

  Big B made his way down to the main yard, through the double fence, and past the dogs. He placed charges under a Jeep and on the side of a fuel tank balanced on tall wooden stilts. Mark made sure he was covered. The computer screen inside the small hut was linked to a thermal imaging camera that could see through almost any material. It was like a big X-ray device, but live and very nice to have on an operation like this. Jamison announced that he spotted someone kill a guard and take his clothes.

  “He’s on the main floor, making his way in our direction. Don’t shoot. I think it’s Weston.” Jamison laughed. “He’s limping, but appears as determined as the file says he is.”