The Life We Lead: Ascending

by George Nagle

  “Look, kid, I mean Xavier, I didn’t mean to make you cry. I was just asking. You do not have to tell me. Your life is going to be a lot different after today, I promise.” James gave him a warm smile and wiped away his tears.

  Xavier regained his composure quickly and gave a small smile back.

  “Let me get you some water,” James said. He picked up a glass from the table in the corner and started to fill it from a water jug. He heard a small sound, like fabric hitting the floor. James turned back around and was about to ask Xavier if he enjoyed sports. He saw the boy was shirtless and had undone his pants and was pushing them and his underwear to the floor.

  James dropped the glass. It smashed as he shouted, “Hey! What are …?”

  The door opened, and Lien and Bik quickly entered. Lien made his way over to James while Bik grabbed Xavier and shook him harshly.

  “So sorry, sir, if he is not doing as you prease. We thought we fix him for you,” said Lien.

  James closed his eyes for half a heartbeat and then took control of the situation. “Take your hands off my property,” he said in a stern voice.

  Lien turned to look at his sister. He said something, and she released Xavier.

  “He didn’t do anything wrong; he’s fine. What were you doing outside the door listening?” James asked in an incredulous voice.

  “We listen, make sure all is okay. Help with boy, if need,” Bik answered, looking angry at being yelled at.

  “Do you think I can’t handle a boy? This is how you treat a customer? I’m not sure I’ll be returning after today. Where are your sister-in-law and nephew? Let’s talk to them.” James was disgusted and wanted to move things along. The cavalry would be arriving in five to ten minutes.

  He walked out past the others, but stopped at Xavier for a moment and tousled his hair. “I will see you in a short time, okay?”

  Lien followed him and said, “Stay here.”

  James wasn’t sure if Lien had addressed Xavier or Bik or both, so he said, “I would like Xavier to join the other children, and when he has done so, for Bik to join us.” As he walked off down the hall, he heard sounds coming from the first suite that made him even angrier. Lien gave instructions to Bik before running to catch up to him.

  “Very sorry for the mistakes, sir. We can make things better.” Lien was groveling.

  “Mr. Tan, I have a headache. Can you please stop talking so much? The echo is making my head hurt more.” They walked in silence, back through the open area with the bar and to the hallway that led to the office.

  James noticed a camera just out of view as they turned a corner toward the office. This would work to hook into the video. Now he needed an excuse to get back to this spot plus something to stand on.

  Just then, Yan Tan met them in the hallway. “Hello, Mr. Mathers. I am sorry to hear of your headache and that your visit isn’t going well so far.”

  James was right to believe there was a camera or perhaps two in the bedroom. Otherwise, how would Yan have known what had happened?

  “Perhaps we could move things along?” James said in a bored, arrogant tone.

  They entered the office to find the same cast as before, plus Bik, who joined them about a minute later. Yan’s mother seemed not to have moved, and James was fairly certain she was wearing the same outfit as before. She was staring at him oddly.

  “We had begun to think you would not be coming back, Mr. Mathers,” said Yan in a sly voice. His uncle laughed lightly.

  “I needed to make sure everything was in order for myself, as well as my cousin.”

  “Mr. Ferguson, yes, we hear he was a little sick on the return trip,” Yan said with a slight bow of his head before speaking to his mother in a different language.

  “Too much fruit. He does love pineapple. Anyhow, that isn’t what we’re here to discuss, is it?” He again spoke in a bored, arrogant voice.

  Jie spoke harshly to her son, still staring at James.

  “So sorry, my mother wishes to know why you disrespect her house by wearing that hat?” Yan translated.

  James deliberately glanced up as though he’d forgotten he was wearing a hat. Slowly, he removed it, giving a small bow to the elderly lady. “My apologies. When I have a headache, wearing a hat sometimes helps. I mean no disrespect.”

  She nodded slowly.

  “I trust all is in order for today?” James asked.

  “Yes, we have done as you have requested. They are both healthy and have been diligent in their education.” Lien answered proudly.

  James nodded. “So I believe that leaves us with an update on the Spara family.”

  The energy in the room intensified. Even the old lady seemed excited as Yan translated James’s words.

  “You will be pleased to know we have isolated an area where we plan to bring him down. It will take some time, but his underboss, or regional boss, or whatever he’s called, is a little greedy. We’ve started to gather some leverage on him. Turns out he himself uses cocaine and likes to talk loudly at strip clubs. His entire crew has been recorded with him, bringing him drugs. Hell, he travels with a kilo of blow in his trunk hidden in a spare tire.” James paused a moment to rub his temples, and Fang brought him some water. Without drinking it, James set it on the table beside him just as a loud siren went off.

  “What is that noise?” James demanded, holding his ears. He assumed it was a warning system, but knew perfectly well what had caused it. The cavalry had arrived.

  “Please, Mr. Mathers, do not worry. Nomads sometimes attack our walls. They have never been successful, and our people will subdue this quickly. They have been more aggressive lately, so we have had to increase security with new cameras and warning systems.” Yan spoke in a reassuring way. He clicked his fingers and the men in the room, except for Lien and Hansel, left.

  As the door shut, a second blast of the siren went off. This did not sit well with the Tan family.

  “Nothing to worry about,” said Yan, helping his mother to her feet. “My mother, like you, does not like this loud noise. She will be going to, ah, a private bedroom until this passes.”

  What Yan was really saying was that she was going to the vault that must serve as a panic room as a third blast of the siren was heard, along with the faint sound of gunfire.

  “What is going on? I thought this operation of yours was safe!” James, still holding his ears, pretended to be angry.

  “Nothing to worry about. I will personally tend to the situation.” Yan gave his uncle a look and they also left.

  Now it was just James, Bik, and Hansel, who shut the door to the panic room Jie had just entered.

  A fourth long blast sounded, and Bik started nervously.

  “You wait here, understand? You be safe here. Come,” she said, motioning to Hansel, and they too were gone.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  That had worked out better than James could have hoped. Never had he imagined that he’d be left alone in the office with just Jie behind a panic room door. He sprang into action to take down the power grid.

  The major, the twins, and Paul had reviewed which main boxes they believed to give power to the EMP force field. They’d decided not to take out all the breakers because James wouldn’t be able to retrieve any data and the camera system wouldn’t work, so he started at the ones furthest from the computers and began switching them off. The twins believed that even a partial reduction in power would do the trick, but James wanted to be certain. He tripped the furthest six of the eight and didn’t lose the cameras or the computers. He wanted to trip another, but decided not to press his luck.

  He quickly accessed a cable that led to the monitors, and was about to snap on the video cable from his hat when he heard a loud La Cucaracha horn blast.

  Yes!

  That meant the guys had made it past the EMP force field with their equipment.

  James snapped the transmitter into place. Now the twins and Matt would have visibility into the fortress cameras.

/>   He quickly tried to get into the computer system. He removed the hard drive from his hat, took the disc from on top, and placed it in the drive. Hopefully it would be able to bypass any security and allow him to make a copy of the hard drive.

  He pulled the side panel off the tower at the desk and plugged in the hard drive as the CD worked to break the security. It was hard to focus on aligning the pins to the hard drive, as he naturally wanted to see what was happening on the monitors. Finally, they snapped in place, and James looked at the system screen and found he was in.

  He wanted to copy the main information, but he found incredible amounts of data, most of which wasn’t actually stored on the computer’s main hard drive.

  The files were all in Chinese and he couldn’t read the names; he’d need Tim for that. He decided to sort the files by size and grabbed those that would fit on the drive. A ton of video must be stored on the drives, and those would be massive files he didn’t need. This process, even with high-end technology, would take a good fifteen minutes to transfer. He couldn’t wait for the entire data dump onto the new drive, so he turned off the screen, placed the cover back on the tower, and searched the monitors for the kids.

  He found them amassed and huddled in the largest dormitory. It looked like there were at least fifty of them. He had to secure them until the removal squad was ready, which meant he’d have to come back for the hard drive.

  Running out of the office was like turning up the volume on a TV or radio. There was a lot of screaming and shouting, but it wasn’t very audible over the gunfire outside. As James scrambled down the stairs toward the main entrance, he heard a crashing of glass from the tower as some explosives hit their mark. He paused a moment to avoid the rain of shards. He could hear people shouting and fighting outside.

  James dashed down the middle corridor to the biggest dorm room. When he got there, he found a lot of frightened children and two young women standing over them. Either they were going to help him or he was going to knock them out. He didn’t have time to be a gentleman.

  He was waiting for the second blast of the horn to tell him the explosives were in place to create the main exit to get the kids out. When it sounded, they had to be ready to go, which meant he had about five minutes to move the kids.

  “We need to move, right now. Everyone to the bath area hallway.”

  The kids just stared at him.

  “We have to go now!” James shouted.

  Little Jasmine stood up and screamed something, and the two young adults started moving the kids. Just as they began filing into the main corridor, he heard the La Cucaracha horn. He’d been underestimated the time needed to move the kids.

  “Everyone down and cover your heads!” James dropped to the floor, hoping they’d mimic his actions, and they did. A huge blast went off and shook the fortress. Parts of the walls and ceiling fell near them, but no major chunks hit anyone.

  James stood and told Jasmine to get everyone to the bathing room fast, and that they’d find men there to get them to safety. She followed his instructions.

  The kids moved too slowly. James knew they were scared, but they didn’t have time to waste. He tried to push them along. Some seemed to want to stay in the room and clutched the bed frames, but with help from some of the older kids, he and Jasmine got them all moving.

  James stayed with them until he caught sight of Ben and Paul.

  “You’ve got ten minutes!” Paul yelled, and James gave him a thumbs up.

  Earlier, they’d worked out that they’d detonate the exit they created so that those who fought for the Tan family would be trapped inside, but first James would sweep the rooms to make sure no kids were left. He wouldn’t have time to do that and grab the hard drive, which meant he’d have to leave it.

  He didn’t give the hard drive a second thought but began sweeping the rooms visually, quickly sticking his head in and checking each, his instincts guiding him as much as anything.

  He made it to the furthest distance from the opening in less than three minutes. He didn’t expect to find anyone, as he hadn’t seen any kids outside the main dorm on the monitors previously, but he wanted to check anyhow. Sure enough, on the return path, he found a girl and boy about five or six who could have been siblings.

  He got them up and moving. He still checked rooms as he went, but the going was slower now, as the kids were practically fighting him to go back. Luckily, there weren’t as many spots to check going back. He did find a pitch-black hallway with a few thick pipes emerging from it that he figured was near the back end of the bathing room, but it hadn’t been on the map, so he couldn’t be sure. There was a faint sound coming from hall, but not a sound kids would make. He decided to move on.

  As they reached the intersection that would lead to the about-to-be-created exit, Lien appeared. They had about five minutes left, and James knew Paul and Ben had already vacated the building.

  James told the two kids to go to the baths and hoped they understood.

  Lien was running at him with a gun. Apparently, he thought James was protecting the kids. He did not shoot at James, who was unarmed.

  “Ah, sir, thank you for herp with them. We need to secure you, too,” Lien said.

  As soon as Lien was in arm’s reach, James took the gun. It wasn’t difficult, as Lien wasn’t expecting it.

  In the blink of an eye, James made a logical choice, one devoid of emotion, and shot Lien center mass three times. He didn’t hesitate, nor did he wait to see the body hit the floor.

  He chased after the two kids, scooped them up, and ran out the exit. They saw one of the transportation vehicles and Paul, grinning.

  James picked up a headset, ignoring Paul’s celebratory antics. “Major, this is James. Where do we stand?”

  “No losses. We’ve taken out a fair few of them. They’re mostly forced back inside the main hall entrance, but are still keeping up gun fire.”

  “East sector, upper torrent has fire coming from it,” crackled a voice over the headsets.

  A vehicle raced toward their position.

  “We were waiting to hear from you before calling in the heavy fire and bringing this bitch down. ETA of 26 minutes; I called it in when you emerged,” said the major.

  Matt and Calvin were in the approaching cargo van with the monitors.

  “This is Calvin,” came a voice. “We have a problem.”

  “What?” James asked flatly.

  “It’s Raymond. He, he, he went in,” Calvin stammered as the truck approached.

  “We got them pinned, moving toward point B,” came a different voice on the headsets.

  “Oh, you have got to be shitting me!” said Jason on the headset.

  “Silence!” James commanded. “Not you, Calvin. You’d better start talking fast.”

  Calvin and Matt had reached them. James opened the side door to the cargo van and Calvin tumbled out.

  “We were watching on the monitors.” Calvin pointed inside at all the screens, and James could see what was happening. Raymond was in the office, snapping the hard drive into his cargo pants.

  “Jason, behind you! Never mind. She’s down. Some insider’s got your back,” said Kevin’s voice.

  “How did he get in there?” James pulled the headset slightly off his ear to hear Calvin better.

  Jason was saying something faintly on the headset.

  “The old woman, she had a back door to the room she was in. When you threw that last power switch, it opened a door for her. We watched her go out and he thought you were in trouble and wouldn’t have time to get the disk. So he went … Look out, Raymond!” Calvin called, but Raymond wasn’t wearing a headset or camera. Yan had come in and had him at gunpoint.

  “Damn it,” James swore.

  “We have to save him!” Calvin pleaded.

  Jason spoke again, but James couldn’t catch what he said.

  James was on the verge of saying no. He wanted that drive and he wanted to save Raymond, but the risk was too hi
gh. Raymond had acted foolishly and disobeyed a direct order given to keep him safe.

  “James, answer Jason!” screamed Matt.

  “What?” yelled James, sliding the headset back on.

  “The guy who saved me seems to be trying to subdue the others one-by-one but is losing a fight. Do we help?” asked Jason.

  “Does he look like he could be Italian mixed with Chinese, about twenty years old?” asked James quickly.

  “Could be, yeah …”

  “It’s Joe. Get him out.”

  “Rocket launcher coming up steps!” screamed a voice, and then they heard a loud bang.

  “Got ‘em,” came Matt’s voice calmly on the headset.

  “We have to go,” called the major. “Everyone else is in the clear and maintaining perimeter fire. I don’t like leaving a man more than anyone else, but we have a ton of kids to get to safety.”

  Then James saw him on the monitors. It was Xavier. He was running up and down the hallway, doing what James had already done, looking for the others. Ben saw him, too.

  “Major, we have not completed all objectives and certainly not critical ones,” Ben said. “We have one more in there.”

  “Son of a bitch,” said the major and not in his normal playful way. “If we call off this air strike, we won’t get another. This is a low flight mission and can’t risk another pass.”

  Calvin was watching the progress of his brother. Yan and two others had taken him to one of the staged rooms, stripped him naked, and tied him to an X-shaped cross. They were hitting him with a cattle prod. Calvin was crying almost as much as Raymond was screaming.

  James closed his eyes. Two deep breaths later, he snapped them open. He had a plan.

  “No one speak for a minute. This is what we’re going to do.” James was already in motion. Taking off his coat, he grabbed a belt with rings on it plus grappling rope, two explosive sticks, three clip grenades, and two 9mm pistols.

  “Keegan, take this transport unit and get back to the major to add some limited support. Paul, I need you to switch the charges time and add,” he glanced at his watch, “twelve minutes. Then watch the monitors for us.