Risk it All

by Fiona Price

As the sun was setting, Matt finally sunk into sleep and the girls were all sitting outside their room by the pool, not talking and thinking about the fight to come. Vicki was waiting for Shane to come back, and after the sun sunk below the horizon, they heard Shane's car pull up and park. The door closed and his footsteps approached. Vicki got up out of her chair as she saw his silhouette come nearer and she met him halfway. Her hands found his and he kissed her forehead before walking into one of their rooms. Matt was still asleep and even though they all knew that Matt slept like a bear, they kept their voices down.

  "What did HPD say about everything?" Vicki asked, and Shane laid down a case file.

  "So, their intel told us that Andrei recently bought a house on the North Shore. Of course, that's the rich part of town, lots of gated homes, and it's the perfect private hideout. Nobody asks any questions, and he's got a private estate where only he can let people in and out. They've taken thermals and pictures up in the air and we can tell that there are eight people on the property. Andrei, Vanessa, the three guys we saw on the diner surveillance tapes, and three more security guards. With our powers combined with SWAT and HPD, we should be able to take them down, but they've found out that Andrei is in business with some heavy arms suppliers, so he could be stocked up to a potential we don't even know."

  "Shane, he's only got eight guys on that property right now, and by the time he knows we're raiding him, he won't have time to call for whoever else is on their payroll. This should be a standard op, and it should be just fine. We can end this, we can put him and all of his associates in jail. We have a strong case, we've covered all our bases."

  "I can just see how things could go wrong."

  "But, they're not going to go wrong. We've got this, Shane. I know you've got our backs, and we've got yours. Baby, I’m here, and I'm not going anywhere." Vicki reassured.

  "When is it all going down?" Scarlet asked.

  "Probably tomorrow, honestly. HPD didn't give us a specific time frame, but if we're ready and so are they, there's no point in delaying it any longer."

  "Okay. There's nothing more we can do right now, Shane. I know what you need, and it's sleep. Let's just have this moment together, okay?" Vicki concluded, her hands on his shoulders. Shane couldn't say no to her eyes and it wasn't long before they were in bed. Shane hadn't laid down in nearly two days, and his aching muscles and joints melted into the mattress next to Vicki. Alissa did the same, and though Matt was asleep he could tell that Alissa was lying next to him and he rolled over, putting his arm around her and bringing her close.

  They all had one more night of peace before they found themselves in the HPD precinct, strapping on their Kevlar vests. Alissa was packing weapons wherever she could fit them, and by the end of the process it felt like she was made half of metal. Scarlet was as stoic as usual, and Shane was stripping his rifle over and over again until the setup felt right. That was the first time Alissa had seen Shane nervous.

  "I don't know, there's just something lingering that I can't explain. I know I've been over the plan a million times, but it still feels like we're going to get attacked unexpectedly by something we wouldn't have been able to see coming. That's what I'm nervous about, honestly." Shane explained to Alissa, because she couldn't just ignore the look in his eyes and his shaking hands.

  Shane was right. His intuition was absolutely, one-hundred-percent spot on. He had no idea what he was right about, but it bothered him he couldn't prepare for it, and he knew that they were walking into a trap, but couldn't defend themselves against it. He was putting his team at risk, and he didn't know what for. Only when it was too late, would they know what was really happening behind the scenes of Andrei's operation.

  When the team, HPD and SWAT all arrived at Andrei's estate on the North Shore, they didn't have a lot of time before Andrei knew he was under siege. They had gone over the plan plenty of times and were ready to follow SWAT's lead after they broke through the main gate that was a heavy mahogany-colored wood. There wasn't immediate gunfire, but Andrei came out to meet them.

  "Commander Shane McAndrews, I knew that you were going to find me. Good work, sir, I'm impressed." Andrei greeted as he met them out on the expansive, lush, green lawn. He walked down the cobblestone pathway towards them, but he kept his distance.

  "Did you think I was going to let you run?" Shane answered. "You tried to kill one of my men, and I have enough against you and your men to put you in jail with no hope of ever leaving, unless it's in a box."

  "I knew you were determined. That's why it was so much fun to tease you and your team, your family. I hope you all enjoyed your letters. Watching you squirm was a wonderful thing."

  "Yeah, well, I'm done having fun. I know you won't surrender and come with us, so I take it we're doing things the hard way. Am I right in assuming that?"

  "Yes, Commander, you are. It seems you came prepared, but so am I."

  "I think I'll be seeing you in Hell, Andrei." Shane spoke back, and he knew that was the end of their niceties. It had immediately evolved into a heavy gunfight, and they were being attacked from all angles. They learned quickly that there were more than eight people on his estate, and though they had expected a big fight, they didn't know exactly what was coming. Shane alone was able to take down a handful for certain, and SWAT moved into the house to do their sweep. HPD locked down the perimeter, and the task force was staying in the enclosed, expansive yard. They could hear a helicopter arriving overhead, but they weren't expecting any air backup. It was an all-black helicopter, and by the time they noticed it was approaching, their worlds slowly faded away, too. They were shot, but instead of being hit with bullets, they were dosed with Ketamine, a horse tranquilizer.

  Alissa didn’t remember what happened after that.

  She woke up on the helicopter that she saw arrive for a brief moment, and she had no memory of what happened afterwards. She couldn't really remember what had happened before she was tossed on the helicopter either. She knew that she was in a brutal fight with Andrei Petrovitch, but she didn't know who the people around her were or where she was going, but she knew that it couldn't be somewhere good.

  She was starting to become more clear-headed and her reaction to the strangers in black surrounding her was as if they were the enemy, so of course she fought back. It was five against one and they got her face down on the floor of the helicopter, handcuffing her with sturdy black zip ties. Yanking her off the ground, she fought back against them, but it was no use. She surely had been kidnapped and that was the end of that story. She was sure her team would come back for her.

  But as more time passed, it didn't seem like they were trying all that hard to rescue her.

  Alissa was caked in blood, having smeared it all over her face during the mission. It was intense and risky, she and the team were in a guns-blazing battle against the Armenian mafia, and it was no joke. Her captors weren't like the people she was fighting, but they wouldn't tell her who they were or what they wanted with her. That made her anxious, since she overheard them talking about New York- which was a long way from Hawaii.

  Two of the five men were sitting on either side of her. Her arms were tied behind her back, her elbows sticking out and they had laced their arms through hers to ensure she couldn't run. Two others sat across from her, staring her down, and the fifth was the one leading the mission to get her, and then there was the pilot. She stared the agents down until they got to the mainland where the helicopter descended. The blood was fully dried on her face, it came off in powder when she moved her face or blinked as it fell off her eyelashes. It was a bloodbath, for sure, and she understood then why they thought she was such a threat.

  She couldn't even walk herself to the plane that would take her to New York. The agents that had their arms locked through hers were taller than her short five feet, they lifted her up off the ground and carried her to the military jet. She kicked her legs, since it was against her nature to sit aside and be submissive. She wanted some contr
ol, but she was unlikely to get it. It seemed like a governmental operation to extract her from Hawaii and they wouldn't let her off easy. They followed the same procedure on the plane, staring her down and holding her in place. She was extremely jet lagged, for she refused to let herself sleep and couldn't even if she tried in the presence of the military men.

  That was, until she got to New York and she knew exactly where they were taking her. She was heading straight for the landing for the mainland office for the task force in Manhattan.

  The small plane landed on the roof, and she finally got a chance to put her feet on the ground. They held her hands that were still secured behind her, but she walked all on her own to the boss who was waiting at the entrance for her.

  "Lieutenant Alissa Montgomery. We've been waiting for you." The man spoke. She had only heard about him in stories, she had never met or seen him in real life, but it seemed as if he knew her well. It was their big boss.

  Shane was in charge of the Florida task force, and he worked directly under the Governor. But, there were task forces just like his across the United States, and they were all organized by the national manager, the man standing before Alissa.

  Staying silent, she continued her march towards him. The security detail followed her until they had maneuvered through the maze that was the tower, and he gave the signal for them to back off. She was standing in the middle of the room, her feet in a strong stance and her chin up high despite being captured.

  "What am I doing here?" Alissa asked her boss.

  "We'll talk after we disarm you." He answered, and a team had entered the room. They had kept their distance from her, analyzing her. She didn't know why they were, and she didn't like how it felt to have them stare her down with creased foreheads and questioning eyes. A female agent approached her, beginning to strip her of her weapons and tactical gear. She undid the snaps of Alissa's tactical vest, letting the Kevlar thud on the white flooring. Alissa was in full tac gear, making the process just a little bit harder for everyone.

  A different agent picked up the vest, taking out every weapon and separating the pieces so they were useless. The line of black metal just extended as the woman continued her work on Alissa. She removed her thigh holster next, handing it off to her partner and he unloaded the weapons, it was like clockwork. Alissa, though, wasn't so sure how much she liked being kidnapped and disarmed. She knew that she was just being restrained by plastic and was able to covertly free herself. She would have gotten away with it too, if the third agent didn't set up his tactical gear in the same way and knew exactly what she was hiding and what she was doing.

  "Natalie, watch out!" He called, jumping out of his seat towards her. Alissa hid a knife against her lower back and had cut herself free, and now that she was able to do some damage, she was even more of a threat. Natalie took her down and pinned her to the floor as the third agent stood above her, his gun drawn and pointed at her, daring her to make another move like that. Natalie flipped her over and cuffed her with metal cuffs instead of the plastic ones Alissa easily escaped.

  The third agent put his gun away and lifted her off the floor, so she was standing again, and she was pissed. He did not keep a friendly hand on her shoulder. It was aggressive and holding her in place. Natalie took out knives from her ankle holsters, passing them off to her partner. Even when she had done a full pat down and had taken away around 20 weapons from her person, Natalie still wasn't sure she had gotten everything. Nodding to the boss, the third agent, James, marched her with a little bit of a push away from the white room and into a conference room.

  He sat her down in a chair and stepped back against the wall. Nobody wanted to talk to her, they weren't even sure what to say to her. She was staring at them from behind a mask of blood, and they weren't sure how to read her eyes. As if she wasn't there, Steve, Natalie's partner, walked into the conference room and slapped a file down on the glass table. Alissa didn't even flinch at the gesture.

  "Lieutenant," He addressed Alissa. "We have a lot of questions for you."

  "Lieutenant?" Natalie asked.

  "Yes. Lieutenant Montgomery is private special forces, working with the Miami task force unit for high profile crimes. Before that, she worked with the Boston PD. She graduated at the top of her class and has 19 confirmed kills from her time in the military. She is currently trained in the most powerful combat techniques."

  "I hate to be the one to point this out, but she's just over five feet tall." James asked, gesturing to her.

  "And I've strangled men with my thighs alone." Alissa answered.

  "I would be careful, James." Steve spoke.

  "So, is anyone going to tell me why I'm here?" Alissa asked. Steve swallowed hard, everyone was looking at him to deliver the news.

  "Lieutenant," He began, his tone becoming softer and he sat at the table across from her. "There is no easy way to say this. You're not a hostage, you're not in trouble, in fact we rescued you. You are the only living member of the task force. Everything is gone."

  "What about Commander McAndrews? Detective Matthew Daniels?" Alissa asked, her voice cracking in a rare display of vulnerability. Steve looked down at his hands. Alissa held her breath and willed her tear to run back into her eye.

  "Oh my god." She whispered.

  "We had our eyes on you for a while and knew your capabilities, and we extracted you from the gunfight before you became a casualty too. You're the only one left."

  Alissa was absolutely stunned. It just couldn't be possible. In the span of a little over a year, she had lost her fiancée, Alex, fell in love with someone new, and lost him too. She refused to let it be her reality. And, there was just something in Alissa's gut telling her that her Commander wasn't dead like they were telling her.

  The second she was out of the cuffs, she was going to find out for herself what the truth really was. She had learned to trust her gut over the years, and something about it wasn't sitting right with her. She refused to believe that everyone she cared about was gone, and wouldn't rest until she saw it with her own two eyes.

  XVII

  Alissa's stomach wasn't resting easily, and neither was her brain. She was being kept in a bare-bones holding cell they were calling a room, but it was nothing more than a bed, a window and a small bathroom. She was stripped of all means of escaping, she had no badge, no weapons, and not even her phone. She wasn't exactly sure if she was in danger, but something didn't feel right at all. They were hiding something from her, and she knew they weren't going to make it easy on her to find out what it was they were hiding.

  But, her gut was telling her something, and it sure as hell wasn't grief.

  She expected to feel grief, that above all things, once she was told everyone she loved was dead and she was the only one left from the operation. But, grief was the very last thing she was feeling. She knew she had a time gap that she couldn't explain, and she had a feeling that was going hand-in-hand with her suspicion that something just wasn't right. She couldn't even use her phone to try and find out what, because of course that would expose the secret they were trying to hide from her.

  That wasn't going to stop her, though. She knew that she was edging into dangerous territory and if she asked too many questions, that might be the end of her. Though, did they not expect her to ask any questions? They had to have known that was coming their way. Alissa wasn't holding off.

  She met Steve and James in passing, and she put on her best grieving face and joined them in conversation.

  "Hey, I have a question." She spoke, grabbing their attention.

  "Yes, Lieutenant?" Steve asked.

  "I've been thinking, and if everyone on my team is dead, have their families been notified? I can do that, I know all their information. When's the funeral? Where will it be?"

  There was a moment of pause. Alissa asked questions that were seemingly innocent, but they were actually a trap. She knew that their responses would tell a lot about what was going on.

  "Don't wo
rry, Lieutenant, we've taken care of all the details for that."

  "Okay, so what are the details? I want to put my friends to rest." Alissa prodded further.

  "We'll let you know, alright?" James responded. Alissa's teeth grinded.

  "You said you've taken care of it, can you do me that much of a favor and just tell me?" Alissa asked further, trying to not reveal her true intentions.

  "I don't know it off the top of my head. I promise I'll go and find out, and let you know."

  James and Steve were just trying to buy themselves time. Alissa wasn't as sneaky as she thought she was, and they immediately suspected that she was questioning everything.

  "Thank you. Is there any way that I can get my phone back? I'd like to call my parents."

  "It's in the storage unit. We're heading that way, so we'll grab it for you and bring it up to your room." Steve answered. Alissa was wary of their answer, as she should be. It was true that her phone was down in the storage room with her badge and her weapons, but they weren't telling the whole story to her. They had placed blocks on her cell signal, so her calls to Shane, Matt, Scarlet or Vicki wouldn't go through. They expected her to start asking questions, and they were controlling what she knew.

  Alissa was smarter than that. She knew she couldn't call Matt or Shane anyway, but she was searching for any news reports coming from Hawai'i on what happened on Andrei Petrovitch's estate so she could fill her time gap. Though she wasn't getting the answers she was searching for exactly, she knew for sure that she couldn't possibly be the only one left. They'd be reporting a mass casualty.

  Every report seemed to line up with her existing memories, but she knew that wasn't enough. She started formulating a plan on what steps to take next at the same time Steve and James were reporting back to the boss about their findings.

  "Boss, she's getting suspicious. We know she's smart, but she picked up on this right away. She knows that we're hiding something from her, and we can't keep up this cover story forever. What do we do?"