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I think of my Freya. What would’ve happened if Mr. Red had sent somebody else after her? I think of the life I never knew I wanted, wrenched from my hands before I had a chance to make it come true.
All the rage floods into my question, just one word.
“Where?”
“D-downstairs,” the man whimpers. “B-basement.”
I signal for Kenny, who signals to two other men, and then I take point as we search the bar. A trapdoor in the corner is poorly covered with a rug, clearly pulled across in haste.
The door’s unlocked.
I kneel down, drag it open then put on my night-vision goggles down from my head over my eyes.
Peering inside, I stare at the meth lab, women – some of them may even be children – huddling around the sad figure in the corner.
Mr. Red, Mike, Deacon….
He’s holding a gun to a woman’s head, staring at the trap door, unable to see me as his hands tremble.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he yells. “Or the bitch dies.”
I lean back, talking quickly. “He’s got a hostage, and he’s forced the rest of them to crowd around him. There’s no way this bastard’s leaving here alive. I’m taking the shot.”
It isn’t a request, but Kenny’s putting his business on the line by helping me. He deserves to know my plan.
“Do it,” Kenny says. “We can’t risk any innocents dying. He signed his death warrant when he took a hostage.”
I nod, feeling nothing, just focused, my mind empty.
It’s the training again, overriding everything.
Except there’s a glimmer down deep.
Don’t mess this up.
I want to be able to return to Freya and tell her we did the right thing. We only hurt people who deserve it. There were no civilian casualties.
We’re safe, and the only price we had to pay was an evil man’s blood.
“I mean it,” Mr. Red yells in a voice I’ve heard countless times over the phone.
But he always seemed so self-assured before, as if nothing could ever hurt him, as if he really was this collected operator who worked by a code of honor.
And I believed him, or let fearmakeme believe him.
Quickly, I lean down back into the trap door, almost lying sprawled, my body hanging down into the opening.
Mr. Red’s got his arm wrapped around the woman.
She looks young, reminding me of Felicia, which just worsens it. Mr. Red holds the gun in his other hand, pressing it against the side of her head with such force that the metal barrel has caused her to bleed.
“You don’t want to mess with….”
I take the shot, as I have done several times before.
Hostage takers never expect it.
The bullet in the head, and then he collapses, slumping against the wall, as the women and children begin to scream.
