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My mind went to Amber. If she had been taken away, then there was something else that I had to do. I had to get her back, if she wasn’t already dead. There hadn’t been family missing from the other soldiers, just dead bodies. That thought had me searching the ground, making sure that Amber wasn’t already dead on the floor. The very idea of it made me numb inside, but I didn’t see her.
I was relieved, but the feeling didn’t last very long. I still had several men that I had to get through and my weapons were on the other side of the cabin. I wasn’t going to make it there without being shot at. I had no damn clothes on because of what we had been doing. All I knew was that I was naked and in bed with no gun. I needed clothes and a gun before the people that were here for me took a shot. I had to focus on the fight ahead of me. I would find Amber and save her as soon as I got past these guys. I had to think of Amber as okay, there was no other way that I would be able to focus and do what was needed of me.
The situation became a bit different when I realized that the bag I brought wasn’t that far away. I had a choice to go for my boxers or my guns. I went for the guns. To hell with clothes. I could put my pants on when they were all dead, because that was the only outcome that I was going to accept.
I moved into action, getting the bag off of the floor and dodging a few bullets when they realized that I was mobile. I wasn’t afraid, hardly ever was. I didn’t have the sense to worry about myself, but damned if I didn’t worry about Amber. I had to get through these guys as quickly as I could, just so that I could see Amber.
Shooting one was pretty easy. He had come out of where he was hiding when he saw me. I think that the surprise of seeing me without any clothes on was a bit too much for him. I could see the confusion in his eyes, which helped me to get the upper hand.
I had shot and killed one so far, which meant that I could hear and see another four coming. It was the size of a small unit and by the way that they moved around, I could tell that they had some training. I was still just as curious about who these people were but leaving them alive to ask questions was probably not going to be an option. Leaving one of them alive meant that I couldn’t go off and find Amber.
The next three guys were taken down with a single shot. They must have taken time to realize that the situation had changed, and I wasn’t going to be as easy to take out. Not like Jesse and Jerome and the others that had been attacked and killed. It was my unit that they were taking out and I started to fill with anger. I didn’t want to kill soldiers, but that’s what they were.
I was able to stop the last guy standing with a few bullets in the legs and hand. He had no weapon, and I used that opportunity to find out what I could. He didn’t even speak English or he refused to. No kind of real intel was going to come from him. It didn’t make any sense, but none of it did. I was at a loss of words and when the last guy thought that he was going to give too much away, he killed himself, charging at me so that I had to shoot him.
It wasn’t how I wanted it to end. I had it ended with Amber in my arms, and she would finally be safe. It was shocking that even though I had taken out five people now, there were still enough people to take Amber. I called to her, not even caring that I was showing whoever else was here that I was still alive. I needed Amber to come back to me and be safe, nothing else really mattered.
When yelling like an idiot didn’t get me what I wanted, I decided that I would find out what I could from what was left behind. There were tracks that led away to the place where we’d parked and once I got back to my car, there was no one there. Whoever had taken her, hadn’t killed her and got her to go with them without much of a struggle. I didn’t know why I felt better about that, but I did. I didn’t want anything to happen to Amber and if she had to go with it for a while, then I was glad she could. She wasn’t being dragged, I would have known.
The moments of feeling better didn’t last very long. I had to go back and see about the men at the cabin. Since it was so remote, I didn’t have to worry about anyone happening upon it by accident or hearing the gunshots, but that didn’t mean that I could just leave the bodies and my DNA back there. I had to do something before I could leave this place to follow Amber’s attackers. I wanted to run after her going headfirst, but I had to cover up my tracks before that happened.
As I walked, I counted who was left in my unit. Since there was a team here attacking me, did that mean that there was another team going after everyone else? I needed answers to questions that were hard to ask to begin with.
So, I got back to the cabin and set about getting rid of the bodies and any proof that I had been there. I thought about putting the bodies in the ocean that was right there, but they would have somehow managed to be found out. I learned that water was not a person’s friend to keep secrets. It ebbed and flowed in a way that was unpredictable and the bodies would pop up eventually.
That meant fire. It was the perfect solution, but a small part of me was sad inside to have to ruin the cabin. I hadn’t been here in a long time, but it had been in the military since I started. Now, this wouldn’t be a safe house for all that needed it, I was going to turn it into a pile of ash. That was it. That was the big plan and while I wanted to do anything else other than that, I knew that it had to be done.
Stepping back once the fire was lit, questions still swirled in my mind. How would they know that the safehouse was here? This was a military safe house for twenty years, never been compromised. Why now? I didn’t know the answer and as I watched the old cabin go up in flames, I wasn’t worried about the significance of what I’d ruined. I was worried about who these people were here to begin with. They could have been anyone and they weren’t talking. I’d even gone through their belongings, emptied pockets, looked for anything to identify them, but I found nothing. They all had matching tattoos and I’d taken a picture of them with my phone. I would find out what they were, but I had no idea what it all meant. Unfortunately, I was burning any evidence I had, and I was no closer to figuring out who was after me and more importantly, who was after Amber.
I made some calls as I was walking back to my car. I had no idea where they had taken Amber or why they would keep her alive, when they hadn’t kept anyone else alive, not that we knew of anyway.
The people on my old 10-man team were strewn everywhere, most of us had changed our names and were hard to find. I called everyone that was left, learning that two more were likely gone. There weren’t many left. One guy the next state over and our commander of the unit, Tony.
I hadn’t seen Tony in a long time. We worked together, trusted each other with our lives, but we didn’t get along at all. Tony was cocky and headstrong, with a side of know-it-all. It made for a man that was impossible to deal with at times and part of the reason I had gotten off of doing missions with our unit.
Tony answered right away, knowing it was me. “I can’t believe someone is going for our unit. I’d talked to Jesse, but he isn’t picking up. Is he?”
I agreed that Jesse was gone. It was a shock to Tony, because Jesse was the guy on the team that everyone liked. I’d known him for a long time, and I still couldn’t believe that he was gone.
“Someone came for me and took my girlfriend.”
“Took? Are you sure she isn’t dead?”
He asked the question so callously, like it meant nothing to him, and I knew that it didn’t. He didn’t know Amber, how wonderful she was or what the world would lose without her. Tony didn’t care, and that was pretty much the way he always was. The man didn’t feel much of anything, which made him damn good at some elements of our job.
“She isn’t dead, I followed the tracks, and she was walking with them. There is no blood, no sign of struggle that I could see. It looks like she is still alive.”
Tony was quiet. For a moment, he was thinking and even though I hadn’t seen that face in a long time, I could still see him in my mind’s eye. He would have this look of superiority in his eyes and then he said it, the question that I’d asked myself in different ways.
“Why isn’t she dead? Everyone else’s loved ones died.” He said it more to himself than to me, like he was trying to figure out a puzzle. It was a good question, and I didn’t have an answer. I had asked myself that same morbid question though, why was she alive and not the others? The MO was modified for her and that didn’t make sense.
“I’m coming,” Tony said simply. I agreed that it would be good to see him, but we both knew that it was said for pleasantries more than anything else. I didn’t really mean that I wanted to see him, but I would appreciate his help. Tony was an asshole, but I did trust him with my life. Could I trust him with Amber’s as well?
17
Amber
Ididn’t fight the man who had a gun to my head, because that seemed like the stupidest thing that I could do. He was obviously going to shoot me if I didn’t leave with him, had killed many from what Frank said, so I tried to keep that in mind. It was hard to focus much though, my mind so hyper focused on the gun and dying. It was all I could think about. Well, that and where Frank was and what was happening to Frank.
