by T L Yeager
Ross didn’t say any more. He didn’t want Izzy to hear him get choked up over the words. He wrapped his daughter, pulling her tight to the chest.
More minutes of silence passed with just their breathing and the smell of the musty closet for company.
They both jumped at the first explosion. Ross covered Izzy’s mouth with his hand and pressed his own lips together. It sounded like it was coming from their room.
Ross felt Izzy shudder from the second blast. Through the thin plaster that separated them from the living room, Ross could hear something metal skitter across the tile floor.
“You’re hurting me, Daddy,” Izzy said.
“Be very quiet, sweets. No more talking or noise.” He whispered it into Izzy’s ear. “Lay down.”
They fell to their sides, spooning with Ross’s back against the wall. He reached out and wedged his fingers under the door, pulling it closed. He took the pillow from under his shoulder and set it on top of them. Then he pulled the blankets up and over, hoping they’d look like dirty bedding piled on the floor.
A thumping started up. There were five or six and then another blast and another skittering of metal on tile. A wall had never felt so thin.
Two more thumps boomed. By the second, Ross knew what it was. There was a loud crash as the door to the room fell to the floor. They’d blasted and kicked their way in.
“Shush,” Ross repeated, stroking Izzy’s hair.
“Come out, it’s time to go.” Fazul’s voice was seared into Ross’s mind.
He hugged Izzy tighter. An emotion beyond fear overwhelmed him. Ross tracked the sound of the men through the main room to the master. There was more than one.
Seconds after the main door slammed against the wall, they opened the closet. He could hear breathing and then felt the stiff poke of a gun barrel in his side.
63
Noord Salina, Aruba
Maddie was moving too fast. You’d a thought she’d lost her virginity a third time for all the excitement. This wasn’t good enough to qualify though, at least not yet.
Senior prom and the morning of her forty-seventh day in country—they were memories etched into the eternity of her mind. High school had been better—living fast and loose without a care in the world, that was the secret sauce. Your first kill was a hit of adrenaline, but an anxious one. It was like cheating on your guy—the high faded fast and no matter how hard your ass, guilt crept in—a wry questioning bastard.
She forced herself to stop and double check that she had everything. She patted the 9mm strapped to her right leg, tightened the sling holding the sniper rifle to her shoulder and pulled the straps on the backpack.
The last of her equipment rested on the bed. She picked up the carbine and drew the receiver back. The first round clicked off the top of the magazine and slid home into the chamber.
Turning to leave, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She’d used a thin, hooded sweatshirt and a pair of painter’s overalls to create the ghillie suit. It wasn’t her best work, but she hoped it’d be enough to get by the drone and across the salt pan.
She shouldered the carbine twice in quick succession, watching herself in the mirror. A Halloween yeti glared back. Shaggy shards of black fabric bounced like Rastafarian dreadlocks. Painted shreds of the space blankets she’d attacked with a leaf rake, drifted down slower. She looked like an armed sasquatch sent to assassinate the asinine believers that still hunted the mythical beast after decades of finding nothing.
“Time to move out, Sergeant,” she said to herself, turning for the back door.
The slider was locked. Maddie flipped the latch and rumbled it open. Dry, Aruban heat caught in her mouth. She licked her chops, spit on the cement step and broke across the backyard.
Dark came slow on Aruba. With no terrain to mask the light, it felt brighter at dusk. The sun played off the roof of the sky in shades of orange and purple you didn’t get back home.
She was through the back gate and squatting at the edge of the salt pan seconds later. Satellite images showed the pan filled with water, but all day she’d looked out across a dry, cracked wasteland.
Maddie checked her watch. The drones had been passing overhead every ten minutes or so. She waited for its dragonfly sound to transit above, then shot to her feet and took off across the low, open ground.
It was under a half mile to the resort, a distance that looked much farther across open space. As she ran, Maddie eyed the roofline where she’d reaped death. There was still enough light in the western sky to provide a silhouette. The problem was the bounce in her step. She was moving at double-time, sort of a half run, half walk, that sucked the detail out of everything in the distance.
Suddenly, a column of dirt shot up. The sound of an open hand slapping the ground was followed by the audible wave that lagged the supersonic bullet.
There were silencers on the Dragunov’s, she remembered. In one fluid motion, Maddie dropped to a knee and laid the carbine down on the ground. She whipped the Accuracy International off her back and flipped up the lens caps on the scope.
There was no cover, not even a wiry desert bush. Quickness was her only defense. Unfortunately, the sniper rifle was long and heavy. Firing from a knee was less than ideal.
A bee buzzed by at twice the speed of sound. The crack of the second wave made Maddie flinch. The follow-up shot had been closer. It had missed by less than a foot.
Maddie pulled the trigger.
The noise from the shot spread out and away in a retreating donut that called back from behind when it reached the hill and the houses. Her target dropped, but moved too slowly. She’d missed again, but the shot had sent the shooter looking for cover.
Maddie cycled the bolt and waited. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, she thought.
Automatic weapons fired indiscriminately from the base of the resort, no doubt reacting to the sound of her shot.
She reached four and was just about to lay into the front edge of the M, when the shooter reappeared. Maddie pulled the trigger a second time.
“Mississippi,” she finished out loud. The mark was dead before she finished the word.
Back on her feet, she leaned into the remaining distance, sprinting for the other side. The ghillie suit danced and shook like wet fur on a dog bred for the snowy hinterlands. Halfway there, the dragonfly whirl of the drone reappeared. It moved behind her from left to right and almost faded from earshot before the sound flared and returned.
Maddie completed the one-hundred-yard dash, moving as fast as her legs could carry her. She dropped onto the berm leading up to the road, hugging the earth to block some of the heat signature from her dripping body. She was panting into the dirt.
She listened for footsteps over the dragonfly beat of the drone’s rotors, sure she’d been spotted. Instincts told her to move, to bring the carbine up in front, but her mind told her to hold still. Any movement out here couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than what it was.
No footsteps materialized and the drone moved on seconds later. Maddie got to a knee and scanned the hill as she caught her breath and eyeballed her next move.
The gnarled twisting trunk of a Divi Divi tree caught her attention. Its top was proportionately larger on the resort side, same as most, but its trunk had more girth than usual.
Maddie took the hill in long strides. She hit the trunk and swept the field of view. Bushes on the other side of the road broke the sightline to the base of the resort.
The Surfside building running parallel to the road stood tall above Maddie on the other side. The warmth of the day’s pent-up heat radiated down.
Maddie was almost directly across from the resort entrance. With the edge of the building ahead and to the right, her plan was to hit a stairwell door in the parking garage. She could see it in her mind, clear as an Aruban sky. Ross always wanted to park the rental car under the building to shield it from the boiling sun.
She toggled the fire selector from single shot
to three-round-burst. Then she surged across the road, keeping low and moving evenly with the carbine shouldered. The barrel moved from the lobby, still lit and empty, through the buildings edge and along the grasses that hid the sentries.
A voice called out from the far end of the building. Maddie didn’t slow. She drifted into the grasses like a ghost and settled into a catcher’s squat, listening.
Another voice, closer, grunted three words in return. This one was straight out in front. Maddie elevated into a crouch and stepped forward. Still moving like a wraith, she glided through the first row of cars.
The window in the stairwell door was the only light visible. They’d killed the fluorescents in the garage to conceal their perimeter defense. Maddie could see the tops of cars shining in dull color. Her eyes scanned from the source of the light, looking for an anomaly.
The close voice spoke again. “Perimeter, Building Three. We don’t see anything.”
They were words Maddie understood. English words, projected right at her, that marked the source as accurately as a stage spotlight.
Maddie stood taller and took aim. The man was just four car lengths away. With a side step, she exposed herself to clear the view to the target. She floated into the center aisle of cars, each heel settling softly and rolling to the toe as she moved with the purpose of an approaching wave.
The target had just started to speak another word when Maddie pulled the trigger. Jets of fire erupted from the muzzle in a strobing orange X. At least one of the three rounds found its mark. The smacking of flesh stood out from the cracking of glass.
Maddie knew better than to stand still. She advanced, using the cars for concealment.
She reached the hip high wall at the base of the building when the voice from the left called out again.
“Shooting! Parking lot! Building Three!” the voice yelled.
Below her, the wounded soldier struggled for breath. Maddie sat on the wall and swung her legs up and over. With her sights locked on the corner of the stairwell, she stepped back and into a lane between cars that wasn’t blocked by a dying man.
Footsteps from behind captured Maddie’s attention. She spun and picked up a running target whose silhouette was painted by the bright lobby entrance. The burst caught him in the chest. His torso stopped in an instant, but his legs continued to run.
Maddie was swinging back to the stairwell when the other man opened with a vengeance. The hail of full automatic fire turned the garage into a clamor of light and concussion. The first few rounds tore apart glass and sheered metal. Maddie dove for protection along the trunk of the car. She turned her head in and shielded it with the carbine. The stream of fire moved up. Rounds ricocheted off the garage ceiling, sending hunks of deformed lead zinging into the car opposite her position.
A roaring jet engine couldn’t have drowned out the sound. The cacophony of death lasted a full three seconds before the AK-47’s magazine ran dry.
It took a beat for the wobbling racket to run out from under the building. Maddie came to her senses, popped up and took aim. The target was frozen from the violence. Maddie pulled the trigger and stitched the three rounds from the man’s sternum to his forehead.
Like a good schoolgirl, she checked right and then left before breaking for the door. A handful of steps separated her from it. She’d only taken two when a line of sparks stripped the concrete in front of her. The bullets angled off the stairwell apron and thudded dents into the door.
More shots poured in from behind. They pocked the ground and chewed pits in the concrete around the door. As she hit the latch and made for safety, Maddie felt a flick along her right calf. By the second bound up, she could feel the warmth of blood pouring down into her shoe. There was no time to stop.
She took the stairs two at a time, doubling back once on her way to the first floor. The moment she made the turn, she saw the bar blocking the door. By the time she’d reached it, her mind had figured the purpose and function. She flipped up on the latches to the left and right and threw the bar to the side. It chattered down the stairs as she looked up into the hallway.
A trail of bodies littered the floor. The horror hit her as a matter of fact. Then her vison tightened. The hall became a pinhole. The sound in her ears was blotted out by a tone. She loped forward into a haze of confusion, eyes jumping from one form to another.
Ross! Ross! The words were in her head but she wanted to call out. She needed to know they weren’t there.
Tar-colored stains framed the corpses. An acidic dankness shocked Maddie from her stupor. She shook her head to clear the air. The bodies had been here a while. Decomposition hadn’t taken hold yet, but they were ripening.
Still moving slowly, her eyes continued down the hall, searching for any bodies small enough to be a child. There were none. Immediately after arriving at the realization, she heard footsteps in the stairwell and checked over her shoulder.
Two apartments ahead on the right, a door was propped open by a crumpled body. She made for it. Maddie pushed it open enough to clear the body and made the mistake of checking the hall one last time.
A muzzle flashed. A sledgehammer pounded Maddie’s hip. It threw her into the doorframe like an NFL linebacker. She let out a miserable grunt as the weight of her body curled into the frame. The butt of the carbine careened off the wall and bounced to the tile in front of her. Tripped up by the body, Maddie fell forward to safety, landing hard on her knees and hands.
Bullets cracked behind her, chewing sheetrock in the hall. Using the leg that worked, she rolled herself. She made it onto her back before the realization of her dysfunction set in. Propped at a forty-five-degree angle by the back pack, she could see the right leg was a mangled phantom of itself. Any attempt to move it made her bowels flip and sent a white heat scorching along its length.
Using her left leg, Maddie inched herself away from the door. The sniper rifle, which had somehow remained hooked over her shoulder during the fall, slid in tow by her side. She felt for the pistol on the right hip. The bullet had to have just missed it. The roughness of the grip found the tips of her fingers. She yanked it from the holster and pointed it, two-handed, at the door which was mostly closed but once again resting on the body.
Each push with the leg required its own deep inhale and gritting exhale. She wanted to scream like a banshee. She wanted to writhe at the unmitigated agony that was blooming at her hip. Surging with prickles and heat, the hip and leg stood in stark contrast to the rest of her body. Between the gritted exhales, Maddie’s teeth chattered with cold. She’d done what she could. She’d made another mistake. This time the cost would be greater. Not only was she going to die, but she’d failed to save her family.
Still inching and pointing, Maddie angled away from the centerline of the walkway leading to the door. Using the edge of the breakfast bar, she garnered some semblance of defense. Angling more and more with each push, she sensed that the room wasn’t altogether dark. A light behind her, maybe a lamp in the living area, lit the room.
The door flew open. She could see the barrel of a gun but the man holding it remained out of sight. The door drifted back closed on the body.
Maddie inched away, again and again. It opened a second time, slower, the barrel of the gun rubbing along its length as the man used it to push the door. Maddie felt the leg of a chair touch the back of her head. She’d come as far as she could. This was her Alamo.
The soldier, still hidden by the door which wasn’t fully open, hopped the body and landed two-footed in front Maddie. She barely had to adjust her aim and fired just once. The round caught the bottom of the man’s chin. It flung him back into the door just as it came to rest on the other crumbled body.
64
Surfside Resort, Aruba
Fazul was prodding the man forward with the barrel of his gun, jamming it into the small of his back. Hassan had the daughter by the arm. She was screaming and flailing.
“Up against the wall,” Fazul ordered. The father
was bigger than him and his beard and bald head were mildly intimidating. To account for it, Fazul increased his violence. He slammed him into the wall and used the side of the gun’s steel barrel to pin his face to the paint. “Put on the zip ties.” Fazul shook his head and eyeballed Assad.
The boy produced a set of zip cuffs and stepped up. The man fought to separate his arms. Fazul drew back and punched him in the jaw. His fist glanced off and marked the wall.
“Accept your fate. Go out like a man.” He pulled the gun down from the father’s face and slung it, taking control of the father’s wrists. “Put the ties on, dammit!” Fazul yelled at Assad.
“Stop hurting my Daddy!” the girl cried.
“Take the girl down,” Fazul said to Hassan.
Once the father’s hands were secure, Fazul spun him and pinned him to the wall with the barrel pressed hard into his sternum.
“She’ll be the first child I’ve executed.”
The man’s lip quivered. His cheeks dimpled and then he shot his head forward, spitting in Fazul’s face. His knee came up, and his shoulder down, knocking the barrel of Fazul’s gun to the side. The father lunged, bringing the crown of his head down across Fazul’s temple.
The head-butt knocked Fazul back and buckled his knees. Hassan streaked in from the side and brought the butt of his weapon down on the father’s shoulder, dropping him to a knee.
Fazul righted himself. He shouldered his rifle and wanted very badly to punish the man with a non-lethal shot, but he held back. Having a father and daughter stare into the camera and then die together, that would be the motivation America needed to move their politicians.
“Disobedient American trash!” Fazul kicked the father in the head with the heel of his boot. “I’ll enjoy killing her. And letting you watch.”