by Claire Adams
One thing I knew for sure: when I started my company I wasn’t going to let any guy head out on a job without having proper firepower. It could be the difference between living and dying and I wasn’t going to risk any of my men’s lives.
Planning my own company had never been a goal for me until I started going out on jobs and being put in situations that were totally out of control. I certainly could see why people hired a security firm when they had to do business in dangerous areas, but no one seemed to do research on the firms before they hired them. My firm I worked for at the moment was one of the best in the industry, yet we still had the same problems.
If I could solve those problems and make the jobs safer for both the agents and the clients, I knew I could skyrocket into the top spot in the field. Agents talked to each other, and as soon as the word got out that I was properly supplying them for their jobs, I knew I wouldn’t have a problem at all getting guys to work for me.
When the good agents came to me, so would the good clients. Most clients were dedicated to the firms they were using because they knew them. No one liked changed all that much, but if their favorite agent worked for me, I was pretty sure the clients would want to follow them over as well.
Baller, Rake, and Sandbag didn’t know about my plans to start my own firm but I suspected they would want to come over and work with me. They were loyal employees though, so I might not be able to steal them away until Blankenship closed shop, but that was all right with me. I would much rather have loyal men on my team than money hungry guys who would jump ship at the first increase in pay.
Rake and Sandbag got to work mapping out the route we could use and I started calling around to find a couple SUVs. We only had two small trucks so far, and that wouldn’t be nearly good enough if we had six families to rescue. I hadn’t gotten clear intel on the number of women and children that were in the building, but we estimated a total of 18 to 24 people that we would need to get out of there. We had to have at least three large vans or SUVs to make the trip.
“Do we have contact with the guys inside the building yet?” I asked as I went through my mental checklist.
“No, they have been sending emails to their main office, but we are pretty sure those got cut off last week. Haven’t heard from them since then,” Rake said.
“So we don’t even know if they are alive?” I exclaimed as I stood up and knocked over my chair in the process.
“No, we don’t know.”
“Goddamn it.”
That was the kind of shit we dealt with on every job we had been on. We were about to secure thousands of dollars’ worth of guns and equipment to go rescue people that may or may not even be there. It was insane and I hated it. I didn’t like putting myself at risk or my friends at risk, all for no reason. The whole job could have been done very quickly and relatively safely if we had been properly equipped when we arrived.
We could have limited the risk by being prepared and having good intel, but instead we doubled the risk to ourselves and the client’s employees who were stuck in the building. It was horrible and insane, yet it was what we had to deal with. We certainly weren’t going to leave those people to die in that building. It had already taken us weeks to get to the point that we were actually there in Syria; we weren’t going to leave them.
My sleep schedule was all off and I worked throughout the night before making a video call to Mr. Blankenship to finalize the details of our operation. He answered the call almost immediately and I knew something was wrong. His face was glum and he avoided eye contact as he started to speak.
“Nate, you made it there safely? Everything is in order?”
“What’s the matter?” I asked bluntly.
I wasn’t in the mood to play any games and I didn’t need his small talk. Of course I made it there safely; I was on the video call with him. And of course everything was not in order, it never was, and he knew that.
My first thought was that he had received intel on more rebels in the area than we had planned for. It certainly wouldn’t be the best possible option, but we would deal with it if that’s what was going on.
It wasn’t all that unusual that we would find out the intelligence information was totally wrong. It was actually really laughable how much went wrong with our jobs and that I was still alive. I chalked it up to training and being able to make the best out of every situation, but there was probably a lot of luck in it as well.
“Ana snuck out last night. She left a note saying she was going to find her inner hero.”
“What!” I screamed and woke up all three of the guys. “What do you mean she snuck out?”
“She asked my wife to walk the dog and she left. She just left. I’m sorry.”
My heart pounded hard as I tried to figure out what the hell was going on. Why on earth would Ana leave the safety of that room and go find her inner hero? She was safe there. No one would have found her. There was no reason for her to leave. I was absolutely livid that she had left and even more angry that Blankenship had allowed her to leave. I slammed the computer closed and started to pace the room.
I should have stuck on the call long enough to give him a piece of my mind, but I didn’t even want to waste my breath. He was probably happy to be rid of her. Either way, I would email him and give him some directions on how to track her down and put him to work while I finished my job in Damascus.
Baller, Rake, and Sandbag just watched me as I paced, each of them afraid to ask me what was going on. They knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t have answered them. I didn’t show emotion when we were on jobs and I certainly didn’t show emotion when it came to phone calls with the boss. There was clearly something going on and the guys were going to patiently wait for me to tell them the details.
I closed my eyes to think about where Ana would go. At first, I thought she was going to go back to Jordan’s house and maybe I should call Chase. But I was pretty sure he was being watched and I didn’t want to risk that. I had no idea where she was or where she was going and I felt utterly helpless.
She said she was going to find her inner hero. That could mean so many different things and I couldn’t think straight enough to figure it out. My gut was saying that she was going to go after Stephano. Ana wasn’t ready for that kind of fight, I was sure of it. She had just enough training to get herself into a whole heap of trouble, and not enough training to actually win a fight.
I was thousands of miles away and I couldn’t do a damn thing about keeping Ana safe now. After a few minutes, I sat down and put my head in my hands. I was scared. I had never actually felt fear like I did in that moment. The fear came from the inability to control the environment or ensure that Ana would be safe. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t make her stay in that room. I couldn’t magically find her and keep her safe. For the first time that I could remember, I felt helpless, and it was a horrible feeling. It was worse than fighting an enemy with bigger guns than you. It was worse than trying to escape rebels who wanted you to die.
“Man, what’s up?” Baller asked finally.
“My girl; there’s some really shitty people after her. I stashed her at Blankenship’s house and he said she left. She just took off.”
“Kidnapped?” Rake asked.
“No, she left a note and planned it out. I think she is going to try and find the guys that were after her. I tried to teach her how to defend herself and she has this idea that she could kill someone if they attacked her. It’s my fault. I taught her just enough for her to feel confident.”
“Well, let’s get shit done here so you can get home,” Sandbag said as he pulled a chair up to the table.
I liked how he thought. There was no time for pity and no time for me to worry about Ana. I had to finish the job in front of me before I could go home, so that was what I was going to do. I was going to get the job done and get out of Syria as fast as humanly possible.
It was going to be hard as hell to concentrate on the job whi
le I was worrying about Ana though. She could be anywhere and I had no information at all. I hated having bad intel on the road, and I definitely hated it when it came to someone I cared about. There was no possible way I was going to just sit back and not do anything.
I sent off an email to a friend of mine who worked for the State Department. I gave him Ana’s information and asked to be notified if she used her passport to travel at all or if they had any other information about her. I was lucky to have friends in places like the State Department and I didn’t use them often. So when I asked for a favor, they were always more than willing to help me out.
“How do you guys feel about getting our intel done today and making this happen tomorrow?” I asked.
“Let’s do it.”
“Sure.”
“I’m game.”
That was why I loved those guys so much. They didn’t see a problem at all with making things happen faster than we normally did them. They were ready to roll with the punches and get shit done so we could get home and I could find Ana.
I just had to hope that she would be able to keep herself safe enough until I got home. I didn’t know what on earth she was planning to do, but whatever it was; I would get my ass home and help her with it.
If she wanted to take Stephano out, she should have told me. I would have sent someone to get it done. That wasn’t the kind of job you did yourself and there were a lot of things to keep in mind if you were going to actually murder a person.
Murder had never really been my thing. Sure, I had killed people while on a job. But the people I killed were always trying to kill me in the moment. I had never hunted someone down for the purpose of killing them. It seemed an antiquated way of getting revenge when there were so many more creative ways you could get a person killed.
The truth was we didn’t know if the people in that cabin were with Stephano or not. We had no information as to why they had pictures of Ana. For all I knew, they could have been stalking her because she was beautiful. The person who took those photos could have been an 80-year-old man who liked hot, young blondes. I didn’t feel like I had nearly enough information to go out and kill Stephano. Although the fact that he tricked Ana into coming to America and kept her captive should have been enough.
“Let’s get this job done,” I said to the guys as we all gathered around the table.
There was no more wasting any time. We all had a few hours of sleep and were going to hammer out the final details so we could get the job completed and get home. I wouldn’t risk my guys’ lives over whatever was going on with Ana, though. The job in front of us was dangerous, complex, and time sensitive. We needed to get every aspect just right if we were going to be successful.
Chapter 17
ANA
Arriving in Damascus, Syria wasn’t as frightening as I had expected. In my mind I had pictured men with guns standing around everywhere just waiting to shoot people, but the airport was relatively calm.
“Why are you here?” the customs agent asked me in English.
My mind went blank as I stared at him. What would be a good reason for any woman to come to Syria at a time of war? I couldn’t think straight and the man quickly disappeared. He returned with a woman who spoke to me in German.
“I’m here with a charity,” I responded in English.
The woman shook her head at me and looked at my passport for what seemed like an hour, but was probably more like five minutes. She flipped through the pages of my passport as I had arrived from America. I was scared that I had done something wrong by coming to Syria. Did they have laws against women traveling there? Was I supposed to have my head covered? I didn’t know, and the longer I stood there, the more nervous I got.
“Come with me,” the woman replied in English.
She gave nothing away by her facial expression and I couldn’t tell if I was in trouble or not. My heart pounded with all the possibilities as I followed her to a back room. The room was bare, with one table and two chairs in it. It felt like some sort of investigation or interrogation room and I was nervous.
There was no one I could call for help, nothing I could do if they decided to detain me or arrest me. I had no way of getting a hold of Nate and no contact information for his boss back in the States. I did still have Chase and Jordan’s phone numbers memorized, but I really thought Stephano would be watching their house for me.
My hope was that Stephano would have given up on me and just let me go and live my life. But apparently he wasn’t the type of guy who would give up on anyone, or maybe he just liked keeping me scared forever. I had no idea. But I did know that I wasn’t going to stay afraid of him. Either he wanted to find me and I’d deal with that or he would give up trying to scare me. Eventually, something else would take priority for him; I knew it.
“Miss, you are traveling with only one backpack?” the female customs officer asked me.
“Yes.”
“You do not have your head covered. It is very dangerous here and you should have your head covered.”
“Okay, I will do that.”
I sat there with her and waited for her to ask me more questions or talk to me more, but it appeared we were waiting for someone else to arrive. We sat quietly for a few minutes and then a young man arrived. He looked to be in his early twenties, close to my age. He had on a red vest that was labeled “Red Crescent” and he smiled at me with a friendly grin as he shook my hand.
“Hello, I’m Timothy Anders; I’m with the Red Crescent International team and would like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
I looked at the woman and then back at Timothy Anders.
“Sure.”
“You are here to volunteer?” he asked.
“I’m helping a friend, yes.”
“What is the name of the organization?”
He knew I was lying. There was no doubt about it from the way he was talking to me and the questions he was asking me. But I didn’t know what to say or how to get out of the situation. I certainly couldn’t tell him I was there to help a private security team get employees out of a rebel-enclosed area; that would sound crazy.
My silence drew out over a longer than usual period and the man motioned for the woman to leave the room. I didn’t know what he was going to ask me next and I didn’t want to say anything that the customs people would latch on to as a reason to put me in prison.
“Miss, there are no non-profit groups allowed in Syria right now except the Red Crescent. This nice woman called me because she believes you are being sold into the sex trafficking world. Did a man pay for your flight here? Did he promise you love or companionship?”
I instantly burst into laughter.
After all I had been through with my ordeal in America, it wasn’t until I arrived in Syria that someone warned me about sex trafficking. No, I wasn’t being trafficked into Syria, but I sure had been tricked into in when I left my home and went to America. Why hadn’t a nice man like Timothy Anders showed up at the airport in Miami to warn me of the possibilities then? Why was it only in a war torn area like Syria that they actually noticed the red flags of me traveling alone, without luggage, etc.? It was comical and tragic, all at the same time.
“I’m sorry, Timothy; I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I was tricked into going to the United States by a man like that. I know the warning signs. I’m not being tricked into coming here.”
“Then, why are you here?” he asked with concern on his face.
“Can they hear us?” I asked as I looked at the window.
“No, there are no recording devices in here.”
“My partner works for a security firm that is trying to get some families out of here. I’m new to the company and it’s my first assignment. I wasn’t prepared when I arrived. But I know where I’m going and I’ll be fine.”
He looked very skeptically at me as the information slowly set in. He was a good guy, who obviously was only trying to help prevent women from being sold
into sex slavery. It was noble of him to have tried to protect me and I appreciated that.
“So you promise that you weren’t told to tell me that? You know girls have told me a lot of stories for why they were here, but never that they were coming to rescue people,” he said calmly.
“Yes, it’s the truth. I’ll only be here a couple of days and I’m meeting up with my guys as soon as I leave here. I’m trained at this. I know what I’m doing, despite getting held up here,” I rolled my eyes and looked around the room. “The guys won’t let me live this down when they hear about it.”
“Let me get you a scarf for your head. Do you know where you’re going? I could drop you off. It would be safer than trying to travel alone.”
“I’m going to the Resolve Oil Incorporated building. You certainly could give me a ride; that would be great.”
His eyes got big when he heard the name of the building where I wanted to go. He knew I was telling the truth about being there to rescue people when he heard that building. I saw fear in his face.
“Those families have been hiding very well for the last few weeks. I don’t even think the rebels know they are still there,” Timothy said. “I’ll drop you off at night a block away. I can get word to them that you are arriving. How many men do you have with you? Will you be able to get them all out?”
“You know the families?” I asked in surprise.
“Yes, one of my co-workers has been sneaking in food and water to them and we were trying to figure a way to get them out. The rebels will kidnap them at the first chance they get, purely for the ransom that the company would pay.”
“How are they still hidden?”
“The barracks has a hidden wall that is behind one of the bunks. It is a small room, but they are spending nights in there. During the day, they are out in the rest of the barracks and only hide when they hear rebels in the neighborhood.”
“Thank you for taking me,” I said.
I was grateful for his help and the information he had given. The problem was that I still needed to get a hold of Nate to let him know I was there. I had no idea how far along he was in his rescue attempt and I wanted to give him the information I had. But it was looking like I would have to just wait for him at the office building and then help once he arrived.