“Quiet!” Burke said in a fierce whisper. The muffled sounds of the 9mm didn’t seem to garner any immediate attention. However, a resounding thud echoed as the man fell onto his back, a deadweight. Burke moved swiftly past Angela then around the corner and next to the stairs without looking back. She remained in place for a moment, watching the man as his shocked, lifeless eyes stared up into the ceiling. Everything seemed to be moving so fast, and she didn’t know what to do.
Only Burke’s words came back to her. “Cover me.”
She stepped over the man’s body and around the corner alongside the staircase, where Burke continued his hunt. He stepped into the living room to find another man sitting on the couch in a blue T-shirt and jeans, watching television and eating a bowl of cereal. He was a slightly older-looking bald man whose face reflected absolute shock as Burke made his entrance.
“No!” Angela shouted. But it was too late. Burke shot him through the head. As the man’s arms went to the sides of the couch, his cereal bowl dropped onto the floor, sending milk and cereal flying.
Burke lowered his pistol and spun around, incensed, speaking just above a whisper. “What did I tell you? Keep fucking quiet!”
“These men are unarmed,” Angela said with her teeth clenched. “How does killing them help us?”
“I’m only looking for one man,” Burke shot back.
The man’s head dropped as blood gushed from the open hole on his forehead, spilling onto his T-shirt.
Burke seemed to disregard Angela as he visually searched the room: its dusty bookshelves and patchy sofas and recliners. The television screen buzzed with advertisements at low volume.
But it would seem that no matter how careful Burke had tried to be, their presence was known as footsteps sounded from upstairs.
Burke backed against the wall near the TV and signaled to Angela to do the same. She complied, albeit with a hearty dose of frustration. “I can’t believe you,” she said.
Burke gripped his pistol tightly in position. “Believe this,” he said. “If you want to get out of this alive, be ready.”
She said nothing more as doors banged open upstairs, followed by stampeding footsteps down the steps. Angela clenched her pistol against her chest as sneakers came into sight at the bottom of the staircase. A man reached the bottom of the stairs and rushed into the living room, brandishing a shotgun. His hair was long, and he had a mustache. He froze upon seeing his friend dead on the couch and, for moment, didn’t notice Burke or Angela against the wall by the TV.
Burke took advantage and fired a round into the man’s skull, splattering his brains all against the wall and nearby sofa. As his body fell, another man halted at the bottom of the stairs and tried to run toward the back door. Burke zipped past Angela, chasing the man. Both their hurried footsteps clamped against the hardwood floor.
Angela could hardly process what was happening. She felt as though she had been duped again. The FBI had done the same thing and then sworn her to secrecy. She wondered what she could do, if anything, about this new bloodbath she’d stepped into.
Two thumps from Burke’s silencer sounded around the corner, and then she heard the fleeing man scream and crash to the floor. She left the blood-soaked living room and met up with Burke near the dining room as he stood over his latest victim, a man she assumed wasn’t Omar.
Burke turned around, barely acknowledging her, and went straight to the bottom of the staircase with his pistol aimed.
“Omar!” he shouted. “Might as well come down here and talk to me.” He paused, looking around at the carnage in the living room, made even more eerie against the flickering of the television screen. “Not like you have much of a choice.”
Darkness blanketed the landing at the top of the stairs. Craning her neck, Angela could make out a couple of rooms, and she could still hear the thumping bass of music from one of them. For a moment, they just waited. She looked around, keeping watch for any surprises, and stood back, letting Burke take lead.
He climbed the stairs midway and called out to Omar, when suddenly they heard shuffling in one of the rooms ahead, its door closed, but with a sliver of light noticeable at the bottom.
Hurried footsteps sounded. Burke stopped, knelt, and aimed at the door, but no one came rushing out. Instead, the faint sound of a window opening could be heard. Burke turned, eyes ferocious, toward Angela. “He’s escaping!”
They heard a thud hit the ground outside. Burke rushed past her again, demanding that she keep up. He was already in the laundry room before she could reply. She ran down the hall, stepping around the man who lay on his stomach, two holes in his back, and proceeded to the backyard. Burke had already descended on a man crawling among the weeds.
The man screamed in pain as Burke jumped on his back, driving his knees into him and pinning him down. As Angela approached, Burke pressed the barrel of his silencer against the man’s head and covered his mouth.
“Not another word, or this ends here!” Burke said.
The man quieted with an agonized moan. Angela stood over the men, breathing heavily, as dogs barked from over the fence in the house behind them. Burke stood up and pulled the thin, lanky man to his feet. He had on a purple polo shirt with its collar torn open and a pair of baggy beige slacks and dress shoes. His eyes were wide, his short, thinning hair plastered to his scalp, and a line of drool ran down his trim goatee.
“Is this him?” Angela asked, studying the man.
“It’s him all right,” Burke said and yanked the man toward the house. “Let’s get him inside before we wake the neighborhood.”
As they walked away, Angela glanced up at the open window twenty feet above. Its curtains swayed in the wind, and a single light burned faintly. No one else was in the room—or so she hoped.
Burke swung the back door open and pushed the struggling man—presumably Omar—into the house. She examined the other windows for movement and didn’t see anything. Following the carnage, she had lost count of exactly how many people Burke had shot and couldn’t remember if it had been four or five. She felt angry and betrayed but also had to admit that she still trusted Burke to know what he was doing. Unseen crickets chirped under the cloud-covered half-moon above as she made her way back into the house, still reeling with disbelief.
Angela went through the laundry room and toward the dining room to find Burke dragging a chair along with him to the kitchen, where he pushed Omar into a counter. The chair ground against the kitchen tile as he flung it toward their man, who was covering his face.
“Sit, asshole,” Burke said. His eyes darted to Angela as she walked into the kitchen. Surprisingly, he held out his 9mm for her to take. “Search the rest of the house and shoot anyone else on sight.”
Angela stared at the pistol, unsure of herself.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Burke said urgently. “One of these guys could have made a call already.”
She reluctantly took the pistol while placing her own weapon back in its holster. Whether Burke was armed or not made no difference to the man reeling against the counter, holding his neck in pain.
“I don’t have all day, Omar. Take a seat,” Burke said with his hands on his hips.
Omar looked past the kitchen to where the young man lay on his back with two holes in his chest. He clenched his fist and looked at Burke with anguish in his eyes.
“You son of a bitch. You killed my brother. Why? Who in the hell are you?” He spoke perfect English with a tinge of an Arabic accent.
Burke simply pointed to the chair. “Have a seat, and I’ll explain.” He then looked over to Angela, noticing that she was still in the kitchen. “Search the house already! Let me do my job.”
She turned away and left, partly out of fear and partly out of disgust. Burke had become a different person, far removed from the mild-mannered CIA man who had first introduced himself to their precinct. She stepped over the dead bodies and went to the living room, where more awaited. The TV was still on, barely a
udible.
She froze in horror when she saw the news showing a still photograph of Doug, down on his knees with a knife to his neck. She cocked her leg back and kicked the TV off its stand, sending it crashing to the floor.
Burke didn’t seem to notice or care about the shooting sparks or the fizzling noise that followed. There was no one else in the living room, and she noticed a startling lack of furniture. The bookcase was empty, there were no pictures on the wall, and everything had a temporary, unoccupied feel to it.
Was this what they meant as a safe house? she wondered.
She headed up the stairs to the sound of thumping bass and found three bedrooms at the top, doors half open and lights on, but no sign of anyone else. She was nervous—that much was clear—for there was a chance that anyone could pop out at any minute. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill her, and part of her completely understood. She was, after all, an intruder.
She approached each room carefully, peeking inside to see similar barebones setups in each one—bed, dresser, and clothes on the floor. She entered the rooms, one by one, and searched the closets, under the beds, and the bathroom. The room Omar had jumped from still had an open window, and she stopped to glance at a framed photo sitting on a computer desk, picturing Omar, a woman, and several children. He was a family man after all.
Part of her felt bad for him and terrible for what they had done. But then an undeniable reality sunk back into her. They were at Omar’s house for a reason, and if she discovered that he had anything to do with her family’s abduction, his life meant nothing to her.
The rooms were clear. No one else, it seemed, was in their midst. She was walking down the stairs, ready to report this to Burke, when she heard the whirring of an electric knife or saw. It wasn’t clear.
She darted toward the dining room, leaping over the bodies in her path, and came to the kitchen just as Burke thrust an electric carving knife down on the leg of a seated Omar, whose screams were muffled by a sock stuffed in his mouth. Blood spurted from his leg as he twitched in agony, sweat pouring down his face.
Burke had tied his hands behind the chair and had knotted extra rope around his legs and waist. Omar smacked into the chair repeatedly as though he were having a seizure, but Burke didn’t seem to care.
He stood up and held the bloody carving knife in the kitchen light as its cord dangled in the air. “Start talking, Omar. I want the address to every supply drop you’ve done in the past two weeks.”
Omar winced and cried, clearly in pain but not looking as though he was ready to talk. Burke jerked his head over to Angela as she slowly walked into the kitchen, holding his pistol out for him to take.
“Keep it,” Burke said. “I’m only getting started here.”
Angela didn’t know what to say. She wanted the information just as badly as Burke did. But getting it, so it seemed, would be at the cost of their humanity.
9
South of the Border
Burke drove the rattling blade into Omar’s other leg like a buzz saw. The grinding buzz coupled with Omar’s high-pitched, muffled screams worried Angela that someone would hear. So much for a covert operation, she thought, peeking out a back window as the gruesome spectacle continued behind her.
Thick red blood poured from Omar’s wounds in rapid spurts—so much that Burke nearly slipped as he circled his helpless captive. Angela turned from the window and watched Burke as he turned the carving knife off and held its dripping blade to the side. He leaned down inches from Omar’s face, causing the terrified man to shudder, and then Burke began further taunting him.
“Not much to work with here, Omar, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get creative. You tell me what I need to know, and we’re gone. You keep holding out on us, it’s going to be a very long night.”
Omar cried out, shaking his head as sweat dripped down his face. He still wouldn’t talk, despite the jagged wounds on his upper legs.
“What’s that?” Burke asked, holding a hand to his ear. “I can’t hear you.”
Angela stepped forward, wary of Burke’s sadistic behavior. “Stop toying with him, and take the sock out of his mouth. He’s trying to talk to you!”
Burke spun his head around, glaring at her. Omar’s frightened, nervous eyes darted between Burke and Angela. He gaped like a pig with an apple in its mouth and looked about as terrified as a man could look.
“You just keep watch. Got it?” Burke said in the short, dismissive tone she had heard from him before. This time, however, it was clear that he meant it.
When it came down to it, the truth was that she feared him in some way. What he had done in the past, and what he proved capable of doing now, was cruel and troubling enough. But he was her only hope of getting her children back. She turned back to the window feeling deeply conflicted.
Omar rocked back and forth as his smothered screaming reached a fever pitch.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Burke said into his ear. “If you tell me where your terrorist pals are, they’ll do even worse to you.” He paused and stood up straight and held the knife inches from Omar’s groin. “But that’s a concern for the future. You have to worry about who you’re dealing with now, and I am not someone to fuck with.” His gloved hand swooped upward and clutched Omar’s throat, pushing his head back and holding the jagged carving knife to his face. “And I’m not leaving here until you tell me about the supply drops. Where have you been?”
Omar’s terror-stricken face brimmed with fresh tears as blood continued to flow from his ravaged leg wounds. He nodded in frantic agreement as Burke yanked the sock from his mouth. In that brief moment of silence, Angela turned from the window, relieved that the carnage seemed to have ended.
“I only want to know where they’re holding my daughters,” she said.
Burke placed a hand on Omar’s quivering shoulder and squeezed. “You can start there. But I want to know every location, no matter how remote.”
Omar gasped for breath and hung his head as his chest rose and fell in rapid succession. Burke waited patiently, still holding the knife. Omar looked up with tears in his eyes and spoke in an exhausted, strained voice. “I don’t know anything about her daughters.”
Burke crossed his arms and towered over Omar, staring down with complete skepticism. “I’m sure you know plenty. It’s the same place where they killed her husband. You remember him, right? The American in your latest snuff film?”
Omar whipped his head from Angela to Burke, growing pale and despondent. He struggled with his words as his teeth clenched in reaction to the pain from the deep gashes on his mangled legs. “I-I don’t know. All I know is that they move around a lot. They don’t tell me. Maybe a day’s notice.”
Burke turned the carving knife back on with its ominous whir. Omar slammed his back against the chair, flailing the air in desperation to get free. “Okay! Okay, I’ll tell you.”
“You’d say anything to save your skin,” Burke said. He then paused, holding the vibrating blade close to Omar’s chest. “This is a hell of a knife. Where’d you get this thing?”
Burke stuffed the sock back into his mouth and then drove the blade across Omar’s arm, tearing into the flesh and unleashing a river of blood.
Angela turned away from the sight, but she could still hear everything only too well. Omar’s endless, muffled shrieks sent shivers down her spine as Burke continued to saw and grind Omar’s lower arm, tearing a jagged line open from top to bottom.
She opened her eyes and took one sure-footed step forward, filled with outrage. “Enough!” she shouted.
Burke stopped, blade entrenched deep within Omar’s arm, and looked at her curiously.
“What now?” he asked.
“This is wrong.”
Burke stepped casually away from Omar and set the blood-soaked knife on the counter as Omar’s faint cries continued. The captive’s T-shirt was drenched in blood from his arm. His dark-tan face had gone nearly pale, and he appeared to be losing consciousness.
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“You have a better way to get information?” Burke asked. “Because if you do, I’m all ears.” He took a threatening step forward and got directly in Angela’s face. She backed into the wall, fearing him like before. “I’m trying to find out where your kids are at. And now you’re going to sit here and object to my methods? Have you lost your mind?”
“There has to be another way,” she said, voice trembling. “This is sick. It’s sadistic!”
Burke extended one arm past her head, pressing his palm against the wall, and she could feel his hot breath in her face as he spoke quietly, just above a whisper. “Death is all these terrorists know. You think he’s going to talk if we ask him nicely? That how you think this works? Omar damn well knows that once he tells us, he’s a dead man. So we’ve got to make him more afraid of us than of his own people. Understand?”
Angela stared back at him, unblinking, not saying a word. Having made his point, Burke turned around just as Omar began to talk through the sock in his mouth. Burke yanked it out again as spit dripped down from the balled fabric.
“I’ll talk,” he said. “Just… just stop cutting me. I-I’m losing blood. I feel dizzy.”
Burke walked past him and straight to the kitchen sink, where he took his black tactical gloves off, turned on the faucet, and began to clean off the electric knife. “Not a problem, Omar.” He turned off the faucet and dropped the knife into the sink. He then walked toward Angela, pulling his gloves back on. “Why don’t you find some towels somewhere so we can clean him off?”
Angela glanced down at their defeated, butchered prisoner. He had lost a lot of blood, and the color leaving his skin wasn’t a good sign. She believed Burke had gone overboard but said nothing in protest. It was time to stop the bleeding and hear what the man had to say. She walked to the laundry room, where she remembered seeing some towels, quickly grabbed a couple from atop the washing machine, and reentered the kitchen.
Surviving The Collapse Super Boxset: EMP Post Apocalyptic Fiction Page 142