Camp Valor

by Scott McEwen

  Down a stone staircase they went, into a nearly pitch-black Gaming Room, with blackout curtains drawn. The room was empty, save a few ratty snooker tables and stuffed animals hanging on the walls, peering down with dumb glassy eyes. There was a bar in the far corner. A waiter in a tux stood to take orders. Only candles flickered for light. And a table was set lavishly with food. The smattering of guests dug into piles of caviar, sweets, exotic fruits, and dried meat.

  Wyatt tried to look natural, but it was nearly impossible until he regained sight of Dolly.

  “Party?” Samy said under his breath. “It was more fun back at the funeral.”

  “Caviar,” Fouad said, motioning to the table, “if you eat the stuff.”

  “Where’s Dolly?” Wyatt asked. “I mean, where are the girls?”

  “Freshening up,” Fouad said. “Don’t worry, homes. She’ll be right back.”

  “Who are those people over there?” Samy jerked his chin out to the guests on the other side of the lawn. There were three of them, attended by a waiter.

  “Those people?” Fouad said, as if he was recognizing them for the first time. “Right. They just dropped off a package. They’re getting a bite to eat before they leave.”

  “Hey, Fouad,” Ebbie said. “You mind if we use the bathroom?” Ebbie turned and looked down a long hallway. Wyatt knew exactly what he was thinking. Go find Dolly. Or go find a phone.

  Fouad, no doubt, also knew exactly what Ebbie was thinking. “Sure.” He grinned strangely. “Go straight back. First door you’ll come to leads to a hall. Make a right. You’re there, homes.”

  “Thanks, homes,” said Ebbie, who nodded to Samy and Wyatt. “Back in a jif.”

  “You want me to show you the way?” Fouad called after him.

  “Nah,” said Ebbie, not looking back. “I’m a big boy.”

  That he was, thought Wyatt. And he had a Desert Eagle hidden under his coat.

  Fouad, Samy, and Wyatt watched Ebbie disappear down the hall. The three looked at each other for a moment, in silence.

  “Good times,” Fouad said. “Good times.”

  * * *

  Ebbie searched the main floor—no Dolly, no phone. Passing another stairwell, he could hear strange moans. He followed, assuming he was now at the basement level. Noises were coming from the end of the hall. Ebbie passed the bathroom. Not a girl’s voice. A man’s voice. Low and guttural. Someone in pain for sure. But not acute pain. Ebbie wished he had his NVGs. It was so dark. He’d use his phone to light the way, but the light would draw attention. And he had his Desert Eagle drawn out in front of him as he crept down the hall closer to the door.

  The noise stopped. Silence. He heard blood rushing in his ears. And the voice of reason in his own head saying, You should go back, get the boys, call in the cavalry. Still, he walked.

  “Who’s there?” a girl’s voice called from down the hall. Accented. Sounded like Raquel.

  But Ebbie didn’t answer, stepping as quietly as he could toward the voice.

  “Whoever you are, do you mind coming closer? My phone is dead and I can’t see.” She paused, “Can you?”

  Ebbie kept moving.

  “Can you help me see?” she repeated and then seemed to laugh. “I guess not. Can you see the Glowworm behind you?”

  Ebbie heard the girl laugh as he felt a pair of wet arms, like coiled steel, wrap around his neck.

  * * *

  “You look nervous,” Fouad said. “Want me to go find the girls?”

  Wyatt was, in fact, getting nervous. He hadn’t seen Dolly yet in the house and Ebbie had been gone for at least ten minutes. But he didn’t like this kid prodding him.

  “You want to go find the girls, go right ahead,” Wyatt said. “But I’m coming with you.”

  Fouad nodded. “Sure, no problem.” He smiled through his greasy beard and squinted. “Remind me how you knew Hud again?”

  “Skiing,” Samy said coolly.

  “In Aspen. Yeah, I remember now.” Fouad made a face. “But … hmmm.” He looked around like something was occurring to him. It was dusk, and the sun had just set. The last vestiges of light in the Game Room seemed to instantly dim. From golden to a dull amber. An eerie light. And oddly quiet.

  “You mean you didn’t know him from that camp where you learn how to spy and kill people.”

  Wyatt and Samy exchanged a look.

  “Kidding!” Fouad said. “Man you two looked crazy just then. Like crazy.”

  Two loud bangs came from the lower floors. Flat, and familiar. Gunshots. Heads swiveled. Wyatt and Samy had guns drawn in an instant.

  “Hey, what’s going on,” Fouad said, smirking. “You bring guns to our party?”

  “Get on the ground!” Wyatt forced Fouad to the floor. “Same with you!” He swung his gun around to the guests and the waiter. “All of you, on the ground.”

  Neither the guests nor the staff seemed fazed, they just kept on drinking, gobbling caviar, slugging champagne.

  “They’re poisoned. Or drugged,” Samy said. “Completely out of it.”

  Fouad giggled. “You’re completely out of it.”

  Wyatt zip-tied Fouad. He was still giggling when Wyatt gagged him. The guests didn’t even notice.

  “You don’t even know enough to be scared of the dark.”

  Wyatt drew his knife and pressed it to Fouad’s throat. “God help me, I will kill you. Where are they?”

  Fouad’s smiled faded. “Killing me would be a relief compared to what they will do to me if I betray them.”

  “Fine, then.” Samy slammed the butt of his gun on the top of Fouad’s head. He crumpled.

  “Leave him,” Wyatt said. “This way.” And he took off toward the sound of the gunshots.

  * * *

  They moved in a pair down the long dark corridor, slowly. Wyatt looking forward, Samy watching their backs—swim buddies stepping slowly into the unknown. Wyatt had tried the light switch. But like all of the lights and the switches in the house, none worked. Since the original mission was a day operation in New York City, they had not deemed it necessary to bring night vision goggles, and because of this, they were at a tremendous disadvantage. Wyatt had his cell phone glowing in his hand, but he kept it away from his body, in case someone decided to shoot at it.

  Wyatt could not see, but he smelled blood in the hallway. He moved forward, hearing a trickling sound. They came up on a spray of blood dripping from the wall and ceiling. No body. But a trail led down the hall to a door, half-open.

  “Ebbie?” Samy asked.

  “Maybe,” Wyatt said, then made a “shhhh” sound and cut his light.

  “What’s that?” Samy froze. They both heard it—a buzzing, steady whine. Something entered the hall behind them. Now buzzing clearly.

  The buzzing came down the hall, and a wind swept toward them. Samy aimed his gun.

  “Don’t,” Wyatt whispered as a drone hummed into view. “It’s one of ours.”

  “Damn, Rory has some skills,” Samy said. She must have seen the GTO marked with an X from above, entered the house, and somehow managed to navigate stairs and hallways without crashing. The drone, about two feet in diameter, hovered in the hall in front of them before settling to the ground. Wyatt could see the model had no speaker. But it did have a camera, microphone, night vision capability, and an LED light.

  “Rory,” Wyatt said. “Flash your light once for yes, twice for no. Got me?”

  The LED glowed, one flash.

  “Is the rest of the team here?”

  The LED glowed once.

  “Are they on their way?”

  The LED glowed once.

  “Is Avi with you?”

  LED flash.

  “Avi, can you pair the camera in the drone with my phone so I can see what the drone sees?”

  There was a long pause, then Wyatt saw his phone glow. Bluetooth pairing. Then Wyatt was looking at a video of himself and the drone’s internal dashboard on his screen. This was good news. Bad news was
, the drone’s battery was flashing. It would run out of juice soon. “We have to move fast,” Wyatt said, looking down the hall at the door. “Stay ahead of us.”

  The drone now lifted off the ground and flew down the hallway. Wyatt kept one eye on the screen of his phone as he followed. He holstered the Glock and reached around his back to check his ammo. The two grenades were still clipped to his belt. The two flash-bangs were there, as well as the two M67s. Wyatt drew his gun again. The drone reached the end of the hall. The door was cracked open, just wide enough for the drone to enter.

  “Go ahead,” Wyatt whispered.

  The drone entered, narrowly avoiding the doorframe. On his phone, Wyatt saw the room was a torture chamber. Blood was everywhere, reading black on the screen—the floor, the walls. The room was empty, except for a blender sitting on a stand next to a strange pump. It looked like two fingers were inside it. Wyatt looked closer. There was Ebbie’s Desert Eagle. And Dolly’s purse—both splashed with blood.

  “Oh god,” Wyatt followed behind the drone. “Where did they go?”

  The drone pivoted around the room and then settled on a rug that had been tossed aside. The outline of a door, open wide, leading down into what looked like a wine cellar. The outline of round bottles visible in the greenish glow of the drone’s night vision. The drone settled onto the floor to conserve battery.

  Wyatt and Samy entered the room quietly. Wyatt picked up Ebbie’s Desert Eagle and checked the breech. One shot fired. One of the two shots they heard, he thought.

  Samy tapped Wyatt and whispered, “Hey brutha, I think we are being followed.”

  Wyatt looked back down the hall, his eyes unable to see clearly but, like Samy, half-seeing, half-sensing movement.

  “Can we send the drone back?” Samy asked.

  “Not enough battery,” Wyatt said. “And Dolly and Ebbie are this way.”

  “Damn, brutha. We are getting drawn into a trap.” Samy said.

  “Yeah,” Wyatt agreed. “But they don’t know we have these.” Wyatt drew out his grenades and put them into two piles on the door. “Flash-bangs here. M67s here. If they come on, we go out hard.”

  Samy nodded, putting the grenades he carried into the separate piles.

  “Rory,” Wyatt whispered to the drone, “you copy?”

  The LED flashed once. Wyatt looked at Samy and pointed back down the way they had come. “Keep an eye out.”

  Wyatt put his phone down next to the Desert Eagle and his Glock. He checked his Colt, took it off safety, and reholstered the Glock. He had more ammo for the Glock, so he wanted to save that gun. Samy did the same with his weapons. Wyatt held a flash-bang in one hand and an M67 in the other. “Rory, show me what’s in the cellar.”

  * * *

  The drone descended the stairs, and Wyatt monitored progress on his phone. He saw that the stairs led down to a wine cellar—and a massive one at that. It must have been a hundred yards long, running the full length of the mansion. And it was old, the walls shaped by a mix of clay and dirt and cement. Like a mazelike cave. Barrels and bottles where everywhere. It was pitch-black.

  The drone moved into the warren and landed, maybe twenty feet from the room where Wyatt and Samy waited. A few moments later and they saw signs of life. What looked like a vast empty cell now crawled with vermin. Rats, mice, and the worst kind—humans. Maybe forty people dressed completely in black and wearing NVGs came out from behind the barrels and the bottles. A trap indeed.

  Through the connection between the drone and his cellphone, Wyatt could hear the blonde, Raquel, somewhere in the cellar. “See what it is,” she said.

  One of the figures clad in black, carrying a hatchet and an M4, came forward. He wore a black hoodie with “Glowworm Gaming” stenciled on the front. He carefully approached the drone. The people, all with NVGs, focused on the object.

  Wyatt pulled the pins from two of the flash-bangs, waited a second and a half, then leaned down into the cellar and hurled them at the creeps in their hoodies.

  The cellar lit up in a cataclysm of sound and light. Wyatt could hear screams. In the drone’s camera, he could see the guards in the cellar, ripping off their night vision. All were blinded.

  Someone must have been pursuing them from the hallway because he heard Samy firing shots.

  “Follow me,” Wyatt said, scooping up his M67s and pocketing them. He grabbed the Colt and the Desert Eagle and dropped into the cellar. A rack of chemicals near one of the flash-bangs caught fire, casting a yellowish light and black smoke.

  Wyatt entered, shooting at targets in black hoodies, anyone he could tell was not Dolly or Ebbie. Samy followed seconds later, and when the ground shook twice from above, Wyatt knew Samy had lobbed his M67s down the hall. They quaked above them.

  Wyatt dropped the Desert Eagle and the Glock as soon as he ran out of ammo. Without pause, he heaved the remaining M67s at the bodies down the length of the cellar and pulled Samy aside. “Cover!” he yelled.

  The M67s exploded a second apart, sending glass, wine, and all manner of debris, including body parts, flying. Parts of the cellar were caving in. Flames were everywhere. The guards, those who could move, fled the cellar, running like rats for an exit. It was pure chaos—exactly as Wyatt wanted it.

  Wyatt and Samy pursued, hot on the heels of the fleeing guards. If he saw hands up, he didn’t shoot. Otherwise, Wyatt put down bad guys, swapping out clips as he ran. As bodies dropped, Wyatt realized he wasn’t playing a video game. This was killing. Real kills. Lives taken by Wyatt. The killing didn’t feel good, but he did it without hesitation. He had one thought in his mind—Dolly. They had her. If he had to kill his way to her, he would.

  * * *

  The exit that the Glowworm’s foot soldiers were fleeing into was a wooden staircase that opened directly onto the grounds. Wyatt’s sense of direction, thrown off by the blasts and the darkness, was screwed up, but he was pretty sure the exit was on the east side of the house.

  Smoke and bodies poured out. Wyatt could hear heavy machine-gun fire outside the door, and he was almost certain he was running to his death when he exploded out, followed by Samy, shooting.

  They saw a line of M4s spitting fire. But it wasn’t aimed at them. It was aimed back up the lawn at the house. The Glowworm’s guards were pinned down by fire from the house. This didn’t make sense. Wyatt looked back to the fire coming from Hallsy, Avi, and the Old Man, spread out on the back deck of the cottage, firing into the giant sloping lawn.

  Down the sweeping lawn, Wyatt could see a small group running toward a helicopter landing pad. Wyatt thought he could make out Raquel and, with her, three captives. Dolly and Ebbie were two of them. The other, Wyatt couldn’t see. But Wyatt could hear a chopper in the distance.

  “They’re getting away,” he yelled, the M4s opening up on Samy and Wyatt, who dove for cover.

  Samy lobbed the last M67 at the M4s, but the explosion did little to displace them. Wyatt and Samy were all but dead.

  The Old Man saw this as he came out of the house, an H&K on his shoulder spraying bullets at the guards with the M4s.

  “Come get it!” the Old Man yelled. The M4s redirected their fire and the Old Man was lit up, his body jerking back and forth in gunfire before toppling to the ground.

  Wyatt and Samy used the distraction to open up on the M4s, taking them down quickly. Samy moved to check on the Old Man. Wyatt could not wait. He replaced his last clip and sprinted down the lawn, unsure if any backup was following.

  * * *

  They were waiting for Wyatt at the helipad. Raquel had Dolly from behind, a knife pressed to her throat. Wyatt almost did not recognize Dolly, her face was so badly slashed. She poured blood. Ebbie was no better.

  Wyatt leveled his Glock at Raquel, taking aim between her pretty temples, knowing he could pull the trigger and drop the girl likely before she could shoot or stab Dolly. But was it worth the risk?

  “Drop the knife. Or I shoot.” Wyatt instructed, knowing he’d lost any elemen
t of surprise. His words sounded hollow. He was one guy standing across from at least six armed men and women.

  “Come on,” Raquel said, grinning, using Dolly’s body as a shield. “I dare you.”

  A voice came from behind Wyatt. “I wouldn’t take that dare.” The voice was unusually calm.

  Wyatt glanced over his shoulder to see a creature out of a horror movie coming across the lawn. He had completely white skin, almost greenish, iridescent, and he wore what looked like a diaper covering his groin and a plastic screw cap on his navel. He was muscle-y, but in a strange, unnatural way. His head had clumps of hair smothered in Vaseline or a similar gel.

  The man-thing wore welding goggles, even though the sun had set. A bright moon lit the night. And under one arm, he held a man in a headlock and pointed a sawed-off shotgun to the man’s head with his free hand. The prisoner’s skin was blackened with bruises, and laced with lacerations and wet blood. Clearly, he’d been repeatedly beaten. The prisoner was semiconscious, one eye completely swollen shut, and blood bubbled up from his mouth. Wyatt noticed that his right hand was missing most of its digits and one of his ears had been chopped clean off, the blood still trickling down his face.

  “Wyatt, run!” the prisoner said.

  And in that moment, Wyatt recognized not just the voice but the face, beaten almost beyond recognition. It was a face he knew well, one very similar to his own, only older, harder, a face Wyatt hadn’t seen in almost a year.

  “Dad?”

  * * *

  Wyatt’s mind tried to process what could possibly have happened. Why was his father on a Valor mission? Why was he being held hostage? Why was he missing an ear? No answers came, and he had no time to search for them. Or to think.

  The helicopter was descending toward the pad. Armed guards perched on the runners. The creature looked at Wyatt, laughing. “Little boy,” he said. “I think I am going to take you with me. Take his gun,” he said to his guards. “And take him with us.”

  As the chopper came into a low hover, Wyatt, who had at least eight guns on him, saw one way out.