by Eric Vall
His face was one of relief if anything, though he hid it quickly. If one of my people died, I couldn’t imagine the sadness and anger I would feel in the wake of their passing. It wasn’t the same for Brody, and I wondered if he was even capable of feeling remorse or if he was a true psychopath who was only able to mimic emotions, not feel them for himself.
“Alright,” I said to distract myself from my constant urge to put my hands around Brody’s throat, “Paige, could you get out the map.”
“Sure,” the brunette said, and she pulled off her backpack and reached inside.
“I don’t think this is necessary,” Brody said. “We all know our positions, right?”
“Well, your men weren’t there when we came up with the plan yesterday,” Anna pointed out. “I think it’d be good for them to be here and see it for themselves.”
“I went over it with them,” Brody said.
“My team and I always review the plan before it gets set into motion,” I told him. “We’d like you to be part of that right now.”
Brody had agreed to do things my way, and I would extend it going over the plan if necessary. He wasn’t about to get out of this. I needed to know that his men at least understood what it was that they were supposed to do today, and I didn’t trust that Brody had done a good job of preparing them.
“So,” Paige said after she laid the map out in the back of their jeep. “Everyone has a guard tower that they’re assigned to, and they’re numbered.”
“I’m number two,” Anna said. “Tav is one.”
“Right,” I agreed.
“I’m three,” Tara said.
“Four,” Bailey added.
“And five,” Paige said, then she turned to Brody’s men. “Do you know which towers are yours?”
The men didn’t speak, but they pointed to different towers, and Paige nodded. I was surprised that Brody had actually gone over the plan with them, part of me expected him to throw his men in blind and let them to figure it out, but I guess he was too much of a narcissist to put his life on the line by not informing his team of what they had to do. He didn’t trust them, either, so I hoped that meant that he had drilled the plan into their heads in an attempt to keep his own ass safe.
“I told you,” Brody said, “they know what they’re doing.”
“Excuse us for being extra cautious when working with new people,” Anna said dryly. “We’re used to working on our own.”
“And you do a good job of it,” Brody agreed. “But this is a large place, you ladies might need a bit of help.”
“I think you’re the ones who need help,” Tara said, and I nudged her with my foot.
“We’re all working together,” Anna said to smooth things out. “It’s important that we trust each other, and to do that we need to know that everyone has a good grasp of the plan.”
“Right,” I said, “so what’s next?”
“After we take out the guys in the guard towers then we head to the perimeter to take those men out,” Bailey said.
“Correct,” I agreed, then I pointed to the large male on Brody’s team, Nick. “And what after that?”
“Uh, then we take out the men inside the fence,” he said, and I nodded.
“Good job,” I told him, “and after all of them are out, then we’ll wait for the patrols to come back and take them out one by one.”
“Are we finished with this yet?” Brody sneered. “I told you that my men knew what they were doing.”
“I think we’re done,” I said in a low voice. “We better get moving anyways, we want to make sure that we see how many patrols they send out.”
“Move out,” Brody said, and his men grabbed their M16s and followed their leader out into the road.
I noticed, though, that they walked by us slowly, and they looked down and back up apologetically, like they knew that Brody was a dick and they were sorry that we had to deal with it.
In actuality it was us who was sorry that they had to deal with him, but that small action led me to believe that these were good men who didn’t like Brody any more than we did at this point.
I wondered too how many of these men had wives or girlfriends that had come with them and had since been forced into Brody's bedroom. I wouldn’t put it past him, and if he broke the men down enough beforehand then they wouldn’t even attempt to fight back. Renee had said that people had left, though, and I thought that had probably been mostly couples after they found out what Brody intended to do.
Most couples I knew weren’t into things like that, and even if they were, it had to be their own choice. Brody left no choice in the matter, the manipulation, coercion, and ultimately the use of force made sure of that.
I led my girls out to the road as well, and we trailed behind Brody’s men. It was still early in the morning, and the patrols most likely hadn’t left yet if our last visit was any indication. We walked at a brisk pace, but I hung back a few feet from Brody. I didn’t want to be too close to him in the event that he tried something stupid, or we needed to duck out of the way because some druggies appeared out of nowhere.
“I’m surprised that he told them the plan,” Paige said as we walked.
“I’m not,” Tara said. “He cares too much about himself to let himself get shot because those guys don’t know what they're doing.”
“Those were my thoughts exactly,” I chuckled. “And has everyone been paying close attention to the men?”
“Yeah,” Bailey said, “they looked sad when they walked by us, like they felt bad that Brody was such a dick.”
“Exactly,” I agreed, “I don’t think these guys respect him at all.”
“That’s good for us, isn’t it?” Bailey asked.
“Very good,” I said. “That means that we don’t have to worry about them sticking up for him.”
“They’d probably be happy if we shot him in the dick,” Tara mumbled.
“I think everyone would be happy with that,” Anna said.
“I know I would,” Tara said.
“You’d be happy to shoot anybody in the dick,” Paige chuckled.
“It’s a powerful feeling,” Tara said with a grin, “but I’d never shoot Tav in the dick.”
“Good to know,” I said.
“Unless you pissed me off,” she teased.
“Hey, whoa,” I said, and we all laughed.
I saw a couple of Brody’s men turn back to look at us, and their expressions were one of sadness. I wondered how long it had been since they smiled or laughed. It couldn’t be easy living in a place like the fort where all you did was work and then get thrown onto the front lines of a war with the last remaining cartel in Vermont.
I smiled at the men and continued to walk, but the girls and I grew quiet after that. We were close enough to the city that it was time to put our guards up, and as we walked I kept my hand on my pistol so that I was ready in case anything unexpected came up.
Once we were in the city I could hear the ruckus that came from the outpost. It seemed that everything was up and running for the day, and I even heard a couple of jeep engines, but they weren’t close enough to worry about so we kept moving.
We followed Brody to the same building he had led us to before, and up the extremely long and graffitied stairs to the roof.
“We’ll get a good view of the towers we have to take out from here,” Bailey said to Brody’s men as we looked over the edge of the building down to the outpost.
“Oh, man,” Alexander, the man with long, stringy blonde hair said as he looked down, “I’m not so good with heights.”
“What?” Anna whispered.
“Are you okay?” Bailey asked.
“Mm-mm,” the man said, and he shook his head.
“He’s gonna hurl,” Tara said.
“It’s okay,” Paige told him, and she grabbed his arm and led him back to the roof door.
“Jesus,” Anna breathed. “You think he’ll be able to get up the guard tower?”
&n
bsp; “I don’t know,” Bailey said with a frown. “I feel bad for him.”
“Don’t,” Brody said grimly, “he’s weak.”
“He has vertigo,” Anna protested. “He can’t help that.”
“He should have trained his body to adjust a long time ago,” Brody said.
“Yeah, well, not everybody’s a soldier who trained their body to be a fuckin’ machine,” Tara scoffed.
“If they had, they’d be giving the orders these days, not taking them,” Brody said, and he flashed her a crooked smile that made me want to punch him even more than I had before.
“He’ll be alright,” Paige said as she returned to the group.
“Are you sure?” Bailey asked.
“Yeah,” the brunette said. “He gets bad vertigo, but I gave him some motion sickness medicine I had in my bag, it should help.”
“Thank you,” Johnny, the small, shorter guy in the group said.
“Of course,” Paige told him, “I’m kind of the team medic. It’s my job.”
“Will he be able to take out the guy in the guard tower?” Anna asked.
“He should be alright as long as he doesn’t look down,” Paige said. “That’s what got him just now, he accidentally looked straight down instead of out to the outpost.”
“That can easily give someone vertigo,” I said, “but I’ll keep an eye on him when we go up the towers, and if he looks like he can’t handle it then I’ll go over there.”
“No, let me,” Tara said. “My tower is closer to his, and I can use my silenced Ruger.”
“Okay,” I said, “thanks, Tara.”
The poor guy tried his best, but sometimes there was nothing you could do about your bodily response to stimuli. He hadn’t been trained for this, so we couldn’t expect him to just get over it. Anna had trouble on the boat the first couple of days we were on it, but eventually she got used to it. It seemed to mean a lot to the other men that we were willing to help out their friend, which was another check in the box that said they would tell Brody to fuck right off if it came down to it. Maybe I had overestimated his manipulation skills. Still, I’d rather overestimate an opponent then underestimate them.
“I see two jeeps patrolling the area,” Anna said, “but the yard is still full of more of them, so I don’t think groups have been sent out yet.”
“Great,” I said, “we’ll have to wait until they leave. Paige, are you ready to mark down which way they go?”
“On it,” the brunette said, and she had a pen, pad, and map laid out in front of her.
Everyone pulled out binoculars and began to watch the goings on of the outpost. I made sure to keep an eye on the arsenal and the building that the women were pulled from the last time we were there. I saw plenty of men go into the arsenal, but no one went into the building with the women, and nobody came out of it either. There were more girls in there, I knew that for a fact. They wouldn’t have sent all of them with the caravan we took out a few days before, in fact, I doubted they would even send half of them with those men. And that meant that there were probably twenty or more women locked up in that building.
I pulled back from my binoculars to look at Brody. His eyes were still pressed into his own pair, and his breath was even. He was trained and ready for this, but part of me wanted to pick him up and throw him off the building right there. He didn’t care about the women in that building, and he definitely didn’t care about anyone that surrounded him at the moment.
I took a deep breath to calm myself down, but when I looked back to the outpost I saw that the men inside were loading up into jeeps.
“Looks like they’re about to head out,” Anna announced.
“Get ready to tell Paige which way they’re going and how many,” I said.
“On it,” Bailey said.
It took a few minutes for the men to get loaded up, but soon enough jeep after jeep pulled through the front gates of the compound and headed off in different directions. We announced to Paige which roads they took, and how many went which direction so that we had an accurate tally for later, but once that was done it was time to get down to the real business of the day.
“Everybody ready?” I asked after the last jeep had disappeared from the city.
“Let’s go,” Bailey said.
“And Tara,” I said, “you got Alexander?”
“Of course,” the platinum blonde answered. “I’m on it.”
“Let’s head out,” I said with a nod, and I looked around at my girls and Brody’s men. “Everyone be careful out there.”
Brody turned to go inside, but I saw him roll his eyes before he did so. He never had been one for motivational speeches, even when we were Rangers together, and I was curious how that had translated into his role as a leader. I always appreciated a little hype up from my commanding officer, and it was nice to know that you were cared about. Sure, we were all part of a team, and we all had a service to do, but our motto was to leave no man behind, and it was a good feeling to know that extended to you as well. Brody didn’t seem to have the same sentiment anymore, but I shrugged it off and followed him back to the stairwell.
We met Alexander there, and he joined our group as we headed back downstairs.
“You going to be alright, Alexander?” I asked as we walked.
“Me?” he asked after a second.
“You’re Alexander, right?” I asked.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, “I’ll be fine. Paige gave me some medicine, and it really helped.”
“Good,” I said, “and if anything happens Tara has your back.”
“Who’s Tara again?” the guy asked.
“Yo,” Tara said from next to me, and she raised a hand.
“Oh, right,” Alexander said, and he blushed and looked down.
He was probably a few years older than the girls, and I had to smile at his immediate reaction to Tara. She was intimidating, for more reasons than just one, but still, I thought it was cute that he had a little crush. I wasn’t the type to be threatened by that, especially since there was absolutely nothing threatening about this guy, and besides, I knew Tara was all mine. She had made that abundantly clear.
Once we were outside, it was time to split up and make our way to our assigned guard towers. I nodded at the girls as I split away from the group and headed toward the tower closest to the gate.
The plan we had come up with was a good one, but I hated that I had to be so far away from the girls. Most of the time I tried to make plans where we were all near enough to each other that we could help if someone needed, but there was no way around it here, we had to be on our own for a few minutes.
I made my way through the city, careful to look out for the jeeps that patrolled the area, and once I was close enough to my guard tower I peered around the building I was behind to get a better view.
The tower itself was tall, and it would take at least a full thirty seconds to get up the ladder. That meant a full thirty seconds unseen by anyone around, which was longer than it sounded when it came to combat. The guy who stood in the tower stared out ahead of him, his rifle on his shoulder, ready to be used if necessary. I looked closer at the guard tower, but I didn’t see any sort of warning device that would signal to the others that someone had invaded. I hadn’t seen one through the binoculars, but it was better to double check than to get caught in a surprise.
I decided that it was better to leave my rifle. It would only slow me down as I tried to make my way up the ladder, so I set the gun in the alley I was in and covered it up with some trash. I’d come back for it after I had finished this guy off.
I surveyed the ground once more. There were a couple of guys on patrol by the gate, but they faced away from me, so I knew it was now or never. I ran toward the tower, and as I did I pulled my tanto blade from my hip and when I reached the bottom of the ladder I put the blunt side of the knife into my mouth and started to climb.
The guards still looked in the other direction, so I hurried up the ladd
er, careful to not make the wood creak, and once I was at the top I peered over the edge.
The man in the tower was still staring out ahead, so I slowly pulled myself up so as not to make a single sound. One wrong move and I would have that rifle pointed in my face faster than I could blink. These guys weren’t trained military, but they were organized and focused, and probably hopped up on meth. Plus, if I got into a scuffle with this asshole then that would give away my position, and also alert the other guards in the towers that something was going down. I could get myself and everyone on my team killed.
I pulled myself to my feet and grabbed my tanto blade, then I rushed forward at the man in front of me. I put my left hand over his mouth and I brought the tanto blade up with my right hand and ran it across his throat.
I felt warm, sticky blood coating my hand, but I just lowered the guy to the floor so he could bleed out quickly, and wiped my hand on his jacket.
In order for this to not look suspicious, I had to take the guy’s place for a second while he bled out at my feet, then I’d prop him back up so that none of the guards below would realize he was dead.
While I waited for the poor bastard to bleed out, I pulled out my binoculars and looked around to the other guard towers.
Tara was already in her tower, and Alexander was in his as well. I looked over to see Paige slit the man’s throat in her tower, then lower him to the floor, and Anna already had her guy propped up, though I could see through my binoculars that a bit of blood still dripped from his neck. Bailey was in her tower with her rifle up and ready. She had stolen the baseball cap the man in her tower had worn, and when she saw me she gave a small wave. It looked like Brody and the rest of the guys had managed to get their kills as well, though the amateur men were a bit bloodier than the rest of us. Still, I was proud of them. This wasn’t an easy task, especially for someone who wasn’t used to doing things like this. Even if this was all that they managed for the day, it had been a big help.
Once my guy had stopped bleeding for the most part, I searched through his pockets and took his spare ammo, then I set him back up in the tower and leaned him against the pillars.
After that was done it was time to go, so I checked on the men on patrol below me, but they were in the middle of smoking more of the meth or whatever it was, so I shook my head and made my way back down the ladder.