by Summer Lane
I forgave him for that.
But Harry…he didn’t learn from his mistakes.
He took the easy route. He sold out, and now he’s the bad guy.
“You could have been a good guy,” I tell him. “You could have helped us.”
“There’s no fame or recognition in the militias,” Harry snorts. “With Omega, I’ve been given the world. The New Order will elevate me to an esteemed position while the stupid, idealistic militia drivel is crushed under our feet.” He sits on the edge of his cot. “You could still join us, you know. There’s always room for one more.”
I reply, “I think you know I’d rather die.”
Harry frowns. “Yes, I guessed that was what you’d say. Still…” He sighs. “It doesn’t hurt to ask, does it?”
He checks his watch.
“Ah,” he says. “It’s nearly time for the show.”
“You’ve been sending assassins into Monterey,” I say, maintaining a cool expression. “Monterey was relatively safe until Chris and I showed up. Why are you so obsessed with getting revenge? We never did anything to you, Harry. We helped you survive, and in return, you stabbed us in the back. We’re the ones that should hate you.”
“And you do hate me,” Harry hisses. “You know you do.”
“I don’t hate you. I hate what you’ve done.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Cassidy.”
“Unlike you. You seem to be the master of deception.” I fold my arms across my chest, unmoving. “How many more innocent people have to die before this ends?”
Harry’s lip twitches.
“Many more,” he says. “The war is far from over.”
I spend two hours in Harry’s tent, alone. I don’t know where he goes, but I’m sure that wherever he is, he’s causing more trouble. The shock and numbness of being captured by Omega troops has worn off, and I am thinking hard, trying to figure out a way to escape.
Unfortunately, I’m coming up dry.
There is no way out of this. I am surrounded on all sides by hundreds of Omega troops. I can’t simply slip out of camp, and even if I did manage to get through their lines, I have no idea where I am. Where would I run to? Certainly not the beach. I’d have to run inland. That would be the only way…
“Well, Commander,” Harry says, pushing the flap aside on the tent, “it’s time to start the show. Care to join me? I’ve got a matinee showing.”
“Enough theatrics, Harry,” I reply. “Seriously.”
He grins and offers his hand. I rise from my sitting position on the cot and follow him outside. It is early morning. The fog is still heavy. The sun is dimly glowing behind the clouds.
“This way,” Harry encourages.
He is flushed, strangely excited. I do not trust him for a second.
The door to the Humvee that we arrived in several hours ago is open.
“After you,” Harry says, mockingly offering me the door.
I lift my chin and get into the vehicle, knowing that I have no choice.
I keep my hands in my lap, my eyes staring out the window as Harry climbs in to sit behind me, three guards in the vehicle with us, including a driver. I feel claustrophobic, being trapped in a confined space with one of my most despised enemies. Harry, after all, is the same sadistic man who captured Chris and tortured him in an Omega prison in Los Angeles.
If I had any love for Harry, it vanished when he hurt Chris.
The Humvee moves in line with the small convoy. We head toward the coastline. I can barely make out the Pacific Ocean. It is a dull gray in the foggy morning light, an ode to things to come, I fear.
The Humvee is driving down a side road. I can’t see how close we are to the main highway. We stop at the crest of a small hill. The engines cut out, the doors open, and Harry laughs.
“It’s show time,” he says.
I get a sick feeling in my stomach.
I follow him outside, where he makes me stand at the front of the Humvee.
“Watch,” he tells me, buttoning the top button in his black overcoat. A red piece of cloth is tied around his forearm. It reminds me of the Nazi Gestapo uniform from the 1940s.
Is Omega any different?
No.
I follow Harry’s line of sight. The other Omega officers in this group are smiling and watching the horizon, gleeful. I squint, then recognize the slight crescent shape of the Monterey Peninsula in the distance.
And then, just off the coastline, I see ships. Four of them. Large warships, surrounding the little harbor like a wall. I suck in my breath, praying, No, no, no! This can’t be happening! Not after all the sacrifices we’ve made – all the battles we’ve already fought!
“Our warships are quite deadly,” Harry brags. “I’m sure this battle will be over very shortly, fortunately for your forces.”
As soon as the words leave his mouth, I hear the explosion. It is similar to the detonation in Sacramento at the Capitol Building. It is a massive strike. I see the rolls of smoke and the rumbling aftershock of the explosion reaches us even here, across the bay. There is a second strike, then a third one. All of them hit buildings and key installations along the coastline.
I raise my hands to my lips, horrified.
Monterey is under attack, and there is nothing I can do about it.
Chapter Thirteen
I grab Harry by the shoulders and slam him backward against the hood of the Humvee. “How could you do this?” I demand, tears burning in my eyes. “Innocent people are going to die. Good people, Harry!”
Two Omega guards grab my arms and pull me off Harry, forcing me to the ground. One of them slams the butt of his rifle into the back of my neck. I flinch from the pain and hang my head, heaving.
“Good people, bad people,” Harry replies, “what’s the difference, really? We’ve all got bad in us, so we’re all bad. It’s just a matter of who’s stronger.”
“It’s a matter of choosing the good over the bad,” I say defiantly. “That’s what makes us who we are – that’s what defines us.”
Harry shakes his head.
“Take her away,” he commands. “Keep her safe and sound until the moment arrives.” He mock bows. “Pardon me, Senator. I’ve got the rest of Monterey to destroy, and so little daylight to work with.”
The guards drag me away, stuffing me into a different vehicle – a white, retrofitted pickup truck. They surround me. My neck is throbbing from the blow of the guards’ rifle, and I am trembling.
Did they blow up the postgraduate school? Is Chris dead? Is everyone I know gone? They can’t be. They just can’t…
I stop my train of thought, forcing myself to focus. The truck veers back onto the little road, disappearing into the fog. It’s just us. Two guards and the driver. I am in the center seat, staring at the console up front. I keep my hands flat against my hips, slowly slipping the fingers of my right hand into my pocket.
The small pocketknife that Jonas didn’t take is still there. Harry didn’t think to search me again, assuming that Jonas had already taken care of everything. Stupid move. Harry is brilliant in many ways, but he tends to miss the obvious.
The rumble of the engine in the car is enough to drown out the sound of me painstakingly opening the knife with one hand. I swallow when the blade clicks into the upright position, eyes darting sideways. The guards are oblivious, staring straight ahead, guns in their laps.
I curl my right hand around the handle of the blade and casually remove my hand from my pocket, keeping the knife just under my thigh, the flat of the blade against my pants.
This will have to be quick, I think. Very quick, or I’m dead.
Despite the fact that Harry wants to keep me alive – for the sole purpose of hanging my kidnapping over Chris’s head – I know for a fact that these Omega guards won’t hesitate to kill me if I make a move.
So I’ll get one chance, and only once chance.
I realize that the drive to the crest of the hill was only about ten minutes, so
I count to sixty over and over again until I reach five minutes. We are in the middle of fog, with no one around us or beside us.
I steel my nerves.
I take a deep breath and tighten my grip on the handle of the knife. I am still buzzing with adrenaline and anger from seeing the missile strikes on Monterey, so I take advantage of the fearlessness that comes from fury. I move quickly. I use my left hand to grasp the head of the guard on my left. I grip his hair, sliding my fingers under his helmet and slamming his head against the seat in front of him. I jam the blade into the base of his skull, where the brain stem connects to the spine. I feel the blade slice through flesh, crunch through bone.
I do it quickly, in a split second.
I pull the blade out as he slumps forward, paralyzed.
The guard on my left is a second too slow. He makes a move to grab the knife, but I turn my body and place my boot on the door of the pickup, using the flat of my back as a sort of shield. I use the leverage I have against the door to push back and turn, thrusting the knife in the back of his neck, as well. It is a painful, horrible injury and he is momentarily frozen with the shock. I jab again, compounding the lethal blow.
My hands are slicked with hot, sticky blood.
I wrench the rifle out of the guard’s hands – the one on my left – and shove the cold, steely muzzle of the weapon into the back of the driver’s skull.
“STOP THE TRUCK!” I command.
He veers off the road, diving into a chain link fence and a grove of weeds. I hit the center console as the truck runs its tires into the dirt and the driver throws the vehicle into park. Heart pounding, I say, “Get out of the truck and throw your weapon on the ground.”
The driver barely manages to stumble out the door, tossing his rifle onto the ground, along with his knife. He heaves and then pukes onto the grass, shaking. I crawl into the front seat and jump outside.
I sling the rifle over my shoulder and grab the driver’s weapon.
“Give me your ammunition,” I say.
He does. He is pale. Sick.
“See this fence?” I say, nodding to the chain link fence. “Put your hands flat against it and stare at the ocean. Count to five-hundred. You move and I’ll shoot you right between the eyes.”
He does as he’s told, wrapping his fingers around the chinks in the fencing, silent. I open the back door of the pickup and drag the dead guards on the ground.
I feel a twinge of guilt, of sadness.
And then it’s gone. I have no room for mercy in my heart today.
I take their guns and clips, too. I kick the side of the first guard’s boot.
“You’re wrong, by the way,” I say, turning to the guard grasping the fence. “The people with the stronger forces don’t win. The people with the stronger spirits do.”
I turn my back on the dead guards and the pitiful driver and slide behind the wheel of the pickup. I look at the fuel tank. Almost completely full. Finally, a stroke of good luck. I throw the truck into reverse and tear away from the fence, screeching onto the road, leaving hot, burnt rubber marks on the asphalt.
I see a sign that reads Cabrillo Highway, Highway 1.
I take the road, racing at breakneck speed through the fog.
My heart is still racing, my breath is short. I am covered in blood. It’s still warm, and it makes me sick. Sick that I have to kill people to save my own life. Sick that I have to kill people to save the lives of others.
I have so much blood on my hands.
The image of the Virgin Mary and the crucified Jesus flashes through mind.
“I’m not a murderer,” I whisper aloud. “I’m a soldier.”
I repeat those words until I believe them.
I hit the city limits of Seaside, just minutes away from downtown Monterey. I know that I am out of enemy territory when I see the United States Military vehicles driving down side roads. But the atmosphere is different, now. The calm structure of safety is gone. Black smoke is rising from the shorelines, smearing the sky with darkness. There are sirens. A pall has been cast over the city.
We are no longer safe. We are under attack.
We were never safe in the first place, I think.
I take the first exit, Del Monte, and floor it down the boulevard, around the corner. I reach a checkpoint and slam on my breaks. I’d forgotten about the checkpoints. Being blown up, kidnapped and barely surviving an escape rattled my brain a little more than I’d like to admit.
The checkpoint is made up of a barrier of sandbags and roadblocks. There is a guardhouse. Two National Guardsmen exit the building and walk to the window, weapons held tightly in their hands.
“Cassidy Hart,” I say. “Commander, Senator. I don’t have identification, I just-”
“Commander,” the first guy says. He’s fairly young with bright red hair. “We thought you were killed off the coast.”
“I should have been,” I reply.
“We’ll get you an escort into the city,” he replies. “This way, ma’am.”
I get out of the truck, toting the rifle and the ammo magazines with me. I leave the truck running and another National Guardsmen jumps behind the wheel, taking the truck away.
“You need a medic,” the redhead says. “Where are you wounded?”
“This isn’t my blood,” I answer.
He nods.
We walk into the guardhouse. It is a tiny building with a desk and a radio.
“I need you to get a message to Commander Young first,” I say.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Tell him that I’m alive, and that I’ll meet him wherever he wants.”
The guy picks up the receiver on the radio.
“Anything else?” he asks.
“That should do it.”
I look at the name tape on his uniform: O’Byrne.
“Thank you,” I say.
“They’re going to be happy that you’re alive,” he replies.
He squeezes the radio set.
“This is Eagle Eye to Home Run,” he says. “Come in, Home Run.”
A woman’s voice answers. It is Vera Wright.
“This is Home Run, Eagle Eye. What’s your situation?” she asks.
“Home Run, we’ve got good news,” O’Byrne says. “I’ve got Yankee One here in the guardhouse with me, alive and ready to get back in the game.”
A pause.
“Unbelievable,” Vera replies, matter-of-fact. “I’ll relay the news to the council and the officers.”
“Yankee One wants to know where she should meet Alpha One and the rest of his unit,” O’Byrne says, watching my face.
“The Wharf,” Vera answers. “Immediately.”
“Over and out, Home Run.”
“Over and out.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. Vera didn’t say that Chris was dead.
He’s alive, he’s alive. Good news.
“Is there anyone else I should radio before we take you to the wharf?” O’Byrne asks. “Maybe Costas? He’s been going crazy trying to track you down. He was convinced you weren’t dead – he was even down here earlier this morning, asking us if we’d seen you.”
“Costas?” I repeat, puzzled. “You mean Elle Costas? The bomb girl?”
“No. Manny Costas. You know.” O’Byrne musses up his hair. “Pilot? Crazy hair, long jacket?”
I nod.
“Yeah, I know him,” I reply, distant. “I’ve just…I didn’t know his last name until now.”
“I thought the two were related,” O’Byrne shrugs. “Whatever. I don’t put things together so well. This way, Commander. The city’s under attack, we don’t need to waste time with chit-chat.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I hate chit-chat.”
O’Byrne hops into an armored SUV. I get into the passenger seat.
“We’ll be there in just a few minutes,” he promises. I fasten my seatbelt. It is a habit I have forced myself to keep ever since I survived an IED bombing in a Humvee. Sometimes seatbelts
save your life, in more ways than one.
“So how did you do it?” O’Byrne asks.
I watch the scenery flash by. The calm, collected military exterior of the city has vanished. It’s all gone, washed away. Our military forces are no longer in the center of the city – they’re on the coastline, combating Omega’s warships.
But do they know about the five-hundred troops hiding just twenty miles out of the city? Surely somebody must have spotted them!
“Do what?” I ask.
“Escape. I mean, I assume that’s what you did,” O’Byrne clarifies. “They found the remains of the Coast Guard cutter. Searched everywhere for your body. Couldn’t find you among the dead.” He shrugs. “They assumed you’d either sunk to the bottom or survived, somehow. Commander Young took a SEAL team into the bay and dived during a search.”
My chest tightens.
Oh, Chris. Doing everything he possibly could to bring me back.
This is why I love him. Well. One of many reasons, but still.
“I was rescued by a fisherman,” I say. “How random is that? His name was Jonas. He turned me into Omega for the reward, I guess. Who knows what Omega gave him in exchange for me.” I shake my head. “I got lucky, saw an opportunity to escape. I took it, and now I’m here. That’s really all there is to it.”
O’Byrne glances at the blood on my clothes.
I know what he is thinking: There is way more to the story than that.
He’s right, but I’m not in a storytelling mood.
We follow Del Monte Road and curve past the iron bars of the Naval Postgraduate School. We take it down to the harbor, but instead of going through the tunnel and onward toward Cannery Row or the Presidio, O’Byrne hangs a right into a parking lot. There are small fishing boats and yachts anchored in the bay here. Some of them have been pulled into the parking lot and ripped apart. Militia men and woman are busy, hard at work. No more than a mile away, a fire is blazing in Cannery Row.
“What are they doing to the boats?” I ask.
“The ballasts are made of lead,” O’Byrne says. “A couple of tons of lead, actually. It’s a great way to get bullets.”