by Summer Lane
I come to the last cell. The man in the corner has long hair and a lean build. My mouth goes dry.
“Chris?” I say.
He looks up, but it’s not Chris. Someone else. I have a borderline heart attack.
“He’s not here,” I state, numb. “Chris isn’t here.”
“He’s here somewhere,” Uriah replies, shaking me. “Don’t give up.”
God, please. Give me a break! I’m begging you!
Injured and weakened officers stumble into the hallway, disoriented and confused.
“We’re Americans!” I say simply. “We’re here to get you out.” Then, “Do any of you know where Commander Chris Young is?”
I might as well ask. Seriously. What have I got to lose at this point?
My question goes unanswered. So I ask again, louder. This time, someone speaks up. It’s the prisoner that I thought was Chris.
“He’s upstairs,” he croaks. His voice is broken by exhaustion. “I don’t know if he’s coming back or not.”
A stone drops to the pit of my stomach.
“Stick to the plan,” I tell Uriah. “We go upstairs.”
Half a dozen officers manage to drag themselves into the hall with the help of my men. “Okay,” I say, “stick with me. Officers?” I turn to the newly freed prisoners. “Run like hell and don’t stop until you’re safe.”
The clock is ticking. Omega is now totally aware of our presence inside the building, and I’m guessing that we have seconds to locate Chris and get out of here before backup rolls in.
The prisoners separate from my team. We leave the hallway and head for the stairwell. We have studied the blueprints for this building so many times that I feel like I’m reenacting some sort of memory.
Manny and Uriah open an exit door and we enter the stairway. The metal steps echo as we stay in formation, climbing to the next level. Emergency sirens screech through the chamber.
We enter the stairway. Omega guards and officers are frantically crawling all over the office cubicles. Computers with lit monitors are sitting on every desk.
Computers. Working computers.
An Omega guard fires off a round and hits Manny in the shoulder. He drops to one knee and brings his pistol up, firing back. The soldier is slammed backwards in a spray of blood.
“This is an office area!” Uriah shouts. “Where’s Chris supposed to be?”
“With Harry,” I say.
I don’t know how I know this – I just do.
I looked at the layout of the Holding Center more than anybody else. Harry Lydell’s office is here – and if Chris is still alive, that is where he must be.
“Manny, are you okay?” I ask, breathless. I help him to his feet. He clutches his shoulder as blood gushes out of the wound. “Oh, my God. Uriah?”
“I’ve got it,” he says.
Manny looks pale, and he is wincing in pain.
“Keep going,” he warns. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“We’re not leaving you,” I state.
Tick tock, tick tock.
Bam, bam, bam, bam.
Fire and return fire. Gunpowder and smoke and screaming sirens. And I see Harry’s office. Two big doors in the back of the room. I recognize them instantly from the layout plans I studied. A jolt of adrenaline seizes me. This is our last chance. We’ve barely got any time left.
“Just go!” Manny yells, sweat dripping down his face.
In that moment I know that I have to make a hard decision: save Manny or save the team? I swallow the horror of that realization. He slowly nods his head. He is down.
“We’ll be back for you,” I promise.
It’s a false promise. We are out of time.
We move across the office, systematically coordinating our movements like a SWAT team on a raid. Our presence here is definitely not a secret anymore. By the time we reach the office doors, every single Omega trooper that stood in our way is either down or dead. We are just that efficient.
“Duck!” Uriah shouts.
I don’t hesitate. I just do as he says. He fires a round over my head and a trooper falls dead, half of his body concealed behind the corner of a hallway. Well hidden. Almost the death of me.
“Thanks,” I say.
He nods.
The office doors are marked with simple bronze plates that read:
DISTRICT PREFECT: HARRY LYDELL
The doors are locked and the wood is too heavy to break.
Tick tock…
“Come on, hurry up!” I command. “We’re running out of time!”
Andrew straps a strip charge to the door and we take cover behind some metal filing cabinets. Five, four, three, two, one…Boom! The explosion shatters the door, sending splinters of wood everywhere.
I approach the door. I want to be the first one through. We push the doors aside and walk into the office. Desk, chairs, and a window overlooking the street below. Omega soldiers are rallying around the front of the building, returning fire, blindly attacking distant muzzle flashes. Smoke is rising around the building, a flood of gray fog on the Los Angeles avenue that has become a battlefield.
Brilliant, Derek, I think proudly. Keep it up.
But the office is empty, and my heart sinks again. Harry is nowhere to be found. Uriah walks around the desk and pulls open the drawers. He stuffs his pack with papers and maps. I just stand there, frozen for a moment. Disappointed. The hope drains out of me.
If Chris isn’t in this building, then he’s not alive.
It’s as simple as that.
Panic seizes me. I fight to keep my breathing even, to maintain a grip on my nerves. I can’t have a breakdown in the middle of a rescue operation. These men are counting on me to get them out of here alive.
“Manny, is there anywhere else we can look?” I ask, looking back toward the wall where we last left Manny.
No answer.
“Manny?”
Uriah gives me a confused look, Andrew searches the room.
“He’s not here,” he states. “What the hell?”
“He was just here!”
“He couldn’t just disappear.”
“He just did!”
Bam!
A gunshot ricochets off the wall. Bullets crack past my body. We drop down, instantly covering ourselves. Manny is nowhere in sight, and the alarm bells are ringing in my head. Four guards are moving toward us in the office, taking cover behind desks and cubicles. I fire a round at one and hit him square in the chest. He goes down. I roll backward and slide behind Harry’s desk. My ears are ringing and sweat is pouring down my forehead.
“What happened to Manny?” I shout.
“He was here two seconds ago!” Uriah replies.
One shot, two shots, three shots…
What do I do? We have to go. We can’t stay. This was the plan – get in and get out. If we can’t find Chris, we have to leave. Now.
“We’re done here!” I yell. “We’ve got to go!”
“But we haven’t found-”
“-I know!” I hold my stomach, gasping for breath. “Believe me. I know.”
I know right now, in this moment, that the decision I make will define the rest of my life. With or without Chris, I have to choose to either move on or hesitate and risk the lives of the rescue team.
I steel my nerves.
And I choose to move on.
The tears will come later.
“Get out of here!” I say. “Move out, let’s go!”
I force myself up. The adrenaline of combat keeps my emotions at bay for the time being. We push back through the office. It is actually easier getting out than getting in because of the efficiency of my team – most of the Omega troops are dead and the entrances have been opened on our way inside.
“Manny?” I yell.
To have someone completely disappear during a mission is an anomaly. By the time we reach the other side of the office area, there is a trail of dead Omega troopers in our wake. The frantic scream of t
he sirens is grating on my nerves. It’s times like these that I wish I could simply throw down my gun and make a run for it. Unfortunately, you can’t do that if you want to stay alive.
We sweep the stairwell, moving back onto the first floor again. The walls are bathed in red light. I continue to scream Manny’s name while we move. Honestly, there’s nowhere Manny could really be where we wouldn’t come across him at some point. It’s almost as if he left the building.
And he did it quickly.
Or…he’s dead on the floor with countless other Omega troopers.
Please, God. Not Manny, too. Manny’s a good man.
I hope God is listening, because nobody else is.
We slam the rear exit doors open and enter the alley. We stick to the plan and retreat around the east side of the alleyway. The airport is clearly visible from here – literally just across the street. Our rendezvous point with Derek is several blocks away from this location. The trick will be getting there without being shot.
“Commander!” Uriah says, pointing.
A black helicopter is rumbling to life on the tarmac. Its blades begin to spin – slowly at first, and then faster.
“We should leave,” Andrew advises. “Like, now.”
I don’t disagree. We stick under the cover of the building, rounding the corner. Omega troopers suddenly emerge onto the street. We return with heavy rifle fire, knocking down troops like bowling pins. We retreat back to the opening of the alley. More guards are flooding the street.
“We can go west!” Andrew says.
“If we go west we’ll just run into Omega!” I reply.
We can’t dash across the airport – there is absolutely no cover there.
Patrols are surrounding us from three sides. Our only escape route is straight ahead of us – the airport. It’s surrounded by a chain link fence and barbed wire. Our chances of getting over the fence, running and finding cover are minimal. Very minimal. We’re trapped.
The helicopter is pounding the air with its blades, obnoxiously loud, even with the sound of gunfire and shouting here at the end of the street. I grimace. We’re boxed in on four sides, now. Three sides by troops and one side by a combat helicopter.
Still in tight, familiar formation, the few people I have with me tuck in and fight valiantly. I take cover behind the wall of the last building on the block. I am exposed to the clearing of the airport, in addition to being in clear sight of the helicopter. Omega is surrounding us from three sides of the building. We fire and peel back, fire and peel back.
A huge blast rips through the cyclone fence around the tarmac. I drop to the ground, covering my head from pieces of hot metal and flying dirt. The fence springs apart like a slinky. The thundering black helicopter swoops forward, the snouts of the heavy automatic weapons visible from the fuselage.
We are so dead.
“Take cover!” I shout.
Heavy, ripping automatic weapons fire razes downward. It misses us! The trail of thudding bullets whips through the air, taking an Omega patrol out with it. They scream, collapsing, blown apart. I stay where I am, firing and reloading furiously.
The Omega patrols closing in on us from the opposite side of the building scramble to take cover behind the brick walls. The helicopter is hovering about one hundred feet away from our position, but the blast from the blades and the roar of the aircraft itself is tremendous. Enough to knock you off your feet.
The chopper descends and bounces off the asphalt, coming to a harried landing.
“CASSIDY!”
I tilt my head up. The doors on the helicopter are open. Manny is standing in the doorway. He’s shouting my name, motioning me with his free hand, his shoulder bloody. In that moment, everything makes sense. It clicks.
“Move it! Everybody in!” I yell, motioning toward the chopper.
We sprint toward the chopper, snapping shots while we run. I feel like I’m clawing my way through a dream. Everything is overwhelmingly loud and each beat of the blades is like a punch in the gut. I reach the door and Uriah helps me climb inside.
“Manny!” I gasp, relief seizing me. He claps me briefly on the shoulder, and pushes his way into the cockpit. His flight cap is strapped tightly to his head and he’s grinning devilishly. The team scrambles inside. Vera slaps Manny’s arm and gives him the all-clear signal. Then we are airborne, and we are lifting fifty feet off the street.
“There’s a wounded POW in the back!” Vera screams.
I can’t hear her. I can only read her lips.
“Andrew?” I shout, jerking my thumb toward the back of the chopper.
He nods and makes his way through the aircraft, toward the wounded man in the back.
“Hold on, ladies and gentlemen,” Manny yells, still grinning like a madman. “This exit may be a bit bumpy.”
The inside of the helicopter is cramped, but we are together – and we are hanging on for dear life.
We gain elevation and bank right and left so fast that I become dizzy and fight the urge to gag. I hang on and hunker down. I see Alexander in the cockpit beside Manny, shouting something that I can’t hear.
The urban landscape of Los Angeles flashes past the doorway, but unlike the times that I remember before the EMP, this city is dark. Very few lights can be seen.
The helicopter continues to gain altitude and speed.
Someone grabs my shoulder.
“Cassidy, you’re going to want to see this,” Andrew says.
“Now is not the time to admire the city lights!” I gasp, exasperated.
He maintains his grip on my arm, insisting. The Commander in me kicks in and I realize that Andrew is not that shallow. He must have a reason. We stumble to the back of the chopper. There are two canvas beds on each side. Medical stretchers for the wounded.
Please, don’t be somebody I know, I pray.
Andrew looks up at me. In the dim light, he opens his hands as if to offer an apology. He stands up. “He should be okay,” he says. He gives me a long, sad look and returns to a more stable position with the rest of the team, gripping the walls for balance. I kneel beside the stretcher. The man is clothed in black, soaked in blood and sweating. I scream.
“Chris?” I brush the hair away from his face. He opens his eyes. Unshaven, drenched in sweat and blood, he stares at the ceiling before turning his gaze to me.
“Cassie…?”
It’s barely a whisper, but it’s something. I touch his face, placing my hand on his chest. “Oh, my God,” I yell into his ear. “Chris? What happened? How…?”
The words die on my lips.
BANG!
The chopper shakes violently and spins through the air.
I clutch the stretcher. Chris is strapped in, but I’m not. I wrap my wrist around the strap of a safety belt. I will not leave his side. Manny shouts something. I can’t hear it above the roar of the engine and the air pouring through the opening. Gravity is sucking me sideways, but centrifugal force has pinned me against the floor. Chris is barely conscious, head lolling back and forth.
“I don’t have a choice!” I hear Manny yell. Warning lights flash bright. I see orange flames coming from outside.
I brace myself.
We are going down.
Chapter Eleven
I’ve imagined death so many times. As a soldier, it’s something that you have to think about. I figured I’d be dead on a battlefield sometime in the next year – if I even lasted that long. Going down in a flaming helicopter wasn’t something I planned on. First, because I was never crazy about heights. And second, because I didn’t think I’d be riding in a helicopter.
Whatever. Life continually surprises me.
Manny fights for control of the chopper. It spins and lurches violently in the air. Militiamen and women scream, terrified. A hole in the side of the fuselage is sucking the flames and the smoke outside of the aircraft. The chopper skids sideways. Which way is up? Which way is down? I clutch the strap on the stretcher, gasping for air. The G-fo
rce presses down on my chest like a weight. Black spots dance before my eyes as the pressure increases. I can’t scream, I can’t see. I can’t breathe.
The chopper lurches and everything levels out for a moment. I swallow some much-needed air. Manny shouts, “BRACE YOURSELVES!”
I try. I really do. It’s not much of a preparation, though. The chopper slams into the ground. Manny has slowed our descent enough that the impact doesn’t break the helicopter into pieces – but it still hurts. My neck snaps forward. My wrist is wrapped around the seatbelt strap but it does no good. My wrist is jerked at an odd angle. I feel the bones grind together. I don’t even have the breath to scream about it.
The chopper bounces roughly, gritting through dirt and trees. Are there buildings here? I don’t know. It’s too dark. Too loud. The sheer chaos overrides every sense in my body. I hang on with the one functional hand that I have left and slam against the wall. More pain shoots through my body.
This is going to hurt later.
If I’m even alive later.
The aircraft begins to slide, tearing apart. The strap that I’ve been holding onto snaps and I’m thrown against the opposite wall. I protect my head with my arms, landing in a crouched, compact position. The prolonged slide seems to stretch for eternity, but it is only mere seconds.
The giant rotor blades collide with the ground, shards of deadly metal flying everywhere – faster than the speed of a bullet, shredding everything in its path.
I’m thrown back across the chopper. I land on someone’s legs. Uriah grabs my shoulders and pulls me upright, offering support. The screaming engine abruptly halts, smoke swirling around us, flames licking through the openings in the chopper.
“Find a hole and get out!” Manny warns.
He manages to climb out of the pilot’s seat, rattled by the crash as much as the rest of us. I climb on hands and knees to the medical stretcher again. I unsnap Chris’s restraints and drag him out of the bed. He is completely unconscious – and heavy. Superhuman levels of adrenaline is the only reason I have the strength to drag him the first few feet through the helicopter as the team hurriedly exits through the holes. They scramble and tumble outside. I am dragging Chris along with me – using every ounce of strength left in my body.