by Susan Grant
That’s when Bree noticed she’d tucked her gun to her chest. A steel teddy bear? Without a night-light, she had to make do.
She lowered her head to her knees, resting her head on her folded arms. Reality, hunger, and exhaustion melted away, and she began to dream. Then the sensation of slipping on ice made her entire body jerk, waking her. The crackling of twigs in her hideaway touched off a distant chorus of quickly silenced barking and yips. The wild dogs! They’d followed her. Naptime was over.
She pushed to her feet, checked the glowing needle on her compass, and set off, making a mental note to keep watch for a small log she might be able to use as a club if the dogs attacked. It would make less noise and accomplish the same objective as her pistol.
Dawn arrived without fanfare. Weak gray light trickled over the horizon until it had stained the entire eastern sky.
Her stomach rumbled. She was hungrier than she’d ever been. Ravenous, she cast her gaze about, looking for something that looked alive and edible. There wasn’t much around that she recognized, and she wasn’t that hungry to risk poisoning herself. So, she tried to pretend that she didn’t want to eat the nearest tree, raw and whole, and distracted herself by imagining...pizza, long strings of oily, melted mozzarella falling as she bit into the slice. After the pizza fantasy, she started on fudge brownies...iced fudge brownies...with chocolate chips!
The daydreams of food were so clear and real that when a savory scent came to her, borne on the breeze, Bree sniffed the air like a starving stray. The scent of garlic wafted past, pungent and strong. Spicy kimchi made from aged, pickled cabbage. Bree had tried it, didn’t quite care for it, but she’d do just about anything to have a bowl of it now. Saliva filled her mouth instantly. For a second or two, gluttony, longing, alarm, and confusion battled for supremacy in her mind. Alarm won out. The food might smell good but the entire situation stank.
A nearby rock outcropping formed a small shelter. Bree wedged herself between the stones, drawing out her pistol at the same time. Her breaths echoed sharply off the rocks. She waited. Listened. The smells meant she’d come near a village, or maybe a camp of some kind. Her heart thumped against her ribs, and her mouth was dry. From within her makeshift fort, she took a long drink from her canteen, blotted her mouth with her sleeve, and took one more 360-degree look outside. Then she got out the radio. “Scarlet, Banzai,” she whispered. Counting to five, she tried again. “Scarlet, this is Banzai.”
Two clicks interrupted the soft static. Two beautiful clicks. Thank you. Bree closed her eyes and let out a breath. Cam had heard her. She’d made it through the night. “Hey, I’m on my way,” Bree said under her breath. “I’ll be there soon. Stay low. People nearby. A village, I think.”
Three clicks answered her. Three? Bree stared at the radio in her hand. What did that mean?
Maybe Cam was already in the hands of the villagers, and she was injured, too hurt to speak. Or maybe they were helping her. Bree’s hopes lifted. Maybe they’d help her, too. Why not? Their countries weren’t at war.
Or...were they?
She heard a soft bark, almost a snort, like air expelled from a muzzle. The dogs again.
Her heart turned over. Those damned dogs. They’d stayed on her tail the entire night! Maybe they weren’t wild dogs or Korean coyotes. Maybe they were tracking animals. It meant her instincts were right: Someone knew where she was, every step of the way.
If it had been only humans after her, she’d have stayed put, hoping they’d pass her by. But you couldn’t fool dogs’ noses. If they passed her, they’d find her.
She decided to go for it and try to lose the dogs.
Every muscle in her body protested her sprint through the trees. Sweat formed under her flight suit,
but cold air stung her eyes and nose. Dogs barked and yelped in the distance. She leaped into a narrow stream and ran up the middle of it, splashing through icy water. She’d get the dogs off her scent and worry about her frozen feet later. But there they were, skinny dogs bounding along beside her, their tongues lolling, their yellow eyes sparkling, as if this was a fun game. “Chase the Yankee” maybe? Well, it beat “Eat the Yankee” or whatever other games the dogs’ owners might want to play with her.
Bree veered toward the opposite bank and dry ground. The dogs followed, barking loudly. It would seem she should be feeling hopeless right about now, but the worse her odds became, the more resolve she felt. I serve in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense. Article One, U.S. Fighting Man’s Code of Conduct. She’d first memorized the code as a freshman cadet at the Air Force Academy, but the words hadn’t taken on their true meaning until now.
Her grandfather had told her stories of POWs who met the horrors of captivity with guts and attitude. If USAF representatives had to come to Chester, New York, to deliver the bad news to her parents, then by God, Bree wanted them to be able to say the same about her.
The sound of a truck engine broke the rhythm of her boots. A road! Where? Bree stopped so fast that she skidded over the slippery creek bank. She landed hard on her butt, stayed down, and rolled, scrabbling in on her elbows and knees into the brush. She couldn’t run blindly onto a road and risk countless people spotting her. Pistol drawn, she peered out of the bushes, hoping to pinpoint the location of the truck. She was shivering. Wet and cold, her feet throbbed, rubbed raw in her squishy boots. Snow had worked its way between her flight suit and jacket. She gritted her teeth and waited for the ice to turn to water, which she knew wouldn’t feel much better. But at least her exhaustion had vanished with a renewed rush of adrenaline. Terror could be so ...energizing. Still, she wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. For health reasons.
The dogs found her hiding place. Their paws scrabbled on the hard ground as they circled her. Bree held her breath. True, the dogs knew where she was, but she hoped, prayed that the people who owned them would somehow miss her. Even when you think it’s all over, when you don’t have a chance, never reveal your hiding place. She’d learned that in survival school. There had been stories of enemy soldiers tripping over the boots of Special Forces personnel in the jungles at night, never knowing they’d stumbled over anything more than a tree root. She was going to stay in place until circumstances forced her to move out.
The truck stopped. A door slammed. And another. Bree heard male voices next. She knew a little Korean, enough to get by in the local market and restaurants, but not enough to follow a conversation. She relied on body language, and in this case, the tone of voice to understand.
A wet-nosed dog muzzle thrust through the shrubs. Bree smacked it with the heel of her palm. The beast expelled its breath in a half sneeze and jumped backward, yipping. But the skinny legs and muddy little feet continued to encircle her. She heard the whistle of air going in and out of their noses.
Beep, beep, beep. Bree strained to figure out the sound. When one of the men began talking in rapid Korean, she knew what it was: a cell phone. Then she heard it—the word “Yankee.”
No more doubts. They knew she was here.
Their heavy footsteps crunched closer. Bree flattened her body on the ground. The bridge of her nose itched. She fought an overwhelming urge to scratch it. The wait to see what the men would do now that the dogs had given away her location was interminable. She’d never understood the true meaning of the word until that moment.
Twigs snapped. One man coughed. And then Bree smelled a cigarette. She remained frozen in position, praying they would pass her by, praying they didn’t notice the dog’s interest. If luck stayed on her side, her pursuers wouldn’t hear her heartbeat. She sure as hell didn’t know how they couldn’t, though, with it thudding so loudly against her ribs.
Then she heard the hiss of the lit cigarette hitting the snowy ground. At the same time, the branches sheltering her gave way and a hand shot through the bushes.
Fingers closed over the back of her collar. Bree reached back, slammed her hand around the thi
ck glove. Hunching down, she heaved on the arm and threw the man over her head.
The momentum helped her to her feet. And then she exploded from the bushes like a flushed quail and ran like hell.
Chapter Three
Bree dashed toward the trees. The men had a truck. The only way to up her advantage was to choose the type of terrain their vehicle wouldn’t be able to handle.
She threw a wild glance over her shoulder. The man who’d tried to grab her was sprawled on his back, gasping like a line-caught tuna, while his partner stared after Bree with such obvious shock that it was almost funny. Obviously, he hadn’t expected a woman.
Bree yanked her wool cap lower over her matted hair. With her gun tucked to her chest, she ran uphill. Her pursuers wore civilian parkas, not military uniforms. They weren’t soldiers, or at least not openly so. Not that it mattered. They could still haul her off to prison, making sure to manhandle her just short of actual bloodletting before dressing her up for the customary televised propaganda interview. But she’d give them nothing to use.
They might force her to say she was sorry for flying over their country, but everyone would see in her eyes that she wasn’t. She’d never apologize to a regime that had for the better part of a century kept their own people on the brink of starvation, while a privileged few lived a life of luxury enviable in any economy, in any country, all while they threatened the rest of the world with incineration by nuclear weapons.
Barking interrupted her thoughts. The dogs were back, running with her, their breath puffs of mist, their eyes shining with delight. One of them snatched at her sleeve, trying to slow her down. “Get lost, Fido!” Bree yanked her arm free. The dog ducked before she could whack it with the butt of her pistol.
The men behind her were on the move, too. She could hear the truck’s engine, and it was coming closer. No! If these people captured her before she could rescue her wingman, what would happen to Cam?
Another one of the dogs leaped at her. It grabbed her sleeve, and hung its full body weight from her arm. She tried to shake it free as the second dog latched on to the back of her jacket. Her strength flagged as the extra weight dragged at her. Gasping, she stumbled forward. Her lungs burned; her chest ached. Water streamed out of her eyes and down her cheeks, stinging her wind-burned skin. But she would not give up!
Bree struck back at the dogs with her pistol. A muffled thump told her she’d smacked the dog’s shoulder and not its skull. It yelped and fell away. Without missing a step, she started beating at the dog clamped onto her jacket.
The truck gained on her. It was white with extra-fat tires meant for rugged terrain and barreled over ruts and bumps and through the smaller trees as if they were nothing.
Bree bolted into the trees where the trunks grew closest together. Drive through this, bucko.
And he did, knocking down the pines as if they were saplings. The landscape opened up—a clearing where it appeared a long-ago forest fire had created a meadow. Bree slowed, searched left and right for cover. And found none.
Bree gritted her teeth and decided to make the dash across the open field, whacking at the persistent dogs as she went. She’d throw one off only to have another attach itself to her and slow her down. Finally, she hit one hard enough to send it to the ground. It didn’t get back up.
A startling twanging sound ripped through the air. Something rustled above her, and then dropped around her. At first, she thought tree branches had fallen. But it was a net! It had come from the truck, from a catapult attachment on the roof.
Bree felt like a fly caught in a spiderweb. The snare was made of heavy, rough twine. She struggled to break free as the dogs raced around her, triumphant and barking, a frenzied game of ring around the rosy. She flipped them off. “Say it to the finger!”
Four men got out of the truck. Two of them she recognized from earlier. The guy she’d thrown on his ass wouldn’t meet her gaze, she noticed with muted satisfaction, and flicked her wary attention from their faces to those of the newcomers. They appeared to be civilians, too.
Bree hunted for the edge of the net, but the hem had pulled tight, closing off the bottom. The only option was to cut her way out. She drew out her pocketknife and began hacking away. The net’s webbing was thick, heavyweight. She worked feverishly. The two new men walked toward her with alarming purpose. There was no question in her mind that they planned to take her into custody. Her heart turned over. She’d already sliced open a small hole, but she needed more.
Come on, come on. She tried to cheat and stretch the hole before it was wide enough. Pulling on the outer edges of the tear didn’t expand it an inch. The rope was too strong. She slashed at the webbing, her forehead soaked with sweat. The woolen cap itched at her skin. A few more cuts and she’d be free.
“Drop your knife,” the taller of the two men ordered. It took her a heartbeat to realize that he’d used perfect English. A North Korean educated in England, she guessed.
Bree dropped the knife, but only to draw her pistol. Stealthily, she slipped the 9mm out of her pocket. Article Two, Code of Conduct: I will never surrender of my own free will.
Bree released the safety and waited for the two men to reach her. One was a heavyset goon of a man with a vacant face. The perfect Igor, she thought. He was big, and he had an even bigger gun, a kind of Chinese-made automatic rifle she recognized. He held it limp-armed, pointed down, but Bree knew that could change in a heartbeat.
The taller man appeared to be the boss. His parka was a few steps up in quality from Igor’s, and his features were fine, almost patrician. The dictator’s nobility, she guessed, the look of a greedy pig who satisfied his needs before those of infants and children. She knew all about his type. May they rot in hell, or whatever form hell took in their religion—if they even had a faith. And if they were atheists, may they rot anyway, and their brethren, here and around the world. They were why she’d joined the military, to keep people from having to live under their oppression, with no hope of ever breaking free. If these men thought she’d be their biddable little puppet, they were way off base. I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender my men while they still have the means to resist.
The men stopped about twenty feet away. “You are not what I expected,” the taller man remarked.
Well, neither are you, she thought. She watched warily as he beckoned to the two other men who’d hung back near the truck before turning back to her, examining her from head to toe. “A female, but you’ll do,” he said.
She’d do? Bree puzzled over that while the pair approached eagerly and accepted a small sack from him. Good Lord. What had he just done? Paid them for her?
Gah. It sure looked that way. It was like watching a transaction take place in the market. The men smiled, their heads bobbing in appreciation and respect. Cigarettes dangled from their mouths. Their hands were rough and dirty, used to labor. Locals. Farmers, maybe. Backing away, they whistled for the dogs—another question answered—the mongrel ownership issue. Then the group disappeared into the woods. So, Mr. Suave, Pay-peasants-for-pilots was a bounty hunter. He examined the hole she’d made in the net and then her, shaking his head as if she were a disobedient child. Bree frowned. Really? Is that what he thought? We’ll see how disobedient this bullet feels going down your throat, creep.
“If you return me to my people, they’ll reward you,” she tried, thinking of the blood chit in her right pants pocket. And of the radio that couldn’t seem to transmit past the hills. “Let me use your phone, and I’ll call them.”
“No.”
“The Geneva Convention states, regarding the treatment of prisoners of war—”
He interrupted her. “You are not a prisoner of war.”
You could have fooled me.
“I will now free you from the net. Drop your weapon.”
Not that easy. Bree tightened her hand around her pistol.
The boss nodded at his monster accomplice, who lifted his mac
hine gun. Bree heard the click of a safety, saw the red line of an infrared sight track upward. But she couldn’t see where the beam ended, because Igor aimed between her eyes.
She swallowed. “Okay. Okay.” But she took her time. Every little step counted when it came to resistance; she’d learned that in POW training. Ever so slowly, she opened her hand. Finally, the pistol hit the ground by her boots with a solid thump.
Igor stepped forward, grabbed the hem of the net—but not her pistol, she noted. With a mighty grunt, he lifted the heavy webbing over his head, holding it high, obviously expecting her to walk out from beneath it. While his hands were occupied, Bree scooped up a handful of mud and threw the dirt in the men’s faces. As they struggled to wipe their eyes, she scooped up her pistol and took off running.
Bree ran harder than she ever had. Although the snow in this area barely covered the ground, it slowed her down. Pressing her elbow to her ribs to assuage a stitch in her side, Bree tried to increase her pace but couldn’t go any faster. Her lungs hurt and her body burned with fatigue. Her energy had finally bottomed out. Shock, untreated cuts and bruises, hunger—everything had conspired to suck her dry. Igor was hot on her trail. She didn’t dare chance a glance behind her; she knew who it was by the sound of his big boots.
The truck followed, too. She turned, fired at the tires. Dust kept her from telling if she’d scored a hit. She swerved her aim to Igor, but he was closer than she’d thought.
Igor swiped at her, missed her collar, but pulled off her woolen cap. Blinded momentarily, she felt her finger press the trigger as he slammed it from her hand. The gunshot rang in her ears. She ran, mourning the loss of her weapon. But Igor had the advantage of height and food in his belly. His next strike caught her by the jacket. He reeled her in.
She tried to unzip the jacket to win her freedom at the expense of what she had stored in the pockets, like a wolf that gnawed off its leg to escape a trap. But she stumbled and Igor tackled her.