You Don't Know My Name

by Kristen Orlando

  “My mother left this in my room.” I fight to stand up and hand him the letter. He takes it from me and reads as I rip the knife from behind my headboard and stuff it into my go-bag.

  I stare out the window at the Weixels’ tire swing spinning gently in the wind. My fingers instinctively reach for the charm on my left wrist. Her bracelet. I press down on the sterling silver, wishing the double hearts held magic powers.

  “I never got to say it,” I say without turning around. I look down into my bag, repositioning my Glock pistol and bulletproof vest.

  “Say what?” His voice drops, the way it always does when he knows exactly what I’m talking about.

  “I never got to say I’m sorry,” I answer and stuff an extra sweatshirt into my bag with so much force, the bed bounces beneath my weight. “I said some horrible things to her. Just horrible. I basically told her she was a bad mother. That she was selfish and should never have even had me. And you know what. She’s not the selfish one. I am.”

  “You are the furthest thing from selfish,” Luke replies. I feel the heat of his body as he inches toward me. “That is the last word I would ever use to describe you.”

  “If I wasn’t selfish, I would want to do this job. I’d just deal with all the bad stuff that comes with it.”

  “Reagan, this is an incredibly dangerous life. Look at what’s happening right now. You have the right to choose.”

  “I just want them back, Luke,” I say, my voice on the edge of trembling. “This is my fault and I’ll do anything to…”

  “Listen to me,” Luke says, grabbing my shoulders and slowly turning me around. “This is not your fault. You’ve got to stop doing this to yourself because you’ll be no good to anyone.”

  A cold sigh presses through my even colder lips and I nod to appease him. But I don’t know how I’m going to stop blaming myself. A silver sterling picture frame on my nightstand catches my eye. Mom has her arms around my shoulders and is smiling for the camera. I’m looking up at her and laughing. Dad snapped the picture out on our back patio this summer. We built a fire in the fire pit, roasted marshmallows, and stayed up late, just talking about nothing. It was a perfect night.

  “Luke, what if we’re already too late?” I say, still staring at the photograph.

  “They are going to find them, okay?” Luke says, his voice as strong as his grip on my shoulders. “They are going to bring them home and you are going to get to say you’re sorry and whatever else you want to say to her.”

  I love you. You’re my hero, my mind whispers. I dig my teeth into my bottom lip and nod.

  “Reagan? It’s time,” Sam’s echoed voice calls from the foyer. My body buzzes and the adrenaline returns. I fill my lungs with new air and quickly wipe both cheeks with the back of my hands. Black Angels don’t cry. Black Angels fight. And I’m going to fight.

  “Come on. Let’s go,” I say, handing Luke Mom’s and Dad’s go-bags. He walks out the door as I grab the sterling silver picture frame off the nightstand and shove it into my bag. I throw the straps over my shoulder, take one last look around my room, shut off the lights, and silently say good-bye to my life on Landon Lane.

  TWENTY

  “We are five miles out from the airport, five miles out, copy?” A voice, mangled by static, comes through one of the speakers in the safe house’s situation room.

  “Copy. We’ve got you,” Sam says into the microphone on the steel weapons table turned makeshift desk. The basement of the safe house looks a lot like ours on Landon Lane. Same weapons room, shooting range, and panic room. But instead of a martial arts studio filled with mats, dummies, and punching bags, the room here is packed with enormous monitors, microphones, computers, and other intel equipment that helps us communicate with CORE and Black Angels in the field.

  “We still think they’re going to that private airfield in Kentucky?” I ask, my hot hands grasping onto Sam’s cool metal chair. I’m watching over her left shoulder as the SUV’s thermal camera travels down a dark two-lane road. As the SUV rounds the curve, a truck passes in the opposite direction, its heat transmitting infrared energy that’s converted into an electronic signal. The haunting black-and-white images that show up on our monitors have so much detail, I can tell the driver’s smoking.

  “The analysts at CORE seem pretty confident that’s where they’re going,” Sam says, pulling up the airport’s coordinates on her laptop. “There’s a private plane waiting there and when we ran the tail number, it came back as being registered to some bullshit corporation in South America that we know doesn’t exist. Has Torres’s fingerprints all over it.”

  I look up at the other six monitors. Two Black Angels are already stationed at the airport, waiting to intercept the kidnappers and rescue my parents. The thermal cameras attached to their helmets show their movements as they position themselves out of sight near a private hangar, but still in view of the Gulfstream. Looks like a G650. The most expensive one on the market and probably paid for in money covered in blood and cocaine.

  “Three miles out, three miles out,” the scratchy voice blares again through the speakers in the monitor.

  “Copy,” reply the two men in the field.

  “Do we still have eyes in the sky on Torres’s SUV?” Sam says, pressing the talk button in her microphone with one hand and hitting a crackling monitor with the other. “We keep losing the feed.”

  “Yeah, we’re on them, Sam,” says the Black Angel pilot.

  “Is everybody ready on the ground?” Cooper asks, standing behind Sam’s right shoulder. “This is still a civilian airport, so we need to be really careful.”

  “I’m keenly aware, Cooper,” Sam replies, annoyed, never taking her eyes off the screens.

  “Why haven’t we cleared out the airport?” I ask, arching my eyebrows at Cooper. “There’s no way these guys are going to just lie on the ground during a take-down. We need to disarm them before they even know we’re there.”

  “We would clear out the airport but someone inside might tip off Torres,” Sam replies, switching on another monitor screen. “We cannot take that chance.”

  “Then clear it two minutes before the car gets there,” I reply, my eyes fixated on the monitor that travels along the two-lane, wooded road, my parents just a mile in front of them in the darkness. “That way, no one has time to warn Torres or his guys on the ground.”

  “There’s no way we can clear an entire civilian airport in two minutes,” Cooper answers, his voice smug, like I don’t know what I’m talking about. “We’ve got to do it this way.”

  “This is a huge mistake,” I say, my voice tightening with every word. “There’s no way they’re going down without some type of gun battle, which means injured Black Angels on the ground. My parents included.”

  “Reagan, we have taken down Torres’s guys before,” Sam answers, clacking away at her keyboard. “If we rush them, we think they’ll go down peacefully.”

  “Thinking isn’t good enough—” I start but Sam cuts me off.

  “We don’t have a choice.” Sam whips her head around, her long blond ponytail smacking her in the face. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but this is our best shot at getting them back. We don’t want Torres to have even the slightest idea that we know where they’re taking them. Who the hell knows if we’ll get another chance?”

  As Sam turns back to the monitors, fear tangles through my body, its long, dark fingers gripping my lungs and forcing out an anxious breath.

  “Reagan, maybe it’s best you don’t watch the take-down,” Sam says, her eyes jumping from monitor to monitor.

  “Yeah, why don’t we go in the other room?” Luke adds, warily placing his hand on my shoulder.

  “No. I’m fine,” I answer and cross my arms, forcing Luke’s hand to slide down my back.

  “Look, I appreciate your help,” Sam replies, typing another message to the analysts at CORE. “We all know you have a gifted mind when it comes to strategy. This is just too much to ta
ke in.”

  “Come on, Reagan,” Luke says, pulling again slightly on my shoulder.

  “No! I’m staying,” I answer, my voice defiant. “I’ve trained for this stuff all over the world, haven’t I? Don’t freaking ask me to leave again.”

  For a moment, there is no sound in the room. Sam stops typing at her computer. Cooper stops rocking back and forth on his toes. Even though no one can hear us on the other side of the microphone, the radios are momentarily silent. It’s so quiet, you can hear us not breathing, the emptiness created by shocked, breath-held lungs.

  “The target’s SUV is one mile out, copy, one mile out to the airport,” a voice crackles, forcing our bodies out of their motionless state. Luke gently peels his fingers off my shoulder and sidesteps away.

  Sam clears her throat before pressing down on the microphone and says, “Copy.”

  The lower-right monitor with our view from the air cuts out again, black-and-white confetti taking over the screen and distorting our clear picture of the kidnappers’ SUV. Sam hits the monitor in frustration. “Dammit,” she hisses under her breath then pushes down on her microphone. “Todd, I keep losing your visual.”

  “We’ve got ’em here at headquarters, Sam,” another male voice answers.

  “Thanks, Thomas,” Sam replies, her voice calming down. My eyes widen. I’ve never met Thomas, never even talked to him. But I’ve heard my parents mention his name at least a thousand times. He’s their main contact at CORE, the one who gives them directions on where to go, who to rescue. He’s their eyes and ears as they head into a danger zone. Thomas does his best to keep them alive. “I just don’t like doing this blind,” Sam adds.

  “Me either. But we don’t have much choice,” Thomas answers back. “All right, units on the ground, stand by. The target’s SUV is pulling up to the gate at the airport right now. They’ll be to you in sixty seconds. But stay out of sight. We need you to wait for the second Black Angel team. Stand down until backup reaches you.”

  “We’ve got two guys on the ground,” I say and point to the monitors. “They need to go as soon as Torres’s guys get out of the car.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Sam replies, keeping her eyes glued to the monitors. “We need to wait for backup.”

  “But if they see the SUV, they’re going to know we’re coming for them and they’ll open fire,” I protest. “They’re already on edge. They’re waiting for us. The only chance we have is to ambush them about five seconds after the kidnappers get out of the car. They’ll be momentarily preoccupied with getting my parents out. That’s the moment we have to go. Not a second before. Not a second after.”

  “This is the plan, okay?” Sam replies, raising her voice. “This isn’t our first rodeo, Reagan. We need more manpower or we’re going to lose your parents. We have to keep them in the country.”

  The nerves in my brain fire a dozen embattled emotions: terror and strength, agony and hope. My lungs swell with voluptuous panic and I swear I can actually feel my adrenal glands pumping adrenaline and cortisol into my body.

  “We’ve got a visual,” a Black Angel on the ground speaks into his radio as the SUV comes into view on one of our many monitors. My hot fingers grip the sides of the metal chair and I have to tell myself to breathe.

  “All right, guys, this is it,” Thomas’s voice comes through the monitor. I bite down on my lip as I watch the SUV come to a stop next to the jet. The back doors fly open and there they are, the thermal cameras giving away details I don’t want to see. My parents’ mouths are gagged, their wrists tied tightly behind their backs. Guards armed with semiautomatics grab them roughly at their biceps and push them toward the plane, guns pointed at their backs, one pull of the trigger away from death.

  The guards push them quickly up the plane steps and panic rises, barbed and scalding on my skin.

  “Sam, we need to go right now,” I say and grab her strong bicep. “Torres’s guys are going to get away!”

  “No, we have to wait,” Sam replies, ignoring my firming grip and watching as Mom and Dad are forced farther up the plane steps. “Shit. Gavin, where are you?”

  “I’m here. I’m pulling into the airport right now,” the voice answers back. My eyes are no longer locked on my parents. They are fixed on the armed kidnappers at the bottom of the plane’s steps. No, no, no, my mind is screaming as I wait for the inevitable to happen. Every muscle in my body ignites as I watch the guards’ heads whip around, turning toward the sound of the approaching SUV. I open my mouth to warn Sam but before I can formulate a single word, they open fire.

  Bang. Bang. Bang. The sound of squealing tires is drowned out by a steady stream of gunfire.

  The Black Angels on the ground immediately pop up from their hiding spots. “Baje al suelo,” they scream in Spanish. Get down on the ground. The video bounces violently as they sprint toward the jet.

  The staccato hammer from the kidnappers’ automatic machine guns answers their commands.

  “Shit, where are they? Where are they?” Sam yells, standing up from her chair and searching for my parents on the monitors. The view of the plane, my parents, and the kidnappers wildly rises and falls as the Black Angels on the ground duck for cover. Sam grabs the microphone and with a shaking voice demands, “Where’s my god damn eye in the sky, Todd?”

  Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

  “Man down, man down,” a voice cries out from somewhere in Kentucky. My eyes dart from one monitor to the next. Who’s down? Who’s down? One of the helmet cameras is pointed sideways on the ground; its only view is of a few stands of grass rising defiantly out of the cracked asphalt. I wait for the camera, for his body to move. It doesn’t.

  “I told you!” I scream, taking a step toward the monitors, but Sam pushes me away.

  “Shit,” Sam says, raising her outstretched fingers to her forehead. She regains control and turns on the microphone. “Gavin, where are you?”

  “I’m chasing them but the plane is already on the runway,” the voice answers back.

  “Well, STOP them!” Sam roars into the microphone before throwing it down onto the steel table, the clash of metal on metal shattering my spine.

  Oh God, please no, my mind whispers, my head inflamed, as I watch the SUV race past the two injured Black Angels and toward the tarmac. It turns wildly onto the runway and speeds after the Gulfstream.

  “Go, Gavin, go,” Thomas’s voice breaks in over our monitors. “Shoot out the wheels.”

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  The Black Angel in the passenger seat of the speeding SUV opens fire, trying to hit the wheels of the Gulfstream. But the plane is unmoved.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  The Black Angel shoots again but the jet only picks up speed, its lights growing more distant.

  “Come on, Gavin. Go. Cut him off!” Sam screams into the microphone but it’s too late. There’s no way he can match the Gulfstream’s speed.

  “Shit,” Cooper says under his breath. My knees begin to buckle and a million pins prick my skin. We watch in helpless silence as the Gulfstream gains speed and momentum. The monitor with our faltering eye-in-the-sky visual finally flickers on in time to see the Gulfstream’s nose lift into the air and escape into a starless sky.

  TWENTY-ONE

  My muscles are sore from leaning against the gun range’s cold, concrete walls, and the adrenaline that kept me going over the last few hours is slowly seeping from my chilling blood. But I don’t move. I physically can’t get off this floor. I stare straight ahead, each breath more shallow and excruciating than the last. A shiver pricks at the lower part of my back. My sore arm reaches in what feels like slow motion for the sweatshirt in front of me. I pull it over my head, using it as a buffer between my back and this seemingly impenetrable steel-and-concrete fortress. Much better.

  I can hear Sam and Cooper in the situation room on the phone with CORE. They won’t let me talk to anyone. They don’t want to hear any of my ideas. They didn’t listen to me the first time and
now a Black Angel is dead and my parents are handcuffed at thirty thousand feet somewhere over Middle America. After my tenth strategically sound recommendation, Sam reminded me that I’m not a Black Angel agent yet and as much as I love her, I kind of wanted to punch her in her cute little button nose. So I’ve shut down. I’ve sat with my legs pulled to my chest for the last half hour and haven’t spoken a word.

  Luke walks through the open doorway and into the dimly lit gun range, steam rising from the cup in his hand. He offers it to me.

  “Tea,” he says as I accept it and stare into the hot caramel liquid. “Splash of cream. Four Splendas.”

  “Thanks,” I say and take a sip. I let the warm liquid coat my tongue and run down the back of my throat.

  Luke slides his back along the wall until he reaches the spot on the ground next to me. His position matches mine. Knees up, head back, forearms draped over the tops of his kneecaps. “I know this is a stupid question, but how are you doing?”

  “Best I can,” I say and attempt to shrug my shoulders but they don’t really move. More like a flinch than a shrug. “I just had to walk away. Sam isn’t listening to me at all even though I was completely right about the airport take-down. She doesn’t want to hear it. She probably thinks I’m too emotionally compromised or some bullshit.”

  “Do you think you are?” Luke asks, his eyes fixed on my face as I continue to stare straight ahead.

  “Noooo.” I let the answer slowly leak out of my mouth with extra o’s for emphasis. “I think I was the only one thinking clearly during that blown mission. I knew we should have rushed them and opened fire as soon as Torres’s guys got there. I knew exactly what would happen if we waited or tried to take them peacefully. They’ve been watching my family for too long. They already lost me. No way were they going to return to Colombia without my parents.”

  “You were right,” Luke says with a sigh.

  My lungs take a breath, but the air down here is heavy and thick and makes me feel like I’m drowning. “I wish they would have just taken me,” I say, my voice gravelly, like I’ve swallowed a fistful of broken glass. “Then none of this would be happening.”