Girl Takes The Oath

by Jacques Antoine

  Now in possession of the AK-47, Emily leaned out and raked the hood and windshield of the dark sedan with bullets. Two more sets of headlights came into view in the distance behind them. “Stay down, CJ,” she shouted, unable to tell whether her fire had struck anyone inside the car. No return fire came right away, so she emptied the clip at the front grill and tires, hoping at least to disable the vehicle. One last burst from behind struck the trunk and shattered the rear window, just as the rudderless van swerved into them again. Blood streamed from Padgett's ear, and CJ watched in horror as he slumped to the side.

  “Neil,” Braswell shouted and grabbed for the wheel, too late to keep them from running off the road, and only narrowly missing a bridge abutment. Two loud bangs and then a splash, and water began seeping in through the lower seal of the door, next to CJ's feet.

  As the car drifted into the shallow current, a calm overtook the occupants of the car. Braswell had managed to force the wheel to the left just before they left the embankment, shifting their momentum enough to bring them partly under the cover of the bridge. But the river’s current, lazy as it was, would push them downstream soon enough to expose them to fire.

  “CJ,” Emily called out, forcing the door open and letting even more water rush in. “Help Ed out of the car. He's been hit.” Then she waded into the water and yanked the driver’s side door open. CJ watched as, with one arm arranged behind her neck, Emily groaned under Padgett’s weight. She pulled him out and toward the bank, calling back over her shoulder, “Hurry, CJ. We only have a few seconds before they’re on us again.”

  “It’s a Type-81,” Braswell called out from where he and CJ sat on the riverbank, when Emily, back in the river by the car, held up the now useless rifle she'd taken from the first gunman. “Chinese-made, which tells us who these guys are.” She rummaged in the trunk for a few seconds, then headed back up the bank, holding two vests, and a few extra magazines for the Glock 19’s carried by Braswell and Padgett.

  “You took two in the shoulder, Ed,” Emily said, giving him the once over as she helped him into the vest. “And one more in the hip. Must have been smaller-bore pistols. Three rounds from that rifle would have cut you in half. Can you still fire a gun?” Braswell nodded. “You’ve got this side,” she said, tipping her head to the slope leading back up to the road on their right, and stripping off her jacket and uniform shirt. “Don't let anyone through. Your partner’s unconscious... looks like one round creased the side of his head, took off half his ear, but he's still breathing.’

  Sitting with her back against the massive concrete pier supporting the eastbound side of the bridge, CJ blinked in and out of focus as Emily removed Padgett’s Glock and handed it to her. “Are you in the game?” she asked. When she nodded, Emily pushed the gun into her hands. “Put this on,” she said, handing her the second vest. “You've got three full clips. Ed's gonna watch that end. Cover him, but keep an eye on the other bank. They may try to circle around and come down over there,” she said pointing across the river. “You can do this,” she said, looking directly into her eyes.

  And then, as matter-of-factly as if she were rolling up her sleeves to clean the shower in Bancroft Hall, Emily crouched down to roll her jacket and shirt into a cushion for Padgett’s head. CJ watched trance-like, admiring her friend’s body, lithe and sinuous, and wondering, “Who the hell wears a sports bra to meet a princess?” as Emily rose up and stood over her in dark pants and a grey, sleeveless undershirt.

  “Where are you going?” CJ cried out after her, as loudly as she dared. “You don't even have a gun.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Emily called over her shoulder as she ran toward the other side of the bridge.

  Looking over her shoulder, uncertain what to do or where to look for danger, CJ watched as Emily sprinted up the embankment between the eastbound and westbound lanes of the highway. Three loud explosions snapped her back into focus. Braswell had fired at their car as it drifted into open water.

  “I want them looking in this direction, you know, to give her a chance,” he explained. She didn’t understand his next gesture and gave him a quizzical look. “Get after her,” he shouted. “I got this. Cover her. Anything you see up there that isn’t her, shoot it.”

  CJ turned and ran as fast as she could get her legs to move, though it felt intolerably slow, her feet sticking in the strangely glutinous mud. Just as she reached the gap dividing traffic on the bridge, and turned to climb the embankment where Emily had gone a moment earlier, she heard a muffled scream and a body fell into the water a few feet away. In the second it took her to realize what she was seeing, the man righted himself and stood up, waist deep in the water, and raised a gun he had somehow managed to hold on to. She watched helplessly as the barrel came into line with her face. Two loud explosions and his body convulsed, arms splayed out wide, no longer in control of their movements, and he fell backwards into the water. She turned to see Braswell holding his gun in a shooter’s stance, one arm supporting the other, body turned to the side to minimize his exposure, smoke issuing from the muzzle. “Move it, sailor,” he shouted, then turned to watch the other end of the bridge.

  Her academy training had prepared her in only theoretical terms for the scene that greeted CJ once she made it to the level of the road. Peering over the k-rail barrier, the grim reality took a little getting used to. She sighted along the gun to focus her eyes, sweeping it from one side to the other, searching for targets, and hoping she’d recognize them before they saw her. The van sat motionless, resting against the opposite barrier, its driver slumped over the wheel. Emily pressed her back against the side door, eyes fixed on the rear, two men lying crumpled in the roadway behind her.

  Three more sedans had arrived since they went off the road, and several men prepared to descend the embankment. Heavily armed, some carrying AK-47s, others pistols, the one in charge signaled to send a few in her direction, which she should have anticipated. CJ prepared to engage as they came around the van, confident in her marksmanship—she’d gotten high marks in this aspect of her training—and hoped Emily would stay clear of her line of fire.

  But Emily didn’t stay clear. As they rounded the rear of the van single file, she swung a high roundhouse kick into the first man’s face, sending his head into the rounded, metal edge. The man following directly behind recovered from his surprise and brought a pistol up—CJ prepared to fire—but Emily had already seized his wrist and twisted the gun back into his face, her thumb behind the trigger to prevent it from going off prematurely. A second twist of his wrist, and he would have screamed if she hadn’t struck him in the throat as she stepped under his arm, slipping the gun out of his hand. She wrenched him all the way down with one hand squeezing his contorted hand until his head hit the pavement just behind the driver’s door. Without even turning to look, she swung her free arm around, now in possession of the gun, and fired behind her at the third man, striking him twice in the chest and driving him back around the corner of the van. The sound of the gun and the sight of a fallen comrade got the attention of the rest of the team, who moved to investigate, uncertain how to find a safe position. She slammed the gun down on the exposed throat of the man whose hand she still controlled, bouncing his head off the pavement, then stepped forward to crouch by the front wheel.

  CJ tried to signal her in the sudden quiet, hissing out “Em,” but she hadn’t expected the gun to snap around that fast, aimed directly at her, eyes dark and hard, no spark of human sympathy that she could detect, at least not from that distance. Then recognition glimmered, turning demonic darkness suddenly bright, and Emily lowered the gun to signal her to watch the far side, as she moved around the front of the van. Uncertain how many men they still had to contend with, CJ fired four shots at the first sign of motion at the rear, a scream and a groan indicating she’d hit something. Several others dodged around to the other side, only to encounter Emily that much sooner.

  A quick burst of gunfire, at least six shots, all sound
ing like the same gun, followed by the sounds of a struggle and a blood-curdling scream, a man’s voice, which must mean Emily had not been killed yet. More screaming and five more shots in quick succession, and another man ran around the back of the van clutching an assault rifle. CJ put two rounds in his chest, and then all was silent.

  The entire encounter couldn’t have taken more than a brief moment, maybe less than thirty seconds altogether. Of course, it seemed much longer to CJ, and she kept her gun trained on the dead man until she saw Emily step out from behind the van and wave her over. Once she’d cleared the barrier and run across the empty road, Emily jerked the driver’s body out of the van, and the two of them pulled the other bodies to the side of the road, some bloodied, perforated by steel pellets, others mangled and maimed—had Emily really done that to them? So many, CJ shivered to think of it—and piled them behind one of the sedans. She’d killed one, maybe two, in the antiseptic distance of a bullet, and Braswell had killed at least one by the water, maybe the driver of the van, too. How many had Emily killed, striking terror into them with her eyes before breaking them with her hands… eight, maybe nine… a dozen? CJ couldn’t bring herself to do the math.

  “I think the van’s our best bet,” Emily told Braswell, once they’d returned to the riverside. “You call it in, but we can get him to Anne Arundel General before the ambulance even gets here.”

  With one arm across each of their shoulders, the girls managed to haul Padgett up the hill and load him into the back of the van. Braswell staggered along behind them, fading a bit once the tension of the battle had dimmed down, leaving only muscular force to sustain him. When he crested the embankment and saw for the first time the results of the mayhem he’d only heard from below, he let out a whistle and ran a trembling hand through his thinning hair. “You girls really took care of business up here.”

  “Let’s get a move on,” Emily said. “The hothead may not have much time… or you, for that matter,” she added when she saw Braswell’s shirt in the headlights of one of the sedans.

  The sound of her friend’s voice, growling a command and cutting through the static in her mind, offered CJ a much needed reassurance, as the horrors of the scene she’d just witnessed began to take hold. There would be plenty of time to replay the worst moments for herself in the days to come. But just now, the moment when Emily first handed her the gun and a mission brought her considerable satisfaction. She’d held her ground, just when her friend needed her to. This isn’t what she’d come to the Academy for, and maybe she’d dreaded the prospect of battle more than she realized. Yet here she was, standing next to Emily on the bridge, and she’d come through the ordeal in one piece.

  Back to top

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tending the Wounded

  “I feel for him,” Braswell muttered. The institutional light in the room made him want to rip the IV out of his arm, scour the drawers for his street clothes, or anything to wear besides the hospital gown that barely reached his knees… and he didn’t even want to think about what might become visible behind him were he to act on this impulse. Having his daughters there brought some relief, as well as a touch of modesty, even as it reminded him how comfortable the couch in his den was compared to this hospital bed. “I mean, he’s got no one. Don’t they say it helps to hear familiar voices… or is that just on TV?”

  “Yeah, right, Dad. So you mean we can’t just send Kiki down there?”

  “Shut up, Haru,” her little sister said.

  “You shut up.”

  Braswell rubbed his forehead and smiled at them. A tantalizing mixture of irritation and affection, he knew nothing they could do would take anything away from his love, a father’s love. It had its share of pain, too. What love didn’t? He couldn’t help wondering if something similar had shaped his attitude toward Miss Tenno. Padgett kept saying she had him wrapped around her little finger, that she was untrustworthy. He felt it, too, and he also saw what Padgett wouldn’t, or couldn’t, namely all the ways in which she didn’t fit the profile of a mole. Not exactly a mole, in any event… that wasn’t quite right, since who could she be working for? Certainly not the Chinese. And yet, one didn’t seem to know exactly what she was loyal to, or where she hid her heart. As he looked at his girls, musing on what they might become, the thought persisted: Maybe Padgett was right.

  “Enough, Haru. Go see what’s keeping your mom.” His oldest stomped her feet out the door, grumbling. “Kiki-chan, come here, sit… and hand me the remote.”

  She was an older woman, stout and strong, with back and forearm muscles developed from years of wrangling patients in and out of bed. The nurse breezed in with a professionally cheerful mien, and said, “I think we can take that needle out of your arm today, Mr. B.”

  “Does this mean I’m a free man?”

  “If you can make it to the elevator under your own steam, then yes, you are.”

  “I’ve been working out, you know. I may surprise you.”

  “Well, just wait until you eat something before you make a break for it, okay?” She wheeled the IV stand out and left it standing in the hall just outside the door. “I’ve got you down for the swiss steak,” she said from the end of the bed. “Is that still what you want?”

  Kiki flicked through the channels on the hospital cable service, and pushed the volume up when she found a cartoon, until her dad got her attention with a disapproving shake of his head.

  “Bring me a double order, okay?”

  “With extra rolls for the gravy,” she said with a chuckle. “Does your wife let you carbo-load like that at home?”

  “I’m not trying to break out of there.”

  A half hour later, Tomoko slid in behind the meal cart, carrying sandwiches for her girls. “Miharu, I left the sodas at the nurses’ station. Go get them, please.”

  As much as an adolescent girl might like to resist, or at least grumble, the voice of maternal authority was unanswerable. Haru left quietly and returned a moment later, and her father knew his commands never carried that much force, at least judging from the resistance they met.

  “I’m so glad you’re all here, Tomy,” he said.

  “He’s not alone, Dad,” Haru said.

  “What?”

  “There’s someone sitting with him,” Tomoko said. “A girl. She was there when I went for the sandwiches. She’s probably been there over an hour.”

  “I think she was reading to him,” Haru said. “At least, the first time I went by she was. Now it looks like she’s fallen asleep in the chair. Her eyes were closed.”

  “Get this off of me,” he said, pushing the dinner tray away, wincing as he leaned forward. “I need to get down there.”

  “Ed, stop,” Tomoko said. “Eat first, then go see who it is.” She pushed the tray back over the bed, kissed his cheek and turned to her daughter. “Miharu, go ask her to wait.”

  She returned a few minutes later, a look of self-satisfaction plastered across her face, almost begging for a question.

  “Well…” her father said.

  “She’s waiting for you, Dad. Don’t worry.”

  “That’s it… she didn’t say anything else?”

  “Haru’s hiding something, Dad.”

  “Shut up, Kiki,” Haru said. When she looked up, her mother’s disapproving glare diminished the pleasure in snarling at her sister. “She’s totally cool, Mom. I think she’s hapa, like me. But her hair is really dark, like yours.”

  “Did you get her name?” her father asked, as he tried to choke down the last bit of his dinner.

  “Michiko, but she said I could call her Em.”

  “Help me up, girls. I’ve got to get down there.”

  Groaning and cursing, limping his way down the hall—he turned once to tell his wife to wait in the room with the kids—wishing he still had the IV cart to lean on, Braswell brushed the nurse aside. “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.” Should he ask her to call security, or would he regret over-reacting later? Wi
th one hand clutching the doorframe, a glance back to make sure his family hadn’t followed, he ventured to look inside Padgett’s room.

  “C’mon, hothead,” he heard Emily coo into his partner’s ear. “You don’t want to give up this easily.”

  The monitors beeped and flashed quietly, and something dripped into an IV, and Padgett’s chest rose and fell, but nothing else seemed to have changed. A dog-eared copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost lay on the blanket at the foot of the bed. Other than the monitors, his room was empty—no flowers, no pictures of loved ones, nothing personal.

  “The nurses say he should come out of it,” Braswell said. “They just don’t know when.”

  “Doesn’t he have anyone?”

  “He’s a bachelor, and his parents live in a retirement home in Florida. I don’t think they’re strong enough to make the trip up here. And how’d you get in here anyway?”

  “Apparently the nurses think I’m his fiancée.”

  She leaned over Padgett, one hand on his cheek and whispered something in his ear, then kissed his forehead. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it back here until today.”

  “Don’t sweat it, sister,” he said, trying to sound gruff. “We’re not your responsibility… but it is sweet of you,” he admitted after a moment.