by Thomas Craig
“Right now, I’m focused on your heart rhythm and looking for any signs of possible internal bleeding. You have an entry and exit wound on your upper left shoulder, but that looks stable. There’s another entry wound on your right side which I can see the bullet just below your skin. You probably have some broken ribs that deflected that bullet, preventing it from going further in, so don’t move around unless I tell you to.”
Holliday chimed in, “Okay, okay. Spare us all the details.” He gave the medic a sideways look with one eyebrow raised and a half frown, then turned back to Lauren.
“So, you’re banged up a little, but don’t expect to miss many days of work,” he said with a smile. It was meant to calm her a bit, but it would not be enough. He could see her shaking and grabbed a blanket from a side bin to cover her, but the medic waved it off and directed it to her lap for now, as he was not done addressing wounds on her arm, chest, and side.
Through the shaking, Lauren could feel the tears running down her cheeks again. She wasn’t sure if she ever stopped crying from the pain or if she started again after hearing the update on her condition. Lauren could not stop the wave of thoughts that started to play like a trailer for an action movie in her head as she unwantedly reflected on all the violence she had been exposed to over the last 5 months.
She led an uneventful life up to and almost through college. Sure, her family did well, and they took exciting family trips to destinations that could easily fill a nice coffee table book. Not once, in her travels, was she ever involved with a physical altercation, let alone having to defend herself with a firearm from people who were actually trying to end her life. These behaviors were inconceivable acts that just were not part of her world until this past year.
Lauren liked to blend in. She was not one for drawing attention to herself. Which was hard not to do during High School and College, because she was smart, athletic, and attractive. She didn’t see herself as attractive, only normal-looking, because looks were not important to her. She was a ponytail kind of gal, loved to run, wore thick-rimmed glasses, and always kept her nose in a book.
Even though parties and other social events were not her” scene” in school, she could not help but feel excited when one of her computer science classmates asked her to prom.
Wanting to blend in and play the role of a good prom date, Lauren let her mom take her to a hairstylist, helped her with her makeup, and found her an incredible dress and shoes.
On Prom night, she proceeded to give her 17-year-old date the surprise of his High School career…the most stunning prom date of the entire class, so she was told. It was a nice feeling, but not one she held onto or craved.
Even though she had a great time dancing and socializing that evening, the next day she was back to running in loose sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt, followed by reading two books in the quiet of her home. When she returned to school, people tried to make a big deal about how beautiful she was at prom, but she brushed it off, not wanting what she thought was superficial attention.
MIT grabbed her up on a full scholarship for both Track & Field and Computer Science, and the cycle of anonymity was able to start over, so she thought. She loved the structure of the Track team and fitness program and became heavily focused on the most unnoticeable event, cross country. She could run for days. She also found that her mind had this unlimited capacity to create and decipher codes, creating programs, and playing around with computer hardware and software.
However, Lauren did not have the patience and love for the structure in a couple of her Computer Science courses. Not to take anything away from the professors, but she could have taught those courses, and she was looking for greater challenges. Her creativity and boredom landed her in hot water a few times.
It wasn’t until she was a sophomore that she found the right outlets through advanced software engineering and system engineering courses where her imagination took true flight and heads were turned.
By the end of her junior year, she had created a security software program that funded her retirement. She had dozens of tech companies bidding for her employment. No longer concerned with money, they all looked the same to Lauren and she was in no hurry to start working in an office or lab.
As she was eating lunch in the MIT quad one day, a sharp-dressed woman in her thirties sat next to Lauren and pitched the FBI as her career path. The woman did not have any glossy booklets or high salary to offer. But when she placed her card in Lauren’s hand and stood up to leave, she left Lauren thinking about her parting words, “We are not trying to create something people might buy, and we are not looking for the limelight, glory, or accolades. We are trying to create a safer country. We need more intelligent people, like you Lauren, on our team. Or chaos will grow and swallow up what everyone takes for granted…their security.”
After a week of soul-searching, Lauren made the phone call and put the decision in motion. Graduating from MIT would be followed by going to Quantico to train to become an FBI agent or analyst. She chose to be in the field, knowing there would be some danger, but this is the second time in a few months that she found herself in the back of an ambulance due to being on the receiving end of a bullet or two or four.
She had a lot of questions swimming in her head now. Will I be okay? Who were those assholes? Can you just take me to Lou? Is it too early to ask for a vacation or retirement?
“Where are we headed?” Holliday’s question broke Lauren away from her thoughts.
“US Naval Hospital. It’s only a few minutes away.”
Lauren could hear Holliday repeat the information to Arya and then he hung up and moved close to her, taking her hand.
“Hang in there Lauren, you will be fine.” His smile had returned.
She was trying to focus on taking short breaths to avoid the stabbing sensations in her chest on every attempt for a normal breath. She continued to look at Holliday and was not paying attention to all the medical jargon the medic was relaying to the ER as they weaved through traffic and entered the base.
Holliday was holding one of her hands now and had his other hand on her good shoulder. She started to feel warm and relaxed all over, the pain was going away. Is Holliday like Lou?
“Is the pain starting to go away?” Holliday asked.
‘Oh my God.’ She thought to herself. Was she the only person on the team that did not have supernatural powers?
Then Holliday mentioned something about a Morphine injection from the medic, and reasonable thoughts returned before she closed her eyes embracing the warm blanket that covered her. The tears stopped, the pain became manageable and for the first time in what felt like hours, Lauren thought she might live to see tomorrow.
Chapter 4
About an hour earlier, Justin Mercer did not realize he was being stalked by a retired Brigadier General’s hunting dog at the top of the Neuse River banks. The dog never made a noise as it raced around the backyard, drawing its owners’ attention to its abnormal activity. When Justin climbed the wooden staircase leading off the beach to the upper banks, he had no idea he would be greeted by a dog named Bo and a steady hand holding a steel 1911 colt 45 that was pointed his way.
There was little due process as Justin quickly wound up in a military interrogation room where he sat handcuffed to a table. The questioning would come soon enough, and he honestly did not know what he would say. He had been running on pure fear and desperation. Now that he was in custody and had no control of the situation, he felt some peace in his head. Sleep. He really wanted to sleep.
◆◆◆
Roughly 95% of the internet is intentionally inaccessible to commercial users and search engines. This invisible internet space is known as the Darknet, dark web, or even deep web. To be on the Darknet, one would typically use a VPN and Tor to gain access and mask their IP addresses to conceal identities. Tracing the users is considered extremely difficult to impossible.
Up to this moment, it seemed that Justin Mercer had never hea
rd of the Darknet. So, when I kept asking him about the email he received and tried to further explore the description of the man that left him the package, he just kept repeating himself.
“I told you, this guy was nothing but a hat and a gun. I didn’t see anything else. My height, a hat, and a gun. That’s all! I mean, who does that? Who makes you chose to kill or be killed? That’s messed up.” His voice trailed off as he repeated, “That’s really messed up.”
“No, you are messed up! You’re the asshole that chose to kill two people versus just turning yourself in as you walked through our doors this morning.” Agent Michael’s had zero empathy for the murderer that sat before him.
“I don’t even know why I read you your rights. You are going to be treated like a terrorist that infiltrated a United States Military Base. No lawyer, no rights, no one will ever know what hole we finally drop you into once we are done with you!” Agent Michael’s yelled.
Justin did what most criminals do at this point in an interrogation. With the realization of no escape, no mercy, or forgiveness coming to rescue his freedom or humanity, the weight of his actions started to press down on him now. He started to cry, followed by weeping uncontrollably. He had no useful information, so I was wasting my time staying here with Agent Michaels.
Arya already acquired his laptop and cellphone for Lauren to tap into for clues. My time would be better spent with Arya meeting up with Holliday and Lauren, as they should be arriving soon.
As I left the room, a pain shot through my chest instantly stopping me. I looked around to see if anyone was watching me, but there was no one in the hallway.
I had experienced this pain before. It felt like something grabbed my nerves in a certain area of my body and pulled them through the pores of my skin, only to cut the tips off before allowing them to recoil back into my body on fire. Not a great feeling.
Over the past 20 years, I had healed many people on the reservation. Years later when they passed or were seriously injured, I briefly felt their pain. My pain would quickly pass if I had healed them a long time ago. However, the pain was more intense if I had healed them more recently, and it helped to rid my pain by spending a few moments in the Sunlight.
The occurrences were not very frequent, about eight to ten times a year. With a phone call to Lolo, my lifelong friend, she could usually figure out pretty fast who was recently hurt or passed away on the reservation.
Recently though, over the last 6 months, I had healed a little girl, a neighbor, Arya, and Lauren. So, when the pain struck me now, there was a bit more concern, a bit more personal feelings invested in some of the newer people in my life.
That’s not to say I don’t care about the others, but to be honest I did not know them. I would make one or two trips a year to the reservation to heal those in need, but I really did not know them. I grew up away from them, connected only through my mother who spent 16 years off the reservation during my adolescent years.
I have awakened every day of my life at dawn and discovered at an early age that I draw energy from the Sun in more ways than one. I have learned a great deal over the last 20 years and modestly know I have not learned everything about my gift yet.
Many trips were taken to the reservation in my preteens and teens to help the sick and meditate with the elders hoping more answers would come. They never did come in that form. They typically came from experiences.
A few times I sustained injuries followed by same day healing. Recently, I discovered how my energy can slightly intoxicate or intrigue the opposite sex. Sounds fun for a teenager wanting to get laid, but it can complicate things for a mature professional adult. I haven’t exactly figured out how to turn it off.
Conversely, if someone were basking in the sun and then hung around me, I can become extremely interested in this person due to the amount of absorbed UV radiation in their skin. It’s like a strong perfume that draws me in. It is as strange as it sounds. This is why people won’t find me poolside with a crowd of people because that would lead to sensory overload.
After healing Lauren’s shoulder about a month ago, she told me about strong feelings she was having toward me when around me post healing. Her arm hairs would stand up and a warm feeling in her gut would appear.
If we hadn’t already established a working relationship through the Academy, she said she might have confused the feelings with romantic urges. She said it took several hours to get them under control and manage them down to what felt like strong sibling feelings or love for one’s parent.
There have been other interesting side effects and experiences, too many to get into right now.
I started to make my way down the hallway to the main floor to take a moment outside. As soon as I rounded the corner a familiar scene was playing out in front of me. The same area with cubicles was active with chaos again. Arya right in the middle of it yelling at the CO and one of his CID agents in the immediate area. A red light was flashing now in the corner of the room, indicating some sort of emergency or threat was in progress.
The CO was barking something on the phone, tapping the person next to him, and pointing to the screen on the wall. Seconds later a live feed popped up showing what seemed to be a split-screen of the two gates into the base. I could see Marines at both posts bring their M4s to ready and start turning the few cars away at the gate.
“Lauren! Lauren!” Arya yelled into the phone and then turned to the CO again. “You have to hurry. All I can hear is gunshots and yelling.”
“We are on it, Agent Shah. The gate guard already reported hearing the wreck and gunshots. They must be close to the West gate. Havelock Police are on their way. I also dispatched an armed Humvee that could get there in about 2 minutes depending on how they drive,” the CO quickly replied to Arya.
On the split-screen, the Marine on the right made quick work of getting rid of two cars, and just as he raised the arm on the exit, a fast-moving MRAP with an M-2 .50 caliber machine gun mounted on its turret flew through the gate, followed by a Humvee.
The MRAP is a very well-built transport, bigger than the Humvee and structurally designed with a V hull to displace landmine or IED explosions. I have seen these types of vehicles becoming more popular with SWAT teams.
Arya’s quick thinking led to her describing what Holliday and Lauren were wearing and what their vehicle looked like.
The CO relayed this information to the open communication line he had with the MRAP and Humvee to help the Marines quickly assess who the good guys were. The two-minute ETA turned into a one-minute arrival of the Marines on the scene.
Normally there is not a squad of armed Marines at the ready so close to the gate, but as luck would have it, a Platoon of Marine Raiders from Camp Lejeune had just pulled in moments earlier to attend a joint training exercise, and the two trailing vehicles turned around to respond to the gates request for firepower support to Federal Agents under fire.
Two minutes later we got word that the Marines had secured the area and the Federal Agents were in custody.
Arya thanked the CO profusely as she guided me to the door. We left the facility hoping that the CO had not violated any part of the Insurrection Act or Posse Comitatus Act, which in a nutshell limited the use of the Military to enforce laws to restore public order. If he found himself in hot water, he would have the FBI in his corner supporting his decision to save two Federal Agents' lives with his quick decisions.
Arya could see I looked a little white in the face and knew it was most likely not due to the incident Holliday and Lauren found themselves in minutes before. Or was it? Once we got outside, she gathered herself before asking me what was wrong.
“Are you feeling okay Lou?”
“I’ll be fine in a minute. I’m sharing in someone’s pain,” I said. Arya knew what that meant.
Arya’s phone rang and seconds later Holliday filled her in on the encounter they had, and the condition Lauren was in. This update put us on the course for the Base Hospital where we met up
with Holliday in the Emergency Room waiting area.
“How is she?” Arya asked Holliday as we entered the waiting area.
“She is stable. She has a hole in her left shoulder, but it looks like a clean through and through, damaging a little tissue and muscle. Hopefully not too much nerve damage there. She also has an entry wound on her right-side lower rib. That one has them looking deeper for internal injuries and possible surgery. Not to mention the other 2 or 3 bullet impacts that she will be feeling for weeks. Tough kid though.” Holliday felt he had to add.
“Jesus,” Arya whispered.
“How are you buddy...and how did they miss that big hat of yours?” I asked, trying to bring some levity to the stressful day.
“Ha, ha. Well, thank God for the Marines, or the hat and its owner would have been a spaghetti strainer. You know, if I didn’t know any better, the assailants purposely were concentrated on Lauren and that poor kid. I mean, they shot plenty of rounds my way, but they were aggressively going at Lauren,” Holliday explained.
“The only reason they would come at Lauren hard would be if they knew her background and thought she would make progress tracking them down. We need Lauren in Atlanta working on this thing. She is going to be of more value in the Bullpen back in Atlanta, than in the field on this one,” I said as I headed off to find which curtain she was hiding behind.
Holliday looked confused. “Wait, what? She isn’t going to be of much value at all for weeks.”
Arya put her hand on Holliday’s shoulder and asked him to stay put as she quickly caught up to me. Holliday reluctantly stopped his pursuit and was temporarily left behind scratching his head.
If this team was going to rely on each other and put our lives in each other’s hands, there really should be no secrets between us. I knew this. I’m not sure why the Director had not read in Holliday on our unique characteristics.