by Linden Storm
“How are you going to deliver it?” Gemma says.
Intent on studying the building through the binoculars, Paul says nothing.
“Are you going to go down there right now?” Marina says.
“I have to. It’ll be light soon.”
Marina writes the note. All it says is, Nine tonight, be ready.
Since they haven’t had time to figure anything else out, there’s not much else to say. Paul shoves the note in his chest pocket, then rigs up the short-range comms he’d gotten at Red Bone. He gives one earbud each to Marina and Gemma and puts the other bud in his own ear.
“Looks like there’s only one guard out there right now. Tell me if you see anything happening with the guard or if anyone comes out of the house. Watch for me and let me know if you can see me at any point. If you can see me, they might be able to. You know where I’ll be, right?” He gestures at the hillside, pointing at the route he plans to take down to the outbuilding.
Marina nods.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Gemma says.
“Yes, ma’am,” Paul says, and he waves at Marina and heads silently into the dark woods.
∆∆∆
Marina watches the house and outbuilding through the binoculars. The sky is beginning to lighten at the horizon, and the air is cool and fresh. The sun will come up right in her eyes, but for now the sky is maintaining its velvet hues and the stars are still shining even as birds begin to call and whistle.
She watches the outbuilding and the house, swinging the binoculars back and forth. She can just make out the silhouette of a man slouched against the side of the outbuilding, guarding what she assumes is the door. A man, another silhouette, comes out of the house and meets up with the guard.
“There are two men out there now, Paul,” she whispers. “Maybe hold up a bit.”
“Will do,” Paul says quietly.
Marina swings the binoculars along Paul’s route down, but she can’t see him. “You’re well-hidden so far,” she says.
The two men stand there, and then the man who came out stays, and the other one heads back for the farmhouse.
“Now,” Marina says, thinking that the changing of the guard is a strategic time to move. But then another man comes out of the farmhouse.
“Wait!” she says. “There’s another one.”
“Okay,” Paul says, breathing hard.
Marina scans the hillside again but still can’t find Paul. Good.
“What do you see, Marina?” Gemma hisses.
“Paul’s making his way down,” Marina says. “But all three men are out there now.”
“Oh, God, I’m going to foul my knickers,” Gemma says.
“Wait,” Marina says to Paul.
The other man turns to return to the house, and the second one follows him.
“Go now,” she says.
She watches through the binoculars as Paul creeps out of the brush on the back side of the outbuilding. He looks up. The window is too high for him to reach. He tries to jump up. It’s still too high. He looks around and pulls a bucket or an old tub out of a pile near the corner of the building.
A thrill of fear races up Marina’s legs. What if they see him? Or hear him? She hopes Paul checked carefully for cameras.
The guard is settling down by the door. He doesn’t seem to notice anything.
“You’re okay so far,” Marina says.
Paul puts the bucket or tub on the ground under the window. He steps onto it, then reaches up. He just manages to grab onto the boards that cover the window and pulls himself up a bit.
“The window’s been broken out,” Paul whispers. “I’m throwing the note in.”
“Will they find it?” Marina says. “That’s a fairly large building. If they’re asleep they might not see the note.”
Paul climbs back on the bucket, pulls himself up.
“Paul, don’t…” Marina says.
And just then there’s movement by the door. The guard jumps up and leans in, like he’s responding to something.
“Paul!” Marina says. “The guard—”
But instead of running around the back, the guard sticks by the door and pounds on it. He appears to be yelling.
Ah, Marina thinks with approval, they’ve found the note, and now they’re making noise to help Paul get away without being seen.
“Our friends are creating a diversion,” Marina says. “Go now!”
She hopes the other men will not get drawn out of the farmhouse. The guard is pounding on the door again. Marina swings the glasses back to see Paul kicking the tub aside and diving into the brush.
In a few seconds, he’s invisible again. “You made it,” Marina says to Paul. “You did it.”
“Splendid!” Gemma says.
The two women embrace. There’s a long way to go, but they’ve made a start.
In life and in the game, Marina is a risk-taker. She always has been, but her risk-taking is calculated and she always tries to make sure she’s not leading others into trouble. In this situation, though, she’s the catalyst and the instigator and the reason for the peril. If something goes wrong, of something happens to her friends, she’ll hate herself forever.
And Belle will hate her even longer.
∆∆∆
Inside the shed, Belle hears a noise. It isn’t coming from the door, though. It’s coming from the back side. An animal?
“Did you hear that?” she says to William, holding her hand over her mouth and keeping her voice low.
“Yeah,” William says. “What do you think it is?”
Feeling suddenly lightheaded with hope, Belle wonders if their ploy is working. Could it be Marina and Paul? “Maybe it’s them?” she whispers. “How did they get here so fast?”
“Don’t go over there,” Rupert says. “The camera will see us.”
William stands up but doesn’t move toward the window.
Good, Belle thinks, he’s blocking the view of the back window, at least partially.
Nick, slower to react, is still frozen in place. Harold sits up and nods, but he doesn’t look at the window.
After the phone call, they’d debriefed quietly, in the corner the camera couldn’t see, talking through scenarios. Belle had pointed out that Marina and Paul would arrive earlier than she’d said in the call.
And here they are, a full day sooner than she’d said.
“Time to distract the kidnappers,” Belle mutters.
She runs at the door and kicks it. “I’m hungry! Do you hear me? Fuckers! Give us some food!”
“Shut her up!” William yells. “Goddamn bitch!”
In her peripheral vision, Belle sees something small rocket through the broken window. William moves quickly to block the view of the thing, whatever it was. They’ll figure out a way to retrieve it later.
Belle is satisfied to hear the guard pounding on his side of the door and screaming at them to shut up. The distraction strategy is working.
“I’m hungry!” Belle says, kicking the door again. “And cold! You said you’d give us warm clothes!”
“Stop kicking the fucking door,” Rupert says, shoving Belle. “They’re going to retaliate!”
She shoves him hard in the chest, thrusting him back, his arms windmilling. He falls on the floor.
Belle waves her arms. “You fuckers are going to pay for this. I’ll kill you and cut off your nuts!” She knows she’s spewing gibberish, but she also knows she’s got to draw all the attention away from William, who is in the back retrieving the object that had come through the window.
In a couple of minutes, the door flies open. A bunch of Rupert’s protein bars land on the floor, along with some old sweatshirts and blankets. The door slams shut.
Belle makes a show of falling on the bars and gathering them up. Then she rips a bar open and devours it, looking at the camera and flipping off the watchers. She then puts on a tattered, torn, oversized hooded sweatshirt and flips them off again.
She can’t help but smile, just a little bit, with her back turned to the camera. Not only did the distraction work, but she finally got the supply drop they’d been promised. Harold takes a protein bar from her and nods his acknowledgment of her performance.
It’s working. The execution of the plan is underway. They will get out of this mess. They will make it back to Seattle.
They will play in the finals. They will survive. Even Harold. Especially Harold.
∆∆∆
Later, Harold joins the group in the back corner. He’s feeling considerably better now that he’s back on his heart meds. However, he’s not any less worried. He can’t imagine that these guys are ever going to let them go.
William passes the note around to the group.
Nine tonight. Be ready.
“That’s not much to go on,” Harold whispers. “What are they up to?”
“My guess is that they didn’t have much time. They must have just gotten here,” Belle says, “and they needed to act while it was still dark.”
“I’ll bet you’re right,” Harold says.
“What we know,” Belle says. “Is that they know about the window. They know it’s broken. They’re planning to take advantage of that window.”
“They also know it’s still mostly boarded up,” Nick says.
“Yes,” Belle says. “But they don’t necessarily know that we’re being watched on camera.”
“I think you’re wrong about that. They’ve probably guessed we’re being watched,” Rupert says. “It’s Marina, after all.”
“You’re right,” Belle says.
Harold raises his hand. “The most likely scenario, I think, is that they’ll create some kind of diversion, then try to get the window opened up and pull some of us out through that opening.”
“I hope not,” Nick says. “I hope they’ve got something better than that. Maybe they’ll call in the cavalry.”
“If they were going to do that, they would have done it by now,” Rupert says.
“They’re thinking about Marina’s immigration status,” Belle says. “With the political climate and everything that’s going on with Wishkowski, she’d probably get deported immediately, even if she could prove she’s the victim of a crime.”
“And we'd be out of the tournament,” William says.
“Yeah,” Belle says. “For sure.”
“They’re going to try to take care of this themselves, then,” Rupert says. “Shite.”
“Oh, God,” Nick says. “That seems dangerous as hell. Do you think there’s a chance it could work?”
“I do,” says Belle. “We’ve carried out similar operations before.”
“In the game, Belle,” Nick says, his voice low and intense.
“We know how to spring prisoners. That’s all I’m saying,” Belle says. “It’s not that much different.”
“Except the physics are different in real life. As in, we do not have any magic powers or abilities,” Nick says, drawing the words out.
“You’re being negative again,” Belle says.
“No, he’s not,” William says. “He’s being realistic.”
“He’s right,” Rupert says.
Harold looks at the ground. Belle probably does believe they could all crawl through that high window and escape.
But Harold knows he will never be able to get out through that window. He’s too big and the window is high and small. There’s no way.
∆∆∆
By midmorning, Nick is thinking of nothing but fruit and sleep. Normally, he’s not much of a fruit eater. Unless you count those little boxes of raisins. But subsisting on Rupert’s protein bars for a couple of days has him thinking about apples, oranges, bananas, and pineapple, and he doesn’t even like pineapple. And what about those big round fat purple grapes? He’d give anything for a bunch of grapes or a handful of blueberries.
And then there’s vegetables. Oh. Celery. Carrots, Lettuces. He’s never made a salad or even ordered one in a restaurant, but right now he’d fall on a pile of greens and chomp them all down.
It’s not so much the lack of variety, though, he realizes, but the feeling that he may never get fresh food again.
Why would their captors let them go now, after kidnapping them? Nick suspects they’re all thinking the same thing—that they’re liabilities to these guys, and the minute they have Marina, the kidnappers will kill all of them, but no one is saying it out loud. The unacknowledged terror is making Nick’s jaw ache. He feels light-headed and sick. But he doesn’t want to be the first one to open his mouth and scream.
“I say we should prepare,” Rupert says.
“But how?” Nick says. “We have nothing.”
“Nothing but our hands and our wits,” says Rupert.
“And whatever is in these boxes,” Harold says. “There might be something we can use, heavy stuff to throw…”
“You’re right,” Rupert says. “We should go through everything. What do you think, Belle?”
“I don’t know,” Belle says.
“What is wrong with you?” Rupert says, his face reddening. “Are you giving up? Because I am not giving up. The rest of us are not giving up.”
Belle is slumped over and her voice is quiet. “I’m tired. I think we should sleep. Because there’s a limit to how much we can prepare. We know something’s going to happen at nine tonight, but we don’t know what, and we can’t work on the boarded-up window anymore because they’ll see us.” She bobs her head toward the camera. “Looking through these boxes is going to be difficult too. The last thing we want to do is make them suspicious.”
“She’s right,” Nick says.
“Whatever. I’m going through some boxes,” Rupert says.
William nods. “They can’t see into this corner. We can at least look here.”
“Fine. Go ahead,” Belle says wearily. “Some of us should go back out where they can see us, though.”
“Agreed,” Nick says.
He and Belle move out into the middle of the room. Harold is still lying down on his mat. Belle and Nick sit on the floor, heads on their knees. Nick pats Harold’s shoulder.
“You okay, Grandpa?” he says.
“Fine,” Harold says. “Just resting up for the jailbreak.”
Nick hopes he’s telling the truth.
∆∆∆
Marina poses her idea to Gemma.
Gemma cocks her head and opens her mouth to speak, then closes it again.
Paul says no, it’s too dangerous. Marina agrees that yes, it is very dangerous.
But she has a plan to mitigate the dangers.
“Listen,” she says. “First, we’ll post your location on social media. Gemma, you have more than 300,000 followers on various platforms. Perhaps some of them would appreciate an invitation to a private performance?”
“You want them to show up here?” Gemma says.
“Yes. It’s perfect. If we have witnesses, fans of yours, the bad guys won’t dare to do anything violent.”
Paul grimaces. “That’s the most FUBAR thing I’ve ever heard.”
“What?” Marina says.
“Fucked up beyond all reason.”
“Yes, but we have limited resources. We must be creative,” Marina says.
“True, true,” Paul says. “And I’ll be here for backup in case you’re wrong about them and they are willing to kill all of us in front of the entire Chagrin fandom.”
“They wouldn’t, would they?” Gemma says.
“I don’t think so?” Marina says, but the statement comes out sounding more like a question.
“I would feel terrible if any of my fans got hurt,” Gemma says. “And worse if I got shot.”
Marina nods. “Of course. This plan is terribly risky.”
“The thing is,” Gemma says, “the fans that show up are all going to be videoing the whole experience. Live feeds all over the place, right? If I let the villains know that first thing, they won’t shoot anyone. Will they?�
��
“It doesn’t seem likely,” Marina says.
“Right,” Paul says.
Marina glances at Paul and realizes he’s applying mild sarcasm to the situation. Which means he believes the bad guys will start shooting. But he’s a soldier. He thinks everyone shoots at everything.
“I don’t think they will let this turn violent,” Marina says. “I’ve been thinking about it. They haven’t killed our friends. They’re waiting for me to show up. It’s me they want. They’re wearing masks. They don’t think our friends know who they are. I think if they got me, they’d let everyone else go. Maybe I should just walk up to them and get this over with.”
“No!” Paul says. “You can’t do that. Anyway, I don’t think they’ll take you off and leave the rest of us alone. They’ve got Rupert Jones Jr. in there. They know Belle is onto your husband. They’ve left a trail a mile wide, and their first priority is going to be cleaning up their mess.”
Marina touches his arm. “How are they going to do that?”
Paul shoves his hands in his pockets and stares at the ground.
“Well?” Gemma says.
“I think they want to get all of us together so they can kill all of us at once.”
“Oh,” Gemma says.
Marina keeps her face still and blank. It’s not as if she hasn’t thought of this worst-case scenario, but she doesn’t want to believe it. If it’s true, they should be calling the police or the FBI or someone. But if they call in the law, she’ll be swept up, thrown in a holding center, and ejected from the country within a week.
Gemma is quiet for a while and then says, “I’ll do it. I’ll participate in your plan, Marina.”
“Are you sure?” Marina says. “I am only guessing. What if Paul is right and they decide to kill us all? We should call the police.”
“But that’ll be it for you and for the Untouchables,” Gemma says.
She laughs. “In any case, this is the most fun I’ve had since my Alien Invasion days.” She takes her phone out of her pocket.
Gemma goes to work on her phone. “I’m spamming my followers, posting every five minutes.”
“What are you saying?” Marina says.
“The messages all add up to one thing: Be at this location just before sunset to see me perform a new scene from the upcoming revival of Alien Invasion.”