Shay Savage - Otherwise Unharmed

The driver of the semi-truck was behind the wheel trying to pull out.  I pulled up my Barrett, used the bumper of the car as a stabilizer, and took aim.  My ears rang with the blast, and I watched the bolt go right through the truck’s engine with a massive explosion.  The wheels screeched, the cab flew off to one side, but the trailer didn’t go with it.  One more carefully aimed shot from my weapon and the cab, spinning in a giant ball of fire, was disconnected from the trailer.

The trailer skidded to a stop, somehow managing to remain upright despite the gaping hole in the front of it.  The screams coming from inside could be heard above the gunfire.

“Evan—get a better vantage point!” Rinaldo yelled at me.

I hated taking myself away from him in this situation, but he was right.  I would be much more effective from up high.  No longer caring who knew where I was, I grabbed the Barrett and ran the short distance to the main building, dodging bullets along the way.  I scaled the ladder on the back side of the structure and perched near the corner.

Without the bipod, and considering the weight of the Barrett, it was a little more difficult to aim, but I’d done this plenty of times before.  Using the ledge around the roof, I balanced the weapon and began to take out Gavino’s men.  Before I got another shot off, I felt and heard a bolt right near my shoulder.

The second sniper.

Grabbing the Barrett, I moved over to the air conditioning unit and placed myself behind it in relation to the other sniper’s shot.  I had to shove the body of the first sniper out of my way to get where I wanted to be.  There were a few bolt casings on the ground near the body, and I grabbed two of them to put in my ears to dampen the noise.

My focus went back to the second gunner.  Whoever he was, he wasn’t on this building, and he obviously hadn’t gotten the message that Rinaldo and I were now working together.

Where were the fucking feds?

I didn’t even want them showing up at this point—the Chicago police would be here soon enough, given the racket we were causing—but the feds should have been here long before now.

There was only one other building in the area suitable for a sniper– the one near the street where I had ditched the hot-wired pickup.  Once I aimed my scope up there, I spotted him quickly.  He was scanning the area, trying to figure out where I had gone.

“Sloppy work,” I mumbled as I carefully took aim.  I drew in a deep breath, settled the crosshairs on the center of his forehead, breathed out, and pulled back on the trigger.

The blast shook my body, but the guy on the rooftop dropped to the ground, unmoving.  I closed my eyes for a moment, tried to force my heart to stop pounding, and focused again on the main area of the rail yard.

Jenna was the first one I saw.  She had a SIG in her hand and was aiming at the trailer of the truck.  When I looked in that direction, I saw three of the girls who were part of the cargo trying to get out.  The back door had broken open when the cab was hit, and they were trying to clamber out one by one.

Three sharp pops from Jenna’s weapon, and the girls dropped to the ground, unmoving.

“Bitch,” I growled as I took aim again.  Another blast, and Jenna’s body dropped to the concrete.  “You were a lousy fucking kisser anyway.”

Moving the scope to the left, I saw a tussle going on between Mario and Craig.  Mario was on top, and definitely had the advantage, but Craig’s hand came up and bashed his skull with the butt end of a gun.  Mario was stunned, and the next shot went through his chest and out his back, leaving a gaping hole.

Craig shoved Mario’s body off just in time to get a shot from my Barrett in the back of his head.

Gavino was running to his SUV.  I tried to aim at him as he got to the vehicle, yanked the driver out of it in his panic, and got behind the wheel.  Rinaldo was running up, firing multiple shots at his adversary, but they were bouncing off the bulletproof glass.

Not Barrett-proof, though.

As he slammed his foot down, the SUV lurched toward Rinaldo, causing my shot to go wide.  My second shot was quick—I didn’t have enough time to aim properly before Gavino ran down Rinaldo—and didn’t hit the cab as I had intended but the back half of the SUV instead.  It swerved, tipped onto its side, and smashed into the back side of the building, out of my view.

I grabbed the Barrett in one hand and the Russian rifle in the other.  I ran for the edge of the building and the ladder, carefully balancing both weapons as I shimmied down.  Moments later, I was on the ground again and running toward Rinaldo.  Above the hum of the substation, I could hear sirens approaching.

The gunfire had stopped, but bodies were everywhere.  From the gaping hole in the side of the trailer, caviar was pouring out all over the ground.  There were still girls peering out of the back door, but none of them were daring to try to escape now.

Rinaldo was next to Gavino’s truck, but there was no Gavino in sight.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“Took off,” Rinaldo replied.  “I didn’t even see him.”

The sirens got louder.

“Time to go,” I said.

“My information was right,” Rinaldo said as he pointed to the front part of the trailer.  “There’s my caviar.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be here,” I said.  “I was in all the discussions about tonight—there was never any mention of caviar.  How did you know it would be here?”

“My new man,” he said.  “He had a contact in the Russian group—someone high up.”

My mind went back to the argument between Andrey and Rurik, focusing on Rurik’s glee when he talked himself out of being here tonight.  He had to be the informant.  He wasn’t working for Rinaldo—I was sure of that—but using him to get back at Andrey and Gavino.

“I might know what happened,” I said, “but we have to get out of here now.”

“Agreed.  And you need to hurry.”

“He has Lia?”

“I don’t know,” Rinaldo said.  “He said he knew right where you were hiding, and that’s where he was headed when we came here.  You better take my car—the keys are in the ignition.”

I turned and started off, then looked back briefly.

“Who is he?” I asked over my shoulder.  “What’s the guy’s name?”

“Kyle Davies.”

The name gave me a bit of a start.  It wasn’t someone I knew, but the name was so close to the private who bummed a cigarette off of me a few days before we were ambushed—Keith Davies.  He was the third person in the video when the reporter was executed and the one whose information told the insurgents where to find us all.  He nearly faced court-martial when we returned because they were convinced he had given the information willingly.  It didn’t happen, but he was ultimately disgraced and ended up leaving the Marines as a result.

Coincidence, I told myself as I climbed into Rinaldo’s car and screeched out of the parking area.

All other thoughts were pushed from my head as I focused all of my energy on getting to Lia as quickly as possible.  If this Davies guy touched her, I wasn’t sure what I would do.  Just the thought of something happening to her was causing my heart to thump audibly in my chest and a cold sweat to form on my palms.

I dumped the car in front of the apartment without even bothering to turn off the ignition.  I pulled my Beretta out as I raced up the stairs to the second story unit, which was where my blood went ice cold.

The door was smashed in.

Nothing could have terrified me more.

“Lia!” I screeched as I rushed to the door.

There was no answer.

Inside was a disaster with all evidence pointing toward a struggle.  The end table was upended, and the lamp that had been sitting on it was smashed against the floor.  The bags Lia had neatly packed had been opened, and their contents strewn about the floor.  As I looked around, it appeared as though everything we had planned to take with us was dumped out.  My eyes moved toward the next room.

“Fuck...no, no, no…”

Blood.

It was on the floor near a pile of things from one of the suitcases—a long streak of dark red, leading back into the bedroom.  I couldn’t breathe as I approached the door.  The adrenalin in my veins moved my muscles quickly, but my mind couldn’t catch up.  Several possibilities were running through my head at top speed, and none of them were good.

If anything, the bedroom was worse than the living room.

I looked around and tried to keep myself from hyperventilating by forcing air in and out of my nose, but I still couldn’t think straight.  Every drawer had been pulled out, its contents dumped and strewn about the floor.  Another table and lamp were knocked over, and the blankets and sheets on the bed were a mess.  I couldn’t even tell what everything on the floor was—it was all a big blur of mess.

A barely audible whine came from the floor behind the bed, the exact location marked by the trail of blood.

Odin.

He was lying partially on top of his dog bed, looking like a large lump of white fur.  The dog bed was upside down amidst a pool of blood.  The blood was soaked into his paws and on his side though I couldn’t see a wound at first glance.

I dropped to my knees and reached out to his shoulder.  He whined softly again, and his tail thumped once against the bedroom floor.

“Odin…buddy?”  I leaned in closer and wrapped one arm around him to turn him a little.  Two round, bright red spots on the front of his chest oozed blood into his white fur.  I tried to look him over as carefully as I could but couldn’t find an exit wound.  I tore off my shirt and held it to the wounds I could see, and blood quickly soaked it.

Odin tried to lift his head, but he couldn’t do it on his own.  With effort, I pulled him up against my chest and looked down into his soft, brown eyes.  He reached out with his tongue and lapped at the side of my face.

“That’s disgusting,” I whispered as my voice cracked.

Odin snuffed at my neck, let out a long sigh, and was still.

“No…no, Odin!  No!  Don’t…don’t…”

I squeezed my eyes shut and held his head against my body as I shook and tried to hold in the scream I wanted to let out.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.  This wasn’t part of the plan—the vision.  Odin was a part of all of it.  He was supposed to come away with us.

Us.

“Lia!” I screamed again, but I knew there wasn’t going to be an answer.  I lowered Odin’s head gently to the floor and checked the rest of the apartment, but there was no sign of her.  I did find the assault rifle Gavino had given me months ago, so whoever it was obviously was not looking for weapons.  I went back to Odin’s side and pulled his head into my lap again.

I was frozen, shaking, and completely unable to think or move or act.

I had no idea how long I sat there and just held him.  Nothing else around me even registered as his body cooled beside me.  I knew I needed to move—I had to find Lia—but I couldn’t.

All of this was my fault.

Odin had been the only constant in my life since I left the convent.  He was with me through sniper school and every assignment I was given all over the country.  Even when I was deployed, he was cared for by volunteers at the base in Virginia, waiting for me to return.

Without him, I would have been completely alone.

No matter what I might have done, he was always there waiting for me when I got home.  He didn’t judge, and he was never afraid of me.  When I was too lost in thought, he would always be there to bring me out of it.  He was always, always there when I needed him.  He was my companion and my friend.

“He’s gone.”  My voice echoed around the empty room.

With my eyes closed, I leaned over to place my forehead against his.  For a moment, I thought he moved, but I realized it was just my own body shaking.  I tried to tighten my muscles to make the trembling stop, but it didn’t work.  I took a long breath, and when I glanced up, someone was standing in front of me.

The kid with the bombs strapped to him.

He was closer to me now than I had ever seen him in the past.  On his face, I could clearly see the path of every tear, and on his clothing, every grain of sand.  There were wires sticking out from under his shirt and leading up to his hand, which was wrapped firmly around a detonator.