Lost Girls

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Emily ducked as the shoe almost hit her in the face as it fell back toward her. It was kept from hitting the floor of the tank by the sleeve of her shirt, which was tied through the strap. The other sleeve was in Emily’s hand.

That had been her fifth attempt and she was surprised how tired her arm was from throwing and how hard she was breathing simply from tossing a shoe in the air. She took a few deep breaths, then looked up at the notch once more. She carefully tossed the shoe.

It bounced off the plank and back toward her once more.

“Fuck,” Emily hissed.

Angry, she flung the shoe back at the notch, the sleeve in her hand ripping free. Emily froze as the shoe went over the top of the tank, her eyes focused on the shirt, fearing to see it disappear with the shoe.

But the shirt hung down the inside, the sleeve she’d lost within reach. She took it in her hand. The shirt was about three inches to the right of the notch. She tugged slightly, pulling to her left. The material moved an inch. She tugged again. Another inch. One more time and the shirt slid into the notch.

Holding her breath, Emily slowly pulled on the sleeve. The shirt slid smoothly through the notch until it suddenly came to a halt. Emily knew the shoe was just on the other side now. She allowed herself several shallow breaths.

Emily wrapped the sleeve around both hands and slowly shifted her weight from her feet to her arms. The shirt/shoe combination held as she put more and more weight on it. She felt the strain build in her arms as she held tighter and tighter. Hands shaking, she bent her knees and lifted her feet an inch off the ground.

It held.

She put her feet back on the ground and released the pressure as she caught her breath.

Now the question was: could she make the climb?

“Hammer, this is Falcon.” Golden released the transmit button and Neeley leaned close to her.

“Say, ‘over’, when you’re done sending.”

Golden belatedly hit the transmit and barked: “Over.”

All Neeley could hear was static on the FM channel that Bailey had been given by Finley. “Again,” she said to Golden.

“Hammer, this is Falcon. Over.”

The static was broken. “You’re not Falcon, but that’s all right, because I’m not Hammer.” The voice was calm and matter-of-fact.

“Put Hammer on please,” Golden said. “Over.”

“Put Falcon on. I assume he’s coming to get his little girl. After all, he’s killed for her already.”

“You don’t need to talk to Colonel Cranston,” Golden said. “You just need to see him. And the others. Over.”

“Who are you?” Finley asked.

Neeley nodded. Golden was drawing him in, engaging him. The co-pilot in the front of the chopper held up five fingers, indicating they were five minutes from the town.

“My name is Doctor Golden. I’m a psychiatrist. Over.”

There was a weird sound in reply and Neeley realized Finley was laughing. “You going to give me therapy, doc?”

“We want proof of life,” Golden demanded. “Put Emily on. Over.”

“Emily’s not next to me either,” Finley said. “We bought off on your proof of death at Fort Meade. Took your word for it. So take our word she’s alive.”

“Is she in the area?” Golden pressed.

“Oh, she’s around,” Finley said with a laugh.

The co-pilot held up four fingers. Neeley unbuckled her seat belt and grabbed a harness off a hook. She buckled it on as Golden continued to engage Finley in conversation. Neeley then tethered the harness to a bolt in the floor of the cargo bay. She opened up a long case and pulled out her sniper rifle. Then she slid over to the left side of the chopper and slid the door open, taking a seat on the floor, legs dangling. She tightened the tether to make sure the limit of her movement would keep her from sliding off, and then looked about the wind from the blades above her buffeting her skin.

The sun was rising in the east. It was the cusp between night and day. She switched frequencies tuning out Golden’s psychobabble with Finley and tuning in the tactical frequency they’d agreed on.

“Gant?” She asked. “You there?”

Gant was standing at the edge of the open ramp, being whipped by the air swirling in the cargo bay. “I hear you,” he replied. “Wait one. Over.”

The light in the tail of the plane turned green and Gant stepped off the ramp, freefalling at ten thousand feet above the ground. He spread his arms and legs, arcing his back, and stabilized. He waited a few seconds, then grabbed the rip cord and opened his chute.

The opening shock pulled him upright and took his breath away. He reached up and grabbed the toggles, gaining control of the canopy. He checked the data board on top of his reserve chute and checked his altitude and location.

“Neeley? I’m airborne now. Eight thousand feet AGL and on track for the town.”

“We’re three minutes out,” Neeley said. “Golden is talking to Finley. He said that Forten isn’t with him. Nor is the girl.”

“They’re dispersed for an ambush,” Gant said.

“Duh.”

Gant smiled grimly. “See you on the ground.”

“I hope so.”

Emily had her feet against the wood and her hands tight around the shirt as she pulled herself up another couple of inches. Her arms felt like they would rip right out of their sockets, her muscles were vibrating in protest, but she slid one hand up a few inches, then the other, then her feet one at a time.

She was breathing hard but didn’t care. Not much further. The top of the wood was close, damn close, but still out of reach. Emily was so tired, in so much pain, that not any one specific part of her body took precedence. It all hurt.

Two more inches. Emily held still panting, as she desperately glared at the lip of the tank. It looked close enough, but if she reached and missed.

She couldn’t think about failure.

Then she heard a sound. Cloth tearing.

No time.

She bent her knees slightly, then pushed up as hard as she could as she let go of the shirt with her right hand and clawed for the top of the wood. Her fingers hooked over and she held on, even as the shirt in her left hand tore away. Ignoring the pain, she slammed her left hand onto the wood, scrabbling for the edge. Her fingers clawed over it and she was hanging by both hands.

“Fuck,” she hissed. No way she could pull herself up to get a leg over. No way.

Then she heard the distinctive sound of a helicopter.

“Number one,” Bailey called out.

The CIA’s Director of Operations glared at him as the chopper’s wheels touched down with a light bounce on the main street of the ghost town. Neeley shifted her attention back to the scope on the rifle. There was just enough light now to be able to see. She had the tactical frequency now in her left ear and Golden’s freq with Finley in her right.

Bailey grabbed the Director and tossed him out of the chopper onto the broken tar of the street and the helicopter immediately lifted.

Golden’s voice was matter of fact. “The Director of Operations is on the ground.”

“What the fuck is that?” Finley snarled. “Chinese takeout?”

“First course,” Golden said and her voice was so cold Neeley glanced at the woman sitting there with her laptop still open.

Gant was at five thousand feet and now could see the layout of the town. Rail-line to the south. Large factory building to the east. He also could see the chopper pulling back after making its deposit.

Neeley saw the Director of Operations start running, dashing toward the buildings on the left side of the street when his body was slammed hard to the tarmac. She shifted the rifle, knowing the bullet had to have come from the other side of the street and further away.

Emily heard the shot. She pulled upward with all her strength and swung her right leg in an arc toward the top. Her chin reached the top, her heel hooked over it and she continued with the momentum.

Her calf slid over the top, her thigh. Her hands bled as she pulled with all her strength and then she was on top, straddling the top of the wood planks. Emily leaned forward, placing her head down on the thin wood and breathe deeply, not daring yet to see what her next challenge was.

She looked down and saw that at the same distance down on the outside was a foot wide ring of wood, then a fifteen-foot drop to the ground.

Gant saw the body go down but had not seen the origin of the shot. He had the toggles pulled in tight, slowing his descent as much as possible. The slanting rays of the rising sun cast very long shadows, making observation difficult.

“At least give me a gun,” the Chief of Direct Actions pleaded as the Blackhawk banked back toward the town.

Neeley glanced over her shoulder. Bailey looked like he hadn’t even heard the man. Golden clicked the transmit button on the radio. “You got one. We want proof of life. Where is Emily Cranston?”

“We’re not even at fifty percent yet,” Finley replied.

“We’re not asking you to give up Emily yet,” Golden reasoned. “Just proof of life.”

Neeley spoke into the tactical frequency. “Pilot, hold us in position.”

The Blackhawk flared to a steady hover.

“We’re not coming in,” Golden said, “until we hear from Emily. We’ve got the Chief of Direct Action to be let off next.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Finley replied. “Give me the DCA.”

Gant had lost a thousand feet of altitude while Golden fought for proof of life. He’d been tempted to cut in and tell her to cut the bullshit — the girl was either alive or she wasn’t. But then he could tell she’d already realized that as the Blackhawk came in for another landing, this time to the west side of town.

“I’m not going,” the DCA flatly announced.

Bailey popped his gum and shot the DCA in his right thigh, reached forward as the man screamed and writhed in pain, and threw him out the right side of the helicopter even before it touched down. The man landed in the dust and the chopper was gaining altitude again.

Neeley wasn’t watching the DCA. Her focus was on the town.

Gant, on the other hand, was watching the DCA. He saw the man roll, try to stand, leg buckle, try to stand again, sink to his knees.

Then get shot. Low, in his gut, making him shudder and double-over as if punched.

“Ground level, close,” Gant called to Neeley over the radio.

“Fuck,” Neeley replied. “Different shooter. I didn’t see the muzzle flash and the angle is too divergent.”

“He’s still alive.” Gant saw the DCA was now crawling, trying to get to a drainage ditch that lined the dirt road. A dark red trail of blood followed his body.

Gant angled his parachute, to the south side of the town away from where the chopper was, toward the crawling man.

“I’ve got him,” he hissed as he saw a figure in the western shadows of an abandoned gas station creeping closer to shoot again, out of sight of the chopper.

Gant turned his chute in that direction, let go of the toggles and brought his rifle up to bear.

Emily had checked the shirt and saw that the noise she had heard was the shoulder seam nearest the shoe anchor had begun to split. So she tied the shoe to the other sleeve. Then she hooked it in the notch, the opposite of the way she had done it before.

She took several deep breaths and then began to crawl off the top of the wooden planks to climb down to the outer ring. She had both hands on the shirt and one leg pressed against the side of the tank. The other leg was still hooked over the top of the tank.

She unhooked that leg, gripping tight on the shirt.

Her strength wasn’t enough as her grip failed and shirt slid through her fingers and she plummeted down, slamming onto the wood ring. She almost slid off but managed to back against the tank, trying to regain her wind and not fall off.

As she took a deep breath, a stabbing pain brutally informed her that she had broken at least one if not two ribs during the fall. As she lay there gasping she saw the strangest sight: a parachutist, floating by, heading toward the town, holding a rifle in his hands and trying to aim it.

Neeley saw the DCA’s body get slammed by several more bullets, knocking it backward to sprawl face-up in the street.

“Gant?” she called out over the radio as the Blackhawk hovered.

Hanging under a canopy at the discretion of the wind and gravity was not the most stable platform Gant had ever used to try to shoot someone. In fact, he was realizing it was an impossible platform as he was rapidly losing altitude and the un-guided chute kept turning with the wind.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, letting the rifle drop down to hang on its sling while he grabbed the toggles, dumped air, and flew straight toward the man standing in the shadow who had just fired three more rounds into the DCA.

Gant was about eighty feet off the ground when he felt the snap of a supersonic round whip close by, coming from his right. He twisted his head in that direction even as he dumped more air and the only thing he saw at his level was the church steeple, which made perfect sense.

“We got a sniper in the steeple,” Gant got out as another bullet whipped by and the man on the ground turned and looked up, surprise filling his face as he spotted Gant screaming down toward him underneath his canopy. The man began to bring up his sub-machinegun.

No time for niceties at thirty feet altitude. Gant’s hands raced from the toggles to the quick releases on his shoulders. His thumbs looped through the metal loops as the man brought his gun to bear.

Gant popped the releases at fifteen feet altitude just as the man fired. The burst of rounds flew over Gant’s head as he disconnected from the canopy and free-fell to the ground. Gant hit hard, tumbled forward and jumped to his feet less than a yard from the man. Gant grabbed the barrel of the sub-machinegun and pushed it away from his body as the man fired another burst.

The hot barrel seared into Gant’s flesh but he didn’t let go as smashed his other fist into the man’s face, staggering him backward. The man dropped the weapon and grabbed Gant by the throat and right away Gant knew he was facing Caleigh Roberts’ killer as the mechanical hand began to compress his throat.

Neeley slid the sniper rifle toward Bailey who was still covering the two remaining prisoners. She got to her feet and moved to the small crew chief window behind the pilot where the M-2 .50 caliber machinegun was mounted. As she did so, she heard the pilot curse as there was a splintering of the cockpit glass just in front of him.

“We got ground fire,” the pilot screamed. “From the steeple.”

“Hold position,” Neeley ordered as she grabbed the handles of the machinegun. “I’m taking care of it.” She held the handles at chest level and aimed the large barrel of the machinegun toward the steeple. Her thumbs pressed down on the butterfly trigger and the gun roared into life, spitting huge .50 caliber rounds out, every fourth one being a tracer.

The strings of red tracers arced from the gun and hit the steeple at the base. Neeley ‘walked’ the rounds up the building, just the way Gant — Tony Gant — had taught her to do on numerous firing ranges. The large bullets tore away chunks of the light wood framework of the steeple.

She saw a muzzle flash in the belfry and adjusted. The rounds ripped into the lightly constructed building like miniature sledgehammers. She kept her thumb pressed down as the large barrel began to smoke from the hundreds of rounds going through it as she systematically destroyed the steeple and the sniper inside it.

Gant could faintly hear the firing of a heavy machinegun in the distance, but of more immediate concern to him was a lack of oxygen. He was seeing stars as his brain began to shut down and the hand around his throat increased pressure despite his attempts to pull it off with his right hand.

Gant lifted his left leg, grabbed the slim knife out of the ankle sheath with his left hand. He slammed the point into Payne’s throat and was rewarded with a spray of blood that completely blinded him. Payne went to his knees, the prosthetic hand pulling Gant down also. As Payne fell over backward dead, the hand still maintained the same pressure, the mechanical sensors receiving no change in nerve messages from the dead arm it was attached.

Gant floundered about like a dying fish, jammed the knife into the mechanical hand, trying to cut something.

Then it all went dark.