The Last Bazaar

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Karin Blake had been battling inner demons her whole life. At a young age she had watched her best friend die because no one had bothered to listen to a young girl’s screams. Upon leaving home and then gaining the very best grades she had rebelled against the system and her loving family, and hit some kind of rock-bottom. Later in life, still rebelling but in a more positive way, she had clawed her way back to where she really wanted to be — as a useful and productive part of a team that truly cared for her. She had learned to forgive and then to love. Having highly capable men and women relying on her told her just how positively she had been accepted.

And then, as her life tended to, everything fell apart. More death. First her parents and then her brother, and then her life’s love, gunned down in an alley as he tried to protect their team. Karin Blake was stripped to the bone, exhausted with life and all its suffering, looking to find a quick way out.

To combat those thoughts she turned to the only people who she thought might be able to help — the Army. Though she had never told Matt Drake, those days of quiet she endured whilst they chased down the ghost ships had been made up of her trying to find an alternative to an easy, quick departure from life’s chaotic terminal. In the end the answer was all around her — soldiers fighting for the best cause in the world whilst battling their own internal enemies. There was only one thing to do. Become a war machine.

Fort Bragg was, among many things, a training facility. Inside its AOR — its Area of Responsibility — recruits were trained up to become some of America’s finest soldiers. From the classroom to engagement training, vehicles to robotics, it had earned the enviable and apt reputation as one of the best in the world.

Karin had already been evaluated and thrust into lessons. Varied exercises existed that would reward her with engagement skills, egress skills, dismounted soldier training and “call for fire” expertise. There were virtual suites and good old fashioned obstacle courses and punishing down-in-the-mud days. But the rigors of any day were nothing when compared to the adversities she encountered when alone. They had already appointed her a psychological profiler who had the power to kick her out.

The men she had met — some of them practically boys — were supportive for the most part, only a select few following the old stereotype. The women were hard-faced and somehow looked a little lost, not in this place but with life, with day-to-day events in general. Karin remained aloof, friendly when required but almost unapproachable. She was not here to make friends. She was here to start afresh and, hopefully, become a valued field member of one of the best Special Forces teams on the planet. But she had already accepted that the key to her success was effort — determination, sweat and exertion throughout the day would pay off in the most positive way.

It had to.

This was Karin’s last big push. Some people coasted through life but Karin fought her way through it — overcoming obstacles at every turn. But even a fighter sooner or later ran out of spirit. Karin had overcome her last obstacle.

The days dawned fresh and bright and all merged into one. Karin was the first at her post and the last to eat, the first awake and the last asleep. Nothing existed except this shiny nucleus of self-control, hour after hour, day after day. With the falling of night and the absence of urgency came the darkest of visions — so many graves she had not visited in months or years. Who visited the graves of those who died? Her friend, her parents, her brother, so alone out there and so isolated. It didn’t take long to visit a cemetery and pay respects, and god knows her loved ones deserved it, but life… life always found a way to take those precious hours away.

Please, she thought nightly. Please let the dawn rise. Let the day begin. So I can forget.