Incursion

Chapter 25: Truth

{ Graphic depiction of violence and gore in this chapter - please read at your own discretion! }



The convoy pulled into an underground parking garage on the north side of the Calgary Courts Centre not ten minutes after the ride from SAIT Polytechnic started. I stayed on the mounted gun as the Humvee I was riding in followed the two others down a vehicle ramp to the north of Courthouse Park.

The convoy descended one sublevel and parked close to some gray steel double doors marked with ‘Holding Cells’ above them, which was at the other end of the parkade. My Humvee parked right next to the one that was carrying my target.

I lowered myself into the interior of the back seat and followed Marcus’ partner out the rear left passenger door. I had just stepped out into the parking garage when I saw a couple of soldiers practically toss Angel out of the other Humvee’s back seat without much regard for delicate handling.

One of them stood over her and bent down slightly as if to inspect an anthill he intended to demolish shortly.

“The hell is this? Get up, you skank.”

He drew a leg back and launched a kick at Angel, who was now wearing a brown cloth bag over her head. She yelped feebly and curled up in response to the kick.

I squeezed the grip of the M4 I was holding and took one step toward the man who kicked the girl on the ground.

His partner seemed rather reproachful of the kick. Before I could mindlessly try to intervene, he grabbed the aggressor’s shoulder.

“Hey, be careful. She’s already hanging on by a thread. If Baker finds her dead before the execution, he’ll be furious.”

“I almost don’t care. This bitch killed a bunch of us, didn’t she?”

“Marcus, hey. Earth to Marcus!”

I almost failed to recall that I was Marcus, and hurriedly turned around to face the soldier who’d been with the real Marcus guarding the rear of the third Humvee at SAIT. A quick glance at his patch sewn above his heart revealed his name as ‘T. Wilkins’.

“Huh?” I blurted, assuming my best imitation of Marcus’ voice and demeanour.

“I said, we’ve got patrol duty up on 2nd Avenue,” Wilkins said, sounding mildly annoyed that ‘Marcus’ was scatterbrained.

“Oh, right,” I replied slowly.

“Are you feeling all right? You sound… weird.”

“Yeah, I’m good. I kinda just need another proper wipe on my ass. A couple leaves didn’t get everythi—”

“Jesus fucking Christ. Just bear with it until we get to the outpost up there, will you? We’re gonna be late.”

“Man. All right.”

“And you walk behind me and keep your ass away from me, understand?”

I gave a nod as Wilkins glanced at the driver of our Humvee who was standing to the side and looking at me and Wilkins conversing.

“Come on, Cooper. Rest of the squad will meet us up top.”

The driver nodded. “Sure. Let me just return the keys to the security office.”

“All right.”

I followed loosely behind Wilkins and Cooper. As we headed away from the steel doors, I stole a glance behind me. The two soldiers had picked up Angel and were dragging her through those double doors. Within seconds, the doors slammed shut and I lost sight of her.

My first instinct was to turn around and head in the opposite direction, but four other soldiers from the lead Humvee were walking in the same direction as us behind me. I could try overpowering them, but I was sandwiched between two groups. Even if I succeeded, it wasn’t going to be a quiet encounter. I had to play along for now and come back as soon as there was an opening to make a clean break.

I followed Wilkins and Cooper to the opposite end of the sublevel, where there was a small security office being manned by one guard who looked as if he was ready to fall asleep at the desk. When Cooper knocked on the door to the office, the sentry jerked abruptly in his seat as if an airhorn had gone off right next to his ear.

“Rise and shine, Edwards,” Cooper called through the glass. “Just need to return the key to the Humvee.”

The sleepy looking soldier rose lazily from his desk and opened the office door. He yawned and stepped aside to let Cooper in.

“Morning, Coop.”

Cooper walked over to the wall where a white key cabinet was mounted to the wall. I surreptitiously maneuvered the glass window around the office so I could look past Cooper and see the cabinet.

“Cheer up, buddy. You’ve got less than an hour before shut-eye,” Cooper told Edwards, who picked up a mug of coffee from the desk and took a sip.

“Yeah. Wish I didn’t have to work graveyard shifts, though.”

“Rotation will sort you out soon enough,” Cooper said to him, then hung the Humvee’s key on slot B5. One of the four other soldiers who had been following me from behind squeezed between Cooper and Edwards and hung another key on B8.

The soldiers exchanged some more small talk before Cooper and the rest of us exited the parkade the same way the Humvees came in. When we emerged into the brisk pre-dawn light of January tenth, I found three other soldiers standing outside of the vehicle ramp on 6th Avenue and joined us as we headed up 5th Street in a northerly direction.

As I walked alongside nine other US Army soldiers who chatted away around me, I took in my surroundings. Downtown Calgary was the enemy’s center of operations and their most fortified territory in the city, and I could see why. On our way to 2nd Avenue, which was a mere four blocks from Courthouse Park, we passed a few smaller groups of soldiers heading in other directions on foot. Two Strykers armed with mounted Mk 19 grenade launchers were parked at the intersection of 5th Street and 5th Avenue. Their engines were silent, so they weren’t being manned at the moment, but they posed a significant threat all the same. They were the only weaponized vehicles I saw on my way to 2nd Avenue, but I highly doubted they were the only ones around. By contrast, I saw probably two dozen other soldiers during the brief walk, and they weren’t part of the group I was moving with.

Downtown was quieter with virtually no commuters walking the sidewalks or driving up and down the streets. There were no trains running and no restaurant patios open, but it wasn’t silent, either. In the distance, I could hear some more military engines. With how relatively less populated the area was, sound carried for blocks past its source more easily, resulting in an eerie echo accompanying any sound above a certain threshold. Thus was the busiest part of the city, especially during mornings and late afternoons; much like everywhere else I’d been to since Dark Sky, the environment was a bleak landscape that seemed to have come straight out of a dystopian science fiction novel.

Was there ever going to be a return to normalcy after all this?

As I was beginning to puzzle out how Shadow Team would go about assaulting this area in the near future, the two soldiers in front of me – Wilkins and Cooper – began talking after a couple of minutes of silent walking beside each other.

“Wilkins.”

“Yeah.”

Cooper seemed to hesitate momentarily before continuing. When he did, he lowered his voice so that the others behind me were less likely to hear him. I walked a little more briskly to stay within earshot of the two, but not enough to come off as eavesdropping.

“What are we doing here, Wilks?”

Wilkins glanced sideways at him. “Patrol duty.”

“No, I get that. But what are we doing here?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. Just all this.” Cooper glanced over his shoulder at me and the other soldiers walking with him. “Invading another country.”

Wilkins did not respond at first. After about five strides, he sighed discreetly. “You just answered your own question.”

“Don’t you think this is all too much?”

“Does it matter what I think?”

“Maybe not. But… this was on my mind since we first came here, Tanner.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I guess I just want to know if I’m the only one or whatever. Stomping our boots in foreign territory, rounding up civilians and executing them, and… and for what? Actually, never mind ‘for what’. Is this even right?”

Wilkins took another few seconds before replying. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t?”

“Why’d you join the Army, Coop?”

Cooper appeared surprised at the sudden counter to his question, because his head rose a little and his shoulders bunched slightly. He seemed to fumble for a response before replying in an almost subdued manner.

“For my wife. Our first kid is on the way and there just wasn’t much of a choice but to be in the military. You know how things are back home.”

“I do. Me, I did it for my Gramps. Surgeries cost as much as gold now. It’s shitty, but he’s the only family I’ve got. Do you see what I’m getting at here?”

Cooper sighed this time. “I guess so. But you ever wonder if we’re going too far? Where do you draw the line?”

“Wherever it has to be, Coop. You want me to say it? Fine. I don’t like what we’re doing here. Believe it or not, I don’t, all right? But I don’t have any other choice.”

Cooper shook his head. “No, it’s… I guess I just needed to hear someone else say it. Some of these guys, they’re… I don’t know. It’s as if they just love all this chaos. Like they get off to it. I wanted to know if I was crazy or not for not being like them.”

“You’re not. Believe me on this. You’re not crazy. Neither of us are.”

The two of them fell silent after this, and stayed that way until we came to the intersection between 5th Street and 2nd Avenue. Here, our squad split up: Wilkins, Cooper, two other soldiers, and I headed west while the others headed east.

My group kept walking until we reached the north face of the Shaw Communications building, the Calgary headquarters of one of the city’s leading internet service providers. Consisting of eleven floors, the usually lively and innovative building now stood dejectedly and hauntingly without IT techs and customers walking around inside or outside of it.

“Marcus.”

I glanced back at Wilkins, who had stopped to look back at me. He jerked a thumb at the building.

“Make this bathroom break quick,” he said.

“Ah, right.”

Without needing to be told twice, I entered the building, pushing through the automatic revolving doors that weren’t so automatic anymore. My ‘squadmates’ stayed behind outside, presumably to wait for me before resuming patrol.

This was my chance.

I had never been inside the Shaw Communications building, but it didn’t take me long to find a way to the southern lobby. On my way there, I passed several other US Army soldiers in the halls and conference rooms. None of them paid me any attention as they pored over tablets and clipboards, or chatted over cups of coffee. I made my way through the ground floor and eventually left through the southern entrance.

I crossed 3rd Avenue and stuck to 6th Street on my way back the last four blocks. I eventually started to jog halfway, propelled by some strange feeling of unease. Perhaps it was just because I was in the heart of the enemy’s most secure stronghold, but I also wondered if the half hour or so I spent getting sidetracked was time enough for my target to be killed. From what I heard, the enemy wanted some show to be made of the affair, and I hadn’t yet gotten wind of some assembly to witness an execution.

When I got back to Courthouse Park, I found the ramp down to the parking garage sealed. I stifled a sigh of annoyance and headed to the southern side of the park, cutting through the gardens. There was stairwell access to the parkade by the 4th Street West train station, which was thankfully not locked electronically or otherwise.

I descended the stairs until I reached sublevel P1. When I got there, I exited the stairwell, which brought me to a sort of parkade lobby that I didn’t find earlier. Using a floor plan map on the wall to get my bearings, I managed to locate the security office on the illustration. From the lobby, I used the map to navigate a few hallways and eventually came out near the northern end of P1, where the security office was.

The guard, Edwards, was still there, He had his cheek resting on a fist as he idly clicked away on the computer in front of him. I made my way outside the office door, peered in through the window and rapped my knuckles on the glass.

For the second time, Edwards jerked to attention when he heard someone knocking. He saw me waving at him throughout the door window and slowly got to his feet.

I surreptitiously drew Marcus’ KF-BAR from its scabbard hanging from my hip and kept the blade out of sight beneath the window.

Edwards finally opened the door. He squinted at me and gave me a quizzical stare. “Marcus? What are you doing back here? Thought you went out on patrol with—”

He stopped midsentence to close his eyes and yawn, and that was when I lunged slightly and extended my arm. Before he could react, I grabbed his shoulder with my left hand to stabilize myself, then stabbed my knife below his chin, burying the blade halfway to the hilt before pulling it free of his flesh.

As Edwards fell, I caught him and lowered him to the floor. I rolled his bulk underneath the desk he was sitting in, out of sight of anyone passing by the security office booth’s window. Anyone walking by would no doubt find it odd that there was no one at the desk, but that couldn’t be helped. I needed keys to one of those Humvees for my exit.

After hiding Edwards’ body as best as I could, I opened the key cabinet on the wall and grabbed the key hanging from slot B5. I pocketed it, then turned to the security computer that Edwards using.

I minimized the browser showing a webpage of some satirical newspaper comics and found the security settings to the parkade doors without much difficulty. Within half a minute, I managed to reopen the northern parkade entrance.

I was leaving traces now. I needed to move before someone noticed them.

I left the security office and jogged the length of the sublevel until I found the trip of Humvees the convoy from earlier was comprised of. I double checked the one on the left to make sure my key worked, and after ensuring my getaway vehicle was secure, I headed through the steel double doors where I saw Angel being dragged through earlier.

Past the door was a long stone corridor with another set of doors at the other end. I jogged over to it and pulled them open.

When I walked through those doors, I found myself in a small reception area of sorts with a marble desk immediately in front of me and two hallways stretching to the left and right. Several voices of more soldiers from somewhere down the hallway to the left reached me, but they sounded fairly far away from the reception area.

Behind the marble desk, on either end of it, were a couple of sliding steel doors. To the left was a door marked with a slightly rusting plaque indicating ‘Cell Block A’, while on the right was a door marked with ‘Cell Block B’. Of the two, ‘A’ was slightly ajar.

I approached the door to Cell Block A and began to slide it open as quietly as I could. The door itself wasn’t new, so it creaked distinctly as if it needed grease. I compromised by sliding it open slowly and carefully to avoid making noise. Because of how little noise I made, I was able to hear something carrying from somewhere beyond the door.

I stopped for a moment and listened. There were jeers and breaks of laughter mostly, but when I really focused I could hear guttural noises and some male grunting. Not too long after, there was a rather explosive, ecstatic moaning that I recognized as one accompanying unmistakeable sexual climax.

No.

I pushed the door open, damn near slamming it on its track. I hurried to the end of the row of empty cells, where the hallway turned right. I hugged the corner and peered carefully around it.

The L-shaped hallway ended about fifty metres ahead. It was a dead end, naturally, but at the very end of it, I could see activity.

A pair of men stood at the end of the hallway, naked from the waist down with their hands stroking themselves. Amid their cheers and laughter, I could hear someone else groaning things like “oh yeah” and “yeah, bitch” in clearly laboured tones.

“She’s fucking loving it, look at her! She ain’t even saying no!” one of the men I could see spoke to one other man I couldn’t.

“I want one more go with her, come on!” said the other.

Memories of the Stampede assault whizzed by me like a video on ten times the normal speed. The images filled me with white hot fury before I could even wonder why.

You fucking animals.

I laid down Marcus’ M4 on the floor and gripped the KF-BAR in my right hand more tightly. The blade was still freshly stained with Edwards’ blood. Without thinking, I burst out from cover and charged at the two half-naked soldiers at a sprint.

They didn’t hear me rushing them until I was two-thirds of the way down the corridor, thanks to them being dulled by their sexual excitement. By then, it was too late for any of them.

“What the—” one of the soldiers blurted, turning his head in my direction as I got within a second of reaching him and his partner.

My mind became foggier and blacked out intermittently at this point. My limbs seemed to move on their own, propelling me with speed that I was only vaguely aware of having.

I remembered holding one of the soldier’s heads against the wall and driving my knee repeatedly into his face. I was just aware enough to feel the hard steel of my knife pushing into the relatively softer eye of a second soldier. I buried the knife hilt-deep into his eye socket, prompting a gush of red to exit the gouge. I yanked my weapon out of it without any surgical precision and turned to the last man inside the cell.

What I did to him exactly, I wasn’t sure of. The next thing I remembered was standing over him, watching him cup his groin in his hands, trying to stem the bleeding but failing to stop the vigorous stream making its way between his fingers. His severed penis lay right next to him on the floor as he whimpered and begged for me to spare him.

I dropped the gore-coated knife, the metal clanking on the cement floor loudly. The sound of it impacting the floor gradually brought me back to my senses.

I panted heavily, sweat pouring down my temples and gluing the back of my shirt to my skin. My head ached mildly, but with the pain came some clarity as to what was happening here before I came. Amid the puddles and flecks of blood on the floor were smaller, trace amounts of something dull and white. It took me a second to make the connection with the scene to the white substance on the floor.

I glanced back at the only soldier still breathing, the one weeping and trying to stop the bleeding of his crotch. I considered putting him out of his misery but instead I

Let him bleed. Bleed bleed bleed fucker

knelt down and placed my hands on the shoulders of the girl lying still on the floor.

I flipped her over so that she was facing upwards. Her eyes were open just a little bit, her lips parted slightly as if she wanted to say something but was in no condition to do so. I peeled off my balaclava, then elevated her head above her heart as I hurriedly checked her over for fatal injuries. I placed my fingers to the side of her neck to find a pulse.

I almost allowed myself to sigh with relief when I felt a pulsing at my fingertips. I supported the back of her head to keep her neck from straining.

“Christina,” I called out to her softly, bringing her closer to my chest a little. “Christina.”

What are you doing? She’s right here. What are you waiting for? Kill her and be done with it.

She looked terrible. She was extremely pale and almost nonresponsive. Several thin scabs covered her upper thighs, and from the divide down the middle of her unzipped parka, I could see many more on her abdomen. Her lips were cracked and bleeding from the dryness in a couple of places. She was naturally petite, but as I held her she seemed even smaller, thinner, and sicklier than I had ever seen her. She looked much better when I met her at the Stampede.

I carefully placed her back down on the floor, then pulled her jeans back up and secured them. I zipped her parka back up.

I grabbed her arms with as much care as I could muster, then draped them over my shoulders. I lifted her legs in my hands and stood up with her pressed against my back.

Kill her. What are you waiting for?

As I squeezed her legs closely to my sides, I glanced at her face over my right shoulder. Her hair tickled my cheek as I looked at her. From here, I could pretend she was unharmed and simply asleep.

“I’ve got you,” I told her in more than just a whisper. “I’ll get you out.”

A part of me screamed for me to drop her in more than one way, to finish the job. But…

I still needed her to tell me who else was involved with the bombing. She was still alive, so I needed her to give me answers still.

I began to move again, walking briskly back the way I came, leaving the last soldier still twitching and on his death throes on the floor.

Christina didn’t weigh much at all, so I was able to move at nearly jogging speed without much discomfort. Right before I rounded the bend of the L-shaped hallway, Christina abruptly started speaking. Her voice was faint, coming to me in the barest of whispers. Even with her so close, I had to actually make an effort to make out her words.

“Hey… Knight.”

I slowed a little despite knowing I needed to move faster and get out of here. The fact that no alarms had gone off yet with the mess I was making was already too good a miracle.

I felt warmth press harder against my sweat drenched back.

“No… I guess I should say… Ian.”

“Christina?”

“Will you… listen to me? I know you’re probably not even… really here. But—”

I began to pick up the pace again. I rounded the corner and headed back toward the reception area.

All of a sudden, a system PA boomed out an announcement from seemingly everywhere at once:

“All available units, proceed to the Olympic Plaza. There will be an assembly and execution of a captured insurgent in twenty mikes. Repeat, all available units, proceed to the Olympic Plaza. The execution will begin shortly. This is an order from Lieutenant-Colonel Baker.”

I moved even faster. If the execution was in twenty minutes, then surely someone was coming now to get Christina. I needed to get out of here before they—

“—I have to say,” Christina mumbled behind me. “I don’t know who else… to tell. I’m sorry. I’m sorry… I hope you don’t mind.”

I passed through the sliding door.

“Ian… I’ve done terrible things. So many terrible things.”

Damn. Really? She was doing this now?

I pushed through the double doors at the reception area just as Christina began talking at greater lengths.

“I’ve… killed so many people. I was… with Northstar. I knew… knew Rhodes. You know him as… Hornet. I was part of his team.”

I already knew this. She was essentially recounting details in her file. I moved down the long stone corridor leading back to the parkade.

“I thought I… had no choice,” she continued, her arms coiling more securely around my neck and her body pressing more tightly against my back. “My family… needed the money. We… didn’t know where else to get it, so I… joined Northstar. Me and my brother, we both joined… He was always… the better of the two of us…”

Michael Valentine. Killed during that bombing.

“I… I killed my brother. His name was… Mikey. He wanted to stop… stop a mission… We had to bomb a building to take out a few targets… It was a contract, but he… didn’t want to do it…”

I stopped in the middle of the highway.

She killed her brother? Michael had wanted to stop the bombing?

“Mikey asked for my… help, but I was too… scared. Scared to get caught. He tried… to do it all by himself. But he got… caught doing it. They made me choose… who would die. Me or him. I was… so scared. I didn’t want to die. But I needed… to decide. So I—”

Christina trailed off, but I felt reasonably comfortable filling out the rest of that bit. Michael Valentine wanted to stop the bombing, but he got caught trying to undermine his team. Christina feared that exact thing happening. Northstar didn’t want a traitor. It all then became a matter of finding out if there was one traitor… or two.

I glanced over my shoulder at Christina’s face. She seemed to have truly fallen asleep. Her breaths slowed and deepened.

I stood still, trying to imagine what other parts of this story there was left to tell.

Did she want to bomb the building? It sounded as though she didn’t want to. Like she was forced into it.

Don’t listen to her. She’s lying. She’s delusional. She’ll say things that aren’t necessarily true.

I wanted the truth. For that, I…

I started moving again, heading for the gray double doors at the other end of the hallway.

… needed her alive just a while longer.

You’ll never make it out of there trying to babysit someone else. Drop her and run. It’s easy. She’ll die soon, anyway.

I grabbed her legs and hitched them up a bit higher to my sides. I barreled through the double doors ahead. When I emerged into the parkade again, I came face-to-face with a group of four soldiers about thirty or so metres away, heading in my direction.

“Hey! Where are you going with that woman?” the one in the lead barked at me. He and the ones with him started to raise their rifles.

Ah, shit.

Without a second thought, I dashed to the right just as a volley of M4 fire cut through the air. I darted behind a blue plumber’s van parked not far from the double doors and carefully placed Christina on the ground.

“Watch your fire!” I heard one of the soldiers ordering the rest somewhere on the other side of my cover. “We need that prisoner alive!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Kill the other one!”

A hail of automatic fire tore at the back of the van right after.

I reached for my back, for a split second wondering why I didn’t have my assault rifle attached to my backpack. Then I realized I didn’t have my backpack, either.

I’d left Marcus’ M4 to free my hands to carry Christina.

“All units this station,” one soldier barked through the rattle of M4s. “Intruder in the parkade of the Courts Centre! Send backup on the double!”

I drew the only firearm I had on me: Marcus’ Beretta M9.

I glanced quickly at Christina, who seemed oblivious to all the gunfire surrounding her.

If we couldn’t get into transport in the next two minutes, this place was going to fill with hostiles and we’d have nowhere to go.

I disengaged the Beretta’s manual safety. No rifle, two pistol mags total, no frags or flashbangs. I cursed myself for not bringing my grenades at least.

“Advance on his position! Go!”

I posted up at the edge of the van and waited for a lull in the firing before leaning out from cover a little to sight on one of two enemy soldiers approaching my position.

I fired twice at the closer of the two soldiers. He doubled over when my first round struck his vest. My second round pierced his neck. He fell over instantly.

The second tried to find cover, but I managed to quickly incapacitate him with another round that ripped into his crotch. He howled in pain and toppled over. I retreated back into cover as the other two soldiers fired at me from their own cover further back.

Before I could return fire again, something green rolled past me a little and slowed about ten metres away from where I was crouching behind the van. I recognized the round shape and the missing pin instantly.

I dove for Christina and not bothering to carefully handle her, I shoved her behind a parking pillar nearby, putting the pillar between her and the grenade. I got behind the pillar too and crouched over on top of her just as a noise that was both snappy like a whip and booming as thunder filled the parkade.

There was no pain after the fragmentation. I got off Christina and quickly gave her a surface inspection to make sure she had no shrapnel wounds.

Leaving her where she was propped against the pillar, I got back behind the van for cover just in time to hear the last two soldiers arguing about watching the collateral damage. Sensing an opening, I capitalized on the lack of gunfire and leaned out again with my pistol raised.

One of the two remaining soldiers’ torso was visible from above the hood of a sedan parked about twenty metres ahead. He was too slow to dodge my shot that tore into the base of his neck and silenced him permanently.

“Damn it!” the last enemy soldier taking cover behind the pickup truck across from the sedan swore, ducking fully back behind it when he saw his last comrade go down.

Thinking fast, I broke from my own cover and pushed up until I was on the other side of the truck he was using for cover. I bent down and peered beneath the vehicle. His feet and ankles were visible by the front wheel on the opposite side of the truck.

I took careful aim and fired a shot beneath the vehicle, successfully hitting the soldier’s ankle and causing him to cry in pain.

As soon as he was stunned, I got to my feet and walked around the far rear end of the truck and placed two more shots on him. The first struck his buttocks, then the second felled him in the ear as he tried to turn around and return fire.

Once he was down, I holstered the M9 and rushed back to Christina. After checking again to make sure she was still alive, I scooped her up in my arms and jogged her over to the Humvee I had secured earlier.

I placed her in the front passenger seat and secured her with the seat belt. I then went tot eh other side and jumped behind the wheel.

Slamming the door shut and buckling up myself, I jammed the keys into the ignition and brought the Humvee’s engine roaring to life. I backed the military vehicle out of the parking slot and changed gears just as the double doors to the long hallway preceding the holding cells’ reception area burst open and produced a clutch of six or seven soldiers who all began firing at the Humvee.

I accelerated the vehicle as rounds pounded angrily into the chassis and bulletproof glass next to Christina’s head. I drove the Humvee to the northern end of the parkade at a speed that was dangerously fast given the confined area of the parkade, past the security office and to the bottom of the ramp that led back up to 6th Avenue.

When I got there, however, at least another half dozen foot soldiers were at the top of the ramp and throwing lead down at me. More bullets struck the vehicle, this time on the hood and the windshield.

Screw it.

Instead of waiting for a vehicle to possibly come and block off the only exit I had, I put my foot down on the gas pedal and propelled the Humvee rapidly up the ramp. Most of the soldiers at the mouth of the ramp dove to the sides before my vehicle reached the top, but the one in the middle lingered to fire at me a little too long. He tried to move away at the last second, but the front of the Humvee struck him at speed and his body dropped and vanished beneath the LUV. There were a couple of abrupt bumps as the front and rear wheels on my side crushed the soldier beneath them.

The LUV damn near flew out of the ramp and out into the street because of how much speed I used to power it out of the parkade. I turned the wheel to the left quickly and kept the momentum as I drove the Humvee at near downtown speed limits west on 6th Avenue.

I began calculating which route to take out of the downtown core. From here, taking the 10th Street bridge was the closest route to escape. Failing that, 14th Street, then—

As I neared the intersection of 6th Avenue and 6th Street, two Humvees appeared at the intersection after it, each of them with a soldier manning the fifty-caliber machine guns mounted on top. The two vehicles parked bumper to bumper such that they were blocking the intersection of 6th Avenue and 7th Street.

The two heavy weapons began firing at my Humvee just as I made a snap decision to turn right onto 6th Street. I kept going almost two blocks north until another pair of hostile Humvees appeared at the intersection of 6th Street and 3rd Avenue, forcing me to make a hard left onto 4th Avenue this time.

This works. If I keep going straight just two more blocks, I can get across the Bow River via the 10th Street Bridge and—

My hopes were dashed when two Strykers armed with Mk 19 grenade launchers appeared and blocked off the intersection of 4th Avenue and 8th Street.

I was forced to hit the brakes midway between 8th and 7th Street. There was no breaking through those Strykers. Armoured or not, this Humvee wouldn’t stand up to repeated barrages from those grenade launchers.

With no other alternative, I placed my hand on the gear shift to switch to reverse, but before I could make the movement I glanced back through the rear slider in the back seat at the intersection of 4th Avenue and 7th Street that I passed not ten seconds previously. The thought of reversing withered in my mind.

A line of foot soldiers numbering about eight or so stood to bar my retreat. Even from this distance, I could see the soldier in the middle of the human barricade was hefting something larger than a standard M4 on top of his right shoulder: an M3 MAAWS. An anti-tank recoilless rifle that was more than a match against this light utility vehicle.

Damn it.

I looked left and right, hoping for some alleys I could squeeze the Humvee into, but there were none.

We were boxed in.

I gritted my teeth, trying to think of a way – any way – out of this situation. Before I could think of a semblance of a plan, through the windshield I saw that the rear hatch of one of the Strykers opened up and soldiers came pouring out. They formed a line in front of the armoured personnel carriers and trained their M4s in this direction. Of them, one came to the front of the line and brought a megaphone up to his face. He was dressed more lightly than the rest of the soldiers and had no helmet or balaclava on.

“This is Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Baker,” came the amplified voice of the officer. “I don’t know who you are exactly, but I’ll hazard a guess that you and the insurgent you took are part of the same group that’s been attacking our outposts and killing my men.

“I’ll make this simple for you. Step out of the vehicle with your hands in the air, or we will open fire. There is no way out. Make this easy on yourselves. I will allow you a quick, painless death if you comply.”

I looked to my sides and behind me again to see if any paths had opened up or if I’d missed some random alley the first time I looked, but we were still as trapped as we were a minute ago.

Two grenade launchers that would pulverize infantry and light vehicles to the front, and a launcher that could crush tanks to the rear. Either would blast us to pieces.

Damn it, Ian. Think!

“Was my proposition not clear enough?” Baker spoke to me again using his megaphone. “I’ll say this one last time: surrender now, or we will blow both of you off the road. I’m giving you ten seconds to decide.”

Shit.

There was no way out. We were trapped. Stepping out of this Humvee was probably the easiest option, and—

I glanced beside me at Christina, whose head lolled toward her right shoulder. Her hair fell over half her face as her eyes remained closed. Her slow, rhythmic breathing made her shoulders and chest rise and fall peacefully. She was as oblivious as ever to the predicament we were facing.

Something in the softness of her features quelled my momentary moment of surrender.

That’s right. I have not come all this way to die now.

The truth is right here. Until I’ve heard it—

I grabbed the gear shift and switched to reverse.

—I refuse to die.

I took a quick breath and glanced over my right shoulder through the Humvee’s rear slider, keeping my eye on the soldier with the anti-tank rifle in the distance. I gripped the steering wheel tightly in my left hand.

Then I slammed the gas pedal to the floor, holding it as flat as it would allow.

As the Humvee lurched backwards and picked up as much speed as its powerful engines could muster, I heard Baker shout the order for his men to open fire at me.

In my mind, I heard Genel screaming at me that this was a terrible idea, but this was the best bad idea right now.

I tensely accelerated backwards as fast as the military vehicle could go in this orientation, keeping my eye on that one soldier with the recoilless rifle mounted to his shoulder and ignoring the 5.56 NATO rounds pelting the windshield. I kept pushing backwards, practically holding my breath.

Come on, then. Let it fly.

I kept going. There were perhaps two hundred metres until I was at the human barricade.

The instant there was a cloud of clear smoke from the soldier indicating that he’d pulled the trigger and launched the anti-tank round at me, I yanked the steering wheel hard to the left. The Humvee violently jerked to the right in response, mounting the sidewalk and careening out of the center of the street.

The high explosive round whizzed by my window, missing the side mirror by what I felt were tens of centimetres. When the round passed without incident, I yanked the wheel back to the neutral position to bring the Humvee back to the middle of the street and kept charging backwards.

The M3 MAAWS could fire only one HE round before needing to be reloaded. The others in that human barricade began firing their assault rifles at the Humvee, but their rounds pinged harmlessly against the armoured chassis.

A dull BOOM resounded from the direction of the intersection of 4th Avenue and 8th Street ahead of me. I glanced in that direction only a fraction of a second to check, but from my fleeting look it appeared that the anti-tank round had struck and incapacitated at least one of the Strykers that was blocking the intersection.

The Humvee eventually reached the intersection of 4th Avenue and 7th Street, where I pulled the wheel hard to the left again to send the rear of the Humvee turning to the left onto 7th Street. In the process, my vehicle collided with one of the soldiers, who was sent flying across the intersection.

When the vehicle was successfully pointing north, I hit the brakes and quickly switched back to forward momentum. I accelerated past the soldiers who had dived to the sidewalk, still shooting at me with M4s whose rounds couldn’t possibly penetrate the Humvee’s armour.

The next three blocks were clear of obstructions. I kept going, gunning the engine to nearly sixty kilometres per hour until I reached the southern end of the Peace Bridge. It was a pedestrian bridge extending over the width of the Bow River to the northwest of downtown, and as such wasn’t meant for vehicular traffic, but I managed to squeeze the Humvee through it.

When I got to the other side of the river, I turned right onto Memorial Drive and looked up briefly at the rearview mirror to check for any pursuers.

In the growing light of dawn at nearly seven in the morning, I saw no headlights behind us.

I breathed a sigh of relief and allowed myself tot slow down just a little. I glanced at my passenger, who was still blissfully unaware of what had just happened.

I turned back to the road ahead and continued to head back to Panorama Hills.





About half an hour after the harrowing escape from the downtown core, I parked the US Army Humvee in front of the condo. I would need to retrieve my clothes and other gear from SAIT a little bit later, but for now those could wait.

I shut off the engine and glanced at Christina again, who was still unconscious. I reached over and placed a couple of fingers to her neck just to make sure she was still alive. The presence of a pulse with a rate of about sixty beats per minute assured me she was simply passed out.

By now, the sun was finally up and casting a gentle but no-less illuminating glow on my surroundings. For the past two weeks, most times I went outside were during evenings, so for a moment I absently marveled at how bright it was now.

I stepped out of the Humvee and went around the back to get to Christina’s door. I opened it, undid her seat belt, and carried her in my arms again.

I brought Christina inside building 2107 and into Suite 20. I secured the suite door – not that it was much of a security barrier – and entered the master bedroom.

I placed her gently atop the bed and took a couple steps back. I stared at her motionlessly for a minute, trying to sift through the swirl of thoughts and emotions billowing inside me.

I placed my hand on the holster carrying the Beretta M9 before numbly taking my hand off the gun. Absently, I stuck my hand in one of the pockets of the Kevlar vest I was wearing and pulled out the carton I got from the shelf of a drugstore I stopped of at on the way here.

The front of the carton read: “PlanB One-Step emergency contraceptive”.

Stupid. So stupid. Why’d you bother to get that? She’s not going to live another nine hours, let alone nine months.

I looked at the carton of morning-after pills, then at the sleeping girl on the bed. I hesitated a few more seconds before grudgingly placing the carton on top of the bedside dresser close to her head. Afterward, I placed an unopened bottle of water next to the carton.

I could have gotten shot and killed grabbing that.

I stared at the woman on the bed again for several seconds, deliberating whether I should slap her face to wake her, or start shouting to rouse her, or—

I sighed heavily in annoyance at nothing in particular, kicking the wall with my boot in frustration before retreating to the mahogany study desk on the opposite corner of the room. I pulled up the swivel chair and sat myself down in it.

I sat there with my arms crossed for the next ten minutes, alternating looking down at the desk surface and at the only other person in the room.

How much longer is she going to sleep? She looks like she should eat. Or drink something. She should—

God damn it.

I stopped that train of thought forcibly, but merely thinking of Christina Valentine’s well-being was enough to rekindle the flame scorching in my core. She didn’t deserve sympathy. She was still alive only because I chose to keep her that way. I wanted the whole story. And names. And…

And nothing. That’s all I want.

I grunted angrily in my seat and placed my folded arms on top of the desk. I buried my face in my forearms, pushing my eyes tightly against my arms.





Sometime later, I became aware of that feeling of having come from the land of sleep before I lifted my face from my forearms. I slowly raised my head and rubbed my eyes. The sunlight coming in through the gaps in the blinds of the patio door to my right was stronger and brighter than I remembered before I sat down. It had to be noon already, or close to it.

I turned my head toward the queen-sized bed and froze when I met her eyes. She was sitting up against the wall the bed’s frame and mattress were pushed up against, looking at me with a neutral expression.

I simply stared back at her for ten seconds, suddenly caught off guard and unsure of what to say. She took a deep breath, her shoulders heaving, before she closed her eyes and exhaled. Her eyes reopened, showing me the auburn in them.

“Knight,” she said quietly. “You’re… really here, aren’t you?”

I opened my mouth to answer that, but the rush of memories of what I uncovered last night kept me from replying.

Christina’s lips curled into a soft, almost feeble smile. “I’m glad. I thought you were dead. After what happened at the Peter Lougheed, I thought—”

Seeing that smile on her face sent a hot flash of fury shooting through me like electricity. I shoved the swivel chair away and got to my feet.

Christina’s smile faded and an expression of complete confusion took its place. I snatched up the Northstar personnel file of her that I’d left on the desk since earlier this morning before I left for SAIT.

I strode over to her and flung the folder at her. A couple of pages flew out and landed on the floor, but the folder itself and the rest of the pages inside landed on Christina’s lap. She flinched visibly when she saw how animated I’d become.

The Beretta left its holster but I managed to keep the pistol pointed at the floor for now.

“Explain this to me,” I told her in a steady voice that belied the storm brewing inside me.

Christina gave me a reproachful look, then looked down on her lap. I caught a hint of recognition on her face as she viewed the front cover of the folder. Gingerly, she flipped to the second page, almost as if she knew exactly where I wanted her to start looking in that damned file.

She gave the second page a stiff look-over. After that, she looked up at me again without a hint of that smile just now. She did not look surprised or shifty, either. She stared me dead in the eye.

“This is my file.”

“You’re Northstar?”

“I used to be.”

I gripped the handgun in my right hand more tightly, the weapon seeming to grow hot in my shaking grasp.

“Don’t lie to me. How much do they know about Shadow Team? The C.O.S.?” I demanded, glaring at her.

If she could see my anger, she wasn’t reacting to it. Her face remained neutral, if not a little sad.

“I’m not lying to you, Knight. I swear. I don’t want to lie anymore.”

“Answer me!”

“I’m sorry,” Christina responded, lifting up the sleeve of the parka that she was by now wearing like a T-shirt. I looked down at her exposed left wrist and found that she was missing her wrist brace. “They took my TACPAD, and… it wasn’t purged.”

I’d completely forgotten about her TACPAD being possibly compromised when I found out she was captured two days ago. I understood the implications of having that much intel fall into enemy hands.

But right now, I didn’t care about that.

“Keep reading,” I ordered her, gesturing toward the folder she was holding.

“Which page?”

“The final action report.”

Her brown eyes fell briefly as if what I’d just said stung her. She stayed still, not making any move to flip to the page I told her to view.

“Did you hear me?” I asked, taking another step closer to her. I began to lift the M9. “I said, turn to the final action report!”

“There’s no need. I know what’s on it, Knight.”

Her calm response threw me off for a second, but I regained my momentum quickly.

“March—” I began.

“—twenty-seventh, twenty seventeen,” Christina finished for me, as if reading my mind.

This was confirmation enough of her involvement in that tragedy. I wondered why I wasn’t putting a bullet in her head yet.

She liefted her gaze from the file and met my eyes once more.

“You were there,” I told her. It wasn’t a question. “You set off that Semtex.”

Christina paused a second, her eyes shifting away from mine for a fleeting moment before she replied.

“I was part of the team responsible for that bombing, yes.” She appeared to realize something, because she gave me a slightly probing stare. “Were you there, Knight?”

“…That’s right. The blast nearly killed me.”

“I see. I’m… sorry. It must have been hard.”

Hard?

The sheer, grotesque understatement in that word made my blood burn.

Before I could think, I swung the hand holding the pistol and struck Christina on the temple with the grip of the weapon I was holding. She grunted and her head jerked to the side from the impact. I had to restrain myself from not hitting her another time for good measure.

Christina brought a hand up to her temple, then dropped it back down to her side. Her fingers came back stained with blood from the gash my strike had opened. She resumed looking up at me, not at all upset by me hitting her. The lack of an appropriate expression on her face only served to stoke my vehemence.

“I’m not talking about myself,” I growled at her. “Tell me. Do you even remember them?”

She winced slightly from my blow, but for the most part she stayed neutrally looking at me as she answered. “I do. I remember all of them.”

“Then you’ll remember her.” I finally lifted the pistol and pointed it straight at her forehead. “Miyaku Sakaki Williams. Do you remember her? Do you remember… what you did to her?”

Again, she did not seem to cower even when I had gun pointing right at her. Instead, a momentary look of puzzlement crossed her face and she seemed to ponder the question.

“I…do,” she responded after a few seconds. “I took her away from you, didn’t I?”

“You did. You did, you fucking— What was it, again? ‘Necessary’ casualties, wasn’t it? She had to die, is that right?”

Christina’s eyes narrowed, beginning to fill with pain.

I shook the M9 in front of her face impatiently.

“She was a necessary casualty, wasn’t she? Tell me! Tell me to my face!” I roared at her, raising my voice that much to hide the impending sense of it starting to break. “Tell me she needed to die, you bitch!”

Christina closed her eyes, her face finally contorting in what looked like anguish.

“None of them had to die,” she finally answered, her voice cracking for a split second. “None of those deaths were necessary.”

Despite the truth in that statement, I still couldn’t help feeling even more furious at her for not saying what I needed her to.

Christina kept her eyes closed, her face still screwed in some kind of emotional distress.

“There isn’t a single day since then that I don’t wish I could bring even one of them back,” she said in barely above a whisper. “I killed my brother that day to save myself, but since then I’ve been wondering which one of us was really saved. I didn’t want to die, you see, but… maybe from the moment I shot Mikey, I was already dead.”

“What are you—” I blurted, not wanting to hear her sob story, but she kept going.

“Please. Listen to me just a few moments longer, Knight. I just… I don’t want to die without telling you this.”

“I’m not interested in your bull—”

“Mikey didn’t want the bombing to go on. He asked me for help in stopping it, but I turned him away. I was scared of what would happen if we’d gotten caught trying to sabotage the mission. He understood what was at stake when all I could see was what would happen to me. Because of me, he wasn’t able to stop it. Because of me, he died. Because of me, that bomb killed fifty-one people that night.

“The team leader gave me a choice. Either I shoot my brother, or I would get the bullet instead. At the time, I was terrified. I know it sounds like an excuse, Knight, but I’m not trying to excuse what I did. I’m not lying, either. I just want to tell you the truth.”

The truth.

My hand shook as I tried to keep the gun steady to her head.

“I tried,” Christina continued, her eyes still closed. Her voice now started to tremble a little more consistently. “I tried to make it right. I left Northstar after that mission. For a while, I was adrift. I tried to forget what I’d done, but no matter what I did, my past came back to haunt me. I couldn’t forget what I did to all those people that night. Eventually, I found out about this. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The Clandestine Operations Sector. I was a lousy fighter, but I thought that if I could save people, I could make it right. I thought that if I could protect others from people like me… I could make up for the lives I took.”

She paused, then inclined her face slightly. She opened her eyes finally, and when she did, I found them glistening with moisture.

“But I can’t make it right. I can’t change the past. I’ve done so many terrible things, taken away so many loved ones. I can’t bring any of them back. I guess I… always knew that. And now—”

A single tear escaped her left eye, but it was the only one that managed to.

“—I find out I’ve done it to you, too.”

She lifted a hand up to her cheek to wipe away the rogue tear, then she hung her head. After a few seconds, she looked up at me again, her eyes still wet.

I opened my mouth, hesitated, then asked: “Who else was on your team? Give me their names.”

Christina took a deep breath. “There were five of us. Me. My brother, Michael, whom I killed back then. Fabian Yansen… I heard he was killed recently. Was that you?”

I nodded grimly, still aiming my gun at her.

“I see. There’s also Theo Rhodes, a.k.a. ‘Hornet’. He was the one who handed me over to the US Army this morning. He was the one I met during that recon operation on CFB Calgary.”

“There’s one more. Give me the name.”

Christina nodded minutely. “He was the team leader at the time. The most seasoned of us back then. His name is Noel Reyes.”

“Who set off that bomb? Yansen? Rhodes?”

“We each had a role that eve—”

“Who had the detonator?” I interrupted her sharply.

“That was Reyes.”

Noel Reyes. I seared that name into my mind like a brand so I wouldn’t forget.

“What are you going to do?” Christina asked, not moving from her spot on the bed, maintaining eye contact with me.

“Find and kill everyone on your team.” I cocked the hammer of the Beretta. “Starting with you.”

Christina had no reaction at first, but after a brief pause, a faint, wistful smile appeared on her face. She closed her eyes again.

“I see.”

“What the hell are you smiling for?”

“I’m just… happy.”

“Happy? You think this is all really amusing and funny, don’t you? You think I’m joking.”

“Of course I don’t. I’m happy… that I was able to tell someone what I did. It was all the more better that it was you who found out first. And I’m happy that this time… I won’t be able to run from what I deserve.”

She opened her eyes, then lifted her right hand and grabbed the barrel of the pistol. I thought at first she was trying to disarm me, but before I could pull the gun away from her, she pulled it toward her until the muzzle was pressed firmly against her forehead.

I stifled a confused expletive, continuing to stare her down.

Her eyes stayed glued to mine, though they were open only halfway, as if she seemed exhausted.

“I’m sorry for what I did to you, Knight. I know it’s long overdue, and that my apology doesn’t mean anything to you. I can’t give her back to you, I know that. But… if you can believe anything I’ve said to you since we met, then please let it be that I’m sorry.”

With that, she closed her eyes slowly and bowed her head slightly. She kept the gun pressed to her forehead for a couple more moments before lowering her arm and letting me keep the gun there.

My right arm had fatigued considerably from holding the gun up for several minutes now, so I supported my right hand with my left. I placed my right index finger on the trigger and started to pull.

This was what I was waiting for. What I spent the last three years working toward. Another step to getting everyone who took her away from me. All I had to do—

—was pull.

I’ve done so many terrible things.

Beautiful, aren’t they? The stars.

She told me you were a good guy.

I can help, Knight. I’m hurt, not useless.

Do you even have anything like that to regret?

I blinked. That’s…

Everything we do has a price. Tell me you don’t regret paying yours.

I grasped the pistol in my hands, cursing my shaking right hand. I took a couple of quick breaths and began pulling on the trigger some more, but for whatever my reason my finger felt inflexible and wouldn’t



“Go on.”

I opened my eyes.

A woman with blue eyes sat on the bed in front of me, my pistol’s muzzle resting on the middle of her forehead. A trail of blood slowly began pouring down her temple, while another trickled down from her scalp further up and ran down her nose bridge. The second trail stained her caramel hair with deep red.

My heart jumped up my throat, threatening to suffocate me.

“Do it. Do your job.”

No—

“I taught you better than this.”

This isn’t real. I’m not… She’s not here. This is—

“You’re hesitating.”

Please. Please, don’t make me—

She gently took my hands in hers and placed a thumb on top of my trigger finger and—

“…shoot.”

Her thumb pushed on my curled trigger finger until I felt the break, the threshold. Before I could beg for her to stop, the recoil of the handgun sent a shockwave of energy up my arm. Her blue eyes turned crimson as she fell over backwards and



I blinked again, sweat trickling onto my eyebrows.

There was no caramel. Or blue.

Only pink and auburn.

I’ve done terrible things.

Come on, pull, god damn it…

I tried to move my finger, but it wouldn’t budge.

You’re so close. Shoot!

…Shoot.

I blinked once again. During the near instant duration my eyes were darkened by the inside of my lids, that same blue flashed before me.

“RRRAAAAGGGHHH!” I half-gasped, half-screamed in equal parts frustration and anger as I pushed her head back with my gun slightly—

—and stumbled backwards, letting my arm fall to my side, the gun pointing to the floor. A second later, I fell to the floor on my ass, panting harshly as if I’d just run a kilometre without warning.

I buried my eyes in my forearm, which I had perched atop my knee.

“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath, suddenly feeling very warm all over. It felt like sweat was coating every inch of my body.

There were a few seconds of silence when all I could hear was the blood in my ears and my ragged breathing.

Then, her voice came.

“Knight?”

I peered up at the woman still perched on top of the bed. Her auburn eyes regarded me with a mix of apprehension and concern. When she began to move toward me and swing her legs off the side of the bed, I scrambled to my feet and pointed a trembling finger at her.

“You stay there,” I warned her. I began walking backwards until my back collided with the bedroom door. “Stay away from me.”

Christina froze as instructed, though I did not. I reached behind me for the doorknob and as fast as I could, threw the door open and stumbled out of the room.

Slamming the door shut once I was outside in the hallway, I pressed my back against the door as if I were trying to keep something evil from coming out of the room.

Then, without warning, all strength left my body. I slid to the floor and hung my head. The Beretta slipped out of my hand and clattered to the floor.

Confused, angry, disappointed, and hating myself all at once, I pressed the back of my head against the door and stared blankly into space.