I’d gotten to know and like the Jameson crew over the last few days. Jimmy Tate is easygoing with a pregnant wife back home. Tank Richardson and Sal Mezzina are gruff but in humorous ways. And Malik Fournier… well, I have a lot in common with him. His brothers, Max and Lucas Fournier, play hockey for the Carolina Cold Fury, who are currently battling against my brother’s team for the Cup. Thankfully, one of Malik’s coworkers is some tech genius woman named Bebe who was able to get us radio broadcasts of the games and we listened to them together. As it stands, the Arizona Vengeance is up three games to two, and Malik and I have a whopping twenty-dollar bet on who wins the Cup. It’s been a fun rivalry that helps to take our minds off the pressing danger that waits for him.
As for me, I should still be relatively safe. We’re not allowed to advance forward with them. Instead, we’ve been ordered to remain at base camp.
Unfortunately, game six is going to be starting soon. It’s closing in on midnight, and with the time difference since the game is in Raleigh, it starts in two hours. Malik’s team will be moving out soon, and we’ve been told to keep absolutely silent as we’re left behind.
I’m not going to be able to listen to the game because of that—not here in the still of the night. If all goes according to plan, they’ll be back long before daybreak with the hostages safely in hand, and John and I will have the story of a lifetime.
It’s tense within the camp as the Jameson guys pack up their gear. They’re dressed in desert camo, their flak jackets strapped with grenades and their assault rifles locked and loaded.
I take the opportunity to snap photos as they work, focusing in on the grim determination on their faces.
Malik gives me a wry grin. “Gonna make me famous, Monahan?”
No one calls me Willow out here.
“You’ll have the ladies lined up for miles once this publishes,” I assure him with a laugh.
For a moment, I get a spontaneous and genuine smile of amusement before he goes back to his packing.
“And when you come back, I’ll be ready to collect that twenty bucks off you because the Cold Fury is going down tonight.”
“In your dreams, sister,” he replies with a chuckle.
At this point, I don’t care who wins tonight. I only hope these guys come back safely.
It’s at this moment I realize I haven’t thought about Dominik in almost twenty minutes. I’ve been so consumed with receiving last-minute instructions of what to do when they leave camp and going over all the possible scenarios in my head, I’ve had some blessed relief from the pining I’ve been doing.
If I had thought distance from Dominik and pressing danger would obliterate him from my mind, I would have been wrong, because even now I wonder what he’s doing. I’m sure he’s excited that, in mere hours, he could be the owner of a championship team. He’s probably at the arena already, maybe even giving a last-minute pep talk to the team.
No matter how things go down—here in Syria or back in Raleigh—all I know is I miss him terribly and I am nowhere near past the heartbreak he gave me. I wonder if it will ever go away.
♦
I glance down at my watch. They’ve been gone for almost forty-five minutes, and I’m antsy. I know it could be hours before they return, and I also understand they might not ever come back.
Their intelligence shows the hostages are being held in an abandoned homestead about a click away—in civilian terms, about a mile and a half away. It’s the night of the new moon, the darkest time of the month, and was specifically chosen for them to make their move. John, Mark, and I sit outside our tent with only our jackets on to ward off the slight chill of the night. We all have our electronics powered off, so we are covered by the night pitch as well. We’ve kept our talking to a minimum, only murmuring in the lowest of tones if we need to communicate.
By my calculations, the Vengeance is deep into the first period of game six, and I intersperse my prayers for the safety of the men who just went to rescue innocent hostages with requests to God to let the Vengeance win tonight. I try to push thoughts of Dominik out of my head by focusing on Dax and imagining what his face would look like as he skates around the ice, holding the cup high above his head.
Fuck, I made a mistake coming here. I should be there for my brother, no matter he gave me his blessing to run away.
A crack rings out in the night, a single lone gunshot that shocks me to my core. While my eyes have adjusted to the darkness, I can’t see John or Mark’s expressions, but I can sense their bodies going taut.
And then… all hell breaks loose. Rapid gunfire ensues, short bursts of ten-to-fifteen rounds. I can’t tell what direction it’s coming from or how far away it is.
Then there’s an explosion.
A grenade.
I know all too well what those sound like.
“We have to go,” Mark whispers harshly, popping to his feet but keeping his profile low. He has an assault rifle strapped across his back and a pistol at his hip. We’re all wearing flak jackets and helmets, but John and I aren’t armed. I do have possession of a personal satellite phone, though. Once we’re settled in somewhere, we can hopefully call for help.
John and I jump up, following Mark at a run while keeping our bodies low to minimize ourselves as targets.
This was not an unplanned-for event.
The Jameson guys explicitly told us if we heard gunfire we were to leave camp immediately and hide among the hills. If they ran into trouble, our camp would eventually be sought out and we’d be found.
My heart pounds as we run. I trip over some type of plant, feel rocks cut into my knees, but I push back up before John can even reach out to help me. The gunfire continues and it doesn’t sound any further away, but no closer either. I can’t tell if we’re running to or from more danger, but I have to trust Mark. He’s a former Army Ranger, and he’s good at his job.
I’m gasping for air with a painful stitch in my side when Mark finally pushes John and me into some thorny underbrush. I ignore the stings to my flesh through my thick clothing as I scuttle in behind him. He orders us to go in as far as we can, then he positions himself near the edge, pulling down a pair of night-vision goggles attached to the top of his helmet.
I try to control my breathing because I’m terrified the harsh gasps coming out of me will give us away.
The gunfire continues, and there are two more explosions.
John mutters, “It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.”
He chants it over and over again, and I realize he doesn’t sound confident at all.
And it’s in this moment I realize something so important I want to cry from the epiphany. I could very well die here, huddled under this bush in the middle of Syria, and Dominik will never know the most important truth of all. In between all my apologies and attempts to explain myself, through my desperate pleas that we could make this work, I never once told him the one thing he probably needed to hear because I was too scared to say it.
But right now, I’m more afraid of dying without Dominik ever knowing how I feel about him.
I grab the satellite phone hooked to my belt, hunch my body over it, and turn it on. The LED screen glows, and John whispers, “Turn that fucking thing off.”
I snarl back. “I have to make a call.”