Signalling to Pooh to be quiet, I listen again, then step in the direction I’d heard the sound. The back of the alcove is piled with rubbish. With Pooh aiming directly inside, I start clearing that shit out.
“Get back here now.” Smythe’s angry voice sounds in my ear. “Repeat. Stormy, leave it the fuck alone. You and Pooh get your asses up top.”
Though no one can see, I feel my eyes roll. There’s nothing to stop us delaying the explosion until we’re certain there’s no one here. But that’s Smythe. His explosion will go off at the allotted time, even if we haven’t fully completed the mission. He’ll proudly state the time in his report.
“We’ve got this. We’ll take the street exit.” I catch Pooh’s eye and see him give me a sharp nod. He’s a good man. If he thought I was wrong, he’d argue, but it’s clear he doesn’t.
I move planks, rubble, sacks and then… Oh fuck. There, squeezed inside and tightly bound on the floor, are two girls. One appears to be in her late teens, another, a child possibly young enough to be her daughter.
At that moment, I think I know what this is. A setup, an elaborate hit. Just a few mines and guns left to draw us in, to carry out a death sentence on these girls. Instantly, I wonder why they’re important.
“Abort the mission,” I say fast into my mic. “I’ve got two girls.”
“Locals or ours?”
“Locals,” I confirm.
“Leave them. Get out of there, Storm.”
“Fuck that,” I reply.
Pooh’s already got his knife out and is undoing the ropes that have them bound.
“It’s likely a fucking trap. They’ve probably got explosives strapped to them or a grenade hidden in their clothes. You’ve got no time to search them. Get the fuck out!” Smythe’s ranting.
But Pooh’s got them free. He motions to me, indicating he’s checked and there’s nothing on them. Like me, he can’t leave them to die.
We’ve got no time to argue, no time to explain. I scoop the youngster up into my arms throwing just one sentence back at the older girl. “It’s dangerous,” I tell her in her own language. “We’ve got to get out of here now.”
My sense of urgency gets through to her.
I ascend the stairs, the crying kid in my arms. The teenager is right behind me, followed by Pooh.
“Stormy,” the voice in my ear growls.
“Give us time to get free.”
“They’ll slow you down. Leave them. Get out of their now. We’ve got reports of tangos. The bird has to lift off. You want to lose your whole fucking team?”
I don’t, but escape is only seconds away.
“I’m detonating now,” Smythe warns me.
“For fuck’s sake, give us two minutes.” It’s all we need.
I spy the door to the street. Carrying my burden, I run as fast as I’ve ever run in my life, kicking the door open and exiting. We’re not clear yet, that building’s going to blow sky-high. I know, I set the fucking explosive and I don’t fuck up.
“One minute. We’ve got incoming fire.”
I heard the shot. It sounded like a pistol rather than a rifle, but I can hear the jitters in Smythe’s voice.
One minute should get us clear. I don’t look around, just register the two pairs of feet running behind, then the cry followed by Pooh’s voice.
“Come on, love. Get to your feet.”
She won’t understand him, but the tone is calming and gentle. Looking back, I see him trying to help the teenager up.
“One more minute, Smythe.” But he doesn’t acknowledge he’s heard me.
Pooh sweeps the teenager into his arms, then runs as though the Devil himself is chasing him.
A loud blast, the heat of which I feel on my back, sweeps me off of my feet. I roll, protecting the kid I’m holding, glancing back in time to see the older girl sailing through the air as Pooh has thrown her. She gets to her feet and starts running again, collapsing next to us.
Pooh. Fuck it. Pooh. Pooh, unlike the girl, isn’t moving. He’d taken the brunt of the blast, a block of masonry lying next to him.
“Pooh’s down. We need a combat medic here fast.”
“We’ll send a team back for you.” Smythe’s voice is uncannily calm as I hear the rotors of the helicopter flying away. “Watch your back, tangos might be approaching.”
4
Swift…
“Any news?” Pip stands as I enter the clubroom.
Shaking my head, I throw myself on one of the couches. Gears heads over with a beer already in his hand. Taking it, I stare at it for a moment, then close my eyes. I’m physically tired and utterly fatigued of this charade. I’d agreed to this farce of pretending I was Stormy’s spouse as a way of getting updates on his condition. I just hadn’t expected it to go on so long. He’s clinging onto life despite everything.
Over the past week I’ve spent hours sitting by the side of a man in a coma pretending I care. The additional lie, that we were estranged, only takes my less than sympathetic approach so far. I’d be thought less than human to have no compassion for the man I was supposed to have once promised to love until death.
A dip in the couch and a familiar scent tells me it’s Road who’s sat beside me. Leaning in close, he asks, “How are you holding up?” Carefully he places App in my lap, and automatically I begin to stroke the spaniel’s fur. It has a calming effect.
With my free hand, I take Road’s and squeeze his fingers. With him, I don’t need to pretend. He doesn’t make me feel any less strong if I give into human weakness.
“I’m exhausted,” I reply, equally quietly. I may not like the man lying in the hospital bed, but it’s hard to watch a man more dead than alive and feel no sympathy, nor wonder why he’s fighting so hard to stay alive. It would be easier for him to give up and breathe his last breath.
Placing his hand over the back of my head, Road pulls me into him. Resting my cheek against the chest of the man I actually love, I breathe in deeply. With the rest of my brothers I can joke that this is just one more mission, and I’ll approach it with the dedication and emotional detachment such a task deserves. With Road, I can allow him to see this isn’t a normal anything.
At first, I’d half expected I was there to ensure that Stormy wasn’t pretending, acting an Oscar-winning role to give himself a chance to heal so he could make good and escape while we weren’t looking. But as time has passed, it’s obvious he isn’t faking.
“He coded last night,” I tell Road, still with my voice lowered. Fuck, but that had been hard watching the doctors and nurses rushing around trying to save him, keeping air flowing into his lungs before, at last, the defibrillator paddles had shocked him back into the land of the living. It had taken a while. Too fucking long. For a moment, I’d thought we’d lost him. Even so, the doctor expressed concern that yet another bleed on the brain might have caused cerebral damage. Once he’s again stabilised, they’ll run more tests on him.
I need him alive, able to speak and think normally. How else would I question him? That’s the only reason I was rooting for him to survive—he needs to provide answers about who had beaten him so badly. Was it simply he’d finally upset the wrong person, or was it something more? Was it just him who was the target, or was someone gunning for the club?