Authors: CV Silk
Weeks passed and things went back to
normal as far as Palmer was concerned.
That meant he returned to acting
professional, as if he had never seen his principal having sex. As if he had
never jacked off thinking about her. All he had to do was pretend he was
protecting some Arabian sheik and his unholy feelings went away.
That’s what he told himself anyway.
Truth was, he caught himself thinking
about her all the damn time. Fantasizing about her became a nightly ritual and
he hated himself for it. He tried going back to thinking about gymnasts and
cheerleaders and ballerinas – all redheads – but he involuntarily always came
back to the aid worker.
If he hadn’t been on a job, he would have
gotten it out of his system by seducing her. Here in the jungle, and given who
her father was, that plan was out of the question. Besides, she clearly had no
interest in him despite the doubts cast by Bryce that night.
So Palmer did his best to focus on why he
was here in the first place. He turned a suspicious eye on everyone, evaluated
threat levels, and mentally prepared for the worst. It helped that Kathleen was
oblivious to him. It probably was because she still hated him and that was just
fine. It created a natural barrier between them.
It was a Tuesday after lunch when she
came up to him holding a set of keys which she jingled playfully.
“Tun is lending me his truck.”
“You’re going somewhere, ma’am?”
“No, I’m borrowing his truck so I can
wash it. Didn’t you know, it’s a hobby of mine. And stop calling me ma’am.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He grinned as he said that, unable to
stop himself, and she had no choice but laugh.
“Come on” she said. “You’re driving.”
She had thankfully stopped arguing weeks
ago about him coming along. She understood that he went everywhere she did. She
tossed him the keys and they had a final word with old man Tun, the closest the
village had to a merchant. A minute later, they drove away in his ancient
Nissan pickup.
They were going to a medium sized city
outside of Yangon to pick up medical supplies which Bryce said had just
arrived. Deliveries from the UN were so random that they had to take whatever
they could get whenever they could. And of course, this being April, it started
raining.
“Great,” Palmer muttered as he turned on
the squeaky wipers.
Normally, Kathleen was uncomfortable
driving in the rain here in Southeast Asia. While there was never a lot of
traffic, drivers were generally unsafe, not to mention how terribly uneven the
roads were. But with Palmer at the wheel she strangely felt at peace.
That was a weird feeling to have. How had
she gotten used to him? More troubling, how come did she feel safe when he was
next to her? Sure, she could have said it had to do with his training, his
experience. Anyone in their right mind would feel safe under his protection.
But it was more than that. For the last few weeks, she actually felt better
when she was next to him.
This really irritated her.She wanted to
hate him, if only to prove to her father that he’d been wrong about sending him
to babysit her. Yet, she couldn’t.
It was the damnedest thing, she was
comfortable in his presence. She was scared witless of the implications. She
was sincerely frightened that she actually wanted to get to know him better.
She was sincerely terrified that she
actually wanted to touch him when he was nearby.
“Roads are awful,” he said.
That brought her out of her reverie and
sure enough she felt the vehicle bouncing. The rain was also picking up,
graduating to a torrential downpour. It was hard to see through the windshield
and the wipers had trouble keeping up.
She squinted and pointed forward. “What’s
that? Is that a tree?”
He leaned forward and shook his head. “No,
some sort of road kill.”
Yes
, she
could see he was right. It was some sort of animal, rather large too. Palmer
slowed down and turned to avoid the carcass. This was a dirt road and there was
no shoulder per say so the wheels were practically in the gutter.
That’s when they got jammed in the mud.
“Shit.”
Kathleen was agape. “Are we stuck?”
The mercenary didn’t reply. He pushed on
the gas and the wheel could clearly be heard spinning. He put it in reverse and
had the same result. He repeated the process and the same thing happened. He
did it again, this time slowly but the truck didn’t budge.
“To answer your question, yes we’re
stuck. Have triple-A?” he joked, making her roll her eyes.
“So what do we do about this? Are we
walking back to the village to get help?”
She didn’t want to trek through the rain,
of course, but she didn’t see any other solution than getting an ox to push
them free.
“I’m not bringing you out in this rain,
ma’am.”
“Don’t call me ma’am.”
“I’m not bringing you out in this rain… Kathleen.”
“You see, that’s better.”
They stared at each other silently and
she loved how his eyes looked when glued to hers.
“So what then?” she asked. “You’re gonna
do the journey by yourself?”
“No way, I’m not leaving you alone out
here.”
She rolled her eyes again. “Ugh, not that
protection crap again!”
“It’s my job. Anyway, before we start
thinking about worst-case scenarios, I’m gonna try to wiggle us free.”
“You’re going out there?”
“It’s just rain, it won’t kill me.”
He winked and the humor was so
uncharacteristic that she burst into laughter. A second later he was outside.
She turned sideways to watch through the
rear window. Palmer was completely soaked instantly. She wagered that he was
happy about it too since it was better than air conditioning in this heat.
Outside, the mercenary went to the back of
the truck and surveyed the damage. The right tire was almost completely
submerged in mud. He would have to get some branches and dig out the wheel
before attempting to drive out again. And he’d have to push the car at the same
time.
On a professional level, he hated the
location. The road was narrow and flanked by thick jungle on both sides. It was
the worst place to be caught. He dismissed the idea as paranoia, but then again
paranoia was in his job description.
Still, before going out to gather bamboo he
looked at the carcass in the middle of the road. It was a tapir and just when
he was about to turn away from it he noticed something odd. The animal was in
good shape save for a red blotch on its side. It occurred to him that the wound
was too clean for it to be road kill.
It was a gunshot wound.
A million thoughts zoomed through his
head. If the tapir had been shot then it had been placed in the middle of the
road deliberately. That was a basic ambush technique.
His heart racing, he lifted his shirt up and
reached for the pistol holstered in the small of his back. But it was too late.
He heard movement behind him. As he turned to look, he saw five men in
camouflage battle gear emerge from the jungle.
Kathleen saw it too and Palmer heard her
scream out a warning. He didn’t have time to draw his weapon before a rebel hit
him square in the face with the butt of his rifle.
He collapsed in the mud and all his
strength vanished. He glimpsed shadows going to the truck and pulling out Kathleen
as she kicked and screamed. It was gut-wrenching and a second later he passed
out.
It was still raining when Palmer woke up.
He had the mother of all headaches but he was glad to be alive. In his
experience, aches and pains only served to remind you that you weren’t dead and
that counted for something.
He was relieved to find that although he
had a bump on his forehead, there was no blood, but he was devastated that this
hadn’t been a nightmare. This was real. The pickup truck was empty and Kathleen
was gone. They had snatched her so fast that they hadn’t even taken his gun.
There was no time for feeling sorry for
himself. He had a job to do. He brushed away his worry and bruised ego and ran
back toward town. This had happened because he had let his guard down, had
softened around that woman. It might have very well cost Kathleen her life.
It took almost an hour but he finally
reached the village. The locals looked at him with curiosity, the expression on
his face almost frightening. He ignored them and ran into his house where he
got his satellite phone.
He was on the line with Greenbrier for
less than ten seconds when he said the phrase he’d never wanted to say. “Principal
is echo kilo.”
Echo kilo stood for the letters E and K
which in turn meant
express kidnapping
. The term was usually reserved
for short-term abductions, often where the bad guys forced the hostage to do
something quickly like get money out of their ATM. However, at Greenbrier
speaking this code was standard operating procedure before they knew they had a
genuine kidnap-and-ransom situation.
Palmer had no doubt it was the case,
though. Kathleen’s father was worth several billions and the Burmese jungle
teemed with rebel groups looking for a quick payout. Given the importance of the
client, he requested a rapid deployment team and it was granted on the spot.
While he broke out his tactical gear and
got dressed for battle – even though his men wouldn’t join him for about 12
hours – he started thinking like an investigator. This wasn’t some random snatch-and-grab.
Everything about the event, from the impressive manpower to the road being
blocked, screamed professional planning.
How could they have known Kathleen was going
to drive on that road today?
Palmer was already sweating under the
tactical vest when the answer smashed him in the face. He holstered his pistol
and cracked his knuckles before leaving his house. He was about to turn to one
of the elders and ask to rent his horse for the day when fate finally smiled at
him.
He spotted Bryce sitting under a lean-to
and smoking a bong. The young man started to fidget before remembering to
smile.
“Hey, man. I just got here and I’m
looking for Kathleen. Have you seen her?”
Palmer marched toward him.
“You tell me.”
Before he could answer, he grabbed him by
his T-shirt and slammed him against the wall.
“Ow, what’s your problem?”
“My problem is that you did a very stupid
thing. How much did they pay you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,
man.”
“You have five seconds before I break
your finger and another five before I shoot off your nuts. One…”
“I don’t know anything!”
“Two. Who took her? Three. Where’d they
take her?”
“Lay off, man.”
“Four. How much did they pay you to set
her up?”
Palmer didn’t count all the way to five
because in reality it was closer to 8 seconds. He swiftly grabbed Bryce’s left
pinky and snapped it.
The kid screamed and tried to wrench
himself free but the soldier of fortune still held him in place. “Fuck!”
“Are you gonna talk now or do I have to
blow your fucking balls off? Five seconds.” Pinning Bryce to the wall with his
left forearm, he drew his pistol and poked it between his legs. “One…”
“Stop, stop! I’ll talk, I’ll tell you
everything!”
“Two…”
“They gave me five thousand bucks and a
pound of weed, man! They said they just wanted to talk to Kathleen, that’s all!”
“Who are they?”
Bryce was crying and torn between looking
at his broken finger and the weapon pointed at his testicles. “I don’t know…”
“You’ve been here for months, you know
them, stop dicking me around.”
“I swear, man.”
“Oh you do? You wanna play the
five-second game again?”
Palmer shoved the gun harder in Bryce’s
nuts and he yelped.
“Okay, okay! It’s not like they gave me a
business card or anything, but I think it’s the Leopard Brotherhood.”
“One to ten, how sure are you?”
There was a pause and then Bryce bowed
his head as he recognized his fate. “Ten.”
Palmer let go of him and holstered his
gun since there was no more information to gather from him. The kidnappers
wouldn’t have told him where they were hiding out. As he turned to leave, he
noticed that most of the villagers had amassed to see what was going on.
Summoning his rudimentary Burmese, Palmer
addressed everyone. “This man sold Kathleen to the rebels. You decide what kind
of justice he deserves.”
He strode away as he noticed the crowd
bristling. These were people Kathleen had helped, had nursed back to health, people
whose children she had taught. They genuinely loved her as their own and he was
confident whatever they chose to do to Bryce would be appropriate.
* * *
In the middle of the night, under a light
rain, Palmer was finally in position outside of the main camp of the Leopard
Brotherhood. While waiting for his team to be flown in, he had read everything
he knew about the organization. The intel came courtesy of Greenbrier’s
extensive library on possible threats and world events.
“This is Hiker 1, I need a sitrep.”
“Hiker 2 in position.”
“Hiker 3 in position.”
“Hiker 4 in position.”
“Skyscraper, what do you see?”
“This is Skyscraper. I have two tangos on
the west flank, they look sleepy.”
“Roger, Skyscraper. Hold for now.” Palmer
switched channels on his radio. “Condor, this is Hiker 1.”
“Copy, Hiker 1.”
“Condor, you are go for Operation
Sparkle. I repeat, you are go for Operation Sparkle.”
“Roger, Hiker 1. I am go for Operation
Sparkle. Good luck to you, sir.”
It took less than ten seconds to hear the
helicopter breaking through the rain. It lost altitude and swooped low over the
rebel camp. The point was to make itself be heard. On cue, the two sentries
became alert and started shouting for their people to wake up.
But the chopper continued on its way,
going over a small hill. It was out of view but before long an explosion rocked
the jungle. This was all according to plan as the pilot fired a couple of
rockets into their poppy fields.
The fireball rose above the hill and the
ensuing light gave a good view of the camp to Palmer. It was mayhem as the two
dozen or so men ran around not knowing what to do, not quite fully dressed. At
last, their commanding officer shouted orders and they took off toward the
explosion.
Palmer didn’t have to talk to the pilot
again since the mission parameters were clear. He had to keep the helicopter
close enough to be heard and make the bandits panic. So now it was time to rescue
Kathleen.
“This is Hiker 1. Execute, execute,
execute!”