| Subject: Redemption 6 |
Author:
Rox
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Date Posted: 19:54:03 12/17/01 Mon
In reply to:
Rox
's message, "Redemption (Sequel to Mea Culpa)" on 20:54:56 12/13/01 Thu
* * *
“All right,” Stillman muttered as he pressed the tiny tracker against Brandon’s rib cage, just below his armpit. “We can find you with this wherever you go, and we can listen in as well. Just try not to sweat -- it can mess up the circuits.”
“Great time to be without an antiperspirant.” Brandon grinned, tugging down his T-shirt.
“Just be careful. This isn’t a game, Brandon,” Nikita said, feeling fearful for the first time.
He sighed. “I know. But it’s just as easy to laugh as it is to cry, Mama always used to say.”
“We’re going to see if your brother is there. You know what to say. Stay with the script.” Nikita smoothed his T-shirt across his shoulders. “We have teams in the area -- all you have to do is verify whether your brother is on site or not.”
“Why don’t you stay here? I can do this on my own,” Brandon said with some concern. “Ross won’t hurt me.”
“If you vouch for me, he won’t hurt me either,” Nikita replied. “Besides, I’m you’re alibi. You’ve been living with me for the past two years, remember? I helped you escape… ”
“All right. So, why am I just now making contact with Ross?”
“I’m Canadian -- remember? You’ve been laying low in Canada, waiting for things to die down.” Nikita sounded exasperated.
“Okay, I remember. Wait!”
“What now?”
“Uh, I can’t tell Ross we’ve been living together.”
“Why not?”
“It’s immoral. We have to be married.” Brandon reached down and tugged on a slender silver ring on his little finger. “Let’s see if it fits,” he said, pulling it free. He reached for her hand and carefully slipped the band on her finger. It fit perfectly, and Brandon’s smile was brilliant. “Okay, Mrs. Meyer. Let’s go.”
Brandon linked Nikita’s arm through his and knocked on the cabin door. For a moment they thought no one was home, then they heard several voices inside.
The cabin door slowly opened, and a man peeped his head out.
“Yes? Can I help you?” He sounded nervous.
“Hi. My name is Brandon Meyer, and I’m looking for my brother Ross. I was hoping…”
The door was suddenly flung wide open.
“Brandon?” Ross stood in perfectly pressed camys, looking like he was fresh from a parade field -- not an Army deserter. “Brandon? It can’t be you; they sent word. You died in prison.”
“Hi, big brother. Do I look dead?”
His brother engulfed him in a bear hug of an embrace.
“But how?”
“First -- let me introduce you to Nikita, my wife.”
“Your wife?” Ross laughed through tears. “Little brother, you can hardly shave, what do you mean your wife?”
“She’s the reason I’m here. She helped me escape. I’ve been living in Canada, waiting for things to cool off a little.”
“Welcome to the family, Nikita.” Ross hugged her as tightly as he had his brother.
“Well, come in out of the cold! How the hell did you find me?” Ross pulled them inside and shut the door. “Oh, before I forget…” There was an embarrassing pause. “Your Uncle Joey is here with Todd -- and that’s Mark Lister,” he said, referring to the man who had opened the door, “and Craig Holloway.”
Nikita politely shook hands with all of them; Brandon did as well.
Brandon’s Uncle had the good graces to be ashamed and hugged his nephew as he asked for his forgiveness. “I’ll never forget what you did for me, Brandon,” he blubbered as he pounded on Brandon’s back with his open hand. “Your brother and I -- well, we were planning on breaking you out of prison -- then we heard you had died… ” His voice broke, and he hugged Brandon again. “I’m sorry we put you through what we did.”
“It’s okay, Uncle Joey. Really. I might never have met Nikita otherwise.” He looked over at his ‘bride’ with true affection in his expression, and Nikita realized he had meant every word.
“So, why are you here?” Craig Holloway folded his arms across his brawny chest, and Nikita sensed that he was suspicious.
“He’s my brother, Craig,” Ross answered. “He’s my blood. He should be here.”
“Well, excuse me -- but I don’t like coincidences! Today, of all days, your ‘dead’ brother shows up in the middle of nowhere with a wife and a wild story of escaping from prison instead of dying there?”
Ross got between Brandon and Craig. “If he says it’s true, it’s true.”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen him? Since he was what, 15? People can change a lot in three years.”
“Maybe we should leave, Brandon,” Nikita said, taking him by the arm.
“I’d say it’s a hell of a lot more believable that he’s free because he’s turned State’s evidence in return for setting us up!” Craig’s anger boiled over, and he made an attempt to grab Brandon’s arm.
“Enough!” Ross interrupted. “Brandon’s my brother; he’s no traitor!”
“Look, Ross. He’s scaring Nikita,” Brandon spoke up. “Maybe we’d better leave. Why don’t you come with us? We could go out for a bite to eat or something.”
“Sure, little brother. Sorry, Nikita.” Ross patted her on the shoulder. “Let me get my jacket.”
The three stepped outside, and Nikita could feel the hair on the back of her neck standing on end as Craig stepped out behind them, holding a MAC-10 in one hand and a cell phone in the other.
“Wait, Ross.”
For the first time Brandon showed a little fear on his face. He pushed Nikita out in front of him. “Keep walking,” he whispered to her.
Ross was a few steps behind them. He stopped and turned to see what Craig wanted.
“There’s no answer at the outpost.”
“Shit, Craig! He’s probably taking a leak! Stop being so damned paranoid!”
“Tell them to stop where they are!” Craig leveled his weapon at Brandon’s back.
Nikita felt Brandon’s hand push her forward at the same time she heard Michael’s voice over her com-set. “Get ready. Teams Red and Blue, prepare to fire on my signal. Hold your fire until our friendlies reach safety.”
“Look, Craig, stop this,” Ross argued.
“Tell them to stop until I hear from our sentry!”
Ross huffed out a disgusted sigh. “Oh, all right. Brandon… ”
Brandon kept walking and pushed Nikita along a little faster towards the nearby tree line. She realized he had begun to panic, but before she could do anything, Craig fired his Mac 10 over their heads.
“Get down, Nikita!” Brandon shouted, pushing her to the ground. He threw himself on top of her just as Craig sprayed both Ross and Brandon with bullets.
A second later, men in uniform came running from all directions -- some of them belonging to Section One and others, equally armed, belonging to the Brotherhood. The firefight had begun.
* * *
“Nikita!” Michael suddenly appeared at her side. “Are you all right?” He knelt and ran his hands over her body, feeling for injuries. She was lying on her side, covered in blood, but Michael didn’t know if it was hers or Brandon’s.
“No! Oh no!” Nikita rocked Brandon’s lifeless body in her arms and wept.
Michael looked across the field where two Section teams were crawling their way towards the entrenched members of the Aryan Brotherhood. The rapid pop and crack of gunfire filled the air with the acrid smell of gunpowder.
“He’s dead, Nikita. Leave him!” Michael said urgently, pulling on her arms while he kept an eye on the firefight in front of them.
“No!” Nikita screamed in anguish and pulled Brandon closer. “It’s not fair! It’s not fair!”
There was no time for gentle persuasion. Michael stood and grabbed her by the front of her jacket, then made a fist and slugged her hard against her jaw. A microsecond later, a bullet grazed his shoulder, and he went down on one knee. The firefight had suddenly intensified, and Michael threw himself over Nikita’s unconscious body to shield her from harm. He grunted as one round hit him square in the back of his body armor.
“Mowen! Phillips! I need cover!” Michael called out on his com-set.
A moment later, a third Section team arrived and opened fire, allowing Michael to drag Nikita and himself to relative safety behind some nearby trees.
Once there, Michael continued his probing of Nikita’s body for wounds until Nikita jerked awake and shoved his hands away.
It only took a moment for her to remember where she was and what had occurred, but before Michael could say anything to comfort her, Mowen’s voice rang out over Michael’s com-set: “Michael! We’ve flushed them. Two men have separated from the rest -- they have the detonator!”
“I’m on it!” Michael shouted over the sounds of the battle. He glanced over at Nikita’s pale, tear-stained face. “Stay here,” he said softly.
But as Michael started to turn away, Nikita grabbed a fist-full of his jacket. With a steely glint in her red-rimmed eyes, she bit out, “I’m coming with you!”
He nodded, there being no time to argue the point.
As they ran, Michael handed Nikita a .45 out of his holster; he still carried one of Walter’s prototype rifles.
They spotted the two men Mowen had spoken of, running down the side of a ravine about 20 yards away. Between them they carried a three-foot-square metal box, painted olive drab. It seemed heavy; they staggered awkwardly with it down the slope.
Off to the right, Michael saw Mowen and Phillips advancing forward, hoping to catch the two men in between themselves and Michael, but as Phillips got closer, his foot caught a trip wire. A claymore mine hidden along Phillips path exploded, sending chunks of flesh and gore in all directions. Mowen, while not taking the full force of the explosion, was too injured to continue in his pursuit of the men.
When the mine exploded, Michael grabbed the back of Nikita’s jacket and forced her to her knees. “Slow down! Watch for trip wires!” he ordered.
“You watch them,” she shouted back, pointing to the men ahead. “I’ll tell you if I see any more mines!” She pushed around him, moving on her hands and knees, watching for the nearly invisible wires in the brush. At a slower pace, Michael followed, covering her and watching in what direction the two fugitives were fleeing.
“Stop!” Nikita put out her hand, grabbed Michael’s right thigh and pressed him to stop where he was. “See it?”
Looking down, he nodded. Carefully stepping over the trip wire, he reached down and drew Nikita to her feet. A few yards away, their path intersected with their quarry's, and they were able to concentrate on the chase, confident that no more mines were in their way.
“Where are they going?” Michael asked aloud. It was a rhetorical question; he didn’t expect an answer, but Nikita gave him one.
“Brandon--” she almost lost her composure for a second before continuing. “Brandon said his brother talked about a mine shaft -- putting the bomb in a mine shaft.”
Three shots rang out, and Michael and Nikita threw themselves on the soggy, leafy ground.
Barely able to lift her head, Nikita pointed out a place to their left. “There! It looks like an entrance to a cave… ”
“… or a mine,” Michael finished for her.
“Birkoff, we think we have the location. Send my coordinates to the rest of the teams --time for the Trojan horse!”
Before Nikita could ask what that meant, Michael scrambled to his feet and ran towards the mine. Nikita, nearly exhausted, got up and stumbled after him.
It was dark and dusty; Nikita had to stifle a sneeze as they entered the mouth of the mine.
Michael pulled out a flashlight and pointed it at the dirt floor. There was only one set of footprints marring the powdery surface; alarmed he turned toward the cave’s opening just in time to see one of the men off in a clump of trees with a hand-held missile launcher -- a LAW -- what infantry troops called a light-antitank weapon. With adrenaline enhanced strength, Michael shoved Nikita as hard as he could further into the cave before the concussion of the explosion knocked him senseless.
“Michael?” Nikita coughed and felt around with her hands. It was pitch black in every direction, and her ears were ringing. The palms of her hands and both elbows stung from scrapes irritated by dirt and sweat.
“Michael! Answer me! Where are you?” She patted the ground around her in a panic.
She touched something hard -- his flashlight! Clicking it on, Nikita used the feeble yellowish light to search her surroundings. At her feet, she found Michael, covered in dirt and debris from the chest down. She scrambled to him and felt for a pulse in his neck.
At her touch, Michael groaned and tried to lift his head. Nikita heard him hiss in pain at the slight movement.
“Michael, are you all right?” Nikita tried to move some of the rocks off of him.
Michael tried not to cry out, but the pain of at least one broken rib knifed through him, and he grunted when she tried to touch him.
“Sorry,” she whispered, upset because she had hurt him.
“Kita, take the light. Stop him.” Every breath and every word was agony!
“I can’t leave you like this.”
“You have to,” he gasped out.
“But…”
“No time. Take light!” He panted between words. “Has detonator -- defuse.”
“Michael, I can’t! I’m not a bomb expert!”
“Talk you through… I’ll… uh!” Michael felt himself losing consciousness and fought against it.
“Michael!”
“Just… do… job, Ki-ta. We’ll all die if you don’t.”
Nikita’s eyes filled with angry tears. Michael was right; it was up to her. She rubbed her eyes and runny nose on her sleeve and picked up the .45.
“Can you hear me on the com-set?” she asked Michael as calmly as she could, while chambering a round.
“Yes,” he whispered back.
“Can anyone else hear me?” Nikita asked aloud.
Faintly she heard Birkoff say, “Nikita? You’re breaking up.”
“It’s all right, Birky…” At least someone else knew they were alive.
“Kita, take this too.” Michael painfully moved his arm towards her and opened his hand. Inside it was a small electronic device.
“What is it?” she asked, taking it out of his hand.
“If he has one of the prototype rifles -- press the button. Be careful.”
Nikita nodded despite wanting to ask questions and dropped the device into her left breast pocket.
Other than the harsh rush of her breathing and the pounding of her heart, the mine tunnel ahead of her was dark, cold and silent. Michael’s flashlight was her lifeline, but also made her a target. Every few feet Nikita turned on the light briefly, looked ahead, then switched it off again, taking her next few steps in the dark.
Minutes passed like hours with Nikita having no true idea of how long or how far she had traveled. Her only guide was the still-fresh boot prints in the powdery dust on the tunnel floor.
There was a sudden sound in the darkness, and Nikita froze in place to listen, just as something scurried over the top of her boot. Terrified at the discovery that it was a rat, Nikita broke out in a cold sweat.
Don’t think about it! She argued with herself. Think about something else! Her thoughts quickly turned to Michael, and almost as if he had heard them, she heard his voice in her ear. “Kita, if you can hear me, don’t speak -- use your code key.” Nikita could hear him struggle for each word.
In response to Michael’s orders, Nikita pressed her index finger once -- for yes -- against the small transceiver in her right ear.
“See him… yet?”
Michael heard two beeps for “no.”
Nikita turned on the light once again to look around, then off again as she proceeded forward. The moment it was dark again, she saw a small, blood red light center itself on the middle of her chest. With a gasp of recognition she dropped and rolled, reaching for the electronic device Michael had given her as she went down.
One shot rang out so close, she felt the air rush by her cheek as the bullet passed. She fumbled in the darkness for the button on the device, pressing it just as the gunman had reacquired her as his target. Holding her breath, Nikita looked at the light centered over her heart and nearly fainted with relief when she heard a harmless click.
She heard someone swear, took aim at the sound with her .45 and pulled the trigger. The shot shattered the silence, and a muffled cry told her that her aim had been true. She low-crawled in the direction of her target, across the dusty floor of the tunnel, until she bumped into something lying motionless in front of her. She prodded the body with the .45 in the dark and received no response. Cautiously, she located the flashlight and turned it on.
Craig Holloway lay face down in the dirt, his vacant blue eyes still open in surprised dismay. Nikita quickly felt for a pulse and finding none turned her attention to looking for the detonator. She didn’t have far to look, finding it only a few feet away from Craig’s body.
“Michael?”
“Yes,” came his faint answer.
“I’ve found the detonator.”
“Check for bobby traps… ” He gasped from the pain of speaking.
Nikita searched and found nothing. “I don’t think he had time to do anything -- I don’t see anything.” She carefully opened the lid to the box containing the detonator and felt the blood suddenly drain from her face. Emerald green numbers glowed softly in the dim light as they calmly counted down the seconds. There were less than five minutes remaining.
“Michael! We have four minutes and 48 seconds! What do I do?” She made no attempt to hide the panic in her voice.
Michael struggled to understand the words in his head, but his ears were ringing, and he could no longer feel his body. And Nikita sounded so far away. . .
“Michael! What do I do?” She called out to him louder. When she got no response, she called out to Walter with the same question.
“I’m… … Su-gar.” Walter’s voice broke up into static. “… knob?”
“A knob? Yes, I see a knob. What do you want me to do?”
“Easy… ” Walter’s voice faded out completely.
“What?!” Nikita pressed her hand against her ear, desperate to hear better.
“Turn it counter… wise.”
Nikita grabbed the knob and tried to do as Walter said, but it refused to move. More seconds ticked by. “It’s stuck!” Nikita began to weep with frustration.
“Try again!” Walter ordered firmly.
But try as hard as she could, the knob wouldn’t budge. With 15 seconds remaining, Nikita went from weeping with fear to screaming in rage.
“YOU-GOD-DAMN-SON-OF-A-BITCHING-PIECE-OF-SHIT!” She took the rifle from Holloway’s dead hands and used the butt of it against the detonator, smashing the box over and over, even as the numbers continued to tick by.
She thought about Michael, lying alone and helpless in the dark, and of Brandon, dying in her arms, and tossed the useless rifle aside for her .45. She had three rounds left, and with a curse for each round, she fired them all. The detonator lights went dark at three seconds to detonation.
Nikita waited, her eyes clamped shut, to be vaporized, but nothing happened until she heard Walter’s voice shouting in her ear, “Nikita! Are you there? Nikita!”
Slumping to her knees, faint from fear and exhaustion, she muttered into her com-set, “Detonation sequence… terminated.”
Back in Section, a grinning Walter jumped to his feet and shouted, “Hey! She did it!” before fainting dead away atop Birkoff’s computer console.
* * *
“Nikita?”
Nikita rolled her head away from the near blinding light.
“What?” She asked wearily.
“Are you hurt?”
Squinting up at the figure bending over her, Nikita recognized Ken Stillman, his cafe-au-lait face frowning with concern.
Nikita attempted to sit up, but Ken pressed her firmly back again. “You’ve got blood all over you. Are you wounded?” His hands were gentle as they probed her arms and shoulders.
“No. Just some cuts and scrapes,” she muttered, looking around in a daze, knowing something was missing.
“Michael!” she said, suddenly alarmed. “He’s hurt -- buried!”
“Calm down,” Stillman said, “they’re digging him out as we speak. Want some water?” He unscrewed the top of his canteen and offered it to her.
Nikita nodded, realizing her mouth was as dry as the dust she’d been lying in. She took a long gulp, followed by several short sips before returning the canteen to him and blotting her mouth on her grimy sleeve.
“Is he still alive?” she asked in a fearful whisper.
“I don’t know,” Stillman answered honestly as he screwed the cap back on the canteen. “Can you walk? We’ve got a stretcher if you need it.”
“I’m okay,” Nikita insisted, rolling on her hip to get to her feet. She staggered a little, and Stillman had to catch her by the elbow to keep her upright. “Easy does it. You’ve had a hard day.” Then he smiled with admiration. “You did a good job, Nikita, and I, for one, owe you more than lunch.” He nodded over at the destroyed detonator. “That was a bit too close for comfort.”
Together they walked to where Michael was being extricated from the cave-in. He had already been immobilized and strapped to a backboard and was being carried down a connecting tunnel that led to a second opening above ground.
“How many did we lose?” Nikita asked, as Stillman helped her aboard the medevac helicopter that was sent in to take out the wounded.
“We got lucky. Two dead -- Phillips and the Meyer kid,” Ken reported quietly. “Plus four wounded -- Michael, Mowen, Roberts and Garrison. We would have lost a lot more if it weren’t for Walter’s Trojan Horses.”
“What Trojan Horses? What do you mean?”
“The weapons Michael and his team “sold” to the Brotherhood. What they didn’t know was with a flick of a switch, we could control the firing mechanisms. Once we got the two with the detonator to separate from the rest, we jammed their weapons and captured them. Of course, a few had other weapons, which is how Roberts and Garrison got it.”
“Why did you have to wait? Why didn’t you just capture all of them?”
“We needed them to lead us to the bomb itself. The Agency didn’t want to take any chances of not finding the bomb, and nobody knew which of the men might know its location. We had to let them show us where to locate it.”
“What about the Brotherhood?”
“All dead except for 14, and after Madeline’s finished ‘debriefing’ them, they’re scheduled for termination.”
“How’s Section going to ‘houseclean’ that many dead?” Nikita asked, knowing the Brotherhood’s losses had to be numbered in the dozens of men.
“Fiery airplane crash in the Rockies during a practice parachute jump,” Ken answered nonchalantly, as if reading a newspaper headline, “… no survivors. As far as everyone’s concerned, today never happened.” He patted her cheek affectionately before stepping back to close the door.
But it had happened, Nikita thought miserably as she sat between the two stretchers containing Michael and Mowen on board the helicopter. The mission had been a success. The Army got back its wayward tactical nuke, minus its battered launch controls, and no civilians were even aware of how close they came to annihilation. The NSA had its mess cleaned up with no one the wiser, and grieving families would bury their dead -- if they could find any parts to bury -- and everyone would chalk it up to poor judgment on the part of a group of skydivers.
Section had already counted the cost as cheap -- only two lives lost -- only two that mattered. But one had been her friend Brandon. She looked down at his ring still on her finger.
“Kita?” Nikita was jolted out of her thoughts by Michael’s soft voice speaking her name.
Nikita leaned over him since he could not turn his head. “How do you feel?” She asked, stroking her fingers gently through the unfamiliar texture of his shortened hair.
“Sorry,” he murmured. His lashes fluttered as he struggled to keep his gray-green eyes open against the pull of the morphine.
“Sorry for what?” she asked, laying one hand atop his forehead and caressing his cheek with the other.
“Wasn’t there… when you needed… me.”
“Shhh, go to sleep. You’re always there for me, Michael. Always.” Nikita watched his eyes close, unsure of whether he heard her or not.
The End
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