Smoke

As I visually dissected the house around me, a noise started to piss me off. It was some kind of annoying whining and squeaking, and all I wanted was for it to shut the fuck up. Unfortunately for me, he was unlikely to stop until I stopped standing on his face. I’d ignored him for a while, but since everyone else was dead and the house was otherwise abandoned, his incessant whining was the only sound left.

“God, please, I don’t know where she is! Fuck, just… please just let me go. I don’t know anything!”

His words were garbled underneath my boot, but I understood him well enough. I had plenty—entirely too much—experience listening to people beg for their lives. His bound hands twitched and strained against the nylon as I twisted my boot and squatted down.

“Could you find her?” I asked him.

“I don’t know where she is!”

“Could you show me someone who does?”

“What? No, man, I told you, I don’t—”

The rest of his words dissolved into the blood that poured out of his mouth. I pulled my knife from his lungs and wiped it off on my pants. I sheathed my knife and walked back up the stairs to the window I’d crawled in hours before. I’d been searching long enough; I didn’t have time to waste on a low-level idiot who doesn’t even know who might know where she was.

Four months. Four fucking months I’d been searching. Four months while Al was still off somewhere she couldn’t escape from, four months of her being alone, four months of fear, four months of torture, four months of me being a complete fucking failure just after I’d promised her she’d never be alone again.

And the time was still ticking by.

I’d known better than to put all of my hopes of finding Al into that building. The first two buildings Daze sent me to were busts; I had no reason to think the third would be the holy grail that finally brought my little one back to me. But after searching every square inch of the building and killing anyone who tried to stop me, I had to admit defeat. Al wasn’t there.

I laid down on top of the covers in the bed the tiny room housed. Like a moron, I pulled out my phone. Nothing from Al, of course, but I did have eight new missed calls from Momma. Three less than yesterday. She must have been busy. I put away my personal cell and pulled out the burner. Three texts from Daze: two to keep me posted and one to ask for updates.

Daze told Dixon my “lead” was a little off, and I’d need to stay dark a while longer. That’s what I’d told her to tell him when I left. I knew he’d never accept it from me. Rather than disobey the direct order I knew he’d give, I left and had Daze relay the message. He called twice the first day, but nothing after that. Dixon was a short, angry man with control issues, but he wasn’t dumb enough to come after me when I clearly had something that needed to be done. He damn sure wasn’t stupid enough to pull me too hard after he called Al “collateral damage” and decided we wouldn’t be looking for her.

The second message from Daze let me know that there were no leads on Cyrus, but Simon, our new tech guy, had a couple of possible matches on one of his cronies. One in Oldham, one in Gainsborough, both about a forty-five-minute drive away in opposite directions. Neither were cities I’d ever been to, and I was going to have to steal a different car to get there. I’d been in the last one too long.

The third message said the same thing it always said. “Simon, Sam, and I can help if you let us. Please tell us where you are, and we can come to you.” She knew I wouldn’t tell her the same way I knew why she kept saying it. Dixon, and likely everyone above him, wanted to know what the hell I was doing and where I was. I’d left my Army-issued phone in Edinburgh, but they could track my personal cell if they got desperate enough to admit they’d lost control of me and needed to track me down. I was cocky and paranoid enough to believe they might, but I couldn’t leave it behind. It was the only number I was sure Al knew by heart that would reach me.

I looked down at my body sprawled across the bed a few seconds longer before heaving myself off it. It had only been 30 hours since I slept. I could get to Oldham before things started getting dicey. I didn’t remember deciding on Oldham over Gainsborough, but that was the destination I had in mind. It was the longest I’d ever been on the move and the least amount of sleep as well. I trusted myself to keep making the best decisions, but trying to understand the thought processes that got me to those decisions was a crapshoot.

I made my way downstairs, stole crackers and granola bars from the kitchen, and stepped out the door. I turned around, hand still on the knob, and pretended to lock the door behind me. I didn’t see anyone else on the street, but that didn’t mean no one saw me.

I walked to the end of the street, made a left, and entered the next lane of houses. At just after 0600, most of the homes had at least one light on, and I knew I needed to hurry. I eyed the house about a quarter of a mile down the street with no lights and checked the mailbox. Letters stuck out of the small slit at the top of the box, and there was a car in the driveway. A beautiful, clunker of a project car that looked like it was snatched straight out of a junkyard in the 80s.

Perfect.

I found the VIN on the dash, took a picture on the burner, and sent it to Daze. It took me all of two minutes to get the car rolling down the street. Best case, the owners were still on summer vacation and wouldn’t report it missing for at least a few days. Worst case, one of the neighbors saw me take it and had already called the cops. Either way, I figured Daze could pull some strings, and I could at least get to Oldham.

When I finally reached the highway, I didn’t have to shift as much, and my hands grew bored. I fidgeted with everything I could. I ran my fingers through the newly grown beard under my mask. I tapped out messages to Al on my leg. I knew she’d never get them, and the messages didn’t bring me any level of comfort. They kept my mind and hands just busy enough to keep me from imploding. I cracked my knuckles until they refused to cooperate. I finally reached into the console and found some old ball bearings, a lighter, restaurant napkins, and a needle. I tossed the needle into the backseat. I took out the ball bearings and rolled them around in my hand.

The A62 looked just like an American interstate. If I had Al beside me and I hadn’t been driving on the wrong side of the road, I could almost believe I was back at home.

Soon, little one. Soon.

#

I got off the interstate and cruised the residential district for about ten minutes before I saw the open house sign. It was scheduled for the next Saturday; I had three days to use it. The key was held in a combination lock hanging from the doorknob. I rounded the corner of the house looking for anything plastic. I found a small gnome, but I knew Al would have a fit if she found out I’d shaved off part of his hat.

In the backyard, there were four chairs around a fire pit. I shaved a long, thin sliver of plastic off the arm of the chair. I walked back around to the front door and prayed all the neighbors were at work or still asleep. I slid the piece of plastic into the crack next to the first number, rolled through the digits until the plastic twitched, and then went on to the next one. When the lock clicked open, I pulled the key out, let myself into the house, and relocked the door.

I turned around to find Daze, Sam, and Simon standing at the bottom of the stairs, staring at me. I assumed it was Simon, anyway. He was a tall, lanky guy with a crew cut, which told me this was the first task force he’d been a part of. He was probably a draftee who was lucky enough to be good with a computer and, I guessed, related to Dixon. So, they pulled him out of the ranks to be with us. They probably figured he’d be safer that way.

I really didn’t have time to deal with them, but if Daze was already to the point of forcing cooperation on me, I knew it’d be easier to bring her along.

“If you’d already gone through the trouble of tracking me down, you could’ve at least let me in,” I said. I moved to the living room and sat down in front of the fireplace.

“It’s hardly ‘tracking’ you down if I’m the one giving you locations,” Daze said as she sat opposite me.

“Uh huh. So, how’d you know I’d come to this house?”

“We know you better than you think, asshole.”

The name was bitter coming off her tongue. Nothing at all like when Al said it to me.

“I’m not doubting that,” I told her. “But I don’t even know why I decided to come here. How did you know I would?”

She rolled her eyes but answered me anyway. “You cleared the bulk of Gainsborough about three weeks ago. The lead I sent you was good, but the odds were better she’d be found here.”

“So where does Dixon think you are?”

“I told him we needed to do some recon here. I didn’t tell him I figured you’d be here, too. We’re expected back in a week.”

Sam said, “We told him a month, but he whittled it down to a week.”

“And if it takes longer than that?” My voice came out lower than I meant for it to. I didn’t want it to take longer than an hour to find Al, but if it did, I needed to know what they were prepared to do.

Sam shrugged. “Then we keep looking.”

“You’ll be AWOL.”

“And we’re prepared to deal with that.”

“Sam, don’t—”

“What? Be stupid?” Sam’s voice was low and cold in a way I’d never heard him use. I’d seen the man in various shades of disarray, but he’d never spoken like that to me before. Not even on his darkest days. He almost sounded like he was getting ready to fight. “I’m not going to pretend to know what all is going on between you two, but she’s important to us, too. AWOL or not, she’s our friend, and we’ve lost enough of them lately. Plus, working with your hard-headed ass to get our friend back is still better than listening to Dixon talk shit every day.”

Daze chimed in, her voice small and gentle, before I had time to ask what exactly Dixon had been saying. “We’ve been here just over a day. Simon hung around the gas station Cyrus’s lackey gets his cigarettes every day until said lackey showed up. Simon got him to talk, and we don’t know exactly where they’re holed up, but we know they’re close to it. Within a couple of miles. The guy said it was only a five-minute drive to the gas station from his ‘job.’ A two-mile radius, Smoke. We can find her.”

Her brown eyes pleaded with me. She knew I couldn’t make her go back to Scotland, but she needed me to willingly include her in this. Between Bob’s death, Al’s kidnapping, and my absence, the team had barely held itself together. I felt a twinge of guilt. I’d known Daze a long time, Al even longer. I’d watched and worked with both of them enough to damn near be able to read their minds. I watched as the two of them get close—closer than I’d seen Al get to any woman other than her mom—the couple of months Al was with us. They’d instantly fallen in-sync, fusing at the hip faster than I could process.

Daze needed this almost as much as I did.

“You’re going to have to keep up,” I told them. “I won’t slow down for you, any of you.” I glared at Simon, who hunched his shoulders. “If you can’t keep up, I will leave you behind. What’d you bring?” I asked, nodding to the bag by Daze’s feet.

“MREs, extra knives, a couple of flashlights, extra 9mm, two tracking devices, rope, and water,” Daze said as she slid the bag to me.

“I brought you clean underwear and socks,” Simon said. They may have been the first words he ever spoke directly to me. I left the FOB as soon as I confirmed Al was taken, and he was assigned to the task force maybe a week later. I raised an eyebrow at him.

“You went through my underwear drawer?” I asked, then I turned to Sam. “Where the fuck did you find this guy?”

Simon said, “We stopped at a store in Edinburgh. I bought you new ones. I guessed on the sizes, but I figured anything would be better than what you have.”

I nodded at him to show my thanks and took the bag. Going out among the general public was never a good idea for me. No one could see my face, but several countries had files on “the guy in the mask.” I didn’t need any extra attention.

Sam sent Simon to heat up a few of the MREs as Daze pulled out a map. She pointed out the gas station where Cyrus’s minion talked to Simon, and she drew a circle with a two-mile radius around it. We were about twenty minutes from the closest part of the circle. Daze said they walked around it a bit, and it was mostly shops, a couple of restaurants, one warehouse, and one apartment building.

“Are the shops standalones or in a mall?” I asked her.

“Most of them are in a strip mall. The whole area is pretty rundown.”

“Yeah,” Sam chimed in. “The apartment building looks like Dahmer’s.” Daze snapped her attention to Sam, which caused a brief, tense pause. Sam broke it with, “Sorry.”

“I’ll check out the apartment building. Sam, you can walk around the mall and see if anyone looks like they’re dealing in more than just products. Daze, take Simon and see what’s going on at the warehouse. You can leave at 1030. Plenty of time to eat and rest before most of the shops open. Did you find anything out about the car I took?”

Daze shook her head. “We were already here when you sent me the VIN. I could have Lincoln check, but you know she’ll have questions.”

I waved my hand to dismiss the notion. Simon came in with two MREs. He started yapping about how the other two were still on the stove, but they were almost done. Daze tried to give me one, but I declined.

“Jessie’s AWOL,” Daze said.

My eyebrows scrunched. “Why?”

“Well, she probably figured that was better than the court martial she’d have for letting Cyrus out.” I didn’t say anything, and Daze finally continued. “She went in, pretended to be Lincoln, took him from his cell, and let him loose. That’s how he got out and why she was there just before Cyrus took Alis.”

I was quiet for a long time, too long. Jessie and Alis had always had some tension there, but to work with the man who wanted to take her… I decided to get answers about that later. I’d had my suspicions about Jessie’s loyalty for a long time—too long. We could figure who to kill and how painful it should be later. The first step had to be getting Al back to me.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to split up,” Daze said before she took another bite.

“For who?” I asked her, my voice colder than I meant for it to be. “Yes, the four of us would be safer travelling in a group. But it would take longer. It’s a bad idea for our safety for us to split up. It’s the best idea for Alis.”

“We can’t help Alis if we’re dead, Smoke.” Her tone was still gentle, but her eyes threatened to burn me.

“Fine. You three can go together if you want,” I said, and I stood and turned toward the door.

“You said we’d leave at 1030,” she called after me.

“I said you could. Seriously, eat. Rest. Everyone meet back here at 1400.”

Daze started to say something else as the door clicked shut behind me.