A New World: Taken (35 page)

The scene is close to the same as I swing over the concrete perimeter walls; Lynn is with the training group.
 
This time they aren’t too close to my landing spot having learned from the day prior.
 
I settle the Kiowa down with a plop.
 
I’m eager for Lynn to see her mom so I don’t exactly try to ease it in.
 
I’m pretty sure I saw the skids level with my eyes for just a moment.
 
I glance over with an apology for the landing.

Lynn looks over at the clang of my landing.
 
She turns back to the group and then back again noticing I have a passenger.
 
I leave the rotors going and tell Lynn’s mom it’s okay to step out.
 
Well, maybe I should have shut down or maybe briefed her some about the physics of whirling blades overhead.
 
Lynn’s mom steps out and her hat is immediately blown off her head and hurled into the grass.
 
She looks after it sailing into the air but then spots Lynn and all thoughts of her hat are immediately forgotten.
 
I hear her cry of joy as she runs toward Lynn.

I cringe in hope that she remembers to stay ducked and am about to lift off again when she clears the rotor’s edge.
 
Yeah, sometimes I don’t think much.
 
Lynn stands in shock seeing her mom running toward her.
 
There’s not much that will shock Lynn or make her freeze.
 
I believe this is one of the only times I’ve ever seen her do so.
 
Well, that might not be entirely true.
 
There was this time when a few of my buds and I returned after a particularly harrowing mission and relieved a little stress but we won’t talk about that.
 
Let’s just say that we aren’t allowed back at that bar and it cost us a pretty penny to cover the fire damage.
 
Yes, fire in a bar – go figure.

Lynn recovers and runs to her mom.
 
They collide like two freight trains and envelop each other practically squeezing the breath out of each other.
 
I feel a warm, salty droplet run down my cheek.
 
I’m sure it’s sweat.
 
I crank the throttle up and with a lift on the collective, I become airborne once again.
 
With her head tilted, Lynn looks upward questioning what I’m doing.
 
She’ll find out soon enough.

I head back north and radio in for the teams that are to rendezvous at the pickup zone to get ready and head out on their own if I don’t get back in time.
 
I race across the northern part of Lacey; it looks completely different than it did a short while ago as most of the neighborhoods have been burnt to the ground and lie in charred heaps, and across the Nisqually basin.
 
The river leading to the Puget Sound glistens in the sun.
 
A few cranes now line the water’s edge and a couple take flight up the river with my low passage.
 
I land to see Craig standing by the jet with a few bags on the ground beside.
 
I shut down and join him.

“Anything in there you can’t possibly do without for a little while?”
 
I ask pointing at the luggage.

“I suppose not,” he answers.

“Okay, cause I’m not sure where we’ll put them unless we want to duct tape them to the sides.
 
We’ll have a team in the area in an hour or so and I’ll have them swing by and get them,” I say.

“Sounds good,” he replies.

The flight back is about the same as before.
 
The Humvees of the teams heading north for the meet up are driving down the entrance road and I radio them to go pick up a set of bags on the McChord ramp.
 
Craig exits as I begin to shut down.
 
Lynn races over and another collision takes place.
 
Lynn looks over as the rotors come to a stop with the most thankful look I think I’ve ever seen on her.
 
She really does carry that expression a lot when we’re together but not like this.
 
Yeah, I might be getting some tonight
.
 
She is there as I step out and throws her arms around me.

“Thank you so much!!!”
 
She whispers in my ear as we hug.

“I found them wandering around.
 
I think they’re strays.
 
Can we keep them?”

“Jack Walker!”

“Sorry.
 
I’m really glad they made it,” I say into her ear.

“You have no idea how you’ve made my day,” she says with tears still streaming down.

She then kisses me full on the lips and heads over to where Craig and her mom are standing.
 
Yep, I’m definitely getting some
, I think as I watch them walk inside.
 
Lynn calls for Gonzalez to take over her class and instructs her to take them to the shooting range.
 
I’m not sure if the dizzy feeling I have is from the joy of seeing Lynn so happy or from the total body ache I still feel.
 
I practice my sitting maneuver again on the curb lining the parking lot.
 
The headache feels like a dehydration headache or a lack of caffeine but I know it’s not that as I’ve had enough of both water and coffee.

I sit in warm sunlight.
 
It’s a nice day and the breeze blowing across my body feels good.
 
I feel a warm flush in my cheeks and seriously wonder if I don’t have a fever.
 
It’s just a flu bug
, I think as I rise to head inside to catch up on Watkins’ progress and hear if the teams find anyone.
 
Gonzalez walks over.
 
I think she should’ve been with the class and look over to see McCafferty standing with the group at the range.

“You should really come see this, sir,” Gonzalez says reaching me.

“What?”
 
I ask feeling very tired and drained.

“You’ll have to see it for yourself,” she says.

With a heavy sigh, I follow her to the range.
 
Robert, Bri, and several others are lying prone in their individual stations shooting at targets downrange.
 
She leads me to Bri lying next to Robert.
 
Handing me a pair of binoculars, she points to the target Bri is taking individual shots at.
 
I bring the binoculars up and focus on the target.
 
This seems to enhance the brilliance of the day and it takes me a second to adjust.

I see a large hole in the middle ring of Bri’s target.
 
She’s placing every shot dead center at the 500 meter target.
 
I hear the muted pop as she squeezes off another round.
 
The target doesn’t move as the round passes through the already formed hole.
 
Bloody impressive.
 
I doubt I could shoot that well.
 
I turn the binoculars to Robert’s target and find much the same result.

“Nice job, you two,” I say handing the binoculars back to Gonzalez.

“Thanks, Dad,” Bri says looking up from her prone position.

She still has a splint on her arm but seems to be able to fire well with it.
 
Okay, that’s an understatement.
 
Robert looks up with a grin.
 
Yeah, firing a gun is fun and they are both enjoying their time on the range.
 
I know I always enjoyed it.
 
A warm flush spreads through my body and the dizziness comes on strongly again.
 
It’s as if everything has lost clarity.
 
I suddenly see dirt filling my vision but without any confusion accompanying it; it just is.
 
I don’t even feel the impact with the ground as everything goes black.

*
  
*
  
*
  
*
  
*
  
*

Bri is out on the firing range again.
 
She smells the dirt beneath her as she lies on the hard packed ground sighting through her scope.
 
The targets are small in the distance but jump closer as she flips the lever on the scope to the 4x setting.
 
She turns the dot intensity knob to a setting where she can see the dot and target without either overshadowing the other.
 
Robert is lying next to her doing much the same.
 
Gonzalez shouts telling everyone to load up and begin firing.
 
She takes the mag and inserts it.
 
Her arm still aches slightly with the maneuver and she pulls the charging handle chambering a round.

Gonzalez and McCafferty have taken them out for their training again today.
 
Her dad is still lies unconscious on his cot and Lynn hasn’t left his side since yesterday.
 
He had come out to see their shooting and fell to the ground shortly after praising them.
 
One moment she is looking up at her dad smiling down at her with a pair of binoculars in his hand and the next he crumples to the ground.
 
That image is stuck in her mind.
 
Her dad standing with his M-4 shouldered, the suppressed barrel sticking up behind his shoulder, the binoculars in one hand, his ammo-laden vest over black fatigues, his tired eyes looking down and the smile on his face.
 
And then watching as his eyes roll back and he falls limply to the ground with a thud.

She remembers the panic she felt watching his ungraceful slide to the ground.
 
Gonzalez had shouted for McCafferty to go get Lynn as she knelt beside her dad.
 
Soon Bri and Robert were kneeling beside him as well.
 
His face looked red and his breathing came in gasps.
 
Gonzalez checked his pulse and Lynn showed up.
 
They retrieved a cot and carried him inside.
 
They all sat with him for most of the night and Bri feels the tiredness of staying up so late.
 
He didn’t wake up or move the whole night.

Those memories flash through her mind as she sights downrange and squeezes off the first round.
 
She feels the small kick against her shoulder as her M-4 talks to her.
 
She feels it become just another part of her as it responds to her wishes.
 
The weapon against her shoulder is just another extension of herself.
 
She feels a comfort with it in her hands.
 
With each pull of the trigger, she feels an anger build within.
 
She is like her dad in that manner; that fear will turn to anger.
 
She has heard him mention that before but never really realized what he meant until now.
 
It was one of those things she’d just shrugged off thinking it was just her dad talking.

She thinks of Nic and the anger builds.
 
She is incredibly sad that Nic isn’t here and misses her so much.
 
Tears well in her eyes blurring the target in her scope.
 
She blinks them away but the feeling remains.
 
She is oblivious to all around her except her thoughts and the target.
 
The M-4 locks as she runs through her ammo.
 
She inserts another mag lying beside her, flips the release and continues firing.
 
Each round that exits increases the feeling inside; feelings of both sorrow and anger.

She centers the dot on the target again after recovering from the barrel raising a small amount.
 
The sadness of remembering Nic folds into anger as she realizes that she won’t ever see Nic again.
 
She has known that of course but locked it down for too long.
 
The feelings she stowed away now surface.
 
She is angry and fearful for her dad lying sick on his cot.
 
She thinks it has something to do with the scratch he received on his neck some time ago that hasn’t completely healed.
 
She knows several soldiers died from such scratches, well, really bites, they had received.
 
Nic is gone and her dad is sick and who knows if he’ll recover.
 
Both are a result of confrontations with night runners and her anger is directed towards them.

She resolves to see every night runner dead.
 
They took her sister away and now possibly her dad and she’ll see every single one of them dead.
 
The target in the distance becomes another night runner and her eyes narrow as she puts her dot square on it.
 
She replaces another mag and continues firing.
 
She feels an inner toughness build.
 
The pain in her arm vanishes.
 
There is only the night runner (target) in front of her, the red dot, and the trigger.
 
A voice intrudes on the bubble she has created.
 
“Cease fire, I said,” she hears Gonzalez shout.

Bri removes her finger from the trigger and looks up to see Gonzalez standing over her.
 
Bri had become so focused on her feelings and the target – yes, they are only targets now – that she lost everything else.
 
Even Robert is looking over at her from his position with a quizzical look.
 
She feels the burning in her eyes from the tears and feels slightly ashamed of having them.
 
She wipes her eyes and Gonzalez kneels down beside her.