Invasion (26 page)

If the copter has F.L.I.R. thermal imaging we need to hide all heat signatures. Rapidly as I can I drag the bike to the deep snow, covering it up, hoping it’s enough to mask a hot engine, and then bury myself in the deepest snow drift I can find. It’ll help staunch the bleeding and hide us from the hunters, if we don’t perish of hypothermia first.

Time lapses and bends, warping while I grow increasingly chilled, the fogginess plaguing me getting worse. I need to keep mental clarity, and I have to maintain all faculties. We can’t hide away until we’re safe from danger.

God damn I’m tired of the constant jeopardy. Even superman needs to rest. God himself had to after just six days. I’ve been at this for three fucking months.

Chancing it after counting to 200 000 I shake off the snow from my head, exposing myself to the bitter breeze, listening intently.

It’s gone.

Relief is a living sensation when I flop back, sagging, breathing deeply for the first time in ages. Climbing out of the snowy grave I head to her, unearthing her snowdrift, so happy to see clear green eyes peeking at me like jewels left by the fairies.

“Are you alright, sweets?”

“C-cold,” she chatters.

She’s got no fat stores, no padding to protect her, and again I rue this. “Are you sure you want to come with me? It’s not safe, Carly.”

“Ask me again and you’ll regret it,” she scowls, using my help to lever up and out of her predicament.

Together we unearth the bike, and I pray it’s new enough to not have issues if the spark plugs get wet. Turning the key, it thrums to life, and I bow my head, feverish sweat slicking my forehead. Thank god.

Twisting, I grasp her waist, lifting her off her feet and back to in front of me, giving her my body heat in the hopes it’ll help her thaw, then struggle to get the backpack and M249 back on my shoulder.

I’m uncharacteristically weary tonight. I need a haven for one night. I need sleep, sustenance, fuel, respite … mercy.

I don’t waste precious energy on conversation, I just angle the bike North and gun us out of the wilderness towards my destination. From the cabin to Canada shouldn’t take longer than an hour. We have the fuel. I have some food in my backpack, and medical supplies. I just need to hold on for a little longer.

Hitting the interstate to New Brunswick, I drive.

The further we go the foggier it gets.

Winter traveling is brutal in every way.

I can’t see a fucking thing in this mist.

Carly:

I feel his arms go slack when we’re far over the border. I’m so thirsty and ache everywhere, but I’m being brave. Love is brave. Right?

But all my courage vanishes when the strong man behind me slumps his weight into me. It’s a struggle for me to stay upright, the bike swerving dangerously into oncoming traffic on the motorway, and I grab the handles and yank furiously.

I don’t know how to ride a bike, I never learned, and now the speed is gone and we’re sitting ducks in the middle of oncoming Mac trucks and U-hauls!

It’s inevitable, a car nicks us and we shudder and grind, blasted across the icy asphalt, skidding into a long slide, the squealing of brakes all around me, and I brace for impact while keeping his arms tightly wrapped to me with my hands releasing the bike to hold onto him, clutching onto him for dear life, unwilling to risk him rolling into the road.

The chaff and abrasion still hurts in the long slide, despite the ice, and we smash into the huge wall of snow scooped to the side of the main thoroughfare.

Sirens wail too soon and I freak out, running from the road to him and back and forth and back again, wondering if he’s okay, needing help, but afraid of help because the agencies don’t deserve to interrogate a man with no memory.

Oh my god oh my god oh my god.

Screaming anguish into the gloom I’m fearful as concerned witnesses run toward us, the demanding siren of medical assistance scything through the early morning.

Oh god!

What do I do? What do I
dooo
?

Secrets are best disclosed in the final breath

Carly:

A
fter severe blood loss David collapsed, the bike crashing, the two of us picked up by Canadian medics.

I felt like a walking idiot when they checked us over, finding fresh wounds cut into our chests, but where I stabbed him … oh god I’ll never forgive myself.

He nearly died because of me!

They did x-rays and ultrasounds to see exactly where the damage was, and I’ve chewed through all my nails and my bottom lip waiting for them to tell me if he’ll be okay.

I missed all major organs, but they had to disinfect the wound, stitch him up, and give him a transfusion for all the blood he lost. But then I had to pay the bill. I have to pay for the ambulance and a small fee for the hospital, and I’m afraid to use my card to withdraw money.

Oh my god, this is all such a terrible mess. He’s got money and I’ve got money, and neither of us can touch it because of the insane situation we’re in.

$250 for medics treating David at the scene of the accident. $385 for being transported to hospital. An additional $200 surcharge because we’re not locals. Plus I have to pay for surgery, the blood, the sundries, and I’m freaking out!

Dragging his enormous bag to the toilets I hide in a stall and unzip it, going through it, finding clothes, water, food, weapons and .. tahdah! - the money I gave him!

Thank god!

Quickly I sit on the toilet seat and count it. It’s more than I gave him, in fact I’m pretty sure that this is my emergency stash from the snowman.

Instantly grumpy, I just as fast rationalize that this
is
an emergency, these
are
extenuating circumstances, and in all honesty stealing my money is forgivable. It’s not exactly like he had the time to ask if he could take it.

Counting it while helping myself to a bottle of water and four breakfast bars, we have more than enough to cover the medical bills, and enough to go and have a really hot, really greasy breakfast, somewhere
really
warm.

Relief relaxes my tension and I use the privacy to tug my bloody shirt and jacket off. Between his blood and mine we look like we’ve been rolling in roadkill. Nothing can come between us now. This is a bonding experience if ever there was one. Folks say sex joins two people, I beg to differ. Drama and trauma and living through an ordeal together bonds people like lava hardening. It’s indomitable.

Wearing the biggest shirt I’ve ever worn, and another of his sweaters, I exit the stall, chuck my wrappers away, and go to pay the extortion.

David
:

After ten hours I finally regain consciousness, remembering everything.

In a private meltdown of regret and worry I recall that I’m a mole, and have been working for the wrong side since my second tour in Iraq. I’m on two payrolls, one for the Priory of Fidai via the double agent Tarinda Sadiq, feeding them info on the politicians opposing the human trafficking accelerated by the US marines, and they’re being assassinated based on my intel, plus I’m being paid for dark operations as an ex SEAL for Elizabeth Markham and the ex German, Patrick Murphy.

Murphy and Lizzy worked together without my knowledge, sanctioning the exploitation of human trafficking out of the US in unmarked carriers used exclusively for military supplies. No border or dock had the security clearance to search those containers. The plan was flawless. Except I also answer to President Markham and know who was opposing, and fighting, for bills to prevent this illegal activity attributed mainly to cartels.

It explains my bank balance. It explains everything.

Lizzy saved my life when she faked my death for the second time. After she died I erroneously contacted Gareth Smith who I did not know was in on the corruption at the very top of the food chain. He ordered the hit on me.

President Markham interceded, wanting to question me on what happened to Lizzy. Telling me in his call that he was always aware that we were having an affair because unbeknown to anyone they had an open marriage. Because he’s secretly gay. He’s in the closet because to be otherwise would’ve ended his illustrious career prematurely. He knows there’s something amiss and offered me full immunity if I gave up everyone.

I agreed and was on my way to see him when I was ambushed. The next thing I was waking up in Boston with no recollection at all, no identity, and destitute.

I’ve administered that injection myself, many times. Very few people even know of the medical technology at our disposal. When someone is too much of a problem, but silencing them through death isn’t an option, they get the needle and have permanent amnesia.

Well, the technology is faulty because here I am, back in all my glory. And I never had cause or reason to marry, being a bachelor was far too rewarding in my line of business.

I’m lawless, a political nomad, loyal only to money. Women outnumber men in the west, the east has use for them, it’s a win win situation for all involved.

There’s a massive market for sex slaves. It’s biblical for them, a man can have a wife
and
a sex slave. A sex slave does not need to be Muslim, she can be an infidel. In fact it’s preferred because a sex slave can have no boundaries and you can mistreat her to death, literally fuck and cut her up dead, and Allah sees no shame in it; because she is not your wife.

It means you can use her any way you want and never have to answer to God for it. The military helps get them out of the country and into international waters, without local law enforcement ever being able to track the missing women.

The cartels kidnap the women, the military smuggles them out. What tax dollars pay for would make most patriots turn to anarchy.

I sold women into a lifetime of slavery – for my country, to fund the war, to secure oil, to fund the offshore accounts, to fund the fetish of a defunct presidential first lady. Markham didn’t just turn a blind eye to Lizzy’s addictions, they indulged in snuff films, making them – together. Good lord, if the nation knew what I knew the scandal would rock the foundation of democracy.

Women die every day while Gareth Smith fucks them, and he fostered an appetite for such power when on an International relations stint with the Sheikh Almud in Saudi Arabia.

Women were born to be owned, they exist solely for a man’s pleasure. Nothing I’ve done is an abomination in the eyes of a misogynistic god. The female body is the greatest export of contraband out of the United States, sanctioned by its majority vote Matriarch. Markham’s closest advisors partake of the goods themselves.

I am not a good man.

I never was.

I destroy and slay for financial gain. Trained to be a merciless tool of mass destruction, my soul fled until Carly called it back into my body.

She’ll suffer the same fate. They’re hunting me and because she rejoined my flight they’ll assume I know who I am, and what I am, and what I know, and she’ll have to be silenced ‘as a matter of national security’. To preserve the farce of good leadership and having ‘the interests of the people as a primary goal’.

If she’s exported in the next shipment she’ll never be free. Those women have no access to running water, never mind technology. Without papers she can’t escape, and even if she went to the US embassy she’d find no haven. She’s as good as dead. No; a fate worse than death, far worse. There’s only one way to save her.

I have to murder her.

Memory isn’t all restored at once, and if I thought I had problems before … my new intel has me almost neurotic that discovery and threat is around every corner.

Escaping the hospital we ran for Nova Scotia, where we found another disused cabin, locking us in on the edge of a lake iced over in the snow.

Switching the radio on, filling our final destination with Christmas carols, I turn to Carly, pulling her into my arms while we dance. We’re the scarred, the wounded, and yet we still have the wealth of the cosmos glowing in our eyes. We have love; we have everything.

It’s now in this magical moment on Christmas eve that I remember something which devastates me. It destroys all hope.

I have an implant. It’s how they find me time and again. I cannot escape. I’ll never escape.

Most think it’s a pacemaker, it’s not.

It’s a device which monitors my life, my heartbeat. If they kill me their secret gets out anyway because this was my backup plan, insurance some would call it. But it’s also a physical weakness, a device that can be hacked if they know which number was assigned to me. Clearly they’ve managed that feat.

When my heart stops the lack of electrical feedback will trigger a mass darknet bulletin. Owe a man your life and he will haunt your memories unto death.

The package will be delivered when my heart stops.

The names will be released, the President will be arrested, all their secrets will be known the world over, in a moment. Who they supplied with military arms, weapons of destruction, money, and trafficking women via Saudi Arabia to the east.

In this moment I finally recognize who I am.

I am Carly’s nemesis.

She just never knew it. She was my enemy ever since she started fighting for the rights of the millions of girls and women who go missing every year. I was ordered to end her. In my amnesic state I was drawn to her, finding familiarity and chemistry – purely because I’d studied her for six long months before it all went to hell in a hand basket. The clusterfuck is that I fell in love with the last women I was sanctioned to murder; by a dead first lady. My queen.

Looking down into the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen, I fall back into her, resting my weary soul inside hers, knowing it’ll be safe when I’m gone. The only way to save this world is for me to die. For you to die. You, my new queen, the one I will die to protect.

I’m doing this for you my sweetheart, my precious Pixie.

I love you.

I’m sorry.

We have no time, the tracing and chasing will never cease. Already they know where we are, already I know they come to finish what they started. But they have to be held accountable for what they’ve done.

I can stop this. I can do one thing right in this abominable life, and to do something right I have to do something so heinously wrong. I’ve slain hundreds in my time on this planet, but this one, this one pains me.