Marie (Teumessian Trilogy Book 1) (5 page)

              “Why are you getting Ethan out first? Why does it matter?” Austin asked.

              “I have a plan. Just trust me,” Michael replied.

              Austin began to get ready to protest again.

              “Just do as instructed,” Samuel ordered to Austin. Austin was silent. David was working fast and was able to disconnect Ethan from Michael,

              “Ok now get Ethan and Marie separated.” Michael ordered.

              “Hang on I want out too, these things are agitating my wrist.” Justin protested.

              “Seriously, don’t be a baby. You will be out soon enough.” David replied. David was fast at work getting Marie and Ethan separated. David was finally able to get them apart.

              “Ok. Separate yourself David. Marie and Ethan get to the basement to find the key. You two are the fastest and most agile and last time I was in the basement it was a disaster of stuff. You two can get around all of it the fastest. You have twenty minutes since we have thirty five minutes left. If you don’t find it in that time frame get back up here, David can get the rest of the way out with the paperclip and we all have to be out of the cuffs before the hour is up.” Marie and Ethan nodded their heads and ran out of the gym towards the basement.

              “Why are you after the key now?” Austin asked.

              “Because he knows that we might be asked for it. Smart move, Michael.” Samuel said Michael grinned as David separated himself from Michael.

              Marie and Ethan had moved swiftly to the basement door, down the flight of metal stairs.

              “Ok there is too much here.” Marie got flustered and looked at her watch. “We have fifteen minutes. Let’s separate and meet back in ten minutes here.”

              Ethan nodded his head.

              Marie instantly started to check the metal shelves that lined the border of the room. Ethan climbed up to the top of the large wooden crates that filled the room.

              “Be careful I’m pretty sure those have weapons in them.” Marie yelled to Ethan. Marie was frantically searching the shelves as Ethan was moving from crate to crate checking the tops and in-between the crates for a key.

              “Got it!” Ethan yelled.

              Marie smiled. She loved it when Ethan would talk. She hadn’t heard his voice in over a month. He had always struggled with speech, even when they were children. He stuttered and as a child the other boys had teased him for it and Marie always felt that he didn’t speak not because he couldn’t but because he didn’t want to.

              “Let’s go. We only have five minutes to get back up in our time frame.” Marie said with a smile, helping Ethan down from the crate, Ethan was busy taking the remaining cuff off his arm. Once down he handed it to Marie who did the same. They ran as fast as they could and returned to the group within one minute on their time in the basement to spare. “Ethan found it!” Marie exclaimed as they entered the gym. David was still at work freeing Austin and Samuel, there were three locks to go. Marie handed the key to Michael was quickly unlocked the remaining three locks.

              Michael instantly looked at his watch, “Ten minutes to spare,” he said proudly.

              “We are the best!” Justin said with a laugh and dancing around the room. Everyone laughed. “Let’s put the cuffs together, a nice little display,” Justin said with a laugh.

              “Let’s not. We completed the mission and now we wait for Sir to return.” Samuel ordered back.

              Justin started to pick up handcuffs, “Drop them.” Michael ordered “Samuel is right we wait for Bruce.”

              “You’re no fun and besides you are supposed to call him Sir, you better not mention his name with him around.” Justin said dropping the handcuffs.

              “I will call him whatever I want.” Michael sneered back.

              “And we are going to do, what, now just sit here for ten minutes?” Justin questioned.

              “Yes just sit still. It will be a new thing for you.” Michael said with a laugh.

              A moment later Bruce and Kenneth walked in. “I see you are done.” Bruce said to the group. They all stood at attention.

              “Yup, all detached,” David said proudly.

              “And the key?” Bruce asked.

              “Not like we needed it but Michael’s got it.” David replied.

              “What do you mean you didn’t need it?” Kenneth asked.

              “I picked most of the locks.” David said with such pride in his work. The rest could see Bruce wasn’t impressed.

              “So what you broke some out and they went and found the key? You didn’t go as a group to the basement to find it?” Bruce questioned.

              “This was Michael’s idea” Austin replied. Samuel shot Austin a dirty look then looked at Bruce who was looking straight at Michael. Michael was facing forward and not making eye contact with him.

              “The instructions were not clear that we had to use the key to in fact get out. You only offered the key as a possible solution to getting out of the cuffs. The key was always a last resort in case we couldn’t get the locks picked fast enough. Trying to get all of us to the basement and around it handcuffed was not a feasible option and it would not have worked and we would have failed.” Michael responded still not making eye contact with Bruce.

              “It could have possibly worked with the right leadership. However, our leader made the call and we followed and we were successful,” Samuel added.

              “What did you use to pick the locks?” Kenneth asked.

              “A paperclip we found on your desk, Sergeant” David said, still quite proudly.

              “You shits touched my desk!” Kenneth yelled.

              Marie felt her body shake. He was mad and they would feel the wrath from it.

              ”Who touched the desk?” Kenneth questioned still visibly mad, red-faced with a large vein popping from his bald head. Nobody spoke; they all looked to each other.

              “We found the paperclip.” Michael replied.

              “We? I want to know who touched the desk.” Kenneth yelled.

              “We found the paperclip.” Michael replied again, everyone else was silent.

              Kenneth walked over, “I want a name”

              “We” Michael responded.

              Kenneth lunged back to punch Michael but Bruce stopped him. Bruce was laughing, Kenneth was not.

              “Calm down, you can’t find anything on that desk as is. If tweedle dumb over there hadn’t told you they touched your desk you would have never known, so let it go,” Bruce ordered.

              Kenneth was regaining his composure, “Touch my stuff again and I will make your lives miserable.” Kenneth ordered to the group as he walked out of the room.

              “So you passed, you completed the task in the assigned window of time. Congratulations. However I would suggest teaching your little mouthy one to keep his mouth shut about your techniques. That’s a good way to end up dead.” Bruce said glaring at David. “You are all dismissed.” Bruce turned and left the room, a grin was on his face. They were right where they were supposed to be, problem solving at a fast rate and following the directions of one, their leader, Michael. Now all Bruce had to do was to make sure Michael followed his.

Chapter 6

Bruce had watched them even closer after that day to see if the team status would remain the same. Michael had become even more protective of Marie and the others resented it a bit. The others knew it was due to his romantic interests in her. Bruce found it to be fascinating. He always figured it was Michael’s way of establishing dominance. He was the alpha male after all. It was only fitting that he claimed the only female. Time passed slowly but their progress didn’t. They excelled at a rapid pace. They developed into both strong physically and strong willed individuals. Michael held command as Bruce had anticipated. They listened to him and they followed his instructions. Training was a daily occurrence and by the age of twenty two only Michael led exercises.

“Line up.” Michael ordered flashing his bright smile.

“Yes sir, thank you sir.” Justin replied with a grin stepping up to the red line on the training floor.

“Drop the attitude. It isn’t funny.” Samuel added walking towards the line with Austin following behind. Ethan followed along with Marie and David close behind. They were all there and ready. Dressed in their training greys, they were designed to be comfortable and to not restrict movement when trainings. They were tight and showed off their extremely fit physiques.

“Today is course day.” Michael said and with a firm hand pointed to the new course in front of them.

“You changed everything,” Samuel said with a frown. The normal equipment was gone and in its place was an elaborate combination of bars and mats, with no ladders to get up them or across them. “It was designed by Sir and Sargent the way it was for a reason. Did you have a real reason to change it?” Samuel continued.

“I’m digging it,” Justin said with a smile, scanning his blue eyes around the new course.

“It is going to require we all push ourselves more in our ability to get up and around things.” Michael replied arms crossed across his chest.

“It’s more of an agility course” Austin added looking at the course.

“It’s totally like that parkor shit I saw on the internet, sweet! It’s got all those mats and such,” Justin said as his eyes lit up.

“So, what now, Marie and Ethan get to show everyone up? Was that your plan?” David asked. Then he saw the look of disgust on Michael’s face, David looked down and tucked in his grey shirt. He could tell Michael had been eyeing it.

“Maybe I think that the rest of us could use more work in that area, since it is a bit troublesome that only two of us can climb and evade the way they can.” Michael said, his piercing green eyes laying directly on David.

“Hey, I’m in, no complaints. Let’s do this.” Justin said, clapping his hands.

“Marie and Ethan will be taking point as this is their area of expertise,” Michael said, gesturing his hand for Marie and Ethan to step up.

Marie stepped forward, but Ethan didn’t. Marie turned to him and Ethan shook his head. Even after all these years Ethan still couldn’t bring himself to regularly talk around the others. Ethan’s physical skills were not in doubt but his social skills were. Marie nodded. They had a silent form of communication and she knew she had to take point. Marie stood before the others,

“Ok, Ethan and I designed the course, it is passable. However you have to get through it any way you can, and there are no specific means for getting through, that is ladders, ropes, and those kinds of things. Use the physical skills you have and get through it. It is that simple.” Marie said knotting her blonde ponytail into a bun. “Ethan and I will run it first so you can see how it is done. We will use different methods but both will pass it.” Marie added, gesturing to Ethan for him to ready himself to do his run.

The rest stood to the side to watch Ethan go. Suddenly the building was shaken by a loud blast, followed quickly by a loud blaring alarm.

“What is that?” Justin questioned covering his ears.

Michael looked to the panel on the wall. It was flashing red. He ran to it and touched the screen, “There is a security breech in the armory.” Michael called out looking back at the rest of them.

“Let’s go!” Michael yelled waving his arm for the others to follow. Everyone filed behind running after Michael who was already at the door. They emerged from the training center to see chaos. Guards were running around, there had been an explosion at the back gate. Michael assessed and started to run towards the armory, “Follow me!” he ordered. The rest did as he ordered and ran after him. Michael stopped a running guard, “Give me your gun, now!” Michael ordered him. The guard handed the gun over. Michael continued to the front of the armory, “Just stay behind me until you can get a weapon.”

“We have to cover the back as well,” Samuel replied, grabbing an automatic rifle from the ground and checking it to make sure it was loaded.

“Right, Sam take Ethan and Austin and get to the back and cover it.” Samuel didn’t hesitate

“We get in you follow my lead.” Michael ordered to Marie, David, and Justin. They nodded.

“You do realize that firing a gun around all that ammunition and I duno bombs could be a very bad idea?” David spoke up.

“Shit, well fuck the guns, we need to get in and figure out what is going on.” Michael replied throwing the gun on the ground.

“We gotta go hand to hand with whatever is in there.” Justin said with a smile.

“Let’s go” Michael said slowly opening the door and pushing Justin behind him. The room was filled with smoke,

“It’s tear gas” Marie said coughing,

“Get low and stay behind me” Michael replied as he was able to make out five men in dark gear and gas masks going through the crates. Michael under the smoke cloud assessed what to do next, “They are looking for something.” He whispered to Marie, she nodded her head. “Ok plan” Michael started to say when a loud thud from the back shook the room. Gun fire began to spray across the open room. Michael, Marie, David, and Justin hit the ground. Michael lifted his head to see Samuel, entering the room and shooting out the windows to ventilate the room. Then firing the gun until it was empty Austin and Ethan then charged in. “Shit, go now” Michael yelled as Justin, Marie, and David jumped up with him to attack.

They along with Ethan and Austin were quickly able to disarm the five men and held them at gun point. “Down on your knees” Michael ordered pushing one of the men to the floor.

“What were you looking for?” Samuel said approaching the man on the far end of the line. None of the men would speak.

Marie searched through the open crates, “There is nothing missing.” She said puzzled. Then she heard it, the sound of a piece of metal rolling on the ground. She looked down and saw it, “Shit!” she yelled “We have tear gas! Move!” she said running from the tear gas canister as it opened up, releasing a strong power gas. They all began to cough as they moved from the gas towards the broken windows and two doors to try to ventilate the gas.

“Don’t let them escape!” Michael yelled as they scrambled to cover the exits. As the smoke began to clear, Michael saw it, the men were gone. “How!” he yelled looking frantically around the room.

“I had the back covered. They didn’t get out that way.” Samuel replied coming back towards the center of the room.

“I had the front,” Justin replied, returning from the front door.

Marie moved back by Michael’s side. She felt something land on her shoulder. She looked. It was metal shavings. She looked up and tapped Michael on the back and pointed up. There was a hole in the roof of the warehouse. They had not noticed it earlier. In the chaos they hadn’t thought of how the men entered the building in the first place.

“How the fuck did I miss that!” Michael yelled grabbing a nearby empty crate and throwing it.

“They must have left the way they came.” David said staring at the ceiling.

“But where did the tear gas canister come from? We had the five men under control,” Justin asked confused.

“We missed some of them. We didn’t look past the five we saw. We failed.” Samuel added taking a deep breath.

Michael sat down on one of the crates and held his head, “I failed. You followed my lead and I failed.” Michael said getting up and walking out of the building.

Marie looked at the others, then quickly followed Michael out of the building.

“We have to find out what they took. We will be responsible for its loss.” Samuel said running his hands through his short black hair. The rest got to work going through the crates. Marie ran out of the building looking for Michael but he was almost at the living quarters,

“Wait Michael” she yelled running after him, but Michael didn’t slow down. He walked straight into the lab and made his way down the stairs to the living quarters. Marie ran after. She finally caught up to him when he had made it to his room. He was in there just sitting on the floor staring at the ceiling. “Michael, it wasn’t your fault.” Marie said walking towards him.

“It is my fault. They trusted me to lead and I failed. They got away and with God knows what.” Michael replied, his green eyes fixated on the ceiling.

Marie walked over and sat down next to him, “Hey, look at me” she said, touching his left cheek and turning him to face her. “You are not perfect, none of us are. We all survived. None of us were hurt. That’s what matters.”

Michael shook his head, “No, it’s not what matters. We are here for a reason. We have been trained for a reason and it is not to go home happy at the end of the day. We are soldiers. We are to complete the mission or not come back. Our lives don’t matter no matter what we keep telling ourselves. They own us and we are going to pay for failing them today.” Marie felt her heart drop. Michael had never talked like that before.

“You matter to me.” She said looking deep into his green eyes.

Michael smiled and reached over and pulled her to him, “You are the only thing that matters to me.”