Turn or Burn (26 page)

I dialed Francesca and told her to hold on a little longer. She said everything was good on her end. I did a quick search, hoping I might find something that could tell me more about this guy. There was nothing. No papers, aside from a stack of warrantees and directions for the appliances.

Leaving out the back door, I joined Francesca and we left the yard. We moved quickly back to my truck. I told her what I’d found.

She went around to the passenger side as I pressed the unlock button on the keyless remote. She hadn’t quite gotten to her door when I heard her murmur something and then drop, like she’d fainted. Instinctively, I dropped to a squat and looked around. My heart picked up its pace.

At that instant, something flew by my head. A bullet?

Moving low, I ran around to the other side of the truck next to Francesca. She was facedown on the ground. A heavy wave of anxiety and confusion tried to debilitate me. Whether she knew it or not, she was changing my life. She was healing me and reintroducing me to love. I could barely handle the idea of her experiencing any pain at all, let alone being shot or killed. Whispering
please, please, please,
I grabbed her arm and dragged her into a grass ditch off the side of the road.

“Francesca,” I said. “You alive?”

She didn’t respond.

“C’mon, Fran. Please get up.” My cheek quivered as a monstrous sadness swallowed me.

I looked around, knowing they were coming after us. A line of tall bushes blocked the streetlight, so I couldn’t see much of anything. With my eyes scanning the dark landscape and my gun out, ready to fire, I began searching for her wound.

I had no idea what I was up against, but I decided they should know I was armed. I fired up into the air.

Then I listened.

Nothing.

I cursed to myself, still trying to find the wound. I was having no luck. No wetness. No blood. I felt her mouth and nose. She was breathing.

“Francesca,” I said again. “Tap me if you’re okay.”

Still nothing. I fired another shot up high, hoping it would keep them off my back. “I could really use you right now, Jacobs,” I said, talking to myself.

I pushed Francesca onto her side and touched her mouth again. No blood.

Finally found it. A tranquilizer dart was embedded in the side of her neck. I ripped it out. Some of my anxiety dissipated, and a sense of relief soothed me. There was no way I could handle losing her right now. She’d become too important to me.

I didn’t have much time, but I needed to center myself, so I closed my eyes and breathed easy for a moment, picturing sunshine and Francesca’s smile. A few seconds made a huge difference; now I was ready to fight.

Knowing there was nothing more that I could do for her at the moment—other than get us out of this mess—I left her on her back and began to crawl up out of the ditch and toward that line of bushes ten feet away. Lights were coming on in the nearby houses. It was the kind of neighborhood where many people probably had a gun or two in their home, so I didn’t want to run into someone’s yard right off the bat. Besides, I didn’t want to get too far away from Francesca. No way they were taking her without taking me out first.

Moving low around the bushes, with my elbows in the dirt, I looked down the street. A man was standing under the streetlight staring at me. I couldn’t make out his face. He made no move. He didn’t look like he was armed. I had no idea if he was an enemy or a civilian, so I didn’t fire. I watched him for a moment and then kept looking around. No one else was nearby.

I rolled to the other side of the bushes and looked down another road, the one right in front of Abner’s house. Another man was standing there. Unarmed. Not moving. His arms were crossed. It was beyond terrifying.

I kept looking behind me, too, with no freaking clue how many men were out there. Or, out of respect to Francesca, I should say how many
people
were out there. The truck helped hide my position somewhat but they knew I was there. If I could only get Francesca into the truck bed, I might be able to make it to the driver’s seat and get away.

As if they had been reading my mind, there were four quick shots from a gun with a silencer. The bullets tearing through the air were louder than the shot from the gun. All four of my tires began to wheeze, and the truck drooped and eventually settled on the rims.

I lowered myself back down into the ditch. I wasn’t 100 percent by any means, but I was functioning with control and clear thought. Protecting Francesca gave me strength. I took out my phone and dialed 911. I told the operator I was an Army guy, gave her our location, told her the situation, and hung up. Depending on response time, if I could keep us safe for five to eight minutes, I figured we’d be okay.

I noticed a drainage pipe, which was starting to look like my only option. It was barely big enough to crawl through. I weighed the possibilities for a moment. How could I get Francesca in there and move us both quickly enough to escape? And what was in there? How far could we go?

It was not an easy decision to make. The biggest problem with my first option was having no idea where the pipe led or even if it lead to anything. I had no light, so there was no way to tell. I had a feeling that by the time I could get Francesca in there and start dragging her, they’d be onto us. A couple quick shots would be all they’d need to take us out.

So I had my answer. I needed to hold our position until the cops showed up. At that point, all I cared about was saving Francesca. The want for retribution paled in comparison. Put me in jail for all I cared. Just get her out of here.

I took the gun from her shoulder holster and found an extra clip in her jacket. I listened for a minute, peering up out of the ditch. Didn’t hear a sound. Couldn’t see anything moving.

I fired into the darkness, emptying the magazine of her Glock, spraying shots in every direction. Seventeen in all. Enough to wake every neighbor within a half mile. The more 911 calls made, the better. Needless to say, I was also hoping the spray of bullets would at least keep anyone from making a run at us.

While loading another magazine, a voice pierced the silence. It was a man and he was speaking loudly, probably from fifty feet away. “Mr. Knox. I’ve got ten men surrounding you. Your friend has been hit by a tranquilizer, but we do have much deadlier weapons pointed at you. I’m afraid we will use them unless you’d like to surrender to me. I can assure you neither one of you will die.”

“Cops are on the way!” I yelled back.

“I’m sure they are.” He didn’t sound worried.

“Who are you?”

“We don’t have time to discuss such things. If you’ll come with me, we’ll have all the time in the world. What say you?”

“No, thanks.”

“We have night vision goggles. You will not get out of this alive if you choose to fight. Your friend will suffer terribly if you make the wrong decision.”

I rose to my knees and fired two shots in the direction of the voice. I went back down to my stomach.

Silence.

“That answer your question?” I yelled.

“No, no, no, Mr. Knox. Not a good idea.” The voice was coming from somewhere else now.

I was over the conversation. Crawling on my stomach, I eased my way out of the ditch and moved back under the bushes. Looked around, searching for some movement. Someone fired a shot and it hit somewhere in the dirt behind me. But it was close. Too close. I didn’t have much time. I slid back down into the ditch, grabbed Francesca’s torso, and pushed her into the pipe headfirst.

“Mr. Knox. You’re not listening to me. Come out of that hole with your hands high in the air. I will give you ten seconds. Then I will order that my men kill you both.”

My mind was racing. I was about to stand when I heard the sirens.

A ray of hope.

I pushed Francesca further into the ditch while trying to watch my back. It wasn’t the easiest task. Her body wasn’t cooperating. It would have been easier to get on the other side of her and pull, but I wanted to stay in between her and any bullets.

Footsteps. Many of them. People running toward me. I turned and saw a man coming around the back of my truck. I fired. He dropped. Another man came running and I put him down, too.

I got back to my knees and looked for my next target.

Something hit the back of my neck. A sting. I reached for the wound and felt a dart. I instantly felt a flush of confusion and blurriness, and the last thing I remember was falling face-first into the grass.

The drug was working its way through my system, blurring my thoughts, wrenching me away from any sense of clarity. Soft organ music played in the background. I was on my back. I could feel that my body was tilted, elevating my legs above my head. I tried to move them but they were restrained. My arms were also strapped down at the elbow and wrist.

I opened my eyes. Still darkness. Something was covering my face.

Something was in my mouth. I bit down. It was a wet cloth. I did my best to spit it out but I couldn’t. Another cloth was draped over my face. I could feel the wetness on my cheeks. I’d been in this situation before but it took me a few more seconds to figure it all out. The drugs had slowed the recognition. But the truth came to me in an overwhelming way.

Even with the drugs mushing up my mind, the idea of being waterboarded was sobering and absolutely terrifying. I felt my body losing control again, in an attack so powerful that nothing I had learned could fight it. Paranoia and anxiety and helplessness all blended into one high-octane cocktail.
Just let me off! Make it stop!
I silently pleaded, like a patient at a hospital who had overdosed on LSD.

I had been waterboarded before. Never by the enemy. Only by choice. The first few times were during training. The others were amongst fellow soldiers, whether we were making bets or drinking or whatever. Yes, that was our idea of fun at one point in time. Even when you know who is doing it to you, even when you know you’re going to be okay, it’s a nightmare. It is not a simulation of drowning. It is drowning. You
are
drowning. You are dying a terrifying death.

Scared out of my mind, I took some deep breaths through my nose and tried to break my restraints. Nothing budged.

Then it began.

“Harper, this holy water will begin to purge the demon,” a voice said. “It will be a slow process to make you one of us, but it will happen. First we must break you and cleanse you of the past. It began with our mark on your body, and it will end with forgiveness and rebirth. See you on the other side.”

A hand went to my forehead, holding me down. I felt the pressure of the water as it hit the cloth covering my face and began to drip into the other cloth in my mouth. Tapping into what I’d been taught, I focused on relaxation and began to inhale very slowly through my nose. It was the only way to last.

You couldn’t imagine how on edge I felt. I wasn’t thinking about PTSD specifically—it’s not like that—but that’s what was coming out of me, surging through my veins, making my heart over-pump, making me relive all the pains of war, all in fast flashes. My body
or
mind wasn’t equipped to handle torture anymore. At one point, I could have dealt with it, and I had. But not now. Not ever again.

And yet…there wasn’t a choice.

My body finally acquiesced. I had to breath out. That’s when the water began to rush in. Water filled my mouth and throat and nasal passages and even went up into my sinuses. It was excruciating. I might as well have been thirty feet underwater. The pressure in my head became overwhelming and it felt like the blood vessels in my brain were close to rupturing. I needed oxygen so badly but there was none. The screaming inside my head was so loud.

At the moment when death was becoming a welcome escape, someone pulled the rag out of my mouth and removed the hand from my forehead. I sucked in air with everything I had and felt the comfort of oxygen replenishing me, filling up my lungs, passing through my veins, and reaching all the way up to my brain. A glimpse of clarity washed over me.

“Do you know why you are here?” a man asked.

He slapped me on the cheek.

“Hey, are you listening?”

I nodded, still feeling the replenishment of deep breaths.

“Do you know why you are here?”

I shook my head and cursed, but my words came out weak and hopeless.

“You chose the wrong side of this war.”

His hand went back to my forehead as he pushed the rag back into my mouth.

The water came again.

Three, four, five seconds.

At seven seconds, it was unbearable. At around ten seconds, my body gave in again and the water filled my head.
Kill me, fucking kill me
, I kept thinking. I could hear the gurgling coming from my mouth. I tried to yell but I had no power at all.

I started to lose it, but just as I was fading away, he pulled the rag from my mouth. I filled my lungs with oxygen and coughed up water that ran down my cheeks. The anger I felt earlier was gone. No threats came out of my mouth. I wouldn’t beg, but I wanted to die. All I wanted was this guy to finish me off.

“It’s not easy paying for your sins,” the voice said. “Many people have been in this room, and they’ve all been saved.”

I recognized that voice but I couldn’t place it. But I started to realize what was going on, what all of this was about. Singularity. Soldiers of the Second Coming. Jameson Taylor. Daniel Abner. They had us pinned down at Abner’s place. Francesca had been hit.
Francesca!

The rag hit my mouth again and I shook my head, maybe saying “no” out loud, maybe just pleading to myself. I don’t know.