“Manny, are you okay?” I ask, breathless. I help him to his feet. He clutches his shoulder as blood gushes out of the wound. “Oh, my God. Uriah?”
“I’ve got it,” he says.
Manny looks pale, and he is wincing in pain.
“Keep going,” he warns. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“We’re not leaving you,” I state.
Tick tock, tick tock.
Bam, bam, bam, bam.
Fire and return fire. Gunpowder and smoke and screaming sirens. And I see Harry’s office. Two big doors in the back of the room. I recognize them instantly from the layout plans I studied. A jolt of adrenaline seizes me. This is our last chance. We’ve barely got any time left.
“Just go!” Manny yells, sweat dripping down his face.
In that moment I know that I have to make a hard decision: save Manny or save the team? I swallow the horror of that realization. He slowly nods his head. He is down.
“We’ll be back for you,” I promise.
It’s a false promise. We are out of time.
We move across the office, systematically coordinating our movements like a SWAT team on a raid. Our presence here is definitely not a secret anymore. By the time we reach the office doors, every single Omega trooper that stood in our way is either down or dead. We are just that efficient.
“Duck!” Uriah shouts.
I don’t hesitate. I just do as he says. He fires a round over my head and a trooper falls dead, half of his body concealed behind the corner of a hallway. Well hidden. Almost the death of me.
“Thanks,” I say.
He nods.
The office doors are marked with simple bronze plates that read:
DISTRICT PREFECT: HARRY LYDELL
The doors are locked and the wood is too heavy to break.
Tick tock…
“Come on, hurry up!” I command. “We’re running out of time!”
Andrew straps a strip charge to the door and we take cover behind some metal filing cabinets. Five, four, three, two, one…Boom! The explosion shatters the door, sending splinters of wood everywhere.
I approach the door. I want to be the first one through. We push the doors aside and walk into the office. Desk, chairs, and a window overlooking the street below. Omega soldiers are rallying around the front of the building, returning fire, blindly attacking distant muzzle flashes. Smoke is rising around the building, a flood of gray fog on the Los Angeles avenue that has become a battlefield.
Brilliant, Derek, I think proudly. Keep it up.
But the office is empty, and my heart sinks again. Harry is nowhere to be found. Uriah walks around the desk and pulls open the drawers. He stuffs his pack with papers and maps. I just stand there, frozen for a moment. Disappointed. The hope drains out of me.
If Chris isn’t in this building, then he’s not alive.
It’s as simple as that.
Panic seizes me. I fight to keep my breathing even, to maintain a grip on my nerves. I can’t have a breakdown in the middle of a rescue operation. These men are counting on me to get them out of here alive.
“Manny, is there anywhere else we can look?” I ask, looking back toward the wall where we last left Manny.
No answer.
“Manny?”
Uriah gives me a confused look, Andrew searches the room.
“He’s not here,” he states. “What the hell?”
“He was just here!”
“He couldn’t just disappear.”
“He just did!”
Bam!
A gunshot ricochets off the wall. Bullets crack past my body. We drop down, instantly covering ourselves. Manny is nowhere in sight, and the alarm bells are ringing in my head. Four guards are moving toward us in the office, taking cover behind desks and cubicles. I fire a round at one and hit him square in the chest. He goes down. I roll backward and slide behind Harry’s desk. My ears are ringing and sweat is pouring down my forehead.
“What happened to Manny?” I shout.
“He was here two seconds ago!” Uriah replies.
One shot, two shots, three shots…
What do I do? We have to go. We can’t stay. This was the plan — get in and get out. If we can’t find Chris, we have to leave. Now.
“We’re done here!” I yell. “We’ve got to go!”
“But we haven’t found—”
“—I know!” I hold my stomach, gasping for breath. “Believe me. I know.”
I know right now, in this moment, that the decision I make will define the rest of my life. With or without Chris, I have to choose to either move on or hesitate and risk the lives of the rescue team.
I steel my nerves.
And I choose to move on.
The tears will come later.
“Get out of here!” I say. “Move out, let’s go!”
I force myself up. The adrenaline of combat keeps my emotions at bay for the time being. We push back through the office. It is actually easier getting out than getting in because of the efficiency of my team — most of the Omega troops are dead and the entrances have been opened on our way inside.
“Manny?” I yell.
To have someone completely disappear during a mission is an anomaly. By the time we reach the other side of the office area, there is a trail of dead Omega troopers in our wake. The frantic scream of the sirens is grating on my nerves. It’s times like these that I wish I could simply throw down my gun and make a run for it. Unfortunately, you can’t do that if you want to stay alive.
We sweep the stairwell, moving back onto the first floor again. The walls are bathed in red light. I continue to scream Manny’s name while we move. Honestly, there’s nowhere Manny could really be where we wouldn’t come across him at some point. It’s almost as if he left the building.
And he did it quickly.
Or…he’s dead on the floor with countless other Omega troopers.
Please, God. Not Manny, too. Manny’s a good man.
I hope God is listening, because nobody else is.
We slam the rear exit doors open and enter the alley. We stick to the plan and retreat around the east side of the alleyway. The airport is clearly visible from here — literally just across the street. Our rendezvous point with Derek is several blocks away from this location. The trick will be getting there without being shot.
“Commander!” Uriah says, pointing.
A black helicopter is rumbling to life on the tarmac. Its blades begin to spin — slowly at first, and then faster.
“We should leave,” Andrew advises. “Like, now.”
I don’t disagree. We stick under the cover of the building, rounding the corner. Omega troopers suddenly emerge onto the street. We return with heavy rifle fire, knocking down troops like bowling pins. We retreat back to the opening of the alley. More guards are flooding the street.
“We can go west!” Andrew says.
“If we go west we’ll just run into Omega!” I reply.
We can’t dash across the airport — there is absolutely no cover there.
Patrols are surrounding us from three sides. Our only escape route is straight ahead of us — the airport. It’s surrounded by a chain link fence and barbed wire. Our chances of getting over the fence, running and finding cover are minimal. Very minimal. We’re trapped.
The helicopter is pounding the air with its blades, obnoxiously loud, even with the sound of gunfire and shouting here at the end of the street. I grimace. We’re boxed in on four sides, now. Three sides by troops and one side by a combat helicopter.