The Life We Lead: Ascending (34 page)

As they reached the intersection that would
lead to the about-to-be-created exit, Lien appeared. They had about
five minutes left, and James knew Paul and Ben had already vacated
the building.

James told the two kids to go to the baths
and hoped they understood.

Lien was running at him with a gun.
Apparently, he thought James was protecting the kids. He did not
shoot at James, who was unarmed.

“Ah, sir, thank you for herp with them. We
need to secure you, too,” Lien said.

As soon as Lien was in arm’s reach, James
took the gun. It wasn’t difficult, as Lien wasn’t expecting it.

In the blink of an eye, James made a logical
choice, one devoid of emotion, and shot Lien center mass three
times. He didn’t hesitate, nor did he wait to see the body hit the
floor.

He chased after the two kids, scooped them
up, and ran out the exit. They saw one of the transportation
vehicles and Paul, grinning.

James picked up a headset, ignoring Paul’s
celebratory antics. “Major, this is James. Where do we stand?”

“No losses. We’ve taken out a fair few of
them. They’re mostly forced back inside the main hall entrance, but
are still keeping up gun fire.”

“East sector, upper torrent has fire coming
from it,” crackled a voice over the headsets.

A vehicle raced toward their position.

“We were waiting to hear from you before
calling in the heavy fire and bringing this bitch down. ETA of 26
minutes; I called it in when you emerged,” said the major.

Matt and Calvin were in the approaching cargo
van with the monitors.

“This is Calvin,” came a voice. “We have a
problem.”

“What?” James asked flatly.

“It’s Raymond. He, he, he went in,” Calvin
stammered as the truck approached.

“We got them pinned, moving toward point B,”
came a different voice on the headsets.

“Oh, you have got to be shitting me!” said
Jason on the headset.

“Silence!” James commanded. “Not you, Calvin.
You’d better start talking fast.”

Calvin and Matt had reached them. James
opened the side door to the cargo van and Calvin tumbled out.

“We were watching on the monitors.” Calvin
pointed inside at all the screens, and James could see what was
happening. Raymond was in the office, snapping the hard drive into
his cargo pants.

“
Jason
, behind you! Never mind. She’s
down. Some insider’s got your back,” said Kevin’s voice.

“How did he get in there?” James pulled the
headset slightly off his ear to hear Calvin better.

Jason was saying something faintly on the
headset.

“The old woman, she had a back door to the
room she was in. When you threw that last power switch, it opened a
door for her. We watched her go out and he thought you were in
trouble and wouldn’t have time to get the disk. So he went … Look
out, Raymond!” Calvin called, but Raymond wasn’t wearing a headset
or camera. Yan had come in and had him at gunpoint.

“Damn it,” James swore.

“We have to save him!” Calvin pleaded.

Jason spoke again, but James couldn’t catch
what he said.

James was on the verge of saying no. He
wanted that drive and he wanted to save Raymond, but the risk was
too high. Raymond had acted foolishly and disobeyed a direct order
given to keep him safe.

“James, answer Jason!” screamed Matt.

“What?” yelled James, sliding the headset
back on.

“The guy who saved me seems to be trying to
subdue the others one-by-one but is losing a fight. Do we help?”
asked Jason.

“Does he look like he could be Italian mixed
with Chinese, about twenty years old?” asked James quickly.

“Could be, yeah …”

“It’s Joe. Get him out.”

“
Rocket launcher coming up steps!
”
screamed a voice, and then they heard a loud bang.

“Got ‘em,” came Matt’s voice calmly on the
headset.

“We have to go,” called the major. “Everyone
else is in the clear and maintaining perimeter fire. I don’t like
leaving a man more than anyone else, but we have a ton of kids to
get to safety.”

Then James saw him on the monitors. It was
Xavier. He was running up and down the hallway, doing what James
had already done, looking for the others. Ben saw him, too.

“Major, we have not completed all objectives
and certainly not critical ones,” Ben said. “We have one more in
there.”

“Son of a bitch,” said the major and not in
his normal playful way. “If we call off this air strike, we won’t
get another. This is a low flight mission and can’t risk another
pass.”

Calvin was watching the progress of his
brother. Yan and two others had taken him to one of the staged
rooms, stripped him naked, and tied him to an X-shaped cross. They
were hitting him with a cattle prod. Calvin was crying almost as
much as Raymond was screaming.

James closed his eyes. Two deep breaths
later, he snapped them open. He had a plan.

“No one speak for a minute. This is what
we’re going to do.” James was already in motion. Taking off his
coat, he grabbed a belt with rings on it plus grappling rope, two
explosive sticks, three clip grenades, and two 9mm pistols.

“Keegan, take this transport unit and get
back to the major to add some limited support. Paul, I need you to
switch the charges time and add,” he glanced at his watch, “twelve
minutes. Then watch the monitors for us.

“Matt,” James continued, “give him cover from
the side and as far as you can see. When that exit blows, wait two
more minutes and then evacuate, regardless of who is back or not.
Major and everyone else, continue to provide fire on the main parts
for nine minutes, set up the torrent gun on auto fire, and
evacuate. Make no exceptions. Evacuate! Calvin and Ben, you’re
coming with me. Ben and I are switching to channel 2 on the headset
if you need me. Matt and Paul monitor both channels.”

Silence met James’s words before the major
said in a slightly hoarse voice, “We have the orders.”

James grabbed the general map and flattened
it. “Calvin, strip down. Ben, I need you to get to this point with
…”

“What? What do you mean?” Calvin was still
sobbing, clearly confused.

“Listen to me. We don’t have time for you not
to listen. Follow my exact orders or I swear to God I’ll leave you
and your damn brother here! You want to save his life, then do what
I said
now!
” James was furious with focus, rather than
anger. There was no wiggle room in the plan.

Calvin did as he was told and stripped off
his clothes.

“Ben, you need to get to this point in the
corridor. We can travel together until here. On my mark, you will
hear a grenade go off. Count to five, pull your pin, and throw past
this door. Then hurry back to this intersection.”

James turned to Calvin. “Calvin is going to
run past this door.” He pointed to the middle corridor near
Raymond. “Calvin, you keep running and meet up with Ben at this
intersection. Ben, if he’s being pursued, take them out. No matter
what, Calvin and Ben, once you meet up, get out. Any
questions?”

Both shook their heads no.

They were off, Paul following so he could set
the timers.

Ben and James moved quickly, securing the
hallway to get where they needed to before the split with Calvin in
the rear. Then they split, with Ben heading on a path toward the
office and James and Calvin using back paths to get toward the
middle hall.

“Looks like they’re all at the main
structure,” called a voice over the headsets.

“Calvin, sprint down that hall. When you get
to this opening,” James indicated the small hall that led to the
room Raymond was in, “pause for a heartbeat. I’m hoping you’ll have
someone coming to investigate. If they see you, they’ll mistake you
for Raymond and give chase. The path winds enough that they won’t
have a clean shot until you meet up with Ben. You just keep going
until you’re out with Matt and Paul. Matt, don’t shoot Calvin as he
comes out.”

“Copy,” said Matt over the headset.

“Ready, Calvin and Ben?”

Calvin nodded as Ben said, “Roger that.”

“Here we go.” James tossed a grenade as
Calvin took off.

Calvin hit the small hallway about five
seconds after James’s grenade went off. Within two seconds, Seim
and Fang were barreling down the hallway after him. As they did, a
second distant explosion could be heard, though it was louder, over
James’s headset.

“Transport units one and two, head out,” came
a voice on the headsets.

James had planted one of the stick explosives
and timed it to go off just as the major and others should be
pulling out completely. He sprinted down the main corridor, then
slowed as he approached the room Raymond was in. He entered and did
a fast sweep. He saw a door ajar on the other side of the room,
near where Ben’s grenade had gone off.

James had underestimated the size of the room
and everything in it. Apparently the cameras had just a central
focal point on the rack. He heard a gunfire exchange over the
headset, as well as faintly in the distance, then silence.

“James, they’re clear, two down. No eyes.
Repeat, we have lost visual,” Paul said.

Calvin and Ben were out, but Ben’s grenade
had apparently done enough damage to lose the video feed, though
James did not know that was the reason it was now off.

James didn’t wait to hear more. He made his
way over to Raymond, holstered his gun, and undid his wrist
restraints. Raymond undid his own waist restraint with trembling
hands while James released his ankles.

James spoke into his headset. “Ben, can you
come back to the intersection where you just met Calvin? I’m
sending Raymond out.”

“Copy,” said Ben.

“No activity on the outside perimeter,” came
a voice on the headsets that sounded like Kevin’s, who apparently
was giving the small updates on progress that actually James
appreciated even though he hadn’t thought to ask for them.

James stood, pulling out his pistol. His
instincts were telling him he’d been here before, and it had been
bad.

James saw the door open out of the corner of
his eye to his left and fired.

Yan, also firing, took cover behind some
barrels while Raymond hit the floor and crawled toward the
exit.

James pulled out the other gun and kept up
blind gunfire. “Go, Raymond! Follow the hallway and make the first
left you can, then run till you find Ben. Ben, get him and yourself
out. Do not come back in. This is going to plan.”

That was a lie. This wasn’t going to plan at
all. Yan had come back too soon.

Raymond fled. James managed some cover on the
other side of the X-shaped cross, and saw another exit on the other
end of the room. Still, there was a lot of open space to cover.

Just then, an explosion went off in the
hallway, signaling that the major and team should be moving out.
James needed to get moving too, as he didn’t know where the kid
was. He was out of ammunition, and the explosion was as good a
distraction as anything.

James decided it was all or nothing time. He
pulled the pin in his last grenade and stood as Yan fired his last
bullet. It grazed James’s left arm, causing him to spin slightly,
and he saw that Yan had something in his other hand.

Both men threw their objects at the same time
and dropped to the ground.

As Yan went down, he hit a button on the
wall. This released an iron gate, blocking James’s escape.

Boom!

Yan’s flash bang collided with James’
grenade, and they went off together. The force of the shockwave
acted like a huge hand, slamming James into the gate, and the
explosion blocked the door he’d originally come through.

Yan hit the far wall and was pinned under a
barrel, knocked out cold.

Everything hurt. There was no sound, or maybe
it was just one constant sound. James couldn’t tell. An intense
heat was coming from a roaring blaze to his left. As he rolled to
his right, his blurred vision saw a shadow on the other side of the
iron gate.

Just as James began to come out of his daze,
so did Yan. All James could hear was a ringing sound as his eyes
struggled to adjust. He felt a vibration to his right as he watched
Yan. Visibly gushing blood, Yan managed to semi-stagger out the
door he’d come through.

James was groggy. He couldn’t use that door.
The team was blind to whatever Yan was doing. He could be lying in
ambush. What was that annoying vibration behind him?

He rolled to his right to see that the gate
was rising. Xavier, naked for some reason, was pulling a chain
rope, raising it.

A boy
.

James corrected himself.

No, the boy
.

He rolled under the gate and staggered to his
feet, and Xavier came over to brace him.

“We have to go, now,” James said, and they
made their way to the door.

James was quickly recovering, but his ears
were still buzzing. “Guys, we are coming now; do not blow the exit.
Repeat, do not blow the exit.”

James could not hear his own words. The
explosions in the room had blown out his headset, but he was too
disoriented to realize it. He had also lost a sense of how much
time he had.

“Repeat, do not blow the exit. Anyone copy?
Hello? Do not blow the exit!”

James’s shouting attracted attention in the
hallways. Distant voices approached as Xavier pushed James on.

They reached the intersection where Ben had
retrieved Calvin and Raymond. They’d taken two steps down the path
to the exit when the explosion went off.

“
Damn it!
I said do not detonate the
exit!” James was emotional. He was about to die. Xavier was
shaking, and he had been so brave.

James closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
He needed to focus, not react, but fear flooded him. Fear meant
death. He had never feared death; why did he fear it now?