toughs to my left and right ran out of the room.
It was just me against the two remaining men, with no weapons in sight.
I sprang up on my loose right foot, throwing myself backward. I got about two feet in the air and landed hard on my back, shattering the chair.
I stood up with pieces of chair still tied to me, both wrists strapped to lengths of wood that used to be the arms.
I grabbed the old man by his pristine bin Laden-wannabe beard and whirled around, like an Olympian conducting a hammer throw. I did a full circle, generating as much velocity as I could, and released his head straight into the rock wall of the room, seeing it cave in with a satisfyingly meaty thud.
I turned on the torturer, who had backed up and started waving the scalpel. I stared into his eyes and smiled.
I worked the pieces of chair loose from my wrists, giving me a stout, ironwood club for each hand. I noticed nails sticking out of each end and turned them to the rear, mimicking his voice.
“Don’t worry, I won’t use the nails. I don’t want you to die too soon.”
I moved in on him, bringing the first club down on the forearm that held the scalpel, shattering it.
He screamed, a guttural sound from deep inside. The clubs became a blur, beating him all over his body, striking any available spot. Whenever he tried to protect himself, I moved somewhere else. I broke his jaw, both cheeks, his nose, ribs, clavicles, and anything else I could harm, the clubs working like a Japanese Taiko drummer.
He fell to the ground with pink, bubbly froth coming out of his mouth. I continued on like some demented gorilla, trying mightily to burst his internal organs, the rage flowing through me and into him.
Eventually, I slowed out of sheer exhaustion and saw I was now drumming a lifeless bag of meat. The rage evaporated, and I realized I had wasted precious seconds. The gunfight was still going on, and I felt a glimmer of hope that I might not need to simply die. Maybe I could escape alive.
I ran to the back of the room, to a door that hadn’t been used, hoping it led to a back hallway out of the building, away from the gunfire. I ratcheted the knob and found it locked.
I heard shouting behind me and whirled around, raising my clubs in a ridiculous attempt at defense.
The two toughs came back through the door, flabbergasted at the carnage. One ran to the old man while another took aim at my head.
I threw a club as hard as I could, causing him to raise his weapon to block the missile. The wood ricocheted off of the AK and hit him in the head. It exploded open in a mist of blood.
He fell over as my brain registered a gunshot. Two other individuals had entered behind him, both armed and shooting. The second tough whirled at the gunfire and brought his weapon up, but never got off a round before his head exploded as well.
The two swept the room for additional threats. Seeing none, one went to the bin Laden wannabe I’d cratered into the wall, and the other focused on me.
It was Jennifer. Walking toward me barefoot and holding an AK, her shoes draped incongruously around her neck. I was at a loss for words.
She was staring at me with a crooked grin.
I said, “I’m never going to live this down.”
The smile reached her eyes, and she said, “Yeah, must be tough getting to actually live.”
She pulled an AK from her back and tossed it to me. When I caught it she saw the damage to my left hand. I quickly wrapped the wound with a remnant from my torn shirt. Through the shock on her face, I knew she understood what happened. I changed the subject before she could even ask.
“I’m not being nitpicky,” I said, “but usually an operator puts his shoes on
She looked down and saw I was right. She blushed and took the shoes from around her neck, bending down to put them on, saying, “I never got the chance…”
Over her kneeling form I saw the other man who had come in with her, checking on the vital signs of the bin Laden wannabe.
I recognized who it was, the rage flooding back.
Samir’s back was turned to me as he searched the man on the ground. I racked a round into the AK and strode right at him. I came abreast of Jennifer, and she leapt up, trying to push me back.
“Pike, stop. It’s not what you think. Samir didn’t do anything.”
I swept her aside and knocked Samir to the ground, putting a foot on his head.
“You miserable fuck. If I had the time, I’d carve you up like your buddies did to me.”
His eyes were wide and rolling left and right. He tried to talk but couldn’t because of the pressure I was putting on his head. I jammed the barrel of the AK right behind his ear and put my finger on the trigger.
Jennifer, who’d been jerking on me in an attempt to get me off of Samir, saw the move and stopped her attempts lest they caused me to fire.
She pleaded with me. “Pike, don’t do this. He saved your life. He and his men assaulted this place. Move your finger off the trigger.”
I didn’t hear a word. All I felt was the ultimate betrayal of the man at my feet and the terror of the last few hours. I itched to squeeze. Seven foot-pounds of pressure, and it would all be over.
Jennifer leaned in, no longer pleading. She whispered into my ear, her voice steel. “Pike. Stop right now. Back off. We still have to get out of here, and you’re screwing up the mission. You’re going to get us all killed. We need him to get out of here. We need his weapon and his men.”
The words penetrated my rage, snapping me back to the present.
“Kill him later. After we get out.”
She was absolutely right.
“Get out through the top, away from the fight downstairs.”
“What about site exploitation?”
Samir sat up and spoke for the first time. “Pike, I had nothing to do with that bomb. I was used just like-”
I snarled, “Shut the fuck up. Don’t open your mouth. You can keep the weapon, but if that barrel goes anywhere close to Jennifer or me, I’m gutting you.”
I returned to Jennifer. “What about SSE?”
“Have you lost your mind? We came here to get you. Mission accomplished. Now we’re getting the hell out. We don’t have the time to search this place. Even if we did, we don’t have the manpower to clear it first. You think I came in here with a Taskforce element? I’ve got a bunch of guys I just met who claim you trained them. Let’s get out of here while we still can.”
I went to the door, listening to the rhythms of the firefight a floor below. “You guys clear the upper floors?”
Jennifer snorted and stomped to the back of the room, ratcheting on the same door I had tried, looking for another way out. Samir said, “Yeah. Upstairs is clear.”
Jennifer came back over. “Jesus, Pike, stop what you’re thinking. We’re lucky to be standing here talking. Get your ass moving up those stairs.”
“Jennifer, I’m not leaving without some intel. I’m cleaning this place out of computers, passports, and anything else I can find.”
She tried to appeal to my sense of mission again. “Pike, think about it. We’ll have to clear and secure the entire building for site exploitation. We’ll have to kill everyone here first.”
I wiped the blood seeping out beneath the makeshift bandage on my left hand.
“Yeah. That’s a definite fringe benefit.”
