I was floating through space. Weightless. Like dust being carried through a breeze. I was dead. I had to be dead, and I was going on to whatever else was after this life. Figures I’d kick it after a little over a month of being the richest man in the world.
Or was I?
Pretty sure neither heaven nor hell had that pine-fresh scent thick in the air.
Neither of them struck me as being cold and wet either.
Blinking was difficult, and every attempt felt like something was scraping the retina off the back of my eyeballs. However, I managed, and the first thing I saw was my feet dangling about fifteen feet above the ground.
“Oh fuck!” I yelped, my arms flailing as I tried to grasp something to hold onto out of pure reflex. A knuckle hit something hard and chunky, and I felt it burn as a bit of skin was peeled away. “Fuck!” I cursed again, this time out of pain, as I jerked my hand back and looked to my right. The offender was a small offshoot of a large tree branch—the one that my parachute apparently got tangled up in on the way down.
I had to talk myself down from the panic, trying to claw its way through my chest. After all, waking up after falling out of a helicopter to find yourself hanging just high enough in the air to do severe damage wasn’t an everyday thing. The fact that everything was slippery from the constant drizzle coming down made everything worse.
As I managed to reign in my fear, other questions began to surface. Where was I? What happened to the helicopter? Where were the others? Were they alive?
Chloe. Oh god… was Chloe alive?
The last thing I remembered was her quickly becoming smaller as I dropped toward the earth. It got fuzzy after that. I remember feeling the chute’s drawstring as I yanked on it. I think I recalled the way it felt to be violently jerked back once it was activated… like slamming the brakes on in a car. I couldn’t remember anything after that.
One thing was for sure, though. I couldn’t stay here.
Inspecting the buckles, I found several sets and tentatively tried to undo one of them, careful to pick one that wouldn’t cause me to fall to my death… or at least a broken leg. It wouldn’t budge. I tried harder, but the buckle wouldn’t snap open, loosen, or do whatever parachute buckles were supposed to do. I tried another but was met with the same result. Maybe it was because I was putting tension on the harness by hanging from the tree. It’d make sense that parachute straps would be more difficult to unbuckle if you were still falling through the air.
Deciding to try to swing toward the branch holding me up, I kicked my legs, but the tangled ropes prevented me from making much progress.
“Fuck!” I hissed, checking the harness for anything that would help. Sure enough, a multitool was strapped to the belt and a few other pouches containing valuable items like waterproof bags and power bars. I pulled out the multitool and used it to begin cutting the suspension lines tangled into the branch, testing before cutting to ensure I didn’t fall out of the tree.
When enough of them were cut to allow me more freedom, I managed to swing wide enough to capture the branch and haul myself on it before cutting the rest of the lines. I gave a wordless thanks to Tara for paying so much attention to my health and fitness. Thanks to her, it was only difficult instead of monumental, something that would have been the case two months ago for this city boy who grew up in the New York suburbs.
Just as I was cutting the last lines, a loud snap grabbed my attention, and then the sound of someone murmuring just loud enough for me to detect it. Usually, I would have called out to whoever it was, but considering I was up a tree like a cat after being thrown out of a helicopter, I thought it was best to wait and see what it was. Instead, I cut the rest of the way through the last line and then quietly put away the multitool so I could use both hands to stand on the thick branch as quietly as I could, using the parachute to hide behind while peering around to see if I could spot anyone.
That hesitation probably saved my life.
A few moments later, I spotted a man stepping gingerly through the woods about twenty feet from my tree. He was clearly looking for something and had a pistol in one hand. That was enough to convince me I didn’t want to be found by this guy—flashes of the rooftop event in Vegas washed over me, and I felt my stomach turn as the fear of getting murdered came back fresh as ever. If I remained really quiet and stayed out of sight, maybe there was a chance the guy wouldn’t look up and see the massive remains of the white parachute sitting in the tree.
A strangled cry came from below, and I just knew my thought had been wishful thinking.
Sure enough, a moment later, I heard him shout out in a language I couldn’t understand, but it sounded a lot like Japanese. Was it just a coincidence that I ran into an armed Japanese man in the woods of Norway while I was on my way to meet a Japanese businessman who had a reason to put a bullet in me?
The sound of gunfire cracked through the forest, scaring the absolute piss out of me. The parachute erupted next to me as something small ripped through it. “Fuck!” I cried out reflexively and backed away from my useless cover. My hands found the tree trunk as another rapport from the pistol sounded, and chunks of wood exploded from the tree trunk about a foot from my head. There was no time to think. The only thing I could do was run.
I turned away from the gunman as my eyes searched for something… anything that could support me as my natural instinct to get as far away from danger as possible kicked in. I couldn’t die… not like this. Not like any way. I was just starting to get used to my new life!
A thick branch protruded about a third of the way around the tree that looked sturdy enough to support me. It wasn’t much, but if I could get a little higher and keep enough limb and trunk between me and the man on the ground, then maybe I could get through this. It was all I could think of. Jumping wasn’t an option… not when I was fifteen feet up. The chances of damaging something were too great.
I lunged forward, placing my foot on a smaller branch with the intent of using it to launch myself so I could catch the larger branch and climb up it. Unfortunately, the combination of it being unable to support my weight, the slickness of the bark from being wet, and the patch of pine needles on that exact spot caused my foot to slide down its length. My stomach jumped into my throat as I felt the branch give out underneath, bending just enough to send me hurling toward the ground. I reached for the branch instinctively as it continued to bend downward and grasped it with both my hands, trying to slow my descent to the earth just as I heard another gunshot go off.
With a fearful roar, I involuntarily slid down the branch, only partially aware of the wood and bark tearing at my palms as I descended. Something snapped just before I hit the ground, and I was grateful to find out that it wasn’t any of my bones. The branch I snagged had slowed my fall enough to allow me a sore but safe landing as it snapped and followed me to the ground. As soon as my feet hit the earth, I rolled to put more of the thick trunk between me and my assassin. I gripped the branch in my hands as tightly as possible, facing the direction I’d seen movement and praying that he didn’t circle around the other way.
Fortunately for me, he didn’t, and as soon as I saw the faintest hint of movement, I swung up with my branch as hard as I could. The branch came in contact and connected with the man’s chin. The only problem was that the business end of my weapon was thin enough that it didn’t knock him on his ass like I’d hoped. The good news was that he’d been so surprised that I’d been ready for him that his eyes had been wide and receptive to the can of pine needles that I drove across his face.
The stranger bellowed, clapping his hands over his eyes as he waved his gun blindly in my direction. I didn’t hesitate to launch myself at him, driving my hand into his arm as we both dropped to the ground. I’d gotten incredibly lucky, and I fucking knew it. This guy knew how to point a gun, shoot it, and get the bullet within a foot of my head, which was a hell of a lot better than I could do. If he managed to clear his vision and get some distance between us while still possessing the gun, I was cooked. The only thing I had was this moment, and I couldn’t fucking hesitate.
Keeping one hand locked on the man’s gun arm, I raised my fist and drove it into his face before he even had a chance to clear his eyes. I hit him again. And again. And again. He bucked against me, trying to throw me off, but even as he managed to launch my body a foot in the air, I still focused on inserting my knuckles as far into his nose as I could get them. I could feel warm blood on my skinned knuckles and simply continued to pummel the man until he stopped moving. The moment I felt him stop resisting, I launched myself at his gun hand and pride it out of his grasp, only then scrambling away from him and standing up.
Training the gun on him, I watched him for several moments while I caught my breath. Fighting was hard work. Chloe and Tara had begun teaching me the basics, and I’d sparred with them a little, but real-life fighting was different. I’d never had a workout quite like that, and my lungs felt like they were about to launch themselves out of my chest in protest.
Once I was satisfied that the man was either unconscious or dead, I slowly approached and drove my foot into his side. I’m not a violent man; after what had happened in Vegas, guys trying to murder me was a trigger.
I heard him wheeze faintly and took a shuddering breath. He was alive. I hadn’t killed him. Part of me was a little disappointed… after all, he had tried to kill me, but most of me was relieved. I didn’t want to actually end someone’s life. That wasn’t the kind of person I was.
I spent the next several minutes working out how to tie this guy up, managing to find some paracord in one of the pouches on my chute harness and used that in conjunction with my boy scout training to make some decent knots on his hands and ankles before tying those to one of the nearby trees. I stepped back to admire my handiwork, I would have felt sorry for leaving him tied up and at the mercy of nature, but like I said: the motherfucker tried to kill me.
Now that the immediate issue was resolved, my hands began to throb in pain, and I examined my palms. They’d been scraped up badly, with several splinters and bits of bark sticking out of them like porcupine quills. I braced myself as I began pulling the ones I could out, and once I had as much of the debris removed as possible, I set about making bandages to wrap them up. They were hurting with each passing moment and were going to make this entire excursion that much more miserable.
Just as I was finishing my self-care, a burst of chatter caused me to nearly jump out of my skin, and it took me a couple of minutes to realize that the man had a walkie-talkie with him, and that’s what was making the noise. Whoever was speaking repeated their statement, and once again, I picked up what sounded an awful lot like Japanese. Damn… where was Erin when I needed her?
I pulled the talkie off him, searched him for anything useful, and then made a makeshift pouch with the man’s jacket before slinging it over my shoulder, straightening, and looking around. I peered in every direction through the light drizzle, trying to get some idea of where I was and where I needed to go. The cabin, maybe? That made the most logical sense, but what about the helicopter? Had it crashed? Where were Chloe and Astrid?
And did I know the direction of either?
I stood looking around the massive forest, unable to tell which way was north thanks to the cloud cover and unable to detect smoke or any other signs of human life. I turned and looked in the other direction. Where was I going to go?
I gingerly massaged my hands through the bandages as I glanced back at the unconscious man tied to the tree. What if he knew something?
“Fuck,” I muttered.
______
I did the only thing I could think of: go in the direction my would-be assassin was heading. It wasn’t a perfect plan. There was the very real possibility that he’d simply been heading in the direction he saw me fall. Still, he was also possibly heading in the direction he saw the helicopter crash. After realizing I had no real clue, I tried waking up the man I’d left tied to the tree, but that proved impossible. I’d done a lot of damage to the man.
So I went with the best-educated guess and set off in the rough direction I’d seen him heading. I didn’t know which cardinal direction I was heading, and the steady, constant drizzle made the already cool weather feel much colder than it was. The combination of fear, uncertainty, and creeping cold made the experience the second most unpleasant of my life. It could become the most unpleasant, depending on how long I was out here. At least getting pissed on by Roger in Vegas was warm.
Gross.
I don’t know how much time passed or how far I walked, but my alertness paid off when I heard faint voices in the distance to my left. Sneaking forward, it took me a little over five minutes to find the people who I heard talking. Sure enough, as I peered around a thick tree trunk and through some brush, I spotted three men in a small clearing about thirty feet away from me. One of them was facing to my left, seeming to scan the trees to keep an eye out for any trouble. Another was talking into a walkie, saying something quietly and ignoring the rainwater gathering on the tip of his nose and dripping off at a constant rhythm. The third had his back to me, but as he turned to look at the man with the walkie, he took a couple of steps to the side, and I had to remember not to gasp out loud.
I spotted Chloe… on her knees with her hands tied behind her back and a gag tied around her mouth. The button-up shirt she had been wearing had been removed, and all that remained was a white tank top with the strap of a black bra peeking out as it was beginning to slide down her shoulder. The poor woman must be freezing with so little on out in the rain. Even more worrisome… the guys in front of her must have been pretty badass to bring someone like my bodyguard down. After all, she’d walked into a warehouse full of armed men to rescue Natashya and me.
Rolling back around the tree to remain safely out of view, I wiped the moisture from the drizzly weather out of my eyes as I hugged the gun to my chest, contemplating what the hell I was going to do. Three men were guarding the woman, and there was only one of me. I had started training with Tara and Chloe but was hardly Bruce Wayne. How the hell was I going to take on three men at once without endangering Chloe? How was I going to take them on without eating a bullet?
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to ignore the creeping cold eating at my bones and joints. It was obvious that I had to do something. It was also obvious that my options were limited. I’d gotten lucky in the confrontation under the tree I’d landed in, but there was no way I would get that lucky twice in a row. I couldn’t rely on getting lucky, either… not with Chloe’s life at stake. I wasn’t a killer, and I didn’t know enough about shooting guns to feel confident that I could take out all three of them before one of them killed my bodyguard.
And would Chloe be able to help somehow? Was it unreasonable for me to expect her to? I mean, what could she do while trussed up like that?
Setting the gun down, I fished the walkie-talkie out of the makeshift knapsack and turned it on but kept the gain low so that I could barely hear the hiss of static as I considered my options.
Finally, I pressed the button on the side of the walkie. “Hey. English?”
A moment later, a voice crackled over the speaker so quietly I had to hold my ear to it. “Nanda?”
“English,” I said quietly.
A moment passed in silence, and I peered around the side of the tree to see that the man standing closest to Chloe had taken the walkie and was conversing with the man who had initially held the device.
“Hello?” the man eventually said into the walkie.
“Hey,” I said. “Do you speak English?”
“Yes,” came the reply.
I almost asked him what he would do with Chloe but stopped myself. Wouldn’t that let them know I was nearby?
“Did you shoot down my ride?” I asked.
“Where is Jin?” the man replied, ignoring my question.
Assuming he was talking about my would-be assassin, I said, “I killed him just a few minutes ago and took his stuff.” I peered around the corner just enough to see them talking. They looked animated and a little angry. Fuck… I hoped I hadn’t made a mistake that would cost Chloe her life. I needed to act fast.
I brought the walkie back to my mouth and pressed the button. “Do you know who I am?”
The man talking to me looked away from his fellow soldier in disgust and stopped next to Chloe, who was watching the man closely. He held the walkie to his face, and I heard a “No” crackle over my walkie.
“My name is Marcus Upton, and if you promise not to harm me or any of my people and help us get out of here, I’ll pay each of you one million dollars.”S
So far, if I needed to get something done, all I had to do was throw money at it. This was no different, right?
“You got money on you?” came the answer.
I felt my certainty slipping. “No, but I can get it for you.”
“Our employer pays us good already. He tells us to kill you, so that’s what we do.”
My jaw set as I chewed on that response. He sounded like he didn’t care about the amount of money, even though I highly doubted Tanaka was paying him that well. What was Hiro doing to buy that kind of loyalty?
“You’ll have to find me first,” I said into the walkie.
When I didn’t receive a response, I peered back around the trunk to see the man standing in front of Chloe again. He placed a hand on top of her head and stroked it like she was a dog. Then he spoke into the walkie, “How about you come find me or I kill your friend.”
Oh fuck.
“What?” I asked.
“You have one hour to come to find me, or I will fuck your friend in her pretty mouth and then shoot her in the head.” The man said. He had a thick accent, but he knew enough of the English language to get colorful.
I dropped the walkie to the ground and leaned back against the tree, banging the back of my head against it in frustration. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
Picking up the gun again, I simply stared at it for the next few minutes, shivering slightly as I considered my options.
I two: walk out there and surrender myself or try to shoot them before they could hurt me or Chloe. I took a few minutes to figure out how to pop the magazine out and check on how many bullets were left in the gun. There were six, with one more in the chamber.
What were the odds that they would let Chloe go after they killed me?
Slipping the magazine back into the pistol, I checked it to make sure the safety was off.
Probably none.
I wasn’t interested in dying for anyone, but I especially wasn’t interested in dying for someone in vain.
That meant surrendering wasn’t an option.
“Jesus, Chloe,” I breathed. “Why couldn’t you be the one out here playing Liam Neeson. You’re the one with the ‘certain set of skills.’”
I peered around the corner and took stock of the situation once more. English was saying something to Chloe, still petting her on the head. Should he be the one I shoot first? Considering how close he was to her, that made sense, but that would leave two others to contend with. All either of them had to do was point their gun at Chloe, and it would be over. My bodyguard was brilliant. If she saw one of them get shot, she would do something to help, even if it was just throwing herself at one and knocking them over. That would buy a few precious seconds.
The one scanning the trees turned back to the trees on my left and gave them another look. That one might need a few seconds to figure out what was happening behind him. That left the one who had initially held the walkie. He was watching English interact with Chloe. He was the one I needed to take out first.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. I felt like I wanted to throw up. Not only was I about to do something incredibly dangerous that I didn’t have the training for, but it was also possible that I was actually about to kill someone for the first time. At least I’d left the other guy tied to a try and breathing. This, though…
Shaking my head, I tried to clear my mind. They were gonna kill Chloe. Eventually, they’d kill me. Time was limited, and I had to do this.
Fucking Hiro… if I survived this, I would ruin his goddamn world for doing this to me.
I needed to act quickly before the opportunity changed, and I needed to recalculate. English didn’t have his gun drawn. Walkie did, but he was holding it casually at his side. If I made a clean shot… that wouldn’t even matter. Scanner had some kind of automatic rifle, but it was currently hanging across his chest, and he had one arm resting on it, kind of like a sling. There might be better opportunities, but there could just as easily be a lot worse ones.
Taking a deep breath, I inched around the tree and held the pistol in both hands. I kept my body pressed firmly against the tree, trying to make myself as small as possible as I raised the gun and trained it on Walkie. My hands shook as I lined up the sight, and it took an effort of will to calm my nerves enough to shoot.
One more ragged breath, and I tried to expel any thoughts about the repercussions of my actions. I could think about snuffing out a man’s life later. My jaw clenched, and my arms tightened as I braced myself and pushed through my nerves as I felt the finger squeeze on the trigger. I wasn’t sure what my next move would be… just that I would have two to deal with instead of three in a few more moments.
The gun barked, I felt it kick in my hands, and everything exploded into action. Scanner spun toward me, blinking as I saw him begin to swing his gun around. Immediately, I started rolling around the side of the tree trunk to use it as cover.
Meanwhile, English whirled toward me, his hand already reaching for the gun holstered at his thigh. He’d just cleared it when I saw his legs drop out from under him as Chloe’s ankles wrapped around his, forcing him to drop to the ground like dead weight. His gun bounced a few feet away from both of them, but Chloe wasn’t paying attention. Instead, I watched in fascinated horror while still rolling behind the tree as she pulled her feet out from under English and wrapped them around the lower part of his face, positioning them strangely. English had just enough time to bring one hand up to her foot before Chloe jerked them in a weird motion that forced her victim’s head to jerk at an unnatural angle, causing his entire body to go limp.
Then, I was around the tree and unable to see anyone. I saw wood chips fly around me as several gunshots went off. Then, a curse spat out in Japanese, followed by a cry of pain.
Popping around the tree, I couldn’t see anyone, so I rushed forward a few feet, then into the small clearing when I saw Chloe lying partially on top of Scanner, her face buried in the crook of his neck. His gun looked like it was wedged between them, and he was desperately trying to pull it free.
As I ran over, I glanced at the other two bodies to see them both lying motionless on the ground and immediately turned my attention to the one my bound bodyguard was struggling with. I closed the distance between me and them and immediately pointed the pistol at him. Chloe must have seen me out of her peripheral because the moment I had my gun trained on him, she pulled away from him and backed a few feet back.
I was ready to open fire on him if the barrel of his rifle so much as twitched, but it wasn’t necessary. The only thing he was concerned about was the gaping crater in the side of his neck that was gushing blood. He screamed as he slapped a hand over the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but warm blood gushed between his fingers regardless of how hard he held onto it.
Chloe’s face from the nose down was covered in bright crimson that quickly mingled with the rainwater soaking her shirt. The gag she’d been wearing earlier was utterly drenched in blood as it hung around her neck. Still eying the fallen gunman, she turned her head to the side and spat a bloody chunk of something meaty.
“Don’t bother,” Chloe panted, looking positively feral with all the blood on her face and strands of her wet hair falling in her face. “He’s dead. He just hasn’t caught onto it yet.”
“Jesus!” I yelled at no one in particular.
“Take his gun,” Chloe said and spat more blood. I did as she directed, pulling the rifle’s strap off the dying man as he still screamed in pain and babbled in Japanese.
“Good,” Chloe said. “Now secure the other two.”
“What?” I asked, alarmed. “They’re not dead?”
“That means check to see if they’re dead,” Chloe said calmly.
I followed her direction there as well and called out that the one I shot and English were both dead.
“Good,” Chloe said, still watching Scanner. He’d stopped screaming and was simply lying there breathing. I returned to my bodyguard.
“You got something to cut these?” Chloe asked, leaning forward so she could display her bound wrists. I pulled out the multitool and cut the zip ties, freeing her. She immediately stood up and began searching the dead and dying soldiers.
“Did you really kill the one you mentioned on the radio?” she asked as she set to work.
“What?” I asked, tearing my eyes from the dying man to look at her. “Oh… no. I knocked him out and left him tied to a tree.”
Chloe gave me a look that said she didn’t approve, but refrained from saying anything else. Even a look of disapproval from her looked absolutely terrifying. She turned back to the one who had threatened to kill her and said, “Should’ve tied my ankles and left the gag on, motherfucker.”
By the time we gathered what few useful possessions the three mercenaries had, Scanner had grown motionless. Chloe had removed English’s shirt and was using it to remove most of the blood from her face. Everything was already wet, making the entire process quick and easy. Meanwhile, I retrieved my makeshift sack and filled it with a couple of pistols, a small emergency pack, and a few other valuable items. Once I slung it over my shoulder, I turned to Chloe, who had the automatic rifle and was studying a long tube leaning against a nearby tree.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“RPG-7,” Chloe replied.
I knew RPG stood for role-playing games, but I didn’t think that applied in this situation. “What?”
“Rocket launcher,” Chloe said. “It’s how they took out the chopper.”
She abruptly turned away from it and began surveying the area. In her wet, tattered shirt, jeans, and black bra, she looked like a blonde, she looked like a blonde, freckled tomb raider.
“Seriously!?” I asked, looking back at the weapon.
“Yep,” she responded.
I stared at it in shock. Hiro Tanaka had just blown me out of the air by hiring mercenaries with rocket launchers. The guys would get a kick out of this, but holy hell… the whole thing had been absolutely terrifying.
“Hey,” Chloe said, pulling me out of my reverie. I looked at her and blinked. “You came for me,” she continued. “You didn’t have to do that.”
I didn’t? That hadn’t occurred to me.
“I couldn’t have just left you to die,” I said, a little horrified that she might think I could have left her.
Chloe stared at me for a long moment, her brown eyes searching mine for… something. “That’s not normally the way the bodyguard thing works.”
“I didn’t do much,” I said. I just shot the one guy. “You’re the one that killed a guy with your feet and bit out the neck of the other one.”
My bodyguard shook her head. “That was a great shot. I know professionals who have missed at those distances with a pistol.”
It was my turn to stare back at her. I couldn’t tell if she was just pumping me up or if she was being genuine, but I’d never really known her to be the type to give out false praise. I felt my cheeks heating a little despite the chill in the air. “Thanks.”
Chloe shook her head. “No. Thank you. I owe you.”
“You saved me in Nevada,” I pointed out.
“You pay me to save you,” Chloe said. She turned and started to walk in a direction with so much purpose that I didn’t even question it.
“You don’t owe me,” I said. “I’m not leaving my friend to die.”
Chloe didn’t respond, but I could tell she was chewing on that thought. After a few minutes, I said, “Do you know where we’re going?”
“Pretty certain,” Chloe said. She pointed in the direction we were headed. “Chopper’s that way. Maybe we can find supplies there and figure out what happened to Astrid.”
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