Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Black Hawk Down and mean no disrespect to the real people who were there. I have the highest respect for them. I only own the characters that came from my own twisted little head.
Author's Note: Just thought I'd try my hand at a full length BHD fic. Let me know what you think of it.
Search and Rescue
Prologue:
The overwhelming sun leaked in through the slit in the tent. Andy let out a small groan and let blinked her eyes open. She sat up and shivered as a long stream of sweat trickled down her back. Eight o'clock in the morning and it was already over ninety degrees outside, but that was Brazil. Andy let out a loud yawn as she stretched her hands over her head and popped her neck. She kicked her sleeping bag off of her bare legs and tugged on her khaki fatigues before stepping into her hiking boots and crawling out of the tent. Andy had turned twenty five last month. She had spent her birthday floating down a snake infested river in a canoe no bigger than a bathtub with five other people in it. She had loved every second of it. She fastened her hair back into a messy bun at the back of her neck, letting out another yawn as she walked over to her guide, translator, and dearest friend, Tar Hakeem.
"Mornin' Hakky." She said, "Where's Al?"
"I t'ink he was headed down to de river." Tar said, sipping from his canteen and offering it to Andy.
Andy took a drink gratefully, but as she handed it back said, "Who I wouldn't kill for a decent cup of coffee. Scratch that. Who I wouldn't kill for even a bad cup of coffee. Anything, I don't care, I just need caffeine."
Tar laughed.
"The shipment comes in today." Andy tossed into the conversation.
"Yes, I know." Tar said, "Long way to town."
Andy nodded, taking another sip from the canteen and taking a look around the village that surrounded them. It was about then that a small boy by the name of Eliway came running up to her. A group of his friends stood huddled together, watching and whispering in the distance. Eliway was about ten years old and had the biggest crush on Andy. It was adorable, really. When she had first met him, he had been so weak from fever that he had been unable to walk, stand, or even feed himself. But, over time with the help of the right medicines and nutrients he had gotten better. Now he was strong, healthy, and vibrant. The skinny boy was surprising tall for his age with big, round eyes that Andy always thought looked like pieces of chocolate. He held a bowl of rice out to Andy in offering as her breakfast and beamed a brilliant toothy grin when she accepted the meal. The group of friends shared a whole new rush of whispers. Andy couldn't resist. She leaned forward and gave the boy a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Thank you, Eliway." She said.
Eliway took off running back to his friend, who had since erupted into fits of hushed hysterical laughter. Andy swore that his ebony cheeks had turned bright red when she had kissed them. He and his friends ran off, their dark skin glistening from sweat under the sun. They herd of children ran directly past Al as he was making his way back across the village to where they had set up their camp. Andy beamed a bright smile at him and waved. She was one of a group of missionaries who had taken up residence in the village of Dunmar. The tribe that lived there were a friendly people, but they had no doctor. When they had showed up bearing Al, or Dr. Alfred Merrick, he had been hailed as a medicine man and they had been invited to stay indefinitely. Andy couldn't think of anything more rewarding than helping these people and she always had the most amazing feeling when she watched Al working.
Al was somewhere around seventy years old, though you'd never know it to look at him. He was healthy and fit and pranced around like a man half his age. He was ex military and his presence was one of the deciding factors in her father allowing her to come here and do the work she longed to do. Granted, she was a grown woman and could technically do whatever she wanted, but her father had ways of stopping her.
Al walked up to the table, taking the canteen from her hands and taking a long guzzle then lowered the canteen and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Mornin', darlin'." He said, "Sleep late?"
"Late?" Andy spat incredulously, "You call this late? What were you born waking up at five a.m. or something?"
Al answered her with a throaty chuckle as he took another sip from the canteen. Andy rolled her eyes and used her fingers to shove some rice into her mouth.
"You know," she said as she chewed, "we have to go into town today."
Al nodded, "Yes, darlin', I know. Our shipment's comin' in. 'Bout damn time if you ask me."
"Long drive. We should probably get goin' soon." Andy added.
"Yep. Tar, buddy, you wanna run and get the jeep?" Al asked.
"No!" Andy exclaimed, taking another mouthful of rice then handing the bowl to Tar, "I'll get it."
Without waiting for an answer, she took off towards the other side of the village. Al's face contorted to an expression of absolute terror at the process. "God help us." He muttered as Tar just laughed.
Five minutes later, Andy came flying up in the four wheel drive army green jeep. Al repeated his request as he climbed into the passenger seat and immediately pulled his seatbelt on. Tar, still laughing, hopped up into the backseat. And just like that, the jeep was tearing through the jungles of Brazil, slinging mud up, down, sideways, and in every other direction imaginable. Al was clinging to one of the roll bars as though his life depended on it.
"Come on, Al." Andy yelled over the noise of the jeep, mocking him as they went over a particularly large bump, "I thought you were supposed to be some big tough army guy!"
"The army didn't have you as a driver." Al retorted.
"Chicken shit!"
"You know, ever since you lost those babysitters of yours, you've gotten a lot mouthier."
"Oh, Al, is 'de little girl picking on you?" Tar laughed from the backseat.
"Yes, she is, Tar. Make her stop, would ya?" Al replied.
"No, no, no." Tar said, "She scares me."
Andy laughed. With the two of them, she was constantly laughing. Despite their age and cultural differences, the three of them together were like siblings. They were just like a normal family; each one just as screwed up as the next guy. Two hours and a few terrifying potholes later, they pulled into the nearest town, Mantik. Andy parked at the sidewalk and turned off the ignition. Al leapt from the cab of the jeep and went straight to the warehouse to pay and pick up their medical shipment. Andy wandered over to some street vendors to pick out a piece of jewelry to send back to the states. Every so often, she would buy some neat little knickknack to send back home to her mother. Tar was standing beside the jeep when he noticed something that was unlike every other time they had come into the town. There were several grungy looking men walking up and down the streets…and the majority of them were carrying automatic weapons. He straightened from where he was leaning against the jeep and cantered over to Al.
"We should not linger, my friend." He said, his tone hushed.
The alarm in his friend's voice drew Al's attention immediately. "What's wrong?"
"We'll talk when we get out of town." Tar said, helping Al lift a case of medical supplies and load it into the jeep. The two men double timed their effort of loading the other two crates into the jeep. As soon as they slammed the tailgate shut, Al got into the jeep and Tar walked over to where Andy was examining a beaded necklace. He took the necklace from her hand and gave it back to the lady on the side of the street before taking Andy by the upper arm and dragging her back to the vehicle.
"That was rude, Hakky. What's going on?" she asked.
"Let's go, Andy." Al called from the jeep.
Tar forced her into the driver's seat and then leapt into the back.
"In a hurry guys?" Andy said, not realizing the gravity of the situation.
"Just get us out of here, Andy." Tar said.
Andy let out a sigh, turned on the jeep, slammed it into gear and took off. Soon enough, they were again bouncing through the jungle, clinging to the roll bars for dear life and looking at Andy as though she were a madwoman.
"So, you boys wanna tell me what that was all about or do I need to guess?" Andy said.
"Did you notice the men with the machine guns, Andy?" Tar said, earning him a look from Al. Al did not want Andy alarmed. The chances that they were there for what Tar was insinuating were slim to none and she didn't need to be thinking about it.
"Wha…what do you mean?" she said from her position behind the wheel.
"Nothin', darlin'. Probably just a drug war, but we don't wanna be there if they decide to start killin' each other." Al said, reaching over and giving the back of her neck a paternal squeeze.
He had spoken too soon, though. Not five minutes later, the slippery muddy path that they were speeding along was suddenly blocked by a pickup truck with mud tires and a machine gun mounted on the bed, a man standing behind it aiming it right at them. There were seven men standing in front of the truck, all pointing their own automatic weapons at them. Andy slammed on the brakes and the jeep skidded to a stop, slinging mud on all sides. Al looked at her. Her entire body was trembling and her hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. The men started screaming at them in a language that Andy didn't understand. She looked back at Tar in hopes that he would translate for her. The jeep jostled as Al stood from his seat, drawing Andy's attention back to him.
"We're missionaries!" he called, "Please, let us pass!"
The sudden noise caught her by surprise. It was a single shot that sent Al crumpling back into his seat. All that registered in Andy's mind was that these men had just fired at them. She slammed the jeep into reverse and stomped on the gas pedal. They flew backwards about twenty yards before she hit the brakes again, kicked the jeep into drive and spun the wheel and went tearing off road into the jungle. The rockiness of the road was nothing compared to when they left the muddy dirt path. Andy heard the sound of the beat up old pickup truck heading after them, but even so, she took a second in between the weaving in and out of trees to take a look at the seat beside her. At first, she had told herself that the shot had startled Al into sitting back down…but as she looked over she saw him clearly. She saw him, and the hole just off center of his forehead. Her mouth dropped open, but the distraction had done more than its fair share of damage.
"Andy!" Tar screamed from the backseat.
Andy turned back forward just in time to see the embankment as she drove over it and wrapped the jeep around an eighty year old tree. She slammed forward, chest first into the steering wheel. Tar hit the back of the passenger side seat and then flew back again. With a groan, Andy undid her seatbelt and rolled out of the cab of the vehicle. She bent forward and braced her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. Her gasping soon evolved into choking sobs though as she straightened and looked at Al. His head was turned toward her, eyes staring sightlessly forward, his face twisted in a macabre grimace. In the backseat, Tar had leaned forward and pressed his face into his hands. Andy looked at herself and saw she was splattered with Al's blood. She frantically began swatting at her arms and legs, screaming through clenched teeth.
Tar leapt from the jeep and put his hand over her mouth. "Andy!" he said, "You have to be quiet. They will hear you."
Andy started nodding, her eyes darting back and forth to each side as she started to work thing out in her head. Tar took his hand from her mouth and she looked at him. "All right. All right, listen, you go that way and I'll go this way."
"No, Andy, we stay together." Tar said.
"Don't be stupid, Tar." Andy said, tears falling freely down her cheeks, "You know what they're after just as well as I do."
"Andy…"
"Go…Hakky." Andy said, "Come back later for the meds."
Tar leaned forward and kissed her forehead before taking off and disappearing into the jungle. After he was gone, Andy turned back to the jeep and looked at Al's lifeless body. Her stomach wretched and unable to stop herself, she doubled over and threw up.
"I'm so sorry, Al." she said.
She took off at a dead sprint in the opposite direction that Tar had gone. Branch and trees limbs bit at her bare arms as she sloshed through the mud. She could hear the engine of the truck and men's voices shouting behind her as she ran. They were gaining on her. If she could just find a place to hide, maybe she could wait them out. But, as she was lost in her own thoughts, her foot caught a tree root and somersaulted forward, knocking her head against a rock.
She didn't lose consciousness, but the world certainly started spinning. She rolled onto her hands and knees and closed her eyes in an attempt to steady her thoughts. When her vision finally cleared, she saw three men standing in front of her, all of them holding their trusty guns. And every gun's barrel was pointed directly at her nose. She averted her eyes back to the ground and pushed her fear way down into the pit of her stomach. The tips of her fingers brushed up against something firm and with her peripheral vision she saw that it was a tree limb. Sucking up all of the courage that she had in her, she grasped the tree limb and swung it. She knocked one of the men's guns out of his hand, and while the other two were distracted, she swung out her legs and knocked another on off of his feet. Then she jumped to her own feet and moved for the third. But, despite her valiant effort, she was grabbed by the back of her hair and forced back down to the ground by the forth man that she hadn't seen circling around behind her.
He pushed her down to her knees and held her there as the man she had leg swept got back to his feet and approached her. He picked up his weapon and stared at her for a moment, then back handed her across the face.
Ten Hours Later…
Four Delta officers sat uncomfortably in the darkened board room. It was not the kind of atmosphere that they were accustomed to. Two of the men were seasoned veterans and the other two were rookies. Sergeant Jeffrey Sanderson and Sergeant Norman 'Hoot' Gibson stared at their younger counterparts, Frederick Peters and Mathew Walers. They were already unhappy with being dragged out of bed at three in the morning, but the idea of working with these two green as the grass kids was almost too much to bear. Just then, the Colonel walked in.
All of the men snapped to attention and saluted.
"We don't have time for that bullshit, guys! Sit down." The Colonel said.
The men obeyed immediately as the Colonel slid them each a manila file folder. They opened it. On the inside was an 8x10 glossy photograph of a pretty young girl with strawberry red hair and big smiling blue eyes.
"Gentlemen, we have a kidnap situation." The Colonel said.
"This girl looks familiar." Hoot said.
"She should." The Colonel replied, "It's Andrea Hadly."
Every man in the room's gaze snapped up to the Colonel. The name had secured each and every one of theirs' undivided attention. Each one of them wondering exactly how this had happened.
"That's right. The president's daughter."
Author's Note: Well, that was my beginning. Please let me know if you think I should go on or if I should just give up here and now. Thanks.