'Fuck'. Peter Quinn was a man that kept his cool. He wore a steely ice mask. He did not let his emotions slip out. He did his job with a lot of blood on his hands. And he kept his cool. Until now.
Three Lav 25 armored vehicles were approaching with heavily armed Jijhads. Machine guns were slung over their shoulders, as they made way for the CIA's safe-house. In the sizzling Syrian heat, a trickle of sweat finally escaped him. His hands did not shake because he was intimidated. They shook for what they were going to do to her.
'Situation has gone South. We need back-up, I repeat, we need backup.' Quinn roared through his ear piece. He knelt on the ground and grabbed his sniper rifle. Adjusting it to his eyesight, he started shooting with only one thought dominating his fading facade. Carrie.
He had heard about the atrocities committed on both sides of the table. The Syrian troops did their fair share of raping and looting, but the Jihadists had their own dark tales to tell. In countless briefs with Saul, he had heard, on repeated occasions, about the savage jihads. Their hatred for America was outspoken and captured in the media on countless occasions as they purposefully burnt American flags to the ground. They wreaked recent havoc in Iraq, executing thousands of Iraqi troops. Quinn was not a man that picked sides. He knew his country was not a knight in shining armour either. On the orders of his country, he had slaughtered innocents too. Yet when it boiled down to protecting national security and interests, things turned ugly. Death and blood spill on both sides of the coin.
Quinn started to tune out his mind. He flexed his fingers and rested them on the trigger. He knew he was a goddamn-good shot. One. Two. Third motherfucker. He silently smirked to himself. The jihads responded with relentless aggression. A bullet ripped into his shoulder. But he carried on like a machine. For her. The pain spread quickly, weakening his grip on the rifle.
'Quinn. Come back inside.' Carrie was screaming for him, but he ignored her pleas. Inside they were good as dead. For now, the jihads only knew of one shooter. Carrie was still invisible to them. And he had to keep it that way. Quinn decided to stop shooting because it was pointless. They were fast-approaching and he couldn't stop them. There were too many of them. His mind switched to survival mode. He ran towards Carrie as bullets sprayed around him. He grabbed onto her shoulder.
'Shit Quinn they shot you.' worry etched Carrie's eyes but there was no fear in them. She had come face-to-face with Abu Nazir. She had first-handedly witnessed the love of her life be executed amongst a cheering crowd. Carrie was not easily scared and suddenly he admired her even more. Fear paralyses people and panic is what chokes you. Its like a noose that wrapps around your neck, squeezing away your rationality. But not her. Carrie was strong.
'I'm ok.' Quinn said dismissively. He gestured toward the dry well, 50 meters at the back of the house. 'We are running out of time Carrie. They think I'm the only one occupying this house. Let's keep it that way. I need you to hide in the well.'
'What?! And let you get captured? No fucking way Quinn.'
'Carrie for once I need you to switch off that genius brain of yours and start thinking like a human being. You have a 1 year old daughter. A sister and a father who would be devastated if your life ended like this. Now go. There's no more time.' Quinn spoke calmly, despite the fact that he wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. Why is she so adamant?
'You have a son. And the mother of your child-'
'They think I'm dead' Quinn interrupted her, his eyes turning a shade darker. It had been better that way. He had staged his death, like many black ops agents before him. That way, Julia would stop waiting for him to come home.
'What?' Carrie choked out.
'Carrie, you have to do this. For your little girl, Stella.' Quinn urged.
Slow tears streamed down Carrie's face. Her face was finally breaking as the fear took over in her eyes, like a deer caught between the headlights. He wanted to brush them away. But he felt himself weakening as the blood spilled out of his bullet wound. He attempted a wry smile. There were a thousand ways he could have ended this. He knew he might be in love with her. He knew he was most likely never going to see her again. Yet for now, all he could think of was a simple gesture. He reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.
'Quinn please-'
'For fucks sake Carrie, Run!' He shouted. She backed away, her steps unsteady.
'Carrie' He warned urgently. Carrie lost her words. She nodded slowly.
'Alright Quinn. Alright.' Her words shook. He knew she was smart and she had put two and two together. At last. He felt his calmness crumble before him.
As if sensing his spirit drift away, Carrie spoke her last words fiercely to him. 'The only reason why I am going is because if they have us both, I can't trust lockhart will care enough to find us. Like this, I can put pressure on him. I'll find you, I promise. And we will kill every last one of them.' And with that promise, Carrie turned around and broke into a run. He watched her disappear. Her dark blue head-scarf slipped down, and her blonde hair loosened. A silk of blonde rustled in the wind, and then nothing. She's safe now. That's all that matters he told himself.
What Quinn should have done was shoot himself. End his life and end the pain to come. As the Jihads approached him, he knew they were going to torture him. Slowly and painfully until they got every last detail out of him. His mission was more important. He grabbed his shot-gun and placed the nuzzle against his forehead. He gazed out at the infinite blue sky and closed his eyes. His fingers wrapped themselves around the trigger. Quinn pulled. And then nothing. Shit. I used up the bullets. Horror dawned on him. He had no time to reload. The men climbed out of the truck and ran up to him, screaming in Arabic. One of them approached him with slick black hair, raised the machine gun and struck him in the head. He felt himself falling, black dots dancing around him. He struggled against their hold and pulled out his boot knife. Managed to knife one of them. And then someone else struck him.
'We need him alive.'
He felt himself being dragged into one of the trucks. They thrust him inside and pulled out plastic ties. One of them purposefully threw him on the ground and then applied pressure to his shoulder. The pain threatened to pull him into unconsciousness. Yet not a single sound escaped him. He was a trained black ops agent. He knew pain. After they tied his hands, they flipped him over aggressively and then restrained his ankles.
'We bring you to Hussain.' One of them spoke to Quinn in Arabic. Quinn replied in the same language saying, 'do what you want with me, but you're not getting anything out of me.' One of them smirked as he ripped out a long strip of duct tape and pressed it firmly over Quinn's mouth, silencing him effectively. He pulled out a camera and started filming.
'Whether CIA or not, you are American. We will make sure that your government see that Americans have no power over us. They can't stop us' The rebel laughed as he thrust the camera in front of Quinn's face. Oh great, I'm going to be on television, Quinn told himself sarcastically. Guess I better do my part.
Quinn summoned his last bit of energy and kicked with all his strength at one of the jihads. He screamed in agony as he fell out of the moving truck. His triumph was short-lived. Quinn saw the butt of a gun thrust toward his face and then blackness overtook him.
