Michael sits up in his hospital bed as the door to his room opens Lester hobbles in closing the door behind him.
"Please tell me you got something." Lester nods as he sets a laptop on the table.
"I have something." He brings up a digital terrain map and points to a heavily wooded forest just beyond Fort Zancudo.
"You should see the chaos coming over the waves about what's going on here. At eight o' clock last night a helicopter bound for Fort Zancudo carrying four people overshot the base and took a header into these woods surrounding Mount Josiah. The chopper was located easily enough where two of the passengers were confirmed dead. Now here is where it gets interesting..." Lester zooms out of the map pointing to a single solitary road leading in and out of the forest.
"Merryweather has locked this road down, a dozen or so trucks and helicopters running search patterns have been spotted in these woods throughout the night."
"Melody." Michael mutters looking at the map.
"If I had to put my money on it, yeah."
Michael winces as he pulls out his IV and grunts using Franklin's shoulder to help him sit up swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
"Stay down man."
"Hand me my pants."
"All of Merryweather is in those hills, even if she survived the crash? Man I don't know."
"Franklin I know her..."
"So do I."
"I mean I really know her and right now she's not lost in the wood running from an army."
"Then what?"
"They're running from their worst nightmare."
Melody pants as she sprints silently through the trees, ducking under and jumping over tree branches trying to avoid pushing them out of her way as her breath billows into a cloud around her. The cold air burns in her lungs as she slows to a jog at a small stream and falls to her knees, dropping the long sharpened stick she fashioned beside her.
A helicopter roars by unseen through the canopy of trees above her head as she muffles a cough with her hand. She leans over cupping a handful of the freezing water and grimaces as she drinks it, her head coming up as she hears a tree branch snap.
"I swear I saw movement." A soldier says as the pair come out into the less dense area around the stream.
"I can't believe we've been here all night, how long does it take to find one chick? "Use extreme caution" and "highly dangerous"? Gimme a fuckin' break." The other lights a cigarette as they look beyond the stream, the soldier passes the cigarette to his buddy.
"No tracks, no sign of movement I can see. Just our boot tread." The soldier says, turning in place.
"Fuckin' freezing out here." Neither notices Melody drop from the tree above their heads landing in a crouch without a sound she rises to her feet and squares her shoulders, cocking her head she looks from one to the other as they exchange the cigarette again.
Melody hefts the staff like tree branch and jams the blunted end into the temple just below the first soldier's helmet. Twirling it she sweeps out the leg of the other soldier as he goes for the rifle slung across his chest, she plants her boot on his chest crushing his trigger finger to the weapon's frame and thrusts with the sharpened end of the branch like a spear into his throat.
She turns as the soldier she struck gets to his feet, drawing his sidearm. She smacks his wrist with the stick sending the weapon to the ground and twirls the now bloody stick jamming it into his chest she pushes him back until he hits a tree. The stick tears through his uniform and pierces his chest, spraying her with a fine mist of blood as she turns her face away.
She holds him for a long moment before she lets the stick and the soldier slump the ground. Panting she kneels taking hold of the soldiers by the handles on the back of their vests and drags them into the trees.
"Michael come on man."
"Keys." Michael holds out his hand as he limps up to the driver's side door of his car.
"Least let me drive." Michael nods and limps over to the passenger seat sliding into the seat. Franklin climbs behind the wheel and turns over the engine.
"So what's the plan?" Franklin asks as Michael rubs his sore knee.
"Makin' it up as I go."
"You seriously think she's all right?"
"I know she is she'll fight until someone comes and gets her...or she dies. Take me by her apartment."
Melody covers her handiwork with some leaves and gently brushes the taut trip wire with her finger. Tilting her head to the sky she blinks before she looks over her shoulder and sprints back into the thick brush. A four man patrol comes out of the trees as she jumps, gripping a tree limb she circles one leg over it and hauls herself up.
"Unsling those rifles we're making too much noise." The squad leader says quietly as the squad complies, Melody smirks as she crouches on the limb.
"How long are we going to keep up this chase?"
"As long as it takes man what do you think they pay us for?"
"Stow it." Melody bites her lip as the squad leader steps over the trip wire without noticing it.
She claps her hands to her ears when the one of two staggered behind the point men kicks the tripwire and the two opposing claymores go off. The explosion rips through the forest as Melody drops to the ground looking around as she approaches them.
One soldier was still alive moaning as he crawls on his hands away from the blast zone, his legs shredded to ribbons by the shrapnel. Melody melts out of the woods as he looks up at her, she draws her captured sidearm and puts a round between his eyes the shot echoes in the now silent woods. Turning him over she rips open the velcro pocket on his shoulder blade and retrieves his radio.
"Thanks." She adds looking down at the corpse as she shrugs off her own captured tactical vest and replaces the radio in its own pocket at her shoulder blade, slipping the earpiece into her ear and sliding the vest back around her shoulders. Clicking the mic once then twice she walks back into the woods.
"That's another four bit the dust Lexi, I can do this shit all day. You want me you're going to have to come get me yourself." Melody turns walking backwards as her eyes search the woods behind her then turns on her heel melting back into the woods.
Lexi growls sweeping the maps covering the table to the ground and flips the table over.
"Find her! Now!"
Michael grunts as he hauls himself up trying to keep the weight off his sore knee. The stone wall outside of Melody's apartment building had evenly spaced holes perfect for hand and foot holds.
"What are we doing?" Michael blindly searches the seventh hole up putting his hand through and searching behind the wall above it.
"Melody keeps a spare k-ah, got it." He peels the piece of tape from the stone a key stuck to the back of it he slowly climbs down on his good leg. They walk inside the building and take the elevator to Melody's apartment.
"I've never been here before." Franklin says as Michael unlocks her front door, shutting it behind him he taps in Melody's alarm code.
"Whereas it looks like you've been here more than once." Michael doesn't answer him as he limps into Melody's bedroom.
"Kid's got taste, though it's a bit more...girly than I expected." Franklin says looking around her apartment as he follows Michael into her bedroom.
"She is a woman Frank." Michael opens her closet door and slides aside her clothes.
"So what are we doing?" Franklin asks as Michael runs his hand along the back wall.
"Like I said I'm making it up as I go along." Michael slaps the wall panel and pulls it aside, Franklin arches his eyebrow as he looks at the tall safe built into the wall. Michael presses his thumb to the print scanner and spins the combo lock.
"Seriously?"
"Melody programmed me in in case of emergencies I think this qualifies." He stops the dial on the last combination and yanks open the heavy door. Franklin whistles as he looks at the plastic wrapped stacks of cash, the weapons resting neatly on upright racks on the bottom and the handguns hanging on hooks on the door.
"Ok now I know I saw..." Michael rummages through the safe as Franklin reaches in and hefts MJ's Milkor MGL. Painted a desert tan with a red lensed reflex scope mounted on top Franklin thumbs the switch and opens the six shot drum of the 40mm grenade launcher and his eyebrows arch at the grenades neatly resting in each slot.
"Kid's got hardware."
"Yeah-hey, here we go." Michael pulls a radio from one of the shelves and turns the knob.
"...patrol six reports no joy, patrols seven and eight are due for check in zero minus five..."
"Bingo." Michael shuts off the radio and takes the Milkor from Franklin setting it back in its rack, taking one of the handguns off a hook he shuts the safe door spins the dial and replaces the panel.
"One more stop." He adds taking Melody's spare set of keys from her bedside table.
Melody watches, perched like a bird on the tree limb, as another four man patrol stomps and tears its way through the thick woods.
"Almost two dozen guys, are you kidding me with that shit?" One soldier says to the one next to him as he looks around.
"Yeah I say we call the heavy hitters carpet bomb the shit outta these woods, that'll take care of it."
"Wanna know what those soldiers mistake was?"
"Sure Sarge."
"Talking." One of the soldiers smirk shaking his head as he stops, slapping his squadmate's arm pointing he stares as Melody stands there staring back at him.
"There!" He raises his rifle as Melody turns and takes off, the Sergeant slaps his transmitter.
"Patrol Seven in pursuit!" The squad takes off running after her.
"Negative! Negative! Patrol Seven break off pursuit and report your location!" Melody ducks under a tree limb and sprints through the brush as bullets whiz past her blowing tree limbs into shrapnel as she bounds over the trip wire and skids in the wet leaves behind a thick oak tree.
"This way! This way!" One of the soldiers trips on the wire falling over as the air suddenly fills with criss-crossing gunfire.
Melody's two captured HK416's spit round after round as the soldier lies on top of the wire, dead. The vines lashing one rifle to the tree snaps from the recoil and the rifle drops to the ground, the opposing rifle empties its last round as the two trailing soldiers get to their feet.
"Son of a bitch." He says as he takes a knee turning over one of his friends and closing his vacant eyes.
A sound whips through the forest as Melody's captured SOG Tomahawk spins through the air and buries itself into the other soldier's face just below his helmet into his eye and cheekbone spraying the remaining soldier with blood.
He gets to his feet turning in a circle, moving his rifle from left to right panting his eyes wide with fear as Melody melts out of the woods.
"Who the fuck are you?!" He yells at the trees turning in place again coming face to face with Melody pointing her captured Colt 1911 between his eyes.
"The last person you'll ever see." She pulls the trigger. Melody kneels and pulls open one of his vest pockets taking out two loaded magazines, turning him over she pulls his hydration pack from his shoulders slinging it over her neck as she looks around.
Walking over to a downed log she sighs, sitting on it she slices open an MRE she found on another soldier and examines the contents. She squeezes some water into the chem heater and drops it into the entrée box as it sizzles setting it on the ground beside her to warm.
"I hate cranberries." She says tossing the packet of freeze-dried fruit away and tearing open the pound cake with her teeth. Her bright blue eyes search the woods as she chews finally coming to rest on the bodies. She sighs again looking up at the sky and shaking her head before she clicks the mic on her captured radio.
"Lex." Back in her tent Lexi picks up the mic to the base station radio.
"Call to tell me another patrol bought it? Patrol Seven I assume?"
"You're sacrificing resources, time, and materials all for what? A chance at putting me at a location you can swarm? Using dead men to triangulate and track, that's cold even for you." Melody drops the chem heater from the entrée box shaking her slightly burnt fingers she opens the stroganoff and spoons the contents around a little before taking a bite.
"Yeah sure, you got me."
"I have a vague idea of how you think." Melody says in between chewing she looks up at the blue sky as a breeze drifts through the forest. Lexi sighs into the mic as she sits back in her chair in the command tent and tilts her boots up onto the table.
"Did these men have families? Do you know, do you even care?"
"They knew what they signed up for." Lexi says, letting the transmitter go as she rocks her chair on its back legs.
"Certain death? Somehow I doubt that."
"You know what I think?" Melody adds in the silence that follows. Lexi looks at the topographical map pinned to the canvas and clicks her mic.
"What?" Melody runs her tongue against her cheek and takes another bite of her meal.
"I think Weston told you to kill me but you couldn't do it. That's why you were taking me out of the country."
"So why'd you run?" Melody drops the empty food package onto the ground and takes a hit from the hydration tube, dusting off her gloved hands.
"I don't know, maybe it's because I wasn't thinking."
"Doesn't sound like you." Melody finishes the last bite of her pound cake.
"Still there?" Melody doesn't answer she tosses the wrapper away then blows the air from her lungs clicking her mic.
"Or maybe it's because I know I won't have the hesitation you did when it comes time to put you in the ground, and I didn't want to have to kill you." Melody releases the mic as she pushes over one of the bodies with her foot and looks down into his eyes.
"Yeah...maybe."
Franklin looks up at the nondescript garage as Michael pushes the key into the new lock on a rusty old door.
"What is this place?"
"Our last stop." Michael steps inside the small garage and flicks on the light switch.
"MJ's got places like these all over the city, she calls them her "in case of..." drops." He walks over to an old beat up metal counter and counts the jars of nails, nuts and bolts lined along the back of it.
At the fifth jar from the right he unscrews the lid and dumps the contents onto the counter, sorting through it until he finds a key. He walks over to a cabinet and uses the key in the padlock and hands Franklin an M4 carbine, slinging another M4 over his shoulder he grabs a handful of magazines and hands them to Franklin.
"How do you know all this shit?"
"Melody gave me a two week crash course on being her boyfriend, it was like being in high school...more like Basic training really."
Michael turns and grabs the canvas cloth covering the vehicle in the middle of the small space giving it a yank he balls it up and tosses it aside. Franklin arches his eyebrows as he looks at it.
"You've got to be kiddin' me." Michael smirks.
"I wish I was."
Melody runs a torn piece of fabric from the hem of her shirt along the inside of the slide of her captured Colt 1911, examining the spring she blows on it sliding the spring back into place and replacing the slide to the frame giving it a couple of pulls before she locks it in the open position. Her head snaps up at the sound of startled birds flying away as she replaces the clip and lets the slide snap closed.
The stream behind the downed log she sat on trickled and babbled as her eyes wander from left to right. A thick arm wraps around her neck from behind hauling Melody to her feet as she grunts digging her nails into the uniform sleeve of the big soldier.
"Son of a-" She growls as she struggles and fights him as he drags her to the stream turning her around he shoves her head into the freezing water.
The water stabbed at her face like a thousand tiny needles as she splashed and struggled. She digs her hands into the wet sediment her feet finding purchase in soft but dry earth as she thrusts her back end upwards lifting the heavy soldier off the ground she immediately lowers herself letting him fall on top of her, his arm coming free as he instinctually tries to catch himself.
Melody rolls on top of him gasping as her head breaks water locking her thighs around his waist and both hands around the soldier's throat squeezing as he claws at her face holding him underwater as he splashes and kicks up water all around them. Melody lets out an animal like growl as she tightens her grip ignoring the painful fingernails dragging down her cheek.
"Let him go." A voice from behind her says as she looks over her shoulder. Another Merryweather soldier stands with his rifle pointed at her.
"Drop it or I drown your friend."
"Drown my friend and I'll still drop you." Melody smirks flicking her wet bangs away from her face as she nods and releases her gloved hands from around the soldier's throat. He throws her off of him as he comes up for air gasping, sputtering and coughing as he held his throat.
The soldier gestures with his rifle as Melody falls to her knees, interlacing her fingers behind her head he nods to his partner to keep an eye on her as he turns depressing the radio on his vest.
"This is Nine, we've got her. About three hundred meters west into Grid 12."
"Acknowledged, report exact coordinates." The soldier pulls his handheld GPS from a vest pocket and looks down.
They both turn at the roar of an engine as a deep earth brown Canis Mesa bounces over a pile of dirt smashing through the trees and into view. Melody looks at the two soldiers and drives her fist into the back of one's knee. Pushing to her feet she curls her fingers over and under the lip of the front of the soldier's helmet and yanks his head back as she jams her knee into his spine violently snapping his neck.
She headbutts the remaining soldier when he whirls on his heel, Michael slams the brakes of the big off road vehicle skidding and kicking up dirt as it goes sideways. Melody pulls the pin from one of the grenades on his vest and steps off her back foot kicking him back, he stumbles and splashes into the stream as Melody sprints away from him.
"Down! Down!" She yells at Michael as she dives over downed log as the explosion rocks the woods around them, spraying water, shrapnel and dirt across the small area. Melody covers her head with her arms as she gets pelted with dirt, Michael shuts the door of the Mesa and hurries around it.
"MJ? Melody?!" He calls out as he vaults over the downed log the pain in his knee forgotten as he helps her to her feet. Her blue eyes meet his as he looks her up and down, her hair was dripping wet and her clothes were torn, dirty and soaked in blood. Franklin hands Michael of a blanket as he circles it over her shoulders.
"You came." She says as if she was slowly coming out of daze her eyes wandering back up to his.
"Of course I came." He hugs her as she rests her head on his shoulder.
"Is that my Mesa?" She asks looking at it over his back.
"Oh, yeah, I had to borrow a few things." He helps Melody over to the Mesa and helps her into the passenger seat as she brushes some wet hair from her face pulling the blanket tighter around her. She looks up at the trees and the sky as Michael turns over the engine and shifts, taking the way he came out of the forest. Melody cuddles up to him resting her head on his shoulder.
"Patrol Nine, report!" Lexi's voice comes over the radio Michael took from her apartment secured to the cradle on the dash. Melody reaches out clearing her throat before she presses the transmitter.
"Hello, Lex."
"I didn't think they'd keep you for long." Melody grips one of the handles bolted to the frame as the big off road vehicle jostles and bounces over a downed tree.
"Lex, it's over."
"I don't think so."
"Maybe not for you but it is for me."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning remember what I said, and think twice before you take action again." Melody drops the radio into the floorboard and pulls the blanket tight around her body closing her eyes as she rests her head on Michael's shoulder.
"Take me home."