Part 14
Mika started out with a gentle paced jog to warm up. Running on the sand had taken some getting used to initially. The beachfront stretched out for 6miles and she alternated days when she would run the entire distance and days when she would do half. Today she was doing half as she decided to sprint more than jog. The weather was just the way she preferred it for a run. The previous nights storm had left the sand a bit firmer and the air cooler with a brisk wind that seemed to carry her along when at her back and fill her lungs to propel her further when at her front.
As she rounded up to the halfway mark to turn back, Mika thought she heard something in the trees of the woodland that followed alongside the beach. When she heard the rustling a second time, she saw Mother saunter out from behind a log, stretching as if she'd been sleeping.
"Is that all you do?" Mika muttered to herself and the cat's ears perked up as if she heard her for a moment before settling back down again.
Mika wondered who in the hell owned this damn cat? But her mind was soon back on her run, her stride, her breath, as if it were a meditation. She was so all consumed with focus that when the cotton hood came down over her face from behind, she didn't even think to fight straight away. She should have kicked and punched and clawed at whichever number of assailants may have been attacking her but what she did was crumble to the ground to try and fight with the hood itself. That was a mistake because as soon as she hit the sand, she felt the rope about her neck and her hands being pulled taut behind her to be bound. When she did think to fight the invisible attack it was just too damn late. Strong hands stilled her struggling. She couldn't cry out for the rope around her neck restricting her airways and when that acrid and cloying smell wafted into her nostrils, she knew she was done for and her world went black.
Once again Mika awoke in a strange new place but this time with a pounding headache. Once again, her ears became alert first followed closely by her nose. There were sounds around her but at first her brain couldn't make sense of what they were. Slowly she noticed the sound of rustling leaves. It was very faint, along with some distant bird chatter. She was outside somewhere. She wasn't home. Mika tried to slow her rapidly racing heart to try and calm down and concentrate. Whether this was another test or for real wasn't important right now. In fact, both possibilities were kind of one and the same. Real or not, she had to free herself and figure out what the fuck was going on.
She smelled wood. It was old and musty. She tried opening her eyes but realised she was blindfolded. Her hands were bound behind her back and her shoulder ached from her being crumbled against the floor for god knows how long. Had she been out for hours, days, weeks?
Judging by the dryness of her throat and the stiffness of her joints, Mika guessed at maybe a few hours. That was good, that meant she might not have been taken too far away.
"Hello?" She whispered, "Who's there?" she said louder but no one answered.
Mika hoisted herself to sit up. Being alone was not a bad start. She suddenly noticed the sound of a clock ticking to the right of her and for some reason that rhythmic sound set her mind to focus. She had no weapons, but she wasn't completely helpless. She was somewhere indoors, maybe a cabin? This meant windows. She managed to get to her feet and slowly back up taking baby steps in case there was something to trip over. Her lower legs soon came into contact with what felt like a trunk or a small table. Mika shuffled to the end of it and continued to back up until she hit the wall. So far so good. The wall was wooden, and she inched her way across it until she felt the wall end and a window start. That's what she was looking for. Mika judged the height of the window from the floor and sent her sweater-covered elbow short and sharp into the pane praying she didn't cut herself to ribbons in the process.
The glass cracked and she heard shards fall. She lowered slowly to the ground to pick up a piece and very gently she found one without cutting herself and it was just large enough for her to angle between her fingers and against the rope binding her wrists.
It took what seemed like forever to saw through her bindings. This was not like the movies, she nicked herself several times but when she finally got through the rope, she was so pleased with herself that she barely noticed the wounds she'd inflicted. Mika reached up and pulled her blindfold back and squinted at the daylight. It was still day, so she was right, she'd only been out a few hours. She took in her surroundings and she truly was alone. When her eyes fell on the trunk, she'd bumped into she saw an envelope on top of it with only the words 'read me' typed on the front. She picked up the envelope but before opening it she looked around for anything that could be used as a weapon. There was nothing. She crept over to the window and tried to see if there was anyone else around, but she was in a cabin surrounded by woodland and apparently alone. She opened the letter and all it had was a map with a location marked on it and a polaroid of a girl. She looked maybe 14yrs old but she was dressed much older. She turned the picture over and someone had written,
'Extract package. Return to location below. After 5.15pm she dies.'
"Fuck." Mika uttered quietly. This was the real deal. This is what she'd been training for, what she'd asked for, but she wasn't ready was she? Surely Raizo wouldn't let her be sent on assignment if she wasn't ready? Maybe this was another test?
Mika glanced up at the clock on the far wall that she heard ticking before. It was 3.25pm. Shit. She didn't have time to figure out what was happening. She looked at the map again. It wasn't your usual street map. This was covering woodland. Which meant the extraction site was somewhere in this forest. It looked like it might be over 2 hours away on foot. Mika didn't have 2 hours so after checking her direction by locating the sun in the sky and noting some landmarks to look out for, She took off running.
About an hour in Mika was still hitting a decent stride and seemed to be on the right path but her throat was burning, she was thirsty, and the pangs of hunger were close behind but adrenalin stifled those feelings shortly after they arose. She had to make it in time, she had to. Mid-run Mika tugged off her hoodie and tied it around her waist. She was roasting hot. She'd tucked the map and the picture inside her the waistband of her jogging pants. The forest seemed to go on forever. She had mountains to her left and water to her right. Dirt paths came and disappeared. Mika kept on running, glancing at her map for landmarks to keep her on track and after what seemed like another 40mins, a medium-sized cabin seemed to emerge in the distance. Mika saw smoke before she saw the building which meant people were inside it. She stopped running and hunkered down in the undergrowth, catching her breath while creeping nearer.
This must be the place, she thought. Her heart was suddenly pounding in her chest and not just from the run. She noted 4 people around the perimeter of the cabin, 2 with rifles. She assumed the other two had handguns. She was far enough away to not be noticed as she hunkered down in the overgrowth by a small out-house. She noticed one of the men motion to the others and then start walking out into the forest in her direction.
Mika circled around the back of the out-house so it was between her and the view of the cabin. The man approached slowly, casually looking around to survey the area, his handgun was now visible in a black shoulder holster. It seemed like time had slowed down. Mika was trying to go that place inside herself that turned fear into action, she fought over the haze of self-doubt to remember all her training, why she asked to do this. She looked down by her feet and found a small rock which she picked up and squeezed almost painfully into the palm of her hand hard enough to leave an imprint. Then she remembered the days in her apartment back in Berlin. The fear, the helplessness, it felt like a pit she'd stumbled backwards into. She either felt like she was perpetually falling into darkness or perpetually climbing out of it, but she never truly believed she would one day be free whether that was by her own hand or someone else. And then Raizo came back and he gave her hope and space to see the true strength inside herself and she knew that all those years she spent living her life for someone else, she would never get back and all those months she was imprisoned in her own fear by cowards who preyed on the vulnerable she could never get back but what she could do is protect the innocent. Fuck fear. When Raizo found her she was a bird that had become caged. But now, now she was free. And everybody knows, birds can be predators too.
She threw the rock into the brush to her right. It made a subtle rustling as it landed, and the tall man was instantly alerted. He didn't signal to his comrades and instead circled the small structure to seek the source of the noise. Mika stayed crouched down when she noticed his gun turn the corner first as the man had his back flush against the out-house wall. He glimpsed Mika a second too late. She had grabbed the gun holding wrist with one hand and drove a fist into his throat with her other hand. Quickly she sent a heel into his knee and as he hit the ground, she drove the butt of the gun into the base of his skull twice, hard. He went still. Mika wrestled the shoulder holster off the unconscious man's body and put in on herself. She then took his belt off quickly and tied his ankles to his wrists backwards like an upside-down crab. She wasn't sure how long he'd be out and she wasn't prepared to kill him just yet so it would do to keep him out of the way for now.
She checked how many bullets were in the gun before approaching the cabin slowly from the side. She saw the outline of two figures through the cabin windows and she still had the three men outside to deal with. Time was running out. Mika spied an old pick up truck and a Jetta that had seen better days parked around the back of the cabin. She snuck up to the Jetta and tried the doors, but they were all locked. The pickup had no door on the driver's side and the keys still in the ignition. Small mercies. Mika took the keys and put them in her pocket. she tucked the handgun back in its shoulder holster and crept over to a hosepipe. This was it. She had no more plans left to try and whittle down the enemy numbers. There were 2 men with rifles and one with a handgun outside that she'd seen. There were two figures inside and neither of them looked like they could be the girl in the picture and she had no idea what she would be walking into but as she looked down at her watch she said "fuck it!"
Mika turned the hose on to its fullest and charged around to the front porch. As soon as she was in sight, she aimed the water into the three men's confused faces while shooting with her other hand. She hit one of the riflemen in the chest as she charged forward, her intention to not give them enough time to draw and aim before they had to resort to hand to hand combat. Her subconscious yelled 'this is such a bad idea, but she'd stopped thinking rationally and started acting instinctively. She'd shot the other rifleman in the shoulder and charged the man with the handgun so hard they both went through the glass window into the cabin. They landed with a thud almost knocking the wind out of both of them, but luckily Mika had landed on top of him. He'd pulled the trigger on his gun aimed at her gut, but the impact jolted his arm off to the side. The burn was instant, but she didn't have time to assess the damage. Without hesitation, she'd put a bullet through his chin giving her just enough time to roll off his body and spin a heel kick into the legs of the two figures she'd seen inside. Two suit-wearing men. They appeared unarmed. One went down hard, the other came up behind Mika with his hands around her throat. She brought her gun up and fired behind herself, but the weapon just clicked empty. Mika tried to beat the man with his hands around her neck, but the angle was wrong and he was crushing her airway. She drove herself to her feet with all her might and flung her head backwards into the nose of the man behind her with a crack. He let her go, blood-spattered her hair.
The man on the floor was getting up, the man behind her was pissed. He swung for her and missed. Mika sent a fist into his jaw but only seconds before the man from the floor grabbed her around the waist and hurled her across the room like a rag doll. She landed in a cabinet, breaking the doors. The pain again was instant. She shook the fuzziness from her vision and charged the same man as he came at her to grab her again but she sent a foot to his stomach causing him to stumble backwards a few steps. She spun on her heel and sent another kick to his knee hard enough send him down and she followed with a fist to his jaw. The man with the bleeding nose was behind him and had drawn a knife from somewhere.
Mika backed up a little, her hands were up, her fists were bloody and her ribs burned. She glanced at a heap of clothes in the corner on a beat-up sofa. There was an arm dangling from underneath them. Was she too late? Mika didn't have time to think. The man with the knife lunged at her and she went to sidestep him but the other man with the broken knee grabbed her ankle from the floor and Mika went down like a sack of rocks. She kicked with her free leg while the man with knife smiled and struck out at her. She kicked the out away from the hand gripping her ankle and rolled away just enough to her space to lunge at the knife and block that arm while she sent an elbow across the man's jaw. It dazed him a moment but didn't stop him. Mika stumbled back as he struck after her with his other fist, she dodged it but he caught her with the tip of the blade across her right arm as she turned into his approach lightning fast. She tucked herself into his body and brought the large man's knife arm down over her shoulder twice, breaking it at the joint then heaving him in a judo throw down onto the floor while simultaneously driving the knife into his partner who still lay there.
For a few seconds, there was no sound but the ragged noise of Mika's panting between the cocoon of the two lifeless bodies. She pulled herself free and made her way over to the pile of clothes on the couch. She heaved the clothes off and saw the face of the girl beneath, bruised but not broken. She was out of it as if she'd been drugged. She was wearing denim cutoffs and a crop top but was barefoot. She had on a full face of makeup but looked even younger than 14 now.
"Hey," Mika whispered, "Can you hear me?"
The girl's eyes lolled about in her head a moment before she responded with a crooked smile.
"Hey." She whispered back.
"We've gotta get out of here ok?" The kid smiled and nodded. "Can you walk?" She shrugged and smiled. "Shit." Mika exclaimed hoisting the girl to her feet. The kid stumbled but could walk. Mika took her out through a back door which was handy as the kid's feet would have been ripped up on the glass by the front door. "Wait."
Mika spied a handgun on top of a pile of boxes by the back door. Lucky, lucky. She took it and got the kid into the passenger seat of the pickup with a little difficulty. Mika belted her in just as she heard a shotgun blast in her direction. The bullet hit the back of the truck. She looked around and saw behind her that one of the men from the porch was aiming a rifle at her.
"Shit!" She put the key in the ignition and turned it. BANG! The shotgun, not the pickup. No, the pickup was heaving like a 40 a day smoker. "No, no, no!" She turned the key again.
This time the shot went through the pane of glass at the back of the truck's cabin "GET DOWN!" she yelled at the kid and ducked down and tried the ignition again, "please start…."
The pickup sputtered to life and Mika gunned it out of there. She didn't know where she was going, just followed the path that was already made. She figured it had to take her somewhere and didn't care just as long as it was away. As the old jalopy surged over the uneven trail through the woodland the girl was jostled around under her seat belt like a puppet with its strings cut.
In 30mins Mika came out onto an open road. It didn't seem like she'd been followed but she was taken no chances. She got the map out and took a direction. Her head was pounding. She had no money, no phone and the sun was starting to set in the sky. Her eyes burned as she tried to keep focus on the road.
"Where are we going?" The girl murmured sleepily beside Mika.
"I'm taking you home."
As soon as she said it she was concerned about the truth of that. She'd assumed that this was an extraction from bad people to good people but what if it was the other way round?
"What's your name?"
"Lindy…Rieke." Her eyes were half-closed. "I'm tired…"
That didn't sound good. "Hey, Lindy, " Mika tapped her cheek, "you can't sleep right now, open your eyes."
Lindy shook her head and turned away from Mika to rest her head against the window. Mika leaned across her, keeping one hand on the wheel and wound down the passenger door window letting the cool night air whip through the cabin of the pickup. Lindy's face screwed up in irritation. Protesting, she tried to wind the window back up, but her motor skills were almost non-existent. Mika, once again wondered what the hell they'd given her.
45mins later it was dark and Mika was pulling the pickup into the drive of a large house set back on a private road. Before she could make it to the door two bright lights turned on. Mika stopped the vehicle and glanced around. She couldn't see anybody around, but lights were also on inside the house. She knew this was a risk. She still had her gun, but it wouldn't do her much good if she was caught in the sights of a sniper. She took another deep breath. It hurt. She put her hands up in plain sight and exited the vehicle slowly going around the front so she remained in view of whomever she suspected might be watching. She opened Lindy's door and as she unbuckled the seat belt, the kid fell into her arms. She was asleep but breathing. Mika tapped her cheek again to rouse her. She couldn't carry her.
"Lindy, I need you to walk hun. You're home." Mika put her arm around Lindy and helped her stumble her way up the drive to the door. There was a garden lounger by the front door and as Mika and Lindy got closer, she saw an envelope on it. She sat Lindy down on the lounger carefully and picked up the envelope. The message inside was short and direct.
'Leave the package here. Go home. Do not look back.'
A large part of common sense, of learned instinct inside Mika screamed out all the ways this could be a huge mistake, but she did as she was told. She lay Lindy down and slowly made her way back to the truck. She backed out of the drive and down the road and kept on driving away until she wasn't sure where she was anymore. She drove until the truck's tank was nearly empty. She used the last of the gas to slowly drive it off-road deep into some overgrowth out of sight and made her way back to the main road to start walking. She was exhausted and was soon cradling her side. Mika was approaching a town and was aware she must look like death. The best she could do was take her hoodie from around her waist and put it back on to cover the majority of the bloodstains on her vest and her gun in its shoulder holster. She soon ended up taking the gun out of the shoulder holster and tucking it in the waistband of her jogging pants just in case she needed to get at it quickly. Truth be told she wasn't sure she had another fight in her. She kept walking, checking every now and then to make sure she wasn't being followed. When a family of rodents rustled in the brush beside the road Mika drew her weapon in a flash and aimed it into the darkness. There was no one there. Her nerves were frayed.
Just over 3 hours later Mika saw the familiar sight of home in the near distance and she felt the heat of moisture behind her eyes. She tried to increase her pace, but she had nothing left and the 20meters to Raizo's door felt like an eternity. She knew he would see her before she saw him. The motion sensors and security cameras would see to that. Mika pressed the doorbell as she slumped against the door frame and when that door opened, she let herself fall into Raizo's arms.