1:58 A.M. Thursday
Blood ran into my mouth and I swallowed.
Operations was a steadily moving zone of professional chaos. The news of the war was on every television screen in the place and we were processing more of it as quickly as we could handle. No report had come in from Jack and Tony in some time. Mason and Jackson were busy making the decisions. In the midst of it all I stood at my station, my throat constricted, a burning in my heart. I glanced to Kevin, who was working at my station feeding intel to crisis management, and put up two fingers. He nodded and I climbed the stairs to Jack's vacant office.
You're too important for anyone
You play the role of all you want to be
I shut the door behind myself and moved inside. Jack's office is largely soundproof and that kept the bastion of below from pounding into my brain like shards of glass into an open wound. The numbness yet incredible pain was excruciating. The war on terrorism was my duty, and yet the war against the night was my destiny. I couldn't choose one over the other. I picked up the globe paperweight Jack always kept on his desk and gripped it. The world was on fire and I was going to fail part of it.
But I, I know who you really are
You're the one who cries when you're alone
The paperweight hit the front door of Jack's locker head on with a resounding sound and bounced off, rolling onto the floor. As for me, I just screamed, a sound that could not possibly express my inconsolable, self-consuming anguish.
They were preparing for the end, feeling it coming down quickly on their shoulders. Without full strength, they would have to only be that much better, and there wasn't that much better to be.
Jason checked the Kevlar padding in
his windbreaker one more time, then holstered his firearm. My second-in-command
was being quiet and dedicated, knowing whatever he said wouldn't make anything
much better for them tonight. The camera hidden in his watch came to life,
lights on as if to say it was prepared to record the memories. Hopefully he
would be able to come back and play them over like he always did.
But where will you go
With no one left to save you from yourself
You can't escape
You can't escape
Standing near Jason, Derek collapsed
his extendable staff and put it in the holster hanging at his side, turning off
its tazer function. He was nervous, the muscles in his shoulders taut and
locked. He couldn't come up with words, instead choosing to just force out
several deep breaths. Despite everything he had seen there were always moments
when he realized how far everything had come. Moments that made him more human
than human.
You think that I can't see right through your eyes
Scared to death to face reality
Derek closed his eyes and let the last wave of emotion break over him. It was time to let it go.
Ben gripped the big-bore CIB sidearm in one hand, slamming a clip into it with a resounding click. Hair was falling into his eyes and he brushed it back. He hadn't been in this big of a fight since Cortazar, Mexico, and he was grasping at whether or not he had the capacity to rise to the standard again. His eyes were dark, a storm in summer. He tried to hide the scars, but after a while…
No one seems to hear your hidden cries
You're left to face yourself alone
He surveyed the rest of the
fighting forces, perhaps the most eclectic group ever thrown together to save
the world. If, indeed, that was what they succeeded in doing. Only time would
tell. Time quickly expiring for all involved.
But where will you go
With no one left to save you from yourself
Upstairs in Ops, Leticia powered up the tactical systems. With every available Code Black team member needed in the field, she would be running the room, keeping everyone informed and feeding them information in the thick of battle, taking what they would tell her and turning it into plans and solutions. The light tables, screens and devices flared to life around her. The difference between her job and my job was that she only had five lives to worry about … I had more than five million.
You can't escape
You can't escape the truth
I was back at my position on the floor, standing in the center of my staff members' stations. "Situation report," I said simply, knowing two words would get me a flood of information.
"Tony's team is stable at Division," Lex was telling me, "They've got an uplink to the rest of everyone there."
"And Jack and his team handled the situation they were out on," Kevin picked up without missing a beat. "It's an all clear."
"Right then," I said, turning to look at the screen of statistics. Time elapsed. Targets hit. Casualties.
Casualties.
I realize you're afraid
But you can't abandon everyone
As I stood firm calling orders, the soldiers I had come to rely on took to the streets, the streets quickly being overtaken by the invaders they were sworn to destroy. The surprise was clear in Jason and Derek's eyes – numbers they had not expected, time they didn't have. But duty was duty, and they plunged forward without a second thought.
Smartly, Ben was on his phone calling for Weiss to get down to their position, calling my contact list to get backup. They could not take on such insurmountable numbers alone, and he knew it. Even so, he set his jaw, closed the phone, and readied his first shot before he could get close enough to reconsider. This was personal now. None of us had set out to be CIB slayers. None of us had asked for it. But it was a duty we could accept, and we understood the principles of duty.
Foremost among them: No surrender, no retreat.
You can't escape
You don't want to escape
I mentally reminded myself to breathe. Jack, leading Team Delta (minus me, of course) on another sortie, had come back to the office and I saw his team members fanning out to get back to their base stations while they awaited reassignment. I wanted to run over to Jack and ask him to give me time, manpower, some sort of way to make this choice easier.
Instead I said, "Paula, pull up
the calendar for Delta for me and prep the next package." My eyes were locked
on the action in front of me, unable to invest it with any more meaning.
I'm so sick of speaking words that no one understands
Is it clear enough that you can't live your whole life all alone
Derek cried out as he was hit from behind, then quickly got back up and exacted his revenge. Around him, Jason, Lan, Chloe and Ben were stuck taking on more than one Code Five per person. The rules of engagement had all but faded, instead turning into a violent melee. It was obvious that this had been planned for quite some time. They knew the team they were facing was the team meant to take them out, and they were determined to take us out instead. But as he wiped blood from his wounds, Derek knew there was a different plan involved.
I can hear you in a whisper
But you can't even hear me screaming
"Get me updated facts and figures, and reassign Team Beta to op-sec."
I was still reeling off orders
with an air traffic controller's speed and precision, but my heart wasn't in
it. I could see everything happening, but in my mind's eye I was thinking of my
friends, my fellow soldiers, who were dying out there without the proper
support and the extra front-line fighter I should have provided. My head hung
slightly as I thought about it. I had failed them.
But where will you go
With no one left to save you from yourself
Weiss made it to the scene quicker than expected, but all hell had already broken loose. Derek, Jason, Lan, Chloe and Ben were already in the thick of a firefight. Not to be dissuaded, Weiss pulled his own weapon and went straight for the heart of the fray. He was firing shots off before he was even within distance. Detective Smith arrived behind him with no idea what was going on, except that the city was burning and he recognized the good guys.
Realizing that Smith knew nothing about the Code Fives, Weiss quickly tossed him a clip of carbon-tipped ammunition. "You'll need that," he explained, still moving forward. "Nothing else can stop them." As he moved in and Smith loaded the new clip, both men felt the brunt of a Code Five exploding into ashes. Dropping his shoulder resolutely, the detective followed the agent into the fire.
You can't escape
You can't escape
The battle had horrific odds: for each Code Five terminated, another seemed to appear. Jason and Derek were protecting Lan and Chloe, but everyone was being driven back. As Weiss arrived on the scene, Chloe was knocked back into Ben, who had to move quickly to catch her and fire off a shot at the same time. No one could keep it together like this.
They fought for another ten
minutes more without any marked improvement. The more he slayed, the more Weiss
began to consider the inevitable.
I realize you're afraid
But you can't reject the whole world
Holding his position firm, Weiss looked over his shoulder at Detective Smith, who was falling back into a defensive position and still looked shocked at what was happening to him. "Go to CTU and get Brittany into the ops room!" he ordered. "We don't have much time left!"
Smith didn't have to be told twice. Firing off a last protective shot or two, he turned and bolted for his vehicle. As he hit the gas, his jolted eyes looked into the rear view mirror to see the fight turning more desperate and more violent with each passing second. The world was coming apart tonight.
You can't escape
You won't escape
The silence was getting under my skin, and I was already rattled to begin with. I felt so useless, so compromised. Randomly, I lashed out and hit the operations documentation binder on my desk, sending it to the ground.
You can't escape
You don't want to escape
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, then reached over and picked the fallen binder up off the floor. Looking up after doing so was when I spotted Detective Frank Smith, whose eyes were wide and afraid and yet driven. As he headed right for me, I met him halfway and in a shaky voice demanded to know what was going on out there.
"They need you, now."
Something inside of me died as I looked into his eyes. The decision was there in front of me: one war or the other. And knowing I was losing everything fast, I turned with him and ran for the door, leaving everything else behind.
