My Adventures, Part 4

Casey Wodehouse peered into the chink of light visible through the shutter, then shifted to face the room, keeping her body over the gap.
The squad, what was left of it, turned to her.
“Six soldiers,” she said. “They’re in pairs, and they’re sticking to the perimeter. Not expecting us.”
A rasp came from the far side of the desk. “They’re not, maybe. What about the ones in the middle?”
Nolan. Her best friend, and a man who knew his place on a battlefield better than anyone. Everyone listened to him, and she wasn’t about to pull the wool over his eyes.
“It’s a problem,” she conceded. “I won’t kid you. They’re better fed, better armed, and some of them are mean tacticians too. All we’ve got going for us is our wits.” This was a private joke. Back in the days before they were friends, she and Nolan had shared one small joke that the English thought you could kill with a rapier wit. Quite feeble, but in those days you’d taken what you could get. And in these days, too. She hoped he would pick up the signal. Mentioning something like that was her way of privately appealing to his friendship, of telling him that she needed this.
“And the element of surprise.”
Casey smiled. If Nolan was talking like that, he was on side. Message understood.
“OK,” she said, spreading the papers out quickly to keep up the momentum. “Six of us, six of them, at least for now,” this last was said with a glance at Nolan, “so it’s even stephens.”
“Right.” Nolan spoke, and everyone settled down. Wodehouse had learned not to mind. They’d follow her, and they’d listen, but they trusted Nolan. So did she. “I think we send in Davies and Rees first, they’re nimblest, and then Richards and McMahon the other way. This is a tough order, and we need to play the numbers. We work together, but we let each other fly.
“No.” Wodehouse surprised herself. “This isn’t an escape mission. Not yet. We get Carter.”
“Wodehouse, this is crazy. You won’t get to him, and even if you do he’ll shoot you on sight. Find another place to fight him, not here, not now.”
Wodehouse felt her mouth open. Something like this, from Nolan, felt like betrayal. He understood the stakes. Everyone else thought they were just fighting a war.
“Don’t you see?” she said, quietly, “I can’t stop now. If I decide it’s not the right time, if I waver, then I’m lost. We got to find out who Carter works for.”
“What about us?” This was from O’don, a bullish man with no more co-ordination than courage. “We help you, it’s suicide.”
“You don’t help me, and you’re letting him go. Look, I can’t make you fight, I can’t force you in on this one, but I’m asking you. I’ll go anyway, and if he shoots me that’s how the story goes, but if I win, if I can take him down…I reckon it’s worth it.”
“So what’s your plan, Wodehouse?” Nolan again. The others were used to letting the two of them thrash out the plan between them. “You taking him down, or wheedling out where his pay check’s coming from?”
Wodehouse thought about how to answer him. She needed Nolan, but she couldn’t mislead him. She decided on straight truth.
“Both.”
He paused for a long moment, fingering the place where his hip flask used to be. “Come on,” she thought. “Give me this one and when we get out I’ll buy you the best Bourbon I can find.” She almost smiled at the number of times she’d silently offered him that deal. She owed him a cellar-full by now.
“OK, talk me though it.”
She really did smile then, though she doubted the others would have seen it. He rolled his eyes to the roof, and put his hands flat on the table.
“We need to get him somewhere we can reach him – not at his base, with the traps and whistles, somewhere he never bothered to defend properly.”
“Somewhere like here, you mean?”
“We’d never get him in here, not alone. And not unarmed.”
Just then, McMahon leapt up from his seat by the door, and bundled the papers under the floor. He looked up at us and grinned. “You’re not gonna believe this.”
By the time they could hear their captors’ footsteps, they were back to looking bored and innocent.
Carter chugged into the room, making a barely visible movement sideways to get through the door. He surveyed the room. A bunch of waifs – 3 months’ poverty and work will change any man’s face. Or any woman’s. He shifted his gaze with a grunt to Casey Wodehouse. Head shaved, muscular, but still undeniably feminine. He swaggered further into the room, heading straight for her, and watched her predictable goons close in behind him on the edge of his peripheral vision. It was obvious who the leader was. Nolan. Tall, ginger, would probably be an alcoholic by now if circumstances allowed. Nolan was moving in to lead the assault. 5 of them. Six including Wodehouse, but not much she could do from there. OK. Carter held his left hand flat, letting the steel embedded along the side of his glove control the shape of his hand. With his other hand, he shifted gently into the wrist to clasp a concealed blade. Wait for it.
Nolan moved forwards, softly. He didn’t dare glance at the others, but he knew Rees would be where he needed him, to the fat man’s left. They were as close as they could get now, stealing into position. If they’d any sense, the others would have stuck by the door. Nolan tensed himself, feeling all the muscles he hadn’t had six months ago form their new, perfect shape. He became his body, completely aware of every sinew, all poised and prepared to do what he needed them to.
And then he felt something he had not expected. A pain beyond sharp, beyond deep, a violating force inside him that kept him silent in its grip. He heard Rees cry out, to his left. “Crying on my behalf,” he thought, deliriously, and then he went down.
For a split second, Wodehouse was completely paralysed. Nolan was down. But then she moved. With no fuel in her body she was powered by rage and adrenaline as she leapt across the table, feet first, and kicked Carter hard in the mouth. The other three took up the assault, punching, kicking, tearing, until Wodehouse called them off.
“Keep him down,” she said, and moved to Nolan. She could see he was bleeding badly – the wound was deep. She just looked at him, willing her eye contact to hold him there in the hut with her. He looked back at her, hard, but he was using all his strength in the gaze. She let him go.
“Best friend always dies,” he muttered. “You’ve got five minutes before the guards come. Get your answers.”
He closed his eyes. Wodehouse didn’t know if he was dead, but she knew he wanted her to go, so she gently detached herself and rounded on the prostrate Carter.
“I’ve got one question,” she said. “Who do you work for? That’s it. Just a name, and we won’t kill you.”
Carter managed a smirk. “Ask for the sky next time.” Too late, Wodehouse saw the trinket in his hand. She watched him squeeze it, and then he was gone.
Wodehouse looked at her shocked comrades. She had to follow him, she knew. No time to say goodbye.
“Outside,” she said. “I’ll check.” And she followed him.