Operation Chaos by Richter Watkins

glanced at the dead men, at the knife she’d left on the floor between them.
    She said, attempting to stay in command voice, “You’re taking me to see one of my former patients that you say has a problem that I can help with. That is your mission. What happened here, with these men disobeying your orders, coming for me, forcing you to do what you had to do, doesn’t end the mission. It keeps the mission on track. I have to find out what is wrong with the soldier. That’s my job.”
    He gave no response.
    “C’mon, goddamnit, soldier, listen to me. You have to register this. You have to connect to me, to the mission, your mission.”
    The tension pulled hard at the muscles in his face. He was struggling with what he’d done. And what he’d remembered. And what was now his next move.
    Rainee said, “You know above all else that you can’t kill the person who saved your life. And you know you can’t quit on your mission to take me to the soldier, or soldiers, who are having problems with the Z-chips.”
    He didn’t respond.
    She pushed harder. “I pulled the bone fragments out of your damaged cerebrum. I kept the blood flowing. I kept the oxygen where it needed to be. I just hope whatever the cause you’re involved in, you won’t have any trouble with killing the person who saved your life.” She searched his face for some kind of emotional response, finding little. “I worked for days to do it. I worked with a fanaticism. I was determined. You fought to live, and I fought to keep you alive. Now we have something we have to do together.”
    He nodded. “Yes, I know you. I know what you did for me. What you did for so many of us.”
    “Then let’s do this together,” Rainee said, trying to be cool and calm.
    He stared for a moment at the dead men, nodded to something in his mind, and then he pulled a straight-blade knife from his ankle holster.
    Jesus! Rainee seized up. He came to her, cut her arms and then legs free of their restraints, and helped her feet.
    “This is a mess,” he said. “You coming to L.A. with me to deal with the problem?”
    He’s asking, not telling me?
    “Yes,” she said, saying it with a note of absolutism, yet she still hadn’t taken much of a breath.
    Now she did. As he stripped the men of their weapons, cell phones, and a key ring and grabbed his backpack, leaving the syringe and bottle on the floor, she realized she wasn’t kidding. He was the door she had to go through to find out what happened to those patients of hers.
    “Hey,” she said as they left the back room, “I need the bathroom before we leave.”
    He pointed down a narrow hall. He said, “Hurry, we’ll have company soon.” But he didn’t follow her.
     
     
    Rainee quickly emptied her bladder, washed her hands, looked at herself in the mirror, then glanced at the half-open window.
    Then she looked at the door lock, thinking she could lock the door, get out the window, run like hell to the street, and flag down whatever traffic was there. She could make the break that she’d been trying to make.
    Did he allow this purposely? Did he want her to run?
    Rainee Hall stared at the window and told herself to be reasonable, take what he had offered, just go, get the hell out of there.
     
     
    Sixty seconds or so later, she found herself following her kidnapper out of the house into a walled-in backyard. It was like he never even considered that she would actually run. Or felt she should at least have the opportunity. But she favored the former. He knew she wasn’t going anywhere if there was a chance to find her missing soldiers. The ones she’s worked so hard with, and then they just vanished on her. Now she wondered if they went voluntarily or were kidnapped. And what, then, happened to them?
    She knew her logic for going with this killing machine, her way of thinking, was not rational by any normal civilian standard of sanity. But in her world, it was the only right decision. You don’t lose your people