Page 81 of Exit Strategy
“I don’t think I’m willing to risk my life for a movie star’s wife,” Jacobsen said.
“There’s no reward here,” Cullen said.
“Call Soren again, tap out,” Lisa said. “We aren’t prepared to deal with this.”
“I just need you to fucking back me up because I am going to talk to Kurt, not threaten him with guns and violence. If I am alone, I’ve got nothing as leverage. I need all of you with me,” I said, my voice rising.
“I’m just here because I want to save trees, Oberisk,” Lisa said. “I’m not a fucking mercenary. I feel like I need to shower and change my pants after that drive just getting here, and this looks like a goddamn death trap.”
“We need to call up for reinforcements,” Cullen said. “That’s as far as I am willing to go – hold this position so that he doesn’t take off on the road again.”
“What do I have to do to get you on my side?” I asked, my voice sharp, and entirely too much frustration and desperation boiling over into it.
“Call Soren, tell him we are standing down,” Jacobsen said.
“You can tell him I fucking quit. The chief is scary as fuck and I’m not going to try facing him,” Cullen said.
“This is just a job and not worth my life, Oberisk,” Lisa said. “I mean, I know it’s more than that to you, but Jesus, we don’t bleed green.”
“My blood is as red as yours,” I said, but I felt the betrayal already. They didn’t bleed green; they wouldn’t suffer or sacrifice for New Eden. This just showed how shallow their devotion was. It was just a job, just money. I knew a defeat when I saw one, and this was just another in the campaign of my fucking miserable life.
“Fine.”
“That’s it?” Lisa asked.
“Yeah, take REX3 back to the paved road, the big service station just outside of the park. I’ll be in touch soon enough. If you don’t hear from me in two hours, you can assume Kurt won. If I call, you burn the rubber off those tires getting your asses to the addy because I will want evac for Calanthe as fast as fucking possible.”
“Okay,” they agreed. I don’t know that I will ever feel that abandoned again in my life.
I hope I never feel that again.
There were no keys in the SUVs so there was nothing to do but walk to the address given. It was an estimation, and the gravel road only went a few hundred feet before it turned into a two-lane rutted path through the trees and undergrowth. Everything was thick and green, closed in. There was plenty of cover, but that went both ways, and this was his home ground, not mine. If he had traps laid, I would more than likely find them the wrong way.
Had he had the time to dig tiger pits and line them with Punji sticks? The thought of a six-to-eight-foot fall onto a bed of sharpened wooden posts made me shudder, my imagination filling the silence with phantom feelings of a sudden lurching fall and the sharp stab of raw wood into my thighs, my stomach.
He might have had claymores. The upside of those would be if I found one, I probably wouldn’t realize it – just a bright light and no more Maddy.
There was no sign of damage to the plants, no screaming, no blood. It seemed like nothing had happened here. That made it all the more unnerving.
Something crunched under my foot.
A pair of polarized sunglasses. They were high end, and my foot had completely destroyed them. A few feet away there was a discarded fancy water, the bottle empty, and a black New Eden snapback. Sigma had been here, and there was no sign of them now.
What the fuck was this? Was Kurt the Predator? Had he hung them from the trees?
I shuddered again and felt a liquid gurgle in my stomach.
When was the last time I had eaten?
The last time I had taken a shower, or more than a piss?
My head throbbed, and that was when I realized I had been clenching my jaw the entire time I had been walking up from where the SUVs had been parked.
“Kurt!” I shouted.
Silence.
“Kurt! Are you out there?”
