Wanted (18 page)

“
Wait… you’re going to help?” She asked, hopeful but frightened.

Carl stared at her for a moment, trying to decide what to tell her. Right now the only thing he had left was a thirst for some serious payback. The ticket to finding the assholes that had blown his home up was sitting in front of him: Tanya and her brother. They were still hoping to find their way back to their dear daddy though, so telling her that daddy was trying to cash her in for a paycheck was not in his best interests.

“
Yeah, I’ll help,” he said, leaving it at that. He stood up and started up the ravine. The mud had dried, but it had loosened up the rocks and dirt and made it a treacherous hike. Tanya followed behind him, silent and filled with thoughts and hopes of her own.

The climb loosened up his abused muscles somewhat, but the crawl through the tunnel was more difficult than ever. Small puddles along the way made it even more unpleasant, but in time Carl made his way through it. Tanya, much to his surprise, emerged closely behind him without a single word of complaint. Carl found the switch and tested it. Sure enough, the room lit up again.

He studied the analog meter on his batteries and was surprised to see they were still charged fully. Apparently the chopper that had cut his home to shreds had not bothered to take out the wind or solar farms he had set up to the north of his house. Not that having power did him much good; his house had been shot to hell and back.

The ladder was ruined, some of the rungs smashed by rocks and falling debris. The top was covered over completely, by what, Carl had no idea since it was too dark to see anything up there. He growled and turned away, then picked up his M4 out of the inch or so of water that was standing on the floor of the room. He let it drain, then found his M24, which still leaned against the wall where he had left it. He handed that to Tanya after checking to make sure the safety was on.

Carl opened up the cabinet and rooted around in it, wondering if there was anything he could use in it. The spare wiring, a few light bulbs, and other electrical equipment all seemed pointless to him though, so he closed it behind him and headed back out the crawlspace to the desert outside.

Obediently and silently, Tanya followed. Carl wondered how her back was healing, but given that she did not complain and seemed to be moving without any difficulties, he figured she was doing fine. She left him to his own thoughts until they circled around the rocky ledge and approached his ruined home from the front.

“
Who did this?” Tanya asked, staring through the deepening twilight at the remains of the place she had just spent time feeling safe in. She hugged her arms around her, chilled by more than the night air.

“
Another group of assholes looking for you,” Carl told her, crouching down to look through the wreckage.

She saw one of the fallen soldiers and looked away quickly. From the look on her face Carl knew that her stomach was threatening to show the world its contents. “I don’t get it,” she said, trying to catch her breath and dispel the stink of the bodies left rotting. “Why fight you? Why not just look for us?”

“
They thought I was hiding you or something,” Carl said, figuring it was for her own good. Right now he had no idea what she might have done had she known the truth.

“
Hiding me? Us?” Tanya said woodenly. Carl saw her look around at the wreckage some more, her eyes returning to the piles of gore remaining of the Maelstrom soldiers. Her eyes widened, seeing the largely intact body of the man in the closet.

“
I… I’ll be outside,” she whispered, turning and rushing out of the wreckage.

Carl watched her go, curious, then turned back to try and salvage what he could. He bit back the anger inside of him, furious at what had happened to his home. In solitude, he gathered what he could, working from the house to the shed. He found what he needed in the shed, swallowing some pills that, though beyond their expiration date, promised some relief from his fears of infection. That accomplished, he turned and left his past behind, seeking out and finding Tanya sitting near a prickly pear cactus with dried tracks of tears running down her cheeks.

“
You ready?” Carl asked her, at a loss for anything else to say.

Tanya turned, startled to find him standing so close. She stared up at him from the rock she sat on, fresh moisture threatening to fall from her eyes. “Why do you care?”

Carl blinked, unable to come up with a good response.

“
You’re a dead man,” she said, hiccupping back a sob. “Inside, you’re dead. You don’t feel anything, do you? You don’t care about me or Dustin. So why? Why help us?”

Carl just stared at her, then finally spoke when she looked away. “You gonna sit there and whine about how fucked up your life is or are you gonna get up and do something about it? Knowing what makes me tick ain’t going to help you figure your shit out. Sitting there ain’t going to do it either. You want to feel better, then get off your ass and let’s get going.”

Tanya jumped, then stared at him as he rebuked her. The look on her face was shock and outrage. Carl nearly chuckled at how easy it was to read her. She needed only simple goading to get her going. She stood up quickly, angrily, then swayed and had to close her eyes and put her hand to her temple. A small moan of pain escaped her lips even as she sank back to the rock she sat upon.

“
What’s wrong?” Carl asked, stepping closer as he saw her sudden shift in behavior.

“
I’ll be fine,” she said, her eyes still closed. “These headaches…they come and go. The more tired I am, the more they come.”

Carl cursed under his breath. Just what he needed, a head case.

“
It’s my implants,” Tanya explained, now looking at him through squinted eyes. “Feedback or something, the doctors said. It gets easier to deal with over time.”

He grunted, nodding and feeling slightly relieved. “Can you move?”

She nodded. “I can I just… I just need a moment.”

Carl stared at her, then finally grunted and began to lay down the items he had retrieved from the wreckage. By the time he had finished, an impressive pile lay upon the floor of the Sonoran desert. Weapons and ammo, bottles filled with water, rations of packaged foods, and even some other sacks and packs filled with items only Carl could identify. He worked through it, checking the weapons and loading them, and verifying the functionality of everything while he waited for Tanya to rest herself.

“
Those men… the men you killed,” Tanya said after several minutes of watching him work silently. “You say they attacked you?”

Carl looked up at her, debating on how best to answer. At long last he said, “I was out and returned to find them raiding my place. Picking through it and destroying my things. I didn’t stop to ask questions.”

“
So you attacked them?” she asked, rubbing her temple again.

“
Their leader said his boss needed your bodies. Something about an insurance claim.”

Tanya stared at him. “Their leader.… These men, they wore the uniforms of Maelstrom. Those are my dad’s bodyguards.”

“
They do a lot more than guard bodies,” Carl said.

“
I guess.”

They lapsed into silence. Carl finished inventorying the weapons and, after his check, only one remained tossed off to the side, a standard issue Colt M16A2 with a bent barrel. He added three other working assault rifles to his collection, all using the standard 5.56 millimeter NATO round supported by the majority of the world. One pistol, the one owned by the dead lieutenant, joined the other firearms as well.

“
Here, use this,” Carl said. He offered the other M16 to Tanya.

She took it hesitantly, staring at it as though it were an alien technology from another planet.

“
The switch on the side there selects semi-auto, that’s one bullet every time you pull the trigger, or burst fire – three shots with each pull,” he explained, pointing out features of the rifle. “Safety’s here, this is the magazine release, and this is the action to load in a new bullet or clear a jam. Keep it clean, the M16 can get dirty in a sponge bath.”

Tanya nodded, absent-mindedly flipping switches and trying out the items that Carl pointed out. Finally, bored with it, she set it aside and looked at Carl. “You lost everything,” she said, “because of my brother and me. Why keep helping us?”

Carl stared off into the setting sun. “We should get going, find shelter before the sun sets.”

“
Fine,” Tanya said, standing up a little unsteadily but quickly regaining her balance. “Let’s go.”

Loaded down with rifles and other gear, he led the way over the terrain with only a slight limp. Tanya followed, struggling to keep pace and strangely quiet. Still far from being in top condition, Carl found himself breathing hard long before he should have. It irritated him, but he kept it to himself and just maintained a slower pace. His justification was that Tanya could keep up more easily this way.

They stopped and set up camp in a stand of juniper trees that were surrounded by tall desert grasses. Carl stalked through it, parting the grass with his M4 as he swept back and forth. He kicked over rocks and fallen logs, making sure no additional snakes, lizards, or insects were in hiding. Carl had no intention of trying to set any snakebite records.

Instructed to do little else, Tanya sat in the area Carl deemed safe while he gathered some firewood and even returned with a handful of red spiny fruit that Tanya did not recognize. He handed them to her then turned and started to arrange a twisted bunch of grasses in a small bowl he had dug out in the ground. He arranged the sticks above it, then started piling rocks on one side of it to create a firewall.

“
What is this?” she asked, staring at the handful of red colored fruits.

“
Strawberries,” he said, not bothering to glance up from his work.

“
Not like I seen them.”

“
They come off a cactus. You’ll like them.”

He caught her making a face at them, but then had to hide a smile of his own when she nibbled one and found it surprisingly tasty. In moments she was chewing through them hungrily, everything else forgotten but the succulent fruits.

Carl took out a flint spark lighter and managed to get a glowing spark in his bundle of dried grasses on the second strike. He blew it carefully into flames and watched carefully while it took firmly and began to lick at the piled deadwood and dried saguaro ribs. He leaned back, content with the results, and took a final glance to be sure his firewall shielded the flames from both the wind and any predators, be they on two legs or four.

They sat, silent and introspective. Carl kept glancing at her, at a loss for what to do or say. He knew how to keep her safe and get her from one place to the next. He even knew he could get Dustin back, though how he was not sure. Jessie too, he supposed, if he had to.

“
I spent 12 years in the Middle East,” Carl said out of nowhere. Tanya jumped a little, surprised by his voice cutting through the sound of the fire and the wind. “Enlisted at 18, I joined the Rangers. Saw action in Afghanistan and Iraq. I re-upped 4 years in and jumped into Delta. That suited me better, more freedom. What didn’t change was the assholes giving the orders without knowing what the hell they were talking about. I didn’t re-enlist when that tour was up.”

“
That’s only 8 years,” Tanya pointed out.

Carl smirked. “I went back. Mercenary work. Spent a couple of years with the Kurds in Iraq and Turkey, and a few years doing some bodyguard work.”

“
Why’d you leave? Finally make enough money?”

Carl shrugged. “Money? No. I got sick of it. Figured on my own it would be different – I’d be in control. I wouldn’t have to do what some jerk-off 4000 miles away thought was a good idea. I got news for you, there are just as many jerk-offs 20 feet away ready to tell you what to do.”

“
Any other time I’d probably be interested,” Tanya said tiredly. “But right now I’m kind of worried about my brother and Jessie. I already know you can kill people without blinking, you don’t need to impress me.”

“
Ain’t trying to impress you,” Carl growled. “I’m trying to tell you why I’m helping you. I don’t know why, just that I spent too many years dodging bullets from kids younger than your brother. Put too many of them in the ground too.”

“
You killed kids?” Tanya asked, her issues momentarily forgotten as she remembered him mentioning having to shoot at children before.

Carl stared at the fire, then shrugged. “You got two choices when the shit starts flying, you fight or you die. Don’t matter how old the person is holding the gun, bullets ain’t prejudiced.”

Tanya nodded, but still shivered a little.

“
That’s why I took you guys in,” He continued. “Kids ain’t kids over there, they’re itching to grab an AK and become a man. Guess I figured helping you out might let me pay something back.”

“
Guilt?” Tanya asked, disgusted and astonished.

Carl shrugged again and stood up. He shouldered his M4 and looked into the darkening twilight. “Just seemed like the right thing to do,” he explained. “Get some rest, I’ll keep watch.”

Carl could feel her eyes burning into his back as he walked away from the fire and out into the desert night. Even after the distance and terrain would prevent her from seeing him, he still felt her gaze boring into him.