Chapter 22

Patrick

I spent the first night in my cave in restless, but somewhat satisfying sleep. I woke up several times, but still, I had been so tired that I felt rested by comparison the next day. It was a good thing I got the sleep I did get, as the next day was not quiet or restful at all.

I didn't think it was going to be too tough for the enemy to figure out where I went. I had heard a brief incursion of helicopters late the day before, followed by a brief but vicious firefight. I assumed that meant that my side knew something had happened and had investigated. I doubted they had launched a search for me yet, as the helicopters had left soon after arriving, still amid firing. I knew from the rescue briefings we'd had that they wouldn't come in blasting the area to hell until they knew the status of survivors and where they might be. They had to know by now that I wasn't among the dead. I expected small extraction teams once they had a good idea where I was.

The problem was the 'once they had a good idea where I was' part. Because of the direction of escape I had been forced to take, I wasn't in the area where they would've expected me to be. I'd had to take the clearest, safest route to get out of there safely and quickly, and it was considerably different from where we'd planned. From the maps, it looked like there was a decent area 10 miles or so from me that could be an extraction point, but that was assuming I was where I thought I was. Since the cave I was in was apparently unknown and thus not marked on the map, I was guessing. Not being a professional Special Forces soldier, I'd been more concerned about getting away than with observing exactly where I was going. Naturally, the one thing that hadn't survived the rather bumpy trip to the cave was the radio/GPS locator. I'd pulled it out of the bag first thing and looked despondently at the bullet hole through the middle of it. I don't think I would've dared use it anyway. They're great, but they can be tracked. In looking for radio in the bag, I did find something else useful, though; a silencer for the M-16. I put it on, thinking it might be useful a time or two. Once men started going missing and bodies started stacking up, however, it wouldn't take them long to figure out what was going on. It might buy me a few hours.

I thought about Megan, Victoria, and my girls. They probably knew by now that something was wrong. I knew Dad would keep them informed. I felt sorry for them, being worried and not knowing where I was or how I was doing, or even if I was alive or not. Except for Julie and Megan, all of them had suffered some type of trauma in recent months; I was sorry they had to go through it again. Especially Amy and Cindi; they'd lost their Mom, and now their Dad was missing and possibly dead also. I swore I'd do everything I could to get back to them. I decided thinking about them was probably not productive right now and moved on to other things.

About that time, the infrared proximity alert went off, scaring the hell out of me. I looked out carefully. I had company. Not the kind I'd be serving tea and crumpets to. Damn. I'd hoped it would be a little longer than that before someone showed up.

Megan

It was a long and exhausting flight. The flight crew was great, having apparently been told we were the president's daughters or something like that, as they were attentive to the nth degree. There just wasn't anything they could do, however, about six scared, fidgety, hyperactive in the best of times teenage girls. The girls tried their best to behave, but their Daddy was missing and they needed comfort as much as possible. Victoria and I had two of them each, on a rotating basis, cuddled up to us at all times, sometimes crying, sometimes sleeping, sometimes talking our ears off. By some mutual consent that we weren't aware of, Amy and Cindi were always one of the ones with each of us. I guess the girls decided they needed the most comfort. Katie and Becky were probably the least needy, at least the way they acted, but then, they were always quiet and kept to themselves more than any of the girls, so it could've just been a good act. I think it was; the few times I had one or the other with me, they hung on for dear life and trembled like a leaf. I think they were reacting more to the high degree of tension in the area, as they were extremely empathetic, possibly the most of any of the girls. For some reason, though, they seemed to be sure that everything would be alright.

Once we landed, we were taken immediately to a planning area, where we were met by more Marine brass than I'd ever seen before. It was a sign of just how serious this was being taken by the Marines that there were even high ranking officers of the other services Special Forces there as consultants. Apparently, word had gotten out that we were special, as they treated us with the utmost respect and as equals. That did a lot towards calming Amy down; she was proud and confident of her abilities and respect for her because of those abilities always went a long way towards getting along with her.

Not that everything was rosy right from the start. It took a lot of talking and several phone calls to convince these very competent men that this was our mission, to be run our way. It was especially difficult to try to convince them that we had special talents without explaining to them what those talents were. After several phone calls to 'Dad' and the Secretaries, they didn't understand our abilities any better, but they had a very clear, very precise, and impossible to misunderstand picture of what their role was in this mission. I could tell they didn't like it, but they were professionals and would do what needed to be done. I saw several of them watching us closely, however, trying to figure out just exactly who we were and why we were so special. It didn't take long before they observed some of it.

We hadn't been talking for long when I noticed that Samantha suddenly sat up straight in her chair and her half-closed sleepy looking eyes opened wide. She looked scared and her face turned pale.

"Mommy!" She cried out softly. Suddenly the room was deathly quiet as everyone stopped talking at once. I started to get up to take her out of the room when the Marine Officer that had been at the hospital with Elizabeth put his hand on my arm.

"There's no need to leave the room, ma'am. It's obvious to us that all of you have some very special talents or you wouldn't be here. It doesn't take much to realize what some of those talents must be, as you obviously aren't experts at combat. Our business is to keep secrets, ma'am, and we'll keep yours. We need all the information we can get if we are to help you." Poor man! He was trying to be helpful and understanding, but Victoria had to hold Amy in her seat to keep her from showing him just what her combat skills were.

"We're not here for that, Amy," Victoria whispered to her as she held her arm tightly. "Save that for the bad guys, not our own!" Amy glared at him, and I swear he flinched, but she calmed down. "I'm sorry," Victoria apologized to the officer, "she's upset and is a little high strung." That earned Victoria Amy's glare next.

"I understand," the officer smiled. "I remember her from when we met last time. I apologize; I meant no disrespect." He smiled at Amy, and she gave a little smile back. She was wired. We were going to have to work just to convince her that all of us needed to go on this mission, not just her!

I turned my attention to Samantha. Something was obviously happening with Patrick.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" I asked gently. I had to keep her calm; she was the only source of information we had currently. She hadn't been paying attention to the previous conversation, and thus looked around the room in panic, not wanting to talk in front of all these strange men and women.

"It's ok, honey, they're on our side; they won't tell anyone about us." She didn't look convinced. Samantha was the last one of us at the table on the right end, with a female Marine Captain sitting next to her. The Captain was cute as a little button, built along the same lines as Katie and Becky. I thought she must've been very special indeed, to be that small and yet be good enough to be a Captain in the Marines. She took Samantha's hand, holding it tightly, and leaned over, whispering something in her ear. Samantha looked surprised, then giggled nervously as the young lady kissed her on the cheek.

"It's ok, honey, we're all on your side. Tell us what you see." Samantha looked even more surprised, but relaxed somewhat as the soft spoken officer squeezed her hand again. She took a deep breath as I assured her again that it was ok.

"Someone's found him, Mom!" She said softly, a frightened look on her face. That earned her a surprised look from the officers around the room. She ignored them.

"Is he ok, Samantha?" I asked around the lump in my throat.

Patrick

I was relieved to see when I carefully checked that there appeared to be only three men out there. I assumed it was one of many scouting parties out to find me. I hoped that they would miss this cave and just continue on, but I figured that was probably too much to hope for. It was.

I waited until they got close enough that I was sure they weren't going to miss the cave, and that they would notice that someone was here, before I did anything. As they approached, I noticed some interesting changes in myself. I seemed to be observing things in a very detached, almost clinical way. My respiration and heartbeat slowed dramatically. Strange, I would've thought they would increase. All fear and anxiety were gone. My movements became very quick and economical, focused only on the task at hand. I found myself almost instantly calculating wind speed and direction, distances, bullet speeds, instantly knowing the best angle of attack for each opponent. My vision had a green cast or background to everything I saw, with my eyes blinking very seldom. Everything seemed very bright and clear. Most startling, however, was the fact that I seemed to 'see' and know everything around me, as if I had 360 degree vision. It didn't seem that I had to pay attention to it. I just saw and knew everything that was going on behind me as if it were in front of me. It sounds more confusing than it was. It was just automatically incorporated into my mind. After the first few minutes, I just knew what was there and didn't even pay attention to it anymore. I wondered if this was what Amy and Megan, and the other girls, saw. Was this how they could hit targets they didn't even look at? How did this work? I had no idea.

I waited until the men were in what I knew was the proper place, and then I just knew exactly what to do. I fired quickly three times, so quickly it was almost as if it was automatic fire. All three men fell to the ground at once, before they even had a chance to react. I didn't look at each one as I fired; I just seemed to see the picture as a whole and the bullets went where they were supposed to go. I remained in what I affectionately called 'Amy Mode' for a moment, then suddenly I reverted back to the way I have always been. I knew the danger was past. I thought briefly about what had happened. That was so cool! That was so scary! What was I? Suddenly, a thought entered my head.

No one stops you when green comes; watch for it, let it shine, use it; trust it, don't fight against it.

I was amazed! I had spent some time trying to figure out 'the prophecy', and had made some educated, what I thought were good, guesses. This wasn't what I'd guessed green meant! Maybe some parts had multiple meanings, as I was convinced that my guess about green wasn't wrong; just not completely right.

I decided I needed to do something about the bodies. If they were found, the secrecy would be up. I carefully left the cave and scouted out the area. Each of the bodies had a bullet hole in the head. Odd; the FBI had instilled in me from day one that head shots were risky. Shoot for the body; it was a larger target and hitting the heart was just as good as hitting the brain. I found a gully a little ways away that was downwind, where I could stash them. I searched the bodies and found walkie-talkie type radios. After verifying they were all the same, I took one. It might not hurt to monitor their traffic. I took everything useful, including some hand grenades. I also took a necklace one of them had around his neck. Normally I wouldn't have bothered, except it had symbols on it that looked very similar to the symbols on the plates my Dad had! I finished everything quickly, and then went back into the cave to rest. I was tired, but pleased. I had survived my first solo contact with the enemy. I wasn't entirely pleased, however. I had no idea what I was; was I even human? For the first time, I truly understood the confusion my girls sometimes felt. If this was how they reacted to combat, no wonder Amy usually got so upset afterwards.

Megan

Samantha had a frightened look on her face. This may have been the first time Patrick had ever had to defend himself without at least some of us there to help him. She was afraid of how that would go. I could see the fear on the faces of all of us, probably mirroring my own, except for Katie and Becky. They were tense, sure, but they had little knowing smiles on their faces. I wished I knew what they knew that kept them relatively calm.

All the officers were watching us, especially Samantha, intently now. The looks on their faces ranged from surprise to sympathy and understanding. All of them seemed interested, however, in what was going on. I was watching Samantha closely, so I caught it as she blinked her eyes in surprise. The fear drained out of her face, replaced by... excitement. She looked at Amy with a small smile on her face.

"He just switched to 'Amy Mode'," she said, grinning. Amy looked at her, confused. Samantha lifted her eyebrows. "You know," she said, and briefly Samantha's eyes turned brown, flat and devoid of all expression, before quickly reverting back to normal. I doubted that anyone in the room besides us noticed it. Oops! Wrong. The Marine Captain next to her noticed it. I saw the shocked look on her face as she looked at me, then she quickly acted as if nothing had happened. Amy's eyes opened wide in surprise.

"I didn't know he could do that," she whispered quietly. Samantha giggled.

"He didn't either! You should see how surprised he is! It's over, they're dead," she announced with a sigh of relief. Then she looked surprised again.

"It looks like he's got the full package, Amy," she announced. Amy looked stunned, then giggled.

"He's going to be a real bear when he gets back! That's not easy to deal with the first time it happens!" We all looked sympathetic.

The Marine Officer called a brief recess to allow us to settle down. The Marine Captain wandered over to me. She introduced herself as Rhonda.

"Thank you for helping out with Samantha. What did you say to her that calmed her down so much?" I asked, curious. She hesitated, debating as to whether to tell me or not.

"I told her that I had a step sister who did the same thing she was doing, and that all these men knew about it and had never said anything, so she was safe also." My interest perked up when she said that.

"Really?" I asked, astonished. "What's her name? How long has she been doing that? Is she adopted? Does she know who her biological parents are? Does she ever exhibit a colored aura about her?" I asked more than I intended, but I was so excited that there might be some clues about us here.

"Her name is Sarah. She just turned fourteen." She seemed a little hesitant to answer the other questions, but before either of us could say anything, her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID, smiled, and answered it immediately.

"Hi, honey! I was just talking about you," she said, obviously talking to Sarah. Then she listened for a long time, not responding in any way. Finally, she answered.

"Ok, Sarah. I understand. Thank you, honey. I love you too," she said and hung up. I noticed that Victoria and all the girls were suddenly gathered around us, attentively listening. Rhonda gave me a long, speculative look.

"That was Sarah, my step-sister we were just talking about. She said I could trust all of you. I could tell you everything. She said she was looking forward to meeting you someday. She would especially like to meet with Amy and Katie. She has a special interest in computers and loves to talk about martial arts." She smiled grimly. "I have no idea how she knows your names, as I never heard of you before a few hours ago. If I hadn't already met you, I could've picked Amy and Katie out of a crowd with her descriptions." She sighed.

"In answer to your questions, Sarah has a color, an aura that she sometimes exhibits. I've only seen it once. It's silver. I don't know how you knew this, but she is adopted. We know nothing about her biological parents. She was adopted when she was four years old." Rhonda looked at us all intently. "None of this surprises any of you in the least, does it?" Samantha, bless her heart, gave her a hug.

"Not really," I answered. "Just as a wild guess, is her birthday April13^th?" Poor Rhonda. She really freaked out when I asked her that. I thought she was going to cry.

"How could you know that? We had to get that information from her, because there was no record we could find!" She was trembling, but trying her best not to show it. She was a Marine, after all. Samantha hugged her again.

"It's ok, really it is," she whispered to her. "We mean you or her no harm." Unfortunately, I wasn't done with the shocks to her.

"I'm guessing she was also found beside the road, after a traffic accident that her parents didn't survive, that she should have been killed in, but miraculously survived. No record was ever found of her or her parents. I think we would really like to meet your sister. Where is she now?"

I took Rhonda's arm and led her out of the room, signaling the girls to stay there. We sat down on a bench together. I put my arms around her and held her as she trembled like a leaf. She didn't cry, but it was a near thing. Finally, she pulled back and looked into my eyes.

"That's all the same information about your girls, isn't it?" I nodded. "I thought so. It's the only way you could have known." I smiled slightly at her. No, there were several other ways I could've known, but she'd had enough shocks for the day. I didn't tell her that the part about being found along the road was about me, not the girls.

"Could Sarah come visit us before she leaves? Why is she over here?" I asked. Rhonda looked at me sharply.

"I never told you she was over here. How did you know that?" I smiled at her reassuringly.

"Nothing mysterious about that. It's unlikely that cell phone call from the United States." Just then, the Marine Officer called us back in. I hugged Rhonda quickly. "Can we talk some more later?" She nodded.

"I'd like that!"

Back in the meeting, I filled in all the others on the encounter that Patrick had just gone through. Unfortunately, or fortunately for us, he hadn't used any grenades, so there was no chance to get a location on him from satellite records of the explosions. I say fortunately because I was positive that if they knew where he was, our part of the mission would be over.

We needed to get this going quickly, before he was attacked again. Samantha studied the maps and pointed out an area in the mountains, a flat plateau, where we could be dropped in. We were set to go at dawn the next day. I knew from what Samantha had said that it was only a ten mile hike from the LZ, but it would be a slow ten miles. We wanted to get there before dark.

I was going to meet Rhonda privately to talk some more, but the girls put the cabash on that. They wanted to talk to her too, so we agreed she'd come to our rooms. I asked her if Sarah could come too, but she just looked sad and said no, that wouldn't be possible, and she'd explain when she got there.

Patrick

Things were quiet for quite awhile after I took care of the scouting party. The walkie-talkie I took turned out to be pretty useless. Oh, it worked just fine, and might have even given some useful information — if I spoke Arabic. Duh, as Katie would say. Well, I wasn't exactly a professional at this. It did, however, help a little, in that I noticed an increase in chatter, presumable when the missing party was overdue in checking in. I hoped it would take awhile for anyone to get worried. Terrorists weren't always the most dependable in nature. Overdue check-ins could be due to everything from forgetting to deciding to get a little on the side.

I knew things were getting bad again when the chatter escalated exponentially, then shut off almost completely, becoming just an occasional obvious order. I figured that meant they were coming. I was right.

I had moved the proximity alarm farther out when I had taken care of the scouting party. I figured the next round wouldn't be just three men, and I wanted more warning. Damn, I hate being right so often.

According to the infrared tracings when the alarm went off, this was around 25 men. My binoculars confirmed that. They would arrive about dinner time. This was going to be fun. Not!

I carefully laid everything out in preparation for the upcoming battle. I had ten 20 round clips for the M-16 close by. I had fifteen extra grenades for the M203 ready, plus all twenty of the hand grenades ready. All I needed was the bad guys now. I figured I'd know when they got close, when I went into 'Amy mode'. She was going to hate that term!

Just as I suspected, about ten minutes later, my vision turned much brighter and sharper, with a green cast. It seemed that my update mode was easily able to handle twenty-five records of best angle of attack. I wondered what it'd be like to take on this many at once. I figured I'd find out soon enough.

Megan

Rhonda called about an hour before dinner, asking if it was a good time to come. I said yes, but only if she'd eat dinner with us. She reluctantly agreed, only after some arm twisting, and the threat of putting Amy on the phone. That got me a dirty look from Amy.

"How come I am always the bad guy?" She complained. Katie laughed at her.