The Things We Bury - Part 1: In Anticipation of the End of the World [Completed]

Chapter 13: The Long Way Home (Part 4 of 8)

It was time to leave.

No, it was past time to leave. He had entered the time of vain hope, a futile period, where he prayed something would happen to reverse the failure, which had already occurred.

Darren cycled through the channels on the radio in one final, desperate attempt to find a message from the team. Perhaps they were trying to contact him on a different bandwidth. But of course, they weren't. They all knew exactly what procedures to follow and if none of them had checked in, it could only mean they were dead or captured.

It was fifteen minutes since the point of mission failure.

Conner and Jorgenson were going to have his head.

What would Noelle say when he told her he'd been demoted? Told her he'd been fired? And that was if he got to tell her anything. A year ago he would never have believed SBI capable of it but after everything he'd seen, this failure might just land him in an unmarked grave.

Or would the authorities find him OD'd in his hotel room? In the ultimate act of karma, would they hire the same hitman Darren had used to get rid of Tray Cullen? Cullen's failure to carry out orders led him to that end, why should Darren expect any better?

Pungent sweat soaked his shirt. He would have liked to believe it was a product of the warehouse's poor ventilation and not fear, but he wasn't that good at fooling himself. Darren switched off the radio.

It was time to go.

As though in a dream, he moved through the large vaulted rooms following the last protocol, the task that needed to be done regardless of success. Every forty feet, he stopped and activated the timer on the thermite charges. The intense heat of the bombs would wipe out every trace of the warehouse and its contents. There would be no notes, no serial numbers, no DNA for anyone to find.

Darren should head straight to the airport. Just get on a plane and go. There was a flight that would see him in the air before the bombs in the warehouse went off. But there was also a redeye, which would give him time to collect his things.

Back in the apartment, there was a charcoal gray suit he worn to Madeline's christening, a yellow tie with the blue flower pattern given to him last Father's Day, and a suitcase from the luggage set Noelle's sister had given them as a wedding gift. It was strange what a hold these physical things had on him. As his life crumbled, he clutched on to them and the memories they were charged with. The thought of leaving without them twisted a knife in his guts.

It was a nervous drive, where every red light was an agonizing delay, and every set of headlights in the rear-view was a death squad. The night had lost its color. Every hue had drained away, leaving a hardboiled black and white world, where danger lurked in every shadow.

He reached the Ocotillo Resort and parked behind the strip of decorative cacti and palms shielding the apartments from the highway. He shut off the engine. Darren was shocked by the ragged sound of his own breath in the silence that followed.

Just get in. Grab the stuff. And get out. Do it quick and you'll make the flight, he told himself.

From the car to his second-floor unit, he moved at a pace that varied between a fast walk and a light jog. He took the stairs two at a time. His door was at the end of the open-air gallery. It was a long open stretch and all he could imagine as he passed the blank, uniform doors was the clear shot a sniper would have.

The key was in the lock when the voice spoke. He froze with fear and the total absence of hope, like a gazelle at the watering hole that knew the pouncing lion was already upon him.