(OOC -- This is a long post. It is not typical of my writing.)
Henry "Hanks" Baets was conflicted about coming up here, to the top floor of the Exeter. It was nice to get out of the basement bunker that he lived in with "The Family", but every moment above ground was another chance of getting popped by a sniper or shredded by an RPG.
Hank -- aka Asad, Adir, JJ, and many more -- was only topside to charge the satellite phone. He crept, crawled, and slithered his way through the building like a rat in a 3D maze, avoiding the glassless windows and shell holes that would expose him to the street and known sniper nests. It took nearly thirty minutes to get to the roof; he was covered with dust and cob webs by the time he was in position, and once there had to remain laying on his back, using a piece of dislodged concrete as a pillow, to avoid being seen from the taller buildings to the north and east.
He unfolded the satellite phone's solar charger, checked the settings, then ... laid back in the sun and took a nap. Laying here like this always reminded him of Empress, his mother's fat Persian; she'd spent most of her life laying in the warm sunlight spilling in through the French door's of the family's Southern California home.
Ironically, at age 15, she'd died right there, too, stretched out in the morning sun. They might find you that way, too, he thought to himself. Laying in the sun ... relax looking ... with a bullet in the top of you head.
He rolled to his belly and slithered a few more feet. Through the building's battle-damaged facade, he could see Little Beirut to the north and "Dead Man's Alley", which was currently controlled by a Nigerian gang, to the northeast. Scooting to his left, he looked down onto Broadway just as once of Vadda's runners made his way quickly -- which wasn't fast at all -- through the rubble strewn street that once had been the main thoroughfare through the North Quarter.
A distant booming startled him -- the city had been virtually silent for the two weeks of the most recent cease fire -- and he quickly rolled flat to his back again, pulling his AK-47 to his chest. He lifted his head a bit; shells were raining down upon the South Quarter, sending plumes of smoke and dust high into the air.
He slithered back to the phone, suddenly eager to get the hell off the room. The shelling was more than two miles away, but Hank wasn't taking chances. The last barrage before the cease fire -- the one that had left "Broadway" in it's current condition -- had begun with a shelling of the Southern Quarter, too, and before any one knew it shells were falling all about Santa Maria.
He unhooked the sat' phone, secured the charger, and dialed. A moment later, he reported, "Update, one-nine-six-two. Shelling south quarter, source unknown. All else quiet..." After a moment he growled into the phone, "Where's my skidder?"
"Wait one," the voice on the other end of the call commanded. A long, anxious moment past, during which a dozen more shells -- one half way between the South Quarter and the Exeter -- pounded the ground. The voice returned, "Skidder on hold until current hostilities cease."
"On hold?" he hollered. "I'm almost out of ammunition. We--" He paused. His handlers didn't like the idea that he was providing supplies to "The Family", despite the fact that without them he would neither be safely hidden away nor even alive still. He continued, stressing, "I ran out of food two days ago, and water purification tablets a week before that. Pain killers are down to--"
"Wait one," the voice repeated again sharply.
As he waited, a squad of NATO jets -- led by an RAF fighter -- passed over head with a roar. A minute later, they dropped their payloads into the hills on the southern horizon, likely the source of the shells raining down upon a slowly growing area of the city. The voice returned just after the loud boom reached him, saying, "Skidder ETA oh-four-hundred tomorrow. Confirm."
"Oh-four-hundred," he repeated with a relieved voice. "Thank you. I also need to talk to--"
"Contact concluded," the voice said ... and then there was nothing.
He cursed as he stored the phone and scurried across the roof into the open stairwell. He repeated his rat-in-a-maze routine until he was again in the basement's Second Level with The Family. Anxious eyes watched him, but no one spoke for fear of hearing bad news. He went to his room -- which was nothing more than a corner of the Furnace Room walled off by hanging blankets -- and changed into a less-dusty set of clothes.
"Igor", a lively 6 year old nicknamed for his limp resulting from a sniper's bullet, asked to clean his clothes, knowing full well that there would be compensation at some time in the future.
That was the way things happened throughout Santa Maria; people did things for other people knowing they would, eventually, get something out of it. It was what Henry Baets was doing here, too; he did things for others -- people both inside and outside the City, and more importantly outside the country -- and, in return, they did things for him, such as drop a skidder of supplies and ammunition.
The boy hurried off to what amounted as a laundry. It was little more than a tub of dirty, soapy wash water; a second one of less dirty rinse water, which, once too dirty, would be used to replace the wash water; and a drying line that hung where an on-again-off-again breeze of warm air blew out of a crack in the building's foundation.
Redressed, Hank returned to the Communal Room where he took a long moment to finish buttoning, buckling, and straightening himself. Then, when he knew that the others were about to explode with anticipation, he looked at them, one at a time, with a serious expression ... then smiled ... and announced, "Tomorrow before dawn."
The emotions in the room ran the gambit, from joy and jubilation to doubt and apathy. The Family -- eighteen men, women, and children from four countries and eight specific nationalities or ethnic groups -- had seen the worse of humanity here in Santa Maria. Each of them had lost loved ones; those who were locals had watched the never-ending war tear their lives apart, while those who had come here to help the locals saw their efforts ignored or destroyed.
As Hank watched their reactions -- or lack thereof -- he couldn't help but reflect on how he'd ended up living in a basement twenty feet below a city being ripped apart by a civil war that had now raged off and on for nearly three decades. He'd come here for money, a mercenary essentially, training Government forces in their fight against three separate insurgent groups. But, as his eyes opened, he'd found himself not only sympathizing with the rebels but actively aiding them as well. And when his crimes were uncovered and he fled, this was where he ended up, with a bullet through his abdomen and grenade flak in his thigh.
He'd had opportunities to get out of Santa Maria and hadn't taken them; then, later, when he'd wanted out, he now one would help him. He had become too valuable an asset. There were few Americans with military and intelligence experience inside Santa Maria, and of those, not all were of the same thinking about who were the good guys and bad guys.
So, for now, he was staying put. For now ...
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