Die for You

Chapter 75

"Not for much longer," I replied, wishing that I'd managed to get even three hours sleep. "This time tomorrow and it'll all be over and we'll be heading home. In fact, when it's all over, you might want to call Richie and get her to organize a welcome home party for Becky; I think she'd appreciate that."

"You really mean that don't you, Freen? There isn't a doubt in your mind that you'll bring Becky home, is there?"

"Not a single one," I told her, as convincingly as I could. There were a few doubts, of course there were, but I wasn't going to let her know that; and I trusted in my abilities to overcome anything that got in our way.

She stared at me as I quickly got dressed and then started to throw my black fatigues into my stuff sack, making sure that the rest of my personal kit that I would need was in there. James and I had agreed that wearing our civvies until we got to the safe house was the sensible option; there was no sense in alerting anyone that might still be watching by leaving our hotels looking like we were preparing for war, and the disguise of us being a couple of lost tourists might be a useful one.

"Are you still sure about this, Freen?" Jenna asked, sitting on the bed as I packed; a tear present in her eye.

"Never been surer!" I said with a broad smile; trying and failing to make her feel better.

"This is a massive risk," she said tears falling openly now, "not just for Becky; this is a massive risk for all of you, I've been worrying about that as well; you're all risking so much forher."

"It's a risk I'm prepared to take, that we're all prepared to take," I told her, pulling a tissue from the box by the bed and handing it to her with a confident smile.

"But you know you could die attempting this. You all could; I'm not sure I want that on my conscience." Jenna said sniffling and dabbing at her eyes with the tissue.

"In the end, everyone dies, Mrs A," I said, dropping my bag by the door and sitting down next to her. "That's one of life's great certainties. I can't speak for the others, but I think if it came down to that then I'd rather die doing something worthwhile, like rescuing the woman I love, than living until I'm old, all alone and dying full of regrets. I think I want my life to have meaning again, like it used to, you know?"

"You sound like you've thought about this a lot," she said shaking her head at me. "I'm not sure I like the idea of that. I don't want anything to happen to you, Freen, you've become like a member of my family, you do know that, don't you?"

"Nothing's going to happen to me, Mrs A,"I said remembering my best mate's favorite phrase. "I'm indestructible, and besides, this'll be the third time I've had to save Becky, and they do say that the third time's a charm."

"I still don't like the idea of all this, Freen dear," she said placing her hand on my leg, and ignoring my attempts at humor, "you'll all be in terrible danger."

"What would you prefer, Jenna, we try and succeed, or we do nothing and sit here and wait until the bastards give up and kill Becky anyway?"

"I'd prefer it if neither of those were options," she replied crying again. I slipped an arm around her shoulder and hugged her tightly; astounded at how natural this simple motion felt, like it had once, or perhaps twice before.

"So would I," I said as I handed her another tissue from the box, "but you have to understand, these bastards have had no intention of real negotiation from the start, I'm positive of that. Look, it's time to be straight with each other; I'm convinced that what we told you was wrong. We've never really thought that this was a simple hostage deal; and I'm sure you thought the same. In fact, I'm positive that these fuckers are the real deal, or at least they'd like to think they are. They now want something that you and Armstrong Industries simply can't give them. Becky's just a pawn in all of this, an easy target that they're using for extra publicity. You can give them the money but you can't give them the prisoners they want, and the authorities have already said they don't negotiate with terrorists. The killed Brian before the deadline because they wanted to, because they wanted to send out a message; if we don't try to get Becky out soon, she's a dead woman."