No Man's Land

26- Before Sunrise

Maxine Clarke
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In the United States there's a radio channel called Guard that's specifically for airliners to communicate across frequencies and to help people find the correct frequencies when they are on the wrong one or need to re-establish contact. Guard would be our best bet for contacting the mainland. All we needed to do was modify a phone to act as a radio, as the plane's system had been destroyed on impact. From there we could contact UHF guard, the military distress frequency.

A couple of my people had been working with the few tech-savvy passengers to use spare parts to make this new radio. Meanwhile, I sat on the grass, watching as Carrie, Chestine, and Michael stepped through the foliage, impartial looks on their faces. I stood up to greet them. Before I could get a word out, Chestine spoke.

"Jana's missing. React calmly, don't give away that anything's wrong," He said quietly. "Jana happens to be in on a surprising amount of confidential information but we don't need the passengers to know that, nor do we want them thinking that the severity of an agent missing is more than that of several passengers." He carefully surveyed the clearing, eyeing down several of the agents before adding, "although that's true."

I took in a breath, plotting out my response. "She's your agent- what do you want us to do? You quite obviously have a plan." Chestine sent Carrie an expectant look.

"We need to evacuate the camp. Whoever is orchestrating this certainly knows our location so I suggest we move out to the shore. I understand that we are close to establishing contact, so that location will also provide easy access to responders, should they arrive."

"It also puts a dozen passengers without cover for possibly multiple days," I argued.

"And I understand that risk, but we should be fine. Although we don't know how many people they have, if we can spare four or so agents to stay with the passengers there's only really one way they can come at us without seeing them beforehand and there will be ample defense."

"Four agents are in no way ample defense."

"I'd think three agents and Chestine are." Carrie shot back. No, that didn't make sense. Why wouldn't they put Chestine, who from what I gathered was the leader and most experienced, on the compound team? Foreign intelligence agents are more sneak than fight, so wouldn't it be a better idea to keep more of the bureau agents with the passengers? Those from the bureau actually had experience protecting people.

"Are you sure about that?" I asked. "Logistically is it really a good idea to keep him here over one of the bureau's?"

"Don't question me, Clarke," Carrie warned. "Look, the others will be bureau since relations wise it might be easier for the Americans to cooperate. Back onto the subject, the remaining twelve will leave an hour before sunrise tomorrow, lead by you, Parker, and yours truly. We'll follow the trail we found North until anything is in sight, and should we find something we will approach from both the east and west in two smaller groups."

"And should we not?"

"We keep looking while those on the beach radio for help. Jana is an asset we can't afford to lose."

I remained quiet for a moment. "Alright, sunrise tomorrow. Make sure every agent is armed and that we have a sniper posted at the shore." Carrie nodded.

"We're not going down without a fight."

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Jana O*****

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Yavuz was a leader, not a crony. He was used to pulling the strings and feeding the money, not doing the enforcing and making moves. Still, he had anger to put out and several weapons. He slammed the knife into the cement with a grunt, missing my calf by an inch. He discarded the weapon to the side.

"This isn't working," He muttered in Croatian. Despite the fact that my body felt like it was falling apart, I laughed at his frustration. He sent his elbow into my ribcage in retaliation.

"Don't worry, Jaeda. I'll be coming back with something much better for you, soon." He turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him. He didn't lock it.

I looked back up at the restraints that held my hands to the wall- they were strikingly simple. If we were still on the island, whatever compound I was in had probably not been meant for this kind of operation, so there weren't exactly restraints built into the wall. Instead, two steel eyes had been drilled into the cement wall and the zip ties around my wrists were looped through them. My eyes fell on the discarded knife.

Within a few minutes, I had the knife under my feet. I kicked off my boot and grabbed the handle with my foot before kicking off of the ground so that I could swing it up to my hand. After a few tries, I had it in my hand. I glanced back at the security camera in the corner and reminded myself that I didn't have long, before setting to work on the ties. It was a tedious task, cutting at the plastic as quickly as possible while trying not to nick my hands. Finally, the first zip tie snapped and the other one soon followed.

I couldn't help but groan as I stretched my tight limbs, the strain of the restraints coupled with the bruising from Yavuz not making running sound very appealing. I tried to shake off the pain and started towards the door.

It may have been my lack of experience in prisoner situations, or just how sick of the island I was, but one fact remained prominent in my mind- 

I'd have to make up the plan as I went, but I was ready to raise some hell.

Hey what's up kids long time no see. Fun fact, this chapter has been killing me for ages. Like for four months! Yeah, sorry for the impromptu hiatus, but this chapter just did not write itself. The good news is that the ending has been planned out and that once the book concludes I'm headed straight for editing and lengthening. 

Also, the last time I updated I was at what... 3k? Yeah uh while I was gone we made it to 5k... and then 10k... now at 11k. HOLY SHIT. You guys are insane and to think that at my young undisclosed age I can write semi-decent stuff that yall like just never seemed like a possibility before. I still can't wrap my head around it. I remember reading books on Wattpad at twelve and seeing people discuss things in the comments like you guys do now. The fact that people are actually ~interested~ in the weird little characters that my adolescent brain developed is astonishing.

Honestly I could go on for hours but the bottom line is this-

I love you guys so much. Eleven fricking thousand reads. It's 1:17 AM and I am delerious. Thank you.

Also there's no song rec cus all i've listened to for the past two months has been Hadestown and not all of yall are theatre kids sadly

ALSO IF YOU'RE STILL READING, I started this project on 8/16/18. Four days ago was the one-year mark holy shitake mushrooms.