I hear a gunshot from the front of the house. My eyes open and I jump out of bed, grabbing my gun. Jeff yells for Freddy to get down, then I hear a bloodcurdling scream. Wasting no time I fling open the door and train my gun on the intruders, climbing over upturned chairs and tables as I make my way to my team.
"What happened?" I question.
"They came in, started shooting, and hit Freddy." Frank informed me.
"Where was he hit?" I say with urgency.
"In his chest somewhere. There's no exit wound." Jeff answers.
I observe Freddy, making note of his injuries. He'll be lucky if he lives.
"You stay with Freddy, Frank and I can take care of these guys." I barrel roll before Jeff can say anything and start shooting. My shoulder is screaming at me to stop moving but if I do then I'm dead.
I rack my brain for a way to get rid of the intruders. I yell at Frank to toss me a mini explosive and throw it at them. We duck behind an upturned table just as the force of the explosion hits. Soon the only thing I hear is the creaking of the building, half of it blown off. I poke my head over the table, my eyes move over the four dead bodies. I race back to where Jeff is sitting with Freddy.
"Put pressure on the wound, that will help to stall the bleeding."
Jeff tears a piece of cloth off his shirt and presses it firmly on our friend's side.
"Now what?"
"Shut up, I'm thinking!" Someone must have given up our location. "We have to move. Call in the chopper, we need to go now." Frank grabs the satellite phone and calls a helicopter.
We manage to move Freddy and soon we're in the air.
"Stay with me Freddy, just a little longer."
~*~
"Unbelievable! Sloppy, disorganized! This is not what the IMF stands for." Clint yells at us over his shoulder.
"Sir, they took us by surprise. We had no way of knowing-" Jeff was cut off by the secretary's angry voice.
"You let one of your team members get shot and then proceeded to blow up the safehouse!"
"Sir, it collapsed after we had exited the building. We didn't lose anyone during the explosion." I try to explain.
Clint eyed me with a vicious look. "You let a member of your team die."
"Dead? I thought he at least had a fighting chance." I say grimly.
"The bullet ripped into his lung. He suffocated on his own fluids. The young man was dead before they laid him on the operating table."
Jeff put his hand on my shoulder. He knew that I loved Freddy like a brother. We had known each other our whole lives. It hurt me terribly to know that he was gone. Frank was stone silent.
"I'm sorry to do this, but because of your recent actions, I must dismiss you from the IMF."
"What?!" I yelled.
"Your identification, please?" Clint wasn't even phased by my outburst.
We reluctantly handed him our identification and left his office. On the way out I throw a coffee mug through a window. I was so angry I didn't even hear Jeff say that we would replace them. Once in the car I start to grumble.
"How can he do that?!"
"Because he's working for Mirage," Frank said quietly.
"I mean seriously! It wasn't our fault that we got ambushed or that they shot--" I look up at him.
"What did you just say?" I ask.
"He's working with Mirage. I intercepted a call of his a week or two ago. He was calling the leader,"
"You couldn't have told me that earlier?!" I yelled in frustration.
"I guess I thought it didn't matter,"
"Didn't matter? Didn't matter?! How would that information not matter?!" Jeff screeched at him.
"Relax. When I found out, we weren't in a position to do anything about it. If we revealed him it would be our word against his. Clint has been with the IMF for almost twenty years with a perfect record. Bringing this up would have gotten us kicked out a lot sooner."
I sighed, knowing he was right. There had to be a way to catch him in the act. "How do we catch him?"
"We watch him like a hawk until he screws something up, then we make our move,"
~*~
Freddy's funeral was a secretive affair. The IMF lied to his family, saying that he died in a car accident. We would be the only ones to ever know the truth. As they were laying the glossy black coffin into the tough earth, I couldn't shake the feeling that it was my fault. If I had gotten to him quicker or gotten him to the hospital faster, he might have lived.
Frank walked up to me after the service. "Hey, how are you doing? I know you were really close to Freddy,"
"I'll be okay. He deserved better than this, and so does his family."
"He does, but we don't decide who gets what. We're just pawns in a much larger game, ready to be used by the player," He put a hand on my shoulder, "It will be okay, Lola. You have me now. Freddy was old news,"
"He was my friend!" I say with fire. This didn't deter him. How could he be so cold hearted?
"Yes, I know. But sooner or later you need to realize that your friends are going to get hurt or die if you don't do the right thing in time,"
"What are you talking about? There was nothing I could to to help him."
"You could have chosen someone else for this mission. You could have gotten him out faster," He leaned in and whispered in my ear, "I could have gotten him out. I wonder why you couldn't?" A low rumble in the form of a laugh bounced around in my ear. His words numbed my body with fear, each syllable permeated with authority.
"You're below me, sweetheart. Did you really think that you and your little group of amateurs could stop Mirage? You're delusional, crazy. It's greatly amusing," He buried his face into the crook of my neck and kissed my shoulder.
"I'm going to kill you," I could barely hear myself over the emotion swimming within my mind. Frank laughed again.
"I know. And I can't wait," It was at that moment that I realized that we had been walking away from Freddy's grave. Frank opened an unfamiliar car door and led me inside.
"Lets go," He told the driver, never letting go of my hand.
I watched the road roll by in a haze, oblivious to where Frank was taking me. But it didn't matter anymore. I had lost my brother, my job, and was probably going to my death. My entire existence had become fatuous.
There is nothing left.