Illumination

The room was dark, but Gregor could make out the 12 foot diameter hole in the floor. Light from the corner street lamp bled through the plywood covering the downstairs windows, allowing just enough illumination to give a slight perception of depth.

Fighting back a sudden and familiar feeling of vertigo, Gregor leaned against the wall just inside the doorway and let his eyes adjust.

“How is she alive?” Gregor thought. The answer had to be here.

He carefully skirted the drop-off to the first floor and stopped at the spot where he first saw her eyes. Emotions welled up and a shudder shook him.

“Head in the game, Gregor.” He whispered. “What did you see…”

Images of last night came back to him in spurts, he ticked them off like a beatnik poem:

Her eyes.
She wasn’t one of the targets.
What was she doing here?

Weapons firing!
Duck, evade.
Foot is still intact.
Re-acquire target.

Clear Shot, take it!
Shot is wide…something else is hit.

Weapons firing!
Duck, evade.
Clambering footsteps below.
Targets are escaping.

Radio for sit-rep from support on street.
Check for stragglers.
Angel eyes.
Dark spot on her shirt is growing.
“Help Me.”
Angel eyes, staring, vacant.

Gregor stared through the hole. He knew he’d hit her in the chest with his wide shot. All the other weapons were aimed high, his aimed low. She collapsed just before he left the hole to give chase. She died last night, he was sure of that.

Gregor pulled his eyes from below and scanned the rest of the room. Nothing. Everything in the room was either blown through the windows or fell through the floor. Including Johansen.

Moving to the stairwell, Gregor listened. Two agents out front, but were there more inside? He waited and heard nothing more than jets passing in the distance. Cautiously, he descended the bullet riddled stairs. The hand railing was completely destroyed and the structural integrity was barely enough to keep Gregor from falling through to the basement. Every groan of the steps made Gregor wince. The night and his nerves amplifying the sound so much so that, to him, it was like playing a tuba in a church.

When he reached the foot of the stairs, Gregor stopped and listened once more. He heard the muffled voices of the two agents outside. The words he could not make out, but the tone was of jovial banter. He had gone un-noticed.

He entered the room where he had found Angel Eyes and what was left of Johansen.

The flash memory returned…

No targets.
Angel Eyes, still vacant.
Johansen.

Johansen Torso here.
Johansen legs there.

Check pulse.
Johansen Dead.
Use radio.

Check Angel eyes.
Pulse.
None.
Something shines in her outstretched hand.
Coin.

Gregor looks down on where her body was. The floor and scraps of charred dry wall stained with her blood are still there, untouched, unmoved.

Glancing around, Gregor notices that his room is different from the others he’d seen. This one looked "lived" in. Someone had placed magazine clippings and travel brochures on the walls. This girl was living here and none of his team had known it. A runaway, perhaps? He continued to search.

There were two sleeping bags on the floor, against the inside wall of the room. One had a backpack, not so hidden under one corner. Inside, Gregor found a change of clothes, a notepad, and a worn and faded picture. The notepad was full of sketches and scribbles which Gregor couldn’t make out in the dim light of the room. He couldn’t make out the picture either, so he moved to the closest boarded up window and held the picture in the light.

It was of two young girls standing next to an older man, probably their Grandfather.

Then it was as if Gregor had been hit in the gut with a baseball bat.

“Twins.”