David Golemon - Primeval

"Listen, my name is Collins, I am a colonel in the U.S. army. I have a man here from the Canadian authorities and we're looking for an American woman — that's why we're here. Our plane was just shot out of the sky, and it was that man's friends who did it, so I really don't care if you kill the bastard or not."

There was complete and utter silence coming from the refrigerator. Jack glanced over at Alexander and nodded toward the door.

"Ma'am, I am Jonathan Alexander, an agent for CSIS in Quebec. The man is telling the truth. Come out, you won't be harmed, not by us."

"My grandmother is hurt. One of those bastards shot her in the arm," came the voice, and then that was followed by another, more husky, but feminine protest.

"I've hurt myself worse with a kitchen knife."

Jack heard the first voice — that of a much younger person — shush the second. Then he heard the door handle pop, but it still remained closed. Jack took a step to the front and raised the Russian-made weapon. Finally, the door opened and Collins heart raced for a second when he saw a man in the same camouflage fatigues as those outside. He just stood there, his eyes opened, and then just before the colonel fired his weapon, the man simply fell forward.

Jack's eyes moved from the body to a smallish girl holding an older, heavy woman in the center of the large walk-in. "You were bluffing, he was already dead," Jack said as he bent over and made sure the commando was indeed as he looked.

"He was hit almost as soon as he took us in here to murder us; must have been stray bullets," the girl said as she started to assist the old lady out of the cold of the icebox.

Collins, with the aid of Punchy, moved the dead man out of the way to allow the women out. Jack slung his weapon and then went to the other side of the old lady and assisted the girl with the weight.

"That was pretty good, but what if we were the bad guys?" Jack asked, looking around the ample bosom of the grandmother to see the young, brazen girl dressed in bloody overalls and a knitted cap.

"I wasn't thinking that far ahead," Marla said as she eased her grandmother into a large desk chair just to the rear of the sales counter.

"Check the register, dear, and see how much those Russian bastards made off with," the old woman said as she held a hand over the bullet wound in her left arm.

The girl rolled her eyes as she reached into the large desk and brought out a first-aid kit. "I don't think they were here to rob us, Grandmother," she said as rummaged through the kit.

"Well, you never know," the old woman said as she grimaced.

"You said you were looking for an American woman?" Marla asked as she found the small packages of alcohol wipes and antibacterial ointment. "Was her name Lynn?" she asked, not looking up.

Jack took a deep breath and then leaned heavily against the counter; he found he had no voice to answer the girl.

Punchy saw Jack's distress and then stepped up and took one of the alcohol wipes from the girl and started cleaning the old woman's wound. It was just a graze, so he wiped and spoke at the same time. "Yes, her name was Lynn. It's his sister."

The girl looked up and into the blue eyes of Jack Collins. "Yes, I can see that you are her brother, you have the same eyes."

"Is she… she…"

Marla took a deep breath and then handed Punchy a tube of antibacterial cream. "She was fine yesterday when she left with those other Russians."

Jack closed his eyes and then turned away just as the soaking-wet Mendenhall and Ryan, followed by Sarah, Farbeaux, and Doc Ellenshaw, came to the front of the store. Mendenhall and Farbeaux leaned over and was checking the bodies of the two Mounties outside, and Ryan stepped in and leaned over and checked the others.

Sarah saw Jack as he walked around a few of the stacked shelves full of dry and canned goods. She took his arm and stopped him.

"She was here; the Russians took her upriver," he said as he finally looked down at Sarah.

"Then we have a chance of getting her back," she said.

She saw Jack's lips move but didn't hear the one word he kept repeating.

"What? What are you saying, I don't get it," she said questioning his tone and his look.

"He says, my dear Sarah, that his sister is in the hands of what's known to soldiers around the world as, Spetsnaz — specialized killers from the Cold War. Their own bloody government created them and now they don't know what to do with the ones they discharged. The Russian government is terrified of them." Farbeaux looked around at the bodies, "Evidently, they have found gainful employment."

Sarah McIntire turned to face Farbeaux, who was looking at the tattoo he had uncovered from the dead Russian only a few feet away. Farbeaux tilted his head as he stood and nudged the dead Russian with his boot.

"And this new development is unsettling to say the least."

Jack and Sarah both looked at the Frenchman; only Sarah had a question written on her face.

Farbeaux smiled, but there was no humor there. "I dare say the men that are holding your sister are far more aggressive than I was first led to believe." He looked from Sarah to Collins, his smile gone.

"You can leave anytime you want, Colonel," Jack said still staring at him.

Farbeaux tilted his head as if in deep thought. "No, I believe I'll stay a while, and if things get too hot, I can always trade you for me."

Jack turned away and left. Sarah just looked at Henri, shaking her head.

"I know I don't disappoint you, my dear — you know who and what I am."

"That's what gets me, Henri, I know who you are, and you still go lower and lower in my estimation every time you open your mouth."

Farbeaux watched her leave to follow Collins, and then he turned and saw the young girl looking at him from the porch. She had heard the exchange between the three and the look in her eyes told Farbeaux that he hadn't made a friend with the smallish teenager.

Marla watched the Frenchman turn and leave, eyeing the icehouse and going in that direction; she then turned and looked at her Grandmother who was getting her arm wrapped by Alexander. "Has the world gone over the edge?" Marla asked as she shook her head in disgust.

"The world has always been insane, honey; we just isolated ourselves from it."

Punchy straightened after he finished tending to the old woman's wound.

"In case you ladies haven't noticed, you're not isolated anymore." Punchy stepped back and then retrieved his weapon and then looked at the young girl who was angry and staring at him.

"Believe me, Mr. Ottawa, we've noticed."

Jack stood on the porch and surveyed the fishing camp. His eyes roamed over the rock-covered ground and into the tree line. A stiff breeze picked up and made the trees sway against the deep blue sky of the early morning. Everett was busy checking out the icehouse, the small warehouse, and the equipment shed with Jason Ryan. Will Mendenhall and Sarah stood just off the large porch with Charlie Ellenshaw in an attempt to get the soaking-wet, stray-haired professor under some form of control — the man could not stop shaking. Sarah used Charlie as an excuse to give Jack the time to think things out. She looked up from Ellenshaw as Henri Farbeaux stepped from inside the store.

"In case you were thinking about using the radio, Colonel, I regret to inform you that its aerial has been disabled and that dead Russian there placed a bullet into the set before he closeted himself in the icebox. The old woman is fit to be tied."

Collins didn't turn at the sound of Farbeaux's voice. He was still watching the trees around the camp. Then his eyes went to the Bell Jet Ranger sitting a hundred yards from the water's edge. He saw the bullet holes in the engine housing and knew that the commandos would not have left that radio intact after so thorough a job on the camp's equipment. Out of the seven cell phones on his Event personnel, not one was receiving a signal. Jack was finally realizing that his nonplan for getting his sister back had placed a lot of his people in jeopardy.