Michael Bunker - WICK

“Do you suppose Elsie and Peter are alright?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Things don’t look particularly good for any of us right now.”

“No. you’re right.”

“If they rush the place—” he did not complete the sentence.

“I know.”

The two young people looked at one another, and their wordless communication was un-gilded, un-scripted, and unreservedly honest. The things that they did not say to one another were true, and they both meant them with all of their hearts.

Afraid that the opposing force might take the lull in fighting as an invitation to attack, Lang shuffled to his feet, and, balancing the barrel on the window frame, he popped off three quick shots from the .22, just to remind the enemy that someone armed was still in the cabin. It was a weak little protest, and it was met with a more powerful response. A bullet passed by Lang’s ear so closely that it nearly took the appendage off. He dropped to the ground so fast that for a second, Natasha thought that he had been hit.

“Whoa,” Lang said, and laughed nervously. “That was close. They’re getting better at this. I think they’re timing our return fire.”

The round-faced man, like many in his tribe, bore many names. He decided on the spot that he preferred another. He was going back to being called Cole.

Cole made his escape while Mike and Steve were busy trying to locate the position of the sniper. Neither one wanted to move in any particular direction until they knew that they wouldn’t be moving into the crosshairs of someone with an agenda different than their own.

The three Warwickians, Mikail, Sergei, and Vladimir had retreated back away from the ridge when Mikail indicated to the others that there was a sniper somewhere who was shooting at the National Guardsmen. The bulldog wordlessly ordered Val and Kent to circle around the ridge to the southeast in order to try to see who might be holed up in the cabin. This order gave Cole just the opportunity he’d hoped for.

Cole carried the new backpack as the group split in two. Just as soon as he and Vladimir had cleared Mikail’s line of sight, Cole smoothly and fearlessly pulled the pistol from the band of his coat. He placed it to the back of Vladimir’s head and pulled the trigger.

That was that. There was no ominous or threatening chit-chat. There were no syncopated rejoinders or catchphrases popping back and forth between the executioner and the executed. Cole was too smart for that stuff. He wasn’t giving Vladimir an opportunity to weasel out of what he had coming.

Cole did not struggle within himself with the decision to kill Vladimir. He knew that Vlad was a coiled and poisonous serpent. A snake can and will strike anywhere and anytime. Vlad was a murderer many times over, and, as a cold-blooded psychopath, the man was too dangerous to suffer to live any longer.

In nature, rattlesnakes have a purpose. It is often said by people who are too ignorant to know better that “the only good snake is a dead snake.” These people do not realize that if it were not for rattlesnakes, the human race would be wiped out by plagues and diseases from vermin in just a few years. Rattlesnakes are a necessary creature. We’d be lost without them. But you don’t let them into your bedroom where you sleep. Cole looked out through his glasses, and he noticed that they had some specks of blood on them. Those vipers that get too close and won’t go away, he thought, you have to kill. He pulled off the glasses and cleaned them on his shirt.

Perhaps Vladimir had a purpose. He’d never been a good person, or even a morally neutral person. He’d always been purely evil. He was, Cole figured, a rattlesnake that wouldn’t leave the house. It had been time for him to die.

Cole was moving slowly, crawling foot by foot towards the rear of the cabin, when he inexplicably heard a voice from some bushes.

The bushes were calling to him using Peter’s voice.

But they were calling him using his real name.

“Do you ever wonder what life might have been like for us if…” Natasha stopped herself before she finished the question.

“If what?” Lang asked.

“…If we’d been from somewhere else… anywhere else… anywhere but Warwick?”

“I do wonder that, Natasha. I’ve thought about that a lot as we’ve traveled on this little adventure of ours. But,” he squeezed her hand softly as he tried to form the words to say the things he wanted to say. “But, I can’t say that I would ask for anything to be different. Not a thing. Not even being here, right now, with you. I’ve thought about this a lot, Natasha, really I have.” Lang reached up and touched Natasha’s face, and just then a tear escaped her eye and traced its way down to where his hand rested against her cheek.

“How can you say that?” she asked, but with no hint of agitation or irritation at all. She really and truly wanted to know. “How can it be that you wouldn’t change things if you could?”

“Because, I’m free now, Natasha. I realized it back when I got shot crossing Highway 17, a lifetime ago.” Lang paused for a moment, and looked deeper into Natasha’s eyes. “‘ Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.’ Solzhenitsyn said that. I don’t know that I can explain why I have joy and peace at this moment. I know Volkhov felt the same thing when he was in that prison with Clay in Warwick. When I was shot, I knew then that, for the first time in all of my life, I was moving, and breathing, and deciding, all as a free man. I just wonder… if none of this had happened, if I’d ever have really experienced freedom.”

The gunfire from outside had slowed considerably, and Lang hesitated for a moment, afraid that the soldiers outside might be considering a raid on the cabin. He looked up and found that Natasha was still looking at him, as if she expected him to continue. So he did.

“I remember that man Clay. The man who accidentally stumbled into Warwick during the winter storm. He was looking for freedom, too. I’m not talking about political freedom, here particularly. I’m talking about moral freedom, the freedom to not be a puppet in another man’s game. And I believe that Clay died happy, even if he was confused by all of it. He died saying ‘NO’ to tyranny and wickedness. Just like Volkhov said. To me, it is okay to die, as long as you are doing it while acting out your freedom.

“So, no, I don’t wish things had been different. I’m just glad that things worked out so that I could team up with you and Peter and Elsie… and Cole. I’m just glad that we all made the decision to say ‘no.’ I’m glad we had the courage to flee the system that was lying to us and enslaving us.”

Natasha looked at him and smiled. The mention of Cole’s name struck her a bit like a needle pushed into her skin, but she understood Lang’s words, and she liked it that Lang said them to her. Another tear ran down her face, and she looked down before speaking again.

“If…” she paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts before beginning again. “If things were different. If we’d been born in a regular American town, and if we knew nothing of Russia or spies or any of this mess… well… Vasily Romanovich Kashporov… in such a case, I would love you anyway.” She looked up at Lang, and he smiled.

Lang was just about to reply to Natasha, when he saw movement near the back door of the cabin. Cole rushed through the door, and Lang hardly had time to recognize who it was and stop himself before firing at the figure moving towards them. He did hold his fire, but the Missouri National Guard did not.

Seeing the movement in the cabin, the assaulting force opened fire again, and Natasha dove towards Cole dragging him down to the ground as a cascade of bullets smashed through the structure, destroying everything in their paths. Simultaneous with Natasha’s dive towards Cole, Lang sprung up again, instinctively, to offer covering fire, and rapidly squeezed off the four remaining shots left in the tube magazine of the squirrel rifle. Once again, his appearance was answered with a barrage of fire through the window, and once again, Lang dropped to the ground instantaneously with a loud thud.