Ever Hayes - Emergency Exit

It was still snowing, and troops were on patrol right now, but the temperature was dropping fast and those men weren’t dressed to stay out all night, unless they just stood by a fire. Danny knew he had to at least go to the camp and scout it out. But he also knew if he were caught, he’d have to claim he was with the vice president and give up on all hope of returning to this cave. In other words, he’d likely be dead.

It seemed like a lose-lose, a totally hopeless situation at best. But he and Cameron had joined the military for exactly this purpose, to save people. His new Commander-in-Chief, if the former President was indeed dead, was now less than a mile from us, tied up in a tent. The responsibility didn’t get any bigger than this. This was one of his all-time favorite video games, Call of Duty , being applied to real life. It was time to report.

Danny and Cameron left the cave around 2:30 a.m. They were counting on it taking an hour to get there and an hour to get back. That meant they had an hour and a half in between before daylight would make it impossible to hide. It wasn’t a lot of time to work with, but it was so cold now the enemy troops were barely visible, and those who were still up were huddled around fires. This was the enemy at their weakest against Danny and Cameron at their favorite hunting time. The boys couldn’t have it any better than this.

They made their way down to the road, crossed under the bridge, and approached the camp along the water, adjacent the herds of sleeping elk. The animals’ movement in the morning would cover their tracks almost perfectly. The last three hundred yards, though, were wide-open space. They either had to cross the road again and approach through the trees, or crawl in from here.

Danny and Cameron decided it would be foolish for both of them to go all the way into the camp. Two people were “two visible” they reasoned. They scouted out as much of the camp as they could and noticed only one tent was being guarded, and even then all three guards were gathered around the fire in front of the tent. One appeared to be sleeping standing up. The other two were deep in conversation. Danny left Cameron in a position where he could keep an eye and gun on those three men, in case Danny ended up needing help. They worked out their signals. If Danny knelt down on one knee at gunpoint, Cameron was to take out as many men around him as he could, starting with the man holding the gun on Danny. If Danny knelt on both knees, Cameron was to stand down and go back to the cave. It was primitive, and the fist bump they gave each other could be their last, but it was a “go.”

I could see Cameron kneeling, rifle trained ahead, from my perch on the upper ledge. Blake had brought some climbing rope and stakes and had set up a line for us to pull ourselves up to another ledge about fifteen feet above ours. It was an easy climb with the rope and gave us a decent long-range view of half the camp. When it was windy it would be too risky to be up there, but tonight was calm. Snowy and freezing, but calm. It would be worth tolerating the cold to have a better view of the camp.

When Danny started crawling away from Cameron, we lost sight of him. He was hugging the ground along the other side of the road by the water, heading towards the camp. I told Blake to watch Cameron and let me know if anything happened with him. I was going to keep my eye and scope on as much of the camp as I could see, namely the three guys standing around the fire. Their movements would be my best indicator of whether or not they saw Danny.

Danny slowly closed the distance between himself and the guarded tent. It still seemed strange to him that, with an available building, they’d keep their prisoner out in a tent. But then, the officers were highly unlikely to give up their own comforts for a prisoner of war. It made sense, but it was a dumb move. Then again, it was possible they didn’t even know who they had. Doubtful, but possible.

Every ten yards Danny would lift himself up a little to survey the camp. He reached the back of the tent around 4 a.m. He could hear the guys around the fire talking in a foreign language. He was less than twenty feet from them, separated only by tarp walls. If one of them decided to walk around the tent, someone would die. And then there’d be a lot more death.

Danny touched the back wall of the tent with his finger. Standard tarp. It would cut like wet cardboard. He pulled out his sharpest blade and slowly inserted it into the tarp wall. It pierced through, and he methodically worked it to his left. When he had created a hole about a foot wide, he gently lifted the tarp to see inside. The man they’d seen in the cage was indeed in there, eyes closed but facing him. He was on his knees, chained to the pole holding up the middle of the tent. There were two cots in the tent but no one in either. Danny lowered the tarp and continued to cut across the base of the wall. When he had created a gap large enough to slide through, he removed his backpack and set his rifle down on top of it. He slowly eased himself through the seam he’d created and slid under one of the cots.

He was lying facedown and preparing to crawl over to the vice president when the front tent flap opened, and one of the men came in with a lantern. Danny glanced behind him at where he’d entered and saw the canvas flapping lightly from the draft created by the soldier’s entrance. The soldier didn’t seem to notice. He staggered wearily to the cot and set the lantern down on the floor, less than a foot from Danny’s face. He sat down on the cot above Danny and took off his boots. He farted loudly, and the men outside said something to him, which he replied to in a cursing tone. They laughed. He muttered a few more words and lay down, pulling a large blanket over himself. Underneath, Danny was lying as flat as possible. The man’s heavy body made the cot sag to within inches of Danny’s back. The lantern now illuminated the entire tent. Danny had hoped the man on the cot would shut it off but he didn’t.

Danny shifted his eyes to the vice president and was surprised to see the man’s eyes wide open and focused on him. A few minutes later, the man above Danny began snoring. The vice president looked from Danny to the man on the cot, then back to Danny and slowly nodded. The flickering lamp now posed the bigger problem. He couldn’t put it out with the man snoring. The soldiers just outside would probably notice that. Nor could he emerge from under the cot and approach the vice president without the light revealing his shadow to the men around the fire. Danny took a breath and waited for a particularly deep snore before poking the man hard in the side. He made a snorting noise, the snoring stopped, and there was silence for a second. The vice president nodded again, and Danny turned the knob on the lamp, shutting it off.

The guys outside said something, presumably directed at the man on the cot. As expected, the lamp going off had caught their attention. Danny held his breath. This was the moment of truth. The man on the cot didn’t reply, but he shifted and farted again. The men around the fire laughed and went back to talking, and the man above Danny gradually returned to his snoring. Danny slowly released the breath he’d been holding and cautiously moved the lamp aside, careful not to knock it over. He slid out from under the cot. Inch by inch he slid across the floor to the vice president and raised himself up beside the man. When he got to the man’s ear he whispered, “I’m here sir. What would you like me to do?”

He moved his head in front of the man’s mouth and the vice president replied softly, “You have to leave me and find my daughter.”