I calmed my roiling stomach and rose from the ground, a few steps closer to the monitors Lu was watching.
I zeroed in on the one showing Tessa and stared at the screen with my heart in my throat. My eyes became wet as I watched elite soldiers trying to kill the woman I loved, while I was helpless to do anything about it.
Still, she was like something out of a John Wick movie, a female incarnation, with grenades and flash-bangs to go along with knives and guns. And now with a Chinese sub-machine gun slung around her neck, which she must have taken from a fallen soldier.
She was a blur of motion, a trained athlete in her prime, the Steffi Graf of combat. She threw grenades and flash-bangs at just the right moments, and in just the right locations. Then, with her adversaries disoriented, she picked men off with an automatic pistol, or knives thrown with the remarkable accuracy she had shown in the warehouse, hitting two between the eyes with bullets and one with a knife, and then spinning around in the same fluid motion and diving behind an electrical utility box for cover.
She landed in a crouch like a cat, and the moment she did, she reached into her vest and removed a full magazine with stunning efficiency, slamming it into the handle of her weapon with the speed of a magician.
I glanced at Lu, who looked to be almost awestruck. More than that, he was beginning to look worried—for the first time.
I had watched Tessa kill three of the men coming after her, but I had no idea how many she had taken out before I had become a spectator. Lu grunted what I guessed was a curse while his hands flew over a tablet computer. Almost immediately at least ten drones swooped to the major’s position and began a vicious dive-bombing campaign. A smart move on Lu’s part, as he attempted to wreak havoc and disrupt Tessa’s focus as she battled or avoided the remaining commandos.
She swatted two of the drones down with the butt of the Chinese assault rifle she had acquired, and then spun around and laid down a spray of fire to the west, where two Chinese commandos had just emerged from around the side of a building.
This completed, she raced across a small field toward a nearby building, continuing to spray the area with bullets as she moved, chewing up ground at a blistering pace. But just when she neared the cover of the building, her right foot crashed through a patch of weeds that concealed a beach-ball-sized ditch beneath, and she was sent careening forward. She slammed into the hard ground, face-first, somehow managing to turn her head in time to spare her teeth and nose.
She was dazed for several precious seconds, during which time the enemy fire found its mark, piercing her soft flesh in several locations. Even so, she somehow managed to right herself and make it around the edge of the building to cover.
Not that this would matter. She was losing blood at a rapid clip, and didn’t stand a chance in such a weakened condition.
“Stop this, Lu!” I screamed out. “Hold your fire! I’ll do anything you ask. Anything! Just back off until she blacks out. Please! You’ve won. I’ll tell you whatever you want.”
The Chinese leader shot me a look of contempt, realizing that I could see the monitors and quickly adjusting them so I no longer could. He then shouted a stream of orders I couldn’t understand.
I stood there not knowing what was going on for almost three minutes. Finally, two soldiers appeared around the edge of the warehouse, dragging Tessa in our direction. She was covered in grime and blood, her hands and feet were bound with zip ties, and she had been all but stripped to ensure she harbored no concealed weaponry.
I could tell that she was barely hanging on to consciousness, still bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds, although the bulletproof vest she had worn had prevented direct hits to her torso. As I watched, her eyes slid shut, but seconds later she shook her head vigorously in an effort to force herself to stay awake.
“She’s a remarkable warrior,” said the colonel. “Remarkable. She killed six of my men. And even after she fell and was nearly fatally wounded, it took three more to finally bring her down.” He paused. “She’s as good as anyone I’ve ever seen.”
I was too numb to respond. Tessa needed medical attention desperately. That was all I could think about. I had to find a way to make that happen.
“Your other friends are dead,” continued Lu, as the two men hauling Tessa toward us closed to within ten yards. “But I heard you admit that you’re in love with her. So I kept her alive to teach you a lesson about breaking your word.”
“What does that mean?” I spat in horror, electricity suddenly coursing through my veins.
Lu caught the eye of the commando to my left. “Kill her!” he ordered in English. “A single round between the eyes.”
“Nooo!” I shrieked at the top of my lungs, chopping the commando in the neck frantically with a knife-hand strike as he raised his pistol to fire, a move I completed with perhaps three times greater speed and precision than I had ever managed before.
The man fell to the pavement, unconscious.
Lu was clearly stunned by this development, but no more so than I was.
A second soldier stepped away from me and raised his gun to carry out Lu’s order, and I hit him in the bridge of his nose with a perfectly executed roundhouse kick, then instantly launched myself toward the colonel as the man was falling to the ground.
Lu managed to shoot me in the left thigh as I charged him like a bull, giving up a kill shot because of my value, but I continued on, ignoring the searing pain in my thigh and stripping the gun from Lu’s hand. In seconds, I was behind him, holding his own gun to his head, having moved faster than I ever dreamed was possible, and taking advantage of his reluctance to endanger my life.
Apparently, adrenaline, love, and desperation had unleashed speed and skill I didn’t think I possessed. I had acted like a rabid dog, calling on berserker rage to tap into some unknown reserve of strength and bravery.