The two men were only a block away when I took my first shot at them. They hadn’t been expecting it and scurried out of the street. Unfortunately, I didn’t hit either one of them. I hadn’t spent nearly enough time practicing shooting, and when I got out of Syria, it would be one of the first things I’d have Nate teach me.
I couldn’t wait to work with Nate more on my skills and get better and better. I knew he didn’t like the idea of me working with him, it probably scared him as much as it scared me that he did the job. But I finally understood the draw to his profession, and for a women like me, it was pretty amazing to feel powerful again.
“Rebels at three o’clock,” I heard a man say in English.
They were across the street from me and off to the side a bit, and I ducked back further into the alley so they didn’t have a direct sight on me. But the fact that they spoke English made me think it wasn’t, in fact, the rebels who were behind me at all.
“If you don’t identify yourself, I’m going to put this bullet right through your head,” I said calmly from where I was hiding.
“Ana?” I heard a voice say.
“Shit, who is it?”
“It’s Nate and Roane. Can we talk later? We need to keep moving.”
I couldn’t believe it was Nate. I had secretly been praying that he would find us, but I didn’t want to count on it. Oh, how happy I was that he was there to help us get safely back to the airport.
“Keep up, boys, I’m going to catch up with the ladies,” I said as Nate and Roane got close enough to me that I could see their faces.
There was no time for reunions; we needed to get out of there. The ladies had made really good time and were about a mile ahead of us when Nate, Roane, and I caught up with them.
“Look who I found,” I said as I arrived with the men.
Roane instantly hugged Danita and his wife, and Nate stood near me so we could talk without being overheard. It was so nice to have him there. I felt like I could finally relax and let him take the reins on the rescue mission.
As much as I wanted to get into the profession, I certainly wasn’t well trained and couldn’t pretend like I knew more than Nate did in the area of keeping people safe. Nate had spent years in his field and years before that with the military; it was no wonder that he wanted to start his own company. Nate really understood the business and was going to make a great boss.
“Why are you going this way?” Nate asked.
“Because the rebels will be expecting us to take the most direct route. I thought it would be best to get out of the city first and then cut over to the airport.”
I could tell by the expression on Nate’s face that he didn’t like my idea at all.
“Why not just make a straight run for it? You could have been at the airport by now.”
My stomach sank at the way he was talking to me. He hadn’t even thought about my plan at all. To him, the only way to go was the direct route and he just wanted us to run straight there. But he hadn’t seen how weak and tired the women and teenagers were. There was no way they could have made it on a seven-mile run straight to the airport.
Sure, the route I had them going was probably going to be closer to ten or twelve miles, but we would be out of the main fighting area and around friendlier places. In the area we were heading to, there were businesses still open and families still in their homes. To me, that meant that the area wasn’t as dangerous as the ones in the direct route to the airport.
“These women can’t run; they’re starving to death. They’ve been giving all their food to their children. This is the best route,” I said as I turned around to prepare the group to keep moving forward.
Nate reluctantly went with us our way, but I could tell he wasn’t happy about it at all. He moved to the back of the group of women and walked backwards to keep an eye on things. About fifteen minutes later when we stopped for a break again, he came back up front near me to talk again and try to convince me we were far enough north and needed to cut over to the airport.
“I think we are good now, let’s cut to the airport and get everyone out,” Nate said in an authoritative voice.
“No, I think we still need to go two miles north before we consider cutting across.”
Just then we heard a loud bang go off between us and the airport. A huge building was in flames and looked like it had been hit by a rocket or something. The building was only about a mile away from us, but it was in the path between the house we had taken shelter in and the airport.
“Nitro, you good?” I heard Baller ask over the radio that Nate had up by his ear.
He ha
d the volume turned almost all the way down, but it was so close to his ear that he probably could hear it very well.
“We are good,” Nate reassured him.
“Sounds like the rebels are going house by house in the areas around the airport; I’d suggest you taking a few miles north to hike and then cutting over.”