Page 27 of Saving Noor

Warden’s voice boomed over the comm, cutting through the rotor wash. “Link, get them loaded! We’re not on a sightseeing tour!”

One by one, they scrambled aboard. Link was the last to vault in, pulling the door shut as the helicopter lifted off, tilting sharply away from the safe house.

Inside the vibrating cabin, the immediate tension bled away, replaced by a hollow exhaustion. Jax and a man with a medical patch on his sleeve—Dog—were already at work. Dog attended to Noor with a grim focus, while Jax turned to Shadow, cutting away his shirt to assess the gunshot wound.

Dog’s hands moved over Noor’s abdomen, his face hardening. He increased the flow on her IV and snapped an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. “She is in hypovolemic shock,” he said, his voice low but clear to Link and Sammy. “We are losing her to blood loss. We need to get her to the OR, not another safe house.”

Sammy, pale and silent, reached out and took his mother’s limp hand.

Noor’s eyelids fluttered, her gaze hazy and unfocused. A faint movement of her lips caught Dog’s attention through the roar of the helicopter. Recognizing her struggle, he gently lifted the oxygen mask just enough to give her room to speak. With great effort, her lips formed the words: “Tracker…collar.” Sammy’s eyes locked onto her lips, his heart pounding as he nodded in understanding.

Dog’s eyes widened in sudden, awful understanding. Sammy glanced at Dog, his expression mirroring the shock as they both realized what this meant.

Dog immediately began signing rapidly to the rest of the team, conveying the critical warning. Though the helicopter’s noise swallowed any spoken words, Jax’s sharp frustration cut through in the form of a muttered curse, “Son of a bitch,” barely audible over the roar.

Link’s and Jax’s hands moved swiftly in sign language—urgent, precise—exchanging grim confirmation of the situation.

Jax’s expression darkened as he looked between Noor and Link, the weight of the revelation settling in hard. Link’s voice was silent, but his tense posture spoke volumes: “It was never compromised. We led them right to it.”

His eyes flicked to Shadow, who was leaning back against the bulkhead, his face pale but stoic as Jax worked on his shoulder. The bandage was already blooming with a dark red stain. A through-and-through. Clean. He’ll be okay. The medic’s assessment replayed in Link’s mind, a mantra against the surge of guilt.

But he shouldn’t have been hit at all.

The thought was a cold knife. They had walked into a prepared ambush because of a basic, unforgivable oversight. He had been so focused on extraction, on getting Noor to safety, that he’d missed the most obvious security threat on her person. Shadow’s blood was on his hands. It was luck, pure, dumb luck, that it wasn’t Sammy bleeding out on the floor, or Jax, or that a stray round hadn’t found Noor on the cot. The entire team, the entire mission, had been balanced on a knife’s edge because he failed to check a collar.

Sammy’s face drained of color, shifting from pale to ghostly as his eyes fixed on the glaring plastic beads, the harsh symbol of his mother’s captivity that he had been too desperate, too relieved, to truly notice before. A tight knot formed in his chest, and his breaths came shallow and uneven. I didn’t think…I just wanted to get her out, he thought, guilt crashing over him like a wave, heavy and crushing, mirroring the weight pressing down on Link’s own conscience.

Link’s hand landed firmly on Sammy’s shoulder, the grip solid and steady, a lifeline amid the chaos. Their eyes met, Link’s steady and intense, silently passing the burden he carried. Sammy’s hands trembled, struggling to follow the signing that came too fast, words he hadn’t yet fully learned. Seeing this, Link softened his expression, letting his gaze speak where words and signs could not. It’s not your fault, he conveyed without speaking.

Link then turned his attention to Shadow, the apology hanging between them in silence. Shadow pressed his lips into a thin line, his eyes flickering with reluctant understanding. He shook his head slightly, a faint, pained movement that said more than words. With deliberate, practiced motions, he signed to the rest of the team, We’re all breathing. That’s the debrief. Later.

The helicopter’s relentless roar drowned out every sound, leaving only the vibrations beneath their feet and the pounding of their hearts. In that heavy silence, the weight of unspoken truth settled deep.

Link tightened his jaw, giving a sharp nod; guilt darkened his eyes, an emotion set aside but not forgotten. His gaze shifted to Dog, who glanced up, understanding flashing in his eyes.

With a quick snap of his fingers, Link signaled urgently, “Get it off her. Now.”

In one swift motion, Dog retrieved surgical shears from his kit and cut the collar from Noor’s neck. He handed the severed collar to Link, who examined it closely.

“It has to be active,” Dog confirmed, as he signed back, “Probably a simple RF pulse, range should be city-wide. But if our scan did not catch it…”

Link’s heart sank further. This was something new, a tracker he’d never encountered before. He felt a mix of guilt and urgency, the desire to keep it to study its technology clashing with the necessity to dispose of it to avoid detection. He hesitated for a moment, pulling out his phone to take a quick picture, wanting to capture this anomaly for further analysis later.

However, the ticking clock of their escape pushed him into action. He glanced at Shadow and Sammy, feeling the weight of his oversight, before finally handing the collar over to Nova.

Without a word, she slid the window open a crack. The deafening roar of the rotors and a rush of cold night air surged in momentarily. She dropped the collar into the darkness below.

“Let them chase ghosts,” she said, though the words were swallowed by the thunder of the open window.

The team fell into a sudden silence, each lost in their own thoughts amidst the pounding rotors. They had escaped, but Link still felt the lingering weight of the safe house: the dry grit of dust, the metallic sting of Shadow’s blood, and the searing neon flash of his own mistake burning bright within him.

As they disembarked into the sudden, ringing quiet, the vast desert night enveloped them, swallowing the rotor noise. The farewell under the open sky and a blanket of stars felt poignant and heavy.

Link pulled Tariq aside, the dry wind tugging at their clothes. “This is it. Blast and Tank will take you the rest of the way to Hank’s people. You’ll be safe.” He gestured to the van, then back to Tariq. “The offer stands. A new life. Use the phone.”

Tariq looked from the van to the endless dark horizon, then back to Link. The street-hardened skepticism was still there, but now layered with the fragile, terrifying hope of open space. He gave a single, firm nod.

Link then turned to Hassan and Fatima. He pressed a plain envelope into Fatima’s hands. “This is from Hank. For immediate needs. More will follow, every month. You will want for nothing.” He paused, his voice softening, carrying on the wind. “We will find your girls. This I swear.”