A split second later all three realized what those red dots were.

Half of a split second later, the sound of a dozen whistles filled the cave, the echo of which was still going as Hidalgo lay dead on the floor.

There was one moment of darkness and silence.

A walkie talkie sounding “Area is secure” was the next thing heard as bright lights started to light up every corner of the cave.
“Mike, Callie, are you ok?”
Dressed in a yellow rain coat, Joe appeared from the chaos. 

Mike was in shock and barely able to respond “how the hell did you know where to find me?”
“Mike, what is going on” was the only thing Callie managed to mutter as the cave filled with lights, the sound of walkie talkies and more yellow rain coats.

“There’s a helicopter waiting a mile outside of town, let’s walk and talk.“ said Joe as he led…. No, pretty much pushed them to along the way out of the cave. 

“Well, that was close…. Somehow your RFID tag kept cutting in and out of transmission ranges, so we had a hard time closing in on you, but it looks like we weren’t a second to late, eh?” Joe said and laughed.
Mike had always hated Joe’s stupid laugh but in this instance it was a welcome sound.

Mike and Callie’s eyes met for a second and Mike realized he’d have a LOT of explaining to go… so he grabbed Callie’s hand, hoping it would buy him some time before he had to do so.

“RFID tag? I thought you said they removed that thing when I retired?” 
“Well, we always say we do, but I can’t think of a better way to prove that you still needed our protection as this, he he”, said Joe.

As they neared the entrance of the cave, it looked like a crime scene with flood lights and no less than 50 yellow jackets examining, dusting and ripping up every square inch of the place.

Even though the wind in Mike’s face was cold and strong, it was a welcome change from the stale stuff that had been inside the cage.

Callie tried to look back to try to make some sense of the scene behind her but all she could make out was NSD in big black letters on the back of all those rain coats. 

It was starting to rain as Joe said: “We’ve got a transport setup for you guys that will take you to a helicopter that’ll fly you to headquarters”.

“Mike, what the hell is going on, what headquarters are we going to?” whispered Callie but Mike just squeezed her hand tighter saying:
“I’ll explain in the chopper, schmoopsie” 

In the van, Joe handed them a blanket and poured both a hot cup from a canteen.
“Here, this tea will warm you up.” 

“Ok, will SOMEBODY tell me what is going on? Who are you……. and where are …….we…… goin…” and with that, both Mike and Callie passed out.

 (22 hours later, 18 56’07N 63 34’01W)

Mike awoke to a dream of an earthquake.
When he opened his eyes, the world underneath him was still shaking.
He sat up in the bed and tried to get a hold of gravity and his memory of the events passed.

“Callie!” he thought as he stood up.
With a thump he dropped back on the bed.
This was definitely NOT a dream and the ground below him WAS moving.
Except the motion was rhythmic.

He was on a boat.

Trying again slowly, Mike got up, opened the small door and was almost blinded by the amount of light that came at him.
“Mike, you’re finally awake, come join us on the deck” said a voice.

 Mike recognized the voice but couldn’t quite place it in his dazed state.
The moment of recognition intercepted with the moment he laid eyes on the owner of that voice:
“DAD!?”

“Nice of you to make it in time for lunch, come have a seat with us, unless your carved up ass can’t take it?” Harmon said while laughing and pointing to a chair between Joe and him.
“Care for some tea?”
“I guess that depends on what the hell is in this one”, Mike replied in a snarky tone of voice.

 “Oh put your big girl panties on and get over that, Son, you know how things work at the agency.  Besides, we had to do that to get you safely away from Callie without you nor her making a big fuss” Harmon replied while pouring Mike and himself a glass of iced tea.

Mike’s head was hurting:
“so where is Callie and what do you have to do with all of this, Dad?”

Harmon took a drink of his iced tea in a very exploitive and somewhat sophomoric way, as to prove to Mike that the drink was harmless.

“Callie is safe and being taken care of, I promise you that. And I guess I do have some explaining to do….
Mike, I am the Head of the Nithhogr Special Force at the NSD and I’ve worked undercover since I was 19.“
“Nitho-who? I’ve never even heard of that? And I thought you were illiterate!” shouted Mike to which Harmon responded with loud laughing,
”Well Mike, that’s sort of the point ofan undercover agency branch, isn’t’ it!
NSF is the special force in charge of a…. sort of a deadly weapon that has been around for thousands of ages.

We also are working against the ‘other side’ which have been planting special agents all over the world for ages.  So what we do is to place OUR agents as close to theirs as possible” Harmon said with a slightly apologetic look.

Mike was getting sick to his stomach.

It took a long time for him to catch on.
“CALLIE IS AN ENEMY AGENT?”

“Well, enemy agent may be a bit of a strong choice of words. Let’s just say she helped their side without knowing it at times. Such as when she helped them complete ‘Project Amulet’, a long running operative which protects it’s wearer so they can transport the ‘deadly weapon’ to their leader without getting killed.
Except until now we thought it was an actual amulet or a cloak of some kind.”
Harmon paused sending an assuming look at Mike.

“Ok, AND?” Mike was getting dizzy and was about to throw up.

Harmon laughed,
“well, Mike, congratulations, you're the lucky wearer of the ‘amulet’. “ 

Mike looked at his carved up body and was stunned and confused and everything started to spin ever so slightly…

At that moment, a tall woman in a short skirt came around the corner, carrying a tray of food.
“Oh good morning, Mike, good to see you alive. You hungry?”

“CARA??? What the hell?” and with a thud, Mike passed out.

                          ------------------------------------------------------

“Mike!
Mike, love, wake up!
Schmoopie?”

Mike opened his eyes to find Callie hovering above him, gently rubbing his forehead.
“Oh, God, am I glad to hear you say that!” Mike responded.
“Are you ok? What happened to you?”, he asked.

“Yes love, everything is ok… did you have a bad dream?”, Callie inquired.

Mike closed his eyes for a second, trying to recollect the events of the recent past. There were the zombies, the raid in the cave, a helicopter rescue…and at some point his Dad as the head of the NSF on a boat…. or something close to that…

He sat up, trying to get it all sorted out in his dizzy head but the world still kept on swaying. Callie and Mike were sitting on a huge bed covered in soft, white linens and surrounded by pillows.

(giggle) “You forgot the bed sways, right?” Callie said as she got on her knees, held on the chains that suspended the platform from the ceiling and gave the bed a gentle shove.
“Whoa, easy there, tiger, I’m not feeling too hot”, Mike replied.

Callie giggled and said:
“Sorry, love, but you looked like you needed a reminder of that most useful of feature”.

Callie was dressed only in a gauzy white shirt and an ornate jeweled necklace and no matter how hard Mike tried to focus on where he was and what had happened, the way Callie looked was too much for any man to have blood left over to power the brain. Callie radiated in an unusual way and she glowed a soft golden light from her body, her hair, her eyes.

The sight of her barely covered breasts made him forget about everything but wanting to kiss Callie…
“esh”, Mike uttered as he leaned on his right fore arm, which was hurting and bleeding. But before he could finish trying to investigate the blood stain on the bed, Callie leaned in and kissed him…. their lips barely touching… then their tongues touched, softly at first and then deeper, sending electric pulses up and down his spine until he could barely tell which way was up or down.  

All he could think of was wanting to connect, wanting to be together, wanting to be one with his wife as their minimal clothes came off almost on their own.
His mind was getting filled with Callie’s soft moans while their bodied intertwined. Her kissed tasted like honey and the gentle breeze blowing in through the open windows smelled like vanilla.
He had intended to keep his eyes open to watch Callie move, but it was almost impossible to tear himself away from the flood of sensations and the light-show that was building in his mind, about to emerge.

It was only after their bodies joined in their almost violent release, that Mike managed to catch a glimpse of the full moon peaking in through the window and the reflection of silver on Callie’s blonde hair …..

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(25.5 hours later 18 55’22N 63 13’51W

“BLONDE HAIR????” Mike thought as he jumped up with a jolt. 

His heart was racing a mile a minute and he could have sworn the pounding could be heard by others, but this time he was sure he was NOT dreaming as he could clearly feel a blind-fold on his eyes and his hands tied behind his back. 

Then there was shouting and thuds and the sound of things breaking.

Then eventually screams and a boom and a huge gust of wind blowing through the room, like a giant had flown through the room back on the boat.
The commotion ended with a golden flash so bright it penetrated Mike’s blind fold.

And then….just as the commotion came, it disappeared and everything was quiet again.

Mike tried to be still to figure out if there was someone else in the room with him or not.  He could vaguely feel something, something small, not an adult, probably not dangerous.

“Psst, come here boy” he said, hoping it was a dog.

When he could sense only a slight stirring, Mike decided it was safe to remove his restraints and within minutes, his former agent training kicked in and he was able to undo the rope on his wrists. 

When he took his blind fold off he realized that it was dark on the boat.
After giving his eyes a few seconds to focus, he could make out two still shapes in the room.

He stepped over one in an attempt to turn on the light switch, which yielded no light and only a clicking noise.
Mike crouched down to make out the face of the body that laid below him.
He had to brace himself on the bed as to not fall backwards…

“CALLIE! OH GOD!"

With a shaking hand he turned her head towards the light of the full moon that was coming in through the window.
Her green, lifeless eyes were wide open and she was covered in blood from the waste down.
He could make out a rope like thing laying beside her that had a pile of red guts attached at the end. 

Mike sat there petrified and crying!

“DAD?.... JOE?...... is anyone here?” he yelled while trying to convince himself to get up and deal with the thing in the corner.
But all that was heard in response was silence and the gentle rocking of the boat.

CRASH-SKREETCH-BANG! 

Mike was thrown to the floor cutting his right fore arm on a broken glass shelf.
“Fuck!” he shouted as the boat had come to a crashing halt.

He got up, holding his bloody arm and finally walked to the corner of the room which was now filled with a disturbed noise, much like that of crying kittens… 

On a cape made of feathers laid a tiny baby girl with blonde hair and swirly markings all over her little body.

Mike fell in love with her instantly, she was beautiful.

A love stronger than he had ever known, just seconds old but firmly rooted in the depths of his very being.

A love he’d sacrifice anything for and would protect with his own life. 

He picked up his daughter gently, held her tight against his body and wrapped her bare, painted looking skin in the feather cape.
She stopped crying almost in an instant.
“there there, little girl, it’ll be ok” he whispered as he walked outside and sat down on the deck, just barely caressing the little babie’s blonde curly hair.

He didn’t notice the little green and yellow fishing boat with the white light bobbing in the distance, coming closer and closer….