9 Wildfires: A Short Story

By J.L. Shojosh

General Jack Lupis, an intelligence officer, receives a call from a stranger. His son has been kidnapped. To free his son, Jack is instructed to prison break eight dangerous and high ranking war prisoners, and thus betray his country. Jack races against the clock to move things along as discretely as possible, but things quickly take a wrong turn during the prisoner exchange.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.L. Shojosh
• Release date: Dec 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005843229

J.L. Shojosh

I hope to show the universal humanity inherent in all of us. There's more that we as humans have in common with one another than the differences that sometimes pit us against each other. Through stories, I hope to highlight a few of those commonalities. Love conquers all.

Book preview

Prologue

It’s ringing. It’s ringing. A sweat drenched boxed faced man in fatigued overalls had lamented. He and another lanky pale fellow dashed zealously for the landline.

Hello? The second fellow picked up, with the phone’s earpiece forcefully glued to his ear, not least because his best friend had tried to ease drop on the call.

General Lupis, listen very carefully if you want to see your son in one piece…

The room turned cold, despite the battering rays of the sun. Lupis stood in a shoddy cabin in the woods. He’d had it for two decades, a safe house that kept all of its communications hidden from the military intelligence services, including his own clandestine employers, the NAWS.

I’m listening… The man with a patchy beard, General Lupis, firmly retorted. His face, however, looked as though it were having the runs.

Quickly, pointing to the only tiny bookshelf in the cabin, the general commanded his square faced mate to grab a pen and paper. Meticulously, despite his being bested by his nerves, General Lupis would heed the abductor’s demands. Goosebumps filled his pale, dry skin.

Roger Maul, the short fellow, the only person Lupis had called in for help, wasn’t making the scene any more serene by obsessively pacing up and down the cranky, squeaky floorboards.

Ok…ok, I want to speak him –Let me talk to my boy! General Lupis shakily looked up from his penning, having bathed the tiny parchment with a few cups of his sweat.

Dad?

Rayu, everything’s going to fine. You hear me? Stay strong. You’re doing great son. I’ll-

You have twenty four hours.

Rayu! Rayu!? No!

The line went mute.

Gah!! The lanky pale figure was a raging furnace, overturning the crippled table, and nearly thrashing it out the window and onto a forest of a front lawn.

Minutes later, the reality of the situation had all but set in.

Out in the woods, just outside the safe house, Lupis and Maul loomed pensively over a map, on which they’d ran and slid their finger to setup their plan of attack. The pair had to do the unthinkable and break into one of their military facilities, only to then breakout eight high ranking war prisoners. Standing over a sawed-up tree trunk that double as an outdoor table, with their map held down by four rocks, Lupis and his square faced childhood friend heatedly launched ideas back and forth.

Jack, don’t you at least want to talk to the War Minister? Maul pleaded. He’d had a hard time staring at the quiet and grimacing Lupis. I just mean…Let’s think about this a little more, before we-

Fool. Lupis aggressively interjected. Leave if you must. We don’t have time! Rayu is… Saying his son’s name would regurgitate too many emotions for one man to tame. He paused. General Jack Lupis bit his tongue, composing himself.

Rog, you know full well that the government would never allow eight high-ranking generals to go free for one civilian boy. We have no other option. I will not sit by and watch my son depart this cursed soil before me! The tall fellow struck the flat platform of the chopped tree.

Maul was conflicted. His eyes merely darted about, shifting between looking at Jack’s left and right eyes. Roger Maul finally fixed his sights onto the body of water afar off, which shimmered with intense clarity. Instantly, the short grey haired man’s mental fog would seem to clear up.

I’m with you till the death, old friend. The look on Maul’s face was uncanny, dead set and piercingly fanatic-like. Granted, Roger smirked, and pocketed