Play it Again Sam Pt. 05

I went back to the high rise.

In an attempt to buy myself some more time, I tried a new ambush on the spotter. The first time, I'd only had about five minutes to search him before his buddies set off the nuke. He must have called me in as extremely suspicious, and when he wouldn't respond to them, the jig was up.

Since I knew where the sniper team was going to be, I just got there first, hid, and waited.

It worked much better.

I had a solid fifteen minutes to frantically memorize the encryption code in the spotter's radio, before the sniper came looking for him. They had barely gotten set up in this building. I don't think the sniper even considered that they might be under attack. He just walked into the office where his partner was keeping a lookout, with his sidearm still holstered.

"Jorge? Jorge, where are you man, you're not answer-"

He cut off abruptly as he saw Jorge's body on the floor, and then my gun pointed at him.

I shot him twice in the chest.

"Now we're even, asshole. Teach you to kill me."

Now two of the terrorists were offline. I didn't have much time. I redoubled my efforts to memorize the encryption code. Ten dials, 0-20. Unfortunately, they weren't lazy, there were no repeats. 09, 12, 18, 03, 05, 11, 19, 14, 02, 17.

"09, 12, 18, 03, 05, 11, 19, 14, 02, 17. 09, 12, 18, 03, 05, 11, 19, 14, 02, 17. 09, 12, 18, 03, 05, 11, 19, 14, 02, 17. 09, 12, 18, 03, 05, 11, 19, 14, -"

FLASH

...

"02,17. 09, 12, 18, 03, 05, 11, 19, 14, 02, 17. 09, 12, 18, 03, 05, 11, 19, 14, 02, 17."

I kept repeating the code to myself as I got out of bed and entered it into the memo pad on my phone.

Now I had access to the terrorists' communications. I spent the next two weeks listening in, making a timeline. I tracked every movement and conversation of all 11 bad guys.

I was able to build a full picture of what was going on.

Maybe I shouldn't admit it, but when I first realized that New York was being bombed, I expected to be going up against Arabs. I know, profiling, blah blah blah. But really, that was where the smart money lay.

Finding out the target was the South Korean Embassy, threw a monkey wrench in that idea, but all the "terrorists" I'd seen confused the issue- they were mostly Hispanic, with a couple white guys, and a black guy. These guys seemed a little too...inclusive, to be fundamentalists.

There were actually two groups- terrorists and mercenaries.

Seven of them, including all the ones I had seen up to that point, were soldiers for hire. They didn't know about the nuke. They thought they were hired muscle in a dispute between North and South Korea. The plan, as far as they knew, was to kidnap the South Korean ambassador and his family. They would then bring the hostages to the Embassy, for its symbolism, and stand guard while the North Koreans did their thing.

They were distributed as follows- The sniper and his spotter were both mercenaries, as were the two lookouts outside the building, the guard in the lobby, and two more on the fourth floor. Of the North Koreans, one was directing the action from the security office off the lobby, and the other three were in the ambassador's office on the fourth floor.

The mercs knew that the North Koreans had a bomb, but not that it was nuclear. They were expecting to get paid, not die. The North Koreans had several large metal cases of equipment. They told the mercs that it was film equipment, along with a bomb big enough to level the building. They would film themselves beating and killing the ambassador and his family, then retreat to a safe distance and blow the building, the symbol of South Korean collusion with America.

All of that was true, except the finale. The four North Koreans knew that this way a one way trip.

The North Korean's goal was simple- strike a blow at the evil United States and their South Korean sympathizers. The nuke had to go off. Everything else was secondary. They would detonate if they got any hint that something was wrong. Sirens? Detonate. Sounds of a gun battle? Detonate. Someone doesn't answer their radio for an extended period? Detonate.

If I didn't interrupt them, the terrorists would spend a little over an hour beating on the ambassador and his family, interspersed with crazed rantings into the video cameras they had set up. Then they would blow themselves up along with the city.

Yes, they were filming themselves, but they weren't broadcasting it. The footage was being recorded, but not sent to anyone. They were worried about the NSA intercepting anything they sent out over the internet. I don't know how likely that is, but they weren't willing to risk an airstrike if the government caught wind of them.

Instead, their plan was to upload the footage to their compatriots just before setting off the nuke, not giving anyone enough time to react. Their allies would then air their manifesto and take credit in the aftermath.

Speaking of the terrorists' allies, they claimed to be an independent group of North Korean patriots, not in any way affiliated with the government itself. I was calling bullshit. Every other sentence in their rants was to praise their god-like dictator. In my personal opinion, they were just trying to muddy the waters. It was hard to imagine how any independent group from poverty stricken North Korea could get their hands on a nuclear bomb.

But that wasn't my problem. I just had to deal with these assholes.

My biggest problem was the terrorists' itchy trigger fingers. Any kind of drawn out assault would set the bomb off.

Three of the North Koreans, the hostages, and the nuke, were in the ambassador's office. I could maybe hide somewhere that let me get the drop on them, without going through their security forces. But that left the fourth North Korean, who was in the ground floor security office. He could detonate from there, and he would if he lost contact with his buddies.

Disarming the nuke was out. I'm not MacGyver.

Plus, even if the bomb didn't go off, I didn't want to put myself in a situation where I was surrounded be baddies.

My goal was to stop the nuclear warhead, but I had several selfish goals as well.

First, don't die. If stopping the bomb ended the time loop, any injuries I sustained would carry over to Saturday. It would really suck if I got myself killed just when I was about to get out. So, if I got shot...let them set it off, and try again.

Second, do everything I can to minimize collateral damage. If an innocent, like the ambassador's daughter, was killed in the assault...let them set it off, and try again.

Third, come out of this smelling like roses. If this worked, I would be a celebrity. Like that Sully guy who landed a plane in the Potomac, only times a thousand. Women would be lining up to throw their panties at me. I'd never have to pay for a meal again.

But there would also be intense scrutiny of the events leading up to the (hopefully) failed bomb attempt. I needed to plan carefully to avoid awkward questions. Like if I hid in the building somewhere, how would I explain that afterward? I was visiting the Embassy earlier and fell asleep in a closet? Not likely.

I came to a conclusion: I was going to need help.

Given enough time, I could come up with a way to do it all myself. But it could take years and it was unnecessary. Why do it alone if I didn't have to? Having even one helper would simplify things exponentially.

...

The first person I went to is Sung.

Sung was South Korean, and I considered him my best friend. He was an obvious choice, and no, the freaky 'coincidence' was not lost on me. Plus, his background made him the perfect partner for what I had in mind.

Sung had been a soldier briefly, before he lost an eye in combat and got medically discharged. No, he wasn't some super soldier. In fact, he admitted to me that he wasn't a very good shot even before losing the eye. He had excelled in unarmed combat, but there isn't much place for that in the modern military.

After he was discharged, Sung worked as an interpreter. One thing we shared in common was a gift for languages. He was fluent in most languages of the orient. He had mostly worked for South Korean tech companies, interpreting when they dealt with their Chinese and Japanese counterparts.

Actually, there was a genuine badass in Sung's dojo- his sister, Mi-Sook.

Mi-Sook was the reason her and her brother had moved to New York. She had been some kind of commando in South Korea. I didn't know if she was in their military or a government agent, she didn't say. She had worked closely with the Americans, in a joint military exercise. She never gave any details, said it was classified. All she would say, was that both our governments fucked her over, and she had to leave South Korea, along with her brother to avoid reprisals from the North.

Over the course of my time in the loop, I had confided in Sung many times. Convincing him that I was in a time loop was in large part how I got him to open up about he and his sister's past. That isn't why I told him about the loop. I just needed to confide in someone occasionally. I think he probably pitied me when I told him that I considered him my best friend.

I'd never let Mi-Sook in on my secret, but now I did. She would be a big help in stopping the terrorists.

That brought our number to three, but I was going to add one more.

My wife.

I second guessed myself a lot on that one. Julie obviously didn't have any special skills to bring to the table when conducting an assault on nuclear terrorists. She couldn't fight. She'd never shot a gun. She wasn't especially tech savvy.

But my wife had one thing going for her, and it was by far the most important quality for this mission- I could trust her.

Wait! Wait. I know what you're saying. Trust her? Are you fucking kidding? The woman betrayed me. She led a double life behind my back. She humiliated me.

But... While I would never again trust her with my heart, I could absolutely trust her with my life. She loved me in her own fucked up way. I was sure of that. She would take directions, she would watch my back, and most importantly, I believed she would trust me.

Probably the biggest danger in this whole endeavor was one of my helpers going off script. What if I got shot? What if the people with me had a chance to stop the bomb? I'd be fucked if they managed to avert the explosion, while I lay there dying. If something went wrong, I needed that bomb to go off and reset the loop.

Even Sung and Mi-Sook could only be trusted so far. I had to be careful not to put them in a position where they could fuck me. It's one thing to believe that I'm stuck in a time loop. It's quite another to let themselves and the entire city of New York die in a nuclear inferno on my say so. They would let me die if it meant saving the city. I couldn't blame them for that, it would be the right thing to do.

But I had as many opportunities as I needed to get it right, and I couldn't let someone else fuck it up for me.

I was sure, that in this case, I could trust my wife. If there was anyone in the world who loved me and trusted me enough to have complete faith in me, it was Julie. Maybe my parents... but they were in Florida.

So Julie became the fourth member of my team.

...

We made over twenty attempts at taking down the terrorists. That might seem like a low success rate, but we probably could have stopped the nuke in the first few attempts. I was quick to call the whole thing off if one of us got hurt. Like I expected, Sung and Mi-Sook weren't so keen to give up. I would have to make some kind of commotion and let the terrorists' itchy trigger fingers take care of it.

I looked at all those first attempts as learning experiences, seeing how the mercs and North Koreans reacted to various tactics. What would make them detonate? That was the big question. It took some trial and error to figure out. I was more convinced than ever that if I called in the cavalry they would just use an airstrike to take out the building. The government must know the inherent danger of trying a direct assault. They'd never take that chance.

One thing I learned from our unsuccessful attempts, was just how much Julie cared about me.

It was on our fourth try. Julie's responsibilities boiled down to one thing- sneak up on one terrorist and take him out. She couldn't use a gun for this, but what she did have was a tire iron and the element of surprise.

The problem was that Julie wasn't a violent person. She recognized the seriousness of the situation, and was willing to do her part, but she had a very hard time walking up to a stranger and cracking his skull. Half my instructions to her consisted of "hit him as hard as you can," because she would half-ass it if I didn't make it absolutely clear how important it was.

Well, on our fourth assault she didn't hit him hard enough.

I walked into the room just as he was getting up behind her. His gun was already in his hand. By that point, I had already armed myself with one of the mercs' guns, so he zeroed in on me. Julie saw my eyes go wide, and instinctively knew what was happening. She jumped forward and draped herself over me just as the terrorist fired.

I felt her body, pressed against me, jerk as the bullets hit.

I brought my own gun up and fired around her. I emptied my clip into him.

I cradled Julie in my arms.

"Why did you do that? I told you nothing can really hurt me."

Julie just smiled, with blood coated teeth.

...

I had to take a day off and think about that.

She had taken a bullet for me.

Well, big whoop you might say. She knew about the time loop, so it was a meaningless gesture.

Except it wasn't. It's one thing to be told about the loop and believe it intellectually. It's quite another to bet your own life on that belief. Julie didn't live this reality every day. It was always a new concept to her when I told her. And no matter how convincing the evidence I presented, there would always be the niggling suspicion that I was delusional or playing some elaborate trick.

Add to that, I still wasn't sure how exactly the loop worked. Was the whole world on pause while I relived this day? Or did time move on for others and just not me? There was too much uncertainty for me to risk someone else's life.

But Julie had. Either she had supreme faith in me, and believed in me a hundred percent... or she was just willing to die for me...

I knew she loved me, but...

Her sacrifice deflated some of the anger I had still been subconsciously holding. I didn't know what it meant for us after the loop ended, but it made me rethink some of my plans. While I had managed to mostly put Julie from my mind, it had always been a given that when the loop ended I would adopt a scorched earth policy.

It still might be too late to save our marriage, but maybe it didn't have to be so hostile. I would have to think some more on that.

...

This is what happened on assault number 27.

...

Friday July 15^th, 2016 Day 1605

"What is love? Baby don't hurt me....don't hurt me....no more"

I got out of bed and went straight to the master bedroom. I shook Julie awake.

"Hmm...Hmm? What time is it? Is something wrong?" she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"You need to get up and take a shower. Get dressed in something light and comfortable. I'll meet you downstairs when you're ready."

"Sam? What's going on?"

I gently pulled her into a sitting position.

"I'll explain over breakfast. We've got a busy day today. Trust me."

That last brought her up short a bit. She swallowed another question and shrugged.

"Alright, alright. You want me up, I'll get up. Be ready to talk when I get downstairs buster."

I took my own shower and dressed in some light pants and a t-shirt. We were going to do some running around today. I beat Julie downstairs by about fifteen minutes, so I started breakfast.

When she walked in the kitchen I was pulling off the bacon and getting ready to cook the eggs.

"Aw shucks, I was planning on using that bacon for dinner tonight."

"I know, but we'll be in New York tonight."

"How would you kno-" Julie started, confused. "Never mind that. Since when are we going to New York tonight? Is it some kind of last minute work thing?"

"No. This will be easier if I show you something first."

I motioned Julie to follow me, and left the kitchen, grabbing a few oranges from the fruit bowl on the way. I led her to the den and handed her the television remote. I stood with my back to the TV, and started juggling the oranges.

Julie was looking at me like I had two heads. "Since when do you juggle?"

"I've had a lot of time on my hands lately," I replied. "I know a bunch of card tricks too. We'll get to that in a second. Right now, I need you to turn on the television. Okay, now hit mute." I waited as she did so. "Now, without unmuting it, turn the channel to whatever you feel like."

Julie had a smile on her face, like we were playing a game.

"Okay," she said. "What next?"

"You put it on the home shopping network. Right now they're selling gaudy turquoise jewelry for old women."

Julie frowned, partly because she likes turquoise, and partly because she was starting to wonder how I guessed that. She looked from me to the television behind me, then looked back to make sure I hadn't set up a mirror or something.

"Look, I'll close my eyes. Change it to something else...Now it's ESPN. You tried to pull a fast one and choose a channel you never watch." I opened my eyes. "Now unmute it."

When Julie turned the TV's sound on, I took a second to listen to where in the broadcast it was, then starting talking with the sportscasters. I had about twenty minutes of it memorized, so I was able to sync up so well that it sounded like I was talking in stereo. All while continuing to juggle.

Finally I dropped the oranges, walked up to Julie, took the remote from her limp hand, and turned off the television.

"What the fuck was that?" she asked shakily. "That was fucking spooky Sam. How did you do that?"

"You always pick the same channels. It's gets downright easy after twenty or thirty tries."

Julie's mouth was working, but no sound was coming out. I led her back to the kitchen and sat her down at the table.

"I've been reliving the same day, today, for over four years now. I'm not sure exactly, I lost a few days here and there. Every day, I wake up in the guest room, and its July 15^th, 2016."

She had questions of course, most of which I still couldn't answer. I had a lot of guesses now, about how the time loop worked, and one very big one about how to stop it. But I sidestepped those issues for now, until we had taken care of the elephant in the room.

It only took about twenty minutes for Julie to start to get nervous. She's a smart woman, smarter than me. It was starting to sink in that I had relived this day over a thousand times... And she knew what she had planned to do at noon today... Did I know? How could I not catch her with that many chances?

Plus, I wasn't quite...me. Not the loving husband she knew the day before. I wasn't using any terms of endearment, or touching her in any way.

We'd had this conversation before, but it still surprised me somewhat that she was the one to bring it up. Maybe she could tell I knew.

"So... Sam. If you've lived this day so many times... You've... You've probably caught me doing something I'm not proud of."

Before I could answer, she broke down crying. I'd debated whether I should leave Julie in the dark. Deal with her infidelity if and when Saturday came. If I had been willing to put on an act, she might have thought I was still in the dark, but I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to play house. Let the lies out, and if tomorrow ever comes, we'll start it honestly.