by Dale Mayer
Shane answered this time. “We have movement,” he said. “Sending you a link.”
As Diesel opened up the link, a group of twelve well-armed men left their SUVs and entered an industrial building beside where their vehicles were parked—within walking distance from either hotel where Diesel and Jerricho had been.
“What the hell are they after?” Jerricho asked.
“I’m hoping they’re on protective guard duty,” Diesel said quietly. “Were we made? Are they moving Eva? Or worse?”
“It’s possible we were made but not necessarily by the Chinese,” Shane said. “Our sensors also picked up several Russian spies.”
“Oh, don’t tell me that they’re after her too?” Diesel asked.
“They might not only be after her,” Shane said, “but it’s quite possible they’re buying her.” With that, Shane ended the call.
“Shit,” Diesel said as he pocketed his phone. “That doesn’t sound healthy either way.”
“Who the hell is she?” Jerricho asked.
“A scientist with some stem-cell research on germs and viruses, and I think maybe they’re looking at it for germ warfare. So a cure for their country and a killer for the rest?”
“Does anything surprise you anymore?” Jerricho said, staring at Diesel.
Diesel shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m continuously amazed at the absolute depravity of humanity against humanity.” He sighed. “Let’s hope that’s not what this is all about.”
“Regardless,” Jerricho said, “we have to figure out how to get into that building.”
“Well, getting in would not be a problem, but, depending on what firepower we find inside, getting out will be.”
“We saw a dozen go in.”
“But people will be inside too.”
“So at least fourteen. We have to find a way to flush them out,” Jerricho said.
“Now that’s a good idea,” Diesel said, looking at him. “What do you have in mind?”
“Gas?” he said immediately.
Diesel thought through the ramifications and asked, “Do we have enough gas masks to get her out?”
“If we plan to take her up through fresh air, it would be easier,” he admitted.
“No guarantee there’s any fresh air close by.”
“We also have to consider the difficulties of us getting in and out with the added gas element too.”
“Well, obviously we’ll need to be masked,” Diesel said.
“I know, but I was wondering about the guards.”
“Well, we can take them down with the gas, which will make them a lot easier. But what if more captives are there, not just Eva?”
At that, Jerricho winced. “Right, and, of course, you’ll want to save everyone, won’t you?” he said with a note of humor.
“Won’t you?” Diesel challenged.
“If I can, yes. You know tough decisions are likely to be made on something like this.”
“I know,” Diesel said. “That doesn’t make it any easier.”
“No, not at all. But … let’s take a look at the ventilation shafts,” he said.
As soon as they were set up in the new hotel, with everything available in front of them, Diesel and Jerricho went through the HVAC system online to see just what was available for pathways.
“We could probably put something in through here,” Diesel said, pointing, “but no guarantee that the air vents go all the way through.”
“If the gas doesn’t reach the prisoners, that would be just fine by me,” Jerricho said. “One person to carry is one thing. Carrying two or three? That’ll be an impossibility.”
“I know,” Diesel murmured. He studied the ventilation system and said, “I think we can do it. We come through this side.”
“And, even if we do,” Jerricho said, “what’s our exit strategy?”
The two now held the blueprints for the lab building itself in front of them.
And then Diesel saw it. “This set of windows on the first floor is near the ventilation shaft here. And a second-story balcony is above, which might come in handy.”
“But we don’t know where the prisoners are.”
“We’ll have to go room by room for that.”
“Which is dangerous and slow.”
“But we don’t have any better intel,” Diesel said. He studied the blueprints again and said, “If it were me, being the nice guy that I am, I’d give them all rooms with windows and fresh air to keep my prisoners healthy, but these kidnappers won’t care. Likely, if these scientists can’t do the job, they’ll shoot them and dispose of their bodies anyway. So why waste a better room and the chance of them being visible? Eva is probably in a basement, where they have no ventilation.”
“Which just means they’ll get sicker, weaker, all due to the poor living conditions. Keeps their prisoners docile.”
“Hell, they could be using the damn viruses on them,” Diesel muttered.
Jerricho looked at him. “Remember. We’ll think positively about humanity.”
“Yeah, let me know how that works out for you,” Diesel said.
Jerricho snorted at that. “Unfortunately we’ve seen too much of the other side of life.”
“I know,” he said, “but there’s always hope.”
With rudimentary plans in place and a message sent off to Shane, telling the Mavericks what their plan was, the two suited up and slipped out into the night. With full backpacks and carrying the bag full of the rest of their needed gear, they moved quickly to the building in question. They checked for video cameras and hadn’t seen anything other than the street cams, but that didn’t mean something else wasn’t here. That was always a problem. They had to make their approach stealthily and as quietly as possible and avoid those street cams. And they needed to take out as many people as they possibly could.
With Shane running intel in the background, they moved ahead to the car park, where the vehicles were, and into the entrance where the twelve men had entered.
He whispered to Jerricho, “I wish we knew if any of the twelve had exited.”
“We didn’t see anything on the cameras,” he said.
“No, and now we’ve disabled the cameras, so we can get in, but how long before somebody realizes they are down?”
“Hard to say,” he said, “but I wouldn’t give it much time. I suspect they’re already expecting some movement. But why would the Chinese deal with the Russians?”
“It depends whether it’s for or against them.”
“Meaning that, either they’re here for the scientists or they’re trying to take them?”
“Maybe one of their own was kidnapped as well,” Diesel said.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually had help with this?” he said. “We could have, you know, a joint effort between the two countries.”
“Well, let it be different countries than these,” he said with half a smile.
“Sometimes they’re okay,” Jerricho said.
The darkness was absolute. Mother Nature was being kind to them tonight with heavy cloud cover. The moon was up there somewhere, but not even a slice of it was visible in the sky. They headed for the door, and, just as he was about to enter, Diesel immediately grabbed Jerricho and pointed out a broken window off to the side. The two exchanged grim looks and nodded. Slipping inside via the window—and hoping against hope that the twelve who entered earlier weren’t only here to kidnap the same people—the two men entered the building and moved slowly forward.
They had the gas with them, and that was still the plan, but now, seeing that broken window here, all of a sudden gave rise to the possibility that some other enemy faction was in play. The men moved a little more slowly and a little more quietly. Something was going on that they couldn’t see, and they needed to know what it was before they got caught in the same damn trap.
As they headed forward, they heard voices down one hallway to their side. They immediately slipped to the corner and stayed quie
t. It was a dialect Diesel didn’t understand. He looked at Jerricho, who shook his head. Therefore, it wasn’t Chinese.
Great. So what did that mean?
But the voices were low, stealthy. Diesel poked his head around a corner to see them, heading to the far side of the building. He looked at Jerricho and motioned behind him that they take the other hallway. They would need night goggles at this rate. They had brought night vision goggles with them but hadn’t thought the inside of the building would be quite so dark. The fact that this other team was here gave rise to them having already put things into motion that Diesel and Jerricho weren’t expecting.
Pulling out their goggles, they quickly adjusted the plan on the fly. They needed one prisoner and only that one prisoner. If these other guys were taking somebody else, that was fine.
Diesel just hoped that they were taking them because they were allowed to take them. And, if these guys were to kidnap these scientists for just another lab, he wasn’t down for that either. But, as the dozen men appeared to have come up from the one hallway, and they were still looking for whatever, then Diesel and Jerricho had a chance to get there before them.
Moving swiftly, they checked down another parallel hallway and went downstairs. Diesel would bet that nobody would waste a good room upstairs, where the scientists could be seen, if there was room downstairs. The other team headed down their hallway, and he presumed up. Diesel moved with silent precision through his hallway to the stairwell and smoothly moved downstairs, Jerricho in tandem. With their night goggle visions, they didn’t need anything else.
They moved through the hallways like ghosts, looking for prey, both enemy and friendly. As they headed down another hallway, he heard a sound. He quickly ducked and bolted behind a corner to have two men walk in front of him, both carrying weapons, both talking in rapid Chinese. He looked back at Jerricho, and jointly they slipped out, grabbed both men, and took them down.
Taking the two dead bodies in the corner, looking for a place to stash them, Diesel found a closet on the far side.
With that found, Diesel dragged his man inside, as did Jerricho, quickly disarmed the men for weapons that they might need themselves, and moved out into the hallway again.
Jerricho said, “You know that we could question one of these guys next time.”
“With this other team moving in here, we have to take speed and stealth as the prime objectives.”
“Oh, I agree, but, if we had a chance to talk to one of them, we could possibly get answers.”
“We’ll get some answers,” he said, “just not enough.” At that, he motioned for Jerricho to lead, as they slipped down the hallway where the two gunmen had come from. They made it through two side rooms, checking inside both, and they were empty. But they were small, self-contained, and looked very promising in terms of housing prisoners.
When they got to the third one, they heard voices inside. Both of them stood back on either side of the door, and the voices got louder as whoever was inside came out. Diesel couldn’t understand the dialect, but he had his phone out, a translation app working, trying to discern what was going on. He trusted that Jerricho was catching the drift.
As soon as the door opened, another two men stepped out, and one was still talking. And it was just as easy to take down both of them at the same time. He looked at Jerricho to see his guy was dead too. He checked inside the room, saw it was empty, apart from what looked like a small fridge and a table. Probably their lunch room or meeting room. They dragged both men back inside and stuffed them in the far corner. From there, they stepped out, once again heavily rearmed, and he looked at Jerricho as they walked forward. “Did you learn anything?”
“No, they were talking about a sports game.”
“Of course,” he said, “they are just men after all.”
“I know,” he said. “It would be nice if they had answers to this whole mess, but it never happens that way.”
As they moved forward, they heard gunfire somewhere else in the building.
“Shit,” Diesel said.
They moved forward to the next door. It was locked.
He rattled the door and heard a woman’s voice call out, “Who’s there?”
“Who are you?” he asked in English.
“I’m Eva,” she said. “I was kidnapped from the US in Boston.”
“Well, Eva, you’re the one we came for,” Diesel said. “Stand back, please.”
Immediately he kicked the door down and entered, rifle at the ready. But she was alone, sitting on a bed, curled up in the corner. He quickly held up his flashlight, checked her over, checked the room, and then held the flashlight up against his face, so she saw him. “My name is Diesel Edwards,” he said. “Come on.”
“Wait,” she said. “Did you get the other two?”
“Which two?” Diesel asked. She motioned at the wall adjoining the next room down the hallway. Jerricho immediately moved to it. “Are any of them Russian?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she said in confusion. “Our kidnappers are Chinese.”
“Yes, another team’s in here,” he said, moving her toward the door.
“Another team helping you?”
“No,” he said, “they’re against us.”
“That makes no sense,” she said in confusion.
“I know. Are you hurt, or is there any reason you can’t run?”
“No, I’m not hurt. Getting tired and a little weak from the lack of decent food and the stress,” she said, “but I’m okay.”
“And the other two?”
“They’re also okay. Their names are Marge and Paul.”
“Good.” At that, Diesel turned, and Jerricho had opened the next door, and a woman, Marge he presumed, stood there, shivering.
Immediately Eva raced over and wrapped her arms around her. “They’re American,” she said. “They’re here to rescue us.”
Marge just nodded, but her expression looked a little confused.
Diesel asked, “Where’s the third one?” They both pointed to the next door. Diesel raced over, kicked the door down, and brought out the third scientist.
“What’s going on here?” Paul asked in a flat voice, as if he’d seen too much and had no hope anything good was happening.
“Do you have any connections to the Russians?” Jerricho asked instantly.
Paul looked at him, surprised, and shook his head. “No,” he said, “I’ve been here so long that I don’t even know what’s going on anymore.”
Diesel checked his watch, sent a text message to Shane on his phone, and turned to look at the three of them. “We weren’t prepared for three of you.”
“There were a lot more,” Eva said quietly. “They didn’t make it.”
“Any of them Russian?”
“Yes,” Paul said. “What is this about Russians though?”
“Another team is here, not with us, but they’re going through each of the floors—trying to find you guys, we presume. We don’t know because, of course, we haven’t stopped to ask them.”
“Oh, my God,” Paul said. “We need to get out of here.”
“What do you know about the Russian captive?”
“He died,” Paul said. “He was not all that healthy to begin with, and we’re down here without sunlight, and we work seven days a week without a break, and we’re not fed properly. He was getting weaker and weaker. I know he thought he had sent out an alert, requesting help, but nobody came, and he got very depressed.”
“Well, the help looks like it came,” he said.
“But too damn late,” Paul said, with a plaintive cry.
“Why are you even here now?” Marge asked.
“We got word about Eva,” he said. “We didn’t know about you two.”
“I am American, but I’ve been working out of Australia,” Marge said.
“I’m American too,” Paul said, “but I was over in Switzerland.”
“You were just plucked from your various labs?” Jer
richo asked.
“Yes, that’s a good way to put it,” Paul said. “I’ve been here over a year. I’ve seen two others, and one was here for a few days and then disappeared.”
“Any idea why?”
He shook his head. “I never saw him again.”
“Well, we’ll get this information going forward,” he said. “Right now I want you two to stick close. And, if you have any injuries or health conditions, you need to tell us. We can’t carry three of you.”
“I’m fine,” Eva said, her voice stronger. “I haven’t been here as long as they have been.”
“No,” Marge said, “but you keep getting bashed because you don’t listen.”
“I don’t take well to authority,” she said slowly. “Besides, it was you they were trying to hurt.”
Marge, the older one, looked at her and smiled. “I told you that I probably wouldn’t make it through this anyway.”
“And that’s no reason to give up.” Eva turned to look at Diesel. “Can we leave now?”
He had his phone in his hand. “I’m trying to track where the Russians are. We don’t want to meet them.”
“Somebody needs to tell them their comrade died a while back,” Paul said in disgust. “It would have done him a lot of good if they could have been here in time.”
“I don’t imagine arranging something like this is all that easy, plus just finding us,” Eva protested.
“That’s the reason we found you. Eva was picked up on a street camera.”
“Oh,” she said in delight. “I deliberately kept my face up, facing forward, hoping that somebody would find me.”
“Yes, facial recognition caught you,” he said. “So good job.” He looked at the young woman and smiled. “You actually look a little familiar.”
“No idea why,” she said, “unless you are interested in talks on stem cell rejuvenation virus for virus multiplication.”
“Well, I think everybody is probably interested in it, but I can’t say I’ve ever attended any lectures like that,” he muttered.
“No,” she said, “not unless it’s your thing.”
“Well, I’m not sure what my thing would be outside of the fact that this is the work I do,” he said, ushering them toward the stairs. He said to Jerricho, “I don’t like the idea of going back out the same way.”
