Shadows Rising

by Ernest Dempsey

  He howled in pain one second. The next, his pistol dropped to the floor with a clack.

  Adriana squeezed harder with her forearm, closing off the man’s airway. June grabbed the submachine gun and stepped back away from the door, closing it quickly so no one would notice the struggle within.

  The first guard dropped to his knees, eyes bulging from their sockets. His face flushed as the air he so badly needed was kept from entering his body.

  June watched with her new weapon trained on the man’s chest. If he managed to wriggle free, she’d shoot him dead, but that would raise alarms. She could see Adriana had it handled as the man slumped forward, prostrate on the floor.

  Adriana let go and let his head smack on the ground. She checked his pulse and found none, but that didn’t satisfy her.

  She reached down to his belt and took a tactical knife with a black handle out of a sheath, and shoved the tip unceremoniously into the base of his skull. Then she moved over and did the same to the second guard.

  June’s forehead wrinkled as she watched her partner ruthlessly make certain the men were dead. She’d never seen someone do anything like that. Killing? Absolutely. It was what her line of work called for sometimes. But Adriana may as well have been a high school biology student cutting open frogs or fish. The ease with which she killed was almost clinical.

  Adriana wiped the blade on the second guard’s shirt and then tucked it in her belt on her right hip.

  “Was that…um…you know what, never mind,” June said. She was going to ask if that was necessary then thought better of it. Making sure a bad guy was dead wasn’t a terrible idea at this point. Getting shot in the back was.

  Adriana picked up the pistol from the ground and checked to make sure it would fire.

  She motioned to the door. “What do you say we get out of here?”

  “It’s gonna be tough,” June said. “Lot of guys between us and the exit.”

  “Then we take them all out, along with their weapons. We can’t leave this place standing.”

  June let a grin creep across her face. Her friend was more ruthless than she anticipated, and it was exactly what they needed.

  “Let’s take ’em down, then,” June said.

  14

  Tirana

  Adriana stepped out of the cell and scanned the room. June joined her on the other side of the door, analyzing the other side of the huge chamber.

  Most of the men in the area were still busily working on assembling weapons or ammunition. They hadn’t been noticed yet.

  Both women knew they were on borrowed time before an alarm went off. They’d have to move with speed and precision to eliminate as many enemies as possible. Catching them off guard was key. The women were outnumbered, but those odds would improve with every terrorist life they took.

  Adriana spotted a guy to her right patrolling the area with his submachine gun hanging casually from his shoulder. He had one finger by the trigger but was unaware an escape was happening right under his nose.

  Adriana motioned for June to slip back into the cell and then closed the door, leaving it slightly ajar. She watched the crack at the door’s bottom until she saw the shadow of the man appear. He was probably wondering what happened to the two guards.

  She had intentionally left the door opened ever so slightly so he would see it. Then curiosity would get the better of him.

  Just as she hoped, the door pushed open and the man stepped in with his HK-5 held waist high. He saw June standing to the right with a sheepish smile on her face. Her weapon was behind her back. The next second, he saw the two dead men on the floor.

  Immediately, his eyes widened, and he reached for the radio on his jacket. Adriana pounced from behind, driving her weapon through the guy’s neck and out the front just below the chin. He gurgled and fell to his knees but managed to fire one round from his weapon before Adriana wrenched the gun from his hands.

  The bullet ricocheted around the room, bouncing off the rough walls until it dove into the floor and died.

  Adriana picked up the guy’s weapon and slung it over her shoulder. Nothing wrong with accumulating more guns.

  She gave a nod to June, who rushed back to the door and poked her head around. No one saw what had happened, the noise outside thankfully masking the sound of the shot fired.

  They still had the element of surprise, and it was time to use it.

  She and Adriana crept out of the cell and skirted along the wall to the left behind a stack of wooden crates. The huge boxes were marked with Russian words. Both women knew what they said, but there was no doubt the phrases and letters were to throw off any casual observer who took a gander, claiming the contents were parts for household appliances.

  They stayed behind the crates for a moment, assessing the situation. Every man in the room was armed. Most of them had the same submachine guns June and Adriana now carried. Some had pistols; still others had Kalashnikovs. Those were the ones that could deal serious damage. AK-47s were the weapon of choice for most terrorist groups. They were cheap enough to get if the Chinese versions were available, though those were prone to jamming and breaking more easily than the Russian ones. In the years since the fall of communism, the Russian models were more readily available on the black market.

  Either way, the rounds from those guns were devastating, capable of blowing off a limb if placed correctly. The weapons were difficult to control, though, and had serious kickback from each shot, making firing them on full auto fairly problematic.

  Then there was the noise factor to consider. Blasts from the AKs in this enclosed environment would be deafening. Most gunfire would. June and Adriana didn’t have the luxury of worrying about the long-term effects of a gunfight on their hearing. They had to take down this facility. It was the only thing that mattered.

  To their immediate left, two men were busily assembling the lower receivers to a collection of guns. Adriana motioned with her eyes and a flick of the head that they should take out those two first, although it would expose them to the rest of the guys in the room, which she counted at twenty-seven.

  Between the two of them, she knew they had at least that many rounds, but there was no way they’d hit the mark on every shot. Extras were always welcome. Fortunately, with every target they took down, they’d receive a fresh complement of bullets.

  “I’ll take out those two,” Adriana said, turning to her friend. She spoke in whispers that were little more than breaths passing through her lips. “When I do, the rest of the men will come my way. My guess is they will hesitate to fire initially. They don’t want a bunch of bullets flying around in this place.” Her eyes played around the room for a second before returning to June. “Take out the men with the AKs first. Then we target the rest, eliminate the closest, and go from there.”

  June gave a reluctant nod. She didn’t like the idea of Adriana stepping out of cover to take out the two men at the table to their left, but she also knew it was a good plan. As the commander of the mission, she should have volunteered to take the lead. The determination on Adriana’s face shut down that notion before it even popped up.

  “Ready?” Adriana asked.

  June swallowed. She didn’t let on, but the butterflies in her stomach felt more like hornets after a run-in with a bear. Her nerves had always been a problem, and in situations like this she told herself her anxiety kept her sharp, alert to every possible threat. So far, it seemed to be working. She’d managed to survive several close calls during assaults not dissimilar to the one they were about to begin. She hoped her good fortune would continue.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  Adriana gave a nod and then stood up from her position and stalked toward the two men at the work table. The one to the left noticed her first, catching movement out of the corner of his eye.

  When Adriana began her approach, they were only thirty feet away. When the guy turned to look at her, the gap was twenty. He was caught off guard when he laid eyes on her, apparentl
y assuming the movement was coming from one of the guards or another worker. His eyes widened, then narrowed, and he reached for the gun hanging by his hip.

  She was already holding the tip of her knife in her right hand when the guy went for his weapon. Adriana kept walking straight at him, barely tweaking her upper body as she reached back and flung the blade at the man.

  The sharp tip plunged into his left eye. He yelped and collapsed in a heap at his colleague’s feet. The second guy reacted faster, shouting at the approaching woman as she raised her pistol and squeezed the trigger.

  The muzzle erupted in a flash. The bullet found its mark on the right side of the man’s forehead and dropped him to the ground.

  The gunshots thundered in the underground facility. The sound echoed around the big room and down through the tunnel leading to the exit. Adriana knew what was coming next. She twisted to the right as the rest of the bad guys in the room looked in her direction. She pointed the pistol at the next target and dropped him instantly. The second guy was starting to react but still too slowly. He caught two rounds in the chest. A third was too close to number two and made for an easy shot. Finally, one of the terrorists put up a fight, spun around, and raised his weapon in time to be struck with three rounds from Adriana’s weapon.

  Shouting ensued. Adriana saw several men running her way with guns raised. They were yelling in Arabic along with a few minor dialects, but it was difficult to understand what they were saying. Not that it mattered. She figured they were telling her to put down her gun or something.

  They never knew what hit them.

  June popped up from behind the crates to the right and opened fire. She sprayed metal at the onrushing men, knocking down those with the Kalashnikovs in the first few seconds. The onslaught continued, bullets tearing through the enemy ranks with ease, dropping them one by one from the flank.

  The remaining terrorists tried to recover. They skidded to a stop and whirled to their left to address the new shooter, but that left them well within Adriana’s range.

  Only two of the men bothered to stay focused on her, which did them little good. Adriana flung the submachine gun around while June ducked for cover.

  Adriana strode forward with the automatic weapon at her hip, spitting death at the terrorists. The only two guys looking at her were the first casualties of her renewed assault. One took a round each to the thigh, abdomen, and heart. The second was less fortunate, receiving a bullet in the groin that rendered him useless.

  The overwhelming advantage the terrorists once had was, in mere seconds, whittled down to almost nothing. The remaining eight guys scattered for cover as Adriana continued the onslaught.

  June remained crouched out of sight while Adriana ripped their ranks apart, giving June enough of a reprieve to grab another weapon from one of the fallen bad guys.

  The last four terrorists scattered and ran. June shot one in the back as he tried to escape back toward the main exit. The other three managed to dive for cover. Two of them stayed together behind a row of pallets and boxes while the third found a stack of metal cylinders.

  Adriana picked up two more submachine guns from the ground and held them at her hips. June stood up from her position and scanned the room. One of the terrorists saw her head pop up and fired. The round narrowly missed, hitting the crate to her left just a foot away. The wood splintered as she dropped back down for a moment.

  The two men were still flanked by Adriana, though not exposed as they’d been before. The man closest to her peeked around the corner of the pallets and received a bullet into the wood near his face. He jumped back to safety and waited.

  Adriana fired one more shot to make it look like she was pressing the brute force attack, then hurried over on tiptoe to stay silent, ducking behind a forklift. The terrorist nearest the exit raised his head and fired at June’s position, and then dropped out of sight again.

  Now they were in a stalemate.

  Adriana stole a look around the room, keeping behind the forklift’s bulky lower frame. There wasn’t much to work with. Cables ran along the rocks above the two men positioned together. There were dozens of lights in the room, so shooting them out wouldn’t work. And there was no sign of a fuse box to kill the power. Of course there wasn’t. That kind of thing would be up at the main building.

  There had to be something she could use.

  June popped up and fired two rounds at the metal cylinders. The bullets ricocheted in bright yellow sparks off the gray metal. She knew hitting the target would be nearly impossible. The guy wasn’t giving her anything. June knew she had to let him know that she’d do the same.

  Adriana sighed, frustrated. She needed a way to draw the men out of their cover. Then it hit her.

  She looked up at the forklift’s seat and craned her neck enough to spot the keys dangling from the ignition. Two huge boxes sat on a pallet already snagged by the heavy steel forks.

  Really?

  She’d take it.

  Adriana poked her head around the machine and fired four warning shots at the men behind the pallets. They kicked their feet and pressed their backs harder against the stacks of wood, desperate not to get hit.

  A second after firing, Adriana hopped into the forklift and turned the key.

  The propane-driven machine grumbled to life. She flipped a switch and then pulled on a lever. The fork started rising from the ground, putting the boxes on the front between her and the two terrorists.

  Adriana spun the wheel and then stepped on the accelerator.

  The forklift’s motor groaned, and it lurched forward. The boxes shifted slightly but stayed on top of the pallet as she guided it straight toward the two hiding terrorists.

  The men heard the machine’s engine. They hesitated for a second, not knowing what they should do. One of them had had enough. He popped up and opened fire, spraying the contents of his magazine at the oncoming threat. The other guy jumped from cover and made a run for the exit.

  June saw movement around the corner of her crates. “Where you going?” she said to herself. She aimed the HK-5 and squeezed off four quick rounds, one at a time.

  One of the rounds struck the man in the side and knocked him over. He writhed in agony, clutching at the wound. June fired another shot into his chest, and he stopped moving, save for a death twitch.

  Adriana kept her foot on the gas, pushing the forklift forward. The gunman’s magazine ran dry and he reached for his sidearm as he stumbled backward.

  June saw her man peek out from behind the cylinders at the moving machine. He fired a shot that pinged off the forklift’s metal body. June didn’t hesitate. The guy would have an angle on Adriana the second she plowed the big machine into the stacks of pallets. June sprinted from her position to the other end of the cylinders and squatted down. She looked down the length of the tubes and saw the man, stuck her weapon into the opening, and fired.

  Bullets sparked off the inside of the cylinder, delivering a deafening and deadly blizzard of rounds.

  The terrorist never knew what hit him. The bullets tore into him, and he fell over onto his side.

  Adriana risked a short peek down under the boxes ahead of her and saw the row of crates approaching. The lone gunman was firing one shot at a time with his pistol, hoping to squeeze a bullet through an opening and hit the driver. A second before the forklift rammed into the pallets, Adriana jumped to the right and rolled on the ground. She stayed low to remain unseen even as the big machine hit the stack with a thunderous crash. Boxes tumbled to the ground. Wood fractured and splintered. The forklift lost its momentum and ground to a halt, but the shooter was still focused on it as he backed away toward the exit.

  Adriana used his confusion. Keeping low to the floor, she crept around the wreckage, working her way between the terrorist and the tunnel to freedom.

  The man fired his pistol again and again. His hand trembled, and he wore a terrified look on his face. He never saw the brunette woman sneak up behind him.

 
Adriana pressed her weapon’s hot muzzle to the back of the gunman’s skull. “Put it down,” she ordered.

  He started and was about to turn around out of sheer instinct.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  He froze.

  “Put the gun down.” She didn’t know if he spoke English or not. All of the men looked different. The Red Ring wasn’t being exclusive with its recruitment. This guy was probably from the Balkans based on his appearance.

  He held his weapon out and lowered it to the ground, and then raised up with his hands in the air.

  “Very good,” she said and spun him around by the shoulder.

  June trotted up, sweeping the area with her weapon to make sure the room was clear. Bodies were strewn all over the place. Most were piled in the center of the floor where they’d been clustered together, making for the easiest targets. June wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.

  “Now,” Adriana said to the man, staring into his fear-filled eyes, “where is Tosu?”

  15

  Tirana

  Tosu slid into a comfortable chair and lit a cigar. His plan had worked perfectly, and the two heathens were now locked up in the mine, surrounded by more than two dozen of his holy soldiers.

  He sucked a puff of smoke into his mouth and held it for a moment before blowing it back out. The little office was set up on the side of the mining camp’s main building. It was nothing more than a trailer that had been converted into a foreman’s workstation, but it served its purpose on rare occasions such as this.

  Tosu almost never visited the facility unless it was to oversee some critical aspect of their operation. That tended to be during testing or to give an assignment to one of the lieutenants.

  He purposely hadn’t taken the two women to the other parts of the mine where the men were being trained. The sight of them might have incited a riot. Some of them hadn’t seen a woman in months, only setting foot outside for training exercises and fresh air.