A/N: Well shit, it's been a while huh? So I guess an explanation is in order. I actually uploaded this chapter onto the site a while ago, but my computer crapped out while I was editing it and adding the author's notes. You know the how when something you've been doing for a little while is suddenly turned into a big waste of time? Well a big rush of that came on, and I just decided to leave the document on my user and officially add it to the story later. Well guess what? I never got around to it! (Big surprise there huh?) So yeah, this is pretty much the exact reason I said "don't expect daily updates." Oh, and it also occurs to me that I might have exaggerated a little bit in my note at the beginning of the last chapter. It's not that violent folks. Imagine the kind of things you saw in chapter one and turn the two sides into terrorists and a hostage rescue team. You have a pretty accurate idea of the content of chapters five and six. (Six being the one you're about to read.) So if anyone wants to go back to check number five out now, go ahead and do it so this one will make sense. Unless, of course, you plan on skipping this one too. (Please don't. It's good, I promise.) The beginning might seem a little slow, but if you like any kind of action whatsoever, this chapter will satisfy you. (I hope) Look, I'm talking to freaking much. Just read, and enjoy. And before I forget, this chapter hasn't been subject to extreme proofreading or scrutiny, so please bear with me. It might be subject to being taken down.
-Chapter Six-
A Deadly Dance
The inside of the hospital had become like a massive waiting room. With him and May were six other people, including the silver-haired fellow who some of the hostage takers referring as "Tomlinson." Drew didn't know if that was the man's real name, but he didn't really care either. All he was focused on was keeping both himself, and his mortified love alive and breathing. To that end, he simply kept quiet and refrained from moving much at all.
May's reaction was much more evident than her rival's. For the first ten minutes of the ordeal, she'd sat there on the operating room's floor, shaking violently and whimpering every now and then. The German, who's face Drew had never really gotten a good look at, didn't appreciate this. Around fifteen minutes after they'd first been herded in the room, he stomped over to where the two of them were sitting in the corner, and aimed the weapon at the delicate spot of skin right between her eyes.
"Shut up damn you!" Fürchtner roared, obviously not wanting to deal with a frightened teen girl during his mission. When she only began to cry, it served to make the killer that much angrier as he swore in his native language. It looked as thought she was trying to say something, but no words came out of her mouth. Several seconds later, she managed something.
"I don't want to die." She whispered, tears streaming down her face. From his spot sitting right next to her, Drew's heart began to break a little bit. May was being emotionally broken down by this horrible person, and all he himself wanted to do was reach out and hold her, touch her, tell her everything was going to be okay. And he would have done so, but he didn't want to risk either of their lives, though the concern was mostly for hers.
Luckily, the angry German had been thinking precisely the same thing, or perhaps something along those lines. He pointed his free hand at Drew sitting beside her, and gestured back towards May's cowering frame. "You! Calm her down!" Apparently he'd taken note of how close the two teenagers had been sitting, probably figuring they were together or "involved" somehow.
Drew didn't need to be told twice. Instantly upon receiving the order, he inched himself closer to her and wrapped his arms around her body, letting her tears merge with the fabric of his shirt as she took refuge in his embrace. Her head quickly came to rest on his shoulder as she returned the comforting hug, still continuing to weep silently on him. Slowly, he rocked her back and forth to ease the fear built up inside her, trying desperately to let her know that he was there for her. That he would always be there for her, and that nothing would ever change that. He wanted to whisper into her ear that he would be there, in ways she didn't even know. Drew longed to tell her, right then and there, that he loved her more than anyone else in the world. And, if it looked like things would get bad, he'd already decided, he would. If the threat of death became too real or too close, he wouldn't hesitate to let her know exactly how much he loved her.
Eventually, the solace he offered her began to take effect. The flow of tears pouring from her eyes ran dry, and she sniffled once. He heard her whisper something a second later.
"Thank you." May said, still terrified. But now, she knew that however much danger she was in, she wouldn't be facing it alone. She had, if nothing more, an extremely close and caring friend who would help her through their situation.
Drew nodded and began to retract back into his dormant stance sitting on the floor, but May wouldn't allow it. At his slightest motion towards letting her go, she only squeezed him tighter, unwilling to let the only comfort she had left leave her. And so he allowed her to keep him close, sliding ever closer across the floor to the point where there was almost no space between them. Their bodies were pressed tightly against each other, with no awkwardness present. Neither of them noticed that Fürchtner had long since left their side to take up his job of pacing endlessly around the operating room with his gun at his side.
* * *
Mitch had his command post five minutes earlier than he'd expected. The place, an empty convenience store right across the street from the hospital, offered both proximity and security. There was no danger of frightening the hostage takers, and they could keep the hospital in view while they plotted their assault. The egotistical police commissioner returned to his officers to try and keep things under control on his end. Apparently the hostage takers were demanding one million dollars American in exchange for the safety of the prisoners. Nobody would be able to pay it, but that was okay, Mitch promised. In two hours―amount of time the bad guys had claimed they'd wait until the first hostage was executed―Foxtrot Team would have a plan set, and would be ready to make their move.
The second thing requested by Mitch, the blueprints of the hospital, had come with the command post. The fifteen-year-old captain found them on the counter of the shop, right next to the register. There were three copies, with a couple pens lying on top of them. Mitch went to work, analyzing the layout of the hospital while his team did whatever they could to pass the time.
Colonel Stevens came in a minute later, carrying his laptop with him as he took a place behind the counter. "I've got a thermal scan of the hospital building." He informed Mitch, who stopped tapping the pen against the counter long enough to look up at their control officer.
"Let me see." He said politely, walking around the counter to stand next to Stevens, both staring at the image on the laptop screen. What he saw looked like a background of barely discernible shades of blue, with small blobs of red-yellow dotting various places. Some were fuzzier than others, probably indicated elevation. The blobs, which were heat signatures, were harder to see when they were on the lower floors, with the upper floors showing clearer ones. Already it was painting a very typical picture for Mitch.
On the second floor, in what the maps told him was the intensive care unit, Mitch saw eight signatures. Six were clustered together in the corner of the room, with another moving continuously in an unchanging circular pattern around the room. The last blob was the only one that actually looked like a man. He or she was spread out on an operating table, probably lying on his side from the shape of his signature. In the center, what Mitch assumed was the fellow's chest, the bright color faded a little bit, into a tepid bright blue.
"What is that?" He pointed at the weaker spot in the center of the lying man.
Stevens smirked and looked at the teenage officer. "What do you think?"
Mitch stared at the spot for a moment, waiting for the answer to come to him. Then realization dawned. "It's right in the middle of his chest." He stated. "That's a pacemaker isn't it?"
The colonel with standing with him shrugged half-heartedly. "Could be. What do you think?"
"I think we've got a room full of hostages with a guy who has a pacemaker lying down in the middle. I also think it sounds like a good candidate for our man, Colonel Stevens." Mitch answered, returning to the blueprints. Out of one of the pockets on his vest, the teenager produced a set of special stickers. He peeled one of the five that looked like a solid red circle off, and planted it in the center of the operating room on the map. Beside it, he wrote, with a blood red marker, "BEARCAT." His mind stalled for a moment trying to remember the exact positions of all the presumed hostages. "Colonel, could you please spin your laptop around for a moment?"
Stevens obliged, turning the laptop screen to face Mitch, who used the real-time image to place a group of stickers in the southeast corner of the operating room. It was difficult to place exact locations for some; two in particular had been so close together he'd almost mistaken the signatures for one single person. They must be trying to console each other. I can't blame them. But I'd be even more scared if I was one of the bad guys. God help the bastards when we come for them. A minute or two, Mitch had used the stickers to indicate locations for all of the hostages, with six in the corner and one in the center. He'd also used one of his red cross stickers to show the location of the constantly moving bad guy. Thermal vision showed all heat signatures identical, the only difference between one and another being shape and color to show what was hotter and what was colder. Despite this, a trained observer could discern hostages from hostage takersby studying any certain heat signature's behavior. The six crowded in the corner easily represented captive civilians―hostage takers tended to herd their prisoners in a single location for two reasons. One was to keep them all in view so none could sneak off, and the other was to more easily keep them under control. The moving signature was identified by Mitch as a bad guy due to his constant pacing. The fifteen-year-old could imagine the tango marching in circles in the operating room, keeping an eye on his prisoners.
"Can you zoom out?" Mitch asked Stevens, who promptly turned the laptop to face himself again. The colonel nodded, and panned out the image to show the entire hospital before spinning the computer back for Mitch to see. "Okay, right there. Zoom in on that signature." He pointed to a spot of yellow on the screen.
Stevens craned his neck to see what Mitch was pointing at, then pressed some array of keys on the laptop and the image closed on a signature right outside the operating room's door.
"That one's a bad guy too." Mitch said pridefully, before sticking another red cross onto the map. Next to this one he wrote, "subject two." With the other identified hostage taker, he'd used the red marker to trace out the circular pattern of his movement, before writing "subject one" next to it. "Two tangos identified. What else can the scan see?"
Five minutes later Colonel Stevens and Mitch had marked down two more hostage takers, both of whom were patrolling around the first and second floor; the third was completely empty. Which was good. The blueprints showed several windows on the third floor that would make nice entrances for his team. Mitch smirked deviously. It was all coming together.
"Gather 'round." He shouted, summoning the three remaining members of his team to assemble around the map, which was now covered in marking and stickers. He waited until they were all paying attention. "Here's what I'm thinking. The notes on these blueprints say that the second floor overlooks the lobby, so that means we won't be entering through the front door. There's some windows on the third and second floor we can rappel down to from the roof, and a back door in this alley," he pointed at a more discreet path around the hospital. "that we can use. Any questions?"
There were none. Every team member was watching intently, waiting for their captain to continue his explanation of the plan. He did.
"That is exactly what we'll do. Our team will be broken up into two elements. Element One, which will consist of myself and Eddie, will have the Night Hawk drop us off on the roof, where we'll rappel down to these windows on the western side of the building. While we're doing that, Element Two, which is Scotty and Gavin, will take the back door onto the first floor. Once we're inside, we'll move towards the operating room on the second floor. Clear?"
"Crystal mate." Eddie nodded, gesturing towards the door. "What do you say we get this show on the road captain?"
* * *
Drew was beginning to get scared. The man with the gun had started to mutter and whisper about money and killing hostages, and the green-haired coordinator couldn't help but wonder weather or not that meant his life was coming to the end of the line or, worse yet, May's was. He wasn't going to let anything bad happen to her, that much was certain, but he was trying his best to maintain hope that he wouldn't have to sacrifice his own life to that end. Which, he learned several minutes earlier, he was fully willing to do. A bullet in the head was a small price to pay for the assurance that May would be able to live on. Weather or not that meant she would do so with Ash was irrelevant.
She wasn't paying attention, he realized. Since the German bad guy had demanded her silence, she simply clung to Drew as tightly as she could. As if she knew what he was willing to do, and was trying to keep him from giving up his own life to protect her. So, May sat there, staying deathly quiet while she continued to embrace her old rival without any sign of letting go anytime soon. One thing was certain, however. Their experience in that operating room was beginning to have a profound effect on the two of them. If they made it out of there alive, which May fully intended to do, then she knew that her relationship with Drew was forever going to change. They'd faced death together, never having a doubt that they couldn't make it through without the love and support of the other. At the very least, they would leave that hospital the closest of friends.
But his natural selfishness continued to manifest itself in Drew's lingering need for some sort of romantic closure, and so he decided to simply tell her. It wasn't the best of circumstances, and there were plenty of better places he could have done so, but something inside of that fifteen-year-old boy demanded that he confess the undying love that he felt inside.
"May?" He whispered in opening, his mouth lingering right next to her ear. "I want to tell you something."
"Shut up." She snapped, her voice rising to grab his attention, without angering their captor. "I know what you're going to do. You're going to say some sentimental crap that you don't really mean, 'cause you're scared that we're going to die. I don't need that right now, Drew. Please. I need you to tell me... that everything's going to be okay."
Drew felt the salt of tears beginning to pour from her eyes, and knew the same would follow for him if he didn't respond. The idea that he'd hurt her pulled at his heartstrings much more than the possibility of dying without her knowing that he was in love with her. So he agreed, pulling her close against his body and kissing her head. "Everything is going to be okay."
May was silent for a moment, then she nodded slowly, accepting his words for what they were. "Thank you."
"Hey!" A voice boomed from across the room. "You two, keep it quiet! You don't need to be talking to stay calm."
Fürchtner waited to hear if they were going to object, willing them to give him an excuse to shoot one or the other. But the way they simply sat there in each other's arms, still as bronze statues, told him that nothing he could do could break their resolve. The only other time he'd seen that look in someone's eyes, the look the green-haired boy had whenever she showed signs of sadness, reminded him of how he himself felt when he'd first met his wife Petra, just a young girl being prostituted by some capitalist pig in a pinstriped suit. Well, the RAF murderer thought smugly to himself, he'd sorted that bastard out. A merciless beating followed by a long awaited gunshot wound to the head had done away with her pimp for good. And so they'd gotten married. It was true, that theirs was a most unnatural and strange union, but love wasn't always perfect. In fact, it rarely was. He snaked his arm up closer to his face as he glared at his watch. There was still plenty of time to kill before the cops reached their limit.
* * *
Mitch didn't intend on letting the standoff continue that long. The hostage takers had already been unreasonable enough. With a solid plan in place, the YAD captain had decided it was time for the situation to be brought to a swift, decisive end. The bad guys inside the hospital were in for a rude awakening.
Some time after he'd briefed his team on the plan, they began to move into place. Careful to stay behind cars or whatever they could use to mask their approach, the four teenagers made their way towards the places of their entrance. It was harder for Element Two, which was Scotty McTyler and Gavin Werner. They actually had to make it to the back door of the hospital without being seen. All Mitch and Eddie had to do was get to the Night Hawk still sitting in the middle of the street, two blocks down. All four got to their destinations within five minutes.
"This is Sergeant McTyler." Scotty chimed through Mitch's headset. "Me and Werner are in place behind the hospital. Ready to make our move on your word, sir."
"Alright." He replied. "Wait until I give you the signal, and we'll all go in at the same time. Element One is en route to entrance point. Stand by until further orders."
McTyler obliged. "Roge-o, sir."
Mitch climbed into the Night Hawk's cabin behind Eddie. Together the two teenagers made sure their weapons were loaded and the safety off. The standard load-out for a team was an MP5/10 submachine gun manufactured by Heckler and Koch. The weapon was a modified variant of the classic MP5 design, rechambered to fire the larger, more powerful 10mm cartridge while still maintaining the staple accuracy and feel of a 9mm model. In a holster strapped to their thighs, each carried a Sig-Sauer P228 9mm pistol. That was their sidearm; the backup weapon they'd use in the event of a stoppage in their primary firearm. On their belts were a variety of grenades. Usually, this consisted of one fragmentation and one stun grenade.
The chopper lifted off the ground without delay, and the pilot was careful in his approach. Rising to considerable elevation before moving towards the hospital, the chopper moved discreetly out of the view of the building's windows, to hover directly above the roof. Then, slowly, it descended in a snail-like pace to land on the roof. The two teenagers jumped out to sprint across the gravel-covered rooftop.
"Colonel Stevens?" Mitch began, touching two fingers to a button on his headset as he moved to fasten his nylon rope to the jutting eavestrough at the ledge. "Can you continue monitoring the hospital building with the thermal scan?"
It took a moment before he got his reply. "That's affirmative captain. I've got you're team's heat signatures now. You want me to keep an eye on the bad guys as you take them out?"
"Would you please sir?" The fifteen-year old asked, removing the clasps from one of his pouches to secure his rope. His manners weren't wasted on the control officer.
"Of course."
By the time Mitch climbed over the edge, Eddie was already a couple feet above his respective window. The two would be breaching through different windows. Mitch would enter into a hallway, while Eddie would end up inside a small patient room. They would link up immediately upon their entrance. The captain drew his submachine gun from its resting place around his shoulder. He checked all the mechanisms on the gun, thumbing the safety before he took a deep breath.
"This is Captain Emerson. Element One is in place. Sergeant McTyler, what's your status?" Mitch wanted to know.
The cockney accent of his Master Sergeant's voice filtered through the receiver on his headset a moment later. "Waiting for your word, sir."
Mitch nodded, and looked down. He was hanging from the roof's eavestrough, his feet planted just above the window he was waiting to head in through. When he was ready, he'd give the word for everyone to initiate the plan, and he'd swing in one his nylon rope, crashing through the window in a louder display that he would have liked. In contrast, he added into his headset: "Both elements, sound suppressors on. We don't want the bad guys knowing we're here until their lying on the ground bleeding." He removed, from another pouch, a long cylindrical object which he screwed onto the barrel of his MP5/10, at the end of the muzzle. When the silencer was securely fixed to the gun, he cleared his throat. "Alright. We execute in exactly one minute. Repeat, we move in one minute!"
* * *
Fürchtner had frozen at the presence of the sound. The thumping of a helicopter's rotors frightened him. The gradually growing and then fading of the noise was even worse. What had just happened that he was unaware of? Who was flying a helicopter over the hospital, and why? The police? The news stations? And where had it gone now? Too many questions, he decided. There was only one thing he could do really. He reached for the walkie-talking on his belt.
"Did anybody else hear that?" He asked the device, his thumb pressed tight on the button that connected him to their band. "All of you, stay alert. I don't know what these backwater idiots are planning, but don't let your guard down."
Drew didn't know what to make of the German's fear. Was it irrational? And what significance did that helicopter have? Did it mean somebody was finally coming to save them? Drew threw the thought away almost as soon as it had come to him. He shouldn't get his hopes up, he knew. The only way the two of them were getting out of that operating room, he knew, was in a body bag. The only other option was if the police agreed to pay the money, and he seriously doubted that. Now, if anyone had contacted his parents, that might have been different.
Fürchtner waited a full minute before starting to relax. Instinctively, he cast a glance Tomlinson's way. Perhaps it was a mistake to wait so long, just for appearance's sake. He could shoot the poor bastard right then, and make his escape with the rest of them, and still maintain the extortion sham. Unbeknownst to him, he'd never get the chance.
* * *
Mitch waited out the last ten seconds with bated breath. Positioning every muscle in his body to move when the sixty seconds ran out, he waited completely still. His fingers tensed around the pistol grip of his MP5/10. He held in his last breath and readied his feet to propel his weight off the wall. Finally, the moment came.
"Execute! Go! Go! Go!" Mitch screamed into his headset. Not a second later he leaped off the wall and let the nylon rope pull him forward, smashing through the glass window with shattered panes raining against the floor around his feet. His first order of business was to unlatch the rope from the hook on his belt with his free hand, keeping the submachine gun steady in his right hand for a few short seconds. Immediately he steadied his grip and moved quickly down the hallway before him. He sensed Eddie come up behind him, and knew Scotty and Gavin were heading in through the back door down below them.
"Element One, you should be coming up on subject three around this corner." Stevens warned, and Mitch remembered the additions he'd made to the map. As soon as he turned the corner, he'd come face to face with a hostile and―
―he saw him immediately upon rounding the corner. The hostage taker was carrying an Uzi in both hands, probably planning to go investigate the source of the shattering noise when he saw Mitch come around the corner with his MP5/10. He tried to react, but the fifteen-year-old was younger and faster, and he'd already been aiming when he turned the corner.
Mitch squeezed the trigger once, letting the three-round-burst setting on the fire selector pump out three well-placed rounds from the muzzle of the submachine gun. The 10mm rounds impacted against the man, who turned out to be Gunther Bock, ordered by Fürchtner to help patrol the other end of the second floor. Two of them struck the RAF enforcer in the head, with the third hitting a few centimeters lower, piercing the flesh of his neck. His body tumbled backwards, dead before it hit the tiled floor.
"Nice one mate." Eddie mumbled with a smile, following close behind his captain to back him up. "First kill of the day goes to Mitchell."
"One hostile just dropped off the screen." Stevens chimed, stating what they already knew. "Alright, now another. There's two left. One standing guard outside the door to the operating room, the other inside."
Mitch nodded to himself as he covered the distance to where the corridor turned left. "Who just got that second guy?"
"That would be me sir." Gavin sounded over the headset.
Element One moved forward, approaching the second corner carefully. On the first floor below, Scotty and Gavin were moving hastily towards the staircase that would take them to the second floor to form up with Mitch and Eddie. From his seat in the command post, Harvey Stevens compared it to some sort of deadly ballet. Each of the teen commandos representing a crucial body part in a well coordinated, well choreographed dance. A neutralized tango was a well executed pirouette or side leap. And then, slowly, all four members of Foxtrot Team joined together in the end of a soaring jump.
"Got one sentry outside the door to the operating room. Looks like he's fidgeting a bit." Stevens said into his mic. "I think he knows your coming. Be careful with this one."
Mitch looked to Eddie for a suggestion. The executive officer―XO―gestured once towards his belt, signaling a flashbang maneuver to stun the hostile around the corner. The captain and team leader shook his head. They'd need their flashbangs to clear the operating room. Then he remembered something.
"Colonel, if my memory serves me, there should be a fire extinguisher on the wall in front of the operating room's door." Mitch explained into his headset. "Could you please look at the blueprints to verify?"
Stevens, sitting in front of his laptop, reached across the counter and pulled the edited piece of paper with stickers and markings over and scanned the map for the second floor hallway outside the operating room. True enough, there was a small square with, in tiny lettering, "FIRE EXTINGUISHER."
"That's affirmative captain. These most recent set of blueprints says there is a fire extinguisher planted right outside the operating rooms door, about two feet down towards your corner." He explained, then he looked at the real-time thermal imaging and stared at Mitch and Eddie's dormant signatures. "What are you planning?"
"I'll tell you if it works." He muttered wryly. Then: "Sergent McTyler, are you and Werner in place at the stairwell door?"
"Yes sir."
Mitch reached up above his forehead and pulled the small set of trifocal goggles over his eyes, waiting to hit the switch that would active the infrared vision in them. "Okay, in ten seconds I want you to kick it open as hard as you can. Copy?"
"Yes sir."
Eddie watched as Mitch counted down the seconds in his head. Some moments later, he saw the door across the hallway swing open as a result of the impact from Scotty's foot, and wondered exactly what his leader was planning, though by the time he figured it out, it was over.
Dortmund had been staring down the hallway with her Uzi at a ready low, waiting for someone to come around the corner. Her husband was unable to raise Model or Bock on their walkie talkies, and the thought was that somebody was making a play for the hostages. When the door to the stairway flew open, her eyes darted towards it as she raised the submachine gun and fired a spasmodic burst of shots in its direction. Then, a fraction of a second later. A person's figure appeared around the corner and fired once in her direction. She was quick to turn her Uzi in his direction, squeezing the trigger longer than she should have, blasting the wall at the corner until she noticed that she hadn't been hit. Right before her, however, a stream of white foam streamed out of the fire extinguisher, which had been punctured by the carefully aimed shots of her new opponent. The small cloud quickly grew thick, obscuring her vision and prompting Dortmund to shell out the rest of her Uzi's 9mm magazine in blind fire down the hall.
Mitch heard the fated clickas his target's submachine gun ran dry, and flicked the switch on his goggles that activated their infrared vision. Bounding around the corner, the goggles let him see through the fire extinguisher's foam cloud, revealing the confused figure of Petra Dortmund, who probably knew her end was coming. The captain shouldered his MP5/10 and fired a three-round-burst into her chest, sending her slumped backwards onto the wall at the end of the hallway, the Uzi dropping out of her hands as her chest went red with bloody wounds.
"You got him! You got him!" Stevens parroted excitedly from his post in the convenience store, unaware, as Mitch had been, that Dortmund was indeed a woman. A very dead now, but she had been a woman, the wife of Hans Fürchtner, who had just watched her demise through the window in the operating room's door. "Careful, you've freaked the last guy inside the operating room. He's running... okay, he's waiting for you behind Tomlinson. Check your fire when you enter!"
"Got it!" Mitch shouted in response, sprinting down the hallway, but stopping before he came in view of the window. Sliding into a crouch, he paused under the window and gestured for Eddie to come forward. The 2ndlieutenant nodded and pulled a stun grenade off his belt. They'd need it to get around the last guy. He cradled his MP5/10 and whispered to Eddie: "You take point. Go right around the operating table and waste him."
Eddie nodded and waited. He heard the shuffling of feet as Scotty and Gavin came up on their rear, coming out of the stairwell when they'd heard the shots die down. He waited for Mitch to nod, and pulled the pin on the flashbang, as the captain inched the door open―just enough for Eddie to chuck the cylindrical object into the room. Mitch then pulled the door shut immediately, waiting for the inevitable loud bang and sensing the ethereal white flash through the window glass. With that, he threw the door open inwardly, and watched Eddie bolt into the room, his submachine gun up in his arms.
For Drew it was a surreal thing to witness. He'd heard the shots first, looking up from his task of embracing May just in time to notice the man keeping watch over them curse in German and jump around to hide behind the operating table and the silver-haired man lying on top. That hadn't made Drew look away however, and he continued to watch as the flashbang flew into the room, blinding both himself and everyone else in the room. As the ringing in his ears from the deafening detonating faded, he heard muffled gunshots, no louder than the sound of a tennis ball smacking against a wall. Then he heard the sickening sound of bullets impacting with flesh and bone, and sensed something of a fine mist before him that came with a faint splattering sound. In essence, it was the personification of complete chaos. It wasn't until he was able to see and hear properly, that Drew was able to completely take in everything which had happened in that operating room.
The bad guy was now lying on the ground, his forehead torn open in a revolting crimson mess. His gun was several feet away from his hand, lying on its side with the strap removed. Standing above his corpse was a―teenager?―wearing a green military style ball cap. In his arms was a submachine gun, and with his free hand, he waved in somebody from the hallway. In came a second teen, this one having neat brown hair uncovered by a hat of any kind. He was carrying the same gun as his friend and, with him, two more followed him in. All four of them were decked out in some kind of combat gear with two patches on their shoulders. On their right, all of them had either and American or British flag. On their left shoulders was a shield patch with the words "Youth Action Directorate" surrounded by large white wings with a dagger in the middle. It was hard to believe, but slowly Drew came to the realization that they'd actually been saved, and everything was going to be fine.
Then he looked at May, and his expression went from one of pseudo-happiness to shock. Her face was frozen like a photo still, an expression of shock and horror decorating her visage. On the floor ahead of her, brain tissue was smeared in minuscule clumps around the hole in Fürchtner's head with blood leaking from her . Then she began to shiver. Violently. The sonic assault from the flashbang as well as its blinding flash had a profound effect on her psych. Tremors rocked her body and Drew did the only thing he could think of. Without a second thought, he returned to the position he'd adopted earlier in the day and embraced her as she shook with fear. His efforts to calm her were halted when some of the teens began to wrestle all of the hostages to the ground and bind them with plasticuffs. So Drew laid there, flat on his stomach and staring at a completely unresponsive May, praying she would be okay.
* * *
They were taken outside by the teen team and processed by paramedics and some hospital staff that had volunteered to stay around to help the hostages. All seven, including Tomlinson, were inspected by the paramedics. Sympathetic nurses examined May for any visible injuries or wounds, some offering to take her to talk to someone, due to the incredibly horrible experience she'd endured. Drew had refused to be taken away for his processing, instead having himself inspected only a few feet away from where May sat next to an ambulance.
"Are you okay?" He asked her, placing an arm on her shoulder that might have been seen an inappropriate gesture. He didn't care. He was only worried for her well being.
It took a moment, but she answered. "I'm fine."
Without another word she wiggled out of his caring grasp and disappeared to return safely to her room at the pokémon center. As he watched her walk away, Drew wondered where Ash was. Surely he had to know what had happened at the hospital, and surely he must have known that May hadn't returned to him in... how long had the stand off lasted? He'd have to ask someone and find out. Time on the inside had become nearly nonexistent.
He looked around and spotted on of the uniformed teenagers leaning against the rear fender of a patrol car. Remembering his second order of business, Drew walked over to where he was standing, fiddling with his submachine gun as the green-haired coordinator approached.
"Excuse me?" Drew began politely when he'd come close enough to be within earshot of the teen. It was his first time getting a really good look at his rescuer. The teenager, who's collar bore some sort of military insignia consisting of two matching silver bars, had brown hair and a few freckles here and there. His eyes were a cold blue, lacking much emotion at all.
"Yes?" He responded, staring up at Drew under the fringe of his eyelids. The icy blue eyes were locked on his guest.
Right then Drew began to fumble with his words. This young teenager, who couldn't have been any older than Drew himself, had the look of someone who'd witnessed some of the most horrible terrors of the world. It was as though his brutal efficiency laid not in his body armor or his gun, but in those cold blue eyes. They were emotionless, impassive, and unsympathetic. He seemed like the kind of person who made friends only with those who'd shared his sad story. It was a valid assumption on Drew's part.
"I just wanted to thank you." Drew began, wondering how he should go about the conversation. "You guys saved our lives in there. For that, I can't even begin to explain how grateful I am. Can you... tell me your name? I'm just curious."
Mitch stared at him, swinging his MP5/10 into its place around his shoulder. "Sorry pal. Confidential." He lied. There was nothing preventing him from revealing his name to Drew, but he was a teenager, and not having a name made him seem cooler. There were the beginnings of a smirk on the corners of his mouth.
"Captain Emerson?"
Eddie jogged over to where the two of them were standing, receiving a prompt death glare from Mitch, who'd just been outed by the sudden shouting of his name. The lieutenant surveyed the scene, and nodded once, turning on his heel and backing away to wait for his turn to speak.
Drew cocked an eyebrow. "Emerson huh? I can't imagine it would be to hard for me to figure out your first name." He said, arms crossed and wearing his own smirk now.
"It's Mitchell." He allowed, before turning to face Eddie. "And you're very welcome."
The two teenage commandos walked away in the opposite direction, talking quietly about something that probably wasn't any of Drew's business. So he stood there, repeating the name he'd just heard over and over in his head, trying to find any significance in it. Mitchell Emerson. Mitchell Emerson. Who in the world is he, and who are his friends? Some kind of specialized SWAT team? A top secret and controversial initiative to train child soldiers? at that moment, a chill went up Drew's spine, for he knew he probably wasn't far off.
A/N: Cool, Mitch's plot thickens. That line was written in response to those who felt Mitch was too young to be a soldier. A good example of "child soldiers" is featured in the Halo game series. (Master Chief is a "Spartan." This is a genetically engineered super-soldier trained for combat from birth.) For people who are more realistically oriented, terrorist and rebel organization operating in third-world countries commonly train children as insurgents. Sad, but true, which means if some kid can be given an assault rifle an told to kill, four teenagers trained and educated in small unit tactics can form an effective counter-terror team. Anyway, like I said chapter seven will introduce two new characters. They're FBI agents tasked with investigating the events that transpired in what you just read. Another minor character will be knocked off, but you should see it coming by now. (No one important, so don't go thinking Drew's gonna die or something extreme like that.) Alright, I'm spoiling too much. Until next time. Bye!