The coolness of the dark, dirty concrete floor somewhat soothed her throbbing head. She gently stirred, groaned, and sat up.
She wasn't alone. To her left lay her protector, still in the void of unconsciousness. They'd obviously administered him with a significantly larger or more potent dosage of the drug they'd used to detain them both. Her memory was foggy, but she remembered seeing quite a large number of bullet-peppered corpses around him when he'd been restrained.
Her assailant's injury flew back into her mind; the dull pop of the carbine in her peripheral and the sickening, wet explosion as it had torn through Buck's hand. She thought solemnly about the fact that she'd failed to keep Adam's beautiful .44 Magnum safe, remembering it skidding across the quarry's yard, away from her sight.
Adam. Had he seen what had happened? Had he and Evelynn even been close to their betrayal? She didn't know, and she cared even less. She was overwhelmingly frustrated with everyone; she had seen in their eyes that they had clearly known about Buck's plan, but the Watcher and his so-called 'good morals' had let them blunder blindly into the ambush. Joel hadn't even objected; he'd hardly spoken for the entire journey, only ever piping up to growl something menacingly at Buck.
She opened her eyes widely, adapting to the change in brightness, and observed her surroundings. She was in a cage; that much was to be expected. She wasn't the only inmate, however. Joel lay next to her, breathing lightly, unharmed but unconscious, and uncharacteristically peaceful in his sleep. She gave him a once-over, and was dully reassured when she'd discovered that no injuries had befouled him at the hands of their captors. To her surprise, others were present too; the cell was almost crowded. Some wore faces of fear, some fatigue, some indifference. All of them looked tired, and pale, but healthy; that was almost more suspicious than if they looked hurt.
A pair of eyes looked at her from the other side of the cell, saying nothing. The eyes belonged to an aging woman, who simply looked as if she had given up. There was a man sitting next to her, sleeping on her shoulder, his white shirt stained a dried crimson. There were two dark-skinned people sitting against the wall next to her, and she almost jumped out of her skin when she realised they were there; she wasn't frightened, or hostile towards them, she just simply hadn't seen many people like them before. The last person was Ramone, almost a fortnight ago now. She wondered how he, the old man and the younger woman were getting on in Adam's field lodge.
There was one other in the cell with them; a man, tall and well built with a clean-shaven head and a weathered face sat alone in the farthest corner of the depressing room. Upon registering her glance, he looked at her, his eyes lingering on her for a moment. His face was tough and rugged, but not menacing; he wore that characteristic face of that happy uncle you always enjoyed seeing.
He glanced away when a man wearing a balaclava walked over to the cell and stood at the bars.
"You." He said with authority, gesturing to her. "Over here, now."
The man addressing her was clad in the same civilian-militia style gear the men who ambushed them had worn. She warily approached the bars, remembering her last encounter with a man wearing a balaclava, and how horrific it had turned out to be. She stood in front of him, her eyes cast down, saying nothing.
"Ellie." The man said, tones of a Scottish accent sliding through.
Upon her realisation of who it was, her anger flared up.
"You fucking asshole!" She said loudly. Some of the prisoners in her cell looked up at her expletives. The man in the corner kept his head down. "You let us walk right into the trap! You-"
"Be quiet." He said in return.
Another guard, further down the hallway, stopped and turned around, roused by the noise.
"You okay there, Sticks?" He asked, his voice echoing up the hallway.
"Fine." Adam replied from underneath the balaclava, not looking at the man, imitating an American accent almost perfectly. Ellie was surprised by his initiative, and the stupidity of the guard on duty with him. "Just trying to get some information for the boss."
The other guard huffed. "You have fun trying to get anything outta that pipsqueak." He turned, hiccuped, and walked down the hallway, away from them. She heard his footsteps grow quieter, until there was silence.
Adam raised the balaclava, confirming it was him.
"You fucking asshole." She said again, more quietly than before, although with the same poison in her tone.
"Stop it." He replied, almost angrily. "I knew what I was doing."
"The fuck are you talking about? Have us walk straight into a trap?"
"No." He countered. "Have you two walk into a trap so I could find out who was running the show."
"Why? I thought we were good. The fuck happened to all your 'protect the innocent' bullshit?"
"You can't be good all of the time." He sighed. "Look, I'm sorry about how this happened, but it was the only way. When Buck stuttered in the forest, I immediately knew things weren't right. I've been playing this game for too long."
"So what?"
"So, I figured it would be better to ghost you two after being captured than line us all up for the firing squad at the gates of the town."
"What are you talking about, the firing squad?"
"Go to the window in the back wall. Look at the guards."
She didn't reply, and swiftly moved away from him, the anger still burning and reddening her cheeks. It seemed as if people were almost lining up to betray them; first Evelynn and her bullshit science, now Adam and his crazy plots.
She moved past Joel, still lying asleep in the center of the floor, and made her way to the window. She reached for the top, her hands falling slightly short of the window sill.
One of the dark-skinned people, a man, spoke up, obviously realising that Adam was on their side. Now, all of the conscious prisoners were listening attentively... barring the weathered man, who simply looked at the floor. She almost thought she saw a smile on his face, but scrapped the thought as simply a product of the darkness playing with her eyes.
"May I?" The dark-skinned man asked Adam, gesturing to Ellie. The Watcher nodded, not speaking.
She tensed slightly as the man placed his large, strong hands under her shoulders, and hoisted her up.
"Thanks." She said out of fearful respect.
"What do you notice?" She heard Adam holler quietly from behind them.
She observed the area outside of the barred and tiny window; it was late afternoon, nearly dusk, and the area was slowly growing darker. Large, yellow industrial-strength lights were starting to be powered on, illuminating darker areas in an artificial white light. She glanced to the left, and saw a large mass of people, slowly commuting up and down an improvised high street to their homes. Some stood and conversed with each other while some simply strode past, taking no notice of anyone. Behind the cobbled-together high street was a large and surprisingly well-kept warehouse, with two even bigger factory-type buildings behind that. Everywhere she looked stood guards in civilian-militia gear, patrolling the street, chatting, or standing guard and manning the spotlights on the ten foot-high cinder block wall to her right. She looked at them, trying to discern anything that seemed even the slightest bit unusual.
"I don't see anything. They all just look like guards."
"Look closer. Their belts."
She saw a burly guard just a few meters away from her, patrolling the wall, his belt clearly in sight. He was facing away from her, silently staring out into the dusk. After a few moments, he turned around to walk off, and Ellie found what she was looking for.
A matte-black and incredibly pristine 9mm pistol hung in the side of his belt.
Now that she had identified the change, finding it on others was easy; sure enough, every guard she observed wore the same pristine sidearm in their belt holsters.
"The pistols." She said, gesturing to the dark-skinned man to let her down.
"Yes." Adam replied as she made her way back over to him. "They're here. They're here, and Amber isn't."
Her fear returned at the premise that the town was being controlled by the red-rings. Where the red-rings were, Pyotr wasn't far behind.
"Why are they here?" She asked.
"I have no idea," He replied, "But it's a damn good job you got captured. Word on the street is that they've been gunning people at the gates down on sight."
"Why?"
"I can't guess. They say they were all infected. I don't buy it. It's probably because they don't want to disclose their location; if people come in the front, they can leave and tell others were this place is."
"Makes sense." She admitted. "So what about Buck?"
Adam allowed himself a small chuckle. "Joel got her good. She's never going to fire a gun again. I'm pretty sure that hand had to come off; I heard she's been whining about it ever since... anyway, she'll live, although she probably doesn't deserve to. She was essentially the bait for the quarry ambush, although our experience didn't go to plan. She usually plays the 'oh, I'm so hurt, please help me' card to lure people there."
"Bet you're glad you stayed back, then."
He shrugged. "Didn't make much difference. A squad came after us anyway."
"Let me guess, you-"
"Yeah." He said, confirming their deaths.
"How's Evelynn?" She asked, again surprised by her motives to ask about the erratic scientist. Was it simply curiosity, or something more?
"She's fine." He answered. "One of the soldiers had antibiotics on him from a flesh wound he'd taken. I took her back to the chalet and dosed her up. She'll be fine until we sort out what's happened here."
Ellie still couldn't process the pure scale of the infiltration the red-rings had pulled off. They had completely assimilated into the Eagle's Nest, eliminated the guards, and captured the leader. From what she'd seen on the high street, the civilians in the town remained none the wiser.
"How did you get in?"
"Easy." He began. "Changed clothes and made my way up the old water pipes under the cover of darkness. No one's questioned me yet."
She continued pressing for information, still slightly disorientated from a second involuntary sleep.
"How did they do this? All of the guards, and Amber?"
She saw him stare thoughtfully for a moment.
"I'm honestly not sure. My guess would be a night raid; silently murder the guards, and capture Amber, but... this whole masquerade they're putting on is so unlike them. And the fact they're capturing people instead of killing them... it almost makes me more suspicious."
The dark-skinned man spoke up.
"I heard something about experiments."
"Experiments?" Adam asked, almost in shock. "This is way bigger than I thought."
"You don't think..." Ellie began, frightening thoughts forming in her head. "The power plant, that thing... Pyotr talked about them being his 'pets'."
She heard Adam swallow.
"All the more reason for me to get you two out of here, then." He said quietly.
The dark-skinned man spoke again, his curiosity roused on hearing of Adam's schemes.
"You're... you're not the Watcher, are you?"
Adam smiled. "In the flesh. Don't go spreading it around."
"I... of course not." He replied, walking towards the bars and stood next to Ellie. She saw his dark arm extend through the iron railings to Adam.
"Carlos."
The Scotsman returned the handshake warmly.
"Adam Cassel." He replied.
"So you're the one trying to get us out of here then, huh?"
Adam let go of the hand, and looked down at the floor in shame.
"Carlos, I... I'm afraid not. Not at the moment, anyway."
A look of fear and displeasure washed over Carlos' dark face.
"What do you mean? You're a freakin' legend, man."
"I know." He gripped the bars with gloved hands and leaned forward. "But I can't do this alone, not kill all of them." He glanced over to Ellie.
"How many are there?" She asked.
"Guards? Near a hundred. Maybe more. We're definitely going to need reinforcements." He turned his gaze back to Carlos. "They're very sloppy with the way they handle prisoners here; no documentation or photographs. I suppose I can get a handful of you out, but for the others? It'll have to wait. Hopefully they don't notice that three or four of you are missing."
Ellie piped up. "That other guard didn't know you weren't his buddy."
Adam chuckled slightly. "He's been drinking all day."
He addressed Carlos again. "I need you to keep them under control. I don't want everyone piling out of the cell when I open it."
Adam fumbled with the keys, and moved to unlock the cell door.
"Gotcha, I'll make sure to-"
A door was thrown open at the other end of the corridor, loudly crashing against the concrete wall and sending the noise ricocheting down the corridor. Adam flinched, and deftly slid the ring of keys back into his pocket. A voice issued out from the doorway, and footsteps gradually grew louder.
"Sticks, what's going on?" The voice was authoritative, and it spoke with conviction. The voice of a leader.
Adam slid the balaclava back down over his face, and moved away from the cage.
"Simon, I didn't expect to see you down here. What's wrong?" He asked, once again American.
"You let Aaron get drunk again. I thought I told you not to let him into the whiskey supply, he's practically drunk it all. Others need to drink, too."
Ellie couldn't help but feel a little humour at the domestic nature of the commander's visit.
"Apologies. I'll be more proactive next time."
"See to it." The man said as he arrived next to Adam, and looked into the cell. He was huge – taller than Adam by almost two inches, and built more heavily. The veins in his forehead and next stuck out almost grotesquely, and his blond crew-cut only made him more menacing. She heard the mysterious man in the corner of the cell move at the sound of the red-rings' commander being present.
"What've these people done, Sticks?" He asked almost dispassionately, upset at the thought of not having his favourite alcoholic beverage. He had a strong southern accent that was contradictory to the civilised manner with which he spoke.
"Captives." Adam replied casually. "Jackasses that walked into the trap at the quarry."
"I see." He replied, looking them over. "They're all healthy. Good. Andrey will be happy with us."
"Glad to hear you say so." Adam managed to sound genuine despite his hatred for the man.
The gargantuan commander slapped him on the back.
"Well, good work. I'm glad to see at least you're keeping a decent eye on them."
"Thank you, Simon."
"Will you be at the intel meeting this evening?"
Adam raised his head slightly at the mention of something he'd been unaware of.
"Intel meeting?"
"Yeah. We're picking up where Dubrovnik left off."
Ellie drew a sharp intake of breath as she remembered Krass' contingency.
"That survivor town in Jackson?" Adam asked, also apparently remembering.
"Yes." The huge man replied courteously. "I'm banking that we can do a much better job than Krass ever could. He was smart, but incredibly vain. He could never look past his own personal gain to get the job done properly. Did you hear? The Watcher got rid of him a fortnight ago." The big man chuckled. "Only favour he's ever done for me."
Ellie could hardly bear the irony of the situation.
"I'll be sure to pass on my regards when he comes for us." Adam said jokingly.
"He can try, but he won't get past the gates. Not with the amount of men we have!" The huge man ran a massive hand through his buzz-cut, turned, and swiftly moved back down the hallway. "I'll see you in an hour, Sticks."
The metal door swung shut again, and Adam drew the keys from his pocket.
"That's going to complicate things." He admitted.
"He didn't even question who you were." Ellie pointed out. "How long have you been this... 'Sticks' guy?"
"Three days." Adam replied, gesturing to his lapel, where the words 'Sticks' was embroidered. "They saw that and just started using it as my name. Idiots. I guess the previous Sticks wasn't much of a talker."
The key slipped into the lock, turned, and the bolt quietly clanged out of place. Carlos moved to his female companion, who was looking up to him in silence.
"Annie, I need you to stay here, okay? I'll be back for you. Don't worry."
"Okay." She timidly whispered in reply. She turned her attention to Adam. "You keep him safe, you hear?"
"Yes ma'am." Adam courteously replied.
At the premise of escape, the aging woman spoke up, her male counterpart still asleep.
"You said you want four people, right? Well, I can-"
The mysterious man at the back of the cell interjected.
"I'll go, Jennifer. Keep your son safe. I'm better with guns, anyway."
The aging woman returned to silence, and just sat there, looking at them.
The mysterious man raised the hood on his jacket and stood, his eyes and nose concealed. His chin was wide, and his jaw strong, and covered in a thick black beard, grown out of captivity rather than choice. He stood, and made his way over to Adam and Carlos. Ellie turned, and knelt next to Joel, trying to rouse him from his sleep.
"Joel? Joel? C'mon, Joel, you need to wake up, please, we've gotta-"
"It's no use." The mysterious man said. "They give adult doses and child doses of the drug they use to knock you out. The adult dose takes nearly a week to wear off. You've only been here three days."
She sat back onto her legs, defeated and upset.
"We can carry him." Carlos suggested, gesturing to the mysterious man. "You'll help me carry him, right?"
"Sure." The man replied. "What're we going to do if we get in trouble? I seem to remember you have an Intel meeting. "
Adam said nothing, only drawing a dull-black and scratched assault rifle from his back, that she assumed had been Sticks' before he met his unfortunate and unavoidable end. He moved towards Ellie, and handed it to her.
"Do you think you can handle this?" He asked.
She warily placed her hands on the metal of the weathered assault rifle.
"I... I don't know."
"You can do it, Ellie." He took it from her grasp, and showed her the shooting stance. "Fully automatic." He continued. "Lean into the gun like this, with the stock firmly in your shoulder."
"Right."
He took it back down, and handed it to her, relinquishing his grip and letting her take its weight.
"Fire in bursts."
"Bursts. Gotcha."
The two men grappled Joel and held him over their shoulders, and moved out of the cell, with Ellie closely behind them. Adam closed the metal door and locked it firmly.
"Take that door, there." He gestured down the hallway in the opposite direction that Simon left, to a rusting metal door. "That leads out into the courtyard, but it's pretty well concealed. Watch out for the guards on the walls. After about two hundred meters you should come across a small concrete building; that's the old sewerage works for the toileting facilities here. It's how I got in – the door's unlocked. Follow the pipes downwards – they go for about an hour – and you should reach an old pump-station. Meet me there."
"You're not coming with us?" She asked, slightly frightened to be left in the care of two strangers.
"Intel meeting remember? I need to find Amber." He gently placed his hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, Ellie, you can do this."
"Thanks, Adam." She said genuinely.
He nodded, then returned to business mode. "Alright, out you go. Hurry, and good luck."
The moved out of the door together with Ellie taking point and the two men carrying Joel closely behind. Adam saluted, and closed the metal door. There was a light clang as the bolt slid into place, sealing them outside.
The sky had darkened considerably; it was now late evening, and remaining undetected would be easy for her. The two large men carrying a third large man would be a little harder to conceal, however.
To their immediate left was the continuation of the cinder-block perimeter wall; she assumed that the prison facility was located on the outskirts for security reasons. She quickly surveyed the wall parallel to their path, and was relieved when she realised their stroke of luck; no one was patrolling the section of the wall they needed to bypass, and the spotlights were turned off, loosely hanging in their frames.
"This way." She whispered to the men.
They walked quickly and quietly through a small pile-up of building materials; there were containers of cinder and concrete, plastic pipes, metal roofing, and unused brick cylinders cut into segments, seemingly to build a chimney or pipe of some sort. They made use of these as cover, niftily making their way across the courtyard through the large brick tubes.
The final obstacle between them and the entrance to the waterworks leading out of the town frightened her somewhat; a large expanse opened up, about a hundred meters, with a clear and lit view to the centre of the courtyard where the guards convened between shifts around a fire in a barrel.
She hesitated at the edge of the pile of building materials, and addressed the men.
"We gotta get across here. There's the building Adam talked about."
"There's no way we can all get across at once." The mysterious man said. "It's way too exposed."
"We could try one at a time." Carlos suggested.
"But that leaves the problem of-"
"Joel?" Ellie asked, looking in despair at the aging man, still in the strong grip of the anaesthetic.
"Yeah." The man replied.
"He okay?" She heard herself ask him.
"He's fine." The man replied. "He's just getting old."
She ignored the comment, not ready to realise Joel's age. She drew in closer to them as not to raise her voice too loudly, and took on the role of commander, one of which she'd learned from Adam.
"Alright. I'm small, and quick. I could get over to the door, check it, and then wave you over once it's open. One at a time, yeah?"
"Yeah." Carlos said. "I'll bring the big guy over last."
"Alright." She inhaled, preparing herself. "Let's go."
She darted quickly from the brick tube, and covered the ground between the pile of industrial goods and the small, concrete building in mere seconds. It was light here, and she was exposed, but she was almost silent in her movement despite the assault rifle, and the guards around the barrel-fire didn't even notice her.
She reached the rusted, green metal door and gently lay her hand on the handle. She pushed it downwards, and despite creaking slightly, it popped gently open. She edged it ajar just enough for her to ease in, and gestured to the men back in the pile of miscellaneous construction goods.
The mysterious and unnamed man made his way over next, ghosting her almost perfectly, and to her surprise, more quietly than she'd managed; whoever this guy was, he was trained. He covered the distance in a matter of seconds, and slipped inside with Ellie.
She gestured to Carlos next. The big man slung Joel over his back, and carried him over, more slowly than she would have liked. He was just about to enter the doorway when his coat snagged on a outcropping nail in a piece of wood.
"Oh, shit!" She heard him curse quietly.
Somewhere in the distance, a dog heard the noise, picked up his head, and started barking in their direction.
"C'mon, you stupid piece of shit..." Carlos kept tugging at the wood, trying to free himself.
"C'mon!" He said more forcibly.
The result he got was not the one he was aiming for; the nail came free of his jacket, but at the price of the large stack of wet wooden planks it was holding up collapsing, making a large amount of noise. The dog barked more loudly, and Carlos quickly slipped inside with Joel still on his back. Ellie shut the door silently, and told them all to hide. The three men took refuge under a broken table, while she hid in a small cupboard.
The cupboard was cold, and pitch black. She heard the sound of the door opening, and the dog padding in, breathing heavily, its human owner's feet falling just behind it. She saw a flash of light in the crack of the cupboard's doors as a flash-light scoured the room. It searched for a few minutes until it was turned off, seemingly deducting the disturbance as nothing suspicious.
"Stupid dog." She heard. Shortly afterward, the door shut again, and she quietly eased her way out of the closet.
"All clear." She said to the men, who slowly emerged from under the ruins of the broken table. They stood gradually, and followed her as she walked. She decided it was better to take things slowly in the dark than risk being spotted using a flash-light.
The building was small, and it didn't take them long to find what they were looking for. A medium-sized metal grate led downwards into the sewerage line that Adam had discussed earlier. The pipe itself hadn't been used for over two decades, but the smell lingered; it was one of the foulest things Ellie had smelt in a long time. Regardless, she knew they had to press on and escape the Eagle's nest as quickly as possible.
The padlock that had been sealing the grate lay just to the side of it, destroyed; she'd guess by a bullet, and realised how Adam had made his way in. She gently lifted the grate, took its weight, and heaved; it came away slowly, scraping along the ground. She lowered herself down, and let herself fall in.
She landed with a splat and was ankle-deep in filth, causing her to wretch slightly. She swallowed the sickness, and gestured to the other men to descend. The mysterious man came first, landing softly behind her, and not losing his composure in the same way she had. He stood to his full height, turned, and took Joel from Carlos as he gently handed him down. To her surprise, the big man stirred, and placed his own feet on the floor.
"I can..." She heard. "I can do it."
Carlos followed him down shortly afterward.
Joel stood on his own feet. He was confused due to waking in a sewer, but quickly adapted to the situation as she explained the predicament they were in. It took him almost ten minutes to adapt fully, but eventually he was ready to move.
The mysterious man chuckled in pleasant surprise.
"Tough son of a bitch." He said. "That drug had me out for six days."
Joel guiltily rubbed his neck where the needle had gone in.
"I've... had ones like it a few times." He said.
Carlos seemed to be amazed by Joel's resilience. He questioned him as they began to walk down the pipe, digging for information. Ellie listened to their conversation from the front.
"How old are you, man?" He asked.
"Too old." Joel responded, not harshly, but with a tone that dictated he wasn't keen to discuss the subject much further. "What about you?"
"Twenty four." Carlos replied. "I have an older brother, but I haven't heard from him in a while."
Joel huffed lightly. "I got a younger brother. Only a few years younger than me though."
"So still old as hell?" Carlos countered with a polite chuckle. "I kid, man, I kid... my brother Ramone is four years older than me, but I haven't seen hide nor tail of him in at least double that."
Ellie perked up when she heard a name she recognised.
"What did you say?" She asked, turning around to face them.
Carlos was surprised by her interest in his affairs. "I, uh... my brother? His name's-"
"Ramone." She said, remembering. "You said you haven't seen him in eight years?"
"Yeah." Carlos replied, intriuged. Realisation appeared on his face. "Oh my god, you haven't...?"
"Two weeks ago." She told him, remembering Adam confronting them shortly after their escape from Krass Dubrovnik's house of murder. "Adam let him stay in his field base with two friends of his."
"He's... he's alive?"
"Alive and kicking."
"Oh, thank god..." Carlos started, sniffing. It was weird to Ellie to see such a formidable character shedding tears of joy. "He's my older brother, man, we... we always did shit together, y'know? In times like this, family is all we got left."
Joel breathed deeply and exhaled, seemingly unaffected by the awful stench of the sewer line.
"Yeah." He said solemnly. She could only assume he was thinking of Tommy. She never got a definite answer as to why they had to leave; maybe she would ask him one day, face to face, when they weren't in danger and he'd answer her truthfully.
They endured the remainder of the pipeline in silence, trying to overcome the horrific smell that assaulted them constantly. They walked for almost two hours in the darkness and the filth, until they finally emerged into a bigger atrium that didn't stink of shit as intensely. There was a two meter drop that they all traversed easily, barring Joel who grunted and nearly fell over, yet managed to maintain his composure and stand without assistance. They climbed a rusted latter with missing rungs, arriving on a crumbling and treacherous concrete walkway that led into a few surprisingly good-condition rooms. The mysterious man lingered, taking in his surroundings. The words 'PUMP STATION S33' were painted on the largest concrete wall in faded black letters, confirming their location. She breathed a sigh of relief knowing they'd escaped the terror at the Eagle's nest.
Her relief was short-lived, however; upon reaching the conclusion of the concrete catwalk, everyone froze.
A small fire burned in the room in front of them; it was the hallway, leading to the outdoors, the exterior world sealed off by a thin metal door.
A man in grey, military-camouflage stood in their path in the doorway, his machine gun raised and primed. A red circle, complete with perpendicular line was emblazoned on his breast. Carlos wore a look of fear, while Joel was tensed and primed. The mysterious man was nowhere to be seen.
"The fuck are you?" The red-ring spat, two more of his comrades appearing from corridors behind him with their weapons raised. Before she knew it, she heard a small click, and span around; they had been flanked, and another red-ring stood behind them with an assault rifle similar to the one she carried. These soldiers were obviously separate from the ones in the Eagle's Nest; they wore their uniform with pride, while the soldiers in the town upheld a complex masquerade.
"Get on your goddamn knees." The one in front of them screamed, far too loudly for the enclosed space.
"Listen man." Carlos began. "We're just trying to-"
"Get on your goddamn knees!" No one did.
"Now!" The red-ring shouted. "Get on your fucking knees now, or I'll-"
Her life slowed down a thousand times in that far too familiar feeling of adrenaline taking hold, and she stared at the soldier in slow-motion. The door behind them, leading to the surface, burst open, and Adam sprinted down the steps, a bullet from his .44 Magnum flying out of the barrel and tearing through the back of one red-ring, then the other. The man in front of them stood looking at something behind her in fear, just before a jet of crimson exploded from the back of his head, and he collapsed to the floor. The slaughter had only taken moments, but it seemed like hours to her.
The bullet had come from behind her.
She turned around to see the mysterious man, his knife jutting out of the throat of the red-ring that had flanked them, the pristine 9mm pistol held firmly in his right hand. The man's hood had fallen down, revealing that friendly face she had noticed on him earlier. He wore a grin from ear to ear.
She turned around to glance at Adam, who looked as if he had seen a ghost. The burly Scotsman stood there in disbelief, simply looking at the man standing before him.
The man chuckled. "When I heard you say 'Adam Cassel', I couldn't believe it, not with the balaclava. But... it's really you, Gunny."
Adam stood there, paralysed, his mouth slightly open.
The man smiled some more.
"What, you really don't recognise me?" He joked.
Adam moved swiftly toward the man and hugged him tightly in a brotherly embrace, completely bypassing her, Joel and Carlos.
The men patted each other on the back, and shortly afterwards pulled back to look each other in the eye again.
Adam spoke one word, confirming the identity of the man.
"Blufor."