Chapter 26
"Do you even have a plan?" Limelda asked.
Madlax thought for a few seconds. No, she didn't have a plan. She had intended to keep a low profile and make an approach like the one Bond had, but now that the base was pretty much on alert, they'd be looking for her, waiting.
Then again, they would think that someone would be crazy to try and attack – they wouldn't expect it.
An alarm sounded, coming from the facility.
Madlax frowned. She could just make out green shapes running out of the clearing, between the bunkers.
Madlax turned around, facing her companions. She could still get through, she thought; they were expecting one, not three.
"I'm going in," she finally replied. "Limelda, I could use some cover. Nakhl, follow me, but don't stay too close."
Bond was being herded away from the control room when the alarm went off. His minders stopped, turning to face the control room door. Previously dormant strobe lights set into the walls glowed red.
Throckmorton jogged over to re-enter the control room.
Bond watched him with interest. His right hand slid down to his Rolex.
"What's going on?" Throckmorton nearly bellowed at a soldier seated at a computer.
"There was gunfire up top, sir," the man replied nervously, as Throckmorton bent over his console to look at his monitor. "Looks like patrols have been dispatched into the forest."
"Madlax." Bond barely heard Throckmorton growl. He straightened, looking around.
"Alright," he declared, talking to no-one in particular. "I want every roving patrol topside, now. Find and kill her."
"But, sir..."
Throckmorton turned to the man at the computer. "What?"
Bond could see the man was nervous. "Mister Kozlowski specifically said to take her alive."
"If possible," Throckmorton shot back. "If she resists, too bad."
He looked back at Bond. "Get his ass locked up."
"Yes, sir," one of Bond's four minders replied.
"Keep moving," another soldier urged, jabbing Bond in the arm with his muzzle.
Bond grunted with the blow, but he obliged the man, starting to walk with the four soldiers.
He pressed and held his right index finger against the Rolex's crystal face for two seconds, then tapped it four times in quick succession.
In the server room, the remote detonator affixed to the C4 block beeped softly. A tiny red LED set into the detonator started to blink on and off.
Several hundred metres away, in the generator room, a nearly identical block of C4 was nestled in the middle of a group of petrol drums. Its detonator beeped once, and its LED blinked.
Above, with accompanying blocks of C4 attached to steel girders supporting the large radio antenna, a pair of detonators beeped and blinked.
"Aaagh!"
The soldier crumpled to the ground, dead. Nakhl observed the man's death coolly from a short distance away. After a second, she stepped out from behind a tree to reclaim her knife.
"Hold it right there!" a second soldier yelled.
Nakhl froze, a deer in headlamps. The soldier approached cautiously, his rifle raised. "Hands on your head!" he barked.
Crack.
The man's entire body jerked involuntarily for a second as Limelda's round went into his head. He, too, fell to the ground. Nakhl frowned to herself, looking over her shoulder. She could barely make out the glint of sunlight off the lens of Limelda's scope, about a hundred metres away on a ledge.
A few metres ahead and to her left, Madlax pulled herself up to her feet, looking down the iron sights of her FAMAS as she surveyed the gap between the two bunkers.
Nakhl just happened to turn to her right, and saw the shape moving towards them. "Look out!" Nakhl shrieked, ducking back behind a tree.
Madlax turned to her right, looking over at Nakhl, then past her, at the soldier with the rifle raised. She fired a burst from the FAMAS.
As the man went down, Madlax heard indistinct cries coming from behind him, and from ahead of them, near the bunkers.
"Come on!" she hissed at Nakhl.
I guess the cat's out of the bag, she thought to herself, as she heard shouts of alarm coming from the base.
Crouched behind a nearby tree, Nakhl stood up, apparently having regained her composure. Madlax eyed her for a second before bounding over to the next tree.
Her eyes widened with a fresh surge of adrenaline as she saw two men about twenty metres ahead, rifles raised. Madlax threw herself to the left as they opened fire, raising her own rifle and holding down the trigger.
Her left shoulder hit the dirt. Pain radiated from her shoulder, her ribcage and waist. Madlax felt the magazine pouch and holstered P210 pressing into her flesh. Eyes narrowed in pain, she looked up.
Most of the rounds from her volley went wide, but one struck one man in the shoulder. He yelled as he dropped his FAMAS. The other hesitated for a second, cowering slightly, but then he turned to Madlax, his muzzle pointed at her.
A tiny explosion erupted from his uniform. He grunted, dropped his rifle, and fell face-first onto the ground. His wounded companion, turning in shock, threw himself to his left, but then he, too, was shot in the chest.
Using her FAMAS as a crutch, Madlax pulled herself to her feet. Grunting, she shouldered the rifle.
They were close, she thought – the facility was less than a hundred metres away.
The floor rocked ever so slightly with the explosion. The lights flickered and went out. A deep, low rumble sounded through the corridors.
A new, loud alarm sounded. Red strobes set into the ceiling started blinking.
Bond and his two minders were stopped in their tracks as the tremor rippled through the concrete. It was enough.
In the near-darkness, Bond lunged at the man on his right, slamming him against the wall. He jabbed him in the gut with his left fist, then gave him a roundhouse right to the cheek that slammed his head against the wall.
The guard on the left had been caught in mid-step and had braced himself against the wall with the explosion. Turning and seeing Bond, his eyes widened and he raised his rifle. Bond swung out with his left forearm, knocking the muzzle away as he hit the soldier in the face with his right fist. He wrenched the rifle out of the soldier's hands and brought the stock around, striking the man on the forehead with it. The man gave a soft, barely audible groan as he fell to the floor.
Bending over, Bond plucked a magazine from the second soldier's belt.
Ducking to avoid a burst of automatic fire, Madlax slid along the dirt as she approached one of the bunkers.
She stopped against a tree. Bullets struck the wood on the other side, sending small splinters flying. Madlax waited for the shooter to stop; then she turned, poking her head and shoulders around the side of the tree trunk.
He was there, not too far away, maybe twenty metres. His rifle was raised.
Eyes widened, she threw herself to the ground, to her right. Raising her FAMAS, she squeezed her trigger, firing two bursts.
The first burst went wide, missing him completely. Instinctively, he ducked – right into the path of the second burst.
Madlax gasped with shock as her shoulder hit the dirt. My shoulders are going to be sore after this, she thought to herself.
Above his head, the lights flickered again, lighting the hallway for a second; then the lights went out again, returning the hallway to darkness. Bond stopped, the FAMAS at his waist.
The lights came back on, but this time, only every second ceiling light was illuminated. Bond resumed walking. There was backup somewhere else within the facility – maybe a bank of batteries. Good thing the ventilation hadn't failed. It would get tough to breathe down here without –
A roving soldier stepped into the corridor from around a corner, his FAMAS raised. In alarm, he shouldered the rifle a soon as he saw Bond.
Bond reflexively fired a burst from the hip. The soldier took all three rounds in the chest.
As the guard crumpled to the floor, Bond considered his next move. Perhaps he had been too far away from the generator when he set off the explosives – the concrete walls and the not inconsiderable distance meant the watch's transmitter didn't have the range to –
A booted foot came out of nowhere, the impact wrenching the FAMAS from his grip.
Bond staggered with the impact, shaking his right arm in response to the pain. Throckmorton appeared from around the corner, sending a fist flying into Bond's face.
Bond staggered back down the corridor.
"Like that?" Throckmorton asked in derision. Without waiting for a reply, he punched him again. "How about that?"
Bond was pushed back again, his back against the cool concrete of the wall.
"Or that?" Throckmorton caught him across the face with a roundhouse left. Bond fell to one knee. He spat on the floor and saw red.
"How about this?" Throckmorton kicked him in the gut, and Bond fell to the floor.
"You like that? Huh?!"
Bond coughed.
Madlax flung the empty magazine away and slapped a new one into the magazine well of the FAMAS. She felt the adrenaline rushing through her body, her heart pumping, as she pulled back the rifle's charging handle.
She twisted, bringing her upper torso around the tree trunk, firing two bursts. Both soldiers ducked for cover, one falling to the ground, the other retreating behind a tree. She sprang from behind the tree, bringing the rifle up for another burst. One soldier was grazed on the shoulder by a bullet. The other emerged from behind his tree, shouldering a large-bore weapon...
A grenade launcher.
She jumped as the soldier fired. Behind her, the tree trunk exploded, sending splinters of wood flying.
Madlax rolled as the blast from the explosion shoved her forward. The tree fell, and while she was in no danger of being crushed or pinned, several branches scraped against the skin of her legs.
Her vision was blurred, with the tree's landing throwing up clouds of dirt, but she pulled herself up to her knees and looked over the top of the fallen tree trunk. She saw both soldiers several metres away. The one with the injured shoulder was turning to retreat back to the bunkers, while the one with the grenade launcher was removing the spent casing from the launcher.
Her vision cleared enough for her to see her rifle, lying nearby in the dirt. She snatched at it, shouldered it and fired.
The soldier with the grenade launcher took three rounds in the chest. Further away, the retreating soldier seemed to have tripped over. Madlax saw a flash of blue above him.
Nakhl.
She blinked, her vision clearing. Madlax sprinted towards the bunker, slowing only to weave between the trees. No easy feat, considering she was encumbered with weapons and ammunition. Ahead and to her left, she saw two more soldiers, one armed with a light machine gun of some sort.
She practically threw the rifle before belly-sliding the last couple of metres to the concrete wall. Behind her, small puffs of dirt exploded. Now only a few metres away, the soldiers had been following her movements with their muzzles, and now she had come to a stop...
Something small punched into the machine gunner's chest at high speed. With a soft, barely audible grunt, he fell to the ground. His rifle-wielding companion was struck in the shoulder, and he yelled, dropping his FAMAS and jogging back to the safety of the bunkers.
Limelda.
Madlax retrieved her rifle and pulled herself upright. She took deep breaths, her heart pounding as she leaned against the warm concrete of the bunker.
This was when she was at her best. She got a thrill from it – not from killing people, but from having her life on the line. Heart pounding away, the sweat, the sense of danger, the fear and excitement that came from living on the edge, from having her life on the line – she practically lived for it.
The alarm still sounded. Turning around the corner, she lifted her rifle. More and more soldiers poured out of the bunkers into the clearing, rifles at the ready.
How many of them were in there?
She fired a burst, killing one soldier. Right next to him, another, raising his rifle.
She pulled the trigger again.
Click.
Shit.
Out of ammo. That was the last mag, too.
She retreated back behind the corner as bullets struck the concrete next to where her head was. The ground a short distance away was similarly peppered with gunfire.
Madlax threw the FAMAS on the ground, in full view of the soldiers. They couldn't see her – not yet.
"Hold your fire!" someone yelled. The gunfire ceased.
"Come on out, with your hands on your head!" the same man shouted.
That's not happening, she thought as she unlimbered the shotgun, pressing her back against the warm concrete. She could barely hear the soft crunch of grass under foot coming from around the corner.
Whirling, she turned, pulling the trigger. The shotgun fired with a loud blast. Madlax grunted with the recoil as the stock jammed itself into her shoulder.
The soldier collapsed with a pained grunt. Madlax racked the slide on the shotgun.
The ground behind him erupted with dozens of explosions. A few of the soldiers opened fire as soon as they saw their comrade's body hit the ground. Despite the gunfire, she shuffled towards the corner.
It didn't last long, just a few seconds. As soon as the gunfire stopped, Madlax twisted her body, rounding the corner, raising the shotgun and firing. She whirled back around before the other soldiers could fire again, pumping the shotgun as soon as she was back behind the corner.
This could take a while, she thought.
From the author: Sorry it's taken so long to update this story: writer's block, lack of time for writing and working on another story have prevented me from updating. Thanks for your patience, and please let me know what you think!