A/N: Shout outs to my anonymous reviewer and James Birdsong! Glad you liked it. More on the Private soon. ;)
Chapter 20
The two did not have to go far before they bumped into the Prince and a host of Gale Force soldiers behind a building not far from the Prosecutor's office. The group included Private Roth, Corporal Norris, Corporal Bock, and Lieutenant Zetti. Luckily, they were safe for now, but they needed to figure out where the shooter was.
"I've sent troops to clear buildings near the Prosecutor's office. Sergeant Duncan has taken a few men to secure the judges and make sure that the prisoner hasn't tried to escape," Fiyero said.
"Good. Schultz was hit and Miss Elphaba tried to save him. We won't know if she was successful for a little while," Dilek told them.
"Is Elphaba ok?" Fiyero immediately grew concerned as the gun fire continued.
"Where is this guy getting all those bullets from?" Corporal Norris broke in.
"A very good question but as for Miss Elphaba, she's exhausted from casting the healing spell but fine. Both Kemal and I had the same thought," the Vinkun Lieutenant didn't complete the sentence but everyone there knew what he was getting at.
"Killing Miss Elphaba doesn't help the Wizard. She's already testified," Private Roth spoke up.
"Yes, well I think that she may have a target on her back no matter what happens with that bastard," Fiyero frowned. There was a lot of nodding from his men. It was then that Zetti tapped on his ear. Without them even realizing it, the shooting had stopped.
"It would appear the men found our target," the Prince said.
"Or he finally ran out of bullets. Your average citizen wouldn't have a large quantity of bullets and even if they did, they'd try to conserve them. Not randomly shoot off most of the collection and waste them," Norris said.
"How many shots did you count son?" Dilek was confused.
"At least twenty shots but only one successful hit – that we know about," the Corporal figured. The Vinkuns were surprised he'd been counting but Fiyero didn't seem to be.
"One of the reasons the Corporal is worthy of wearing the uniform. He's the one that heard the first shot back near the palace. He has an uncanny knack for that sort of thing," the Prince explained.
"My father is the Royal gun supplier. I know what a rifle sounds like," Norris filled in some more information. Dilek had some questions but they would not get answered right away as a shout went up from not too far away.
"We have the shooter!" It was one of the Gillikinese soldiers, given his accent. Quickly the men rushed out to the street from their hiding place from behind the building. There were five soldiers who had a man in chains and their leader handed over the rifle they'd caught him with to Fiyero.
"Gale Force standard issue," Norris frowned from his spot next to the Prince.
"You are correct. However this man does not look like former Gale Force. One would hope that his shooting would have been better aimed but also he's too old," Fiyero frowned as the man who had to be almost sixty. Mandatory retirement for Gale Force was when the person reached fifty years of age. It was basically a way to make people stay in for life as the average life span of an average Ozian was only about forty. The Vinkus and Gillikin had better averages but they were weighted down by the less than encouraging numbers coming out of Quadling country and Munchkinland.
"All right. Get him back to the Palace. We'll need to interrogate him. We'll check in with the Prosecutor's office and the Judges," Fiyero instructed.
"Yes sir!" Quickly the Gillikinese men took the prisoner away.
"They're still using civilians to do their dirty work," Dilek shook his head.
"I don't have a good way of stopping them. We don't know who is running these idiots. If we could cut the head of the snake off…" the Prince heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was far from over.
To Be Continued…