That same evening, quite some distance away
where it was considerably warmer...
Saturday, July 8th, 2017
High Wycombe, England
17:17 GMT+1 (16:17 GMT July 8th)
The woodland bordered what had once been RAF Daws Hill, a facility which had been retired a decade previously in 2007.
Whilst the vast majority of the predominantly American facility had been wiped from the map to be replaced with new housing, certain parts of the site had remained off limits to the general public for 'safety reasons'. That included the extensive underground nuclear bunker intended to allow command and control of American forces should a nuclear war have broken out in the mid-to-late 1980s or early 1990s. Most of the bunker was stripped bare and abandoned but a small section had been retained and modernised as a safehouse for use by the Government. In this case, MI5 had loaned the facility to Vengeance as a base of operations in the area.
"This place smells," Cara complained as the group sat in a dimly lit conference room at a varnished solid wood table which needed a damn good polish.
"So would you if you were an underground bunker built forty years ago and abandoned for twenty of those years," Rosa replied.
"Good point, Mom!"
"You and Hahn will stay here with Lizzie and Jordan, understand?"
Both kids nodded.
"We should be back in the early hours of the morning – with Wanda, if all goes well," Rosa briefed. "Until then, you will both remain here."
"I don't need telling twice, Mom!" Cara pointed out.
"Do I need to remind you of a nocturnal trip you made a short while back?"
Cara grimaced. "No, I remember that night, but thanks for reminding me."
Rosa nodded at her daughter, pleased that she had got the message, and silently thankful that Cara had risked herself as if she had not, then Rosa would herself be dead.
Later that night...
Warren Wood Drive, High Wycombe
22:09 GMT+1 (21:09 GMT July 8th)
Everyone involved was super cautious as they all knew that they were dealing with a counter-intelligence expert who would detect anything suspicious going on.
It helped that BT Openreach had been present in the road for a few weeks allowing their vehicles and crews to be used as cover for a few other personnel who could then loiter extremely close to the target property without arousing too much suspicion. Not that it would have mattered. Every road for a radius of five miles was controlled and the cordon was robust to the point of making it impossible for their quarry to escape. Nobody really believed that, of course, but it was the best the combined forces of MI5 and Vengeance could put to together at such short notice. Indeed, it was complex, as nobody knew if the girl was actually inside the property, nor if Frost had an accomplice nearby. Each property had had the occupant's names run through over a dozen different databases to make an attempt at identifying a possible accomplice, but as yet, no accomplice had been found.
The sun had set just ten minutes previously which allowed the three musketeers (Zetas) to move in and plant surveillance devices on the property. Nobody had entered or left the property at all since they had begun scoping the place out. For all they knew, the property could be empty. However, checks on electricity usage at the property had indicated that somebody was in and running appliances – possibly air conditioning as no windows had been opened at all, despite the extremely hot weather.
Tanya was on point and she made for the back fence after having trudged silently through the woodland which surrounded the small housing estate. After checking out the fence for any electronic countermeasures, she effortlessly vaulted the six foot fence and gently landed on the grass beyond which had not been mown in at least a month with plenty of daisies and dandelions visible amongst the normal greenery. Swiftly, Tanya moved parallel to the fence, being careful to avoid the flowerbed which bordered the fence, closing the house and then stopping with her back to the brickwork as she took stock of her situation. She was swiftly joined by her partners in crime, Rylee and Simon. The boy had a pack which held numerous slimline gadgets with which to gain sound and video from inside the property. The first 'gadget' was discretely attached to the left-hand French window which opened up onto a dining room beyond. A net curtain was in place, but shadows and audio could still be collected.
"Module One in place," Rylee whispered over the comms.
"Module One is five-by-five," MI5 operative Debbie Grey announced from the back of a BT 'Openreach' van parked some eighty yards away, up the street.
Simon then braced himself against the wall and Rylee stepped upon his angled right thigh with her right foot while she then stepped onto his right shoulder with her left foot, thrusting herself upwards towards an upstairs window to which she attached a second device, identical to the first.
"Module Two in place."
"Module Two is five-by-five," came the response.
With practiced ease, Rylee dropped back to the ground without a sound and she moved over to the kitchen window where she attached another device and then she froze as she heard movement just a few feet from where she crouched. Someone had just turned on a tap and water was thundering into a steel sink before emptying down the drain immediately beside where Rylee crouched. 'Well, somebody is home,' she thought to herself as she exchanged a glance with Simon who was thinking exactly the same thing.
"Module Three in place."
"Module Three is five-by-five. I have ambient sounds and I have running water."
"No kidding!" Rylee hissed. "It's making me need to wee!"
"We can make out a single person beyond the net curtain in the kitchen. Hold on – the water has ceased. Footsteps leaving the kitchen. Catching the footsteps on Module One . . . fading. Feet on stairs, fading. Feet have stopped. Oh, what is that...? Key in a padlock . . . padlock being removed from a hasp . . . bolt being drawn . . . another bolt. Picking up sounds on Module Three. Door is being opened - sounds like next door to Module Three's location. I hear movement – somebody moving on a bed..."
The three Zetas rapidly left the garden.
..._...
In the small bedroom, Wanda Mannheim was all but soaked to the skin thanks to the humidity of her prison cell without so much as an open window to alleviate the stuffiness.
Then she heard the lock being removed and the bolts pulled back. Her body froze, knowing that it was her jailer. The youngster had lost track of how long she had lain there, secured to the bed, sweating in the heat. She had been provided with food, four times – that she could remember; her mind was very fuzzy. She had also been allowed to make use of the bathroom – observed at all times which had been hard on the girl. She had little idea of what was going on and as the hours and days had passed, she had become all the more disorientated. She missed her family and she missed her friends. She was conflicted with the knowledge that her father was not the man she had grown up to respect and that he was a . . . bad man? It was his fault that she had been taken from her home and her mother across the Atlantic Ocean with her brother – into exile? She did not deserve what was happening to her. She did not deserve to have been abducted. She did not deserve to have been strapped to a bed in a sweatbox of a bedroom.
She did not deserve to be ripped from her family and her young mind could not conceive as to her looming fate.
..._...
Miranda Frost wrinkled her nose as she pushed open the door to be met by a rush of warm stale air liberally punctuated by the smell of sweat and fear.
The girl lay on the bed, her eyes covered with a blindfold while her ankles and wrists were secured to the steel bedframe. Frost saw the young body tense up and she smiled as she stepped towards the bed.
"Right, you little fuck, I have some water for you."
With little sympathy, Frost tore off the Duct tape covering the youngster's mouth eliciting a yelp of pain before Frost went on to release the Velcro straps pinning the girl's right wrist and she pushed a plastic bottle of water into the hand. The girl eagerly brought the sports cap of the bottle to her lips and she downed the full litre of coolish water.
"Thank you," Wanda said.
"That's your last until the morning – night, night!"
With that, Frost applied a fresh section of Duct tape and she replaced the wrist restraint.
..._...
The sounds were ominous.
"Bolt being shot . . . another . . . padlock being secured. We have the location for Solitaire and possible proof of life."
That was good enough for a few more boxes to be ticked on the comprehensive paperwork authorising an early-doors knock. Normally, the 'knock' was a battering ram used on the front and back doors to the property executed by the Police or the Security Service as required and normally at around six in the morning for maximum confusion on the part of the target who would then often be hauled from their bed and out into a prison van.
The final preparations were underway.
Back to the north...
Early the next morning...
Sunday, July 9th
The Arctic
04:19 GMT-5 (23:19 GMT July 8th)
Despite the relentless daylight which gave Dakota McFadden the creeps – she preferred the darkness for guard duty – it was freezing cold.
The girl kept moving as she knew that standing still would be suicide. Her thick mittens clasped a winterised G36C submachine gun against her stomach. No skin was exposed as that could risk frostbite. Dakota hated the cold; it seeped through your clothing and into your very bones. The cold ate into your very being and there was not the damndest thing that you could do about it. It was the same for her partner-in-crime that evening: Olivia Kensington, and that girl's mood was little warmer than the surrounding icepack. The two girls moved around the campsite checking that guy ropes were secure and that nobody had tampered with the vehicles, each of which idled gently throughout the night to ensure that neither the diesel fuel nor the engine oil froze overnight.
Periodically, their patrol routes would cross and the two girls would talk for a few minutes before they moved on, both taking their patrol requirements very seriously. Their sleeping colleagues relied on their protection from man and beast. Olivia shuddered at the thought of coming face to face with an angry polar bear and that was her biggest fear as she patrolled.
Therefore, Olivia carried a pump-action shotgun for just such an eventuality.
And south again...
Warren Wood Drive
High Wycombe, United Kingdom
04:48 GMT+1 (03:48 GMT July 9th)
That was also a favoured weapon of Carnivora who wore an FCCS Mk2 beneath her normal clothing but topped off with a custom trench coat and a mask which bore a diagonal three-inch blood-red stripe across the face.
The three Zetas were ready in their own FCCS Mk2 suits and masks. Each carried their customary Diemaco C8-CQB assault rifles and Walther PPQ M2 Navy SD sidearms as well as a plethora of bladed weapons. Debbie Grey had been a little surprised by how menacing the trio appeared to look, although she knew that they were beyond menacing; they were quite lethal, deadly in fact. The plan was for the Zetas to spearhead the assault and take down Frost while Carnivora would go after Solitaire with Wolf as backup.
For Leo Shepherd AKA Wolf, it was to be the first time in a very long time where he had fought under his Predator codename, and indeed alongside others of his kind. He too wore an FCCS Mk2 suit and he carried the same Diemaco C8-CQB assault rifle as the Zetas. He was amazed by how quickly the mission had come together and the support which was provided to them by the police and MI5. It was very obvious that Vengeance was well regarded within the borders of the United Kingdom. He was also somewhat pleased to see that his fellow Predators had found homes and lives beyond their training. The plan was relatively simple and should prove to be a veritable cakewalk for the those executing the operation as they were all experts and would not allow for anything to go wrong.
However, training and desire could often fall at the feet of fate.
04:58 GMT+1 (03:58 GMT July 9th)
There was a little over a minute to go and all was in place.
Then, just seconds before a police cordon slammed shut around the area, three vehicles drove up Warren Wood Drive – a BMW X5 and a pair of BMW M3 saloons. It was obvious by their spacing that the X5 was being protected by the two M3 chase cars. That spacing was observed by Wolf as he was preparing to move into the trees and circle around to the target property.
"This is Wolf: we have incoming!" he announced over the radio and everyone instantly went on alert.
Who was encroaching on the operation? Were they friends of Frost? Were they the other team which had been badly damaged just a few days previously? Immediately, the licence plates were run, only for them to come back with some rather disturbing responses – they belonged to organised crime; extremely violent organised crime.
"I think we need a change of plan!" Wolf added somewhat unnecessarily.
The important task was to safeguard the lives and property of the dozens of people who lived in the eighty plus homes in close proximity to the target property. Whereas Vengeance and MI5 would go to great lengths to prevent collateral damage, organised crime could care less which was a big worry.
"Why does nothing ever go our way?" Noxa growled to nobody in particular.
"You jinx it normally," Custos responded dryly.
"He has a point," Necis confirmed.
The three armed youngsters were in the woods to the north of the housing estate and were just about to make their assault over the fence when all three had frozen in place, their weapons raised as they listened for the approaching vehicles. The person with the biggest problem at that point was an MI5 sniper by the name of Grant Hitchens. The man lay prone on a large open grassy area, beneath a small tree, in the centre of the housing estate from where he could cover the front of the target property and take down anyone making an escape from the property. He was covered by a pale green scrim netting which was fine at night but the approaching vehicles would probably swing their headlights across his position, exposing him momentarily to anybody who cared to look in his direction.
There was understandable consternation in the command vehicle as there was talk of scrubbing the operation which appeared to be badly compromised but it was possible that nobody knew that they were even there, let alone armed and ready to strike. Then the decision was made to continue and everyone awaited the arrival of the three vehicles which were just a second away but which then burst out of the tree-covered approach road and they slowed as they moved along the road, obviously checking things out before they committed themselves to whatever they had planned.
Some hoped that the newcomers might just circle around the roads and then leave, but that hope was a forlorn one.
..._...
All three vehicles stopped at the T-junction of The Brackens which led to the left and just a hundred yards from the T-junction leading down to the target property.
Everyone held their breath as a man climbed out of the passenger seat of the BMW X5 and then stood motionless for a full minute as he took in the early morning scenery.
Carl Chapman was a (very) nasty piece of work with some thirty-five deaths to his name – though none of which had any evidence attached therefore the forty-eight-year-old man was still free and not ensconced in a Category A prison. The man wore black combat trousers and boots topped off with a black T-shirt. He wore a shoulder holster which sported a large pistol and several spare magazines. He was obviously not there for any legal purpose which gave MI5 grounds to act as they thought fit. The man was instantly recognised by several of the MI5 members as he was the modern equivalent of the Kray twins and seemingly just as unstoppable. That did not bode well for the morning's operation as his men were the very worst mercenaries and scum imaginable who would sell their own grandma if they thought it might benefit their wretched lives.
The man took in everything, his mind processing everything he saw, smelt, and heard. His senses missed nothing and his senses told him that something was off, however, he was being paid a lot of money to extract a child and he also had a reputation to uphold. But then he had not stayed alive and out of prison by being foolish and taking risks. Naturally, he had insurance and he always checked then double-checked.
That insurance was closing in on the location at that very moment.
..._...
The Eurocopter EC135P2 appeared out of nowhere as it performed a low altitude reconnaissance of the area.
The twin-engine machine was a gloss black overall and blended in well with the early morning darkness. The pilot concentrated on avoiding the trees while the observer seated to his left concentrated on the ground, a FLIR turret mounted beneath the machine's nose to make his task so much easier in the darkness. The FLIR had easily identified the hot engines of the three fresh arrivals but was also picking up residual heat from several other vehicles as well as from some hot bodies. Three vans, distributed around the area showed internal heat in the cargo compartments.
"Head's up!" the observer reported to the ground team. "I have bodies in vans – four hot bodies in the trees near to Target Zero. I have a body to your ten o'clock on the grass – possible sniper in the open."
The pilot hauled his machine around as he began a second pass of the target area, his observer ready on the Nightsun spotlight fitted to the left side of the aircraft.
..._...
Neither had taken much notice of another flying machine, operating some three miles away at low altitude.
That machine was relying on guidance from London Military Radar which allowed them to remain covert especially as the interposing helicopter, identified as Golf-Xray-November-Whiskey-Charlie to civilian air traffic control, had just squawked a 7760 'radio out' transponder code as it had descended from its two-thousand feet altitude and allocated flightpath. SCOURGE, she was flying without running lights and her transponder was only reporting the military Mode 1 code to London Military Radar and she was operating as a military unit that morning, not to mention that she was armed to the teeth, her weapons wing having been reinstalled to replace the rear seats – and she was not alone.
As the EC135P2 came around in a wide circle, the pilot suddenly yanked back on his cyclic and yanked up on his collective, twisting the throttle as he did so.
"What the hell?!" the observer complained as he was pushed down into his seat by the g-forces caused by the rapid manoeuvre.
"Another helicopter – it came right at us!" the pilot exclaimed as he completed the evasion manoeuvre which had allowed him to narrowly miss another helicopter which had blended into the darkness extremely well and which had flown without lights – directly at him!
The observer was now scrambling to look out the side windows as well as the main cockpit windscreen to try and find the offending machine before it made another run at them.
..._...
Aboard TWILIGHT, Goshawk grinned broadly as Scorpion brought the helicopter around in a tight left bank.
"Target is at five o'clock high," she announced to her pilot.
"Target is crossing left to right," Raptor announced from SCOURGE. "I think you shook him up, Scorpion!"
"I have that effect!" Scorpion responded as she went after their airborne target while Raptor took his ride down to protect the forces on the ground.
As the target helicopter came into her line of sight, Scorpion decided that it was time to kick off the action and she gently squeezed the trigger on her cyclic which in turn triggered off two-dozen 12.7-millimetre tracer rounds into the early morning sky.
..._...
Down on the ground, Chapman was not happy as he digested the information he had gathered from his radio and his own ears.
He had heard the announcement that he had unwanted people on the ground all round him and he had also heard the sounds of at least three helicopters overhead, including his own. It was also relevant that his own helicopter had not returned with its searchlight to aid in his attack. Including himself, there were twelve fighting against – how many? Nobody had attacked apart from the sudden burst of tracer above them in the sky which had apparently missed his helicopter – a warning shot perhaps? His eyes shifted in the direction of the supposed sniper in the open and he spotted something which stood out just enough to be out of place. Beside him, two of his men had also heard the warning and they had also heard the same radio announcement over their earpieces. Each man held a SIG Sauer MPX-SD assault rifles for what was supposed to have been a surgical strike.
Instead, it would be a frontal assault – a possibility for which he had prepared.
..._...
Miranda Frost snapped awake the very instant she heard the gunfire from above.
Immediately, she leapt out of bed and she grabbed the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine-gun from the bedside table. She had slept mostly dressed and only needed to pull on her boots. Her mind was racing as it ran through various different possible scenarios to figure out what in hell was going on outside and if it involved her and her kidnappee. However, prudence required her to consider that she was the target and that a rescue attempt was going to be made for the Mannheim girl. A brief glance out of the bedroom window revealed at least two vehicles with headlights blazing and men on the grassy area in the centre of the housing estate. Whatever was going on, it was time for to leave.
Swiftly, Frost unlocked the bedroom door and she unstrapped the unfortunate girl from the bed, yanking her to her feet.
"Get your fucking shoes on, you little bitch!" Frost growled at the shaking, sobbing girl who fumbled with her trainers at gunpoint. "You disobey me, I fucking shoot you in the head, understand?"
The girl nodded as tears poured down her cheeks and her whole body shook with fear. She was given just a minute to sort out her footwear before she was pulled to her feet and then thrust out of the bedroom which had been her home for the past several days. It was the first time that Wanda had seen outside of the bedroom as she had been blindfolded the few times she had been led to and from the bathroom. Down the stairs they went, and in the hallway they paused as Frost considered her situation for the umpteenth time. She had to decide which direction to move in – all directions were potentially dangerous but she had to select just one. She had scouted out several escape routes and right at that moment only one appeared to be suitable for the moment. She pulled a mobile phone from her hip pocket with her left hand, her right holding the MP5 on her captive, and she punched a sequence of numbers before she lifted the device to her left ear.
"North," she said, simply, before she disconnected the call.
Frost moved into the kitchen and towards the backdoor, the stock of the MP5 to her right shoulder, her left hand shoving the girl forwards. After yanking back the bolts securing the backdoor and unlocking with a key, Frost carefully pulled the door open six inches and she peered out into the back garden – it was clear.
"Move!" she growled as she banged the girl over the head with the muzzle of the submachine-gun. "Make a fucking sound and you die!"
Frost pushed the girl out the backdoor and pushed her back down so they both ran hunched down. That turned out to be somewhat advantageous as three bullets stitched across the brickwork not two inches above Frost's head. They had obviously been fired from a suppressed weapon as she had not heard anything above the sound of helicopter rotor blades and vehicle engines idling on the far side of the property. As she approached the garden fence, she kicked out a previously loosened panel which produced a two-foot square opening into the woods beyond. Carefully, she peered through, seeing nothing at first but then she realised that there was somebody out there as bullets punched neat holes in the fence to the left and right of where she crouched. Frost smiled as she realised that the shooters were being careful as they knew that there was a hostage who they could not afford to shoot. Two three-round bursts were sent into the woods towards where Frost had seen muzzle flash.
Then she saw movement and at least two shapes in the darkness. However, that was when a burst of gunfire erupted from her left, firing into the woods, and she grinned at the knowledge that she was no longer alone. She saw one of the dark shapes returning fire and then fall to the ground as inbound fire struck the shape. Frost could care less for casualties – only herself and the girl mattered as she shoved the girl through the hole in the fence and followed along close behind. That was when Wanda chose to fight back as she kicked out at Frost who viciously responded with a punch to the girl's left cheek which caused her to stumble and fall to the ground. That punch was followed up by the MP5 muzzle across the same cheek, drawing blood.
"Move, if you want to live!" Frost hissed into Wanda's ear as she dragged the reluctant sobbing girl to her feet.
Bullets whizzed through the trees and undergrowth all around them as the shapes in the wood returned fire towards her hired mercenaries off to her left.
..._...
All hell had broken loose in the small housing estate.
The helicopter had been a rude surprise on top of the new arrivals and Grant Hitchens was fairly certain that he had been spotted but he did not dare move a muscle just in case. Then he saw the lead man turn in his direction and pull a large pistol from his holster.
"He has me!" Hitchens radioed as he endeavoured to raise his rifle.
Then a dark shape passed over Hitchens and he felt the thrust of air pinning him to the ground and then he saw SCOURGE almost knock the incoming man to the ground as it flew at less than ten feet above him. It was sufficient for the incoming man to dive to the ground and Hitchens chose the moment to throw off his scrim net and run, the sniper rifle cradled in his arms and he dropped down behind a substantial looking Volkswagen Golf as bullets thudded into the bodywork. He was not the only one in trouble as the command van had drawn a few dozen bullets which had struck the thin bodywork but been caught by the Kevlar lining inside but the bullets had still scared the living daylights out of Debbie Grey and her team – they were supposed to be well out of harm's way for the operation.
Even so, she still had to control the operation which was rapidly coming apart and the overall tactical situation which had rapidly turned to horseshit.
..._...
The reports were coming in thick and fast from various locations.
"Sierra is pinned down."
"Foxtrot is out."
"Zeta has one down."
"Foxtrot is receiving assistance from property behind – three mercenaries."
"Solitaire positively identified."
"Scourge is engaging enemy ground forces inbound from the north."
"Enemy inbound from the east."
"Twilight is engaging enemy airborne asset."
"Police report three officers down at northern cordon – Trojan unit inbound."
"SCO19 has been alerted and moving in from staging positions."
"Home Office is moving Hereford to readiness."
Debbie and her team were rapidly parsing the reports and figuring out the situation and which reports were the most critical and which could wait a few minutes.
"How do we know the ground forces to the north are hostile?" Debbie asked a subordinate.
"The twats sent a missile after Scourge."
"Bad move!" Debbie chuckled knowing that Vengeance usually responded in kind and pissing off an armed helicopter was not a good way to stay alive. "How many are we facing?"
"Less than thirty – so far."
"Do we have a location for Foxtrot?
"Necis reports she is in pursuit of Foxtrot heading northwest through the woodland. Wolf is also in pursuit."
"Who is injured on Zeta?"
"Unknown at this time. Drift and Polaris are moving in to extract."
"Fuck, this went to crap so damn quickly!" Debbie swore.
"We had no way of knowing that somebody like fucking Chapman would get involved in this – obviously, the other team who attacked the other day has contracted him to recover Solitaire."
While it was very rare for SCO19 to operate outside of London, their assistance had been requested and they had moved into a staging position some three miles out but were now racing in at high speed to assist. They would join up with the local Trojan unit to attack the enemy who were moving across The Rye – an open space to the north of the target property.
However, SCOURGE was busy retaliating on that very same enemy for the unwanted surface-to-air missile which had been launched in their direction.
..._...
Raptor was angry and that meant those on the ground were in danger.
He had to be smart as the north side of the grassy open area which covered some forty acres was housing and shops while a combination of explosives and dry forest to the south would only mean a major conflagration. Instead, he limited himself to his mini-guns (for which he carried six-thousand rounds) which soon had the men on the ground running for non-existent cover even as they fired off their weapons into the air but SCOURGE was too fast and too manoeuvrable to be caught by small arms and Raptor kept the machine moving constantly. He was also very conscious of two other fast-moving helicopters not five miles distant engaged in air-to-air combat. The missile fired at SCOURGE had lost lock and missed as Raptor had hauled the machine into a violent loop spewing flares before he had targeted the offending vehicle in which a man could be seen rapidly reloading his missile launcher for a second strike – an AGM-176B Griffin missile from the port weapon station ensured that the man would never fire another missile as well as possibly voiding any manufacturer warranty on the slightly singed (burning fiercely) BMW X5 in which the man had been travelling.
The area below the helicopter was now very colourful in the early morning darkness, what with the orangery-red illumination from the burning X5 and the blue provided by the LED strobe lights of the four red X5 vehicles belonging to SCO19 which had raced onto the grass, adding sixteen heavily armed police officers into the mix. The pitched battle raged as gunfire flew in every direction. The armour-clad SCO19 officers were well-trained and mostly ex-military and they were giving no quarter as they pushed the enemy towards the woodland from where Vengeance would appear – it was hoped.
Then came a welcome radio call on the master frequency for the operation: "Twilight: fox-two!"
The result of that fox-two call, however, was not a welcome sight for Carl Chapman as his eyes were drawn to a bright flash in the sky above and then a loud crump assaulted his ears as a somewhat brighter flash announced the cessation of flight for what was probably once an expensive helicopter but instead was a flaming wreck which plunged down onto the grassy fields, burning fiercely.
"Anyone for toasted marshmallows?" someone commented over the radio.
Chapman's assault, just like his expensive helicopter, was coming apart.
..._...
In the woods, one lay wounded on the ground, writhing in agony.
Polaris was the first to the wounded vigilante and she dropped to the ground. The wound was a bloody one but the blood was the right colour and there was not too much of it, the youngster's trained eyes told her.
"Bullet wounds hurt like the bitch, don't they?" Polaris quipped to Noxa who paused in her writhing to glare at the younger girl whom she herself had once shot.
"Bite me, Polaris!"
"Her mouth still works – shame..."
Drift looked over at Custos who knelt down beside his friend. "Go, Necis is going to need backup."
Custos was torn with indecision but he knew that Noxa was in good hands, so he stood up and bolted after Necis.
..._...
Necis was some distance ahead of Custos, and she was gaining on Frost who was moving speedily even with her abductee.
Necis could have closed but bullets kept whizzing past her and thudding into trees beside her as the, possibly three, mercenaries did their job of protecting Frost so that she could escape. By her reckoning, they were a good two-hundred yards to the west of the property and past the west end of the small housing estate. The woods would end soon, and Necis knew that Frost probably had a vehicle waiting for her. Then Necis stopped dead and dived behind a tree – something wasn't right, her mind told her. The knife appeared out of nowhere, missing her by just inches as it struck a tree two feet away with enough force to embed the tip deep into the wood. Necis responded by triggering off a trio of three-round bursts in the direction from which the knife had come. The muzzle flash of her weapon illuminated a shape which had moved to her right and her bullets missed by a few feet. Then the shape was upon her and she dropped the assault rifle, her left hand brandishing her fighting knife.
The man towered over her but the girl showed no fear as she moved, her boots seeking a firm grip on the woodland floor around her. The man lunged forwards, his own blade visible in his right hand. It was a fighting knife and very deadly. The steel of the two blades clashed, once, twice, thrice as both moved through the low foliage and the mix of trees. Necis had smaller feet which suited the terrain well as the larger man found to his cost as one of his size thirteen boots caught on a tree root and he fell forward but it was a move which Necis had not expected and she jumped out of the man's way but a groping hand grasped her webbing and she was dragged bodily to the ground.
A blade moved swiftly through the darkness and blood erupted out across the woodland greenery.
Around the same time, a ways to the north...
Sunday, July 9th
The Arctic
05:50 GMT-5 (00:50 GMT July 9th)
Mindy groaned as she felt hands shaking her even as she huddled down deeply within her sleeping bag.
"Dave, I will fucking...!"
"Come out, my sweet...," came the tantalisingly charming response.
"You complete cunt!" Mindy swore as she heaved herself out of her warm and cosy sleeping bag into the marginally warm tent.
"You look glorious, Mindy," Jennifer chuckled.
Mindy scowled as she ruffled her hair and she rubbed her eyes. Then she dug around for her clothing, swiftly changing her triple-layered socks before she pulled on her boots, lacing them up tightly. Then came her thick jacket, her neck warmer, a scarf, and finally her woolly hat and googles.
"Hungry, honey?" Dave asked.
"Oh, yeah!"
The two of them headed off towards the smell of food which was being cooked (reheated) in the rear unit of the APC Viking.
..._...
It was an interesting breakfast, what with everyone stamping their feet in the snow and sipping at mugs of hot coffee or tea along with chomping on large breakfast rolls filled with sausages and bacon.
Sleep had been elusive to some and Dave checked out his team, watching for the visible signs of fatigue and checking out the general body language and demeanour. That was most important amongst the younger members, many of whom had already suffered greatly with just a few days of rest since their latest trauma. Generally, the demeanour was good and the jokes were typically disgusting and crude. Dave had long learned to read people – not least because his wife often bottled things up – and it usually proved a good and accurate method to understand current morale levels. Nobody was enjoying the freezing location and the cold was continuously sapping at whatever resolve everyone had left after the continued battering they had received over the preceding months of almost continuous action.
After breakfast, the campsite was swiftly struck, the equipment stowed along with the sleeping gear back into the vehicles. Everyone was glad to regain the perceived safety and warmth of the vehicle cabins which were to be their home for the next few days of their lives. It would be a depressingly meagre existence but everyone was fully aware of what was at stake.
Then, with trepidation building for what was possibly awaiting them, they headed northwards, forever northwards, where the next two days were spent driving north during the day and laying up at night in their tents.