Last Alarm
Chapter 23
The Man from Hereford
Andrew's Story Part Three
The man identified as "Andrew" by the SAT officers kept his hands raised up high in the air as the SAT operatives kept their weapons trained on him. In all his years of experience, he had been in enough situations in the past with multiple firearms being aimed at him to know exactly how to react, and today was no different.
Strike that, of course it was very different.
Unlike before, as an elite member of the British Special Air Service fighting a covert war in countries all over the world, none of his adventures ever involved dealing with cannibalistic Infected humans walking the earth as well as guns from "friendlies" being aimed at him.
No, there was nothing familiar or normal about this day at all. And as he stood there seemingly at the mercy of the Japanese Special Response Team, the former British commando could not help but chastise himself for the predicament he was now in.
"What the hell had I been thinking, allowing myself to get caught whilst on the run?" Andrew thought grimly.
"F_cking idiot." He thought to himself.
Now standing before him were ten people heavily armed people, each of them ready to mow him down with automatic weapons fire in a heartbeat the moment he made any suspicious movement.
They were obviously the Airport Tactical Response Team, made up of four women and six men, all dressed entirely in black and geared up in standard Special Operations gear with a mixed assortment of assault weapons, all of them aimed directly at him.
And from the looks of them, none of them appeared to be afraid to squeeze the trigger either.
Unlike your standard Airport Security, these guys weren't just here to keep the public in line and give directions to the nearest *"loo" either.
And obviously, none of these people were rookies at their job either.
They were a shit-hot assault team, and one wrong move from him and he was dead.
(*Loo- British Slang for Toilet or Bathroom)
Before him stood what Andrew deduced was their Team Leader, a particularly alert and authoritive acting woman with long black hair that had been tied back in a ponytail, and also wearing chrome-lensed Oakley sunglasses that reflected his face right back at him.
Her weapon of choice appeared to be a standard M4 carbine, but upon closer inspection it was actually a Japanese HOWA manufactured Type-89 mocked up to look like an M4. She obviously had good taste in her choice of weaponry and Andrew had to admit, it looked bloody sweet.
"Too bad HOWA didn't export their weaponry abroad." Andrew thought. "They'd have made tons of cash."
Not far away from where they stood, several Infected had emerged from the access tunnels that led to the mainland and were slowly making their way towards them. Seeing the danger, Andrew was about to point at them when the SAT woman removed her glasses and pocketed them away as did the young trooper beside her as they both looked at him in shock.
"Oh, SHIT…" they both whispered in unison, startling him.
"Andrew." The woman said under her breath.
The former SAS Trooper frowned at their response.
He knew 'basic' Japanese while being stationed overseas, which had proven to be of some use and he had kept it up a little after he had left the Army, otherwise he would have been stumped as how to respond to their puzzling remark.
He canted his head slightly to the right as he looked at them, trying to find something in their faces that he could recognize.
"How do I know these two?" He wondered, searching his mind for a distant memory that was lost in his still hazy fog of his past.
"I know them from somewhere, or at least, they sure do seem to know me." Andrew thought, still trying to piece together the shattered remains of his mind.
"They definitely must know me." Andrew thought, by the remark the two had made, and the way they were reacting to him now.
The SAT woman lowered her weapon slightly and approached him cautiously.
Nervously, Andrew took a step back away from her, but still kept his hands where the rest of the team could see them.
"Easy there love. I bruise easy." The mercenary said curtly.
For some reason that Andrew couldn't explain, the SAT woman actually seemed hurt as he moved away from her, causing a flurry of mixed emotions to spring up from him.
"Screw it, why do I even care?" Andrew thought, after seeing her reaction." Right now my immediate priority is escape, not making friends."
And as all eyes and weapons were trained on the foreigner, their attention to their surroundings was left unattended momentarily as they watched the drama unfold between their Team Leader and the armed "terrorist."
As the Infected quietly approached behind the closet SAT officer, who had no idea of his impending death, the Englishman sighed loudly, and slowly pointed his finger towards the Infected quickly approaching.
"Ya might wanna focus less on me, and more on what's about to nibble your bum, lad." Andrew said with a sigh.
One of the officers with the good sense to look behind and see what he was pointing at, shouted in horror as the Infected reached out towards them.
"Well, guess they've been under a lot lately to have made such a rookie mistake as to not watch their backs." Andrew sighed again.
Deep down Andrew knew he should help them even though another part of him was screaming at him to escape whilst he could.
These people weren't his responsibility; they weren't his team, his men, or his operatives. The ones he had been with and trained over the last four years were the ones he respected, and were his responsibility.
These people were just another obstacle he had to get around.
And as most of the assault team's attention was diverted to the threat behind them, Andrew prepared to turn and run when he was stopped by a small and almost mute voice speaking to him in the back of his mind.
"Dammit, Andrew, have you really turned into such a bastard you no longer care about other people?" It asked him in a harsh tone.
Andrew immediately froze as the voice continued to chastise him.
"Andrew, you know Jim and the others would never respect you if you abandoned these people to die." The voice told him in an almost scolding tone, causing him to react angrily as his former self remerged its ugly head deep within his psyche.
And especially at a time like this, this was something he really didn't want to hear.
"Honestly, why should I care?" He asked aloud, trying to tear himself away from the drama that was about to unfold, as the female Team Leader frowned at his odd outburst.
"BECAUSE YOURE STILL F_CKING HUMAN ANDREW!" The voice now screamed at him.
"Funny you should say that, the last group of people I was with considered me nothing more than a freak and a weirdo." Andrew muttered as he brought his hand up to touch the eye patch covering his left eye.
Behind the patch the eyeball itself was nothing, just an empty hollow socket. And the skin around it was also discolored after being struck by the IED blast after the last operation in Northern Ireland two years ago.
The covert operation had been codenamed "Pale Fire", for reasons unknown, which he rarely gave a toss about anyway concerning codenames, except for his own and that of his team mates in the field.
His unit had been assigned to work alongside several members of the Irish Army Ranger Wing, which were some of the most feared fighters in the Irish military, and also included in the operation were several members of the British 22nd Regiment SAS.
Unfortunately, instead of the SAS spearheading the operation, the lead on this op came from the Regimental Commander of the Regular Army.
Their Commander Col. Dempsey, had almost refused the assignment, but was pressured into giving in although not without putting up a terrific fight before relenting.
The whole operation had been a complete clusterf_ck , right from the beginning.
While driving towards their Insertion point, Andrew and his team had been pinned down by sniper fire after most of the Irish Special Forces had been taken out by a *PIRA placed *IED.
* (Provisional Irish Republican Army)
* (Improvised Explosive Device).
The SAS had suffered no one being killed in the operation, but they had still sustained heavy casualties, and unfortunately, Andrew's team had been hurt the worst.
Mickey and Bauer had both been taken out with severe wounds by the initial blast of the IED along with most of the Irish Rangers, and while trying to provide cover fire so that the men could be dragged to safety by their comrades, his closest friend Stiles had been shot through the neck by a PIRA sniper.
During those first few minutes of hell Andrew hadn't realized the extent of his own injuries until much later, which were actually quite severe. Like the rest of his team, he too had been caught by the blast, and razor-sharp shrapnel had dug itself deep into his left arm and left leg, causing severe bleeding.
But the most visible damage to his body from the IED had been to his face, where the eye patch did little to cover over the scars that still remained.
Several red lines marked the side of his face now, all directly below the eye where several small metal splinters had completely obliterated the orb.
However, even though he had been so seriously injured in the initial attack, he and his team had still managed to complete the mission.
After forcing the door open and intentionally falling out of the heavily damaged vehicle, he then somehow managed to get back on his feet and then reached inside the now burning Land Rover and pulling out one of the Irish Ranger's Carl Gustav 84mm recoilless rifles.
While still under intense enemy fire from various small arms, he then raised the weapon to his shoulder, and aimed the device at the house where the terrorist's had been hiding and let loose a round, and then quickly reloading the weapon even though he was still bleeding heavily and experiencing great pain.
After a few moments the house was then completely decimated after he fired three more rounds from the launcher along with all the weapons fire of those left standing of his team who then opened up with their weapons, covering him.
After it was all over he had then been whisked away along with the rest of his wounded comrades to a nearby military hospital where he spent weeks recovering from his wounds.
The operation had been covert, and thus, he was awarded no medals or citation. Instead, he was awarded with a kick in the rear without so much as a thank you.
Now years later after leaving The Regiment, this security contract to Africa as a PMC was his first mission back into the field after being in the hospital for all that time. And after that, the psychological healing took time for him to recover from as well with the help of several of his team mates.
Jim being one of them. The former fireman was one of the few he really trusted back at Laid Law that had helped him through that most difficult time in his life
Well, one of the most difficult times in his life anyway.
His life after he had been wounded was an extremely difficult period of his life to endure after he was out of the hospital and tried to return to The Regiment.
But not as hard as it was after suffering the loss of his wife and child.
What had made it especially difficult to leave the military was that there had been a lot of talking behind his back about his well-being and what hurt even more was that most of the talk came from many of his former teammates on Red Troop.
What all of them wondered was if it was safe for him to go back into the field or not after his incident, especially Pete, his best friend who had also been wounded during an OP once and had taken a long time to recover as well.
Of course, the loudest objector of his returning to the team was Henno, his former Team Leader, which was no surprise to him at all.
Normally, wounds such as his were an immediate removal from being placed on active field duty in the SAS to begin with, but the commanding officer of The Regiment Col. Dempsey, had tried to find some sort of field assignment that he could manage even with the loss of an eye. And so for a brief time, his assignment was as an "interrogator" with some Intelligence agents..
But then the "spooks" and the "head shrinkers" got involved over some of the methods he was using and the way he carried them out, and then Col. Dempsey's hands were tied.
After being advised that he was no longer approved for active status in the SAS, the wounded warrior then told both the medical staff and the psychiatrist that they could go to hell if they even thought about shelving him and sticking him behind a f_cking desk for the rest of his career.
Which unfortunately, was exactly where he went.
So for the better part of two years he was stuck behind a desk whilst his wounds healed and he pushed himself to get back to top fighting form.
And then after word came from up the chain of Command that his career in the Army as well as The Regiment was over, he then turned in his papers in disgust and left.
After leaving the Army and working as a bodyguard and sometimes mercenary, Andrew had all but become a shadow of his former self until a friend helped him get hired with the rest of some old Special Operations friends at the newly formed Private Military Security Company, Laidlaw.
And even though he was back among some of his old friends that he had served with and trusted, the former SAS trooper was a still a bit stand-offish with his other teammates unless they were all deployed on a mission Even his closest friends became wary around him, all of them somewhat shocked in the drastic changes evident in the former SAS Trooper.
That was up until several months ago when he first met Jim.
Andrew remembered the day he met the former Firefighter turned combat medic.
It wasn't exactly a formal introduction when they first met, and by most civilian's point of view, it would have been thought insane, and most would have run away after it.
But by the end of it, it had been quite funny to watch the man's reaction after it was all over Andrew thought with a smile. He hadn't been expecting the big man to react like that at all.
At first when the burly latino had arrived at Laid-Law's private training grounds, Andrew had been watching the man and their commanding officers through a set of bino's keeping all of them in his sights, just like everyone else in the complex was doing, trying to get a closer look at their new "teammate".
Observing the ex-fireman from afar, Andrew and a couple of other GREEN Team operators were gearing up for a little "hello" for their newly hired teammate, so to speak.
They waited patiently until J.R., the Team Leader of GREEN Team and Jim walked up to the Kill House on a little tour of the training facility.
And right after J.R. excused himself to go to the *"head" and then left Jim alone in the room by himself, Andrew and two other team members of GREEN Team suddenly struck.
To scare the hell out of the "newbie", they set off a couple of breaching charges that blew the door lock off the door and then kicked the door in as the three-man assault team then rushed into the room with MP5 sub-machine guns in hand, and began double-tapping the paper and wood targets all around the surprised recruit.
After the "exercise" was completed and everyone had yelled "CLEAR!", Andrew had expected to see the big Latino cowering on the floor in a curled up bundle or standing in shock, peeing his pants. But surprisingly enough, the man just stood there looking at them with a look of awe on his face.
"CLEAR!" Andrew barked last whilst still wearing his balaclava. The shooters of GREEN Team then stood quietly by, observing the man's reaction as the ex-fireman turned his head and looked at the grouping of their shots on the targets near him and then looked back at them with a big grin.
Andrew couldn't help but smirk under his mask.
This Yank was all right.
"Guys. THAT WAS SO F_CKING COOL! PLEASE, tell me your gonna teach me to do that?" The rook asked with that large grin still on his face.
J.R. and the other two members of GREEN Team were laughing at the man's remark, but Andrew reservedly just stood there before the stand-in medic with a small smirk on his lips.
"Now for the "real" test." Andrew thought to myself, as he took a breath and grabbed the bib of his balaclava.
He then removed his mask, readying himself for the American's next reaction once he saw Andrew's face and faced one of the horror's and realities of war.
"Depending on how the man reacted now would be the 'deal breaker' for him." Andrew thought, as he removed his mask and the former fireman just looked at him without any reaction.
Andrew didn't see any form of disgust or prejudice once his mask was removed, and it was then Andrew decided that he really liked this guy after all.
"Former Lance Corporal Andrew Poynton, British Twenty-Second Regiment of the SAS. It's a bloody good pleasure to meet you lad." He spoke firmly as he shook the taller man's hand.
Andrew looked behind him as a terrified scream brought him back from his daydream and back to reality. The SAT operatives were in trouble, and no one was even bothering to worry about him at all, as all of them were now under attack from a huge horde of Infected that were spilling out of the access tunnel in a flood.
The air was filled with the sound of people yelling, guns firing, and that awful moaning that he had been listening to for the past two days.
He now had the opportunity he needed to make a run for it.
But instead, he hesitated.
He was hesitating because his conscience was battling with his battle-hardened instincts as to what he should do and as the screams and gunfire intensified, he knew that he had to make a decision now.
Help the badly outnumbered SAT shooters, or run.
Andrew watched as an SAT officer's weapon ran dry, and as he was trying to reload, a large Infected mechanic suddenly grabbed the policeman as the officer tried to fight back and avoid being bitten by the mechanic whose teeth kept gnashing closer and closer to the policeman's neck.
It was now or never, fight or flight…
…FIGHT.
Racking the bolt on the carbine he brought it up and aimed the holosight on the Infected mechanic with the EOTech sight and fired.
The single five-five-six millimetre round tore straight through the Infected's forehead that was grappling with the SAT operative who looked at him in shook as the Infected worker that he had been wrestling with fell to the ground in a heap.
"Mind yourself better, lad." Andrew said calmly as he switched his aim to the next target.
Andrew then adjusted his sights and took out the next four with little effort as the Japanese SAT shooters aimed their weapons at the Infected and opened fire on the creatures mowing them down, as they re-composed themselves after their initial surprise at the sudden attack.
"Well, at least I won't have to waste my own munitions as much." Andrew thought.
He then stood behind the officers, as they all raised their weapons and sighted in on the creatures that moved towards them in a slow shambling crowd that quickly grew in size again, walking over their fallen fellows.
Despite the murderous fire, the horde was continuing to grow as the Infected began bursting through the grate that had been sealed over the underground passage to the Mainland in greater numbers as the river of Infected that had crowded the tunnel began flowing out in a greater flood driven into a fury by all the noise.
Andrew could see just how useless it was to stay in their current position any longer.
"FALL BACK YOU F_CKING IDIOTS, FALL BACK!" He screamed at the SAT Team as he turned and ran, reloading his MK18 as he moved.
Several of the officers, including the female Team Leader, actually listened to him amidst all the weapons fire and barked orders to the rest as all of them as they all started pulling back away from the mob of Infected that were pressing in.
As the SAT woman ran back towards him, he stopped as the rest of her team re-grouped and they stood side by side in a skirmish line as they fired single shots at the Infected while they withdrew, striving to be as accurate as possible with their quickly exhausting ammo.
As the SAT operatives pulled back, the "wall' of fire they were making was knocking down scores of Infected, but seemed to have little effect on the multitudes that trampled over their fellows as they tried to get at the small group of people fighting for their lives.
Andrew stood beside the SAT woman as he ejected the empty magazine from his Mark 18 and inserted a fresh magazine and slapped the bolt catch with the palm of his hand.
He then pocketed the empty magazine for later when he had a chance to reload it, if he lived to have a chance to reload it, that is.
Andrew did a mental inventory of his munitions as he continued firing in the mass of Infected relentlessly coming at them.
He always carried at least five hundred rounds of munitions easily between his flak jacket and the backpack, as he always liked to be prepared for a firefight. However, at this rate, he'd soon be out of rounds if something didn't happen soon.
And as he looked behind them, Andrew saw to his horror that Infected were beginning to close in on the small group of officers from all directions, all of them attracted by the sound of the gunfire.
"SCREW THIS!" He roared. "PEEL! PEEL! PEEL!
As the SAT looked at him in response to his loud yells, they quickly realized the danger they were in from all sides and under the Team Leader's shouted order, they then began peeling back towards the Main Terminal.
As the rest of the team peeled and fell back, Andrew watched as the SAT woman continued to fire into the horde almost never missing a shot as the Infected continued to drop from her deadly accurate gun fire.
"She's a bloody crackin' shot I'll give 'er that." Andrew thought as he emptied his magazine and then turned to run, reloading as he did so.
"PEELING!" He shouted.
The SAT woman looked at him and nodded as he spun around whilst kneeling and fell back several meters and then, instead of running back to the terminal which was their rally point like the rest of the team, he dropped down on one knee to cover her as the Infected quickly approached her position.
She fired her remaining rounds full-auto into the horde until the bolt on her weapon fell on an empty chamber with a loud "CLICK" and abandoning her shooting position, she then turned heel and ran back towards him, heading for the rally point, surprised to see him kneeling there and covering her escape.
"SET!" He shouted as he began firing single-shot as she ran past him.
"MOVING!" She shouted as she ran past him as he continued firing in single-shot mode until she ran past, and then switched to full-auto, emptying his magazine as he turned to run.
To his surprise now, the SAT woman on the other hand, had not run for the rally point either, but had instead set up a new position roughly ten meters away from him to cover him.
"SET!" She shouted as she slapped another magazine into her rifle and slapped the bolt catch.
"SHIFTING!" He yelled as he slapped another magazine into his carbine. Two mags down and nine to go before he was empty.
Something was telling him he was going to be using a lot more ammo by the end of this day though.
"Should have taken some of those 'Surefire-sixties' with me." He thought as he fired his carbine.
For all he knew there might be a couple of extra magazines in his pack hopefully.
Before they had boarded the plane for the OP to Africa, he had tossed all manner of equipment and gear into his pack for the trip. And now, he berated himself for being so careless in his preparation.
As he fired single shot while the woman peeled back, he had to admit, he was very impressed with the performance of the SAT, especially their female Team Leader.
"She isn't sweating, hasn't cracked under pressure, same goes for that bloke over there too." Andrew thought looking at the man wearing a tan ball cap and standing near the rally point, ready to cover them as soon as they came nearer.
They're both crackin' operators." He thought as he opened fire whilst she ran past him again, reloading her weapon as she ran.
The horde of infected surrounding them however kept on growing despite their best efforts to withdraw, and now and they were starting to surge towards them in force.
"Bollocks," he swore harshly.
He looked over at the female trooper and nudged her, offering her his carbine.
"Take this, and cover me!" He told her in broken Japanese, hoping she would understand him.
She nodded as she took the rifle and started laying down single shots.
He opened one of the pouches of his vest and pulled out one of his" little surprises" that he kept for just such an occasion.
If Chris, the leader of BLUE Team had known that he had these little beauties in his gear he would have strung him up by the nuts, he chuckled as he pulled out a grenade from his jacket.
In his hand sat a CTS Model 7290 flash bang grenade, nothing special in the explosives department, but it would perform brilliantly for the task he had in mind.
He stood up and darted towards the Infected, hearing the shouts of the officers behind him yelling at him to come back, and ignoring all of them.
He couldn't allow any of these Infected bastards to reach the terminal entrance en mass like this. Once they found the loading bay doors and breached them they were in for some serious shite.
"OI, yeah you lot, you bunch of f_cking puss bags, over 'ere, come on you bunch of pricks got some good ol' British beef right 'ere." He shouted hoping to draw them away from the gates. But to his annoyance the mass of Infected still continued on towards the loading bay.
And small wonder, due to the fact that the SAT officers were still shooting their weapons at the Infected who were all drawn to the sound of all the shooting instead of him.
He waved to the group of SAT officers and yelled "STOP SHOOTING YOU IDIOTS! YOU'RE DRAWING THEM TOWARDS YOU."
Luckily, they heard him and suddenly the gunfire ceased and he turned his attention back to the Infected once again.
"ALRIGHT YOU WANKERS, COME OVER HER AND HAVE A CHEW ON ME YOU F_CKING ROTTERS!" He roared as the sound of his voice was finally picked up by the ears of the Infected now that the sound of gunfire had ceased.
His shout was heard a little too well however, as his shout to the Infected was picked up by every one of "Them" on the tarmac it seemed, as they all suddenly turned and started coming after him.
"THAT'S BETTER, COME ON ARSEHOLES, GOT *SUMMIT GOOD FOR YA," Andrew yelled again.
(*'Summit' is often used in British slang to 'Something')
"Bugger me." He thought grimly as they closed on him.
His plan to have their attention on him so he could draw them away from the terminal and back out towards the field was working, and unnervingly so.
"Allright, time to go." He thought as he turned heel and began to run from the coming onslaught.
As he ran away from the protection of the SAT shooters and the terminal building he made a mental pause to ask himself another question.
"Why am I even doing this? I don't know these people. I don't owe them anything whatsoever, so why should I have to waste my time doing this when I could have gotten away?" He thought to himself as he ran.
And as he pulled the pin from the grenade in his hand, the voice in the back of his head re-emerged.
"Because you know that this is the right thing to do, this is who you are."
"You are a good guy, you always worked for the good guys and these people are good guys, so what the hell more reason do you need?"
For some reason he found it hard to believe his own thoughts however.
Maybe it was the fact that despite the many memories ha had lost after being wounded, he still vaguely remembered that he had trained two squadrons of the Japanese SAT years ago back in Hereford when he was still in the *UKSF and had gone on a training exercise with them in the Welsh mountains, the SAS's old stomping grounds for training "out in the sticks".
(* United Kingdom Special Forces)
Perhaps the real reason that he was fighting for these people was the fact that in a way, they were family after all. Perhaps some of these very same officers had been his former pupils, his former students, his "kids" in a way. And now, they were in danger, and in need of help beyond their own capabilities and experience.
"Aw, hell." The former SAS commando growled as he gave up on trying to find a reason for his motives and let the spoon fly off the grenade and threw the grenade high up into the air and immediately covered his ears and closed his eyes.
Despite the precaution he took to protect himself from the flash banger, the thundering clap from the grenade hit him hard when it detonated.
Opening his eyes, and looking behind him, he saw that the grenade had the desired effect he was looking for.
Instead of coming for him, the Infected were now stumbling around like a bunch of drunks wandering in all directions, the concussion grenade having done its work as now most of the Infected within the range of the concussive blast were now temporarily stone-deaf from the blast.
Pleased that his desperate plan had worked so well, he then turned toward the terminal building and began to take advantage of the situation and run back towards the SAT officers…
"And then what?" He suddenly thought as he hesitated for a moment.
Be beaten to within half an inch of his life and arrested by the very people he was trying to save? Or could he honestly believe that they would allow him to walk around the airport as he pleased?
It wasn't exactly like he had a lot of options, but he also didn't relish the idea of being left out here with the Infected being chased around like a f_cking chew toy either, Andrew thought.
"Uhh, balls and bugger nuts." He muttered as he quietly made his way back towards the Main Airport Terminal Building now that his path was almost completely free of any Infected who were still mucking about aimlessly.
Any Infected that did get too close to him were either knocked aside by him by merely using his arm to slap their flailing arms aside.
And those that truly began to annoy him fell in a heap with a quick stroke of his MercWorx knife, which completely decapitated them in one stroke with little effort whatsoever.
He was roughly twenty feet away from the SAT woman who was still kneeling where he had left her with his carbine. She looked at him and for a brief second he thought he saw either relief or something matching it cross her face.
"The f_cks you're problem?" He hissed at her as he snatched his rifle away from her before she could even offer it to him.
He didn't have time to play friendly with these people, Andrew thought, so no reason to get sloppy about it.
Even if he had taught these people or their comrades at one time, they still weren't his people, his team, his friends… his family.
At least not yet. They had to earn that privilege, and as impressive as they were, they still hadn't earned his trust yet.
He looked back at the SAT officer when he realized she wasn't following. In truth she was following him with her eyes, eyes that seemed distraught, as if she were a child that had been cruelly rejected by her father.
"ARE YOU GOING TO F_CKING MOVE OR WHAT!" He yelled at her angrily.
The woman then snapped to attention and brought her own rifle up and shouldered it aiming at the Infected nearby, as she just nodded in response without even looking at him.
"F_ck's sake." He muttered to himself as he began walking towards the Main Terminal again.
As he came up and stood in front of the large shutter doors that would lead them back inside the building, he ran his hand over the metal door thinking that the door would be unlocked, but wasn't.
"They locked the door? What the hell?" he growled.
"They've shut us out," He said out loud to the SAT officer as she looked at the door and then back out towards the field where the Infected were now wandering away from them.
But even though they were shuffling away from their position he watched as some started to wander back their way as the female officer spoke into her radio in fluent Japanese, most likely speaking with her superiors.
"Calm down Andrew, just calm down laddy, you've got this; you just got to control yourself." He muttered to himself quietly, his unease of the current situation beginning to grow.
Despite his best efforts, his anger and aggression was getting the better of him now. It was a problem that he had to frequently deal with constantly after he had recovered from his wounds.
While the physical wounds had eventually and painfully healed, his mental and emotional scars were a different story, and he felt ashamed and angry with himself for lashing out at the SAT officer for no good reason.
Although with the doors being locked and now being trapped alone with all the Infected, the circumstances were not helping to improve his mood very much.
His earlier thoughts were conflicting with him now and it was hard to push them back down, as keyed up as he was.
Back in the Army with the British Special Forces his doctor had told him "Suppressing you're emotions is unhealthy, Lance Corporal.".
"No shit, doc." Andrew had retorted.
But suppressing your emotions in the military, much less the SAS isn't really a choice, it's a fact of life, and he had become expert at keeping his emotions in check just like everyone else did.
"Psychiatrists." Andrew thought grimly. "They don't have a clue."
And if the doc had thought suppressing his emotions during his time in The Regiment was bad, then he would have been really concerned over him during the days that followed after his family's death.
And it wasn't just his emotions that were a problem either.
Later, he began to feel that he became more 'focused' and 'obsessed' on his targets that he was ordered to eliminate when he was assigned to Intelligence.
His increasingly aggressive methods during that assignment brought up quite a cause for concern within the Intelligence community as well as the other members of The Regiment, from the way they began to react around him.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, the way the higher ups were beginning to muck around with his request to return to active status made him finally realize that they really didn't want a loose cannon working for them.
So he quit and saved them the trouble of having to make up some bullshit story for which to try and figure the best way to quietly get rid of him.
So he had tortured a few terrorists in his time, who the hell hadn't in the Special Forces or "Intelligence" when the orders come directly from the head of MI5 and MI6 Central Intelligence Agencies?
Up until now, he had been their "go to guy" for information. And now they wanted to cut him loose because they were afraid of what? Bad Publicity? Human rights violations?
"Don't make me laugh." He thought as he turned his attention back to the problem at hand.
Andrew glanced over at the female SAT officer as he covered them both as they waited for the gate to open.
The SAT Team Leader was having a fit, screamed into her radio whilst kicking the metal shutter in frustration at being ignored.
He couldn't help but have a sly grin pass over his features.
But as he crouched down and hissed at her to hush down he heard her quietly speaking into her throat mike, and the words he heard caused his face to frown in suspicion.
Luckily he had remembered enough from his Japanese language course back in the Army to understand her words.
"Tajima-kun, it's him, it's really him. You remember that CQB training in England?" she spoke softly.
"How can I forget Rika-san, especially after "The Incident?" Tajima replied in her earpiece. "But, does he even know who we are? When he looked at us both he seemed to have no idea who we were at all."
Rika stopped talking abruptly as she noticed the man was staring closely at her.
"Are they going to let us in then, or what?" He asked before turning his attention back to the airfield.
"Chotto matte, kudasai." The woman replied as she continued to speak into her radio, albeit in a louder tone this time.
As he looked back out towards the airfield, he started thinking about what the woman had been had been saying under her breath to the person on the receiving end of her covert radio transmission.
"What are they on about? Did we meet at some point?" He wondered, trying to place her face amongst the many he had trained over the years and drawing up a blank.
He looked back at her as she nodded to herself after she finished talking with her companion. She hadn't looked at him yet but he guessed she knew he was watching her the way she avoided looking into his face.
No,I don't know her, and it's not like it's gonna matter much. I have no intention of staying here anyway." He thought as he stood up and walked back towards her.
"What's the deal then love, we on the move or what?" He asked her whilst scanning for threats.
When she didn't respond straight away, he looked at her face more closely, curious as to why she seemed so hesitant to look at him.
"Oi, anyone home?" He asked as he smacked the back of her head, rudely gaining her attention with a scowl on her face to match his own frustrated mood.
"Are we f_cking moving or what?" He asked again, turning his attention back out to the Infected beginning to shuffle closer to their position.
"Yes, my people will open the other door around the back of the terminal, this one's jammed." She replied in perfect English. "We need to move that way. Please follow me."
"Right then." He replied, not surprised to see that she spoke perfect English.
"She's a smart bird, all right. " He thought. "I'm really gonna have to watch my back with her."
"If we want to survive this, we're going to have to move quickly and quietly, so don't shoot unless you have too, understood?" He told her sternly.
"Got it." She replied hesitantly.
"Right. Let's get moving, shall we?" He said as she nodded and then turned around leading the way.
It didn't take as long as he thought it would to get to the second entry point, Andrew thought to himself as they finally arrived at their destination, relieved to see that the area around the entry point was clear also.
"Go let you're mates know we're here." He said, nudging her as he covered their six.
After hearing the sound of the door rattling as it opened behind him, alarms began to go off in his head as the sound of boots on the tarmac behind him also reached his ears.
He then turned to see that he was faced with a new threat.
"F_ck me." He said under his breath as over a dozen SAT officers armed with Taser's all pointed at him, surrounded him.
Hopelessly trapped, he then looked at the female SAT officer who seemed to have a look of great regret on her face.
She had led him into a trap.
"Oh, you udder cow." He managed to mutter as several Taser's were fired and the barbs hit him all at once, sending thousands of volts coursing through his body, knocking him to the ground as his world went black.
Last Alarm-Chapter Twenty-Five: "A Child's Love."
Time: Morning Z-Day Plus 3
Location: Residential Condominium of SAT Officer Sgt. Rika Minami
The attack had been so sudden, so unexpected, that by the time Yuriko Takagi had finally managed to partially disentangle herself from underneath her friend and family guardian Yoshioka, it was all over. And now she lay helpless, her pistol knocked away when Yoshioka crashed into her and Yoshioka's rifle also nowhere within easy reach.
The few men still left remaining in the room with them trying to help their unconscious comrade, and also trying to subdue the now Infected retainer Doi, were no less as shocked as Yuriko was at the sudden attack and found themselves unable to move as well.
Not because of their shock at witnessing the sudden attack, but because they could see that the moment they made a move to reach for their weapons, their mistress was as good as dead.
As she listened to the shouts of the children and the rest of the guards yelling in fear and anger outside, Yuriko could only sit helplessly and stare wide-eyed in shock at the sight of the young girl before her dressed only in a man's tee-shirt crouched over the body of the still unconscious American.
Yuriko could not help but be shocked by the realization that the teenage girl was actually trying to protect the man from them as she held everyone at bay, brandishing a large tan-colored folding knife clutched in a reverse-grip in her right hand, in front of her.
The sight of the large knife in the girl's hand, who was supposed to have been unarmed in the first place, was surprising enough.
Evidently, Yuriko's staff had done an exceptionally poor job of searching the children, and the fact they had somehow missed such a large knife while searching this young girl as scantily clothed as she was, was inexcusable.
That mattered little now, however.
Now the situation was reversed, and Yuriko and her staff were no longer in control, with Yoshioka lying on top of her, half-conscious with a broken nose, pinning her to the floor with the weight of his body while the young girl crouched nearby within easy striking distance, ready to strike out with her blade.
And there was nothing Yuriko Takagi could do about it.
But it wasn't the knife that frightened Yuriko so much as it was the look in the young girl's eyes.
After all that had happened, it was to be expected that the child's eyes would be full of hate and anger, with tears running down her face as the girl became overcome with emotion.
Instead, the look in the young woman's eyes staring at her made Yuriko's blood freeze.
The teenager's eyes were like ice.
Expressionless, merciless, haunting, … cold.
The eyes of a killer.
And when she finally spoke, her voice was no less frigid than her stare.
"Takagi-sama, I realize you came only to rescue your daughter and not to intentionally harm anyone, and therefore I wish to thank you for your concern in wishing to protect the rest of us from someone whom you mistakenly think is an enemy." Saeko said in an unnervingly calm voice that seemed to chill the room.
"And I realize how things must seem to you, although I assure you, we were never in any danger from the American at any time." Saeko said as the expressionless look on her face twisted into anger. "And while I do not wish to cause your daughter who is also my friend, any pain, I promise you this…."
"If you or any of your men do anything to try to hurt Jimu-san any further." Saeko said as her eyes seemed to burn with a great intensity as Yuriko could see the knuckles of her hand growing white as she gripped the knife even harder and her small body tensed as if coiling to strike.
"I will kill you."
Author's Notes:
I don't know about the rest of ya'll, but I'm so proud of my "daughter." (T_T)
LOL. Just kidding.
Anyway, thank you for the kind words and reviews all of you have given to Poynton90's contribution to the story.
As soon as I post the next chapter, I intend to re-arrange the chapters so that "Andrew's Story" coincides with the morning of the second day of the Outbreak, which will be just before "Crossroads."
On another note, it was never meant for each chapter to end on a cliffhanger.
But being as I'm writing each chapter individually, it just seems that way. If I had written out the entire book first and then posted the chapters two or more at a time, it would be less noticeable than now.
The scene at bridge and the scene where Yuriko Takagi and her staff perform the raid on the condo were the only intentional cliffhangers so far. There will be a couple more in the future, but I promise, that you won't ever have to wait more than a couple of weeks for the following chapter.
I apologize for leaving you hanging on this last one, but I really needed a break and I really wanted to post Poynton90's story because Andrew and the rest of the PMC's have a huge part in the story later, and it was my fault for not entering "Andrew's Story" earlier.
Not meaning to steal attention away from poyton90's story, but because all of you have waited so patiently and have encouraged me to keep trying to make my story better with your kind reviews, I decided to end "Andrew's Story," with a sneak peek at what happens back at Rika's condo.
And being that World War "Z" starts tomorrow; I thought I'd post this chapter early so everyone could have a full weekend of zombieness.
Thanks again for your support and I'll be working on the next chapter!
Coming soon,
"A Child's Love."