32
Last Alarm
Chapter Thirty-Two
"Ghosts of the Past"
Written By Poynton90
Location: Tokonosu International Airport, "The Floating Airport"
Five miles off the Coast of Japan
Holding Room – Main Terminal – Airport Security Area - Sublevel Three
Date: Spring 2013
Time: Morning
Z-Day Plus Three
Darkness.
Darkness all around.
Darkness so black you could almost feel it pressing in on you, threatening to swallow you up whole and drown out your screams.
And what made the darkness even worse was that there was also no noise, or at least, none that I could hear, sitting in this pitch black room for who-knows-how-long, it's been already.
Hours?
Days, maybe?
And it was bloody warm in the room too.
"A heater perhaps?" I thought to myself. "Are they trying to sweat me up some?"
No, the room is actually somewhat comfortable, not boiling hot as if this were a sweatbox.
Not like a sweatbox in Sierra Leone, where it's so hot it's hard to tell if you're being tortured in a prison camp or it's just the f_cking weather boiling your blood in your hotel room because there's no such thing as air conditioning there.
Yeah, I've been through this before, can you tell?
My first experience as a prisoner was as part of SERE training with The Regiment learning how to deal with being a prisoner and learning that you never want to be one,...ever.
And then there was that one really bad OP in Sierra Leone where all I could do was sit and stew in a real sweatbox when my cover as an overseas reporter was blown, until me mates came for me finally.
Guess that's all I can do for now as well, I guess.
Sit here and stew until something happens.
But there's no one to rescue my skinny arse this time, unfortunately, not with me mates from BLUE and GREEN Team scattered all over Japan now, hoofing it as best they can to the nearest American Embassy.
Nah, I'm sure they gave up on that idea by now. Not with bloody zombies tearing up everything and everybody all over the place.
Then again, Jim being the rookie among us, he might still be trying to reach Tokyo for all I knew.
If he survived the attack at the park after all, that is.
Damn.
Hope he made it.
Hell, I hope everyone made it.
But I have my doubts about Jim.
Can't think about that now, they'll be coming for me soon.
At least it's comfortable warmth in here and not boiling.
I kept my head drooped down against my chest, making anyone who's watching believe that I'm worse off than I really am, hoping that they'll relax their guard somewhat and leave me an opening of some sort.
Although in truth, I'm not exactly all that chipper right now either to be honest.
Bloody tasers hurt a hell of a lot more than you think.
Getting hit with one is bad enough, but getting hit with,…..
"Dammit, how many of those bloody things did they shoot into me with anyway?!" I thought to myself as my whole body felt like I had been hit by a bolt of lightning.
So as to try to maintain a weakened appearance, even though I'm not really quite acting actually, I raised my head weakly and looked around the room, even though there's really nothing to see in the inky blackness.
There's practically no light at all that I can see, but as my eyes adjust to the darkness I can make out some darker shapes in the room at least.
There's something big and upright that looks a bit like a door to my left and a small table in the far right corner, I think.
There's also something that looks like a television mounted on the wall, maybe a 35-inch inch plasma TV from the looks of it.
No, has to be a two-way mirror. This is a detention room after all.
Isn't it?
Bugger, doesn't matter anyway.
Aside from those things and the table directly in front of me that I've been lying my head on, there's nothing else visible as far as I can tell as I test the tightness of the pairs of handcuffs on each of my wrists.
Even though I've tried it before earlier, I make another attempt to wiggle my hands out of the cuffs but can't free myself that way no matter how hard I try, being that someone has made sure that I've been very securely handcuffed to the chair and can't wiggle my hands out.
Yeah, like that's really going to prevent me from hoofing it out of here the first chance I get.
But, just because I have nothing better to do I try and pull my hands through the handcuffs anyway, but of course, the cuffs just keep digging into my skin and I'm nowhere closer to freedon than I was when they brought me here.
But despite the pain, I keep on trying until I feel a small trickle of blood seeping down into the palm of my hand.
"Ow! F_ck that's smarts." I seethed angrily through gritted teeth trying not to alarm my ever watchful onlookers who I'm sure are watching me right now despite the darkened room.
Just for giggles I then try to buck the chair, mostly for anyone who is watching so they'll think I'm more stupid than I look, because what I'm doing is really a pointless act because the chair is bolted to the floor.
But I do it anyway for the sake of anyone watching, hoping that they'll probably start to think I've started to lose it and hopefully, began to think they've gotten the best of me and believe I'll crack under their "interrogation" that's yet to come.
Give me a freaking break people.
Do they honestly believe I haven't been through worse?
I have to admit though, I'm more than a little pissed at myself for saving their arses out there and then allowing myself to drop my guard like an idiot and then having them turn on me and truss me up like I'm the f_cking bad guy responsible for all this shite.
This really is bollocks people, but if they're going to treat me like Hannibal Lecter, at least put some effort into it will you?
I mean really, turning off the lights?
Do they really think I'm still a kid that's afraid of the dark?
Bugger.
Well, time to take stock of my situation and figure a way out of this mess somehow.
I don't have to see to know that all my gear is gone, including the things I keep concealed in the lining of my clothing.
Bloody hell, they even took my knee and elbow pads, how paranoid are these people?
Very thorough these blokes I have to admit.
What have I done anyway that got me arrested?
It's not like I started this whole apocalypse thing.
We arrived two, or was it three days ago now?
I can't remember what day it was when we got ambushed by those crazy f_cks that in fact, turned out to be "Zombies" or something very close in comparison that proceeded to attack and eat everything in sight, and wanting to add all of us to the menu.
But even with all that crap going on outside, I'm the one strapped into a chair and being treated like a war criminal even after I helped save those airport officers from being slaughtered.
"F_ck, I should have run when I had the chance." I thought to myself when the room suddenly became swamped with a bright light that burned into my eyes.
"Ahh, son of a bitch!" I muttered aloud as I blinked several times trying to adjust my eyes to the burning light.
As I tried to shake off the burning sensation to my eyes, I suddenly heard a loud clicking sound to my left, indicating that someone is unlocking the door.
"Here we go." I thought to myself as I immediately let my head droop, so as to let my interrogator think I'm just another weak, fragile-minded person, terrified of what's to come.
Just the same, I peek over to see the door opening and a man maybe in his mid-thirties with bleached blonde hair enters the room.
I also notice that he's also wearing the same uniform as those other officers out on the tarmac from earlier, which tells me immediately that this guy is Japanese SAT, no doubt about it.
This might get interesting after all.
"Good morning, I am Commander Nanahara, or if you prefer, you may use my code name, "Sakura", just like everyone else calls me here." The SAT officer began as I looked meekly up at him.
"Sakura?" I said weakly, really piling on the timid prisoner routine. "Doesn't that mean "cherry tree" in your language?"
"Yes it is, although in my case it's short for Sakurambo." Commander Nanahara answered with a slightly embarrassed look on his face.
"Cherry?" I said with a puzzled look on my face.
"Yeah." The Commander replied as his face began to turn red.
"My mother always did have a strange sense of humor." He added with a shrug of his shoulders.
"I see, well I'm Embassy Security Field Agent David Montgomery of the British Embassy here in Tokonosu, but you can call me Dave for short." I replied, trying to sound almost authoritive.
"A pleasure to meet you Dave, despite the circumstances." Commander Nanahara replied as he looked me up and down.
"Same here, Commander." I replied as I waited for him to continue.
"I have a few questions for you regarding the reasons as to why you are here on this island." Nanahara began as he sat down in the seat on the other side of the table from me and placed a brown folder on the table in front of him.
"What's this then?" I thought to myself as I stared at the folder he had laid on the table. "You mean they actually have a file on me here in this country?"
"My first question that I have for you "Dave" is,…. Sakura asked getting straight to the point.
"Why exactly are you here?" Nanahara asked in an all business-like tone as I began to tell my cover story to him.
"Well since I am a Security Field Agent and it's obviously not classified information what with everything that's going on outside,…" I began acting as if I were really annoyed at being detained without reason.
"I was here on official business with the evacuation of several of our British diplomats from our embassy here in Tokonosu City, and I was helping them to board our Government-chartered jet to our Embassy in Australia." I continued, speaking to him as if I really was part of the security contingent.
"And then once we evacuated our staff in Australia, we were to then fly on to America and evacuate any Embassy officials left behind there, and then finally fly to the United Kingdom."
"But of course,….." I said flashing a small smile of mirth. "The moment I arrived here with our officials, one of your Airport Security officers here started yelling at me for whatever the reason, I don't have a clue."
"And then that lunatic drew his service revolver and pointed it at me. So rather than just stand there and be shot, I instinctively decided to take cover." I said hotly as Nanahara listened patiently.
"And then in the chaos that followed with him waving that damned pistol around and screaming bloody murder while people were screaming and running in all directions, he fired a shot at me!" I said in an angry voice, trying to sound like an agent that had been wrongly treated.
"Therefore after he began shooting, I escaped whilst I could to avoid getting shot," I said stressing each of my words for the Commander's benefit.
And as I finished divulging my cover story to "Sakura", I was also taking in every detail of the small room that they had tossed me into, and realized that I had been a little off about the details of the room.
First, it wasn't really an interrogation room, but more of a holding room as I noticed that what I thought was a flat-screen TV or two way mirror was just a dark spot on the wall.
However, I could see out the corner of my eye, that there was indeed a small surveillance camera in the far left corner of the room.
"I see." Commander Nanahara replied after I finished, sounding not at all convinced at my story.
"Please excuse me for asking this "Dave,…" The SAT Commander said looking right into my face.
"But is the British Embassy in the habit of having people with only one eye attached to their Security Detail?" "Sakura" asked bluntly with a faint smile on his lips.
"That would seem to be a major handicap for someone whose job it is to watch out for threats against Government Diplomats, don't you agree, Dave?" Nanahara said as the faint smile became an evil smirk.
Screwing my face up slightly as if I were offended by his remark, I glanced over at him and tried to keep my temper under control as I answered him.
"If I can still spot the "X-Rays" and see what I'm shooting at as I squeeze the trigger of my weapon, then that's all that matters." I replied with an aloof look, hoping to also sound like I was bored with his "interrogation"..
"We can't all be as perfect and well-groomed as our Japanese counterparts." I then added with a sarcastic grin on my face as the Commander reddened slightly.
"Screw you too,….mate." I thought, laughing inwardly.
After shooting me a quick angry look, "Sakura" looked down at my I.D card amongst the other papers in the folder again then looked back up again at my face, before he proceeded to thumb through the file he had brought in with him when he entered.
"Well then "Dave",….." Nanahara began as he pretended to scan through the papers in the folder. "I hate to burst you're bubble here, but outside this room I have two officers in my unit who both claim they know you but under an entirely different name."
"In fact,…" "Sakura" continued as he looked up at me with a not too friendly look. "Those very same officers have identified you as a man named "Andrew Poynton", and that your also British SAS."
Oh shit, talk about awkward.
"Well then there must surely be some mistake, all my identification papers are right there before you Commander." I replied acting as if I was the victim of a huge misunderstanding and not caught red-handed.
"I'm certainly not this,….. what was his name? "Andrew Poynton" person, your officers mistakenly think I am." I replied with a slight chuckle.
And then for some strange reason as I was trying to keep my own cover story from falling apart, I absent-mindedly began to wonder if my friend Jim's profile was going to keep him covered after all, if he found himself in this exact same situation.
"That is of course if the old bugger's still alive right now." I thought to myself, hoping that my friend might be in the same predicament as myself, and not wandering the monster-infested streets of Japan.
"And if that were the case, then mind you, unlike me, he shouldn't have a hard time explaining himself to the locals because his own cover story was actually frigging real as compared to the rest of us who had to make up one.
"Then again, how will he explain all the guns and knives he's carrying?" I suddenly thought to myself.
"Oh bloody hell, talk about awkward again. Shite." I mumbled under my breath.
"Pardon me?" "Sakura asked overhearing.
"Nothing." I said as the man stared intensely into my face for a long moment and then held up the brown paper file and opened it and then allowed several photographs of me to purposefully spill out of the folder onto the table.
"I see, well actually "Dave",…" Sakura said quietly as I looked down and stared in horror at the photos of myself in my dress uniform while I was in the Royal Marines, as well as a couple of photos of me posing in my battle fatigues while I was with the SAS in the desert during "Operation- Iraqi Freedom" in 03' when I was just 23 years old while I was cradling my M4/M203 weapon system.
"Your service file says quite differently about your identity, "Dave". Nanahara went on. "In fact, I personally have found it quite impressive."
"In summary, it says here that in fact, you are in actuality, Andrew Poynton, age 33,…" The SAT Commander said as he read my files.
"A former member of the British Royal Marines before passing Selection and being accepted into the 22nd Regiment of the Special Air Service."
"It also says that you served in the SAS for several years assigned to "RED Troop" under the command of Col. Aidan Dempsey and achieved the rank of Lance Corporal before receiving several serious injuries after an extremely intensive firefight during an anti-terror operation in Ireland." Nanahara added.
"It also says here that you were hospitalized with those same extensive injuries and were found unfit for duty in the SAS shortly thereafter, and were medically discharged a year after your release from the hospital."
"The report further states, "Dave",…" Nanahara said dramatically as he placed the folder down on the table and looked directly into my face sternly.
"That following your discharge you spent some time with some rather unsavory characters before you apparently turned your life around and became a bodyguard for a certain local politician we both know and his family for a couple of years before leaving Japan to travel to America at the invitation of a certain colleague of yours in discretionary warfare from the time you were still actively serving in the SAS."
"A Mr. John Ross Wallace,…." Nanahara continued with a smirk. "Who just happens to be a former member of the American Special Forces Detachment – Delta, aka, "Delta Force" and who also just happens to be one of the owners of a Private Military Security Company that goes by the name of "Laidlaw."
"And my, isn't this an interesting coincidence,…..." Nanahara added as if he were actually enjoying this.
"It seems here that this same company just happens to have an old Russian-made Antonov that just happens to be presently located at one of our hangars here where an "incident" occurred just two days ago where some of our security and maintenance staff went missing, as well as one helicopter being serviced there that was stolen and found wrecked beyond repair in Tokonosu City Park."
"Dave,..I don't believe in coincidences." Nanahara said as he looked me directly in the eye and all appearances of friendliness disappeared from his face.
"So, shall we dispense with the bullshit now,…Andrew?!" Nanahara said stiffly.
"F_ck me." I thought as I realized my cover was about as blown as blown could be.
But as my mind raced as to how to handle this extremely bad situation, one of the photos on the table suddenly caught my eye.
A photo that instantly made me forget the horror I felt at being compromised, and instead, turned my mood into one of absolute rage at the mere sight of it.
The picture that had caught my attention and changed my demeanor was one of me, Sarah and Anastasia at a family picnic in 04' when I had just returned from a twelve-month tour overseas.
It was the first time I had seen that photo since the year I lost them.
And now the Japanese Police had a copy, and seeing it in their possession to use against me brought out the absolute worst in me.
And then instead of keeping my cool and responding the way I had been trained for years in anti-interrogation techniques to handle this situation, I did something stupid instead, which only served to confirm Nanahara's suspicions about me, not that the files had been a dead giveaway anyway.
Another one of many stupid acts I did in anger that had finally resulted in me getting me kicked out of The Regiment in the first place, and not just because of my injuries, either.
Instinctively, and without thinking, I angrily shot a furious look at "Sakura" as he pushed the photo towards me, and I couldn't help but notice the shocked expression on his face as I glared at him.
"All right bub you win, bullshit time is over, now you answer me this one question just before I rip your f_cking throat out." I hissed angrily as I leaned forward as far as I could until my face was almost near the SAT Commander's face as he instinctively leaned back away from me which pissed me off even more.
"Right now you have every fucking right to be scared you little shit, how fucking dare you use this photo of my family against me!" I said angrily under clenched teeth seeing him move back from me.
"AND FOR WHAT FUCKING REASON?!" I roared. "YOU ALREADY KNOW WHO I AM, SO WHAT THE F_CK!
And then reacting out of anger and not much else, I then tried to rock the chair that I was restrained in, knowing full well there was no way I would break free, but not caring regardless.
And I kept on doing it until eventually, I let myself go limp in the chair, realizing that I had let emotion get the best of me once again and had compromised myself in the worst possible way.
And then when my pathetic attempts to break free were finally out of my system, my mind began racing with thoughts of what I had just done, and now that I had just completely compromised myself, I then began to wonder what these people were now going to do with me.
"How did they get their hands on those files? They're supposed to be classified." I thought to myself feeling my head spinning as I tried to think.
"Why use this against me and for what reason? What does he hope to achieve out of all this?" I wondered as Nanahara watched the gears spinning in my head.
"Well, if he thinks I'm going to be cooperative now, he can go fuck himself." I suddenly thought as I snapped myself back into focus as my blood continued to boil.
And then just as quickly, my anger abated and the cool professional that I used to be, began to re-surface, albeit a little too late.
"Commander, please excuse my outburst,…." I began apologetically as I looked up at Nanahara who still appeared to be wary of me.
"May I have that photo you have in your hand, please?" I asked Nanahara quietly, gesturing with my finger towards the picture of me and my family.
And as I watched, the SAT Commander cautiously shoved the photo towards me and then stopped to watch my every move, very carefully.
"Would you mind if I kept this, Commander?" I asked him politely as he nodded his head "yes" in response.
"Of course." Nanahara said cordially as I stared down at the photo for a long moment as my anger finally relieved itself fully and I sat calmly in my chair once again.
"Do you think we can discuss this matter calmly now, Lance Corporal Poynton?" Commander Nanahara then asked me calmly as I nodded my head in response and he then proceeded to separate one of the pieces of paper with my service record on and looked it over with interest.
While "Sakura" was engaged in that, I discreetly began to take stock of my current situation and try to do some damage control, now that I knew I was truly buggered.
All of my weapons had been removed upon my capture of course, but they hadn't taken everything, thank goodness.
And as I traced my forefinger along the wrist of my left hand I finally felt the one weapon the SAT had overlooked, and breathed a small sigh of relief that the Japanese Police hadn't found it.
On my left wrist was a barcode tattoo that I had had done a few months ago, along with a series of numbers as a code. And when anyone ever asked me later why I had the "tat" done I would often say, "I was drunk." and shrug it off.
But the real reason I had it done was because of its usefulness in concealment, because in one of the barcode strips of the "tat", I had hidden a small stainless steel pin that I had placed under my skin while I was out on the tarmac in the ink to hide it away just in case I was captured.
It hurt like a little bastard trying to get it out from under my skin but it was worth having whenever I had to pick handcuffs to free myself like now.
"So then, Poynton-san, why are you really in Japan?" "Sakura" again asked me directly after looking up from the paper he was reading.
I just gave him a "Are you fucking serious?" look in response and then peered at the camera filming us in the room and flipped the bird at the observers behind the lens with both of my handcuffed wrists.
"Commander, I believe you already know why I'm here so can we cut the crap already?" I replied already tired of this little game.
"I'm a hired security contractor, and the plane I was on suffered from engine failure and was forced to make an emergency landing, and since this was the closest airfield,…..here I am." I replied curtly.
"Why didn't you say that before?" Nanahara asked me, a little surprised that I had dropped my original cover story so quickly. "Why the false Embassy Security Agent story?"
"It was worth a shot." I replied more than a little sarcastically.
As I was speaking to Nanahara, I also was running my fingers over my tattoo and trying to pluck the bloody pin free, but was having a tough go at it.
"F_ck this is going to hurt like a bitch, better wait until he's gone and I'm alone." I finally decided as "Sakura" began to speak once more.
"I see, well then,…" Sakura began.
"What happened the other night?" He asked as he placed his head on his hands in front of me like he was studying me closely as if he were some sort of a psychiatrist.
"Regarding?" I asked with a slight smirk as if I were clueless to his meaning.
"I'm tired of playing games Lance Corporal, you know damned well what I'm talking about. " The Commander suddenly snapped at me, all show of friendliness gone.
"You and the rest of your mercenary "friends" started a shootout on Japanese soil,…" Nanahara continued.
"And then after crashing into a National Memorial in a hijacked helicopter with a small number of hostages on board, you and your comrades then proceeded to engage in a firefight in the middle of the city against our local Law Enforcement Officers, of which several are now confirmed dead thanks to all of you!" Nanahara roared angrily at me.
"Then you arrogantly try to sneak past my security under the guise of an British Embassy Security detail, and instead of giving up quietly when asked to surrender, you endanger the lives of countless civilians by forcing one of my officers into opening fire in order to safeguard the lives of the other passengers, not to mention the lives of my men who risked their lives trying to detain you with all of those "things" shuffling around out there!"
"Hey!" I roared as Nanahara paused from my sudden outburst. "Before you go on with your bullshit about what you think happened, here's the real story, so clean the crap out of your ears and pay attention!"
"My friends and I didn't start a fight with your guy's and we didn't open fire against helpless civilians in your city either, bub!" I shot back at Nanahara just as loudly as he had.
"We commandeered that chopper the other night in order to escape these "things" that were scattered all over the airfield, attacking anyone in sight when they started showing up!" I said as Nanahara scowled at me.
"We then experienced a major hydraulic failure and crashed in the city. And then after pulling ourselves out of the wreckage, we got held up and then shot at by your police officers, who fired first!"
"And now all of my men are either dead or running from those things out there, while you sit there giving me shit about the way we tried to save our own necks from the very same monsters that are killing all of your fellow countrymen!"
"Oh, and by the way, sorry about your f_cking statue too!" I yelled sarcastically at Nanahara , when suddenly the memory of what had happened at the park after the crash came back to hit me with a jolt.
In the rush to evade the police and whatever the hell those things were out there, I had committed a cardinal sin, and I lost a friend because of it.
"Leave no man behind,…"
The words tore at my gut as the shame I felt for not going back for Jim came back at me in a rush, and I wanted to wrap my hands around the cop's throat for reminding me of how much I had failed my "brother" when he needed me most.
"And my best friend,…" I said to Nanahara as I tried to keep my emotions in check despite the pain of my most recent loss.
"The only real friend I've ever had, probably got f_cking clipped by one of your "boys" in that park that you claim were so f_cking helpless against us!" I said, the anger threatening to boil over once again.
"So if you want any more information about what happened, you ain't getting' it from me you twat, now F_CK OFF!" I roared at him angrily as I shifted in my chair, turning my head away from him.
During my angry tirade, for the briefest of moments the thought of all of my friends lying dead in a foreign country so far away from home had hit me hard.
It was bad enough if my friends were dead, but for such good men who had spent the better part of their lives in combat behind enemy lines only to be killed on so-called "friendly" soil and possibly by nervous trigger-happy cops or, I still couldn't believe it myself,…..f_cking zombies?!"
And then the thought of my friend Jim also either dead or running for his life from men and monsters somewhere in the city all alone with no one to watch his back after all he had gone through to join our team tore me up inside.
Incredibly enough, of all the friends I've ever had over the years, Jim was probably the only man who ever really knew the real me beneath the angry, bitter prick that most people saw.
And unlike most people, Jim was the only one who even tried to help me unlike everyone else when I was still with the SAS .
And he alone was the only man to have ever seen me break down when I told him about the death of my wife and baby.
And to think that I had left him either lying dead in the street with a bullet in his head or wandering the streets as one of those shuffling monsters,….
"GET OUT OF HERE!" I shouted as loud as I could as Nanahara flinched at my outburst and then shook his head in frustration.
Seeing that pressing any further was futile, Nanahara then removed himself from his seat without another word, and then quietly gathering up his documents, he then walked calmly towards the door and knocked on the door.
Seconds later, the door was unlocked from the outside and then opened as Nanahara stepped out and the door immediately closed again with the sound of the door once again being locked from the outside as the lights blinked off again.
"Now's my chance." I thought as I immediately began to pick at the pin under my wrist again, pinching the skin where the barcode "tat" was, until I finally felt the pin pierce my skin.
But as I pulled the pin through my skin the cuffs dug into my wrist again, this time cutting into my wrists a little deeper than before.
"AHH,… F_CK!" I shouted mentally in both pain and anger, gritting my teeth so as not to cry out loud.
My eye watered from the pain and hot tears ran down my cheek as I finally managed to get the pin free, covered in my blood and probably bleeding all over the floor although that didn't bother me at all actually.
I've been shot, stabbed, blown up, and mangled enough times in my life to shed enough blood to start my own blood bank, so compared to all that, this was nothing.
I then took the pin from between my fingers and tried to get at the keyhole in the cuffs to free myself. Handcuffs are remarkably easy to get out of, and freeing yourself from them is one of the first things they teach you in the Army.
But as I tried to find the keyhole and break myself free, I soon began to feel despair running through me.
Try as I might, I couldn't find the bloody keyhole.
"Oh you gotta be f_cking kidding me." I grumbled.
Desperately, I felt all over the cuffs with the pin and cursed in frustration at the results. Nothing,….nada,…zip.
No keyholes at all,…smart bastards." I groused as I kicked the legs of the chair on the other side of the table in frustration sending it crashing against the opposite wall.
"Went through all that shite for no reason!" I screamed in my head as I flicked the pin away and heard it ping silently in the corner of the room.
It was my fault actually, I had been so intent on focusing on what to say to Nanahara, I hadn't paid attention to the cuffs when the light was tuned on that the cuffs were of a combination type and didn't require a key.
Thoroughly disgusted with myself, I sat in the room for ages, having no idea what time it was and getting tired of just sitting in a dark room with no sight or sound even though I was still pretty wired for a while after my failed Houdini attempt.
Finally, either the fatigue or the boredom began to take its toll on me and at some point I dropped off for a few minutes while sitting upright, only to awaken when my head dropped forward and hit the table with a hard smack.
After a few moments tirade of some very nasty things I said about the Japanese SAT, I once again nodded off briefly, but then awoke to find my head once again, lying on the surface of the table.
Only this time however, I woke up to find a small pillow had been placed under my head for comfort.
"Bloody hell,…!" I cursed under my breath. "I must be getting soft if someone can sneak up on me and lay a pillow under my head without me noticing."
Angry with myself for my sloppiness, I leaned my head back down on the pillow and closed my eye again and was about to nod off when the lights came back on again and I heard the tell-tale sound of someone unlocking the door.
I closed my eye to pretend I was still sleeping, but whoever my visitor was, apparently was not fooled for one second as he walked into the room and then sat down in front of me.
"You can stop with the act now Andrew-san, I know you're awake." A female voice sounded in my ears much to my surprise as I sheepishly smiled into the pillow and slowly sat up to face,….…
"Oh for fucks sake." I muttered as I recognized the woman sitting directly across the table from me.
It was the same bitch from last time.
"What was her name again?" I thought to myself and unable to remember. And as I studied her face now so close to mine, I couldn't help but feel that somehow she looked so very familiar to me as if I must know here from somewhere in my past, but for the life of me, I couldn't recall her name.
"Good to see you too, Andrew." The woman said with a smile. "It's been a long time."
"Apparently, since I don't remember you at all." I said with a grunt.
"Oh come on now,…" The woman said good-humoredly "How can you say that? I was one of your best students."
"Come on, you mean you really don't remember me?" She went on. "Rika Minami, from Class 33 Alpha?"
"The only thing I remember love, is you standing there watching as multiple tasers were being shot at me from all directions." I said sourly, not wanting to be friendly with this cheeky broad at all.
"Oh come on now, it wasn't that bad was it?" The female SAT cop said with a small smile, referring to my being tased earlier. "We've all been tased during training at one time or another."
"F_ck you. My f_cking chest still hurts." I muttered bitterly and then turned my head away from her.
I then heard her sigh as if in frustration as I noticed out of the corner of my eye, that she was pulling something out of one of the pockets on her black BDU coveralls and placed it on the table in front of me for me to see.
And as I glanced at it, I saw a small white napkin unfolded with the blood covered pin I'd attempted to free myself with lying within.
Shite.
"My partner, Corporal Tajima, found this last night after you had passed out." The SAT woman began as I shook my head in frustration knowing they'd been watching me all along through infra-red cameras as I attempted to free myself.
"You were pretty out of it,…" Rika continued. "And when he first found that pin and noticed the marks around your wrists he thought you had tried to commit suicide."
"But then he found the puncture mark on your wrist on that tattoo of yours and then it all made sense." She finished as I looked into her face.
"Andrew, you must believe me when I tell you that we're not your enemies here." Rika said as I looked at her and noticed that for some reason, she seemed to have a sad look on her face as if she were truly trying to appeal to me.
"Good cop, bad cop." I reasoned to myself as I just glared at her in response.
"Come on Andrew, please talk to me." The female officer said almost begging me.
"Why the hell should I? I've never seen you before!" I snapped in response. "Why the hell would I want to talk to you?!"
And as I shifted in my chair, I felt something soft around my wrists and peeked down to see both of my wrists wrapped in bandages.
"Alright, when the hell exactly did this happen?" I wondered to myself in horror. "Have these people been drugging me? No way in hell am I that sloppy to have missed someone doing this to me."
I then noticed as I stared at my bandaged wrists as the face of the female SAT officer went from sad to shocked in about a nanosecond, as I looked up and met her eye.
"Been stalking me have you, love? Worried about me getting hurt, eh?" I quipped with a smile, as she quickly looked at me with a look as if I'd gone mad.
And then to my surprise, I watched as the woman bowed her head and her shoulders began to shake slightly as if she were laughing.
But then as she raised her head, I then realized that she wasn't laughing at all as she looked up at me sadly once again, her eyes almost in tears.
"Andrew, don't you remember how you helped train me and Tajima years ago back in Hereford?" Rika said as she looked at me once again with those sad eyes.
"Huh?" I said in response, a little taken back with her behavior.
"You taught us all about Advanced CQB tactics when the SAT was invited to train with the SAS in England, don't you remember?" She asked quietly.
"That's news to me, love, when exactly did this happen?" I replied as I tried to think back to my years in the SAS, and all the things I did with The Regiment and once again, like many times before, came up with nothing.
Tragically, much of my memories of those years of service were still very hazy, especially ever since the blast in Northern Ireland, which left me unable to remember much of my past, as well as the loss of one of my eyes.
"What year was this event you're talking about, love?" I asked her quietly without looking directly at her as she turned her head back towards me after looking up at the camera for a moment.
"April, 2003." She replied with a slight smirk on her face.
"Ten days of explosions, back-breaking PT, and weapons drilling the likes none of us in the SAT wh survived you will ever forget." She added.
"Bloody hell fire woman that was ten years ago! You really expect me to remember that far back with my head as it is!?" I snapped at her, slightly exasperated.
"Why not?!" She shot back. "I'll never forget that training as long as I live!"
"By the way, what do you mean "with my head as it is"?" The young SAT officer then asked me, a puzzled expression on her face.
"Do you see this eye patch here, sweetie?" I said with a chuckle as I pointed to my missing orb.
"This is for f_ckin' real love, it's not there just to make me more dashing for you ladies." I said with a sigh.
"Take a look under it if you don't believe me." I said to her as she seemed to be somewhat hesitant to accept my invitation at first.
"What's your name again, love?'' I said wearily wishing to get this over with already.
"Minami,…..Sgt. Rika Minami, Andrew –san." The slightly intimidated SAT officer replied.
"Go ahead, Rika, take a look. I won't bite." I told her as I settled back in my seat and let my shoulders drop.
"But I'm warning you, love,…." I added. You're not going to like what you see."
I watched as the SAT woman got up from her seat and cautiously made her way around the table until she finally stood right beside me while I just gazed at her calmly; know she's still extremely hesitant about touching me.
"Go ahead Rika, I promise to behave." I said trying to reassure her there was no fight left in me. "Scout's honor and all that American rubbish,…."
"I know you won't hurt me and I won't hurt you either, I promise." I told her calmly as she slowly lifted up a corner of the eye patch and I then saw her immediate reaction and knew instantly exactly what she was thinking.
Monster.
Slowly as if not to hurt my feelings, she then put the patch back in place and backed away from me turning around with her back to me.
But not before I noticed her clamping her hands over her mouth as if she were about to cry and briefly muttered something in Japanese that I couldn't understand.
"I warned you weren't going to like what you see, love." I said quietly as I felt myself actually feeling sorry for her as I could now see in her face that she wasn't acting horrified at all.
This really wasn't the normal "good cop vs. bad cop routine you see on the telly all the time after all I realized. This woman was genuinely horrified at what had happened to me as she turned back around to face me, her are brimming with tears.
"Andrew-San, I am so sorry,… " She sniffled as wiped away a stray tear that had rolled down her cheek. "What happened to you?"
Maybe it was those sad eyes or just the fact that someone seemed to actually care about me, I don't know.
But instead of clamming up and keeping silent like so many times before, I did something I hadn't done since Jim and I had that long talk just a few months before.
Something I thought I would never do again as I looked at the SAT officer watching me with those sad eyes of hers and for some reason, could not help but want to tell her the painful events that had happened to me so long ago.
"It all happened in Northern Ireland, five years ago…" I began.
Time: Winter, 2007
Location : Eastern Belfast, Northern Ireland
"What a friggin' dump." I muttered sourly as the wind-whipped raindrops continued to lash at the windshield outside of the sleek black Range Rover I was sitting in as the rain continued to fall to earth at an alarming rate while I sat in the driver's seat with my Heckler & Koch MP5KA1 submachine gun hidden under a newspaper in my lap ready to be used at a moment's notice.
"F_cking cold, f_cking rain, f_cking assignment, f_cking boring." I grumbled as the other guys in the Rover with me told me to shut the hell up as I flipped all of them off.
In all the movies about the SAS, all the audience ever sees is some actor running with his guns blazing while a million "X-Rays" are shooting at him with all sorts of automatic weapons fire as the hero somehow manages to dodging being cut down by a hail of bullets and also miraculously dives from explosions in the nick of time while every bullet he fires appears to magically hit his target whilst he manages to escape unscathed, and save the day.
Which is why you see so many chaps and their cousins trying to get into The Regiment with dreams of adventure and glory dancing around in their silly little heads.
Too bad the movie makers and even the recruiters failed to mention the excruciatingly long hours, days and weeks of mind-numbing absolute boredom that comes with performing surveillance on potential terrorists in the SAS.
If they had, there would have probably been a lot less wannabes flooding the gates of the SAS Barracks at Hereford trying out for The Regiment more than likely.
Selection would have been a whole hell of a lot easier then in my opinion.
Anyway, for the last week we had been waiting around certain parts of Belfast hoping to catch on to a certain X-Ray by the name of Frankie McGuire, who had been rather busy lately planting IED's around the city just waiting to be accidentally triggered by British squaddies doing their regular foot patrols.
"Yeah, I think you're right Andy, what are the chances of catching that little bastard at work anyway in this weather?" One of my comrades asked me from the back seat of the Land Rover.
I turned my head and glanced back at one of my teammates by the name of Bauer as he flipped through the pages of an old tattered porno magazine almost idly whilst his smaller MAC-11 machine pistol lay in the foot well beside him with two magazines all taped together gangster style for faster reloading.
Contrary to what some people believe, we still use the MAC-11 for our "spray n' pray" operations in close quarter combat situations.
Beside me riding shotgun was another mate named Stiles who was busy nodding his head along to some tune that was playing in his ears from his IPOD with his eyes closed.
Growing tired after being awake for so long, I nudged him in the leg to get his attention as he opened his eyes and looked up at me, pulling off his ear buds from his ears.
"Sup, boss?" He asked nonchalantly as I looked at him with a frown.
In answer, I gave him the practiced hand signal for him to keep his eyes open and pointed outside. Nodding in response, he calmly put the ear buds back in his ears and lay his head back against the headrest but kept his eyes opened, keeping careful watch as I took a little break and grabbed a nap despite the freezing cold in the Rover.
As is often practiced with most surveillance teams, in order not to give yourselves away by sitting in a parked car with the engine running and clearly visible exhaust pouring out of the tailpipe to give yourselves away, we were sitting in the Rover with the engine off.
Great for keeping from being noticed by watchful eyes, but pure hell for our merry little band of icicles freezing our nuts off sitting within the confines of the Rover.
Bloody hell, it was cold inside the Rover, but at least I was somewhat warm as I was wearing my large brown woolly coat that helped keep the chill out.
The "Alpha Industries" coat I was wearing had been the last present from Sarah I received before she and my daughter passed away.
The blue jeans that I was wearing thankfully, were also brand new and not full of holes as my last pair had been and were pretty thick too which helped keep my legs warm, and then there was the large brown industrial boots I was also wearing which were thickly and warmly padded, as were the large thick black socks I wore over my feet too.
All this for one rat bastard who couldn't help but blast squaddies and civies every chance he got and had somehow managed to evade capture for years until we got a tip that old Frankie boy was holed up around this part of the country swilling stout and laughing at all of us as we scrambled from one dead end to another, until he was finally spotted and a call was made to The Regiment's Commander who sent us out here to freeze to death as we looked for this wanker.
And at this particular moment as we froze our bum's off, we had been parked for the better part of the day outside a rather quiet and somewhat non-descript old pub, a favorite of the locals and old Frankie called "Shoulder of Mutton" waiting for the bastard to show up, but so far, Frankie was a no-show.
And after a brief nap and then waiting for another hour before all of us where about to strangle each other being cooped in all day, I finally had enough of waiting and started the engine and pulled our Rover out into the road and made our way back to our makeshift Command post outside of the city at the old farm house we were currently quartered at.
"Forkball, forkball, this is Eyeball, are you receiving me over?" I asked over my tactical communications ear bud.
"This is Forkball, receiving you clearly Eyeball, anything to report over?" Came the unmistakable voice of Colonel Aidan Dempsey, Commanding officer of 22nd regiment SAS and the "Boss" of both "Red Troop" led by Sgt. Henry "Henno" Garvey whilst we were assigned in Northern Ireland along with Sgt. Johnny Bell's "Blue Troop".
"That's a negative boss, this lead is dead or we've been made. Making our way back home now, you or the lads need anything from Tesco while we're out?" I asked trying to make a joke but couldn't quite pull it off.
Ever since my families passing I've been depressed as hell, and that's putting it mildly. So just to keep the others from worrying too much especially the Colonel, I tried to put on appearances every now and then that I was doing better.
The truth was though, I wasn't doing better.
In fact, I was still trying to find reasons to even bother going on.
I had never told anyone but I put the barrel of my Walther PPK in my mouth the day of my family's funeral whilst everyone else was at the wake. But no matter how much I tried, I couldn't pull the trigger, killing myself would be killing their memory.
"Negative Eyeball, just get back home safely, over and out." Col. Dempsey replied as the channel went dead. I dropped the radio on the floor of the Rover and gunned it back to our staging post.
It took a little over an hour to make it back to the farm where Red and Blue troop were posted for the duration of this operation as we gratefully pulled up the driveway looking forward to some downtime and a hot meal as the Rover bounced through a few of the small chuckholes in the driveway splashing mud everywhere as I finally pulled up alongside the other Range Rovers we were all using and turned off the engine.
As we exited the Rover, we made sure to keep our weapons hidden as we made our way towards the farmhouse we were quartered in so as not to draw attention from any of the local folk who could possibly be walking their dogs around these parts since there was a public footpath nearby that went through the fields half a mile away.
And as we entered the house, Bauer and Stiles and I walked past the table where BLUE Troop was busy cleaning a row of Heckler & Koch MP5K submachine guns and HK53 and M16A1/M203 assault rifles in preparation for their assignment tonight.
And as was our practice, we kept our weapons with us at all times, so that we would be able to protect ourselves if the shite suddenly hit the fan and we were attacked by PIRA terrorists.
It had happened before in the past, where the PIRA boys would sneak up during the night and unleash hell on unsuspecting police with Chinese AK-47's and pump-action shotguns.
Needless to say, we wanted to be ready in case any of those chaps were stupid enough to try something like that.
"You weren't supposed to be back until tomorrow." I heard a gruff voice speak from behind me as we entered the house headed for the kitchen anxious to grab a brew before we de-briefed with Col. Dempsey.
Rolling my eyes and sighing, I turned to see Sgt. Henry "Henno" Garvie standing there with his MP5 slung around his shoulder and wearing his usual garb of dirty blue jeans, black padded coat and black combat boots with the usual annoyed scowl that was ever present on his face.
I swear, if I ever saw that man crack a smile I'd be the first man to quit The Regiment and become a priest because then I'd know the end of the world was surely nigh.
Intentionally ignoring him for a moment just to piss him off even further, I motioned for Stiles and Bauer to go on ahead without me and then meet me upstairs in one of the rooms where we kipped whilst we weren't on duty.
"And you're point being "DAD"?" I asked, clearly not interested on having this conversation with him right now.
"Don't get cheeky with me Andy, you're supposed to be keeping an eye out for when that bastard turns up." Henno growled as the rest of RED Troop stood watching the exchange between me and Henno nervously.
Henno and I had been increasingly on edge with each other ever since the loss of my family. It's not that I didn't like him, Henno, Pete and I had been mates for years.
But one thing that always bothered me was Henno's constant badgering me about my recent lack of focus lately. And quite frankly while he had a good point, I really did not need him hovering over me pointing out everything he thought I was doing wrong all the time.
And because of his constant nagging and my own downward descent into my own private hell, the friendship we had forged over the years had soured greatly.
"Box" told us they should be meeting any time now…" Henno continued until I stopped him by holding my hands up.
"Not being funny mate but since when has "Box" ever got anything right?" I growled back at him, partially in irritation from being half-frozen and partially at just having to explain myself to Henno in the first place.
"You and Jamie nearly got plugged the other week when we were all in Bosnia, not to mention Caroline getting clipped in the arm last month too, remember?" I said as I shook off some of the rain on my coat all over his boots.
"So back off mate, I'm not gonna stay out there all day and freeze my balls off just because you and "Box" think it's a f_cking great idea." I said smarting off at Henno as the scowl on his face deepened at my words.
"Box", or more commonly, MI5 Intelligence officers to the civilian population, had been stuck with us for the past two weeks whilst we were tracking Frankie McGuire and his small unit of terrorists across Northern Ireland and had proven all but useless during the entire time we had been deployed here.
And currently, we had yet to receive authorization to travel into the Republic of Ireland, again, with no help from them, but lucky for us, Col. Dempsey had been talking with the Irish Ministers about that and had reported to us earlier yesterday that they had finally promised that they would give us the required authorization in two days along with a unit of Irish Army Rangers to back us up.
Still, being cooped up for days on end in a freezing Land Rover and then living under the same roof with Henno was beginning to take its toll on everyone, and not just me.
And right now Henno was really rubbing me the wrong way.
Of course, I hadn't realized it at the time considering everything that had happened to me in the past few months, but in truth, Henno was actually in the right for attempting to dress me down a bit that day.
In truth, I had been asking for it for a long time already.
But I was blinded by my own grief, and back then all I knew was my own pain, and because of that, I was too blind to see how my actions were affecting the rest of the boys as well as the Ops we went on.
I could kick myself now for acting like such an asshole back then.
"Watch you're tone with me Andy. I know what you've been through and what you've lost but that doesn't mean you can…" Henno began and then stopped speaking as I angrily charged across the room and grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and slammed Henno into the wall.
"DON'T YOU FUCKING TALK ABOUT THEM EVER YOU FUCKIN' BALD FUCK!" I roared angrily in his face as Henno threw his hands up showing he didn't want to fight me as I snarled in his face like a rabid dog as Pete, Jem, and Alex tried to pull me away.
I heard a sound coming from behind them and out of the corner of my eye I saw two of my fellow RED Troop mates Jamie and Ricky run into the room from upstairs with their sidearms drawn and then came to a stop when they saw me pinning Henno to the wall.
"Andy, let him go you crazy prick!" Pete ordered me as he and Jem tried to pull me off while Ricky and Jamie holstered their pistols and ran over to us.
"Calm down you stupid bastard!" Henno shouted at me as he looked me directly in the eye.
"Let me go Andy, or I'll forget that we're mates and I'll put you down but good." Henno hissed keeping his cool despite the fact we both knew he could tear me in half if he really wanted to.
"Last warning, Andy." Henno said as I could feel his body tensing in preparation to strike. "Let go."
I've known Henno for a long time, and despite the fact that we are both the same size and strength, I knew he could kill me if he wanted to. In truth, he had been holding back from giving me a good thrashing for some time now, knowing that the loss of my wife and baby was affecting me worse than I let on.
But this time I had pushed things way too far, and although I didn't know it then,…..
My days with RED troop and The Regiment were all but over.
"Andrew,… mate, we all know Henno's a prick,…" Ricky began trying to keep Henno from making good his threat as he calmly put his hand on my shoulder while Henno glared at him.
"But you need to let him go, now." Ricky murmured to me as he grabbed me by the shoulders and slowly pulled me away as I released Henno from my grip.
Good old Ricky.
He was always the man who disarmed IED's and other explosives situations, but I bet he never thought he would have to deal with two unstable atom bombs like me and Henno, too.
Of course instead of being grateful that things hadn't gotten any worse or that I had done something really stupid, instead I shot my mouth off and made things even worse.
"Keep that twat away from me from now on, or next time I won't hold back." I growled and marched away as my friends watched me climb up the stairs and sink ever deeper and deeper into the ruined mess that was my life after the loss of my wife and baby.
Everyone in the house knew of my confrontation with Henno including Col. Dempsey, although he nor anyone else said anything about it, and then later when we had all cooled down, I finally returned upstairs and sat in the bunkroom with Stiles and Bauer as we settled down to pass the time and play some Blackjack.
Trying to forget the day's events, I placed another twenty-pound sterling note on the table to add to the pot as we played several rounds with me losing every time until I stopped after nearly losing almost two hundred pounds.
Of course, as keyed up as I was, I didn't really care to be honest about losing so much money so long as it took my mind off the things that had seemed to be bothering me more and more these days.
However, after I realized that I was broke and that time was getting on after looking at my wristwatch and realizing that it was nearly one in the morning, I thought it best to try and get forty winks as best I could.
Leaving Bauer and Stiles to continue their game without me, I turned towards my bunk and removed my pistol from its holster and stuck it under my pillow as I dropped out onto my bunk fully clothed and threw the blankets over myself.
Even with the space heater burning full blast, the room was still freezing and I wasn't going to croak on an operation because of the cold, although the real reason I stayed fully dressed was because I wasn't about to go running around in my skivvies if we came under attack, so I stayed fully dressed as I settled in for the night.
It was just as I was about to close my eyes and nod off when the night's quiet erupted with the roar of weapons fire.
"BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!"
"F_CK!" I roared as I threw myself off of my bunk and onto the floor along with Bauer and Stiles, grabbing my SIG from my pillow on the way down and performing a quick brass check as the roar of automatic weapons fired sounded off from somewhere very close by.
And apparently, whoever was doing all the shooting was a lot closer than we originally thought as we were showered with wood splinters and flying dust started appearing in the walls with some rounds going through the walls and coming really close to my huddled position as I hugged the floor trying to keep from being hit as a continuous stream of AK fire riddled the walls with 7.62mm sized holes.
"We've got to get downstairs!" Stiles barked as he blind fired several rounds from his Browning Hi-Power out the window into the darkness, and then smiled at hearing several yells of surprise and anger.
"Well, what do you know?" Stiles said laughing. "I actually hit someone!"
"Lucky prick." I growled. Stiles wasn't trying anything more than to keep the bad guys' heads down and instead, he manages to actually wing a few.
"Fecking arseholes!" I heard someone shout in anger from outside as a round from a shotgun blasted the window into splinters that Stiles had just been shooting from.
"Ah! Little f_cking f_cks!" Stiles grumbled as he rolled away from the window and took cover next to us as we then heard a bunch of auto fire coming from directly beneath our floorboards from automatic weapons fire coming from Henno's team.
I grabbed my MP5KA1 and Bauer's MAC-11 and the magazines for them and pass it to him as Stiles heads for the door.
"Come on, let's shift it." I muttered as we all checked the hallway finding some of the other guys from BLUE Troop shooting from their windows at the shooters below as we headed towards the stairs and then hurried down keeping our heads low.
"WHERE THE F_CK ARE YOU GUYS!?" I shouted as I reached the bottom of the stairs and saw no one around as I then hit the floor as a torrent of bullets tore up the walls around me in response.
"HOLY SHIT!" I yelled as I hit the floor and then rolled away to escape the murderous auto fire as Bauer and Stiles rolled in the opposite direction.
And as I rolled into the kitchen trying to escape the bullets wock-wock-wocking around me I was suddenly greeted by the barrel of Henno's MP5 pointing directly in my face, who had spun around at the sound of me rolling next to his concealed firing position and had been about to blast me but then quickly pulled his weapon away as he realized just who it is that just tumbled next to him.
"Watch it you muppet." I muttered as I turn away and begin to belly crawl out of the kitchen.
"Same to you, asshole." I heard him growl as I belly-crawled across the room towards the closest window I could see.
And as I finally reached the bullet-shattered window I stuck my own weapon up through it and blind fired out the window and was quickly rewarded by the sound of screams coming from a couple of the PIRA terrorists yelling "Get to fecking cover!", and other shouts of panic as bullets start flying towards them for a change.
"DON'T CROUCH DOWN LIKE COWARDS LADS! POUR IT INTO THEM!" I suddenly heard somebody roaring outside despite the cacophony of noise coming from all the weapons fire and for a split second I couldn't believe my ears at the sound of the familiar voice I've just heard.
I knew that voice.
I've listened to that voice on countless surveillance recordings of taped phone conversations and I've heard it so much that it's been permanently seared into my brain.
Yup, there was absolutely no doubt about it.
It was Frankie McGuire.
F_ck me, we were looking for him all this time and here he is, trying to slot us.
"Well just you wait a moment mate and let me tidy up so I can give you a great big hello." I mumbled under my breath as I readied myself to take a shot at him.
Making sure that I wasn't going to be silhouetted by any form of light shining behind me, I quickly poked my head up and peeked through the shattered window and saw him standing right there in plain sight silhouetted perfectly by the moonlight in a "poor man's" commando costume made up of a black jeans, black hoodie and a body warmer with pockets to hold magazines for the pistol that he was waving around wildly like a madman, an old German Luger P08 semiautomatic.
He was either very brave or very stupid to be that exposed during a firefight against anyone much less us. Personally, I think it was the latter.
Yes sir, Frankie would have been a sniper's wet dream making such a perfect target the way he was, but in truth, at just shy of one pound sterling per round it would have just been a perfectly good waste of sniper ammo.
And not nearly as much fun as what I had in mind.
"Stiles! Chuck me your "203" will ya, mate?" I shouted from across the room as Stiles looked at me and then saw the shit-eating grin on my face as he opened the breech of the M203 launcher mounted below his M-16.
"H.E. round, boss?!" Stiles shouted over the continuous roar of weapons fire going on around us as he slipped an HE grenade into the chamber of the M203 and closed the breech.
"Fucking too right, laddie!" I shouted back at him as I licked my lips in anticipation at the big "boom" that was about to rock Frankie boy's world.
Stiles grinned back at me as he slid the M16/M203 combo weapon across the room and drew his pistol and fired out the window he was covering as the stock of his weapon skidded to a stop beside me and I snatched the rifle up and racked the bolt on the M16, making sure there was a round in the chamber as I waited for a lull in the weapons fire coming from outside as Frankie's boys stooped to reload their weapons.
And then as the opposing weapons fire died down, in a moment of adrenaline pumped excitement I knelt near the window and let rip with the assault rifle on full auto so as to force Frankie and his boys to keep their heads down.
The M16 I was using had a 90-Round "snail" drum magazine attached to it which helped me considerably in being able to pour a continuous stream of 5.56mm lead that sprayed the area around Frankie's position long enough to encourage our noisy "guests" to keep their flippin' heads down instead of shooting back at my muzzle flash .
Evidently that was enough for some of Frankie's men to call it a night, because I saw several of them illuminated by the muzzle flash turn tail and try to make a run for it.
But as they ran, I smiled evilly to myself and aimed at their spines, firing short bursts at them as four of them fell screaming in agony.
"You fecking bastard!" I heard Frankie shouting angrily as he unloaded the entire magazine of his Luger directly at me as I ducked and listened to all eight shots from the Luger striking the window frame.
"HA! YOU'RE NOTHING MORE THAN A FUCKING JOKE, FRANKIE!" I roared back at him, taunting him as I cast a quick glance through the window and saw his shadowed form turning in an attempt to run away along with four more of his boys that were left.
"OH NO YOU DON'T, FRANKIE BOY!" I shouted as I brought the muzzle of the M-16 up and fired the grenade launcher.
Even though I had lobbed the grenade under heavy weapons fire, I was pretty certain of my aim as the forty-millimetre round propelled itself across open ground and slammed into the earth with a loud "WHUMP!".
Despite what you see in the movies, a forty "mike-mike" grenade is not a tiny nuke that blows everything to splinters with huge balls of flame and thunderous explosions.
However, in this case I must have gotten really lucky and hit someone carrying explosives on them because after the "WHUMP" of the grenade I fired, there came a tremendous "BOOM!" right afterwards that rocked the house.
"WHAT THE F_CK WAS THAT?! I heard another one of my mates in RED Troop, Jem, yelling in the kitchen as I saw Henno poke his head through the doorway to look at me.
"HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE F_CK DID YOU HIT THEM WITH, ANDY?! Henno roared. "YOU SHOOT A TOMAHAWK AT THEM OR WHAT?!"
"Something like that, mate." I chuckled at Henno as I cautiously raised my head up and took a gander out the window and saw a lot of dust and bits of things unrecognizable hitting the ground all over the place.
"What the f_ck was that?" I thought to myself as I saw the smoke clearing and gaped at the destruction slowly being revealed as the dust settled and I could clearly see that the area was littered with body parts as well as partially intact bodies.
"Right,…" I heard Henno bark as everyone lay quietly for a moment listening for any other movement outside. "Everyone intact?"
A chorus of "f_ck you's" was heard around the house as everyone sounded off including Col. Dempsey who I found out later had been sitting in the loo' when all the firing had started.
"Yea, f_ck all of you too." Henno grumbled as he rolled his eyes and looked towards the back of the house and keyed the PTT button attached to his radio.
"Johnny, you alive over there mate?" Henno said over his throat mike to BLUE Troop's Team Leader Johnny Bell.
"Yea, but my teeth are rattled from whatever the hell that last explosion was." I heard Johnny grumble over my earpiece.
"That was Andy's doing,…." Henno said sarcastically. "Anyone else alive upstairs?"
"Yup." Came the voice of one of Blue Troop's snipers, a Corporal named Mike Hammond.
"You see anything moving out there, Mikey?" Johnny Bell asked over his throat mike as Mikey paused for a long moment before answering.
"Nothing on this side, boss." Mikey answered in an almost bored voice.
"How about you, Charlie? See anything?" Johnny asked another one of BLUE Troop's team, a fellow named Charles Winton who was their explosives expert.
"Nothing here Johnny, m'lad." Charlie replied with a laugh. "I think Andy vaporized them with whatever he hit them with."
"F_ck you Charlie." I grumbled over my throat mike as I heard everyone laughing throughout the house.
"Pipe down." Henno snarled as he crawled over to face Jem hunched nearby.
"Jem, take Alex , Stiles, and Ricky with you out back." Henno ordered as we all checked our weapons.
"Andy, Jaime, and Pete your with me through the side entrance." Henno said as I passed Stiles back his weapon and we all moved towards the side door of the farmhouse, keeping low as we finally reached the door and cracked it open and cautiously peered outside.
"Looks clear!" I whispered as Henno and the rest of the team prepared to make sure the area was secure.
Cautiously opening the door, I leveled my weapon outside as Henno tapped my shoulder and we all moved outside scanning the area carefully for any stragglers left behind and finding nothing.
Well, nothing alive anyway.
That is until we were almost about to finish our sweep and then Jem and his lads came across a couple of survivors.
With my MP5 hanging by its sling, I unholstered my pistol, and with my SIG in hand I walked over with the others to where two of Frankie's boys were trying to crawl away from the area using their arms to drag themselves across the earth.
By that time it started to rain again and the small fires started from the explosion makes everything look pretty eerie. But as I look around I see that Frankie and whatever's left of his boys aren't amongst the other bodies.
Shit, I missed.
They obviously must have gotten away when the area was clouded with smoke and earth after the eplosion.
Frustrated, I grabbed one of the two young men left behind by his hair and yanked his head back as he groaned in both agony and anger.
"Andy! Take it easy mate." I heard Pete say as I noticed Henno out of the corner of my eye shaking his head and scowling at me.
Ignoring them, I yanked on the wounded fellow's scalp even harder as he opened his eyes from the pain and glared at me.
"Now then you little fuck. Where's Frankie hiding?" I asked him angrily.
"Go f_ck yourself, ye f_cking limey!" The wounded man growled as he spat in my face.
I couldn't help but chuckle at the man's words as I wiped the spittle off my face.
"Is that the best insult you can give me, bub?" I asked him as I raised the SIG and put it against his forehead as the guy makes a choking sound and then gives one last deep sigh as his eyes glaze over.
"Bugger,…" I grumbled as I released his body to fall to the ground as I then looked over at where Jem and the others were checking the second fellow as the guy was now staring wide-eyed at me and shaking like a leaf at seeing his friend dying before him as he began acting as if I had just executed his comrade instead of the stupid wanker just dying from his wounds.
With Alex keeping his SIG trained on him, I watched as Jem moved over and kicked the man in the ribs so that he flipped over onto his back.
"Now then," Jem began to speak. "Where is Frankie hiding?"
Either the guy is just too afraid or just too stubborn to speak, because he doesn't respond to Jem's question at all.
But instead, he keeps looking over at his dead mate and says nothing despite Jem's attempts to make the man talk and getting nowhere.
And after a few moments of watching Jem trying to get the man to talk and getting nowhere, I finally lost my temper and walked over to the others and pushed Alex out of the way as I pointed my SIG at the man's forehead and stared directly into his face.
"ANDY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" I heard Jem and then Henno shout as I just ignored them both and pulled back the hammer of pistol with my thumb.
"Pl…Please don't kill me…sir." The man begins pleading as he looks up at me with wild eyes.
"I'm no bloody *Rupert, bub, so don't call me sir." I hissed angrily at the cowering man.
(*Rupert- Slang for "Officer")
"My mate asked you a question,…." I began as I glared at the man whom I could tell had pissed himself as the stink of urine wafted up into my nostrils and disgusted me even more. "And if you don't want to get shot, you had better answer me now."
"Where is Frankie hiding?" I growled at him.
"He…he's just over the border, in Carlingford." The man manages to sputter.
"The f_ck he is,….." I said as I aimed the muzzle of my pistol down the lower part of his anatomy and sent a 9mm Hollow-Point into his thigh causing him to scream.
"ANDY! WHAT THE F_CK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" I heard Henno shout as he made a grab for my arm and I smacked his hand away.
"BACK OFF HENRY!" I shouted sarcastically as everyone around looked at me in horror especially Henno, who had never allowed anyone except for Col. Dempsey to call him by his real name of "Henry".
"I got this." I said with mirth. "So back the f_ck off."
Henno glared at me for a long moment as I glared right back at him, and I could feel the eyes of everyone watching us, every one of them but me knowing that now I really had gone too far and my spot in RED Troop was over, as they waited to see what Henno would do and step in if need be to keep us from killing one another.
"You got 60 seconds to make him talk and no more, Andy." Henno said his voice dangerously low. "And if he doesn't talk, then you will back off, understand?"
"I mean it, Andy." Henno said as he stood toe-to toe with me.
"Fine." I said not batting an eye as Henno backed away so I could finish my line of "questioning."
"You heard the man." I said to the wounded man on the ground. "You've got 60 seconds to tell me something I can use or I'll have to walk away."
"But not before I put a round through your other leg and one through each of your balls." I said as I pointed my SIG at the man again and then looked up at Henno and smiled as he stiffened at my threat.
"Tick-tock, mate, want to say something or not?" I asked the wounded man again as I pulled a packet of Marlboro reds from my jacket pocket and lit one up and exhaled the smoke into the cold night air as the rain continued to hammer down and the man groaned in pain.
"Or should I just start shooting?" I said as I casually pointed my pistol at his other leg.
"NO, PLEASE! LISBURN! FRANKIE'S IN FECKING LISBURN!" The young man wailed loudly as he tried to place his hands over the bullet wound on his leg to stop the bleeding.
"Lisburn's a pretty big fucking area, where exactly in Lisburn is Frankie staying?" I asked as dramatically I took one last drag and flicked the ciggie away, as it landed in a puddle and fizzed out.
"In a farmhouse, on the West side of town, I swear, please it's the truth." The man screams as I aimed the SIG at his head again and ponder for a moment whether to fire a round through the side of his head.
Not ten minutes ago this wanker was firing an AK-47 at me and my comrades attempting to kill us all, and if they had succeeded, those of us who had survived the attack, would more than likely be tortured and burned alive afterwards.
I had seen some of the nasty things these little pricks do to their victims, and I felt no pity for the wounded man one bit as I watched him lying there in the mud.
Once, during a joint operation in this very same area several years ago, there was this one local woman who went missing immediately after it was rumored that she was giving information to British intelligence about an IRA cell operating in London.
After numerous pleas by her family for her safe return on the telly to no avail, we finally responded to an anonymous tip, where my team finally found her almost a week after she had first disappeared.
She had been raped several times and then tied to a wooden post in a barn, tortured with cigarette burns all over her body.
And then after they'd had their fun, they then took a shotgun and blew her head off before they made their getaway.
And when the police along with Stiles, Bauer and I found the ones responsible for the crime, they turned out to be nothing more than a bunch of f_cking PIRA wannabes who immediately engaged us in a firefight once we surrounded the house and ordered them to surrender.
And then during the fierce firefight, a local constable was shot through the face and dropped dead.
And then after seeing their mate fall, the others cops opened up with everything they had and started going nuts with the tear gas grenades despite our efforts to stop them.
Somehow in the firefight, something caught fire inside the house and before long, thick black smoke started to pour out of the windows as the police continued to fire every round they had at their disposal into the house as flames started to lick up under the eaves.
And then because of all the weapons fire from the Police, the Commanders of the local Fire Brigade would not allow their fire crews to come in and put out the flames that proceeded to burn out of control and engulf the whole house.
And so then all we could do was just stand by helplessly and watch the house burn and listen to the sounds of whoever was left alive inside screaming until the house burned to the ground.
And then when all was said and done, the Police Commissioner was beside himself over what had happened, and was almost about to give himself a stroke screaming at his Commanders about the wonderful mess now lying before him by the reckless actions of his people, not to mention the loss of one of his officers.
Despite the fact that the whole thing had gone tits up because of the police losing their cool, we could sympathize with their anger, and so after the ordeal was over, we took the Police Commissioner and his men aside and explained to them how the whole thing "really" went down.
Not quite understanding what we were talking about, I further explained that the entire incident was actually a retaliatory attack by the IRA and that we had all arrived when it was too late to do anything about it, and the first arriving offer had been shot and murdered by the IRA terrorists as they made their getaway.
And then after our little "debriefing" of which the Police were now more than grateful for our "help", we went off on our own and dumped some confiscated SMG's and other bits of evidence in the car of a known IRA bomb maker and then later gave the local police all the other "evidence" they needed to put that guy behind bars.
It wasn't the first time we had to cover up a major screw-up like that.
In truth, that was always a good way to divert attention away from us, by blaming the killings on an IRA bomb maker to make it look like he was taking care of a loose end or someone who could potentially compromise his location, or just to get rid of the wannabes who were trying to make a play for power.
Call us monsters if you like, at least we got the f_cking job done and with some retribution and payback for the young girl as well and for the officer who had been killed.
And as I look down at the wounded man groaning in pain as the rain soaks all of us to the skin, I can't help but be tempted to squeeze the trigger and put a round through this idiot's head.
"Looks like we're going to Lisburn, mates." I said looking over my shoulder at Stiles and Bauer as I pressed the decocking lever on my SIG and holstered my pistol as the wounded man and several of the boys in RED Troop sigh with relief as I notice Henno glaring at me.
"So mate, has Dempsey got the clearance for us to go south of the border yet?" I then asked Henno with a shit-eating grin on my face.
Time: Three days later…
Location: Local Farmhouse - Suspected hideout of Frankie McGuire
Lisburn, Northern Ireland
After quite some time had passed after our little firefight with Frankie and his boys, the orders we had been eagerly anticipating finally came in, and I was so giddy with anticipation, that I was squirming in my seat as we got ready to finally have our final showdown with old Frankie boy who had now run out of places to run.
This is it. We were finally going to go and get the little f_cktard and his buddies, once and for all.
When we arrived, the local police had already had the entire area cordoned off for the last twenty-four hours and there had been confirmed sightings of the bastard and his crew by their surveillance teams.
No chances were being taken this time with Frankie and his boys, and as was promised, we had some major back-up with us this time instead of just the local Law Enforcement, along with some heavy duty firepower as well, including a couple of Carl Gustav recoilless rifles and several FN Minimi light machineguns and enough ammunition to start a small war.
And when our "back-up", the Irish Army Rangers finally arrived, they were stationed nearby in their old clunker of a Land Rover shivering to death away from us as we sat and waited nearby in our warm Range Rover with a heater that actually worked.
I can still remember their looks of disgust on their faces as they watched us while we sat there in the warmth of our vehicle drinking hot cocoa and tea as they froze in their shitty Landies drinking canteen water and Army "rats".
"Sucks to be them." I thought as I took another swig of hot cocoa from a steaming mug.
(* "Rats"- Slang for rations- Not much better than eating real rats in the opinion of many soldiers forced to eat them)
And then after we had been stationed there for the better part of the day we were finally given the okay to move in.
But then just as we got ready to move in, for some reason I couldn't explain, something just didn't seem right and I transmitted for everyone to standby much to everyone's disbelief, especially Henno and Col. Dempsey who immediately radioed me asking if something was wrong.
At the time I couldn't quite put my finger on it but something filled me with a sense of dread when the okay was given to move in.
And as the seconds passed and Col. Dempsey kept asking me what was wrong, my mind began racing to figure out why I felt that something was amiss.
"They have to know we're out here waiting for them, but they haven't fired a single shot at us yet." I thought to myself trying to consider all possible worst case scenarios.
"And if they're not going to make a move, then they must be waiting for us to move first, but for what reason?" I thought as I started to grow anxious at Command repeatedly asking me for a *sitrep.
("Sitrep"- Situation report)
Once again, Col Dempsey called over our comms asking for a sitrep, but I still wouldn't give the order for my guys to move in even though I couldn't give him a reason why.
And then some hothead over at Army Command frustrated by the delay, went over Col. Dempsey's head and ordered the Ranger's in.
And then to everyone's horror, the Ranger's acknowledged the order and began to move in on their own.
Despite my screaming into the comm mike and Col. Dempsey's protests, the Rangers then proceeded to drive up to the farmhouse with men standing on the foot rails on the outside of the Rover whilst holding onto the roof bars as they held their FN P90 submachine gun with one hand.
Now left without a choice, we went in with tires screaming behind the Rangers to back them up and then jumped out of the Land Rover once we caught up with them.
Seconds later after we got out of the Rover, an earth-shattering explosion lifted the Rover the Rangers had been using off the ground as men and parts of men went flying in all directions in a huge gout of smoke and flame.
All of us were propelled backwards by the force of the blast which had left no one on their feet as everyone left alive started scrambling for cover, as burning debris started to fall to the ground.
I didn't know how badly my guys had been hurt, but I knew that I had been hurt pretty badly because part of the rear door of the destroyed Land Rover being blasted backwards had hit me directly in the face knocking me to the ground.
And as I tried to shake off the shock of what had just happened, almost instantly I felt a stinging pain on my face like I'd never felt before.
I've experienced the burning sting of tear gas and other substances in training before that were meant for riot control, but this pain that I'm feeling is completely different, and much more painful.
And as I looked around, I couldn't see either Stiles or Bauer around in the confusion, but I could see several of the Rangers running about screaming as their clothes were on fire from the explosion.
"Ahh, f_cking hell, we're in the shite now." I thought as I felt blood pouring down my face and could taste it in my mouth.
And as if to prove me right, machinegun fire suddenly erupted from the farmhouse and the barn as the rest of the Rangers still on their feet were cut down by heavy automatic weapons fire, withering from the heavy impact of the rounds and falling face first into the dirt.
Somehow managing to turn my head, I looked around curious as to why no one was returning fire as I then finally saw what had happened to the rest ofmy team.
Stiles was dead, his lifeless eyes staring up into the gray sky, his face expressionless and covered in blood.
Bauer was the same, lying face down in the ground with a large piece of metal sticking out of his back and blood pooling beneath him in the mud.
Despite all the rounds flying around everywhere, I managed to sit up and watched the horror of it all unfolding around me almost like a spectacular fireworks show as rounds impacted against the Rover in front of me sending sparks as the ground around me was whipped up by more incoming rounds impacting the earth as I sat there taking it all in.
And as I sat there too shocked to move from my injuries with voices screaming in my ear from the dying Rangers and the voices of Col. Demsey and Henno trying to talk to me over the earpiece, another Land Rover pulled up in front of mine and four more Rangers with P90's dismounted and began firing at the barn, yelling for anyone left to run as they bravely tried to cover our retreat.
"Retreat hell." I thought in response. "There's no one left of us to run anywhere."
It was then that I noticed in the open back hatch of their Land Rover a large green tubular object lying on the floor of the vehicle.
Still not quite with it yet, something inside me made me curious as to what that green thing was and that same curiosity finally made me want to stand up and saunter over towards the Rover as I finally managed to get to my feet, and with rounds flying all around me, I limped over to the Rover, bleeding heavily from wounds all over my left arm, leg and face.
And as I finally arrived at the back of the Rover with bullets ricocheting off the vehicle, I looked inside the Rover at the green thing and found that it was a large artillery piece that I've only handled once before when I was in the Middle East after my unit had become sick of handling single one-shot disposable M72 LAW rocket launchers in favor of something,shall we say,…..more fun.
The green thing that had aroused my curiosity and had brought me back to reality was one of the Carl Gustav M3 recoilless rifles that we had brought along with us.
And right now it was just the thing we needed to turn the tide since the large weapon with its 84mm explosive round was fully capable of decimating anything in its path much less an old dilapidated farmhouse and barn where the baddies were hunkered up in.
After opening the breech, I noticed that the Gustav was already loaded and managed, how I will never know, to pull the launcher up onto my right shoulder, and walk around the Rover in full view of Frankie and his boys still unloading on all of us.
And while stood there completely exposed to enemy gunfire I somehow managed to aim down the sights and fire the bloody thing without falling over.
And after I fired, I stood there calmly and watched as a large chunk of the barn was blown away into loose bricks and pieces of splintered wood by the explosive blast of the projectile.
Not satisfied with just taking out the wankers in the barn, I then calmly shuffleded back to the rear of the Landie and loaded another round into the Gustav after removing the smoking casing of the first one and locked the breech shut once I reloaded.
I aimed my sights at the front of the farmhouse this time, and as the second round I fired made impact, it blew an even larger hole into the front room of the farmhouse, taking out one of the machine gunners at the window and turning him into a pink mist.
As the smoke began to clear I then watched as Frankie McGuire came falling out of the house and tried to crawl away on his hands and knees.
The Rangers had stopped firing once they saw him, and although they didn't move from their firing positions, they still keep their weapons trained on the farmhouse and Frankie as he tried to crawl away from the burning building still carrying his old Luger in one hand.
I then dropped the M3 into the mud and started shuffling towards the man, managing despite my injuries to limp past the Rangers as they stared at me with wide eyes at the left side of my body all covered in blood from all the shrapnel wounds all over my body.
For some reason, I don't know why, the vision out of my left eye is non-existent, and I'm hurting something fierce, but I refuse to let that stop me from drawing my SIG from its holster and racking the slide and aiming the weapon at Frankie.
"OIE! Frankie boy!" I heard myself shout, my voice sounding as if I'm underwater as Frankie, all full of holes himself, peers up at me whilst down on his hands and knees in the mud.
He then glared at me with a scowl uglier than I've ever seen on Henno, as he tried to get to his feet to face me.
He falters at first at trying to stand, but then manages to get to his feet, his sidearm still in his hand.
"Give it up, Frankie boy." I said, hoping he won't listen to me.
"You want me, you f_cking Limey bastard?" Frankie says tauntingly in response as I smile to myself, extremely pleased that the man is definitely not going to give up without a fight.
"You really, f_cking want me?" Frankie now shouts again, as his body begins to shake either from anger or from the pain of his wounds, I guess.
"THEN COME AND FUCKING GET ME!" Frankie roars in defiance as he fires his Luger and the round goes wide over my head by several meters.
"Missed me again, Frankie m'lad." I said nonchalantly as I fired my pistol at him twice in rapid succession, accidentally hitting him in his gut and his left hip, way below my actual aiming point as my knees finally gave out on me as my body finally grows too weak from the shock and blood loss to keep me up, as Frankie also discharges his Luger one last time in my direction before he falls heavily to the ground as well.
And that's when I felt it, the hot burning sensation that I know is the round hitting me in the shoulder causing me to spin around from the impact and falling face first into the mud.
But instead of just lying there, somehow I manage to force myself to stand up once more and shuffle over to where Frankie was lying in the mud.
And as I stood over Frankie's prone form, I noticed that he's bleeding heavily from his gut and a little bit from his hip.
The gut wound is the most serious, and from the looks of it, he'll definitely not survive it, although he would have to endure several hours of excruciating pain before he died.
Of course, I can't say that I'm exactly worried about this man's health after all this.
He's getting what he deserves as far as I'm concerned as I watch him slowly bleeding to death.
"Look at me, Frankie" I mumbled, trying as hard as I could to keep on my feet as I feel myself about to fall over again as Frankie keeps his eyes closed until I place my muddy boot on his hip and press down as he then screams in pain.
"Look at me, Frankie!" I yelled as his eyes opened wide this time and he stares up at me, his eyes filled with fear.
"What…what are…you?" Frankie mumbled as he started to cough up blood and air bubbles as I stood there over him and pondered his words for a moment.
"He's right, what am I,….really?" I thought to myself as I stared at the dying man. "What have I become over the last two years?"
I still had my SIG pointed at his forehead as I continued to ponder my own thoughts, and then after a few moments I looked back down at Frankie and give him my reply.
"I am Death." I said without emotion as I unloaded the entire magazine of my pistol almost point blank into his face until the slide locked back and all 15 rounds were spent.
And then as I dropped my empty pistol I felt my knee's give out beneath me once again and felt my body plummeting to the ground.
With all that adrenaline still running through me I can barely feel a thing as my face smacks the earth, or maybe it was because I had lost so much blood that I could barely feel anything, anyway.
Either way, I didn't care, this had been a successful mission after all, and one I would gladly die for.
And as everything starts to dim around me, I finally saw Henno and the other teams running directly towards me, coming to the rescue at last.
But just as I felt Henno reach me and try to carefully turn me over, everything suddenly went dark.
"Finally." I thought to myself as I heard Henno calling my name, his voice growing fainter and fainter.
"Sarah, Anastasia, Daddy's coming home to you, my girl's." I heard my own voice saying in the darkness.
Daddy's coming home.
Author's Notes:
First, I want to thank Poynton90 for his latest contribution to my fanfic.
He put in a lot of hard work, and I humbly ask all of you that give a review to direct it towards him for his efforts.
By the way, for all of you old school anime fans, you may have gotten the inside joke concerning Commander Nanahara's first name, "Sakurambo".
It's a nod to one of the first anime's I was introduced to back in 1989, Urusei Yatsura.
That particular anime was chock full of puns and references to Japanese mythology, and one of the characters in the series was named "Sakurambo" a traveling monk who's name when written in one form could be translated "Cherry" which the cast called him most of the time.
However, his name when written in another form of kanji or kana could also be translated "Slightly Demented Monk" which was one of creator Rumiko Takahashi's favorite gags throughout the entire series.
Sakurambo also had a niece in the series who just happened to be the school nurse as well as a priestess named "Sakura".
That was my dorky contribution to the story,…..sorry about that.
Anyway, thanks to Poynton90's help, the events at the airport and the events at Takagi Manor are about to heat up and the characters in both locations will soon be meeting up and interacting with each other very soon as the Infected grow more aggressive and Shido and his group and some new enemies also begin to make life even more difficult for Jim and the teens in the chapters ahead leading up to the climax at the bridge.
And for those who keep asking for updates, the next chapter after this one will be on the 27th of November so that all of you have something to read before and after eating all that turkey.
Until then, thanks again for all your support!