Chapter Three
Ames' jaw worked up and down a few times with whatever nerve ends were still firing, but after a few seconds his body fell still and his eyes glassed over.
Still holding onto the gun, Sam pushed himself to his feet and stumbled backward away from Ames' lifeless body until he collided with another pillar, the knife still skewering his shoulder. Panting, from both exhaustion and the pain that radiated from his shoulder, Sam switched the gun to his left hand, preparing himself for what he was about to do.
Carefully, he gripped the knife protruding from his left shoulder, the point of which had dug so deep that it was poking out the other side. Sam grunted with the sudden jolt of pain. Smoothly, so as not to damage anything further, Sam slid the knife out of his shoulder, breathing heavy breaths through his teeth all the while. Heaving out a final held breath, Sam extricated the last of the knife and took a moment to steady himself, wiping the blade clean and sheathing it without conscious thought as he did so.
Just as he was catching his breath, the sound of footsteps came scurrying down the ramp. Instantly on the alert, Sam pulled himself around the corner of the pillar right before the men reached the bottom floor. There were more than two of them, of that, Sam was sure. Beyond that, however, he couldn't tell from sound alone. The steps grew closer and Sam wanted nothing more than to be able to peer around the corner to assess the new threat. But he knew that the shadows weren't deep enough to hide him should any of them be looking his way. Luckily for Sam, the men decided to make it easier for him.
"Is that him?" one of them asked, clearly referring to Ames' corpse.
"That's him. Guess Fisher got the better of him after all. Knew that boy wouldn't last long. Come on, he has to be here somewhere."
So they knew Ames had been after Sam. He had probably sent them off to deal with the others while Ames dealt with Sam himself. Typical. Sam would have expected nothing less.
The conversation was doing more than just providing Sam with trivial information, though. From it, Sam could get a more accurate count on how many men there were trudging toward him. There were the two talking. That was obvious. And with their locations pinpointed, Sam could determine how many others there were. One of the men speaking was to Sam's left, the other to his right. But there were another set of footsteps coming from either side as well. That meant four men in total. With that count in mind, Sam broadened his senses, picturing their locations in his mind and marking them for when he would make his move.
Of course, as he was making these calculations, Sam realized that he had unwittingly chosen a terrible location to hide, not that he had had any time to make a decision. The only thing behind Sam's pillar was a blank concrete wall. The doors leading to the different branches of the facility were several yards away, nearly equidistant in either direction. With the men coming up on either side of Sam, he would have no chance to move to a different location and they would soon have him surrounded. If they continued on as they were, Sam's best bet to take them down would be to kill the two on his right first, swivel around the pillar for cover, and hope to be able to kill the remaining two before they got him.
The footsteps were close now. In two seconds, they would be within view. Sam pulled his gun up to his chest, stepping away from the pillar slightly to give himself more room to maneuver.
Almost.
Sam pulled in a preparatory breath and moved.
But just as he took aim on the first man to his right, two shots boomed out of nowhere and slammed into that man's face and the face of the man beyond him.
Instinctively, Sam pulled back into cover, but his brain assessed the situation quickly enough. The only other people that would be firing on these men down here were Ben and his team, which meant the only remaining threat was the two men now behind him.
In less than a second, Sam swiveled, aimed, and fired at the man closest on his left, who had just ducked behind another pillar at the sound of the shots. That left only one.
The last man had also taken cover behind a pillar, but it was further away and Sam didn't have a clear shot due to the curve in the arrangement of the pillars. Sam took a step out from cover to bring the man into full view and took aim. The man still hadn't seen Sam yet, probably thinking all of the shots had come from across the room, or that any shots coming from their side of the room had been fired by his companions.
Sam sighted in a headshot as he took another step clear of the pillar, squeezed the trigger—and missed. Sam's leg crumpled underneath him with the sidestep just as the bullet took flight. It ended up gouging a hole in the concrete an inch from the man's head.
If there was any doubt as to Sam's whereabouts before, it was gone now. The man flinched at the sudden impact so near his head, but recovered quickly and easily spotted Sam, who had automatically thrown his hands out to regain his balance. The man pulled his gun around to Sam, a smug smile on his face; a face that somehow seemed familiar.
Another shot boomed from across the room, the bullet finding its target in the smug man's hands that he had so carelessly stuck out from behind the pillar to target Sam. A sharp yelp escaped his lips, but his agony didn't last long. Instead of continuing to try to find his balance, Sam dropped to the floor and fired off two rounds into the man's chest.
As the echoes died away, all fell silent.
Still hidden from the newcomers' sight, Sam could nonetheless sense their aim shift toward him. "Friendly!" he called before their trigger fingers got too itchy. Sometimes it wasn't always clear who was firing at whom in the heat of a firefight, especially since they hadn't known he was there to begin with and Sam wasn't about to be caught up in accidental friendly fire.
Sam paused a moment, not really wanting to step out until he was sure he wouldn't be shot by mistake.
After a moment, a voice, Ben's voice, called, "Sam?"
"It's me." Sam hauled himself to his feet and skirted the pillar to reveal himself. The looks on all of their faces gave Sam a pretty good idea of how rough he must have looked at the moment.
Ben stepped forward. "Jesus Christ, Sam. What the hell happened?" he asked, alarm written across his face.
At the same time, Gillespie came forward, pulling the group's medical supplies from her pockets. Of course, "medical supplies" was a very loose term. What she pulled out was some gauze and a roll of duct tape. That and some super glue made up a standard makeshift medical kit. Sam didn't want to think about how many times he had had to patch himself up using those very items. The stab wound in his shoulder was a bit much for such low-tech supplies, but at least it would stop the bleeding.
Gillespie gestured for Sam to sit and he was more than willing to comply. He really hadn't had much time to recover from Ames' initial attack and the break was a welcome respite. Though there wasn't much relaxing as Sam worked to tug off the left sleeve of his parka and pain shot up his side. He ground his teeth to drive off the pain and slowly pulled his shirt up from the bottom to give Kim access to his shoulder.
Her expression betrayed her shock at the gruesomeness of his many injuries, though she made no remark. A dark bruise painted the side of Sam's chest, a reminder of his broken ribs, and blood was smeared over his entire left side and dripped down his arm. It wasn't enough that Sam was in danger of bleeding out, but it was enough that he would have been had his injury gone untreated for much longer.
As Gillespie got to work on his shoulder, Sam turned his attention back to Ben. "Ames jumped me," Sam replied, his breath hitching as Gillespie shoved a wad of gauze into Sam's wound. "But he won't be causing any more trouble."
Hansen, Noboru, and Valentina followed Sam's gaze toward Ames' bloodied corpse. Noboru and Valentina seemed almost pleased, but Ben let out a sigh of something like regret.
Ben shook his head. "I still can't believe it." His eyes shot back to Sam. "I mean, I—I can, but…" His words trailed off, but Sam didn't need him to finish to know what he was trying to say.
By this time, Gillespie had taped a patch of gauze onto Sam's chest and back and looped one final round of tape under his arm and over his shoulder to apply some pressure. Tenderly, Sam slid his arm back into his coat and took Gillespie's proffered hand to help him stand back up. "Thanks," he nodded to her before turning back to Ben. "Unfortunately, enemies aren't always on foreign soil. And Ames won't be the last of them either." Sam held Ben's gaze for a moment then cast a glance at Ames.
But there was something else that was drawing Sam's attention. He hobbled over to the man he had shot in the chest. There was something nagging at Sam about the man; his face kept flashing through Sam's mind, but he just couldn't place it. He played through the encounter in his head, trying to glean some sort of useful information. And then it hit him. They had been speaking with English accents. Sam had recognized their voices from before but he was too busy trying to figure out how to take them down that he hadn't put it together. Now it all came into view.
"Son of a bitch," Sam muttered under his breath.
"What? What is it?" Ben and his team had gathered next to Sam, Noboru and Valentina taking the initiative to watch the ramp in case anyone else came after them.
Sam cursed himself for being so stupid. He should have seen it before. He lifted his gaze to Ben's. "Charles Zahm," he stated simply.
"The guy who stole the arsenal? What about him?"
"He didn't just steal it, he's in charge. He set up the whole thing." Sam pointed to the four fallen men. "These are his men. I recognize them from his villa." It all made sense now: why Zahm would have bothered stealing the arsenal, why he would have kept such a detailed list of its contents, even Ames' veiled comments. How could he not have seen it? Sam swore. "I had him. Back at his villa, I had him and I let him go."
"You couldn't possibly have known."
Sam was kicking himself internally, but getting angry wasn't going to solve anything. They were already running behind thanks to Ames. They needed to get moving.
Just then, Sam noticed the ear bud peeking out from the dead man's ear. Sam plucked it out and held it up to his own ear. He could hear the buzz of someone talking as it neared, but only caught the last bit of what they were saying: "…have to assume you and Ames are KIA. This is your last chance." After that, there was a bit of static and then radio silence. The English accent told Sam it was more of Zahm's men on the other end, probably checking in on the men that had come down after Ames.
They clearly weren't going to get an answer.
Chucking the ear bud, Sam returned his attention to Ben, who was waiting with a questioning look. Sam dismissed the unspoken query with a wave of his hand and went back to what Ben had said before Sam had gotten sidetracked.
"It doesn't matter now. We need to get out of here and track him down. There's no way he's going to want to sit on that arsenal for long. He's going to reschedule the auction at some point. We just have to be there when he does." Sam jerked his head toward the ramp. "Let's get out of here. I don't think there's any point in lingering. I doubt there's anything else of use here." Sam held Ben up for a moment as they all made to go. "What happened to you, by the way? I heard gunfire, but you all seem to be alright for the most part." In fact, they all seemed in perfect health aside from scattered cuts and bruises and some blood running down Valentina's arm.
"We were ambushed just after you said you were going down to the lower level. Must have been over a dozen of them. We managed to work our way back to each other and hold them off. Even take out the majority of them. I don't think they expected us to have as much firepower as we did. And they certainly didn't expect us to have an ARWEN. As soon as they realized that their numbers were dropping off a lot faster than ours, they retreated back up the ramp. There were only a handful left when they did. I'm not sure where this group came from," Hansen added, nodding to the four dead around them. "Maybe they were waiting to back up Ames. Maybe they peeled off from the group attacking us. I honestly couldn't say. In any case, we heard a gunshot from the lower level so we came down here, looking for you."
"Good thing you did," Sam admitted.
"Yeah, well, let's just hope they're not waiting for us to come back up."
"I guess we'll just have to find out. Come on, let's go."
Noboru and Valentina had already moved a ways toward the ramp and Gillespie moved in behind them, all three of their automatic weapons held at the ready. Ben made to help Sam, who was limping badly, but Sam motioned him forward.
"I'll be fine. If there is an ambush set up for us, then your team is going to need you up with them more than I'll need you back here."
It didn't seem that Ben agreed, but eventually he nodded and moved up with the rest of his team. It was slow-going for Sam to move across the clearing to the ramp. He had to balance himself perfectly over his bad knee to keep it from giving out to either side. Even still, it only just held out long enough for him to make it to the half-wall before it collapsed beneath him. Sam snorted, more out of surprise than pain when his knee jutted out from underneath him. His four compatriots paused as Sam caught himself on the wall.
"Keep going," he bade them, waving them onward. They complied only once Sam had steadied himself and started up the ramp.
He made much better progress now that he had the wall as a crutch, even though his knee was completely shot. Whatever integrity it had still possessed until that point, Sam had just blown through. It wouldn't hold his weight at all.
Sam ploughed on regardless, all five of them heading up to the second level at a steady pace, Sam, naturally, trailing a few yards behind the others. However, as they ascended, that horrible feeling in the pit of Sam's stomach returned, the feeling that they were still missing something.
Why would Zahm's men have retreated? It was true that they could have underestimated Hansen's team, but Zahm's men were highly trained as well. Why would they have set up an ambush if they weren't prepared to see it through? There had to have been some kind of secondary plan in place. The only question was, what was it?
As Sam was placing himself in Zahm's shoes, trying to figure out what he would do were he in his place, Sam's knee gave out again. They had just reached the second level and Sam, in his distraction, had lifted his leg in anticipation of continuing up the ramp, only the floor had leveled out. He fell forward and came down hard on his knee, which promptly jerked to the side. Whatever thread of a ligament was still holding it in place snapped and Sam cried out. His knee had already been throbbing badly, but now it felt like someone were repeatedly swinging a baseball bat into it. He ducked his head, struggling to control the pain through his ragged breaths. When he looked up again, Ben was heading back toward him, his hand extended.
"Just let me help you, Sam." Ben's expression was nothing if not exasperated, like Sam were some stubborn child refusing help from his parents.
There was a bit of stubbornness to Sam's refusal, he had to admit, but it was more than that. He truly did believe there was more to Zahm's play here, and Sam wasn't going to be a hindrance to any of them. He couldn't be if they were going to make it out of this.
"I'm fine," Sam ground out through his teeth. "Just keep going."
Ben opened his mouth to say something more, but before he could, a massive explosion shook the complex, sending all of them stumbling.
"What the hell was that?" Valentina asked, looking around for the source.
"Sounded like C4," Noboru answered.
"They're trying to bring this place down on us!" Gillespie cried, her gaze darting between her compatriots'.
That wasn't above us, Sam thought as she said it. Then, before his brain could fully comprehend why, he was moving, barreling toward Ben as fast as he could, shouting, "Get back! Move! Move! Move!"
It was the roaring that had set him into motion. A roaring he had instinctively recognized. Of course, Sam's knee didn't care what perils were racing toward them and he only managed a few agonizing steps, just enough to shove Ben back, before Sam went down.
In the next moment, a colossal wall of water came crashing through the Ballistics doorway and clipped Sam, who had just cleared the edge of the opening. As he went down, the water rushed over him and all was lost to its swirling torrent.