Chapter 13

Snake Eyes

Rejoice and SWAT are surrounding the factory, they were waiting for Williams to arrive. Hershey is disguised a SWAT commander and waiting for McOulen to give the word. Not Bernard, but his son Archibald. She was told by Aleena on what they were willing to do with Williams. She can feel the tension in her hands, this is it, no more delays or errors.

Just as Hershey thought a creature's going to puncture though her chest, she heard her phone ringing. She took of her helmet, having her face turned away as she answered it. Aleena was on the other line "Hershey, glad you didn't leave. Listen there's important information you need to know. Rejoice and SWAT are working together to catch Williams."

Hershey was jaw-dropped after hearing those words. "How's that possible?"

"That's we want to know."

Archibald McOulen walked out of an armoured car and met Hershey but he doesn't know that at all. "I'm doing whatever it takes to make sure that you and Rejoice can choose Williams' fate. Now that my father is out of the equation, I'm giving you the word."

The words confused Hershey, does it mean he wants to take over Rejoice? Is he working for an unknown foe? She didn't have time to worry about that. She signalled the team to enter the rear door. The Rejoice commander signalled his team to enter the front entrance. Both of them were about to ram the doors until they hear a car driving nearby. Both commanders told their teams to hold their positions. Williams got out of the car and headed for the third entrance. As soon as the door went shut, both commanders told their teams to ram the doors. The noise alerted everybody in the building. Williams ran with a gun in his hand shouting, "Where's Kes?"

Anthony & Nazo arrived at a different building, it was a rustic construction site. There hasn't been any activity since the killing of the entire crew. The person responsible was the same person who owns the site. There were no leads that brought the man to justice. They entered and spotted Kes with Tikal, Mina and Rouge.

"There's something you want to tell us," Nazo said without hesitation.

"Afraid so," said Rouge. "After doing research, we learned that there's an error in the databanks."

"How could there be an error?" Anthony asked. "Did somebody compromised it?"

"The same person who's working for Williams, Rejoice and imposing as one of GUN."

"You know Arthur Mongoose?" wondered Kes.

"Mina Mongoose's dad," Nazo answered.

"It turns out that Arthur's boss behind the artefacts shipments doesn't work for Theobald Williams he is actually Bernard McOulen's son."

This alarmed Nazo and Anthony. That's not all, there were more surprises coming around.

"Saoirse and Cian contacted us about the totalled van," informed Tikal. "The uniforms were supposed to be used by Rejoice, they just replicas of the GUN uniforms but with their logo instead of ours. They might be also connected to the stealing of illegal shipments."

"Guess it wasn't a distraction at all," concluded Nazo.

At the Council of Acorn, Phil Peters addressed the other members about what's happening so far. "Right now Rejoice has teamed with SWAT to kill Williams. GUN has come in to assist in disguise so McOulen doesn't know. I don't know what will happen but Hershey will give me the details once this blows over."

Rotor has some concerns. "What if it fails and Williams escapes?"

"It has to work otherwise..."

"It's back to square one," interrupted Dylan.

Sir Charles agreed to a statement from a council member. "You got it right. Pity Hamlin did think until his demise."

Rosemary Prower thought the same thing. "It's almost as though he lost faith."

Dylan reached for something under the table. "Actually, he lost patience."

He drew a pistol and fired at Penelope Platypus. She fell into Rotor's arms and four dogs grabbed Sir Charles while four salamanders aimed their machine guns at the council. They watched Sir Charles being taken away by a traitor helplessly. Rotor was surprised that Penelope was alive, she removed her uniform exposing a bullet-proof vest.

Saoirse and Cian jumped through the windows armed with machine guns. A henchman fired by their feet and Hershey fired at his chest. Williams' men fired and threw grenades at Rejoice soldiers and were killed in an instant. Williams is about to be cornered until one of his men grabbed him and the two attempt to escape. A SWAT soldier fired his machine gun and the bullets hit the escapees' backs.

More cronies fired and killed two Rejoice teams. A GUN soldier tossed a frag grenade and four henchmen flew into the wall. Saoirse and Cian split up and headed to the upper floor. An enemy used a sniper rifle to fire at Hershey. He was about to go in for the kill but was cut off from two shots in his rib cage from the two dragons. Glass tubes of colourless liquid slid out of his pockets with sticky labels.

After two more minutes of gunplay, silence filled the air. Nobody cheered or applauded even if Archibald McOulen entered. He was about to give congrats but then a GUN soldier disguised as a Rejoice agent walked towards Williams' corpse noticing a tear under his chin, it's a prosthetic mask. He slid his fingers underneath. He took off the mask and was shocked to see the person's real appearance. "Mark Ridenburgh?"

This alerted Archibald and everybody else. Hershey used her earphone to contact Nazo. "You're not going to believe it, GUN soldier Ridenburgh is the person responsible."

"There's something you should know as well. There are two people including Ridenburgh who aren't working for Williams, GUN, SWAT or Rejoice."

The GUN soldier in disguise walked to Hershey holding one of the glass tubes she examined the label and spoke to Nazo. "It appears that Ridenburgh was injected with a serum that slows down the heart rate to simulate death while in actuality the victim is alive. I found it in one of the men Saoirse and Cian shot."

Hershey's phone ran and she answered. Mina Mongoose is on the line. "Hershey, did you find out-"

"That Ridenburgh and another person are responsible, yes."

"I checked the hospital records, the drugs he used are real and the amount used did give him an overdose which we both know it's intentional."

"Thanks reminding me Mina."

"And you should know this as well. Dylan kidnapped Sir Charles Hedgehog."

Hershey pressed the loudspeaker just as Mina reported the bad news. She did it to prove that Rejoice were four steps behind the public enemy.