Chapter 9-Betrayal, or Not

"Five minutes to mid-night," Zamfir kept repeating the phrase in his mind as he drove his way back to the apartment. Ava had sent him out to a local library to pick up some books she needed. The request seemed trivial at first, but Ava somehow convinced him that the information she required could only be obtained in the two books she had sent him for. It was late evening by now, and snow began falling slightly. The white charms from the sky cascaded slowly on to the road in the most delicate and innocent manner. However, earlier in the day it had rained, and the now inclusion of the light shower of snow, it had now made the roads slippery conditions to drive in. Still, that did not stop the inevitable teenager from speeding by him once in a while on a bike, which in any case was not fit to ride in better weather.

As Zamfir approached the last intersection before the apartment, he noticed the usual amount of cars parked on the street in that area were not there, and even more than that, the last block or so, had been in complete darkness, except for a few street lanterns. Having an uneasy feeling, he decided to make a quick phone call to Ava to check up on things, however, not really to his surprise, his cell could not get a signal.

Up in the apartment, the room was pitched dark. The only sound that could be heard was the constant low screeching and whining from the ceiling fan. As the glaring moonlight shone into the room after the clouds had cleared a path, it revealed the true nature of the deadly silence in the room. The moon uncovered several men dressed in heavy combat wear, and packing everything from semi-automatic artillery to hi-powered shotguns. The ominous group seemed somewhat lifeless, they were standing evenly around the room, not moving, fingers firmly planted on the triggers. Moments later the light disappeared, and the room again was plunged into darkness. Suddenly footsteps were heard from a distance slowly approaching the door; it was then the previously stationary figures began to move to more favourable positions waiting for the moment the door opens.

The lock is slowly turned, the key is pulled out, and then.... silence. The ghastly figures stood still in the room, as the ice cold wind howled through a crack in the wall, then stopped.... for silence once more. Moments later, the door is finally flung open, and a dark, bullet riddled figure drops to the floor, lifeless. A much deeper, darker, eerie silence fills the entire room. A nearby crow starts to sing in its most beautiful demented laugh. The figures in the room started looking at each other, and then realised, there is one extra person among them.

Several minutes later, the moonlight glistening through the blood stained windows gave way to the lifeless figures scattered around the room. Zamfir sat on a desk in the shadow of the moonlight, reloading his guns. On the floor, one of the dark figures suddenly got up and ran towards the door, only to be shot several times in the leg and arms before hitting the floor once more.

"The syndicate will...."

"BANG," the man was silenced by the gunshot. Zamfir silently got up from the desk, firing two more rounds in to the body and said,

"I've not come to hear your reasons; I've merely come to give the verdict."

Zamfir got into his car and tired calling Ava again, this time he had gotten through. Fifteen minutes later he pulled up outside a seeming abandoned ware house 80 miles away from the apartment block. The smells of old wood and gasoline was in the air as he entered the back of the building. He opened the door and to his surprise, standing some yards away on some crates, was Tatiana! She smiled at him and motioned for him to follow her down a flight of stairs. When he got down below, he saw Ava standing at the far side of the room looking over Kensei who was asleep on the floor. Ava turned around and saw Zamfir eyeing her to come to him.

"I guess there's no need for me to ask the question, so speak." Zamfir asked in a soft yet firm tone.

"Well while you were gone, your friend over there came by and warned us someone had sent men after us so it would be best for us to move. Of course I did not believe her until we heard several footsteps coming up the stair case. I tried calling you, but somehow they hacked into the blocks cell tower and power lines, we were literally back into the stone years.

"I think you mean stone ages," Zamfir said, still keep his eyes on Tatiana who by now was one the lookout by one of the windows which was not totally covered in sawdust.

"Whatever, here comes the interesting part. Seven years ago, three agents from three different nations were involved in a black ops mission deep in Russian territory, one of those agents, was Mr. Zee Ling. What they recovered from the there was classified, but the package was dubbed, "MIDnight"

"Yeh and?"

"Don't you get it? The bloody message that one of the victims wrote down was a code, it not 5 minutes to midnight, its 52 MIDnight, 52 is the number for the location of the package,"

"Yes but, why would anyone come after us, we were not in that mission?"

"True, but we know who were in that mission. The other two agents were British and Russian. One was Blake, and the other, was Tatiana...."