War in 6 days ( part V )

After Jamal finished explaining his plan, people left the place to rush into their vehicles and where they would wait for the signal to leave for, what was believed to be, their last battle in Short-river.

In all this agitation he had some difficulties finding Don and his team [ where are they? I have seen them a moment ago during my speech, though ], he took a look one more time again and he finally found them.

They were at a distant place, where their pickups were parked, busy loading their stuff in them. When he was walking toward them Daphne was the first one to see him, she quickly pretended to look away and Jamal got it, [ she knew about his deal with Bart, she looks innocent in the appearance but she might be as guilty as Brad ] he thought. He reached them and when they came to greet him, the woman still stayed in her corner. Jamal just ignored her as he thought it would be better to deal with her later.

" Hello Mr. Jamal," Don said with enjoyment underlined by a large smile on his face, he seemed to be particularly enthusiastic whether because of the upcoming end of the war or maybe he was acting like that to try to forget the shame that the traitor was one of his team members. Whatever it was, Jamal could understand and he would not go on commenting about it either, he just responded to his salutation and greeted the rest of them. " So what is it? You came to take some news about your favorite group before we go? "

" Yeah, something like that, " he took the time to gaze at them all while repeating the plan to them, " you won't be in the frontline, your reduced number won't affect your efficacy ". They all nodded without showing unnecessary emotions and without adding any comment.

[ Looks like they want to avoid, the most possible, talking about Brad, to provoke such a reaction in them he must have been a very dear friend of them ] he supposed silently. " Well if you understand that I would want to not bring Daphne with you, " he said without turning his sight away from Don's eyes.

They all gazed at him surprised and while they were waiting for some more explanations Daphne moved from her spot to come to him irritated, " why should I not come? Why want you to remove me from this mission? " she yelled at him. Jamal did not answer and just stared at her, what led Daphne to figure out, just by gazing at his eyes, that he already knew the story of Brad and her. She suddenly calmed down, bowed the head, and stopped showing any resistance, she understood that he could tell all the truth to the others but instead, he chose to not reveal anything.

The others viewed the scene but, of course, they couldn't understand the silent dialogue they both exchanged so they couldn't get what was going on. They glanced at him confused before Don decided to ask, " why can't she come with us? "

" She knows why? " Jamal simply responded without getting his sight off her face, " you can just ask her directly if you want ".

Sania gazed at her then at Jamal before bringing back again her attention to Daphne, " why can't you join us for our last battle? Even Alex is coming with us though we all know that she would want to stay here to watch after fiancee, Morice, " the latter blushed slightly. " What is your excuse? "

She remained her head down and said while she was stroking her bandaged arm, " it hurt me a lot, so it's better if I stay, I won't even able to hold a gun. If I come with you I will be just a hindrance ".

" And I suppose you still won't tell us how you hurt your arm to cause it to be like this since all this time, will you? " Carl asked that, and Jamal figured out that the question had been asked for many times.

Jamal gazed at her, seeing that she was remaining silent and was not resolved to talk, he sighed and said " well anyway I let you finish what you were doing, Daphne you can stay here to help them if you want. Sorry, if I wasted your time but you should do it quickly, we will leave within 10 min, " then he left them to go get on his motorbike and getting ready too.

•••

10 minutes later, it was finally time to go. Jamal, who was ahead of the army, started on his motorbike, rolled slowly a few meters forward while he raised his hand to indicate the others behind him to follow him by proceeding to the formation he had told them. The cars were rolling two by two in alignment what made looked like two chains parallel to each other and Jamal was ahead of it leading the cortege.

According to Brad, Bart the actual leader of the outlaws had always got the dream to be a burgess. " And I think it's this dream which has led his desire to become the ruler of this town, " Brad had said to him during the interrogatory, " so at the middle of the war, far before all the people were evacuated from here, he had already moved from his ghetto to live in the luxurious district, for rich people. I went there only once and I know that he was occupying a huge blue and white mansion which was owned until 2 years ago by the richest family of Short-river while his guys just took the other houses around it ".

" And how was the situation there? " Jamal had asked him, " what were they doing? "

The man sighed " I'm sure you already got a clear image of how is a city ruled by anarchy, " he paused " it's total chaos. Cars and barrels are burned, everywhere I went it smells weed, rottenness, and alcohol and I found many bodies of drunk people and dead people scattered along the streets, but it didn't end up there. You may think that I'm a monster because I've caused the death of many of my comrades and you're 100% right but I couldn't let Daphne be like the women and the young girls I have seen there in his territory. They were left naked or sometimes dressed with only a dog leash around their necks as if they were just some mere animals with no value, they were being walked all along the mansion and whenever they wanted his men could take them, use them to satisfy their sexual desires and leave them after they finished, " he paused again and his voice became scratchy, surely because of the emotion, " I'm truly sorry for what I have done but I couldn't let her finish like that, being one those women, being one of Bart's puppets ".

Jamal would have wanted to comfort him as though he still didn't forgive him, he could understand that he was desperate and trapped by the situation Bart had set up. He thought that if he was in the same situation, it would have been another scenario, he would have killed all the members of the gang, but Brad couldn't do that as he was not enough strong, so it was a little bit justifiable.

However, Jamal knew that he couldn't waste his time in sentimentalism, he needed more information he could get and as quickly as possible, so he didn't have other choices but to move on. " So as long as they are more focused on smoking, drinking, and raping some miserable women, it should be easy to launch a surprise attack in their faces and kill them all before they realized it right? "

Brad shook his head skeptical, " you should not take them easy, if it was so simple I should have betrayed them and we should have achieved to kill them all long since a while. But as I have said before Bart is smart, he told his soldiers to always have their weapons with them and he set a system of rotation of duties which made that only a part of them was allowed to eat and enjoy while the others were ordered to stay sober and focus on protecting the territory. I recall that when I went to see him before, I penetrated the territory, there was a sentinel posted on the roof of almost every building and I needed to identify myself before I go any further, otherwise, I would have been killed ".

" How did you manage to evacuate the people who were living there then? " Jamal asked as he was convinced that he could find a helpful element.

" Oh yes, it was during the period we tried to isolate them, most of the people didn't know that he was living there, and even now no one knows, and there were not many people who lived there though. We told people in secret to move to another place we indicated them, to isolate the outlaws, " Brad said while lowering his voice, shameful, " but as you know the plan failed because... I spoiled everything, he told his soldiers to spread and to not let us gather them at the same place, however, despite not being able to protect people we managed to gather them in the same zone what made it easy to evacuate the citizens. The most part difficult was to concentrate the attention of the outlaws away while the citizens were getting in the cars to leave ".

Jamal nodded slightly his armed crossed, as he learned something, " and why didn't you put Daphne into those cars to keep her safe and away from Bart? "

Brad bowed his head, " I tried and I thought I succeeded to convince Daphne to go with them, to wait for me in your hometown and I left her thinking that she did follow the group of refugees but when we came back from the battle I found that she didn't leave, she said that she couldn't just go after she put me in such situation ".

Jamal stayed silent for a short moment before nodded again. He didn't want to comment on that part of his story so he just asked him another question. They discussed a little more before he left him.

With that, he already set up a plan to penetrate the enemy's territory. Brad had told him that some men were watching the area from the roof of buildings, however, Jamal knew that from the highest place they wouldn't be able to see everything. So he took a map and, with the help of Howard the mayor who gave them information about the city he needed, and the actual chef of the entire, the three of them managed to localize the positions of the guards but they also drew on the map, the different paths they could use to penetrate, more or less safely, in Bart's territory.

•••

They were rolling for quite a while before they reached the point of separation. Correspondingly to the plan, they divided into many groups. A part of them headed for the paths Jamal had previously attributed to each of them and through them, they would enter into the quarter, and there they would wait for Jamal's signal before they go for the next step. While the rest of them, a little group with only four cars, counting Don's team and three other teams.

He led them behind the building and near it was another with a man on its top, where they stopped. They all came out from their vehicles and approached Jamal who was leaning his back on the wall of the building to hide from the sentinel. While they were imitating he pulled his head to take a look, the guy was walking around the roof with a weapon in one his hand but at the same hung around his neck with the help of a belt, and in his other hand he had a bottle of alcohol almost emptied.

" Alright we do as we have planned, " Jamal turned around and said to his comrades who were standing right behind him, " I'm going up to take this guy down and then I will go for the rest of them inside the building while you ... "

" ...we will stay on the soil to support you, " completed Volga, the captain of the other team, who was at the same the chief of the entire army of Short-river, " there are only two exits each team will cover one ". She turned to Donald and analyze his team one by one, " Don it seems like you're lacking hands do you want me to lend you one or two of my men? "

He got a smile embarrassed " no need, we will be alright, thank you ".

Jamal glanced again, seeing that the sentinel turned away, he got ready and said to the guys behind with a smile " so, see you later ". Then he left the hideout and ran toward the building, in a very short interval of time, he covered the distance, and without stopping or slowing his pace, he put a step on the wall, took it as backing to jump higher making him reaching the balcony of the first floor. From there he began to climb floor after floor like a jump man until he landed his hands on the roof. While the others stayed there staring at him amazed, Volga turned to Donald and took her time to articulate her question " what is he exactly? " The man chuckled without responding, he made a sign and they all moved to take their position in front of the two only exits of the building.

Jamal stayed on standby, observing attentively the sentinel's movements while hanging on the soil of the roof. He waited for him to stand in a place he couldn't see him coming and when he did so Jamal went up, sneaked behind him without making any sound. When he got closer enough, he caught the guy, quickly passed one arm around his neck, he immobilized him before he started tightening his hold until the sentinel suffocated and collapsed due to the privation of oxygen. Then, he drew his knife from its case on his back and stabbed the guy, lying on the ground, right in his heart. After that, Jamal examined his body and uttered a sigh while pulling something from the dead man.

" Exactly as I have thought, " he said while he was staring at the walkie-talkie in his hand. He put in a pocket of his jacket, took the Kalash of the dead guy, and moved to enter the building. There, he did the same thing he had done several hours earlier during the attack of the morning, going by level after level, visiting apartment after apartment, and killing every single person he found there.

Quickly the whole tenement got caught by the panic, everywhere people were screaming that they were being attacked, they all took their weapons and ran through the hallways without knowing where to go while Jamal was carrying on his purge. He was already done with half of the tenement when he heard the message he was waiting for. Through the walkie-talkie he had stolen to the sentinel, he heard someone sending an SOS request explaining, with his voice shaking in fear, that they were being attacked and that the assailants were already in the tenement, the correspondent told him to bring as many men as he could and go outside to wait for the reinforcements so that they can surround them and kill them all in one go.

Jamal took the other walkie-talkie to contact the teams he left in standby, " here's Jamal, the plan worked as planned, they are coming out of the building to wait for some help, so get ready to greet them well. I repeat, they are coming out it will be your turn to play, " then he cut the discussion and he returned to his task.

Outside, both teams received the message and took their positions, guns in their hands waiting to see someone coming out from the exits they were watching. A few moments later, people started to emerge but the first ones didn't get the time to step any further outside that they were immune shot dead. The rest of them who remained behind tried to respond to the fire exchanges without knowing that their opponents were just buying some time.

Jamal appeared behind the outlaws who were fighting against Don's team and one opened the fire, in few seconds they were all already dead. Without catching his breath he ran in the direction of Volga's team position where he repeated the same scene.

After finishing them off, both teams gathered in their initial hideout to have a summary of the actual situation. Once they were all there, Jamal told them, " for the moment, everything is working out as we have expected, they have requested reinforcements which may be there within twenty minutes so let's set up the second part of the trap and wait for them to come, " they nodded and separated again to go prepare the pitfall.

Minutes later, the engines of the vehicles started to be heard followed by the screams of the people who were driving them and in no time the building was surrounded by many cars and motorbikes. A part of the men, who came out from them, borrowed guns while the other part had some different weapons like flappers, coshes, golf clubs, and even sticks. They approached the entrances of the tenement where they found the bodies of their colleagues. As the entire zone was calm and quiet they ended up concluding that they came too late, when the battle was already over, they discussed together what they should do and were even about to decide to withdraw when one of them saw someone inside.

" Hey!!! " the guy shouted and everyone turned their heads, " while Jamal was already going up the floors. " They are still here in the building! " shouted the same guy.

They turned their heads again and had the time to get a glimpse of the shape of a guy going up the stairs. " All guys with firearms follow me, and the others stay here, in case there are some of them hidden somewhere around, " another dude ordered.

" Find them and kill them! " they screamed before they started rushing inside, in the other side of the building criminals heard about what happened, so they did the same thing and entered into the tenement while the rest of them without guns stayed.

An instant later Sania got out from her hideaway near the first group of outlaws, approached them, and started making gestures to provoke them. Once she was sure she caught their attention she immediately ran away before they started to chase her. While she was fleeing, she made a round of the building to pass by the other side where the second group of outlaws was waiting. They gazed at her running in front of them but they reacted only once they saw that their comrades were going after her.

Before the tragedy of 2 years ago, Sania used to be a professional athlete who even won one decathlon championship and many other races. So she was sure that there was no one able to catch her. She maybe got a manner of slut sometimes but her intentions were noble as she didn't want to let any man imposing his law to the others and oppressing them, that was why she was fighting.

She ran through the alleys until she stopped in front of a high wall surrounded by two buildings on both sides, and a few seconds the outlaws started to arrive behind. She turned and saw them approaching slowly while chuckling victorious like predators teasing their prey.

" You're done, " one dude said. " Oh ho I didn't expect her to be such a beauty ". " I propose to not kill her now. We should get some fun with her first ". " Yeah I agree and then we will bring her as a trophy to the boss ".

She stayed quiet while hearing to them plotting and giggling as if that they had already won, then, after she esteemed that had walked closer enough, she sighed and told them, with a bored tone, " you know? you're very annoying and more than that, you are very ugly. You're just like monkeys ". Suddenly, they saw a rope falling from the other side of the wall, just near the woman. She grabbed it and before they figured out what was going on, she pulled on the rope, climbed the wall, and in no time she already escaped.

Some of them ran, trying desperately to catch her but it was already too late she was no more there and the rope has already been pulled back. Still, without realizing it, 3 people appeared behind them, holding their guns in the direction of the outlaws and fired at them, they didn't even get the time to react or to understand that it was a trap set for them that they already got exterminated. And in the end, they just died in their confusion.

Volga sighed while pushing back her hair after they finished shooting. She turned to the men beside her, " go call the others, we have to quickly evacuate this zone before Jamal does what he has planned to do, and he said that it will make much noise ". She paused a thought a little bit before she retracted what she said, " no. Only one of you go, the other one will come with me, we have to do something before we join you at the gathering point ". They nodded and they separated.

On his side, Jamal was making his assailants running after him, through the floors of the building. They were shooting at him in vain as he was too fast for them to reach him. They continued running after him without figuring out the plot.

In the whole tenement, all the issues and windows were clogged and while he was occupying the attention of the outlaws, the gas, of the first and second level, he had opened some times earlier before he started to be chased, was spreading everywhere until it covered the whole both levels.

Jamal had made an estimation of the time it would need and when he felt that it was about time, so he rushed to the roof. There, he grabbed the pulley of the zip line he had installed before when they were setting up the trap, and he jumped on. While he was sliding down and approaching rapidly to the ground, he pulled his Glock off from his case and started shooting at the windows of the first floor, the sparkles combined with the gas inside caused the base of the building to explode, starting by the first floor followed by second.

Once his feet touched the ground he started running away, to be as far as possible from the tenement while it was collapsing carrying away the lives of the outlaws who were there.

Later he reached the gathering point, where his teammates were waiting for him. He firstly saw Volga and a guy driving two convertibles they had surely stolen from the outlaws, then, he glanced at the rest of her team near their pickups and he finally saw Don's group leaning on their car except Sania who was leaning on his motorbike.

He ignored her and approached them with a smile. " I hope you enjoyed the fireworks, " he declared, which made them all starting laughing loudly. When the laughs stopped he clapped on his hand and said, " are you ready to go take Bart's head? " They screamed that yes and they, enthusiastically, went in their vehicles to take the road for Bart's house.