101. The surprise

Hunter whispers to Daniël: “I recognize the two black Ranger cabs parked in front of the house. I’m sure they are the cabs of that group of eight looking for the kids. They are the only ones here. The place looks desolate, I see no one around. I think our friends are still looking for the kids. If they have found them they would have taken them to their base and wouldn’t hang around here. But one can never be too sure. Good, you cover me from here while I go and make sure everything is safe. When I show with the wave of my arm that you must come, call Chloe over the radio to come also. If I don’t show, you must know there is something wrong, okay?”

“What must I do when there is something wrong, Major?”

“You’ll have to do reconnaissance, watch this place and look who shows his face. Then all of you must decide what you are going to do as soon as you are certain something is wrong, okay?”

Daniël shakes his head in earnest: “I understand, Major. Let’s just hope this place is empty and it won’t be necessary.”

Hunter jogs with his 9mm pistol ready in his right hand behind his back. With a detour, he keeps hiding behind bushes and nears the house from the side. He hides out of sight from the solitary window behind a row of shrubs. At the shrubs, he peeks at the window. There are no curtains and he sees no sign of life. He hastens from behind the shrubs and sprints to the wall and moves around the corner to the front of the house. Now he crawls on all fours beneath two windows until he reaches the front door.

It is now or never!

Softly and carefully he turns the knob and pushes softly. The door moves. He keeps his pistol under his chin and pushes the door wider so that he can peep in.

As he expected the sitting room is empty with only expensive leather couches against the walls. He slips inside and stalks the corridor. No one. Carefully he sneaks to the first room with his pistol ready. It is an empty sleeping room with built-in cupboards and a bed and he moves to the next room and finds the same. He then moves to the kitchen. It also seems empty as he nears it.

He gets a fright and dashes for hiding when he, concealed by the washing room’s wall, looks straight into the barrel of a semi-automatic weapon. He looks back at the sitting room. From both rooms, soldiers are aiming their weapons at him. He now realized he has been trapped. They must have hidden themselves behind the couch and in the built-in closets. They are well prepared and probably have snipers as sentries who have warned this group. He just wonders who they are.

Quickly he puts down his pistol on the floor and surrenders with his hands in the air. Two soldiers each grabs an arm and push him into the kitchen up to a table. The soldier from the washing room enters and runs him down. His hidden knives, one hidden above his ankle and the other one hidden in a holster under his right arm, are confiscated. They take his shock gun from behind his back. He looks at what they are wearing. It is plain army clothing and not the strange scab-like attire of the mercenaries. Who on earth could they be? Then another soldier comes in and relief washes over Hunter.

Surprise is clearly written all over Captain Dexter’s face. “Hunter! What are you doing here?”

Relieved Hunter smiles: “Captain Dexter, we were perplexed about your whereabouts. I am so glad to see you are alive and well. Chloe and Jane were very worried about you. We really expected the worst. I must ask you the same question.”

Captain Dexter orders his soldiers: “Let him be and stand by. We must talk. Pull out that chair, Hunter, let us first discuss everything. My sentries have seen you advancing with another soldier but I didn’t know it was you. I assume you are two spies and there must be more of you.”

Hunter nods. “I’ve only been told halve of what happened on the smallholding by Rene and Emilie, two of the people you had to bring back to the Eastwood Estate. The mercenaries abducted our friends through a secret tunnel leading to the neighboring smallholding while you and your soldiers were waiting for the 666 wall to open. That’s all we know. I’m curious as to hear from you how you found this place.”

Sitting at the table with the soldiers looking on Dexter looks Hunter in his eyes: “You first, Hunter. Tell me the whole story.”

Hunter tells Dexter to whom the two Rangers cabs belong. He tells him about Morrison and his plan to intercept this group, to find the children if they hadn’t been found, and to take the mercenaries into custody. Also of their plan to let the leaders of the mercenaries believe that Morrison has no knowledge of their camp and that they must believe a third force is terrorizing them.

Dexter informs Hunter how their Puma was destroyed but they found another at an air force base and luckily their pilot survived. How they flew over the road blockade and decided to do surveillance of the neighboring farms from the air. They then saw the Rangers and later on the tracks of the group making their way to the gorges. They decided to wait for them to return and ambush them in the same way they caught Hunter.

Eventually, they have told each other enough to trust each other, and Hunter signals to Daniël. He comes and then the cab and the Casspir also show up. Captain Dexter and Hunter wait for them in front of the farmhouse. Scarcely have they stopped or the door of the cab shoots open and Chloe runs straight to Dexter and hugs him tightly.

Flabbergasted Dexter just stands while she presses herself against him. “What now, Chloe? Are you mad?”

Eventually, she lets go and he sees tears in her eyes when she looks up at him: “We expected the worst, Captain. We thought our favorite captain is no more when you haven’t returned.”

Dexter smiles. “Luckily we were ready for a surprise. The door opened ten minutes later and cannibals stormed out of the opening. We had to empty quite a few magazines on them but losing the helicopter was the worst. That we didn’t expect!”

Chloe frowns: “How so? What happened?”

“My snipers on the roof enlightened me. In came a lunatic daredevil on a scrambler from somewhere out of the bushes while we were waiting before the wall. He had an RPG on his back and with that, he demolished our helicopter and chased away in the smoke of the blast so that my snipers couldn’t hit him. I still can’t believe it but it was what happened.”

Chloe’s eyes widen: “Goodness, and then?”

“We found that the monsters came through a tunnel from the neighboring smallholding dropped by a carrier in front of the entrance to the tunnel. Earlier we had inspected the place just after we had landed. It was desolate and that tunnel stopped at a solid brick wall. Little did we know that it was also a secret, hidden door just like the 666 wall. Our guests were abducted through that tunnel precisely at the time the 666 wall should have opened. We were not sure whether they were in cahoots with the kidnappers, but Hunter has explained to me that it wasn’t the case.”

Dexter looks back and gestures at one of the troops to come nearer. “Hunter, let the troop show your drivers quickly where you can hide your vehicles in a store behind the house. Our Puma is also hidden there. We keep the yard just the same as when they arrived here and I have snipers relieving one another at different strategic spots. We want to surprise them and ambush them when they come back.”

In the meantime, the rest joined them including Chloe’s four dogs that go and sit down behind her and watch everyone.

Hunter introduces them: “Captain, this is the two mothers of the missing children. They simply insisted that I either intercept their children on their way to the mercenaries’ camp or go and sniff them out in the gorges. I had to promise them before they agreed to be freed from the mercenaries’ camp. These three troops helped me to get them safely out of there. This is Captain Dexter, people. It was the captain that should have brought you to the Eastwood Estate when things went terribly wrong.”

Emilie and Rene look at Hunter with question marks on their faces and Rene asks: “Hunter, you promised us we can go with you to find the children in the gorges.”

Hunter nods. “We are going to do some brainstorming with the captain. Don’t worry. It is still my plan.”

But Dexter has other plans: “I don’t agree at all. They must come back here. It is much better and safer for us all to rather wait for them and ambush them without any confrontation.”

Emilie angrily shakes her head and balls her fists: “No, you are not going to stop us. We are going to get our children from the gorges and we are going now! No one will stop us!”

The dogs sense the sudden tension and start to growl softly.