Chapter Seven

Morton followed close behind as Jason made for the fence. The lack of wire cutters could cost them some time and in the current atmosphere of uncertainty, it was impossible to tell if that would be a good thing or not. Morton stood guard while Jason struggled with the pair of small snippers that Morton had managed to provide. The wires were thinner than he had feared, but still they weren't easy to cut through. He had to spend several minutes on each thread, carefully twisting to avoid shaking the entire fence and attracting unwanted attention to themselves.

With determination, the work was soon completed and both men quietly crawled into the yard. After just a quick glance around, with weapons drawn, Jason and Morton crossed the dark yard toward the lone building, old and abandoned. Ron's report about no guard on site was perfectly true. The night was quiet and dark and Jason could almost hear his own breathing. If he hadn't seen those women get into this place, he would never have thought it contained a single soul.

“I see you guys. You're clear,” came Ron's voice over their earpieces.

Morton tsk-ed their acknowledgment as they made their way into the building through a doorless entrance. But Jason who was a few paces ahead suddenly came to a halt. Right in front of him was a woman armed with a rifle pointed straight at him! He couldn't see her masked face in the dark, but her hair and figure showed her sex. Yet, he couldn't move or even fire his weapon. He just stood there staring as if rooted to the spot. Then he heard the shots - silenced shots. One from behind him and one from somewhere far away, and the woman went down. Ron and Morton had just saved his life!

“You're clear,” Ron's voice whispered.

Jason breathed a sigh of relief and his legs suddenly regained their ability to function. With the obstacle neutralized, both men could now move deeper into the building. Morton stopped to take out the magazine from the woman's rifle while Jason vanished into the building.

He moved stealthily, but he felt that the sound of his heartbeat would give him away. Man, was it loud! Morton joined him and they proceeded silently along the walls, not really knowing where they were going. The immediate goal for Jason was to find a light or some other evidence of human presence.

They went quite a few dozen metres in the darkness, until they hit an adjacent wall. As quietly as he could, Jason felt his way with his hands, with Morton following behind. The wall stretched for yard after yard and they kept on feeling their way, wondering when it would come to an end. Jason had to admit to himself that they'd gotten it all wrong. Wouldn't it have been better to bring in the FBI instead of crawling in the dark like a gecko? Just when he was about to give up, his outstretched hand felt nothing. The wall had come to an end!

Morton stopped too the moment he felt Jason's cessation of movement. He waited as Jason peeped round the corner to see what was there. It wasn't more than a second before he felt an insistent tapping on his arm. He understood immediately. Crouching low, he creeped past Jason and moved around the corner. The first thing that caught his eye was light! A faint glimmer, but it was light nonetheless. He heard Jason creep over and position himself on the opposite side. He didn't need to be told that the target was to reach the source of that light as quickly as possible.

Keeping close to the wall, they hurried down the dark hallway, hoping that there were no hard objects on the ground that could crunch beneath their boots and give them away. The brightness of the light was improving as they progressed, but their attention was soon arrested by the faint sound of a voice coming from somewhere ahead. They could not hear what was being said, but it was clear that the source of the light was also the source of the sound. They went on and followed both light and sound until they reached the end of the hallway.

By now, the light was bright enough for them to see that they had to turn the corner to get to their destination.

Jason took another careful peep and judged that the passage wasn't very long. The source of the light seemed to be a little way down the passage. This time, he allowed his partner take the lead. But Morton had hardly gone a few places when he suddenly stopped short. At first, in the half-gloom, Jason saw nothing. But his eyes soon caught what had alerted his friend. A woman was standing several yards down the narrow passage with her back to them! Her dark dress almost made her look obscure. Morton signed close to Jason's face that he would proceed to take her out and Jason nodded immediately. He had to let Morton do it, he didn't trust his own nerves.

It seemed like eternity, but it was only seconds as Morton crept forward slowly, approaching the unsuspecting woman from behind. As he crept closer, he could hear and see more of the room that the passage led to. It was a queer scene. There was a woman sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, bound and gagged. There were two other women fumbling with a camera while another one was flippng through several sheets of paper - all three had a sidearm each. Morton saw all this from a side view, unlike the way his target was viewing it. First, he swept his eyes around the room again, just to make sure that they were all fully occupied, then he struck!

As fast as an anaconda, he clamped his hand tightly around her mouth and used his other hand in a tight choke hold around her neck.

"Ghmm!", the woman's stifled scream was low, but Morton feared that her colleagues might have heard it. He kept his eyes on them and wrapped his left leg around her lower body to reduce the extent of her struggles as he tightened his hold on her mouth and throat.

In a few seconds, her panic grip on his arm relaxed and he carefully and noiselessly laid her down on the floor while the others in the room continued their activities none the wiser. Jason joined him immediately and they crouched low out of sight and studied the brightly lighted room. But when his eyes fell on the woman tied up in the chair, his heart jumped close to his mouth. It was Lynn!

***

The camera seemed to be ready now and one of the women was walking away, leaving the other woman standing alone with the equipment.

"We're set," she nodded at the woman holding the papers.

"Okay. Great. Let's get rolling. Where's Mina?"

The woman looked to the entrance where their colleague had been standing and Jason's heart skipped a beat. But fortunately, she didn't seem to have noticed them in the dark.

"She was right here just now, wasn't she?"

The woman was now walking towards the entrance and Jason knew immediately that this was it. Now or never!

Spit spit both their silenced Glocks released a round each. The woman fell without a murmur.

"What's that?", one of the other women asked sharply and at the same time she turned her head to the entrance and saw her friend on the ground.

"Oh my God. We're under attack!"

Immediately, both women scrambled for the rifles resting in a corner of the room. Jason saw the futility of concealment and quickly threw down his handgun.

"Now!", he ordered as he grabbed the M-16 slung across his chest.

Both sides opened fire at the same time. The women sprayed wildly at the entrance, blasting at the ground and the walls and forcing the men to cease firing. Morton and Jason jumped for their lives and landed into the room in a heap. The firing stopped as soon as it had started.

The room was covered in smoke and both sides were waiting for it to clear, so they could see the enemy's position. But the men were more experienced. They lay down on their bellies and watched keenly. After a few seconds wait, the firing resumed in a short burst targeted at the entrance. That was that woman's undoing. Jason calmly noted her positon and released a well placed shot and there was a dull thud. One down! But the other one was even less smarter. Probably due to fear, she released a heavy torrent of lead on the exact position her friend had fired at. And she ran out of ammo! Morton had already began returning fire and they received a blood-curling scream from her before everything went silent.

"Seems we're clear," Morton whispered to Jason. "Where's the woman?"

Christ! The poor woman! Jason's heart was in his mouth as he jumped up and ran across the room in search of his mother-in-law. In the frenzy of the gun battle, he had forgotten about her. Now, he was cursing himself for putting her life in such senseless danger. What had he been thinking???! He just prayed she was still alive, even if she was hurt. Christ, he'd nurse her to health for the rest of his life.

"Found her!", he called to Morton in a shaky voice heavy with emotion.

She was already struggling with her bonds and he quickly lent her a hand.

“You alright?”, he asked as he finished loosing the ropes.

She hurriedly freed herself and jumped to her feet, not looking anywhere close to someone who had gone through such an ordeal.

“That your backup?”, she asked, nodding toward Morton who was now inspecting the room.

“Yeah,” Jason replied, quite surprised at her calmness. He knew her to be stubborn, but certainly not this tough. She didn't even express surprise or relief at her timely rescue, instead she looked more like someone who had just had a little fall in the dark rather than a woman who had just been snatched from the very jaws of death!

“You look like the backup,” she rebuked sharply.

“Hey,” she called to Morton, “gimme your weapon.”

Morton was surprised to say the least. He looked to Jason for confirmation and the son-in-law nodded his approval, but Lynn had already snatched the rifle from him, running down the passage the men had come through. Jason thought she was going crazy.

“Where're you going?”, he asked, running after her.

“I was a Marine when you were still peeing in your diapers,” she said without looking back.

Jason glanced at his partner and Morton replied with a shrug, but they kept after her nonetheless. Suddenly, she stopped and pointed the rifle forward, spraying wildly and widely. When she ceased firing, they could hear dull thuds and the noisy fall of heavy metallic objects. Lynn turned around and handed Morton his gun while Jason went forward to investigate.

At the other end of the dark passage, he found four armed women lying dead on the floor! On the opposite end, Morton's choke hold victim was just beginning to stir. It was Mina Carling.

“Thought you boys would have all the kills, eh?”, Lynn teased with an arrogant toss of her head, looking from one awestruck man to the other. “Now tell me you weren't stupid enough not to have a car around?”

“We have a car, it's outside,” Jason replied, about to show her the way, but she was already making her way to the exit. What a woman! They had to double their steps to keep up with her. Morton who was leading a bound, gagged and complacent Carling was having the hardest time keeping up.

On the way to the car, Jason asked Ron to pack up and meet them on the road.

“Who's that this time?”, Lynn demanded. “FBI? S...”

“No, just my sniper.”

“You have a sniper, huh? Well, you seem smarter than you look. So Uncle Sam left me out here to rot, eh? Anyway, the keys.”

“What?”, Jason was confused.

“The car keys, doofus! Or did you have to hotwire it to steal it?”

“I have the keys, Lynn. You don't need to worry about that. Just get in and le...”

“Gimme the keys, Raids. That's an order.”

With a resigned sigh, Jason fished into his pocket and pulled out the keys of the car his friends had come in. He dumped them into her outstretched palm and she jumped in and started the car. Jason looked at her and shook his head. He was beginning to regret coming personally to rescue her. He could have simply passed the info over to the FBI. Perhaps they would have handled her better.

“Come on, get in,” she called to them as she prepared to drive off. Both men jumped into the backseat, but before they could say Jack or even settle down, she sped off, nearly throwing them off their seats. Right ahead, they could see Ron with his bag, hurrying to the road.

“That's my guy. Let's pick him up," Jason said to his mother-in-law.

“Just like a hired chauffeur, huh?”

Nevertheless, she slowed down as she neared him. Ron waited for the car to come to a halt, but it kept rolling on, so he ran to catch up with it. Yanking open the door, he jumped into the front passenger seat and settled down with a huge sigh. He had no sooner finished his sigh when the vehicle suddenly shot forward and he was nearly thrown against the windshield.

“Fuck,” he swore angrily. “You dogass! What the hell wa...”

He suddenly stopped and his mouth hung open as Lynn turned angry eyes on him. It took him a while to recompose himself and when he did, he looked at the backseat and noticed his friends for the first time. He had thought one of them was driving.

“Hey, who the hell's this?”, he directed at Jason.

“Meet Senator Webbs,” Jason shrugged.

“This the old lady we came for?”

“Young man, what did you just say?”, Lynn suddenly asked in a harsh voice, fixing flashing eyes on him. Ron swallowed, but couldn't manage to utter a word.

“It's okay, Lynn,” Jason pleaded on his behalf. “I'm sure he's sorry. Just please focus on the road.”

“And you'd better teach your team some manners,” she returned, still eyeing Ron angrily, but he couldn't meet her gaze, instead he wisely chose to focus on the road ahead.

Throughout the rest of the journey, there was total silence in the car. Nobody said as much as a word as the vehicle swept down the streets in a way the owner would never have thought possible.

It took some doing, but Jason finally managed to persuade Lynn to pull up as close as possible to Ron's store. The vehicle hardly pulled to a stop before Ron jumped out and got himself into the safety of his shop without looking back.

"No thanks, eh?", Lynn complained, but the rest of them wisely kept their thoughts to themselves.

"Where to next, Lynn?", Jason asked as they got back on the road.

"FBI," was the short answer and Jason knew better than to argue. But he felt his partner shift suddenly beside him. He'd forgotten about Morton's fear of the FBI!

"Um.. please slow down. I think I just saw..."

"What?", Lynn asked, bringing the car to a halt.

Jason quickly tapped his frenemy, but Morton was even more prepared. Before Lynn could figure out what was going on, he opened the passenger door and jumped down from the car.

"What the hell just happened?!", she demanded angrily, turning to face an innocent-looking Jason. "I'm now a cabman for you and your friends, huh?"

"But you wouldn't have allowed..."

"You know what," Lynn cut him off as she got down from the vehicle, "you'll be the driver from now on."

"With pleasure," Jason murmured and quickly exited the backseat to replace her behind the wheel.