The shooter tried an awkward left-handed punch, which Rob easily deflected with his right arm, before burying his own left fist into the man’s stomach. Winded, the man staggered back a step and tried to straighten up while bringing his gun hand back into line. Rob kicked up, knocking the gun from the man’s hand.
Grabbing the useless machine gun, the shooter first threw the magazine at Rob’s head and then swung the barrel upwards. Upon ducking the magazine, Rob’s head met the upwards trajectory of the barrel. Dazed from two heavy blows to the head, Rob shook his head to clear his vision just in time to block another swipe from the machine gun.
“Aargh!” Pain reverberated through Rob’s body from his left arm as the gun’s barrel landed on his biceps. But that was what he wanted. Rob quickly wrapped his arm around the gun and the man’s arm, twisted his body round to bury his right shoulder into the man’s chest and threw him, while holding on to the man’s arm.
A clearly audible crack preceded a piercing screech of pain, the man dropped the gun, but grasped Rob’s arm. As their eyes met, Rob saw a vengeful glint just as the man raised his left arm having pulled a knife from his belt. The swipe caught the inside of Rob’s sleeve, drawing yet more blood. Rob could not shake the clam-like grasp on his left arm that was keeping him bent double.
The man circled his left arm with the long-bladed knife and sliced up towards Rob’s throat. Rob caught the man’s wrist just in time. As Rob pushed down, the man shoved up, using the floor as a firm base for resistance to Rob’s height advantage. Regular flicks of the blade inched closer to Rob’s neck and beads of sweat broke out on both men’s foreheads as they continued their struggle. Timing the man’s jabs, Rob suddenly thrust his right knee into the inside of the man’s elbow. Making use of the now bent arm, Rob pushed up with his left leg. Curling his upper body, Rob moved his entire weight over the man’s knife arm and collapsed on top of the man, twisting the man’s wrist as he did.
Rob landed on top of the man who gasped at the body blow and the blade sinking into his chest. Slowly, the man’s body became limp, allowing Rob to roll off and sit-up, his back against the column, breathing heavily, head back, eyes closed. That was horribly close.
* * *
More bursts of gunfire brought Rob’s attention back to the moment – he and his friends remained in mortal danger!
Peering about him, Rob took in the dead shooter’s body.
“Nat?” Rob asked weakly. “Nat? Someone?” he asked again upon receiving no response. With a deep sigh on realising the his radio wasn’t working, Rob crawled over to the shooter’s body, took the handgun, found two spare clips of ammunition and slipped them into his pocket.
Still dazed from the blows to his head, Rob stood and carefully edged his way to the side of the large transformer where his shooter had been sheltering.
Quickly popping his head around the corner, Rob saw that the other shooter was in clear sight – but the man also saw him! As Rob raised his handgun the man sprayed bullets into the transformer, cutting a couple of cables and sending sparks flying.
Rob squeezed off a couple of shots amid the sparks before stepping back, away from the fizzing electricity and dazzled by the brightness of the sparks. The shooter also took a couple of instinctive steps backwards.
“That’s my man!” Nat whispered as Rob opened fire and Nat saw the shooter stepping backwards. “One more step… There we go!” Nat squeezed off a single head shot and the shooter was thrown backwards before collapsing.
“All clear,” Nat announced, “But be careful, Rob’s radio must be broken, so please don’t get shot by him!”
Nat and Cezar moved forward cautiously, wary of surprises. Nat had to put an arm out to hold Laura back as she almost rushed ahead, oblivious of possible danger, eager to find Rob. “Laura, he must be fine. Rob essentially brought this all to a conclusion for us.”
“Fine, did you say?!” Laura retorted, glaring at Nat, a few moments later on seeing Rob sagging against a column, his helmet badly cracked from deflecting a bullet and blood trickling from his arms and left leg. His shirt, ripped from his fighting, also had two holes in it, but no blood – the bullet-proof vest beneath having saved his life.
Laura rushed forward, catching Rob as he smiled weakly and started to slide down the column to the floor. Laura gently helped Rob to the floor before carefully removing the helmet, relieved that there were no obvious wounds. She caressed Rob’s cheek before kissing him firmly on the lips, thinking all the while Oh, how I love you! I wish I could say so at a more appropriate moment!
Rob just leaned back where Laura placed him, content to feel her touch and know her presence. Otherwise, he was numb to everything else, even Laura’s slicing away of the left trouser leg to check his wounds there. Phew! Superficial! My man will be okay.” she thought seeing a couple of minor cuts where two bullets had nicked his left leg. As she looked back up into Rob’s eyes. She sighed, My man – that sounds good.
While Laura nursed Rob, Nat and Cezar first checked the two dead shooters before nodding to each other that they could relax. “Okay, let’s find out whether this place is about to blow!” Nat suggested. The two men scouted the area out, tracing the cables to a transformer at the far end of the large room.
“What did they say about the connections?” Cezar asked as they stood in front of the transformer with cables hanging loosely from hastily positioned connections.
“I think it was something about no traps or tricks, purely a need for power,” Nat replied. “Let’s hope!” and he pulled everything out from the sockets. Turning to Cezar and seeing his shocked expression, Nat shrugged. “I assumed that what we were told was right and that there is such limited time left anyway, so I may as well!”
* * *
The sound of the gunfight had echoed throughout the tunnels where Lieutenant Farcas and his special forces troops had been searching. Farcas immediately took a roll call and quickly realised that it was his two men accompanying Cezar, Laura, Rob and Nat who were engaged in the action and without radio contact. “Find them!” he ordered. “Quickly! Start at the main passage.”
When Farcas and his men came clattering down the metal steps to where Laura, Rob, Nat and Cezar were, guns held out in front ready for combat, Nat and Cezar were tending the wounded special forces soldier. They looked up. “All is okay, Lieutenant,” Cezar said in Romanian, realising that proximity had reestablished radio contact.
Farcas surveyed the scene and the evident markings of war on Cezar’s and Nat’s faces and his soldiers: one wounded, one dead. “Where are the others?”
“Laura is just tending to Rob. He will be okay, just a little dazed and some minor injuries. The two hostiles are dead and all cables disconnected, so hopefully, this place won’t blow.”
Farcas nodded. “So, safe for the explosives experts to locate and remove the charges?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good.”
“Lieutenant, we walked into the fight and couldn’t then back out,” Cezar added as Farcas continued to look around the space, the question clearly on his mind as to what had happened.
Farcas nodded once more before rattling off orders to his newly arrived men to assist the wounded up to the surface for medical attention and for some others to double check the entire place for any potential oversights that could still set off some or all of the explosives.
36
Early the next day, Laura, Nat and Cezar returned to the chemicals factory, leaving Rob fast asleep at the hotel recovering from his wounds. Although tired, Laura was a lot happier; the medical orderly’s assessment of Rob had been very positive – all light wounds that would heal quickly and not impair activity at all. A bit of rest was all that was required.
On the way, they passed Arroz’s escape house and frowned at seeing a combination of special forces and police milling around and questioning the neighbours. Upon arriving at the chemicals factory, Lieutenant Farcas informed them of the escape tunnels that had been found, linking to the house and the search for one man who had been seen leaving the place the previous night.
“From the description, I suspect that was Emilio Arroz,” Laura volunteered. “I recommend a nationwide search, alerting all borders, but suspect he is long gone.”
“It may be worth notifying neighbouring countries,” Nat suggested. “We may as well be optimistic, even though the man has evaded capture for so long.”
Following a thoughtful nod, Farcas wandered away to give the orders, leaving Cezar to accompany Laura and Nat to explore the entire facility. They quickly saw that the General had been busy overnight contacting a number of multinational companies with facilities in Romania and summoned their top chemists and engineers to assist the decommissioning. Men in white protective chemical suits were everywhere, inspecting, discussing the challenges, moving barrels of chemicals, or even busy beside the huge mixing tanks where the chemicals were produced.
They soon found the administrative area where teams of people were flipping through piles of paper and working their way through the records in the many filing cabinets. Others were busy tapping away at computers that sat on the many desks in a clean, but rudimentary open plan office.
Cezar approached a senior officer from the local SRI who had arrived to support the investigations. “How’s it going?” he asked as they shook hands.
