As they headed forward, they heard voices down one hallway to their side. They immediately slipped to the corner and stayed quiet. It was a dialect Diesel didn’t understand. He looked at Jerricho, who shook his head. Therefore, it wasn’t Chinese.
Great. So what did that mean?
But the voices were low, stealthy. Diesel poked his head around a corner to see them, heading to the far side of the building. He looked at Jerricho and motioned behind him that they take the other hallway. They would need night goggles at this rate. They had brought night vision goggles with them but hadn’t thought the inside of the building would be quite so dark. The fact that this other team was here gave rise to them having already put things into motion that Diesel and Jerricho weren’t expecting.
Pulling out their goggles, they quickly adjusted the plan on the fly. They needed one prisoner and only that one prisoner. If these other guys were taking somebody else, that was fine.
Diesel just hoped that they were taking them because they were allowed to take them. And, if these guys were to kidnap these scientists for just another lab, he wasn’t down for that either. But, as the dozen men appeared to have come up from the one hallway, and they were still looking for whatever, then Diesel and Jerricho had a chance to get there before them.
Moving swiftly, they checked down another parallel hallway and went downstairs. Diesel would bet that nobody would waste a good room upstairs, where the scientists could be seen, if there was room downstairs. The other team headed down their hallway, and he presumed up. Diesel moved with silent precision through his hallway to the stairwell and smoothly moved downstairs, Jerricho in tandem. With their night goggle visions, they didn’t need anything else.
They moved through the hallways like ghosts, looking for prey, both enemy and friendly. As they headed down another hallway, he heard a sound. He quickly ducked and bolted behind a corner to have two men walk in front of him, both carrying weapons, both talking in rapid Chinese. He looked back at Jerricho, and jointly they slipped out, grabbed both men, and took them down.
Taking the two dead bodies in the corner, looking for a place to stash them, Diesel found a closet on the far side.
With that found, Diesel dragged his man inside, as did Jerricho, quickly disarmed the men for weapons that they might need themselves, and moved out into the hallway again.
Jerricho said, “You know that we could question one of these guys next time.”
“With this other team moving in here, we have to take speed and stealth as the prime objectives.”
“Oh, I agree, but, if we had a chance to talk to one of them, we could possibly get answers.”
“We’ll get some answers,” he said, “just not enough.” At that, he motioned for Jerricho to lead, as they slipped down the hallway where the two gunmen had come from. They made it through two side rooms, checking inside both, and they were empty. But they were small, self-contained, and looked very promising in terms of housing prisoners.
When they got to the third one, they heard voices inside. Both of them stood back on either side of the door, and the voices got louder as whoever was inside came out. Diesel couldn’t understand the dialect, but he had his phone out, a translation app working, trying to discern what was going on. He trusted that Jerricho was catching the drift.
As soon as the door opened, another two men stepped out, and one was still talking. And it was just as easy to take down both of them at the same time. He looked at Jerricho to see his guy was dead too. He checked inside the room, saw it was empty, apart from what looked like a small fridge and a table. Probably their lunch room or meeting room. They dragged both men back inside and stuffed them in the far corner. From there, they stepped out, once again heavily rearmed, and he looked at Jerricho as they walked forward. “Did you learn anything?”
“No, they were talking about a sports game.”
“Of course,” he said, “they are just men after all.”
“I know,” he said. “It would be nice if they had answers to this whole mess, but it never happens that way.”
As they moved forward, they heard gunfire somewhere else in the building.
“Shit,” Diesel said.
They moved forward to the next door. It was locked.
He rattled the door and heard a woman’s voice call out, “Who’s there?”
“Who are you?” he asked in English.
“I’m Eva,” she said. “I was kidnapped from the US in Boston.”
“Well, Eva, you’re the one we came for,” Diesel said. “Stand back, please.”
Immediately he kicked the door down and entered, rifle at the ready. But she was alone, sitting on a bed, curled up in the corner. He quickly held up his flashlight, checked her over, checked the room, and then held the flashlight up against his face, so she saw him. “My name is Diesel Edwards,” he said. “Come on.”
“Wait,” she said. “Did you get the other two?”
“Which two?” Diesel asked. She motioned at the wall adjoining the next room down the hallway. Jerricho immediately moved to it. “Are any of them Russian?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she said in confusion. “Our kidnappers are Chinese.”
“Yes, another team’s in here,” he said, moving her toward the door.
“Another team helping you?”
“No,” he said, “they’re against us.”
“That makes no sense,” she said in confusion.
“I know. Are you hurt, or is there any reason you can’t run?”
“No, I’m not hurt. Getting tired and a little weak from the lack of decent food and the stress,” she said, “but I’m okay.”
“And the other two?”
“They’re also okay. Their names are Marge and Paul.”
“Good.” At that, Diesel turned, and Jerricho had opened the next door, and a woman, Marge he presumed, stood there, shivering.
Immediately Eva raced over and wrapped her arms around her. “They’re American,” she said. “They’re
