‘I don’t care! Tear everything down if you have to, but don’t let him slip away. Dead or alive, you must catch him,’ the magnate yelled on the phone and the whole corridor reverberated with the vibrations of his voice. ‘You have his photo, you know how he looks and I want you to call me with results soon,’ he scolded for the last time before hurling his phone on the floor in anger. He picked up the parts and shoved them into his pocket, then got back to the rest of the audience, thinking that maybe it was a good idea to consult a therapist now that he had that many negative emotions on his plate. But he brushed that thought aside for further consideration; now he was going to just watch the launching in a moderately calm state of mind. His man summoned the team that was on standby. That short phone call was going to change the lives of many of the unsuspecting people present in the square . . .
The long-awaited moment finally came. The seven brave hearts were ready to leave. Everyone was happy, everyone rejoiced while their hope was floating towards the sky slowly and gracefully, exuding the might of the unwavering human spirit.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Harry exclaimed. Alice barely heard what her beloved said, she was still captivated by the rocket that had just left the planet’s orbit.
‘Yes, I saw it. It was really pretty, but let’s go now,’ the beauty said decidedly, taking him by the hand a little before the crowd began to disperse. The couple headed for the nearby restaurants, happy and undisturbed. But something was about to take them off course . . .
There was a loud collision noise and earsplitting shrieks rent the air. They were so loud and piercing that they curdled the blood all those who were at the other end of the square. A few small explosions followed. Harry looked back and saw hundreds of people running frantically, trying to escape from something. Some of them crashed into him with such force that they toppled him to the ground and almost trampled him before Alice managed to pull him away, terrified by all that was happening. Harry recovered quickly from the shock.
‘Hold my hand tightly, we need to get away!’ Harry yelled and the two broke into a run, following the others who were obviously running for their lives.
There was a repeated rattle of a firearm. After they had moved aside and the crowd behind them had thinned they saw that two black SUVs had mowed through the people, leaving countless casualties in their wake. They were quickly catching up on them and the panic and the jostle made escaping almost impossible. The police cruisers were all in flames, the police officers were obliterated. The law enforcement were helpless because of the panicked multitude and the gunfire that was opened on them. Everyone had become a victim of merciless killers, clearing their way to their target. The automobiles themselves were not as scary as the four men who were driving inside of them. The butchers were moving side by side armed with machine guns and grenades and once they hurled them on the ground, the devices produced powerful explosions, clearing the dead bodies that lay in the vehicles’ way. A horrifying massacre that only the mind of a mentally ill could sow, but alas, there were one too many sick minds . . .
The casualties multiplied by the second and Harry and Alice tried to gain some lead, leaving behind their backs the sight of people dropping to the ground one after the other, lifeless and bathed in blood, uttering the last cries in their lives. Bullets sang around them and much as they tried to run away from them, more and more people gathered in front of them, jamming their way. Thousands of crushed and stampeded people lying in the feet of the running lot prayed for mercy and for God’s help, prayed to survive, but no help descended from the heavens above. Neither the shooters, nor the crowd felt any mercy . . .
‘Come with me, now! Harry called out and rushed in the opposite direction, squeezing the hand of the dark-haired beauty so tightly that her body started moving in the direction of another cardinal point. They ran for sixty-five feet under a rain of bullets before they managed to hide behind a statue of an angel. The symbol of hope rose up seven feet above the ground, but it had only dead bodies and pain lying in its bosom. If that inanimate object could have feelings, it would burst out crying. It would shed tears of blood for days on end until the square went scarlet with them and replaced the blood of the innocent. The more the couple wished the winged creature to save them from the impending horror, the more they felt and saw that they were the focus of the fire. The bullets hit the statue one after the other, leaving deep holes into its structure. The two young people felt that sooner or later it would crumble and the shooters would get to them–they would have no escape route. Harry was seized by genuine panic. Both their faces blanched at that prospect. They felt the small fragments of the statue flying up in all directions. Hundreds of shells from multiple cartridges were fired both at the crowd and at them, hundreds of people were killed, but the main target was still alive. Harry could no longer wait behind the half-ruined statue.
‘We have to get out of here!’ Rogers yelled again, seeing the butchers were merely a dozen feet away. Suddenly the fire almost died down, leaving only the burst-fire of one of the shooters.
The subsiding gunfire made the two lovebirds feel even greater terror. Rightfully so. One of the butchers was shooting, another one was reloading his gun and the other two we readying themselves to finish off the two English “tourists”. The terrorists took out grenades from their vests simultaneously. They pulled the pins with their teeth and that seemed to be the end. Covered only by a chunk of the statue’s wreckage the two lovers prayed for salvation, their fingers intertwined. Out of the blue another angel came to their rescue. Less than a second before the bombs were thrown towards the two victims, a gray SUV crashed into the vehicle on Harry and Alice’s right which the shooter used as barricade and bulldozed them. He pushed them so forcefully that one of the vehicles turned upside down and other got knocked over. The grenades exploded and tore apart the SUV that got turned over and killed two of the shooters, the third one was sent sprawling on the ground, crippled and half-dead. Only one of the ruffians was alive, the driver of the other vehicle survived the hit, too, both got away only with a mild shock. At those same seconds of surprise the gray car made an unexpected maneuver and turned around with its driver’s side facing the hiding couple to protect them from possible new gunshots. The driver’s door with a tinted window opened and Milev showed up from behind it.
‘Get in, get in, get in!’ the ex-military called, scared, but firm enough. The couple ran ahead without a second thought. They opened the back door and jumped in. Milev slammed on the gas pedal and drove off like a madman; a few bullets followed and made holes in the back window of the armored car.
‘They’re using armor-piercing bullets, get down now!’ Dimitar yelled, trying to drive fast and running over as few of the dead bodies as possible. The two lovers looked back and saw the last standing shooter mounted into the car of Death and set off on a merciless chase. Police cars, fire trucks and ambulances arrived at the scene of the attack five minutes after the onset, but it was already too late–the people were dead now, along with three of the perpetrators, one of whom managed to escape in a SUV with the driver in, hastening to complete his mission . . .
They started a furious race. Milev and the butcher drove so fast down the streets that the pedestrians could feel the vortex of wind they left in their wake. Neither of the drivers stopped at the red lights at the crossroads, only by some miracle did they get away from terrible accidents. Dimitar was driving frantically and while wondering what direction to take, he gave voice instruction to his phone to call Omar.
‘Hello, who is it?’ the Iranian officer picked up.
‘Omar, it’s me, Dimitar, help us! We were attacked by professionals and can’t say if we’re going to make it. We’re being chased and shot at. We’re going down 128,’ Dimitar said, scared, trying to explain the situation. The hit man opened fire on them again, shooting out the window and getting nearer and nearer. The two lovebirds got down and Harry saw a speck of blood on the shoulder of his darling.
; ‘Are you all right, Alice?’ the English man called.
‘Yes, I’m OK, it’s just a scratch, the bullet’s just grazed me,’ the beauty answered, but she, too, saw something worrisome–two bloody spots–one on Roger’s stomach and one on his right thigh. Right before she started undressing him to see where exactly her loved one was wounded, Harry felt an even sharper pain and his face started growing paler due to the blood loss.
‘He’s injured!’ the dark-haired beauty cried a few times.
‘Oh, no!’ Dimitar panicked. ‘We’re coming to Al Nadir, General. Think of something. Harry’s wounded.’
‘Don’t, you’ll expose us! Drive towards checkpoint 13 on 148. I´ll think of something!´ Saadi instructed and hung up.
Dimitar took a sharp swerve on the next intersection and his chaser hit a small city car which started spinning along the road with the passengers inside. The criminal nearly lost control of the vehicle and even drove on two wheels for a while after he took a turn to the left, chasing the fugitives.
‘How’s Harry, tell me now!’ Dimitar turned to Alice while he was driving towards the checkpoint.
He’s losing a lot of blood. No organs affected. One of the bullets has entered and exited at the side, next to the stomach, affecting only the lateral abdominal muscles, but it must have passed through an artery. We don’t have time,’ Alice screamed in desperation, hardly managing to hold her tears back. Harry was losing consciousness and already feeling sleepy, there was just noises shooting past him now.
‘Hang on, boy!’ the Balkan cried at him and Omar called at that second.
‘I’m waiting for you in place with military men, medical teams are on standby. Where are you?’
‘We’ll be there in five, we’re holding the lead for now, but he’s catching up on us,’ the Lieutenant informed as he sped up. ‘We’re in the gray car, take down the black one ASAP,’ he said and hung up after clarifying the specifics, focusing on his driving. The bounty hunters were already getting closer. They hit them on the left and tried to push them off the road. Dimitar’s driving was on the verge of the possible. The mercenary opened fire anew, but the angle at which the SUV moved was putting the driver in a tough spot, on top of that there were clouds of smoke coming out of the vehicle. In the last moment Dimitar saw one of the newly built walls and headed straight for it. Omar finally saw the enemy getting dangerously close to the gray vehicle at a breakneck speed.
‘Eliminate the black car, but be careful, there are injured men in the gray one. Once it pulls over, the medical teams go for it.’ On saying this he saw how the two vehicles came side by side again, bumping into each other. And right about when they were to receive their last Communion, Milev hit the brakes about two hundred and sixty feet away from the emergency and the military teams. The other car, however, kept driving towards the checkpoint.
‘Fire,’ General Saadi cried and the killers found themselves under a lead-laden shower. Then they threw two anti-tank missiles, ending everything in flames. The mercenaries were killed and the medical teams headed for the pin-cushioned car and pulled the injured. Harry was taken to hospital and given a few blood and drug transfusions on the way there. Springer was holding him by the hand, instilling courage into him, although his life was no longer in danger.
‘You’re a lucky man, pal,’ Omar winked at Dimitar and patted him on the shoulder after he went to see him; by some miracle, he did not have a scratch.
‘Hell, I am!’ the Balkan, sitting close by his crushed car, laughed, still seized by the terror, but visibly calmer. ‘Thank you. If it hadn’t been for you, the three of us would be with a bullet in the head now.‘
‘No, if it hadn’t been for you, now those two lovebirds would have a bullet in their heads. Well done, hero!’ the commander-in-chief smiled at him again and took him to the doctors for a routine check-up. They could now breathe freely once all the action was over . . .
What had happened was a reflection of the pent-up cruelty in the soul of a billionaire whose core lacked conscience. There were no culprits and the case remained in history as a terroristic attack with undetermined motive. The leads were a dead end and the only people who had any clue about the source of the bloodbath were three. Milev, Harry and Alice pretended to be victims of the onslaught and no one bothered them–nether agents nor investigators. Harry was discharged from the hospital the very same day and no one ever saw him spending time anywhere in public. No one knew whether the causalities would ever find retribution. The only people who could expose the person responsible for the outrage were lying on the ground, already having paid for their wrongdoings with their own lives . . .
Even though they were two of the best in their line of work, Ben and Hans could do nothing about the whole situation not because they had decided to spend the day touring around the city, but because they were among the injured. They got lucky that the shooting started away from them and that it targeted a different part of the square. Leckerman got away with grazes on the arms and bruises on the back. He was lying in the midst of a group of about twenty stampeded people–blood and dust all over his body, both his own and someone else’s. He rose up slowly, still a captive of the pain inflicted by the dozen feet that had trampled him. Without sparing a second to shake off the shock, he started looking around, the cries for help of the people lying about made the scene even more dramatic. A single thought of distress was ripening in his mind.
‘Where’s the Major?’ he uttered in a low voice, scared, and looked around in search for his colleague. ‘Ben, Be-e-en, where are you? Be-e-e-n!’ he started yelling at the top of his voice. After a minute of peering into the tumult around, he saw a man lying on the ground some fifty feet away from him who looked like his friend. He hurried in his direction, limping, and established it was really Ben. He was all soaked in blood, breathing with difficulty–the Major did not have the same luck as Leckerman.
‘Are you all right? How are you?!‘ He began talking to Robinson, trying to find out what his condition was, but he was shaking in pain and could not utter a sound. ‘Doctor, we need a doctor!’ the young fellow was screaming as loud as he could, but the medical teams were just beginning to arrive at the scene and headed into random directions. The Major was convulsing, he lost and regained consciousness several times. Leckerman got scared for his life once he saw the critical condition his colleague was in, but there was not much he could do. Hans did not know if he should move him or help him sit up, his state appeared to be deteriorating. He was left with nothing else but taking his friend’s hand in his and trying to breathe some courage into him.
‘Hang on, Ben, the doctors are coming! Just hang on,’ he said, pronouncing each word prominently so his injured fellow investigator could hear he was right by his side. ‘We need a doctor!’ the German started yelling again and at the same instant Ben, barely breathing, recovered consciousness. He opened his mouth a bit and tried to cough up the blood that was trickling down his throat, threatening to choke him.
‘Hans . . .,’ he hardly managed to pronounce his name, wheezing and choking, his lungs filling with liquid. Leckerman squeezed his hand tightly.
‘Don’t worry, you’ll be all right! They’re coming,’ he continued talking, squatting beside him.
‘Müller and Konrad. Continue what we’ve started. . .,’ he barely managed to mumble, coughing up black blood clots. ’Put Müller in the corner, he’ll confess,’ he murmured in his final gulp of air quivering in his lungs before he choked to death and went silent for good. His eyes went all white and emptiness flooded the body that rested in the hands of the young investigator. There was nothing anyone could do anymore and Hans knew it. Neither the artificial respiration he gave him, nor the heart massage he tried as a last remaining rescue measure worked. His eyes watered and filled with that sense of helplessness that made him go wild. He held the hand of his friend a trifle more and turned his sad gaze to him one last time before he called down and came to grips with the situation. He rose up,
rubbed his eyes and set down the body of his deceased comrade. The man took a few looks around searching for someone he could call for help. A few minutes later an ambulance arrived and took them to a hospital. It came quickly, yet untimely. That thought circulated in Hans’s mind as he was being examined and released after a few hours in the hospital. The account of the tragic incident travelled across the world, it was top news on the media all around the globe, second to the astronauts departure. That day was every bit as paramount as it was desecrated. The blame was going to be thrown on somebody, but who would that be? What direction would the investigation take and was it going to get to the truth so justice could be served?
Ben’s body was sent to his family and their friendship ended as it began. His surviving brother would not stop blaming himself for being the very reason why the two of them went to that dratted place. Leckerman was swept up by such a burning desire for vengeance that he wanted to unleash it on everyone around him. But he was more sensible than ordinary people. And even though he might felt the urge to reveal his true nature of a stubborn and short-tempered young man, he had to be clever and wait for the moment of surprise, then return and strike back the right person . . .
On the next day Hans went over the medical expertise of the death of his colleague. It had it clearly stated that the cause for Ben’s death was crushed chest and multiple fractures. He was ready to fly back home with that paper and leave that dreadful experience behind his back. When he got on the plane, however, he realized that he could not leave things as they were. I owe him so much, he constantly repeated to himself along with something else which echoed in his mind like a bell’s toll every minute ever since his friend took in his dying breath. It was the last words that came out of his mouth. And the more he replayed them in his mind, the more he mustered the courage to take action and risk everything on one last throw of the dice. When he got back into his hometown, Berlin, he did not wait for a sinle day and headed straight to the American-German air base. But before he went there, he diligently put together a file of the most important documents about the shady affairs of the base and its commander-in-chief.
Dawn of Hope- Exodus Page 24