Back at the bunker, the hairs on the back of Ted’s neck stood on end, as a metallic crank was heard tearing apart the bunker’s reinforced door. There was no way they’d survive this. The fangs of the door’s locking mechanism tore apart like bad dentistry and a face was visible between the mashed together metal hooks holding the door in place. Ted knew it would take 2 minutes for that door to be entirely annihilated, and after that it would take 8 minutes to end up in a stalemate. Maybe less if he had this kind of technology gnashing at the metal.
Irene pushed the steel table aside, crashing the dictaphone onto the concrete with a loud scramble. They had no choice but to go back further into the bowels of the bunker. Ken shoved Ted into the store room and tore apart enough cardboard that he could be hidden among the boxes for a short while. It was a juvenile plan, but often the stupid plans worked better. Irene shoveled through the weapon box, looking for anything with enough power to keep intruders at bay. She hated this part of the job. She wasn’t built for violence, she was a pen pusher at heart.
She hid 4 revolvers around the public area, two large hunting knives by the door, and a smattering of smaller weapons under tables and behind documents and filing cabinets. Tasers, hammers, knuckle dusters and smaller knives. Anything with a bite to it.
She heard the crackle when the first door was finally torn off its hinges. The second door was easier to take care of, that would take 30 more seconds. In this time she decided to take a defensive position by the files and the vaults. She was a petite woman, not the tall, fiery thing she was 40 years ago, and while there are some breeds of 60 year old martial artists that could kick ass, Irene was not one of them.
She counted the footsteps as the military boots hit the metallic floors for the first time. Nothing to do now other then sit next to a filing cabinet, and grasp whatever she could find. She held a pistol close to her chest, checking the bullets and counting them again and again. A paranoid, fiddly ritual. She checked the holster, she checked the grips, she even checked the safety was off.
The footsteps grew closer. Boots against metal. She could hear what sounded like three, maybe four sets. Not a militia, she breathed to herself, tucking her legs in so she’d take up as little space as possible.
GUNSHOT.
They seemed to be splitting up.
She breathed closer. Distinctly noticing the sound of boots against metal and the grunts of the armed men as they split up in three directions. One stayed close to the entrance. One was checking out the supply cupboard. TED. No. don’t think about that. One of the men was heading into the bedrooms, and that meant that the fourth man was heading towards the offices. She heard him grow closer and tried her hardest not to move. She knew it was silly, he was an armed gunman not a T rex. But from a slither of 90s computer screen she caught sight of a large, black machine gun.
Her heart was beating in her chest now.
He wasn’t close enough to taze. He wasn’t close enough to swipe for. She could do nothing but wait.
He stood 12 paces away. Entering directly into her line of sight. Holding the gun with no hesitation. “DROP THE PISTOL” he barked. Bald and vicious. A pit bull of a man, White, British, muscles bulging out of his kevlar vest.
Irene raised her hands submissively, “please don’t shoot” she whimpered. She liked to believe it was part of an act, like if she could remind them of a helpless older relative - A fond aunt or a mother figure in their lives - she might be spared. The reality was it was never that straight forward. She was terrified.
The barrel of the bulldog man’s gun found itself levitating towards her head. He called over his companions. All equally doggish. The man who looked like a doberman, racially ambigious with sharpened cheekbones and jaws, stared her down. As did the man who looked like a husky, more Russian traits.
“Fellas, please don’t shoot” she tried.
They looked at her as if she was the daftest bitch in the world. “we’re keeping you alive. You’re bait” the doberman told her. The husky leaning in just close enough that she could smell his breath in the air. Stale coffee and a meat heavy breakfast.
“Are you attached to your limbs?” one of the men grizzled. She couldn’t tell who it was, she was too horse blinder-ed by panic to pay attention. She nodded and sobbed. Please lord save me without too much injury she begged internally. She didn’t dare smuggle out any words. She knew she’d say the wrong thing.
She didn’t move. She didn’t blink. She just let whatever panicked noises happen. That’s what they wanted isn’t it? She looked at the locking mechanism of the safe, the fingerprints against it and the puddle of now dried and sticky coffee by the floor. “He’s in the safe” she grumbled. Her eyes catching a handle tucked to the side of the great vault. Don’t stare at it. Don’t let them know its there. Ignore it. She begged herself.
The bulldog man went first. “This better not be a trick” he grumbled, grabbing the reinforced door tearing device from his bag. It was like a set of plyers. Big pinchers that pulled out instead of in. He skewered the door and cranked for five consecutive pumps.
ONE. TWO. THREE. FOUR. FIVE.
The door tore off. And the knife tumbled to the ground in front of the safe.
Quick as a flash. A desperate stranger with desperate burns sprung out at them. Picking up the knife and tearing across the flesh of the miserable men. She was dropped in the panic and scrambled back, watching the strange men change targets as her kitten heels scraped against the metal.
The husky noticed her, taking off after her as the other two restrained the starved and pathetic skeleton man that sprung out to them. He’d been tainted by desperation, and starvation. Whatever was man, was now pure animal fight or flight. A human wall of aggression.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Irene ran into the bed quarters. The investigator was there. She was under the beds, in the American “school shooter drill” position, aged vodka in hand and mascara drenching her cheeks. Irene grabbed the leg of a bedside table and lifted it aloft, like a club. Her pistol had been lost in the scramble. She took a glance as the intruder’s door guard moved over to offer support, seeing the rogues gallery in front of her. She tried to memorise the men she saw. So that she’d know if anyone was hidden for an ambush.
Pitbull. Doberman. Husky.
She added The feline looking doorman and the punky one with the mohawk, although the mohawk man was not getting up any time soon. He was either dead or unconscious. For his sake, she hoped dead.
In total she saw five. Four left.
Pitbull. Doberman. Husky. Sphinx. Rooster.
There was a familiar scream, and the sound of a gunshot. Looks like her surprise from the safe is no longer a suitable distraction. She didn’t know what other tricks she had left. She tore her head out the door as quickly and quietly as she could. Baited breath. She grabbed the interviewers wrist. The woman had slithered out of her hiding spot by now.
She counted mentally. Three. Two. ONE.
She ran. If the boys had any sense they would too. She was the only one not formally combat trained. The footsteps slapped against the metal. A desperate scramble. No elegance. No sense. No subtlety. There was a Jeep about 40 paces away in the hot sun. Jet black, doors open for a quick getaway. The women stumbled through the cracked open bunker door and their feet ached up the metallic ladder. Fresh air. Hot sand. Freedom.
Irene and the interviewer landed themselves into the jeep and hit the accelerator full throttle. Don’t look back. Don’t think back. Survivors think about the future. Irene begged herself. They tore through the desert for miles. Sand whipping at their window and the crunch of stone under the tires. She didn’t care where they went. They just had to go.
No honor among thieves. The boys would be fine. They always were.
* * *
After an adequate distance had occurred, they scrapped the Jeep. It was tracked. Of course it was tracked. They beached it at a dune and walked to a petrol station diner, doing the best to ignore the memories of gunshots and bloodsplatter.
“looks like I’m going to have to get that cleaned up before a certain someone gets released” The interviewer gruffed.
Irene breathed through her nose.
“If we survive, hand me a sponge” she half joked, receiving a glance in return.
“And the door?” the interviewer asked.
“The door did its job” she huffed.
“No I mean how do we repair it?” the interviewer asked.
“That’s not my problem. There’s bound to be a door guy you can contact, assuming we all get out of this alive” Irene shrugged. Sand getting into the nooks on her jacket and into the cracks of her feet.
The arrived at a diner 3 miles from the site, ordering a pair of milkshakes on an anonymous card. They’d have to steal a motorbike or something out back. That was a later problem. For now they had precious minutes.
“The FUCK was that?” the interviewer asked.
“That was a hired hit-man team from San Francisco” Irene answered.
“But there was gunfire!” the interviewer shuddered.
“What were you expecting? You were housing a drug kingpin” Irene pointed out.
“At this point in the career no one takes a hit team personally, its like sending an email. You don’t blame Mark Zuckerberg that your high school crush broke up with you on Facebook”
The interviewer watched her carefully, strawberry milkshake straw lingering in her mouth as she thought. It was a well earned milkshake. Frankly they’d been living off lukewarm drinks for the last few days, and the 3 mile walk in the scorching sand had caused nothing other than calluses and discomfort. Irene leaned on an elbow.
“can I borrow your phone quickly?” she asked.
The interviewer handed over a smart phone, about 3 models behind the latest, but alas that’s what you get on documentary royalties. Irene took to it like a duck to water, scrambling the location trackers in the local area. She wanted to broadcast two clear messages. One, that she was alive so her husband could stop worrying, and two, that she’d gotten out of the desert.
She hadn’t gotten out of the desert of course. But if she could fudge the controls a little, she could say the jeep was headed to an airport, or skimming its way to Mexico, they’d be in the clear. Ken would know it was a lie, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth closed.
She’d make it look like an accident, like she’d left the tracker controls on by mistake. It wouldn’t work for long, but it would buy them an hour or two.
“My tapes” the interviewer sighed to herself. Irene shook her head slowly, “Babe, we know you have like three different recording devices. My money is on a secret cloud drive and an auto upload.” The interviewer looked at her with a baffled expression.
“Drop the act, you’re not that dumb, that’s why I hired you” Irene told her.
The interviewer shrugged “I just hope that last auto upload worked, only one of those tapes has a black box feature.”
Irene stared at her, reading her like a dime store murder mystery. “Any other secrets you want to tell me? Before those men make you tell them?”
The interviewer thought, unflinching. “I was in three different war zones, I’ve worked across the political spectrum, and I’ve made an effort to keep my beak clean when I can” she told Irene.
Irene shook her head “I didn’t ask for your CV.”
The interviewer thought harder, biting her lip and finding her free hand running through her hair anxiously. “Okay, I may have accidentally leaked our location” she admitted nervously. Irene just stared.
“I didn’t mean to, but every time my recording devices uploaded the footage it’d send a little time stamp and an IP address to the cloud. If they tracked that then they’d be able to piece together our location. Especially paired with the rumours about the crazy millionaire’s secret sex bunker that drift around the college campuses nearby” she rambled.
Irene wasn’t having it. She lifted her eyebrows and made a constipated face. “Be for real, we’ve told you our stories, the least you can do is tell the truth” she huffed. “You’re lucky my revolver was left in the bunker” she added.
The interviewer started twiddling the napkin holder.
“Okay, okay okay okay. FINE” she capitulated.
“I leaked your data, I was made an offer. They said an attack would increase the ratings of the documentary and that I’d be spared if anything goes wrong.”
Irene resisted the temptation to skewer her dining companion in the hand with a hamburger fork, instead opting for an arctic stare and to shove the woman into the scorching desert sand.
“If its a hook you’re looking for, walk home” she told her. “Or I’ll provide plenty of inspiration for your true crime show.”