Chapter 113 - Rescue and Escape (11)

29 December, Terrorist facility, South of City K

While all around him, there was clear signs in the early morning sky that the day was going to be a beautiful day, that was not anything that tempted Ben to look away from his focus. His concerns focused on his friends inside the facility and their subordinates. He was so aware that he owed his career to Colonel Rong.

He was, when he took a chance on him, David and Joseph in that situation at the school, almost about to be dishonorably discharged from the military. He refused to care about his behavior, thinking he could do inside the military what he did before he joined, despite his home being the one place he had to escape. That one chance, gave him not only respect but a sense of purpose, letting him marry the love of his life, his family, and the career he loved.

Something was not feeling right about the whole situation. Everything they knew about the Devil told him that getting into and out of the facility should be more difficult that it had been. That concern, made him signal to the medic that he was moving closer to the entrance to look around. The closer he look, in the breaking light resulted in him finding indications that there were explosives set.

Carefully, he started to move things around, making sure he did not disturb anything that would trigger explosives. His investigations led him to locate explosives linked to a timer, and then following a hunch, he found that there was a chain of explosives set that were to seal through destruction the entry to the facility, if not destroy the facility completely and kill anyone close to the entry. He finally found the timer and noticed that there was just over ten minutes before the chain of explosives were set to go off. He needed to get everyone out of there quickly.

As he moved back towards the medic, the signal came over the communications equipment that the Colonel was safe and helping deal with terrorists inside the facility.

With that Ben, immediately broke their radio silence and said "Evac the facility, Evac now. Entrance is going to explode in eight minutes." While he knew they had over nine minutes, they needed to be away safely from the entrance. Signalling to the medic, they quickly moved the two vehicles they had with them as close as they felt comfortable to the entrance to load any civilians brought out into to drive them away from the facility quickly, leaving the engines running. with their weapons they moved to the entry, both to guard and provide assistance.

Inside the facility, hearing the warning, those, including Matthew battling the terrorists, paused for a couple of seconds, before Matthew indicated to retreat. Matthew, moved first and as he reached the landing area to aid in evacuating the victims he said "Five minutes to try and secure the ELINT, but do not take risks and be at the entrance in seven minutes. We have to focus on evacuating the victims who can walk with little if any assistance."

After a "Yes Sir" he turned and headed back to the gun battle.

He paused and said "We are time limited. I have given the orders about getting people out. We have only five to six minutes to get everyone out, up those flights of stairs. We are limited to those we can help, those who can walk with little, if any assistance. We just need to give them a couple of minutes to make it as far as they can up the stairs before following them up. No risks. saving as may civilians as possible is our priority, HUMIT is not. Just make sure that we are all out in time."

The junior solider said "Sir, our tasking is to get you out of here, so you go first.the major will follow you, then the lieutenant and I will come after that."

Knowing that the junior solider was correct, Matthew went back to the stairs and saw Lexi standing there refusing to go up. Matthew paused and said "Lexi, get going now up those stairs. No arguments, as this place appears to be wired to explode in about five minutes. You go up ..."

Joseph added "Four flights, and turn left"

Continuing Matthew "four levels and turn to your left heading to the entrance, moving as quickly as you can. I trust the officer who told me the place is wired to explode, and you need to be away from the entry before they go off." Observing the shock on her face he quickly continued "I will be behind you, but we are going to see who we can save."

Lexi, wanted to argue, but observing the seriousness on Matthew's face she knew that this argument, let alone the others that she wanted to have with him were not worth having. Following his direction with the Imam and the captives that had been freed, she headed down the corridor as quickly as she could and headed up the stairs.

Behind, Matthew turned to Joseph and motioned to keep moving along the corridor, freeing captives and taking the first captive that they could aid. He knew that they only had a minute or so to be heading up the stairs, and told every captive that they needed to move as quickly as they could up the stairs, making it clear that they could not at this immediate time that they would have to come back to help people, knowing that this was unlikely.

Five minutes later, Matthew, Joseph, David and the balance of the soldiers were met at the entrance of the facility by Ben, the medic, Lieutenant Akur, Lexi and the Imam to help move people away from the entrance. When they were about fifty meters from the entrance the explosion happened, crumbling the entrance trapping anyone still inside the facility.

Matthew turned and said, "Call the base, and arrange for medical evacuations for everyone, and rescue teams to see who they can get out."

-------

If you are reading this novel anywhere other than at or its apps then you are reading work that has been stolen in breach of the authors rights and those rights assigned to others.

Please support this author and only access this novel through at /book/15095783406874805 and report the illegal posting of this work.