Thomas Lundon had the head of the technical assistant and was throwing him into the control panels repeatedly as the poor assistant pleaded with Lundon that if the cameras were down, there was little he could do. Lundon, however, wasn’t convinced and was enraged that they now could not track the person coming to kill them all because he had shot out all the cameras. The technical assistant fell against the long array of computer terminals built into the desk and hit his head on the edge of the terminal. He fell unconscious to the floor. Lundon was struggling to catch his breath and other assistants in the room stared in horror as he flung himself around the room in rage.
He grabbed his radio and desperately radioed for back up.
‘Vose! Get up here!’
He got increasingly irritated and panicked when there was no response. Lundon threw himself towards the intruder tracking system and relaxed. They may not see Mark King on camera, but they could follow his movements on the intruder map. Lundon pulled himself into the desk, red faced and flushed, while he caught his breath. He had no Roman Vose and one less assistant to run the computer terminal but he suddenly became relaxed and contented as he leaned back in the leather lab chair and held his hands, fingers to fingers and smiled to himself.
Mark came to a sharp left turn in the corridor. It all seemed to happen in slow motion as he came face to face with a guard coming in the opposite direction. The guard looked just as shocked to see Mark as Mark was. They were both running when they realised they were facing one another. The guard raised his gun towards Mark and pulled back the loading mechanism. Mark pulled his Glock up to the guard’s head level. Both fired but Mark’s reactions were marginally quicker and the fact that the guard had an automatic weapon meant that his aim was hampered and the gun barrel flew in an upwards motion, catching the shoulder pad of Mark’s flak vest as he flew out of the line of fire. The guard’s face dropped and his finger continued to fire the remains of his clip into the ceiling as he fell slowly backwards. Mark’s landing against the wall was heavy and knocked the wind out of him. He thought he had broken a rib but was glad to be alive as he checked his shoulder. The Kevlar shoulder plate had absorbed the impact of the bullet, but not before it had thrown Mark towards the wall and seriously bruised his shoulder. That, coupled with having the wind knocked out of him, had caused him to lose consciousness momentarily. By the time the high pitched tinnitus sound had abated and the mist in his eyes had cleared, Mark realised he was still alive and tried to get up but the pain in his ribs prevented him from a quick get up. He pointed his Glock towards the body of the dead guard before sweeping in front and behind him to check for reinforcements. He was clear, and the guard was dead. Mark felt his head thump as the impact continued to make its way up his body. This was no time for nausea and Mark shook his head to clear it. It seemed to work temporarily, enough for him to see straight to continue.
Mark was now entering the level below ground level of the bunker and his head still hurt as he looked around, surrounded by brighter lights, cleaner air and a buzzing sound. At first he thought it was due to the headache but realised it must be a plant room, which might house the main generators. He spotted a brown door with a hazard sign and kicked it open, clearing the room with his Glock before entering fully. He followed the sound of the buzzing toward a mains generator and had a quick look around it. It was at this point he realised his skills and experience were not enough to work out how to use it or to shut it down. He figured out that if he cut the main supply line, it should shut down the entire facility, providing him with the cover of darkness and unlock any secure doors. This came as a double-edged sword: he could enter any level, at will, with only the push of a door AND it would eliminate any further CCTV or Tannoy announcements. It also meant all doors were released for floods of guards and troops to overwhelm him from every direction. At least with a locked door, they would lose the element of surprise.
‘Screw it,’ he said determinedly as he smashed the control dial with the guard’s automatic machine gun, before turning the gun to the mains wires and giving of three short sharp blasts, sending metal and sparks everywhere.
The generator made a whooshing sound and then a descending beep as it powered down and exploded. Mark ran to escape the shrapnel of nuts, bolts, sparks and machinery which flew in every direction. He was suddenly in total darkness as he made his way back out into the corridor. He could now hear voices getting closer, the shouts of armed guards and panic which had now set in. One thing that worked in his favour was the darkness. The guards had to use torches to find their way around, which meant that he could see them coming far more in advance than if he had to rely on his hearing alone. He opened the remaining magazine of the guard’s machine gun onto the sprawl of guards who marched around the corner to face him, temporarily blinded by their torch light. They fell all over the place, wounded, as Mark stepped over them. As he went, he shot each one with his suppressed Glock, killing those who were still alive, instantly. He was NOT taking any chances and headed to the large set of glass double doors which led into a control room.
Assistants lay dead against the control monitors dressed in white technicians’ coats all around him. Computers, riddled with bullet holes, sparked and the screens were shattered. Lundon had shot anyone he no longer needed or who was surplus to requirements once the power went down and he was now making his escape. A helicopter had since landed on the helipad but its rotors were stationary, so at least it wasn’t about to take off. Mark was concerned more reinforcements had been called in before the power went down. The broken window which led out onto the metal platform that surrounded the tower looked like a tempting place to run, so Mark jumped up onto the computer terminal desks and out through the broken window. He shielded his eyes from the fading daylight as he got his bearings. He realised no one could have come out that way and turned back the way he had come. Edging silently through the corridor, he came to stairs going down to a garage.
If it wasn’t for the sound of very expensive leather shoes behind him, Mark might have ventured down there and come face to face with Roman Vose, who was in the middle of executing his escape plan. There would be time for him later and Mark followed the sound of the shoes as they pattered their way out of sight. Then a door slammed and Mark faced more guards. He passed a small window and flinched as a sniper bullet shattered the pane just past his head. With one movement, he un-shouldered his rifle and found his target, one of the guard towers. He hit the sniper in the face and he fell backwards out of the tower. He quickly swivelled to the second tower, then the third, then the fourth, scoring a direct headshot with each movement. He’d taken fifty percent of the threat out quickly and he was counting his blessings. He then saw a door to one of the concrete buildings burst open and five guards come running out. He picked off whoever he could with his rifle before he had to resort to the machine gun, and the last magazine he had taken from a dead guard.
The five were now dead and strewn over the parade ground. Mark found the window of a concrete building a few yards away. He aimed a shot through the window and hit a guard in the side of the head. With that, the others flung open the door and used it for cover whilst returning fire to Mark’s position. He ducked, ran along the wall and found another window where he sent two more shots from his machine gun through the door. The magazine had been filled with armour piercing bullets as the guards hiding behind the door fell after the first few shots.
‘Keep moving,’ he said to himself aloud as he moved along the wall.
He found a door and kicked it open only to be on a steel walkway which faced the last few guard towers he had not hit yet. Mark jumped back in the doorway and set his rifle up against the wall, pointing to the sixth and seventh towers. He took one guard as he was climbing the ladder and another as he was about to shine the searchlight to illuminate Mark’s position. Mark counted.
‘One, two, three, six, and seven. That means three towers left behind me.’
He heard Lundon shouting at him from the corridor and spun round to follow the sound. He stopped before turning the corner, flat against the wall, as he realised he was only a few feet from Lundon. He spun round to see Thomas Theodore Lundon, flanked by six heavily armed guards stood at the end of the corridor, baiting him to come out so they could fill him full of bullets. Mark narrowly dodged the hail of gunfire which preceded him revealing his position. His shoulder slammed against the wall and the sting of the injured shoulder made him dizzy.
He straightened himself out and held his ground, trying desperately to work out how to get them all out in one shot without hitting Lundon straight away. He looked about and saw that a guard had dropped a smoke grenade in the rush to locate him. He grabbed it, waiting before he pulled the pin, paused, and threw it round the corner, filling the entire corridor with smoke. He made his way tentatively through the smoke and caught sight of the guard’s green laser sights on their weapons. He used his Glock to shoot four of the six, at point blank range. For the others he used the machine gun sideways, knocking them both against the wall. On the rebound, he punched one in the face and the crunch told Mark he had done some serious damage. The last one was retreating from Mark to cover Lundon’s exit, facing Mark all the time.
Mark took two steps forward and heard the click of the guard’s gun misfire. The guard cursed as he tried again and again to fire but to no avail. His last mistake was that he tried to reload his weapon, buying Mark precious seconds to intercept and shoot him in the head with his Glock. The smoke was clearing and Mark could see a lot more clearly. Lundon had backed into a room and out of the fire escape, down a metal staircase and was walking towards the waiting helicopter, its rotors now spinning at full speed about to take off.
Mark sprinted after him and onto the flat solid ground in pursuit. Suddenly and without warning, a Desert Chameleon six-wheeled armoured vehicle, followed by a dozen armed guards, edged out from Mark’s left-hand side. He ground to a halt, seeking cover wherever he could. He stopped, rooted to the spot, watching Lundon mocking him as he stood in front of the group of armed guards. The turret on the armoured car spun slowly and deliberately anti-clockwise towards Mark and he waited for it to home in on his position, its terrifying bullets ripping him to shreds as Thomas Lundon, the architect for all Mark’s pain, walk away unharmed and Marie, unavenged. Mark waited for his fate, somehow contented with the fact that this would be the end of the line, and knowing, beyond everything, he had tried his best to find his wife’s killer. Suddenly Mark remembered the land mine he had planted earlier and felt the detonator in his pocket. He reached for it and clicked the small metal trigger. The fence behind the helipad exploded and Mark took the opportunity to gain ground, running towards the helicopter, determined to get at least one shot off at Lundon before he got away.
At that moment, an earth shattering explosion happened at the same point where Mark’s landmine had gone off, and it wasn’t his. Then Mark heard the deafening repeated thud of a large machine gun and looked on, stunned, as men from Lundon’s protective garrison fell in a bloody, bullet ridden mess on the floor in the wake of the hell unleashed by the FNHFN Mark 46 M249 SAW Machine Gun. Next was the helicopter, exploding in such a massive explosion, its shock wave knocked Mark off his feet and onto his back. As he went down, he saw Lundon heading off on foot, in the direction the armoured car had come from but when the dust settled, Mark could see a combat clad figure stood in the wreckage and massacre. Mark smiled as a hand went up in acknowledgement. Mark clambered to his feet and saw a familiar figure stood holding an empty Saw machine gun: El Toro, ‘The Bull’. He looked quite the part wearing his ammunition around his neck like Rambo, cigar in his mouth, laughing. Mark made an ‘OK’ symbol with his fingers as El Toro took a bow and waved Mark toward where Lundon had run. Mark saluted El Toro and ran for it in time to see Lundon climb another metal staircase up to the control tower.
Mark beat him to it and got ahead of him and took aim. El Toro was now behind Lundon but was letting Mark have this kill. Mark took his rifle and called to Lundon who stopped and turned, a face of horror seeing Mark stood there in front of him with his sights trained firmly on Lundon’s forehead.
‘Thomas Lundon!!!’ Mark screamed at him. ‘Why did Marie have to die?’
Lundon laughed as he swallowed two Topiramate, anti-epilepsy tablets, wincing as he swallowed. His hands shook and his vision became distorted.
‘Why did the world have to turn on me for a condition that wasn’t my fault?’ he scorned, pointing at Mark.
Mark looked confused as he stood staring at Lundon.
‘Oh yes, the world was kind when it suited it, the rest of the time it berated me and mocked me!’ he hissed.
‘No one’s mocked you, Lundon. You’re just insane,’ Mark replied, lifting his weapon.
‘See!’ shouted Lundon stepping towards Mark, ‘that’s exactly what HE did too. The apple, Mark, doesn’t fall very far from the tree!’
Mark stopped and thought for a second, before looking back up at Lundon, who was turning red and breathing heavily.
‘HE?’ Mark questioned, not sure what he was being told.
‘Yes!’ replied Lundon, satisfied they were getting closer to the truth, ‘HE was YOUR FATHER!’