The Bleeding Sun (9 page)

He barely managed to hold on to
the side of the tower with his hand as the grappling hook snapped.
Annie safely lifted herself into the tower and provided her hand to
assist Lucas. However owing to the slippery surface Lucas’s grip
gave away as he came sliding down the outer wall of the watch
tower. He landed with a thud fracturing his left arm. Annie rushed
down the stairs to help Lucas stand up. He had been hurt really
bad. It would take some time before his arm would be numb. Till
then he would be in terrible pain. Lucas’s left arm was useless as
of now.

Annie and Lucas headed for the
hangar as Lucas pressed the dial of his watch once again. The C4 in
the watchtower exploded. Annie took out a few guards with her first
few shots at the hangar. The armored truck had its engines turned
on as it headed out of the hangar. Annie and Lucas fired their guns
in desperation. The truck needed to be stopped. Lucas could see
Annie running down the hangar all guns blazing in her last bid to
stop the truck. Lucas could now see Rosmus and Romanovich heading
towards the hangar along with a bunch of Viper agents. He needed to
take care of them. As he looked for cover to figure out an escape
plan, he noticed a briefcase lying near him.

He needed to know why the
briefcases were of such importance and why were they loaded in the
armored truck. Lucas pulled the briefcase towards him. It was
locked and he did not know the security code. However he had been
trained to pick locks and crack combinations such as these. Lucas
managed to crack the code with ease. Annie was still nowhere to be
seen. The contents of the briefcase included a small black
rectangular box of the size of a portable hard drive. Along with it
a small black sealed metallic cylinder was also present. The
briefcase was well padded and the contents were securely strapped
to ensure that it did not move around while the briefcase was in
transit. Lucas removed the rectangular box to check its contents.
He was so engrossed with checking the contents that he did not
notice a presence behind him. A heavy thud on the back of his head
silenced him.

The Bleeding Sun

Lucas felt as if a grenade had
exploded inside his head. He tried to slowly open his eyes, but his
vision was blurred. He could see the gray ceiling on top of his
head. The light in the room was shining brightly hindering his
vision. Lucas slowly lifted his arm trying to prevent the light
rays from falling into his eyes. His senses were slowly starting to
respond. He was lying down on a bed in a cabin of some kind. The
steel door was locked from the outside. The room had a chair and a
table apart from the bed. There were no windows in the room. A
single bulb located on the upper left corner of the room lit it up
brightly. The only means of air flow, a ventilation shaft on the
ceiling had been sealed off; a direct outcome of Lucas’s exploits
on the previous day. Strangely Lucas had not been tied up. He was
still wearing the uniform of the Viper agent. His boots had been
removed. He checked his pockets to figure out if he had anything
with him that could come handy.

However, all his accessories had
been taken away. A soothing sound of the waves crashing on the
vessel was good enough for Lucas to understand that he was in a
vessel, a ship probably if not a big boat. His location and
possible destination was still unknown. He needed to figure out a
plan for his escape. There were no signs of Annie either; perhaps
she had managed to escape and was hatching a plan to rescue him.
However as the Serpent had said, he couldn’t risk another incident
like what had happened to Alpha. So it was highly likely that Annie
may well have returned back to the base with the briefcase and its
contents that they had identified the previous night. Lucas needed
to figure out what was in the briefcase and where the briefcases
had been sent over using the armored truck. Also another important
aspect was what had happened to Rosmus and Romanovich. To get the
answers, he would need to escape first.

His hands were starting to ache as he continued to
hold on for a last few minutes. His body started trembling as he
could really feel the heat. The ventilator shaft had been
purposefully sealed to prevent his escape. He held on to one end of
the shaft trying to balance his body against the ceiling. He needed
to find some other modes of support pretty soon to prevent his
drastic and untimely fall. Suddenly he could hear the footsteps
near the door. The guard had come. It was feeding time. The steel
door opened up with a rusty sound. The guard came in with a bowl in
his right hand. He held his machine gun on his left. The tattoo of
the snake was clearly visible on the back of his neck; the mark of
a Viper agent.

He entered the room and kept the bowl on the table.
Then he moved towards the bed and shouted out…

‘
Lucas, eat this up quickly. The
boss has sent some special preparations as this will be your last
meal…Ha Ha Ha.’ He kept on laughing for half a minute only to
realize that Lucas was not responding. He moved up to the bed with
the machine gun pointed at the covered figure lying on it. Lucas
waited eagerly in anticipation for the next sequence of events to
unfold. The room seemed to have been heated up tenfold in the past
few minutes. His shirt was soaked in sweat and beads started
developing on his face. As the guard moved forward to lift the
sheet covering the figure, sweat started to trickle down his face
and salt water beads developed on the tip of his nose just on the
verge of a fall. It would surely land on the guard’s shoulder thus
giving away his presence. He just could not wipe it off as trying
to do so would make him fall off the ventilator shaft. Finally the
drop fell down landing straight on the guard’s head.

The next few moments seemed to occur in slow motion.
The guard touched his head to feel the moist drop. As he moved his
head up straight towards the ceiling, Lucas let both my hands off
the shaft and landed straight on him. He fell down crashing heavily
on the table as Lucas landed on his back. The guard had lost his
gun before managing to fire a few rounds at the door due to the
sudden impact. The man was huge in size. The impact didn’t seem to
affect him too much as he tried to stand up once again. However
Lucas was in no mood to take a chance. He had been taught the Krav
Maga during his training. It is a military self-defense hand to
hand combat technique used by the Israeli army. It is not just
about self-defense, but more about utilizing your chance to disable
your enemy before he can cause you the least possible harm. He used
his fist to land a punch on the perfect spot…… the guard’s Adam’s
apple.

The man collapsed on the ground in sheer agony once
and for all. Lucas’s plans had all gone berserk due to the bullets
the guard had fired. The other guard standing outside had heard the
shots that had been fired. Sensing that his partner was having
trouble with the prisoner, he opened the door and tried to step in.
Lucas was ready; he kicked the guards as he tried to step in making
him drop his gun. As he bent down to pick up the gun, Lucas lunged
onto the guard, and hit him with his knee sending him crashing down
the corridor. Lucas stepped out of the cell quickly, grabbed the
neck of the guard using his legs and chocked him to death. He
picked up the machine gun that the guard had dropped and headed out
looking for the deck. He seemed to be on an oil tanker, likely
belonging to Romanovich’s oil company. He could hear the alarm
bells constantly ringing, notifying the other guards that the
prisoner had escaped.

Lucas headed through the corridor towards the stairs
to the deck as the Viper agents came down looking for him. A bloody
gun fight followed shortly as Lucas managed to eliminate his
adversaries. However, during the cross fire he had been hurt. A
bullet had hit him along his left thigh while another had grazed
his right arm. Lucas was a lucky man indeed to have escaped without
any critical hits. He slowly limped up the stairs over the dead
bodies of the five Viper agents who had come for him as he headed
over to the deck. He picked up some spare ammo from the fallen
guards. On the way to the top, he found a cabin on the left which
surprisingly had its door unlocked.

Lucas slowly moved near the door and peeked inside.
He could see his goggles, backpack and watch lying on the table
along with the briefcase that he picked up from the hangar before
being knocked out. To his surprise, there didn’t seem to be any
guards in the room. Although Lucas had a feeling that it could be a
trap, he had no other choice. He headed into the room, picked up
his watch and put on his goggles. He turned on the beacon on his
watch sending out the distress signal. If the DIA and ANNT
headquarters were looking for him, they could locate him easily.
Also Annie would be able to locate him and help him out if she was
still alive.

Lucas opened up the briefcase to check its contents;
the cylindrical and rectangular containers were still securely
fastened in the briefcase. He removed the containers from the
briefcase and put them into his backpack. The rest of the contents
of the backpack were missing. He didn’t have time to look for them.
So, he took the backpack and headed out of the cabin looking for a
way to the deck.

By the time Lucas started his ascent to the top,
Viper agents were crawling all over the ship looking for him.
However, being on an oil tanker had its advantages. The sheer
volume and length of the vessel made it increasingly difficult for
them to locate him as he moved swiftly through the nooks and
corners. On his way he managed to eliminate three other agents as
he finally sneaked past the captain’s cabin and control room. The
captain’s cabin was locked from inside and heavily guarded by the
Viper agents. Lucas could not afford to force his way through to
the cabin; it would be sheer suicide. Instead he decided to sneak
past the cabin and head to the edge of the bridge overlooking the
lower deck. He could see life boats on the side of the deck.
However, he didn’t have the luxury to go back all the way through
the agents and find his way to the deck. He had to find some other
way of reaching the life boats.

After careful examination of his surroundings, Lucas
located the marine loading arms located at the tanker’s side which
are usually used to load and unload cargo that the tanker may be
additionally carrying. He located the control panel around the edge
of the bridge. He used the controls to swing a life boat on the
edge of the ship. On lowering the ropes, the boat would be sea
bound. Next he moved towards the controls of the loading arms. He
turned the lever to move the loading arms towards his location.
When the arms were located close to his position, he turned the
lever in the opposite direction to move it towards the life
boats.

He left the control panel, took a few steps back and
with a short sprint from the edge of the bridge, leapt in the
direction of the loading arm. Lucas was flying in thin air defying
gravity and evading the agents that were frantically looking for
him in the deck below. After what seemed to be an eternity, his
leap of faith came to an end as he managed to get hold of the
loading arm. Lucas continued to hold on to the loading arm as he
monitored the situation below. He had to jump at the right moment
to land on the life boat. The boat was partially covered which
would ensure that if Lucas landed properly, he would possibly not
be hurt too much and the boat itself would not be damaged by the
sudden impact. However, if he jumped off the loading arm at the
wrong moment, Lucas would land either on the deck or overboard and
would be dead in both the scenarios. Hence the timing of his jump
needed to be perfect. On reaching a suitable position, Lucas let go
of the loading arm. He landed on top of the life boat as the boat
shook around frantically nearly taking Lucas overboard. However
Lucas held on to it firmly to save his life.

The guards had noticed his fall from the loading
arms onto the life boat. They couldn’t let him escape and hence
opened fire. Lucas hid himself in the boat in a frantic attempt to
protect himself. He tried to return fire from his machine gun, but
was out of ammo very soon. Meanwhile multiple bullets grazed across
Lucas’s body as he tried frantically to loosen the ropes to ensure
that the boat was lowered to the sea. By sheer luck a bullet struck
the pulley holding on to the boat sending it to a free fall. As the
boat was slowly drifted away from the ship by the currents, the
agents fired frantically in his direction.

One more bullet struck him on his shoulder. As he
boat sailed away from the tanker, Lucas could see that the Vipers
were preparing to lower a couple of life boats as well. He tried to
figure out what he needed to do next in order to evade his
pursuers. He tore off his sleeve to take a look at his wounded
shoulder. He would need to apply pressure and strap it to ensure
the bleeding could be stopped temporarily. Also in a few minutes
the upper arm would be numb, enabling him to use it again. He
planned to jump off the boat and silently wait for his pursuers
once he was done with the strapping. He could only hope that no
sharks were present near his location.

After strapping his hand and ensuring that the
bleeding had been reduced, Lucas looked once again towards the
tanker. To his surprise, the life boats that were supposed to come
after him were returning back and the tanker was heading away from
him. He looked over the other side and located two ships heading
over in his direction. From the flags, he could identify that the
ships were long range interceptors that belonged to the US coast
guard. He was probably in safe hands now. Lucas got rid of his
machine gun in the ocean and closed his eyes as the ships appeared
closer. A rescue boat was dropped with two sailors heading his way.
Lucas had lost his consciousness by the time he was rescued and
taken abroad the ship. He could hear the constant discussion around
him. As he slowly opened his eyes, he could see Annie’s smiling
face.