Sting of the Scorpion Part 8 "Escape"

The last hub was a real 'white knuckle ride' that left us with a literal 'cliffhanger' as Joey and Sandy attempted just about the craziest escape attempt you could think of, base jumping using a wingsuit at night with the bullets flying!

Did they make it? We'll see in a minute, but first I want to say thank you to all those who're following and enjoying the story, just hearing from you is a great encouragement to keep the story going.

Hope you enjoy the rest of the story.

Lawrence

“Oh shit” he flicked his mike on, “Boss, we got company”

“Roger, how much a problem?”

“Guard commander inbound to the CP maybe ten seconds”

“Any chance of exit?”

“Negative, we’re on the roof, not seen yet, but only one minute on the timers”

“Roger, go for the Base”

‘Base’ was a code they’d agreed on for the last resort in escape, it was bloody dangerous even in daylight, at night it was damn near suicidal, but there was no choice, they were going to have to base jump off the building!

“I always knew you were bloody crazy” Sandy muttered to Joey as he helped her rig the wing suit, it took about ten seconds to unzip the sleeves, unfold the material and zip back up to the main body, the same with the legs, “I look like a frog!!” the humour was helping with releasing tension.

The noise downstairs was starting as the guard commander tried the door, it was jammed as they’d wedged a table up against it, he began shouting into the radio, shots were fired into the door.

As soon as they were ready Joey waddled over to the edge, “You ready?”He asked.

The guard commander was calling up the other guards in the guard hut near the front of the fortress, they began to pour out of the hut in a state of semi preparedness, weapons were brought to bear on the figures they could see on the roof

“You kidding?” Sandy shot back, she was terrified, but even a near suicidal ‘base jump was better than what awaited them if they hung around, at least there was a small chance of living through it!

“Remember” Joey shouted as he jumped, “Spread your legs and make a star formation” the wind caught him and he was away.

“Lunatic” Sandy screamed more at Joey than at herself as she followed suit, the wind caught them and they were away speeding as the world erupted behind them.

“Gather the Intel and set the charges” Jacko was all business, they’d scooped up one of the AK 47s and two or three magazines, even Chambers was going to have to help with firepower! “We’re going for Chambers” he signalled to Mac they were both wearing the jackets they’d ‘acquired’. “How long so you need?”

“Seven minutes boss” Joey replied, “Then all hell breaks loose, don’t forget I need the Oxygen cylinders!” he was already unpacking some little packages he’d brought along, “Sandy. We can use these bags for any laptops, do you need the hard drives from those servers?” he pointed to the cabinet.

Jacko and Mac didn’t hear the reply as they were heading down the steps to the lower levels. The first of the ‘lower’ levels was the accommodation block for the CP staff, they could hear a couple of people snoring so quickly and quietly they moved on down, about half way down Jacko who as the team leader was also the team linguist started speaking in Russian.

“We need to transfer the prisoner to Tehran” he was explaining to Mac who had no idea what was being said but knew it was a ruse so he went along with it.

“Da” was all Mac said in reply

At the bottom of the stairs was a metal door, the bars were across on the other side, it was locked, Mac stepped up and banged hard on the door, “Offen das tur” he shouted in German.

They had no idea what languages the men behind the door spoke, but being wither Spetznaz or foreign legion there was a good chance they all understood German so they were playing the idea of legionaries sent to transport Chambers to another place.

“On whose orders?” the reply came back, “Who told you to transfer?”

“Don’t bloody argue” Jacko shot back, the exchange had changed to Russian “The bosses want him out of here; you want to argue with them?”

“I want to see the paperwork first” the reply came back; someone was looking through the spyglass in the door. They held up a piece of paper to the glass, it was filled with Cyrillic script but neither of them had an idea what it was, and it was too far away for the man to read. “Hold it closer” the word came back.

“Just open the flaming door you stupid prick!” Jacko shot back “Or I’ll have your balls for breakfast!”

They heard the bolt slide back and the door began to open. As it swung both stepped through raised their pistols and fired. Even silenced weapons make a sound, granted not as loud as normal ones, but the sound isn’t totally eliminated, just muted. Jacko had taken out the man opening the door before it even had time to register what was happening, Mac stepped through and took out his mate who almost got his hand on his Makarov.

There were four doors leading off from the room, Chambers’ room had the light on, but they also had the light on in the guard’s station so they couldn’t really tell which room he was in.

There was no need to give dumb orders, he and Mac began searching, they found Chambers in the third room, he was semi awake with bloodshot eyes and looked as if he hadn’t washed in days, classic sleep deprivation technique.

One of the most efficient way of ‘softening a target up’ before interrogation is simply deprive them of sleep, food and water. Give them no food or water and simply keep the light on, when they eventually settle down to try and sleep turn on the stereo and blast them with heavy rock music, or any kind of noise, then when you’ve got them fully awake turn the noise off and begin again, when they are almost asleep do the same again!

Keep that up and after two or three days their head is so sore from either dehydration or lack of sleep they’re ready to give you what you want, hell people have even confessed to murders they weren’t anywhere near after two or three says in Police custody before now. Naturally being MI6 Chambers was trained to withstand that torture, but that would only have been the beginning! And it sets him up perfectly for what was planned next.

Jacko stepped into the cell “Steve” he spoke softly as he approached the figure huddled in the corner, “It’s me, Jacko; we’re here to take you home buddy”

“Took you bloody long enough” Chambers broke out into a huge smile as he gave his mate a weak hug, “Rest of the team here too?”

‘Chambers may look like crap’ Jacko thought as they got him to his feet, ‘but he’s all here mentally’ they headed for the cell door, “Mac’s here with some good stuff! He pointed to Mac who as the medic was preparing some sort of drink for him, “Joey and Smithy are doing their things, we’ve got about two minutes before Joey makes his presence felt”

“That short” Steve knew Joey of old, he was the one recruited him from the Engineers back a couple of years ago, one of the best bomb disposal experts he’d ever come across, consequently not someone you want building a booby trap you get caught by!

“Here. Take this and stop talking while I give you a quick examination” Mac handed Steve the drink, it tasted foul, just like seawater with sugar in! Which is pretty much what and Oral rehydration pack is, but with a few vitamins and minerals added.

Foul or not Chambers downed it in one, “You’re meant to sip the bloody thing” Mac muttered in his ear, just then the radio came alive in their ears.

Boss, we got company”

“Roger, how much a problem?”

“Guard commander inbound to the CP maybe ten seconds”

“Any chance of exit?”

“Negative, we’re on the roof, not seen yet, but only one minute on the timers”

“Roger, go for the Base”

Jacko turned to Chambers and handed him the clothing that was on the desk, “Quick, change and put these on, give your old stuff here and hurry up”

Steve handed the old clothes to Jacko who’d undressed one of the guards, he threw the clothes onto the corpse and they threw the body into the cell, with luck the explosion would level the building and the cave in would leave them with an unrecognizable body here, giving them idea that Chambers was killed in the blast, that was the plan at least.

The plan was so simple it was almost ludicrous, actually that’s what Sandy said it was when she first heard it, they were simply going to walk out and jump in a Landcruiser while Joey blows up the building, the plan had been that Joey and Sandy was going to be with them, but that changed with the guard commander showing up, but the rest of the plan was still a ‘go’.

They got to ground level as the first shots rang out; the rest of the guards had seen Joey and Sandy on the roof and were shouting orders as well as trying to shoot.

“Smithy” Jacko spoke softly, “any help you can give Joey?”

“They’re good boss, I’ve got the guards panicking, there were a couple of oil drums they forgot about, they’re on fire now though, you’re clear for exit”

“Roger that” he clicked the mike off and turned to the other two, “You folks ready?”

“Born ready boss” Mac replied with a smile, “And he’ll come even if i have to drag his arse out of here”

“You’ll get no complaints from me” Steve replied. “Don’t recommend this hotel anyway!” that drew a smile.

“Then let’s go” they literally got up and walked into the courtyard as if they owned the place and headed for the first Landcruiser, Jacko climbed into the driver’s seat with Chambers next to him, Mac took up the back seat, as soon as he was in he unstrapped the Commando and set the switch to ‘grenade launcher’

They were almost at the gate when a huge bang erupted into the night, it was as if the whole of the night behind them abandoned the darkness and took on the form of a great fireball as two and a half kilograms of C4 blew the building apart, men were thrown ten to fifteen feet back, drums were flying through the air and chaos was evident.

“No one leaves the compound” a voice shouted, “Stop that vehicle” attention was drawn their way, the gates began to close.

“Smithy” Jacko screamed into the mike, “Take the towers out NOW!!”

Within a couple of seconds two men fell, one out of each tower, blown out by the force of the round that had taken half their heads off, smithy’s voice came over the mike “That fast enough boss?”

They were in third gear doing about thirty miles an hour when they hit the half closed splintering the gates and almost knocking the guards down, shots were ringing around them, one took out the wing mirror, another passed through the windscreen between the driver and passenger, they heard a yelp from Mac. Shit, that meant he was hit, “Don’t worry boss, just a scratch” he quickly reassured them, a little too quickly, but they couldn’t do much about it.

The ‘scratch’ was actually a ‘through and through’ in his arm, there were no bones broken and as far as he could tell he could still use the arm, the blood loss was small, but no time to stop and bandage it, the other Landcruisers were starting up. Mac punched out the rear glass and readied the grenade launcher, “Boss, give me five seconds at the first turn with no movement!”

“Will do Mac, make it count” they’d almost have to crawl round the hairpin anyway, he braked hard, “Hang on” he came to a sudden stop.

The first of the other Landcruisers was just passing the mangled gates when it was hit with a massive ball of fire travelling at about eight hundred miles an hour in the opposite direction, the grenade made short work of the vehicle, the entrance was blocked and the building on fire, that momentary stop allowed them to see firsthand the result of the night’s work.

The gates were ablaze with men running around frantically trying to put out the fires there, but further back where the keep had been was just a mass of rocks engulfed in a fire that lit up the whole sky, it was as if someone had lit a huge beacon fire like in Lord of the Rings calling Gondor’s allies to war, and like Gondor Phoenix would use her allies to hunt them down.

“Let’s get a move on” Jacko was the first to break the silence, “Smithy’s at the second turn down and we’ve only got a few hours to get you over the border before all hell breaks loose diplomatically”

“What about Joey?” Steve was distraught,” and who’s with him?”

“Joey’s got a new spook with him” Mac replied, he’d taken the moment to put a field dressing on, the wound was good and although it hurt like hell there was no way he was letting the boss know that, “You know her, Sandy Little” he was gingerly putting his jacket back on as Jacko put the vehicle into gear, “They’re making a run for the border, place called ‘Penjuine’ I think”

“But that’s nearly two hundred miles” Steve was shocked. Surely we can do something to help?”

“Then God help Iran” Jacko replied, “He’ll blow everything up knowing him! Best thing we can do is get you to the border then look for the trail of destruction and see where it’s heading, you can guarantee he’ll be at the head of it!”

Sandy was terrified, the Halo had been terrifying yet fun, this was just sheer terror, the ground was whistling by below them less than a hundred feet away, yet they were picking up speed and didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the ground, then all of a sudden it disappeared, only to reappear directly ahead of them as she heard Joey shout “Left hand and foot down now” she did so and found herself performing a steep banking motion as they skirted the edge of the cliff, she swore if she’d tried she could have touched the mountain.

Just ahead of them she could see something or maybe things running, it was only a few seconds later that she realized it was a flock of sheep, the shepherds had heard the explosion and came to look only to see two black clad things that looked like bats coming down on them at incredible speed, convinced they were being attacked by evil spirits or ‘Jinn’ as they are known in the Islamic world they were half running and half turning and firing their AK47s at the apparitions in a ‘spray and pray routine’ as they fled screaming “Allah U Akbar” trying to ward off these evil demons!

“You OK?” Joey asked through the mike he was slightly ahead.

“I’m hurtling through the night at some ridiculous speed, no idea where we’re going, being shot at by locals who think I’m a demon with a maniac adrenaline junkie and you ask if I’m OK?”

“Well. Are you?”

“No bullet holes if that counts”

“Good” Joey didn’t even seem to notice the insults she’d just hurled at him, “Get ready for landing” ten seconds later he gave the word “Pull” and they both reached for their rip cords again, the chutes opened and a few seconds later they were on the ground.

I made a promise that I'd post this section as soon as it was finished, hope the wait wasn't too agonizing for those left 'on tenderhooks'

They're all out of the fortress now, but there's still a heck of a task ahead of them as they try to make safety, but we'll have to wait and see what happens on the way.

I hope you're enjoying reading the story as much as I'm enjoying writing it, if so then let me know by leaving a comment

Bye for now, until next time.