ALICE

Chapter 54: SEQUEL

Chapter 54: SEQUEL

 Taco looked back at the truck, seeing a rough-looking military man with a seriously pissed off look on his face. Redd banged on the door, yelling at Taco.

 “When you hear the boom, drive out of here as fast as you can!”

 “What the hell are you going to do?!”

 “Just do it James!” Redd yelled.

 Alice opened the metal shutter to look back from the cab, just to catch a glimpse of the rocket launcher firing at the jeep behind hers.  Alice closed the shutter and jumped back to her seat before the back-burn singed her eyebrows off her face. In a split-second, a huge explosion erupted behind the jeep.

 “Gun it James!” Redd yelled up to Taco.

 Taco stamped down on the gas and accelerated quickly, rear-ending the jeep in front of them. Alice’s face smashed into the windshield from the sudden halt. The jeep in front stopped, and four armed LSF jumped out.

 Taco pulled his Glock from underneath his seat, and fired a couple rounds into the windshield until it shattered, then, with only one hand on the weapon he killed an LSF in front of him.

 “Get down!”

 Alice got down behind the glove compartment and prayed they didn’t shoot through as Taco switched gears and reversed. He swerved so that the side of the truck was perpendicular to them.

 “Out! Out Out!”

 Alice fired blindly at them, attempting to pin them down long enough to get to cover. She got behind the jeep, and reloaded.

 Taco was last behind the cover, firing the last round out of the magazine in his AK-47 as he slid behind the jeep. He didn’t take long to yank the pin out of a grenade and tossed it over the jeep to the enemies. After just a moment, a scream of an LSF trying to alert his comrades of the danger was enveloped by an explosion.

 There was a short pause of silence. Taco poised his weapon, and peeked out to the LSF vehicle in front of them. Three dead bodies lay on the ground, burnt and full of shrapnel.

 “I count three down.” Taco said, straining his neck to see.

 “There were four.” Redd said, his sniper rifle on his back as he clutched his pistol.

 Alice ran towards the truck, M4 Carbine in hand. She vaulted over the concrete barrier that was in the middle of the road, and moved towards the truck. She listened intently, and heard a very quiet shuffle of boots and the loading of a handgun inside of the cab of the truck, behind the darkly tinted windshield.

 Alice crept around the other side, and got ready, crouching underneath the window that peered into the cab. She drew her knife, and silently stood up, seeing the man lying on his back, the rear of his head pressed up against the door Alice was behind. He kept the sights of his Glock trained on the other window, presumably waiting for one of the team to walk past.

 Alice grabbed him by his chin, pulled his head up and jammed the knife into his jaw. The LSF convulsed for a couple of seconds, reaching for the knife, and then fell still.

 Alice turned to her team, “It’s clear.”

 Team A walked up carefully to the truck. The ground underneath them was black from Taco’s grenade.

 Redd grimaced at the four dead soldiers lying on the floor. “None of the trucks will get out of here. We’re going to need to proceed on foot.”

 Taco swore under his breath. “Dammit! I hate walking.”

 Angel laughed, of all things he could have been doing. “You git. Maybe if you spent less time sitting down on those stupid timers and stuff you wouldn’t have such a hard time.”

 “I’m amazed you haven’t keeled over from cancer by now,” He began to imitate Angel’s cockney accent. “You bloody arse.”

 Redd cut in before the playful insults turned into a real fight. “Shut up. Let’s just go.”

 The entire team started a brisk jog through the tunnels, not looking back on the dead men. After nearly twenty minutes Alice wasn’t even out of breath. The intensive training that Nikolai had put her and the rest of the team through had paid off.

 After another five minutes of jogging and a one minute break, the team was at the end of the tunnel. The six of them hid just inside of the tunnel, peering out at the glistening white wasteland beyond. A helicopter flew overhead, and Taco ducked back subconsciously.

 Redd held up his sniper rifle, peering through the scope and looking at the lone cabin on the top of a nearby hill, “Alexi said this is the place.”

 In between the cabin and the team was several jeeps and highly unreasonable number of geared-up LSF troops. A different helicopter landed in the middle of the flat area that the soldiers were on, pausing for just a moment to let a dozen more troops in heavy armour and with light machine guns jump off out and start walking towards a captain before it lifted off and flew over the tunnel.

 Alice crept out a little bit to try and find a route through the troops, but was quickly and roughly pulled back against the wall by the back of her vest. Alice was just about to turn to Angel to protest, until a large, black and white, armoured premium version of the captain’s jeep flew past them at top speed.

 The car stopped briefly, and two elite looking troops wearing waist-length coats and collared Kevlar vests jumped out. They began to yell orders at all of the other LSF.

 “Alright! We’ve got four dead troops in the tunnel. Everyone guarding this tunnel does not let anyone through. If someone gets through, you’ll be dead within the hour.”

 Alice whispered to Angel, “Who are these assholes?”

 Angel whispered back, staying the shadows, “They’re ZERO’s private guards.”

 “Who’s ZERO?”

 “For right now, a bitch. I’ll explain later.”

 Alice nodded as the two elite guards pushed arrogantly past the more common soldiers and up to the cabin. When the dust settled and a few minutes past, Redd began to work out what to do.

 “Too many to sneak through… We can’t get around them without being spotted.” He paused for a moment, “Okay. Everyone, get into a position where you can take out as many LSF at once as you possibly can. Alice, I want you to try and take out the heavily armoured guys. Their Kevlar is weakest in the joints. Especially the waist and the neck.”

 Alice nodded, and then carefully made her way to a nearby jeep that had a good overlook on two heavy soldiers that had their backs turned. The rest of the team carefully and quietly got into position as Redd whispered into his handset.

 “No survivors. Make it quick. On my mark… Mark.”

 Alice shot the first heavy soldier in the neck four times. He went down with a loud thud, just in time for the second to see Alice running at him with a knife in hand. She pressed the blade through the thinnest layer of Kevlar at his waist and pulled it out, repeating the motion three more times. She looked around, seeing executions being performed by her team.

 “Good job. Let’s go before the bodies are found.”