Chapter XIV

Raid on Respondem Temple

Outside the gates of the manor, three helicopters stood on the ground behind the fifty people who had signed up for the raid. Jamerson and two others; Grant and Hawks, two old friends of Charlie or in the case of the group of mobsters, Vernon who they had called up, along with whatever men and women they had managed to gather. They were an odd group of a dozen old veterans led by Jamerson, about twenty old mobsters under Hawks, the rest were the rags and remnants of the pubs, taverns and other low places that had joined Grant for the sheer hell of it. As well as Dmitri’s Bots, specifically twelve of the mark Nine’s and eight of the brand-new mark Ten’s.

“You all know the mission, head for the coordinates enter the temple, and slaughter any that you find inside.” Alan said addressing this rag tag group. “The priority is the person named Griefful, he is the main the target.” He finished and the raiding party nodded and headed for the choppers, before he turned to Dmitri and Charlie, both decked out in their armour. “This has to succeed, if it doesn’t then we really will be in the shit.” Alan said.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get the bugger. Whoever it is.” Dmitri said.

“That’s going to be the problem, we don’t know anything about this person other than their made-up name.” Charlie said, she was a lot less confident about getting this person, even after the weeks of prep to try and identify them, they had all drawn a blank. “Heck we don’t even know if they are going to be there or not.” She finished.

This had also troubled Alan, they had not been able to get any form of information on this temple other than the few scraps that Geoffrey had given them. All they knew was that it was this organisations headquarters and had acted solely on that. Now only time would tell if they had been reckless or not.

“Well good hunting.” Alan said, and both Charlie and Dmitri nodded and got onboard the choppers. he watched as they took off and headed to the north, wondering how many would return.

Back inside the manor, Alan almost collided with Jack who was leaving through the main doors as he was entering. He had half expected to see his eldest on the mission, not that he would have allowed it.

“I thought you would have gone on the mission this morning?” Alan asked. Jack only shrugged mumbling something about not feeling up to it and continued towards the small graveyard. He had defiantly noticed a change in his eldest, since his return from the warehouse, he didn’t know exactly what had happened, but from what Charlie had told him, the sight of the corpses had deeply shaken him. Alan couldn’t say that he blamed him either, from what he had been told, the scene would have been too much for him as well.

The raiding party arrive at the steel hatch on the snow mountains, the soldiers were kitted out for the temperature reduction and so were, for the most part mobsters. The others however were not, they had already lost two due to the cold, both fallen to their deaths on the slopes and the others looked like they were close to death as well.

Dmitri kneels down in the snow, which is still present despite winter being long since over and tries to pry the steel hatch open. It doesn’t budge an inch.

“How the fuck are we supposed to get in.” Dmitri said as another member of the group, collapses on the ground from hypothermia.

“Wait here.” Hawks said, kneeling down and poured a green liquid onto the hatch, as a few moments there was a bang and the door fell open.

“What the hell was that?” Charlie said looking at Hawks. “Did you know it would destroy the steel.”

“This stuff isn’t designed for steel. But the hatch wasn’t made of steel, it’s old this place right, so I guessed it was probably made of iron.” Hawks said as he crouched over to the hatch and looked down. “Can’t see anything, but if it’s a choice of freezing up here or getting shot down there. I choose to get shot.” He finished, before he descended down the hatch. Dmitri shrugged and followed.

After a thirty-foot decent, Dmitri felt solid ground beneath him, he looked around but couldn’t see a thing until Grant flicked on a torch and he in turn switched on his own lights. The place they had landed in, was completely deserted, it was certainly though a magnificent place, all the walls were engraved with strange scenes, but before he could take a closure look, Charlie came down and looked around the darkness.

“Where the hell are, we?” Charlie said continuing to gaze around.

“My guess some newer part of the temple, a way in and out created when the original doorway was unusable.” Dmitri said as more and more of the raiding party descended.

Once everyone was down the shaft, Dmitri took a headcount to confirm that they had lost another three whilst making the descent into the base.

“Right. Hawks. Take your men and scout ahead, kill any in your path, make towards the armoury, it shouldn’t be too far away from here.” Dmitri said and the old mobster nodded and him along with his men took off. “Grant, go and cause some havoc, see if you can draw the fire.” Dmitri continued, he knew very well that this would result in the probable destruction of Grant’s forces, but it had to be done. Grant nodded solemnly, as him and his raw recruits headed off, leaving only Jamerson and his veterans left.

“What about us?” Jamerson said, almost reading Dmitri’s mind.

In truth Dmitri had no idea what to do with the veteran’s, their arrival had taken the ex-soldier off guard.

“Come with us, we’re going to need all the help we can get.” Dmitri said.

“Where exactly are we going?” Jamerson said.

“The inner part of this temple.” Dmitri said and pulled out a screen. “Our senses have detected a large heat signature coming from around here, about twenty meters below us.” He continued.

“What’s causing the heat?” Jamerson said.

“Computers, or perhaps a large group of people.” Charlie said, she had her doubts about the latter option, but Dmitri seemed convinced that it was a meeting hall of some kind. If it was computers however, they were pretty much screwed as their main expert had refused point blank to come along on this mission.

“Follow me.” Dmitri said, and leaded of towards a stairwell, followed by Charlie and the Bot’s along with the soldiers. As they walked down the two flights of stairs, they reach another corridor with a set of double doors at the end. Dmitri makes a follow sign with his hand and carefully walks up to the door and opens it.

Inside were ten black robed corpses sitting in chairs around a long wooden table, all their throats had been slit. Dmitri walked up to one of them to examine the remains. Whoever it was, Dmitri guessed that they hadn’t been dead long, blood still trickled from his throat.

“What the hell.” Jamerson said as he approached another corpse. “Looks like someone beat us to it.” He said turning around to face Dmitri.

“Yeah.” Dmitri said walking up to the wall and tumbling around for a light switch, eventually finding one he flicked it to reveal the gruesome scene in more light. It however didn’t give them anymore answers, the richly furnished room did appear to be a meeting place, but other than that nothing new shone any light as to why these people had been executed.

“They knew their attackers, look there is no signs of resistance anywhere. Clean slits on everyone of them.” Charlie said now also examining the bodies. Before any of them could determine what that meant gunfire suddenly erupted a floor above them, accompanied by screams.

They all pelted out of the room and up a flight of blood covered stairs to see the group of mobsters engaged in a defence of the armoury that they had just seized. Against them came about sixty men in black cloaks, none appeared to have guns, but they were determined that sheer numbers would bring them victory. As Dmitri and his forces joined the fray, the attackers turned and ran, seeing that they no longer had an overwhelming advantage in numbers.

“What happened?” Dmitri said approaching Grant.

“Fuckers jumped us, think three of mine are dead, but I reckon we got about ten of them.” Grant said, mopping blood out of his eyes. “We’ll hold this place though don’t worry.” He finished.

“Something I forgot to ask. How do you know the old butler?” Dmitri said.

“Vernon. He and our old boss were right friends, so much so, we helped break old Vernon out of Greymount, that would have been about thirty odd years ago.” Grant said, scratching his head. This took Dmitri by surprise. He had had a preconceived notion about the old butler’s history, but from what Grant said, he couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Dmitri, we’ve got something ahead.” Charlie said looking at the screen, she couldn’t be sure, but it was moving away from them at a fast pace.

“You go, I’ll tell you more stories later.” Grant said and returned to the armoury as Dmitri rushed ahead, down the dimly lit corridor following the reading. As the group continued to close the gap, Dmitri noticed that they had left the newer parts of the temple as the walls around them began to lose their grandeur and began to have much simpler engraving.

They passed through three sets of doors before entering a large open room with a glass roof, where the sunlight would usually be allowed to come through if not for the snow that rested on top. It was what stood before the group that was a greater concern to Dmitri however as this place appeared is where the organisation wanted to make its final stand, arrayed before them, were at least two hundred hooded figures, lying on the ground in front of them were the corpses of Hawk’s group with their captain’s head nailed to a pillar. It appeared however that they had taken quite a few with them as whilst there were many hooded figures in front of them, some lay on the ground dead, whilst others supported visible wounds. As Dmitri looked around at the scene trying to decide on their next move, a voice came out of the crowd in front of them. The same voice that had spoken to him at the warehouse.

“Well, well. Captain Jones. I didn’t expect to see you again.” Griefful said, there was almost pride in that voice, but anger was the main emotion on display. Like Dmitri before, Charlie could also swear that she had heard the voice before. “I suppose you are here to bring me to justice.” Griefful said, a mocking tone in his voice.

“Well, I was going to settle on killing you. Right now.” Dmitri said raising his guns, he couldn’t tell if the voice was coming from the crowd in front of them or not. But decided that it was, on the basis that it would be impossible for Griefful to be seeing him without being here.

“Then let the bloodshed begin.” Griefful said. as the crowd in front of them charged towards the group who began to open fire.

It was a quick and bloody affair. As only a few of their opponents had managed to get their guns from the armoury before the mobsters had overrun it, and they had used most of their bullets against, Hawk’s men. Despite this they had fought like wild animals, and by the time it was over, only two of Jamerson’s men survived and all but three of the mark Ten Bot’s were destroyed. To say it had been a close-run thing, would have been the understatement of the age.

As Dmitri walked through the destruction, he noticed the speaker on the ground, it had been completely trashed, but it at least confirmed one thing. Griefful had not been here. Dmitri got up and walked towards the door.

“Did we get him?” Charlie asked, but Dmitri only shook his head and walked out of the room completely defeated.