Together Forever

Now or Never

As the sound of the bullet reverberated through the cave, Faizal's finger which still had not pressed the trigger looked in surprise at the bullet which was shot near his feet. Vikram looked behind to see an elderly man who shot it, walking up to them.

The man looked at Vikram with fury in his eyes "If you think you are going to have an easy and fast death, think again. You were the reason for the death of my nephew, Nawaz and you will pay for it."

Vikram replied, "Nawaz is not dead."

The silence that followed this revelation was broken by Faizal who looked furious. "He is lying, Uncle. He was the one who carried out the fake encounter on my brother." He put the gun back on Vikram's head to shoot before he could reveal more.

His uncle pulled the gun out of his hand. "If Nawaz is alive, then we need to get him back. For that we need this guy alive."

When Vikram tried putting up a fight, Faizal knocked him hard on his head making him lose consciousness and had him dragged away to a locked room inside the cave. The cave was a masterplan from the elderly man to hide in the cave inside the mountain and have a complete underground system with rooms, tunnels and roads inside. It was excellent place to hide and devise plans, out of plain sight.

An hour later, an assassin sent by Faizal to kill Vikram walked into the dark room, with a small lantern. The dim light revealed a shimmering stream of red blood on the floor. The man found the trail of blood leading to Vikram who was lying motionless, on his back. His hands were bound with a tight rope along with his legs. As the guy came close to check on him, Vikram's eyes opened. He head butted the guy so swiftly that there was no time for him to react. As the guy fell holding his head, Vikram used his elbow to land a blow on his jaw which rendered him unconscious. Using the flame from the lantern, Vikram burnt through his bonds and escaped from the room.

As he made his way through the passageway, he incapacitated the terrorists he came across. Finally, he zeroed in on his target – the weaponry room. After a brief tussle with the guards outside the room, he left them with broken necks and entered the weaponry area, with only one intention. He found exactly what he was looking for, the timed bombs. After activating the timer on the bombs to explode after 5 minutes, grabbing a few guns and grenades, he sprinted out. Unexpectedly he came across the communication room where a guy was receiving instructions on a walkie talkie. The voice Vikram heard on the walkie talkie raised his shackles. It was Faizal's voice.

"Can't stay here any longer now that the Indian Army has ambushed most of teams. I will head out first and destroy the main army base. I need to take out the main heads of the army who are stationed in the base. Our boys are loading the weapons in the jeeps. After the main base is destroyed, they will attack and take over the city."

Vikram cursed under his breath as there were more than 1500 people in the main base, including the injured soldiers. He needed to get a message out to them to evacuate. He rushed into the room, shooting the guys inside. Taking the walkie talkie, he called the army base. Just as they responded, a grenade landed in the room. Vikram jumped behind the desks, but the shrapnel managed to hit his shoulder. Faizal's uncle who had thrown the grenade walked in with his gun. Disregarding the pain, Vikram sprang on him and held him down, in a second twisting the man's neck and leaving him dead on the floor. With no other means of communication, Vikram rushed to find the jeeps that Faizal had referred to. As he ran towards the back of the cave, it led into a tunnel large enough for jeeps to be parked inside. There was a small road in the tunnel which led to the other side of the mountain. The jeeps were getting loaded by the terrorists with munitions. Vikram knew that there was no way he could stop all these jeeps once they got out. He spotted a bike parked nearby. His watch showed 30 seconds left before the detonations would start inside the cave from the timer he set. It was now or never. He took the bike and rushed out down the road, on the left side of the small passage next to the jeeps. As the terrorists started shooting at him, he kept his head down and his body to the side of the bike to avoid the bullets. Even as he was halfway through the tunnel, the sound of shooting was suddenly masked by the sound of the explosions.