Deep Down Under

Chapter 43

Vienna Police HQ, Vienna, 4:34 pm

Mavis flipped through the channels, continuously. "Boring, boring, boring."

She let out an exaggerated heavy sigh, "There all in German. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?"

Eisenhower had gone to talk to some Vienna police official, leaving her and Gabriel alone the confined room. "Look on the bright side," he said; stuffing some chips into his mouth which he got from a vending machine, "You're at least watching whatever's happening in the outside world."

Mavis rolled her eyes, and when they stopped, she looked at Gabriel with disgust as he licked the flavour off his fingers.

Ew.

He stopped, eying her with surprise, "What? It's really good!" he defended.

"You want one?" he offered, pointing to the vending machine that was full of snacks outside the glass door.

"No thanks," she rejected, apparently disgusted by the previous scene, which had made her lose the appetite that was slowly building up but Gabriel knocked it down like a weak tower.

"I'm getting one for myself," and went out the door.

He came back holding four or five of those chips packets, with various flavours.

"Where'd you get the money to buy all that?" asked Mavis.

Gabriel bent his neck and flashed his wound. No more was needed to clear the point. Mavis shut her eyelids for a while, deciding that it was better to take a little nap than watch people blurt out unintelligible words in German.

But her nap was cut short by the sound of air-filled packets crashing to the floor. Gabriel's arms hung loose from the chair and his face focussed keenly on something.

"What. The heck. Is that?"

His eyes directed Mavis to the television screen, which displayed the silhouette of a built-up man, with his hands on the table. Mavis tried to switch to another channel but the remote was useless. There was no channel logo, not even the logo of the broadcaster. Just the dark figure.

What?

Gabriel swung open the glass door, "Hey the TV's broken here!"

No one listened to him. They were all congregating around televisions scattered all around the HQ. And they were all showing the exact same thing what their TV was showing.

He had a gut feeling that the TV wasn't broken.

The dark figure spoke up. "Evening, citizens of Vienna. Pleasant day, isn't?"

Eisenhower stormed into the room, watching and listening closely to the dark figure in the screen.

"One day, three attacks. It would hurt all lot if you all had your fourth one, wouldn't it?"

* * *

Gemüsehändler Store, Vienna, 4:36 pm

At first, no one paid much attention to the broadcast, but when the man spoke about the terror attacks; all eyes were glued to the screen.

Sadowsky could distinctly recognize that voice. It belonged to Lorssen, the first that he had met of the organization.

The damaged nose caused an anomaly in the voice pattern, which further backed his evidence to conclude that the voice belonged to none other than Lorssen.

"Now," he began, "There is one thing you can do to prevent that scenario. I'm pretty sure that it's doable by all of you. Find Benjamin Sadowsky."

The last two words that escaped Lorssen's mouth made his heart skip a beat. His blood pressure rose significantly, his throat tied in a knot.

"And make sure that he reaches Saint Stephen's Church by sundown, or there will be bloodshed, and lot's of it."

The next few seconds were complete pandemonium. Everybody began to panic. The screen displayed the image of Sadowsky's face. Wide and clear.

Giggs yanked Sadowsky's arm and got him out of the grocery store as fast as possible. The clerk noticed that they had got out the store without paying, he yelled out to them and they both turned back revealing Sadowsky's face.

That was when the clerk's eyes widened. He called out to the panicked customers.

No sooner they were being chased by a mob. They snuck into an alley, where they gained momentarily relief. That was when Sadowsky realized something or to be more precise someone was missing.

Lucia had been left back there.

"Lucia," Sadowsky let out weakly as he panted. His body had taken a huge toll after every action-packed hour.

Giggs shook his head, "No, we go back there we're dead."

"Okay,"

Sadowsky wiped some sweat off his forehead, "She'll be fine," he said to himself, "She'll be fine."

* * *