Dr. Sudarshan Upadhyay

Romance Action Thriller

3.3  

Dr. Sudarshan Upadhyay

Romance Action Thriller

Yearnings of Amber: 8

Yearnings of Amber: 8

8 mins
430


Sheryl’s father has not returned and is not answering my calls’, Sheryl’s mother uttered in despair.

‘Would it be okay, if I went home and checked on everybody’ she asked the Captain.

‘Yes, yes. Please go. We will stay’, Mala’s mother answered. The Captain nodded in affirmation.

Sheryl’s mother left for the last time………...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Charu sat stone-still in the lab like a mouse petrified under the gaze of a hungry serpent. Only this serpent wore dark aviators.

Vincent smiled adjusting his goggles and continued, ‘So as I was saying your grandmother left the hospital. Ah…wait tell me, do you even remember her face’.

Charu’s only answer was a sob.

‘Ruth, the kind of relationship Charu’s parent had. What would we even call her grandmother, paternal or maternal?’ Vincent asked tapping his chin.

‘Commander, paternal I think. Sheryl always was the more masculine of the two. Sir’ Ruth chirped in.

Vincent cocked his head towards Ruth. Ruth found himself wilting under his gaze.

‘Ruth, be a dear and checkout the perimeter and also the ETA for your team’ Vincent requested, his voice all honey but his face a slab of marble.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Senthil rode past, others gawked at him. He was quite a sight; his weapons, his handlebar moustache, his scowl, all giving him a menacing demeanor only blunted by his vehicle. Like a dacoit of old, riding a scooter instead of a horse.

Some laughed at this sight, some mocked him, some cursed him, a few even recoiled in fear but nobody tried to stop him. Not even the traffic constables on the many signals he broke.

He parked his scooter in a corner on the UG-3 and slipped away to UG-4 while the parking security was busy elsewhere.

He did a recce of the surrounding and was just deciding on his next step, when a darkened Bolero came speeding to the UG-4. Four masked guys jumped out and Senthil instantly recognized the predatory look in their eyes. His Desert Eagle Mark I spoke twice and one of the guys went down. The others rushed around to take cover while Senthil also dived behind a car and crawled deeper into the shadows.

Moments later shots rang out taking out the overhead lights. The masked guys clearly had a plan. Senthil could not see in the dark and the methodical way the lights were taken out meant that these guys had night-vision. It was at least three against one but Senthil was the apex predator here and had the largest claws. But, this was only a minor problem because although Senthil could not see in the dark but Bully could. He hefted Bully and inserted an infra-red scope on the Piccadilly rail. He knew he would get only one single shot as the muzzle flash would give away his position. He had to make it count.

Senthil sighted through the scope and saw 3 guys arrayed in arc ahead of him. Their body heat betraying their positions. One crouched besides the Bolero, one behind a pillar and third one steadily creeping towards him in a crouch. There was one more person behind the wheels speaking in a walkie, making it a quartet.

Senthil breathed out and squeezed the trigger. The bullet sprang from the barrel and a fist-sized hole appeared in the torso of the guy besides the Bolero. As expected, the person creeping towards him dived down and Senthil dropped the Bully and skipped behind another vehicle. Bullets rang around the vehicle an instant later. For his next trick, Senthil hefted a flash bang. He closed his eyes and threw it. Flash bangs are the bane of night vision. He opened his eyes 3 second later and found the guy who was creeping towards him trying to shake away the stars in his eyes. It was just his bad luck that he had ended up right beside Senthil.

‘Hey’ Senthil whispered in his eyes. He turned his head towards the voice presenting a nice view of his jugular to Senthil. A few moments later Senthil crouched behind a pillar flicking red drops from his knife.

‘I got a night goggle’. Senthil shouted and ran back towards his Bully. Again shots lit up the pillar but he was already gone. This time he went prone and cradled Bully. He could just make out a boot behind a tire. Easy shot for him. He chambered a round and blasted the foot right off the legs. The man fell down screaming until Senthil’s next shot silenced him forever.

The Bully showed Senthil that the driver was crouched in the front passenger sheet shouting on the walkie. Senthil patted Bully and chambered in another round. The steel of Bolero was no match for the anti-material round of Bully. The bullet tore clean through the front bumper, the engine, the seats and out through the other side of the vehicle. The driver’s body did deflect the bullet’s path by even a degree.

Just then, Ruth came sprinting into the washroom and waved his torch around. Instinctively Senthil fired off a shot in his direction. The shot blew through the torch as Ruth cursed and ran back inside the washroom. There was only one path before Senthil and he headed eagerly towards the washroom.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

‘Ruth..Can you believe this guy?’ Vincent laughed, ‘Kill a few guys and he thinks he is Arnold’.

‘Where were we’, Vincent droned on. ‘Your grandmother reached home and found Ruth and my other guy going through your house’.

‘The sweet innocent lady was shot before she could utter even a word and then Ruth here killed the other guy. So, you see you have already been avenged. And frankly speaking we did not want any loose ends.’

‘Then,’ Vincent spoke waving his arms around. ‘All hell broke loose, as you could imagine. The police came, CID, army, everyone. But you know what it was labelled as. A burglary gone wrong. You see they could not expose the details of Marghesium to the world’.

‘This lab was scrubbed clean but not before I got Sheryl’s sample. Sadly I could not get her research notes.’ Vincent sighed.

‘Don’t be sad, everything worked out in the end. We got the sample and you survived. The bullet had just grazed your skull but it affected your memory. So that is why you don’t remember anything and we didn’t have to kill you and got this place for free for the little mischiefs we do. I and you grandfather. I mean the smuggling and such’. Vincent smiled.

Charu found her breathing getting increasingly difficult. Until at last her chest heaved and she was able to gulp down a few mouthful of air.

Her grandfather had always told her that her parents died in an accident. But she had a mother, a mother she did not remember. A mother she could not remember and who was not even aware that Charu was still alive. Her mind started spinning around her thoughts and the only emotion she was capable was her tears. That is why she could not see Ruth rushing back in.

‘Commander, Sir.’ Ruth panted.

‘The team is dead in the lobby.’ He blurted out in the next breath.

‘Do you have your gear’ Vincent asked.

‘Yes’.

‘Does it have diving equipment?’

‘Yes Sir!’

‘See, no problem there,’ Vincent chided and the screen went blank.

Ruth rushed over Charu and untied her from the chair.

‘I hope you don’t mind getting wet,’ he hissed in her ears.

He dashed ahead, a limp Charu strung over his shoulder. He threw Charu in a corner and within minutes dressed up in a black rubber diving suit.

‘Here, hold onto this’ he handed over a facemask and small oxygen cylinder to Charu. Next he secured her with a line around her waist, going through a groove on his shoulder and ultimately connecting to a tubular object lying on a wheeled cart. Like a LPG cylinder but thrice as big. It had 4 fins and as many handholds in the middle apart and a large fan at the tail-end.

‘This here is submarine. Hold on to these grips and don’t let go. Or let go. Either way, I don’t mind. Just remember that we are going through a dark, underwater stream which would link to the lake and eventually lead us out to the stone quarry outside the city. It’s an hour ride on the submarine. And we have an hour’s oxygen’. He stated as a matter of fact.

Charu just stared ahead.

Ruth just shook his head and pushed the cart ahead pulling along Charu.

After a few turns, Charu found herself looking at a pooled blackness which waved around like a ribbon. They had reached the underground stream.

Ruth pushed the cart into the pool and it sank with a few gurgles while the submarine just bobbed around.

‘Commander Vincent found this stream when we were looking for an entry point to the lab. That was how we got the sword. The Amber sword. Sadly we still cannot make it work. It does not do anything other than the shine and give anyone around radiation poisoning’.

Charu felt a deep irrational fear from the pool. As if it was the hulking mouth of a beast looking to devour her whole. She struggled as Ruth pulled her in the water. She fell and splashed in the water finding nothing under her feet. She trashed around until Ruth reached over and put her hands on the grip. He fixed her facemask and flipped a switch. A light shone ahead from her mask and she could feel a cold stream of oxygen near her face.

Ruth started the submarine and the tunnel filled up with a loud whirr of the motor. Then the submarine glided ahead and deeper into the water. There was nothing to see just the dark water and twinkling motes wherever she pointed her light. Charu closed her eyes in terror and was actually grateful when she found herself fainting.


Rate this content
Log in

Similar english story from Romance