Chapter 27 - The diversion (1/2)

A few miles to the north of the Apropos, there was a hotel called ”Aqua Aguida” which was being surrounded by the local law enforcement officials. Somehow, Bruce managed to convince the upper brass of the alliance law enforcement to support them.

Alongside the law enforcement officials, there were members of the Blyth family and they were joined by two of Yassin's most trusted agents. Haseem and Humayun Kasra were brother's whose father was one of the bodyguards who lost his life saving him. Since, then they were raised by Yassin and had been his trusted enforcers for a long time.

Both of them were joined by Harry Blyth and his team who were guarding Bolena before Albert and his team came.

”They are still in there?” Harry asked one of the law enforcement personnel as soon as he reached the lobby of the hotel. He was already contacted by the head constable Rajesh and was asked to come to the hotel as quickly as possible.

”Yes, Mr. Harry. We have Mr. Haseem at the security video room and is monitoring the video over the past two days. Sub-inspector Gregory is working with him. Let me take you there,” said Rajesh.

Harry followed Rajesh beyond the concierge station through a small lane and reached a room filled with screens. Haseem and Gregory were concentrating on a screen where air vent was being observed.

”What's happening?” asked Harry looking at the screens.

”He is trying to get in a nano camera tube through the air vents of the room,” said Haseem.

”They entered the room yesterday afternoon since then there haven't been anyone entering or exiting the room. We also checked the street cameras and haven't found any notice of them outside. So, we are expecting them to be still inside,” said Gregory.

”The windows have been closed shut by them since yesterday. We got no way to check other than the air vents,” explained Haseem.

A few minutes later, Humayun suddenly informed that the air vents were blocked by a closer or something else and they couldn't find a way to look into the room.

”So, what now?” asked Harry.

”We have a master key card from the concierge. We will need to sneak in blind,” said Gregory.

”I got no other ideas. I will inform by brother to get ready. Be ready to handle resistance. These two are orphans and have no family other than each other. It looks like their recruitment was voluntarily unlike the case of Roger,” said Haseem.

”I think that we should wear up combat suits. We do have information that they have strong explosives with them. Them blocking the air vents is quite unconventional. It looks like they have already known about us and are prepared. Big chance for it to be a trap,” said Harry.

”Yes, I would like my men to don explosion resistant gear before they follow you and would suggest the same for you,” said Gregory.

”I would also suggest you evacuate the customers of the hotel at least the surrounding rooms, just in case,” suggested Harry.

”Already having it done and also ordered my personnel to gather a few force field generators to reduce the explosion radius,” said Gregory.

”No, that wouldn't be much effective in a building like it would be in open spaces. Those aren't made for that purpose. It is best if we could manipulate the air in the room. We best talk to the hotel authorities, find out all the rooms that are connected by the same air ventilation system as the room and reduce the oxygen content in the room. That would decrease the explosion by a lot and also allow us an easy capture of the Burns brothers,” suggested Harry.

”Yes, that is definitely a better and acceptable solution to our problem,” agreed Gregory.

Soon, a good number of the rooms of the hotel were evacuated silently by the combined personnel of the hotel and law enforcement and they managed to quarantine the zone. They removed oxygen from the room and the corridor it connected to. Humayun and Harry were leading the personnel who were in charge of the capturing the Burns brothers. They quickly put on suits for safety against projectiles and fire.

Humayun quickly swiped the master key card against the door lock and they quickly entered the room. The room had a large bed and a bathroom. The bathroom door was closed. As soon as they entered, they quickly moved over the bed and check the room. There was no one in the room.

Only the bathroom door was locked. Harry took charge to open the door, but the sight inside the bathroom completely surprised them. One of the brothers was down in the bathtub and his head was bust open. He was floating dead in a mixture of what looked like a mixture of water and his own blood.

The other was tied up on the toilet seat. He looked extremely frightened, sad and his mouth was sewed shut. He was beaten up and hardly had any energy. He was continuously pointing at the dead body of his brother with his eyes.

Harry immediately set the goggles on his suit to scan the toilet seat and noticed that it was rigged to explode if William moved or was untied. He immediately called for the demolitions expert Kevin in his team.

Kevin was a relatively young person in his late thirties and had never before seen such a pitiful sight. William was still constantly pointing his eyes towards his brother's body like a robot. Having worked around explosives for about a decade he had developed some keen senses.

He was the first to think that William's behaviour might be something other than grief to be repeating that in a low oxygen situation. He also noticed a slight sweet smell almost completely covered by the smell of the blood.

”Something's not right here. There is some inflammable substance here. He is not looking at the tub because of the body.”

”Move away from the tub”, Harry said to Humayun who was right beside it. They could see William stop his eyes and they almost looked grateful. As Humayun moved away from tub his firearm accidentally struck the towel on holder by the tub and something fell down from the top of it into the tub.

It was like a small white crystalline cube. Humayun quickly noticed and tried to catch it but it crumbled into smaller pieces and the fell into the tub. As soon as the pieces touched the liquid in the tub, it started to boil and sputter.

”Shields up and get out,” shouted Kevin as he jumped out of the bathroom. Harry also enabled the force field on his suit as he pulled out a red high frequency blade* and a portable shield from his back. He slashed at the toilet with the blade in an attempt to pull William from the toilet.

The liquid exploded and it fell all-round the bathroom burning whatever it touched. Though the oxygen content in the room was very low and the explosion of the toilet didn't hurt William much, the burning liquid from the tub fell all over William, Harry and Humayun.

Despite Harry's best attempt to cover William with his shield, the liquid still fell over William's torso and started to burn through him. The room was filled wails from William as his guts fell down.

Harry couldn't do anything as his target was dying. He couldn't douse the flames with the fire extinguisher even though it was a low oxygen environment with hardly any gas. He would have been in a similar situation if he didn't activate the force field around his suit in time.