Chapter 28 - The Escape (2/2)

”I don't have my wrist band. It was taken from me. The details were noted on the cloud. I need to access my account at a terminal,” said Seinberg.

”You stay here. I will see what we can do,” said Balthazar leaving the room. He asked the guards to not let Seinberg out of the room and went to meet Albert and Bolena in another private room.

”They seemed to have taken Dr. Seinberg's car. Can we track it?” he asked Albert.

”I will have Lily and Lila check it out. Harry managed to reach Seinberg's home. They were preparing to break into their room,” said Albert as he sent a message to Lily about the car.

A minute later, Harry called them. Albert quickly added the rest of the group. ”Both Seinberg's daughter and wife are all right. They were just unconscious on the bed. No trap placed in their room. This I expect would be another dead end.”

”So, we found the guy with inflammable chemicals. We managed to stop him with relative ease. Almost feels like they didn't put as much thought into the attack as they put into covering up their tracks,” said Balthazar half-heartedly. He was really depressed that even after all this, they failed to get any information on the people pursuing them as hardly left any tracks to pursue.

”What did you say?” asked Bruce.

”I meant that the way they covered their tracks was so unconventional and effective. It had us concerned more about traps and”

”NO. NO. Compared to the way they covered their tracks, they hardly put any thought into the attack. If they really wanted to kill Bolena, they could definitely have done something better,” continued Bruce.

”Oh Shit!” shouted Arthur as he immediately cut the call on his side.

”What happened?” asked Balthazar looking at the Yassin, Harry and Albert who were still on the call.

”He realized something important and ran to check it out,” replied Yassin.

”Huh?”

”The Orthrus Guardian Group's target Max,” continued Yassin.

”Need more than that.”

”It was a diversion. The whole plan to attack was a diversion to pull the focus of both your family and my group from Max. They are probably checking out Max's location right now,” explained Yassin rolling his eyes.

”That is ridi..” started Balthazar but stopped as he realized that it is an extremely plausible scenario. He looked towards Albert and found him with his mouth open in shock. It was apparent that Albert also was going through the same thought process as him.

A minute later, they received a message informing to put both Balthazar and Bolena in a safe place as Max had managed to escape the Blyth grounds. Albert immediately called Sean, Jordan and Nolan to join them at the cafeteria. He also suggested Harry to return to the headquarters as soon as possible.

”Come on. Both of you,” said Albert and began to lead both of them through the cafeteria and towards the lab complex. They soon entered a small bunker which is used to test dangerous substances and might cause explosions. Winston has already had the bunker cleared of all equipment before Albert and Balthazar came to the planet in preparation for such a scenario.

Albert, Balthazar and Bolena entered the bunker and Albert shut the door behind them. Both Balthazar and Bolena tried to contact Winston, Arthur and Walter on their way to the bunker, but there was no response from any of them.

Harry thoroughly searched the Dr. Seinberg's room along with Humayun and Haseem, after they rescued his family and also interrogated the family but couldn't find anything that would help them with tracking down the perpetrators. He returned back to the Apropos headquarters and started to question and investigate the personnel there.

Balthazar and Bolena waited in the bunker along with Albert for more than an hour before they finally got a reply from the family. It was Arthur who finally video called them. Winston was beside him and they seemed to be in Winston's office.

”I have some bad news and good news.”

”We got a good news too?” asked Balthazar shocked.

”Well, not much of one actually,” replied Arthur.

”Is Max still in our family grounds or custody?” asked Balthazar.

”No. He managed to escape. We had Silas Blyth monitoring him but he somehow managed to put the cameras in a loop and Silas had been poisoned and paralyzed,” said Arthur.

”Wait! Wait! Why are we tracking Uncle Max?” asked Bolena surprised.

”OH! How to explain this?” asked Arthur looking uncomfortably towards Winston. Even Winston looked a bit out of odds.

”Let me take this one,” said Balthazar to both of them. ”You remember that George and dad and mom were assassinated right? I was tracking it with the help of some military contacts, and we ended up finding that Max was the traitor and he was in cahoots with some rebels. That was what led to the attack on the base. We tried our best to make Max think that we knew nothing about him, but it looks like we were wrong.”

”Max had helped kill dad. That is ridiculous.”

”No. He had been trying to kill me since a long time. He was kind of very good spy. When dad found out that Max was responsible for his brother's death. He had our parents killed before they could get the proof. And now for the same reason, he attempted to kill me, but I still managed to provide the proof to the family.”

”Now, that he is sure about me knowing about him, he seems to have attempted to escape the family grounds,” continued Balthazar. ”The main issue is not Max but the people who are helping him attack us and why? We have no idea about them except the name Dave. Luckily for us, they seem to avoid fighting us outright and prefer to fight in the dark. So, a little bit of security and vigilance would make us very safe.”

Bolena found everything that Balthazar told her to be high impossible and truly bizzare. Though Balthazar managed to completely omit the any information about the knights of the Old Republic, it still was a lot for her to take. She could hardly do anything other than sit down in a chair thunderstruck.

”Now that we have gone over that matter, what was the good news?” asked Balthazar looking towards Arthur.

”Max did not manage to completely escape. He is being followed by Elaine and her team on an armed shuttle. There is a good chance that they might catch up with him,” replied Arthur.

”That is barely hopeful,” said both Albert and Balthazar together.

”Well, that is all we could do. He planned well. It looks like the entire thing from the Burns brothers leaving Asklepian was a pre-planned by Max a long time before Balthazar found out about him. Probably since the time he first betrayed us to help kill George. If he hadn't attempted to kill Robert on his way, he would have escaped without leaving any tracks.”

”He even tried to kill Robert. Why?” asked Bolena now tearing up.

”He attempted to kill his own brother and you are asking why he attempted to kill his nephew, the same brother's son?” inquired Balthazar sarcastically rolling his eyes.

”Well! Be that all it may,” interjected Winston. ”The main thing we called to tell you is that both of you will have to be in lock down till we manage to get a hold of Max. Just to be on the safe side. Once we have him caught or killed, we wouldn't have anyone in our family with high-level access and we can relax with your security then.”