Separate Ways (conclusion) - ATZ an English Adventure

 Hi y'all,

I'm back with the ATZ bug and I feel the need to flesh out this storyline... 

So we left our story with April scurrying out of the small hamlet to make her appointment with her cameraman "Booby" Bobby. 

With a dusty whoomph! the enormous helicopter drove the loose dirt out in a large circle, as it performed a landing not seen outside of a "hotzone" battlefield. Quickly, expertly, the black clad figure exited the aircraft and hurried out of the long reach of the blade-like rotors. In a crouch he ran over to a eccentric looking building that looked like it had been built on stilts and the two 'soldiers' standing to a loose attention. 

The man dressed in a long overcoat pointed at the larger of the two others, both clad in the more paramilitary style favoured by mercenaries - nondescript with no visible insignias or identifiable markings.

"Report Chamberlain, what do you know?" he bellowed in a loud voice in an effort to be heard over the noise of the chopper.

"Not much sir!" the large man shouted back. "We found our two men in the house behind us, dead sir!" 

"Killed by the D-Subs?" the MiB asked, more softly.

"No sir, looks like they were beaten to death sir, well one was. The other looks like he hit his neck and head on a piece of furniture and bled out, but there was definitely a fight of some kind..."

The grim faced operative's piercing stare, made the burly mercenary almost step back before he continued.

"They were stripped of their gear sir, body armour, weapons and ammo, as well as some rations..."

That stare seemed to somehow intensify as it noticed the slight hesitation, as the hulking soldier took a steadying breath. 

"They're also missing a map sir, you know with our deployments on it..." his voice wobbled but he hurried up in an effort to get an explanation out "But they can't possibly understand the significance of the symbols, surely?" more of a question than an explanation. A raised eyebrow from the MiB, forced the massive mercenary to come to a shuddering halt, and look down at his scuffed boots.

"The rest of the buildings?" The operative inquired.  

"Thermal imaging just shows the D-Subs sir, nothing so much as a cat sir" Chamberlain reported, glad to have moved on to something more positive. "We've set up the infra-red trips and surveillance gear sir, we'll know if anyone comes back nosing around."

The MiB nodded and headed back to the helicopter, the two mercs following behind to settle into the massive machine. With a roar of the powerful engines, the aircraft leapt into the sky and raced off toward the Coastline.

more soon, 

hope you enjoy

dGG