C.N. - chapter 87

The thing about being the first person shot in a situation like this was that everyone usually had their attention on you. When we exited the submarine onto the dock, all of Mr. Wolf’s henchmen kept glancing at me. Presumably none of them had ever taken a bullet to the shoulder and they were all curious how it felt.

Curiously, when we congregated with Mr. Dragon’s henchmen on the beach, only every other henchmen that surrounded us from Mr. Dragon’s group had their attention trained on me. Each curious henchman stood next to another henchman who dressed identically but didn’t notice me at all. I wondered if those henchmen who didn’t notice me had been shot in the shoulder before, which eliminated their curiosity.

All of a sudden, I heard someone snap their fingers, and all the henchmen who didn’t pay any attention to my shoulder wound trained their guns on the nearest henchman beside them, all in a split second. Just now, their guns had been trained on me, Theo and the others. I was going to conclude a minute ago that we were probably hostages again, but now the situation had changed again. It was getting confusing trying to keep track of it all.

Mr. Dragon and Mr. Wolf, who were engaged in a heated conversation some distance away, noticed the abrupt change in who pointed a gun at who. Mr. Wolf, who spoke first, said, ‘Men, kill the hostage-‘

Before he could finish his sentence however, Mr. Dragon karate side-chopped Mr. Wolf in the nose. In the same instant, the henchmen whose guns were trained on the henchmen whose guns were trained on us opened fire, shooting down every henchmen whose guns where previously trained on us except one. The one extra henchman whose gun was previously trained on us received a fatal-looking kick in the jaw from Laura.

‘Damn it, bloody useless henchmen!’ Mr. Dragon cursed.

‘You forget, Clarke,’ Laura said coolly, ‘no matter how well-trained and well-equipped they may be, henchmen who serve villains are always of an inferior quality.’

Mr. Dragon shrugged in the same way dad always does when mom gets on his case about something he knows he can’t get out of, he said, ‘that’s why I made all the necessary precautions myself.’

I realized that Mr. Dragon was holding a button device in his hand the whole time. Laura yelled ‘Duck!’ and everyone hit the sand flat. Then the ground exploded.

An enormous shower of sand filled the air. When the air finally cleared, I was half-buried in the sand. So were Theo and Wolfgang near me. Dennis had leaped into the water, she was just coming out. Laura was the first to dust herself off and stand up, followed by Graham, Eric, Michael, Terry, John and Terry and some of the henchmen who fired at their fellow henchmen. These henchmen were now taking off their ski masks and were exchanging high-fives with Laura’s six henchmen.

‘Where’s Heathcliff?’ Dennis asked.

‘Get me off of here!’ Heathcliff’s voice shouted from the top of a palm tree at the edge of the beach line. His clothes had been shredded to ribbons, and his face was covered in soot. The blast must have blown him up there.

‘Those were gas bombs,’ Laura said, ‘and judging by the little harm they did us they must have been buried in the sand for a long time. Clarke must have figured a hostage reception on his island might get out of hand one of these days.’

‘Little harm?!’ Heathcliff yelled from the tree, ‘Look at me! My suit is ruined!’

Mr. Dragon and Mr. Wolf had both disappeared. More henchmen in ski masks came out onto the beach from the palm trees and began taking their masks off.

‘What was that explosion just now, Laura?’ One henchman greeted Laura with a smile and said, ‘it sounded like five hundred pigs letting out gas in perfect unison.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ Laura replied, ‘good job, you came in the nick of time. What did you do with Clarke’s island patrol?’

‘Every single one we could find is now hanging upside-down from a palm tree with clown makeup on his face.’ The henchman replied with a grin. ‘That was some swell infiltrating we did just now, wasn’t it?’

‘It was excellent, Kevin. Where are the flymachines hidden?’

‘You mean the pterocrafts?’

‘Yes, you’ve parked them in a secure location?’

‘Indeed, they are perfectly invisible.’

Laura clapped her hands for everyone’s attention, ‘Alright, my henchmen-‘

‘Ahem, colleagues, you mean,’ said at least ten of Laura’s henchmen, including Graham.

‘Right, my colleagues in the League of Shadows, we are about to launch our long-anticipated attack on the home base of our arch enemy, the League of Terrorism. You all know the floor plan of this facility-‘

‘Thanks to me,’ John chimed in.

‘Thanks to our colleague John,’ Laura continued, ‘and each of you know your part in the mission, so let’s head out and KICK ASS!’

Laura’s henchmen/colleagues hollered, and dispersed back into the jungle.

Wolfgang tucked on Laura’s suit, ‘Mom, what should we do?’ He motioned towards himself, Theo, Wolfgang, Dennis, Heathcliff (who was lifted out the palm tree by Michael), and me.

‘All of you stay close to me, especially you, my son, I won’t lose you a second time.’

‘You got that right, mom.’ Wolfgang smiled slyly.

‘That’s my boy.’ Laura smiled back, ‘Terry, Terry, take Charlie to the infirmary. You know where the rest of us are heading, join us after Charlie is treated.’

Terry and Terry scooped me up by the legs. ‘Roger that, Laura.’

We headed out into the jungle, brushing past some dense foliage, and quickly came upon a concrete ramp leading underground. We were then jogging down a dim tunnel, which emerged into a concrete hallway lined with windowless doors and pipes running along the ceiling. More hallways began to diverge from this one. Carrying me between them, Terry and Terry ran down a different hallway away from the others. It looked like we were in the hospital wing of the facility.

Soon enough, we arrived in a large room where many stretchers were parked. Terry and Terry unloaded me onto the nearest stretcher, and raided the medical cabinet and drawers. They returned with pouches of white powder, gauze, bandages, and some surgical instruments – including a tong and a pair of scissors – I recognized from the last time I got shot. Terry removed the bandages Theo applied to my shoulder, and Terry dumped a pouch of the white powder on the wound.

‘What’s the white powder?’ I asked.

‘Just some morphine,’ Terry replied, as he dipped the scissors in a can of disinfectant liquid, ‘you’ve gotten shot but never seen morphine in your life?’

‘No,’ I said plainly, ‘see, the first time I got shot, we went to my family doctor, who said he had to operate straight away. They just strapped me to a stretcher, got the scissors, and cut the bullet out of me.’

‘Woah,’ said Terry, strapping my arms and legs to the stretcher, ‘how did you manage to withstand the pain?’

‘I fainted.’ I replied. I noticed that my chest was now numb. I couldn’t feel the pain from the bullet wound anymore, and I felt rather sleepy all of a sudden, like I just spent up all the energy in my body.

‘Let’s see…the bullet got wedged right between the collarbone, and only minor tissue damage. Terry, isn’t that a miracle!’ Terry exclaimed.

Terry leaned in closer to have a look, ‘It certainly is Terry, now let’s get to work.’

‘Are you going to cut the bullet out of me?’ I asked groggily.

‘Yep, so you just relax and take a nap, the morphine is acting up.’ One of the Terries reassured me.

‘And we’ll have the Wolf pay for this, before you even wake up!’ The other Terry said.

Then I drifted off into unconsciousness.