128 (Operation Armageddon: Book 1)

Chapter Twenty-One: The Tower | Part 2

"Palmer?" he asked as he stared at the man before him. Megan and Daniel quickly caught up to him, and they came to understand why Matthew stood completely stunned.

Something about Mr. Palmer that kept them uneasy was not just the gun he was holding but how he was wielding it. He was holding it up at them—at Matthew. And Matthew knew that he would have to stop Mr. Palmer from causing harm to him and his friends so that he wouldn't get in their way.

However, he waited to see if Mr. Palmer would stop on his own first. The way he gripped the pistol was rather unstable, as if he was shaking from anxiety or something. But he shouldn't have been nervous. After all, it was the perfect opportunity to get rid of the people that would convict him because of his mistake.

"Where's the chairwoman, James?" Matthew questioned. However, Palmer didn't answer immediately. As such, Matthew became agitated and yelled. "Tell me where she is!"

Mr. Palmer quivered, shaking his head. It was obvious that he couldn't say it for some reason, but Matthew would soon know why. "I'm sorry," Mr. Palmer whispered as he pulled the trigger, firing a shot at Megan's hand.

The detective cried in pain as her gun fell to the floor. Blood dripped down from her hand as the open wound caused a puncture in her arteries and veins. She sank to the ground, wincing to try to cope with the extreme pain. Meanwhile, Matthew and Daniel kept their guns aimed right at Mr. Palmer.

Mr. Palmer began sobbing as well as he dropped his gun finally. He approached the detectives, stuttering nervously. Daniel, however, retreated, his aim still kept on Mr. Palmer. He was ready to release the bullet on him, but there wasn't a need to.

Mr. Palmer began weeping, the tears leaking down profusely. "I'm so sorry! I'm so—"

And that was precisely why Daniel didn't need to harm Mr. Palmer. In fact, he would have wanted to be the one to do so, but he couldn't. Because before he could even lay his hand on the trigger, someone else had finished the job for him.

With a shot in the head, Palmer fell to the ground. Blood spilt out of the circular wound, spreading across the marble floor. This time, another figure stood where Palmer was earlier on. And they were still holding a smoking pistol, presumably used to murder Palmer coldly. And the detectives all looked up to see who was standing before them.

"Miss me?"

Megan shivered in fear as she stood up. The fact that the person she and her colleagues had been trying to find was standing before them was shocking enough to numb the pain in her gunshot wound. Meanwhile, Daniel stood rooted to the group, refusing to put down his gun despite the person aiming it at him.

"Put down the gun, Daniel," she said as she laid her finger on the trigger, ready to shoot. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to have any plans made to follow suit.

"I said, put down the gun!" the woman screamed once more, and this time, she fired a few bullets at the walls around him. "Look around you! You and your friends are surrounded!"

Daniel turned around, and so did Matthew and Megan. And she wasn't lying. Around them were at least a dozen security guards—all armed with guns. It was three detectives against them thirteen, which meant that there was no way out of the situation. Their risky decision caused them to end up in a plight, and there was no way out of it now.

As such, Daniel had no choice but to place his weapon down. Matthew followed suit, joining Megan in becoming unarmed. All three of them then raised their hands before being instructed to put them on their head. The chairwoman then ordered the guards to escort them away.

Just before the detectives were taken out of the room, however, the chairwoman stopped them. Daniel and Megan didn't want to look at her, but Matthew turned around. After all, she was primarily addressing him and not the others.

"Well, Matthew, before you go," she began speaking, "let me enlighten you on where you went wrong. You didn't bark up the wrong tree. You didn't make a mistake. It's just that you had quite a bit of misfortune on the day you volunteered to take on the Pace's family case, and it wasn't wrong of you to do so. However, we can't let you and your friends go, and we simply have to end it here. It's nothing personal."

The guards escorted them along the hallway, out of the room. Daniel resisted for a bit but eventually gave up when he realised that they were going to do anything but let them go. One of the guards held a gun to all three of them as a precaution, which made Matthew feel slightly uneasy.

The guards then brought the trio into an elevator before bringing them down by about twenty floors. Once they had arrived, they dragged them through another corridor. The section of the building where they were at this time was very different, however. Different from the hallway leading up to the chairwoman's office and different from the lobby. Instead, test laboratories lined the sides of the corridor.

Laboratories that seemed identical to those on the fifth floor of Edison Palmer Hospital.

Just then, the security guards stopped them beside one of the laboratories. Just like those in the hospital, each one of them consisted of a testing section and an observation section on the other side, divided by thick glass. And in the testing section was a creature, pounding on the glass and glaring at the detectives with its maroon eyes.

"Get in," one of the guards commanded as another opened the door to the observation room.

The detectives remained still for a few moments, reluctant to enter the room. They knew that the guards would probably be ordered to unleash the creature into the observation area later to kill them, and that thought was unsettling. However, they couldn't argue with armed security guards taking orders directly from the chairwoman.

"Get in!" another guard bellowed, tired of the detectives taking their own sweet time. As such, he shoved Daniel into the room first before the other two complied and entered together. The same guard then shut the door, which locked automatically, trapping them inside.

The group of guards walked away, their footsteps gradually fading. Matthew peeped out and could see them moving back towards the elevator, and he assumed that they were reporting back to the chairwoman. Soon, the sounds of their feet dragging against the floor couldn't be heard anymore.

Matthew wanted to look back in the room and imagine being in some sort of safe captivity. For a moment, it felt better than staring out to the corridor, anticipating the chairwoman to arrive and kill them herself. But the red light shining through the glass divider separating the creature from them gave him an uneasy feeling in his gut, so he rather looked out than in.

Meanwhile, Daniel remained strangely calm. Neither Matthew nor Megan could be bothered, however. Seeing how unaffected Daniel was after shooting an innocent carpark warden dead earlier on, it wasn't surprising that he would maintain such a facade. In fact, there didn't seem to be any emotions present in the first place.

However, it was time for Matthew to start talking again. Not necessarily a discussion but more of a confrontation. Then again, he had plans to wait for the exact time to do something about it. And so, he turned back around to the other two detectives, such that they knew that he was ready to talk and that they could talk too.

"So, how are we going to go about from here?" Daniel got the ball rolling.

Matthew paused for a moment, not answering immediately. He reached into his back pocket first, feeling for the item in it. He slowly unzipped it and began pulling it out, concealing it behind his back so the other two couldn't see what it was.

Following that, he stood up, holding the item behind his back with his left hand. He walked over to Daniel, who was looking up at him. Matthew's eyes began reddening at that moment, and the veins in his head popped out and became clearly visible.

Unexpectedly, he pulled a gun from behind his back and aimed it at Daniel's forehead. And he finally answered Daniel's query.

"Why don't you tell me?"