The ending of the last chapter:
The wind blowing in trough the broken windows was annoying, so were the thousands of shards of glass lying around the cabin and on the seats, but he hustled it of his mind, instead he was thinking of what would happen when they got back to the embassy. It was Jean; it had to be! That sixth sense most good mercenaries possessed had warned him time and time again about that guy, but he had refused to listen until now. A mistake he would not do again.

Saga of Wolf O’Donnell
Chapter 5

The Marconos silently drove up to the iron gate blocking the gravel path into the embassy. Scott was reaching for the button to lower his window, but quickly realized it was completely unnecessary. He reached out trough the shattered window and quickly typed in the same code he had used when they left. It had only been earlier this day, but it felt like a different century for both of them.  One of the cameras on the fence swiveled around before it focused onto them.


Meanwhile, Jean was sitting in the security room, looking at the monitor that showed the battered car outside the gates. He took a glance over his shoulder to ensure he were alone.
This wasn’t supposed to happen! But he had halfway expected the thugs he used would mess it up some day or another, but why did it have to happen now?
He couldn’t take the risk that they knew he were involved, he had gone to great lengths to ensure his identity would remain secret, but one never knew.
He typed in a command on the keyboard in front of him, a new window appeared on the screen and asked for his confirmation. He typed in a new command.


Back outside again, the long wait was starting to worry William, “Aren’t they going to let us in soon?” he asked Scott, the dog shrugged his shoulders, “Don’t know, they have never let me wait this long yet.” The child in the backseat bent forward slightly, eager to eavesdrop on their conversation. Then a buzzing sound caught William’s attention, the gate started to open again. Scott slid the gearlever back into drive and started driving trough the now open gate.
“Now, how should we proceed?” Scott wondered aloud, William thought about it for a couple of seconds before he responded, “We’ve got to make sure Jean is cornered before we lay out the evidence, I don’t think he is the type to come quietly along.” Scott nodded in reply, “We should go to my superior, Vargar; he’s in charge of the security force. Tough guy, ex-military, he will know what needs to be done.”
They had reached the ramp down to the underground garage, Scott fiddled with his keycard for a moment before he found the correct button and opened the gates.
William noticed this, “Nervous?” he asked the dog.
“Yeah, a little. I’ve been under fire before, but you still never get used to it, nothing quite prepares you for the rush of adrenalin that flows trough you.” Scott answered as he drove down into the garage and the gates closed behind them. William nodded in a silent agreement.

Scott parked the car along the other Marconoses, it didn’t quite fit in with its polished and spot free brethren after the chase. “Man, they are going to be mad at us for this, they don’t come cheap.” Scott noted sourly as they got out. William opened the door for Johnny and helped him out. “We’d better get to Vargar’s office before we run into anyone else. The guys at the cameras have probably already sent someone on their way to check us out.” Scott said as they crossed the garage floor on their way toward the stair back up into the embassy.
They made their way up the stairs, William held Johnny to make sure he didn’t trip. He felt sorry for the child, not only had he lost the only family member he had left, but he would also be convicted for attempt at murder, and for all the acts of criminality he had committed in his short life.

They got trough the door at the top and entered the main hallway. William wasn’t sure were this Vargar’s office was, so he just looked at Scott for directions.
“Down there.” Scott said as he pointed down the hallway. “Hurry! Before someone…”
He stopped as they all noticed a strange sound coming from further down the hallway, heavy footsteps and the loud hissing of hydraulic machinery.
Around a corner some 30 feet down the hallway, a huge machine appeared. 8 feet tall and walking on two gigantic legs, it turned around and looked at them with its massive, faceless head. It lifted its short arms and pointed them straight at the group; William noticed the gatling machine gun mounted on each arm, aiming at them.
Scott didn’t seem to be bothered with this, “It’s one of the guard droids we use, GD-902, pack quite a punch should the embassy be threatened by a large attack.”
The machine let out something that sounded like a growl before it spoke with a metallic and hard voice, “You are trespassing on restricted area. Please put your hands in the air. You have 30 seconds to comply.”
Scott furrowed his eyebrows, “They are not programmed to act like that. Put your hands in the air folks, we don’t want to upset him.”
William and Scott both raised their hands, while Johnny dropped down on the floor as he snuck his cuffed hands below his feet and up in front, he then stood up and followed their example.


Up in the control room, Jean was watching the events unfold on the monitor screens, he typed in another command on the keyboard, a new window popped up on the screen. It read: “Abort standard disarming procedure?” A smile flickered across Jean’s lips as he typed in the answer, “Yes.”


“I am authorized to use deadly force in 20 seconds!” The droid growled at them, taking another ground shaking steep toward them.  Scott started to look worried, “Something is wrong, terribly wrong!” Johnny looked like he was about to pass out; he started to shiver as the machine took another steep towards them. “12…11…10…” It started to count.
William turned around and started to run down the hallway, he grabbed hold of Johnny and dragged him with him, Scott just stood still for another second before he also turned and started to run away from the machine.
“4…3…2…” it said as they threw themselves around a corner and out of it’s line of sight.
“I am now authorized to use deadly force!” The machine growled at them, William felt the floor shake slightly and could hear the sound of the hydraulic hissing and its heavy footsteps as it began following after them.
“Let’s get the hell out of here!” William shouted as he dragged Johnny back up on his feet and started to run with Scott following close behind.

The hallway seemed endless, there were many doors on both sides, but they were all dead-ends into offices and the like; there they would be trapped.
“We have to get to the control room on the second floor, that is the only place you can shut it down!” Scott shouted. William cast a quick glance over his shoulder, he didn’t see it yet, but he knew it would appear around the corner every second now, turn slowly around and aim its guns at them.
William had seen a gatling-gun in action multiple times, he always hoped he wouldn’t find himself on the receiving end of one when he witnessed them let loose an inferno of bullets that could penetrate the armor of a main battle tank, or cut a person into tiny bits.
He could see the staircase up ahead, only 30 yards or so, but it could just as well been a mile, he cast another glance over his shoulder as he quickened the pace; the blood in his veins froze to ice as he saw the hulking shape of the droid appear around the corner.
They reached the stairs and began running up, taking three steeps in a stride. The droid turned around and aimed at them, just as they disappeared up to the second floor. The machine growled in frustration as it turned around and walked back the way it came from.



Johnny had collapsed on top of the stairs; his eyes moved around frantically and he shivered violently. William bent down and hoisted him up on his legs. At first, his legs wouldn’t hold him up, but he soon managed to calm down a bit.
“We should be glad they can’t walk in normal stairs, we’re safe for the moment, or at least until it finds it way to the elevator.” Scott noted as he walked past them, “The control room is just over there.” He nodded to a door down the hallway.

“Then lets hurry!” William said as he headed for it, “How many of these droids have you got?” Scott replied immediately, “Three, but one is down at maintenance, the other one is probably on first floor as well.”
William took comfort in that as he approached the door into the control room, he reached out a hand and placed it on the doorknob before slowly turning it around and opening the door.

There were none inside, the room itself was fairly large, with around a dozen large monitors placed on the walls, illuminating the room in a pale, blue light from their screensavers.
Scott elbowed his way past him, “Someone have been here recently, that monitor over there is still logged on.” He pointed at one of them, one that didn’t have the screensaver up but instead the computers desktop. “They log out automatically after a minute. Someone knew that robot was after us, someone wanted it to be after us.” He didn’t have to say it out loud for William to understand whom he was referring to. But where had Jean gone now?

Scott sat down in front of the monitor and started typing away. “The log has recently been deleted, someone obviously don’t want to leave behind evidence.” He noted as he worked furiously, his fingers flying over the keyboard. “I… I can’t shut them down from here, someone have fiddled with my security clearance. I no longer have the required authorisation to give them commands!”
William bent down and studied the screen together with him, “Any other ways to stop them?”
Scott thought about this for a moment. “Not that I can think of, someone have been doing their job good, we’ll need a good hacker to open up this mess again, until then, we’re at their mercy.”
William analyzed the situation before he came up with an idea. “Can you still access other commands?” he asked Scott, to which the dog replied, “Yes, most of them.”
“Good, get up the images from the security cameras, I want to know where the droids are now.” Scott typed in a couple of commands and around a score of windows with live images from the cameras filled the screen.
Most of them showed only empty corridors, but a couple of them in particular caught Williams’s interest. One showed a large hallway, an elevator door at the end of it.
And on its way to the elevator, the guard droid filled most of the screen; its footsteps caused the image to shake slightly as the camera rocked on its brackets.
The other one showed another hallway, he recognized it as the one leading to the ambassador’s office, and he caught sight of a person running down it. William recognized him as the person cast a quick glance over his shoulder. Where was Jean going in such a hurry?

In the other window, the droid had reached the elevator doors and waited outside for them to open. “Get up the commands for the elevator, will you?” William told Scott.
A sinister grin appeared on Scott’s face as he caught Williams’s idea, and he quickly typed in some more letters.


Back on the first floor, the large doors opened in to the elevator. The droid let out a pleased growl as it doubled up to fit trough the doors and walked in. The elevator was build to take such a hefty load, the droids programming told it that. It turned around 180 degrees and lifted its heavily armed arms, so it could be ready to unleash hell as soon as the doors opened again.
The hydraulic shook absorbers in its legs gave in slightly as the elevator started to go up to the second floor, but it stopped again almost immediately. The droid didn’t notice that, its simple programming told it it should wait till the doors opened again before doing its next move.


William let out a sigh of relief as he looked at the elevator command window, stopping the elevator between the two floors had worked.
“That is one of them out of the game. But where is the other one?” Scott searched the camera screens for signs of the other droid, but he didn’t find anything. “The cameras doesn’t cover all the corridors, it is probably in a red zone. Waiting for us to run into it.” He leaned back into the chair before he continued, “They can be tracked trough their electronic signals, but that possibility is locked with my authorization being tampered with.”
“Then lets concentrate on our spotted friend.” William suggested while bringing up the live-feed from the camera he had seen him in before. There were no sign of him anymore, but the only way he could have gone were inside the ambassador’s office.
“Have we got a camera inside the office?” William asked. Scott brought up a new camera window; it only showed them a screen of static.
“Someone has tampered with it.” Scott noted, “I’m pretty sure Jean have set up another warm welcome for us, and with the ambassador himself as bait.”
“Any ideas on what we should do?” Scott waited for a moment before he replied; “We’d better contact Vargar. I’m not going to charge straight into the office with Jean prepared and waiting for us. We need some backup.” He turned the computer off before he stood up and turned around to face William and Johnny. “Let’s not waste any more time.”



William couldn’t stop a sigh of relief as they approached the door to Vargar’s office; they had avoided running into the other droid. It were probably somewhere on the second floor, luckily for them. Scott took a steep forward and twisted the door handle. As soon as he opened it, they were welcomed by an angry outburst, “For the love of all that is holy! Knock before you enter!” Scott swallowed hard before he answered, “Excuse me sir, but it is an emergency situation.” Vargar were sitting behind his work desk, looking at them with piercing, ice blue eyes. “This better be good Durcan.” The wolf spoke with a deep, hoarse voice as he stood up from his chair. William noted his extremely broad shoulders and athletic build. This was definitively not the type of guy that you wanted to mess with. He watched at them long with suspicious eyes before he dumped back into his chair.
“Speak out.” He ordered, and Scott started tell Vargar everything; from the moment they left the embassy, right up until they arrived at his office. The wolf just nodded as he listened carefully.
William didn’t care to listen; instead he let his eyes do a quick sweep around the room.
It was clearly the working place of a methodical person; everything was tidy and categorized perfectly, no personal effects, such as pictures, whatsoever.
He carefully grabbed hold of Johnny’s shoulder and escorted him over to a chair in a corner, which the rat promptly dumped down into. William didn’t blame him; the kid had been trough a lot this day. “You’re okay son.” William asked as he squatted down in front of him.
The rat didn’t answer; he just sat there and looked at him with an empty expression. Posttraumatic stress, William had seen it so many times before. The boy needed some time to calm down.

Scott had stopped talking, Vargar’s eyes moved back and forth from Scott, to him and the rat, as if he were in doubt if he should believe them or not. “Jean?” He scratched his chin with the long claws on his right hand, “Give me a few seconds to verify this.”
He typed in a few commands on a notepad while he looked closely at the windows that appeared on his monitor, the live feed of the Marconos, the broken windows and countless bullet holes clearly visible. He brought up the camera of the ambassador’s office, still filled with static.
“Seems there is some truth to that crazy story of yours Scott.” Vargar noted as he furrowed his eyebrows and shut down the monitor. “The situation is pretty obvious, he is holding the ambassador as hostage, we need to get him to safety first before we go for Jean.”
Scott traded a worried look with William, “How sir?”

“Well, first of all we’ve got to make sure that no word of this goes out of the embassy. The kidnapping of a planetary ambassador on our own soil will be tremendously damaging to our reputation in the galactic society. I’ll round up what I’ve got of security personnel and try to start negotiations with Jean. In the meantime, you’ll stay here. Go to the backroom and wait there.” Vargar told them while pointing over his shoulder at a door in the back wall.

He waited until the others had disappeared into the backroom before he stretched out a finger and pressed a button on the intercom panel built into the work desk.
The sound of static filled the room before a voice answered, “Yes sir?”
“We have a code Viktor Hotell, I repeat, Viktor Hotell.” Vargar growled into the microphone, “Got it sir! We’ll assemble in the barracks. Over and out” The voice answered before Vargar pressed the button again and broke the line.
Now, the time had come to try to establish contact with Jean. Vargar had been a negotiator in hostage situations before, but one newer knew how the hostage taker would react. Some were reasonable and easy. Others were extremely unpredictable and hard to please.
He knew Jean well enough to predict he wouldn’t be one of the easy ones. He cast a glance at his cell phone, lying in front of him on the desk. It had do be done, even if he didn’t want to.
He picked it up and pressed the “1” button, the direct number to the ambassadors office.

He lifted it up to his ears; the only thing he could hear were the dial tone, at least Jean hadn’t turned it off. He counted the dials, 9… 10… 11… Maybe he wasn’t going to answer?
The dialing tone was broken, he could hear low breathing, someone had answered.
“Ambassador?” Vargar asked, “Is it you?” There weren’t any answer.
“Jean. We know it is you.” Vargar tried. Finally someone replied, “Good evening… Sir.”
Vargar let out a quiet sigh of relief. “Jean, what are you doing?”
“What I should have done a long time ago.” The dark, soft voice of the cat echoed in his ear, “I’m quitting. Don’t take it personal, it’s just that the other side pays better.”
This confirmed Vargar’s worst fear, Jean were on someone else’s pay list. Probably had been for a long time already. The betrayal disgusted him, but this was not the time to start hurling accusations at each other. The first steep was always to make contact with the hostage-taker and play along with him, lure him to believe he mastered the situation, and then tear that illusion away under his feet.
“Now, what are your demands Jean?” Vargar asked. He used the leopard’s first name with a purpose. To bond yourself with the target, get them to trust you. It was silent on the other end; the only sound was the slow, rhythmic breath of the cat.
“I’ll give you my demands in half an hour. You call me.” He told Vargar, before he broke the line and ended the call.

Vargar put down the phone on the desk. Under the calm exterior, his mind was a raging sea of anger. He should never have employed the leopard in the first place. Sure, Jean had been overly qualified for the job, but his gut feeling had told him from the very start that this guy would spell trouble for him some day. Unfortunately, he had been right, again.
He started to set up a checklist of things he had to do in his head, first he would have to go to the barracks and see how things were going. In the case of such an emergency, the barracks would be transformed into an improvised command center. Setting it up always took some time, but it should be ready within the next ten minutes. He decided to bring Scott, the VIP and the boy in the backroom to the barracks. They could prove useful to have close by when the negotiations started. Also, he had to find that other guard droid and shut it down; it was a factor he didn’t want to have running around freely, causing havoc at the worst possible moment.

He stood up from the chair and headed for the door to the backroom. He opened it and poked his head trough. The two adults were sitting in a sofa, just twiddling thumbs, while the teenage rat had fallen asleep in an armchair.
Vargar sent the guys in the sofa silent nod, “You were right boys. We’ve got a situation going on. Please come with me.”



Vargar was pleased to see the guards had managed to set up the command center before he had arrived. Some of the personal were sitting with computers, frantically typing and gathering information, while around a dozen of the guards had prepared an assault team, ready to be sent in on short notice. Heavily armed with assault rifles, shock grenades and tazer guns, wearing bulletproof vest over dark uniforms and helmets with visors.
“How’re things going?” Vargar asked a Labrador, the one that seemingly was organizing the lot. “We’ve shut down most of the communications from within the embassy and we’ve got the command center all set up and ready.” The Labrador answered.
“Good. Now, do a search for the missing droid, we need it shut down as quickly as possible. Deploy four of your men outside the office; get a sniper up on the roof of the maintenance building, he should get a clear shot at the hostage taker from there.” Vargar started barking orders, “Under no circumstances shall the ambassadors life be jeopardized, Jean is to be taken alive if possible. Understood?”




Meanwhile, in the ambassador’s office the silence was broken by the terrified whimpers coming from the ambassador, which Jean had taped to his chair and placed in the middle of the room. Jean had sat down on chair in a corner, making sure he weren’t visible from the large panorama window behind the work desk.
It seemed the scales had tipped in his disfavor. Sure, he had a high ranking diplomat as a hostage, but if things had been going according to plan, both Scott, William and the witness would have been dead now, shot to bits by the guard droid.
Then it would have been easy to put the blame on the guys at maintenance for not fixing such a monumental bug, nobody would have had a clue he were involved before he would be long gone. He had managed to buy himself some time for the moment at least. Vargar wouldn’t risk the life of the ambassador, no way. But he was definitively not going to let him get away with it either.
Jean had to speak with his boss. The security personnel were surely busy blocking all communication networks, so his normal cell phones signal wouldn’t even get out of the building. Luckily, he had been provided with an encrypted satellite phone as backup.

Jean took it out of his jacket and started typing in the number he had memorized. He sent the ambassador an annoyed gaze; he certainly didn’t need witnesses to the conversation he were about to start. But he didn’t have much choice; he comforted himself with the fact that he would probably kill the ambassador anyway before he made his escape.
The call was answered almost immediately. “Yes?” Jean could almost see the person on the other end, a one eyed falcon. He had met him once, but he hadn’t been able to place the foreign accent. He were also pretty sure the falcon had a high rank within his country’s armed forces, you could see it in the way he walked and stood.
“There has been a hitch in the plan.” Jean told him. There was some seconds of silence before the answer came, “Tell me.”



William cast a glance at his watch; there were around ten minute left before Vargar would call up Jean to listen to his demands. What would he demand? Definitively safe passage out of the embassy grounds, once he were outside the fence, he would be outside their jurisdiction.
He’d probably require a car as well. It would be possible to rig it with some kind of tracking sensor, or an EMP device that would fry the vehicles electrical system on the press of a button. Jean knew this, how did he plan to get around it?
William sighed, the best way to bring up more questions than answers were always to think like that. He lifted his head and noticed Vargar were standing in front of him.
“Hell of a mess, huh?” Vargar asked with his hoarse voice before he took a sip from a cup of black coffee in his right hand. William nodded in agreement. “Hell of a mess.”
“I’ve called in all the personal that had a leave of absence today. We’ve still not found the missing droid, we’re currently securing the first floor and will move over to the next soon.” Vargar informed him. “Your friend should be safe as long as he stays inside his room. But we haven’t been able to contact him yet.”
That didn’t surprise William, “Richard always shut off his cell phone while asleep.”
Vargar noticed Williams’s worry. “ Take it easy. He is probably going to sleep trough the whole situation. I’ll make sure the guys are warned to get him back safely as soon as they reach his room.” It didn’t calm William much, too many things were still uncertain. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”  He told Vargar, which replied immediately. “No problem.” Before he turned around and walked over to one of the computers.


“Do you have any suggestion on what I should do?” Jean asked. It was followed by a long silence. “I should let them get you for this. You have disappointed me greatly.” The falcon answered, “But you would squeal everything you know to them if that happened. So, I’ll lend you a hand.” Jean’s heavy heartbeats calmed down a little. “How?”
“Now, patience.” The voice answered. “Listen carefully.”