A Day in the Office

This is the second short story I have written and posted online. I had already posted both short stories up on my Facebook profile. The first story is entitled 'The Letter', and the theme is sorrow and regret. You can read it on the post before the last. On the other hand, the second one is entitled 'A Day in the Office', and the theme is more action-based. Needless to say, these stories are entirely fictional, and cannot be published without the permission of the author. In case I didn't make it explicitly clear, I wrote these stories (heh).

A Day in the Office

‘It will go off in Madison Square at 5.00pm sharp.’

The haggard man spoke in a tired voice. His hands were tied behind him, and he was seated on a wooden chair in a dingy and dark room, lit only by a naked light bulb. His eyes were swollen, nose broken and there were bruises everywhere on his body. There were small splatters of blood on the mouldy walls of the room.

Dom glanced at his watch. 3.55pm. He turned away from the man and speed-dialled a number on his mobile phone. He only waited for half a second before the call was connected.

‘This is Martins. Priority one alert. Bomb is located at Madison Square, scheduled to go off at 5pm.’

Dom held the phone for a split second longer before turning around to face the bounded man, whose name was Amund. Dom loathed threatening and using violence to anyone. But he had no choice. He had no time, and thousands of innocent lives are at stake. And Amund was a well known terrorist. He was wanted in at least 5 countries. More than that, he was a gifted bomb maker. And right now, Dom wanted to be sure.

‘You sure that it will go off at Madison Square at exactly 5pm?’

The bounded man groaned and whispered, ‘Yes, I speak the truth. And since I helped you, you let me go. We had a deal.’

Now the tricky part. Dom put on his best poker face. ‘Yes, we had a deal. But you still wasted a great deal of time of my time. You repeatedly lied to me. In fact, you lied to me again. ‘

In spite of himself, Dom watched with grim satisfaction as Amund flinched. Dom somehow had the innate ability to discern when people lied to him. Dom noticed the expression of Amund after making the phone call through the reflection off his mobile phone screen. Dom saw that the man’s face almost twitched into a smile after he made the phone call, and knew that Amund was withholding something.

Dom continued speaking. ‘Besides, I am not authorised to make deals with terrorists. But I am authorised to use whatever means necessary to extract information from a terrorist in order to save lives of innocents. ‘Dom reached into his holster to pull out his gun, and removed the safety pin. He pointed the gun at Amund’s right knee, and pulled the trigger.

The bullet discharge from the gun was loud in the confined space of the room. Amund cried out in agony. Dom pointed the gun at the left knee.

‘Wait, wait.’ Amund blurted out. ‘There is a bomb at Madison Square, will go off at 5pm, just like I said. But there is another one. It will go off at 4.45pm.’

‘Where is it?’ Dom asked. And the man told him. Dom glanced at his watch again. He exited the room, ignoring the cries of pain from the man. David was outside, talking on his mobile, and his eyebrows arched upwards when he noticed Dom’s gun was not in the holster.

‘..Yes sir. I understand sir.’ David slipped his mobile back into his jacket, and spoke to Dom. ‘Just got here, and the chief called to say that we aren’t needed at Madison Square, our department’s job is done. ‘

Dom rolled his eyes in exasperation and sighed. It’s a well known fact that the heads of the various departments disliked each other, and often do not pool their resources, including information and manpower. He replaced his gun at the holster and said, ‘Well, there’s another bomb. And it’s going off at 4.45pm. Come one, I will explain on the way. No time to waste.’

‘How about the suspect?’ asked David, as both of them jogged to David’s car.

‘Oh, right, I better call the ambulance. I shot him in the knee. ‘ Dom spoke briefly on the phone , before entering David’s car. David started the engine, and asked,’ So, you haven’t told me where the other bomb is. ‘

‘It’s at the Raffles Bridge. I just notify HQ too. Quick, its rush hour, and we haven’t got much time. ‘

As David drove, Dom took the moment to gather his thoughts. He regretted shooting Amund, but he put it at the back of his mind for now. He had more pressing matters to worry about. A bomb going off at the Raffles would be disastrous. Right now, the bridge would be crawling with hundreds of cars. But Dom felt something wasn’t quite right.

David spoke up, ‘You know, I think the bomb at Raffles is just to stop the bomb squad from ever reaching Madison. Because the only way via land to Madison Square is through-‘

‘-the Raffles Bridge. I thought as much. If the bridge gets blown up, then no one is getting to Madison Square, not by land at least.’ Dom gritted his teeth. ‘It’s up to us to find and disarm the bomb at the bridge then.’

By the time they reached the bridge, the local police had already blocked the entrance to the bridge, turning disgruntled motorists away. Even so, hundreds of cars were still on the bridge at this moment. Dom glanced at his watch. 4.35pm.

David parked his car, and grabbed a backpack from the boot. Both of them flashed their ID cards to the police officers manning the entrance.

‘Special Agent Martins, and Special Agent Yuen. We’re here to look for the bomb. ‘said David.

One burly police officer exclaimed, ‘Just you two? I thought they will send the cavalry.’

Dom answered curtly, ‘We are the cavalry. Did the bomb squad heading to Madison enter the bridge already?’

Another officer answered, ‘Yeah, about 10 minutes ago. ‘

Dom calculated briefly in his head. In this traffic, the squad would probably reach Madison in 15 minutes. Yes, they should have enough time to disarm the bomb. Dom hoped for the best, as there was nothing he could do about the Madison Square bomb now.

Dom and David ran to the centre of the bridge. If the terrorists wanted to effectively destroy the bridge, the bomb would definitely be in the centre. As the two agents ran past the cars stuck in the jam, curious motorists glanced at their direction. But Dom and David dutifully ignored them.

4.40pm.

‘You think this is it?’ panted Dom as they reached the centre, marked by steel arcs reaching into the sky. The Raffles Bridge was a spectacular piece of architecture and engineering, the pride of the local town.

‘It’s has to be. We got no time left.’ replied David. ‘We got to disarm it.’

Dom understood. 5 minutes left on the clock. Not sufficient time for the cars to clear out of the bridge. If the bomb squad was still on the bridge, they will never reach Madison Square on time.

The terrorists were prepared. They expected agents to attempt to disarm the bomb. Perhaps they had not trusted Amund to keep quiet. Hired mercenaries were told to keep watch over the bombsite, and kill anyone who approaches the bombsite too closely. But they were told the bomb was timed to detonate at 5.00pm. Gunfire greeted the two agents, and they dived into cover. Panic erupted from the motorists, as many people exited of their vehicles and started running towards the other side of the bridge.

‘Dom! I will hold them off. You are the best in disarming bombs! GO!’ shouted David, as he turned around to return fire.

It was true. As counter-terrorism field agents, Dom and David were trained in every aspect of counter-terrorism. Gun battles, interrogation, and bomb disarming. David was the sharpshooter of their batch, and Dom got top marks in bomb-disarming. Dom grabbed David’s backpack and climbed the ladder down the bridge.

The bomb wasn’t difficult to find. It was the kind with a digital timer attached. It wasn’t terribly hard to construct, and that’s the scary part about making bombs. Anyone with the right knowledge and tools could do it.

4.43pm.

Dom unzipped the backpack and took out a wire cutter. He untangled the mass of wires from the centre of the bomb. Red, green, blue, yellow, black and pink wires. Dom gulped. He had never seen this before. He had no time to individually check each wire to determine which was connected to the charge. Dom briefly considered cutting 1 wire at random. 1 in 6 chances to get it right. The odds were stacked against him.

Dom shook his head, as if to clear his increasingly panicky thoughts. ‘There must be another way. Think, Dom, think.’ muttered Dom to himself.

4.44pm.

He examined the back of the bomb. It had straps attached to it, just like a backpack. This must be how the terrorists carried the bomb here. It was rather big and cumbersome. Someone must have strapped it onto himself to carry it here. Dom had an idea. He quickly stripped himself of his jacket and strapped the bomb onto his back. He jumped into the cold, grimy water of the Raffles River, and started swimming as hard as he could away from the bridge. 10...20...30...Dom mentally counted the seconds away as he swam. When he counted till 40, Dom unstrapped the bomb from his back, and weighed it on his hands. It was big, but it wasn’t heavy. Was he far away enough from the bridge? Too late to do anything about that. With as much strength he could muster, Dom threw the bomb away from himself as he dived underwater. Almost instantaneously, the bomb exploded. Dom resurfaced and looked around. Pieces of the bomb were floating around him, but he was unscathed and the bridge was intact. He had succeeded!

A wave of exhaustion hit Dom. He had succeeded against all odds, yet he felt no sense of elation. He just wanted to close his eyes and sleep. The water current carried him to the banks of the river, and David was there to greet him.

‘Dom, that was incredible. You just saved hundreds of lives, including mine!’ grinned David, as he pulled Dom out of the river. ‘You all right?’

Dom nodded and managed a tired smile. ‘I will be fine. You are welcome by the way. You owe me a drink later. I assume you manage to kill every one of the baddies at the bridge?’

David’s mobile buzzed as it received a text message. David laughed and said, ‘I had some help from the police.’ He then read the text message, and Dom noticed David’s face paled considerably.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Dom, concerned.

‘The bomb went off earlier than 5pm at Madison. Probably remote controlled. 5 members of the bomb squad were killed. More than 30 civilians were killed too. More could have perished, but evacuation had commenced before the bomb squad arrived. ‘ answered David, shaking his head.

Dom swore. Amund didn’t tell them everything again.

‘And your drink will have to wait, Dom.’ continued David. ‘The chief wants us for a counter operation tonight. We are to report to HQ ASAP. We have possible intelligence about the terrorists’ leader’s location.’

Dom sighed. Rest will have to wait. It was already a long day for him. He spent the better part of the morning trailing Amund, before spying on the bomb maker the whole afternoon as he rested in his secluded room. On the chief’s orders, he burst into the room and interrogated Amund for the bomb’s location. After that, he went the bridge and tried to disarm the bomb, but had to swim in the slimy waters of the river in order to get rid of the bomb. Now, it seems that he will spend the night involved in some insanely dangerous counter terrorism operation. Another typical day in the office. Dom inhaled deeply and stood up.

‘All right then. Let’s go.’