Chapter 1139: The Sewer and the Shower Room (Patreon)

Anyone with experience living in the countryside knows that fermented manure smells slightly worse than fresh manure—just like the sewer they were passing through now.

This hellish place hadn’t been cleaned in at least half a century. Gusbey was carefully choosing where to place his feet, doing his best not to think about the damp, slippery, and squishy things beneath him.

Wearing quad-lens night vision goggles, they had been groping through the darkness for nearly twenty minutes. Just as the doctor began to worry about methane poisoning, Mason, who was leading the way, climbed up a badly rusted metal ladder, followed by the rest of the team.

“Which one is the entrance to the tunnel?” Sonny muttered, looking at the five or six pipe openings arranged at various heights in front of them.

For firepower support, Sonny’s secondary weapon was still his favorite Mk46 MOD0 light machine gun. Vice team leader Ray Perry also carried an SR25 semi-automatic sniper rifle for long-range support.

Most of the SEALs chose the Noveske N4 as their primary weapon. For their secondary, they went with the MDX508 short-barrel assault rifle, a model Jack was also familiar with.

However, the SEALs’ version had a barrel much shorter than the 8.5-inch one used by Jack’s fugitive task force team—only 5.5 inches long, making it barely distinguishable from a standard submachine gun that fired handgun rounds.

When using subsonic .300BLK rounds with suppressors, even without tactical ear protection, the gunfire was relatively ear-friendly in such a confined environment.

Seeing Sonny rest his hand on one of the pipe grates, Mason pointed to his left. “That still leads to the sewer. That one is the tunnel entrance.”

The burly Sonny walked over to the indicated entrance, slightly bent down, took a firm stance, and with a grunt, tore off the rusted grate.

“Thank you, Mr. Mason,” Clay patted Mason’s shoulder—a gesture of partial acknowledgment.

The SEALs, including Clay who had just arrived, didn’t know the details of Mason’s entanglement with the FBI. But generally speaking, anyone secretly imprisoned by the FBI for decades was unlikely to be ordinary.

While they didn’t know Mason, they trusted Jack—especially Clay, who understood how much Jack treasured his FK7.5.

If Jack was willing to hand over his prized backup gun to Mason, and given the man’s performance just now, that was enough to earn them a degree of goodwill.

After crawling through a short section of tunnel and prying open another iron grate, a blast of damp, cold air hit them in the face. B5 Brock Reynolds, the point man, jumped down first.

After confirming the area was clear, he whistled, signaling the rest to follow, one by one, into the knee-deep sewage.

Gusbey misjudged the height and let out a short yelp as he landed. Fortunately, a strong arm grabbed his collar and pulled him up before he could plunge headfirst into the muck.

“Watch your step.” Jack helped him to the side, and after confirming he wasn’t hurt, let him rest by the grimy tunnel wall.

The tunnel wasn’t long. Based on their estimates, they’d reach the base of the prison block soon. The other SEALs were scouting ahead, giving the rest of them a brief moment to rest.

Gusbey took a deep breath. This area seemed to have been converted into part of the storm drainage system. While it still had a faint stench, it was far better than the sewage tunnel full of filth.

At least there were now some screeching sewer creatures around—rats.

Mason sat beside Gusbey, grinning as he watched Jack use a Snickers bar as bait to catch over a dozen little Jerry mice, stuffing them into a bag.

“You seem to be enjoying this environment,” Gusbey asked, pale-faced and confused.

“It’s certainly better than monotonous prison life, don’t you think?” Mason gave a slight smile, his white teeth especially bright under the dim tactical flashlight.

“Inside, other than looking forward to the guards bringing me two new books each week, all I could do was ponder boring philosophical questions—and worry about getting raped during showers.

That said, things seemed to have gotten better in recent years. Maybe it’s because I’m old and no longer attractive,” Mason added, half-joking.

“I thought you were held in solitary confinement after your two escape attempts,” Jack mercilessly exposed his lie.

“But I am a bit curious,” Jack sat down beside them, his bag now noticeably heavy with the squirming, squeaking Jerry mice that made Gusbey’s skin crawl. “Why didn’t you trade those things for your freedom?”

“Hand them over to that old bastard Womack?” Mason shook his head with a hint of disdain. “Are you sure the result of giving them up would be freedom—and not something else?”

Jack hesitated. He hadn’t considered that.

His own director’s previous behavior had made him slightly contemptuous as well. But on reflection, if Womack were truly an idiot, why wasn’t Rossi or Rossi’s ‘Little Muffin’ in that position instead?

He could only shrug. “Okay, but at least one thing’s certain—whether or not you gain your freedom after this, your daughter Jade will be safe.”

“Someone once made a similar promise. I’m curious—what’s your relationship with him?” Mason’s expression was an amused smirk.

“David Rossi is kind of like my mentor,” Jack replied bluntly. Before the operation, he had privately chatted with Rossi during a break.

As Jack suspected, Rossi had been involved in both manhunts after Mason’s escapes. The two were old acquaintances, maybe even mutual admirers.

In Rossi’s own words: “If it weren’t for duty, we might have been friends.”

Gusbey didn’t understand what they were talking about. He was more concerned about Jack’s disturbing bag. “Jack, why are you catching so many rats?”

Jack lifted the bag and gave a mysterious smile. “You’ll see soon enough.”

Water splashed as tactical flashlights wobbled. Clay came running toward them and asked Mason, “The path ahead is clear. We found the entrance to the prison shower room. How far from the maintenance hatch you mentioned?”

“Ninety-seven steps. Once we finish this stretch, we’ll be right below the showers.” Mason got up and resumed the lead.

Behind them, Jack’s expression turned a bit grim. Though many details from the original show were fuzzy, he vividly remembered the iconic scene where the strike team got wiped out in the shower room.

Granted, Jason’s SEALs were far more capable than the seemingly elite team from the original. Plus, they had the protagonist aura. But this wasn’t their turf, and that aura might not kick in.

Getting ambushed was something to be avoided. But the showers were the best infiltration point into the prison block, especially since drone footage showed the enemy command center was located there.

So when Jason’s team was making their raid plan, Jack couldn’t just say: “Dr. Gusbey is right, the VX missiles are in the morgue of the prison hospital nearby. Let’s head there directly.”

The prison block was the island’s most fortified building. If it could keep inmates from escaping, it could also prevent intruders from entering. Once that two-ton steel door closed, even SEALs would have a hard time breaking in.

The plan was to infiltrate the prison, ideally capture or kill General Hammer, or disable their command. That was the best outcome.

At worst, they’d get a couple of prisoners and force out the location of the missiles and launchers—an optimal strategy.

After moving 97 steps through a two-meter-wide, long-dried-out shower drain, they reached the base of the maintenance hatch Mason had mentioned. A metal ladder led upward.

B5 Brock Reynolds extended the probe of a fiber optic camera through the hatch. Unsurprisingly, he spotted a laser motion sensor mounted right on the hatch.

“I could try to disable it. These things are simple—just an invisible beam across the hatch. Block it, and it trips the alarm.”

As he spoke, Brock reached for his toolkit but was stopped by Jack.

“Don’t you think it’s strange? If it were a simple laser sensor, they’d put it in a distant corner where it’d be harder to find. Why place it so obviously on the hatch?”

Jack’s question made Brock pause. After a moment’s hesitation, he realized, lowered his voice, and stopped moving.

“You’re right. This is likely a trap. It probably has vibration detection. I may have already triggered the alarm just now.”

“We’ll find out.” Jack handed him the bag with a smile.

——

“The shower alarm’s been triggered, sir! We’ve got company!”

The shout came from the command center in the prison guardroom, startling several dozing soldiers and General Hammer, who was smoking a cigar while gazing out the window.

“Damn it! I knew it—they’d definitely send someone!”

“Kill them!”

Grabbing their weapons, the soldiers sprinted down the hallway.

The prison showers were only a few dozen meters from the guardroom command center. Aside from two teams stationed elsewhere, General Hammer and nine soldiers reached the shower room in under two minutes.

The shower room was large enough for thirty to forty people to use simultaneously, with an upper and lower level. For easier monitoring, an open walkway was installed on the second floor.

The soldiers quickly secured the high ground on the second-floor walkway, aiming their guns downward.

Someone flipped the main breaker, lighting up the old tungsten bulbs. Guns were trained on the open shower area—only to find it empty except for dozens of squeaking rats.

“Fuck!”

One black soldier, relieved but annoyed, cursed and adjusted his black beret. He mocked his teammate, “This is the special trap you bragged about? We came here for this?”

“Damn rats,” grumbled a soldier with Asian features, spitting in frustration.

Two soldiers escorted General Hammer down to the center of the shower room. Shining a flashlight down the maintenance hatch, they found nothing.

Hammer picked up the knocked-over motion sensor, eyes thoughtful. One soldier lay down, pressed his ear to the hatch, and shook his head.

Looking at the soaking-wet, darting little Jerry mice that weren’t even afraid of people, Hammer turned to the black soldier in the beret.

“I remember you mentioned having something good for clearing sewers. Let’s try it.”

The soldier grinned menacingly. “You sure, General?”

“Absolutely, Captain. Those pipes are a maze. Who knows if bigger ‘rats’ got in. Let’s do a full cleanup.”

——

Underground.

All the SEALs had withdrawn from the pipe, standing in knee-deep water pressed against the mossy walls, not daring to breathe loudly.

“What are we waiting for?” Gusbey whispered in Jack’s ear.

“Waiting to see if they’ll send anyone down. If we can grab a live one, we’ll learn their layout.”

Jack was in a good mood. The biggest risk had been avoided—now it was time for a real fight. With the strength of him and SEAL Team B, they weren’t afraid of an evenly matched opponent.

Suddenly, a loud clang echoed. Team leader Jason, face camouflaged with paint, smiled and gave Jack a thumbs-up from across the pipe.

But the smile faded quickly—there was only that one sound. Then silence.

After waiting a while, Jason, puzzled, pulled down his quad-lens goggles and peeked into the pipe—nothing. No one had descended from the hatch as expected.

Just then, Mason sniffed the air and muttered, “What’s that smell?”

Smell? Jack was also puzzled. Thanks to his System, he could enhance or suppress his senses. He had reduced his sense of smell to near anosmia back when they first entered the nauseating sewer.

As he debated whether to restore his sense of smell to normal, a sharp whistling pierced the tunnel air. A blast of heat rushed down the pipe, and fire instantly filled their vision.