Space & Time

Chapter 28 - It's a Father Son Thing

Standing in the penthouse window, Forty-Four and Ivan had just strapped Tannin into a

rappelling harness. They were quickly checking their ropes and getting ready to jump. The team

leader Radioed Thirty-Seven to start moving back to the planes, the mission was over.

On the other side of the room, Fredrik was done laying still. He had been crawling ever

so slowly toward where Michelle‟s body was laying. During the chaos after the explosion he

took cover and stayed hidden.

Now there was a small chance for him to save Tannin. Once he got to Michelle‟s body,

he reached around the floor searching for the cold steel of her pistol. She had a small semi-

automatic. During the shoot out, he counted one shot at the lamp and two more at one of the

men with his dad. That would leave a few bullets in the gun and he hoped he wouldn‟t need

many.

Fredrik sprang up and yelled, "Dad, stop right there!" He was pointing the borrowed

pistol at Ivan.

Forty-Four was surprised. He looked at Ivan.

Ivan could not believe it. His son was in the room the whole time. "Ah, Fredrik, there you

are, how nice of you to join us son. Sorry to say, we must be going." He calmly said as the two

men stepped toward the window.

"Ivan, let Tannin go. He is just a boy. Let him go to his family. They need each other

now, after what you did. Let him go! I'm not afraid to use this pistol."

Ivan, paused and looked into his son's eyes, then he replied looking down the barrel of

the pistol his son was aiming at him, "I am sure you aren't son, but I need leverage and this boy

is good leverage. Also, I'm not afraid to use mine either."

Ivan drew his pistol and lifted it toward Fredrik.

Fredrik quickly reacted by squeezing the trigger of the gun in his hands. Somehow, time

seemed to slow down for him.

He felt his hands steady and next the feeling the recoil the muzzle made when the

bullet exploded from the chamber and launched down the barrel toward his father. Fredrik‟s

bullet found its mark.

Forty-Four instinctively began his rappel out the shattered window with Tannin as soon as Ivan 

began to raise his weapon. Forty-Four knew that either way the outcome was the same, one 

person would die, Ivan or Fredrick, and he needed to evacuate quickly.

As the bullet pierced Ivan's cheekbone below his left eye, he did not immediately die.

He thought to himself as the force of the impact knocked him out of the window that he just

might live if he could grab the line he was tied to and slow his fall.

His thoughts were unrealistic as half of his face was blown off, his nerve endings were

severed as well so he felt no pain in the area that was gone. Even if he could have slowed his

tumble, he would not have lived much longer. As it happened, the rope quickly tangled around