BXBX NOVEL Chapter 26: 26 Thank You
On the front, there might just be a small hole, but the exit wound in the back was the size of a bowl.
Blood, brain matter, and body tissue splattered in an instant, staining the walls on both sides of the corridor. Joe Ga, who was a step too late, slipped and rolled, scrambling toward the elevator. As shouts chased him from behind, he dashed into the safety passage and desperately ran upward.
While running, Joe Ga pulled out his handgun and two magazines, holding them in his hands. When he reached the second floor, he forcefully pushed open the safety door and burst into the hotel's second floor elevator lobby.
Seeing the man in the black suit loudly scolding the female waitstaff he had seen earlier, Joe Ga waved his hand and shouted in Arabic, "Run, hurry up and run."
As Joe Ga yelled, a burst of bullets hit the safety passage's wooden door, splintering the elevator lobby's stone walls as bullets pierced through.
Joe Ga initially wanted to fire his gun to cover the two and disrupt the pursuers behind him, but the man in the black suit and the waitress skillfully dropped to the ground and quickly crawled toward the exit of the elevator lobby.
As the man in the black suit crawled, he consciously dragged a cart to block it in front of the wooden door.
Facing the handgun in Joe Ga's hand, the two didn't seem to be frightened, and as the man in the black suit crawled past, he shouted loudly, "Follow me, I know where the exit is."
Seeing the man's composure, Joe Ga felt he had underestimated the heroes of the world.
Ordinary people, without going through a terror attack eight or ten times, couldn't be as calm as him.
Just a moment ago he was a harsh hotel supervisor, but now he had become a seasoned soldier; this role switch was quite disconcerting for Joe Ga.
What surprised Joe Ga the most was the female waitstaff; the obviously young waitress was also very calm, with no screaming or disarray, she followed closely behind the man in the black suit, hugging the walls as she ran swiftly.
Joe Ga, who had rarely experienced real combat, also realized that sticking to the wall when running was safer, as the terrorists chasing from behind needed time to turn corners, and this would at least gain a second or so of safety.
However, Joe Ga didn't make the same choice as the waitress. He dashed into an open dining room, relying on the Roman columns for cover as he sprinted, and turned to fire four shots at the terrorists who had just rounded the corner behind him, hitting two who were running the fastest.
The deaths caused the pursuers to pause for a moment, then a barrage of gunfire erupted, scaring Joe Ga into hastily taking cover behind a pillar about 50×50.
Huge gunshots echoed continuously in the dining room. Joe Ga awkwardly crouched on the ground trying to minimize his size while fumbling for a tactical vest with a bulletproof plate, struggling to pull it over himself in an awkward position.
Having no time to adjust it and hearing the sound of the trigger-happy terrorists changing their magazines, Joe Ga's first reaction was to rush out with his handgun firing repeatedly.
Eleven bullets were emptied in two seconds. Joe Ga lightly pressed the magazine release, the magazine inside the handgun fell out, and at the same moment, his left hand slotted a new one in.
With two more shots, he blew the heads off the last two terrorists who could still move. Just as Joe Ga was about to follow the man in the black suit and flee the hotel, he saw the man running back from the corner at a faster speed than before, with four terrorists chasing behind him.
This time, the man behaved heroically. He vigorously pushed the female waitress ahead of him while continuously pulling objects from both sides to create obstacles.
As he approached the dining room, the man in the black suit glanced at Joe Ga, who was holding a gun, and in the instant gunfire erupted behind him, he forcefully pushed the waitress into the dining room and then suddenly lunged forward, sliding on the ground for over ten meters, and dove into a pile of corpses, seizing an AK from atop the dead to return fire.
Joe Ga, because of the angle, remained out of the terrorists' firing line. As the man in the black suit retaliated, drawing all the gunfire towards him, Joe Ga peeked out from behind the pillar and opened fire.
Joe Ga's shooting touch was very strong, especially with a handgun.
Now without the pressure of incoming bullets, Joe Ga aimed for the head...
"Bang, bang, bang, bang," four rapid shots rang out, and the heads of four terrorists instantly exploded.
After succeeding, Joe Ga proactively helped the waitress up and was just about to grab the man in the black suit when gunfire erupted again from the elevator area they had come from…
The man in the black suit, holding his gun, stood up, took a spare magazine from a corpse, and hobbled over to Joe Ga's side. He gave a strange look at Joe Ga's hand holding the waitress, then said, "We can't get out, the fire escape and garbage chute have both been sealed. We can only stall for time and wait for rescue…"
Joe Ga didn't want to stay in this place. If the SD troops were really that capable, how could there possibly be terrorists here?
Counting on them to save people was even less reliable than figuring it out himself.
Hearing the screams and gunfire from the elevator area, Joe Ga glanced outside the restaurant window at the embassy across the way, where about a dozen armed police in blue military uniforms had established a defensive line.
Unwilling to sit and wait for death, Joe Ga looked at the man in the black suit and said, "There should be a green belt below the restaurant. We can jump down. A fall from 5 meters won't kill us."
The man in black hesitated for a moment, then glanced at the waitress, who had been silent all along, and finally nodded vigorously, saying, "Let's jump, then hurry—"
Joe Ga didn't need his reminder. He rushed over, opened the window, and flipped down, landing smoothly on the green belt.
Unfortunately, a squad of terrorists was escorting guests through the hotel's first-floor landscape corridor to the lobby.
Seeing Joe Ga descending from the sky, both sides froze for a moment, then Joe Ga was the first to act, raising his gun and pulling the trigger.
"Bang, bang, bang, bang…"
With a series of gunshots, five out of the six terrorists went down.
The last lucky terrorist, who had been standing behind his comrades, shot Joe Ga in the chest, causing him to groan in pain and fall backward into a flower bed, his head hitting the ground hard.
Just as the terrorist was raising his AK, searching for an angle to finish off Joe Ga, a bullet from across the street struck his forehead.
Joe Ga, clutching his chest, struggled to his feet, only to hear from the embassy gate a hundred meters away, several armed police in blue waving their arms desperately shouting, "Run—"
The terrorists in the hotel lobby noticed the commotion here and were rushing this way.
Even though he was wearing a bulletproof vest, being hit by bullets still felt extremely bad.
Most importantly, Joe Ga's head had struck the ground, and he was feeling extremely dizzy and uncomfortable.
As he struggled to find his balance, a hand supported his armpit. The waitress, who had been silent until now, had also jumped down and was helping Joe Ga run towards the embassy.
Meanwhile, the man in the black suit, upon landing, turned around and fired continuously at the second floor to prevent terrorists there from attacking them from above.
After his magazine was empty, he discarded his gun and ran, but as he neared Joe Ga and the waitress, he jolted, his chest erupting in a burst of blood.
Finally showing a response, the previously silent waitress let out a pained howl upon seeing the man in black fall. She released Joe Ga and turned to help the man in the black suit, but two riot shields closed behind them, and two muscular armed police pulled them quickly into the gateway of the embassy.
The moment his steps entered the embassy grounds, Joe Ga's buzzing head could no longer hold on…
He said a 'thank you' to the police who had saved him, then promptly fainted.