Chapter 16: The Final Showdown It was a long drive out into Long Island. And a good day to do it. There was a chill in the autumn air but the sun was shining brightly from a cloudless sky. As Frankie and Martin headed out in Martin's truck Eastbound on the Long Island Expressway, the tightly packed city apartment buildings in Queens made way for the compact but somewhat more open suburban neighborhoods in Nassau County. By the time they got to Suffolk County, even the suburbs had turned to loose and sprawling developments with plenty of open spaces and parks in between them. As they got further, the distances between the exits on the Expressway increased until they were several miles apart, which is quite a distance for a heavily populated island next to the city. The sign read Manorville. After about an hour of driving on the Expressway, that, at last, was their exit. Martin turned the wheel ever so slightly and the truck coasted up the ramp to the overpass. At the top of the ramp, he made a right, followed quickly by a left onto a smaller road. It was a pretty isolated neighborhood. A few houses huddled together near the main road were all they could see. Past the last house, the paved road turned into a hard packed dirt road as it entered the woods. The truck bumped and skipped over the ruts and grooves in the dirt road but neither Frankie nor Martin felt much of anything. Having big tires on the truck was quite an advantage. Frankie knew that in his own compact sized car, he would have felt every bump in the dirt road. The woods had a lot in common with the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. In fact, a small sign on the Long Island Expressway did identify the area as the Long Island Pine Barrens. Most of the trees were of the short scrub pine variety interspersed with shrub oak. Underbrush was minimal because over the eons, the pine trees had evolved a special sap that encouraged burning. Every now and then a forest fire would start somewhere in the woods and burn away all the undergrowth. And so, the trees would be able to grow unimpeded for a few more years. "So are you sure the Red Rooster and my sister will be there?" asked Frankie. "Yeah. The operative said so. He had to or I would have left him in the Chinese finger trap," said Martin with a bit of a smirk. "If they aren't there, we can come back another day. No problem." "You're kidding? It's heck of a long way to get here," whined Frankie. "Oh, we can make a day of it. I know a couple of good beaches down in Bellport," said Martin. "Walk along the sand. Then a romantic Italian dinner by candlelight." "No way," said Frankie, turning to his side to look out the window at the pine trees whizzing by. Martin shrugged. "Never hurts to try." About a mile down the dirt road, they came across a clearing in the woods. In the middle of the clearing stood a delapidated wooden hut. While it was basically intact, some of the planks had fallen out of the walls so that one could see right through the hut at certain angles. "That's it?" asked Frankie. "That's what the guy said. Let's check it out," replied Martin. He turned the truck off the dirt road. Then he turned the truck around and parked it on the grass in the clearing. They got out. It still looked like an abandoned shack in the woods until they got really close. Then through the front doorway, Frankie saw that a set of stone steps led down below the ground. "Bingo!" said Martin. "Got everything we need?" Frankie waved the Uzi Pistol that he was holding. "Hey, watch where you point that thing," Martin chuckled. They went down the steps slowly. "Do you think there are any booby traps in this place?" asked Frankie. "I don't know. It's hard to tell," said Martin. "Just keep your little ferret eyes peeled for anything unusual." "This whole place is unusual," Frankie pointed out. "Okay, point taken," said Martin. They got down to the bottom of the stone steps. The passageway stretched out in front of them. Frankie noticed that this time it was not a stone passageway. The walls and floor were shiny steel. A single naked lightbulb hanging down from the steel ceiling provided the illumination. Every step they took on the steel floor seemed to echo again and again. "Looks like stealth is not going to be easy," said Martin. The hairs on Frankie's back stood on end. "Shh," he said. "Listen." Martin listened. He heard a creaking sound. "Yeah, I hear that. Did we trigger a trap of some kind?" Frankie looked down at his feet. His left foot was on a rectangular groove in the otherwise completely smooth steel floor. "Oh crap," he said. Martin looked ahead and saw what was happening. "A steel wall!" he exclaimed. "It's coming down ahead." In the passageway ahead of them, a steel partition came creaking down slowly from the ceiling. Both of them started running. Frankie dived for the opening and did a head over heels tumble to the other side. Martin followed closely behind, sliding under the descending steel partition. He managed to pull his left foot through just before the steel partition slammed against the floor with a thud. They picked themselves up and dusted themselves off as folks who tumble around in action movies usually do afterwards. "Ah well. I guess if they have some kind of alarm system, they probably know about us by now," said Frankie. "Jump!" said Martin, with a sudden look of alarm. Frankie jumped and flipped over, narrowly avoiding a steel pole, about five inches in diameter, that came out from the left wall and slammed into the right wall. "Run!" yelled Martin. The two of them ran down the steel hallway, four feet going clang clang clang on the steel floor, as steel pole after steel pole slammed into the wall. Frankie didn't even dare look back because as each steel pole slammed into the wall across from where it shot out of the wall, he heard a clang that was practically right at his back. There was no time to stop or turn around. After some running, they arrived at more normal looking hallway with whitewashed doors on each side. Catching his breath, Frankie turned around to look back at the steel hallway. The steel poles were pretty close together, perhaps only about three feet apart. They were not all at the same height from the floor though and ranged from three to six feet above the floor. As Frankie watched, he saw the steel poles retract and disappear into the wall. This part of the hallway was more of a standard secret underground hideout hallway. The plastered walls were painted a dull grey. There were doors painted white at regular intervals down the hallway. Small lamps on the ceiling provided the necessary lighting. They continued walking down the hallway. As in the other hideout, the final doorway at the end of the hallway led into a bigger room. As they got close, they kept near the wall so as not to be seen by anyone who might in the room. Finally, they got to the doorway. Peeking into the room from behind the doorway, Frankie saw the familiar setup. His sister was strapped into a hospital bed in the middle of the room. Again, she was hooked up via an intravenous tube from her left arm to a large blocky beige machine next to the bed. It was one of several large waist high beige machines scattered around the room. Like the other hideout, this room too had steel cabinets on the walls all around. One of the cabinet doors was ajar and Frankie could see that it was just bursting with gauze and tape, which had started spilling out onto the floor. Apart from his sister, no one else seemed to be in the room. "Looks like the Red Rooster and his henchmen aren't here today," said Frankie. "Good. Let's just grab your sister and get the heck out of here," said Martin. "Hey, watch it with the grabbing. That's my sister you're talking about," said Frankie. "Okay, okay," Martin rolled his eyes. "Not my type, remember?" They entered the room. Frankie stepped up to the hospital bed. His sister, Freda, seemed to be asleep. Her eyes were closed as she lay on the thin mattress atop the framework of steel. He leaned over and said softly, "Freda, can you hear me? Can you hear me now?" Only then did he realize how cheesy that sounded. Freda blinked. She gazed wide eyed at Frankie. "It's me, Frankie," said Frankie. Freda broke into a big smile. "Frankie!" Frankie continued, "Umm... this is Martin." He pointed at Martin. "He's going to help me get you out of here." "Hi," said Martin. "Uhh, let's do this quickly." "Righto" said Frankie, as he carefully removed the tube from Freda's left arm. Then he undid the straps of her restraints and helped her up to a sitting position. "You know, this is almost too easy." "Correct," boomed a voice from behind. Frankie turned around. He saw the Red Rooster standing in the doorway. Quickly, Frankie and Martin drew their weapons. Frankie pointed the Uzi pistol at the Red Rooster. Martin too pointed his submachine gun at the red rooster. "Uh uh," said the Red Rooster. "Where are your manners?" He was holding a small black device in his right hand. As he spoke, he pushed the button on that device. The guns flew out of their hands and got stuck to the ceiling. Frankie's large gun with the pearl white handle left his leather holster and flew upwards. And then, it too got stuck to the ceiling. "Powerful electromagnets in the ceiling. Because you never know who might drop by," said the Red Rooster, before breaking into an evil laugh. It didn't seem like he would be able to do that in his red rooster suit but his expression darkened. And he said, "You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" From behind the Red Rooster, the two golden retrievers in black suits and dark glasses came running into the room, followed by the lion and the tiger at a more moderate pace. The first dog lunged at Frankie with both hands out. Frankie ducked and jumped to one side as the first dog went tumbling over. The second dog attacked Martin with a jump and a kick. Martin blocked the kick with his left arm and then grabbed the dog's leg with his right hand and gave it a twist and push, sending the dog spinning through the air. "Wow, what a move," said Frankie. "I saw Neo do that just the other day," chuckled Martin. "Although why would he, when he could control the entire Matrix with his mind?" The lion and tiger attacked simultaneously. Martin ducked a punch from the lion while Frankie dodged to the left, narrowly missing a punch from the tiger. Quickly, he grabbed Martin's shoulder and flipped himself over Martin. For a split second, he was doing a handstand on top of Martin's shoulders. Swinging his left leg out to the front and his right leg out to the back, he planted kicks in both the lion and the tiger's faces at the same time, sending them reeling over. Frankie flipped over again and landed on his feet in front of Martin. "Wow, what a move!" said Martin. "Ummm... correspondence course?" said Frankie with a grin. In the meantime, the two dogs had gotten up again and lunged at Frankie and Martin. Frankie ducked but the first dog got a hold of his jacket collar and brought him down to the floor too. He tried to get up but the first dog had gotten him into a tangle of legs. The second dog swung at Martin with a punch. He ducked to the left. The second dog swung again with his left arm. Martin ducked under the dog's swing and rammed his head into the dog's abdomen. Then he lifted up the second dog on his shoulder. The dog flailed around but to no avail. Frankie was still stuck in the leg hold. "Uhh how do I get out of this?" Martin laughed. "I'll show you." He brought the second dog over and with one movement, tossed the second dog onto the first dog. The first dog yelped and wriggled, enabling Frankie to get out. "I owe ya," he said. "Hmm... what can I use that for," said Martin, stroking his chin with his right hand. "Duck!" he yelled. Frankie bowed down just as the tiger swung a wooden plank at his head from behind. Martin cried "Wh..." but that was all he could say for in the next moment, all he saw was stars as he collapsed to the ground. As Frankie ducked, he saw the lion, also with a wooden plank, behind Martin. He put a hand out and was about to pull Martin out of the lion's swing but he was too late. He saw the plank strike Martin right in the temple. And in the next second, the fight was lost as the tiger jumped on Frankie's back and pushed down, pinning him to the floor. "Tsk Tsk," went the Red Rooster. "Two overconfident warriors meet their doom." With a bit of a strut, the Red Rooster strode into the room, stopping where Frankie was being held down by the tiger. "How ironic," he said. "For now you die by your own weapon." He was still holding the little black device in his right hand. He pushed the button again. All of a sudden, the guns were unstuck and they fell from the ceiling. Reaching out with his left hand, he caught the gun with the pearl white handle. "Hope you've been a good boy," said the Red Rooster in a sinister tone of voice. "I heard from Gary Shandling that hell doesn't do very much for one's hair." He pointed the gun at Frankie's head and pulled the trigger. To Frankie, the click of the gun sounded louder than the loudest thunderclap in the world. He saw the bullet, a cylindrical piece of lead with a point at one end, fly out of the muzzle of the gun in slow motion. It seemed to hang in the air, taking its time. And then it was all over as the bullet broke through his skull. In his mind's eye, he saw a brilliant flash of white and then he lost all feeling in his body as his consciousness faded and everything turned to darkness.