The entire cafeteria was surprised and looking at Dr. Erik Seinberg who shouting hysterically for Bolena like a mad man. Erik had been working in the Apropos lab for more than a decade and was well known amount the personnel of the Apropos facility. All the personnel including Mary began to wonder what Bolena might have done to compel him to behave in such a manner.
"Dr. BOLENA! WHERE ARE YOU? PLEASE, I NEED TO DO THIS," he continued to shout waving a lighter in one hand and holding a vial filled with some transparent liquid in the other.
A couple of guards soon came by and started to ask him to calm down. But Dr. Seinberg continued to shout and even threatened the guards that he is holding on to a very inflammable liquid and dropping it would cause an explosion that would take them all out.
Observing that the situation with the guards and Dr. Seinberg was deteriorating by the second, Balthazar decided that it would be for the best if he intervened to calm him down.
"I will try to cam the guy down or stop him. You ask the guards to take their leave," said Balthazar looking at Bolena and Albert.
"Sure, Sean is already by the cafeteria and Nolan's on the way. Stall him for 3 minutes and he will be in place to take him out," said Albert planning to take them out.
"You want to take him out? kill him?" asked Bolena shocked. She had been working with Dr. Seinberg for more than 4 months and he was a well-known by the personnel of the Apropos labs. She had also met with his family.
"Well, by the looks of it, he isn't going to be stopped by talking to him," said Albert.
"He is just a civilian. He has a little daughter and wife. He is being forced to act like that. He has no background or experience in anything like this. Please, try to stop him and not kill him," requested Bolena.
"Well, it is true that he has no experience at this and is a civilian. I can try something out," said Balthazar.
"Totally unnecessary. We can take him out without any incident or fire accident," said Albert.
"I agree. Just let me try. If I think there is a chance that it might go wrong, I will ask Nolan to shoot," said Balthazar. "In the meantime, check up on his family. Roger was also forced by capturing his family."
"OK. Stay in constant contact with Nolan during your attempt. I will contact Harry to look into the family. Don't take any unnecessary risks," said Albert.
Nodding his head, Balthazar immediately set up a link with Nolan to stay in contact and went out the room to negotiate with Dr. Seinberg.
"Dr. Seinberg. I understand you want to meet with Dr. Bolena," he said loudly to attract Seinberg's attention.
"Who are you? Don't come near me," shouted Dr. Seinberg. He could see a well-groomed dark-brown haired man with green eyes in a black and white business suit walking towards him.
"I am Colonel Blyth," said Balthazar as he continued walking towards him. Dr. Seinberg immediately recognized him as the brother of Bolena. He had seen him in the news and knew that he was responsible for the defense against the apes. If he went against him, he would be in a lot more trouble that attacking Bolena, attacking a military official would probably make him a traitor of the alliance.
"You have nothing to worry about. May I know why you want to meet Dr. Bolena?" said Balthazar as he took his gun out. Sean also began to slowly move around the cafeteria to go behind Dr. Seinberg.
"Why are you taking the gun out? I have a vial which will explode on breaking. It contains Benzyl-alpha-phospho-trinitrochlorate. It will burn through the entire cafeteria," he started saying loudly waving the vial.
"OK. I am putting my gun back," said Balthazar holstering his gun. "Now, please tell me why you are so bent upon attacking Dr. Bolena."
"I can't tell you. I can't tell you. Please tell me where she is?" he continued in hysteria.
"If you are worried about your family. Please, calm yourself. We have a team already working to rescue your daughter and wife," said Balthazar signalling Sean to approach Dr. Seinberg from behind.
"You know where my family are?!" shouted Dr. Seinberg looking at him crazily. "Please, help them. I have received a message about their kidnapping the day before yesterday. I wasn't allowed to go to my home since then. Please, help me. I beg you. Please. Plh."
Sean finally managed to grab the vial from Seinberg's hand. He pulled the other hand and kicked Seinberg's back. Seinberg fell on his face before Balthazar.
"NO! NO! Please don't kill me. Save my daughter," he began shouting as he turned around looking at the person who kicked him.
Balthazar quickly caught Seinberg's arms and held them behind his back to stop him from moving. "Get the vial back to the lab. Everybody stay where they are. No one is to leave the cafeteria until I tell. I will shoot anyone who attempts to," said Balthazar as Dr. Seinberg fell down and started crying.
"Calm down Dr. Seinberg. As I said we already have some of our best already on it. At this time, the best you can do to help your family is to tell us how you were contacted by them," said Balthazar pulling him up.
Despite his attempts to calm him down Dr. Seinberg, the man didn't calm down and continued to bawl for more than five minutes. Balthazar had to finally resort to slapping and beating him up for him to finally stop crying.
"There is a very good chance that your family are safe and have just been captured. Any information you give us would be extremely helpful to free up your family from them," said Balthazar. He took Seinberg to a private room in the cafeteria while he suggested the guards to search the people in cafeteria. Albert continued to stand Bolena at the private room they were in.
"So, the faster you are the better chances you family have. Please start talking," asked Balthazar.
"I don't know how they found me or why they used me. They suddenly met me the night before yesterday and showed me an image of them holding my family captive and let me have a conversation with them," said Seinberg stuttering. His lip was cut, and he couldn't talk properly.
"Wait. Wait. How did you meet them? Where? Describe them?"
"They stopped me on my way after work as I got out of the garage at my home. They seized me and stuffed me in the back of my car as they put a hood on my face and took my communication devices."
"How did they look? Describe them?"
"They wore masks. All three were women and wore full body suits."
"Hmm. Carry on."
"They held me in the hover car and then returned me back to the labs after showing the video. They told me to get a couple of vials of the Benzyl-alpha-phospho-trinitrochlorate. They took one and told me to hold on to the other. They gave me a communication device to use."
"Where is it? Give me the device," asked Balthazar raising his hand to receive it.
"They asked me to incinerate it before I came here. They told me to burn Dr. Bolena."
"OK. Anything else? Their names? Or anything you heard during your time of abduction?"
"Aah. They called each other Alpha, Beta and Gamma. They didn't even use their names."
"The car? They have your car, right? Can we track it. Give me the details," asked Balthazar.
"I don't have my wrist band. It was taken from me. The details were noted on the cloud. I need to access my account at a terminal," said Seinberg.
"You stay here. I will see what we can do," said Balthazar leaving the room. He asked the guards to not let Seinberg out of the room and went to meet Albert and Bolena in another private room.
"They seemed to have taken Dr. Seinberg's car. Can we track it?" he asked Albert.
"I will have Lily and Lila check it out. Harry managed to reach Seinberg's home. They were preparing to break into their room," said Albert as he sent a message to Lily about the car.
A minute later, Harry called them. Albert quickly added the rest of the group. "Both Seinberg's daughter and wife are all right. They were just unconscious on the bed. No trap placed in their room. This I expect would be another dead end."
"So, we found the guy with inflammable chemicals. We managed to stop him with relative ease. Almost feels like they didn't put as much thought into the attack as they put into covering up their tracks," said Balthazar half-heartedly. He was really depressed that even after all this, they failed to get any information on the people pursuing them as hardly left any tracks to pursue.
"What did you say?" asked Bruce.
"I meant that the way they covered their tracks was so unconventional and effective. It had us concerned more about traps and"
"NO. NO. Compared to the way they covered their tracks, they hardly put any thought into the attack. If they really wanted to kill Bolena, they could definitely have done something better," continued Bruce.
"Oh Shit!" shouted Arthur as he immediately cut the call on his side.
"What happened?" asked Balthazar looking at the Yassin, Harry and Albert who were still on the call.
"He realized something important and ran to check it out," replied Yassin.
"Huh?"
"The Orthrus Guardian Group's target Max," continued Yassin.
"Need more than that."
"It was a diversion. The whole plan to attack was a diversion to pull the focus of both your family and my group from Max. They are probably checking out Max's location right now," explained Yassin rolling his eyes.
"That is ridi.." started Balthazar but stopped as he realized that it is an extremely plausible scenario. He looked towards Albert and found him with his mouth open in shock. It was apparent that Albert also was going through the same thought process as him.
A minute later, they received a message informing to put both Balthazar and Bolena in a safe place as Max had managed to escape the Blyth grounds. Albert immediately called Sean, Jordan and Nolan to join them at the cafeteria. He also suggested Harry to return to the headquarters as soon as possible.
"Come on. Both of you," said Albert and began to lead both of them through the cafeteria and towards the lab complex. They soon entered a small bunker which is used to test dangerous substances and might cause explosions. Winston has already had the bunker cleared of all equipment before Albert and Balthazar came to the planet in preparation for such a scenario.
Albert, Balthazar and Bolena entered the bunker and Albert shut the door behind them. Both Balthazar and Bolena tried to contact Winston, Arthur and Walter on their way to the bunker, but there was no response from any of them.
Harry thoroughly searched the Dr. Seinberg's room along with Humayun and Haseem, after they rescued his family and also interrogated the family but couldn't find anything that would help them with tracking down the perpetrators. He returned back to the Apropos headquarters and started to question and investigate the personnel there.
Balthazar and Bolena waited in the bunker along with Albert for more than an hour before they finally got a reply from the family. It was Arthur who finally video called them. Winston was beside him and they seemed to be in Winston's office.
"I have some bad news and good news."
"We got a good news too?" asked Balthazar shocked.
"Well, not much of one actually," replied Arthur.
"Is Max still in our family grounds or custody?" asked Balthazar.
"No. He managed to escape. We had Silas Blyth monitoring him but he somehow managed to put the cameras in a loop and Silas had been poisoned and paralyzed," said Arthur.
"Wait! Wait! Why are we tracking Uncle Max?" asked Bolena surprised.
"OH! How to explain this?" asked Arthur looking uncomfortably towards Winston. Even Winston looked a bit out of odds.
"Let me take this one," said Balthazar to both of them. "You remember that George and dad and mom were assassinated right? I was tracking it with the help of some military contacts, and we ended up finding that Max was the traitor and he was in cahoots with some rebels. That was what led to the attack on the base. We tried our best to make Max think that we knew nothing about him, but it looks like we were wrong."
"Max had helped kill dad. That is ridiculous."
"No. He had been trying to kill me since a long time. He was kind of very good spy. When dad found out that Max was responsible for his brother's death. He had our parents killed before they could get the proof. And now for the same reason, he attempted to kill me, but I still managed to provide the proof to the family."
"Now, that he is sure about me knowing about him, he seems to have attempted to escape the family grounds," continued Balthazar. "The main issue is not Max but the people who are helping him attack us and why? We have no idea about them except the name Dave. Luckily for us, they seem to avoid fighting us outright and prefer to fight in the dark. So, a little bit of security and vigilance would make us very safe."
Bolena found everything that Balthazar told her to be high impossible and truly bizzare. Though Balthazar managed to completely omit the any information about the knights of the Old Republic, it still was a lot for her to take. She could hardly do anything other than sit down in a chair thunderstruck.
"Now that we have gone over that matter, what was the good news?" asked Balthazar looking towards Arthur.
"Max did not manage to completely escape. He is being followed by Elaine and her team on an armed shuttle. There is a good chance that they might catch up with him," replied Arthur.
"That is barely hopeful," said both Albert and Balthazar together.
"Well, that is all we could do. He planned well. It looks like the entire thing from the Burns brothers leaving Asklepian was a pre-planned by Max a long time before Balthazar found out about him. Probably since the time he first betrayed us to help kill George. If he hadn't attempted to kill Robert on his way, he would have escaped without leaving any tracks."
"He even tried to kill Robert. Why?" asked Bolena now tearing up.
"He attempted to kill his own brother and you are asking why he attempted to kill his nephew, the same brother's son?" inquired Balthazar sarcastically rolling his eyes.
"Well! Be that all it may," interjected Winston. "The main thing we called to tell you is that both of you will have to be in lock down till we manage to get a hold of Max. Just to be on the safe side. Once we have him caught or killed, we wouldn't have anyone in our family with high-level access and we can relax with your security then."