red moscow

Chapter 2711 Missing
Two cars arrived at the entrance of Hoflin Hospital, where a police car was parked with two uniformed police officers standing next to it.

Although one of the oncoming vehicles was a police car, the diligent uniformed police officer still raised his hand to stop the car.

A uniformed police officer came over and looked into Sokov's car. After seeing Victoria sitting in the passenger seat, he stood at attention and saluted, then asked politely, "Major, what can I do for you?"

Victoria asked the uniformed police outside, "Is the rescue work in the hospital still going on?"

"It ended yesterday, Major," the uniformed police officer replied respectfully, "The people involved in the rescue said that there is no one left inside, so there is no need to continue the search."

"Can we go in?"

Hearing Victoria's question, the uniformed police officer showed an embarrassment on his face. Obviously, he had received an order not to allow strangers to enter the Hovlin Hospital to avoid any accidents. But now the officer in front of him was much higher in rank than him, and it seemed inappropriate to stop him from entering the hospital.

Just as the uniformed police were in a dilemma, Victoria spoke up, "I got the news that there are still three citizens trapped underground in the hospital. We are here to rescue them. Don't worry, if your superiors blame you, I will help you explain."

Since Victoria had said this, the uniformed police realized that it was obviously inappropriate for them to stop the other party, so they quickly took a step back and gestured to Sokov to drive the car in.

After arriving at the last parking spot, Sokov parked the car and turned to ask Victoria: "Vika, do you know where the rescue passage dug by the police is?"

Fortunately, Victoria had done her homework before coming here, so she was not stumped by Sokov's question: "Don't worry, I know where the rescue passage is. I'll take you there when we are ready."

Victoria opened the car door and got out. Sasha and Yarosh, who were in the car behind, got out, walked straight to the back of the car, opened the trunk, and took out the rescue equipment.

Seeing Victoria and the other two putting on bulletproof vests, Sokov couldn't help but secretly complain: We are going down to look for people, not to rescue them from terrorists. Is it necessary to wear bulletproof vests?

But the next moment, Victoria came over with a bulletproof vest and said to Sokov, "Put on this bulletproof vest."

Sokov took the bulletproof vest and asked tentatively: "We are just going down to look for people, not to fight. Do we need to wear bulletproof vests?"

"The environment down there is complicated, and it's inevitable that you'll encounter bumps and bruises. Wearing a bulletproof vest can reduce the chances of getting hurt in vital areas."

While putting on the bulletproof vest, Sokov continued to ask, "Give me the bulletproof vest from the bureau. If the superiors find out, they won't criticize you, right?"

"Why are you talking so much nonsense?" Victoria said impatiently, "This is my spare bulletproof vest. If you don't want to wear it, take it off."

As the four of them walked toward the rescue passage with ropes, engineer shovels and other tools, Sokov specifically observed the equipment on Sasha and Yarosh. In the holsters on their waists were Makarov pistols, which use 9x18mm Makarov pistol bullets with a capacity of 12 rounds. Although not as powerful as the early Tokarev TT-33 model, the gun is lighter and more flexible, and is the most popular sidearm among Russian police.

The two men were not carrying assault rifles, but PPK-20 submachine guns, which are newly equipped by the military and police. This gun uses 9×19mm caliber ammunition and adopts a new telescopic folding stock, handguard and small grip design. The gun is 70 cm long and weighs 3 kg with a magazine. It can quickly and flexibly change the direction of the muzzle in confined areas such as urban environments.

Soon, the four came to a one-meter square vertical shaft. This was the rescue channel that the police had dug yesterday. The support set up by the rescue team and the pulleys hanging on it had not yet been removed.

"Major," Sasha said to Victoria, "I'll go down and take a look first."

Victoria nodded and warned the other party: "The environment down there is complicated, so you should be careful."

Sasha put on the gas mask, hung the hook on her waist on the pulley chain, and with the help of Yarosh, quickly entered the rescue passage.

A few minutes later, Victoria called down, "Sasha, what's going on down there?"

"Report to the major, everything is normal." Sasha replied from below: "You guys come down."

"Yarosh, you stay up there." Victoria told Yarosh, then said to Sokov, "Misha, follow me down."

As Sokov went down the well, he secretly calculated the length of the passage. When he fell to the basement below, he calculated that the length of the passage was no less than 20 meters. At such a deep distance, without the help of the rescue team, those trapped underground would have no chance of escaping.

After getting on solid ground, Sokov observed the surrounding environment. Except for the light coming through the passage, which illuminated a small area, the rest of the place was pitch black. He quickly took out a high-intensity flashlight, turned it on, and shone it in all directions.

Even though the strong flashlight you buy in the market can illuminate the streets, in the dark underground, the flashlight's light is swallowed by the surrounding darkness. Except for the area illuminated by the beam of light, the rest of the place is still in darkness.

"Misha," Victoria's voice sounded beside her, "Are you scared?"

Sokov said nothing, but shook his head. But the next moment, he remembered that the visibility here was extremely low, and Victoria might not be able to see him shaking his head, so he quickly added: "Don't be afraid!"

"It's good that you're not afraid." Victoria continued, "Then look around to see if there are any passages blocked by construction debris and mud."

Sokov agreed, holding a flashlight in one hand and an engineering shovel in the other, and walked forward with one foot deep and one foot shallow.

When he came to a wall, he first looked carefully with the help of the flashlight, then poked it with the engineer shovel in his hand. After finding a hard concrete wall under the soil, he changed direction and continued searching.

The entire basement is about 50 square meters in area. Sokov, Victoria and Sasha spent more than half an hour but still could not find any passage to leave the basement.

Victoria was extremely puzzled by this result: "Strange, the people who were rescued were found here. Now there are no passages around the basement, how did they get here?"

"Yeah, that's really weird," Sasha agreed.

"Misha, what do you think?" Victoria asked.

Although Sokov did not find any passages in the search just now, he was not discouraged, but tried to think whether he had missed any important clues. At this moment, when he heard Victoria asking him, he said thoughtfully: "Maybe there is something wrong with our search method."

"There's a problem finding the method?" Victoria asked puzzledly, "What do you mean?"

Sokov waved the high-intensity flashlight up and down and asked, "How high do you think the ceiling of this basement is?"

"About four or five meters."

"I thought about it carefully. We used the engineer shovel to explore the location of the passage. It was basically at waist level, which is about one meter high..." Before Sokov could finish, Sasha said impatiently, "Misha, what do you want to say?"

"Sasha, don't interrupt." After Victoria stopped Sasha, she asked Sokov tentatively: "Misha, if I understand correctly, you mean that the height we explored may be wrong. The location of the passage into this basement should be higher than we thought?"

"Yes, that's what I mean." Sokov nodded and said, "I suspect those people rolled down from somewhere above, and then the passage was blocked by collapsed rocks and soil. If we want to find the passage, we can try a higher position."

"Yeah, that makes sense." Victoria agreed with Sokov and told Sasha, "Sasha, follow Misha's instructions and raise the search height to chest height to see if you can find the buried passage."

"Yes, Major," Sasha replied decisively.

After only a few minutes of searching, Sokov discovered that when he dug the shovel, he encountered no hard cement wall, but soft soil. He quickly dug it twice with the shovel, and found that it was mostly soil except for some gravel.

Having made a discovery, Sokov quickly turned around and shouted to Victoria who was busy on the other side: "Vika, I think I found something."

Hearing Sokov's shout, Victoria walked over quickly and asked tentatively: "Have you found the passage?"

"It seems so." Sokov waited for Victoria to come to him and continued to say to her: "Please light it up for me. It's too hard to shovel the soil with one hand."

After Victoria shone the flashlight on the excavation site, Sokov gripped the engineer shovel with both hands and shoveled the soil down one shovel after another. Soon, a pit the size of a washbasin appeared at that location.

Seeing this, Victoria realized that this might be the buried passage, and quickly shouted to the side: "Sasha, come and help."

Sasha came over quickly with a sapper shovel in hand and asked Victoria, "Major, what are your instructions?"

Victoria waved the flashlight and said to Sasha, "Do you see this pit? Behind this should be a passage buried by the soil. Help Misha and dig the passage as soon as possible."

"Yes!" Sasha answered loudly, then waved the engineer shovel and dug the buried passage with Sokov.

After half an hour of excavation, the buried passage gradually revealed its original appearance.

Sasha also became excited. He turned to Victoria and said, "Major, it seems that we have indeed found the buried passage."

Victoria nodded, then said to Sasha, "You may be tired. Go upstairs and rest for a while. Let Yarosh come down and take over your work."

"Okay." The basement was already somewhat lacking in oxygen, and Sasha had been digging for such a long time that she was already tired. After hearing what Victoria said, she quickly agreed and then shouted upwards: "Yarosh, Yarosh!"

Soon, an echo came from above: "What's the matter?"

"Pull me up first." After saying that, Sasha hung the hook around her waist on the pulley chain.

As Sasha began to slowly rise, Sokov, who was digging, was surprised to find that some of the soil that was shoveled by the engineers no longer fell outwards, but fell in the opposite direction. Seeing this, Sokov was overjoyed and said to Victoria: "Vika, look, some of the soil is falling inwards, which means we can dig through the blocked passage soon."

"That's right. If we work harder, we can dig through the tunnel." Victoria asked with concern, "Misha, are you tired? Do you want to take a break before continuing to dig?"

"It's okay." Sokov waved his hand. "It will be dug through soon. It won't be too late to rest after that."

After Sasha returned to the ground, Yarosh asked with concern: "Sasha, what's the situation down there? Have you found the passage?"

"Found it." Sasha nodded and said, "We don't know how far the passage is blocked, so it's still unknown when it can be dug through."

Seeing Yarosh preparing to go down the tunnel, Sasha quickly stopped him and said, "Yarosh, don't be in a hurry. Have a cigarette first. Otherwise, you won't be able to smoke when you get down there."

Yarosh felt that what Sasha said made sense. Although there was no lack of oxygen underground, it was still dangerous to smoke there. He should finish smoking on the ground before going underground. So he took out a cigarette, sat down next to the shaft with Sasha, and started smoking.

After finishing a cigarette, Yarosh threw the butt to the ground, crushed it with his toes, hung the hook around his waist, and said to Sasha, "Okay, Sasha, it's almost time. If you don't go down, the major will scold you."

Unexpectedly, soon after Yarosh went down the well, he started shouting and screaming. Sasha quickly stuck his head in and asked, "Yarosh, what happened?"

"Damn it, Sasha, what a blast," Yarosh said from below. "The major and Misha are gone."

"What? Major and the others are missing?" Sasha asked in an incredulous tone, "Have you looked carefully for them?"

"I searched the entire basement, but I couldn't find a single shadow of him."

Sasha thought for a moment and then said, "They may have entered the passage. Look around carefully to see where the passage is."

"There are walls on all sides. There is no passage."

"Wait a minute, I'll be down soon."

When Sasha went back down to the basement, he complained, "Yarosh, what's wrong with you? You can't see such a big passage. Is there something wrong with your eyes?"

"I have looked everywhere, but I can't find the passage you mentioned."

Sasha quickly shone the flashlight at the place where he had just dug. He indeed saw a slope of dirt on the ground, but the passage on the wall had disappeared without a trace. He rushed over and knocked on the wall with his engineer shovel. He unexpectedly found that it was a solid cement wall. He was stunned: "What the hell, what's going on? The passage was clearly here, how come it disappeared in the blink of an eye?"

"Sasha," Yarosh asked seriously, "Are you sure you remembered the location correctly? The passage we just discovered is here?"

"No doubt about it." Sasha said excitedly, "Don't you see this pile of dirt on the ground? I just dug it out from the tunnel."

"But now not only has the passage disappeared, but even the Major and Misha are missing. What is going on?"

(End of this chapter)