The console came alive when he hit the power switch. A code screen came up and he entered an ISS-obtained all-purpose Soviet code that he had been given at the start of this mission.
Called the ‘Universal Disarm Code’ it was kind of like an electronic skeleton key, the ultimate skeleton key, designed for use by only the most senior Soviet personnel. It was an eight-digit code that worked on all Soviet-era keypad locks. It had been given to Schofield to overcome any digital keypads at Krask-8. Apparently, there was an American equivalent—known only to the President and a few very senior military figures—but Schofield didn’t know that one.
‘I can see six men on the balcony level heading for the gangway!’ Clark called. ‘Four more down on ground level, they’re hauling a bridge into position so they can board us!’
Book II flicked some switches, brought up a screen that revealed, yes, there were indeed some missiles still sitting in their silos in the forward section of the Typhoon.
‘Okay,’ Book II said, reading the screen. ‘The nuclear warheads have been removed but it seems that some of the missiles are still in their silos. There appear to be, let me see, six of them . . .’
‘One is all I need,’ Schofield said. ‘Open the hatches for the six missiles, and then open one extra hatch.’
‘An extra one?’
‘Trust me.’
Book II just shook his head and did as he was told, hitting the hatch switches for seven of the sub’s missile silos.
Cedric Wexley’s eyes widened at the sight.
He saw the Typhoon, now surrounded by an enormous indoor pool of water, saw his own men converging on it . . .
. . . and now, to his astonishment, he saw seven of the submarine’s forward missile hatches slowly and steadily opening on their hydraulic hinges.
‘What on earth is he doing?’ Wexley asked aloud.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ Book asked.
‘Changing the timescale for this fight,’ Schofield said.
He brought up another screen, saw the exact GPS coordinates of Krask-8: 07914.74, 7000.01. They matched the grid co-ordinates he had employed when his team had dropped in from the Stealth Bomber earlier.
Schofield punched in the necessary information.
He set the missiles to fire immediately—programmed them to fly for a duration of 20 minutes—and then he set the target co-ordinates as: 07914.74, 7000.01.
He didn’t expect all of the missiles to work. The O-ring seals on their solid-fuelled rocket boosters would have degraded significantly over the past few years, possibly rendering all of them useless.
But then he only needed one to work.
The fourth one he tried did.
When its green ‘Go’ light blinked to life, a final approval-code screen came up. Schofield used the Universal Disarm Code. Authorisation granted.
Then he hit ‘FIRE’.
Cedric Wexley heard the noise before he saw the spectacle.
An ominous deep-seated thromming emanated from within the submarine.
Then—with an ear-shattering explosive shoom—a 30-foot-long SS-N-20 ballistic missile blasted out from one of the sub’s forward hatches!
It looked like the launch of a space shuttle: smoke billowed everywhere, expanding wildly, completely filling the dry-dock hall, shrouding the giant Typhoon in a misty grey fog, enveloping the mercenaries who had been converging on its entrances.
For its part, the missile shot straight upward, blasting right through the cracked glass roof of the hall and rocketing off into the grey Siberian sky.
Cedric Wexley was unperturbed. ‘Men, continue your attack. Captain Micheleaux, where are those reinforcements?’
If, at that same moment, one had been watching Krask-8 from the horizon, one would have witnessed an incredible sight: a single dead-straight column of smoke rocketing high into the sky above the mini-city.
As it happened, someone was indeed watching that sight.
A lone individual, sitting in the cockpit of a Russian-made Yak-141 fighter jet that was speeding towards Krask-8.
In the control centre of the sub, Schofield whirled around.
‘Where are they?’ he asked Clark at the periscope.
‘It’s too cloudy,’ Clark said. ‘I can’t see anything.’
The view through the periscope now revealed a grey misty nothingness. Clark could only see the immediate area around the periscope itself—the small standing-room-only space on top of the sub’s conning tower and the narrow gangway connecting the conning tower to the balcony level.
‘I can’t see a thi—’
A man’s face brushed up against the periscope, large and clear, wearing a gas-mask.
‘Yow!’ Clark leapt back from the eyepiece. ‘Jesus. They’re right outside. Right above us!’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Schofield said, heading downstairs. ‘It’s time for us to go and we’re not leaving that way.’
Schofield, Book II and Clark raced into the missile silo hall that they had passed through before. A foot-deep pool of rising water covered its floor.
They came to one of the empty silos—its little access hatch still lay open—and hustled inside it.
They were met by the sight of the empty missile silo: a towering 30-foot-high cylinder, at the top of which, looking very small, they could see the open outer-hull hatch—the seventh outer hatch that Schofield had opened. Some hand and foot indentations ascended the wall of the silo like a ladder.
The three Marines began climbing.
They reached the top of the silo, and Schofield peered out—
—and saw two mercenaries disappearing inside the submarine’s forward escape hatch three metres further down the hull.
Perfect, Schofield thought. They were going in while he and his men were coming out.
In addition to this, the hall around the Typhoon was still enveloped in the cloudy white fog of the missile launch.
Schofield’s eyes fell on the balcony level overlooking the Typhoon and on the South African commander directing the mercenary operation.
That was the man Schofield wanted to talk to.
He charged toward the hand-rungs on the outside of the Typhoon’s conning tower.
Schofield and the others climbed the submarine’s conning tower and dashed across the gangway connecting it to the upper balcony level.
They saw a small internal office structure at the end of the elongated balcony.
Standing in a doorway there, barking into a radio mike while at the same time trying to peer through the fog at the Typhoon, was the mercenary commander, Wexley, flanked by a single armed bodyguard.
Under the cover of the smoke, Schofield, Book II and Clark side-stepped their way down the balcony, approaching Wexley fast.
They sprang on him: Schofield yelling ‘Freeze!’—the bodyguard firing—Clark firing at the same time—the bodyguard dropping, hit in the face—Clark falling, too—then Wexley drew his pistol—only to see Schofield roll quickly and fire his Desert Eagle twice—blam! blam!—and Wexley was hit in both the chest and the hand and hurled backwards a full three feet, slamming into the outer wall of the office structure and slumping to the ground.
‘Clark! You okay!’ Schofield called, kicking Wexley’s gun away.
Clark had been hit near the shoulder. He winced as Book II checked his wound. ‘Yeah, he just winged me.’
Wexley was largely okay, too. He’d been wearing a vest under his snow gear, which saved him from the chest-shot. He lay slumped against the outer wall of the office, winded and gripping his wounded hand.
Schofield pressed the barrel of his Desert Eagle against Wexley’s forehead. ‘Who are you and why are you here?’
Wexley coughed, still gasping for air.
‘I said, who the hell are you and why are you here?’
Wexley spoke in a hoarse whisper. ‘My name . . . is Cedric Wexley. I’m with . . . Executive Solutions.’
‘Mercenaries,’ Schofield said. ‘And why are you her
e? Why are you trying to kill us?’
‘Not everyone, Captain. Just you.’
‘Me?’
‘You and those two Delta men, McCabe and Farrell.’
Schofield froze, remembering Dean McCabe’s headless body. He also recalled Bull Simcox saying that the same thing had been done to Greg Farrell.
‘Why?’
‘Does it really matter?’ Wexley sneered.
Schofield didn’t have time for this. So he simply pressed his boot against Wexley’s wounded hand, twisting it slightly.
Wexley roared with pain. Then he looked directly up at Schofield, his eyes filled with venom.
‘Because there is a price on your head, Captain Schofield. Enough to entice just about every bounty hunter in the world to come after you.’
Schofield felt his stomach tighten. ‘What?’
With his good hand Wexley withdrew a crumpled sheet of paper from his breast pocket, threw it dismissively at Schofield. ‘Choke on it.’
Schofield snatched the piece of paper, glanced at it.
It was a list of names.
Fifteen names in total. A mix of soldiers, spies, and terrorists.
He quickly noticed that McCabe, Farrell and he himself were on it.
Wexley’s South African accent dripped with grim delight as he spoke: ‘I can imagine that you are about to meet quite a few of the world’s crack bounty hunters, Captain. Your friends, too. Bounty hunters do so have a proclivity to hold friends and loved ones as bait to draw out a target.’
Schofield’s blood went cold at the thought of his friends being held hostage by bounty hunters.
Gant . . . Mother . . .
He yanked his mind back to the present.
‘But why do you have to cut off our heads?’ he asked.
Wexley answered him with a snort. Schofield simply moved his boot towards Wexley’s bloody hand again.
‘Wait. Wait. Wait. Perhaps I haven’t been specific enough,’ Wexley said nastily. ‘The price on your head, Captain, is literally a price on your head—18.6 million dollars to the person who brings your head to a castle in France. It’s a worthwhile sum, the largest I’ve ever seen: enough to bribe the highest officials, enough to erase all evidence of a sham mission against some terrorists in Siberia, enough to ensure that your reinforcements, a company of Rangers out of Fort Lewis, never even left the ground. You’re on your own, Captain Schofield. You’re here . . . alone . . . with us . . . until we kill you and cut off your fucking head.’
Schofield’s mind raced.
He’d never expected this. Something so targeted, so individual, so personal.
Then abruptly, he saw Wexley do something odd: he saw him look away again, only this time the South African was glancing out over Schofield’s shoulder.
Schofield turned—and his eyes widened in horror.
Like the ominous precursor to an underwater volcanic eruption, a roiling mass of bubbles appeared in the ice-covered ‘lake’ that now extended out from the dry-dock pit. The thin layer of ice covering this body of water cracked loudly.
And then from out of the middle of the bubbling froth, like a gigantic whale breaching the surface, came the dark steel body of a Soviet Akula-class attack submarine.
While it could never attain the international sales of the smaller Kilo-class submarines, the Akula was rapidly gaining popularity on international arms markets—markets which the new Russian government was keen to exploit. Obviously, Executive Solutions was one of Russia’s customers.
The Akula in the icy lake moved quickly. No sooner was it up than armed men were swarming out of its hatchways, extending exit gangways to the shore, and running across those gangways onto the floor of the dry-dock hall.
Schofield blanched.
It was at least thirty more mercenaries.
Wexley smiled wickedly.
‘Keep smiling, asshole,’ Schofield said. He looked at his watch. ‘Because you don’t have forever to catch me. In exactly sixteen minutes that missile from the Typhoon is going to return to this base. Till then, smile at this.’
Thwack!
Schofield punched Wexley in the nose with his Desert Eagle, knocking him out.
Then he hustled over to Book II and started helping him with Clark. ‘Grab his other shoulder . . .’
They helped the young corporal up. Clark strained to get to his feet. ‘I can do it—’ he said just as his chest exploded in a sickening gout of blood. An involuntary bloody gob shot out from his mouth—direct from the lungs—and splashed all over Schofield’s chestplate.
Clark just stared at Schofield, aghast, the life fading quickly from his eyes. He dropped to the balcony’s grilled catwalk, dead—shot from behind—by the force of mercenaries now charging out of the newly-arrived sub and swarming down the length of the hall.
Schofield just looked down at his dead companion in horror.
He couldn’t believe it.
Apart from Book II, his whole team was gone, dead, murdered.
And so here he was, stranded at a deserted Siberian base with close to forty mercenaries on his tail, one man by his side, no reinforcements on the way and no means of escape at all.
Schofield and Book II ran.
Ran for their lives as bullet-holes shredded the thin plasterboard walls all around them.
The new collection of ExSol mercenaries from the Akula had entered the battle with frightening intensity. Now they were climbing every rung-ladder they could find and sprinting down the dry-dock hall, with only one purpose: to get Schofield’s head.
The mercs who had entered the Typhoon earlier were now also aware that Schofield had got away, and they re-emerged, guns blazing.
Schofield and Book II dashed westward, entering the concrete overpass bridge that connected the dry-dock hall with Krask-8’s office tower.
As they had approached the bridge, Schofield had seen the movements of the Executive Solutions forces—some of them were scaling the balcony level, while others were paralleling his and Book’s movements down on ground level, running along underneath them, also heading for the tower.
Schofield knew one thing: he and Book had to get over to the office tower and then down to the ground before the bad guys got there. Otherwise, the two of them would be stuck in the 15-storey building.
They bolted through the overpass bridge, whipped past its cracked concrete window frames.
Then they burst out the other end of the bridge, entered the office tower . . .
. . . and stopped dead.
Schofield found himself standing on a balcony—a tiny catwalk balcony, one of many that rose up and up for 15 floors, all connected by a network of ladders—overlooking a gigantic square-shaped chasm of open space.
This wasn’t an office tower at all.
It was, in truth, a hollowed-out glass-and-steel structure.
A false building.
It was an amazing sight, kind of like standing in a gigantic greenhouse: the grey Siberian landscape could be seen beyond the cracked glass windows that formed the four sides of the building.
And at the base of this gigantic crystalline structure, Schofield saw its reason for being.
Four massive ICBM missile silos, half-buried in the wide concrete floor in a neat square-shaped formation. Covered by the false office tower, they could never have been spotted by US spy satellites. Schofield guessed that three more silo clusters could be found under the other ‘buildings’ in Krask-8.
On the ground beside the silos, one level below him, he saw ten slumped figures—the six members of Farrell’s Delta team and Bull Simcox’s four-man Marine squad.
Schofield glanced at his watch, at the countdown indicating when the Typhoon’s missile would return to Krask-8: 15:30 . . . 15:29 . . . 15:28 . . .
‘The ground floor,’ Schofield said to Book. ‘We have to get to the ground floor.’
They dashed for the nearest rung-ladder, started down it—
—just as it was assailed by a volley of gunfire.
Shit.
The mercenaries had got to the ground floor first. They must have run across the snow-covered road between the dry-dock warehouse and the tower.
‘Damn it!’ Schofield yelled.
‘What now!’ Book II called.
‘Doesn’t look like we have much choice! We go up!’
And so they went up.
Up and up, climbing rung-ladders like a pair of fleeing monkeys, dodging the mercenaries’ fire as they went.
They were ten floors up when Schofield dared to stop and take a look down.
What he saw crushed any hope of survival he’d had until then.
He saw the whole mercenary force arrayed around the concrete missile silos on the ground floor of the tower—about 50 men in all.
And then the crowd of mercenaries parted as a lone man walked into the middle of their ranks.
It was Cedric Wexley, his nose all smashed up with blood.
Schofield froze.
He wondered what Wexley would do now. The mercenary commander could send his men up the ladders after Schofield and Book—and watch Schofield and Book pick them off one by one until the two Marines ran out of ammunition and became sitting ducks. Not exactly an appealing strategy.
‘Captain Schofield!’ Wexley’s voice echoed up the wide shaft of the tower. ‘You run well! But now there is nowhere else for you to go! Mark my words, very soon you will run no more!’
Wexley pulled several small objects from his combat webbing.
Schofield recognised them instantly, and stopped dead.
Small and cylindrical, they were Thermite-Amatol demolition charges. Four of them. Wexley must have taken them from the bodies of Schofield’s dead Marines.
And now he saw Wexley’s plan.
Wexley passed the Thermite charges to four of his men who promptly scattered to the four corners of the ground floor and attached them to the tower’s corner pillars.
Schofield snatched his field binoculars from his webbing, pressed them to his eyes.
He caught a glimpse of one of the Thermite charges affixed to its pillar, saw the coloured timer switches on it: red, green and blue.
‘Initiate the timers!’ Wexley called.
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