“Naturally.”
Yang looked thoughtfully at the Admiral.
“We will be able to extricate our submarine from Savage Bay, will we not?”
“We’re working on it. There are some complications.”
“Make things uncomplicated, Admiral. And quickly.”
Hwai-su bowed and left the office.
TITAN SIX, SAVAGE BAY
“Stay very still, everyone,” said Hawkeye into his COM mic. “Doctor, regain a two-handed grip and don’t move.”
“Okay.” Madison’s voice drifted up with a slight echo. “But my shoulder is starting to hurt pretty bad.”
The air in the narrow crevice in which the ladder had been secured against the rock felt even colder now that the team had left the temperature-controlled lab. The only illumination in the area came from the helmets of Titan Six members.
“Pyro, how far down does this damn ladder extend?” Hawkeye asked.
“I don’t see the bottom,” Pyro answered. “Could be ten yards — or a hundred and ten.”
“Keep descending,” said Hawkeye. And remember — slow and steady wins the race.”
Pyro, his injured leg angled behind his body, continued to lower himself. Ten second later, Shooter slid carefully down. In turn, each member above her waited ten seconds before moving downwards.
When it was Tank’s turn, he moved down one rung. Suddenly, the rust-covered rung he was standing on broke free from the ladder. The weight of his body pulled him down, and the rung his hands were gripping came free as well.
His body ricocheted against the solid rock beneath the lab and then against the ladder. His hand reached out to grab a rung, but his grip was tenuous. Tank fell farther and slammed against rock. Battenford clawed blindly, his fingers curling around Tank’s wrist as Tank drove his foot forward, landing two rungs below the Brit.
Tank breathed heavily. His forehead was bleeding, his head having been gashed by the unforgiving walls of Es Vedra.
“I’m secure,” Tank said. “Bloody, but secure. Thank God for Dragon Skin.”
“Is everyone else still with us?” Hawkeye asked.
One by one, everyone replied.
“New plan,” announced Hawkeye. “Pyro is going all the way down, or at least until he sees someplace safe where we can get off this ladder. Until then, everyone else stay still.”
Pyro descended into the darkness as the others remained motionless.
Another explosion shook the mountain violently — and the ladder as well.
OPS CENTER, ABOARD THE ALAMIRANTA
“Where is Titan Six?” asked Caine.
“Audio contact only,” Touchdown replied. “They’re outside the complex. Our telemetry can penetrate the mountain, but right now . . . ” He sighed. “Right now, they’re basically one with the mountain.”
* Om. *
It’s not the time or place, my friend.
“Where does this ladder end, people?” Caine said. “Best guess.”
“Level Three,” Quiz said. “If it’s a service ladder, it probably runs the height of the complex.”
“Still, it might be accessible from any of the levels,” offered DJ.
“Touchdown,” said Caine, “where is the main repair facility at Savage Bay?”
“Level Three, but I don’t think the architects intended for a repair crew to climb long distances for repairs or maintenance.”
“Four entries to the ladder,” Cruz said, clapping her hands together at her epiphany. “One for each level and one to the catwalk above Level Two. There’s only one problem.”
“Only one?” said Caine.
“The entries won’t be visible from the ladder,” said Cruz. “Repair crews wouldn’t enter the crevice and seal themselves in. In fact, there’s probably a lighting system for the ladder, but it would only be switched on from the repair center. The entry points to the service ladder are hatchways with metal grips on the inside of the complex only.”
“And if Titan Six can’t see them and descends all the way down?”
“They’ll end up in the cargo bay,” said Touchdown.
“With the new contingent of Dragons,” said Caine.
“Exactly.”
TITAN SIX, SAVAGE BAY
Pyro froze as the mountain shook again. The bottom rung of the ladder fell from beneath his feet, but his hands had a firm grip on the ladder. He carefully pulled himself up one rung so that his feet had sure footing again. A clanging noise sounded below him. Aiming his head downwards, his helmet light showed that the ladder had not merely lost another single rung. The entire ladder beneath him had fallen away.
“This is the end of the line,” he said into his mic.
“Explain,” said Hawkeye.
“The ladder’s gone. Snapped right off beneath my feet.”
“Climb back up a few rungs so that your weight isn’t pulling on what is now the bottom of the ladder,” Hawkeye ordered. “There are obviously some structural integrity issues where you are.”
“Roger that.”
Pyro found that ascending the ladder with a wounded thigh was much harder than lowering himself. It called for far greater strength, but the muscular Japanese soldier was up for the challenge.
Six rungs higher, he paused. He smelled fresh air, just as he had in the dark corridor outside the lab on Level One. He inhaled more deeply. A thin stream of air was definitely seeping from the complex. It had a different quality than the damp, cold air in the long crevice.
He removed a flashlight from one of the utility packs on the front of his battle vest.
“I see a square metal shape in the concrete behind me,” Pyro said. “Not very big. About three feet by three feet.”
“It’s a hatch to gain access to the ladder,” Cruz broke in. “You’re probably near Level Two.”
“There’s no handle on this side,” Pyro confirmed.
“The hatch pulls away from the wall from the inside,” said Cruz. “A repairman would first yank down on a handle to retract bolts from the wall and then pull inwards.”
“Do you have a micro-drill in your backpack?” Hawkeye asked.
“Yeah.”
“Try drilling several small holes in a circle to the left of center,” Hawkeye suggested. “Then drill more holes in the circle’s center. Maybe you can punch your way through and grip the handle.”
Twisting his body like a contortionist, Pyro managed to unfasten the left strap of his backpack and then wiggle gently so that the right strap slid down his arm. He secured the pack to the rail of the ladder with a carabiner.
He removed the parts of the micro-drill, assembled them, and began to execute his commander’s orders. This was the hard part. With the ladder attached to the rock, Pyro had to angle his body sideways to drill into the metal hatch behind him. His wounded thigh was beginning to spasm.
The drill bit made no more noise than a droning mosquito. Another question, however, was far more vexing: was anyone inside the complex standing near the hatch, watching metal shavings drop to the floor.
Pyro stopped his task abruptly. Dragons were passing by, speaking rapidly in Chinese.
Their speech grew louder. One of them laughed. They had paused right next to the hatch.
Pyro exhaled, his hands sweating.
Gradually, the voices grew fainter.
Pyro counted to thirty and resumed drilling. Time was not a luxury he could afford. The entire ladder might give way at any minute.
He returned the drill to his backpack. Aiming the light of his helmet cam at the hatch, he made a fist with his right hand and inhaled deeply several times. He had learned the martial arts as a boy in Japan, but nanobot injections had tripled his strength. Forcing all concentration on his fist, he punched hard at the center of the circle he’d made. His hand broke through on the first try. A circle of light twelve inches in diameter illuminated the dark crevice.
Pyro stared through the hole. “I see the chapel straight ahead. Level Two.”
He shut off his flashlight and helmet light, leaving the crevice in complete darkness. He then leaned to his left as far as he could, removing his body from view.
The face of a Dragon appeared just beyond the hole, peering intently through the hatch.
Chapter 26
OPS CENTER, ABOARD THE ALAMIRANTA
“Good news and bad news,” Touchdown said. “I’ve got a faint reading from Pyro. The bad news is that he appears to be about two feet from a Dragon.”
“Have you contacted him?” asked Caine.
“Yes, but he may not be able to respond.”
“Can you get a visual from his helmet cam?” asked Caine.
“Switching to video feed,” said Touchdown.
Appearing to stare into the Ops Center from Touchdown’s screen was the face of a Chinese commando. His face moved slightly from side to side, his brows knit.
“He’s curious about something,” Quiz said. “It almost appears as if he doesn’t know what he’s looking at.”
* We know what he’s looking at, don’t we? *
We certainly do.
***
Joshua Ambergris was also staring at something, brows knit. On his screen was the double helix data that Titan Six managed to record before Aiko had appeared on the lab displays at Savage Bay.
Arms folded, Ambergis closed his eyes and recalled the last words of Emilio Gonzales: Boren in eleven eleven.
The opinion of other Ops members was that Dr. Heidi Boren was hiding in a room numbered 1111. But no, that was wrong. There was too much scientific data on the eleven-eleven phenomenon.
Ambergris opened his eyes wide. An epiphany had claimed his thoughts.
He knew exactly what Gonzales had been trying to communicate: where to find the very heart of all Genesis data.
TITAN SIX, SAVAGE BAY
Pyro moved quietly, using the utmost care to remove the Glock, silencer attached, from his belt.
The Dragon poked his head a few inches into the hole for a better view.
Pyro aimed the Glock at the perplexed face of his foe and fired.
The commando fell backwards as if struck by a rocket.
Aligning himself with the ladder again, Pyro looked through the opening in the hatch. The Dragon lay on the floor, a neat bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.
Pyro leaned toward the complex, reaching his arm through the hole, elbow bent, as his hand searched for a lever.
With his weight shifted toward the hatch, the ladder separated from the rocks. Pyro pulled his arm in quickly as the ladder bounced three times against the mountain.
“Status,” Hawkeye said.
“The ladder is no longer bolted to the rock down here.”
“We’re okay farther up,” Hawkeye said.
Pyro leaned back toward the hatch and again inserted his arm through the hole. His fingers curled around a thick metal lever. Pulling it down, he heard bolts sliding from their slots in the wall. He retracted his arm, grabbed the hatch by the top of the hole he had drilled and, angling it so that it would fit through the opening, carefully brought it towards his body. Simply knocking it into the corridor beyond would make far too much noise.
He released the hatch from his grip. It fell several yards before it clanged against the mountain. Then there was silence. It was lodged between the mountain and the complex.
Stepping into the corridor, Pyro looked left and right.
He was alone . . . for the time being.
“You’re go for descent, Hawkeye,” he said. “I’ll hold the ladder steady from below.”
Fifteen minutes later, Titan Six, Battenford, and Madison were safely standing on Level Two.
“Let’s get to the chapel and see if we can fix up Dr. Madison’s shoulder and Pyro’s leg,” Hawkeye said. “And decide where we go from here.”
The chapel was as Hawkeye remembered it. Bodies were everywhere, a female corpse draped across the altar. The team trudged in and lay down its gear.
That’s when the dead came to life.
OPS CENTER
“Radiation level up to 125 rads,” Touchdown said. “My guess is that the sub has a serious radiation leak.”
“Hawkeye,” said Caine. “Time is running out. If you don’t find Dominique soon, the radiation is going to become lethal for everyone in the facility.”
No response.
“Mr. Hawke?”
Sounds of struggle filled the Ops Center. Grunts, groans, and shrieks issued from the speaker.
TITAN SIX, SAVAGE BAY
Commander Aiko rose from the altar as the rest of her forces, some dressed in lab coats or Triad uniforms, jumped to their feet. The dead bodies had been removed. Commandos had smeared blood on themselves and assumed the positions of the dead.
“You’re very clever, Titan Six,” said Aiko, “but we checked the lab where we left you. We discovered the hole blasted in the wall. We’ve been waiting. Some of our men saw the drill holes in the hatch.”
Aiko stood, somersaulted from the altar, and threw her body horizontally at Hawkeye, feet first.
Hawkeye leaned to the left as he grabbed Aiko’s right ankle. “You’re beginning to piss me off, lady.” Thoughts of his bare-knuckle encounters at The Fight Club in Ibiza flooded his mind.
Within minutes, everyone in the room was engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
***
Hawkeye scrambled on top of the prostrate Aiko. She smashed her hand into his face, but he shook it off and drove his fist into her windpipe.
Someone from behind pulled him from the gasping Aiko, but Hawkeye, adrenaline and anger pumping through his veins like a raging river, turned and drove his male attacker against the wall. Hawkeye rammed his knee into the commando’s groin.
Turning toward the center of the chapel again, Hawkeye saw that Aiko was on her feet. From the corner of his eye, Hawkeye saw that Madison and Battenford had been knocked unconscious. Pyro was on his back, unable to stand. Tank and Gator fought one-on-one with Dragons behind a short row of pews.
Hawkeye stepped back, disoriented. Aiko’s suit was matching the bluish colors of the chapel walls. She was also reaching for her plasma weapon.
Hawkeye hurled his body to the side, barely missing the blue arcs emanating from the palm-held weapon.
And then she had moved. From the corner of his eye, Hawkeye could see red and blue lights flickering on her suit, revealing her position. Hawkeye charged toward the lights, driving his nemesis against the wall. Her mysterious eyes glared at Hawkeye, causing him to step back, but he quickly regained his concentration.
Hawkeye faked a move forward, then withdrew. It was enough to draw the ninja-like Commander towards him.
Hawkeye grabbed her arm beneath the shoulder and propelled her into the chapel wall. Dazed, she slumped to the floor. He then wheeled around, dropped to his knees, and landed several punches to her stomach.
“I know it’s old-fashioned,” Hawkeye said, “but it’s highly effective.”
Aiko had surprising resilience and strength. She curled her knees inwards and thrust her feet in a hard shove against Hawkeye’s chest. He reeled back, his head cracking against the first wooden pew.
Hawkeye and Aiko got to their feet at the same time. The two circled each other, hatred shining cruelly in the eyes of each.
Aiko spun, her leg kicking out and connecting with Hawkeye’s head.
“We’ve done this once today,” Hawkeye said, “and I don’t intend to be left on the floor a second time.”
Hawkeye advanced on Aiko. She brought down both hands, palms flat and rigid, but Hawkeye thrust his arms straight up, deflecting her moves. He continued to advance, weaving his fingers together tightly. Aiko was now pinned against the opposite wall. Hawkeye slammed his double fist sideways against her cheekbone with all his might. Aiko’s pale irises rolled into her head as she toppled to the floor, unconscious.
Hawkeye then turned
his vengeance against the Dragon, down on one knee, who was raining blows on Pyro. Weak from his descent on the ladder, Pyro could do no more than shield himself from his attacker with upraised arms.
Standing behind the Dragon, Hawkeye used his same double fist to knock him sideways. With unnatural strength, he lifted the Dragon from the chapel floor and drove him against the wall, where he delivered one punch after the other.
Left hook.
Left hook.
Right jab.
The Dragon lay motionless.
Shooter, Tank, and Gator were holding their own, but Hawkeye dashed through the chapel with the unforgiving energy of a tornado. Within minutes, the other assailants also lay unconscious on the floor.
Hawkeye stood erect in the center of the room, mouth and hands bloody, red, and raw.
“I guess your hobby in Ibiza wasn’t a waste of time after all,” said Tank.
“Lookout, Hawkeye!” Pyro called out.
Hawkeye wheeled around and saw a blur running through the door. It was Aiko. Hawkeye could not tell if her unusual tactical suit was changing colors again or if she simply moved with superior speed — or both. She seemed like a phantom warrior, not wholly present . . . except her punches were savage and very real.
He chased the female form, now morphing into an off-white that almost rendered her invisible. Out in the hall, Hawkeye looked in both directions.
She was gone. Hawkeye knew that she could be almost anywhere in the base within a matter of minutes, and at the moment, he needed to focus his attention and energy of finding Dominique Caine.
Hawkeye returned to the chapel and grabbed one of the Dragons lying on the floor, yanking his head up quite unceremoniously.
“Where’s Dominique Caine?” he screamed.
There was no reply.
Hawkeye unleashed a series of savage punches to the commando’s face until it looked like bloody meat.
“Lead me to her,” Hawkeye said, his breathing fast and demanding, “or I’ll kill you here and now.”
The Dragon, who obviously spoke English, got to his feet. “This way,” he said.
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