by Sean Ellis
Before Marie could protest, he was on his feet and sprinting for the center of the chamber, not far from where Hussein lay spread-eagled like a sacrifice. He had barely gone three steps when the assault rifle roared again, only this time it was in concert with a second. He was vaguely aware of the 7.62-millimeter rounds drilling through the still air all around. The snipers were firing fully automatic, the spray and pray technique. There was a skill to leading a target, and he was betting his life that these shooters had skipped that lesson. Still, all it took was one lucky shot. He dove the last two meters like a baseball player stealing second, and hunkered down behind the control box for the tram.
He barely had time to catch his breath when the first of several rounds punched clear through the thin metal frame and exited dangerously close to where he was crouching. Twisting around, he scrambled for the more substantial cover of the bumper at the end of the tracks. The heavy steel frame rang with each impact, but the rounds did not penetrate.
When a break in the assault came, he risked a quick look around the edge of his shield. There were three of them now, Arab men wearing ragged civilian clothes, and curiously bareheaded. He couldn’t begin to guess how they had discovered the complex. Maybe they were loyalist insurgents, checking a known resupply base, or maybe they were local hoodlums, hired by Rebecca or Chiron to eliminate all witnesses to their treachery. He didn’t have time to wrestle with the question, but filed it away behind a curtain, along with the overwhelming sense of guilt at having brought young Hussein to his ignominious demise.
The shooters saw him a moment later and unleashed another volley. That was all the motivation he needed. He burst from behind the bumper and sprinted for the opposite side of the complex, toward the open maw of Laboratory Two. They chased him with bullets, and it wasn’t until the lead started blasting into the stacked munitions containers that he realized just how close they were coming. Then he was gone, vanished into the maze of crates that had camouflaged the lab where Saddam’s scientists had labored to develop a nuclear weapon.
The barrage ceased almost immediately and the gunmen began warily advancing. Kismet did not try to monitor their approach. If they even caught a glimpse of him, his only plan would fail. One of the Arabs unleashed a short, random burst into the lab, but his comrades chastised him, telling him not to waste his ammunition shooting at shadows, or at least that was Kismet’s best approximation. He could hear their steps, their breathing, and the sound of crates being moved as the men pressed deeper into the lab.
There was a loud bang as one of the shipping containers was upended only a few steps away from where Kismet was concealed. Too close. They were checking the crates to see if he was hiding in one.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
The men stayed close together, careful not to flag each other with their weapons, but keeping vigil in different directions. One of them kept checking to their rear to make sure that they had not already passed by their prey. They knew enough not to separate, dashing Kismet’s hopes of subduing one and seizing his weapon.
The trio left the cluster of empty boxes behind and pressed deeper into the lab. When they reached the table with the detonators, the leader of the group stopped so suddenly he almost dropped his rifle.
Kismet made his move. From his perch, prone and pressed flat atop the wall of stacked crates, he rolled toward the exit. But as his weight shifted, the box beneath him slid and all the cartons, like some toddler’s creation with building blocks, crashed outward. Kismet hit the stone floor hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. He gasped for air, surrounded by the chaos his movements had triggered. The three gunmen were staring right at him.
The leader moved first, swinging the muzzle of his Kalashnikov toward Kismet. Breathing or not, he knew he had to move. As he ducked, bullets started shredding the wood and plastic containers that were now his only source of concealment. Packing foam showered down like confetti, but while none of the rounds found his flesh, a shard of wood lodged in the ravaged fabric of his shirt and pierced the skin of his back.
He caught a breath, which was a good thing, and reached the right doorpost of the lab. The gunmen were randomly spraying the area, but most of their fire was concentrated on the center of the jumbled cartons. Kismet spied his goal and waited for a break in fire. When the gunmen on his right paused to reload, Kismet sprang up.
“Nice knowing you, fellows.” He slammed his hand against the red button.
There was a crack as the stays were blown out of the way, followed by an ear-splitting shriek. The large metal guillotine gate dropped so quickly that Kismet jumped back, startled. The heavy panel smashed into the cluttered crates, blasting them to splinters as it fell relentlessly, unstoppably downward.
And then it stopped.
There was about half a meter of space above the groove in the floor, where the panel ought to have firmly settled after its brief one-way journey, and the bottom of the door itself. The smashed debris of the crates, though individually flimsy, were in concert just enough to hold open the door.
Kismet breathed an oath as he stared in disbelief at the opening. He swore again as a rifle muzzle peeked out from beneath the barrier and swung in his direction. But instead of ducking away from the weapon, he leaped forward. His foot stamped down on the exposed end of the gun, and the force of the blow rolled the front sight post at the business end of the weapon, causing it to twist in the man’s grip just as the trigger was pulled.
It was like stepping on a live wire. Flame jetted from the barrel as an explosion of gases and solid projectiles exploded into the stone floor. The close proximity of the discharge caused the weapon to slam back into the gunman’s forehead and Kismet almost stumbled again, but caught himself when the weapon fell silent. He immediately snatched the rifle up, shifting his grip from the scorching hot barrel to the wooden stock, and then put it to his shoulder. As he did, another AK-47 peeked out from under the door.
Kismet fanned the trigger, unleashing a burst at the opening. One of the bullets might have hit its target, but the rest found something even luckier. The lead projectiles smashed into the fragments that were bracing the doors, perforating them just enough that the constant pressure of the door caused them to finally explode outward. The door crunched down the remaining distance, decapitating the Kalashnikov and trapping the three gunmen inside a laboratory that was already starting to grow uncomfortably warm.
Kismet sagged against the steel barrier and let the muzzle of his captured rifle drop. Marie wasn’t where he had left her, but a movement in the shadows near the doorway to Laboratory Four, the only one in the complex he had not actually seen, caught his attention. Why was she moving? He took a step in that direction, but a burst of gunfire from the tunnel mouth drove him back.
“Damn it!” How many more of these guys are there?
He didn’t linger where he was. No sooner was the oath past his lips than he was running for the opening to Laboratory One. After all that had happened since Chiron’s betrayal, the sight of the fermentation tanks was strangely welcoming. He hastened behind the foremost one and with a great heave, rolled it over on its side. The noise of the hollow metal receptacle hitting the floor reverberated like a gong throughout the complex. Guess they’ll know where I am now.
He stood alongside the fermenter, near the double-thickness of metal that formed its base, and rolled it forward like an enormous wheel, out into the open. Rifle fire instantly hammered into the tank. The bullets punched right through its wall and slammed against the interior surface hard enough to create bulging dents in the exterior. A few of the rounds went completely through, missing Kismet by scant centimeters. As a shield, the fermentation tank left a lot to be desired. He decided to give his enemies something else to worry about. With one hand still steadying still turning the base, he held the AK-47 high and fired a burst left then right. Over the thunderous din he heard a shriek of agony, and knew that at least one effort to flank his position had been thwa
rted.
Protected behind the gradually crumbling mobile wall of aluminum, he traversed the open area to where Marie was concealed. From the moment he made eye contact with her, she began flashing hand signals to warn him of further advancements, and each time he turned them back with a barrage from the captured rifle. Nevertheless, his defensive response was chewing through his very limited supply of ammunition. Then he saw something that took him completely by surprise. Marie raised her hand and pointed, and a jet of flame leaped from her fingertip.
She’s got a gun?
Marie snapped off several carefully aimed shots, laying down enough covering fire for him to finish the crossing. Up close, he saw that her weapon was a small .25 caliber automatic, easily enough concealed. Maybe that was why he hadn’t seen it. It was standard operating protocol for GHC personnel to be armed in a potentially hostile environment, but the sight of her with the firearm struck him as odd.
Still, she couldn’t have picked a better moment to come out of her shell, he thought. He jerked a thumb toward Laboratory Four. “Anything useful in there?”
“It’s mostly storage.” She leaned out for a split-second, and then ducked back as another volley of automatic rifle fire hammered into the fermenter. “But I did find this.”
In her hands was a misshapen gray cube. “Semtex?”
She nodded. “I cut this from a larger piece. This whole place has been wired.”
He rolled the block between his fingers. With enough time and the right material, it might be possible to fashion some kind of weapon from the chunk of polymer-bonded high explosives. The problem with Semtex, and most other plasticized blasting agents, was that they were too safe. The only effective way to set them off was with det cord or a blasting cap. He stuffed the cube in his pocket. Maybe it would come in handy later. “We’ve got to get out of here. It’s a sure bet we’ll run out of ammo before they do.”
“The trolley is gone.”
“Pierre and his new friends took it.” He ignored her inquisitive look. “It’ll be a good half hour before it comes back, provided they don’t sabotage it at the other end. That’s too long to wait.”
“So what can we do?”
He gave her a grim smile. “Plan B.”
When the fermentation tank began rolling again, trundling toward the center of the complex near the controls for the tram, the five surviving gunmen unleashed a brutal assault. While three of them maintained a withering barrage directly onto the aluminum tank, virtually shredding it in the process, two of their confederates circled wide in order to catch their prey from the side. One of them fell from a single rifle shot, but the other took cover behind the control panel and waited for the tank to get a little closer.
But Kismet and Marie were no longer using the tank as a shield. Crouched in the shadows inside the lab, they waited until the attention of their foes was firmly fixed on the rolling barrier before making their move. Kismet had taken the sniper shot that killed one of the flanking team because the man was about to discover their deception. None of the others noticed that the shot had not come from behind the fermenter.
They made it as far as the door to Laboratory Three, the crucible where Chiron’s betrayal had nearly proved fatal, before the militants noticed them. With no effective cover, Kismet chose the best possible defense. “Run!”
Bullets exploded against the cavern walls and showered them with chips of stone. Kismet felt something small and hard smack into his thigh, probably a ricochet, but kept moving in spite of the dull ache that began spreading from the point of impact. Then they reached the tunnel to the helicopter hangar and left the battle behind. The respite was brief.
As they reached the top of the passage, Marie’s arm snapped up alongside him, the pistol seeming like a natural extension of her hand, and squeezed off two shots. Kismet’s eyes had only just registered the presence of yet another Arab gunman standing in their path, when two red flowers blossomed on his chest. A third shot drilled a hole between his eyes before Kismet could bring his rifle up.
Kismet stared in stunned disbelief as the gunman dropped to his knees and pitched forward. Then the concussion of automatic rifle fire, accompanied by an eruption of stone chips from the wall behind him, returned his focus to the urgency of their situation. He sprawled forward, unconsciously pulling Marie down as well, and began crawling toward the parked helicopter.
He hadn’t seen the second shooter in his initial survey of the spacious cavern, but there were a lot of places to hide and the shots had ceased as soon as he dived for cover. “Where is he?”
Marie shook her head as she ejected the magazine from her pistol and fed in a full one. “I didn’t see. But the rest of them will be coming up the tunnel soon.”
Kismet’s only reply was a grimace. He glanced around, looking for the unseen sniper, but his gaze fell on something else instead. “I’ve got an idea. Cover me.”
He half-expected her to protest, but she gave a terse nod and rolled into a prone firing position, with the pistol locked in a two-handed grip. On that tacit signal, Kismet rose to a crouch and dashed toward the rows of drums off to the left. When the gunman opened fire, peppering the wall behind the fuel dump with 7.62-mm rounds, he dropped again.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea,” he murmured. But then he heard the distinctive pop of Marie’s pistol over the roar of the AK-47. The latter weapon fell silent first.
Without waiting for further prompting, he tipped one of the drums onto its side and commenced rolling it toward the mouth of the tunnel. Marie was on her feet again, with her back pressed against the Hind-D and her pistol at the ready. “Got him.”
Kismet withheld praise, focusing instead on the task at hand. He shoulder-slung his captured AK and drew his kukri. Using the heavy blade like a can opener, he hacked into the drum lid, cutting several triangular holes that immediately began to spew hi-grade petroleum. As the noxious fumes assaulted his mucous membranes, he pulled the lump of Semtex from his pocket and pressed it into one of the holes, then gave the drum a kick that sent it rumbling down the tunnel. The container traveled only as far as the first bend in the passage—about twenty meters—before coming to rest against the wall, but it continued to vomit jet fuel onto the sloping passage.
“Stand back!” He unlimbered the Kalashnikov and held its muzzle close to the pool of flammable liquid. A short pull on the trigger was all it took to ignite the substance, and with a whoosh, the entire passage filled with flame. For just a moment, he thought he could hear screams echoing up from the depths, but decided it was just his imagination.
Suddenly, the ground heaved under his feet and simultaneously, a pillar of smoke and dust exploded from the tunnel opening. The burning trail of jet fuel was snuffed out like a candle flame. Kismet was back on his feet in an instant, running for the side hatch of the helicopter. He threw open the door and turned to admonish Marie to get in, but the words died in his throat. The Frenchwoman seemed to be aiming her pistol right at him….
No. Someone behind me? In the helo?
When she did not fire, he took a sideways step, bringing his own weapon up as he turned. A robed figure, swathed in a kefiya wrapped Bedouin-style around both head and neck, stood in opening, his hands raised in surrender. Kismet’s finger tightened on the trigger instinctively, but he checked his fire. The man was unarmed and seemed to pose no threat. And there was something familiar about his eyes…
Kismet reversed the rifle in his hands and stabbed the wooden stock of the weapon into the man’s abdomen. As the Arab doubled over, he followed through with a butt-stroke to the back of the turbaned head. The stranger collapsed onto the stone floor beneath the extended rotor blades and did not move. With a greater degree of caution, Kismet quickly checked the interior of the Hind gun ship before encouraging Marie to join him inside. The mystery of the unarmed Arab stowaway would have to be left behind with him.
As he settled into the pilot’s seat in the lower cockpit, surrounded by banks of switche
s, gauges and indicator lights, the enormity of the final phase of his audacious escape plan finally hit him. The control panels were marked in Cyrillic characters, with Arabic equivalents painted in white alongside, but even though Kismet had a good grasp of Russian and a decent comprehension of the predominant language of the Iraqi people, the labels might as well have been written in ancient Sumerian cuneiform. He sensed that Marie was right behind him, silently goading him to take action, and clenched his fists to steel his nerve. Starting from the right, he began flipping switches—all of them. One by one, different systems of the aircraft became active and corresponding indicators on the panel began to glow. One of the toggles caused an audible grinding sound to vibrate through the fuselage before flipping back to the “off” position.
He eyed the lever to the side of his chair. It was actually two controls in one. By raising or lowering it, much like the hand brake in an automobile, he could adjust the pitch of the rotor blades, but it was also a twist throttle control. He tried the starter switch again, this time opening the throttle gently as he did. The grinding noise repeated, then turned into a steady vibration. Above his head, the main rotor began to turn, ever so slowly. Kismet risked a triumphant grin in Marie’s direction, then continued flipping the remaining switches.
“It’s fortunate that you know how to fly this thing,” she commented.
Kismet gave a chuckle as he feathered the throttle. “That may be overstating my abilities.”
He could tell by her long silence that she was wrestling with his comment, perhaps trying to determine if there was some idiomatic trick at work or a joke so thickly disguised as to elude her sense of humor. When she finally spoke again, it was with the caution of someone entering a minefield. “You have flown a helicopter?”
The five blades of the rotor assembly were now whipping by too fast to be seen by the naked eye, further disturbing the smoke and dust in the air of the cavern.
“Sort of,” he confessed, trying not to burden her with his inadequacy as a pilot. “This one is a little different than…well, what I’m used to.”