"Leah, don't."
She had stepped next to Elias, and he could see that she was biting on her bottom lip so hard that she was drawing blood. No one moved. No one spoke for several seconds as Faulk allowed his intentions to sink in. Blinking back tears, she turned to Elias. "Baby, I'm sorry. I can't tell him."
Elias felt no anger at hearing his own death sentence coming from the mouth of the woman he loved more than anything in the world. "Don't be. I would have made the same choice."
Their intense connection was shattered by a harsh laugh from Faulk. "Heartbreaking. No, it truly is. We will test the firmness of her admirable resolve when you are on the floor, screaming in a pool of your own blood."
He turned to the armed man. "Let's start with a leg."
The agent switched his rifle out of automatic mode and lowed the barrel so that it was pointing at Elias' right thigh. As he was about to pull the trigger, Leah stepped in front of Elias, blocking the shot. The gunman, momentarily flummoxed, moved closer, raising the rifle with the clear intent of bashing the stock into her face.
The proximity of the man was what Leah was waiting for. As he swung the rifle to strike her, Faulk, recognizing her intent, shouted, "GET BACK, YOU FOOL!" but it was too late. She ducked under his arms and pivoted, burying her elbow in his groin. As he doubled over, Elias, who had reacted instantly, pulled the rifle from him and, using the same butt of the stock the man was going to use on his wife, battered the top of his head, sending him to the floor.
The other three men were already bringing their weapons to bear, when Tillie, taking advantage of the distraction, snatched up the shotgun and quickly fired a booming shot in the their direction. Given the distance, the shotgun blast did little damage, but served to send Faulk and the other three diving around the two opposite corners for cover.
Elias, still holding the rifle seized from the now unconscious agent, went to take Leah's arm, but she was retrieving the AK-47. After she grabbed it, she and Elias dashed for the utility room, following Wilson, who was already running in that direction. Tillie kept the shotgun pointed in the general direction of the intersection, ready to fire off another round if a head suddenly appeared, as she also backed toward their former hideout.
Kreitzmann was still sprawled on the floor in a stupor when they entered, with Tillie arriving last.
"Who is that?" Leah asked.
"You aren't going to believe this," Elias explained as he took position next to the door jamb. "Rudy Kreitzmann."
"Kreitzmann! Man, after we get out of this, you've really got to fill me in."
Tillie left her spot by the doorway and walked over to Leah, sticking out her hand. "I'm Tillie."
Leah gave her a broad smile and shook her hand. "Leah. Pleasure to meet you. I understand you're the one who popped Eric for me."
Tillie shook her head. "Wow! You and your husband are going to give me a complex about that. Look, I'm sorry I didn't figure out a way to save him for both of you."
Leah glanced over at Elias. "Sensitive type?"
"No, not at all. Leah, the gentleman to your left is John Wilson Chapman."
She turned and looked at Wilson with surprise on her face. "Chapman. You're the…."
He held up his hands. "I'm just a friend of Tillie's."
Exasperated, Leah turned back to her husband. "Yep. We're going to have a lot to talk about."
Elias nodded. "Maybe later. Right now, we need to get ready for those guys. Tillie, break out more of the fume masks, goggles, and earplugs."
Tillie gave him a mock salute and hurried to the storage shelves. Elias, keeping his head close to the frame, peeked out and saw that two of the agents were beginning to round the corner, moving toward them. Flipping his rifle back to full automatic, he loosed a quick spray toward the agents, brushing them back.
"What's the plan?" Leah asked, checking the AK-47.
"Plan? I don't have a plan. You're the field agent. I'm just the desk guy."
Making a rude sound to show her disgust, she pressed him, "Okay, Mr. Desk Guy, can you at least fill me in on our situation?"
Elias, keeping his head tilted slightly outside the door to watch the hallway, answered, "Happy to. We are currently inside Aegis, which is basically a huge prison. We are trapped in a utility room. This door is the only way out of it. There are at least three trained agents plus Faulk blocking the end of the corridor. That open door out there and to the left, the one packed with several tons of twisted steel and shattered solar panels, was the only exit from Aegis. They probably have tear gas and concussion grenades. We have welder's goggles, painter's respirators, and foam earplugs. Tillie has a shotgun. You have an AK-47. I have my Beretta and this."
Leah shrugged. "Not as bad as I thought. You forgot to mention that Faulk has a second team on-site and they are on their way."
Tillie returned and handed Leah the protective gear, which she quickly donned, as did the rest of them, with Wilson putting the items on the semi-conscious Kreitzmann.
"What about the bombs?" Tillie inquired hopefully.
"Bombs?" Leah's voice was almost flat.
Elias glanced at his wife, fighting back his amusement at how she was receiving what must seem like an endless stream of outrageous facts, and explained, "The two that Faulk is looking for. After he sent me in here, he stocked me with Incendergel devices, enough to take out all of Aegis."
"Why?"
"Not now. But I did bring a couple of them with me, including the primary. I really don't see how we can use them in this situation."
Immediately, Tillie snapped, "Why not?"
"Well, they have timers on them, not fuses. The timers don't even have the option for seconds, just minutes with a minimum duration programmed to give the person setting the charge enough time to get away. Besides, with the size of the charge, even if I could roll one down the hall at them, like a bowling ball, and it detonated at the exact moment it reached them, we'd have another problem. The fireball would probably take out this end of the hall at the same time, and us with it, or it would consume all of the available oxygen and we would suffocate."
"All right, so that won't work."
Faulk had positioned himself several feet back from the corner and was planning the next move with his team, when his cell phone rang. He pulled it out and looked at the display, seeing that the call was from Sheldon Kennerley at the lab.
Punching the button, he barked into the phone, "What is it?"
"Director Faulk, we've had a breach at the lab."
Faulk hesitated for a moment before deciding that a breach at this point was not a serious issue. "How bad?"
"We're not sure yet. We're putting together a team to go in. They're suiting up now, sir."
Feeling the muscles in his neck suddenly tighten, Faulk asked, "Why do they need suits?"
Kennerley's nervousness was apparent in his voice. "Well, sir, one of the lab techs is dead."
"Dead? How is that possible? Was it a heart attack? A coincidence?"
There was a long pause on the connection before Kennerley explained, "That's why we're sending in the team, to make sure. But from the video feed, it looks as though she died from massive hemorrhaging."
He could not believe what he was hearing; there must have been another explanation. "But she was vaccinated. All of you were."
"I know, sir. It could be some anomaly. She might have received a defective vaccine. Perhaps it doesn't work on a small percentage of the population. We simply don't know until we can check her out."
"That doesn't make any sense! The vaccine worked on one hundred percent of the test groups." Taking a minute to digest the information and forcing himself to calm down, Faulk continued, "You said she was in the lab, right?"
"Yes, sir."
"And the air lock hasn't been opened yet?"
"That's correct, sir." Kennerley, hearing the direction of Faulk's questions, began to gain a little confidence.
"So even if there is
a problem with the vaccine, the bug is contained, right?"
"Yes, sir. We haven't broken the seal yet."
"Then don't."
"But we need to examine her. We need to identify why she was vulnerable."
"Not yet, you don't. First I want you to retest the vaccine in the exposure chamber. You still have some subjects, correct?"
"Yes, sir."
"If there is a problem with it, I don't want that lab opened. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir. I do."
"Handle it."
Faulk ended the connection as the second team arrived. He noticed that Boehn had been listening and wore a concerned expression. Looking at the men around him, Faulk declared, "We need to end this – now."
"What form do you think their attack will take?" asked Wilson, who was standing right behind Leah and Elias near the doorway.
"They've got us trapped," Leah answered. "We're boxed in with no way out. We're outnumbered. They can't just come around their corners in a frontal assault without taking some losses, and we can't move on them without being cut to pieces. I guess it depends on how badly Faulk still wants me alive. But I would guess they are going to go the tear-gas route."
"They tried that before," Tillie chimed in. "Between our painter's masks and lobbing the canisters back out the door, it wasn't all that effective."
Leah shrugged. "Wish I knew what they had at their disposal."
A sudden blast of automatic fire came from the end of the hall, peppering the door jamb with bullets. Elias dropped to the floor, in a prone position directly inside the frame. He did not dare extend himself farther out for fear of making his head a target. The string of shots had come from the corner along the same wall as their doorway, which was now a blind spot for Elias.
"All of you fall back. Take cover behind the first row!"
Leah and Wilson roughly helped Kreitzmann up and moved him to the back of the room, then joined Tillie in the first aisle. She had already taken her old position behind the makeshift gun slot.
Seeing they were all behind cover, Elias, after firing off a short burst, more for effect than anything else, moved back and joined them. Within moments, the left side of the door frame was marked with a red dot, a sighting laser, yet no fusillade came. Seconds passed before he saw a flash of light just outside and slightly past the doorway, followed an instant later by an explosion. The jamb was shredded by shrapnel.
"They have an OICW!" Leah shouted. "EVERYONE DOWN!"
As they all dropped to the floor, Tillie yelled, "What's that?"
"Basically, a mini grenade-launcher," Elias answered, "with a range finder. It shoots a 20mm or 25mm projectile that travels to a preset distance, then explodes."
"So they can kill people around corners?"
Before Elias could respond, there was a second flash and the room was filled with the sound of a thousand pieces of shrapnel striking the walls, floor, ceiling, and the pile of steel parts on the shelving in front of them, ricocheting wildly.
"I guess they fine-tuned the range," he said matter-of-factly.
A third round arrived with the same result. Tillie yelped in pain as one of the tiny metal shards tore into her upper arm.
"Next will come the tear gas," Leah yelled loudly enough to be heard through the muffling earplugs, as she turned to check Tillie's wound. "The OICW will keep us back. We won't be able to toss them out."
Before she could even finish her warning, the first canister flew into the utility room, careening off the side wall and popping. The confined space quickly began to fill with the white gas. A second arrived moments later. In less than a minute, they could no longer see the doorway through the gas.
Elias' eyes were already watering heavily, as the welder's goggles were not designed for this type of eye protection. His nose and throat started burning. He could hear hacking coughs coming from the others. He knew that it would be only a matter of a minute or so before rational thought became difficult, if not impossible. Twisting around in the dense white cloud, by memory and feel, he crawled to the end of the aisle and around it, moving toward the doorway.
As he crawled, he reached up and lifted the painter's respirator and called out, "FAULK, I'M COMING OUT!" Lifting the mask to be heard caused a strong dose of the gas to flood his throat and lungs. He pushed his rifle through the doorway, sending it skittering out to the center of the corridor.
Behind him, Leah yelled, "Elias, I'll go. It's me he wants!"
"It doesn't matter," was all Elias was able to get out before his throat closed in spasms.
Using his elbows, hands, knees, and feet, he scrambled forward, hoping that he was not greeted with a bullet to the head the moment he emerged from the doorway. As soon as he cleared the threshold, the intensity of the gas diminished and he could see five agents, wearing full-face gas masks, and body suits to protect their skin from irritation. They were all pointing their assault rifles directly at him.
Several yards back stood Faulk, looking foolish in his face mask and business suit. Pulling the mask away from his face, he ordered brusquely, "Get up, Elias. You two, keep him covered. The rest of you, cover the doorway. We should have the other members of this gang in about a minute."
Behind him, Elias could hear harsh, racking coughs coming out of the utility room. Wilson and Tillie emerged, their arms raised. The last to come out was Leah, supporting the semi-limp form of Rudy Kreitzmann, who leaned against her heavily.
As Faulk was about to speak, Leah let Kreitzmann drop, revealing that she was holding the AK-47 behind his back. Firing before she had it fully elevated, she directed the first spray of slugs toward the two closest men, wounding one in the leg and hitting the other in the elbow as her rifle swung around. The backup agents were afraid to begin shooting, as their boss was standing in the line of fire.
Leah's magazine was empty, and as she hurried to slam a full one in, Elias dove for the closest agent, the one she had hit in the leg, and wrestled his weapon from him. Turning and hoping to take out Faulk, he saw that his target had hastily run behind the other men, freeing them to open fire, which they did, their first shots going wild. Tillie and Wilson, seeing the pandemonium, hurried back to the utility room, as Leah and Elias, lying flat on the floor to minimize their profile to the agents, opened fire, catching the three men who had accompanied Faulk forward and were now attempting a retreat.
Faulk and the remaining agents had all taken cover behind the corners again. Elias knew it was only a matter of moments before the OICW was brought to bear, or even basic grenades. He knew that Leah's decision to attack was a decision based on the knowledge that they were all minutes from their deaths, anyway.
The agents, flanking both sides of the "T" intersection, took turns executing their new plan. One extended his weapon around the corner and fired blindly, followed a moment later by a second man who stuck out his head and weapon, aiming his shots. The slugs ricocheted off the concrete near Elias, and he heard the sudden whimper when Leah was hit. In the chaos of the moment, he dared not look to see how badly, as he was intent on taking out the second shooter.
A part of Elias' mind, still coldly calculating their chances, determined that they had less than a minute to live. They were out in the open with no cover; they were outmanned and outgunned; and the opponents could continue their current technique until a lucky shot took both of them out. It made no sense to retreat to the utility room, as Faulk would only repeat the OICW and tear-gas attacks. Elias decided that if he jumped up and did a running, screaming charge, he would last four paces before he was cut down.
The second man popped out to fire again. Elias was able to brush him back before the man got off a shot, but still did not connect with his target. Suddenly, above the thunderous noise from the gunfire, he heard a loud rumbling coming from the utility room and managed to sneak a peek. What he saw lifted his heart. Tillie was running full-tilt through the doorway, pushing the rolling, steel gang box ahead of her. As soon as she
cleared the doorway, which was only inches wider than the box, she moved up to run along the side of it, still propelling it forward, until it came to a stop in front of Leah and only a couple of feet from Elias.
He rolled to his right to move behind the cover, as Tillie punched the button lock on the lid and lifted it, pulling out the shotgun. The gang box immediately rang with multiple shots from the agents. But with the steel walls of the box and the solid pile of heavy tools inside, the bullets did not penetrate to the other side.
He took a moment to see how badly Leah was injured and was alarmed at the amount of blood coming from her shoulder. Tillie, seeing this also, reached back inside the box and pulled out a plastic bag filled with clean rags, wrapping the wound quickly and slowing the blood flow, as Elias kept up a steady succession of short bursts from his rifle to keep Faulk's men back.
Finished with her hasty bandaging job, Tillie lay flat on her stomach and extended the shotgun under the gang box in the narrow space.
Elias' momentary hopefulness crashed at what he saw next. Leah, who had moved to the opposite side of Tillie and was watching from the right side of the box, saw it too, and gasped, "Oh, shit," pulling and holding the trigger on her rifle.
Elias did the same as they watched the hand, extended out from behind the corner, draw back to throw a grenade, both hoping a freak shot could hit the moving forearm and wrist before the hand released it.
Elias could not believe his eyes when he saw the grenade abruptly drop straight down. He knew that neither his nor Leah's panicked firing had hit the target. Something else had happened because, just after the agent dropped the grenade, his body flew violently into their view. As he fell, his torso jerked repeatedly as he was struck with rounds from an automatic weapon positioned behind him. Seconds later, the grenade detonated, shredding the already dead agent and blowing the corners off the two walls.
The Aegis Solution Page 35